“You just did.” Bel jerked away from Stina.
“We will give you an opportunity to hand it over first,” Polisinspektör Peter said.
I was so absorbed in Bel’s drama that when Gretchen fell into the wall on the other side of the room, it caught me by surprise. Garret reached for her arm to help her up. She hadn’t fainted, but it was a close call. Her face was as white as the snow outside, and she did anything she could to keep from looking at me.
Not at me.
The scared kid who had come in with Stina was standing next to me. He pushed Dani into the wall and stormed through the dining room. He grabbed Garret by the arm, hauled him up, and punched him on the side of his jaw. Garret dropped.
“Oliver!” Gretchen pushed the chair in front of her out of the way and threw herself at his back. “What are you doing?”
“What is he doing?” Oliver turned to face his wife, his big eyes full of tears. .
“He’s helping.”
Garret stayed on the ground, his hand to the side of his face.
The shortest of the three policemen in the room put a hand on Oliver and led him to the doorway, away from both Garret and Gretchen.
“Please, we don’t have time right now for minor fighting. You may not know this, but we are in the middle of a murder investigation.”
The color drained from Oliver’s face. He leaned on the table next to him.
“Forgive him, please.” Stina spoke to Garret. “He worked himself up on the way here, wondering why his wife hadn’t called, why she hadn’t written. He is overwhelmed with jealousy.” She glanced at Gretchen, a little bit of disbelief showing in her eyes, but she reached into her purse again and pulled out a packet of crackers. “You look awful Gretchen. Please, eat something.”
Gretchen took the crackers. She stared at them. Then she crumpled them in her fist and sat down. “I have been so, so sick. Is there no gluten-free food in all of Sweden?” Her words were quiet, but distinct.
A laugh broke from Dani like a spring. “Gluten!” She clapped her hands together once, but then tucked them under her arms to control herself. “Sensitivity or Celiac? I don’t know, but it explains the puking and the shadowed eyes. You’re not pregnant at all!”
“Pregnant?” Garret, Oliver, and Gretchen all said it at the same time and stared at each other.
“But how could I have been?” Gretchen asked.
Oliver pushed toward Garret again.
“What? Never! Oh, gosh.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I went to the doctor. I promised him I’d take care of myself.”
Polisinspektör Peter interrupted. “I need two more minutes of your time, then you can sort the rest of this out.” He waved his hand at Garret and Oliver.
“We are closing the campus—I am sorry about the timing, Stina. Until we are done interviewing each and every one of you, one-by-one, again, and searching all of the sleeping rooms, we will not be letting you leave the dining room, either.”
“But my kids!” Megan put her hand over her mouth. Then, she spoke again, but calmer. “I’m sorry. I left the children with one of your officers, but I can’t leave them there indefinitely. They are just babies.”
“Ja, of course. Don’t let your heart be worried. I will have Yva bring them back to you right now.” He looked at Xavier, then back at Johanna. “I will start with you, yes? Please, let us go to the kitchen for our conversation.” Polisinspektör Peter walked through the dining hall to join Johanna and led her into the kitchen.
“Listen you all, whoever did this needs to confess. I don’t want to go down for any of you.” Bel said.
“Calm down.” Xavier’s voice was warm but controlling. “No one said anything about any of us going down.”
“What’s on your phone, Bel?” Garret asked. “Texts with Rolf to buy drugs? We all saw you.”
I finally pushed past Dani who stood practically frozen. “What did you all see?”
“I didn’t see anything.” Gretchen’s eyes were glued to Oliver.
I believed her. Aside from the secret wedding drama, she had the whole dying from the carbs thing going on.
“Si and I saw you.” Garret said.
“No, you said you saw something. I didn’t see anything, ever.” Si said.
“Fine. No one has to admit it. But the night he was killed, Bel left to go to bed, but just kept going. She walked right out of the common room, and then out the back door. I saw her under the streetlight. If everyone else says they didn’t, I guess they didn’t.”
“It wasn’t Bel.” Dani said, from the doorway. “If she had come at Rolf with an ax, he would have overpowered her. He wasn’t huge, but he was strong.”
“It wasn’t me because why would I kill the goose that laid the golden egg?” Bel said. “If I wanted to survive a whole term here, I definitely wouldn’t kill the only person I knew who could get me my Spice, now would I?” She glared at Garret. “It’s totally fine. It’s not illegal in Sweden, Isaac said so. And if it gets me kicked out of the school, all the better.”
Garret groaned, and put his hand to the side of his face again.
“That’s enough, Bel.” Xavier said.
“Wasn’t it Rolf who was bringing drugs to campus before I got here?” Troy asked.
Dr. Hoffen and Megan had been standing to the side, watching the interactions grim faced. “It wasn’t proven.” Dr. Hoffen said. “But, yes, we think it might have been.”
“Was it a big problem?” I asked, my eyes on Xavier.
“Yes.” Megan said. “We had to send home three students. Two were hospitalized overnight. No one broke down though. No one told.”
“After you sent them away, did the problem stop?”
“No.” This time Nea spoke up. “No, it did not. But after that, no one else got caught.”
