The Body in the Fjord (24 page)

“I'll take your camera, thank you.” His accent seemed markedly British now.

Pix thought naïveté was worth a try.

“Carl, I know this must look odd, but I came on board to find my mother's glasses, which she has misplaced. She's an insomniac and wants to read. Earlier, we searched everywhere, and they are nowhere at the hotel. I thought she might have left them on the boat and came here to have a look.”

“In the steward's closet?” he asked sardonically, clearly enjoying himself.

“It seemed the obvious place for lost and found.” He had trained his flashlight beam on her and she gestured toward the bags.

“A good try, Mrs. Miller, but not good enough, I'm afraid.” He tilted the chair down and it hit the floor with a bang. “No, you will have to do a little better than that. Now the camera.”

Pix handed it over and watched him open the back, exposing all the lovely shots she'd made of the fjord. She
hadn't gotten around to photographing the contents of the closet. Her plan had been to pack one case up and hightail it to Inspector Marcussen, bringing him back to see the rest for himself. Otherwise, he might have suspected her of smuggling, too.

She thought about screaming. The noise Carl's chair had made reminded her of that option. The dock had been deserted when she came, but someone might hear her now.

It was as if he had read her mind.

“Oh, and please don't make any loud noise. If you do, I will be forced to kill you.” He took a gun from his pocket and held it in the beam of light. It looked very real and quite deadly. “You know how deep the fjord is here. And you have established quite a reputation for eccentricity—roaming about at unlikely hours, locking yourself in a sauna. Your disappearance may cause some initial alarm, but not for long.”

It was too true. Pix sat down on the floor. It was that or have her knees buckle under her. Murder? Over some antiques? More had to be at stake.

“My mother knows where I am. She's waiting for me to come back now,” Pix said bravely. She was about to add that her mother knew about the closet, but fortunately she stopped herself in time or she might have had a companion.

“Your mother is sound asleep and so is Fru Hansen.”

Pix realized there was no way Carl could let her go—not until he got away. Was that what was going on? Was he waiting for someone? Someone in a boat or car who would take him and the treasures away?

He'd said “locking yourself in a sauna.”

“So it was you who locked the door of the sauna!” She was beginning to feel less terrified and more angry.

“Yes, but I wouldn't worry about that right now if I were you.” He sounded amazingly cool. She couldn't see much of him behind the light he steadily trained on her, and his voice emerged disembodied out of the darkness,
every nuance emphasized by the lack of facial expression to go with the words.

It was on the tip of Pix's tongue to ask what exactly she should be worrying about now, but instead, she said, “And you are dealing in stolen antiques.” She might as well get the whole story.

“Absolutely not!” He was righteously indignant. “Nothing has been stolen. Everything you see was purchased fair and square.”

She began to get the picture. Fast cash for great-grandmother's carved bread platter and a new satellite dish instead. He had to be taking the stuff out of the country, though. If he was simply selling to Oslo or Bergen antique dealers, why the hidden chamber and all the Scandie Sights tags? The tags—ingenious. Mix them in with all the rest of the tour's luggage.

She opened her mouth to ask another question. She wished he'd lower the beam. It was making her head ache—or maybe that was due to the uncertain nature of her current position.

“Did Kari—”

“Shut up!” He stood up and seemed to listen for something. She couldn't hear a thing. He sat down.

“I must warn you, Mrs. Miller—may I call you Pix?—it is better if you do not discuss certain subjects. Healthier for you.”

“No, you may not call me Pix,” she retorted instantly, ignoring the threat. The arrogance of the man. “I think this has gone on long enough. Please unlock the door immediately!”

He laughed. It didn't sound as pleasant as it had in prior days. What was it Mother had called him, and Jan—“dears”? Talk about lack of judgment. Faith was right. People wore masks, and Carl's had been diabolically deceptive.

“Not just yet. We need to wait some more. Would you like some coffee? I have a thermos here,” he offered.

