The Body in the Fjord

Five

“I got my thriilll on Blueberry Hiilll.”

The music was blasting from the smoke-filled lounge and dancers crowded the floor. The air was warm and faces glowed, shining from exertion and alcohol. Pix wanted to keep alert and awake, although with all the coffee she’d drunk, she’d have to drink an enormous amount of beer to put a dent in the caffeine. By the end of the trip, her blood type would probably be arabica instead of B-positive. She ordered a Coke and sat down at a small table off to the side, where she was content to observe and not participate as tourists from every corner of the earth twisted and shouted their way through the group’s next spirited number. It was an interesting rendition of the old classic. The female vocalist didn’t sing at all like Chubby Checker and her accent occasionally made the English words sound Norwegian, but when she belted out “like we did last summer,” the dancers went nuts, gyrating even more madly. Thoughts of hip-huggers. Thoughts of blankets at the beach. Thoughts of youth.

Pix was surprised to see Oscar Melling back in good graces, or at least with some of the tour. He was panting away opposite Carol Peterson, who was managing to stay with the beat even as her eyes scanned the room for her wayward daughter-in-law and poor benighted son. Pix

could see Carol intoning the words over cups of coffee stretching endlessly into a future of neighborhood coffee klatches: “He was such a good boy, until he met up with her. Not that I’m criticizing, mind you, but…” Roy senior was talking to Don Brady. It was apparently a very serious subject. Their heads were bent close together and Don, who was speaking at the moment, had locked his fellow Scandie sightseer’s eyes in his own intense gaze. Suddenly, the two burst out laughing. What on earth could they be discussing? Pix tried to think how she could move closer to eavesdrop.

The Hardings and the Golubs were, of course, playing cards, although the table was partially out the door—so they could hear each other. Pix wondered if they played for money. There was no sign of the bachelor farmers. No doubt, they stuck to their routines and had all gone to bed at what would have been sundown, to arise at sunup.

The number ended and Pix was debating whether to have another Coke or not. Skipping it meant a week’s tuition for Samantha at Wellesley, where she was going to be a freshman in the fall. But Pix needed to have some reason for lingering and she had absentmindedly drunk the first small glass down while she was looking about. She ordered another one, wished she was on an expense account, and continued her surveillance.

The group played a slow number. Pix didn’t recognize the song, but she did recognize the tempo. It was make-out music. All those couples in her teen years embracing on the dance floor, rocking from side to side, maybe taking a step to the rear or the front to provide a semblance of motion. “What fun is that?” her mother had asked. “That’s not dancing! Why bother?” Pix, besotted over Sam Miller, two years older and two inches taller, had not explained. There were some things mothers would never get.

“All those dancing-school years with Miss Pat and Miss Nancy,” Ursula had complained. Yes, the adolescents of Aleford had been taught to dance properly. Girls wore

party dresses and white gloves. Boys had to struggle into suits and ties. Pix, with the arrogance of youth, had reminded her mother that people disapproved of the waltz when it was first introduced. “Nice eighteenth-century girls didn’t dance that way.”

But Ursula had the last word. “Someday you’ll be glad you learned to dance.” Many weddings, bar mitzvahs, and fund-raisers later, Pix was indeed glad she had.

The French cousins were dancing together. They had the air of professionals—impersonal smiles, eyes ahead, perfectly coordinated steps. They acknowledged her by dipping slightly as they passed.

Carol Peterson was still dancing with Oscar Melling, who was grasping her so tightly, Pix was sure the buttons on his sports shirt were embossing her flesh. She had changed from the brightly colored polyester pants suits she favored during the day to a wide-skirted floral-print cocktail dress—cruise wear. It was accessorized by matching beads, earrings, and several bangle bracelets. A white Orlon cardigan with plastic pearl buttons fluttered from her shoulders like a tiny cape, the gold-plated sweater guard threatening to choke her. She was chattering feverishly and Pix thought she heard her say, “You naughty man, you,” as they, too, passed by. Her hair, uniformly light brown, was styled in what Pix vaguely recalled as an “artichoke” cut from her youth. Carol’s leaves were all firmly lacquered in place, down to the wispy ones over her brow.

Pix noted again that jogging and whatever else Jennifer Olsen did to stay in shape had paid off. She was wearing a cotton-knit dress that clung to her body. It was very short and Pix remembered the equally provocative night wear Jennifer favored. Her dancing style fit these fashions. She was twisting, but not grinding gears to the floor and jumping up again, as the jack-in-the-boxes surrounding her were. Instead, her whole body seemed to shimmy and slither seductively, pulsating with the rhythm. Pix didn’t recognize her partner from the tour. She must have met

him at the hotel. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her—and the slight smile on her lips clearly stated she knew it. More power to her, thought Pix. Over fifty didn’t mean Ovaltine and early to bed these days. Well, maybe it meant early to bed, but not Ovaltine. Clearly, Jennifer was a boomer and proud of it.

Pix was beginning to feel as if she was watching a film, Fellini by way of Oslo. From the look of the crowd, intent on wresting every last drop of pleasure from their tour—they’d paid for it, after all—it would be many hours before she could count on slipping out of the hotel to search the boat.

And what if she did find something? Something Kari and Erik had also found out about. Something with which they confronted someone. Pix shuddered as she thought of the repercussions of such knowledge. If it concerned oil secrets, that meant big money, and the lives of two young Norwegians wouldn’t count for much.

What a strange tour this was, though—secret compartment or no secret compartment. Kari and Erik’s disappearance. Erik’s death. Then after Pix’s arrival, there had been the man on Jennifer’s balcony and the swastika on the lawn at Stalheim. That reminded her of Marit’s revelation. Did the war have anything to do with all this? She stared hard at the dancers, the Scandie Sights members in particular. There weren’t any young people on the tour, with the exception of Roy junior and Lynette Peterson. Then came Pix. She hadn’t been at this end of the age range for years. The check marks she’d been making on questionnaires were getting alarmingly higher and higher: 20-30, 30-40, 40-50!

So, a large number of the tour members would have been the newlyweds’ age during the war, young people whose youth was clouded by fear and deprivation. The swastika had been meant as a reminder, a reminder of the war and the Lebensborn homes. All the Norwegian-Americans on the trip—had one of them come from Stalheim or one of the other homes, a Lebensborn baby? Had

there been memories of the war that were so bad, they had driven someone to deface the lawn—and maybe to something else? Something Kari and Erik had discovered? Pix thought of Jennifer. She was certainly bitter, and with ample cause. Had she come to Norway to seek revenge for her father, her grandmother, and now in memory of her mother? Her mother, who had always been homesick but had never come back? There were many Norwegians during the war who had stood by and done nothing. And there were those who hadn’t been content to stand by, but who actively collaborated. Still, she hadn’t mentioned anything about Stalheim, and it had been Pix’s impression that Jennifer’s family came from the east coast. But then the woman hadn’t been explicit.

The swastika. At the time of the war, Norway had very few Jews, still didn’t. Jews, monks, and Jesuits were not even allowed into the country under the 1814 constitution, which named the Church of Norway, Evangelical Lutheran, as the religion of the government. The prohibition against Jews was repealed in 1851. The monks had to wait until the end of the century and the Jesuits until some time in the 1950s. From Marit, Pix knew that not too many Norwegians actually attended church services, although they belonged to the church. It had also been a surprise to find out some years back that only about half of Norway’s Jews had survived the war—those who escaped to Sweden at the very beginning of the Occupation, about seven hundred. Had the swastika been meant to symbolize collective guilt?

And what about the man in the beard on the balcony? A thief? All these beards. She was very aware of the photograph tucked away in her pocketbook, the picture of Sven and Hanna, Kari’s mother and father. Hanna, definitely a Lebensborn baby. Kari had been deeply upset at the discovery. Marit had said Kari wanted to find out about her family and that she had agreed to help. Pix would have to ask her if they’d started to search, and if so, how? Poor Kari. To discover suddenly that both sides were a

mystery. She’d grown up with no knowledge of her father or his people. Did she want to search for him, too? Or maybe she had found him? The beards. Pix had discovered the name of their hirsute captain, Captain Hagen, but his first name was Nils, not Sven. Still, people changed their names. Captain Hagen? But if Kari had found her father, why would she and Erik have gone off? And surely she would have said something to Marit. Could this have been what she wanted to talk about?

Pix was tired. And muddled. The chanteuse was crooning “Dream, Dream, Dream” and the couples on the floor slowly swayed. Pix liked the Everly Brothers better. She was in a grumpy mood. Time to hit the sauna and sweat all the bad vibes out. Sonja and Anders were directly in front of her table. She couldn’t get up without disturbing them. Their eyes were closed and they weren’t moving at all, her arms around his neck, his about her waist. The music stopped and they broke apart, seemingly startled to find themselves at the Kvikne’s Hotel and not whatever private neverland they shared.

Back on the job, Anders was polite and cordial. “Mrs. Miller, are you enjoying the music?”

Before she could answer, the drummer stood up, grabbed the mike, and exclaimed in several languages, “Time for everyone to wet their whistles. We’ll be right back.”

Roy senior, looking none too pleased, reclaimed his wife, and Oscar, whose whistle seemed drenched already, presumably went in search of more.

“May I get you something?” Anders asked, and Sonja sat down next to Pix.

“That’s very kind of you, but I still have some Coke, thank you,” Pix answered, realizing that in her effort to nurse the drink, she’d scarcely touched it.

“A beer for you?” he asked Sonja.

“Ja, takk,” she answered, and he walked away toward the bar to join the long queue already formed.

Sonja repeated Anders’s question, but she broadened it. “So, are you enjoying the tour?”

