Norway to Hide (8 page)

All eyes turned to August, who suddenly looked like the guilty guy in a police lineup. “I had a piece all ready to run, but Portia asked me not to print it. She didn’t want to stir up emotions for what was probably a one-time incident.”

“Of course it was one time,” sniped Joleen. “We only had the one grill.”

“Manning was covering up,” alleged Curtis. “Makes you wonder what else went on that Portia didn’t want made public.”

“There wasn’t anything else,” August defended, “so let’s drop the making mountains out of molehills attack.”

“I’m not saying Gus covered up,” said Vern, “but so what if he did? Coverups are part of our national heritage. Then someone gets paid ten million dollars to write the tell-all book. Hell, it keeps the economy booming.”

“Ten million?” Jackie grabbed his arm. “What did they tell?”

“It’s immoral,” Lauretta sermonized. “If you think lying to folks is okay, then you’re all in for a big surprise come Judgment Day.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “And you don’t have long to wait. Isn’t that right, Curtis?”

“That’s gospel, Lauretta.”

“Would someone put a cork in those two?” April yelled. “I didn’t come on this trip to hear it’s going to be my last. Why do they always have to spoil everything? Freaking nut jobs.”

“Blasphemer,” Curtis barked at her.

“Bible banger,” April barked back.

“Heathen.”

“Holy Roller.”

“Hold it!” Nana flipped open her notepad. “I wanna get some a this down.”

“Democrat!” jeered Curtis.

Gasps. Mouth dropping. April staggered backward, all color draining from her face. “What did you call me?”

“You heard me,” Curtis drawled, sounding like John Wayne, only shorter.

“How dare you! I’ve been called names in my life, but
this
—this goes far beyond the limits of common
decency. And you call yourself a Christian? No one has
ever
stooped so low as to call me a…a—”

“Democrat,” said Nana, reading off her notepad.

“Ohhh! You little—” Windmilling her arm, April flung her handbag at him, looking abashed when it sailed over Curtis’s head straight into Dick Teig’s face.

Eh!
I gasped as Dick stopped, tottered in place, and went down like an imploded casino on the Vegas strip.

“Dick!” cried Helen. “She’s killed Dick. Do something, Emily!”

“Etienne? I’ve gotta run.”

“Hardly unexpected,
bella
.”

I bolted out the door. Chances were April hadn’t killed him, but she’d probably broken his nose.

Old Dick had said things were going to get bloody.

He sure got that right.

“See there?” said Nana. “Them’s Joleen’s clothes hangin’ up. I told you she was gonna be here. I heard her tell Jimbob when you was tendin’ Dick’s nosebleed.”

We were in the dressing room of the hotel’s sauna, hoping we might catch Joleen alone and in a talkative mood.

“Oky-doky,” said Jackie when she finished reading the instructions posted on the wall. “Everybody get naked.”

“Does it say anything there about old folks bein’ able to keep their bloomers on?” asked Nana.

“Don’t get too hung up on modesty,” I advised as I peeled off my top. “We all have the same body parts.”

“I know, dear, but gravity’s been working on mine
a lot longer. I don’t want you to get depressed when you see what’s in store for you.”

Jackie handed each of us a fluffy white towel. “Here you go, girls. Antidepressants.”

The sauna was a little bigger than our hotel room and a whole lot hotter. A small furnace sat in a pit in the center of the room, smoke steaming off the rocks piled around it. Surrounding the pit on four sides was a raised walkway, a protective guard rail, and wooden benches with slatted backs. Joleen sat at the far end of the room, her head and body wrapped in towels as she stared listlessly into the pit.

“Could you use some company?” I asked as we trooped into the room.

“So long as your name isn’t April or June, you’re right welcome,” Joleen said in a down-home twang. “I’m developing a real dislike for the months of the year.”

“Feels like Arizona in here,” said Nana as we parked ourselves on Joleen’s bench.

I peered at her through the haze. “Have you ever been to Arizona?”

“Nope, but I got a good imagination.”

“Arizona’s pretty nice,” Joleen mused. “Mostly because it doesn’t have Florida’s humidity. Jimbob and me toured Arizona once. If we’d been smart, we would have retired there instead of the Hamlets, but Jimbob wanted to end up someplace close to home so we wouldn’t be too far from the grandkids.”

“Where’s home?” I asked as perspiration beaded my upper lip.

“Sarasota. We used to winter there in the off season, but we liked it so much, we decided to set up housekeeping permanently.”

“Where was you the rest of the year?” asked Nana.

“Just about everywhere. The Southern states, New England, Mid-Atlantic states, the Midwest. Anyplace there was a fairground big enough to erect our tents and carnival rides.”

