A Full Cold Moon

by Lissa Marie Redmond

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Lauren’s head was spinning. ‘They want us to go there?’

  ‘There are less than four hundred thousand people in the entire country of Iceland. Right now, they are shocked and mortified one of their countrymen was murdered in America. To publicly name Steinarsson as a person of interest at this point would make matters worse.’ Carl Church was speaking now, his baritone voice low, calm, and commanding. ‘The Erie County District Attorney’s Office in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent official letters rogatory to Iceland’s Ministry of Justice this morning. We are expecting their reply within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Pardon my ignorance,’ Lauren said, ‘but what are letters rogatory?’

  It was Papineau who answered. ‘It’s a formal request to the Icelandic Court system for judicial assistance in investigating Gunnar Jonsson’s murder. In this case we’re not asking them to take evidence from witnesses, we’re asking for a police liaison to accompany you while you talk to witnesses. You’ll want to speak to the victim’s family, friends, coworkers. It’ll go much more smoothly with a local detective with you. Ragnar Steinarsson is just another witness on the list at this point. If he, or any witness, is uncooperative and has to be compelled, then the liaison can help with that. You’ll have no subpoena or arrest powers while you are over there.’

  ‘Who is going to continue the investigation over here while we’re gone?’ Lauren was trying to process what they were telling her: somehow, she and Matt were getting sent to Iceland.

  ‘Hector Avilla and Doug Sheehan will take it from this end,’ Commissioner Bennett said. ‘I’m aware that there were some street robberies that occurred the same night as the murder that need to be checked out, some assaults as well. The DA investigators will follow up on the siblings’ alibis, talk to Mr Hudson’s nurse, and go from there.’

  ‘Am I allowed to follow up with them after you send me to Iceland?’

  Bennett was twisting her wedding ring around and around with the fingers on her right hand. She didn’t like this anymore than Lauren did. They’d asked for assistance, not a hostile takeover of the case. ‘Of course you can,’ she said. ‘I expect you to share your finding with your coworkers. Cooperation is the key in an investigation like this.’ She’d stressed the word cooperation ever so slightly.

  Samantha Lloyd, the deputy mayor, now piped up. ‘The mayor and our office have been monitoring this situation closely. The victim’s father is making arrangements to get Gunnar’s body back to his half-brother in Iceland. We’ll provide you with whatever resources you need to clear this case.’

  Lauren felt like a pinball; she was being bombarded with information from all sides. ‘It’s almost Christmas. How long will we be gone?’

  ‘You’ll be gone for however long it takes to speak to all of the relevant witnesses,’ Bennett told her. ‘You two are traveling a long way. You wouldn’t want to get back here and realize you missed something important because you rushed.’

  Sergeant Connolly’s gruff voice chimed in, ‘I thought the US Marshals handled this kind of stuff.’

  ‘Only if there’s a warrant for a suspect’s arrest. Then they travel to the foreign country for the extradition process. You’re just going to interview witnesses. Who knows? Maybe while they’re there, Hector and Doug will catch a break and make an arrest here. Then Lauren and Matt got a free vacation on our dime.’ Sam Papineau was smiling, but it was a forced smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  Lauren had to ask the literal million-dollar question. ‘Why are you sending me when I just shot someone yesterday?’

  Carl Church crossed his arms over his chest, the same forced smile Sam Papineau wore now gracing his face. ‘Because John Hudson called my office last night and expressed sincere gratitude and total confidence in your ability to investigate this case,’ he said. ‘I believe he also expressed the same sentiments to the mayor.’ Samantha Lloyd’s head bobbed in agreement.

  In other words, Lauren thought, he’s become a power player with his lobbying for work safety reforms, and he’s a huge donor to you and the mayor’s campaigns, and he demanded it. That’s the only reason I haven’t been benched. Carl and the mayor have to answer to their money. Politics in its purest form. ‘When do we leave?’ she asked.

