The Body in the Fjord (5 page)

 

Pix felt like a new girl. It was true that others had joined the tour at Voss, but the group that had been traveling together since the beginning was the in group, the popular kids. It wasn't that they excluded the latecomers—just the opposite. As Pix and Ursula walked into the dining room at Fleischer's Hotel and headed for the tables with the Scandie Sights cards, they were immediately urged by several people to join them. The veterans exuded an all-knowing air that became even more apparent as the meal progressed. Advice ran rampant. It was a table of six.

“Velkommen
. That's ‘welcome' in Norwegian,” a plump woman with tightly permed curls said. “I'm Erna Dahl and this is my sister, Louise. Twins, although you'd never guess! We're from Virginia. What about you?”

Ursula extended her hand across the table. “How nice to meet you. I'm Ursula Rowe and this is my daughter, Pix Miller. We're from Massachusetts.”

“Oh, I just love Boston!” the woman seated next to Pix exclaimed. “We're the Bradys—no relation to the Bunch—Marge and Don.” The introduction was so pat, Pix knew it had been repeated hundreds, maybe even thousands of times.

“Pix—is that a particularly New England name?” asked Louise Dahl. You
would
never guess the Dahls were twins. Unlike her sister, she was thin and her hair was straight and fine, falling slightly below her ears in what had been a bad cut and was getting worse as it grew out. The women appeared to be in their mid-forties.

Ursula gave her daughter a little pat on the hand. Think of Marit, it said. Think of Kari. You don't get information if you don't give, and this is no time to be standoffish, however much you dislike hearing this story in particular over and over again.

“No, it's a nickname that stuck. Pix was the tiniest little girl when she was born. We called her our ‘little pixie.' That became Pix, and most people don't even know her given name, Myrtle—I am very partial to the ground cover; it has such lovely purple flowers.”

Pix flashed a game smile at the table. “Of course, I didn't stay a pixie for too long, but by then, even I was so used to the name, we couldn't imagine changing it.” She did leave out two facts—that Pix was definitely the lesser of two evils and that when she suddenly shot up to her adult height of five eleven in junior high school, she desperately wished her family could leave town and start over in a new place where she would be known as Jane.

“I hope you like fish,” Don Brady said. “I'm about to start sprouting gills.” Again, the Bradys seemed to have a set repertoire of remarks. His wife's smile was a bit thin-lipped.

“I'm very fond of fish, and it should be done well here. This is a famous old hotel,” Ursula commented.

Her mistake was apparent in the looks the others gave one another. How come
she
knows so much? This upstart. Ursula quickly made amends. Pix and she had decided not to reveal their intimate knowledge of the country, all the better to find things out, and she'd slipped up. Hastily she added, “At least that's what it says in the brochure. I'm sure the guides and other staff have been giving you more details.”

Peace reigned.

“It
is
a famous old hotel and it's still run by the same family, fourth generation. All these old hotels were built before World War One for the German and English who came here to fish and hunt,” Marge reported. Pix noted the large tote bag beside Marge's chair, filled with guidebooks. The woman could lead the tour herself, hands down. But at the moment, Pix wasn't interested in the hotel's history. She was concerned with more recent events, and Ursula had given her an opening.

“How has the Scandie staff been? Someone on the train told us there had been a problem. A guide left or something like that?”

A waitress was bringing the first course, a Jarlsberg cheese tartlet, she told them.

Pix wasn't sure whether the silence that had fallen was due to the desire for food at this fashionably late dinner hour or uneasiness. Erna Dahl answered her question.

“The staff has been wonderful, especially Carl and Jan, the guides. They can't do enough for you and they are so informative.”

“They don't talk too much, though,” her sister pointed out. “I couldn't stand the type of tour where someone is constantly urging you to look at something, keeping up a stream of meaningless chatter.” She took a bite of her tartlet. Pix was sure she gave her sister a look that had more to do with the subject Pix had raised than the flakiness of the crust. Erna sighed and her curls quivered slightly.

“We did have two staff members who left the tour and it made things a little awkward in Bergen.”