It was too much. What no cakes, no
vafler
? She didn't bother to refuse.

She felt utterly defeated. It was all staring her in the face now—the trail that started with Kari and Erik: Oscar Melling must have been onto Carl and Carl had taken care of the old man. Pix shuddered.

“He was an old man. Surely, you didn't need to…” Her thoughts were grim. Carl hadn't
needed
to kill any of them, but he had.

“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with that old fart!” He nursed his grievance for a moment and added, “You have been such a nuisance since the beginning.” Carl was reaching for the thermos as he scolded her. Not a typical Norwegian by any means, he did have that scolding tone down perfectly. The combination of sorrow and sternness that resonates so loudly in one's breastbone—just where one is supposed to be beating oneself. His British accent had diminished.

“Questions, questions! Poking your nose in other people's business! We tried to be nice…to warn you, but you paid no attention. What kind of woman are you? Didn't you get the newspaper?”

Pix nodded. She was waiting for the right moment. He'd have to put the light down to open the thermos and pour the coffee.

“And what do you do? Ignore it! I pity the man who is married to you! And always by yourself! What were you doing in the woods in Stalheim! You're supposed to come on these trips to make friends! But then, that's not why you came, was it, Mrs. Miller? Pix.”

She sprang forward and grabbed the thermos from where he'd placed it next to his chair just after pouring a cup and flung the steaming-hot contents directly into his face. He screamed and lunged for her, blinded. She fumbled in the dark for the lock and heard a satisfying click.

She turned the knob as he grabbed her, and for a moment they rolled across the floor, barely avoiding the precious contents of the bags. Pix brought her knee up
squarely into his groin. She was in good shape and almost as tall as he was. He groaned and released her. Pix indeed!

She ran out the door, slamming it behind her, and headed straight for the bow. It was the quickest way off the boat. He was behind her. She threw down chairs as she went. She was at the door and wrenched it open. The air, the cold night air, was sweeter than any fragrance she could imagine. She stepped over the threshold, avoided the coils of rope, and climbed up on the dock.

Carl yelled something in Norwegian. She recognized two words—
stoppe
and the name Sven. Then there was nothing.

 

“I don't want to get up yet, Mother.” Pix firmly kept her eyes closed and pulled the down comforter under her chin. Then she realized her head was aching, and everything came rushing back. She opened her eyes. Where on earth was she? It certainly wasn't Kvikne's Hotel.

Sun streamed through the wavy glass in two small windows. She was tucked into a bed built into the wall, like a box. She sat up slowly, her head pounding more fiercely as she moved. She reached to the back and felt a lump the size of a fish cake. She'd been hit, hit with something hard. But Tylenol would have to wait. She had to get out of here and get some help. Carl was probably long gone, yet the sooner she raised the alarm, the better the chances were of catching him and finding out what had happened to Kari and Erik—both, she was sure now, dead.

Except she couldn't move. She was still clad in everything she had been wearing last night, even her jacket, but what had been added was a chain and padlock about her waist, securing her to the bed. Optimistically, she reached in her pocket for her skeleton keys, blessing Faith over and over again. But of course they were gone, as were her knife and matches. She'd dropped the penlite herself in the struggle with Carl. They'd thoughtfully left the chocolate bar—but she wasn't hungry—and the gloves, comb, and hair spray, no doubt thinking her even more
eccentric, and vain on top of that. She checked her pants pocket. A five-hundred-kroner note was still there. Either they were too honest to take it or hadn't found the cash, mixed, as it was, with several tissues.

She sank back into the pillows, cursing her comfortable prison. All she could do was wait. She occupied the time by looking at the room. From the angle of the sky, she thought she was up high, a second floor, but the room seemed to be an entire cabin. Besides the bed, there was a rustic long wooden table and chairs, an old hearth with iron fireplace tools next to it, and a stack of wood. A sheepskin rug lay in front of the hearth and shiny copper pots hung on the wall. A brass oil lamp stood on the table, apart from some iron candleholders on the wall, the only source of light. A brightly painted chest of drawers with a wooden rack filled with plates and bowls above it completed the inventory. It was someone's
hytte
, or holiday cabin, she realized. Yet whose? A cabin made from an old farm building, judging from the log walls—thick walls.

