“Are you Irving Wylie?” she asks.
“That pleasure is mine,” Irving says without conviction.
“I’m here to report a missing person,” she adds.
She is foreign. He can’t place the accent, though. The three most common foreign accents up here are French Canadian, Mexican, and Brooklyn, and she doesn’t sound like any of the three.
“I can help you with that,” he offers.
“Are you the police chief?”
“I’m the sheriff.”
The woman does not reply.
Irv removes his feet from the desk and sits properly. He reaches for a pen and clicks it open a few times for effect. It clearly has none, so he continues:
“I’m Irving Wylie, duly elected second-term sheriff, at your service. You can call me Irv. What’s in the guitar case?”
“A guitar. You were elected?”
“Well . . . it wasn’t a coup or rigged or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering. What kind of guitar?”
“Acoustic. You elect police officers in America?”
“We elect sheriffs in much of America and specifically here in Jefferson County. Ma’am, are you on any medication?”
“No.”
“Are you supposed to be?”
Irv can’t recall the last time a blonde made him nervous. Redheads, obviously, but not blondes.
Well, actually, there was the odd Nazi or two, and there has been some minor trouble with white supremacist gangs, but those were all blond men. Not women. This woman is clearly not a gang member either. She isn’t a drug user, a heavy smoker, a chronic drinker, nor does she have any obvious tattoos. She isn’t wearing anything to concern him, like gang colors, swastikas, or One Percenter icons. Still, something about her unsettles him. He wants to put his finger on it, give it a name.
“Why are there no chairs in front of your desk?” she asks.
“There’s a birthday party in the next room and they needed the chairs. We didn’t expect the morning rush we’re having right now. Can you slowly open the guitar case, please?”
Sigrid opens the guitar case, removes the guitar, and plays an E chord, which is all she knows.
“That was lovely. Would you like a chair? I can arrange that.”
“I’d like you to find my brother. He’s missing,” she says, returning the guitar to the case.
“Maybe we can do both; let’s see if we’re up to the challenge.” Irv stands up, brushes some breakfast crumbs from his shirt, and pops into the Green Room to emerge moments later with a steel-legged office chair with a drab olive vinyl seat. He places it in front of his desk and taps it two times for effect.
Sigrid removes the shoulder bag and sits down.
“I know what it is,” he says.
“You know what what is?” she asks.
“You’re very composed. A cool cucumber.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Sigrid replies.
“Doesn’t matter. Lay it on me,” says Irv in a warm and deep voice.
“My brother lives here and he’s missing. I visited his home this morning and found that he’s been absent for about two weeks. He allegedly told a local prostitute she could stay in the house and that he was leaving. I have no proof of that but I believe her. What’s unclear are the circumstances in which he left, his motives, whether he was coerced, and . . . of course . . . the fundamental matters of his whereabouts and well-being. The prostitute’s name is Juliet McKenna. And she says you have been to his house and you’re looking for him too. Which I take to be good news, but it makes me wonder who filed the missing person and when.”
Irving was attentive at his desk with his elbows resting and fingers locked. “That was well presented. Are you a cop?”
“Yes.”
“Not from around here, you’re not.”
“I’m from Norway.”
“Norway?”
“It’s a country in northern Europe—”
“I know where it is. How long have you been in America?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Can you prove that?”
Sigrid does not answer.
“Did you understand my question?”
“I’m thinking about the answer.” Sigrid is silent for another moment and it makes Irv fidget.
“Yes. There’s a stamp in my passport. Here it is.” She hands it to him and he examines it.
“Can you prove you’re a cop?”
Sigrid removes her ID from her wallet and hands that to him too.
It is a hard plastic card with her picture on it, a code in hi-viz yellow letters and numbers on a black background and across the bottom it says POLITI. Irv flips it around and holds it up to the light, illuminating the numerous security codes and holograms. The name on the badge matches the name on the passport, which matches the face of the woman with the calm demeanor in front of him.
Sigrid remains sitting across from Irv as he searches the internet for images of Norwegian police ID cards. They look like this one.
“OK, you’re a cop,” he says to her, handing back the card and passport. “And it does sound like your brother is missing or something like it. What’s his name?”
“Marcus Ødegård,” she says, hoping the full name will help.
“Marcus?”
“Yes.”
“Man, you really buried the lede, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means. English isn’t my first language.”
“We know Marcus Odegard,” he says, pronouncing it with an atrocious accent. “We’re already looking for him, and your English sounds superb.”
Sigrid sits back in her chair. “Yes. I heard you were at his house. What can you tell me?”
“What I can tell you, Ms. Odegard, is that your brother Marcus is wanted in connection with the death of Professor Lydia Jones. Which, in our view, is why he’s missing.”
Corinthians 13
Sheriff Irving Wylie removes a folder from his drawer and invites Sigrid to follow him through a door behind his desk, down a narrow gray hallway, and into a large room containing two holding cells, both empty. Irv steps casually into the closest one, sits on a long bench to the left, and starts unpacking the contents of his folder.
Sigrid lingers at the entrance to the jail cell and looks at the open door.
“Well, come on in, don’t be shy,” Irv says, not looking up.
“Why are we sitting in a cell?”
“The Green Room is occupied and the interview room is
