Bonereapers

by Jeanne Matthews

  She and Aagaard rode the elevator down to the lobby and threaded their way through the festive crowd. In the foyer, she pulled on her boots, snugged her cap down tight, put on her mittens, and followed Aagaard into the wild black yonder. The temperature had dropped since her last outing and the wind had picked up. The tassels on her ski cap thrashed about her face like angry snakes and she had to hold them out of her eyes. “How far is the car?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The car. How far?”

  Aagaard turned down a dark side street and pulled a flashlight out of his jacket. The wind changed, now hitting her in the face. Her eyes felt gelid and her nose began to run, wetting the balaclava. She began to obsess about frostbite—the ice crystals forming inside her tissues, the cells dying, her nose turning black, the doctor breaking the news he’d have to amputate.

  “Is the car on this street?”

  Aagaard stopped and the flashlight beam homed in on a two-man snowmobile. “Climb in the back.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “It’s only a mile beyond the airport.”

  “We’re two blocks from the hotel and I’m already numb.”

  “You can rest your head against my back to break the wind. We’ll be there in five minutes. There won’t be any hikers or skiers tonight. We’ll take the Burma Road.”

  “Burma Road?”

  “Nordic humor.” He pulled two pairs of goggles out of the glovebox, strapped one around his head, and handed the other to her. “You’ll need these.”

  Like an utter idiot, like the ditzy heroine in some had-I-but-known melodrama, she put on the goggles and climbed into the back seat. Who was it who said that bad decisions make good stories? Somebody whose bad decision hadn’t included a snowmobile ride over the Burma Road on a sub-zero evening in December with a man she didn’t trust. Somebody who lived to tell.

  “Do you know how to operate one of these contraptions?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic?”

  Aagaard folded his lanky legs into the front seat, turned the ignition, and off they roared. Dinah huddled low and buried her face in the fabric of his coat. It stank of stale smoke, but it shielded her from the wind and the worst of the exhaust fumes. A mini-blizzard kicked up by the sled’s track threw snow onto her back and the noise of the engine cut through her senses like a band saw. Every now and then she raised her head and tried to get her bearings, but there was nothing to see except for the twin headlights of the snowmobile hurtling into a black, featureless infinity.

  Her butt bumped up and down like a paddle ball and she clenched her teeth to keep from yelping. Her goggles fogged up. Perspiration? How could she possibly be perspiring? And if she were perspiring, the next thing would be hypothermia.

  Aagaard leaned hard to the left, swerved off the road, and jumped the machine across what must have been a drift. Dinah flew up in the air and landed hard on her butt. The engine sputtered and coughed. What if this machine broke down out here? How long could she last in this cold, in this pea jacket with its chichi red buttons? She saw her fate flash before her eyes. She saw her brother, laughing uproariously at her stupidity. She saw her mother placing a wreath atop her headstone. Here lies Dinah Pelerin. She should have stayed in South Georgia.

  The engine and the lights of the airport tower came into view. Aagaard made a wide arc to the left of the airport and continued into the darkness. The snow deepened. Somewhere off to her right, hungry polar bears foraged for meat on the ice floes of Adventifjorden.

  She shouted, “I thought you said we’d be there in five minutes.”

  “What?”

  The wind whipped her tassels across her face and she lowered her head and pressed her face into his coat again. It had been longer than five minutes. Way longer. She counted off another sixty seconds. If Aagaard didn’t stop in another minute, she would have to assume the worst. Having a Plan B would be oh-so-comforting at a time like this. She scoured her brain pan for options. Flight across this snow-covered waste wasn’t one of them. If her left arm didn’t hurt so much, she could yank Aagaard’s goggles down around his neck and garrote him with the straps. She could take off her ski cap and garrote him with the tassels. She could try to cold-cock him with one of her boots, but it wouldn’t be likely to achieve the desired result. A blow to the driver’s head at this speed and this snow buggy would flip and kill them both. She thought how she would explain her bad decision to Sergeant Lyby in the event she survived. If she weren’t so cold and so scared, she would have laughed.

