The Body in the Fjord (20 page)

They both headed for the ladies' room, then rejoined the group. Jan was counting heads when someone from the museum came up to him and spoke into his ear. An anxious look crossed his face, quickly replaced by a neutral one. “Carl,” he called to the other guide, who was answering a question for Marge Brady.

Pix wasn't taking much note of what was going on, but Ursula poked her in the ribs. “Follow them,” she whispered. “Something's up. They're not smiling.”

Pix slipped away from the tour and pretended to be looking at one of the exhibits—weather on the glacier. Carl and Jan were going toward the phone in the small gift shop. She hastened toward a postcard rack, grabbed one, and went to pay the cashier. Carl was speaking and she didn't understand what he was saying, but it was clear that something serious had occurred. He hung up, pulled Jan to one side, and spoke to him. The other guide's face
paled and he put a hand on Carl's arm. A few more words and they went back to the group. Pix was out the door, as well.

“Wait, you've left your card.” The clerk was running after her.

“
Tusen takk
,” Pix said, and was in time to hear “So we will be returning to the hotel for a pleasant afternoon.” Carl was smiling. Jan was smiling. At least their mouths turned up at the corners. Their eyes told a different story.

“What did I miss?” Pix asked Ursula.

“Apparently, we have to get back to the hotel because of the dinner schedule. We won't have time to see the glacier, but Jan told everyone the museum is better.”

“Dinner schedule!” Pix was positive that when the tour was supposed to eat would not have caused the reaction she'd just observed. But what would have?

 

Marit was sitting on the small dock in Balestrand, next to the huge Midsummer bonfire pile, which had grown even more since they'd arrived. She spied Pix in the bow and waved her arm back and forth. Why would Marit be down here, so obviously waiting for them, abandoning her cover? Pix jumped to her feet and started toward the door of the cabin.

“What's your rush?” Jennifer asked. She was stretched out on her back, looking up at the sky.

“I—I have to check on my mother,” Pix answered, and went straight inside to Ursula.

“Marit's on the dock. She waved to me.”

Ursula understood immediately.

“Go see what's happened. I'll be fine.”

Pix grabbed her jacket from the chair she'd hung it on—the sun had made it unnecessary—and went to the upper deck.

As the boat drew closer, she could see Marit's face was tense. She sat looking toward the fjord like some figure from Norse mythology. Pix thought she ought to be knit
ting a shroud or something. Shroud! Dear God, let it not be bad news about Kari.

Pix was the first off the boat. She went directly to her friend.

“What's wrong. Is it Kari?”

“
Nei
.” Marit stood up and took Pix's hand, pulling her in the direction of the hotel. “You've got to come. The man you found—it wasn't an accident. Everyone at the hotel is talking about it and the police are here.”

“You mean Oscar Melling
was
murdered!” She—and Faith—had been right.

It was upsetting, yet why was Marit reacting this way—so fearfully? The older woman was setting a rapid pace.

“Murdered,
ja
,” she said, “and someone saw you from a window out near the place where he was lying.”

“Well, of course they did. I found him.”

Marit stopped and shook her head. “Saw you before that. Saw you at about the time the police think he was killed.”

Now fear filled Pix, too, like the tide rushing in. A cloud passed in front of the sun. She slipped her jacket on. It was cold.

 

Entering the lobby of the Kvikne's Hotel alone after Marit went to meet Ursula, Pix debated the merits of approaching the police herself versus being approached by them. Her instinct was to find them as quickly as possible and tell all, but then again, this might seem suspicious. Why was she so anxious to speak with them? they might wonder. And of course the first thing they'd ask would be how she knew they were looking for her. Her long association with Faith Fairchild had taught Pix that her own instincts were not always to be trusted, whereas Faith's were. Pix could not recall an instance in Faith's own numerous investigations where the lady had gone to the police to share what she knew. Rather, Faith felt it was completely legitimate to hold out on them. “They wouldn't listen anyway” was her oft-stated rationale. Pix
decided to adopt it now. In any case, she had to think of Marit. She had no idea how Marit had found out so much—Pix recalled mention of pumping one of the younger, less seasoned veterans of the force—and she had to protect the older woman. But how could she tell them anything without involving Marit? For instance, why she had come to Norway on the spur of the moment? It was a hopeless dilemma.