“No one to carry the bags,” grumbled Don Brady. “Irresponsible kids.”

“They were running off together, eloping,” Erna continued. “But something must have happened on the way. The boy—his name was Erik—drowned. A terrible accident.”

Pix had no trouble voicing authentic concern. “How horrible! The poor girl!”

“Well, we don't really know how she's taking it,” Marge said brightly. “She didn't come back, as you might expect, and we have two darlings now, Anders and Sonja. They're over there at the staff table.”

Kari's and Erik's replacements were also blue-eyed, blond, and about the same age. Pix imagined that many of the people on the tour might have trouble telling them apart from Kari and Erik. Generic Nordics.

“When did all this happen?” Pix persisted. “It must have put a damper on the trip.”

“We don't have any dampers on Scandie Sights tours,” announced a pleasant voice speaking English with the slightly British accent many Norwegians have, which with the lilt makes the clipped speech sound like a whole new dialect. “I'm Carl Bjørnson, and you must be Mrs. Rowe and Mrs. Miller.” He flashed a grin at Jan, who was by his side. “I must admit, I had some coaching. Welcome to the tour.” He stretched out his hand.

“Is everything all right? Enjoying your dinner?” Jan asked. He still looked tired, yet some sort of liquid refreshment had bolstered his spirits. His voice was hearty and his cheeks flushed. His hair had been combed, but now the back of his shirt was untucked. He reminded Pix of her youngest child, Danny, almost thirteen, who could never seem to keep everything in place or clean all at once. If his shirt was tucked in, then a shoelace was untied. Hair combed, his hands would be dirty.

Carl was a head taller than Jan and would look younger
longer, Pix instantly decided. Both men appeared to be in their mid- to late twenties, though Jan had already developed love handles that would no doubt continue to grow as his hair receded. Carl was lean, his eyes standard-issue blue, but his hair wasn't blond. Instead, dark curls covered his head, curls that even the close cut he sported couldn't quite tame. It gave him a slightly Mediterranean air, Norway by way of Barcelona. Definitely nice to look at.

He handed Pix and Ursula some sheets of paper. “This is our itinerary and we'll confirm all the times as we go along. No one has missed the bus, train, or boat yet.” He sounded relieved. “The other page is a list of your fellow travelers and where they're from.” He handed this single sheet to the rest of the table. “At the bottom, we've added the people who just joined us. Now everyone can get to know one another!”

Exactly, thought Pix, and thank you, Scandie Sights, for making my job a little easier. She was not interested in the new arrivals, since they wouldn't have been on the tour when Kari and Erik were with it. She'd need to find some way to figure out where the list divided, since the alphabetizing seemed erratic. Voluble Marge “Information, Please” Brady was the place to start.

Pix turned to her. “I wonder how many of us joined for the fjord cruise.” It was enough.

“Oh, that's easy.” Marge picked up her list. “Let's see. Oscar Melling is at the end of our list—I mean the group that started in Copenhagen.” Clearly, Marge was sensitive to issues of exclusion. “That makes fifteen who joined at Voss.”

“It seems like an extremely congenial group,” Ursula said. “I'm sure we're going to have a lovely time together.”

Mother paving the way for future conversation. Pix nodded in agreement—and approval.

“Yes, it has been a good bunch,” Don agreed. Then, as a ruddy-faced elderly man strode by, he modified his
statement. “Of course, you always have a rotten apple or two.”

“Oh honey, not rotten! That's not the right word for Oscar!” She appeared embarrassed by her husband's bluntness.

Louise Dahl quickly began talking about the weather. “Only one day of rain in Bergen. And even that didn't last long.”

Marge jumped in, a veritable geyser of facts, “Bergen's on the coast. You know if you measured it in a direct line, it would be about two thousand miles long, but it's really over twelve thousand five hundred with all the ins and outs. Plus, there are a hundred and fifty thousand islets offshore that protect the coast and make a kind of passageway for ships. The route was called the North Way—get it, Norway?”

They got it. Pix made a mental note to get Marge alone and find out more about Oscar. She scanned the list next to her plate—Oscar Melling, New Jersey. No town listed. Meanwhile, she held up her end by contributing a few meteorological comments of her own. How did people live in rainy places? Seattle was another, and so on.