Carl. It had been Carl all along. This was what Kari and Erik had found out. That Carl was exporting antiquities. But why kill them? Granted, Annelise had said the market was good for Scandinavian antiques, inflated even, because of the scarcity, but to take two human lives, three, counting Oscar—except Carl had said he'd had nothing to do with Oscar. But if not Carl, then who? Could the police have been wrong? Had it been an accident? But Kari and Erik. Poor Marit! Pix began to sob, and soon the pain in her heart and her head sent her to sleep again.

 

“You have to wake up!” Someone was shaking her. Mother? She opened her eyes and started forward until the iron girdle pulled her back. The voice was a female's, but it wasn't her mother's. It was the farmer's wife. That pretty woman with her cap of shining blond hair.

“Am I glad to see you!” Pix said. “You must help me. The tour guide—Carl, not the other one—is taking antiques out of the country to sell illegally and he's killed
two people. We have to call the police right away. Oh dear, you probably don't have a phone, but maybe you have one of those cellular ones?” In Oslo, Pix had noticed these were as ubiquitous as on the streets of New York City.

“You mustn't worry now, Mrs. Miller. Just come on.” The woman was undoing the padlock and pulling off the comforter. “Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk,” Pix answered, climbing awkwardly out of the bed. “But you don't understand. Is it my English? We have to get some help.”

“Yes, yes,” the woman replied, in the tone of voice one uses with a child. In Pix's household, the words were usually followed by “I'll think about it.” Her children were then apt to respond, “Why don't you say no and get it over with.”

No. The woman was saying no.

 

Outside the cabin, which occupied the top story of the
stabbur
she and Helene Feld had noted, Pix observed that the farm was empty of children, goats, and tourists. Pix would have given everything she owned for one of the bachelor farmers. Instead, she was being hustled down the path to the landing. The sleek new water taxi awaited, its engine running.

“Here are some sandwiches and coffee,” the farmer's wife said cheerfully. Pix's hopes rose. Maybe they were taking her to Vik, to the police. She got in the boat and sat in the stern. She couldn't see who was driving. She was very thirsty and poured some coffee. It smelled heavenly. She put the sandwiches in her pocket and sipped the brew. The farmer's wife waved. Mindlessly, Pix waved back and drank the coffee. It was very sweet, but she drained the cup. Sweet, like the farmer's wife. What was her name? she wondered. Something like Flicka, except that was a horse, she thought.
My Friend Flicka
—that was it. A little girl, or boy? Anyway, on the book jacket he or she'd had dimples—the kid, not the horse. Pix had a
cousin with deep dimples who swore she got them from sleeping on a button, but when Pix tried it, all she got was a round mark with two dots in the center. Flicka the horse and Flicka the farmer's wife, the farmer's daughter. That was the name of a popular china pattern in Norway, an old one made by Porsgrund. All these farms. The boat was speeding along the fjord. She wished she could take a swim. Her head still ached and she was feeling very muzzy. A man came out of the small cabin.

“Come with me,
now
,” he said.

She mindlessly followed him inside, her feet tangling together. She wouldn't mind taking a nap. No buttons, though. She started to tell him. He grabbed her arm and pushed her onto a bunk. It was the farmer. The farmer with the dark beard.

The farmer with the lovely wife, who had just drugged Pix's coffee.

“I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but we have to do what the
inspekør
says. I'm sure everything will be cleared up quickly so you can be on your way. Yes, Mr. Harding?”

Carl Bjørnson was addressing the Scandie Sights tour in the Dragon Room of Kvikne's Hotel after breakfast on Sunday morning. He had informed them that the police had requested no one leave Balestrand. Carl and Jan had decided to break the news following the meal, not before. “Hard to be too upset after a Kvikne's breakfast,” Jan had observed philosophically.

