Norway to Hide (7 page)

I rolled my eyes. “That’s because he wants to go to bed with you.”

“Portia Van Cleef was the most hated woman on the planet,” George blurted out as he and Tilly came up behind us. “I got it straight from the Klicks.”

“That’s not fair!” Jackie stomped her foot. “That was
my
news.”

“It was my news, too,” said Tilly. “The Peabody sisters told me Portia was so obnoxious and contrary that no one in Florida could stand her.”

“How’d you get that outta them?” asked Nana. “I couldn’t get nothin’ outta Vern. He sucked me into
playin’ travel Scrabble with him on the bus and didn’t have nothin’ to say except, ‘It’s your turn.’”

A smile teased the corners of Tilly’s mouth. “My ethnographic techniques are legend, Marion. Of course, it also helped that the ladies scarfed down their reindeer stew in two seconds, so that left plenty of time for chatting.”

“Do you think they’re ever bothered by heartburn?” asked George.

“I’d be worried about gas,” said Nana. “Has anyone ever heard of U-L-N-A?” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Is it naughty?”

“It’s a bone in your arm,” said Tilly.

“No kiddin’? I had a notion Vern was makin’ it up, but I didn’t wanna challenge ’cause I thought it might embarrass him to give a definition in mixed company.”

“Did Curtis and Lauretta happen to explain
why
they despised Portia so much?” I asked George.

He removed a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and angled his reading glasses over his plastic nose protector. “I knew you’d ask me that, so I made notes. They didn’t say how much
they
disliked Portia, they just talked about how much everyone
else
disliked her. They thought that was more ethical than trashing her themselves.”

“That’s so noble,” Jackie cooed. “Doesn’t it make you all warm and fuzzy inside to know that
someone
on this tour is willing to take the moral high ground?”

Oh, God.
“Anything else?”

“Yeah,” said George. “The Klicks summed up their thoughts in one sentence, and I quote: ‘We don’t have
anything bad to say about Portia Van Cleef personally, but everyone who knew her said she was a spiteful, uppity, dogmatic shrew.’”

“Aha,” said Tilly. “A harridan.”

Nana scribbled furiously.

“So where do we go from here?” asked Tilly. “Do you still want us to cozy up to people and pump them for information?”

“You bet,” I said, as I watched guests amble back toward the bus. “If Portia was the most hated woman not only in the Hamlets and Florida but on the entire planet, too, why didn’t anyone bother to tell that to the Helsinki police?”

“They were covering their own butts,” sniped Jackie. “If someone leaked that bombshell to the police, they’d all be suspects.”

“Lots of people are obnoxious and critical, but they don’t get killed because of it,” George countered. “Look at Bernice. She’s a pain in everyone’s neck, but no one’s strangled her yet.”

“George makes a good point,” said Tilly. “We can usually tolerate obnoxiousness in a person, but when it gets meaner and is directed at us specifically, we tend to react by either circling the wagons or going on the offensive. I suspect Portia may have antagonized someone until it reached the proverbial tipping point. The question is, what was she using as leverage and why did it suddenly reach critical mass?”

“You s’pose them folks what live in the Hamlets have to fill out disclosure statements before they can move in?” asked Nana.

“Of course they do,” said Jackie. “You practically have to file a disclosure statement to buy a chili dog from a street vendor these days.”

“So if Portia seen them statements, she’d know an awful lot about them folks.”

“Things no one else might know,” I said with sudden clarity. “Financial history. Medical history. Family background. Do you think she was blackmailing someone?”

“Could be she was leaking confidential information,” said George, “but you can’t divulge what’s in those legal documents. It says so right there in the fine print.”

Tilly nodded agreement. “If she betrayed someone’s trust, she might have angered them beyond the pale.”

I suspected she’d angered someone, all right. Angered them so much that they’d decided to kill her.

“
D
o you see the computer hookup?” Jackie asked as she glanced behind the television on our dresser.