“How do you know it didn’t stop?” Cadence asked with actual concern in her voice.
“Because in Brunn Vatten it was well known that the kids at Tillgiven were still buying the drugs, and sometimes I would see people here who were clearly still using.”
“But why didn’t you speak up?” Megan’s voice was hurt. “Nea, we need everyone to work together.”
Nea looked down. “I couldn’t. Not with…”
“She ratted once didn’t she?” Bel said. “And look what it got everybody?”
“Rolf needed help.” Dr. Hoffen said. “And he needed to be punished for what he had done. Nea didn’t rat, Bel. She tried to help him.”
Bel snorted.
“Leah was still using, up until the day she left.” Nea spoke the words to Xavier. “She never quit.”
Xavier’s face remained calm.
Dani took a step inside. “Xavier, your girlfriend got hooked on drugs while she was here? And she bought them from Rolf? And then your baby sister, too?”
Xavier made a white knuckled fist, but didn’t say anything.
“That’s enough. Leah had troubles. She was troubled when she got here. But I think we helped her.” Megan said.
“That’s not true, is it, Xavier?” I asked. “You said a couple of days ago, when we were cleaning up all that juice, that you had lost touch with Leah. What happened to her?”
“Leah?” Bel asked. “Isn’t she that girl in the prison in Canada? The one who calls collect sometimes?”
Xavier turned to his sister. “She is not in prison.”
“Yes she is. When the call comes, it’s from a correctional institute or something like that.”
“She is in the hospital. And no, Megan, you did not help her. She went from pot to much harder drugs while she was here, and she didn’t stop when she got home. Her life at home wasn’t all that troubled. Not compared to what it was by the end of her time at Tillgiven.”
Megan’s mouth made an O, but she didn’t speak.
“Well, then it’s a prison hospital or something,” Bel was still on her track. “But I’m not a junky, and I’m not going to end up in jail or end up a Mormon or any o
f the bad things people keep predicting. I’m just going to chill for a while. That’s not so bad.”
The conversation between Xavier and his sister had quieted everyone else in the room. Every face frozen.
“But just because Rolf led Leah astray doesn’t mean anything.” Bel’s face had gone from contempt to fear as she stared at her brother. “Just because she was using doesn’t mean that Xavier blamed Rolf or that Xavier would have done anything to him.”
I counted the police in the room. One near me, one near Xavier, and two at the back of the room, by the other exit.
The two in the back inched their way forward.
Then Johanna came back, and the tension broke. “Polisinspektör Peter asked that Nick come in next.”
“Nej.” The taller of the two police at the back of the room said. “Right now it would be good for Xavier to go into the kitchen with me to discuss things with Polisinspektör Peter.”
Xavier stood without a word and followed the officer into the kitchen.
There was a certain slump to his shoulders that bothered me. Like he had been defeated.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Dani Honeywell
The thing that really surprised me when Xavier walked into the kitchen was that Bel started crying. It was silent, but the tears poured down her face. So I suspected that she had suspected her brother all along.
I didn’t have long to ponder that though because Si jumped up. “But he didn’t! Not Xavier.” He flailed as he tried to follow his friend, but one of the officers stopped him by simply standing in front of him.
“No one has accused him of anything.” The officer said calmly.
But less than three minute later, we all watched the inspector lead Xavier to the police car. His arms were at his side, not hand-cuffed, but they put him in the back seat, and drove him away.
Then the officer who had led Xavier to the inspector came in. “Please collect your phones.” He placed the few phones that had been confiscated on a table. “The campus will remain closed until tomorrow. But you may have your phones back”
No one moved.
“We thank you all for your cooperation.” With that, the officers just…left. I don’t know if they had designated a place on campus for their pow-wows, but all of the guys that were in the room with us walked out. Still, no one touched the phones.
Isaac put his arm around my waist. “Good work.” He whispered.
But had it been good work? We had technically caught Troy with our good work. Not claiming he had done it was more about listening to the Spirit. Xavier getting caught, if that’s what just happened, was more a result of group dynamics.
What had I done, really?
Just a few days later the campus was officially reopened by the cops. Which was great, considering it was the day of the Julbord, and alumni had been calling and calling trying to find out if the event was still happening, and if they were still going to be able to have rooms at the school.
I put the pickled pig feet on a large ceramic tray and pondered the murder, the food, and the spiritual life of Sweden. Was it really as secular as Dr. Hoffen wanted us to believe? I wouldn’t know if I never ventured any further into Swedish life than the school. We were too isolated, too insulated, from Swedish reality.
And what about the murder? Was it an act of American violence against a Swedish person, the way the newspaper wanted to make it sound? Xavier had been born on the island of Tonga and lived his whole life there, except for, of course, his time at the school. That hardly made him American.
The newspapers also tried to pin the murder on his real background—calling him the son of cultists, zealots, anything that would make his poor parents sound like lunatics. In reality, they were just normal missionaries with a normal church. And Xavier was just a normal man who had grown up around Christ without making him a real part of his life.
But that didn’t just make a person a murderer either. It took a special shot of evil in the heart to take someone’s life, I was sure of that though in the eyes of a perfect God, it was all still just sin.