In the end, she did not have to agonize over her decision for long. Almost simultaneously, a clerk from behind the desk and a uniformed policeman stopped her before she could get on the elevator. After saying something in Norwegian—the two words “Fru Miller” needing no translation—the clerk withdrew hastily, leaving Pix with the young officer.

“Mrs. Miller?”

“Yes?” She unconsciously mimicked his questioning tone.

“Would you mind talking to the inspector who is looking into the death of Mr. Melling, the man from your tour you found this morning?”

Tempted to reply, Oh, that Mr. Melling, instead Pix meekly said, “Of course,” and allowed herself to be ushered into the Star Chamber. Sam would kill me, she thought. Well, if I ask to have a lawyer present, it really would look odd. Besides, her lawyer husband was thousands of miles away and need never know—at least not for a while.

The hotel had turned over a large conference room to the police. It was arranged for a business meeting, long tables in a U shape, with a pad and pen at each place. An overhead projector and screen were set up at the front, along with a television and a VCR. A smaller table and several chairs had been placed in front of one of the large windows on the outside wall. A pot of pink begonias sat squarely in the middle of each sill. With Pix's and the officer's arrival, there were exactly four people in the room.

A man got up from behind the small table.

“How do you do? I'm Inspektør Johan Marcussen,” he said, extending his hand. She took it, well aware how sweaty and cold her own must feel.

“I'm Pix Miller,” and I've been better, she finished silently.

“Pix—this is an English name I've not heard before,” he said.

She decided to let it go at that. Let him think it was a family name and—inwardly cursing her parents' flight of fancy—it was.

“Please, sit down.” He pulled out a chair across the table from his. She had the fjord view. “Would you like some coffee?” This was one question that did not take her by surprise. She could not imagine anything, even a police inquisition, taking place in Norway without this beverage, and maybe some little cakes, too. Well, it would use up some time—she didn't see a tray. Plus, when it arrived, it would give her something to hold on to.

“That would be very nice, thank you.” So far, so good.

The officer who had accompanied her left the room. This left Pix, the inspector, and another police officer, pad and pen—not the hotel's—in hand.

Inspector Marcussen was tall, looming over Pix, and she judged him to be in his late fifties. His hair was gray and thinning, but he was extremely attractive. She had always thought that unattractive Norwegians were the exception, and piercing blue eyes like the inspector's had held a special attraction for her since that long-ago summer visit when Olav something, a friend of Hanna's, had flashed his at a very susceptible young American girl. The police at home did not have this effect on her. She'd known Patrolman Warren since he was a runny-nosed little boy, and his sister had been in Pix's Girl Scout troop. Veteran police chief Charley Maclsaac may have had a certain appeal once, but there had been a few too many muffins at the Minuteman Café in the last thirty years. Johan Mar
cussen, on the other hand, would have been in the group with the ropes and picks in today's glacier movie.

She realized Inspector Marcussen was talking to her and that she had better pay attention—close attention.

“It must have been a terrible shock for you to discover Mr. Melling like that in the fjord.”

“Yes, yes it was.” She folded her hands together until the coffee came, then thought it looked like she was praying, so she quickly separated them.

“Could you tell us exactly what he looked like and what you did? Maybe starting with how you came to be at the fjord at this time of the morning?”

She definitely needed a lawyer. She didn't know whether Norway was one of those countries like France where you were guilty until proven innocent. She hoped not.

The man at Marcussen's side had leaned forward. The inspector followed her gaze.

“Do you mind if Jansen here takes a few notes—to help us find out what happened to Mr. Melling? You are free to look them over before you leave.”

Leave where? The room, the hotel, the country? She nodded, took a deep breath, and—the coffee arrived.

