‘Thank you.’ It came out in a whisper, lower than she intended.
‘Don’t thank me until you have my wife’s lamb.’ He held his hand out to her. ‘And let’s grab something to bandage you with on the way out. You look like you tried to warm up your hands with a cheese grater.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Lauren wished she could have just leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes like she’d done on the plane to Iceland. But every nerve in her body was firing off now that she was outside of the hospital. She found herself staring at every car coming toward them, wondering if they were about to take a head-on hit. Every pair of headlights that appeared behind them was suspect. In front of her, lines of text on Berg’s police computer kept slowly scrolling down, the calls going out and patrol cars putting themselves back in service, she assumed. Not all that different from Buffalo. Outside, it was lightly snowing. The flakes hit the windshield and immediately disappeared. This place was so foreign and yet so familiar.
‘I live in a very nice, quiet neighborhood,’ Berg told her. ‘It’s called Mosfellsbær. It’s only about fifteen minutes from downtown, but if feels like you’re out in the countryside. I hope you get to see it during the day. The Valley of Mosfellsdalur is quite beautiful. They say in the Icelandic sagas that the great hero Egill Skallagrimsson buried his treasure in the valley.’ He gave a chuckle, staring straight ahead at the road. ‘No one’s found it yet, though.’
Once they got out of the greater downtown area, the roads became desolate. Berg hummed to himself as he drove, tapping his fingers to his own tune, to fill the silence, Lauren supposed. Unlike her, Berg seemed to need to be doing something, saying something, or moving around constantly.
The sparsely populated road started to turn into the beginnings of a town: more houses, a gas station, a convenient-type store, the white steeple of a church.
Berg pulled off down a side street, then made another turn. The houses were square, boxy dwellings with two levels, spaced far apart. Whoever had built this neighborhood wanted to make sure that every resident had their privacy.
‘In a snowstorm it can be a bitch to live here. It takes some time for the local officials to plow everyone out. But we make do. We’re accustomed to it.’
‘That sounds like Buffalo,’ Lauren said as they turned up a long driveway. Set back at least sixty yards from the main road, Berg’s small house was lit up like a beacon against a field of newly fallen snow. In the front window she could see a Christmas tree strung with white lights.
‘You have Christmas trees here.’ She’d seen one at her hotel, but she thought that was just for the tourists’ benefit.
A woman in a long, full skirt and festive wool sweater appeared in the doorway. Her arm was draped around a little girl of about eight. Both were smiling, but Lauren could see the strain in Berg’s wife’s face. The stress of being a policeman’s wife was universal.
‘Welcome,’ she called, waving at them. ‘I have dinner waiting for you on the table. Come in, come in!’
Lauren crossed the threshold, while Berg stopped for a quick kiss from his wife and daughter, hugging them close to him on either side. ‘Anna, Elin, this is Lauren,’ Berg announced, still holding onto his family.
‘Hello,’ Lauren said, wandering further inside. The living room was warm and inviting, decorated in that Scandinavian chic aesthetic: clean lines, soft blues and natural woodwork. The smell of the lamb filled her nostrils as soon as she stepped in, making her mouth water. Had it really been hours ago since she had eaten that fish sandwich?
Giving Elin an affectionate rub on the head, Berg walked from the small entryway into the living room. He spread his arms wide. ‘Welcome to my castle. If I know my wife, she’s anxious for you to try her specialty: roasted leg of lamb and steamed vegetables. It’s an old family recipe handed down for generations—’
Anna swatted Berg on the shoulder to shut him up. ‘It’s literally roasted leg of lamb and vegetables. No magic recipe, but it’s good, I think. Please, come and sit in the dining room. What can I get you to drink?’
Berg led Lauren to their dining room. Simple green valances hung over the drawn pleated window shades. The rectangular table was covered with a white lacy tablecloth. It was done up like a royal feast: three plates of leg of lamb, a huge platter of carrots, cauliflower and potatoes, and a giant gravy boat sat waiting for them. ‘This is too much,’ Lauren said as Anna poured wine for everyone but Elin. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble. Elin here already ate ages ago but said she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she saw the American policewoman.’