“You’re circus people!” Jackie exclaimed.

“And proud of it,” said Joleen. “Though having a circus background apparently puts you on the outs with the gatekeepers of the upscale retirement communities. Seems we’re not homogenized enough for the ‘normal’ folk.” She sat up straighter on the bench, perking up a little. “Bet you can’t guess what I did.”

“Lion tamer,” I threw out.

“Are you kidding? One false move and you’re the blue plate special. No thank you.”

“Trapeze artist,” said Nana.

“Afraid of heights.”

“I know, I know,” cried Jackie, bouncing with excitement. “Tattooed lady!”

I regarded Joleen’s bare, unblemished skin before glancing at Jackie. “I think being a tattooed lady probably requires tattoos.”

“She might have had them removed, you know. Laser surgery can correct a lot of the dumb things you do when you’re drunk.”

“I’ll give you a clue,” said Joleen, lifting my hand to her face. “Rub your knuckles over my cheek here.”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.
It felt as rough as an emery board. “Is that stubble?”

“I got it!” said Nana. “You was the bearded lady.”

Joleen held her head high and preened. “I was the best sideshow act to ever hit the circuit. My beard hung all the way to my waist. I could braid it, set it in banana curls, put it in pigtails. Leo the Lion-Faced Boy was green with envy. He had a terrible time with split ends and breakage. I told him to try a good conditioner, but most men don’t want to fork out the bucks for expensive hair care products. Give ’em a bar of soap, and they’re happy. His pelt got so scruffy, he was forced to retire a decade earlier than he wanted.”

“How was you able to grow a beard?” asked Nana. “I got a little mustache. Should I be frettin’ that it’s gonna spread to the rest a my face?”

Joleen giggled like a teenager. “Not unless you got the same skin condition I got. Hypertrichosis. It’s something you’re born with and it lasts ’til you die. It doesn’t hurt or nothing, but it means I got way too much body hair. On an average day I can look like a shag carpet.”

Aha! That explained the sparkly face powder. She was trying to camouflage a four o’clock shadow. “But you have no hair on your arms and legs. How do you manage your condition? Electrolysis?”

“Full body wax.”

“Euuw.”
Jackie grimaced in imagined agony. “Your threshold of pain must be off the chart. My first bikini wax was more excruciating than childbirth.”

I regarded her oddly. “You’ve never been through childbirth.”

“Excuse me, Emily, but Mrs. S. isn’t the only one with a good imagination.”

“Take it from me,” said Joleen, “gettin’ all the hair ripped off your body is worse than childbirth. I gotta take painkillers when I go in there. And not just the over-the-counter stuff. I gotta take the same prescription meds that Vern Grundy takes for his knees. Awful things, with all their side effects, but at least they make the procedure tolerable.

“Not that anyone cares. When they opened the new spa, one of Gus Manning’s cub reporters interviewed me about the pros and cons of professional waxing, but the article never made it into the paper. I figured Portia didn’t want to highlight anything about her resident freak. Bad enough for her that Jimbob and me actually got voted into the community. I tried being nice to her and giving her lots of attention so she’d like me, but I don’t think it worked.”

“You have to be voted into the Hamlets?” I asked.

“Yesiree. You got to appear before the board so they can look you over and make sure you’re Hamlets material. They tell you it’s a friendly meet and greet to discuss your financial disclosure statement, but it’s not. It’s a beauty pageant.”

“So if Portia was so opposed to any kind of diversity, how did you end up being voted in?” I persisted.

“Must have been the other board members who voted their conscience instead of the party line. Probably wanted to avoid bad publicity. A bunch of people
who’d been rejected had complained to the local TV stations about discrimination, so media folks started coming around requesting interviews. Portia blew them off, but I think the other board members got nervous. Maintenance fees are high in the Hamlets, but not high enough to cover legal fees in a class action suit.”

“Who’s the other folks on the board?” asked Nana.

“The Peabody sisters, August Manning, Lauretta Klick, and Vern. The whole board’s on this trip.”

I exchanged a meaningful look with Jackie. Gee, what an interesting wrinkle. “What about Reno O’Brien? He seems pretty thick with Vern and Gus. Was he ever a board member?”

“Don’t rightly know, but I expect he wasn’t. He’s too busy traveling the globe for those races of his. And I can see why. I watched him run in one of the Hamlets sports events and he broke some long-standing record. I hear tell his nickname is Roadrunner. Gus ran an article about him in the paper, probably one of the few Portia didn’t object to. Between you, me, and the bedpost, if I was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist like August Manning, I wouldn’t have let Portia Van Cleef bust my chops about anything I wrote. Must have driven him crazy, having her dictate to him like that. Don’t know why he tolerated it.”

