The Blinded Man aka Misterioso

9

Jan-Olov Hultin again made his entrance through the mysterious door on the far side of the room, which Jorge Chavez somewhat ironically called “Supreme Central Command.” The half-moon reading glasses were already perched on the wide bridge of his nose. Hultin turned to face the assembled members of the A-Unit. Everyone was leafing through their papers and notebooks.

“So this morning the whole thing was made public,” said Hultin grimly. “In all the newspapers simultaneously, by the way. Somebody was busy making calls. Or else there’s some sort of cooperation among all sectors of the media. We haven’t yet located the leak. Maybe it was simply impossible to keep such a major case secret. At least we had a day’s head start.”

He went over to the whiteboard, twisted the top off one of the felt markers, and got ready to fire. The pen was now his service weapon.

“At any rate, it looks as if some feverish activity has been going on inside your A-Unit brains today. Let’s see the results. Norlander?”

Viggo Norlander bent over his dark blue notebook. “Modus operandi,” he said. “I’ve been in contact with everybody from the FBI to Liechtenstein’s security force and done a whole bunch of cross-checking through the worldwide phone network. Three of the groups that are currently active consistently use shots to the head when it comes to blatant executions: a branch within the American mafia, under the mob boss Carponi, in Chicago, of all classic gangster cities; a semi-extinct separatist group from the Red Army Faction, under the command of Hans Kopff; and a minor Russian-Estonian crime group led by Mr. Viktor X, which you might call a segment of the Russian mafia, whatever that label is now worth. Most cases have been executions of traitors or snitches; no instance has involved two and only two shots. So far I haven’t been able to track down any examples of two shots to the head. I’ll keep looking.”

“Thanks, Viggo,” said Hultin. He’d already filled a corner of the board with notes. “Nyberg and the enemies they had in common?”

The imposing Gunnar Nyberg seemed uncomfortable as he gripped a pen in his big right hand.

“It looks like a dead end,” he said dubiously. “I haven’t found any common enemies. Both men attended the Stockholm School of Economics, but Strand-Julén was seven years older, so they weren’t there at the same time. That’s the place where people tend to make friends and enemies for life. A couple of decades ago Daggfeldt kicked a colleague out of a business that they’d started together under the name of ContoLine. The man’s name is Unkas Storm. I located him, in a highly intoxicated state, at a small scrap-metal company in Bandhagen. He still harbors a deep hatred toward Daggfeldt. He said that he, quote, ‘danced on his coffin,’ unquote, when he heard about the murder. But he doesn’t know Strand-Julén.

“The latter has an ex-wife by the name of Johanna, whom he left without financial means after their divorce in ’72. Nobody could be as filled with hatred as she is, but it’s a strictly personal hatred. She hopes, quote, ‘to eat his liver before they cremate the swine, and that really should have been done while he could still feel the flames,’ unquote. I spoke with the family members, who showed varying degrees of grief, and came to the conclusion that of the two, Daggfeldt, in spite of everything, will be missed more. Both his son, Marcus, age seventeen, and his daughter, Maxi-”

“Maxi?” Hjelm interrupted him.

“Apparently that’s her given name,” said Nyberg, throwing out his hands.

“Sorry. It’s just that Daggfeldt’s sailboat is called the Maxi, so that’s why I… Go on.”

“Marcus and Maxi, who’s nineteen, seem to be genuinely mourning their father, even though he made himself practically invisible at home. His wife, Ninni, is taking his death with what we might call great composure. Speaking of the sailboat, she asked whether she would be allowed to sell it immediately. I told her yes. The same is true of Strand-Julén’s widow, Lilian. Great composure, I mean. Evidently she’d already more or less moved out of their apartment on Strandvägen, even though divorce was, quote, ‘out of the question,’ unquote. She’d seen what had happened to his first wife, the one named Johanna. She made certain insinuations about Strand-Julén’s sexual preferences. And I quote: ‘Compared with my husband Saint Bernhard, the pedophiles in Thailand are God’s own angels.’ Unquote. That may be something we should follow up.”

“I’m beginning to see a red thread,” said Hjelm, “regarding their leisure activities. If you’re finished, that is?”

“I’d like to finish by saying that I haven’t been able to get in touch with Strand-Julén’s children. A daughter, Sylvia, thirty years old, from his first marriage, and Bob, age twenty, from the second. Both are apparently employed abroad.”

