The Puffin of Death (5 page)

Chapter Five

“He likes you,” Bryndis said, watching Inspector Haraldsson's retreating back.

I looked at her in amazement. “You're kidding, right?”

“He called your nose ‘pretty.'”

“Which means exactly nothing.”

“It does in Iceland.”

While Inspector Haraldsson had been giving me my marching orders, the hotel's crowded dining room had fallen strangely silent. I suspected a case of mass eavesdropping but recognized that in their place, I'd do the same. A member of their tour group had been murdered in the very spot they planned to visit.

But as Inspector Haraldsson had pointed out, it was none of my business. I hadn't known the victim and I certainly didn't want to know the killer.

Best laid plans, and all that. Later, as I was washing my hands in the ladies' room, a woman approached me at the sink. I'd noticed her earlier in the dining room. A tall, slender, brunette with startlingly green eyes, she was attractive enough to be a fashion model. In her youth, anyway. A closer inspection revealed fine lines parenthesizing her mouth. The man she shared her table with was as handsome as she was beautiful, too, but his chin and nose looked almost too perfect to be real.

“Um, I couldn't help but hear you talk to that, um, cop,” she said, her voice high and hesitant as a child's, yet she had to be at least in her late thirties.

“The whole dining room heard us. Inspector Haraldsson wasn't exactly quiet.”

“I looked you up on my iPhone…”

Technology has its drawbacks. With a few taps on a screen, total strangers could find out everything about you. I forced a smile. “Don't believe everything you see on the Internet.”

As if I hadn't spoken, she continued. “…and thought maybe you can help us.”

Us. I looked at her left hand. Yep, a wedding ring. Mr. Handsome was her husband.

“I'm only here to chaperone a few zoo animals back to the States,” I said, trying to sound apologetic about it.

“That inspector, Haraldsson, he was asking Ben too many questions.”

“Inspectors do that sort of thing.”

“But considering everything, I'm afraid they'll pin the murder on Ben.” She looked down at her hands. They were trembling. “Given his past and all.”

I studied her reflection in the mirror. Either she was sweating, or there were tears on her cheek. “What do you mean, ‘given his past and all'?” A little voice told me to follow Haraldsson's orders and keep my nose out of police business. I ignored it. I grabbed some paper towels and began drying my hands. “Sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“Ben's had problems in the past, you see, and there was a big argument between him and Simon before we boarded the plane. He's never liked Simon, so…” She bit her lip.

“If you're that worried, maybe you should find an attorney.” I made for the door, but she moved quickly, blocking my path.

“An
Icelandic
attorney? You must be kidding. They'd love nothing better than to blame this on some tourist.”

Leave, Teddy. Shove this woman out of the way and leave right now. Go back to your table, tell Bryndis we have to go, and hustle your butt out of this hotel before you agree to do something you'll regret later.

“Look, I have to…”

“Ben's protective of me because of all the weird stuff that's been going on with Simon lately. He bought a Glock and…”

Deflect. That's what you learn to do when you work in a zoo. When a four-year-old asks you where baby chimpanzees come from, you ask them which they think is the smartest—chimps or orangutans. “Your husband didn't bring a handgun on the plane with him, did he?”

An affronted look. “Ben's not stupid.”

“Did your husband pack his suitcase or did you?”

“What difference does it make?”

She was beautiful, yes, but no Mensa candidate. “Think about it.”

After a moment, she said, “I'd have noticed if he packed his Glock.”

Which meant her husband did his own packing. “You need an attorney, Mrs…. Er, what did you say your name was?”

“I'm known as just Dawn.”

What an odd thing to say.

My befuddlement must have shown on my face, because she explained, “That was my modeling name, ‘Dawn.' No last name, just ‘Dawn.' Ben's a Talley. You know, Talley, like the restaurant chain. It's the family business.”

Talley's specialized in New American Cuisine, which is to say, gussied-up hamburgers and ten-ingredient omelets named after movie stars. For a while there'd been a Talley's in Gunn Landing, but it eventually closed for lack of business. The one in San Sebastian was still open.

