The Axelsson farm had seen better days. The outbuildings needed a fresh lick of paint. Some goats capered around hay bales outside an old rectangular stock barn and Roxanne glimpsed chicken runs at the back. To the right was a double garage. Cars littered the area beside it in various states of disrepair, probably kept for spare parts. The house—one and a half storeys with a sloping roof, a deck to the side, wooden steps leading down from a back door—looked much as it might have done when it was built back in the 1950s. An older Buick and a silver Ford truck were parked in front.
“It looks like they’re both home.” Roxanne noticed Izzy frown.
“I like Roberta,” Izzy had said on the way. Her parents’ farm lay just to the east. When her mother had had cancer, Roberta had brought over bottles of goat milk. It had been one of the few things her mother could keep down. Roberta had often stayed to visit. She was a good neighbour. Izzy had probably hoped that Roberta would be out so that they could talk to Erik Axelsson alone. Roxanne wondered if she should have brought Matt along with her instead. She’d thought Izzy’s knowledge of the Axelsson household might help but maybe she was too close to them.
The doorbell didn’t work. Izzy knocked and walked right in. The kitchen was cheerful and bright. A fire blazed in the wood stove. Warm, woollen cushions padded the chairs and coloured hangings decorated walls and windows. Roberta Axelsson was kneading bread at her large kitchen table.
Erik Axelsson got up from a chair by the wood stove. He wore overalls, thick grey socks and a faded checked shirt. He rubbed his eyes, looking like he’d been wakened from a nap and seemed puzzled to see them, but friendly. “Hi, Izzy. What’s up?”
Izzy introduced Roxanne. Roberta eyed her. The corporal who was investigating the murders? Was this an official visit? She waved a floury hand at them.
“Leave your boots on and help yourselves to coffee. It’s fresh, I just made a pot.”
“This shouldn’t take long,” said Roxanne, but Izzy was already taking a couple of mugs down from a shelf. She obviously knew her way around the kitchen.
“Roberta makes great coffee. You having some, Erik?”
Roberta kept on kneading the dough.
“I’m okay.” Erik indicated another chair by the wood stove. “Have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Roxanne sat. Erik resumed his place, opposite her. This was altogether too relaxed for police business.
“How’s your mom doing, Izzy?” Roberta asked. “I made some cheese. Do you want to take some for her?”
“Better not,” Izzy replied, fetching a jug of milk from the fridge and sitting at the table. “This is a work call.”
Roberta stopped kneading. “What about? We heard you found another body.”
“Angus Smith,” said Roxanne. “Did you know him?”
Erik stretched out his long legs in front of the stove. The Axelssons looked at each other. Neither reacted. “No,” Erik replied. “He’s from Cullen Village, right?”
The Axelsson farm was only twelve kilometres north of the village, but the people of the village and those that lived around Fiskar Bay did not always connect. Roxanne changed tack. “Mr. Axelsson, we wondered if you could come into the office. To help us with the Magnusson inquiry.”
Izzy flashed a look of surprise at her across the top of her coffee mug.
“Who, me?” Erik Axelsson stopped lounging. He sat up in his chair.
“Well, yes. You lived here when Stella Magnusson came back and started StarFest, right?”
Roberta had gone to the sink to wash her hands. She turned around. “I was there too! I helped set the whole thing up, back in the beginning. Want me to come as well?”
“Hey, Roberta, it’s all right. We only need one of you.” Izzy put down her mug. “We’ve got some photographs from StarFest, and also from way back when Stella was still at school here. Erik, you knew her then too, right? We thought you could tell us who some of the other folks in them are.”
Not entirely true, thought Roxanne, but it was a story that wouldn’t set off alarm bells. Izzy had swung into support seamlessly. Maybe bringing her along had been the right choice after all.
“I wasn’t at school with Stella,” said Axelsson. “I was older than her.”
“But Erik taught Stella to play the guitar.” Roberta looked proudly at him. So she had known about that.
“She had a band,” Axelsson explained, “and so did I. Me and my buddy Mike and a couple of other guys, we helped those kids out, all of us did. Mike taught the bassist to play. I didn’t just teach Stella, I taught their lead guitar too. Look, there’s lots of folks around here who were at school with Stella. Shouldn’t you be talking to them?”
Roxanne got to her feet. “Well, Mr. Axelsson, you knew her then and again when she came back to live near here. That’s useful to us. We think talking with you could be helpful.”
“You can talk to me here,” said Axelsson, leaning back again in his chair, as if reluctant to go.
“Yeah, Erik, but the photographs are at the office. We can give you a ride.” Izzy drained her coffee and stood also. The Axelssons looked uneasy. If Erik was driven to the RCMP detachment office in the back of a police car, the town would notice. There would be talk.
Roberta picked up the smooth ball of dough, put it in a bowl and covered it with a clean cloth. “You’d better go. Erik. Take the truck.” She turned to Izzy, concern furrowing her brow. “This won’t take long, will it?”
“No, no,” said Izzy. “Be back by the time that bread’s risen. Why don’t you call my mom? She’d love some of that cheese.”
