A Full Cold Moon

by Lissa Marie Redmond

  ‘You want to sit on the apartment complex and wait?’ Lauren frowned. Ragnar could hole up in there for days. ‘We could be there for a long time.’

  ‘It’s almost Christmas. His three children are all grown, but they all still live in Iceland. I assume that they get together as a family. All of this must be a terrible stress and burden on Freyja right before the holiday. I imagine Freyja and Ragnar must have had a terrible fight. As a married man I can say that if it were me, and my wife had the power to put me in prison for murder and attempted murder on two continents, I’d be hauling my ass to wherever she was to either smooth things over—’

  ‘Or kill her,’ Lauren finished.

  He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. ‘If Freyja dies, all of the business assets, the money, his reputation, remains intact. She’s worth more to him dead. I told the patrol crew who relieved last night’s people that if Ragnar leaves the building, to follow him. But only take him into custody if it looks like he’s meeting with Freyja or trying to flee the country. I don’t think he’ll make a move until he sees patrol leave. We’ll take over for them when we’re done at the hospital.’

  ‘We just have to make sure we get to Freyja before Ragnar.’

  ‘He’ll wait,’ Berg said. ‘He’ll see the patrol car leave, wait an hour or two and then go after her. He’s been running this whole investigation. It’s worked for him so far.’

  Lauren saw the bright lights of the University Hospital appear before her. ‘Now his luck is about to run out.’

  Matt was awake when they came in, anxious to tell them what he’d found out. ‘We should have some of the translations today. I’m also waiting for someone to email me the documents I requested before I got hit.’

  ‘We got the call yesterday evening,’ Lauren told him and his face fell. ‘But you need to stay on top of all of that. Listen to what we found out.’ She went on to tell him about their conversation with Stefan; how Freyja and Bjarni lied to them.

  ‘Wow,’ he sat back against his pillows. ‘And I thought I had big news.’

  ‘You did, brother,’ Berg assured him. ‘We’re going to need you to forward everything to us. If things go the way I think they’re going to go, we’re going to need you to keep us in the loop.’

  ‘I met your director last night,’ Matt told Berg. ‘He stopped in for a visit, asked if there was anything I needed. He’s a very nice guy.’

  ‘Too nice, I think, sometimes,’ Berg replied.

  ‘He’s handling the press on Gunnar’s murder well,’ Lauren said. ‘I thought we’d be swamped with reporters.’

  ‘I’ve been watching the news reports,’ Berg said. ‘The press is demanding answers from him about the political scandal. They want to know how it could have been happening for so long right under the Ministry of Justice’s nose. Millions of dollars are missing. Criminals have been lining their pockets for ages, as well as my cousin. It’s bad. Worse than I thought. Worse than the director thought. Which is good for keeping the press off our backs while we investigate.’

  The machine behind Matt’s head beeped. ‘I need another bag of fluids,’ he explained. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m going to die, Riley.’

  I’ve been on that bed and I’ve seen my partner on that bed, hooked to those machines, making those noises, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. You can’t erase those sounds, sights and smells. They’ll always trigger fear for me.

  But fear also meant you were hyper-aware and that was exactly what she needed to be. ‘I just have to make sure you’re OK. I wouldn’t want Cara coming after me.’

  ‘I’m on the phone with her ten times a day. She called right before you came in. I told her my SAC, Samuel Papineau, is flying in tonight. That seemed to make her feel better.’

  Lauren should have known Sam would fly over. One of his men was almost killed, he’d want to be directly involved.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Lauren asked, realizing she hadn’t yet.

  ‘I’d shrug my shoulders, but I’d probably pass out,’ he joked. ‘They have me on a lot of pain medicine for the arm. The way they have my shoulder taped and my arm splinted there’s no way I can move my left side, so the collarbone only hurts if I try to look behind me or twist around.’

  ‘When can they send you home?’ Berg asked.

  ‘A couple more days. The doctor still wants to make sure there are no infections, and that I won’t grow a blood clot on the plane. But I have to tell you, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to sit in an airplane seat for five and a half hours with my arm like this.’

