Chapter 6
1757 Words
Chapter 6
The higher functions of my brain kind of stopped at the word "murder." But the other bits were still running well enough to invite the policeman inside to talk and offer him some coffee.
The minute we were inside, my grandmother saw that I was ambling around like a head-injured zombie and brought me over to a chair at the bar. She poured coffee for me, the officer, and herself, and I took a sip before finally getting a sensible word out.
Just one. "Murder?" I said.
"What murder?" my grandmother asked.
"Hey," the officer held up his hands in mock surrender then took off his hat and glasses. He was instantly more human, just a young guy in a uniform, not a half-robot enforcer of justice or anything. "Let's start at the beginning. I'm Officer Foster from the county sheriff's office. I've just been sent to ask a few questions of Ingrid Torfa here. And you are?"
"Nora Torfa, her grandmother," my grandmother said.
"Murder?" I said again. My brain was clearly stuck on that concept.
"To be clear, you're not a suspect," he said. "I've spoken with everyone else who was at the scene last night, and it's pretty clear the victim was dead before you were even in town."
"She was lying on the road," I said. "I didn't think she was dead. I thought maybe she was sleeping. But she wasn't moving. I don't know; it all happened so fast."
"I'm sure," he said. "Did you see anything else? Perhaps on your way into town? Another car fleeing the scene, maybe?"
"No. There was no other car, at least not on the highway," I said. My grandmother was looking at me intently, like she was willing me to understand some telepathic message she was sending my way. But I had no idea what that message was. "I did see a man," I said to the officer, and my grandmother sighed then turned her attention to her coffee.
"A man?" he said.
"Yes, a big man. Like a..."
Don't say Viking. Don't say Viking. Don't say...
"Football player," I said. "Like a linebacker, maybe? Tall and muscles everywhere."
"Really," he said, his pencil poised over his notebook. "Didn't anyone else see him?"
"I guess not," I said.
"So this was outside of town?" he asked.
My grandmother was staring at me again, which was getting annoying. It was hard enough answering the policeman's questions without her glaring at me like I might get an answer wrong.
"No, he was standing over the body," I said. "I don't think I would've seen her in time if he hadn't been there. He had this spear in his hands, but across his body like this." I demonstrated, my hands curled around nothingness but showing how he had been holding the shaft of the spear. "Like a crossing guard, you know?"
"A... spear?" the policeman asked, rubbing at his head.
"Like for fishing," my grandmother said between sips of coffee. The man jumped like he'd forgotten she was there.
"And you are?" he asked.
"Nora Torfa," she said as if she hadn't already told him that. "Ingrid's grandmother."
"Ingrid," he repeated as if trying to remember why that was familiar. Then he looked over at me. "Oh, right. Can you describe this man with a..." he consulted his notes, "spear?"
"Well, tall and jacked," I said. "With red hair."
"Like yours?" he asked.
"No, more strawberry blond. But that doesn't sound manly, does it? Strawberry blond but in a manly way," I said.
"Ginger," my grandmother said. The man jumped again. He opened his mouth to speak, but she answered before he could get a word out. "Nora Torfa. Ingrid's grandmother."
"Right," he said. "How old was this man, would you guess?"
"Thirty, maybe?" I ventured. "I'm bad at guessing ages. He had long hair and a beard, though. But not in a hipster way. More like..." any picture I had ever drawn of a Viking... "More like a... like a Viking." I had no other way to end that sentence.
My grandmother was facepalming, although if she was covering up irritation or impending laughter or something else, I couldn't tell.
"Right," the officer said, frowning at his notes. "Where was this?"
"Right over the body," I said. "Give me your notebook; I'll draw you a picture."
"No, don't do that," my grandmother said, reaching across the counter to put an arm between us before he could hand me his notebook.
"Why not?" I asked. "Why are you acting all crazy?"
"Oh," the man said, jumping yet again. "Who are you?"
"Nora Torfa. Ingrid's grandmother," my grandmother said. "I think Ingrid's told you all she can, but if you want to leave your card, we'll call you if she thinks of anything else."
"Yes. Right," the man said, blinking for a moment then standing up to retrieve a card from his wallet. It was a generic card for the entire county sheriff's office, but he turned it over to write his name and extension on the back. "You can talk to me first if that's more comfortable for you, but I'm not actually the officer in charge of the case."
"You just drew the short straw," my grandmother said. Which made no sense to me but made the officer laugh.
