The Body in the Fjord (26 page)

Practical people, like their descendants, Pix reflected—why waste a perfectly good amulet, especially when silver was a scarce commodity.

“So what did they do with it?”

“They did bury the silver, but in hoards—secret hiding places. Every once in a while, someone comes across one of these. It can be in coins, ingots, jewelry.”

“And instead of turning it over to the proper authorities, this person is passing it along to Sven and Carl. No wonder they wanted to keep you quiet until the end of the tour.” And that's why Kari and she had been locked up. When Carl heard Kari ask for Annelise's phone number, he'd suspected Kari was onto him, and he had taken drastic, immediate steps.

“Exactly. They will all be wealthy men. But Erik, to his credit, didn't want any part of it after Sven told him—and he told Sven this. ‘Viking things are different,' Erik said. I don't think he realized that the other antiques they were taking out of the country were as important to our history as the Viking find. He thought of them as common objects that everybody had around. He really didn't know very much about it. But he thought the Viking silver should stay in Norway. Now it was a crime. Before it was just getting around a stupid law, like…well, brewing your own beer.

“When we were getting close to Kjosfossen, he had decided to slip off the train in Voss and tell the police, even though it meant he would have to confess what he had done. I was very proud of him.”

Pix was glad that Kari had this last memory. Erik had
been weak and foolish, yet he had resolved to do the right thing. She could always remember that.

Now they were coming close to the moment of his death. Pix wanted to find out—and didn't. She took Kari's hand. It was a lot warmer than her own.

“The train stopped so people could take pictures and we got out to answer any questions or provide help. It was also our job to be sure no one was left behind. We were always the last by the waterfall. Carl and Sven came close behind us. I was very scared, but Erik wasn't. I think it was because there were so many people and he thought, What can they do to us? He knew he was going to the police, but they didn't, and of course he wasn't going to say anything. Then it got horrible. Carl was totally crazy. I had never seen him this way. By that time, we were the only ones left. Carl began to scream at Erik for betraying him, for telling me. He said he thought of Erik as a brother, but that he was not to speak to him again, except when he had to. Then he began on me, said that I was a whore and no man would ever have me for a wife. Erik told him to stop, but he kept going. Sven just stood to the side, saying nothing.”

Pix could imagine the scene very well. She remembered Carl's transformation, the sudden flare of temper at the Glacier Museum as he berated the other guide. Mother had said he was a passionate person. She had been right.

“Carl began to laugh. ‘The joke is on you, Erik.'” Kari lowered her voice. “He said, ‘I know for sure what she's like, because I slept with her!' Of course it was a lie, and I yelled this to Erik, only he pushed me aside and went for Carl. Sven tried to break it up, but he tripped and fell. Carl pushed Erik away. The train was starting to move. And Erik fell into Kjosfossen.”

Her voice was flat and after the last words, it was hard to know what to say. As Pix squeezed the girl's hand hard, Kari began again.

“We all stood absolutely still. Then Carl said, ‘Oh shit! Look what you did! to me and he ran toward the train. I
started to follow, but Sven grabbed me. The next thing I knew, I was on the farm. I don't know how he got me from the train tracks there, but Carl must have called Sven's wife from FlÃ¥m. My head had a lump, so I know he hit me.”

“Carl made another call, too.” Pix told her about the message the stationmaster at Voss had received that they were eloping and Carl's telephone conversation with her grandmother later that night at the hotel in Bergen.

Kari stood up and paced rapidly up and down. She was incensed.

“How could anyone have believed, that! The whole time I've been wondering how Carl could have covered up our disappearance, but this idea never occurred to me.”

“Because, my dear, you don't have a criminal mind.” Pix was angry, too. The man was a monster. “But,” she reminded Kari, “your grandmother didn't believe it. She knows you.”

“The police must have, then. What has been going on?”

Pix told her as delicately as possible the theories in various papers, reassuring her that it was already old news. Kari paced even more furiously.

“They think I killed Erik! And ran off someplace! How could I? My knapsack with all my money was on the train still, under my seat.”