“Very much,” Pix replied. “It’s so beautiful. I loved being on the boat, watching the mountains and waterfalls. I hadn’t wanted to dock, but this is lovely, too.” It was true. In the front of the ship, sailing along the fjord, she had felt so calm and all things had seemed possible. Kari would be found. There would be some sad but logical explanation for Erik’s tragic death. Draw your strength from mountains. If true, then the Norwegians must be the mightiest people on earth. Well, at one time, she supposed they might have been, if pillaging and far-flung travel counted. Even now, with a system that cared for all, they had managed things quite well. But on land, lovely as Balestrand was, the dark thoughts came and she recalled herself to her task.

“Only I can’t help but think of that poor young man, the one who was killed, and the girl who has disappeared. Those must have been difficult days in Bergen.”

Sonja’s cheeks flamed, and it was not the warmth of the room, or Ringnes beer.

“Better to put it out of your mind. Yes, it was hard in Bergen, but Anders and I were there already and could start work right away, so none of the guests suffered too much.”

“I mean everyone must have been upset. I heard Erik and Kari were very well liked.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Sonja almost snapped. Would have snapped if the soft inflection her accent gave to her words allowed for emphasis.

“They weren’t well liked? But I thought…”

“He was a nice boy and we all thought very much of him. As for Kari, she did not deserve him. Last summer, he was always worried about what she was doing when he wasn’t there. I was only with her a few times, but I knew the type. I don’t know what the English word is for it—Kari liked to tease the boys, not that she wanted anyone but Erik. Oh no, she had him where she wanted—

with a ring through his nose for her to lead him around until she got the ring on her finger.”

Pix was taken aback at the vehemence of Sonja’s tone. She asked her, “Was Erik one of Anders’s friends, too?”

“No. Anders never met him. This is his first time working for the tour.”

Pix started to ask another question, but Sonja forestalled her. “You will enjoy the visit to the farm tomorrow. The farmer’s wife makes pancakes for everyone and usually serves little cakes, too. Their goat herd is not too far away. You can get some nice pictures.”

Anders sat down with the drinks and Pix realized that the girl had seen him approaching before Pix had.

“The band is going to start again soon. Have you ladies been having a nice chat?”

Neither lady said a word; then both said yes at once. Sonja burst into giggles and seemed once more sweet and unaffected—just like Pix’s notion of Kari.

Carl and Jan stood in the doorway. No rest for the weary, Pix thought. Tour guide was not the job for her, although she had been functioning as such unofficially for years during every family vacation. “And now you will see the famous Anasazi cliff dwellings, where we will spend some hours walking in their footsteps….” Carl and Jan didn’t have to cope with the “Oh, Moms” that greeted her efforts. Maybe being on a payroll wasn’t so bad.

The two young men were making for her table.

“Are you having a good time, Mrs. Miller?” Jan asked. “And your mother? She’s okay?”

“Oh, yes, we’re both enjoying the trip very much. Mother went up to bed after coffee.”

“Good, good.” Carl beamed. Pix was curious about what they did during the winter. The two guides had come in search of the stewards and the four were conversing rapidly in Norwegian. It must have to do with arrangements for tomorrow. Anders kept nodding and saying,

“Ja.” Sonja added a word or two and the four seemed to have finished their business.

“What do you do in the winter?” Pix asked. “I think someone mentioned you and Anders are at the University of Oslo,” she added, addressing Sonja.

“Yes, we are still students. I am studying economics and Anders is in a business course. We want to make a lot of money,” she quipped.

“And you?” Pix asked Carl.

“I work for Scandie Sights all year. We have many tours during the winter—ski holidays, trips to warmer places. We even go to the United States. The Norwegian Farmers Tour.”

Pix assumed he was joking and laughed.

“No, really. In the early spring, we go to Bismarck, Fargo, and places in Minnesota. I must admit, though,” he said ruefully, “I enjoy the summer tours more. The farmers all treat me like a city boy. Well, I am a city boy. I’ve never worked on a farm in my life. They give me quite a hard time and nothing impresses them. They visit each farm, rub some dirt through their fingers, and shake their heads. The most fun I’ve ever had on one of these trips was when I took them to the Mall of America. I didn’t know what it was and the weather was bad. It was the only thing I could think of to do with them. They weren’t interested in the art museum. They were like terrified children—it was so huge—and suddenly I was the big man. They clung to me like glue!”

Pix got the picture, and “Prairie Home Companion” ’s Garrison Keillor was ringing in her ears.

“And you, Jan? Do you work for Scandie Sights all year, too?”

“Nei. My family is in the oil business, and as soon as summer is over, it’s back to the office for me. I live now in Stavanger.”

The band returned; before they started, Pix decided to call it a night—at least close this chapter.

“I think I’ll see if the sauna is open,” Pix said, and stood up. Anders, Carl, and Jan stood up also.

“We’ll say good night, then,” Jan said. “It should be another good day tomorrow. You’ll like the farm.”

Sonja said, “I was telling Mrs. Miller about the pancakes.”

Anders smiled at his girlfriend. “Ja, the pancakes.”

The first strains of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” weem-awecked its way into the still of the Norwegian twilight. Looking back over her shoulder, Pix saw that Jan was asking Carol Peterson to dance and Carl was heading toward Helene Feld. She was impressed again with their healthy good looks, albeit a bit disheveled in Jan’s case. As usual, they were wearing matching Norwegian sweaters, issued by Scandie Sights, she imagined, and she decided to pick up some in the same patterns for her own children. And maybe Sam. He’d wear it for skiing. Even as she pictured her family Nordicly garbed, she realized she’d always be seeing these two. It would not be an unpleasant reminder. It was nice to be taken care of, instead of always taking care. She sighed and left the room.

The Dahl sisters were sitting in the lobby, drinking coffee, of course. Pix was not surprised, since Norwegians carry an extra gene, the caffeine gene, which means it has absolutely no effect on their ability to go to sleep or on their nerves, whether drunk at one o’clock in the afternoon or one o’clock in the morning. Just looking at the cups of steaming-hot dark brown liquid made her feel jangled—or maybe it was the Coca-Cola. In true Viking fashion, neither woman took cream.

“Isn’t it fun!” Erna exclaimed. “They were playing some traditional Norwegian folk tunes earlier—dances we learned when we were little girls.” She was wearing what Pix believed was called “a fascinator” in bygone days—a little wispy chiffon scarf pinned to her curls. Both women had “Norwegian Ladies Club” gold necklaces and large enameled pins. Erna’s was a daisy, Louise’s an elegant curving emerald green leaf. From the richness of the

enamel’s color, Pix assumed they were from David-Andersen, gullsmed, the premier jeweler and silversmith in Norway with tantalizing stores throughout the country.

“Good night. See you in the morning,” Pix said. “I’m going to relax in the sauna and then head off to bed.” And break into a closet on board our Viking fjord cruiser. It was hard to resist a perverse temptation to blurt it out and watch their faces.

“Sleep well. Won’t it be fun to visit the farm tomorrow? And the weather is supposed to continue to be fine,” Louise said.

Pix thought she’d heard enough about this farm virtually to replace the visit, but she agreed cheerfully.

“We may get some rain tonight, but we’ll be asleep,” Erna said happily. “It’s all turning out perfectly.”

Pix thought of her mission. Maybe for them.

Pix got towels at the desk and followed the arrow down the stairs. Soon she was pushing the sauna’s solid wooden door open. The force of the heat and the steam took her breath away for an instant, but she slowly exhaled for what seemed like a long time and sat down on the lowest level of the benches. It felt wonderful.

The sole other occupant stood up, girded his towel securely about his loins, and strode down from the top level. He nodded in passing and left. It was their captain, Nils Hagen. His dark beard and hair had been glistening. She wondered if he’d gone to shower and would be back, although he didn’t seem the chatty type.

Her thoughts turned to Marit’s revelation about Hanna’s birth but did not linger long. It was Kari who was insistently occupying center stage. Sonja’s words kept echoing in Pix’s mind: “Kari liked to tease the boys.” The Scandie Sights steward hadn’t known the English word for it, yet Pix was pretty sure it was the same. A tease was a tease. A very different view of Kari from the one Pix held, but then, how well did Pix really know the young woman? Pix remembered Kari as a delightful, happy child, then

later, a delightful, happy teenager. Their contact had always been during the summer, vacation time, when judgment tends toward the benign.

Yes, the older Kari had had strong opinions and did fly off the handle a couple of times, but all teenagers did. Pix could not recall Kari acting provocatively with any of the boys around, but then, there weren’t too many eligible ones. Kari had been content to fit into their life, complete with much younger children and much older adults. There had been no mistaking Sonja’s antipathy, though. Her preference for Erik was clear. They had worked together the summer before—without Anders. Had Sonja fallen for Erik? Was it the jealousy dance?

Or was the older Kari, undeniably a beauty, something more than a flirt? And what had this led to? It was not the sort of thing a grandmother picked up on. Pix realized that she had been so caught up in the tour and its multiple personalities that she had been losing sight of the two most important personalities of all—Kari and Erik. The key to finding out what had happened just might lie in figuring out who the young people actually were—or, in Kari’s case, she reminded herself vehemently, she hoped still was.

Wide-awake, with a troubled mind, there was no danger of falling asleep in the sauna this time. She got up, filled the dipper from the bucket, both made of pine, and flung the water on the rocks. She almost wished there was a snowbank to jump into and someone to flail her lightly with birch branches, all die-hard sauna practices. She would have to content herself with the deeply satisfying hissing sound the water made and the equally satisfying sense that all her impurities were draining out with her sweat.