Sidney Harding, however, had not been appeased by the cloudberries in cream or the more than usually abundant herring preparations.

“I demand to speak to someone from the embassy immediately! You can't hold us here against our will. We're U.S. citizens.”

“We have relatives waiting for us in Kristiansand,” Carol Peterson said crisply. “I don't understand why we can't go about our business. It's not as if any of us know where the uh…woman is.” Ursula gave her a piercing glance. She knew the missing word was
stupid
, or worse.

A voice was heard at the door.

“Kvikne's Hotel is not exactly a prison.” It was Johan Marcussen. He was holding a cup of coffee. “And we
were in touch with the American embassy immediately, of course. They agreed with us that the sudden disappearance of an American citizen following so closely on the death of another in the same tour suggests extreme caution regarding the safety of the others. Certainly we hope some of you may have an idea where Mrs. Miller could have gone, but mainly we'd like you just to stay here and relax together for a little while longer.”

He made it sound like a bonus, something arranged merely for their pleasure.

“If I'm not on a flight out of Oslo by tomorrow morning, everyone from the king on down is going to know about it,” Sidney Harding fumed.

“I'm sure they will,” Louise Dahl whispered to Ursula, who was standing next to the sisters. They had had breakfast together, and while expressing their deep concern for Pix, both had also tried to reassure her mother. “She probably went for a hike in the mountains and got lost. It happens all the time, and there aren't so many people to ask. They'll find her. Don't worry,” Erna had said.

But Ursula
was
worried. So was Marit. There was a lot the Dahl sisters didn't know.

Carl continued to speak. “We will have a walking tour of Balestrand meeting in the hotel lobby in one hour for those of you who are interested. The architecture is quite special, as this was a favorite spot not only for English sportsmen but for artists and writers from many places.”

“Can it, will you, Carl,” said Roy Peterson senior. “No one cares. We just want to get the hell out of here.”

Jan cast a desperate look at his fellow guide. The evaluation sheets were going to be X-rated. “The hotel has—” he started to say, jumping in to help.

“Well, I want to go on the tour, and I think all of you are pigs.” Jennifer Olsen didn't mince words. “Two women are missing. Two men have been killed, and what you're worried about is catching a plane and”—she gave
Carol a withering look—“some relatives you've never met. Worried you won't be able to sponge off them?”

Carol started to move toward Jennifer with obvious intent. Her fist was in fact raised.

“Ladies, ladies.” Carl the peacemaker stepped between them. “We are offering the tour as a diversion, to help pass the time. The hotel has many other activities, as you know. Why don't we arrange to meet here again after lunch. I'm sure there will be some news by then.” Oil on troubled waters. He nodded at Jan and the two started to leave the room.

But Inspector Marcussen had the last word. “Activities on land. No boat trips.”

 

That morning, Ursula Rowe had awakened early, even for her. She lay in bed for a while, thinking of the pain her old friend Marit was suffering. Hans was gone—and Hanna. Kari was all Marit had left. In a country that seemed to abound in relatives, Marit had few. Her brothers had settled in the United States and they were both dead now—Marit's ties with their families reduced to a Christmas card each year. It was the same with Hans's family. When Kari was first reported missing, her grandmother had heard from some concerned cousins, but there was no one she could really turn to in her loneliness and fear. No one except Ursula. These last days, the two women had spent most of their waking hours together, talking of the past, their childhoods together. Happy times. Marit had told Ursula that she had the feeling if she could just wait, everything would be all right, but the waiting was agony. So she had known from the beginning that she needed Ursula—and Pix—with her.

Old women don't require much sleep, Ursula told herself as she got out of bed. Maybe it was because she didn't want to waste the time left to her; maybe her body didn't need it anymore. She might doze in the day and turn in early, but she wakened often and arose with the dawn.

