different prison.”
“What was Hoffa in for?”
“Aggravated assault. The victim will never be a human being again. It was a fight between rival motorcycle gangs. We don’t have any evidence against Shorty. He’ll probably be released tomorrow. Andersson is frantic.”
Irene and Tommy told her about their discoveries that afternoon. Birgitta didn’t interrupt the story. She stared at them steadily, not wanting to miss a word. There was an intense gleam in her eyes when she leaned over her piping hot goulash and said in a low voice, “The beautiful people and their glamorous life. It’s so enticing and enviable when you see it from a distance. But if you start to scratch the surface, the gold soon turns to dust.”
AT NINE o’clock Irene called Mona Soder at home and left a message on her answering machine.
“Hi, Mona. This is Irene Huss in Goteborg. I want to thank you for telling me everything and letting me meet Jonas. It was a big help in the investigation that we didn’t have to keep checking on you two. You’ve been completely eliminated from the suspect list. I’ve. . been thinking about Jonas. Please give him my fondest regards. Tell him that the butterfly painting is the most wonderful I’ve ever seen. Talk to you later, Mona. I. . we’ll talk.” Quickly she hung up. Then she drove home.
Chapter Sixteen
IT SMELLED LIKE COFFEE and gingersnaps at “morning prayers.” Everyone had come, except for Hans Borg and Superintendent Andersson. The secretary had set up an Advent wreath, and the first candle was lit. In the windows stood the electric ones, spreading a soft, cozy glow. Irene was already into her fourth cup of coffee of the morning when the boss’s steps were heard approaching down the corridor. They sounded determined. There was a sense of foreboding when the door was flung open and Andersson’s bright red face appeared in the doorway.
Angrily he shouted, “Damn, it’s dark in here. Turn on the lights!”
He stepped inside and poured himself some coffee, looked down into the steaming cup, and took a deep whiff.
“You’ll have to excuse me. Happy Advent, or whatever it’s called. But everything is going to hell! Shorty is going to be released this morning. And that God damned standalone has fallen into the cellar!”
Borg appeared in the doorway just in time to hear the boss’s words. He nodded and said, “That’s right. They called me when the standalone broke through. It’s going to be salvaged later today. We decided to start digging for those pipes instead. Now there’s a hole anyway. They have to redo the support work over the weekend. We won’t have another chance to lift out the safe until Monday morning at the earliest.”
Jonny Blom looked annoyed and urged, “Why don’t we just knock down the walls with one of those big balls on the end of a crane? Quick and easy!”
Borg dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Too rough. The whole building could come crashing down and then it would be hard to locate the safe.”
“How are we going to open it?”
“We’ve checked it out with binoculars. It’s a Swedish safe with a combination lock. A guy from Rosengren’s is coming to help us. There’s probably no bomb inside, but we’re going to take safety precautions when we open it.”
Andersson gave the group a grim look and said, “We’re not getting anywhere. This is going too slow! Damn!”
The last had to be interpreted as a general comment on the state of things. No one ventured an opposing point of view.
Irene reported on her interview with Charlotte von Knecht and the conversation with her young lover. Tommy took over and told about Robert Skytter’s revelations. By the time Irene presented Chong’s story from the ’89 raid, they had quite a different image of the charming Charlotte von Knecht, nee Croona.
Andersson’s face was beginning to return to normal, but his voice was strident. “That filly doesn’t have clean oats in her feed bag. Or to put it more precisely, clean snow! Ha ha!
Birgitta hurried to his rescue and said pedantically, “Freebase. Cocaine mixed with bicarbonate of soda. That’s what’s sold on the street. Pure cocaine is too strong and too dangerous. And who can check how much baking soda they put in?”
Now that she had started, she told them about her visit to Vanersborg to see Bobo’s mother. It had produced nothing of value. Mother and son seemed not to have had any contact in recent years. It had been almost two years since they last saw each other. But she had brought up the question again about the insurance payment in the event of death. Birgitta had referred her to the claims office of the current insurance company. The mother hadn’t seen Bobo’s father in more than twenty years, but she knew that he was a total outcast. She herself had remarried, lived in a house outside of Vanersborg, and worked in a candy store. Birgitta’s final tidbit was the discovery that Bobo Torsson and Glenn “Hoffa” Stromberg had done time in the same prison, but she had been unable to find any connection between Shorty and the two Hell’s Angels, except for Shorty and Paul Svensson’s abortive participation in the bank robbery in Kungsbacka in the early eighties.
Andersson sighed heavily. “And today we have to release that son-of-a-bitch! Jonny and I have both grilled him, but it didn’t produce a thing. Except that we suspect he knows who killed Bobo. That’s why I want surveillance on him. Jonny? Hans? Fredrik? Birgitta?”
They all nodded. Only Fredrik looked enthusiastic. Andersson went on, “And how’s it going with Bobo’s drunken father? Did you get hold of him, Hannu?”
“Yes. At Lillhagen.”
“He’s been admitted to Lillhagen Hospital?”
“Right. He can’t walk or talk. He’s dying of liver cancer.”
“But Lillhagen is a mental hospital. He shouldn’t be there if he has liver cancer.”
“Nobody would take him. He was admitted this summer. They found him passed out in a stairwell on the north side of town.”
There was a brief pause as they poured more coffee and reached their hands into the plastic container to grab some gingersnaps. Andersson stacked up three cookies and bit into all of them at once. The result was a shower of crumbs. With his mouth full of gingersnaps he said, “Fredrik, did you find out anything new yesterday?”
Fredrik’s face lit up, and he began energetically leafing through his notebook full of scribblings. “You bet! Two interesting new observations on Molinsgatan. I did another round with the tenants yesterday and asked if anyone had seen or heard anything at midnight on Friday, a week ago. Especially if anyone had seen or heard the Porsche. It’s not a car you can sneak around in. A guy whose baby had a stomachache was up with the kid at that time. His living room window faces Molinsgatan, two floors above von Knecht’s garage. He remembers that he heard a car braking hard outside the garage, then someone fussing with the garage doors. They’re old and stiff and creak like crazy. Next he heard a car start up and drive out of the garage. After a while another car started and was driven into the garage. By then the guy was curious and went over to the window to take a look. There stood the Porsche parked on the street. He stood there almost fifteen minutes, rocking the kid by the window. The baby fell asleep and he put him to bed. Then he went to the john, and when he got back he heard the Porsche starting up. When he got to the window and looked out, it was gone.”
“This is great! Did he see anybody?”
“No.”
“Does he know exactly what time it was?”
“No. But he thinks the Porsche drove off sometime between twelve-thirty and a quarter to one.”
Andersson rubbed his nose excitedly, so it shone Christmas-red. Irene spontaneously thought of a certain Rudolph with the red nose, but she kept her associations to herself. Pondering, the superintendent said, “Someone parks a car outside. Someone opens the garage door. Someone drives out the Porsche. Someone drives his car into the garage. Someone drives off in the Porsche.”
Everyone nodded to show that they were following along.
