Snow Angels Read Free Page B

hate crime. It’s hard to believe anyone could have hated her so much. The question, despite the words carved on her stomach, is what could have inspired this kind of hatred? Was it her race, her beauty, or something else?
    “A half-liter Lapin Kulta beer bottle has been broken off at the neck and inserted, broken end first, by means of twisting and cutting, into the victim’s vagina. No glass shards from the shattered bottle are evident. The victim was hit with a blunt instrument, which left a contusion on her forehead.”
    Esko stoops down beside me. “She was struck twice. Probably with a carpenter’s hammer.”
    I nod. “Probably with a carpenter’s hammer. Her eyes have been gouged out, maybe with the broken bottle. A superficial piece of skin from her right breast, about three by four inches, is sliced off and located beside the victim, near her left shoulder. There’s a long deep cut across her lower abdomen. Her throat is slashed. The clean cuts suggest the killer used an edged weapon, not the beer bottle, to inflict those wounds.”
    “He left the piece of her breast,” Esko says. “Not a trophy taker.”
    “At least three instruments appear to have been used to mutilate the victim, one blunt and heavy, as evidenced by the two blows to the head, and two sharp ones, one the beer bottle and the other an edged weapon.”
    “I’d guess a serrated hunting knife,” Esko says.
    “Have I missed anything?” I ask.
    “I don’t think so.”
    Something glints in the beam of my flashlight. I get down close to her. “What’s this stuff on her face?”
    “Where?”
    I point out three small streaks. “By her nose, on her cheek.”
    “I don’t know,” Esko says.
    “Think he spit on her?”
    “It doesn’t look viscous enough for saliva.”
    “It wouldn’t even be noticeable if she was white. Hard to see it as it is. Make sure you get a sample for testing. Anything else?”
    Esko shakes his head no. He takes her hands, careful to keep from disturbing the snow lodged under her manicured fingernails, looks them over and puts plastic bags around them. He takes blood samples from various areas in the snow around the body, and a sample of the liquid on her face. “Listen,” he says, “I’m out of my depth, I’ve never handled anything like this. This is going to be international news and I’m afraid I’ll fuck it up.”
    I appreciate his feelings. It’s been a long time since I conducted a difficult murder investigation. Plus, it’s near Christmas and four officers from our force of eight are on vacation. We don’t even have an evening shift-we’re taking turns being on call at night. Even our dispatcher is on vacation. It’s an ideal time to commit a murder. A local would know this, and it bothers me.
    “We have tire tracks,” I say, “and the body will yield a lot of evidence. We’ll solve this.”
    We kneel in the snow and look at each other for a few seconds, both at a loss for words. From the pen outside the barn, a pregnant reindeer looks on with indifference. Aslak stands not far away, rolling a cigarette. I want this not to have happened. I want to be at home with Kate, to lay my hand on her belly and imagine our child growing inside it. I look across the snowfield. Aslak’s house is a shadow in the distance. Almost a year and a half ago, Kate and I met in his backyard.
    The
Saame
people, Laplanders, suffer a lot of prejudice here, like Eskimos in Alaska. Every year on midsummer, Aslak throws a lavish party, invites friends, neighbors and the more prominent members of the community. Maybe it’s a way of proving to himself and everybody else how much he’s achieved despite the odds against him. Maybe it’s his way of saying, “Fuck you, I’m
Saame
and I’m richer than you are.” He has his own midsummer tradition: roasting a whole reindeer on a spit like other people roast wild boar. I’ve never seen anyone else do that.
    Kate and I met at Aslak’s party. It was getting late,