More Bitter Than Death

by Camilla Grebe

  I pause. I see the same scene played out in my head over and over again. Hillevi standing in front of Henrik, trying to get to him, the shot being fired, Hillevi falling backward onto the table. And the blood. The blood running down onto the carpet, staining the shards of broken porcelain and the cinnamon buns. The scene is surreal but impossible to forget.

  “Siri, everything isn’t always what it seems,” Markus says, trying to get me to look at him, holding out his hand, cautiously touching my shoulder. “We brought him in for questioning. I consulted with my colleagues. He couldn’t have killed that girl. He has an alibi, a really good alibi too. He was at dinner with his boss from the construction company. Ten people swore they saw him sitting there, downing drinks and singing karaoke. The restaurant staff also confirmed this. They remember him, that he was drunk and a little difficult, that he touched the female servers inappropriately.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I hear how hostile I sound, almost aggressive. “He has a history of abusing women. Kattis told us . . .” I pause, realizing that I’m giving away confidential information.

  “Kattis, is that his ex? His ex is in your support group too?”

  I nod. I know this is going to come out anyway. The police are going to piece together who was in the group and what was said there. They will do everything it takes to find connections, to create some sort of cohesive picture that explains what Henrik did.

  “Well, Henrik’s version doesn’t totally match Kattis’s,” Markus says. “He denies everything, says he never touched her, that she’s making things up.”

  “But that’s always how it is. How many abusers admit that they’re guilty or turn themselves in? How common do you think that is? I don’t even understand how you can defend him. You’ve made a terrible mistake and now you’re trying to cover it up by claiming that he’s innocent.” I feel the crying coming on. Salty tears run down my cheeks and neck. I feel hurt, powerless, full of despair.

  “Siri, don’t you hear what I’m saying? Henrik has an alibi. In all likelihood he didn’t murder his girlfriend. And the police can’t predict the future; we can’t prevent crimes that we don’t know are going to happen. And besides—” Markus hesitates. He is also bound by confidentiality rules and I’m aware that he can’t tell me everything he knows, that he may already have said more than he should. “The police officer who informed Henrik of Susanne’s death said he was heartbroken, that he totally broke down. And she said that if he was just acting, then it was the best performance she’d ever seen. They had to call an orderly in to give him a sedative.”

  “He could still have done it,” I insist. “He could have hired someone. I mean, he’s completely crazy. What kind of person walks around Sweden with a gun in this day and age? And sneaks up on people in the dark? Besides, Kattis is the one he actually wanted to hurt, not Hillevi.”

  “Siri, the first thing we do with a female homicide is look into the victim’s living situation. We know immediately that the most likely perpetrator is her husband or boyfriend. It’s terrible, but that’s the way it is. We checked out Henrik, looked into his relationship with Susanne Olsson. Everything we found out suggests that Henrik is a really normal guy. Aside from the allegation of domestic violence from his ex-girlfriend, we don’t have anything on him, just a couple of speeding tickets. He has no criminal record, looks after his affairs, is a popular boss. No one we’ve talked to has noticed any violent tendencies. Everyone seems to like him, except for one neighbor who thinks his BMW is too big and is convinced that he has some unreported income from somewhere, which he certainly does. He’s gambled away a shitload of money on horses, but otherwise he seems to be a totally ordinary guy. There’s nothing on him, Siri, nothing concrete. Apart from Kattis’s accusations. We had no way of knowing.” Markus throws up his hands in a conciliatory gesture and then squats down next to me and takes my hand, strokes my hair.

  “And the gun? Why did he have a gun? What innocent Swede keeps a gun at home in their dresser? Normal Swedes just don’t own guns. Come on, Markus, he’s disturbed and you know it.”