"Yes, actually," he said. "No one else wanted to go, but no one would tell me why. I'm actually from South Dakota; I've only been stationed here for a couple of months. Is this town supposed to be haunted or cursed or something?"
"Or something," my grandmother said, stepping out from behind the bar to walk with him back to the door.
I just sat there looking down at the half-full cup of coffee sitting on the bar in front of me. Was there something in it? Some substance that addled all our brains? Because the last five minutes had just been the strangest in my life.
And I'd nearly run over a Viking the night before.
"Officer, can you do me a favor?" my grandmother asked as she swung the door open, and a shaft of afternoon sunlight penetrated the dark interior of the hall.
"Sure thing," he said, but then added, "and who are you?"
"Nora Torfa. Ingrid's grandmother," she said as calmly as ever. "Do you have a cause of death on Lisa Sorensen yet?"
"Well, the guess is some kind of poisoning, but she hasn't been autopsied yet. We'll know more then," he said.
"Poisoning and not natural causes?" she asked.
"She may have accidentally ingested something poisonous?" he said like he wasn't sure that was the answer she had been looking for.
"The autopsy will tell you what the substance was?" my grandmother asked.
"Hopefully," he said. He tucked his notebook away and put his hat back on his head, setting it at just the right angle before adding the sunglasses. He was clearly ready to go, but my grandmother was still blocking his way.
"When you know what it was, or just have it narrowed down to a class of substances, call me," she said. Then she leaned in as if making sure that he made eye contact with her through the darkly reflective lenses of his sunglasses.
"I will," he said. "I promise."
"Thank you, officer," my grandmother said and stepped out of his way.
"I will call you as soon as I know anything," he said as he backed out of the door. "And your name is...?"
"You'll remember it when you need to," my grandmother said with a sigh that finally showed an edge of impatience to it.
"I will," he said, then touched the brim of his hat at her and at me and was gone.
"More coffee?" my grandmother asked as she came back to the bar.
"What's in it?" I asked.
My grandmother raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Are you accusing me of poisoning an officer of the law?"
"Maybe not poison, but something wasn't right," I said. "Did you drug him or something? Why was he so confused?"
"He can't help it," my grandmother said, pouring fresh coffee into her own mug and taking a long swallow despite the scalding heat of it. "He'll feel better by the time he reaches the highway. And by the time he gets back to the station, he'll remember a version of events that's a skeleton of the things he needed to know, fleshed out with everything he expected to have happened."
"Huh?" I said.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
"But it does," I said. "Is this why my memories are so messed up?"
"You're getting your memories back," she said.
"You knew that was happening?"
"Well, you keep mentioning it," she said and took another drink of coffee.
"Mormor!" I said, slamming my hands down on the bar. "Tell me the truth. Did you do something to that police officer?"
"No," she said. "You're in a sleepy town that the highway shoots right over and past without stopping. Completely forgettable. Granted, I'm sure you had no idea how quickly that happens, but still. It happens all the time. People forget Runde."
I pressed my hands to my face, trying to pull myself back together. I wasn't sure if my grandmother was serious, or crazy, or pulling my leg. And the looks she kept giving me over the rim of her coffee mug were pure inscrutability.
"I should eat," I said instead. "Didn't you say something about lunch?"
"That had been the plan," my grandmother said, setting her now-empty mug in the sink behind the bar, then pouring out the coffee at the bottom of my mug and the officer's.
"And now?"
"Now we're going to see the Sorensens," she said. "Don't worry; I'm sure by now they have more food than they know what to do with."
"Why there?" I asked as I followed her to the door.
"Because their daughter has just been murdered," she said.
"But surely they already know?" I said. "That officer seemed out of it, but someone must've told them."
"Yes, they know," she said. "Everyone knows. That's how I know they'll have food there. But we have some other questions to ask them."
"We?" I asked.
"Yes, we."
"But what are we going to ask them?"
My grandmother sighed and stopped walking to face me. "Look, you saw that officer. He's not unique. The others who try to come down here are going to be in the same state, if not worse."
"But why?" I asked.
"Never mind that now," she said, waving her hand around as if my question was a particularly annoying mosquito. "The point is, they aren't going to be able to figure out who did this and why. So we have to."
"Are we qualified to do that?" I asked.
My grandmother chuckled at that. "Maybe more than you know," she said. But then she took off walking so fast I could barely keep up with her let alone keep pestering her with questions.
- Writer