Putting the bottle down on the table, Anna disappeared into the kitchen, coming back with a plate of flat round bread. ‘This is laufabrauð, or leaf bread,’ she said. ‘See the little designs? They’re supposed to look like leaves. Please relax and enjoy yourself.’ Lauren took a piece and set it on her bread plate. It was almost too pretty to eat.
‘Thank you.’ She pulled at the edge and nibbled at a bit. It was delicious. Anna fluttered around the table, placing things here and there, while Elin sat across from Lauren staring at her with Berg’s same look of mischief on her face. It was all so normal.
Too normal.
Lauren bit back the words that immediately sprang to mind. Lauren knew she was putting her frustration in the wrong place. Someone had tried to kill them today. They’d almost succeeded with Matt. Lauren could sense Anna was upset as well, putting on a strong face for her daughter. Someone had attempted to kill her husband, the father of her child, and there she was trying to be accommodating and understanding. I need a class in empathy, Lauren thought, sliding around in her seat, willing herself to be comfortable. This woman probably wants to lock Berg inside this house and cry and here I am being ungrateful.
Elin still stared at her with wide, round eyes. Finally she asked, ‘Are you really a policewoman in America?’
Reaching out, Lauren grabbed her wine glass and took a drink before answering. ‘I really am a policewoman in America. My name is Lauren. And you must be Elin. Your father has told me so much about you.’ That was a lie, but Lauren could understand why Berg didn’t go on about his family. She tried to keep her own daughters as separate from her police life as possible, volunteering nothing about them if she could help it. Sometimes she was afraid just being their mother was danger enough.
‘Do you have a partner?’ Elin asked. She flashed the same crafty grin she’d inherited from her father.
‘Elin!’ Anna cried, mortified at her daughter’s boldness.
Lauren was confused for a second, then remembered that she had read in Iceland you could have a partner or be married. They were two separate categories for couples. The child wasn’t asking about work relationships.
‘No, I don’t. I do have two daughters. They are both away at their universities now, but I plan to see them as soon as I get home, hopefully in time for Christmas.’
‘I want to go to the university and be a biologist who studies whales.’
‘That’s a good thing to want to be,’ Lauren agreed. From across the table Berg beamed at his daughter. Anna sat next to him, ladling the vegetables onto their plates one at a time from the serving platter in the middle of the table. Anna was at least ten years younger than Berg, maybe thirty-eight, with thin shoulder-length brown hair that hung straight down on either side of her heart shaped face.
Lauren forced herself to eat as much as possible, she didn’t want to seem rude but the effects of seeing Matt sprawled on the pavement in pain had made her appetite disappear. She did her best to chew the lamb, which was delicious, very slowly before she swallowed to drag out the meal as long as possible. Elin sat recalling the events of her day to everyone around the table. She had hung out with one of her friends and played on a new app the friend had gotten that could turn your own face into a cute animal’s. ‘I made myself a duck. I even had a duck’s bill,’ she said, then asked, ‘Can I g
et that app?’
‘We’ll see,’ Berg told her, then added something in Icelandic. The three of them all laughed. It was still odd to Lauren to hear them flip from English to Icelandic like it was nothing. She’d taken four years of Spanish and the only thing she remembered was hello, goodbye, and how to ask where the bathroom was. She’d always wanted to try to learn Spanish as an adult but had never found the time. Maybe it’s time to make the time, she resolved to herself. I’m not getting any younger. And I came really close to not getting any older today.
Lauren sipped hot herbal tea, while Berg put his daughter to bed and Anna cleared the table, refusing any offer of help. From upstairs the sounds of laughter drifted down, mixing with the sounds of dishes clanking together in the kitchen. She took a better look around. The living room flowed into the dining room in a kind of open floor plan. Family pictures adorned the walls of both rooms, mostly pictures of Elin and her various milestones. The love they had for her was evident everywhere.