  ‘As soon as we get the Icelandic court’s response to our letter, you’ll be on the next plane. Within forty-eight hours, no more than seventy-two, I’d imagine, with the time differences,’ Papineau said. ‘I’d start packing now, if I were you.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Church said, opening his hands up in a welcoming gesture that didn’t feel so welcoming to Lauren. ‘It was two degrees warmer in Reykjavík yesterday than it was in Buffalo.’

  TWENTY

  Matt left with Lauren and the sergeant when the meeting was over. Connolly waited until they were in the elevator before he turned to him and said, ‘She was barely back from the hospital and you were forwarding reports to your bosses?’

  Lauren jumped to Matt’s defense. ‘I set up the folders so that as soon as I add a document to the case file, Matt has access to it. The last thing we want is for anyone to think we’re not being straight about something at this point. It sounds like a lot of people are interested in who killed Gunnar Jonsson.’

  ‘Iceland is five hours ahead of us,’ Matt pointed out. ‘While we were sleeping, they were sending memos and emails trying to find out what’s going on with this investigation. A foreign citizen killed on US soil is a big deal, Sergeant Connolly.’

  Connolly waved off his protest with a meaty hand as the elevator doors opened to the second floor. ‘I’m just pissed everyone wants to rush this. We can do it fast, or we can do it right.’ That was one of Lauren’s favorite sayings. She preached it to Reese all the time. ‘We haven’t even gotten the official autopsy report yet, and they want to send you two jet-setting around the world.’

  ‘I want to go back and talk to Gunnar’s father. Matt, I think you need to meet him.’ Lauren trooped back into the office. Craig Garcia was making copies at the machine. He looked up, was about to say hello to the sarge, thought better of it when he saw Matt, and went back to it. A lot of cops didn’t trust the Feds, and apparently Garcia was one of them.

  ‘Do what you have to do,’ Connolly told them. ‘But document everything. We got the damned United Nations looking over our shoulders.’

  Lauren and Matt stopped back in their office so Matt could grab his coat. ‘Lauren, I’m sorry,’ he began as he gathered up his belongings. ‘Things are different in the Bureau—’

  She held up her hand. ‘Stop. This has nothing to do with you or the Feds. I’ve been around long enough to recognize when higher powers are at play. They want us to go to Iceland, we’ll go.’

  He let out a breath of relief. ‘I just didn’t want you to think I was undermining your investigation.’

  ‘I don’t think that at all.’

  ‘The passenger manifest came in from ARC, the Airline Reporting Corporation.’ Matt riffled through some papers on his desk and handed a paper-clipped report to Lauren. ‘Steinarsson and Gunnar flew in on the same flight into Toronto, but Ragnar sat in first class and Gunnar sat in coach.’

  She flipped through the paperwork. ‘That’s interesting. They shared a hotel room but didn’t sit together?’

  ‘I thought the same thing.’

  She stuffed the pages into her folio. ‘Maybe Mr Hudson can shed some light on this for us. Let’s take a ride’ – Lauren cranked the handle and held the door open for him – ‘before we have to hop on a plane ourselves.’

  ‘What am I going to tell my wife?’ he asked, passing by her and back out into the hallway. ‘The baby is teething and she’s not getting any sleep as it is. And it’s his first Christmas.’

  Lauren shut the door behind her. ‘Tell her you’ve become embroiled in an international conspiracy.’

  He laughed out loud at that. ‘I guess that’s close enough to the truth
.’

  The ride out to the Hudson household was tricky. A nasty wind had whipped up over the lake sending sheets of snow flying sideways. Matt pulled his knit scarf tighter around his neck, even though he’d cranked the heat up in his vehicle. ‘I can feel the cold coming through the windshield,’ he said, fiddling with the controls on the dash.

  ‘You’ve got thin blood,’ Lauren said. ‘And you don’t know how to dress for the weather. What’s with the dress shoes?’

  ‘We have to maintain a certain standard in the office.’

  ‘In the office, yes. But out on the street we wear boots. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to keep your shoes in the office and change into your boots when you go out?’

  ‘I’m not from these frozen parts, remember? I got here in September when the temperatures were in the high seventies. It was beautiful. Then the day after Thanksgiving all hell broke loose.’

