Page 18 of The Living and the Dead

The medical examiner pursed his lips. “Maybe.”

—

When Gerd leaned down once more, she noticed flakes of rust in the boy’s hair.

“A hammer?” she suggested.

“Or a shovel,” Siri said. “Something like that.”

It really waskymig.Not just that Mikael was the one lying there—it was the car, too, the fact that it belonged to Madeleine Grenberg. She had bought it for herself and her daughter, Felicia, after Göran died and they could no longer make payments on their big Ford.

Madeleine herself had called the police this morning when she woke up and made her way, on her crutches, to the kitchen to brew coffee. She had looked out the kitchen window and wondered where on earth her car had gone.

Madeleine’s injury was also a well-known fact, even though no one in the village had witnessed her fall from the roof yesterday. Several people had heard her calls for help as she lay on the ground, though; among them was Frans Ljunggren, a mechanic, who came to her rescue and drove her to the hospital. Her left leg was X-rayed, examined, and placed in a cast up to her knee. Now she needed crutches to get around, and Felicia was sticking around their house to help her out.

At the moment, Madeleine was near the scene, tippy and unsteady on the crutches; apparently she hadn’t gotten used to them yet. The two officers made their way over to her. Madeleine looked fragile and shaken; her handshake was chilly and slack.

“Hi,” Siri said. “My name is Siri. I’m new.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” she said. “Is it really Mikael?”

“Yes,” Gerd said. “I’m afraid it is. How did your car end up here?”

“No idea. I have no idea.” She repeated the words mechanically, tonelessly. “It was in its usual spot at our place when we went to bed last night.”

“And when was that?”

“Oh, a little before eleven, maybe.” She nodded at her cast. “They prescribed pills to help me sleep. Once those kicked in, I slept like the dead. Felicia went to bed at the same time. The car was gone when I got up this morning, but I was still all groggy from the pills, so it took a while for me to realize something was wrong.”

It wasn’t uncommon for people to borrow the car, especially young people in the village who didn’t have cars of their own yet, but they always asked first. After checking with her daughter, Madeleine felt she had no choice but to call the police and report it stolen.

“Your daughter thought you should call,” Siri said, more as a statement than a question. “What time did she go to bed, again?”

“At the same time as me.”

“And did you see her during the night?”

“No, it, I…The pills, like I mentioned. Why?”

“We have to ask, Madeleine,” said Gerd, as though she were speaking to a friend, nodding toward the car. “Given that it’s your car, and the keys are in the ignition, that means whoever took it had access to the keys. And there’s the fact of Mikael. Felicia knows him, obviously.”

“Yeah. Of course.” She nodded, her gaze vacant, and wobbled on her crutches. “I’m happy to help. You know, sometimes I just leave the keys in the car, because who’s going to steal it out here? And on occasion I forget to take them out of the ignition.”

A moment later, Madeleine hopped stiffly away on her crutches.

“Listen, Gerd,” Siri said. “What she said about leaving the keys in the car. Can that really be true?”

“Welcome to the boonies,” Gerd said.

She crossed her arms and studied the vehicles that had begun togather outside the cordoned area. Old Kjell was still there with his dog. He was giving a loud and dramatic account of his morning walk and the discovery of the car to anyone who would listen.

Gerd clicked on her radio and called the station.

“Where are we at with the dogs?”

“The closest team is in Gothenburg. It’s going to take all day to get them here.”

Gerd shook her head. “Thanks, I guess,” she said, and clicked off.