Our hotel flaunted an alpine air, with dark wood interiors, acres of glass, and flower boxes brightening every balcony. A deck fronted one end of the building in German beer-garden style, and directly across the road sat an odd complex that looked like a misconceived experiment to cross a fairy-tale castle with the dogs from 101 Dalmatians.

I searched the wall beside our mini-sofa. “Are these rooms supposed to have computer access?”

“They better have! If I can’t check my Amazon numbers, you’re not going to want to be around me.”

Always something exciting to look forward to.

Knock, knock, knock.

“These rooms don’t got no computer hookups,” Nana
fretted when I answered the door. “How am I s’posed to dig up the dirt on folks if I can’t Google no one?”

“We might have to do it the old-fashioned way,” I said as I ushered her inside. “Ingenuity instead of technology.”

“I’m old, dear. The switch might be too much for me.”

“Do you think there’s a computer room in the hotel?” asked Jackie.

“We might could look,” said Nana. “They got a cell tower, so Internet access shouldn’t be far behind.”

A familiar digital tone sent me rummaging through my shoulder bag for my cell phone. “Hello?”

“I have such good news for you, Em! Oh, this is your mother.”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, distracted as Nana shook her head and mouthed, “
I’m not here
.” “I could use some good news.”

“I knew you could. That’s why I’m calling. You’re going to be so proud of me, Emily. I’ve found a new venue for your wedding reception!”

“So soon? Wow. How’d you do that?” I nodded to Jackie as she herded Nana out the door.

“I talked to Arnie…
krrrrrk
…and he…
krrrrrkkk
…isn’t spoken for on the weekend of your—”

“Wait a sec, Mom. You’re breaking up.” I stepped onto the balcony and leaned against the decorative wood rail. “Okay, say again?”

“Arnie Arnoldussen told me the auction barn is available on your wedding day, so I went ahead and booked it.”

I paused. “The Auction Barn? What’s that? A new restaurant in Ames?”

“The Windsor City auction barn, Emily. The one west of town. It’s plenty big for the number of guests you’re inviting, and Arnie promised to fix the roof. It blew clear off in the tornado and landed in the middle of Elmer Egeland’s cornfield. We can set up tables. Sweep the sawdust off the floor. It’ll be perfect.”

“Mom, don’t they auction off hogs in that barn?”

“Yes, dear, but it’s close to home, and the building has lots of receptacles, so we can use those plug-in room fresheners to eliminate odors. They come in several delightful fragrances. We can even use the animal pens to display gifts. The key will be strategic use of crepe paper.”

Oh, God.
“Have you talked to Sharon to see how she’s doing?”

“First thing this morning. She wanted me to tell you that she thinks she should bow out of the wedding, but I told her you wouldn’t hear of it. So here’s my idea: we rent a wheelchair and decorate it with crepe paper and tulle so it looks like a piece of wedding cake, and she rolls down the aisle as if she’s riding a Mardi Gras float. I’d like to add a few helium balloons, but Etienne’s relatives might find that a little tacky. What do you think?”

I hung my head.
Why me, Lord? Why?

“Oh, before I forget, Emily, there’s a rumor circulating that Olle Erickson might decide not to rebuild the bank.”

“But he has to rebuild! Windsor City Bank is a cor
nerstone of the community. Where will people go to do their banking?”

“One of those newer national banks will probably take its place. Olle’s already past retirement age, so word is he might hang up the day job and become a snowbird.” She let out a tired sigh. “I don’t know what’s going to be harder on your grandmother—the prospect of never taking another trip with you and her friends, or standing in the rubble of the funeral parlor.”

“Nana’s the most resilient person alive, Mom.”

“I know, I know. But Heavenly Host is her home away from home. The shock of not being able to attend visitations when she gets back is going to come as a terrible blow. Between you and me, Em, I’m afraid she might never recover. When old folks are forced into changing their routine, it often proves to be the beginning of the end.”