Captain Hansen had a dark beard. The man on Jennifer’s balcony at Stalheim had had a dark beard. The man driving the car so swiftly away from the Stalheim Hotel just after she had overheard the argument on her walk—he had a dark beard, too. But many Norwegians had beards, light

and dark. Sven had had a beard, or maybe still did. Sven, Kari’s father. He would be in his early or mid-fifties. Pix returned to her thoughts about Kari, about where she could be. Kari had definitely wanted to find her mother’s family. Had she picked up some clue about them on the trip, or one relating to her father? Was that where she was? Depressed, confused by Erik’s death, whether she witnessed it or not—for, if she was still alive and in Norway, she couldn’t have escaped the news of it—had she gone in search of her past? Her mother’s past? Her father’s? Were some newly found relatives even now sheltering her? Hiding her? Kari again. Pix wished she had a better idea who Kari was. Now, were Samantha missing, God forbid, Pix could put herself in her daughter’s shoes—not that they’d fit exactly. There are vast uncharted areas in every child’s life, as unknown to a parent as Amelia Earhart’s crash site. But Kari’s shoes…Pix didn’t even know the brand.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Captain Hagen. It was an elderly Japanese gentleman wearing underwear that revealed nothing and carrying a towel. He gasped and tottered to the bench, looking at Pix, looking at the door, then looking at Pix again. For a while, he did nothing but breathe heavily and make some small throat-clearing noises.

After a moment, he started to speak to her in Japanese. She nodded and smiled, yet that only seemed to increase his agitation. Finally, she picked out some English words—sorry and Japanese. At last, a sentence. “I am so sorry. I am Japanese. From Tokyo.” Obviously he had not expected to see a woman in the sauna. But what about the geisha tradition? Pix supposed that was very different and she was a far cry from it, swaddled in one of Kvikne’s towels. Maybe it was her height. If they were standing, she’d tower over him.

“It’s all right.” She nodded and smiled some more. “No problem. It’s the custom here.”

That produced another torrent of Japanese; then he said in English, “I go ticky-tocky, ticky-tocky,” accompanied by a fluttering hand gesture over his heart.

Suddenly, she was afraid the heat was too much for the poor man and he had, in fact, been trying to tell her all this time that he was having a heart attack. He repeated the gesture and she asked, “Are you all right?” realizing she had fallen victim to the American disease of believing you can be understood in any language if you just speak English slowly and distinctly enough in a loud voice.

She stood up, which seemed to alarm him even more, so she promptly sat down again.

After some minutes filled with grunts of diminishing intensity, he stood up, obviously quite all right. He repeated the “ticky-tocky” routine, bowed several dozen times, and left. Pix laughed until she thought she’d pee, except she’d oozed so much sweat, there wasn’t any. Time to take a shower.

She stood up and went to the door. The temperature was 60C, she noted, 140F. She pulled. Nothing happened. She pulled again. Somehow, the steam must have caused the wood to swell and stick. She put both hands on the handle and pulled with all her might. The door didn’t budge.

Now, don’t panic, she told herself. This is ridiculous. She banged on it several times but doubted she could be heard. When she’d come in, she’d noticed how thick it was—and there was no window. She pulled at it again. Her towel slipped off.

Now she did begin to panic. How could the door have gotten stuck? The hotel would obviously have had to be very careful about the construction of its sauna and it would be checked from time to time. More than that, since this was Scandinavia.

She wrapped her towel around herself again. It made her feel less vulnerable. Had it been her imagination? She tried the door once again. This time, she was able to see into the crack between the door and the frame.

See into it and realize it was locked.

Locked? Locked!

She sat down on the bench, feeling slightly stunned. She could be in here for a very long time. It was almost 10:30 when she’d gone to her room, taken her watch off, leaving it there with her earrings and a gold chain she’d been wearing. By now, it was certainly well past 11:30. It had taken time to find the sauna; then she’d luxuriated in a long shower. It had had those jets that squirted you from all sides. Then there was her nonadventure with the gentleman from Tokyo. What with the merriment in the lounge and other nocturnal activities offered officially and unofficially on the hotel premises, unless someone had an impulse for late-night sweating, she was stuck until morning. If her mother did knock at Pix’s door, she’d assume her daughter was taking a walk or kicking up her heels with the French ladies and she would go to bed. It would be breakfast time before Ursula and Marit missed her.

The feeling of panic set in again—and increased. What would sitting in so much heat do to her? Could she dehydrate? Pass out? There was only a small amount of water in the bucket. She’d planned to refill it when she went to take a shower. Should she drink it?

She went over to the bucket and stuck her finger in the water. It was hot and somehow the prospect of swallowing it made her feel queasy. The smell of the wood, so fragrant before, was also beginning to turn her stomach as she finally faced the question smack in front of her.

Who locked the door?

Was it routine? She hadn’t seen any signs stating hours of operation, and like the midnight sun, she imagined the sauna never set, either. In any case, hotel workers would surely have been instructed to see whether the sauna was occupied before locking up. She had been sitting in the middle of the bench, clearly visible to anyone opening the door, as the Japanese gentleman had discovered.

The Japanese man. He was the last person in the sauna with her, but why on earth would he lock her in and where would he have found a key? He had been upset, all that “ticky-tocky” business, but he hadn’t seemed to bear her any ill will.

Ill will. Given that the key was in some obvious position outside the door—say hanging from a nail—who might have wanted to keep her on ice, or rather, the reverse, for a while? With all the questions she’d been asking over the last two days, had she made someone nervous? So nervous that he or she wanted to give her a warning, or keep her from seeing something that was going on now?

Her head was beginning to ache from the heat and the stress. Her thoughts were not companionable ones. What did people in solitary confinement think about? Her brain was beginning to turn to mush, or grøt. Such funny words. Such a funny language, Norwegian. Those three extra letters tacked onto the alphabet after z: æ, ø, and å. Why? And that rolling r sound they made in the back of their throats like a cat purring. Cats. She wondered what her cat, Stan, a gray tiger with a lively personality, was doing—Stan, Stan Miller. People sometimes thought they had another child. Well, the dogs and Stan were like children, she supposed. Her children. She slapped herself lightly on the cheek a few times. It felt good. She could still feel things. The baking heat had been numbing.

She stood up and paced back and forth. Her heart was pounding. Ticky-tocky, ticky-tocky was right. She tried to address herself sternly and calmly. Now Pix, she told her weaker sister, nothing is going to happen. You’re not in any real danger. At her last physical, the doctor had told her she was disgustingly healthy. Somehow her heart was still racing, though. She didn’t have a heart condition—at least that she knew of. Disgustingly healthy. At the time, Pix had felt somewhat embarrassed—it was such an odd phrase. Would she be less disgusting if the doctor had turned up a hemorrhoid or suspicious mole? More likely more.

No, she’d make it through the night. There was just going to be a lot of time to kill. She wished she hadn’t thought of the phrase. She sat down again.

Captain Hagen had been in the sauna. So he knew she was here. She spread her fingers out to count the people who knew where she was. The desk clerk, who had carefully counted out two towels for her, no more, no less; the distressed man from Tokyo; silent Captain Hagen; and Mother. That took care of pointer, tall man, ring man, and pinkie. Had she mentioned it at dinner? She was sure she hadn’t. But she had told Jennifer at coffee, hadn’t she? Yes. Thumbkin went down and she made a fist. She looked at her right hand with its fingers still stretched out and tried to recall if anyone had been near enough to overhear her talking to Jennifer. The Dahl sisters were leaving—but she’d mentioned it to them later—and the Felds were not too far away. Then again, the lobby had not been empty when she got the towels, and why else would she be requesting them? Their rooms were amply supplied. So any number of people knew she’d be here, the whole blasted tour. And the guides, plus the stewards. Scandie Sights—such a stupid name. Mermaids and trolls. She could use a bit less enchantment. She wiggled her fingers. Her grandmother’s diamond solitaire, her engagement ring left to Pix, sparkled. It felt tight. Her fingers looked like the little sausages that had been under the dome in a large silver chafing dish at breakfast this morning. This morning—at the Stalheim Hotel. Stalheim, the swastika. She realized her left hand was still clenched in a fist. She shook her fingers free. Her plain gold wedding band—the flowers that had decorated it originally had long worn smooth—reminded her of her husband. Husbands and wives. Newlyweds. Girlfriends and boyfriends. Sonja and Anders knew she was coming here. Sonja, her dislike of Kari so intense. As intense as her liking for Erik. The jealousy dance, one face forward, one face backward.

Agitated, she stood up suddenly and felt dizzy. The heat was like armor and she must have lost several pounds of sweat. She walked slowly and deliberately from one end

of the room to the other, counting her steps. It was something to do. She decided to set up a routine. She was beginning to get tired and she had to keep awake—walk, rest, walk, rest. What would happen if she fell asleep in here? In the morning would there just be a pool of perspiration where she’d reclined? Nothing but a very damp towel, a version of the Wicked Witch of the West after she gets doused with water? “I’m melting,” Pix heard herself say aloud, and she laughed. Her thoughts were definitely rambling. Maybe at some point the heat got switched off. She got up and looked at the temperature gauge. No switches.

Dehydration. That’s what was going to happen to her. She wouldn’t melt. Not her bones, big bones. The Rowes were all big-boned women, although not heavy. Desiccation. She’d be like one of those dried fruits she bought at the health-food store for her children’s snacks, only she ended up eating them and they held out for Ritz Bits and Doritos.

Her children. Her eyes filled with tears and she quickly tried to squelch them. She needed all the internal fluids she had. But her children. Motherless. Poor Sam. How would he cope? Remarry. She sat down on the bench and thought of possible candidates, convincing herself that she was thinking rationally. She wished she had something to write with. It was such an ignominious way to go—to dry up.