  Aagaard cruised to a juddering stop. “That’s it.”

  Dinah took off the goggles and, in the harsh beam of the headlights, beheld the decaying hulk of an old, three-story hotel worthy of a Halloween horror flick. Its lopsided contours were in monochrome, slate gray to battleship gray to oyster gray. Even the snow leading up to it looked gray. She saw no tracks, but there had been intermittent, blowing snow during the day. The windows had been boarded up, but a sliver of light showed under the front door. Somebody was at home. Dinah couldn’t see the pampered wife of a U.S. senator in such a place. It seemed more likely that some down-and-out squatters had moved in.

  Aagaard pulled something out a dark bag and unwrapped it. His camera.

  Dinah felt a wave of revulsion. “You’re going to ambush her?”

  “What did you think I’d do? She’s not going to pose for me now, is she?”

  “Maybe Maks Jorgen will open the door and sock you in the nose. Anyway, I thought you wanted a story. You snap a picture and that’s it. You won’t get anything else and you know it.”

  “Skitt.” He took off his goggles, turned around in his seat, and lifted his ski mask. “What do you want from her?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe all I want is to give her my blessing. What I won’t do is help you embarrass her, or her husband.”

  Aagaard hopped out of the sled into hip-high snow. “I’ll forget about the photo. We have plenty of those on file at the paper. But I want to know why she’s here with Jorgen and what she knows about Fritjoe Eftevang’s murder. She’ll have to tell Ramberg sooner or later and anything I write about the murder will have to be cleared with him before it goes to print. This isn’t an ambush, it’s a rehearsal. Anyway, Erika’s no babe in the woods. She’s been grist for the media mill in Europe since before you were born.” He cut the engine. The headlights went off and he turned on his flashlight. “I’ll plow a path to the door. You can follow and I’ll let you ring the bell.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The porch had disintegrated into a pile of rotten wood covered in snow. There were no steps leading up to the door, but someone had stacked a few cinder blocks in stair steps alongside the rubble and they had been swept clean of snow. Aagaard climbed up and held his hand out to give Dinah a boost, shining his light on each step. The substitute cinder-block stoop was small and she balanced on the edge to keep from touching Aagaard.

  If there had ever been a bell, it had long since ceased to function and there was no knocker. Dinah thumped her mittened hand against the door, knowing it wasn’t necessary. You can’t sneak up on somebody in a snowmobile. Whoever was inside knew they had company.

  Aagaard held his light on the door and they waited.

  She said, “What if they don’t answer? We can’t make them.”

  “They know we can send somebody who can.”

  The door screaked open and the white-bearded man from the library loomed over them. Dinah had forgotten how large he was. Tonight he didn’t look so much startled as resentful.

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re Maks Jorgen,” said Aagaard. “I recognize you.”

  “You’re not welcome,” said Maks. The ‘you’ was clearly a plural.

  Dinah feigned an audacity she didn’t feel. “My name is Dinah Pelerin. I’d like
to speak with Erika if she’s here.”

  “She’s not.”

  Erika called from inside. “Let them in, Maks.” Her voice sounded resigned. “It was only a matter of time.”

  Maks cast a look behind him and returned surly eyes to Aagaard. “Both?”

  “Of course. They must be numb to the knees. They’ll want the fire and a cup of hot tea.”

  Maks moved aside and Dinah and Aagaard entered the ruined hall of what must have been the finest hostelry in the Arctic once upon a time.

  “This way,” said Maks.

  He walked ahead of them across a sloping floor into a large room, thick with the oily smell of coal smoke. Heat from an old-timey pot-bellied coal stove poured into the room and the light from a pair of lanterns on either end of the mantel imparted a spectral haze.

  “Is that thing safe?” asked Aagaard, inspecting the flue.

