Norway to Hide (15 page)

T
he common areas of the MS
Nordmarken
gleamed with polished brass fittings, lustrous wood detail, nautically themed wall murals and paintings, and windows whose exteriors wore streaky coats of salt spray. A long arcade of swivel chairs and glass-topped tables lined the entrance to the dining area, allowing passengers to enjoy quiet views of the Arctic Ocean while sipping lattes from the nearby café. The dining salon was nestled into the stern and set up with a central food island that rivaled Blimpie’s once-a-year-only Easter buffet—hot food, cold food, mouthwatering desserts. Tables with white linens and flowery centerpieces flanked the central island, and because of the off hour they were mostly unoccupied, so Jackie and I had the whole place to ourselves.

I couldn’t figure out what a lot of the cold food
was, and I wasn’t turned on by the hot entrees, so I filled my plate with slices of aged blue cheese, crackers, smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, and olives, and rounded out my selections with chocolate cake, a brownie, chocolate mousse, whipped cream, and a whole bowl of maraschino cherries. Protein. Dairy. Fish. Fruit. Looked like most of the essential food groups to me!

Halfway through our meal, an announcement blared throughout the ship, summoning all passengers to the panoramic lounge on deck seven for a mandatory couriers meeting. At least, that’s what I thought it said. The message was repeated in a multitude of languages, none of which sounded like English, so it was anyone’s guess.

We scarfed down the rest of our meal and climbed the forward staircase to the plush viewing salon on the top deck. After hooking up with the rest of the group, we were introduced to the
Nordmarken
’s captain and crew, and given instructions about what to do should our ship capsize in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean, complete with a demonstration of how to crawl into a one-size-fits-all survival suit. When the formal meeting ended, Annika announced that she’d set up a schedule board by the information desk on the dining deck, and that we should consult it several times daily to keep abreast of activities, meetings, and port walks.

“Just so you know,” Jackie confided when Annika cut us loose, “if the ship goes down, I’m not jumping into blaze orange Doctor Dentons; just let me drown.
The literary
paparazzi
could be everywhere. Can you imagine how appalled Hightower would be if I appeared on the front page of
The National Enquirer
dressed like a giant carrot?”

“Literary
paparazzi
?” I questioned.

“I’m sure they’re out there,” she assured me as we followed the crowd down the stairs to the lower deck. “They just haven’t found me yet.”

Pausing on deck six to let the crowd thin out, I glanced down a long, wide passageway with cabins on either side, wondering if any of the Florida group had paid to upgrade to the larger rooms on a higher deck.

“MESDAMES ET MESSIEURS…”
I practically leaped into Jackie’s arms as a woman’s voice exploded from the speaker system with another multilanguage message.

“Jeez!” Jackie clapped her hands over her ears. “Did Norway export all its volume control buttons?”

When the woman hit a language that sounded vaguely familiar, we learned we were nearing the port of Vardo and should prepare for disembarkation through the gangway on deck three.

“Are we going ashore?” Jackie tittered. “We can look for a cyber café and check my numbers on Amazon.”

“I’d better start searching for the suitcase with the bilious green ribbon tied to the handle. Maybe there’s another baggage room somewhere.”

“I thought we were supposed to stick together.”

She’d actually listened to me? “That would be great, Jack! To be honest, I could use your help.”

She gave me a long-suffering look. “I meant stick together while we look for a cyber café.”

“Oh.”

“How about this? You look for Tilly’s suitcase, I’ll look for computer access, and when I get back I’ll attach myself to you so permanently, they’ll need the Jaws of Life to pry us apart!”

I forced a smile. “Sounds delightful.”

She handed me her phone. “I hope you can get a signal. Stand outside when you try. All the metal in the ship could be causing interference. Don’t miss me too much!”

“Remember that we’re only going to be here for an hour,” I called after her. “If you’re not back on time, the ship won’t wait for you!”

She flashed me a thumbs-up before disappearing down the stairs. She was really on her own in Vardo, because the rest of my group had announced at our meeting that none of them were going ashore. Nana had spoken for everyone. “We’d be cuttin’ it too close. An hour only gives us enough time to walk down the gangplank, turn around, and walk back again. That’s way too much pressure.”

I tried to think positive thoughts about Jackie’s onshore adventure, but I couldn’t suppress a niggling fear that something dreadful was going to happen to her, the least of which was plummeting Amazon numbers.

Pushing my fears aside, I explored passenger deck six from stem to stern, finding no suitcases still sitting outside cabin doors, or any secret baggage rooms. I
did find two Jacuzzis on the narrow aft deck, but I didn’t think guests would be lining up to use them. They were stuck into dark corners and covered with tarps, so they weren’t very inviting.

Working against the clock, I thoroughly examined the dining and gangway decks, rechecked the baggage room, then searched the two passageways on deck two, which felt a little like the bilge. It was darker down here. Danker. I found nothing resembling Tilly’s suitcase in the fitness room or sauna, and when I opened a reinforced steel door at the end of the passageway, I was hit in the face with a blast of diesel fumes and deafened by the revving motors of vehicles, which streamed through the open cargo door. Car deck. Oops. Forcing the door shut, I climbed back up to level five and exited onto the promenade deck, with its Astroturf carpeting.

Vardo sat at the foot of low, green mountains—a sprawling town of two-story blue, red, mustard, and white houses that were exact replicas of the Marshall Plan houses we’d seen in Kirkenes. Tires hung from the quay like hubcabs on a gas station wall. Gulls screeched overhead, dive-bombing at boats laden with heavy nets and orange buoys. Warehouses with peeling paint jutted into the harbor, looking crooked and fatigued. As I stood at the rail, watching the managed chaos of passengers, forklifts, and cars vying for space on the asphalt quay, my nose twitched involuntarily.