I tried to sidle my way past her to get to the door. She sidled with me. Exasperated, I said, “Look, Dawn, if you overheard my conversation with Inspector Haraldsson, you know he told me to mind my own business. I'm sorry, but I really can't help you. Besides, even if Haraldsson decides your husband is a suspect in the killing, which I doubt he will, Ben can afford to hire a top-notch attorney. He'll be cleared in no time, and then you can continue on your tour.” A stretch of the truth there, perhaps. Especially if Ben had packed that Glock.

“I'm not hiring some crooked foreign attorney who'll charge and arm and a leg and do nothing.”

Before I could point out that here in Iceland we were the foreigners, she rushed on.

“Ben has no alibi, you see. When I woke up this morning, it was around five and already light, and he wasn't in the bed next to me or in the shower, either. When I was dressing he came back from wherever he'd been and he was wearing his heavy jacket. His hands were freezing, like he'd been outside.”

“You spent the night here? At Hótel Brattholt?”

“It wasn't on our original schedule but then Simon, you know he treated us all to this trip, don't you, all of a sudden he asked Oddi, our tour guide, to drive us down here late last night so we could get over to that cliff early.”

“Wait a minute. Did you say Simon Parr paid for your trip?”

She gave me an incredulous look. “You think the other birders could afford this trip on their own? As soon as Simon won that big Powerball, he started planning it. First class all the way, air fare, hotels, food, private tour guide, whatever, he took care of the whole thing. Maybe he looked like an idiot with those ridiculous sideburns he'd started wearing, but he wasn't stingy. Anyway, as I was saying, earlier in the evening he was all excited, saying he'd heard there'd been some kind of Egyptian bird spotted down here, a hookah or something.”

If she didn't know a bird's proper name it meant her husband was the birder. “I think you're talking about a hoopoe, but those birds are…”

She didn't let me finish. “This morning, when I asked Ben where he'd been, he told me he'd been out enjoying the fresh air. But I'm really worried! What if he did kill Simon?”

Belatedly, I snuck a quick look at the bathroom stalls. They appeared empty, but appearances can be deceiving. Lowering my voice, I said, “Dawn, you shouldn't go around saying things like that to anyone, including me. The wrong person might overhear you.”

She ignored my warning. “You can help us, I know you can! I'd ask Elizabeth what to do because she knows all kinds of stuff, but she's upset, and she's gone back to the hotel in Reykjavik anyway, and these awful Icelanders, they want to jail everyone who doesn't look like them!!” The waterworks started again.

Not my problem, not my problem, not my problem…

Oh, who was I kidding? I couldn't stand to see anyone cry, not even a woman with an advanced case of xenophobia. Sighing in defeat, I asked, “All right. Why, exactly, do you think the police might arrest your husband for killing Simon Parr?”

“Because of the fight.”

“Fight? Before, you described it as an argument. Now you're saying it was a physical fight?”

“There was some shoving. But there was another one, too, at last month's birder meeting, when the Geronimos…”

“Geronimos?”

“The Geronimo County Birding Association, of course. They were having their yearly elections and Perry Walsh won, he's his friend, but then he claimed he'd cheated because he knew he had enough votes to win and he was really mad about being accused of…”

The flurry of pronouns was confusing, so I stepped in to clarify. “This Perry person, he was Ben's friend or Simon's?”

“Ben's friend, of course. Simon never liked him, said he was a crook.”

“Simon believed Perry Walsh cheated to win the election?”

She rolled her beautiful eyes. “Simon believed my husband cheated by stuffing the ballot box for Perry. Isn't that what I said?”

Not really, but I let it pass. “Dawn, if Simon won a big Powerball, why would he care who won the presidency of a birding club?”

“He said it was some kind of honor thing.”

Only the misery on her face kept me from laughing. “An
honor
thing? Like, we'll settle this at sunrise, and choose your weapons?”

She gave me a baffled look. “I don't understand wha—'

My salvation arrived when at that precise moment, Bryndis opened the ladies' room door. “Hey, Teddy, I was beginning to think you had drowned.”

Chapter Six

“What was that scene in the ladies' room about?” Bryndis asked, on the drive back to Reykjavik.

“Just some woman upset about the murder.”

