The Puffin of Death (4 page)

My horse and I beat a hasty retreat.

“Come here!” Bryndis shouted over the wind. “Twins!”

I'd read enough about puffins to know that surviving twins weren't common among the species, so I led Einnar to where Bryndis and Freya had halted. The zookeeper took out her iPhone and aimed it at the ground, while her horse stood stoically, ignoring the caws and growls of nearby puffins. From the bottom of the burrow, two small nestlings looked up at us, their dark eyes glittering. Unlike the adult birds nearby, they appeared fearless—at least until their parents returned. Then, goaded by the larger birds' growls and squawks, the nestlings screeched an alarm, further distressing the parents.

“We'd better move away,” I said, hoping to spare my boots from another attack.

“Just one more picture.”

Leaving her to it, I set off on the footpath, snapping pictures as I moved inland up the slope with the faithful Einnar heeling me like a well-trained dog. All went well for a few minutes, until I zeroed in on a particularly human-like lava formation thirty yards away. Around five feet high and as thin as a fashion model, the moss covering it could have been a haute couture dress. At its feet, half-hidden in the shadow of the morning sun, was another lava formation, this one stretched horizontally across the ground. In the dark shadow, its color appeared more blue than green. For some reason, Einnar decided he didn't like it, and with an alarmed snort, pulled up short, almost yanking the reins from my hand.

“Don't ruin your breed's reputation,” I murmured, focusing my iPhone's lens on the lava. The interplay of colors—black, green, blue, pink, and red—would make for a nice print. The shutter clicked at the same time I asked myself…

Pink? Red?

Frowning, I tugged at Einnar's reins and led him closer to the formations.

No.

Only one lava formation.

The horizontal shape was a man lying face-down across a puffin burrow.

Dropping Einnar's reins, I ran forward, scattering puffins in every direction. “Bryndis!” I shouted. “Someone's been hurt!”

When I touched the back of the man's neck, his skin felt cool. But so did the wind and rain whipping across the top of the cliff. Hoping it wasn't too late to render aid, I turned him over…

And saw that nothing could help him now.

The man must have been dead before he fell across the puffin burrow, because he hadn't closed his eyes against the bird's vicious beak. His nose had been pecked to a pulp by the burrow's inhabitant—a female puffin protecting her chick. But the injuries she'd inflicted didn't bother me as much as did the small, neat hole in his forehead.

Although I'd seen plenty of grisly things in my life, I had to sit down on a nearby rock.

The female puffin popped her head out of the burrow and growled. Blood smeared her beak and stained the unusual white stripe that ran lengthwise down her head. Blood had trickled onto her fat chick, too, but the birds were in better shape than the dead man.

“Is he…?” Whatever else Bryndis had been about to say was silenced by a gasp.

“Better call the police,” I said, not bothering to turn around. “He's dead. And I think I know who he is. Uh, was.”

The man's lush sideburns identified him as Drunk Elvis, the American birder who'd caused a disturbance on my flight, and then proceeded to repeat his churlish performance at the Viking Tavern.

Bryndis had to see for herself. Once she saw him, she made a sound similar to a hiccup, then punched in a series of numbers on her cell. A spate of Icelandic soon followed.

While she spoke to the authorities, I felt his carotid in hopes of even a tiny pulse. Nothing. Not even a flutter. As I leaned over him, a series of panicked thoughts staggered through my head. What was the emergency number in Iceland? My tourist guide to Iceland the number listed the number as 1-1-2 for cops, ambulances, whatever, maybe even for driving directions, since Icelandic road signs were all in unreadable Icelandic. Come to think of it, why didn't these people change their road signs to English so that tourists would stop getting lost, like maybe Drunk Elvis? Yes, that was it. Drunk Elvis became lost and somebody killed him, yes, they did, and then he'd fallen on his face, and, yeah, Mama Puffin pecked away at him….

Wait a minute. Puffins don't shoot people. Besides the hole in Drunk Elvis' forehead, he had a matching hole in the back. And, oh, my God, look at that camera strapped around his neck, an upmarket Nikon D4 with a lens a yard long, and his binoculars must have cost a small fortune, and why'd he look so familiar? Even in my shock, I remembered thinking the same thing on the plane.

Realizing that I needed to get myself back under control, I stood up and brushed the moss off my pant. I took a deep breath to ensure that my voice wouldn't tremble, then said, “Bryndis, we need to back away a few yards. Unless I'm wrong, and I don't think I am, this is a crime scene.”

