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The Investigators, Inc. The Nordic Family Mystery. Chapter 6. Who Did It?
Things are definitely not going very well for us on this case with people being murdered while we are watching over them. How is that possible? Unfortunately Stellan didn’t want us inside his house, though his wife did. Stellan figured he could protect his wife and himself, yet she died. Leif wanted us inside his house, but his wife Astrid did not, she liked her privacy. Leif was murdered. There is a slight picture emerging from all of this, but it’s still fuzzy.
The next two brothers are like Stellan, they don’t want anyone in their flats with them. The two sisters are living together and they want us in their flat with them. At least the sisters are being wise. Those two brothers are even harder to protect since they live in flats, that makes it a lot harder to guard them. I might put ghosts in with them anyway, just to keep them safe. I really don’t want any more murders on this case.
Sigrid was talking with Ronja, the youngest sister and she talked a bit about her family and things that have been going on over the past year. It would have been nice to know some of these things at the start, but apparently the brothers warned the sisters not to talk about family matters to us, only the brothers were allowed to do that. But Ronja was scared and she didn’t want to end up murdered like the others. She was glad that her older sister Dagmar also wanted the girls to stay inside with them.
They have a 3 bedroom flat so they said our girls could use the extra bedroom. However, our girls are guards and need to stay awake. There will be 2 cats and one ghost, along with 2 other girls at all times. Of course we are not telling them that one of our girls will be a ghost and she doesn’t need to sleep anyway. It’s handy that the two sisters live together, it makes our work much easier. Anyway, Ronja told Sigrid that although Leif was content with his managers position at the family business, Astrid was not.
She has been after him for the past year to get Stellan to promote him so he would make more money. But that would mean more responsibility which Leif didn’t want, he felt they were doing quite well already. However, Astrid does like to spend money and although they don’t have any major debts, they also don’t have much in savings because she spends any extra money they have. Lately they have been arguing a lot because of this and Astrid has even gone to Stellan herself to try and get Leif promoted.
Stellan told her that if Leif is satisfied where he is, then he likely wouldn’t do well if he was promoted since he would just get stressed in his new position and that wouldn’t be good for the business. Astrid was visiting the sisters one day and was so angry with both Leif and Stellan that she was ready to kill both of them! Now, she probably didn’t actually mean to kill them in an actual sense, however, it does give her motive for the killings too, just like Hedda.
Hedda might feel slighted by the family because her and Stellan never got married like she was hoping. Of course Astrid could have killed Stellan’s wife to get back at him and hurt him. Hedda could have looked at it that way too. Astrid could more easily sneak up on Lotta, Stellan’s wife, than Hedda could. Perhaps Hedda and Astrid are working together and decided to hire someone to do the murders hoping this would prevent them from getting caught by the police. What about the father who drowned?
Hedda is afraid of being in the water, except the shower and this killer apparently can’t swim, according to Mac. Ronja said that Astrid is an excellent swimmer, but she didn’t know if she was strong enough to pull her Dad under the water to drown him. Ronja and Dagmar are very happy to have us there to help sort this out and catch the murderer, whoever it is. Dagmar is at work during the day and our girls escort her to and from work each day.
Unfortunately they are not allowed to stay with her at work, but there are always other employees around, so she feels safe while she’s there. Our team stays around to watch the building from outside, just in case someone we know goes in the building. Plus, we have one of our ghosts inside watching her, but invisibly so no one knows. Our ghosts are very handy at times like this, so we can keep an eye on the two sisters at least.
At the family business they have security cameras at the front and back of the building, the two places where people can get in. But there are no cameras on the side of the building where employees park, including Stellan. Today, after work, two of the secretaries came out to their cars and found Stellan in his car still so they went over to look. He had been shot! He had left work about 15 minutes before the secretaries did, giving the shooter lots of time to get away. Meanwhile, prior to this episode, Mac was out looking for a certain killer…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Nordic Family Mystery. Chapter 5. Hedda.
I timed the girl’s visits so that Sky, Kat and Jennifer could go along. The ghosts would go in invisibly and stay behind once the girls left to see what might happen next. Just in case one of these places decided to tip off our mystery woman that we are looking for her. That wouldn’t be nice, but it would help us out a great deal since we just might get her name that way, or at least her phone number. The first place we checked was the one in Berlin, and Jennifer was with the girls on this one. I was going to check out the place in Stockholm first, but then I thought about Steffie, and the man she was so afraid of was from Berlin.
A wild chance I will admit, but we have to start somewhere. Anyway, two of the girls went inside, along with Jennifer who remained invisible, and they began talking with the owner about that brand of cigarettes and asked if he had any. He didn’t have any in stock, but would within a week at the most. He said that he didn’t get much call for those because they were so expensive and not many people liked them anyway. The girls asked if it was men or women who usually bought them and he said it was nearly all men, but he did have two customers who were women that liked them as well.