Why indeed?

“Would someone grab that ladle and splash more water on those rocks?” asked Joleen. “The instructions say adding humidity to the air makes you sweat, and you gotta sweat to get rid of all the nasty impurities in your body.”

“I’ll do it,” said Nana. “I probably got more impurities that need gettin’ rid of on account a I’m old.” She dipped the ladle into the nearby bucket, then, with one hand holding her towel together, stood at the rail and poured water into the pit.

Ssssssssssssst!
Steam spewed upward, enveloping us in the kind of fog you see in B horror flicks.

“Doesn’t this remind you of Victorian England?” Joleen whispered in an eerie voice. “Can’t you see it? The gas streetlamps, the men in their stovepipe hats, Jack the Ripper lurking in an alleyway in Spitalfields, ready to eviscerate his next victim?”

“Eviscerate,” Nana repeated, savoring every syllable. “That’s a good word. Emily, dear, remind me to write that down when I get to my room. I might can use it if I’m ever invited to play board games again. Did they ever figure out who that Ripper fella really was?”

“They never did,” said Joleen. “Just like that big case in Boston back in the fifties. The police thought they’d solved the mystery, but looking back now, they’re not so sure they got the right guy. Gus wrote about it in the article he published about Reno. Seems Reno was a beat cop back then and was right in the middle of the case. He even got to testify in court because he claims he saw the killer running from the apartment of one of his victims.”

“Reno’s an ex-cop?” Jackie exclaimed. “You’d think he might have mentioned that to me on the bus. I can see him as a cop.” Her voice turned dreamy. “Cops are so sexy. Cops and paramedics. I think it’s the attitude.”

“I think it’s them wraparound sunglasses,” said Nana.

“What case was Reno involved in?” I asked Joleen. “Anything I might have heard of?”

“It was well before your time, so I’m doubtful. There was no cable news back then to give up-to-the-minute coverage of every cat that gets stuck in a tree. Still, you might have seen the movie. Tony Curtis played the lead.” She looked at me through the fog. “You ever heard of the Boston Strangler?”

“
T
he territory in northern Scandinavia that you Americans call Lapland is known as Samiland to its indigenous peoples,” Helge told us on the bus ride to our evening event. “You call them Lapps, but they call themselves the Sami, and they have been herding reindeer for eight thousand years.”

“There’s a bunch of escapees hanging around our hotel,” Bernice complained. “How’d they get loose? After eight thousand years, you’d think someone would be bright enough to figure out how to keep ’em penned up.”

“Reindeer roam wild in the far north,” said Helge, “and they graze wherever they want, including the grounds of your hotel. Every reindeer belongs to someone, though. If you look at their ears, you’ll see they’re notched to prove ownership.”

We turned onto a dirt road that snaked through a woodland of hardwoods and new-growth pine, the bus shimmying as we rolled in and out of the deeper ruts. “This entire area is a working reindeer farm,” Helge informed us, “and your meal this evening will be prepared and served by its owners. Historically, the Sami were nomads like your native American buffalo hunters, but they have traded in their dogsleds for snowmobiles, their tents for condos, and their quiet evenings around the cookfire for dinner extravaganzas. The Sami have survived for eight thousand years because they have adapted to change.” Laughter crept into his voice. “It has also helped that they are—what is the term?—bitching entrepreneurs.”

Would gambling casinos be far behind?

“What happened to your hair?” April Peabody asked me as we stepped off the bus.

I fluffed the crinkled strands of what used to be my sexy Italian haircut. “The sauna treatment. It refreshes the spirit, invigorates the skin, and turns naturally curly hair into a Brillo pad. It’s really wonderful. You should try it.”

She leaned close to me and lowered her voice. “You should cover your head. You’re going to frighten the reindeer.”

Our Sami host greeted us by a rustic lodge that resembled a wigwam made of Lincoln logs. His name was Emppu, and he was a small-boned man with black eyes that snapped with intelligence, and facial features that gave him the look of Genghis Khan. He wore a blue wool tunic embroidered with bright pri
mary colors, dark leggings, moccasins with turned-up toes, and a hat like a court jester. In Finland he’d immediately be recognized as a Sami reindeer herder; back home he might be mistaken for the head elf at the “Have Your Picture Taken With Santa” kiosk at the mall. The poor guy had to be cooking in that getup.

