by Paty Jager
“But why would anyone take revenge for that?” Hawke paced the floor. “There has to be another reason.”
“I’m digging into the information on the police station where the mother worked.” She typed some more. “Magnað! They have a counselor for the department.” She wrote on a piece of paper. “Here is the name and phone number.”
Hawke took the paper and patted the woman’s shoulder. “You are missing your calling working for the conference.”
She grinned. “When I’m not doing this, I work in the cybercrimes department.”
Hawke laughed and pulled out his phone. “What’s the time difference between here and Kenya?”
“They’re three hours ahead of us,” Dóra said.
He glanced at his watch. Midnight in Kenya. “Damn! I’ll have to wait and call in the morning.”
“Not much more you can do tonight. Let’s go.” Sigga stood and put her coat on.
“Yeah, not much I can do.” He walked to the door and stopped. “Thanks for this.”
“Anything to find Nonni’s killer.” The woman stood. “Time for me to go home. There will be a lot to do in the morning, clearing out all the conference stuff.”
Hawke held the door for her, and they walked down the stairs together. “How’s Einar holding up?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what he’ll do after we clean up. He won’t have anything to focus on.”
“Does he still work?”
“No. He retired and only does SAR work now.”
“Then it will be tough.” Hawke felt for the man. It would be hard to lose two children. It was a good thing he didn’t have any. Though his mom didn’t feel that way.
At the sidewalk in front of the Harpa, Dóra hailed a taxi, Sigga walked down the sidewalk toward the Marina Hotel, and Hawke crossed the streets to his hotel.
They’d lost momentum today, discovering they were looking at the wrong person. He had a feeling his call in the morning to the counselor in Kenya would clear up a lot.
<<>><<>><<>>
Buzzing by his ear startled Hawke awake. He slapped at the annoying insect and his fingers touched the screen on his phone.
“Hawke? Hawke? I landed. I’ll get a car and be there as soon as I can.” Dani’s voice had his hands gripping the phone.
“Good. I thought you were taking the bus?” he said, sitting up. At least he hadn’t slept in his clothes this time.
“I decided we’d need a car to travel around.”
“That makes sense. I won’t be here, when you arrive, but I’ll let the hotel know you’re coming,” He glanced down at the opposite side of the bed.
“Thank you. See you when I see you.” The call ended.
The folder, all the papers, and photos were scattered across the bed. He’d been reading through them one more time when he must have fallen asleep.
It was seven in the morning. He had an hour to get to the Marina Hotel and catch the Super Jeep tour.
Hawke dressed quickly, grabbing all the warm clothing he’d brought with him. Pulling the stocking cap onto his head, he headed to the elevator. In the lobby, he let the clerk know that Dani Singer would be arriving and to give her a key to his room.
Out on the sidewalk walking toward the Marina Hotel, he dialed the number Dóra had given him for the police psychiatrist in Nairobi.
The woman who answered said something in a language Hawke thought sounded like what the two women in the table next to them last night had been using.
“Hello, I’m Gabriel Hawke, with the police in the United States. I’d like to speak with Dr. Mutambe, please.”
“Hello. He is with a patient right now. May I have your number for him to return call?” The woman had a bit of a British accent but it was heavily accented with her nationality.
“Please. It’s urgent I speak with him today.” He didn’t want to be put on a list and wait a week.
“What is this about?”
“A deceased patient.”
“Dr. Mutambe is not that kind of doctor.” Her tone was apologetic.
“I know what he does. It is one of his patients who has died. Mari Odeyna.”
The woman drew in her breath. “I will give him the message.”
He found the woman’s reaction interesting. What about Mari’s death would have her shrink’s receptionist act surprised?
At the Marina Hotel, people already stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus to pick them up. They would go by bus to Húsafell and there get in the Super Jeeps for the tour of the glacier.
Hawke was surprised to see Böðvarsson sitting in his car in front of the hotel. The detective held up two cups of coffee and a bag that looked suspiciously like baked goods.
Hawke slid into the car, grasping the cup of coffee offered to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to know what you said to Rowena Albright last night before I arrive at the office and am told I have a call from the commissioner.”
Hawke laughed. “I didn’t say anything.” He went on to retell how the night played out. “When Sigga admired the coat Rowena was wearing, which I’d stake my career is the same one in the surveillance tapes, she said she’d brought it from home.”
Böðvarsson set down his coffee cup and pressed a fist to his sternum. “I was afraid of this when I learned she was related to the woman you are fixated on.”
Hawke went on to tell him about the call he was waiting on.
“You asked Dóra to do police work when she was on vacation?” Böðvarsson acted as if that was a greater sin than blaming the wife of a prominent British doctor of murder.
“At the time, I didn’t know she worked for the police. I just thought she was a talented computer nerd.”
His phone buzzed. Dr. Mutambe.
“Hello, this is Hawke.”
“Gabriel Hawke? The policeman who wishes to know something about one of my former patients?” The man said it as if he were condemning him for even asking about Mari.
“Yes.”
“I do not feel right talking to someone I do not know about this.”