Then they asked if the women were local or from out of the city, or perhaps out of the country. That made him a little curious and he asked why they wanted to know. So they told him they were private investigators hired by a woman to see if her husband was cheating on her. A cigarette was all she had to go on, and her husband didn’t smoke. So, they had the cigarette analyzed and found out what brand it was, so they are checking to see if it might have come from a woman.
That’s when he got rather cold and said he didn’t give away information about his customers and he asked them to leave. “Not even for 500 euros?” asked Melanie. “No, now please go,” he said. “How about 1,000 euros?” she asked again as she put the money on the counter. That made him stop and think for a bit, but then he shouted “NO” and ordered them to leave or he would call the police. So, she picked up the money and they went back out to the car. Jennifer, however, stayed inside and close to the owner.
The girls had parked down the street a bit so the owner was not able to see if they drove away or not. It was an old fashioned shop and the owner still had a book with names and phone numbers of his customers written in it. He took that out of a drawer and put it on the counter, opening to a certain page and then he phoned one of the numbers. Jennifer was watching what he dialed and quickly looked at the book and got the woman’s name. “Hello, Mrs. Karlsson?” he began, but Jennifer put her ring against his neck and he immediately fell asleep.
She hung up the phone right away, then laid the man on the floor. He won’t remember the girls being in his shop, that drug works very well. “Okay girls,” said Jennifer, “pick me up please.” She left the shop invisible and became visible down the street behind some people as they came out of another store. No one even noticed, which was the whole point. She communicated with me the information that she had and I gave it to Cristy to track down where she lived. The woman’s name was Mrs. Hedda Karlsson, her husband’s name is Jon.
He is quite wealthy and is 52 years old, she is a beautiful woman who is 27 years old. But something else that Cristy found was more interesting. The high school newspaper labeled Stellan and Hedda as the hottest couple in the school. So, I just had to call Oskar since he and Stellan were best friends since before high school and he must know something about this romance. “That’s right Steve,” said Oskar, “Stellan and Hedda went together for 4 years. Since she was 2 years behind Stellan they decided to wait until she graduated before they got married.
However, Hedda’s parents objected to their plans so Stellan walked away from their relationship and 3 months later he was going with his present wife and they were married a year after that. Unfortunately, Stellan couldn’t stay away from women, but his wife stayed with him anyway, even though she knew about his girlfriends.” “Hmm, this doesn’t look good for Stellan,” I said, “especially if he has been seeing Hedda again.” “Do we have to tell the police about this?” asked Oskar, “I mean, they would likely arrest him if they found out.”
“Yes, they would, so we won’t say anything just yet,” I told him, “after all, we have no proof he has been seeing Hedda again. But if he has been lying to us, then we can’t protect him.” Oskar understood that and he asked if he could talk with Stellan and see if he has seen Hedda lately. I gave him permission, but only if he took one of the other guys along with him, and he agreed to that. Meanwhile, “Mr. Jakob,” said Hedda, “your phone call was interrupted. Did you have a message for me?” “No, Mrs. Karlsson,” he replied, “I never called you.” “But it was you who called,” she said, “is there a problem to discuss?”
“No, none at all,” he said again, “I’m not sure how a call could have been made to you, it certainly was not me, I have phoned no one today and I have had only one customer today, a nice old gentlemen who has been a regular customer for years now.” “Okay Mr. Jakob,” she said, “I guess it was just a wrong number.” That is very odd, she thought to herself, but Mr. Jakob himself is getting rather old, so maybe he dialed the wrong number by mistake and didn’t want to admit it.
That night there were extra team members watching Stellan’s house, to make sure he didn’t somehow leave without them knowing. But, the night passed quietly with nothing happening at Stellan’s house or the houses next to his. However, over with the next brother Leif and his wife Astrid it was a different matter. Astrid woke up to find that Leif had already got up and was making breakfast, so she went to shower and get dressed. Then she was alerted by the smoke alarm and she ran downstairs and found bacon burned and smoke pouring from the frying pan.
Then she noticed Leif lying on the floor, he was dead! Okay, this is not going well at all, someone is murdering people that we are supposed to be guarding. How did they do it this time? I sent the ghosts and cats over to do some serious checking around once the police were gone. There was no evidence of foul play this time though, the police thought it could have been a heart attack but they won’t know for sure until they get the coroner’s report.
It could be a heart attack, brought on by stress because of what has been happening. Samantha said it could happen, even though Leif is only 27. They have 2 young children, ages 1 and 3. I still think it was murder, it could have been done with poison, but we won’t know until the coroner’s report comes out. “Cristy, I want a copy of the coroner’s report as soon as it’s ready please,” I said. “I thought you would,” she said, “so I’m ready to grab it.” Then Sigrid learned something interesting talking with Ronja, the youngest daughter in the family…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
