A Nearly Normal Family Page 9

  When I saw the street sign for Tullgatan, I felt a stabbing in my chest. I stopped and stared.

  This was where Christopher Olsen’s ex-girlfriend lived. Blomberg had read us her address. I couldn’t just walk by.

  26

  It was in many ways Ulrika’s decision not to file a police report on Robin. I don’t mean to blame her—it was my choice too—but I likely wouldn’t have hesitated to report him if it hadn’t been for Ulrika’s objections.

  I shoved him up against the wall in the counselors’ cabin, my fist hanging in the air, but at the last second I managed to control myself. I dragged Stella off through the grove of trees and sat her in my car. I still don’t recall anything about the drive home.

  Ulrika thought we should take Stella to the hospital immediately, but I was of the opinion that we had to call the police first.

  “He raped her,” I said. “Even if Stella did follow him to the counselors’ cabin. Whether or not she initiated it.”

  Ulrika was dashing back and forth in the kitchen.

  “I don’t know what’s best,” she said.

  “You can’t mean to say that Stella is responsible in any way. She’s a child.”

  “Not in the eyes of the law. She’s fifteen. The age of consent in Sweden.”

  Ulrika stopped by the window. Her shoulders were shaking.

  “I know how this sort of trial goes,” she said. “I’ve personally been involved in several of them.”

  I’d almost repressed the memory, but a few years earlier Ulrika had defended a guy who was on trial, along with a few other young men, for gang rape. There had been an outcry when all of them were acquitted.

  “They’ll come after her hard,” said Ulrika. “Every detail will be scrutinized. What she said, how she acted, what she was wearing.”

  “Stop,” I said. “She’s the victim here.”

  “I know that. Everyone knows that. But in court, who did what is crucial—what sort of initiative Stella took, how she behaved before and after the incident. Anything that can sow even a kernel of doubt will be dissected by the defense attorney.”

  I went over to the window and placed my arms around her waist.

  “We can’t let that happen. That can’t be what happens.”

  Ulrika stroked my arm.

  “I don’t know if it can happen any other way.”

  Later that night she shared with me some of the many horrid details the girl was pushed to share during the gang-rape trial. It was shocking. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly naïve, but the fact is, I felt physically ill once I learned how this sort of trial unfolds. Sure, we’ve all read and heard about lawyers who ask rape victims how short their skirts were and how much alcohol they’d had to drink, but still, I had dismissed these instances as extreme exceptions. Only now did I understand it was more or less the standard practice in such cases.

  I’d never thought I would advise anyone, much less my own child, not to file a police report, not to trust the system, not to let justice take its course, but now that I was starting to understand what would be demanded from Stella, what she would be forced to endure, I found that I had to reconsider.

  “What’s the most important thing here?” Ulrika asked before we fell asleep. “That Stella makes it past this relatively unscathed, or that Robin doesn’t go unpunished?”

  As if those outcomes were in direct opposition. Why couldn’t we have both? Today I wish I had challenged the black-and-white picture Ulrika had painted for me, that I had stood my ground and made sure that justice was served.

  We failed Stella unforgivably.

  27

  I walked up to the first door I found on Tullgatan. I just wanted to check.

  Perhaps Linda Lokind was sitting there inside even now. Christopher Olsen’s former live-in girlfriend. Blomberg seemed certain that she had something to do with the murder.

  My heart beat faster as I read the last names next to the intercom. Jerbring, Samuelson, Makkah. No Lokind.

  I walked to the next door.

  If nothing else, Linda Lokind could help me understand. She could tell me about Christopher Olsen. Maybe she had some idea about how he and Stella had met and what had transpired between them.

  At the third door, I found it. Lokind, second floor. I stared at the name for a long time and my heart pounded even faster. What was I doing?

  I tried the door. Locked. Leaning forward, I peered into the stairwell. What would I say? How could I introduce myself without scaring her? Without seeming crazy? What if she called the police?

  I glanced through the names on the intercom again and settled on I. Jönsson. It sounded friendly, somehow. I pressed the button, and when a croaking voice said “Hello?” I explained that I had a delivery of flowers for a neighbor who wasn’t home. I. Jönsson buzzed me into the stairwell right away.

  I stopped two floors up and rang the bell.

  I recalled my visit to My Sennevall and wondered how I could make things go more smoothly this time. It had already been crossing a line to visit Sennevall, but this was an even greater overstep. If it came out that I’d tracked down Linda Lokind … was it possible that she was dangerous? In the worst case she was a revenge-fueled killer; in the best case she was a psychopath liar who had falsely accused her ex of the most horrifying things. I had every reason to be cautious.

  When a surprised woman opened the door, I recoiled. This could hardly be her. The woman before me looked like a model.

  “Linda?” I said.

  “Yes?”

  She peered at me, suspicious.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Who are you?”

  I pointed at my clerical collar.

  “May I come in for a moment?”

  She gasped. “What happened? Is it Mom?”

  “It’s about Christopher Olsen.”

  Right away, Linda Lokind’s expression relaxed.

  “Okay,” she said, letting me in. “But I’ve already said I don’t want to get involved.”