Yes, she was worried about Pix. Perhaps it had been foolish to send her by herself to investigate the closet on the boat. Ursula should have gone, too. She put on her robe and went across the hall to tap lightly on her daughter's door. She would surely be back by now. There had been no response, so Ursula had knocked harder.

Again, the door remained shut. She went back to her room and called Pix's room number. She let the phone ring fifteen times, hung up, and tried again. Then she called the front desk for them to try. They did not receive an answer, either.

“Please have someone come up with a key immediately. I want to be sure my daughter is all right.” Ursula had felt her throat constrict with apprehension, yet her tone suggested only instant compliance. A security guard had appeared and together they opened the door.

Pix's bed had been slept in, but she was not in the room. Ursula looked and quickly noted that her daughter's jacket was gone, although apparently nothing else. She had thanked the guard and then awakened Marit.

“I can't imagine that she is still at the boat, but we have to check. We'll check the grounds, too.”

The two women, wearing several layers against the chill morning air, had walked straight to the dock. It was deserted, as were the grounds they passed through. The clerk at the desk had given them an odd look but made no comment beyond saying, “
God dag
.” Guests sometimes did strange things, and dawn strolls were comparatively tame.

All the doors on the Viking fjord cruiser were locked. They knocked and called Pix's name but got no response. They checked the area around the hotel. Captivated by the light, maybe Pix had decided to take some photographs of the old houses. On impulse, they went into the church, St. Olav's.

Here, Marit had turned to Ursula. “We have to tell the police.” Ursula sank to her knees, said a prayer for
her daughter—and Kari's safety—allowed herself a sob, then got up and followed Marit to the phone box in front of the post office. The conversation was brief. “They will find the
inspektør
and we are to wait in the hotel lobby.”

Thirty minutes later, Marcussen had entered with the smell of sleep and only a hasty wash still on him.

Although he had already received the message, Ursula had needed to say it directly herself. “My daughter, Mrs. Samuel Miller, the one who found the body of Oscar Melling, is missing and we think it is very serious.”

So had the inspector. After obtaining some more information, he'd disappeared into the room behind the front desk, leaving an officer with them. After a while—a wait that seemed interminable to Ursula—he had returned to tell them a search of the area would be under way as soon as possible and that he himself was going down to the boat with the captain.

Now as the tour members filed out of the Dragon Room, Marcussen motioned for Ursula and Marit to stay.

“As you must have assumed, we have nothing to report yet. I'm very sorry. Will you come with me where we can talk in private? There are some things I don't understand.”

Some? thought Ursula ruefully as she followed him out the door.

 

Pix Miller was not a drinker. Yes, she was partial to a dram of scotch now and then, particularly Laphroaig, but hangovers had been few and far between. The one she had now, she thought, not even able to open her eyelids, unaccountably turned to lead, was the mother of them all. The grandmother, the great-grandmother. Her leaden lids flew up. Wait a minute—she wasn't sure if she was speaking aloud or not because of the pounding in her head—I wasn't drinking.

The coffee. The farmer. That sweet little flaxen-haired wife. She wasn't back in their
hytte
or whatever it was,
nor on their streamlined water taxi. Where the hell had she awakened this time?

At least she'd awakened.

It was dark and cold. She moved one arm carefully, then the other, and wiggled her legs around, checking to see that everything worked. It did. Someone had thrown a blanket over her. Unfortunately, it did not afford much warmth. She still had her jacket on and she buttoned it to her neck. Her hand groped the ground next to her. It was dirt, but as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she could tell she wasn't outdoors. She sat up unsteadily and touched the wall beside her. It was rough-hewn stone—another cabin or farm building. Pix was becoming uncomfortably intimate with Norwegian rural architecture, although the opportunity for a monograph in the immediate future was slight. In any case, she would have preferred to study the subject in a crowded
folkemuseum
.

