“Do you share that understanding, about Ohler as vermin?”
“If that were the case, I would be very careful about airing such opinions.”
“Wise,” said Sammy Nilsson. “But now we have to be going. Nice to get a little perspective on existence.”
“What the hell are succulents?” Sammy exclaimed as they were getting in the car.
“What the hell did you mean by being so contrary? He was a friendly old man.”
The throng of journalists was standing in a semicircle in front of Ohler’s steps. On the steps stood the professor. The whole thing resembled a press conference at the White House.
“Yes, old, and perhaps friendly, definitely to us, but I think there’s some shit there. I thought Haller hinted at a few things. He stood surrounded by dirt and a number of stones that he had dug up, did you see that? He also said something about ‘there is more ammunition for anyone who is interested.’ He stank of booze, did you notice that? And he talked about the associate professor as his ‘brother-in-arms,’ what did he mean by that?”
Lindell leaned her head back and closed her eyes and immediately after that her ears. She did not want to hear more about associate professors and skulls. They would write a report, then turn their attention to essentials.
The essentials proved to be a sixty-year-old garage owner and member of the Home Guard in the Almunge area who had gotten tired of his wife and then of himself.
The wife was tied up with her back to a chopping block in the woodshed, shot once in the head and once in the chest. The walls of the shed were covered with dried blood, brain matter, and bone chips.
The man was on his back a couple of meters outside the woodshed. Half of his skull was missing. By his side was a hunting rifle.
It was a neighbor who found them. He had heard the shots and “immediately understood” that something was wrong.
“It’s to defend his home,” said Sammy Nilsson, kicking at the foundation of a tank that was on the yard.
After the first attack of nausea, he vomited in the woodshed. He had been seized by fury and yelled at the man who was lying at his feet.
Lindell had been forced to pull him away from the dead man.
“We don’t know what happened,” she said.
“He tied her up,” said Sammy.
That she could not deny and therefore did not say anything. She was also nauseated, partly by the sight of the dead, partly from the smell of diesel.
“Let’s move away a little,” she said, taking Sammy by the arm.
They walked in silence. There was not much they could do now, the technicians would have to perform their duties first. Lindell was struck by the dramatic difference between the villa in Kåbo and the farm in Almunge. Ottosson called just when they had left the associate professor and driven up to the main road. One moment among the bigwigs and the next in front of two dead people in a little village in the country, the man obviously unhappy, evil, or crazy, or all three at once. With the woman bound and terrified in the presence of her husband, Lindell thought this was obviously an uncommonly brutal sight that indicated a kind of planning, and she understood Sammy’s rage. But he was too blocked to start reasoning, so she had to do it for herself.
Perhaps he “only” wanted to scare her by tying her up, but then the sequence of events got out of control? But why in the woodshed? Had it started as a silly quarrel? Probably they would never find out. They had not, after a quick check in the house, found any letter or message that might cast the least bit of light on the background to what happened. The only thing they discovered that suggested a drama was a torn-open box of bullets on the kitchen table. Some bullets had rolled onto the floor.
Could it be a double murder? The question had to be asked, even if Lindell realized it was not very likely.
It took an hour for the technicians to arrive. During that time Sammy and Lindell questioned the neighbors, most of them elderly, who lived closest. They were obviously shocked, the village was small, everyone knew everyone. No one could give a reasonable explanation for the whole thing. As far as the neighbors knew, the man had never before threatened or abused his wife.
“They seemed to be like most folks,” said one of them, who had recently moved into an older, half-dilapidated shack. “I got help from him to fix the roof. He was a real hard worker, rarely allowed himself a break.”
“She was not particularly talkative but thoughtful,” said a very pregnant woman who lived two houses away. “We used to bake together.”
When they left her she was crying uncontrollably and Lindell felt like a villain.
“I think he didn’t have much work after the summer,” the nearest neighbor, a farmer, mentioned. “Maybe he got depressed? We had talked about him helping me with the fertilizing. Now I’ll have to find someone else and it’s not that easy.”
Lindell had experienced this many times before, how people close to the eye of the storm got hung up on everyday details about the dead.
“Depressed” was a word that turned up again and again in Lindell’s thoughts, while they poked around the farm. Fredriksson and Beatrice, who had joined them half an hour before, went through the house. Fredriksson looked moderately amused, he always wanted to be outdoors, but the itching seemed to have stopped. When he disappeared into the house Lindell saw that the hair on the back of his neck was sticky from some yellow-white cream.
All in all, the farm looked a little depressing, careless in some way. Perhaps the season contributed to the impression?
There were no children to notify. According to an uncertain piece of information, the man had a half-sister “up north.” According to the neighbors, the couple otherwise never talked about any relatives.
“If there are any relatives, then they certainly won’t talk about the dead, especially not about the old bastard,” said Sammy, who seemed unusually bitter and restless.
Or the other way around, thought Lindell. Now perhaps the family can really talk rubbish. But she did not say anything so as not to add further fuel to the fire.
On the way home Lindell fell asleep in the car. That was not unusual. She had a talent for dropping off after a period of tension. Others got wound up, Lindell fell asleep.
Sammy woke her before the Gnista roundabout.
“Are you going home or to day care?”
“No, I have to get the bicycle,” said Lindell.
She looked at the clock and determined that she had plenty of time to pick up Erik.
“A day on the job,” she said, as they turned down into the garage under the police station.
Sammy gave her a quick glance and mumbled something.
Sixteen
“Who has access to skulls?”
Sammy Nilsson’s question was tossed out unexpectedly before the morning gathering had formally been opened. All eyes were aimed at him, the majority very surprised. Yesterday’s incident with Ohler was not the sort of thing they dealt with in Homicide. The newspaper had not revealed what the threats against the professor were, other than that a stone had been thrown at the house.
“Grave diggers,” said Fredriksson.
“Doctors,” Sammy Nilsson answered himself.
“You can’t rule out the associate professor,” said Lindell with a smile.
“The old man is cunning,” said Sammy. “He and that gardener have cooked something up, I’m dead sure of it.”
“And what would that be?” asked Ottosson, who looked amused.
Perhaps he thought it was liberating for a change to make small talk about somewhat less dreadful crimes than murder.
“I don’t know,” said Sammy, “but I think that the gardener threw the stone and the associate professor set out the skull.”