  Looking at the way they had his arm immobilized, Lauren suspected Matt might need two, if not three seats, to get home. She kept that thought to herself. ‘The airlines have to figure these things out all the time. I wouldn’t worry about that now, if I were you.’

  ‘Listen, brother,’ Berg told him, ‘We have to go. Stay in touch. And update us with any information you get.’

  He held up his phone with his good hand. Lauren immediately flashed to Mr Hudson in his wheelchair. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Let us know when you find out about that phone, eh?’ Berg tapped the metal rail of the bed and Matt flinched. ‘Sorry! Sorry!’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He managed to smile. ‘Just go.’

  FORTY-ONE

  ‘Ragnar and Freyja have four cars registered to them.’ Berg squinted in the morning darkness as he began to read off a printout. They were parked in the far corner of the outside lot belonging to Ragnar’s high-rise. ‘The BMW, which is still at his office, the white Skoda Octavia, which we know Freyja left in last night, a blue Toyota Land Cruiser and a green Toyota Rav4.’

  Lauren eyed the entrance to the underground parking ramp. ‘Do Ragnar and Freyja have assigned spots down in the ramp?’

  Berg folded up the papers and stuffed them in the visor above his head. ‘Two.’

  ‘I’m going to assume the patrol guys didn’t look in the underground lot for their vehicles.’

  ‘No. But we’re going to.’ He put the car in gear and headed for the entrance. ‘If Ragnar has a vehicle, it’s stashed under there.’

  ‘And maybe the truck he used to hit Matt with as well.’

  Berg called out to a man heading for the interior doors carrying a sack of groceries. When the man stopped and looked, Berg gave him a wide, helpless smile and launched into an Icelandic explanation. The man nodded, smiled back, walked over and passed a plastic swipe card in front of the reader. The wooden bar immediately lifted.

  Berg yelled what sounded like ‘Tak fee,’ at the man, which Lauren had come to know meant ‘thank you’ in Icelandic. He gave a friendly wave and disappeared inside the building.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘I said I forgot my pass card and my wife was about to kill me. The fierce look on your face was very convincing.’

  Lauren swallowed the comment she wanted to make because he was probably right.

  ‘Would this pass your probable cause test?’ he asked, pulling through the gate.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she answered, but kept her eyes on the passing vehicles as they crept through the ramp, looking for the Land Cruiser and Rav4. ‘Let’s just see if they’re here and we can retreat outside again.’

  Berg grunted and turned the corner. He slammed on the breaks, causing Lauren to lurch forward against the seatbelt. ‘There,’ he pointed. ‘That’s their Rav4.’

  A green Rav4 sat next to the only empty parking space in the row. Berg pulled the paperwork down to double check. ‘Yes. That’s it,’ he said, passing the read-out to Lauren.

  ‘So where’s the Land Cruiser?’ she asked, looking at the space.

  ‘Where indeed,’ Berg said and immediately pulled forward and headed toward the exit. ‘We’ll wait across the street. The marked unit has only been gone about thirty minutes. He’ll want to leave before the sun comes up.’ He checked the time on his phone. ‘He’s got less than an hour and a half bef
ore sunrise. I bet wherever he goes, the Land Cruiser is.’

  For the first time since she got to Iceland, Lauren was the one who was losing her mind having to wait. They’d been out drinking, eating, having coffee, basically taking the slow road because Ragnar was ducking them and now they were within reach of him and they had to sit on their hands. Berg liked to talk about jumping right in, but Lauren realized that life in Iceland moved at a dramatically slower pace than in Buffalo. The pace of their investigation matched the Icelandic lifestyle.

  Berg found a spot across the road from the lot that had a perfect view of the exit of the underground ramp. As soon as that green Rav4 came up, they’d be able to slip quickly and quietly behind it. Berg was unusually still and silent, making things even worse for Lauren. She wanted noisy traffic, people cussing each other out on the street, loud, pumping music. Instead, all she could hear was the quiet hum as each car passed them on the street. No one in a hurry. No one laying on their horns. It was maddening.

