The Golden Calf

by Helene Tursten

  “So you and Ludde were in danger?”

  “Well, I didn’t know about any new threats … before the text from Edward. More than—” She stopped. “I’m saying too much. It must be all the medication.” She looked at Tommy in terror.

  “We know that everyone at ph.com was being blackmailed. You know that we know. But we still don’t understand what the extortionist threatened to reveal. Without that, why would anyone pay up?”

  “They threatened to kill me! Just like they had the person whose fingers they’d cut off.…” Sanna’s voice dropped to a whisper. She’d realized she’d revealed too much—something she couldn’t take back.

  “So, you always knew that it was Thomas’s finger.”

  Sanna nodded. She’d given up. “Yes. They sent me his ring finger with his signet ring still on it. His fingers were fat. I don’t think they could get the ring off, actually.…”

  Sanna began to tremble and then to heave. Irene grabbed a round bowl from the nightstand and held it below Sanna’s chin. She vomited, but the only thing that came out was yellow slime, which she spat into the bowl until, finally, she sobbed, “I need an injection!”

  Tommy said, “I’ll call the nurse. You’ve been very brave answering all our questions.”

  “Just get the bastards!” whispered Sanna.

  “What?” Tommy asked.

  “Get the bastards—the guys who murdered Philip and Edward! Punish them for me!” She was talking so low and fast it was hard to understand her words.

  “So you think other people are involved? Not just Mike Fuller?” Tommy asked.

  “There’s no way Mike did this on his own! He’s too full of himself. He’s an idiot. We didn’t deal with each other much … and he had no beef with me. He was following orders when he came to shoot me. And I’m sure he asked for a lot of money for his trouble!” Sanna’s voice deepened with hatred.

  Irene was surprised that Sanna had come to the same conclusion that she had and hurried to ask one last question.

  “Which language did you use to text Edward?”

  “Swedish or English. But mostly English.”

  “Do you remember the language of the last text you received?”

  “English,” she replied without hesitation.

  Must have made it easy for Mike Fuller, Irene thought.

  Chapter 24

  TOMMY AND IRENE returned to Headquarters shortly after three P.M. Fredrik had not yet brought in Special Agent Lee Hazel. While they were waiting for their guest, Tommy and Irene informed Andersson about the results of their questioning. Going through the interview with Michael Fuller took no time at all, as he hadn’t said a word, but Sanna had given them a great deal of information.

  Irene had been considering Sanna’s responses to their questioning.

  “I believe that we can now assume that everyone being blackmailed was paying into that HP Johnson account. Supposedly, Edward Fenton then forwarded the money to the extortionist. That part is very odd. He’d told Sanna he, too, was being blackmailed. He was even supposed to have received a finger. If it is true that each murder victim—including Sanna, who barely escaped death—received a finger, it would mean that five were sent, but we know that was not the case. Thomas Bonetti still had his thumb. So four fingers were sent to four victims.” Irene paused for effect. “Edward was lying about the finger.”

  “Why would he lie about that?” asked the Andersson.

  “Maybe to fool her, so Sanna would find him more believable. ‘We’re in the same boat.’ Something like that.”

  “Or he had something to hide himself,” Tommy was thinking out loud.

  “Humph! Nothing but theories and wild guesswork!” said Andersson. “I certainly hope this special agent is as special as they made him out to be!”

  A few moments later, a deep, rich voice said in American English, “Hello. I’m Special Agent Lee Hazel.”

  All three of them turned to the door to see where the voice came from. Their mouths dropped open, and they couldn’t help staring.

  By height, Special Agent Lee Hazel could have been a basketball player. The smile directed at the Swedish police was dazzling white in a mahogany face. Not to mention that she had the largest breasts Irene had ever seen.

  Lee Hazel glided into the room with Fredrik following in her wake. Fredrik was grinning like an idiot. Irene was amazed at how easily the special agent moved. She realized why at once: Lee Hazel must be at least as highly ranked in a martial art as Irene—if not higher.