Bryndis took her eyes off the winding Ring Road to glance at me in surprise. “Her husband was the victim? I heard she went back to Reykjavik.”

“This one wasn't the widow. Uh, there's a sheep standing in the middle of the highway. It looks lost.”

She expertly swerved around the sheep and continued on. “Then why was she crying?”

“Worried, I guess.”

“You Americans worry a lot. We Icelanders, even though our volcanoes chase us down to the sea every few years, do we worry about it? No. We simply keep our bags packed. Speaking of volcanoes, there's Katla again, over on your right. So beautiful, the way the sun makes rainbows on the ice. Maybe the old witch will erupt while you're still here. Would not that be fun?”

“No.”

She laughed. “Volcano parties are the best parties. Everyone drinks and sings. Say, I have an idea. Tomorrow you are going with me to learn how to take care of Magnus and the foxes, so we will be busy all day. But Saturday, would you like to drive out to see Hekla, another volcano that's even bigger than Eyjafjallajökull and Katla? In the Middle Ages people believed Hekla was the gate to Hell itself, that condemned souls traveled through it on their way to eternal damnation in a lake of lava. It's a nice hike. Not the hike to Hell, of course, but through the valley surrounding Hekla.”

I marveled at her equanimity. “It won't be so beautiful if the thing erupts.”

“The last time Hekla erupted was in 2000, and she is not due again until maybe 2032, so you're safe. It is Katla, the witch, who is overdue.”

“All the same…”

She steered the Volvo around another sheep. “See, there you are, being American, worrying about some far off problem, while we Icelanders believe everything will work out in the end. Even if it does not work out, worries will change nothing.”

Bryndis was right, of course. Worry alone never solved anything unless you took the necessary steps to solve whatever problem you were worrying about in the first place. For instance, look at Dawn Talley, nee ‘just Dawn.' Worried sick that her husband might have killed Simon Parr, when all the while, the scenario was unlikely for two reasons. One, the chances of anyone smuggling firearms onto a flight these days was practically nil, even if Dawn's husband had stowed it in his luggage, not his carry-on. Two, regardless of the feud between Simon Parr and Dawn's husband, the idea that Ben Talley, owner of a big restaurant chain, would commit murder over Dawn or a disputed vote at some birding club was beyond ludicrous. We worry-wart Americans weren't that crazy.

As the Ring Road swept past green pastures, another element of our conversation began to bug me. If Dawn was really all that worried about her husband's possible involvement in the murder, wouldn't it make more sense to keep her mouth shut? Why seek out a total stranger—in a hotel ladies' room, no less—and blurt out possible motives, however far-fetched? Was she truly that unintelligent? Or maybe she wasn't dumb at all, and for her own reasons, had decided to throw suspicion toward her husband. If so, I guessed she'd soon be sharing her “concerns” with Inspector Haraldsson. Whatever was going on with the woman, I felt well out of it.

By the time we reached the barren lava fields outside Keflavik and the Ring Road turned north toward Reykjavik, lost sheep sightings had dwindled to nothing, and the only holdup was traffic congestion. But Icelanders being the polite drivers they were, we encountered few problems, and were soon back in Bryndis' cozy apartment on Baldursbrá Street.

“So. What would you like to do now?” she asked, after changing out of her riding clothes. Apparently no longer concerned by the events at Vic, she was looking forward to the rest of the day. “Shop on Laugavegur? Hit some museums and galleries? See Hallgrimskirkja, the church built to look like the basalt columns at Vik? Or maybe we could take a nice walk down to the harbor and I can show you Harpa, our new concert hall? Harpa's built right over the bay and has become quite the tourist attraction. Coming back we could see the Solfar Viking boat sculpture. And get hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs?”

Bryndis now wore gray linen slacks and a blue silk blouse. With her hair unpinned, the combination of chic sportswear and shoulder-length blond tresses made her look more like a fashion model than Dawn. But to be honest, Bryndis was at least ten years younger, and Dawn, stressed about her husband's possible involvement in Parr's murder, wasn't having a good day. Stress can play hell with a woman's looks.