Her family. Guilt washed over her so palpably, it almost felt refreshing. She hadn’t thought about them much since she’d arrived in Norway. She chastised herself. What kind of mother was she anyway? It had been wonderful to be unencumbered by her daily routines. Sailing down the fjord today, she’d been very happy, forgetting everything for a time—what she’d left behind and what had brought her here.

The inside of her mouth seemed to be made of felt. Her throat was parched.

She forced herself to drink the water in the pail, taking little sips. It wasn’t so bad. Damp felt now inside her mouth. She dozed off. Sleep—the sweet escape.

A hand was on her shoulder. Someone screamed. She recognized the voice. It was hers.

“Sorry we startled you, but I told you not to go to sleep in these things. Good thing we came along. The door was locked.” It was Lynette. Lynette and Roy junior, both nude and carrying their towels. Thank God for honeymooners. Pix mumbled her thanks and sat up. How long had she been in here?

“What time is it?” She spoke very deliberately, like a drunk who doesn’t want to slur but who doesn’t fool anyone.

“Almost one o’clock,” Lynette answered. Pix tried to think if she’d ever heard Roy junior’s voice. As soon as he’d seen her, he’d wrapped his towel around his waist, blushing furiously. His face was pretty red, too. Lynette didn’t bother to cover up.

Pix rose slowly and realized she could walk. Suddenly, she felt very, very middle-aged—no, she would not say old. She managed a weak smile and pulled open the door with relief. Outside, the air felt like the Arctic, but it brought her to her senses. She understood the point of snowbanks or icy swims now. There was a chair. She sat on it. Roy appeared and spoke.

“Lynette thought we’d better keep the key inside,” he explained as he removed it from the nail it did indeed hang on, around the corner from the sauna entrance. “Are you okay?” He had a pleasant deep voice, filled with midwestern sincerity.

She was okay, she realized with great joy, and she offered some advice of her own.

“Definitely keep the key with you.”

It was a little after one. She’d showered and dressed, drunk several glasses of water, then gone up to her room with every intent of going straight to bed when she’d remembered she had to search the damn boat.

Pix toyed with the idea of forgetting the whole thing. It was hard to believe there was a secret compartment on their Viking cruiser and even harder to believe anything illegal was in it. Yet there was never really any question. And it wasn’t simply the thought of facing her mother over hardboiled eggs and sardines in the morning. Pix had come to Norway to help Marit and apparently that meant an enormous amount of sleep deprivation. She crawled into bed and set the alarm for three o’clock.

The alarm was ringing. Pix reached for it, instantly wideawake. She’d pulled on some corduroy pants, a heavy turtleneck, and a sweater before she realized that it was only two o’clock. The alarm hadn’t gone off. She’d dreamed it.

“Damn and double damn,” she said aloud, and walked over to the window, pulling back the drapes. It wasn’t dark, but the light was dim enough for a trip to the dock. The problem was, there were still a great many people strolling about the hotel grounds. Again aloud, she grumbled, “Don’t these people ever go to sleep?”

She went out onto the balcony and sat down. She didn’t blame them. It was so beautiful, so special—who wanted to go to sleep and miss it? The mountains seemed endless and, just as on the boat, almost within reach, a short walk at the very least. The landscape looked serene, secure even—put your trust in mountains—was that from a poem? A psalm? If it wasn’t, it should be. Immovable, invariable. All day these mountain images and pieces of half-remembered phrases had filled her mind. But, she thought, perhaps the mountains would not appear so poetic in the winter, especially during the endless dark days, days of bad weather. Then the slopes would press in on one and their nearness become a weighty barrier.

The sky was starting to turn a slate gray. It was happening all at once. She hoped it didn’t mean rain, as Erna Dahl had said. Two figures emerged from beneath her balcony, walking slowly down the path across the lawn to the water. She leaned forward to see who it was before

they moved out of sight. They passed under one of the lights. Oscar and Sophie—Sophie sans her cousine! The oh-sonaughty man had continental tastes. They were headed for the benches at the water’s edge. A rendezvous by the fjord.

Next Pix heard a voice in the distance. A man’s. It sounded like Don Brady. The entire Scandie Sights tour, with the exception of her mother and the farmers, seemed to be up and about. The Petersons, minus Lynette, but not Roy junior came into view from around the corner of the hotel. This was interesting, but her eyelids were getting heavy again. Trusting that the alarm would wake her, she stood up and stretched, catching sight of Sophie returning from the water much more rapidly than she’d gone, and traveling alone. At one point, she broke into a run; then, seeing others about, she slowed down. As she passed under the light again, Pix could see that she was scowling. That naughty man.

Pix went to bed.

Minutes later, or so it seemed, the alarm rang. She hadn’t bothered to undress. Pausing only to make sure it wasn’t raining and/or still like Grand Central Station outside, she grabbed her jacket and stepped quietly into the hall. There had been no one about and the sky was streaked with ominous bands of dark gray clouds, but the ground was dry. She’d shoved a scarf in her pocket and hoped she wouldn’t need it.

Earlier, she’d made sure the door to the stairs was not locked and now she took them quickly. The sooner this was over, the better. There was no early wake-up call and she might actually get some more sleep.

The stairs ended at a hallway, leading to the lobby in one direction, a side exit to the outside in the other, she’d discovered when she’d planned her search. She’d wanted to avoid the night desk clerk—and any insomniacs wandering about the lobby.

Pix pushed the door open—it wasn’t locked or alarmed—and stepped out into the brisk night air. There

was no need for a flashlight, but she’d brought Faith’s penlite with her, as well as the rest of her kit and camera. She was uncomfortably aware of the canister of hair spray in the pocket of her dark blue denim jacket.

It was a short walk to the dock where the fjord cruiser was berthed alongside the fleet of small pleasure boats so beloved of Norwegians, those in Balestrand no exception. All very trim, flags flying from the sterns. She passed by the huge pile of wood—odd pieces of lumber, crates, branches—that awaited the touch of a torch on Midsummer Night, St. Hans’ Eve, St. Hans-aften, the twenty-third. They’d seen similar bonfire piles all along the fjord today. This was the largest so far, though, and people would be adding to it. She was sorry she wouldn’t be here to see the conflagration.

There wasn’t a soul in sight and she walked straight down the wooden dock to the boat, alone on the fjord. Or so she thought.

Just as she was about to step aboard, she heard voices from the stem and saw two shadowy figures, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. The voices stopped; then she heard footsteps. Someone was coming up on deck to have a look. They must have heard her approaching. Wildly, she looked for a place to hide and jumped into a small dinghy tied close by. There was a tarp and she crawled under it. Why hadn’t the nearest boat been one of the ones with a cabin?

The tarp smelled strongly of fisk and she was so distracted by the pungent odor that for a moment she did not realize that whoever had been on the boat had now moved onto the dock. They were talking again, quite close to her. Pix froze. Men’s voices, speaking Norwegian. Really Marit should have enlisted the help of someone who spoke the language! It was tempting to lift a corner of the heavy cloth and peer out, yet she didn’t dare. Strolling on the dock or grounds could have been explained. Bundled under a boat tarp at three o’clock in the morning could not. She strained to hear what they were saying, painfully

aware that her vocabulary was limited to food, greetings, requests, and bodily functions. All she could tell was that they were not quarreling. Their voices were not raised. The chat sounded companionable even. The guides? The captain? Balestrand inhabitants on a late-night—or rather, earlymorning—tour of the boat?

Speculation was suddenly replaced by the realization that Erna had been right. It was raining. Heavy droplets were soon drumming against the tarp. Surely the men would leave, and she lifted a corner in time to see the two running for cover. It was pouring now and the absence of streetlights made it impossible to see who they were. They did turn in the direction of the hotel, but there were also many houses that way, as well as a large parking area. Thunder crashed. Then lightning. And again. The second flash revealed that one man had a beard. Another beard.

She huddled down under the tarp. The sailcloth was drenched and she would be soon. She was stiff, too, and the irony of having been both too hot and too cold in a relatively short period of time did not escape her. She’d have to wait a while longer to be sure that they wouldn’t see her. She hoped the side door was still unlocked.

She looked at her watch: 3:30. She’d been gone from her room only a half hour! She’d wait five more minutes, then make a run for it.

The hands on her watch moved slowly and despite her uncomfortable position and the pitching of the boat as the storm hit, Pix began to fall asleep. Only three minutes had passed, but no one would be out any longer than he could help in this mess. She stood up and raced down the dock. Five minutes later, she was standing under a hot shower. No wonder Norwegians looked so clean. She hadn’t had so many showers since she was a teenager.

It took awhile for her to get rid of the smell of fish that had seeped into her pores with the rainwater. How could something so good smell so bad, so skitten—another interesting Norwegian word. It meant “foul,” “dirty,” even “smutty.” While sounding like a small pet, it somehow

perfectly expressed the way she’d felt hiding in the boat and even now. What had she accomplished? Nothing. Kari was still missing and Pix was beginning to believe she must have drowned with Erik. Maybe someone stole her passport and money, then was interrupted before he or she could take Erik’s. But, said a nagging voice, Marit had said Kari had some jewelry in her pack and that had been left.

Pix looked at her bed. It had stopped raining and it was a little past four. She sighed. She had to see this thing to the end and that meant going back to the boat. If she hurried, she could search the closet and stroll back, apparently returning from a hearty, early—very early—morning’s walk.

Feeling straight out of The Perils of Pauline, Pix got dressed once again. Her jacket was soaked, so she put on two turtlenecks and a heavy sweater. Once more she tiptoed down the hall, descended the stairs, and slipped out the side door.

