Fox Goes Hunting

by Paty Jager

  Hawke glanced at Böðvarsson, taking notes. He was getting it all down.

  “Did you or Kanika go to the bar in Harpa on Tuesday night? Maybe after you left Kevin’s?” Hawke wondered how Kanika had figured out Nonni was the person he’d planned to track.

  “No. We went back to our room and went to sleep.” Rowena poured more coffee in all of their cups from the carafe the staff person had brought up with the tray.

  Discovering how Kanika knew Nonni was being tracked would help them connect her to the homicide.

  “I need to go,” Hawke said, pushing his chair back from the table.

  “Isn’t there more you need to ask me?” Rowena put her cup of coffee down and stared at him.

  He had a feeling she thought by detaining them, she was allowing Kanika the freedom to get out of Iceland. That was a mistake on her part. Hawke glanced at Bodversson. From the frown on his forehead, he’d presumed she was in cahoots with the murderer as well. If she was hindering them to keep the woman from getting caught, she knew what Kanika was up to. And they had given her almost all of their evidence to the killing.

  Hawke stood. “I’m sure Detective Inspector Böðvarsson can ask you the rest of the questions.” When she rose, he added, “I can let myself out.”

  Böðvarsson nodded.

  Hawke took that to mean he would ask more questions and continue with whatever he needed to do. At the door, he stepped out and listened. They were speaking too low for him to hear. He was sure, Böðvarsson would push to get more specifics on what they had already questioned her about.

  Right now, he wanted to talk to Riku and see if she remembered seeing Kanika in the restaurant Wednesday morning when she and Nonni met. The woman had to have overheard that he was going to be the one tracked.

  On the street, walking toward the Marina Hotel, he dialed Riku.

  “Hello, Mr. Hawke,” she answered.

  “Riku are you at your hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes. I have some more questions I need to ask.”

  “Okay. Father and I will be in lobby.”

  “Thanks.” Hawke hung up and received a text from Dani.

  I’m taking a tour bus around the Golden Circle.

  Have fun. I hope to have this finished by tonight.

  See you then.

  He loved that Dani understood duty. Her career in the Air Force had taught her there were things that had to be done before anything else. Few women he knew understood that.

  Stepping into the lobby of the Marina Hotel, he spotted Riku and Mr. Tanaka immediately. They both stood as he approached.

  “Have you figured out who killed Nonni?” Riku asked.

  “I can’t tell you who we are looking at, but can you remember Wednesday morning when you met Nonni, who else was sitting near you in the restaurant?”

  She scrunched her face and thought.

  “It would have had to have been close enough they overheard him tell you he was being tracked for my class.” Hawke glanced at Mr. Tanaka. He studied his daughter. He held her in great esteem. His love shone in his eyes and the slight grimace of his lips as he willed his daughter to find the truth.

  Hawke had a feeling the man had been as grieved over Nonni’s death as his daughter.

  Her eyes opened and she gasped. “I don’t remember who was around us, but we took a selfie.” She pulled out her phone and began flipping through the photos. She stopped and tears glistened in the corner of her eyes. “Here it is.”

  Hawke studied the two. They had been in love. There is a glow when two people have found their soulmates. It was shining bright in the couple’s smiles and eyes. He studied the photo beyond the couple. Bingo! “Can you text that photo to me, please?”

  She went through the motions and his phone buzzed. The picture opened in his text messages.

  “Thank you. This will help us.” He faced Mr. Tanaka. “Are you going home today?”

  “No, we will remain for Nonni’s funeral service. Riku wishes to pay her last respects.” His sad eyes met his daughter’s.

  “If it happens this week, let me know. I’m not leaving until Saturday.” He shook hands with Mr. Tanaka and patted Riku on the shoulder.

  With the picture he now had in his possession, they had a way to play the cousin against the friend and get the truth about Nonni’s death.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Outside the Marina Hotel, Hawke called Böðvarsson.

  “Where did you go?” the detective asked.

  “To get more proof against Rowena and Kanika. And I have it. Where are you?” Hawke stood at the spot waiting to be picked up by a taxi.

  “Leaving the hotel. I can pick you up.”

  “Marina Hotel.” He stepped away from the taxi pickup as a car pulled up. He shook his head and wandered twenty feet away, pulling the collar of his coat up and dunking his head down to keep the cold wind from blowing in his ears. He should have put his stocking cap on this morning instead of his Stetson. He’d better remember that this week while he and Dani were sightseeing.

  Böðvarsson pulled up to the curb. Before Hawke was settled in the seat he asked, “What did you get?”

  Hawke held up his phone with the photo. “This was Wednesday morning when Nonni told Riku he was helping me. My class description said we were going to track a person. The person who overheard Nonni and Riku’s conversation had to have already been following Nonni to figure out their best chance of getting him alone.”

  “I don’t like this.” Böðvarsson stared at the photo. “There could be an explanation for her being in the restaurant beyond following him.”

  Hawke studied the detective. “Getting cold feet because of who she is?”

  “A little. If we have this wrong, I could be demoted for having brought scandal to our country.” Böðvarsson pulled away from the curb.

  “Have they picked up Kanika?”