  She looked around the unmarked Hyundai Santa Fe. She could see why Berg wanted to swap out the brand-new Volvo. Once people knew what kind of car the police drove, criminals could spot them a mile away. For years, the only unmarked detective vehicles they had in Buffalo were Chevy Caprices. Even now, when Lauren saw someone driving an old Chevy Caprice, she got a feeling of déjà vu. The Hyundai was an older model; the computer had been removed leaving just the bracket. Lauren figured this car was probably going to be put out to pasture soon. She knew from experience that ice, snow, and salt wreaked havoc on cars. The odometer showed it had over a hundred thousand miles on it. She hoped the old girl was ready to go on one last adventure.

  A pair of headlights lit up the exit. The gate lifted and the green Rav4 appeared in the outside lot. She’d only seen pictures of Ragnar, and it was still dark and hard to see, but Lauren was certain it was him, even before Berg swore in Icelandic. They both slumped down in their seats. Ragnar would have to pass right by them. Berg waited patiently with the lights off, until Ragnar pulled onto the main road and turned.

  Traffic was almost nonexistent, so Berg waited a good ten seconds before pulling onto the street. He followed a good distance behind, keeping Ragnar’s taillights in sight, letting cars pull in front of them, hanging back.

  ‘Where could Ragnar be going?’ Berg asked himself. He wasn’t speeding, or madly trying to pass other cars. It was like he was on a Sunday drive. All she knew was that they were headed away from the airport.

  ‘You said Ragnar and Freyja owned a lot of properties,’ Lauren said.

  ‘They do. All over the country. Mostly by the ports, where their goods would be coming in and out. He’s heading northwest. Go into that folder in the backseat and see what properties they own northwest of Reykjavík.’

  Lauren twisted around and scooped up a thick blue folder with LOGREGLA stamped above a gold shield in the top left corner. Inside was an entire dossier on Ragnar Steinarsson, most of which Lauren couldn’t read.

  ‘It’s in Icelandic,’ she said, closing it shut.

  He reached over and snatched it from her. Muttering to himself, he flipped through the printouts with one hand while driving with the other, head bobbing from road to paperwork. ‘Take the wheel,’ he growled.

  She grabbed the steering wheel with both hands while Berg looked something up. She was crammed between Berg and the dashboard, trying to stay in the lane and not draw attention to their vehicle.

  ‘OK,’ he said and she let go, collapsing back into her seat. The seatbelt had almost strangled her. ‘We’re on Route 1, the Ring Road heading toward the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Ragnar owns at least five properties he could be heading to. No use calling it in when we don’t know where we’re going yet.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should call for backup?’ she asked, as he took the third exit of a roundabout.

  ‘In Iceland, your backup could be hours away. You learn to make do once you get out of the city. It’s no use having four police cars following us, following him. When we know where he’s stopping, then we’ll call it in.’

  She could tell from the passing signs that they were on Route 1, like Berg said. She quickly googled that on her phone and saw that the curvy road would take them all along the coastline until they got to a place called Borgarnes. On Berg’s side was nothing but ocean and sky. On her side the city began to fall away until it seemed all they were passing was a series of wooden poles laced together with barbed wire to form a seemingly endless fence.

  ‘What’s that for?’ she finally asked. ‘Cows? Sheep?’

  He glanced out to see what she was talking about. ‘Horses,’ he said, looking forward again. ‘Icelandic horses.’

  As soon as the words popped out of his mouth Lauren spotted six or seven in the distance, lit by the slowly rising sun. They seemed to all be eating from the same hay bale. Even farther in the distance she could see a single long, low building where they must have been kept. ‘Ponies,’ she said, filled with wonder at seeing the stout beasts in so desolate a landscape. ‘They’re beautiful.’

  ‘Not ponies,’ Berg said sharply. ‘Horses. Iceland is famous for its horses. Did you know once you take an Icelandic horse out of the country, it can never come back in? They are very prized and cherished here.’

  ‘No wonder Bjarni’s friend flew him north to work on his barn,’ she said, trying to cover her faux pas, although why they were arguing about horses versus ponies in the middle of a police pursuit was beyond her.