The rest of the meal was uneventful: poached cod, boiled potatoes, apple cake. Because of the lateness of the hour, there was no evening program planned, although, Jan announced, the bar would stay open. He also urged a walk by the shores of Lake Vangsvatnet.

“And tomorrow, we don't bother you too early. No wake-up calls.” A few people clapped. Pix hadn't thought about this aspect of the tour. “You have a nice breakfast, explore the village”—his
v
was a
w
—“and we'll leave for Stalheim at eleven o'clock.”

Ursula and Pix said good night to the Dahls and the Bradys.

“Bed, yes?” Pix didn't know whether it was the time difference finally catching up with her or the situation she found herself in, but extreme fatigue had arrived.

“Yes, but first why don't you come to my room? We need to talk.”

Pix had assumed she and her mother would be bunking down together. Yankee thrift would seem to preclude the hefty supplement for a room of one's own, but her mother had declared, “I like my own bath, dear. You'll be fine.”

Marit had supplied them with a flask. “It's scandalous what they charge for a drink at the hotels,” she'd said.

Ursula poured some scotch and the two sat by the window.

“Maybe we should make some notes,” she suggested.

Pix shook her head. “Nothing written down. We aren't going to be handling our own bags, and even if we keep notes in our pocketbooks, it's a bit chancy.”

“All right, then, what have we learned?”

“Not much,” Pix said dismally. Her head was spinning. She really was tired and slightly disoriented. It was five o'clock in the afternoon eastern standard time and soon it would be tomorrow here.

“I thought the man at the station told you something,” Ursula said. Pix had whispered words to that effect as they boarded the bus for the hotel.

“Yes, but I'm not sure where it fits in. No one saw Kari or Erik at Voss. They—or rather, Erik—phoned the station with the message that they were eloping.”

“So they could have been anywhere.”

“Yes. From what Marit said, the last place anyone actually saw either of them was on the train from Oslo to FlÃ¥m.”

“I've taken it dozens of times,” Ursula said. “It stops at an enormous waterfall, Kjosfossen, so people can take pictures. Kari and Erik would have gotten off the train then, wouldn't they, to make sure the tour group got back on again?”

“I remember Kjosfossen, too. Given that Erik was found in the river below, the waterfall would have been the most likely place for him to have fallen in, or whatever.”

“Whatever,” said her mother. Neither woman liked the
other possible scenario, involving his fiancée and a mighty push.

“They weren't on the bus from FlÃ¥m to Aurland. Carl, the guide who spoke to Marit, was very specific about that.” Ursula tipped her glass back and finished her drink.

“So Kari may have gotten off at FlÃ¥m and taken another train or met someone there.” Pix had practically memorized the Scandie Sights Mermaid/Troll brochure on the train from Oslo. This particular tour, once having reached Norway, tried to give its members the quintessential Viking experience, which meant plenty of fjords, folk museums, salmon, and the FlÃ¥m railway. They took it down the mountain, changed to a bus for the short ride to Aurland, where their fjord cruiser was waiting at the dock, took a ride up the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the spectacular Sognefjord, then got on a bus to Voss and the train to Bergen for several days. Now they were back to fjord country again for a perfect finish.

Ursula stood up, opened her window to let in the cool night air, and closed the shades against the daylight.

“We have a lot to do tomorrow. We'd better divide up and talk to as many people as we can. I thought that man at dinner tonight seemed a little ill at ease, but it could have been his wife—all those plans.”

Marge Brady had told them that since her husband's retirement, they were working their way down her own personal list of the wonders of the world. They'd already “done” the pyramids, the Rock of Gibraltar, the châteaux of the Loire, the Great Wall of China, and gondolas in Venice. Fjords had been next, to be followed by Mount Kilimanjaro. Pix only just prevented herself from suggesting Marge send her list in to the Letterman show.

Pix kissed her mother good night. It was all she could do to keep from crawling fully clothed under the
dyne
mounded on the bed in front of her. She hoped she could make it across the hall.