Then it was Hjelm’s turn. “Strand-Julén’s Swan boat was evidently a pleasure craft, in the most literal sense of the word. I’ve talked to one of the members of his ever-changing crew, consisting of blond young boys. I don’t know how nauseated you’d like to feel, but I have a detailed description of what took place on that boat.”

“A rough summary will do,” said Hultin laconically.

“And rough it is. He liked to watch and give orders, creating little, quote, ‘tableaux,’ in which the crew members were supposed to freeze in the middle of the act while he walked around to study the scene. One boy, for example, might have another guy’s dick or some similar object stuck up his ass for fifteen minutes without being allowed to move an inch until Strand-Julén gave permission for the activities to resume. He himself never participated, other than as stage director. But there doesn’t seem to be any connection with Daggfeldt. I’ll keep looking. I have a lead on the procurer.”

“Holm and the circle of friends,” Hultin moved on to the next topic he had assigned. His notes already filled a significant area of the whiteboard. His handwriting was gradually getting smaller.

Kerstin Holm’s melodic Göteborg accent rippled through the room. “Nyberg and I have been crossing into each other’s territory; it can be difficult to distinguish between friends and enemies. At the risk of falling into cliché, I can say that people in the upper echelons seldom make friends with someone just because they happen to like each other. Of course, it’s an advantage if they do, but that’s mostly of secondary interest, an extra bonus.

“In short, they acquire friends in order to exploit them. For the sake of prestige, to demonstrate what a large and impressive circle of friends they have, and for the sake of business, in order to expand their contact network-which is the alpha and omega in their lives-as well as for the sake of sex, to establish contacts with the former, sex-starved housewives of other men. The impression I get reinforces what I know from the other side of Sweden, meaning Göteborg: that the trading of marital partners is so sanctioned and so common that you can talk about generations of inbreeding and bastard progeny. Do you think I’m exaggerating?”

“Go on,” said Hultin with inscrutable terseness.

“Ninni Daggfeldt hinted at a number of strange but heterosexual escapades that her husband engaged in while he was traveling around the country and especially while he was abroad, in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. But at home he seems to have been quite monogamous. And he always spent his vacations on the famous sailboat with his family-no one but his family.

“As mentioned, the daughter was named after the boat, which they’ve had since the early seventies. The type of boat, that is, not the actual vessel-they’ve traded up to a larger version approximately every three years. Ninni hated, quote, ‘that disgusting dry dock,’ but she decided to make the best of the situation. Daggfeldt had a standing joke about her and the boat that he never failed to cite.” Holm leafed through her notebook.

“ ‘Hearty but seasick,’ ” said Hjelm.

She gave him an appraising look and then went on. “Precisely. So Ninni put up a good front, but she was disgusted, and I quote again, ‘by the cloying family intimacy that was supposed to appear like a letter in the mail for two weeks a year but never existed at any other time.’ Lilian Strand-Julén was even more blunt. Gunnar has already quoted the Saint Bernhard passage and-Paul, is it?-has with the utmost clarity reported the facts of the Swan boat expeditions. It’s possible to imagine that the two widows, who are now free and financially independent for the rest of their lives no matter what they decide to do, might simply have joined forces to hire a professional hit man. If that’s the case, the whole idea of a serial killer is moot.

“But the problem is that they don’t know each other. They have plenty of friends and acquaintances in common-they frequent the same social circles-but neither has any recollection of meeting the other. So they claim. Of course we’ll continue to check this out.

“A woman named Anna-Clara Hummelstrand, wife of George Hummelstrand, vice president of Nimco Finance, seems to be close friends with both of them. She left for Nice this morning, which may be of interest. Mrs. Hummelstrand could have acted as a sort of intermediary between Ninni and Lilian. In general, there are numerous potential motives on both sides, but no real link.”

“Thank you,” said Hultin as he finished writing a flurry of words on the board. “Hjelm.”

“I’d like to give the rest of my report last, if that’s okay. We need to finish with a discussion of how to carry out the surveillance tonight.”

“Do you have such a strong candidate that we’ll need to do a stake-out tonight?”

“That’s what we have to decide. But I think it’d be good if we heard all the other reports first. Provided that Söderstedt and Chavez don’t have an equally strong candidate, of course.”

Both men shook their heads.

