The Body in the Fjord (7 page)

“Well, we didn't see him drown”—Carol Peterson was clearly of the “out of sight, out of mind” school—“and none of us really knew him.” She paused, but Pix was sure she'd go on. There was empty air to fill. “The young people who took their place are much, much better. More efficient and, believe me, much nicer.” She punctuated the last comment with an extremely knowing look.

“Them? I thought it was just one person.”

“He had this girlfriend. She was working on the tour, too. They slipped off to get married, which, I told Lynette, was very irresponsible, because if you elope, you're always sorry later. No gown and no presents. Oh, maybe a few, but nothing good.”

“So, you thought it was irresponsible of them?” Pix tried to get her back on track, prying her away from place settings and a lifetime supply of Tupperware.

“Of course it was! To leave us all in the lurch like that. Why, Jan and Carl couldn't manage all the bags, and we got delayed while they tried to find out what happened to them, so we missed dinner in Bergen the first night!”

Pix tried to appear sympathetic, but it was hard. Very hard.

“You said the new people are nicer?”

“The boy was all right, although he seemed a little moody. I think when you're working on a tour like this, you should at least try to look cheerful. But the girl was a witch, if you know what I mean.” Another look.

Pix did know and she was glad her mother wasn't there. All restraint might have vanished and Ursula could very well have clocked Carol Peterson one.

“Oh dear. It sounds as if you had a problem with her.”

“I'll say I did. First off, we had this poky little room in the hotel in Copenhagen—the staff hands out the keys—and she wouldn't change it.”

“Maybe all the keys had been given out,” Pix said before she could stop herself. She wanted information and that meant not interrupting the silly woman's tirade, and certainly not sympathizing with Kari. “Although,” she added quickly, “they can usually do something.”

“Exactly!” Carol said triumphantly. “We did get switched, but I had to go over her head, and after that she really had it in for me. Every time I asked her to do something, she either took her sweet time or pretended not to hear me. She knew what I'd said, too, because she heard me telling Carl and Jan about her. I thought they should know—for the good of the tour.”

The greater good, Pix thought dismally. Lord preserve us from all the things large and small resulting from this particular rationalization. She asked another question.

“How did you hear that the boy had drowned?”

“Jan told everyone and the police came. We were in Bergen. They wanted to know if anyone had seen anything. The girl has disappeared—or her body hasn't turned up yet. I think they had a fight and she pushed him in, then realized what she'd done and jumped after him. We know they'd been fighting. Helene Feld saw them when she went to get something to eat.”

Bingo. Now Pix knew who had been the last to see them. She felt a warm—but brief—rush of gratitude toward Carol Peterson.

“There you are, dear.” It was Ursula. Pix made the introductions, heard again what a small world it was, Roy senior having been to Boston in 1985, and vowed to stand back until she saw which bus the Peterson clan boarded.

Carol was the type who asked questions. Lots of questions.

The Petersons got on one bus and Pix steered Ursula onto the other. Jan was standing in the aisle at the front with a microphone.

“Now we are on our way to the famous Stalheim Hotel, making one stop for a ‘photo opportunity' and time to eat our box lunches either on or off the bus, as you choose. Do I have any German-speaking people aboard?” He repeated the request in German. No one answered. “This is advertised as a bilingual tour, but so far, I have not had to use both languages.”

Pix looked at the itinerary sheet. The bus trip would take them through a “wonderland of waterfalls and mountains,” after which they would arrive at the hotel, “famous for its spectacular location and folk museum.” After dinner, there would be a “program of traditional Norwegian folk dancing and music performed in native costume.” The tour did not leave one at a loss for things to do. What with admiring the view, touring the museum, eating, and then clapping along—or whatever one did to the sounds of a Hardanger fiddle—it could be a very late night indeed. Pix sighed. At least Jan wasn't making a lot of inane comments, and the scenery was breathtaking. The waterfalls cascaded down the mountains in one long, sheer teardrop. They were passing through a beautiful densely
wooded forest now and Jan picked up the microphone, resuming his position in the aisle.

“During the war, the Germans literally blew up Voss, and to this day, no one will buy wood cut from around here, because no factory will cut it. There are still so many bullets and pieces of metal embedded in the trees that it would break the machinery. Soon we will be coming to Tvindenfossen, a nice waterfall, and you can all take some pictures.”

Ursula raised her eyebrows at her daughter. “Now we know why Jan wanted to be sure there weren't any Germans on board. Whenever I'm in Norway, I always feel as if the war ended only a short time ago. The Occupation was a terrible time.”

The bus was stopping.

“Do you want to walk up to the
foss
?” Pix asked.

“I think I'll look at it from the parking lot and eat whatever this is at one of those picnic tables. You go and take a picture.”

Pix had brought her camera to Norway as part of the disguise and also in case she needed to record something. She got out, following the rest of the herd up a well-worn path to look at the falls. They were not so dramatic as the one she remembered from Flåm, but steeper, starting far up in the mountains. She waited until almost everyone had gone to eat their lunches, so she could get a shot without people posing in front. Jennifer Olsen had apparently had the same idea and they walked back down together.

