“There are no guns?”
“We actually do have many guns. There’s a lot of hunting in Norway. But there’s almost no gun violence.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“On a fundamental level,” says Sigrid, “I think it’s because we don’t want to shoot each other.”
“That could be our problem right there,” says Melinda.
Gloria Dillane lives twenty minutes from campus on a suburban back road lined with old growth trees and sensible cars. As the police cruiser ambles down the road with Irv squinting to find the numbers (“They’re on the mailboxes, Sheriff,” says Melinda), a flurry of bicycles slip into their wake and the kids pump their two-strokes as fast as their sprockets allow trying to keep up with the car.
Sigrid sees Irv glance at the pursuers through the rearview before activating the lights for a second. The kids all whoop. He turns it off before parking on the street outside Ms. Dillane’s house. It is painted a dark gray with white trimming along its gable roof. Care has been applied to the small lawn out front. Ferns and purple astilbe line the short driveway. To Sigrid, it exudes middle-income tranquility. Gloria and her husband probably bought into the neighborhood before it became unaffordable for teachers and professors and now use the equity for steady improvements to keep up the value. This tranquility, though, may only be an illusion. If Gloria was indeed close to Lydia and her family, it must be hell in there.
Gloria herself opens the door before Sheriff Irv knocks. She is slight, and her blond hair falls limply to her shoulders. She wears mascara and it turns her eyes deeper and sadder rather than larger and more intense. Irv removes his hat and extends his hand to Gloria. She receives it without any look of interest or curiosity in her face.
“I’m Sheriff Irving Wylie. This is Deputy Melinda Powell. And . . . this is Sigrid Odegard, who is Marcus’s sister. Marcus is missing and she’s helping us find him.”
“Ødegård,” Sigrid says. She shakes Gloria’s hand. Her grip is weak and dry.
“Come in,” she says.
The house—much like Melinda’s—is awash in colors. Here, though, the quality of the furniture is finer, the sense of permanence runs deeper, and the home shows a precarious balance between aesthetic preference and the utilitarian solutions imposed by the management of children.
The shoe sizes speak of two boys and a little girl. The silence says they are out.
Gloria leads them into the living room to the right of the hall, decorated for entertaining guests rather than everyday use. It looks the way most living rooms do on American TV shows featuring affluent white people. There is a sofa facing two armchairs across a low and wide coffee table with books not intended for reading. There is a flatscreen television mounted above the fireplace. There are plants poorly suited for this climate.
In Oslo, most homes have modern sectionals pressed against the walls, opening up the space for wandering. The furniture here is similar to the kind Scandinavians used to make: heavy and wooden and built for the ages. Now everything in Scandinavia is modular and treated as modern art, though much of it is designed to be cheap and disposable.
Gloria extends her arm toward the guest seats after settling into her wingback chair. Sigrid positions herself next to Melinda on the sofa.
“Thanks for meeting with us, Professor Dillane,” says the sheriff.
“I gave a statement last month to Officer Cory . . . I forget his name,” Gloria says. “He was on campus.”
“Yes,” says Melinda. “We know. We wanted to talk with you.”
“How are you?” asks Irv, whose phone buzzes before Gloria can answer. He glances at it and dismisses the call.
“Terrible. And no one will tell me what happened. I spoke with Lydia’s parents but they’ve withdrawn and won’t discuss it. I tried speaking with Reverend Green and . . . it doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Melinda asks.
“After Jeffrey was killed, the black community rallied behind the Simmonses. And so did many of us—many of us . . . whites,” she says and stops talking. Sigrid watches her face as it expresses a mental journey she is taking alone. On finding a path, she returns to the conversation: “The faculty. The students. The black community in the city and in Jeffrey’s neighborhood. Everyone came out to support Jeffrey’s parents and also Lydia’s parents. Lydia was . . . destroyed . . . but she was as active as she could be. Reverend Fred Green . . . at First Baptist? You know him?”
Irv nods.
“He was central to galvanizing the community for Jeffrey. Before the verdict, anyway. And now . . . Lydia’s dead at the side of a building and there’s nothing. Complete silence. Her parents aren’t talking to the media. Reverend Green is nowhere to be seen, and no one’s looking for her killer.” Gloria looks up at Irv. “Why aren’t you looking for her killer, Sheriff? What are you doing? What happened to her? Why are you here?”
“We are looking for answers,” Irving says. His voice is authoritative, deep, and tranquil. In those five words Sigrid does not hear the man-boy and the prankster. She hears an adult who feels and is able to convey the gravity of the matter and is prepared to shoulder it.
“Was she murdered by a black man?” Gloria asks. Her voice is almost a whisper. “Is that why you’re not telling me what happened?” She presses herself farther back into the chair as if distancing herself from the answer.
Sigrid looks out the window. It is unfairly bright for such a discussion.
“Was she? Was she killed by a black man?” she asks, whispering again.
“What makes you ask that?” Melinda says.
“If she was killed by a black man, it would turn the whole conversation away from Jeffrey. It would undermine our moral argument. It would explain why the black community has stopped talking. The police would say, ‘Told you so’ and Jeffrey’s death would be forgotten.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Sigrid says.
“It would,” Gloria says. “People are looking for any reason to justify a police shooting and to vilify and
