Only One Life: A Novel Part 16

Louise followed him to the house, but then quickly took a step back when an exuberant wirehaired pointer came running out and started dancing around them until it lost interest and continued around behind the house into the yard. Mik waved for her to follow and then went into the kitchen, where the puppies were sleeping in a big basket.

"They're not always this calm," he said, leaning down and petting the mother, a black Lab, who stood up when they came in.

Louise kneeled next to the basket and stuck her hand down to touch the soft puppies, who were beginning to move. A second later they were wriggling. They came tumbling over to curiously sniff her hand and then started nudging it. Mik came over and picked up a puppy for her. She put her cheek down next to it and felt its muzzle against her skin. When it started getting fidgety, she carefully put it back in with the others and stood up.

"Every time I get close to a puppy, I forget I don't want a dog," she said, shaking her head and smiling. Then Mik said that one of the puppies was still for sale.

She followed him as he grabbed two beers from the fridge and they strolled back out into the yard again.

"Shall we sit here?" He gestured to a wood bench bearing the inscription DAD'S BEER-DRINKING BENCH.

Louise winced to think Mik didn't have enough taste to acquire a nicer bench, but at the same time had to concede that at least the view couldn't be better. She stood for a second, enjoying the sight of the fields and woods on the other side of the road.

"Don't you ever miss the countryside?" he asked once he'd sat down.

She shook her head and said she probably never would miss it enough to picture herself moving back.

"But every now and then I do need to get out of the city," she admitted, looking at the horses in the corral in the field opposite them.

"Do your folks still live out here?" he asked, watching her as she took a swig of beer.

She nodded and smiled at him. Not because he was asking about her, but because she'd misjudged him. She didn't have to pull every word out of him. He was the one who was grilling her, which surprised her a little.

She told him about her parents' place, which was between Roskilde and Holbaek, and said that her brother still lived out there, not in an old farmhouse, but in a house in a new development that didn't have even a smidge of the charm her folks' country home or his farm had.

"Actually, what is the difference between a country home and a farm?" she asked, then volunteered an answer to her own question: "Isn't it mostly that you tend a farm, while a country home is mostly just for fun?"

Mik nodded. That pretty much summed up the definition.

"How much land do you have here?" she asked him. "Are you growing anything?"

"Almost seventy acres, but I lease it to the farm over there." He nodded toward the large farm on the other side of the narrow road, the one with the horse corral. "They have the machinery and a barn."

Mik brought them another two beers and a blanket Louise could wrap around herself.

"My parents are dead, but I'm sure I told you that," he said after he sat down again.

Louise nodded.

"My mom died this spring, but it's been almost six years since my father died. His heart just stopped one morning while he was out checking on the cows. But if he had to go, I couldn't imagine a more fitting way for him to do it."

Louise watched him as he spoke. He sagged a little and was picking at the label on his beer bottle, but he didn't seem as if he felt any pressure to tell her about himself.

"It didn't take more than a few months after my father died for my mom and me to move. She couldn't manage this whole place on her own and I had a small house on Fasanvej in town." He nodded in the direction of Holbaek. "And then I have a sister in Dubai. She moved down there with her husband almost ten years ago and I really doubt they're coming back. The kids go to a European school and she stays home and does her thing, so she wasn't interested in taking over this place."

Louise explained that her parents hadn't bought their country place until she was old enough to start school. Before that, they'd lived in a big apartment in sterbro. "My mom's a ceramics artist," Louise explained. "She needed more room, a bigger kiln, and s.p.a.ce for her potting wheel." She spoke the words slowly with enough of a pregnant pause in between them to make it clear that she had not inherited her mother's creative abilities.

"What does your dad do?" Mik asked out of curiosity.

"He's an ornithologist," she replied, and then quickly elaborated. "He works for the Danish Ornithological Society a couple of days a week doing conservation and preservation work, and he edits their journal. He's one of those guys who lives his whole life with a spotting scope around his neck."

Suddenly Mik laughed out loud, and something boyish came over his face that Louise hadn't seen before. She smiled and waited for him to explain what was so funny.

He shook his head a little before explaining that that was the last thing he would have imagined.

"I pictured him as maybe a detective or a lawyer. How the heck did you end up in the police?" he asked, looking at her with interest.

She gave him a look of mock affront. "Why? Is that so odd?"

"I don't know. With parents with skills and abilities like that, I would have figured some of it would have rubbed off on you." He said it as if she'd been cheated out of something marvelous. The same way you might if a couple of very attractive parents had produced a really ugly baby.

An awkward silence settled between them as she contemplated this. Why had she chosen to join the police?

He interrupted her thoughts.

"Would you like an Irish coffee?" he asked so quietly that she had the sense he didn't want to bother her if she was actually trying to explain how she ended up in her job.

She nodded absentmindedly, her thoughts locked on both her parents. It had never occurred to her that she could have followed in her mother's footsteps. She didn't think she had even a hint of creativity in her, but she had never really put herself to the test to see if that was true.

