Closed Circles (Sandhamn Murders Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

should call it a summer rerun?”
    She looked around the harbor. Sailboats and motorboats crowded into the slips. As usual, a sandwich board displaying the day’s headlines stood next to the newsstand.
    The Round Gotland murder dominated the headlines. Speculations abounded in thick black fonts.
    Commerce was in full swing despite the threat of rain hanging in the air. Crowds of tourists picked through racks of clothing at a store called the Summer Shop. A few retired folks sat on the two park benches, watching people go by.
    As far back as Thomas could remember, elderly Sandhamn inhabitants had sat on those benches and commented on passersby. They were as much a part of the surroundings as the white ferryboats. For a moment, time stood still, and Thomas remembered how impatient he’d been as a boy, waiting for his father to finish chatting with some old guys sitting there.
    “Come on,” he said. He headed toward the Yacht Hotel.
    “They’ve arranged for a conference room for us. We might as well get started. It’ll take at least the rest of the day to talk to all the people we’ve lined up.”

C HAPTER 8
    The narrow conference room didn’t look much different to Thomas than others, except for the view stretching east for miles, magnificent as a painting.
    Thomas and Margit sat on one side of a conference table, leaving an empty chair for the visitors across from them.
    Hans Rosensjöö had just left the room after confirming his short statement from the day before. Everyone aboard Bjärring’s Storebro when Oscar Juliander had been murdered told the same story. Just like them, Hans Rosensjöö could not remember exactly which boats were near the Emerald Gin at the moment the race started. Shock and a few glasses of wine had dulled his observations.
    Because the race had begun so far out on the open sea, the perpetrator must have been aboard a boat, either Juliander’s or someone else’s. At least that much was clear.
    Something occurred to Thomas as he reached for a bottle of mineral water. If he could find witnesses who could help him determine the angle of the shot that had killed Juliander, he might be able to limit the number of boats that could have had the shooter on board. They could then narrow down the search.
    The thought gave Thomas some relief. He smiled at Britta Rosensjöö as she entered the room.
    She looked like a frightened teacher called into the principal’s office for some mysterious infraction. Her thin blond hair, streaked with gray, had been cut into a pageboy that didn’t suit her at all. Her deeply tanned face, dry and wrinkled, showed she’d spent a great deal of time at sea. Thomas put her age at about sixty, but she could be sixty-five or even older.
    Britta Rosensjöö hesitated before sitting in the chair still warm from her husband.
    “What do you remember from yesterday’s incident? Can you tell us?” Margit began.
    Britta Rosensjöö’s eyes filled with tears.
    Thomas recalled yesterday’s unsuccessful attempt to speak with her. She’d been hysterical, just like Sylvia Juliander. He hoped today she could collect herself and provide some answers.
    She dried the tears running down her brown cheeks with an embroidered handkerchief.
    “Would you like some water?” Margit asked. She held out a full glass.
    “I’m sorry,” Britta said. “I just don’t understand how Oscar was shot down right before our eyes and we couldn’t do a single thing about it. The whole ordeal is so terrible.” Her eyes watered again, but she swallowed hard and continued. “I’d been taking photos of his beautiful Emerald Gin just as it neared the starting line. And then that horrible thing happened. I can’t comprehend it.”
    She dried more tears with her handkerchief.
    Thomas, now interested, leaned forward.
    “You said you were taking photographs?”
    “Yes, I often bring my camera along when I go to these events with Hans. I’ve got several dozen photo albums at home from the