Hultin gave a slight nod. “Okay,” he said. “Söderstedt?”

“I’ve been thinking about this idea of a serial killer,” he said, speaking with a Finnish intonation. “From an international perspective, we’re a bit premature. Two similar murders really means nothing more than two similar murders-”

“Granted,” Hultin interrupted him. “But in the guidelines presented by Commissioner Mörner and the NCP director, as well as the inner circle of the National Police Board, the aspects of protection were emphasized. That’s why we’re treating this as a serial murder case even before it officially takes on that definition. Besides, I’m convinced that that’s what it is. And when it comes right down to it, my judgment is what steers the direction of this investigation.”

Whoops, thought Hjelm. That’s Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin’s first display of power.

But Söderstedt wasn’t about to budge. “I was just thinking about the fact that serial murders are very ‘in’ at the moment. It’s easy to be led astray by American perversities. That madman Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison for having killed, dismembered, and eaten seventeen black youths. His father wrote a best seller about what it was like to have such a monster for a son. Both the father and Dahmer himself have become rich on the crimes. Sympathizers, some of them from South Africa, have sent him money in prison, and plenty of magazines in the United States make heroes out of serial killers and mass murderers. It’s related to the fact that their society is on the verge of collapse. A widespread feeling of general frustration makes it possible for an entire nation to empathize with extremists and sick outsiders. Their disregard for all social rules exerts a strong fascination, so strong that people will even send money to a mass murderer. Sort of a retroactive reward. But the victims are always small and weak, and their only shared characteristic, as reported in the media, is the fact that they became victims. We need to ask ourselves what sort of effect this kind of mess could have on the national soul of the Swedish people. There’s no such thing as a simple act.”

Hjelm flinched.

“Söderstedt, I’ve heard from Västerås that you have a tendency to go off on tangents,” said Hultin, his tone neutral. “Let’s stay on topic. What about the financial aspect?”

“I just think we shouldn’t lose perspective,” muttered Söderstedt as he looked through his thick stack of printouts. “As you mentioned, Hultin, it’s a real hodgepodge. I’ve only been able to scratch the surface. Daggfeldt had two large companies that were under his sole ownership: the finance firm of DandFinans AB with four subsidiaries; and the import company MalackaImport AB. He was also part owner of eight other smaller enterprises, three of them holding companies. And he had a huge stock portfolio, primarily with shares in all five of the country’s biggest export corporations. Strand-Julén’s main company is called simply Strand-Julén Finans AB, with a bunch of interlocking holding companies attached to it. His business ventures are even more difficult to delineate than Daggfeldt’s, if that’s possible.”

“One question,” said Hjelm. “What’s a holding company?”

All eyes of the A-Unit seemed to turn on him at once.

“All muscles and no brains,” he said apologetically.

“A holding company is a management company that owns shares in other businesses,” said Söderstedt.

“Is that all it does?”

“Yes. The only company that I’ve found with any connection to trade and industry-to the production of goods-is Daggfeldt’s import firm, which imports canned goods from the Far East. You can find them in any well-stocked grocery store. And that’s only indirect production. We still use industrial yardsticks when we look at the postindustrial world of business. So in that sense Strand-Julén owned shares en masse, but he also had a personal portfolio comparable to Daggfeldt’s. I haven’t been able to find any link between their business activities. But both owned stock in Electrolux, Volvo, and ABB-as do so many people. Perhaps the most interesting connection is the fact that they both owned shares in the little glass factory Hyltefors in Småland. Maybe that has some significance.”

“Have you checked with the financial police?” asked Hultin.

“That’s the first thing I did. Both men were involved in ongoing tax cases-the kind that drag on for years and then simply go up in smoke, as the bite is gradually taken out of the tax laws. Daggfeldt ruined his first partner, Unkas Storm, as Nyberg mentioned, and was accused of fraud. He was acquitted. Otherwise nothing.”

“Chavez,” said Hultin. “The board memberships.”

“Also a mess,” said Chavez, getting tangled up in a long sheaf of printouts, “although on a smaller scale. They were on a total of seventeen boards, either separately or together. They were both members on eight of them: Sandvik, 1978-83; Ericsson, 1984-87; SellFinans, 1985; Skanska, 1986-88; Bosveden, 1986-89; Sydbanken, 1987-01; and MEMAB, 1990. During the period before they were killed, they sat on only one board together, which is not without a certain irony: the Fonus Funeral Company, from 1990 on.”