Fish. The smell was overpowering—not because it smelled bad but because it was so alien. The only place you can smell fish in Iowa is at a Red Lobster.

Retreating to a quiet section of the deck, I dug
Jackie’s phone out of my shoulder bag and powered it up, thrilled when I got a signal. I punched in Etienne’s home number.

“This is Miceli,” he said in his sexy French/German/Italian accent. “Please leave a short message. I’ll return your call as quickly as possible.”

I waited for the beep. “This is Emily.
Please
get back to me. I have to know why May Peabody is in jail. It’s really important. I also need to beg another favor, which includes another Internet search, so if you could call me back at—”

Shoot! I didn’t know Jack’s cell phone number. I rotated the unit in search of a cheat sheet or label, but no such luck. Damn.

“Okay, here’s the thing. I didn’t expect to be talking to your machine, so I didn’t think to get the number. So I’ll have to call you back. Unless—Wait a sec. If you’re not at home, you’re out. Don’t move! I’ll try your cell.” I punched in another number.

“This is Miceli,” said his voice mail. “Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“Nuts! Where are you? I’m using Jackie’s phone, so would you call me back at the number that popped up on your screen…whatever it is? And let me know what you found out about airplane flights. We’re in Vardo now, but I’m not sure we’re going to be in any port long enough for you to catch up to us. I’ll hope for the best. Love you.”

I tried Mom next, relieved when she picked up. “What a coincidence, Em. I just tried calling you, but all I got was nothing.”

“My phone died. Literally. It’s in a thousand pieces. I hope you didn’t jump to conclusions and think I was dead or anything.”

“I thought you were probably out of cell phone range.”

I frowned. “You didn’t think the worst?”

“What’s worse than being out of cell phone range when you really have to talk to someone?”

Oh, my God. Mom and Jack were on the same wavelength. The world really
was
going to end.

“I finished researching the names you gave me, Em. Are you ready for the results?”

“Fire away.”

“Lauretta Klick’s legal residence is a retirement community in Florida called the Hamlets. She’s married to Curtis Klick—isn’t that a cute name? I love the alliteration. And they bought one of the first homes constructed in Phase One. They’ve been there so long, I guess you could almost call them the project’s founding fathers. Lauretta’s maiden name was Hauck. I had a hard time finding that out, but I finally hit pay dirt.”

“Special website?”

A pause. “I’d better not say. That way, if the Feds arrest you, you’ll be able to pass the polygraph test. She and Curtis were married in Las Vegas about a century ago, and she worked for years as a dance instructor for Arthur Murray Studios. Just like Grace Stolee! Wouldn’t that be something if they knew each other, Emily? When Arthur Murray was popular, I think they held big conventions for all the instructors.”

Lauretta had met Curtis in Las Vegas. Had she married him knowing about his past? Was it her influence that had helped him find religion? Would she kill him if she discovered that he’d committed murder to ensure that his former life remained a secret? “Anything else on Lauretta?”

“She was a real maverick. When other women were working as telephone operators, dime store clerks, and waitresses, she was a professional, even before she got married.”

“What did she do?”

“I think she made eyeglasses. The company where she worked was called Visions. Do you suppose that’s the founding company that became Pearl Vision?”

Oh. My. God
. Lauretta had been one of Curtis’s exotic dancers? You’ve got to be
kidding
me!

“That’s all I have on her. She’s pretty different from your Peabody sisters, who are a couple of social butterflies. I found a lot of old newspaper articles that went on and on about the parties they attended and where they were wintering. And the society pages were filled with gossip about their string of broken engagements. It was almost as if the two of them were competing to see how many former fiancés they could rack up.”

Gee, what a surprise.

“The family owned mortuaries across the country, but when the father died, the girls closed up shop in every state and moved to Florida. I can’t figure out why they didn’t sell out to someone who wanted to maintain the company under the family name. Pea
body was apparently
the
brand name in burial services. Why would the girls turn up their noses at preserving their father’s legacy?”

Why indeed? “Did you run across any mention of another sister?”

“Yes, I did! Mr. Peabody’s obituary listed a daughter named May, but I never saw her name on any of the society pages. Isn’t that odd? It was almost as if she didn’t exist. How could two sisters attract so much publicity, and one attract none at all?”

“Maybe she was shy,” I suggested. And serving time.

“Would you like me to see what else I can find out about her, Emily? I was only concentrating on April and June before.”

“Could you? And would you check out Portia Van Cleef and August Manning while you’re at it?” I gave her a brief rundown on each of them. “Do you have time?”

“Of course I have time.” She repeated the names and wrote them down. “My whole day is open, except for driving to Ames to meet with the caterer, sampling food for the reception, writing up your wedding program, delivering it to the printer in Des Moines, picking out new invitations, and meeting with Rabbi Karp to discuss how we can pack a few more guests into the synagogue. A day doesn’t get more quiet than this.”

I waited a beat. “You have to drive all the way to Des Moines to find a printer? You can’t find one closer to home? Like in Ames?”

“I’m going to spread the services around this time,
Em. Just a precaution. You never know when another tornado is going to hit.”

I massaged a sudden sharp pain between my eyes. “What did you find out about Vern?”

“The military can be so aggravating, Emily. They put up so many fire walls to protect their records.”

“So you couldn’t find anything?”

“Shoot, fire walls don’t faze me. What would you like to know?”

“I’m not really sure. I know he’s a retired general with bad knees who enjoys playing Scrabble. Did you read any profiles that gave more insight into his personal life?”

“I know he has awards up the ying-yang.”

“For his military service?”

“For the cha-cha. He apparently owned that dance when he was younger.”