“What are you talking about, Teddy? That man…he…he must have fallen and hit his head. Then the puffin got him.” She paused, then began to back up with her horse. “Although I have never seen a puffin do that. Kill someone. How could a little puffin kill a person? They are such small birds and they never hurt anyone other than give them a peck or two. I was pecked once when I…” She hiccupped again. “Oh, this is a terrible, terrible thing.”

For some reason, the fact that Bryndis sounded panicked herself helped calm me, and I shook my head. “The puffin didn't kill him, Bryndis. He was shot.”

She stared at me in disbelief. “Shot? We don't shoot people in Iceland!”

“Somebody didn't get the memo.”

***

The first policeman to arrive was a black-uniformed constable from Hvolsvöllur, a small village a few miles down the road from Vik. Given his peach-fuzz beard and reedy build, Constable Galdur Frimannsson looked little older than a high school senior, but after taking one look at the dead man's wounds, he made a quick call on his radio. He spoke in Icelandic, but there was no mistaking his serious tone. He, too, recognized a crime scene when he saw one.

Even if people didn't shoot people in Iceland.

While waiting for reinforcements, I found myself chilled to the bone. A hard rain now blew sideways across the moss-covered plateau. The yellow slicker I'd packed kept off the worst of the damp, but did little to protect me from the plummeting temperature. Turning my back to the wind meant that I had to face Dead Elvis, which made me even more wretched. I wanted to hop onto Einnar's back and return to the Hótel Brattholt, but Constable Frimannsson refused to let us leave the scene. At least he was polite about it.

“You must both be interviewed by Inspector Thorvaald Haraldsson, who will be arriving from Reykjavik with a forensics team,” he'd explained, looking apologetic. “This death is an unusual occurrence, and given the weather, I'm sorry, but the dispatcher told me to keep you here so that the inspector himself can question you. Since you, Miss Bentley, are unused to Icelandic weather, he might send someone up to the inn to get you some coffee. Or hot chocolate.”

Bryndis rolled her eyes. Truth be told, my fellow zookeeper looked as miserable as I, but true to her Viking heritage, she'd begun putting a stern face on her discomfort. Ignoring the dead man, she faced the raging North Atlantic. “Ah, a freshening wind,” she said, stretching her arms as if to embrace the rain. “Good for one's blood.”

Not dead Dead Elvis'. Constable Frimannsson had covered the body with a tarp harvested from the trunk of his police cruiser, but most of the man's blood had washed away in the rain. Not happy about the continued deterioration of the crime scene, Frimannsson's frown deepened when he spied people walking toward us down the slope from the hotel. As they crossed the narrow pedestrian bridge across the Ring Road, I could see cameras strapped around their necks. Their relaxed body language suggested they were unaware of the drama below. Birders, probably, like Dead Elvis. Then I remembered. At the Viking Tavern, he had been with an unhappy-looking woman. His wife? A girlfriend? She might be part of the approaching group.

Hoping to prevent the constable from having to deal with a hysterical widow, I filled him in on last night's bar brawl. He flicked a quick look up the land bridge—yes, several women were among the pack—then down at the tarp. There was no mistaking the human-sized form underneath it.

“So now we have another problem,” he said, his voice so low I could hardly hear him over the screaming wind. “Tourists.” He sighed. “Miss Bentley, since those people may all be countrymen of yours, perhaps you would be kind enough to inform them there's been an accident and tell them to return to the Hótel Brattholt, that there will be no birding today. At least not here. Whatever you do, don't mention the deceased person. When Inspector Haraldsson arrives, he will send someone to the hotel to tell them what has happened to their friend.” He paused, then added grimly, “And to question them.”

Young, perhaps, but no fool.

With a feeling of foreboding because my “countrymen” tended to be less amiable than Icelanders, I started toward them. Before I was halfway there, I heard the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter.

The cavalry had arrived.

Chapter Four

Chief Inspector Haraldsson, head of the Violent Crimes Squad, displayed little Icelandic
politesse
as he and another officer ordered the birders back to the hotel. Above the wind, I could hear snatches of anger.

“Listen, buster, you can't tell me…”

“Do you have any idea how much this trip cost…?”

“The American Embassy will hear about…”

They didn't go quietly, but in the end, they went.