“Nana is
not
old! She’s only seventy-nine. Have you read
Cosmo
lately? Seventy-nine is the new sixty.”

“Of course, it is. Have you noticed any changes in her since you broke the news about the tornado?”

“No, she’s perfectly fine.” I spotted her and Jackie on the lawn below me, making small talk with guests who were snapping photos of the dalmatian puppy castle across the street. “Except…her handwriting has gotten a little sloppy. Have you noticed that before?”

“Oh, dear. Handwriting is the first thing to go.”

“I thought it was memory.”

“Is it? I don’t remember. But it sounds as if she’s on a downward spiral. Will you be able to handle her,
mily? Should I fly out there to help you? If I leave your father a list he can take over the wedding plans, though I’m not sure how well he’ll do if he has to pick out your flowers. His color blindness could be a real problem, especially—
krrrrrk krrrrrk.
”

“Mom?”

“
KRRRRRK!”

I killed the connection, then watched forlornly as Jackie helped Nana up the stairs to the beer garden. Oh, God. What if this
was
Nana’s last trip? What if the handwriting business was symptomatic of a larger problem? What if she didn’t live long enough to see me married?

I can’t go there
.

Battling unwanted tears, I punched a number into my phone.

“Miceli.”

“Hi, sweetie, it’s me. Do you have time to cheer me up?”

“Always,” he said in an unhurried tone that wrapped dreamily around me. “Where shall I begin? By telling you how many days are left until our wedding, or by listing the things I love most about you?”

I dried my eyes, feeling better already. “Etienne, how would you feel if the wedding turned out a little different than we’d originally planned?”

“Different how?”

“Different church, different restaurant, different town.”

“As long as the bride stays the same, I won’t complain.”

“So you’d be okay with a bridal reception in a livestock auction barn with crepe paper streamers and plug-in room fresheners?”

Silence. “What happened to the elegant restaurant with the string quartet and candlelight?”

“Here’s the scoop. Have you ever seen the movie
Twister
?”

As I filled him in on Windsor City’s recent disaster, I watched Nana and Jackie hobnobbing with several guests who were seated around patio tables, drinking and swatting mosquitoes. August Manning waved a deck of playing cards in front of Reno O’Brien, drumming up a game of gin rummy, no doubt, while the Peabody sisters and Vern Grundy sat side by side, staring at mugs of ale. When Joleen Barnum shouted, “Go,” Vern and the two Peabodys chugged down their brew, then slammed their mugs onto the table. Joleen consulted her stopwatch, announcing in a thundering tone, “And our winner is—by one and eight-tenths seconds—Ap-rrrril Peabody!”

Applause. Table pounding. Foot stomping. A deep-throated chant that sounded like, “Ape-ape-ape.” Gee, these Floridians really knew how to celebrate a victory. Jimbob Barnum turned a cartwheel on the deck, which propelled him onto the surrounding rail like a gymnast on a balance beam. He flipped backward into a handstand, lowered himself onto his chest, then, with the ease of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, coiled himself into a Chinese ball with his bony tush coming to rest on his head. Quite a trick for a guy who wouldn’t have to jump to dunk a basketball.

“Your mother’s offer of help is very generous, Emily, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather elope? I could arrange everything. We could be married on the summit of the Jungfrau, or on the shores of Lake Como.”

The shores of Lake Como sounded a lot more romantic than Arnie Arnoldussen’s auction barn, and yet…“If we elope, does that mean no family present?”

“It can mean anything you want it to mean.”

An alpine lake or a hog barn? The fragrance of Italianate gardens or the masking power of room deodorizer? The choice seemed pretty clear cut. “It wouldn’t feel like a celebration if Nana, and Tilly, and George, and the rest of my family weren’t there. Is that all right with you?”

“I’d prefer it that way,
bella
. Imagine what lively entertainment our grandmothers will provide when they meet.”