  Her apartment was bright and spacious. The wall of the corridor that led to the bedroom was covered with a world-map decal, and on the floor below it stood a meter-high glass vase in the shape of a bottle with a single lily in it. The bookcase held a few fitness books held up between colorful decorative elephants. It was all bathed in the light of a giant, modern chandelier.

  “Could we have a seat?” I asked, pointing at the dining table in front of the French balcony.

  “Why? What do you want?”

  She had stopped in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  “I represent the Olsen family,” I said, pulling out a chair for myself.

  It was as if the plan had been there all along. I just needed to set it in motion.

  “I told you, I don’t want anything more to do with this.”

  “Just sit down for a little bit,” I begged. “I’m here because the family deserves a dignified closure.”

  “What family? Margaretha?”

  “That’s right.” I nodded quickly. “Christopher is no longer with us. All we want is for the truth to come out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Of course I hadn’t expected her to confess to the murder, but it was interesting to observe her reactions. I’ve always been good at exposing liars.

  “What happened between you and Christopher?” I asked.

  “Margaretha knows what happened. I told the police everything.”

  She sat down at last, a reluctant grimace on her face.

  “Can’t you tell me again?” I asked.

  “That police officer. Agnes Thelin. She didn’t believe me. I tried to ask for someone else, but no one listened.”

  Linda Lokind was undeniably an attractive woman, but beneath her smooth skin and well-proportioned face I sensed something else: a self-conscious and ambivalent little girl. How old could she be—twenty-two, twenty-three? I was quite certain she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I was almost as certain
that she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

  “I understand it’s difficult for Margaretha to accept, but her son is a psychopath. Was, I mean. Chris was a sick psychopath.”

  According to Linda, everything had been just fine for the first two years. Or at least, she’d lived her life believing that this was the case. Later on she had realized there had been hints of darkness all along: secrets, betrayals, infidelity. But it took almost two years for the façade to start crumbling.

  Linda fell head over heels when they first met. Chris Olsen was handsome, charming, intelligent, and sociable. It quickly went from a passionate crush to love and plans for a future together. Too quickly, she now knew. Perhaps she would have seen the warning signs in time if she hadn’t thrown herself headlong into the relationship.

  “Stop blaming yourself,” I said. “Our hearts and our brains can both be good guides. Only in hindsight is it easy to see which paths you never should have taken.”

  She smiled. Although she was hiding something from me, I felt an immediate soft spot for her—that bald naïveté and her keen longing for sympathy.

  “When he hit me the first time, I swore to myself it would never happen again. I wasn’t that kind of woman. I don’t know how many times I told myself that.”

  “I don’t think anyone considers themselves that kind of woman.”

  She nodded. Her smile had vanished; her eyes were shiny.

  “It sounds stupid, but really, Chris was wonderful too. When he wasn’t violent. Every time I thought it was the last time, that it would never happen again, that I would leave him. But then everything would turn around and I would feel hope again. Maybe this time. If I just give him another chance. Idiotic, right?”

  “Not at all.”

  I believed her. I’d heard similar stories from other women in the same situation.

  “I haven’t experienced it myself, but I’ve met many violent men through my work. I understand that it’s just one side of them. No person is solely one thing or the next.”

  “It would have been so easy to leave,” Linda said, wiping her pinky finger under her eye. “I’ll never forgive myself for staying. I’ll never be able to see myself as the person I thought I was. You have no idea how awful it is for your whole self-image to come crashing down.”

  She was right. I couldn’t understand. Not back then, at least.

  “But Chris was a pig who deserves to rot in hell. He abused me and cheated on me and then he left me. You can read all about it in the interrogation with the police. I can’t deal with going through it all again. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “For Margaretha’s sake…”

  Linda looked straight at me.

  “I really don’t care. I’m not sorry that Chris is dead.”

  Her eyes were cold as ice. It was clear that she meant what she said, and for the first time I thought perhaps she had been involved in the murder after all. Maybe there had been multiple killers? Maybe she had hired someone to do it?

  “I’m not a bit surprised, either,” she said. “I’m sure he did the same thing to her.”

  I tried to ignore my curiosity; I folded my hands and looked at her, but this time there was no continuation. Linda pursed her lips and let her gaze wander to the window.

  “To whom?”

  “Stella. The girl who did it.”

  What did she mean by that? How did she know Stella’s name?

  “She’s only a teenager. I guess she did what I should have done a long time ago.”

  I couldn’t help the images that came to my mind. The glint of a knife, stabbing and stabbing; Christopher Olsen’s lovely smile twisting into a scream of pain. Dazed, I tried to erase Stella’s face from the scenes. It couldn’t be true.

  “Why would you say that?” I managed to say.

  “What?”

  “Why do you think Stella did it?”

  Linda looked at me in surprise.

  “She’s the one who was arrested for it.”

  “Do you know her?”

  She shook her head.

  “I hope she gets off.”

  I was struck dumb. Could it be true that Christopher Olsen had attacked Stella, or victimized her somehow? If he had, why hadn’t she told the police? What if Stella was the true victim in this mess?

  “How is Margaretha doing?” asked Linda Lokind.