“So at least we now know which undertaker will be hired,” Söderstedt remarked.

“But doesn’t this imply that they knew each other?” said Viggo Norlander.

“They must have known each other,” said Hjelm.

“On the other hand,” said Chavez, “plenty of people sit on any given board of directors, and they hold regular meetings only a few times a year. It’s possible to be on the same board with somebody without exchanging a single word, and maybe without even knowing that the other person exists.”

“Don’t the membership periods seem rather short?” said Holm. “A few years with each board?”

“What I’ve reported are the years when they were both on the same board,” said Chavez. “Each of them was generally a member for a longer period of time. For example, Daggfeldt was still a member of the Skanska board up until his death, while Strand-Julén had left in 1988. On the other hand, he’d been a member since 1979. It’s much the same situation with the other boards.”

“And the Fonus connection doesn’t lead anywhere?” said Norlander.

“Just into the coffin, maybe… Of course it’s of interest that they were both on that board when they died. Daggfeldt was a member for eight years, while Strand-Julén had been on the board for fourteen.”

“Okay,” said Hultin, writing and drawing arrows. “Hjelm’s turn.”

“I didn’t find any connections at the boat club, but a man by the name of Arthur Lindviken had an entire file of blackmail-worthy items in his wall safe. Apparently he’s seen all sorts of things going on at the Viggbyholm small-boat marina. Under S I found a rather stiff postcard.” He held up the picture of Dionysus. “A guy by the name of Jörgen Lindén wrote his phone number on it along with a cozy little greeting. He was the one who told me about Strand-Julén’s escapades on his boat. There was nothing in the file folder under D.”

“Have you picked up Lindviken and Lindén?” asked Hultin calmly. “Both appear to be felons.”

“No,” said Hjelm.

“Good,” said Hultin.

“At the golf course I found no direct connection either, just the fact that both men seemed to be frequent guests. But I did confiscate the club’s so-called guest books, in which the golfers write down their names before they play. I haven’t gone through them yet. The third leisure activity shared by both men was membership in a small organization that goes by the name of the Order of Mimir. It apparently carries out some sort of Nordic pagan rituals, but the rites are top, top secret.”

Hultin frowned.

“I visited their cellar stronghold in Gamla Stan, without being allowed to enter the inner sanctum. The Guardian, David Clöfwenhielm, kindly informed me, in accordance with the motto of most fraternal orders, which is ‘obedience to higher powers,’ that a small breakaway group had been formed within the Order of Mimir. It’s called the Order of Skidbladnir, named for the ship that belonged the god Frey. It was supposed to be large enough to accommodate all of the gods and yet so small that it could be folded up and stuffed into a sack.”

“So what the hell does Mimir mean?” asked Chavez.

“Don’t you know your Nordic mythology?” said Hjelm.

“As you might have guessed, I’m better at old Inca mythology.”

“Mimir was the guardian of the spring of wisdom beneath Yggdrasil, the world tree. It was from that spring that Odin drank in order to become the wisest of all the gods.”

“Get to the point,” said Hultin.

“Twelve out of the approximately sixty brothers in the Order of Mimir formed the as-yet-unconsolidated Order of Skidbladnir. As I understand it, not everybody in the Order of Mimir appreciated the secession; it was viewed as a betrayal of sacred lifelong oaths. Four individuals were mainly responsible for the secession; one at the top, so to speak, and three others. They were Johannes Norrvik, Kuno Daggfeldt, and Bernhard Strand-Julén.”

Hjelm paused to study the effect of this revelation. No reaction. He went on.

“Johannes Norrvik, a professor of commercial law, is currently on an academic sabbatical in Japan. But the leading force behind the secession is now sitting in room 304, sniffing suspiciously at Jorge’s Colombian coffee beans. I think you know him, Hultin. The retired judge of the Svea Court of Appeals. Rickard Franzén.”

“Aha,” said Hultin forcefully, without changing expression.

“So what do you think? Should we regard this connection as sufficient reason to spend the night at the Franzén villa in Nockeby? The former judge is supposed to go out this evening, alone. And he won’t be home until late.”

Hultin sat in silence for a moment, running his index finger along his nose. “What do the rest of you think?” he asked without looking at anyone specific.