Roxanne had reached the door. “Mr. Axelsson, we’ll see you back at the detachment.” She thanked Roberta for the coffee and went outside. Izzy followed her.
“Well done, Constable,” Roxanne said. Izzy stopped dead in her tracks.
“You know what, Corporal, being a cop in your home town is a bitch sometimes. I like those people.” She stomped towards the car. “I hate this. I’ll text Matt and tell him we’re on our way.”
“I’ll ask him to join me for the interview if you like,” said Roxanne, following her.
“Good idea. Why don’t you do that.” They climbed in, Izzy started the car and they drove off.
Not long after, the phone rang in Margo Wishart’s house.
“It’s Sasha. You’ve got to hear this. Roberta just called. The police showed up there this morning, the woman officer that’s in charge and Izzy McBain. Erik’s had to go into the RCMP office, to answer questions about Stella Magnusson.”
Margo was in the middle of marking student papers. This was a great excuse to take a break. “Did they say what it was for?’
“Said it was to look at photographs of Stella. But why couldn’t they have brought them there? Why make him go into the office?”
“Don’t know. Maybe the photos are on their computer. There’s probably nothing much to it.”
“Well, yes,” said Sasha. “But there might be.” And she proceeded to tell Margo how she had seen something, years ago, when Erik still played at StarFest. Stella and Erik standing together offstage, close together. Too close. And once, a couple of years ago, Sasha had stopped by Stella’s place one evening to pick up some paperwork for StarFest, and Erik had been there. “Just leaving!” he’d said. But he’d looked flustered. Stella had just smiled in that enigmatic way of hers and offered no explanation. Sasha had never mentioned it to anyone, least of all Roberta. Had something been going on between the two of them? Did the RCMP suspect him?
“They maybe think Erik’s the murderer? Can you see him doing that?”
“He’s kind of gutless, but who knows? Maybe it was a crime of passion,” Sasha said with relish. “You know Erik used to know Stella, way back? When she was younger? Erik had a band with his pal Mike Little. So did Stella.”
“Really? But that must have been years ago. How long?”
“Stella was still in school. Grade twelve, so it was maybe thirty years? Roberta told me all about it when Stella came back here. Erik taught her to play guitar. Stella left Fiskar Bay right after school though, and Erik moved to the city after that.”
“How old was Erik then?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Late twenties. He got himself a job at a car dealership in town. Then he went to Red River College. Trained to be an auto mechanic and he met his first wife. Kind of settled down.”
“Until he met Roberta and left his wife and kids for her.’
“Well, yeah. Too good-looking, Erik. That’s his problem. Gets away with blue murder.”
“That’s not funny, Sasha.” But they both laughed anyway. “Maybe we should go over there and keep her company until he gets home.”
“I offered already.” Roberta had told her she’d be fine. Erik shouldn’t be too long. Sasha and Margo decided to wait and see.
“Call me if you hear anything.”
“You bet!”
At the RCMP detachment office, Erik Axelsson sat across a table from Roxanne and Matt Stavros. They were in a small, grey room, with a window high in the ceiling that did not let in much light. Fluorescent strips shone harshly overhead. A recorder lay on the table humming faintly. A school yearbook was open at the picture of Stella with the members of her band, and Erik.
“Sure, I knew her back then. I knew all those kids. I had a band of my own. Me and the guys, we took them along with us to gigs.”
“You said you taught Stella how to play guitar?”
“Well, yeah. Sure I did. We taught the four of them. See him? That’s Alex Fletcher. Town councillor, now. Why don’t you go ask him about Stella?”
“And the other two?”
“They’re long gone. Don’t know where they went.”
“When Stella moved back, to live near Cullen Village, you were already living here as well?”
“I moved onto the farm with Roberta, my wife, after we got married. We’d been back three or four years before Stella showed up. Nobody expected Stella to come home.”
He was lounging again, as much as a plastic straight-backed chair would allow, trying to appear casual. He was still good-looking, but he must be close to sixty, Roxanne thought. Tall, long limbed, hair tied back in a ponytail. But it was going grey and the lines in his face were etched deep.
“You were involved in Stella’s music festival, back in the beginning?”
“We both were, me and Roberta. Roberta had a lot to do with getting it up and running. She was on Stella’s board, first few years. I just played sometimes. Mike Little and me played as a duo. But StarFest got bigger and we weren’t asked back after a while. Didn’t really matter. We just played for fun, Mike and me. We still do.”
“Did your wife continue with StarFest? After you weren’t asked back?”
“Well, no. She stopped when it went all professional. It wasn’t just about guys like Mike and me anymore. She liked the whole thing better when it was for the locals. They were never really very close, her and Stella. She thought StarFest was a good idea, back at the beginning, and she could sell the stuff she makes at the craft section. She didn’t like what it grew into, so she left. No big deal.”