The storm had left the air with a clear, fresh feeling and the fjord in front of her was like a sheet of green glass. The sky was beginning to get light and the birds were waking up. The spire of the Anglican church, St. Olav’s, was silhouetted against the wooded slopes just beyond. It had been founded by one of those intrepid British females who ranged the world, ready for a cup of tea in a bedouin’s tent or Sami’s lavvo. The architecture of St. Olav’s was an interesting marriage of stave and staid—dragons and gingerbread. She walked rapidly toward the water and the path that followed the peninsula before it turned toward the center of the village, mainly consisting of a post office, small market, and two gift shops.

As she passed the last of the benches provided by Kvikne’s Hotel in abundance throughout the grounds, a figure stood up. Pix was so intent on her destination that she didn’t realize anyone else was around.

Not until a hand came down hard on her shoulder and a voice said, “Now where do you think you’re going?”

Six

It was Carol Peterson. But not the perky dancer observed a scant few hours earlier. No, this Carol’s face was swollen from crying, the skirt of her cocktail dress limp, and the white sweater replaced by a sweatshirt whose KISS ME, I’M NORWEGIAN slogan seemed a pathetic mockery. Carol Peterson looked like something the cat wouldn’t drag in.

She repeated her query imperiously—at least some things were constant. “Where are you going?”

Pix had been so startled by this sudden apparition, and the fact that it was such a dramatic shadow of its former self, that she couldn’t think of a plausible excuse for a moment. She tried to marshal her thoughts and managed to say, “Ummm”

“Or, I should say, where have you been?” Carol blazed. The woman was furious.

This was getting very, very weird. “What do you mean? I couldn’t sleep and decided to take a walk.” Pix’s wits were back. Was the woman insane? Why was she so upset, and why attack Pix this way?

“Yeah, sure. I know your type, you…you easterner!” It was obviously the worst epithet she could drum up.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Pix decided to ignore the regional slur and led the way to a bench. There was no way she was going to be able to search the

Viking cruiser now, and besides, she had to find out why Carol Peterson, respectable matron, was wandering the grounds, crying her eyes out at four o’clock in the morning, when surely she normally would have been long in bed, face cream applied, hair net in place.

Carol followed and slumped down next to Pix dejectedly. All the wind was out of her sails, the air out of the balloon, the stuffing from the rag doll. Her “artichoke” hairdo was down to the choke.

A snuffle, a heavy sigh, and Carol was ready to spill her guts—or so Pix hoped.

“This was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. I’ve been working on it for over a year. Writing for brochures, talking to the people at the Norwegian Tourist Board, comparing prices, studying the map. We’ve never been home, I told Roy. This is our big chance and we’ll take Roy junior and his bride. It will be our wedding gift to them. A dream trip. A chance to see where we all started, of course not Lynette, but the rest of us. It was going to be perfect!” Carol started to sob again. She’d obviously been doing this on and off for quite a while. It was not a pretty sight.

“But haven’t you been having a good time? I thought you told me you were enjoying yourself?” Pix hadn’t heard her say exactly these words, but she hadn’t heard anything to the contrary, except for the kvetching about Kari. Kvetching was not the right word. She’d have to ask Marit what the Norwegian equivalent was, although Norwegians complained so obliquely—“Do you think it was margarine in the sandekake? I wouldn’t want to say, but what do you think?”—there probably wasn’t a term.

Carol stopped crying. The sky was still gray and dawn was having a hard time piercing through. Slivers of light appeared at the horizon, then seemed to give up.

“Well, yes, I was having fun.” She looked off toward the fjord, running the video of The Petersons Return to the Land of Their Ancestors through her mind for a moment. “Especially at the beginning. I couldn’t believe I was actu

ally here after hearing so much about Norway all my life. And everything was just right. So clean. But now this! I can’t even believe it! And what if our friends should find out? Sick, I tell you. That’s what it is.”

But what was it? Pix had the sense not to interrupt the woman.

“And criminal. I’m sure it’s against the law. I don’t know the laws here, but I know what’s legal in Duluth—and in the sight of God.” Carol was building up a good head of righteous indignation and the train was still in the station. She continued.

“You think you know somebody.” Her voice was as bitter as an unripe lingonberry. She shook her head, steam disappearing, replaced by tears again.

“How can this be happening to me! And on my dream trip!” she wailed.

“Is there anything I can do?” Pix was beginning to wonder if Carol was going to come across with any concrete information. So far, her monologue had been tantalizingly circumspect.

In the sauna at Stalheim, Lynette had said her mother-inlaw wasn’t going to like something that was coming. Had it arrived? But would Carol have been so reticent if the current crisis involved Lynette? Pix had the feeling any blows landed by the young woman would be met in kind and news of the battle spread far and wide. And criminal? If Lynette had broken any laws, Carol would have been the first to blow the whistle on her—and to hold Roy junior’s hand steady while he filed for an annulment.

Pix repeated her request, since Carol had not replied.

“Are you sure I can’t do something?”

Carol sat up straight and pulled her sweatshirt down.

“No, I think just about enough has been done, and I’ll thank you not to refer to the matter again.”

It was an easy request with which to comply.

“I’m sorry you’re so upset.” Pix grasped for some way to keep the woman talking—and she was sorry to see Carol like this, obviously in a great deal of pain.

“Sorry never helps,” Mrs. Peterson said. It had the ring of an off-repeated remark, automatic and a real conversation stopper. She stood up and marched off in the direction of the hotel.

Now what the hell was that all about? Pix said to herself.

The sun was rising and Pix walked toward the shore. She was exhausted, but her encounter with Carol Peterson had been unsettling and she thought she’d take the long way back, both to avoid meeting the woman again—that hand on her shoulder had sent enough adrenaline coursing through Pix’s body to keep her awake for the rest of the trip—and because a stroll in the damp morning air might induce slumber. Pix could snatch two or three hours before the boat left. She’d ask Ursula to make her a sandwich at breakfast and she’d sleep in. The thought caused a yawn and she quickened her steps along the path. The tops of the mountains were streaked with gold now and the white snow shone like the enameling on a particularly fine piece of Norwegian jewelry.

At the edge of the fjord, Pix paused, unable to rush when it was so beautiful, yet telling herself she had to get going. A down comforter and pillows were calling her name. Besides, without some sleep, she’d be useless.

She looked at the rocks that lined the shore and thought of the coast of Maine—Sanpere Island in Penobscot Bay, where her family had been spending summers since before Ursula was born. People said Maine reminded them of Norway or vice versa, depending which side of the ocean one was on. The fjords are tidal, she reminded herself, although the tides are slight compared with Maine’s. But the rocks looked alike, covered with rackweed. Her children had all loved to pop its slippery small balloons with their bare feet and fingers, as had she and her brother. Higher up, she noted the rocks were covered with the same yellow ocher lichen that often was the only spot of color on Sanpere’s granite ledges—like splashes of paint. She

had a great desire to climb down to the rocks and find a nice flat one to curl up on and nap. If it had been a bit warmer, she would have. A tern flew overhead. She stopped and looked out across the rocks to the water beyond.

The tide was out. She could see small stretches of sand. She could see—

Oscar Melling! Arms and legs spread-eagled on a ledge, face to one side. She recognized his bright blue Ban-Lon sport shirt.

Oscar Melling! Motionless. He looked small from where she was. Small against the backdrop of the mountains and the fjord.

Oscar Melling! Dead!

It was so unbelievable that she didn’t feel the least bit like screaming, hideous as the situation was. Without thinking, she climbed over the low wall that separated nature from its cultivated cousins, the lawns and shrubs of the hotel. Oscar’s body was not that far away, but the rocks were covered with seaweed and it was slow going. She kept looking back to see if anyone else was up, prepared to shout for help. Although at this point, it was too late. From the way he was lying, she was certain he was dead, yet she had to make sure—though the notion of resuscitating him was one she immediately pushed far back into a distant corner of her brain, numbed by fatigue and shock.

Her sneakers sank into the wet sand between the rocks and cold water sloshed over the tops.

Melling was wearing exactly what he’d had on the last time she’d seen him. She’d noted the Ban-Lon and wondered if he’d saved the shirt all these years or had a stockpile. No jacket or sweater had been added to his attire. She reached for his wrist and, as she had suspected she would, found no pulse. The body was already giving off a sour smell that mixed pungently with the brackish rackweed, and Pix thought she might not be able to keep from vomiting. She gulped some air.

There was an empty bottle of aquavit next to the rock. The tide had either not come up this far or been insufficient to wash it away. An opinionated boozer—those telltale fine red veins she’d observed at Stalheim when he’d stopped by their table to invite Ursula to play cards were even more apparent up this close. She could see only half his face. One blue eye was open wide, a cloudy blue in old age, vacant in death. His mouth was open, drooping slackly to one side, teeth yellowed by countless cigars.

A pool of blood had collected in a hollow in the rock to the left of his body, the trail beginning to dry to a reddish brown streak. The other side of his face must have been hurt in the fall. She had no desire to assess the damage. The part of his head she could see gave no indication of injury, his baldness shiny with the morning dew, the little hair he had slightly damp.

Had the Mermaid/Troll tour been his dream trip, too? Pix felt tears welling into her eyes. Poor old man.