“Thank you so much for last night. I know I would have been fine in my room, but I was feeling a little shook.”

In the light of day, Jennifer looked much less exotic than she did at night. She was wearing jeans, running shoes, a turtleneck, and a sweatshirt. The sweatshirt had
NO PAIN, NO GAIN
in script letters across the front.

“Well, you won't have to worry about anything happening tonight,” Pix said. “The odds of something like that
occurring twice in a row, or even in a year, must be infinitesimal in Norway.”

“True. The funny thing is, I'm always looking over my shoulder at home. I live in Manhattan, but, knock wood, nothing has ever happened. I come here and…Well, I'm just going to put it out of my head. I don't want to spoil the rest of the trip with negative thoughts. It's been wonderful.”

Pix wished she could shelve her negative thoughts. Even the beauty of Norway couldn't blot out the image of Erik's death and Kari's disappearance. She wasn't here for pleasure and she slowed her pace. Jennifer, traveling alone, might have observed more than, say, Carol Peterson.

“But I understood there was trouble earlier in the trip—a staff problem?”

Jennifer stopped in the middle of the path. Her face darkened. “It was horrible. All some people could think about when someone was dead was having to carry their own luggage.”

“Dead?” It was easy for Pix to sound alarmed.

“We don't really know what happened. Kari and Erik were a young couple working for Scandie Sights—doing what Anders and Sonja do now. They ran away to get married and somehow he was swept into a river and drowned. Her body hasn't been found yet.” Jennifer sounded very sure that Kari had drowned, too. Pix felt her stomach turn. Could it be just that? The two of them running off and then a terrible accident? But what about Kari's last words to Marit, the words that had been interrupted?

“Such a tragedy,” she said inadequately.

“Yes, life's a bitch,” replied Jennifer, walking rapidly now, as if she feared all the food would be gone. Pix felt a little guilty as she sat down next to her mother and opened the box lunch. So much for helping Jennifer avoid negative thoughts.

“You have seen Tvindenfossen and now we have the Tvinde River.” On the way again, Jan had resumed his
role, after eating his lunch alone. “It's a very good salmon river, and in Norway, anyone can fish anywhere—even private property is open to the public—but you need to ask and maybe pay a small fee, about ten kroner. There're plenty of places to fish for everyone without overcrowding. Norway has so many lakes that we figure there are about two fishermen for each one. We fish all year long, and Lake Vangsvatnet, the one we just left in Voss, is the site of a large ice-fishing festival every winter. Not for people with thin skins.” Somehow Jan managed to make all this sound unrehearsed. A kind of stream of consciousness, like the waters rushing past them outside. He gazed out the window, thought of something, and spoke. “We have a legend about the Tvinde River, too. If you drink its water every day of your life, you'll never get old. It's just a legend, of course.” He sounded disappointed.

“No thank you,” Ursula announced firmly. “One of the pleasures of being old is that you don't have to be young again, especially a teenager.”

Pix and her friend Faith tended to think that their lives were destined to be an endless repetition of junior high school, so this was good news, but Pix did wonder what her mother was referring to. She'd always imagined her mother's adolescent years as happy times—picnics in the countryside, rowing on the river. She realized that whatever Ursula might be recalling was obviously not in the family photograph albums.

The rest of the ride was quiet and Pix spent the time thinking about her fellow Scandie tourists. The Bradys, the Petersons, the Dahl sisters, the French cousins, and Jennifer Olsen had all been on the tour since the beginning. They seemed to be a run-of-the-mill group, maybe a little heavy on the Scandinavian surnames, but from the look of the list, half the tour seemed to be in search of roots. Pix remembered Marit telling her that in the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, almost 900,000 Norwegians emigrated to North America because of the growth in population in Norway and scarcity of
resources. At one time or another, almost everyone has had a cousin in Minneapolis or Brooklyn.

Jan was talking about the Stalheim Hotel as the bus climbed up the steep road. “It's the fourth hotel built on this spot. The first one was erected in 1885. The Nærøy Valley, which you will see far below you when we stop, and the surrounding area have always been a favorite place for holidays. The kaiser liked it so much, he came twenty-five summers in a row.”

“The kaiser is not quite the villain on the west coast as he is elsewhere,” Ursula whispered to Pix. “I've been to these places before with Marit and it's kind of like ‘Washington slept here.'”

“But why?” Pix was puzzled.

“Oh, he was always giving stained glass to the churches or statues to towns, even helping to rebuild an entire one in the case of Ålesund, after a fire destroyed it. Benevolent. Had to keep his vacation land pleasant, and he really liked to fish and hunt.”

Pix was listening to Jan; surprisingly, she found it pleasant to be picking up these tidbits of information.

