The Land of Dreams

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60 8 eirik nyland was sitting in one of the two easy chairs in Bjørn Hauglie’s hospital room. In the other sat the man he’d be working with here, FBI agent Bob Lecuyer. He looked to be in his thirties. A man not given to grand gestures, and Nyland respected that. Bjørn Hauglie was sitting on the bed. He was suntanned and muscular, with sun-bleached blond hair. A tape recorder was on a small table between the two police officers and the bed. It had not yet been turned on. “Do you think they’ll keep you here long?” asked Nyland in Norwegian. “In a hospital? Why would they do that?” replied Hauglie. “Well, you’ve suffered a huge shock, of course. So I thought it might be good for you to . . . get some rest for a while.” “No. I want to go back home as soon as possible. Can you help with that?” “The best thing you can do to get back to Norway is to answer our questions and provide as many details as possible.” Hauglie nodded. “So let’s get started. It would be better if we could conduct the interview in English. Most of it, at least. For the sake of my colleague from the FBI.” “That’s fine with me.” “All right,” said Nyland, turning to Lecuyer. “We’re going to do it in English, and then Bjørn and I will have a talk in Norwegian, if that’s okay with you.” THE LAND OF DREAMS 61 “Fine.” Lecuyer leaned forward and switched on the tape recorder . Then he went through the litany of introductory facts. Time, place, who was present. His pronunciation of Bjørn Hauglie ’s name was so American-sounding that Nyland had to stifle a laugh. “First of all, could you tell us what you and Georg Lofthus were doing in Cook County, Minnesota? It’s a long way from home for you,” said Lecuyer. “We were . . . canoeing.” “That’s all?” “Yes.” “Why did you choose Cook County?” “It’s one of the best canoeing areas in the world. Famous among canoeists.” “Were you and Georg part of an international canoeing community ?” “I suppose you might say that.” “Did you often travel abroad?” “No. We once went to Sweden. Otherwise this was our first trip abroad. But we meet a lot of foreign canoeists who come to the west coast of Norway. So we practically grew up with that type of community all around us.” “But you didn’t seek out the canoeing community here in Minnesota ?” “No.” “And you didn’t meet anyone here that you’d met before?” “No one.” “Tell me, did the two of you come straight here, or did you go to other places in the United States first?” “We came straight here. We flew to Minneapolis. Then to Duluth . We rented a car and drove to . . . er . . . Finland.” With a glance Bob Lecuyer invited Eirik Nyland to continue the interview. “How long were you in Finland?” asked Nyland. “That depends whether . . . I mean, we spent most of our time canoeing in the wilderness, you know. Over the course of two weeks we took three different canoe trips. And we slept in a tent at night, of course. But we used Finland as a sort of base camp for those two weeks.” Vidar Sundstøl 62 “Where did you stay when you were in Finland?” Nyland continued . “At the Blue Moose Motel.” “But when Georg was killed, you were staying at a motel on Highway , weren’t you?” “Yes. The Whispering Pines.” “Why did you decide to stay there?” “We didn’t think we could leave Minnesota without canoeing on Lake Superior, and—” “Tell me one thing,” Lecuyer said, interrupting. “While you were staying in Finland . . . while you were taking those three different canoe trips that you mentioned . . . meaning, before you moved to the Whispering Pines . . . what sort of people did you have contact with? You must have met plenty of people in two weeks’ time. Did anyone seem suspicious? Did you have a run-in with anyone?” “We spent most of our time in the canoe. Just Georg and me. And you don’t meet a lot of people like that. Occasionally we’d see other canoeists, of course, but there was nothing . . . nobody acted suspicious. Just pleasant people.” “Did you go...