Pix told her the bad news. “I'm afraid Carl and Sven thought of that. The knapsacks were left where they were and ended up in the lost luggage back in Oslo, but yours was missing your wallet and passport.”

“So, I'm guilty.” Kari sat down, then jumped up again. “If I ever see Carl again, I will kill him!”

Pix needed to get something cleared up. “Why did you and Erik have your passports?”

“Erik told me to bring mine, that you never knew when you might need it.”

Shades of Faith Fairchild, Pix thought. Oh Faith, where are you when I need you now!

“I think he may have been planning to surprise me with a trip at the end of the summer, after our jobs ended. Maybe to Greece or someplace like that.”

Greece. Sunny places. Olive groves. Pix thought of the picture of Kari's parents. She hadn't told Kari about the newspapers dredging up the circumstances of her mother's death. She also didn't think it was the time and place to talk about Hanna's origins. She did want to know about Sven, though.

“Kari, did Sven look familiar to you? Is it possible that you knew him before? He threatened you, but he brought you here, and you mentioned they were giving you food. He hasn't harmed you. Maybe because he knew you?”

“Why do you ask? It's true he said he would kill us, but that is very different from doing it. I saw his face when Erik went into the water, and he was horrified. Why kill me? Murder is very serious, very different from what he's doing with Carl. Just before they pick up the Viking silver, they will probably bring food and water here. Enough until some hikers find us. Or maybe they'll drug us again and leave the door unlocked. I've thought about it a lot. There's not much else to do here.”

Pix decided to leave the matter at that for now. Yet Kari was being rather naïve. With that much money at stake, Pix was sure the leap from one crime to another would not be a big one.

“I don't think we can depend on their good natures. At the least, it would be just as easy to leave us here. I hope you're right and they will come one more time to appease their consciences, if they have any. Then we can be ready for them. And now we have to flunk of a plan.”

Pix always felt better when she thought she knew what she was doing.

 

The day had gone by very slowly, despite the tour of Balestrand and other diversions offered by the hotel and Scandie Sights. By dinner, tempers were short and the various tour members were either sitting by themselves or in small
isolated family groups. Inspector Marcussen looked at the tables as he filled his plate with
medisterkaker
from the array of hot dishes at the hotel's
smörgåsbord
. The fragrant meat cakes were accompanied by sauerkraut flavored with caraway seeds. Having already finished several helpings of herring and other fish, he couldn't think of a better Sunday-night supper. The Scandie Sights tour members, however, with the exception of the younger Petersons, seemed to have lost their appetites.

After dinner, he would tell them they were free to go in the morning. He couldn't legitimately keep them here any longer, although he was sure that both the answer to Oscar Melling's death and Mrs. Miller's disappearance was known to someone in this room. If he could, he'd keep them in this pleasant jail until that person broke and confessed. But it was impossible. Sidney Harding had besieged his embassy with calls and several other tour members had made a single protest. Marcussen was officially ordered to let them go. Also, the hotel needed the rooms. It had been a minor miracle that they had all been able to stay put for even this long. He sighed. Could he be wrong? Jansen was convinced that Oscar Melling's death had been an accident and the injury to his back somehow obtained in the fall. And Mrs. Miller? Had she given in to a sudden impulse and wandered off? His wife had once described a sensation she got at times, that she could just keep driving and not return—cross the border and eventually be in Venice. He had been shocked, then amused. Now that the children were grown and out of the house, he hadn't heard any more about it and they had gone to Venice together last fall. He tried to remember how old Mrs. Miller's children were. Some still home, but no one at that demanding toddler stage. Carl Bjørnson, one of the guides, had privately confided that he and the other guide had thought Mrs. Miller troubled since her arrival—often agitated and given to long, lonely walks at odd hours. Carl was sure she would turn up, an amnesia victim or some other such thing.