He’d been alive a few hours ago. Alive and enjoying himself. He must have stumbled out here with his bottle and pitched over the side. There were no railings. Oscar had been unlucky. Very unlucky. She wondered if there had been a Mrs. Melling, or maybe there still was and she’d been left at home. Where was he from? New Jersey. The mail-order Scandinavian foods, lutefisk in your mailbox. Exhaustion was sending her thoughts to unexpected places and she had to go tell someone at the hotel about her grisly morning discovery. It was truly morning now. The dawn had finally broken through, yet the hotel was still cloaked in sleep, the curtains closed tight against the light, guests enjoying a few more hours repose before gathering at the trough for breakfast. If last night’s spread was anything to go by, breakfast at Kvikne’s, Norway’s signature meal, would be gargantuan.

But Oscar’s bed was empty. His place at the table would be taken by someone else. She crawled up the rocks and back onto the lawn. She ought to run. A man was dead.

Instead, she found herself walking slowly, as in a dream, into the hotel lobby.

The clerk looked freshly starched and greeted Pix cheerily, “God dag, god dag. What can I do for you?” before realizing that the woman in front of the desk, color drained from her face and swaying slightly, was not in search of stamps.

“You must get someone right away. There’s a body in the fjord.” Pix sat heavily in an ornately carved chair across from the desk.

“What!” The girl screeched and immediately yelled something in Norwegian, producing two other clerks from a room to the rear. After some excited talk, a young man came to Pix’s side.

“Do you need some help?” He actually took one of her hands, holding it rather tenderly in both of his. He was about her son Mark’s age, Pix figured. She hoped under similar circumstances, Mark would be so kind. Similar circumstances?

“You must think I am crazy.” She couldn’t help speaking apologetically. She’d thought she would get rid of this kind of emotional baggage after forty, but it hadn’t happened. A man was dead. She’d discovered the body, so she must be at fault in some way. She was upsetting the hotel staff, for one thing. “But there is a dead man in the fjord—or rather, on the rocks. His name is Oscar Melling. We’re with the Scandie Sights tour. I mean, he was and I am. You’d better call the guides, Jan and Carl. I can’t remember their last names right now.”

The girl at the desk was already dialing and several people had run out the door in the direction Pix had indicated. They made the journey much more quickly than Pix had and came back shouting. Her head began to ache with the sound of Norwegian swirling about her. On their trip, she and Sam had shared a train car with a ladies’ choir group from Drammen and after fifteen minutes the singsong had lost its tuneful appeal, punctuated as it was with sharp intakes of breath and many tsk, tsk, tsks. Pix and

Sam, smiling and nodding, had backed out the door and walked the full length of the train to other seats. Pix was having that same feeling now and broke in. “I’m going to my room, if that’s all right. I’m a bit tired.” Instantly, the young man who had been so solicitous came to her side, offering his arm. Pix took it and together they made their way to the elevator. It opened just as they got there, revealing Jan and Carl—Carl in proper pajamas and robe, Jan in sweats—both looking completely bewildered. Pix sighed and let the young man lead her back to her seat. They’d want to question her.

She waited while the guides dashed to the fjord and back. Carl looked as if he had lost last night’s dinner on the return trip and Jan was trembling. Pix thought it must be unusual for there to be a corpse of any kind on a Scandie Sights tour, the odd heart attack perhaps, but two—Erik surely counted—could only be classified as inconceivable.

“Was he alive when you found him?” Carl asked. “I mean, did he say how it happened?” Lawsuit was written bold across his face.

“No, he was quite dead. I imagine he had been lying there all night and no one happened to see him because of the position of the rocks, and also, why would someone be walking there?” As she offered this useful observation, she realized it presented an obvious question for herself, so before anyone could think to ask it, she rose, wobbling a bit—unfaked—and said as firmly as she could, “I really must lie down. This has been extremely upsetting.” Her friend, as she now regarded him, once again seized her arm and cast baleful glances at the guides. She’d have to find out his name and write the hotel a nice letter. He took her to the door of her room, asked once more if he could do anything for her, and disappeared down the hall. Pix opened the door, thought of her mother, presumably asleep in her own room, and headed for bed. Bothering only to kick off her shoes, she pulled the featherweight comforter over her shoulders and fell sound asleep.

Someone was knocking on the door. Pix rolled over and poked her husband, “Get that, will you, honey?” she mumbled. She poked again when the knocking continued and, getting no response, opened her eyes. Sam was an ocean away. She got out of bed and went to the door. She felt drugged. It was Mother—Mother and Marit with a breakfast tray.

Marit set the tray on the desk as Ursula grabbed Pix, hugging her tightly.

“We’ve been so worried, but we didn’t want to wake you. What happened!”

Pix realized that the two women thought there was some connection between her search of the boat and the discovery of the body and she hastened to correct their misapprehension.

“I couldn’t search the closet. First, there were two men on board; then it started to rain and I had to come back. Since I was up, when the rain stopped, I went out again, but then I found Oscar.” She eyed the tray greedily. She was starving—hence the Reader’s Digest version of what had been a very long and complicated night.

“Vær sâ god,” Marit said, waving at the tray, using the universal phrase, a kind of Norwegian equivalent of shalom. It meant everything from “Come and get it” to “You’re welcome,” with varying degrees of “Have some more,” “Go in,” or “Look at anything you like” in between.

Pix needed no urging and was soon digging into a perfectly boiled egg, freshly baked whole-wheat rolls, farm butter, cheese, and, of course, herring and lox—or rather, “laks.” There was a croissant on the tray looking totally out of place, but she wolfed that down, too. After having poured a second cup of coffee, she felt herself again, although these days that was subject to constant redefinition. She told them about getting locked in the sauna, meeting Carol Peterson, then happening upon Oscar Melling’s lifeless body.

After discussing the sauna episode, which Marit was inclined to think was an accident, although Ursula, for once, was unsure, they got on to Mrs. Peterson.

“What do you suppose the woman was talking about?” Ursula asked.

“Do you think she had anything to do with Mr. Melling? Maybe she had already seen the body and didn’t want to get involved?”

“But she kept talking about what someone else had done, a crime, but I think that wasn’t meant literally.” As she spoke, Pix recalled Carol in Oscar’s arms, whirling about the dance floor. He had a certain appeal. She remembered how courtly he had been to her mother. Obviously, his manners had another side—the argument with Arnie Feld had occurred just before the dancing. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. More likely the erratic effects of alcohol on an aging nervous system.

“Everyone is upset, of course. Carl spoke to the group after breakfast and then Marit and I went to church. The tour is sticking to the itinerary and that’s why we woke you up. You can relax on the boat, but I didn’t think you’d want to miss the farm. Marit’s going to keep her ears open while we’re gone and talk to some of the staff. Make sure this really was an accident, as Carl said.”

“I’m going to be very worried and maybe a little cross.” Marit smiled. “‘Are you sure it’s safe to walk on that path so close to the water?’ I’ll ask. See what they say. The police are here, and I’ll find a nice young one who will tell me more than he should.”

Pix was beginning to think they should incorporate themselves.

“Okay, but I have to have a shower and wake up. When does the boat leave?”

“You have thirty minutes. Because of all this, we’re not going until ten-thirty. I’ll wait for you on the dock.” She paused and added, “Pity you weren’t able to get a look into the closet last night.”

Pix gave her mother a very firm kiss and ushered the two women out the door.

Ten minutes later, she was washed, dressed, and hurriedly punching several hundred numbers into the phone. It was time to call Faith.

Faith Sibley Fairchild had spent the previous afternoon sitting in her backyard in Aleford, watching her children dig in the earth that her husband, Tom, had optimistically tilled for what he called their “market garden.” So far, the only seeds sown were a row of peas, delineated by a wavy length of string. The children had been instructed to stay away from the growing plants and thus far they had been content to dig where Tom planned to put his tomato seedlings. Faith was always happy to, receive fresh garden produce—the ultimate luxury was visiting friends who grew their own corn, brought the water to a boil, and dashed outside to grab the ears, stripping them on the return trip before flinging them in the water for exactly four minutes. However, Faith was not a gifted gardener. Something about compost, earthworms, and chinch bugs put her off. She preferred to do her harvesting at the Wilson Farm stand or Bread and Circus.

Now shortly after four o’clock in the morning, her dreams were filled with buds and tendrils—and soup. While she’d idly watched her children, Faith had been leafing through her recipe notebooks, looking for an alternative to lobster bisque as a first course for a wedding she was catering later in the month. The menu had been fixed—and altered—for months. The bride, apparently having nothing on her plate except wedding plans, had taken to treating Have Faith’s kitchen as a kind of club, dropping in for coffee and tastes of whatever Faith was cooking, to go over things “for the last time, I promise.” Yesterday, she had announced that lobster bisque was too pink and she wanted something different. Faith mulled over fresh avocado soup, garnished with a spider’s web of thinned-out sour cream and spiked with a bit of white rum. In case the bride ruled it out as being too green, Faith was prepared to offer potage de champignons sauvages as

a backup. The young woman was pretentious enough to relish the name in French, and Faith herself preferred it for the untamed flavor it promised. Wild mushroom soup sounded much more prosaic.

When the phone rang, her first thought upon sitting bolt upright in bed was that the bride had changed her mind again. “Duck consomme,” she mumbled, reaching for the receiver. Tom had not stirred. The only things that woke him were a slight cough from one of his children or a whispered request from his wife.

“I know it’s the middle of the night, or rather, very, very early in the morning, but I had to talk to you.”

Faith was fully awake in a flash.

“What’s going on? I’ve been thinking of you constantly.” This was true. Pix and soup.

“I don’t have much time—the boat is leaving in about fifteen minutes, but first you’ll have to swear you won’t tell Sam. He’ll just get worried, and there’s no reason to Promise?”

Faith had no problem keeping secrets, especially those of her friends. And she was not a believer in telling things for people’s own good under any circumstances.

“I promise. What’s going on? Have you found Kari?”

“No—but I did find a body early this morning.”