“I’m working with the Iceland Police to discover who killed a man. I think Mari and Wanza’s deaths have something to do with it.” Silence followed. He was just getting ready to say more when the doctor spoke.
“Who was killed in Iceland?”
Hawke took this to mean he knew the name already. “Jón Einarsson. Also called, Nonni.”
The man mumbled something in the language Hawke didn’t know.
“You know who the dead man is. It’s because of Mari and Wanza, correct? And you might know who killed the young man?” Hawke wasn’t going to let him think too long on how to save whoever did the killing.
“I do not know who could have killed him. But he is the person Mari accused of killing her daughter—Nonni and herself.”
Hawke felt like he’d run out of oxygen and was losing track of the conversation. “Why would she accuse Nonni and herself of Wanza’s death?”
“Wanza returned from Iceland much happier than I had seen her in years. She was doing well until Mari discovered why Wanza really wanted to go back to Iceland. She was pregnant. Her mother believed it was the man, Nonni, who was helping Wanza plan to leave Kenya and Mari.” The doctor murmured something away from the phone and continued. “Mari had been a young mother without a husband. She’d struggled for years and did not want her daughter to do the same. For this reason, she forced Wanza to have an abortion. Only she caught infection from the procedure and died. A month after Wanza died, Mari took her own life. She couldn’t live with the fact she’d caused her daughter’s death.” He sighed. “I told her to let the child go to Iceland. If nothing else the baby would come, and she would either marry and stay, living a good life, or she would come home. I learned of her forcing the child to the doctor after everything went wrong.”
Hawke took it all in. Because Nonni had been the good person that he was, he had tried to help Wanza get back to Icel
and. He wondered if the young man knew his friend had fathered a baby? If so, it didn’t seem as if he’d told Bragi, the father. The person who, by accounts of the murderer, should have been the one who died.
“Thank you for all of this Dr. Mutambe. We had no idea who the killer could have been as the young man who died was not the father of Wanza’s child. He was merely a friend helping a friend.”
“Then the murder, as with all murders, was done for all the wrong reasons.”
Hawke had to agree. “Yes.” He ended the connection and turned to Böðvarsson. “The murderer killed the wrong person.”
The detective stared at him.
Hawke repeated what the doctor had told him ending with, “Bragi is the one who slept with Wanza, not Nonni. He was killed because he is who they knew stayed in contact with her after she returned home.”
“This doesn’t go to anyone besides us,” Böðvarsson said. “We don’t need another death.”
“Do we pressure Rowena about the coat and what we know about her cousin?” Hawke thought it might work with the cousin unless she lawyered up right away. But he had an inkling because of her comment about riding with Mari, that Kanika may have more to do with the murder than her roommate.
“Can you call Kanika’s superior and find out how or if she knew Mari Odeyna?” Hawke grabbed a pastry from the bag as a bus rolled up. “I’ll see what the two do on this excursion. There has to be a reason they are going.” He studied the group. The two women were standing in line. Neither one wore the fluffy warm coat. He wondered why when it was going to be colder on the glacier than it had been walking around Reykjavik.
Chapter Twenty-three
Hawke climbed on board the bus and sat in a seat a couple rows behind the two women. He was pleased to see that only about twenty people were going on the trip. It would make keeping track of the two easier.
He’d nodded to both of the women as he’d walked by on his way to his seat. Rowena had smiled and nodded. Kanika just stared forward. They were an interesting duo. Knowing what he did about the two of them, he wondered if they were working together or Kanika was orchestrating the whole thing, using Rowena’s grief.
Two hours on the bus, and they unloaded in a parking lot in Húsafell. Six Super Jeeps with drivers waited for them. The Jeeps were slightly larger than a regular four door Jeep and they had large tires. Not as outlandish as a Monster truck but twice as large as a normal pickup.
Hawke didn’t want to be so obvious that he was tailing the two, therefore, he made certain he climbed into the Jeep behind the one the two women were in. He was pleased to see they were in the same Jeep as Leonard Harlow.
Harlow would try to carry on a conversation and would be sure to tell everyone he could if the two snubbed him.
When the Jeeps pulled onto the glacier covered with new snow, the drivers got out and released air out of the tires. When their driver climbed back in, he said, “Letting air out, gives better traction on the ice and snow.”
They moved across the glacier as if they were floating, until a tire hit a rut. Then the steering wheel was jerked out of the driver’s grip and the vehicle rocked back and forth. Hawke held onto the hand hold to keep his body from flopping onto the driver. The two people riding in the back “oophed and squeaked” as they rocked through the bumps. This happened half a dozen times before what appeared to be a large culvert with a tarp over the end appeared in the middle of nowhere. The Jeeps all stopped and people crawled out. Voices rejoiced at being out of the Jeeps and no longer bumping around. They were lucky to have a sunbreak. The white of the snow was blinding.
The trip across the glacier had taken an hour. The Jeep drivers explained to the group that one person would be the spokesperson for the tour. The rest of the drivers would remain on top and wait for them. Because there were less than twenty, everyone would enter at the same time. Hawke was glad he didn’t have to noticeably try to get into a group with the two women. He, instead, fell in step with Harlow.