I regarded Nana as she snapped a picture of Jimbob twisting himself into another contortion.
If they meet
.

“Tell Jackie I’m enjoying her novel, Emily. Do you know how much of it is autobiographical?”

“Probably all of it.”

“Really?” His voice dipped an octave to a soft, throaty whisper. “Her love scenes are quite…stimulating. I didn’t realize you were so…insatiable.”

When had I been around any man long enough to be insatiable? “Are you sure you’re not confusing me with Nana?”

“GET OUT HERE, DICK!” Helen Teig stood on the balcony to my right, pointing at the road. “AND BRING YOUR CAMCORDER!”

“Does the shouting mean you have to go?” asked Etienne.

“Oh, my God. You won’t believe this.” I regarded the spectacle in front of the hotel, wishing my phone could take photos. “We’re being visited by Santa’s reindeer.”

They moved as quietly as a fog bank, their hoofs eerily silent as they poked down the road and into the hotel parking lot in seeming slow motion. Their pelts were gray and mangy, their legs spindle thin, their antlers soaring above their heads like giant wishbones with attached hat racks. They seemed as tame as a herd of house cats, and they continued their unhurried pace across the lawn as the guests in the beer garden flocked down the stairs for a closer view.

“Don’t get too close!” Helen shouted to the onlookers. “They could attack at any moment.”

“There’s a couple of dozen of them,” I said to Etienne, “and they’re huddling like Irish sheep on the lawn right below me.”

Dick Teig stormed outside to join Helen. “I’m standing on my balcony in Finnish Lapland,” he narrated into his camcorder. “Here’s the front lawn of our hotel. Here’s some of the guests on our tour. Here’s the pack of wild reindeer who are gonna attack the stupid shits if they get too close with their cameras.”

Jimbob Barnum leaped off the railing with the grace of a ballet dancer, then cartwheeled across the
lawn, collapsing to the ground when he slammed into August Manning’s back.

“What
is
it with you?” August barked. “You can’t walk on your feet like everyone else? You almost knocked my glasses off my face.”

“Don’t you talk to him like that,” Joleen shouted, running toward Jimbob and wrapping him protectively in her arms. “Who do you think you are? Portia?”

“Neutral corners,” said Vern, flattening his hand against August’s chest. “You two have better things to do than knock each other’s teeth out.”

“That’s what you think,” Jimbob shot back. “There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than taking this guy down a peg or two.”

“You’ve had it in for us ever since we showed up at the security gate,” Joleen lashed out at August. “All of you have.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Reno. “I never laid eyes on either one of you until we had that group meeting about the trip.”

“It might have helped if you’d tried to fit in a little better,” April Peabody advised Joleen.

“You needed to buy a golf cart,” said June. “No one walks anymore. It’s simply too gauche.”

“Things are heating up down there,” Dick Teig said as he shut down his camcorder. “I’m going down for close-ups. Looks like it could get bloody.”

“Is someone bleeding? Emily? Are you there?” Etienne asked.

“Don’t panic,” I soothed him. “That’s just Dick Teig thinking out loud.”

“Those commercials on television are so phony,” Joleen ranted. “‘Come to the Hamlets to find the gold in your golden years.’ What the ad should say is, ‘Come to the Hamlets if you want to be laughed at for being different.’ Intolerant snobs.”

“If you find the Hamlets experience so distasteful, why don’t you move?” suggested June.

Joleen helped Jimbob to his feet. “’Cause we didn’t buy into the Hamlets concept to cut and run at the first sign of trouble. I don’t care who egged our house, or toilet papered our trees, or exploded our barbeque grill. We’re gonna stay the course, no matter what.”

“Stick to your guns,” encouraged Jackie. “Moses stayed the course, and look how well it turned out for him.”

“Curtis and me never heard about the exploding grill,” Lauretta Klick objected. “Did it make the paper?”