  Maks and Erika ignored him. Erika sat cross-legged on the floor next to a portable CD player. A bottle and a half-full glass of red wine sat within easy reach. Her hair hid her face and she bobbed her head in time to an old Joni Mitchell song about love’s illusions.

  “There are no chairs,” said Maks.

  Dinah sat down on the floor beside Erika and hugged her knees. “I’d like to help you, Erika. Senator Sher…Colt opened up to me about your…” she glanced up at Aagaard…“your troubles.”

  Erika wasn’t so into her cups she didn’t take the hint. “Maks, dear, why don’t you take Dinah’s friend into the kitchen and give him a warm schnapps.”

  “No thanks,” said Aagaard, sitting on the floor next to Dinah. “I’ll stay.”

  Erika shook her hair out of her face and studied him. “Weren’t you the reporter who questioned my husband at the press conference?”

  “That’s right. Brander Aagaard.”

  “I’ve seen you somewhere else.”

  “Years ago. At a concert maybe. Today I’ve come to ask you about your husband’s relationship with Tillcorp and Valerie Ives. With her murder…”

  “Valerie murdered?” She looked at Dinah.

  “I found her body this morning, Erika. She’d been bludgeoned and her body hidden away in the sauna.”

  Erika put a hand to her mouth.

  Aagaard pounced. “The police found a printout of an e-mail your husband wrote to her in Jorgen’s room. Did you leave it there on purpose? Did you see Sheridan with Eftevang the night he was killed?”

  Erika pushed herself to her feet and backed away from him.

  “Tosk.” Maks spat out the word and dragged Aagaard to his feet.

  “No, please.” Erika combed her hair out of her face and seemed to gather herself. “Maks, would you take Mr. Aagaard into the kitchen and show him that box of our old album covers you found? He was one of our fans. I’m sure it will bring back memories.”

  Maks gripped Aagaard’s arm, hoisted him to his feet, and shoved him toward the hall. “Don’t give me an excuse to hurt you.”

  Irrepressible, Aagaard continued to reel off questions. “Will she file for divorce? How long have the two of you been planning this? What has she told you about Sheridan and…?”

  “Shut up!”

  Their voices receded down the hallway and Erika bent and picked up her glass of wine. “Would you care for wine? I’ll have Maks bring another glass.”

  “No thanks.”

  She gestured toward a kettle on the stove. “There’s hot water. I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the kitchen for teabags.”

  “A cup of hot water would be appreciated.”

  “A cup of…” She threw a cursory glance around the floor. “It appears a cup will also require a trip to the kitchen.”

  “Nevermind, Erika. The warmth from the stove is all I want.”

  “I expect Colt will be bereft without Valerie. She was his mainstay.” She leaned one shoulder against the peeling wall and assumed an air of casual aplomb, as if this were just another gossipy Washington cocktail party.

  “He didn’t requite Valerie’s affections, Erika. He seems to be more bereft without you.”

  “What did he tell you about me?”

  “He’s afraid you think he murdered Fritjoe Eftevang.”

  “Why on earth would he think that?”

  “Because of the e-mail Valerie showed you, the one Aagaard was talking about. Either Colt or someone pretending to be Colt sent a message to Valerie saying he meant to take care of the Eftevang problem.”

  “I’ve never seen it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Dinah tried to reconcile the testimony. If Sheridan was telling the truth, somebody else had written the e-mail. If Valerie had told the truth, somebody had stolen it from her files. And if Erika was telling the truth, she didn’t write it, steal it, or plant it. “Is that the truth, Erika?”

  “Largely.” She tossed her hair. “As much as you or anyone else is entitled to.”

  Dinah didn’t like being talked down to. She stood up and locked eyes with her. “We’re talking about two murders, Erika, and your husband has become the number one suspect.”

  She dropped her chin and her hair closed around her face like a curtain.

  Dinah said, “Tell me when and how you left the hotel.”