Roxanne could see him getting more comfortable, settling in to the conversation. He’d stared at the tabletop and at the open yearbooks at the beginning, two parallel furrows between his brows. Now he lifted his eyes and made contact. They were pale blue tending towards grey. Nordic eyes. Engaging. He’s a charmer, she thought, and he knows it. Does he think he can charm me?
“When did you last see Stella Magnusson?” she asked. He blinked, shrugged, looked away.
“Oh, I don’t know. Might have run into her around town. Fiskar Bay’s not very big.”
“Mr. Axelsson, we have a witness who says that your truck has been seen parked outside Stella Magnusson’s house recently.” Those eyes met hers again, only for a second. He rubbed his hands on his knees.
“Oh, right. Needed some help with the SUV. It wouldn’t start.”
“When was that?”
“A while ago. Not sure,” he said. He smiled at her. He still had good teeth.
“Our witness says your truck was there not once but several times,” said Roxanne.
For a moment he was still, the only sound the whirr of the recorder. “You sure it was mine, Corporal? There’s lots of them around here.”
Matt nodded his head. Erik was right. He drove a Ford F-250 truck. Even the silver colour was popular.
Roxanne clasped both hands on the table in front of her. “Were you and Stella Magnusson in a relationship, Mr. Axelsson?”
“Hey,” he exclaimed, half rising out of his chair. “Me and Stella, we were just friends. That’s all. Just friends.”
“Please sit down, Mr. Axelsson. You were there at night, our witness tells us, on more than one occasion. For hours. And you were just friends?”
Erik Axelsson sank back into his chair. The look he gave her now was decidedly cooler. “Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re getting at. Are you trying to pin this murder on me? Forget it. We got along, Stella and me, sure we did, but that’s all there was to it. I’m married. I love my wife.”
“Where were you on Friday, January 19?”
“I haven’t a clue. I’d need to check. Who is this witness? How come you believe whoever it is and not me?” Now his anger was rising. Was it real or was he pretending?
“It’s not a matter of whom we believe, Mr. Axelsson. Tell us your whereabouts on those dates and we will probably be fine.”
“Maybe I need to be talking to a lawyer?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary right now. All we are doing is asking questions.”
“Well,” he said, getting to his feet, “I think I’ve answered enough of this crap for now. I haven’t been charged with anything. I’m free to go, right?”
He was. Roxanne didn’t have enough grounds to hold him. He left the room without saying goodbye. Bill Gilchrist came out of his office as Erik strode across the front office and out the door.
“Been beating up on our Erik, have you, Corporal?”
From the window, Roxanne could see Erik get into his truck. “Does he lose his temper much?”
“What, Erik? He’s harmless. Was a bit wild they say when he was young but we haven’t had any bother from him since he moved back. He’s an old hippie. The goat farm thing’s a bit stupid, if you ask me. They’ll never make money at that, but it’s probably more the missus’s thing. He’s better off sticking to fixing cars. That’s what probably keeps them going. He’s okay at that, they say. A bit lazy though. Only works when he wants to. He plays the bars sometimes with Mike Little. Doesn’t drink.”
Kathy Isfeld lifted her head from her work. “Goes to AA,” she said. “Never misses. Been going for years.”
Upstairs, Izzy McBain also watched Erik rev his truck and back it out, fast, onto the street. Matt entered the room.
“That got him rattled,” he said.
“Pleased with yourselves then, are you?”
“Hey, Izzy, you can’t let it get personal. This might get results. Want to come over to my place and watch the game tonight?” He was reaching for his coat. “Order in some pizza?”
“No thanks. I’ve got hockey practice.”
Roxanne had come in and had opened her laptop. “They’ve had a look at Angus Smith’s body. He was stabbed with a five-inch blade. It went straight into his heart. And it’s a match for the one in Smith’s dishwasher. So at least we know how and where that murder happened.” She watched Izzy reach for her parka and head off downstairs.
“She okay?”
“Oh,” said Matt, “she’ll be fine. She’ll go chase a hockey puck around the rink and get rid of her bad mood. Then she’ll show up at my place and eat all the pizza.”
Roxanne watched him get ready to leave too. He and Izzy McBain were a good match. Too bad they were both in the Force, working the same case. She couldn’t think of any other constables at Fiskar Bay that she would want to replace either of them, though. She would leave things be.
Three hours later, Roxanne was soaking in the tub in her hotel room. She’d phoned her sister and said goodnight to Finn on FaceTime. With a bit of luck she’d get into Winnipeg tomorrow night and have an evening at home with her boy. Then she’d catch up on her emails. Now she could have an early night, set the alarm for 5:30 and have a decent run in the morning.
The phone rang. Matt Stavros. He’d just had a call from his aunt Panda, the one that lived with Annie Chan. Panda wanted to know if they had really hauled Erik Axelsson in for questioning that day.
“How would she know that, Matt?”
“Because she finds out everything. Anyway, she thought we might want to know that Roberta Axelsson showed up at her friend Sasha Rosenberg’s house in Cullen Village an hour or so ago, with an overnight bag in her hand. She’s walked out on Axelsson. Says he’s been screwing Stella Magnusson.”