Read The Fire Dance for Free Online Page B

for her ballet class.
    Premeditated murder.
    Would an eleven-year-old girl be capable of such a crime? If Irene had been asked that question a few weeks ago, she would have said a definite no. Now that she’d met Sophie, she was no longer so sure.
    But why would Sophie have wanted to kill Magnus Eriksson? According to Angelika, they’d gotten along just fine, even though “Sophie is the way she is.” They probably didn’t have a close relationship, but it appeared that Sophie didn’t have a close relationship with anyone, with the possible exception of her father. Ernst Malmborg was second on Irene’s list of people to contact.
    Irene opened the car door and got out. She took her flashlight, as nightfall was approaching. The snow crunched beneath her snow boots. She felt the temperature falling. She turned on her hefty stick flashlight and let the beam dance over the snow-covered remains of the house. She hadn’t expected to see much, and there really wasn’t anything to see. There were tracks left from birds and small animals in the snow.
    Not far from the main house, there was an outbuilding that was so rickety it seemed that the only reason it hadn’t yet fallen over was that it hadn’t decided which way to go. Irene walked up to it and unlatched the hook that kept the broken door closed. The hinges creaked as she opened it. The interior was almost entirely empty. There were a fewbroken gardening tools in a corner, and an empty cement bag fluttered in the draft from the open door. There was a rustling sound in the trash along the side of the wall, and Irene realized that the old shed still had some tiny inhabitants. She let the beam sweep over the junk on the floor.
    The voice behind her almost gave her a heart attack.
    “What are you doing here?”
    Irene swung around and the flashlight beam fell across a heavyset woman with a German Shepherd. From the dog’s chest came a low growl. The woman held the leash in a tight grip as she stood in a wide stance.
    “Get that flashlight out of my face! Get out of here before I call the police!”
    T HE WOMAN ’ S KITCHEN was redolent of freshly baked cinnamon buns and good coffee. All the kitchen fixtures were avocado, which, together with the fir cabinet doors, revealed a renovation completed in the early seventies.
    Irene sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed a cinnamon bun while the German Shepherd snored at her feet. The hefty woman stood at the stove filling a small pressed-glass bowl with sugar cubes. She had on black corduroy pants and a black turtleneck covered by a beautiful knitted poncho in various shades of blue. The metal clasps on her clothing caught the light from the kitchen lamp.
    “You must forgive me. There have been so many strange people running around. Curious people or people looking to steal something. Just the thrill of gawking at a place where someone died …”
    The woman stopped speaking and her gaze fell on the flaps of the box holding the sugar cubes. Irene understood that this was a sensitive conversation. The woman had turned out to be Ingrid Hagberg, born Eriksson, the sister of the deceased. She had taken the death of her brother very hard.
    Once Ingrid had realized that Irene was a policewoman, she’d immediately invited her in for coffee. Irene, who knew she could use a cup, had agreed. In their conversation, Ingrid Hagberg revealed that she’d been widowed a few years previously and had no children.
    “So you see, when Magnus died, it was a big shock for me. He was the only relative I had left … well, and Frej, of course …”
    By now, Ingrid was at the table, and she stopped mid-sentence to look down at her hands resting on the tabletop. They were unusually large for a woman’s. Her fingers were red and swollen, and the fingertips were covered with deep cracks.
    “So Magnus was your only sibling?” Irene asked. She took another bite of the bun, breathing in the scent of cinnamon.
    “There were three of us all