“Oh my God! Whose?”

“An elderly gentleman named Oscar Melling. He was a grocer from New Jersey.”

To Faith, a native New Yorker, Jersey was known for only two things—its tomatoes and the place where her aunt Chat had inexplicably chosen to move after a lifetime on the West Side of Manhattan.

Pix was still talking. “He was in the fjord. Not actually in the water, but on the shore. He had been drinking pretty heavily throughout the evening and must have fallen.”

“Had he hit his head? Was there a lot of blood?”

“He fell partly facedown and there was some blood, also an empty aquavit bottle. Nobody thinks it was anything but an accident, but…”

“You don’t agree. Otherwise, why would you be calling me?” Faith finished for her.

Pix realized with a start that Faith had put into words what had been nagging at her since she’d found Oscar. It had to have been an accident. The man was drunk, yet…

“It’s just that so many strange things have been happening on this tour. Starting with Erik’s death and Kari’s disappearance.” Pix rapidly ran down some of the rest: the argument she’d overheard in the woods at Stalheim—not untoward by itself, but when linked with the sense she had of being followed and the bearded intruder on Jennifer Olsen’s balcony the night before, enough to produce unease, especially as the man she observed driving away so hurriedly in Stalheim had also sported a beard. Then the swastika on the grass the next morning in front of the hotel, Jennifer’s sad history, Marit’s revelation about Hanna, and Pix’s own imprisonment in the sauna at Kvikne’s. Without pausing for breath, she gave a thumbnail sketch of the Petersons, especially the newest member, Lynette, and described the strange conversation she’d had with Carol just before finding the body.

“I know it sounds like something from one of those soap-opera digests, but it’s all happened since I got here.”

“I believe you—” Faith started to offer some advice, but Pix interrupted.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Mother thinks she’s found a secret hiding place on our Viking fjord cruiser, and that was why I was up and about so much last night. I’m leaving a lot of the details out, like the Japanese man, but we’re visiting a farm today, so I don’t want to be late.”

“Sounds entrancing.” Faith could smell the goats.

“It will be. You can’t imagine how beautiful this part of Norway is. Really, the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. And the food has been extremely good.”

Faith didn’t want to waste either Pix’s time or money debating a cuisine of root vegetables, fish, and the odd berry versus French or Chinese.

“Okay. You need to start trying to make some sense out of all this. I think you’re right. Tours can be ghastly, but this one is not your ordinary one from hell—whiners, dingers, and worse—it’s in a category by itself. When you come back from your idyllic interlude, sit down and think about it all. If you make a list, burn it afterward. Oil, drugs—remember what a long seacoast Norway has. Something’s staring you in the face. Get Ursula to find out what’s bothering the Peterson woman. She’s good at getting people to tell her things. And above all, don’t take any more saunas.”

Pix hung up, then put on her jacket. She was feeling better. And maybe Oscar’s death was an accident after all.

On her end, Faith put the phone down reluctantly. She was filled with conflicting emotions. Pix was a big girl, a very big girl if you considered her height, and she could take care of herself. But she was also a trusting soul and did not possess Faith’s innate skepticism. This was why Faith was worried. Pix believed people. And most of the time, the trait served her well, but there had been some disasters. More than once, Sam had had to rescue her from friendships that were covers for self-centered imposition. “You have enough to do for one family. There’s no reason Lydia Montgomery can’t take her own dog to the vet”—and worse. Pix was always chagrined, vowed to be a better judge of character—and, she always led with her chin again the next time.

The other emotion Faith was feeling was out-and-out jealousy. Here was Pix having all the fun, up to her ears in potential international intrigue. And what Japanese man? Faith didn’t know the Hansens, so it was easy for her to concentrate on the sleuthing aspects the trip afforded and not feel the pain Pix was seeing on Marit’s face every day. But even if Faith took a plane that night, by the time she got to fjord country, the tour would be over and the members scattered to the winds. Faith would just have to let Pix handle it herself. She hoped she’d call again. She also hoped she wouldn’t see Sam or any of the other Millers for a day or two. To put it mildly, Sam would not

be at all happy that Pix had found a body. The one in Maine had been enough.

Sleep was going to be impossible now. She had too much to think about. If Oscar Melling’s death “wasn’t an accident, it was murder.

Pix arrived at the boat, calling out apologies to the guides

and stewards who were patiently waiting on the dock.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I…”

Jan smiled. “Slow down. No one is in a hurry. You’re on vacation, remember?”

It was hard at times. Besides, she wasn’t.

Sonja and Anders pulled up the gangplank and untied the lines. Soon they were in the middle of the Sognefjord and Pix made her way below to the large cabin, where she knew she’d find Ursula. It was slightly overcast and there was no one on the upper deck. The door to the cabin that adjoined it was closed.

At least some things were predictable. At the bottom of the stairs, the farmers from Fargo were in the stern, placidly smoking their pipes. Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Arnulfson wished her a good morning. She detected a slight air of excitement among the men, anticipation. At last—dirt, farm machinery, manure.

The cabin was crowded. It seemed that the entire tour had opted for togetherness, yet there was no jollity. Oscar’s death had cast a pall on the group. Even the cardplayers seemed distracted. As Pix walked past, she noticed both Golubs were staring out the window and not at their hands.

The Petersons were clustered around a table. Carol was gripping a mug of coffee so tightly, her knuckles were white. And Roy…Roy!

“Are you all right?” Pix blurted out.

Roy senior was sporting a shiner, a hell of a shiner—puffy, black-and-blue, with the promise of more colors to come—that particularly unpleasant-looking zinc yellow, chartreuse, and carmine.

“Walked into a damn door,” he mumbled, and turned his head away.

Carol looked even more woebegone than she had earlier, if that was possible. She’d barely gotten herself together—her lilac pants suit was rumpled and her hair uncombed. Her lipstick was crooked. Lynette, on the other hand, looked almost obscenely gorgeous, radiating the beauty a good night in bed, and just enough sleep, endowed. She was obviously pleased about something.

“Good morning, Mrs. Miller. How are you? We missed you at breakfast.”

Possibly the news that Pix had discovered Oscar’s body had not been widely broadcast. Well, she wasn’t about to say anything. The last thing she wanted were ghoulish questions about the poor man’s appearance.

“Fine, thank you. The farm should be very interesting. I hope we get some sun.” Pix decided to ignore the breakfast remark. Let them think her a sluggard.

Close to the front of the boat, her mother was sitting in solitary splendor. She reached out for Pix, drawing her into the next chair. “I was afraid you wouldn’t make the boat on time, but Carl said they’d hold it for you. They are rather dear, don’t you think?”

Pix told her mother she’d stopped to call Faith; then she gave Ursula her assignment for the day. It wasn’t going to be easy to get Carol Peterson alone, but Mother had her ways. Once cornered, Carol had no more chance of holding on to her secret than Pix had in days of yore—actually, not so yore. Something about Mother looking one right in the eye—it had the effect of instantly causing the mouth to open and tell all, like pushing the correct spot on an old desk to reveal the hidden drawer.

“It’s so quiet in here,” Pix commented.

“Of course it’s quiet. There’s been a death,” Ursula said.

Pix wondered how long it would take for Oscar Melling to move from “rotten apple” to “poor, unfortunate elderly gentleman,” “one of the old school,” “a character, but

you had to hand it to him, built his own business from nothing,” et cetera, et cetera. All those neutral platitudes that got said once someone was dead. She gave a little shudder. Her sound sleep, then talk with Faith and the race for the boat had effectively suppressed the image of that grotesque form on the rocks. A stranger. She hadn’t known him, but they had formed an intimacy. She was the first to know he was dead—perhaps.

She hadn’t even said a prayer for him. What would Tom Fairchild, not just her friend but also her minister, say? He’d say it was fine. Tom, the least judgmental person she knew. Tom, whose gentle guidance had helped her over a particularly rocky place some years ago. Rocks. That brought her back to Oscar again, and she commended his soul to whatever heaven he might have believed in. Would there be many who mourned him? A loss to whom? Loss, lost. She’d always thought that terminology woefully inadequate. “I lost my father, my mother, my husband.” As if the beloved had been misplaced. It sounded so careless.

“Pix, what are you thinking about? You look so sad,” Ursula said. “Sonja’s making vafler. Let’s share some.”

The fragrant smell of the waffles seemed to restore some unanimity to the tour group and the hushed conversations became almost normal. Carl took the microphone to describe some of the places they were passing.

“Look quickly out the right side and you will see Fritjof with his Viking sword. It is a long story, but basically he had to earn his stripes in a series of difficult quests before he could become the leader. The statue is twenty-seven meters high and a landmark of the Sognefjord, which I think we have mentioned is one hundred miles long but rarely broader than three miles wide. Fritjof has the best view around here. He was a gift to the Norwegian people from…”

Pix and Ursula mouthed to each other as he spoke: “Kaiser Wilhelm the Second.”

“Obviously attracted by the noble warrior, all that rampaging and pillaging,” Pix whispered softly, and Ursula laughed.

The statue was indeed a landmark, towering above the park it stood in. Fritjof seemed to like what he saw, leaning on the long sword, with his other hand jauntily at his hip.

“Now, if you look out the windows on the left side, you will see what appears to be a line of big blue balloons. This is a new way we are trying to farm mussels. There’s a long line descending from each and the mussels grow there. In Norway, we think it’s very important to keep our farms and save the way of life they represent, so we have to think of things for the farmers to do to make some money.”

“Look at the road!” Marge Brady exclaimed, pausing a moment from busily scribbling in her journal. “You’d think people would topple straight into the fjord. Oops!”