  Special Agent Lee Hazel was wearing a nougat-colored dress suit so tailored to her form it was easy to see that her shoulders were broad and muscular. Under the jacket, she wore a white blouse which was somewhat strained over her extensive bust line.

  Irene remembered her manners. She stood up to shake hands. She smiled as she introduced her boss, Superintendent Andersson, and her colleague, Tommy Persson. Irene hoped that her boss was grateful she’d taken the initiative since Andersson’s English was truly terrible. What Irene couldn’t know was that Andersson had purchased a CD course in English and was practicing at home. He hadn’t mentioned it at work, but he was hoping to be able to converse with Glen’s mother Donna a bit better the next time they met.

  IT WAS SEVEN in the evening before the team had finished discussing the facts of the case with Special Agent Lee Hazel.

  The agent took few notes, and Irene was almost irritated when she saw that, during the past four hours while she had struggled with English, Agent Hazel had barely filled one page. Irene had to admire the American’s attentiveness, however, since Agent Hazel had immediately asked for clarification whenever she needed more information.

  Once they had finished, the superintendent looked at his watch. “Let’s have dinner. It’s on me.”

  Irene did not know what had surprised her the most: that the superintendent had invited them all for dinner or that he had used idiomatic English to do so.

  “How about going to Glady’s?” Andersson continued with a glance at Irene.

  It was a good thing Irene was already sitting down; Glady’s was one of the finest restaurants in Göteborg. She heard her own voice sound feeble as she replied, “Good idea. I’ll call and see if they have a table.”

  As she headed for her office to place the call, a suspicion arose in her mind: Andersson must have wrangled special funds to impress this visitor from the United States.

  THEY HAD THE good luck to reserve a table for eight P.M. Lee Hazel had praised the delicious succession of dishes: moose carpaccio as an appetizer, followed by a main dish of grilled cod. The food disappeared rapidly behind Agent Hazel’s sparkling white teeth. By the time dessert arrived, Irene was overcome with exhaustion. She could barely keep herself from letting her head fall into her bowl of chocolate mousse. Neither she nor Tommy had drunk any wine, since they were both driving. Andersson, on the other hand, had enjoyed both food and drink.

  “I’m going to leave my car at the station and take a taxi home,” he informed them happily. “It’s not every day we have a visitor from the States! Skål!”

  Lee Hazel lifted her glass of wine and smiled at Andersson. The candles reflected in her dark brown eyes, and the silver polish on her long nails glittered. Agent Hazel was an uncommonly beautiful woman. Irene heard some of the other guests at other tables whispering among themselves. A woman at the neighboring table whispered, “That’s supermodel Naomi Campbell, I’m sure of it!”

  Irene and Tommy thanked Andersson for their dinner and left the restaurant together. They detoured through the kitchen to say hello to Krister. He only had time to lift his knife from the lobster tail he was slicing to wave at them.

  ANDERSSON LOOKED SURPRISINGLY alert at morning prayer. Fredrik, on the other hand, looked worn out and exhausted, completely different from his usual demeanor. Irene often thought he could be a spokesperson in an advertising campaign for energy pills—a trait of his she usually found to be colossally irritating. She was remarkably happy to se
e that his stylish hair was not as carefully gelled as usual, but looked like he had rolled straight out of bed into the station. He hadn’t even changed his sweater from yesterday.

  This case is really starting to wear us out, Irene thought. As for her, she’d fallen asleep before her head hit the pillow and had slept without dreams until the alarm clock buzzed.

  Andersson spoke. “I believe our special agent has been sufficiently briefed about the case. She told me that she was going to correlate everything she’d learned here, in Paris and in London. As I think about it, I realize that yesterday she hadn’t said a word about what she’d already found out. But I believe all will be made clear to us today. Fredrik, you drove her home last night. Did she mention when she’d come in this morning?”

  “Agent Hazel is going to make a few phone calls back to the FBI and will be here around lunchtime,” Fredrik said.