Mik came back with a tray of mugs, coffee, whipped cream, brown sugar, a bottle of Tullamore, and three large, square candles that were stacked up on the tray, threatening to tip over onto the coffee fixings.

"I grew up with birds," Louise said as he put brown sugar and whiskey into her cup, mixed them together, poured coffee over them, and topped it off with freshly whipped cream. "I got bird posters, bird books, and stuffed birds, while all my friends were getting Barbies and pop-music posters. And my mother walked around in her work clothes all the time covered in splotches of clay with a towel around her hair. I didn't want to look like that when I grew up."

"Did you rebel?" he asked, handing her the cup.

"Maybe, but that's not how I saw it. I didn't go in a different direction to defy my parents. I just did it because what they did didn't interest me. I went to one of those forest kindergartens in Langelinie as a kid, one of those places where school is held outdoors all day regardless of the weather. I know they chose that because they wanted what was best for me. But I really would have rather gone to a kindergarten where you sat on little chairs and drew or played with puzzles and cleaned up nicely after yourself after each meal, instead of relying on the public restrooms out by the Little Mermaid statue and never eating a hot lunch, just sandwiches from our lunch boxes, even in the rain."

Mik listened without interrupting.

"I like there to be some kind of structure, so you have something to adhere to."

They'd finished their drinks and when he offered her another, she was well aware it was time to say no, thanks and force herself to be on her way. He'd said she could borrow his bike, since they hadn't brought her loaner bike along from the Rowing Club.

Instead, she nodded and held out her cup. She thought about the next morning. How smart was it to show up to work with a hangover? Sure, tomorrow was Sunday, but they were going to meet anyway. On the other hand, hadn't they pretty much been working around the clock for the weeks the case had been open? They needed to unwind a little.

He stood concentrating, letting the whipped cream slide down onto the warm coffee so carefully that it spread out like a white comforter over the blackness.

She didn't have a chance to stop herself. Before she knew it, she was on her feet, still wrapped in the blanket, starting to kiss him. Somewhere in the very back of her mind she heard stern warnings that what she was doing was extremely unwise, but she ignored them, letting the blanket fall as he reached around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She stretched, standing on her toes, to press her cheek against his and noticed the short stubble against her skin in the few pauses between the volleys of kisses that ran back and forth between them. Nibbling, yearning, hungry, and indulgent.

Where did that come from? she wondered when her brain started sending signals again that had to do with things besides him and his mouth. They still hadn't made eye contact, she didn't dare, couldn't deal with what she'd set in motion, but also didn't want to run away from it.

"Do you think this is wise?" he asked, his mouth against her throat, as both of his hands slid up over the skin on her back.

She sought out his mouth again even as she shook her head. It wasn't wise at all, and wasn't she supposed to be the one saying that? Truly, it was anything but wise. They shared an office, and they were still going to be sharing it the next day and the day after that. No one knew how long she was going to be in Holbaek. But they had already crossed this line, so no matter what they did it was going to be awkward and totally wrong to see each other at work after this, she thought. And besides, he wasn't her type at all. Not the way he looked, not his interests, or his Dad's Beer-Drinking Bench. All he had going for him was that he hadn't turned his head away when she kissed him.

She released his lips and inhaled in short bursts to calm her breathing.

"Let's stop here," she said, releasing her firm hold on him, but nonetheless willingly allowing herself to be pushed along as he guided her backward, both hands on her hips, away from the Irish coffee toward the house. As they walked slowly so she wouldn't stumble, her eyes bore into his to determine how big a catastrophe this was. What did he think of her? Had she pressured him into this? Did he feel like he couldn't turn her down? How crushing a failure would it be when he said this was all a mistake? That they should have stopped before they even started. He didn't seem like the type to turn down a colleague, so maybe she'd already really overstepped his boundaries. And he had already suggested that this wasn't particularly wise. The thoughts were whipping around in her head, but she couldn't read anything from his eyes. They were just blue eyes smiling at her and they didn't seem to be suffering from any kind of crisis of conscience or hara.s.sment.

After he settled her onto the sofa and brushed her dark curls away from her face, he carefully pulled her sweater up over her head. After that her blouse, and finally he unb.u.t.toned her jeans. He sat there caressing her stomach, letting his fingers glide gently over her body, until his hand settled softly around the back of her head and he leaned over and kissed her. Kissed her tenderly and intensely, slowly, the whole way down her body.

"Now we kind of have to keep going, don't we?" he asked, once he'd pulled his own shirt over his head and loosened his belt.

Louise nodded in silence without opening her eyes. They kind of did have to keep going now.

22.

THE MELODY WAS SO INSISTENT AND THE VOLUME RISING SUCH that it couldn't be ignored. Louise did a rapid damage check inside her head before opening her eyes to be confronted with the mess she'd gotten herself into the night before. They had ended up in his bed after first making love on the sofa, then on the living-room floor. She had no sense of when they had collapsed from exhaustion. Actually, that's not so bad, she thought.