There was a moment’s embarrassed silence as everyone recalled Oscar’s recent “toppling.” Then the silence was broken as Carl hastily told them, “The road is safer than it looks, and again the government has paid for it in order to encourage people to live here. In the past, the only way for the farmer and his family to travel was by water, and it was a hard life. The roads enable them to get to Vik and other places for medical care and shopping. But the farm we will visit this morning is pretty isolated still. No road, as you will see.”

Jan took the microphone and said, as always with a smile, “If you think this is steep, wait until tomorrow. On the way to Flåm, we pass ‘the ladder,’ stigen. It is a sheer drop—impossible to build a road vertically. A man, his wife, and two children live at the top and keep goats. They have to tie ropes to the children when they play outside. Before them, lived an old lady all alone. When her flag was flying, that was the signal that all was well. When she died, the only way to get her out was in her coffin on the pulley wire she’d used to get her supplies. They still use this arrangement today, with rocks as a counter

weight—or sometimes the farmer’s wife, they say. It’s called stigen because in the old days the way to collect taxes was by first climbing the path, then placing a ladder at the steepest part to the top, where the house is. Of course, the farmer would pull up the ladder and the tax collector could just whistle for his money.”

Everyone laughed. The group was rapidly returning to normal.

“It must be very lonely in the winter, road, ladders, whatever,” Ursula said when Pix returned with a plate of steaming heart-shaped waffles. Somehow, she could always eat a vaffel or two, no matter how recent breakfast, or lunch, had been, Pix thought as she spread butter and preserves on hers.

“It wouldn’t be my choice, but it’s glorious now. No wonder the Norwegians are such sun worshipers,” Pix said, unashamedly licking her fingers. Having gotten the group back on track, Jan and Carl were continuing their version of the borscht circuit, the fisksuppe act, telling a series of old chestnuts with interchangeable names and nationalities.

“Many of you are of Scandinavian descent, so you’ll appreciate this one,” Jan said heartily. “A long-lost brother who had emigrated to the United States came back to the old country for the first time in fifty years. He was bragging a lot about everything in the States thinking that Norway had stood still since he left. ‘Surgery in America has come so far that a blind man got two plastic eyes and a battery to charge them and now he can see like an eagle,’ he told his brother. ‘That’s pretty good,’ his brother replied, ‘but just last year, there was a man from here who lost four fingers. The surgeon took four teats from a cow, attached them, and now the guy is milking several liters of milk every day!’ His brother was skeptical. ‘That’s hard to believe,’ he said. ‘Have you seen him yourself?’ ‘No,’ said his brother, ‘but the guy with the plastic eyes has.’”

The room exploded in laughter, the bachelor farmers, who had come in for vafler, hardest of all.

Pix grinned at her mother. “I’ll have to remember that one to tell Danny. Very definitely middle-school humor. I think I’ll go out on the bow for a bit, if that’s all right with you.”

“Certainly. I’ll go kibitz with the cardplayers. How can they spend all their time playing bridge while such splendid scenery passes them by?” Ursula answered. She and Pix exchanged glances. Maybe the cardplayers were on the trip for another reason. “I want to ask Sidney Harding what it’s like to work for a Norwegian oil company.”

Pix took the empty plate back to Sonja. The girl’s smile was automatic, yet behind it, Pix could see the steward was troubled. The entire staff must be.

“This must be hard for all of you—to keep things running smoothly when there have been so many difficulties on the tour,” Pix remarked, commiserating.

Sonja was defensive. “Not so many, and I think everyone is happy.” She gestured toward the group spread out around the cabin. Some were going to the upper deck. “It’s sad about Mr. Melling, but these things happen to old people.”

Pix decided not to pursue the matter and went out to what she now considered her spot on the bow. Jennifer Olsen was there, as Pix had expected, again in the same figurehead position, a pose that once more made Pix want to reach for the girl before she tumbled into the fathoms.

The sun had broken through and the underside of the gulls’ wings were jade green, reflecting the water and creating a new species. The boat had left the vast Sognefjord and turned into a more narrow fjord. Pix would have to remember to ask Carl or Jan what it was called. The boat slowly sailed past numerous waterfalls, small and large, cascading into the sea, swollen from the melting snows of winter. Here and there, a cluster of red farm buildings stood out against the steep fields. Neither she nor Jennifer said a word until they came to a sheer rock wall. The water stopped. It was the end of the fjord.

Jennifer turned in surprise. “What a strange sensation. The fjord just stops.”

“I know,” Pix agreed. “Of course, it must. They only seem endless.”

“It feels significant. Do you know what I mean? Journey to the End of the Fjord. Something like that.”

“We ought to have some sort of ceremony, like when people cross the equator or the Arctic Circle.”

The boat turned around slowly and retraced its course. Pix wished she was in a canoe or kayak, closer to the water. She’d like to trail her fingers in the frigid depths, really feel it, instead of just looking at it.

“After the farm, we’re going to the Glacier Museum. I heard them talking. They’re worried that people might think that your finding Oscar in the fjord is somehow a reflection on their organization.” Jennifer was bluntly informative. So, at least one person knew Pix had discovered the body.

“Will there be time?”

“It’s not far, although we may not be able to see the glacier up close. I’m still going to go back, even if we do. I hate being rushed.”

It was smart thinking on the part of Scandie Sights. Instead of a free afternoon at Balestrand, keep everyone busy and throw in a little something extra. Then tomorrow, everyone would be packed off to Flåm and Mermaid/Troll tour number whatever thankfully over.

Jennifer hadn’t sounded particularly bereaved regarding Oscar, and Pix recalled the woman’s words from the night before: “I hate that man.”

“Sad about the accident. It seems so pointless,” Pix said deliberately, and then produced the result she expected.

“Sad! That old fascist! Save your condolences for someone who deserves them. The world is better off without people like him. If the opinions he expressed on this trip are any indication, there will be a lot of happy folks in his corner of New Jersey.”

“Fascist?” Pix was seeing a bright red swastika in front of her eyes, pulsating, as if she’d stared into the sun too hard.

“Women, African-Americans, gays, Jews, you name it—he despised anyone who wasn’t just like him. The classic bigot. And sexist isn’t the right word. Molester is. There isn’t a woman on this trip who hasn’t been groped, at the very least. If there is a Mrs. Melling, she’s shedding tears all right—tears of joy.”

Pix was not surprised at Jennifer’s passionate outburst. Oscar stood for the people who had killed her father and grandmother. He stood for everything Jennifer hated—and maybe feared.

“This must be the farm!” Jennifer pointed to a small dock. Three children were running toward the water, followed more sedately by a young woman. The kids were waving, and Pix expected them to call out, “The Americans are coming!” or something like that. Instead, as the boat came to a stop, they jumped up and down, shouting, “Velkommen!” The tour visited every week during the season. By August, the velkommens might be a little less enthusiastic, but today anyway, the children greeted them delightedly.

Ursula unfolded her cane and joined the group, bachelor farmers in the lead, as they wended their way up to the farmhouse.

The farmer’s wife did the talking, whether because her English was better or she was more at ease speaking in public. Pix recalled reading a newspaper article that listed the things people feared most. Public speaking was number one, death second.

“This used to be a community of sixty families; now we are only one—but there are four generations living on our farm, and one hundred goats. We will walk around, and please ask all the questions you want. Just to tell you a little more about us, we make our living from selling our goat cheese, which you will have a chance to taste, operating a small water taxi, and greeting people like you. Our children go to school not so far from here, by water.

I take them in the morning and get them in the afternoon. In the winter, I usually stay to have coffee with my friends and do errands.”

It didn’t sound like such a bad life—when the sun was shining.

“My husband is in the barn and will show you how the cheese is made.”

She was very pretty, tall, with short, shining blond hair. She was already deeply tan from being outdoors so much. She and her children radiated good health. After scampering after the group like puppies, the children had stripped off their clothes and were swimming in the fjord.

“It’s not so cold as it looks,” their mother told the group as she led the way into the barn.

Pix and Ursula first walked over to the herd of goats, scattered across the field, contentedly nibbling at what would become gjetost, that goat cheese so far removed from chèvre that it seemed to be produced by a completely different animal. Partisan as she was, and becoming even more so, Pix preferred the fromage.

The Rowes and Millers had a friend in Maine who raised Nubians and took a blue ribbon every year at the Blue Hill Fair. Ursula was evaluating the Norwegian goats with a practiced eye. “Mountain goats, sturdy, and these have been well tended.”

Before her mother became overly immersed in goat husbandry, Pix suggested, “Come on, let’s go see how they make the stuff.”

They entered the dark barn, blinking for a moment. The farmer was embroiled in an argument with one of the Fargo farmers. Angry Norwegian was reverberating in the rafters. Pix translated it as “Call this a milking machine!” or something along that line. The Norwegian-American was gesturing contemptuously at the equipment and surroundings. His fellow Sons of Norway were “ja, jaing” in agreement, a rude pastoral version of some Greek chorus.

The farmer wasn’t giving any ground. He was older than his wife. Around her own age, Pix thought. Yet more

in the nature of an aging hippie. He had a long black ponytail, streaked with gray, pulled back with a leather thong. Instead of farmer’s overalls, he wore jeans and a faded tie-dyed T-shirt. His dark beard was flecked with gray also. Pix closed her eyes and listened intently. She was almost positive it was the man she’d heard at Stalheim, in the woods surrounding the folk museum. He’d been angry then. He was angry now. His accent was distinctive, especially when compared with the American’s. He had a peculiar way of chopping off the end of a phrase.

“Are you asleep?” Her mother tapped her arm.

“No, just concentrating.” Pix opened her eyes.

Yes—she was certain it was the same voice.