Like the feet of the innocent pigs that had to die for the Julbord, at least in my opinion that was a sin. It was traditional, but traditional sins were everywhere, weren’t they? How could we justify eating these feet that were so…feet like? The poor pigs. It was hard to be a vegetarian when you weren’t in charge of your own food choices. If I ever got to be a full time staffer at Tillgiven that would be the first thing I’d change.
The newspapers had printed a version of Xavier’s story that they claimed was a confession, though I wasn’t sure.
Isaac took the plate of pig’s feet from me. “Perk up, you don’t have to eat them just because they are here.” He grinned. Ever since the announcement that the campus was open, he had been a different man. Happy. Relaxed.
I picked up a plate of veggies and carried them into the dining room.
Pine bough swags hung over the window, and red-and-green cloths covered the tables. The doorways were illuminated by twinkle lights, and the overhead lighting was low. “You know, of course, that traditional Christmas is just a modern version of Thor worship, right? And using a Julbord as some kind of draw to get Swedish teens interested in Tillgiven is a weirdly bait-and-switchy kind of thing to do.”
“No, I hadn’t realized that. I thought it was a fun, festive, holiday thing to do in the land where everything really great about Christmas was invented.”
I flapped a kitchen towel at him. If Isaac really wanted to make a life together he’d have to get on board with not celebrating pagan holidays and calling them Christian.
“Did you have a chance to see this?” Isaac held out his phone. “Fox News covered Rolf’s murder.”
I set the tray down and turned it so that it angled nicely. “What does it say?”
“Xavier is said to have kept a keen eye on his sister, and when he saw her going the way of his girlfriend, and at the hand of the same ex-con, he planned an elaborate murder to end Rolf’s ability to hurt people. They claim he had a kind of savior complex.”
“Very fitting.” I went back to the kitchen for more food. The German cousin of the queen was in Dr. Hoffen’s office having a celebratory cup of Glögg. I wanted the event to be perfect for the Hoffens’, even if I thought they were misguided and even somewhat theologically corrupt. “But what really happened? How did he do it?”
“The newspaper says he kept his ear to the ground, listening. When he heard Cadence tell Troy that Rolf was bugging her to get together, he found her phone and set up the appointment. Then it was simple. Show up, overpower him, Crack his skull, slip the weapon into the woods and disappear. The one thing we had wrong was the time. He killed Rolf before we all went looking for him, and only went out looking for him himself, to try and keep us away from the body for at least one night.”
“He hasn’t expressed any regret, has he?”
“Not according to the media, but only God knows his heart.”
I picked up the tray of Jansen’s Temptation, a creamy baked potato and anchovy dish. I thought it might be nice with capers and mushrooms instead of anchovies, but then, it probably wouldn’t tempt Jansen.
“Do they have the death penalty in Sweden?” This question had been weighing on me heavily. I wanted Xavier to have time to repent, to turn to God. It seemed right.
“Oh no, not at all. If convicted, Xavier will live a very long life in prison with plenty of time to turn back to God.”
I tried to smile. It was something, after all. Like a Christmas present almost.
Gretchen came in behind me, holding hands with Oliver.
I passed her a plate. “Johanna made this for you this morning, and said that if you ever eat gluten in her kitchen again, she will personally lock you up.”
Gretchen smiled shyly and picked up a celery stick. Johanna brushed past us with a heavily laden tray. “When she has a minute, thank her.”
“As soon as the guests come in, you’ll have time
.”
Gretchen turned a beaming face up to Oliver. “No, I’m leaving now. Oliver came with tickets for both of us to go home. Garret helped him arrange it. They worked so hard behind my back, but I appreciate it.”
“If Garret did all of that for you, why did you punch him?” I asked
Oliver shrugged. “A moment of passion. I hadn’t seen Gretchen in months. They had been together through all of this. When I saw him reach for her like that, I snapped.”
“I totally understand.” Having been prone to acting without thinking in the past, he had my sympathy. “I’m glad he didn’t press charges.”
“Me too, but then, he had worked too hard to make this happen. He wouldn’t mess it up just because I was an idiot. We will be back home tomorrow where my parents, Gretchie’s parents, and Garret’s dad will all be waiting in the airport chapel.”
Gretchen snuggled him. Whatever I had thought I had seen in her eyes when she looked at Garret in the past, I had been mistaken. But the way she glowed right now, there was no mistake. She was madly in love.
They took the plate of all gluten-free foods and walked out of the kitchen. I was so glad things had worked out for her, but I really wasn’t sorry to see her leave. I was ready for a drama free winter quarter at school.
When the last plate had been set out and the room looked perfect, from the straw ornaments hanging from the light fixtures to the green candles glowing on every table, we let the guests in.
The guests had all been students or were married to past students. Students of years gone by, with different teachers, different classmates, and different drama. As far as I knew, there had never been a murder on campus before, but Tillgiven had a long history, from its days as a Victorian Health spa to its life as a Bible School, and there was no telling what had happened in the last one hundred and fifty years.
Dark and Stormy Page 17