  “She is at the police station.” Böðvarsson headed the vehicle south.

  “I say we play the information we have off of each of them. We have the photo of Rowena overhearing the conversation, relaying that to Kanika, who follows him in the car that Rowena told us Kanika stole the keys to—”

  “Wait a minute. She didn’t tell us that Kanika stole the keys.” Böðvarsson stared at him as they waited for a light to change.

  “She all but handed us Kanika on a platter, saying how she spilled water and the keys were laying there.” Hawke snapped his fingers. “I’ll call Sigga and see if she remembers the water spilling.”

  He found the woman’s number and dialed.

  “Hállo?” the Chief Inspector answered.

  “This is Hawke. Are you back to work today?”

  “Oh, hello. No. I don’t work until Wednesday. Why?”

  “Where are you? I have a question about the other night at Largess’s I need to ask.”

  “Which night?” she said suspiciously.

  “Tuesday night when the gaggle of women were in his room.”

  “I told you I wasn’t there very long when the other women were.”

  “Are you still at the hotel?” he asked.

  “Just getting ready to check out.”

  “Are there any other women there who were in the room that night? If so, gather them in the lobby and I’ll be right there.” He hung up and found Böðvarsson turning around.

  “What was that about?”

  “We’ll see who else remembers the water spilling.”

  “What will that prove?” the detective asked.

  “It will prove either more people saw her messing with the top of the counter, or her partner in crime is tossing her to the sharks because she has more political pull.” Hawke slipped his phone back into his coat pocket.

  They pulled up to the doors of the hotel.

  Böðvarsson showed his badge and asked the valet to watch his car. Inside the doors, they found Sigga, Carmilla, and Mayta.

  “What’s this about, Haw
ke?” Mayta asked.

  “Tuesday night when you were all in Kevin Largess’s room. Do you remember anyone spilling water?”

  They all glanced at one another.

  “We were drinking wine,” Carmilla said.

  “And I arrived just before the party broke up,” Sigga added.

  “Okay, did anyone spill their wine?” he asked.

  They again glanced at one another and shook their heads.

  “You don’t remember anyone spilling anything that night?” Böðvarsson asked.

  “No,” Carmilla said.

  “And you were all in the room the whole time together?” Hawke asked.

  Carmilla glared at Sigga. “We all left but her. She was alone with Kevin.”

  “Thank you, ladies. We appreciate you taking time to talk to us.” Hawke pivoted and headed for the door.

  In the car, Böðvarsson asked. “What did that prove?”

  “That Rowena is throwing Kanika under the bus for this homicide.”

  “Because Kanika did it or because Rowena did it?” Böðvarsson pulled out into traffic and they were on their way to the police station this time.

  “My guess is, Rowena planned it all and Kanika executed it.” Hawke stared out the window wondering how they were going to get the grief-stricken cousin to put her own neck in the noose.

  <<>><<>><<>>

  Hawke followed Böðvarsson into an interview room at the police station. If looks could kill, he and the Icelandic detective would have turned to ash from the glare they received.

  “Why did you bring me to the police station?” Kanika asked.

  Böðvarsson started a recording. “Will you please state your name and where you live?”

  She continued glaring but recited her name and address. She repeated, “Why did you bring me here?”

  “We have evidence that says you are the person who killed Jón Einarsson, also called Nonni,” Böðvarsson stated.

  She pressed her lips so tight together, Hawke wondered if a crowbar would get them apart.

  Böðvarsson opened up the worn file. He placed the information about her working with Mari, her trip to the shrink, how she asked for vacation time, and paid for the trip on her own, on the table, facing her.

  “We know you and Mari Odeyna were partners on the Machakos Police. That you and she spent a lot of time together. We believe she told you that Wanza, her daughter, was pregnant and going to leave her. She didn’t want to lose her daughter and forced her to get an abortion.”

  Hawke studied the woman as Böðvarsson laid out what they had pieced together. Her lips remained locked, her eyes bore between their two heads and into the wall behind them. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, the only sign she was listening to a word he said.

  She sobbed when the detective mentioned Wanza dying as a result of the abortion and Mari killing herself out of guilt.

  “And all you and Mari talked about was how it was the young man’s fault who took advantage of young Wanza.” Hawke drew her attention to him.

  “She was only seventeen when she come here. She should not have gone to bars or slept with anyone. She was a good girl before she come to Iceland.” The woman’s emotions finally burst forth. “He should not have taken advantage of her!”

  “Who?” Hawke asked.

  “Nonni, the man who made her pregnant and talked her into moving here. He did not know what was best for her. Her mother know best.” Kanika’s eyes were wide with rage. Her face darker than usual.

  “You killed the wrong man.” Hawke watched her.

  She narrowed her eyes. “I did not say I killed anyone.”

  “Aren’t you curious though? I just said you killed the wrong man. You thought the father of Wanza’s child was Nonni. I happen to know it wasn’t.”

  Kanika glared at him, but he could see she was thinking behind that glare.

  “I’m not positive it was you who killed him,” Böðvarsson said, as if he were trying to be the good cop. “But Mrs. Albright says she saw you take the rental car keys from Kevin Largess’s hotel room on Tuesday night. And we have surveillance film of either you or her returning the keys to the hotel desk Wednesday night.”