  ‘That was nothing.’ Lauren recalled the six inches they got. In Buffalo six inches is a nuisance, not a crisis. The same could not be said of Matt’s winter driving skills. ‘Slow down, slow down! Turn into the skid.’ Matt had taken the off-ramp corner too fast and sent them sliding on the ice toward a ditch. He corrected at the last second and they ground to a halt. A pick-up truck behind them blasted its horn before going around them.

  Matt sat gripping the wheel, breathing hard for a second before easing back into traffic. ‘You OK?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘I don’t know how you live in this frozen tundra,’ he muttered, keeping his speed well below the limit.

  ‘I’d say the same thing about Arizona in August, I bet,’ Lauren countered. ‘One hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade does not sound appealing to me.’

  ‘I guess it’s all just what you’re used to.’

  ‘You better get used to this real fast,’ she told him. ‘They’re sending us to an island called Iceland, remember?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘At least you can go on one of those Game of Thrones tours when we get there.’

  Matt’s face turned serious. ‘Don’t even joke about that. I loved Game of Thrones before it was cool.’

  ‘Turn here.’ Lauren pointed to the road that led to Hudson’s development. ‘It’s going to be all the way on the end.’ There was no need for further instructions because Brooklyn’s Mustang was parked in the driveway radiating color into the snow squall like a huge red beacon. Mr Hudson must have had someone tow it back to the house overnight.

  Erna met them at the front door. ‘Mr Hudson was wondering if you would come today,’ she said, ushering them in away from the cold.

  ‘Did he think we’d left for Iceland already?’ Lauren asked as she wiped her boots on a rubber mat.

  ‘You can leave your shoes on,’ Erna told Matt, who was bent over, untying the laces on his right one. Lauren shook her head slightly and he struggled to quickly retie it.

  They followed Erna to the kitchen this time, where Mr Hudson was eating. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich was cut up into pieces in front of him. He lifted his head when they came in the room. A little blob of grape jelly sat on his chin. ‘Welcome back, Detective Riley.’ He smiled with his half-wrecked face. ‘Is this your partner? Sorry to have to meet you like this, with me eating a sandwich like a two-year-old.’

  Erna zipped around the back of him and wiped his chin with a handkerchief she pulled from the front pocket of her scrubs. ‘Thank you, Erna,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Hudson, this is Agent Matthew Lawton from the FBI. He’ll be working with me on your son’s case.’

  ‘I’d shake your hand but I’m a little sticky.’ He held up his good limb, wiggling his fingers.

  ‘How’s Brooklyn?’ Lauren asked. Hudson angled his chair to get a better view of the both of them.

  ‘She’s on her way to a rehab in Michigan as we speak. I sent her boyfriend to one in Florida. She’ll never get sober if he’s not sober.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ Matt said.

  ‘When it’s your child, you’ll do whatever it takes.’ His voice had a certain edge to it, as if this was a mantra he kept repeating to remind himself of what was at stake. The sadness returned to his face and Lauren was immediately reminded again of Billy Munzert’s father staring at her from the doorway of his living room. Like Munzert, despair seemed to radiate from Mr Hudson. They shared that same aura of extreme loss, a brokenness that could never be made whole.

  As sympathetic as she was, it was time to cut to the chase. Lauren leaned against the countertop, crossing her arms in front of her. ‘Were you aware that your son traveled here with a companion?’

  Hudson looked confused. ‘A companion?’

  ‘Did you know,’ Lauren repeated slowly, ‘that Gunnar came to the States with someone?’

  ‘No.’ Hudson looked from Lauren to Matt. ‘He never said anyone was with him.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you he was homosexual?’

  Erna put a hand on his shoulder protectively. ‘I knew he was gay,’ Hudson said. ‘He told me the second day he came to see me. He didn’t want me to tell Ryan or Brooklyn, since they already had enough reason to reject him. He wanted to let his existence sink in before he told them about his personal life.’

  ‘How did you feel about it?’ Lauren asked point blank.