  I had sunk into my thoughts and didn’t respond.

  “It must be terrible,” said Linda. “I liked Margaretha. Or at least I didn’t have anything against her. She was always nice to me. It’s not her fault that Chris is a psychopath.”

  “No,” I said, although I was inwardly hesitant. Didn’t Margaretha bear some of the guilt? She was his mother, after all.

  “What about Stanne? What does he say?”

  I scratched the back of my neck. Who was she talking about?

  “Stanislav?” Linda said.

  Her eyes went sharp and narrow. I felt cornered.

  “You said you represent the Olsen family. Don’t you know who Stanislav is?”

  “Of course.”

  Linda pushed back her chair and took a few hasty steps backward.

  “Who are you, really? You never told me your name.”

  “I didn’t?”

  A name popped into my mind immediately, but I was reluctant to utter it. How many times can you allow yourself to lie? Sooner or later you’ll cross the line of decency and dignity, no matter how noble the purpose of the lie may seem.

  “I want you to leave now,” said Linda.

  She had backed up against the wall beside the large glass vase. She looked frightened, but there was still something wild in her eyes, something that seemed to border on madness.

  “I’m leaving right now,” I said, hurrying past her. “Thanks for your time.”

  She slipped over to the doorway to keep an eye on me. She held her phone in one raised hand, ready to make a call with a single push of a button.

  I crouched down in the cramped hall to put on my shoes. I had tied one and was about to switch feet when my glance landed upon the shoe rack next to me. There must have been seven or eight pairs on it, but there was one in particular that captured my attention.

  Fingers trembling, I managed to tie my other shoe, then stole another look at the rack.

  No doubt about it—on the rack stood a pair of shoes identical to Stella’s. Might they even be the same size? The same shoe that had left the footprint at the scene of the crime. The same kind of shoe Christopher Olsen’s killer had been wearing.

  28

  I hurried through downtown, my thoughts buzzing like a nest of wasps. So Linda Lokind owned the very same brand and style of shoes as Stella. And that look in her eyes when she backed up against the wall. Distant and lost, but also full of rage. She had truly looked like someone who might suffer a fit of insanity. At the same time, her theory that Christopher Olsen had assaulted Stella ached in the back of my head. I couldn’t ignore the fact that this was a conceivable scenario. Had that bastard harmed Stella?

  I walked faster, my steps falling so hard that they echoed off the asphalt. Not again. It couldn’t be true. At the same time, it wasn’t at all difficult to imagine Stella’s violent reaction, how she would fly into a crazy, blind rage; use a knife that happened to be at hand. But why? Outside the building, on a playground. And where had the knife come from? And why on earth wouldn’t she have told the truth to the police?

  I considered consulting Ulrika about this line of reasoning, but I was afraid she would dismiss my ideas as fantasy and try to make me reconsider my actions. She seemed to have a completely different opinion about how we could best help Stella. I didn’t understand how she could trust Michael Blomberg so completely. He may have been extraordinarily qualified, and he was certainly capable, but it didn’t feel like he was sufficiently engaged. Why was Stella still in custody? And we still hadn’t been allowed to see her.

  Instead I decided to talk to the police. This could not sta
nd. Anyone could see that Linda Lokind would be able to provide knowledge in this investigation. Why was Stella locked up when Linda was the one who had motive?

  I increased my speed until I was nearly running up Stora Södergatan. As I reached the Stäket restaurant and the Färgaren parking garage, my phone rang in my pocket. It was my mother. She spoke breathlessly, and some of what she said was lost, but there was no mistaking her general message.

  Everyone knew.

  The evening papers had published online articles about Stella. This afternoon there had even been a brief story on the radio news. She hadn’t been mentioned by name—respect for journalistic ethics hadn’t fallen completely by the wayside, at least—but they had generously given enough clues that anyone who wanted to know her identity didn’t have to put in too much effort to find out.

  “Aunt Dagny already called to ask if it’s true,” Mom said.

  She sounded so shaken.

  “Tell her the truth. The police have made a mistake.”

  As soon as we hung up, I slipped into the small alley beside the parking garage to find an out-of-the-way spot. I walked straight through the building and out the other side. Then, on a bench outside the Katedral School, I devoted half an hour to self-destructive googling. First I read what had been written in the papers, and then I moved on to shadier sites. The information ran the gamut from general facts about Stella and our family to flat-out lies and crazy speculation.

  She showed a lot of promise at handball, but she couldn’t control her temper.

  She was probably waiting for him on the playground. Olsen was worth millions, it must have been planned.

  I read it all and just wanted to scream. It was so out of touch with reality. And the people who were typing these comments in front of their screens were the same folks I might meet on the street, in church, maybe even in a courtroom.

  I had to talk to the police. As I walked up Lilla Fiskaregatan, I called and notified Agnes Thelin that I was on my way. She relayed that I was welcome to drop by.

  I was stopped several times on my walk by curious people who wanted to talk to me. I was forced to stand there, surrounded by people who knew who I was but whose names I had long since forgotten, as bikes whooshed past and the Romanian man outside Pressbyrån played the theme from The Godfather on his accordion.