  “I met Maks at the cinema the night that man was stabbed. Maks told me the number of the room he’d rented at the Radisson. The next night, he kept watch and when Lee left his post, Maks came and told me and I sneaked out and went to his room. We were there just long enough for me to change into outside clothes. He had bought me another pair of boots so Colt wouldn’t notice that mine were missing from the rack in the foyer. I borrowed Colt’s anorak.”

  “Did you let anyone into that room or leave the door open when you left?”

  “No.” She took a defiant sip of wine. “I suppose Colt told you that I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Valerie did. She said you’d been in rehab. Senator…Colt said that you began drinking because you were grieving for a child you lost. A child he asked you to abort.”

  “My goodness! He is morose if he’s told you that.”

  “He says that you blame him.”

  “I did blame him. I don’t anymore.”

  The music segued into a rock number with a driving beat. “You can go your own way.” Erika turned up the volume.

  Her elusiveness might charm the daylights out of her male admirers, but Dinah wasn’t having any. She turned off the CD. “I don’t think you went through with the abortion. I think you had the baby and you’re here in Norway to look for a living daughter named Hannalore. I think you called upon your old friend Maks to help you find her.”

  “That’s perceptive of you. Unfortunately, any child of Colt’s, whether living or dead, would be a setback to his political…what? His political persona.” She sank the last of her wine and poured another glass.

  “I don’t think he’s proud of what he asked you to do. Or of his hypocrisy. He seems genuinely remorseful.”

  She wobbled slightly, held onto the wall to keep from falling, and flipped her hair out of her face. “We are all remorseful. We are all sick with remorse.” Her tone was caustic. If she had swallowed the camel once, it had become indigestible.

  “Is giving up your baby the reason Inge told you to pray for forgiveness?”

  “How do you…?” She smiled. “Ah. You found her letter.”

  “Did you give Hannalore to Inge?”

  “She didn’t let me hold the baby when she was born. No touching. No bonding. No naming. I’d made up my mind. Colt came first. I was to leave the baby with her and go back to him. She would put the baby up for adoption after I went back to the States.”

  “And did she?”

  “Yes. I begged her to give me the names, the place
, anything at all. But she won’t tell me. Maks went to see her and she gave him that note for me. He’s contacted the hospital, all the agencies, but the records are sealed. I don’t even know if my daughter is in Norway.” She slid down the wall until her backside bumped the floor. “I loved Colt. I wanted to do what he wanted. I made a decision. But I don’t know. If I’d held her, I might have changed my mind.”

  Dinah knelt down beside her and squeezed her hand. Bad decisions made interesting stories, but not many happy endings. “You must have stayed in Norway longer than Colt expected. What did you tell him?”

  “Medical complications, a slow recovery. Colt has always thought of me as fragile.” She gave an acrid laugh. “It’s too funny.”

  “Didn’t he fly over to make sure you were all right?”

  “He offered, of course. But I could hear the reluctance in his voice. He was campaigning for a seat in the Montana House, shaking the hand of every person in the state, kissing all of their babies. I told him not to come, that I was recuperating at my grandmother’s farm.”

  There weren’t many times when the subject of murder was less painful than the alternative, but Dinah deemed this to be one of them. “Erika, what do you know about Fritjoe Eftevang? You seemed so upset when you first heard about the murder. Did you see something that frightened you?”

  “I saw the corruption of my husband’s soul.”

  “What do you mean? Did Colt kill him?”

  “Not directly. I don’t think he knew what was in store for the poor man, but he would have done nothing to stop it if he had. You see, Colt belongs to Jake Mahler now. Like Whitney. Like Val. They dance to Mahler’s tune. I knew the instant I heard what had happened that Mahler was behind it. He’s like a cancer.” She bowed her head and covered her face with both hands. “I tried to get through to Colt. I wanted him understand why I had to get away. He wouldn’t listen. He shut me away in that room and he wouldn’t talk to me. Once again, politics took precedence over everything. Over his wife. Over his conscience, too.”