A Nearly Normal Family(29)

“Yes?”

She peered at me, suspicious.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Who are you?”

I pointed at my clerical collar.

“May I come in for a moment?”

She gasped. “What happened? Is it Mom?”

“It’s about Christopher Olsen.”

Right away, Linda Lokind’s expression relaxed.

“Okay,” she said, letting me in. “But I’ve already said I don’t want to get involved.”

Her apartment was bright and spacious. The wall of the corridor that led to the bedroom was covered with a world-map decal, and on the floor below it stood a meter-high glass vase in the shape of a bottle with a single lily in it. The bookcase held a few fitness books held up between colorful decorative elephants. It was all bathed in the light of a giant, modern chandelier.

“Could we have a seat?” I asked, pointing at the dining table in front of the French balcony.

“Why? What do you want?”

She had stopped in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“I represent the Olsen family,” I said, pulling out a chair for myself.

It was as if the plan had been there all along. I just needed to set it in motion.

“I told you, I don’t want anything more to do with this.”

“Just sit down for a little bit,” I begged. “I’m here because the family deserves a dignified closure.”

“What family? Margaretha?”

“That’s right.” I nodded quickly. “Christopher is no longer with us. All we want is for the truth to come out.”

“What do you mean?”

Of course I hadn’t expected her to confess to the murder, but it was interesting to observe her reactions. I’ve always been good at exposing liars.

“What happened between you and Christopher?” I asked.

“Margaretha knows what happened. I told the police everything.”

She sat down at last, a reluctant grimace on her face.

“Can’t you tell me again?” I asked.

“That police officer. Agnes Thelin. She didn’t believe me. I tried to ask for someone else, but no one listened.”

Linda Lokind was undeniably an attractive woman, but beneath her smooth skin and well-proportioned face I sensed something else: a self-conscious and ambivalent little girl. How old could she be—twenty-two, twenty-three? I was quite certain she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I was almost as certain that she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

“I understand it’s difficult for Margaretha to accept, but her son is a psychopath. Was, I mean. Chris was a sick psychopath.”

According to Linda, everything had been just fine for the first two years. Or at least, she’d lived her life believing that this was the case. Later on she had realized there had been hints of darkness all along: secrets, betrayals, infidelity. But it took almost two years for the fa?ade to start crumbling.

Linda fell head over heels when they first met. Chris Olsen was handsome, charming, intelligent, and sociable. It quickly went from a passionate crush to love and plans for a future together. Too quickly, she now knew. Perhaps she would have seen the warning signs in time if she hadn’t thrown herself headlong into the relationship.

“Stop blaming yourself,” I said. “Our hearts and our brains can both be good guides. Only in hindsight is it easy to see which paths you never should have taken.”

She smiled. Although she was hiding something from me, I felt an immediate soft spot for her—that bald na?veté and her keen longing for sympathy.

“When he hit me the first time, I swore to myself it would never happen again. I wasn’t that kind of woman. I don’t know how many times I told myself that.”

“I don’t think anyone considers themselves that kind of woman.”

She nodded. Her smile had vanished; her eyes were shiny.

“It sounds stupid, but really, Chris was wonderful too. When he wasn’t violent. Every time I thought it was the last time, that it would never happen again, that I would leave him. But then everything would turn around and I would feel hope again. Maybe this time. If I just give him another chance. Idiotic, right?”

“Not at all.”

I believed her. I’d heard similar stories from other women in the same situation.

“I haven’t experienced it myself, but I’ve met many violent men through my work. I understand that it’s just one side of them. No person is solely one thing or the next.”

“It would have been so easy to leave,” Linda said, wiping her pinky finger under her eye. “I’ll never forgive myself for staying. I’ll never be able to see myself as the person I thought I was. You have no idea how awful it is for your whole self-image to come crashing down.”

She was right. I couldn’t understand. Not back then, at least.

“But Chris was a pig who deserves to rot in hell. He abused me and cheated on me and then he left me. You can read all about it in the interrogation with the police. I can’t deal with going through it all again. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“For Margaretha’s sake…”

Linda looked straight at me.

“I really don’t care. I’m not sorry that Chris is dead.”