A big screen TV sat on a console in the living room, dark and black, reflecting Lauren’s image back at her. She was a mess. Pushing the hair out of her eyes, she stared at the gaunt person reflected in the glass. One of the lenses of her glasses had gotten scratched when they flew from her face. She slipped them off, polished them with the hem of her shirt and put them back on. Out of the corner of her right eye she could still see the scratch.
It wasn’t her fault that Matt had gotten hurt. In her head, she knew that. Someone was trying to sabotage their investigation. But it sure felt like it was her fault.
Anna began to sing as she rinsed dishes and put them in neat rows in the dishwasher. ‘I hope you don’t mind wearing one of my old bathing suits,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘It might be a little big on you but it’s very modest. I never went in for the tiny bikini look.’
‘Me either.’ Lauren wanted to wrap her hands around the tea mug like she usually did but looked down at the bandages and decided that wouldn’t be the best idea. Fresh blood dotted the white gauze as her palms throbbed and stung.
A door slammed upstairs followed by a chorus of giggling. Berg came down the stairs with a huge grin stretched across his face. He stopped at the foot of stair, clapped his hands together and asked, ‘Who’s ready for the hot tub?’
Anna brought Lauren a simple black one-piece suit, exactly the type she would pick out for herself. She changed in their downstairs bathroom; thankful she’d shaved her legs in the shower that morning. When she stepped out into the hallway, Anna and Berg were waiting for her. Anna had a similar one- piece suit on in a rust color and Berg had on tight boy shorts, like boxer briefs, for which Lauren was thankful. She’d heard European guys like to wear Speedos and while she was no prude, she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with seeing that much of a colleague.
It was hard not to stare though. Berg was an extremely hairy man, made worse by the fact that it was curly, flaming red, covering him from head to toe. He noticed her trying not to notice and put a fist on each hip. ‘I’m a hairy man. Like the Abominable Snowman. But I never get cold and Anna here loves it!’ He gave his wife a playful squeeze.
Anna smiled and gestured to the back door through the kitchen. ‘The hot tub is right out there. Please, let’s relax for a while.’
‘Take off those glasses.’ Berg patted the kitchen counter. ‘They’ll fog up right away.’
Lauren pulled them off and left them folded neatly next to the microwave.
One of the couple had taken the time to put candles around the large eight-man hot tub that sat bubbling before them. Lauren had no robe, but neither did Berg or Anna. The steam rising from the roiling water hung above the tub like a dense fog. ‘The trick is,’ Berg said from the doorway, ‘to just get in. No hesitation. Just drop in up to your chin, and the water and steam will keep you warm.’
To demonstrate this he charged out onto the wooden deck barefoot and catapulted himself over the side, sending a deluge of water slopping over the edge. ‘Ahhh. That feels heavenly,’ he murmured sinking down until only his face from the nose up was visible.
Anna was next, demurely slipping into the water. She beckoned Lauren to come in. ‘It’s fine,’ she promised. Berg popped up and sat with his arms stretched out on either side behind him. ‘Don’t bother to shut the door.’
Lauren took a deep breath and plunged into the freezing cold, not stopping until she was crawling over the side of the hot tub. She plopped herself in, marveling at how the rising steam made it feel like she was on a sunny beach in Jamaica, instead of a hot tub in Iceland at midnight.
‘It’s nice, right?’ Berg asked, pouring wine from a bottle stuck in a small pile of snow into glasses Anna must have set out prior to them getting home.
‘And good for you,’ Anna said, leaning against Berg’s hairy chest. ‘Glacier water is good for your skin and hair and whatever else ails you.’
‘This is unbelievable,’ Lauren said, looking around. Berg’s backyard stretched into white covered nothingness. His neighbors on both sides were nothing more than small rectangular window lights in the distance. ‘You have trees,’ she marveled, looking up at the pairs of spruce trees on either side of the yard.