  “I see. But New York is six time zones behind ours. It’ll be difficult to reach anyone on the other side of the Atlantic,” Tommy pointed out.

  “That city never sleeps,” said Fredrik.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Andersson said knowledgeably. “The FBI and CIA are open all day and all night because of all the bad guys running around over there. Or so I’ve seen on TV.”

  His worldview is so limited, Irene thought. At least he’s been to London recently.

  “Well, then,” Andersson said. “Let’s get to work, and we’ll meet here at one P.M.” He clapped his hands together energetically.

  Fredrik yawned and headed directly for the coffee machine. For the first time in five years, Irene found it easy to endure him before she had her first cup of the day.

  AFTER LUNCH, THEY all came back into the conference room. Lee Hazel was already seated. She looked remarkably chipper. Looks like she doesn’t have any problems with jet lag, Irene thought. She also noticed that Fredrik had gone home over lunch and had showered and changed clothes. He smelled as fresh as usual.

  “I’m going to hand the floor to our American colleague,” Andersson said.

  Yet again, Irene was surprised at his use of English. His pronunciation was not bad at all. Hazel flashed a dazzling smile as she stood up. Her enormous bosom heaved as she took a deep breath before she started to speak. This seemed to cause breathlessness and bodily discomfort among the men. Meanwhile, Birgitta, Kajsa, and Irene all wondered if silicone had something to do with this effect.

  Hazel began her report in her deep, husky voice. A few moments later, no one was focused on her physique. They all wanted to catch every single word she was saying. “I work for a special division in the FBI that concentrates on organized crime. In particular, I focus on the mafia and how they carry out money laundering. My degree is in economics, by the way. I follow every financial twist and turn whenever criminals try to hide the sources of their illegal gains. Right now, money laundering is the mafia’s biggest concern. Drugs, prostitution, theft, and extortion make up a good part of their income, but they want to appear respectable. They want to integrate their operations into the regular community. With ‘clean’ money, they can invest in legitimate business as well as get involved in politics, support the political projects they favor. In this way, the mafia gains legal power.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting,” said Andersson. “May we record your report?” He was nervous. He was shocked to realize that his listening comprehension was not as good as he’d imagined after completing his language course.

  “Fine by me,” said Hazel.

  She waited patiently as Andersson got out the tape recorder and set it up. As soon as she saw the record button light up red, she continued her report.

  “As you already know, Edward Fenton was the head of HP Johnson’s European office. This bank is a respectable investment bank, established before World War I by a ketchup magnate. However, in the early seventies, the institution ran into financial problems and began to let investors buy into the bank. One investor, Sergio Santini, bought out the others a few years later. As you know, Santini is the father of Janice Santini, and therefore the father-in-law of Edward Fenton. Mr. Santini also has a son named Sergio Junior. Today the Santini family is one of the most powerful mafia families in New York. Sergio Santini’s parents were immigrants from Sicily in the twenties, and the family still has connections to Cosa Nostra.

  “The organization is also known as the Octopus, and for good reason. Its tentacles reach into places where you’d least expect. Italy even had a president supported by the mafia. Cosa Nostra has infiltrated a number of provincial governments within Italy as well as in other European countries, and their representatives are on the boards of numerous banks and businesses, not just in Europe but also in the United States. The question is, which activities hurt democratic countries the most: their illegal or their legal ones? As far as the illegal operations go, we can actually break them up by putting as many Mafiosi behind bars as we can catch. Usually we get them on tax evasion.”

  She took a sip from the glass of water. None of her Swedish colleagues said a word. They hardly dared move, as if they didn’t want to break a spell.

  “Pappa Sergio Santini had a gift for making money. Unfortunately, the son did not, at least in the eyes of Pappa. Sergio Junior is more like the stereotype of a Mafioso—smart, tough, and excitable. He’s dyslexic, though, and can barely read, much less handle complex financial matters. He’s forty-three-years-old and married. He has no children, at least not with his wife, Amelia, born Bonetti.”

  Hazel paused for effect.