“What did you think of the Jeep ride?” he asked the young man.
“Wow, there were a couple of times the two in the back seat shrieked when we rocked back and forth.” The young man had a grin from ear to ear. “It was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”
Hawke laughed. He was pretty sure the two women wished they hadn’t come. Which led him to wonder why they had. Even though Kanika was a policewoman, she didn’t strike him as the outdoor type.
They walked down a slight incline on a mat that kept them from sliding or falling. At the bottom the SAR Jeep driver, and now guide for the tunnel, asked them to all put on crampons. The stretchy contraptions attached to the bottom of their shoes adding spikes to grip the icy floor.
“This will keep you from slipping as you walk through the tunnel,” the guide said, while also running through the rules of the cave. As everyone straightened from putting on the spiked crampons, the guide walked deeper into the tunnel, talking about how it was manmade and one of the only ones that is open year-round for tourists.
The tunnel was around twelve to fifteen feet high with an arched ceiling and ten to twenty feet across in places. The ice on the sides was slick, grooved from the machinery used to cut it, and beautiful. It reminded him of coiled pottery. Hawke made a note to bring Dani here later in the week. He’d never been one to care for enclosed places but the size of the tunnel and the unique blue to the glacier ice made him forget he was 30 yards under the ice.
The group moved along the tunnel at a slow pace, giving Hawke a chance to locate Rowena and Kanika. They were hanging toward the back of the group.
“You cannot get lost. The tunnel makes a circle and comes out back at the main tunnel. There are two rooms designed for events such as weddings and parties. Once a year there is a secret solstice party held in the tunnel. DJs from around the world come and play music while people dance.” The guide’s voice carried well in the icy corridor. He stopped and allowed people to take photos of what appeared to be a small chapel with ice pews and altar. Hawke hung back by the entrance to the room. He didn’t need any photos.
Even though they were enclosed in ice, it felt warmer than the air outside. Without wind and an even temperature, he pulled the stocking cap off his head. The knitted cap made him too hot.
Rowena and Kanika, again, hung back from the rest of the group. Their heads were together as if plotting something. Their behavior made him even more wary. Why had they come to the tunnel?
The group moved on to another room, took photos, and continued deeper into the ice tunnel. The lights strung along the tunnel, sparkled like large crystals of snow in the reflections on the smooth ice walls.
They came to a dugout area large enough for them to all stand in the middle of the blue light. This area was the heart of the glacier. The blue glow in the room was beautiful. Hawke felt as if he were in the center of the glacier experiencing what it would be like to be encased in the massive frozen ice. He wondered if this would be a similar feeling to being held in the bosom of Mother Earth.
Someone bumped him, drawing his thoughts back to the ice tunnel. He glanced around. Rowena and Kanika were missing. There were three tunnel entrances. The one they’d walked through, the one continuing, and a third. The guide said they had ten minutes to enjoy this room and wander the two small circles.
Hawke moved to the smaller tunnel that would have been the closest to the two women where he’d last seen them. He walked around a curve and tripped. His hands and arms kept his chin from connecting with the hard ice floor. Air whooshed out of his chest and his knees ached from cracking on the ice. The scratching sound of someone running in the crampons and a rushed whisper pushed him to his feet.
One of the women must have tripped him. Why? He bent his right leg. His knee burned and ached. That knee must have taken most of his weight when he went down.
“Hawke what are you doing?” Harlow’s voice echoed down the corridor behind him.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Hawke didn’t look back, he continued as fast as his aching knees would carry him. He caught a glimpse of the two women back in the room the group had stopped in. He studied them. They were both focusing their cameras on different walls of the blue room. Studying them from head to toe, he realized the daypack Kanika wore looked as if it had deflated. They’d left something in the tunnel.
He backtracked to where Harlow stood. “Why did you tell me to stay here?”
“You can go now.” Hawke waved the man to continue on down the side tunnel.
Three more of the conference attendees walked by, talking.
Hawke waited for them to pass by before he slowly walked along the tunnel. There was a spot, just a little wider than the rest of the tunnel where a large crack in the ice was visible. He walked over to the crack and peered down. The coat he’d been staring at on videos had been shoved into the crack where someone walking by and looking wouldn’t see it.
Hoping the crack wouldn’t open farther and pull him in, Hawke prayed to the Creator to not anger the glacier as he leaned in with one arm. His fingers barely touched the cloth.
He took off his daypack and pulled out a small roll of parachute cord.
“Everyone, we need to continue on,” the guide’s voice carried down the tunnel.
Hawke ignored the man’s request. The coat in the crevice was evidence, that was the only reason the two women came on this trip. They wanted it gone. Had Sigga asking about the coat last night given them the idea to get rid of it today? But why here? They could have tossed it into the harbor? Whatever the reason they chose to put it here, he wasn’t going to leave it in the crack.
A loop in the cording wasn’t going to catch the coat. He dug in his pack for something that would hook the garment and pull it up just enough he could get a hold of it. He carried his file of Nonni’s case. In it was a paperclip holding some papers together. He opened the clip, shoved one end through an end of the cording, making sure it was attached well, and made a hook out of the other end.
