* * *
Considering Stella’s negative attitude toward the Church, it came as a surprise when she wanted to attend confirmation camp.
As a newcomer to the congregation, one of my first projects had been to get a good confirmation group off the ground. Along with the neighboring congregation, we found the perfect camp location by Lake Immeln, on the border with Blekinge, and by chance we also managed to recruit a young deacon named Robin as camp director.
The camp was an immediate success, and leading up to Stella’s year we received inquiries from teens and parents all over the city. I knew that a great deal of our popularity had been thanks to Robin, who was young and charming but not without depth, so I allocated an exorbitant portion of the congregation budget to hire him as director once more.
Of course I noticed how the confirmand girls looked at him; I realized that his charm concealed certain dangers, but the fact was, I was simply too na?ve to hear any warning bells.
“I think we should let her go to confirmation camp,” I said one evening in April as the wind was blowing hard enough to shake the walls.
We were sitting around the dinner table, the whole family gathered together for once. A week had passed without a major outburst.
“For real?”
Stella threw her arms around my neck.
“You are so the best,” she said with her mouth full. “I love you, Dad!”
“Let’s see what Mom says first.”
Ulrika was chewing with great focus. She had just been hired on as assistant counsel for the defense in what would become one of Sweden’s most infamous trials. She’d thrown herself headlong into the task, going from working too much to working even more.
“What am I supposed to say?”
She took a few sips of milk and stared at me.
“Say I can go,” Stella said, still hanging over me.
“Please,” I said with a rather foolish smile.
I will confess that to a certain extent I viewed the confirmation camp as an opportunity for Stella to discover new value in Christian fellowship. A chance to open up and find herself. Perhaps, I hoped, this might be the start of a path toward return. A way for Stella to come back, but also a path for me, back to the daughter I missed.
“Of course you can,” Ulrika said at last.
It felt like this could be a turning point.
One Friday in August, Stella boarded a bus in the church parking lot. Ulrika had missed her flight from Stockholm, but I stood there waving as the bus backed out. Stella’s smile took up the entire back window. She never waved back.
23
On Wednesday afternoon we were back in the courthouse. Ulrika walked ahead of me through the metal detector at security. When it was my turn, the frame began to beep and blink. All eyes were on me, but the guard quickly discovered that I had only forgotten to take off my necklace.
Michael Blomberg hardly had time to give us a proper greeting in the corridor. His forehead was dripping with sweat and the knot of his tie looked sloppy. Was he really the right man to defend Stella?
I could barely feel my feet as we walked into the courtroom. Stella was already inside, and from behind she looked like anyone, a typical teenage girl, a young person with her whole life ahead of her. Only when I saw her listless gaze did reality catch up with me. Nothing about this was normal.
The custody hearing began, and this time neither party demanded closed doors. Prosecutor Jenny Jansdotter had the floor. She spoke rapidly and with no hesitation.
“Based on the new forensic evidence that has emerged in the investigation, I hold that the level of suspicion against Stella Sandell has risen.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Stella. It was so awful that she was sitting there, just a few meters away from me, and I still couldn’t talk to her. All I wanted was to hug my little girl.
According to the lab results, the footprint the crime-scene technicians had secured next to the site of the murder came from the same kind of shoe that Stella was wearing when she was apprehended. It was not possible, however, to determine whether the print had come from Stella’s shoe in particular.
The crime-scene analysis had also indicated clear traces of capsaicin on the victim’s body, which likely meant that Christopher Olsen had been sprayed with pepper spray.
“Several of Stella’s colleagues have revealed during questioning that Stella always carried a can of pepper spray in her purse,” the prosecutor said.
That seemed preposterous. Why would Stella walk around with pepper spray?
Moreover, Jansdotter explained, the police technicians had secured a great many traces left by Stella in Christopher Olsen’s apartment on Pilegatan. Strands of hair, flakes of skin, and clothing fibers.