  I sit up on the couch and shake off the blanket. Suddenly I realize I’m not cold anymore. It’s as if the sadness and the anger I feel have gotten my blood pumping again. Outside the storm is picking up. The rain beats against the window and the wind tears at the tree branches. Even nature seems pissed off about what happened.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Markus says, “but he does belong to a shooting club. He has a license and everything. He probably competed in shooting matches when he was younger. We think he used the weapon that’s licensed to him. If you want to know what I think, Siri, here it is. Henrik didn’t kill Susanne, but something happened to his psyche when he found out about her death. Don’t ask me what. You know that stuff better than I do. He broke down, crashed, went crazy. He saw Kattis as a scapegoat for all the misery he has suffered.”

  “Kattis? He doesn’t think that she had anything to do with Susanne’s murder, does he?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks; maybe he felt like Kattis was sabotaging his life by accusing him of domestic violence. And then that business with Susanne happened. I think it was just too much for him. He went a little nuts. You’re the expert: couldn’t that happen?”

  I shrug. “I suppose, maybe he did have a psychotic break. That kind of thing can happen, absolutely.”

  Markus suddenly looks cynical and tired. “Siri, people say a lot of messed-up shit, get a lot of weird ideas. Last week we had to deal with a murder-suicide case, a single mother who took her own life and that of her five-year-old daughter because she was convinced that they were being pursued by a South American drug cartel. She didn’t see any other way out. Her ex found her and their daughter dead in the bedroom when he came to pick the girl up for the weekend. She’d had her daughter take some pills first and then swallowed a bunch herself. Her doctor said that she had paranoid schizophrenia, which was being kept in check by medication. The only problem was that she stopped taking the medication.”

  Markus shakes his head.

  “What I mean is just that sick people can fixate on anyone. And that girl in your group, Kattis, she probably says that he’s been following her, right? Maybe he is fixated on her, sees her as the root of all evil. What do I know?”

  Markus glances at me. A gust of wind shakes the house. The walls suddenly feel thin, fragile, and for a second I think the whole house is going to fly away.

  “Maybe they have some sort of unhealthy relationship. But the point is we don’t have anything on him, nothing concrete. All we know is that it was a man who did it. There are no witnesses besides that little girl. But, my God, a five-year-old . . .” Markus pauses for a moment. “It’s a policeman’s nightmare: a murder case with no suspects.”

  We sit quietly for a moment. Markus clears his throat.

  “Um, Siri . . .”

  He fidgets. I know Markus, know what’s coming. I look into his eyes, that calm, blue-eyed, honest expression, the archetype of the secure, friendly policeman. But I also see bags under his eyes, stubble on his face, and he’s sloppier than usual. Markus is troubled by what’s going on between us. This game that seems to have a life of its own: even I don’t know the rules anymore.

  “We have to talk. About us.”

  “Yes, we probably should,” I say.

  I know Markus is right. We do have to talk. What happened to Hillevi, those torturous minutes in the conference room with Henrik. The thought that it could all be over in one instant is terrifying, and it suddenly puts things in perspective. I still don’t know what I want, whether I want to live with Markus, but at the same time the thought of losing him is almost unbearable. And the thought of losing our—unplanned—baby is overwhelming.

  “Siri . . . I thought it was you who’d been hurt. And the whole time I just kept thinking that I had to tell you that I want us to at least try. It’s my baby too. I love you and . . . I want to be with you. My dear Siri, please don’t shu
t me out.”

  “I can’t promise anything.” I glance at Markus, gaze into his eyes. “I can’t promise anything, but we can try.”

  VÄRMDÖ POLICE STATION

  OCTOBER

  The questioning room is small and square and almost empty once again: a table, some chairs, and a naked fluorescent light. The toys, crayons, and stacks of paper that the child interview specialist brought in to make Tilda feel comfortable have been cleared out. There are no microphones on the table, no pictures, no decorations, nothing that could possibly be used as a weapon. The big mirror on the wall isn’t really a mirror; it’s a one-way window from the adjacent room that officers can use to observe the questioning. And there, behind the window, is where Roger Johnsson is standing, leaning against it with one hand on his hip.