  ‘They are a source of pride. That thick, shaggy coat they have now gets shed in the spring. Then they look more like the horses you’re used to. My daughter belongs to a riding club. She goes every weekend, if she can. You should try it while you’re here.’

  ‘Maybe when I’m not on the trail of a dangerous murderer.’

  Berg shook his head. ‘I find it hard to believe Ragnar snapped. We may trace our lineage directly back to the Vikings but we’re a peaceful people. We don’t even have an army. I remember seeing your American soldiers walking around Reykjavík in their uniforms as a boy, when the Naval base was still open. I was afraid of them. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘You might have seen Gunnar’s father passing by. That’s how Gunnar came to be.’

  ‘We didn’t get a lot of tourists back then, not like now. Those service men were a big deal. I also remember when they closed the base. A lot of merchants loved the servicemen spending their American dollars in the city.’

  ‘Why did the base close?’

  He shrugged. ‘Money? Politics? The end of the Cold War? Who knows? But now there’s talk of them reopening it.’

  Lauren pictured a young, handsome John Hudson walking up to Gunnar’s mother in a nightclub, looking dashing in his pressed uniform. It was easy to see how a young woman might get swept up in the romance of the moment.

  ‘It’s just hard for me to imagine Ragnar hitting Gunnar with a brick until he was dead,’ Berg said, snapping Lauren out of her momentary daydream. ‘We just don’t have that level of violence here normally.’

  ‘That’s a lot of rage,’ Lauren agreed. ‘But love, or lust, is a great motivator for violence.’

  ‘And so is money,’ Berg put in.

  ‘Combine the two,’ Lauren added, ‘and it can be a recipe for homicide.’

  An hour ticked by. The sun rose up, casting its weak winter rays across barren snow fields. White-capped mountains rose in the distance. The road snaked and curved as they followed Ragnar’s Rav4.

  ‘I hope we don’t blow our cover,’ Lauren said as a tractor-trailer passed them, heading back toward Reykjavík.

  ‘Believe me, Ragnar knows he’s being followed.’ Berg’s eyes met her in a sideways glance. ‘Wherever he’s taking us to, be ready for anything.’

  ‘I’d be a lot happier if we had a gun,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Of course, you would. That’s why I brought one of my personal firearms with me today.’ He tapped a bulge in his coat over his hip Lauren hadn’t notice
d before.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t need a gun because we’re on an island.’

  The mischievous smile was back. ‘I may be cocky, but I’m not stupid. He left that apartment to find Freyja. If he killed Gunnar, whatever he has planned for her is nothing good.’

  ‘You could have brought one for me.’

  ‘And get you in trouble with the authorities? What kind of law enforcement officer would I be? Besides, I’m an excellent shot. One gun will be more than enough.’

  Lauren let out a small sharp laugh as she joked, ‘And I doubted you.’

  He snorted in reply and told her, ‘Never doubt a Viking.’

  FORTY-TWO

  They headed northwest from Borgarnes along Route 54. The scenery around her was spectacular: sun, sea, quaint fishing villages, and mountains, but it was certain now Ragnar knew he was being followed. Lauren half expected him to pull over and confront them. Her whole body was tense and alert, ready for the confrontation that was surely coming. What is Ragnar thinking? She studied the back of his Rav4 as the paved road twisted and curved along the coast. Dried salt painted the rear hatch a grayish white. We’re right behind him. He’s got nowhere to go.

  Except to Freyja.

  ‘Maybe we should just pull him over,’ Lauren said.

  ‘And if he does pull over and refuses to talk? We have no evidence he committed a crime.’

  ‘You can bring him in for questioning though,’ she pointed out.

  Berg considered this for a moment, never taking his eyes off the road in front of him. ‘I would think it would be more effective if we had his wife as well. Divide them and see what they say at the police station. Isn’t that what you do to suspects and witnesses in America?’

  He was right. They could jump the gun and grab Ragnar on the road, but without Freyja, they had no leverage. They could at least point out her lies in the hopes that she slipped up, and use that against Ragnar.

  A small sign announced they were heading toward a town called Búðir. ‘Be ready,’ Berg said again as Ragnar pulled off the main route onto an even narrower, more desolate road.