“You will love Bæjarin's Beztu Pylsur. They serve the best, most famous,
pylsurs
—hot dogs—in the entire world,” Bryndis continued, unaware of my flashback to the morning's sad events. “So famous that Bill Clinton and Madonna and that bad boy Charlie Sheen and James Hetfield from Metallica have all eaten there. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, when he was having the Glasnost meeting with Ronald Reagan, they say he ate there, too. I will treat you to a big
eina með öllu
, which means ‘one with everything.' If a
pylsur
could help end the Cold War, it will help us recover from what happened at Vik. I keep seeing that dead man's face. Ugh!”

So much for Bryndis' Icelandic stoicism.

“Murder aside, I did enjoy the horses,” I said. “And yes, a walk down to the harbor sounds wonderful, as well as the whatsis, the hot dogs. But you don't have to treat me, because the Gunn Zoo's picking up the tab for everything.” Within reason, of course. The tab for hot dogs wouldn't break Aster Edwina Gunn's bank.

“Then we will have two
beztu pylsurs
! Each! And Cokes!”

***

On this balmy August afternoon, the temperature hovered around seventy degrees Fahrenheit in downtown Reykjavik, keeping sidewalk musicians and other performance artists busy on Laugavegur Street. Across from an upscale women's wear shop, two “Vikings” dressed in traditional garb play-acted a swordfight for tourist dollars, while a few doors down, a musician—her Chihuahua sitting patiently at her side—played a rousing rendition of Flatt & Scruggs' “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on her banjo. Cheered by this touch of home in such an unlikely setting, I threw a five-dollar bill into her banjo case.

“
Takk fyrir
,” she said, repeating in English, “Thank you.”

Although our stroll down Reykjavik's colorful streets was pleasant, the image of Simon Parr's mutilated face kept intruding in my mind. True, both times I'd seen Simon in action, he'd been behaving badly, but try as I might, I couldn't keep the memory of his ecstatic face on television as he held up that check for 610.3 million dollars. Yet his generosity with his friends proved that he wasn't a complete churl.

Unlike animals, people are complicated. A bear acts like a bear all the time, and a tiger acts like a tiger. Even a lizard always acts like a lizard. But people constantly surprise you. Self-centered men risk their lives rescuing kittens from burning buildings. Beautiful women who act as if they don't have a brain in their heads can be hiding a level of intelligence that would impress an astrophysicist.

Besides Dawn's husband, who else wanted Simon Parr dead? That wasn't the only question nagging at me. I was also plagued by the suspicion that I had missed something at the murder scene, something important, but as much as I racked my brain, I couldn't remember.

By the time Bryndis and I reached the Ingolfsstraeti turning toward the harbor, I'd tried to distract myself by contributing to so many buskers that I'd run out of American dollars and had to switch to Icelandic króna. I would have bankrupted myself if not for Bryndis, who put a warning hand on my money arm.

“Better save some for later,” she said. “While I was dressing, I received a call from Ragnar. He has invited us to a party tonight at his apartment. It is on Skólavörðustígur, in the middle of the arts district, so on the way, you will have plenty of opportunities to make our street performers happy.”

Just before reaching the harbor, we paused in front of a small store named Ingolfsstraeti
Bókabúð. Despite its difficult name, it was obviously a bookstore. But what caught our attentnion was the big sign in the window, printed in both Icelandic and English.

MEET AUTHOR ELIZABETH ST. JOHN

6 P.M. SUNDAY

HEAR THE FAMOUS AUTHOR TALK ABOUT HER NEW BOOK

* * * TAHITI PASSION * * *

AND THE PROFOUND NEW LOVE

HER HEROINE JADE L'AMOUR

DISCOVERS WHILE CONDUCTING AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG

IN AN EXOTIC TROPICAL PARADISE.

FREE REFRESHMENTS

Bryndis looked at me. “Uh oh.”

“‘Uh oh' is right. Think we should we go in and tell them what happened at Vik this morning?”

“We had better. I know the manager, and would hate to see her spend her kronur on refreshments for a talk that will not happen.”

The bookstore wasn't as large as the three I'd visited yesterday. Having no room for a café, nothing but books lined the four walls. Banks of free-standing floor shelves provided more space for books, leaving only narrow aisles for customers, of which there were many. At first I couldn't see how such a small store could host signings for even unknown authors, let alone a superstar like Elizabeth St. John, but as Bryndis led me toward the back, I saw a small alcove near the restrooms. In the alcove stood a table topped by the author's photograph and a small stack of books. Unless there were more in the back room, they would surely run out.