  Marek Dlugosz is sitting in the chair facing the window. He doesn’t look so cocky anymore, not like when they first brought him in. They were on the verge of charging the brat with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.

  Marek had just turned sixteen, so they could have. He should thank his lucky stars they hadn’t been in the mood.

  Roger runs his hand through his thinning hair, sighs, and sits down in the chair. He takes a Prilosec to deaden his heartburn. He reminds himself not to drink any more coffee today, even if fatigue creeps up on him, and promises yet again to cut back on the smoking, or at least switch to something with a lower nicotine content. His heartburn forces him to change positions, to stretch his back and stick his rib cage forward.

  There was a time when little hooligans like Marek didn’t bug Roger, when he would even have listened to them, sat down and given them the time of day, tried to understand.

  As if there were anything to understand.

  There was a time when Roger would have been inclined to be lenient, looked the other way.

  As if it mattered.

  He used to roam downtown Gustavsberg like some sort of do-gooder father figure, trying to connect with each street kid and save the ones who weren’t too far gone yet.

  Whatever.

  He is done with that. As a man you reach a point, a sort of epiphany—a fork in the road perhaps—when you have to choose between yourself and them, to keep from losing your mind.

  After all, how many times has he put himself out there and been taken advantage of? How many times have the little rascals lied right to his face, promising him this was the last time they would shoplift, fight, smoke?

  His heartburn comes back with renewed intensity. Roger stands up and paces to distract himself.

  Images flicker through his mind: Johnny Lanto in that little beater of an Opel.

  Oh my God, why is he thinking about that? That was so long ago.

  Johnny Lanto had promised too, promised that he would never borrow his dad’s car again. As long as Roger didn’t tell on him, as long as he didn’t call his dad. Because then Johnny would get a beating, the kind of beating that would prevent him from walking. And he didn’t want that, did he? Did he?

  Another image flickers in his mind.

  What once had been Johnny Lanto’s face, a gooey mask of blood and pulp. Even before they’d turned him over and taken his ID out of his wallet, Roger knew, knew it was Johnny. The blond, shoulder-length hair, the short, blue quilted jacket, the totaled Opel upside down like a dead beetle in the frozen field.

  All the kids he’s seen die. All the goddamn hoodlums. And he hadn’t saved a one.

  Hanna, the one who’d promised him she was clean. She assured him that everything was going well and that she was actually glad she was pregnant, even though obviously she was way too young. And he’d believed her, had run his hand over her long, soft red hair and awkwardly wished her good luck.

  Next image: Hanna on the floor of the bathroom at the mall, her skinny body contorted. One hand resting on the white tile, as if she were stroking it. Her face white, her lips blue. Rigor mortis, stiff as a stick. Tummy bulging under her T-shirt. The hypodermic needle next to her on the filthy floor.

  Bye-bye, Hanna. Good-bye, adios, adieu. If I hadn’t been so damn gullible, maybe you would be alive today. And maybe your kid would be playing soccer with my twins. They would have been the same age.

  And that was why Roger decided to give up trying to help the troubled kids.

  * * *

  Sonja Askenfeldt walks into the questioning room. She sits down across from Marek, with her back to Roger. She gathers her papers, picks up the pen in her bony fingers, and starts the session by stating the date and her name. Her dark hair is pulled back into a limp ponytail. Something that looks like a little butterfly is dangling from her hairband. Did she borrow it from her daughter?

  Sonja is good. She is reliable and methodical and knowledgeable in a way that you seldom see these days. And she understands people, she’s a kick-ass investigator. Young officers fresh out of the police academy know all kinds of stuff about forensic investigations, synthetic drugs, and honor killings. But they can’t question a suspect, not even a teenager.

  Especially not a teenager.

  “On the night of October twenty-second you were in the apartment in question. What were you doing there?” Sonja asks.