Unlike the other police officers who'd arrived at the crime scene, Inspector Haraldsson wore civilian clothes, a dark raincoat loosely draped over a severe gray suit. A man with sandy hair flecked with gray, he was tall, even for an Icelander, and his sharply angled face was clenched into a don't-mess-with-me expression.

Despite the inspector's forbidding appearance, I noticed that Constable Frimannsson addressed him as Thor, the diminutive for Thorvaald, his first name. As they talked quietly, one of the inspector's uniformed minions began taping off the area, while several officers in forensic overalls got busy erecting a tent over the body to protect the crime scene from the worsening weather. During the commotion, the puffin and her wobbly chick decamped to another burrow, squawking bird-curses the entire way.

Bryndis and I watched as Haraldsson, who'd slipped on a pair of latex gloves, went through the dead man's pockets. He came back to us holding a black wallet. After inspecting it, he said to me, “He's American. A Mr. Simon Parr, with an Arizona address on his driver's license,” he said, in unaccented English. “Do you know him?”

Parr. Simon Parr. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I shook my head and repeated the story I'd told the young constable about the scene on the plane, followed by the slap-down at the Viking Tavern, adding that Bryndis had also witnessed the scene. Once he was through with me, he proceeded to interview her in Icelandic. I surmised that she told him pretty much the same thing, with one notable exception: although she mentioned the Gunn Zoo several times, I never heard her say Ragnar's name.

Expressionless, Haraldsson returned his attention to me. “So. Welcome to Iceland, Miss Theodora Bentley, of the Gunn Zoo, in Gunn Landing, California. Bryndis tells me you've traveled all the way here for a polar bear cub.”

“True, along with two Icelandic foxes, and a couple of puffins. Our zoo has a new exhibit called Northern Climes. We've already brought in penguins, a couple of species, actually.”

“Northern Climes?” A faint smile softened the hard lines of his face. “I was unaware that penguins could be found in the northern hemisphere.”

“Of course not, they're…”

“My little jest. What are your thoughts about the fight in the Viking Tavern? Was there blood?”

“Nothing but slaps.”

“Was Mr. Parr drunk?”

“As the proverbial lord.”

A hint of his former smile came back. “I am certain we will find out more when we interview members of his group. Describe the woman he was with. Young? Old? Did he call her by name?”

“She had dyed red hair darker than mine, kind of a burgundy wine color, and she was around forty, forty-five, maybe even fifty. And no, I didn't hear him call her by name, he was too busy getting beat up at the time. Oh, and I just remembered. On the plane, I was certain I'd seen his face before, but I still can't make the connection.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Could you have seen him at your zoo?”

“I doubt it. His group, those birders, they're all from Arizona, I think, and the Gunn Zoo is in California, so I don't see why….”

“I was under the impression the two states touch.”

“They're big states.”

This smile was fractionally cooler than the other. “Then that will be all, Miss Theodora Bentley of the Gunn Zoo. For now.”

I didn't like that last part.

***

As it turned out, I'd been right to feel apprehensive. Less than an hour after the inspector allowed Bryndis and me to sit out the rainstorm at the Hótel Brattholt, he appeared at our table while I was in mid-bite of an excellent piece of Icelandic cod. Although I'd felt guilty about sitting down for a meal after such a tragedy, the matter-of-fact Bryndis pointed out that starving ourselves wouldn't bring Simon Parr back from the dead. For her part, she was enjoying a heaping plate of fish and chips.

“His widow has been informed,” Inspector Haraldsson told us, sitting down. “Her name is Elizabeth St. John. For professional reasons, she does not use her husband's name.”

“St. John?!
That
Elizabeth St. John? The writer?”

He nodded. “She is also, with her husband, a big lottery winner. So now you see why the man looked familiar. In June Mr. Parr and his wife appeared on many TV programs throughout the world. Why, I even saw them myself, on the television in my own living room. Lucky devils. Well, her, anyway. Him, not so lucky, considering that he is now deceased.”

As the old saying goes, them that has, gets. A few years back, while awaiting my annual checkup at my dentist's office, I'd thumbed through a two-year-old copy of
Entertainment Weekly
, where I happened across an article about St. John. She'd made millions from her chart-topping romantic suspense novels, and her appearances at bookstores in the U.S. and Europe had drawn blocks-long crowds. In London, Prague, and Brussels, riot police had to be called to keep things orderly. Thinking about her probable annual income had made me jealous.

As if that wasn't enough, more money poured in earlier this summer when her husband stopped at a convenience store and bought a loaf of bread, a bag of Fritos, a quart of milk, and one lone Powerball ticket. The ticket won the highest payout in Powerball history—more than a half-billion.

“On the news, Mr. Parr looked cheerful, holding up that big check for six hundred million U.S. dollars,” Haraldsson continued, looking wistful. “When I saw all those zeroes, I put myself in his place and thought of red Ferraris and warm vacations in Bermuda. And women, of course, many beautiful women, all eager to share in my good fortune. But what does Simon Parr do? He takes a bird-watching trip to Iceland.”

Haraldsson's fantasy life didn't interest me, but Elizabeth St. John's writing did. I had never read any of her novels, but the dentist's office copy of
Entertainment Weekly
had described Jade L'Amour, St. John's protagonist. Jade was an Indiana Jones-type archaeologist who travelled the world uncovering international spies, unmasking murderers, and rescuing orphans, all while wearing designer clothes. The photograph accompanying the article highlighted St. John's startling good looks: long, glossy black hair that hinted at an American Indian ancestor, navy blue eyes, and an aristocratic profile to die for. Sitting next to her was her husband, Simon Parr, who hadn't yet grown his Elvis sideburns.

A few weeks after reading the article, I'd been channel-surfing on my tiny television and happened across St. John being interviewed by Barbara Walters. She was telling a doubtful Walters that today's young women needed more believable role models than those found in Marvel Comics, and she wrote her books to fill that need.

But the woman in the Viking Tavern was not Elizabeth St. John. She was a dyed redhead with nowhere near the author's mature beauty. Which reminded me of something that had come up in the Walters interview before I changed the channel. St. John said she and her husband had what they called a “European” marriage, which she defined as a marriage that gave them the freedom to occasionally “date” others. It kept their marriage fresh and exciting, she claimed. When Walters asked the writer her if she wasn't afraid that such an admission might hurt her book sales, St. John answered, “I always tell the truth. Besides, Barbara, you of all people should know there's no such thing as bad publicity.”

I remembered something else, too. After the Walters interview, St. John's book moved from No. 9 on the
New York Times
best-seller list to No. 1.

“How did Mrs. St. John take the news about her husband's death?” I asked Haraldsson, who was still yammering about warm beaches and beautiful women.

The inspector's face revealed nothing. “When I told her about Mr. Parr's demise, she shed tears, which is only what one would expect. They had been married for twenty-six years, you understand. But that brings me to you, Miss Theodora Bentley.” Some of the geniality had left his voice. After a few seconds pawing his big hand through his wet raincoat, he pulled out an iPhone, poked it a couple of times, then turned the screen toward me. It revealed an article in
The Gunn Landing Reporter
, with the headline, LOCAL ZOOKEEPER SOLVES MURDER. My photograph wasn't flattering.

“As you can see, I've checked up on you,” Haraldsson continued, “and I think it might be wise to let you know, before things go any further, that the Icelandic National Police do not need your help. We are perfectly competent to investigate a suspicious death, even though—and being from a much more dangerous country than ours you may have trouble believing this—Mr. Parr's is our first murder this year. We only had two last year, one committed by a Lithuanian, the other by a Dane. Both recent immigrants, both stabbings, one over a woman, the other over a card game. We Icelanders might slap obnoxious drunks from time to time, but we do not sneak around and shoot them in the back of the head. The use of guns as murder weapons is almost unheard of here.”

“Then where'd the firearm come from?” I asked, stung by his portrait of me as an interfering busybody. “Judging from the wound and the fact that there were no powder burns around it, I'd say he shot from at least several feet away by a small caliber handgun. Or a rifle.”

Bryndis gaped at me but Haraldsson's polite expression never wavered. “I applaud your knowledge of ballistics, and, yes, the weapon is most likely the Finnish Sako that Ulfur, the hotelier here, reported missing this morning. I only mention this because he has been complaining to everyone, so it is no secret. Poor Ulfur. He needed that Sako to take revenge on the chicken-stealing fox that has plagued his farm for the past two weeks. But you see? Already you are sticking your pretty nose in. While I sympathize with your concern over the fate of a fellow American, please be aware that any interference on your part can create difficulties for all of us, so I would appreciate it if you concentrated on your little polar bear and your foxes and your puffins.”

Oblivious to my ire, he put his phone back into his pocket and stood up. “Good day, Miss Theodora Bentley. Enjoy your stay in Iceland.”