  “Did she … really say Bonetti?” asked Andersson. He spoke Swedish, but Hazel seemed to understand what he wanted even before he asked the question.

  “Yes, that’s right. Amelia Bonetti. She is the daughter of a cousin of Antonio Bonetti, Thomas’s father. You told me that Antonio Bonetti is a famous lawyer here in Sweden. I ran a check on him and discovered he was Leonardo Bonetti’s cousin. Leonardo Bonetti is the head of a Mafia clan in Massachusetts. Antonio and Leonardo are first cousins. Their sons grew up in the United States. From what I understand, Antonio Bonetti says he is from Italy, but he’s not. He was born and raised in Boston. He studied law there as well. When he came to Sweden after he married Thomas’s mother … I seem to have forgotten her name.… He quickly learned Swedish and studied for a Swedish law degree.”

  Irene raised her hand to ask a question. “Does this mean that Antonio Bonetti is a contact person here in Sweden for the American Mafia?”

  “No, we have no indication of that. He has never been directly involved in Cosa Nostra’s organizations. On the other hand, his three older brothers are. Perhaps this is why the baby brother was allowed to get out. It’s not easy to leave the family.”

  Irene raised her hand again. “How was Janice Santini allowed to marry Edward Fenton, then? He’s not Italian.”

  “Love. Edward Fenton was an investment manager at the HP Johnson European office since the early nineties. He was good at his job, and Sergio Santini took notice of him. Remember that the Mafia is always on the lookout for ways to launder money. Investments make the money clean as snow, and no one can get at it. Edward doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled Mafia money, so Santini brought the promising young man to the United States. He found a place for him at Headquarters in New York.

  “Janice met him there. She fell head over heels in love and decided that he was the man for her. At first her father was furious and threatened to cut her off from her inheritance, but he eventually he came around. Janice can wrap her father around her little finger. She’s obviously the one who inherited her father’s acumen and intelligence. She should be the one to take over the reins from him, but in Cosa Nostra, no woman is ever allowed into a hierarchial position of power. In the end, Janice had the prince of her dreams, but it took some time before they could celebrate her wedding. Tradition does not allow the daughter of a high-ranking Mafioso to marry outside Cosa Nostra. But tradition can be waived if the man is strategically important and can expa
nd the organization’s influence. The biggest hurdles were that Edward was not Italian and not Catholic. Fenton couldn’t help not being Italian, but he did convert to Catholicism. Finally, Santini Senior gave in, and Janice married Edward ten years ago. Two years later, he became the head of the European office, and the family moved to an estate outside of London.”

  “So Edward Fenton knew he was working for the Mafia,” Fredrik said, without raising his hand first.

  Lee Hazel smiled slightly. “More than that. Edward Fenton had become part of a powerful clan. Of course, his influence lay in investments, but this is an extremely important part of the organization. It made him powerful in turn. He was absolutely sure of who was pulling the strings.”

  Irene asked, “If he had risen so high in the family, he’d lose all his influence if he ever divorced Janice, right?”

  Hazel gave Irene a meaningful look from beneath her black eyelashes.

  “Of course. He’d lose it all—his power and influence, his wife, his sons, his house, his money, and, even more likely, his life, which is, in fact, what happened.”

  She looked around at her enraptured audience. “You can’t just join Cosa Nostra willy-nilly. But once in, you absolutely can’t get out. Death is the only release from the family—and that brings us back to the murder of Edward Fenton.” Agent Hazel bent to retrieve a red plastic folder, from which she drew out a newspaper clipping.

  By now, Irene felt some slight sympathy for Sanna Kaegler. Edward Fenton had deceived her. He was never going to ask for a divorce from Janice Santini. He couldn’t leave his wife even if he wanted to—which he’d known all along, even before getting mixed up with her.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Hazel started to pass copies of the newspaper article around the table. Irene was startled when she saw it.

  The photo was taken from above—probably from over the top of a wall—and showed a couple kissing by a swimming pool. The man was holding a fair-skinned baby. There was caption beneath the picture: