The Body in the Fjord

Eight

Pix was startled, but she was not scared. As anonymous letters went, it was pretty tame. No threats, no imprecations, merely a request. Were there time enough and words, she was pretty sure a “please” would have been inserted. No, she wasn’t alarmed, but caught up instead in contemplating the odd turn her life had taken in recent years, for this was the second such missive she’d received. The other, however, sent via the U.S. mails and delivered through the slot in the front door in Aleford made this one look like a birthday card.

But it wasn’t. “Stop asking questions”—the “or else” implied.

She looked at the bed. She looked at the clock. She looked at the newspaper clipping. There was no way she could fall asleep now. Wearily, she took out another piece of notepaper. It was time to make a list.

“Stop asking questions”—who had been threatened and who had access to her jacket pocket? She’d been asking questions ever since her arrival in Voss and obviously had not been as circumspect as she imagined. But, Mother had been inquisitive, too.

Her head jerked up. Dear Lord, had Mother gotten the warning, as well? It was one thing for Pix to reach in her pocket and pull out a viper, but Mother! Ursula was probably still nodding away at Carol Peterson out on the porch—which reminded Pix that if anybody should have been her unknown correspondent’s target, it should have been Carol. Nobody asked more questions, and more stupid questions, than that woman. She felt a bit resentful.

The idea of going to join the threesome was unappealing. If her mother found anything like this, she would knock on Pix’s door. If she had not received one—or didn’t find it, not having occasion to search her pockets for a night’s mission like Pix—then why upset her?

That settled, Pix turned back to her list. She was tempted to call Faith and run through the possibilities. It would be late afternoon at home, a more considerate time to call than the middle of the night, but she felt stubborn. Faith had plenty of good ideas and the kit she’d prepared had been a thoughtful, though unnecessary, gesture. Pix took up the pen. She could certainly handle this alone.

Means, motive, opportunity. Opportunity was easy. Her jacket had hung on the back of a chair in the main cabin of their Viking fjord cruiser for most of the day. Anyone on the tour could have put the piece of paper in her pocket. Even Captain Hagen, who came into the room when the boat was docked at the farm. Pix had seen him through the window as she was leaving.

A Norwegian newspaper. Anyone could buy an Aftenposten. The fact that this paper was used didn’t mean it had been someone who knew the language. The International Herald Tribune was available, too, but in limited supply. Sidney Harding had guarded his copy each day, refusing to lend it to Arnie Feld, saying he had to save the financial section and he’d been lucky to get it. So, Aftenposten it was. No clues there.

She began to put down names, starting with the Petersons, for no other reason than they came to mind first. In a distant corner, she was still picturing the scene in which Roy senior proposed switchies to his wife and her reaction. Walked into a door. Yeah, sure.

She jotted down their names and let her thoughts roam—any connections to Kari, Erik and the murder of Oscar Melling?

Carol and Roy Peterson, Sr.: Carol was very upset at the bench by the side of the fjord this morning. Was it just her husband’s indecent proposal, or had she seen Melling’s body? She had been dancing with him earlier and was out and about late. She was still wearing the same clothes she’d donned for the evening’s revelry and had apparently not been to bed. Had Oscar continued to pursue her? Had she had to push him to get away from his lecherous clutches, or was there an angry shove from hubby—either sending Oscar to his death? Carol had also been outspoken about her dislike for Kari. Pix wrote, Strong connections to O.M., Kari? As to whether the Petersons were up to anything that Kari and Erik had stumbled upon, the family group was a great cover. Drugs, oil secrets? The Petersons had secrets. That was sure.

Lynette and Roy Peterson, Jr.: Lynette was planning a nasty surprise for her mother-in-law. Like? Framing her for murder? Pix tried hard in everyday life not to be overly judgmental and ascribed most of the ills of civilization to the rush to differentiate, unlike her friend Faith, who felt it was an essential skill. With this in mind, Pix was still forced to admit to herself that even on the basis of only brief encounters, she did not like Lynette. At all. The young woman seemed to delight in tormenting her mother-in-law, flaunting her sexual powers over Roy junior. Okay, this was not a dream honeymoon, but she could have said no. Instead, she was storing up points for the future. What else could she be up to? Pix was sure Lynette would do anything for money and/or power. Pass some papers to someone, deliver a package. Kari and Erik might have discovered what she was up to. But then what? Hard to think of nebulous Roy junior, drooling at the mouth, as an accomplice. Yet, caught between two powerful women, maybe he had hidden depths. Or depth charges. Carefully she wrote, In the running next to their names.

Marge and Don Brady: She already knew that they had been hiding something under their TV-sitcom exteriors. Pix could not remember any episodes where the TV Bradys cruised the neighborhood. Don was retired from the oil business, a company that did business in Norway. Was he doing a little under-the-table consulting now? He had not hidden his strong dislike of Oscar Melling, though. The rotten apple. Had Oscar done something to him, or found something out? Maybe Oscar was blackmailing someone and that was why he’d been killed. Had Kari and Erik found the same thing out? Blackmail would fit in with Oscar’s personality. Too good to be true, she wrote by the Bradys.

Erna and Louise Dahl: The twins from Virginia. Pix paused. She didn’t have anything much to write. Knowledgeable about Norwegian customs? Surely the two sisters were what they seemed. Only, Faith was always telling her the whole point was that people weren’t. She put a big question mark next to their names:?

The French cousins, Sophie and Valerie: Sophie had had an encounter of the close kind with Oscar shortly before his death. Struggling to resist, had she sent him tumbling over the rocks below? The cousins took a trip someplace every year. Couriers? Their clothes looked expensive and both wore a lot of gold jewelry. But then, Faith had pointed out to her that Frenchwomen made all their clothes look expensive, and maybe the jewelry was fake. She wrote, Possibilities, giving a nod to her absent friend. Faith might not be here, but her maxims were proving useful.

Helene and Arnie Feld: Helene had been the last person to see Kari and Erik. Could she be lying about what she had observed? But why? She was certainly an avid antiques collector. Was Helene hiding some painted bowls, the rosemaling by the Sogndal painter, in her Samsonite? Was this what the two young people had discovered? And had Pix’s own questions struck a nerve? Arnie had had an argument with Oscar Melling, but that was probably not

much of a distinction. Next to the Felds, she put: O.M.—Nil. Other possibilities.

Sidney and Eloise Harding: Sidney Harding knew Norway very well and, Ursula was virtually certain, knew the language. Maybe he knew some other languages, too—Russian, for instance. He had a perfect cover. For a businessman connected to the oil industry, there would be nothing suspect in frequent trips to the country, as well as extensive travel within Norway’s borders. This time his wife had pushed to go along and he had promptly invited their friends. A jolly bridge foursome. Could they all be in it together? But surely if they were, they would fake a bit more enthusiasm for the scenery and play cards a little less. Maybe Oscar had been blackmailing Harding. Ursula had reported Eloise’s complaint about calls and meetings at all hours. Carefully, she wrote, Yes on all counts, crossing off Eloise’s name.

Paula and Marvin Golub: Unless they were in on the scheme with Sidney Harding, providing cover for a price, she couldn’t think of anything. All four of them had had little or no contact with any of the other Scandie tourists that she had observed. She wrote, Zip, then moved on.

Jennifer Olsen: This would take some deliberation. Pix got up, stretched, and walked toward the balcony. She was feeling a little peckish, but she did not dare eat the Belgium chocolate candy bar that Faith had tucked in unless she was in a tight situation, and this did not qualify, despite the fact that she had received a journalistic threat a short time ago. She thought she’d tell Marcussen about it in the morning. It might raise her credibility—or maybe he would think she manufactured it to further divert suspicion away from herself. Well, she’d sleep on it.

Mother tended to get hungry at odd hours, Pix had learned on the trip, so she had prudently stocked her bag with a roll of kjeks—cookies—several boxes of raisins, and plenty of Kvikk Lunsj, a candy bar to which both she and Ursula were devoted. It was the Norwegian version of a Kit Kat bar and she eagerly tore off the yellow-red

and-green paper wrapper, thinking as usual what a waste it was to throw away the pretty silver paper underneath, its surface subtly decorated with the Freia company’s emblem—a crane standing on one leg. Norwegians were inordinately fond of chocolate in any form and edged out the United States in per capita consumption. She bit into the sjokolade and gazed at the fjord. It was sparkling in the bright, clear summer night—silent and motionless, the mountains omnipresent, looming over the deep waters. She should be reading Ibsen, listening to Grieg, or thumbing through some Norse folktales. There was decidedly less activity than the night before. She saw a few couples and groups strolling about the grounds, but not many, and none from the tour. It was as if by common consent, they’d all gone to ground, battening the hatches, which was possibly the most mixed metaphor she’d ever produced.

She sat down in one chair, savoring the sweet, soft air, and propped her legs up on another.

Jennifer Olsen. Had there really been a man on her balcony that first night at Fleischer’s, or was that intended as a ruse? She was certainly the most likely person from the tour to have painted the swastika on the lawn at the Stalheim Hotel. Her bitterness about the war ran deep and she had referred to Oscar Melling as a fascist long before they had learned he had been one. Had she known earlier? Was the swastika meant to frighten him? Cat and mouse? Had she planned to expose him? Even if nothing could legally have been done against him, it would surely have affected his business. They were both from New Jersey, she recalled suddenly, even though Jennifer lived in Manhattan now. Was there some previous connection?

The letter q in the Norwegian alphabet exists solely for the purpose of spelling words taken from abroad—quixotic becomes quite charmingly don-quijotisk. Vidkun Quisling had added a new word to the English and Norwegian languages—and in this case the resulting name for a traitor had found its way into the lexicon of virtually every other

country: quisling. And Melling—rather, Eriksen—had been one.

Pix finished her chocolate bar, crumpled the papers, and stuffed them in her pocket. She walked back into the room and sat down at the desk. The list looked somewhat skimpy, yet it would serve as a mnemonic.

Jennifer Olsen was in excellent physical shape. Oscar would be no match for her. Had she somehow determined a direct link between him and her father’s and grandmother’s deaths? Had she waited for her mother to die before seeking revenge? Pix thought that someone like Jennifer would feel getting rid of Oscar Eriksen was morally justified. The law might not be able to get to him, but she could. Jennifer had been upset at Erik’s death and Kari’s disappearance. Upset at the tour’s response. Pix didn’t see any links there or links to any kind of smuggling, although there was the man with a bag on her balcony. Had they thought he had been spotted and decided Jennifer better cry wolf? Fatigued now, Pix wrote hurriedly, O.M.—yes! The rest iffy.

Had she missed anybody? The bachelor farmers, but Pix felt safe in crossing them off. They might have descended like a hoard of their Viking ancestors on the man for cheating at cards, beating him to a pulp, but slipping out at dark to give the miscreant a helping hand to whatever the opposite of Valhalla was did not seem their style.

Everyone else on the tour had either arrived at Voss when Pix and Ursula had or were, like the farmers, such far-fetched possibilities that even suspicious Faith would have eliminated them—such as Mrs. Fields, with her malfunctioning hearing aids and inhalers, all too genuine, Pix had observed. She was spunky, though.

The guides had been with the tour since the beginning, the stewards since Kari and Erik had disappeared, but they had been in Bergen, ready to take their places, Pix recalled. The country was narrow, only exceeding a hundred miles across in the south. It didn’t take long to get from one place to another. Presumably, Captain Hagen had been

on the west coast, waiting for the tour to arrive and board his vessel. Pix couldn’t think of any ties any of them would have had to Oscar Melling, but they all knew Kari and Erik. She wrote down their names under Staff and wearily decided to call it a night. Sonja’s antipathy toward Kari and her preference for Erik had been obvious. Who knew what else had been going on within the Scandie Sights staff? The weight of the two deaths pressed on her. Erik’s, so untimely, especially ironic in this country, which had one of the world’s highest life expectancies. Erik was supposed to have seen many decades come and go. She was beginning to feel she had—and very recently.

Pix folded up the cryptic notes and put the paper in her passport case with the pictures of Kari and Erik, Hanna and Sven. She took the one of Kari’s parents out and held it in front of her. She had never asked Marit if she knew what had happened to Sven—if she knew where he was now. It was a stupid oversight. All this time, she’d been imagining Kari on an identity quest involving both parents, but perhaps she already knew where her father was, although Pix had never heard any mention of him. She must remember to ask Marit in the morning whether Marit had ever known Oscar Eriksen, although surely she would have mentioned this.

Pix opened the list one last time. Only Lynette and Roy junior were too young and far removed not to have been directly touched by the war. Others besides Jennifer might be nursing secret wounds—and hatreds, including the staff.

She filled her pockets with everything Faith had thought she might need, added her camera, and went to bed. Just before climbing in, she took the torn piece of newspaper and put that in her passport case, as well, then slipped it into the bag she carried with her wallet, guidebook, and treats for Mother.

She didn’t bother to pull the light-obscuring drapes. She didn’t need to. Pix set the alarm, put the clock on the table, and fell promptly, deeply asleep.

When the alarm rang at three, it pulled Pix from a troubled sleep of twisted dreams. She swung her legs over the side of the bed in the half dark and tried to recall some of the images, but in the way of dreams, the harder she struggled to visualize them, the more elusive her memories became. Marit had been there, but a stern Marit. Pix had been trying to get to a child, a child who was crying. At one point, a vivid picture of herself shouting reappeared and vanished. Giving up, but unsettled, she went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, peed, ready to face the inevitable. The trip ended today. It was now or never. Never sounded pretty good, but then, it also meant she’d never know.

Well aware of her laden pockets, she closed the door behind her after looking up and down the empty corridor an unnecessary number of times. She fully expected a hand on the shoulder again, but this time it would be the inspektør, or one of the other members of the Norwegian politi, not Carol Peterson.

She moved slowly down the stairs and then more quickly to the door to the outside. She put her hand on the long horizontal bar and pushed. It didn’t move. Damn Marcussen! Forget about trust. He’d locked the door. What was worse, the glowing red light above indicated the alarm had been set. There was a sticker—SECURITAS—that she hadn’t remembered seeing before, although from the prevalence of these elsewhere, Securitas seemed to be the security system of choice throughout the country. So much security, so little crime. She could hear the inspektør’s views now. “Try not to take any walks,” he’d said. Well, he was making absolutely sure she, for one, wouldn’t.

The idea of lowering herself from the third-floor balcony occurred to her; however, it was fraught with not simply the danger of discovery but the danger of falling and breaking an essential bone or two, which would be an enormous inconvenience and certainly counterproductive. No, she’d have to go out the front door. There was no other way. Coming back wasn’t a problem. By that

time, she’d either have a tale to tell or could once more use the “couldn’t sleep” line and let them think what they wished. She crept down the corridor to the door that led to the lobby, just before the gift shop. The door had a window in it and she could see that there was only one person on the desk. Marcussen had stationed a man by the front door, but his head was lolled over in sleep. She could hear his snores even through the door. The clerk disappeared into the back room and Pix catapulted out, running noiselessly in her soft Reeboks to the bar, crouching down behind the substantial mahogany.

The clerk returned with a magazine and seemed to be arranging herself for the night. There was no way Pix could leave without being seen. For a moment, time froze. The policeman slept, the clerk seemed transfixed by the printed page, and Pix’s muscles began to ache from the awkward position she was in. The phone rang. The night clerk spoke rapidly in Norwegian, her cheeks turning pink. A boyfriend? A tryst? Please, please, please. The young woman hung up and took a compact from under the counter, then a comb. Definitely an assignation. But where? Pix felt the balls of her feet growing numb. She tried carefully bouncing up and down to keep the circulation going. The compact was snapped shut and comb thrown down. The clerk ran her fingers through her hair and fetched a large pocketbook from a drawer. She disappeared again into the back room. More work needed to be done apparently, and what Pix was counting on was that a larger mirror was needed. She had to assume this is what the clerk was headed for, which would give Pix enough time to get out the door. But if that was not what was up and she returned right away, Pix would be stymied.

She had to take the chance. She crawled out from behind the bar and continued on all fours, passing close to the somnambulant officer of the law. She couldn’t stand up. There might be one of those mirrors showing someone in the back room exactly what was going on in front. Her heart was beating rapidly and, despite the cleanliness of

Kvikne’s, her hands and knees were beginning to feel skitten.

She was almost at the door. Now, she’d have to stand up to open it. The light seemed glaring and surely someone would spot her. A quick twist and she was outside. Glancing behind her, the scene looked impossibly serene. A cop in the arms of Morpheus and an absent clerk dreaming of more active arms. Reassured that she hadn’t been seen, Pix didn’t waste any more time in contemplation, but took to her feet and sprinted across the lawn, taking care to stay well away from the lighted path. Every dark bush suggested a figure, yet she reached the village, still apparently the only person up and about.

Cautiously, she clung to the shadows of the few buildings and made her way to the dock past the towering Midsummer bonfire pile. This time, there were no voices issuing forth from the Viking cruiser, and so Pix hurriedly climbed on board and went downstairs to the lower deck. Piece of cake. She was feeling pretty cocky—until she realized the door to the main cabin was locked, too. “I thought Norwegians were supposed to be so honest,” she mumbled to herself. “All these locked doors.”

She didn’t see any indication of an alarm, no telltale stickers. She had also looked for an alarm system during the day, without finding any signs of one on board. Anyway, she had no choice. Taking the skeleton keys from her pocket, she patiently tried them one by one, and before long, the door opened. Thrusting thoughts of what could only be termed breaking and entering from her mind—she was, after all, a member of the tour and maybe she wanted to retrieve something she’d left on board—she stepped into the main cabin and closed the door behind her, turning the lock to discourage any interruptions. It was pitch-dark and she took the penlite from her pocket to avoid colliding with tables and chairs. Faith had known what she was about.

In the small room behind the galley, she had no trouble locating Mother’s closet. Aware of how little time she had, she emptied the contents and set to work tapping on the walls. Her mother had been right. The rear wall did sound hollow, yet there didn’t seem to be any way to get into it. She shone the light along the edges, all the way to where a shelf had been built at the top. She took out her Swiss army knife and opened the thinnest blade. She ran it where the shelf met the wall and where the sides of the closet met the rear. Nothing. She pushed with all her strength along the bottom of the wall, just above the floorboards. Again, nothing magic happened. No springs sprung. Sesame wasn’t opening. Poor Mother. She’d be terribly disappointed. Pix had to keep trying. She began to tap again—lightly at various points; then making a fist and pounding when the first method didn’t work.

Dead center, just below the top shelf, the miracle happened. She hit it squarely with her fist and the entire back of the closet popped out, falling forward, one flat piece of wallboard held in place with clips on the inside.

There was a compartment—a secret compartment! And it was full!

Three bags had been stacked one on top of the next. Pix removed the top one, took it into the room, and examined it. She dared not turn on a light, but using the flashlight, she could see it was an ordinary piece of soft-sided luggage, shaped like a gym bag, and bright blue. It sported a Scandie Sights tag and the Scandie Sights luggage strap cinched its girth. She went back to look at the other two bags in the closet. They were similar; one was, in fact, a gym bag, sporting the Nike logo. Both were marked with Scandie Sights identification, but no other name or luggage tags. Lost luggage from other tours? Surely they would have been missed. Perhaps a repository for lost items, things left on board?

She returned to the first one and opened it. It seemed to contain bedding of some sort. A thick quilt was on top, and reaching her hand down along the side, she felt more material. No drugs, jewels, or documents. Perhaps the closet cubbyhole was an old forgotten storage container.

There was a cot in the room. The quilt even smelled musty. But the luggage looked new. She took the top piece of what she assumed was bedding out and shook it to make sure nothing was hidden in its folds. Nothing was—but this was strange. It didn’t resemble the kind of quilt in use in Norway now, and she took the penlite to examine it more carefully. It was more like a rug. One of those Rya rugs with the long, shaggy pile that suggested the pelt of an animal. She dug farther down in the bag and realized how shortsighted she had been.

It was a treasure trove! Yet not what she had expected at all. There were pieces of intricate Hardanger embroidery, obviously very old. In the dim light, she could also make out the figures of Norse gods in a fine tapestry and a pile of what she knew were old pillow covers, also woven in an intricate pattern in bright colors. They were museum quality. At the bottom, there were two plastrons, the bodice piece that was worn with the Hardanger women’s costume. They were elaborately embroidered, and Pix remembered the young women at Stalheim noting that theirs were covered with beadwork, unlike the earlier ones, which were embroidered—a dying art and very expensive. Bells rang and she dashed into the closet to drag the other two bags out.

The second held wooden objects, carefully wrapped in padded cloths. There were bowls, drinking horns, dippers, engagement spoons, butter molds, small highly decorated tiner—boxes used to bring food to a wedding, christening, or anniversary. Pix trained the light on one bowl in particular, an ale bowl. She’d seen them in the folkemuseums. This one had a high collar, typical of the west coast, and was inscribed. She could make out the name Sogn and the date, 1691.

These bags did not contain lost-and-found items—or rather, they did: lost by someone and found by someone else. It wasn’t a motley collection of sweaters, socks, and scarves, but Norway’s heritage, objects from the past—a past well beyond the hundred-year stipulation. Some of

the items were painted, others carved, some in the distinctive chip-carving style. Each was intact and had obviously been well cared for.

She reached for the last bag. It was much smaller and at first glance appeared to contain linens also, rolls of white pillowcases. She took one out, undid it carefully, and gasped.

It was jewelry. Catching the light, it glowed and shone—the luster of ages, years of polishing. Exquisitely worked silver brooches were pinned to a piece of felt. She recalled reading about the importance of silver to the Norwegian peasants of old in a book her mother had received from Marit. The metal was valued not just for its intrinsic worth but for far more superstitious reasons. You could only kill a troll, even the troll king, with a silver bullet. Silver buckles were used to fasten a baby’s swaddling band or a silver coin sewn in his or her blankets so the child wouldn’t be snatched by the trolls. Heirloom silver was passed down reverently to ensure everything from protection against illness to getting the beer to work. Marit had taken her wedding jewelry out to show them on Pix’s first trip. It had been Marit’s grandmother’s. There was a cloth belt covered with linked silver squares, gold-plated teardrops hanging from each engraved piece. She’d brought out cuff buttons, filigree bodice clasps, and pins of all sizes. Hans had the bridegroom’s traditional silver cross, worn by his great-grandfather, and the buttons from his vest. With these in mind, Pix undid the remaining rolls. There were more brooches, buttons, amulets, and crosses. One roll contained a single piece, an enormous many-tiered brooch with golden dangles hanging from the larger pieces of silver that made up the tiers. Red and green stones had been set in the center of the largest forms. She unpinned it and held it up in the beam of her light. It was magnificent. Such craftsmanship.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? We are known for the quality of our jewelry.”

The words coming out of the darkness took her by surprise. She dropped the brooch, spinning around toward the direction from which the voice had come, and flashed the light on the intruder. She had been so intent on the contents of the bags that she hadn’t heard the door open or the accompanying soft footsteps.

It was Carl Bjørnson. He wasn’t smiling.

Carl walked to the window and pulled down the shade. They were in complete darkness except for Pix’s light, and after briefly flashing it on his face, she let it shine down by her side. His expression had chilled her to the bone. But she had no time for fear. She quickly switched the light off and dashed toward the door. He covered the distance in several large steps, beating her by inches. She shrank back against the wall. Taking a flashlight from his own jacket pocket, he shone it on the lock and firmly clicked it shut. He pulled a chair over, sat down, and leaned against the doorknob.

“I’ll take your camera, thank you.” His accent seemed markedly British now.

Pix thought naïveté was worth a try.

“Carl, I know this must look odd, but I came on board to find my mother’s glasses, which she has misplaced. She’s an insomniac and wants to read. Earlier, we searched everywhere, and they are nowhere at the hotel. I thought she might have left them on the boat and came here to have a look.”

“In the steward’s closet?” he asked sardonically, clearly enjoying himself.

“It seemed the obvious place for lost and found.” He had trained his flashlight beam on her and she gestured toward the bags.

“A good try, Mrs. Miller, but not good enough, I’m afraid.” He tilted the chair down and it hit the floor with a bang. “No, you will have to do a little better than that. Now the camera.”

Pix handed it over and watched him open the back, exposing all the lovely shots she’d made of the fjord. She

hadn’t gotten around to photographing the contents of the closet. Her plan had been to pack one case up and hightail it to Inspector Marcussen, bringing him back to see the rest for himself. Otherwise, he might have suspected her of smuggling, too.

She thought about screaming. The noise Carl’s chair had made reminded her of that option. The dock had been deserted when she came, but someone might hear her now.

It was as if he had read her mind.

“Oh, and please don’t make any loud noise. If you do, I will be forced to kill you.” He took a gun from his pocket and held it in the beam of light. It looked very real and quite deadly. “You know how deep the fjord is here. And you have established quite a reputation for eccentricity—roaming about at unlikely hours, locking yourself in a sauna. Your disappearance may cause some initial alarm, but not for long.”

It was too true. Pix sat down on the floor. It was that or have her knees buckle under her. Murder? Over some antiques? More had to be at stake.

“My mother knows where I am. She’s waiting for me to come back now,” Pix said bravely. She was about to add that her mother knew about the closet, but fortunately she stopped herself in time or she might have had a companion.

“Your mother is sound asleep and so is Fru Hansen.”

Pix realized there was no way Carl could let her go—not until he got away. Was that what was going on? Was he waiting for someone? Someone in a boat or car who would take him and the treasures away?

He’d said “locking yourself in a sauna.”

“So it was you who locked the door of the sauna!” She was beginning to feel less terrified and more angry.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry about that right now if I were you.” He sounded amazingly cool. She couldn’t see much of him behind the light he steadily trained on her, and his voice emerged disembodied out of the darkness,

every nuance emphasized by the lack of facial expression to go with the words.

It was on the tip of Pix’s tongue to ask what exactly she should be worrying about now, but instead, she said, “And you are dealing in stolen antiques.” She might as well get the whole story.

“Absolutely not!” He was righteously indignant. “Nothing has been stolen. Everything you see was purchased fair and square.”

She began to get the picture. Fast cash for great-grandmother’s carved bread platter and a new satellite dish instead. He had to be taking the stuff out of the country, though. If he was simply selling to Oslo or Bergen antique dealers, why the hidden chamber and all the Scandie Sights tags? The tags—ingenious. Mix them in with all the rest of the tour’s luggage.

She opened her mouth to ask another question. She wished he’d lower the beam. It was making her head ache—or maybe that was due to the uncertain nature of her current position.

“Did Kari—”

“Shut up!” He stood up and seemed to listen for something. She couldn’t hear a thing. He sat down.

“I must warn you, Mrs. Miller—may I call you Pix?—it is better if you do not discuss certain subjects. Healthier for you.”

“No, you may not call me Pix,” she retorted instantly, ignoring the threat. The arrogance of the man. “I think this has gone on long enough. Please unlock the door immediately!”

He laughed. It didn’t sound as pleasant as it had in prior days. What was it Mother had called him, and Jan—“dears”? Talk about lack of judgment. Faith was right. People wore masks, and Carl’s had been diabolically deceptive.

“Not just yet. We need to wait some more. Would you like some coffee? I have a thermos here,” he offered.

It was too much. What no cakes, no vafler? She didn’t bother to refuse.

She felt utterly defeated. It was all staring her in the face now—the trail that started with Kari and Erik: Oscar Melling must have been onto Carl and Carl had taken care of the old man. Pix shuddered.

“He was an old man. Surely, you didn’t need to…” Her thoughts were grim. Carl hadn’t needed to kill any of them, but he had.

“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with that old fart!” He nursed his grievance for a moment and added, “You have been such a nuisance since the beginning.” Carl was reaching for the thermos as he scolded her. Not a typical Norwegian by any means, he did have that scolding tone down perfectly. The combination of sorrow and sternness that resonates so loudly in one’s breastbone—just where one is supposed to be beating oneself. His British accent had diminished.

“Questions, questions! Poking your nose in other people’s business! We tried to be nice…to warn you, but you paid no attention. What kind of woman are you? Didn’t you get the newspaper?”

Pix nodded. She was waiting for the right moment. He’d have to put the light down to open the thermos and pour the coffee.

“And what do you do? Ignore it! I pity the man who is married to you! And always by yourself! What were you doing in the woods in Stalheim! You’re supposed to come on these trips to make friends! But then, that’s not why you came, was it, Mrs. Miller? Pix.”

She sprang forward and grabbed the thermos from where he’d placed it next to his chair just after pouring a cup and flung the steaming-hot contents directly into his face. He screamed and lunged for her, blinded. She fumbled in the dark for the lock and heard a satisfying click.

She turned the knob as he grabbed her, and for a moment they rolled across the floor, barely avoiding the precious contents of the bags. Pix brought her knee up

squarely into his groin. She was in good shape and almost as tall as he was. He groaned and released her. Pix indeed!

She ran out the door, slamming it behind her, and headed straight for the bow. It was the quickest way off the boat. He was behind her. She threw down chairs as she went. She was at the door and wrenched it open. The air, the cold night air, was sweeter than any fragrance she could imagine. She stepped over the threshold, avoided the coils of rope, and climbed up on the dock.

Carl yelled something in Norwegian. She recognized two words—stoppe and the name Sven. Then there was nothing.

“I don’t want to get up yet, Mother.” Pix firmly kept her eyes closed and pulled the down comforter under her chin. Then she realized her head was aching, and everything came rushing back. She opened her eyes. Where on earth was she? It certainly wasn’t Kvikne’s Hotel.

Sun streamed through the wavy glass in two small windows. She was tucked into a bed built into the wall, like a box. She sat up slowly, her head pounding more fiercely as she moved. She reached to the back and felt a lump the size of a fish cake. She’d been hit, hit with something hard. But Tylenol would have to wait. She had to get out of here and get some help. Carl was probably long gone, yet the sooner she raised the alarm, the better the chances were of catching him and finding out what had happened to Kari and Erik—both, she was sure now, dead.

Except she couldn’t move. She was still clad in everything she had been wearing last night, even her jacket, but what had been added was a chain and padlock about her waist, securing her to the bed. Optimistically, she reached in her pocket for her skeleton keys, blessing Faith over and over again. But of course they were gone, as were her knife and matches. She’d dropped the penlite herself in the struggle with Carl. They’d thoughtfully left the chocolate bar—but she wasn’t hungry—and the gloves, comb, and hair spray, no doubt thinking her even more

eccentric, and vain on top of that. She checked her pants pocket. A five-hundred-kroner note was still there. Either they were too honest to take it or hadn’t found the cash, mixed, as it was, with several tissues.

She sank back into the pillows, cursing her comfortable prison. All she could do was wait. She occupied the time by looking at the room. From the angle of the sky, she thought she was up high, a second floor, but the room seemed to be an entire cabin. Besides the bed, there was a rustic long wooden table and chairs, an old hearth with iron fireplace tools next to it, and a stack of wood. A sheepskin rug lay in front of the hearth and shiny copper pots hung on the wall. A brass oil lamp stood on the table, apart from some iron candleholders on the wall, the only source of light. A brightly painted chest of drawers with a wooden rack filled with plates and bowls above it completed the inventory. It was someone’s hytte, or holiday cabin, she realized. Yet whose? A cabin made from an old farm building, judging from the log walls—thick walls.

Carl. It had been Carl all along. This was what Kari and Erik had found out. That Carl was exporting antiquities. But why kill them? Granted, Annelise had said the market was good for Scandinavian antiques, inflated even, because of the scarcity, but to take two human lives, three, counting Oscar—except Carl had said he’d had nothing to do with Oscar. But if not Carl, then who? Could the police have been wrong? Had it been an accident? But Kari and Erik. Poor Marit! Pix began to sob, and soon the pain in her heart and her head sent her to sleep again.

“You have to wake up!” Someone was shaking her. Mother? She opened her eyes and started forward until the iron girdle pulled her back. The voice was a female’s, but it wasn’t her mother’s. It was the farmer’s wife. That pretty woman with her cap of shining blond hair.

“Am I glad to see you!” Pix said. “You must help me. The tour guide—Carl, not the other one—is taking antiques out of the country to sell illegally and he’s killed

two people. We have to call the police right away. Oh dear, you probably don’t have a phone, but maybe you have one of those cellular ones?” In Oslo, Pix had noticed these were as ubiquitous as on the streets of New York City.

“You mustn’t worry now, Mrs. Miller. Just come on.” The woman was undoing the padlock and pulling off the comforter. “Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk,” Pix answered, climbing awkwardly out of the bed. “But you don’t understand. Is it my English? We have to get some help.”

“Yes, yes,” the woman replied, in the tone of voice one uses with a child. In Pix’s household, the words were usually followed by “I’ll think about it.” Her children were then apt to respond, “Why don’t you say no and get it over with.”

No. The woman was saying no.

Outside the cabin, which occupied the top story of the stabbur she and Helene Feld had noted, Pix observed that the farm was empty of children, goats, and tourists. Pix would have given everything she owned for one of the bachelor farmers. Instead, she was being hustled down the path to the landing. The sleek new water taxi awaited, its engine running.

“Here are some sandwiches and coffee,” the farmer’s wife said cheerfully. Pix’s hopes rose. Maybe they were taking her to Vik, to the police. She got in the boat and sat in the stern. She couldn’t see who was driving. She was very thirsty and poured some coffee. It smelled heavenly. She put the sandwiches in her pocket and sipped the brew. The farmer’s wife waved. Mindlessly, Pix waved back and drank the coffee. It was very sweet, but she drained the cup. Sweet, like the farmer’s wife. What was her name? she wondered. Something like Flicka, except that was a horse, she thought. My Friend Flicka—that was it. A little girl, or boy? Anyway, on the book jacket he or she’d had dimples—the kid, not the horse. Pix had a

cousin with deep dimples who swore she got them from sleeping on a button, but when Pix tried it, all she got was a round mark with two dots in the center. Flicka the horse and Flicka the farmer’s wife, the farmer’s daughter. That was the name of a popular china pattern in Norway, an old one made by Porsgrund. All these farms. The boat was speeding along the fjord. She wished she could take a swim. Her head still ached and she was feeling very muzzy. A man came out of the small cabin.

“Come with me, now,” he said.

She mindlessly followed him inside, her feet tangling together. She wouldn’t mind taking a nap. No buttons, though. She started to tell him. He grabbed her arm and pushed her onto a bunk. It was the farmer. The farmer with the dark beard.

The farmer with the lovely wife, who had just drugged Pix’s coffee.