He led us across a clearing to a fenced enclosure, where a solitary reindeer shied away from guests who clamored to pet him. I worked the crowd, snapping shots of people dressed in full mosquito regalia—white shirts, light slacks, and flat-topped green canvas hats with enough face netting to outfit a bridal party. Annika had recommended the hats as protection against insects in the deep woods, so we’d flocked to the hotel gift shop and bought out the stock, which, unfortunately, hadn’t been large enough to allow everyone to make a purchase.

Psssssssssssssst.

I looked over my shoulder to find Bernice spraying a halo of repellant around her wire whisk hair. “Do you want your picture with Emppu?” I asked cheerfully. “I should be able to get a good shot of your face since you’re not hiding behind mosquito netting.”

She stabbed a crooked finger at me as she wheezed on the fumes. “Don’t think I’m gonna forget this. You should have done your research. That’s what an escort is
supposed
to do.”

Bernice had pooh-poohed the mosquito netting idea, deeming it a tourist rip-off, but she’d changed her tune when she’d discovered that repellant was even more expensive than a hat. Of course, by then it
was too late, because the hats had been limited to one a customer, and I’d bought the last one for Nana.

“You better pray I don’t come down with malaria,” she warned.

“No chance of that happening,” I assured her. “These are Finnish mosquitoes, not the tropical variety. And they’re not as bad as Annika said they’d be.” I stuck out my hand as bait. “See? They’re not bothering me at all.”

“It’s your hair. You’ve scared them all away.”
Pssssssst.
“Ornery critters.”

Annika clapped her hands. “Please to follow me, everyone!” She led us back to the clearing, where we formed a wide semicircle around a sawhorse reindeer whose antlers were as wide as a spreading oak. “Emppu is going to demonstrate how the Sami lasso reindeer, so please watch closely so you can test your own skill later.”

“Here it comes.” Gus sidled next to me, his mosquito hat cocked at an odd angle. “The part of the tour where we get to show the world how stunningly uncoordinated we are.”

“People might surprise you,” I said as Emppu sailed a coil of neon orange rope toward the wooden reindeer from twenty feet away, snagging all fourteen points of its impressive antlers.

Whoops. Applause. Whistles.

“Dick Teig killed in the hula competition in Maui. It was a real ego booster because after his big weight gain, he couldn’t find his hips, much less swivel them.”

Emppu gathered his rope into a tidy coil and then scanned our faces expectantly, hefting the lasso as if to give it away to the first taker.

“Any volunteers?” asked Annika.

A hush descended on the group. People adjusted their mosquito netting in an obvious attempt to look preoccupied. A few shuffled backward out of the front row. The Dicks bowed their heads and slunk behind their wives.

“Where is the sense of reckless adventure that you Americans are so famous for?” Annika scolded.

Gus leaned toward me and said in an undertone, “It’s being quashed by the fear of looking like a total ass in front of everyone.”

A gasp went up from the crowd as the lasso whipped through the air, encircling George Farkas around his shoulders. “Holy Hannah!” George chuckled as Emppu tightened the noose, dragging him toward the center of the clearing. “How’d he do that?”

Eyes twinkling, Emppu coiled the rope again and handed it to George, who threw off his mosquito hat, swung the lasso back and forth to gauge its weight, then hurled it into the air.

“Yo, George!” yelled Jackie as the line dropped over the reindeer’s antlers.

“Foul!” sniped April Peabody. “He was standing too close.”

“Iowans rule!” shouted Dick Teig, fisting his hand above his head.

George shrugged modestly. “Beginner’s luck. I’d probably never be able to do it again.”

“Did you see that?” Nana asked, elbowing Vern Grundy. “He’s with me.”

“I’m going next,” demanded June Peabody as she marched into the clearing.

“I’m after her,” cried April.

I got spun around as the Floridians stormed past me in a mad scramble to line up behind the Peabodys. “Eh!” I hunched my shoulders to give them room. “I guess they rediscovered their sense of reckless adventure.”

“It’s not the adventure,” said Gus, “it’s the competition. Everyone wants to be top dog. They’re galled that George looked so outstanding. They smell blood.”

“Are you going to join them?”

“Hell, no. They can eat each other alive, for all I care. I gave up the competitive thing a long time ago.”

“Except for gin rummy.”

He smiled through his layers of mosquito netting. “Yeah. It ticks me off that I never beat the champ before she died, so I guess that makes me more competitive than I’m willing to admit.”

Hoots went up from the crowd as June’s toss flopped to the ground at the reindeer’s feet.

“You must have been pretty competitive when you wrote for the
Post,
” I remarked. “I imagine everyone would like a Pulitzer. Did you run into a lot of professional jealousy?”

“How did you know about my Pulitzer?”