The effects of the drug had not worn off—her headache was worse, if anything, and the thought of food was quelled as soon as it arose lest it lead to immediate vomiting. But her mind was beginning to clear. A perfect setup. The farmer with his water-taxi service was a familiar figure on the local fjords and among certain people it would also be known that he would pay a good price for Tante Inge's coffee spoons, too. Scandie Sights stopped to visit the farm throughout the summer, but the goods were probably delivered at other times. Maybe arranging the farm visit had been the source of the initial contact: like-minded people meeting one another. It must have been the farmer on Jennifer Olsen's balcony at Fleischer's Hotel, mistaking it for Carl's room next door. The argument Pix overheard the following evening at Stalheim had either been over the screwup, or maybe something more—splitting the take? And it had been the dark-bearded farmer on the boat in Balestrand the other night when Pix first tried to search the closet. Dark-bearded. Pix heard Carl's voice screaming after her as she tried to escape. “
Stoppe
”
had been clear. Also “Sven.” Dark hair, east coast—a city boy, his wife had said, the right age—could the farmer be Kari's father? Had she discovered his identity and what he was doing?

The ground was hard and damp, yet sitting up hurt more. She debated putting the blanket under her, then decided it would quickly absorb moisture from the earthen floor and would do more good draped across her.

She knew she should get up and start to search the place for a door or window—some way to get out—but she couldn't summon the strength at the moment. If she could sleep, she might feel better when she woke up. Next time, she'd tell Faith to put some analgesics in her survival kit—that is, if there was a next time.

Pix drifted off into a half sleep. Images of Carl laughing, his face grotesque, passed through her mind. Was Jan a part of it, too? And Sonja, Anders? The captain? Was Scandie Sights itself a front?

She thought she could sleep. It was the most sensible thing to do, and Lord knows, that was what she was. “Pix is so sensible,” everyone always said. “So dependable.” It sounded like a dog, a
hund
….

Mice. She wasn't a mouse, but the place had mice. She didn't mind mice, yet the idea of those scratchy little feet running across her midriff was not appealing. But no, not mice. Something bigger than mice. A cat? She searched her mind for recollections of Norwegian wildlife. A fox? A troll?

A person. Someone had coughed. Not an animal cough. A definite human cough. Then a voice speaking rapid Norwegian.

Pix replied with one of her few Norwegian phrases—she was really going to have to get some tapes—“
Jeg snakker ikke norsk. Snakker du engelsk
?”—I don't speak Norwegian. Do you speak English?

The person did. “Don't move. I have a gun.”

Oh no, not again, thought Pix, lying absolutely still.

 

“There was nothing in the closet, Mrs. Rowe. Yes, it did sound a little hollow in the back, but Captain Hagen told us that the boat has been remodeled so many times in its history that half of it sounds hollow. In this section, they've made bathrooms from what were the crew's quarters—these were coastal boats, used for the mail and other deliveries. The closet backs onto a bathroom and it's probably where the pipes are, but we are continuing to search the boat. We have not seen any signs of a struggle. In fact, no signs that anyone had been there, and it was all locked up tight last night, as usual. The captain checks himself last thing.”

Pix had not shown Marit and Ursula, Faith's bon voyage gifts. If she had had to say why, she would have acknowledged a recurrence of the adolescent impulse that prevents teenagers from telling their parents anything that might reflect unfavorably on a particular friend. Jeez, all Mother has to do is find out Faith gave me skeleton keys and she'll never let me go over to her house again. It was absurd, of course. Pix had also felt somewhat reluctant to share the information that the wife of her mother's spiritual adviser had slipped a can of Mace-like hair spray in for good measure. While Faith was not the leading light of the Ladies Alliance, she was a member in good standing, donating many jars of toothsome peach/cassis and wild strawberry jam to the Autumn Harvest Fair. The notion that the minister's spouse was actively encouraging malfeasance among the parishioners would not go over as big as the jams, always popular items with their
HAVE FAITH
labels, the name of the catering company.