  ‘I was just happy to find him. I could have cared less who he was with. I think he was scared at first to tell me the truth because I asked right away if he was married or had any children. He said he wasn’t and never had been, and no, he had no children. I think that’s why he waited until the next day to tell me. I think he was afraid I was a bigot.’

  ‘You have no idea who the man Gunnar came to Buffalo with might be?’ Matt asked as he mirrored Lauren’s pose next to her.

  Mr Hudson shook his head. ‘Gunnar said he wasn’t married. He didn’t mention a boyfriend. Maybe he really didn’t trust me enough yet to tell me. Do you know who it is?’

  ‘We have a name, that’s it. He went back to Iceland, but you already knew all this, didn’t you?’

  His eyes cast down on his pieces of sandwich scattered across his green plastic tray. ‘I knew a little. I knew you were looking for a man from Iceland, not that Gunnar came here with him. I know as soon as our courts get a reply from theirs, you’re on a plane to Reykjavík.’

  ‘You have good sources,’ Lauren said.

  His head snapped up. ‘I learned a lot about politics and how they work during my civil case. I was a nobody then.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I’ve been lobbying for reforms now for years. I’ve made a lot of connections. And money does talk, or at least gives you a voice. I’ll spend every last penny I have making sure my son’s killer is brought to justice before I leave this earth.’

  ‘Why me?’ Lauren was truly mystified. Of all the multitudes of resources available to Mr Hudson, he’d settled for Buffalo’s less-than-finest.

  ‘Because I know who you are, detective,’ he said. ‘I do have good sources and they told me all about you. I know what you’ll do to solve a case. Or to save a life.’ He handed the tray up and back to Erna, who took it without a word. She turned around, dumped the remaining sandwich bits in the garbage and slid the tray on top of the oven.

  He turned his half-ruined face up at her. Once again Lauren was looking into the eyes of Billy Munzert’s father. Her entire body tensed at the memory as Mr Hudson took a deep breath. ‘I know you won’t let this go until you find my son’s murderer.’

  Don’t promise him, Lauren’s reminded herself. Don’t make him any promises. You already made one promise you couldn’t keep.

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘You’re relentless,’ he concluded with a grim smile. ‘That’s who I want investigating my son’s murder.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Twenty hours later, an Icelandair jet took off from New York City with an expected arrival in Reykjavik of 9:20 a.m., Icelandic time. Turns out the FBI had travel coordinators who made all the arrangements for both Matt
and Lauren: flights, car, and hotel. Lauren found herself sitting in a window seat, with Matt squashed in the middle, of a five-and-a-half-hour red-eye flight.

  How do I get myself into this shit all the time? she thought as the plane lifted off the runway, popping her ears. I should be home doing last-minute Christmas shopping.

  Matt was busy next to her, trying to carve out a nest in his small space. While Lauren didn’t take up much room, a man with shoulders as wide as a truck bumper sat on the aisle, unintentionally crowding him.

  The flight had left at 11:55 – only five minutes late – and the captain assured the passengers that they’d make up the time in the air. It was a cold, clear night out; a million stars sparkled outside Lauren’s window. Her breath fogged the glass slightly as she leaned closer to look, but her mind wandered back to her home as she lingered in that twilight between wakefulness and sleep.

  Reese had not been happy with the strange turn of events. ‘You know they don’t send cops who just shot someone on all-expense paid vacations, right?’ he’d asked her when she told him the news.

  ‘I’m not in a position to say no,’ she’d responded as they sat facing off in the living room – she on her chair, he on his spot on the couch. ‘The commissioner could have just as easily put me on administrative leave until Internal Affairs comes back with their official findings.’

  ‘This is why I need to get back to work.’ Color was rising in his cheeks. ‘You’re out there, working with some rookie Fed—’

  She waved her hand at him, cutting him off. ‘I got in just as much trouble when we were partners. Matt’s a sharp guy. You need to be one hundred percent before you come back.’

  ‘Like you were?’ he snapped.

  ‘No, I wasn’t, but I’m also not known for making the best decisions, right?’

  He took a deep breath and exhaled before he spoke again. ‘When do you leave?’