“Finally after the first three buildings burned down, they got smarter and built the present hotel out of concrete in 1960.” It was painted red and appeared not unattractive, Pix thought. And given its location perched on the mountaintop, putting out a blaze would prove difficult. Jan had a few more morsels. “The same family, the Tønnebergs, has been running it now for sixty years. During the war, the Germans took it over.”

Of course, Pix said to herself, and she began wondering if there was a particular reason why Jan was so intent on refreshing their memories. Had his family suffered a particularly severe loss?

“They used the hotel for one of their
Lebensborn
homes, Himmler's little experiment to repopulate the world after the war with only the best stock.”

He didn't elaborate and Pix felt a chill. Not exactly what she wanted to hear about the place she would be
staying, although the wartime structure was in ashes far below the present foundation. Her mother was looking out the window as the bus pulled up to the entrance and she turned to speak to Pix.

“You should go see the houses in the folk museum if there's time. I'm sure you remember the one in Oslo, but even though these houses have been moved, they're from the area around here and more or less in their natural setting.”

“I'll try,” Pix said, “but I want to talk to some more people and, if possible, squeeze in a sauna.”

“All right. I'm going to lie down for a while; then I'll write postcards in the lobby and see if I can make some friends, too.”

Pix had no doubt the gregarious traveler Ursula, aka Mother, would.

She wished people wore name tags, much as she would hate to sport a “Hello, I'm Pix” badge herself. She wanted to search out Helene Feld and hear about the quarrel she'd witnessed on the train between Kari and Erik. Reminding herself that if you don't ask, you don't get, she went up to Carl. If the Petersons weren't on his bus, or maybe even if they were, she thought they should switch to it tomorrow and compare the two guides. The guides, after all, had been on the tour since Copenhagen, too.

“I wonder if you would mind pointing out the Felds to me. I have a friend who lives in the same town and I wonder if they know her.” The Felds were from Mount Vernon, New York, and Pix did know someone from there—but she'd moved years ago. Still…

Carl seemed delighted to have something to do for her. He really was terribly attractive. She wondered how many broken hearts there were at the end of each Scandie Sights tour.

He looked around. “The Felds must already have gone to their rooms, but I will point them out to you at dinner
and let them know you'd like to meet them. Perhaps you can sit together. They are quite friendly.”

Pix had the feeling he was talking about approachable pets. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

The lobby was empty, but the gift shop was full. Pix decided it was not conducive to an exchange of intimacies. Hard to fit in a pointed question when someone was intent on a hand-knit sweater. The sauna would give her a chance to collect her thoughts.

Demurely wrapped in a towel, Pix sat in the sauna and sweated. There were several other occupants, all men, none of whom she recognized from the tour. Every once in a while, someone would leave to take a cold shower, reenter, and throw some more water from the wooden bucket on the hot rocks, creating a sudden hiss of steam. Pix was doing the same. The fragrance of the hot wood and the intense heat was soporific. She found herself battling sleep. It was so relaxing. So very, very relaxing.

Someone shook her. “It's not a good idea to fall asleep in here. You shouldn't stay in too long, especially if you haven't taken one in a while.” It was Lynette Peterson, and Pix couldn't help but think how much more flattering the towel was on the young bride than on her own middle-aged body.

“Thank you. I'm only going to stay in a little longer. My name is Pix Miller. My mother and I are on the Scandie tour, too. I met your mother-in-law this morning at the hotel.” Pix felt obliged to explain how she had recognized the woman. Lynette was not surprised.

“Oh, I know all about you. Carol told us. You're from Boston.”

“Actually, about twenty minutes outside the city.”

A slightly wicked smile appeared. “Carol thinks it's Boston. She likes to know things. That's the main activity of my mother-in-law's life—besides organizing things. I'll let her know she's wrong.”

Pix didn't envy Roy junior. The Battle of the Titans was getting under way and it would go on for his entire
married life, until his mother died or his wife walked out, both acts certain to be interpreted as victory by the other side.

“Are you enjoying the trip?” Pix thought it was worth a try to question Mrs. Roy Peterson, Jr. She might have picked up on something between Kari and Erik that the others had missed. Lynette took her time responding to the opening.

Pix had teenagers. Lynette's face had “Give me a break” written all over it.

“Look, Mrs. Miller”—Pix instantly felt ten years older—“is fish for every meal, a million museums, and your in-laws along your idea of what a honeymoon should be?” She answered her own question. “Of course it isn't. We should be in Bermuda, but we're not, because Carol decides this is her golden opportunity to show Roy the land of his people. It was his great-grandparents who came from here! He never even knew them! And it's not as if we live in…well, Boston. Duluth is about as close as you can get to Norway without hopping on a plane. But I agreed. There's something Carol doesn't know, and when she does, she'll be ripping. As I said, Carol likes to know things. Nosiest woman I ever met. She was even asking Roy whether he'd moved his bowels every morning until the third time, I said he'd let her know if he didn't and let's drop the subject. She didn't like that, not one little bit. And she's not going to like what's coming, either.”