“Follow me,” Bryndis said, weaving her way through the racks. “Kristin is usually in her office.”

From the entrance, the door to the office had been invisible because some clever artist had painted it to look like a filled bookshelf, but when Bryndis pushed against a book titled
Landnámabók
, it swung open. Inside a room the size of an American closet sat a young woman staring into a computer screen with a cross expression on her face. Small, fine-featured, with harlequin glasses perched on a tiny nose, with her light brown hair shorn in a pixie cut, she looked like a cranky elf. Upon seeing us, the elf pushed her chair away from her child-sized desk and greeted Bryndis with a broad smile and a rush of Icelandic.

When Bryndis introduced me, Krista immediately switched to English. “An American zookeeper! I got my MFA at Georgetown University, and while there, I visited the National Zoo to see the pandas. Does the Gunn Zoo have pandas?”

We talked animals for a few minutes—sorry, the Gunn Zoo had no pandas—before Bryndis got around to delivering the bad news about Elizabeth St. John.

Krista's reaction was unexpected. “It is kind of you to warn me like this, but I have already heard about the unfortunate occurrence at Vik. No problem. Not for us, anyway. Elizabeth called this afternoon to assure me that her signing was still on.”

“Still on?!” I squeaked.

“A strong woman, that one.” Krista's voice was filled with admiration. “Just like her heroine Jade L'Amour. Yes, she is sad, of course, and yes, she cried a little as we spoke, but she said that—how did she put it?—oh, that the show must go on, that she had made her promise to us and her readers, and despite her personal misfortune, she will honor it.”

Honor. Where had I heard that word earlier? Then I remembered. In the restroom at Vik, Dawn Talley had described the argument between her husband and the dead man over their birding organization's vote as being a matter of “honor.” Briefly, I wondered if I should inform Inspector Haraldsson, then decided not to. Let the grump solve his own crimes.

Krista was still talking. “It is a terrible thing to say, but all the publicity will help the signing. I have been worried about it, but now everyone will come to see the woman whose husband has been murdered.”

“But will they buy books?” Bryndis asked.

Krista's grin didn't diminish. “I will make them feel like murderers themselves if they don't.”

Krista's expertise as a saleswoman became apparent when she insisted on showing me around the shop. Without sounding the least bit pushy, she managed to talk me into buying five books: four coffee table books featuring the scenic wonders of Iceland, and the fifth, an anthology of Icelandic sagas.

“You will especially love
Njál's Saga
, which has so many killings in it that even our historians sometimes lose count,” she said, swiping the Gunn Zoo's Visa through the card reader.

Books are heavy. Especially coffee table books and anthologies. Fortunately, my going-away present from my mother had been a Coach Studio Legacy handbag that doubled as a backpack, so I slung my haul over my shoulder and set off with Bryndis again, slumping only slightly. Fortunately, the rest of the walk to the harbor was downhill.

“Sorry about that,” Bryndis said, as we trudged along. She, too, had been cajoled into buying several books, but unlike me, she'd purchased lightweight paperbacks. “I should have warned you about Krista,” she said, with a rueful smile.

Ten minutes later we arrived at Reykjavik's famed concert hall. A modern glass and steel building jutting out over the water of Reykjavik Bay, Harpa's irregular colored panels, each a different shape and size, mimicked the translucent effect of stained glass windows. At night, Bryndis explained, the building provided an extraordinary light show as the colors flashed on and off, twinkling like a million stars going nova in a synergetic ballet. By day, you could stand inside the great hall and watch cod fishing boats steam into the harbor.

As much as I enjoyed the tour through Harpa—in addition to hosting concerts and operas, the concert hall also provided a forum for post-modern painting and avant garde sculpture—it was nice to get back outside into the pollution-free Reykjavik air. And to tell the truth, I was starving, and looked forward to the trip across the street to Bæjarin's Beztu Pylsur, which I now realized simply meant “the best hot dogs in town.”