Mik's cell phone was ringing off the hook, and she shook him. The worst thing was that at one point he had whispered to her that this seemed like something she had really needed and she had hungrily agreed with him. After which she had really let go and abandoned herself to a level of enjoyment she could scarcely control.

To h.e.l.l with the fact that she'd whispered a bunch of words she couldn't really recollect now, she thought. What did it matter that she had let him see her like that? Well, maybe that wasn't totally inconsequential. And she wasn't proud of it either. She couldn't believe she'd sold herself out by admitting that she had needed a man. That she was understimulated, and that she possessed a level of desire she herself couldn't control once it had been let loose. She had a hard time excusing herself for that.

Mik had the cell phone to his ear and was talking quietly, intensely. He was already out of bed and standing by the dresser, pulling out clothes. Louise could feel him looking at her, but she kept her eyes closed so there was no contact.

"You're going to have to wake up," he whispered, stroking her cheek.

"What time is it?" she mumbled, not wanting to face reality.

"Almost six."

He leaned over and kissed her until she opened her eyes and their eyes met. It wasn't as bad as she had feared. He smiled at her and she focused on his left front tooth, which was missing one small corner. Then he straightened back up and explained that that had been the duty officer down at the station on the phone.

"They just got a 911 call from a woman who found a dead teenage girl in the parking lot behind Nygade," he told her. "That's the street that goes up to your hotel."

Louise was out of bed and on her way to the living room, where her clothes lay in a heap on the floor. He followed her and kept talking as she got dressed.

"They've already started cordoning off the area."

He gave her a serious look as she pulled on her socks, and then he went out to tend to his dogs before they left the house.

"It looks like one side of the girl's head was crushed and she was very badly beaten," he said, walking back into the living room with his car keys in his hand.

Louise cast a quick glance around the living room to see if she'd forgotten anything.

"I'll catch a ride over there and-" she started, but was interrupted when he reminded her that that would make it very obvious to everyone else that the two of them had spent the night together.

That hadn't even occurred to her, but she quickly agreed that he was right.

The October morning was still dark, and while he drove around the small turn and back in past Holbaek Marina at a pace that made it clear he'd driven that route countless times, she sat next to him speculating.

"How am I going to slip into the hotel if they're cordoning off the area?" she finally asked, suddenly unable to a.s.sess the situation.

"I can let you off a little ways away, if you'd like. But I don't mind in the least if the others see us together. I mean, it's not like we did anything illegal."

"We shouldn't arrive together," she said, a tad harshly. "I'll wait over at the station for half an hour before I head over."

He didn't remark on her stern p.r.o.nouncement, but pulled over to the curb so she could grab her bag from the back seat.

Louise was standing there with her bag with the car door open when she realized this was all too ridiculous.

"I'll just walk in there," she said, blowing him a kiss.

He shook his head. Then he got out, walked around the car, and kissed her good-bye-not a long kiss, but with an intensity that gently settled rea.s.suringly around her.

"Talk to you soon," she said, once their lips had parted. "Definitely soon."

He got back in and drove the last four hundred meters past the police station over to Nygade.

23.

LOUISE WALKED ALONG JERNBANEGADE IN THE EARLY MORNING with her kayaking bag over her shoulder and the feeling that she'd been in a dream for the last eight hours, a dream in which she couldn't completely take responsibility for her actions or vouch for her own conduct. She had pushed the thought of yet another body to the back of her mind and was too tired to think about it until she reached the hotel and the local police and the red-and-white-striped police tape with the word "POLICE" printed on it at regular intervals, with which they were just cordoning off the area. Then she spotted Storm and Skipper, who were standing under a large streetlight outside the hotel's small outdoor seating area, well dressed, their hair nicely done, with their hands in their pockets, looking out over the empty early-morning pedestrian shopping street.

She looked down at herself. She was wearing the same clothes as she had the day before, her hair was more tousled than curly, and she had forgotten to bring a hair band that could hold back her dark mane. She quickly ran a hand through it and as she walked the last few meters tried to make herself a smidge presentable. She had one foot on the steps leading up to the hotel's front entrance when Skipper spotted her.

"Good morning, Rick."

She stopped midmotion, turned, and started walking over toward them.

"Good morning," she said, dropping her bag with a thump.

Neither her temporary boss nor Skipper looked at it, nor did they comment on her arriving from outside the hotel.

They nodded over toward the police cars, most of them with their lights on, and asked if she'd heard all the commotion.

She shook her head, watching Mik's outline disappear into an alleyway next to Gyro Hut.

"There's a teenage girl with a crushed skull back there," Skipper said, pointing in the direction in which Mik had disappeared.

"Do we know which teenage girl?" she asked, to get them talking and make it seem like she was on the ball. But she was completely unprepared when Storm turned to her and nodded.

"It's Dicta Moller."