A Nearly Normal Family(16)

“What’s more, the prosecutor has a witness. The neighbor,” Blomberg said, leaning across the desk to read from the document. “My Sennevall.”

He sounded so calm, as if this was something that must simply be accepted. Shouldn’t he be furious? Want to take action?

“The witness,” I said. “How can she be so certain it was Stella she saw? She doesn’t know her.”

“She claims to recognize Stella from H&M.”

“Recognize her?” I muttered.

Ulrika elbowed me in the side.

“What does Stella say?”

Blomberg cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair. Once again he turned to address Ulrika directly. With every passing second, I became more convinced of his incompetence.

“After closing time, Stella and a few colleagues went up to the Stortorget restaurant. They ate and had a glass or two of wine. Around ten thirty, Stella left the restaurant. All of her colleagues have confirmed this. She said nothing about where she was going, but everyone assumed she was going to bike home.”

“But she didn’t?”

“Stella herself says she biked over to Tegnérs and went around to a few other pubs in town. She doesn’t remember exactly where she was at any given point in time.”

Ulrika and I exchanged glances. This didn’t sound like a very solid alibi. In fact, it seemed evasive, the sort of thing a guilty person would say. Why hadn’t she made an effort to remember more details?

“There must be something more she can recall,” I said. “There must be other people who saw her. She knows half the city.”

Blomberg glanced at Ulrika, whose response was to stretch and gaze past him and out the large window.

“Do we know anything else about the timeline?” she asked. “That witness, Sennevall, said she heard screaming and fighting around one o’clock?”

“That’s right. The first reports mentioned just after one in the morning, but now they’re waiting for the medical examiner’s report before nailing anything down.”

Ulrika looked at me.

“If it’s determined that Christopher Olsen died at one o’clock, that means Stella has an alibi.”

“That’s correct.”

My vision swam.

“And not just any alibi,” the star attorney went on, a smug smile on his face. “Everyone I’ve spoken with says you’re the personification of honesty, Adam.”

I swallowed heavily.





16


The custody hearing took place right after lunch. I had passed by the county courthouse in Lund thousands of times, that unusual fa?ade with its irregular shale siding and copper details, the little clock tower out front. Now, for the first time, I stepped through the doors and was forced to empty my pockets. I stood in the entry like a crucifix as a security guard patted me down. Once inside, Ulrika and I sat on a cot-like bench in the corridor to wait. The air was thick.

Each time the door opened, we flew up, causing the security people to startle until finally they told us to take it easy.

At last Stella arrived, flanked by two uniformed men. She just hung there, a slender ghost between the broad-shouldered guards. Didn’t even look our way. Ulrika dashed up and threw her arms around her but was quickly fended off by one of the uniforms.

“Stella! Sweetheart!”

I tried to force my way between the guards to touch my little girl, but one of the large men put out both his bulging arms and blocked my path.

“It’ll be over soon, Stella,” Ulrika said.

Stella was pale, her eyes sunken, and there was something else about her, something I’d never seen before. She was resigned. The exhaustion in her face was the kind you only see in people who have acquiesced, abandoned themselves to their fate, or, in this case, to the system. People who say, “Do what you want with me.” You can see it in their eyes, how all the life has been sucked out.

I’ve met others who capitulated. People so thoroughly drained of purpose and volition that they can no longer muster up the strength even to inflict harm upon themselves.

As Stella was guided into the courtroom, I was flung down into a limbo of uncertainty. I’m still suspended there in midair, kicking for my life, grasping for stability.



* * *



The courtroom was no larger than a living room. The presiding judge was paging through some documents as we took our seats in the gallery. Blomberg pulled out a chair for Stella and as she tried to sit down she looked like she’d gone to pieces, as if her body were no longer articulated, and Blomberg had to hold on to her with both hands.

Ulrika and I squeezed each other’s hands. Our little girl was just five meters away from us and we weren’t even allowed to touch her.

The prosecutor entered, wearing heels that could be heard from all the way down the hall. Springy steps in expensive clothing, tinkling jewelry around her neck and wrist, the body of a gymnast: short, slim, fit, and bowlegged. Her glasses had square, black frames and her hair was slicked down, not a strand out of place. She arranged her documents in three prim stacks on the table, straightened their edges with her ruby-red nails, and then shook hands with Blomberg and Stella.

I hardly had time to understand that the hearing had begun before the presiding judge ruled that it would take place behind closed doors and a bailiff explained that Ulrika and I needed to leave.