But her mother and Fru Hansen were convinced that someone had done something to her. They were seated at a table, their food in front of them, but eating nothing, deep in conversation. He knew they believed that Kari Hansen's and Pix Miller's disappearances were connected—Oscar Melling's death, too. He considered his food. The meatballs were so good, he thought he might be able to eat some more. The mother's theory was all very far-fetched. After a meal like this, he was inclined to agree with Jansen that the women had been watching too much American television. Marcussen was opposed to television and worried that his future grandchildren wouldn't be counted in Norway's 100 percent literacy rate if things continued the way they were going with all these new channels. Mrs. Rowe and Fru Hansen were leaving the dining room and stopped to speak with him.

“I hope you are enjoying your meal,
Inspektør
” Fru Hansen said, eyeing his plate. He suddenly felt a bit overindulgent.

“Everyone will be free to leave the hotel in the morning. I intend to announce it after dinner,” he told them abruptly. “I'm sorry,” he added, and put his fork down, leaving the rest of his helping untouched.

“We imagined that you couldn't detain people for too much longer,” Ursula said sympathetically. “Of course, Fru Hansen and I intend to remain until my daughter is found.”

They said good night and left the room. Another group was coming in. Marcussen looked after the two women, handbags on arms, straight spines, no ladders in their hose. They could be here for a long time, he thought dismally, and decided to forgo dessert.

 

Myrtle “Pix” Miller had never been more awake and alert in her life. She could hear Kari's regular breathing from across the room. They were taking the watch in turn. Kari had shown Pix the small chink she had found between the boulders, which had been wedged tightly together during
the original construction and made more impenetrable, settling into the ground over the years. They had not taken her watch, so looking at a tiny patch of sky, she'd charted the passage of time, painfully aware of how slowly it was moving.

“After Midsummer Eve, after the children are out of school, I'm sure there will be people on walking trips, but now even if we could make enough noise to be heard through these walls, there's a very slim chance that anyone would be near enough to hear us,” she'd told Pix. Midsummer Eve, Pix thought dismally, was still a week away. She willed the door to open, willed them to make one last food drop, avoiding the possibility of more blood on their hands. Blood—it made her think of the swastika at Stalheim. Carl had seemed genuinely surprised at her assumption that he had killed Oscar. If Oscar had figured out what Carl was up to, he would have been more likely to offer him a North American outlet than blackmail him, Pix now thought. Yet if not Carl, then who killed the old man—and who was the graffiti artist?

Kari had explained to Pix that it was always either Sven or his wife who came to leave some food and a thermos of coffee. The door was quickly opened, a sack dropped in, and he or she was off again. It all took only a few seconds. When Pix had been brought in, Sven had his gun out, telling Kari to get in the far corner of the hut. Once more, his exit was swift. There had been no possibility of rushing out the door or overpowering either person at any time.

“Pix,” whispered Kari. “Someone's coming. Get ready.”

Yes, there was the sound of a car. The engine stopped. A door slammed—one door.

Someone was fumbling with the lock and then light streamed in. Pix was momentarily blinded.

It was Sven, who was carrying a plastic bag, which he hastily set down inside the door. As he turned to leave, Kari called in a feeble voice.

“The woman. The woman you brought here is dead.”

“What!” cried Sven, rushing to where Pix lay. “This can't be…”

As he leaned over to check, Pix let him have it full force with Faith's superhold hair spray. He screamed and fell back. Kari was waiting with the Thermos and brought it down on his head hard, twice. The man fell to the ground. Quickly, they searched his pockets, taking his wallet, keys, matches, some coins, and a knife. There was nothing else.

They left the food. With luck, he'd be there long enough to get very hungry.

Outside, after locking the door, they fell into each other's arms, laughing deliriously. The low stone hut had a sod roof. It looked so innocuous—a flower or two sprouting amid the grass, and a well-worn wooden door.

“We did it! It was so easy! You're a genius, Pix!” Kari hugged her again.

Modestly, Pix said, “You were pretty handy with that thermos.” She made a mental note to write to the company, thanking them for the versatility of their product. She had almost gotten away by throwing hot coffee at Carl, and now they had gained their freedom using the handy vacuum bottle again.