  “She wouldn’t say I took the keys. You are lying to me.” Kanika stared at them.

  Böðvarsson pulled out his notepad that he’d scribbled in while Rowena talked this morning. “We visited Mrs. Albright at her suite in the Kvosin Hotel. She said ‘She did spill a glass of water when we were in Kevin’s room. It was on the glass case with all the fishing gear. I remember there being keys on it when I watched her wipe up the mess.’ The her and she Mrs. Albright is talking about is you.”

  Hawke plunged in. “According to the other women who were in the room, nothing was spilled. She lied to make you look guilty.”

  Kanika’s head moved slightly back and forth as if she were evaluating what she’d heard and if she really thought the other woman had sold her out. “I don’t believe she said that. Why would she try to say I killed him? I didn’t even know him.”

  “But you hated him for hurting Wanza, taking her away from Mari, and Mari taking her own life,” Hawke said softly.

  “Yes, I hated the man who preyed on the sweet girl and caused my friend to make bad choices. What would killing him do? It wouldn’t bring back Wanza and Mari.” She stared at him.

  He was on the fence about whether or not she’d killed Nonni. She’d worked hard at covering her tracks, and she’d stared him straight in the eyes when she said what a sane person would say.

  Hawke pulled Böðvarsson’s file over in front of him and pulled out the photos of the woman in the coat and hiking boots. “This is Rowena’s coat, you borrowed—her words—on Wednesday night when you picked up the rental car at Krýsuvík and returned the keys to the registration desk at the Marina Hotel. You also wore this coat when you left a note, trying to deflect me to another person, at my hotel.”

  “That is Rowena’s coat. It’s not me.”

  Hawke pointed to the hiking boots. “Those are the boots you had on when we spoke right after we all came back from Krýsuvík. I remember looking at them when you complained your feet were cold. When you said your feet were cold, I put it off to the warm climate you came from. But if you followed Nonni, killed him, walked back to the parking lot, waited for the bus to arrive and fell in with the rest of the participants, walked back to where we found the body and back to the bus, your feet would be colder and wetter than the others.”

  She didn’t glance at him while he talked, only stared at the photo in front of her.

  “Had you planned to drive the car back after our tracking or had leaving it there been the plan all along?” Hawke had wondered about that. If no one noticed she was missing on the bus to the parking lot, would they have noticed her missing on the way back when they were busy talking about the body and how the class was cut short?

  “I would like a lawyer.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

  Böðvarsson turned off the recording and gathered his photos and papers into the file. “I’ll see what I can find.” He stood and walked to the door.

  Hawke remained at the table, studying the woman. Had she killed Nonni? Or was she being loyal to the person who would have more money and pull? “You do know, the courts will be harder on you than Rowena if she is found guilty. If you are covering for her, you’d do yourself a favor by telling your lawyer and us the truth.”

  She flicked a glance his direction and remained silent.

  Rising out of the chair, he thumped his knuckles on the table, making her jump. “We will discover which one of you killed Nonni. I found the coat you two shoved in the ice crevice. It’s at forensics now.”

  Kanika gasped then hid the surprise.

  “When we get that and fill in all the blanks, we’ll make sure you or Rowena get the maximum sentence. Nonni didn’t deserve to die. All he did was help Wanza find a way to go to college here. The same thing he would have done for anyone w
ho wished to go to school in Iceland.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Sitting in Böðvarsson’s office, Hawke kept running what they knew over and over in his head. “There has to be a way to discover which one of them actually killed him. We can push that it was Kanika and I think the evidence would bear it out to get her convicted, but if we pushed her through and then discovered it was really Rowena who committed the crime, we would have done an injustice to Kanika.”

  Böðvarsson nodded. “We have to either make Kanika tell us how Rowena did it, or orchestrated it, or get her to tell us she did it.” He flipped through the pages of typed notes. “I think I’ll give Dr. Mutambe a call and see if he has any suggestions on what might trigger Kanika to tell us the truth.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m going to reread the forensic reports.” Hawke picked up his pack. “I’ll be down the hall in the break room.”

  Böðvarsson nodded as he flipped through the pages of his folder.

  Out in the hall, Hawke headed to the breakroom, but it took him right by the room where an officer stood, guarding Kanika. He nodded and started to open the door, but decided he needed to have new ammunition before he talked to her anymore.

  In the breakroom, he texted Dani. Are you having fun?

  She didn’t respond. That meant she was busy, hopefully, enjoying herself.

  He pulled the file out of his pack and opened it. Digging through the papers, he found all three of the forensic reports. He started with the first initial report. At the scene, the coroner had said, it appeared to be blunt force trauma to the back of the head. He skipped to the third report talking about the rock they found with blood and hair from the victim. It was 3.63 kilograms.

  Hawke pulled out his phone and googled what that would be in pounds. Close to 8 pounds. Not too heavy, but still it would take added force to strike someone hard enough with that weight to knock them out. Unless he landed face first in the pool. Then the shock and a well-placed foot would have kept him under until he suffocated.