  “I already told you that. I was passing out flyers. You already know that. Why are you asking me again?” Marek says. He looks nervous, has his arms crossed defensively, is tapping his shoes on the floor.

  “What kind of flyers were you passing out?” Sonja asks.

  “What do you mean? They were just flyers.”

  “What were the flyers for?”

  “Uh, ICA, the grocery store, and something else. I don’t remember.”

  “What company do you work for?” Sonja asks.

  “Company?”

  “Yes, because I’m guessing you weren’t handing out flyers just for the fun of it.”

  “Oh, that’s what you mean. Uh, Swedish Flyer Distributors, that’s their name, I think.”

  Sonja makes a note in her papers and brushes a few strands of dark hair out of her face.

  “And what happened when you got to Susanne Olsson’s door?”

  “It was open.”

  “Open how? Wide open or just ajar?”

  “Uh, just ajar, kind of. I noticed it as I was handing out the flyers.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “I opened the door.”

  Sonja impatiently drums the pen on her papers. “Why?”

  “To, uh . . . put in the flyers.”

  “But you could have just put them in the mailbox, right?”

  “I didn’t want to . . .”

  “Didn’t want to what?”

  “The door might have shut again, and . . .”

  “Oh, I see. And?”

  “Well, someone might have left it open on purpose.”

  Sonja is quiet again and makes another note on the piece of paper in front of her, in that small, slanted handwriting Roger knows so well.

  At one time he’d thought she was pretty. Before she got so thin, before her hair lost its sheen and the skin over her cheekbones got so tight and leathery. Now he doesn’t feel anything when he looks at her, doesn’t feel any desire at all to rub up against that bony ass, to kiss those thin, nicotine-stained lips.

  Rumor has it that her boyfriend left her for a twenty-three-year-old dental hygienist from Riga. Roger has no idea if that’s true. He’s never asked. They’ve been working together for ten years, but he’s never asked. Some things are meant to be private, particularly in this job.

  “And what did you see when you opened the door?”

  “Well, that’s when I saw it, the wallet, I mean.”

  “You didn’t see anything else, hear anything else?”

  “Nah, it was dark. And I was listening to music.”

  Sonja nods.

  “And so that’s when you took the wallet?”

  “Yes, I already said that. Why are you asking that again?”

  “Look, I’m the one asking the questions
here. Answer me. Why did you take the wallet?”

  Marek mumbles something inaudible.

  “Speak so that I can hear you; you’re not back home with your Polish mother now.”

  “I wanted to check it out, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  Marek shrugs.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Okay, I thought maybe there would be money in it.”

  “Which you were thinking of taking.”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. Okay. I just . . . took it. You know?” Marek raises his voice and gets shrill, and through the glass Roger notices a tinge of red in the boy’s pale cheeks.

  “The little girl says the guy who killed her mother took money. What do you have to say about that?”

  Marek throws up his arms in a gesture of defeat.

  “What the hell do you want me to say? What the hell do I know? I didn’t kill her, I just found her. I could have just left her there, but instead I helped the little girl. And now it’s like I’m getting shit for it. How do you think that feels?”

  “Marek, we believe that you were at Susanne’s apartment on the evening of the twenty-second, that you took her wallet, and that you assaulted her until she was dead. And we have a witness whose testimony corroborates our theory.”

  “What the hell? That is so totally messed up. I did not, I would never kill someone—”

  Sonja calmly flips through the stack of paperwork in front of her.

  “Here, let me just read this to you. Let’s see here, last year, assault and shoplifting. July of this year—”

  “Yeah, but I never killed anyone. Do you hear me, you bitch?”

  Without reacting to his outburst, Sonja Askenfeldt leans over toward the microphone, looks at the clock, announces that they will take a break now from the questioning session, and turns off the recording. A moment later she slaps her hand down onto the tabletop so hard that Marek jumps up out of his chair before burying his face in his hands.