The Cup

CHAPTER 8

Forsberg drove the Volvo. He had a list of the places where no one had been at home. At the first one, the door was opened by a middle-aged farmer eating a sandwich. He spoke with a thick accent that Selena couldn't understand. Forsberg spoke with him for a few minutes. The door closed.

"He didn't see anything."

"Where is he from?" Selena asked. "I didn't understand what he said except for a few words."

"Up north, near Kruna. It's near the Norwegian border. The dialect is hard to understand for most Swedes, much less a foreigner."

The next farm was a few miles farther down the road. The main house was two stories high, a long single building with whitewashed walls and a pitched roof. Behind it was a smaller, stone building that might've once been a guesthouse. There was a barn. The farm had a forlorn, abandoned feeling to it. Everyone had walked away one day and left it behind.

The day was cold and clear. Fresh snow had fallen the night before. The drive leading in showed no tracks. No vehicles were visible. As they drove up to the house, Selena thought a curtain moved on the second floor.

Forsberg knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again, louder. The sound rolled across flat, empty fields marked by stubble sticking out through the snow. The silence was overwhelming.

"Nobody home," Forsberg said.

"I thought I saw a curtain move upstairs," Selena said.

"There are no tracks, no vehicles. Nobody's going to walk all the way out here."

"I could've been mistaken."

She looked again at the window. There was nobody there.

They drove on to the third farm on the list. They found the farmer in his barn, mending harness. He was a man who might've been eighty years old or more, with a face grizzled by hard work and hard weather. His arms were knotted with muscles. A faded naval tattoo graced one of them.

He hadn't seen anything either. No, no blue car. Yes, he was usually here. He'd probably been out in the fields when they'd been here before. If a blue car had gone by, he would've noticed it. He knew all the cars that came this way. There wasn't any reason to go this way except to visit neighbors a mile up the road. The weather was going to act up and they might get a lot of snow.

The man went on for five minutes before Forsberg finally cut him off. He thanked him and they went back to their car.

"I thought he'd never stop talking," Forsberg said. "Some of these old farmers get lonely."

"It seems desolate," Selena said. "I can see how living out here could get you down."

"It looks that way now," Forsberg said, "but in the spring and summer it's beautiful. All this is green. There are flowers everywhere, birds, it's a beautiful place. But winter is bleak."

"What now?" Ronnie asked.

"That was the last stop on the list. We might as well head back to town."

"I want to look at that second place again," Selena said.

"Why?"

"Just a feeling. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure someone was inside the house. Why didn't they answer the door?"

Forsberg looked at her. "A feeling?"

"Better listen to her," Ronnie said. "She's got good intuition."

"Why not? It's on the way."

Nothing had changed when they returned. The only tracks going in and out from the main house were the ones they'd left earlier. The curtain in the upstairs window hung still and lifeless. Forsberg pounded on the door again. There was still no answer.

They walked around the house, peering in windows. There was nothing to see except empty rooms. A back door was locked.

"Let's take a look at the barn," Nick said.

"Technically speaking, I'm supposed to have a warrant," Forsberg said.

"I won't say anything if you don't." Nick started toward the barn.

The building was old, weathered by years of harsh Swedish winters. The boards had long ago given up any paint they might once have had. Two hinged doors were closed with a thick metal hasp and locked with a new, heavy-duty padlock. A square metal plate was bolted onto the wood behind the lock and hasp.

Nick pointed at the lock. "What's a new lock like that doing on a beat up building like this? Everything else around here is falling apart."

Forsberg bent to examine the lock. "Someone wants this to stay closed."

"Makes me wonder what's inside," Ronnie said.

"Why don't we find out?" Lamont said.

The side of the barn was littered with scrap, the kind of junk found on every old farm. Rolls of wire. An ancient tractor. A broken pump. Odd pieces of rusted machinery. Pieces of pipe.

Lamont picked up a length of half inch pipe about two feet long. He went back to the door, thrust the pipe through the loop of the padlock and braced it against the metal plate. He levered down, grunting with the force. The lock, plate and bolts pulled away from the old wood with a screeching sound. It sounded like someone dragging their nails across a blackboard.

Selena covered her ears. "I hate that sound."

Lamont made a claw of his hand and pretended to run it across an invisible surface.

"Eeeeeee."

"Very funny," Selena said.

"Looks like somebody broke in here," Lamont said. "We'd better investigate, just to make sure everything's okay."

Forsberg shook his head, but he was smiling. Ronnie and Nick swung the doors open.

The interior of the barn was cold and uninviting. Dust moats floated in shafts of sunlight coming through holes in the roof. The floor was packed dirt. Three wooden stalls lined one side of the building. Old tools hung on the other wall.

Andersson's blue Saab was parked at the far end.

"Bingo," Ronnie said.

The Volvo started up outside.

"Fuck!" Forsberg yelled.

He pulled his gun and ran to the open doors of the barn. The car fishtailed down the drive as it accelerated. Forsberg took up a two-handed stance and fired. The rear window shattered. He kept firing until the magazine was empty and the slide of his Glock locked open.

The Volvo slowed and veered to the side. It kept going until it went over the edge of an irrigation ditch paralleling the drive, ending up nose down in the ditch, rear wheels spinning. The horn sounded a steady, raucous note.

They walked toward the ditch. Forsberg kept his pistol ready.

"I smell gas," Selena said.

A wisp of pale flame flickered along the side of the car.

"Oh, oh," Ronnie said.

The gas tank exploded. A bright, orange flower burst into bloom against the white snow. They force of the blast knocked them down. One of the car doors spiraled into the air and came crashing down fifty feet away.

A column of dirty black smoke rose into the sky.

Forsberg picked himself up and brushed snow off his clothes. He looked at the burning hulk.

"Damn it, that was my personal car."

"Looks like you were right about somebody being home," Nick said to Selena.