“Joleen told me. She was very complimentary of the article you wrote about Reno.”

“That’s hard to believe, but I can’t take much credit
for the piece. O’Brien is a real chatterbox, especially when he’s talking about himself. Besides, who’s going to stop reading when you mention the Boston Strangler? O’Brien knew details about the case that never saw the light of day. It was pretty creepy, actually. If I didn’t know him so well—”

A cheer exploded as April roped Osmond Chelsvig’s foot.

“If you didn’t know him so well?” I prodded.

He looked suddenly distracted as Reno advanced to the front of the line. “Let’s just say he knows more about strangulation than ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the population. Definitely his area of expertise.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “And you didn’t mention that to the Helsinki police?”

“Was that my responsibility? Everyone knows about O’Brien’s big case. It was in the article. I thought it was a non-issue.”

Sure it was. Kinda like Tweetie Bird’s feathers flying out of Sylvester’s mouth was a non-issue.

“If you want to nail me for withholding evidence, you’ll have to nail everyone else for the same thing, which could really bog down the sightseeing activities. Lighten up, Emily.” He draped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Reno O’Brien is the last person on earth who’d ever kill Portia.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“
Because
he’s the resident expert on strangulation. If he doesn’t keep his nose clean, you know damned well he’ll be the one they haul off to jail.”

I liked his logic. Reno didn’t do it because it was way too obvious that he
might
have done it. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

Sniggers and jeers traveled through the Florida crowd as Reno snagged two points on the reindeer’s antlers. “Let me try again,” he pressed Emppu. “I can do better.”

Emppu waved him off good-naturedly and nodded for Vern to step up.

A hint of sarcasm crept into Gus’s voice. “If O’Brien had hit a ringer the first time up, he would have demanded I write a feature article about it when we got back home. When he makes good, he expects adulation from the immediate world.”

I couldn’t have engineered a better segue. “Do you have complete control over what you print in your newspaper?”

“I’ve always had creative control, but Portia liked to keep her thumb in the pie. She scheduled semiweekly meetings so she could look over some of my more high-profile op-ed and feature stories and give me a yea or nay.”

“I can’t imagine she’d nix much of what you wrote. I mean, you’re the one with the Pulitzer.”

“The award didn’t matter to Portia. She was the Hamlets’ heart and soul, which meant she wasn’t above downplaying controversy and suggesting that I—” He cut himself off, his voice growing cautious. “You know something, Emily? I’ve had this conversation once today already, so I’m going to end it here. Discussions about editorial decisions make for boring
conversation.” He nodded toward Emppu and Vern. “Old Vern looks pretty steady right now, but who knows how long that’ll last? I’ll tell you one thing: if he sticks it, O’Brien will go ballistic.”

I regarded Jimbob as he waited his turn behind Vern. “Is it true that Portia could barely tolerate the Barnums?”

“That’s a question you should have asked Portia—before she died.”

“She couldn’t have been very happy with whoever voted them in. Pretty gutsy move to oppose the queen bee. Was she surprised?”

He laughed out loud. “She was apoplectic, but majority rules, so there wasn’t much she could do except pout and act pissy.”

Vern launched the lasso into the air and pumped his arm as it swooped over all fourteen antler points. “Bull’s-eye!” he yelled, hobbling off balance as he was applauded by the Iowans and booed by his friends.

Gus grinned sardonically. “The person who coined the phrase ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ must have lived in the Hamlets. It’s so inspiring to spend your retirement years with people who cheer your failures and boo your successes.”

“Did Portia ever find out which board members opposed her?”

Gus frowned, looking a little disturbed by my persistence. “We voted by secret ballot.”

“But a majority would mean that four people opposed Portia. That’s nearly the entire board. What would you call that? A coup or a rebellion?”

He narrowed his gaze. “Would you mind telling me where you’re going with this? You ask more questions than the Helsinki police. Forgive my presumptuousness, but it sounds as if you’re digging for evidence that would prove one of us committed murder.”

“It does?” Damn, I hated it when I sounded so obvious.

“Is it time for dinner yet?” April Peabody whined. “I’ve had it with the mosquitoes.”

“We’re going inside,” said June, swatting the air with abandon.

“It is very hot inside the lodge,” Annika warned, “so until the food is ready, you must stay out in the fresh air.”

Pssssssssssssssssst.

“It’s not that fresh!” Lauretta objected, choking on Bernice’s aerosol spray.

“Do not enter the lodge!” Annika repeated, chasing after the Floridians who were streaming toward the building.

“All of you just stay where you are!” Joleen bellowed. “Jimbob hasn’t had his turn yet!”