The smell was instantly calming. For a moment, they were simply four people adding cream and sugar to their cups, or not. And while there wasn't cake, there was a plate of delicious-looking butter cookies.

“Where were we?” the inspector asked jovially. “You were going to tell us about finding the body.” The words were at odds with his tone.

“Yes.” Pix put her cup down on the table. She was afraid it might wobble. “I wasn't sleeping.” She chose her words with care to avoid as many out-and-out falsehoods as possible.
Falsehood
was the word she used to herself when contemplating a lie. It sounded so much less serious. “I got dressed and went out for a walk. It's very beautiful here.” She nodded out the window. How did the
businesspeople with the fjord view ever pay attention to their flowcharts?

“Excuse me,” he interjected. “How did you leave the hotel?”

Obviously they already knew that no one at the front desk had seen her.

“I left by a side door. It was near the stairs.”

She paused, but he didn't say anything.

“I walked along by the water, toward where the boat was docked, and met someone else from our tour, Carol Peterson.” She presumed they must know about Carol, who most certainly would have gone out by the lobby—unless, like Pix, she'd been sleuthing around for an inconspicuous side entrance and exit.

The inspector nodded.

“We sat on one of the benches and talked a few minutes, maybe five.”

“So, that would make it what time?”

“I left the hotel a little past four.” Seeing their faces, she added defensively. “People in my family have always been early risers.” Too true, too true. “It was probably ten past when I met Carol and close to four-thirty when I found Oscar.”

“You saw the body from the shore, and what did you do next?”

“I climbed down to make sure he was dead—I mean, to make sure that he wasn't just injured and needing some help.” Neither man said anything. “Like CPR. I don't know what it's called in Norwegian, but it's to resuscitate people when their hearts have failed.”

“Yet you thought he was dead before you got to him. Why was that?”

Why indeed?

“He looked dead. He wasn't moving, and it seemed like a very awkward position to maintain.” Pix closed her eyes for a second, seeing the figure sprawled on the rocks. Oh, he had been dead. Anyone would have come to the same conclusion. Her eyelids flicked open. “I'm sure if
either of you had seen him, you would have thought so, too.” She could not keep a slightly accusatory note from her voice.

“Anyway, I felt for his pulse—on his wrist, his left wrist. I didn't touch anything else.” She shuddered slightly. “Then I came straight back to the hotel to tell them. And you must know the rest.”

She started to get up. Inspector Marcussen put up his hand. He didn't say, Not so fast, lady, but he might as well have.

“Just a few more things. You must be tired.”

Pix leaned back against the chair. It had a straight back, covered and tufted, as was the seat, in deep crimson. The room had elaborate brass chandeliers, she noted. This couldn't be happening to her.

“Could you tell us about your other walk? The earlier one?”

She was glad Marit had prepared her.

“I suppose I'm not quite used to the time change.” Another nonfalsehood. “I got up at three o'clock and went outside, but I came in when it started to rain. I got very wet, in fact.”

“Again you left by the side door?”

“Yes, I didn't want to disturb anyone.”

“Did you meet anybody during this walk?” Those blue eyes were looking straight into her soul.

“No one I knew. I saw two men running from the dock to get out of the rain.”

“Can you describe them?”

“They were speaking Norwegian—I could hear it as they passed me—but I didn't get a good look at them. One had a dark beard, though.”

The inspector and officer exchanged glances.

“Now, you are from Aleford, Massachusetts?”

“Yes, it's a small town west of Boston.”

“I have never been to the United States, but I have cousins in New Jersey. They have been here often and
sometime I must go see them.” If he hoped to keep her off balance with such extraneous tidbits, it was working.

“Did you know Mr. Melling before the tour?”

“No, I had never met him before.”

“And your mother, Mrs. Rowe—had she met him here in Norway or in the United States?”

“No, and neither of us had but the slightest contact with him on the tour.” The question implied knowledge of Ursula's trips to Norway. It certainly indicated that Oscar had been here before, but that was not surprising for someone who imported Norwegian food and had such a strong feeling for his homeland.