‘I planted those when I first moved in,’ Berg said. ‘That was sixteen years ago. Before I even knew this one.’ He splashed some water toward his wife who laughed and gave a playful splash back. ‘They came in nice, I think. When the Vikings arrived, they used up a lot of the natural forests here. We’re still trying to bring back the trees.’
‘They’re beautiful,’ Lauren said, wiping away the sweat that was beginning to bead on her upper lip with the back of her damaged hand. They sat in silence for a few moments, soaking in the hot water and breathing in the soothing steam.
‘I know you feel responsible for your friend, Matt,’ Berg began, ‘But you can’t think like that. Tomorrow we are going to go see him, and then we’re going to find out who did this to him. I promise.’
‘Don’t promise. Some promises you can’t keep, no matter how hard you try,’ Lauren said to him, maybe just a little too sharply.
‘Fair enough,’ Berg conceded. ‘We will try our best and with great luck we will succeed in finding out who did this. Better?’
‘Better,’ Lauren agreed, taking a drink of her chilled red wine.
‘Without your glasses on you look more like I thought you would,’ Berg told her. ‘I googled you and Matt before you came. There was nothing on Matt. But you? Page after page with your picture splashed across them.’
Lauren was glad the steam would obscure some of her reaction. ‘Buffalo may be a big city, but it’s more like a small town. Or Iceland. Everyone knows everyone.’ She took another gulp of wine. ‘I had a few very high-profile cases. It seemed like every time I turned around a news camera was in my face.’
‘So you chopped your blond hair and started wearing glasses.’ It was statement, not a question.
She nodded. ‘I was tired of people recognizing me in the grocery store. I wanted to go out to dinner with my daughters without people gawking.’
‘I’m sorry I called you frumpy,’ Berg said. Anna whacked him with the back of her hand at that revelation.
‘I’m not,’ she smiled. ‘It means my disguise is working.’
‘So Lauren,’ Anna began, trying to change the subject, ‘is there someone special in Buffalo?’
Like mother like daughter, Lauren mused. But still, she hesitated before answering. ‘No. I’m not involved with anyone.’
‘But you said earlier today you had to check on your partner at home,’ Berg said. ‘I thought you didn’t want to get personal in front of Elin. She can be a little aggressive with her questions at times.’
Lauren laughed. ‘I meant my work partner, Reese. A few months back he caught a grazing bullet wound to the head while we were working. It was during one of those high-profile cases I was just talking about. He fell and fractured his skull.’ Looking down into her wine glass she went on, �
��There were complications. He’s been staying with me since he got out of the hospital.’
‘You blame yourself for that incident as well.’ It was another statement, not question, from Berg.
She nodded. ‘It was absolutely my fault. I did a series of stupid selfish things that led directly to his being shot.’
Berg took a drink. ‘Somehow I think there’s more to the story.’
‘Much more, but you don’t have all night,’ Lauren said.
‘But there is no romance between the two of you? At all?’ Anna asked hopefully. Lauren could tell she was the romantic type, wanting to see flowers in the ice.
‘Strictly platonic,’ Lauren replied hoping to close the subject.
‘Do you want it to stay that way?’ Berg got the hint but couldn’t help but be blunt.
A bead of sweat ran down her forehead. She’d been asking herself that very question a lot lately. ‘I honestly don’t know how to answer that.’
They let the silence of the night enclose them, broken only by the bubbling water and humming of the tub’s motor. The snow had stopped and the light on the backyard made the ground glitter like a blanket of diamonds.
‘See there.’ Berg pointed to the sky. ‘It’s cloudy tonight.’
‘Many times we sit out here and the Northern Lights come out to play,’ Anna said.
‘Just because you can’t see them,’ Berg explained, searching the night sky for a moment, ‘doesn’t mean they aren’t there.’
Lauren swallowed hard. The words she wanted to say were stuck on her tongue, because once she said them, once she admitted to the feelings she’d been having, they’d be out there in the world, and there was no way to take them back. It was better to swallow them whole.
‘Cheers.’ Berg held out his wine and the three of them touched glasses.
THIRTY-FIVE
A Full Cold Moon Page 19