A democratic tactic, thought Hjelm, then said, “I can’t see any other clue that bears the same weight.”

“Me either,” said Norlander.

“Ultimately, it depends on whether we think a minor controversy within this type of organization is sufficient grounds for murder,” said Holm. “It seems a bit vague.”

Chavez nodded. Gunnar Nyberg said nothing as he stared down at the table.

“Gunnar?” said Hultin.

“Sure,” said Nyberg. “It’s just that I had other plans for tonight.”

“I’ll think about whether we can do without you. The rest of us, at any rate, will be going out there. Separately and incognito. Not a word to anyone. We don’t want the press lurking in the Franzén raspberry bushes. So shall we bring in the highly esteemed judge?”

“Use the intercom,” said Hjelm.

Hultin pressed 304 and said, “Come on in, Franzén. Room 300.” He went over to the whiteboard, now covered with scribbling, and pulled down the covering. “The last thing to fade away on old dispensers of justice is their eyesight,” he said.

The door opened, and the corpulent former judge of the Svea Court of Appeals made a stately entrance. He walked right over to Hultin and shook hands.

“Superintendent Hultin,” said Rickard Franzén at once, “I hope the years have healed the wounds between us.”

“I’ll need a rough sketch of the layout of your house and the surroundings,” Hultin merely replied, “and a description of how you’re planning to spend the evening. Don’t change your plans. Our man undoubtedly knows what they are. Is it possible to gain entrance to your house from the rear?”

Franzén studied him for a moment. Then he took a fountain pen out of his vest pocket, leaned forward, and began drawing on a blank piece of paper on the table.

“The house,” he said, pointing. “The pathway, road, and both neighboring houses. The trees, shrubbery, fence, gate. In here the stairs, vestibule, hallway, living room. My wife sleeps two floors up. A kitchen door opens onto the terrace in back. Here. There are never any cars parked on the road, so you should avoid parking there. I’m supposed to be at the home of my old colleague Eric Blomgren in Djursholm at seven o’clock. He’s someone else you know, Hultin. I always take a taxi out there and back. We play chess until around midnight, put away half a bottle of Rémy Martin, and reminisce about the old days. I have a feeling that we’re going to be talking about you tonight, superintendent. Was that all?”

“For the time being. Now I’d like to ask you to return to the other room and wait. Hjelm will be there in a minute to take another statement from you. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Rickard Franzén laughed loudly as he left Supreme Central Command. Everyone except Hultin stared after him in astonishment.

“All right,” said Hultin, his voice devoid of expression. “We’ll go in the back way, in case the killer is already out there somewhere, keeping watch. I assume it’s possible to gain access from some distance, through neighboring properties. And we need two men tailing Franzén in the taxi and out to Djursholm, just in case the pattern is broken. Chavez and Norlander in two cars. You’ll rendezvous out on Drottningsholmsvägen.”

They both looked disappointed.

Hultin went on, pointing at Franzén’s sketch. “Two of you will watch the front of the house from outside, one from each direction on this road. What’s it called?”

“Grönviksvägen,” said Hjelm.

“Grönviksvägen,” said Hultin. “It’s going to be a cold job. Söderstedt and Holm, with walkie-talkies in the most appropriate shrubbery.”

They too looked disappointed.

“Hjelm and I will be inside the house. We also need to keep watch on the old lady and the kitchen door and the windows on the ground floor. Do you think we can manage that on our own, or do we need Nyberg to help out? I’m afraid we’re going to need Nyberg. Do you think you can cancel your plans for tonight?”

“Sure, sure,” said Nyberg, frowning. “It’s a dress rehearsal.”

“Do you sing in a choir?” asked Holm.

“How’d you know that?”

“I do too. In Göteborg. Which choir is it?”

“The Nacka Church choir,” said the huge, lumbering Gunnar Nyberg, suddenly enveloped in a whole new light.

“Sorry,” said Hultin. “Dress rehearsal canceled. I’m sure you know your part. Okay, we’ll stop now. I suggest you go downstairs to the cafeteria and get something to eat. The operation starts at seventeen thirty, in a little less than an hour. Hjelm, I’d like to see you for a minute.”

Hultin and Hjelm remained in the room. Hultin was packing up his papers and said without looking up, “Good work, man.”

“Everything came together perfectly, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Hultin, and exited the room through his mysterious door on the left.