night?”
Carl gave a worried glance at the Frenchwomen. Obviously, Jennifer Olsen’s adventure was not being posted with the day’s events.
“No, nothing. But all’s well that ends well,” he said brightly and moved on.
One of your staff dead, one missing, and an intruder in the night. Pix did not think that all was well.
She tuned back in to the table conversation. Mother must have been listening to her French tapes again while she rode her Exercycle, Pix thought.
“They knew the tour would be in English, but they didn’t think they needed to understand everything. It’s all nature, and who needs words for that?” Ursula laughed. The cousins were smiling agreement. From what Pix knew of the French, she was sure the two believed that compared to their own history, art, and culture, the Norwegians were savages, so if they missed what year a particular stave church was built in, it would be no great loss.
After a second cup of coffee, Pix left her mother to her new friends and went back to the room to shower. But first she stepped out onto her own balcony. The door was equipped with a heavy drape to keep the light out, and since it had been partially drawn, she hadn’t realized the balcony was there. It was furnished with two chairs and a small table. Pix peered over the edge. It was an easy climb up or down to the ground—or to Jennifer’s room. The balconies were joined together. Tour groups were easy targets for thieves, even in Norway, and Pix was inclined to think that was all there was to it.
Feeling greatly refreshed by the shower, Pix got her things together, placing her bag outside the door as they had been instructed. Her mother’s was already out and
there was no answer to her knock. She decided to go down to the lobby and see if Ursula was there or if she might have decided to take a walk.
A bright voice greeted her as she entered the elevator. “I see you’re another of the Scandie Sights group.”
“Why yes, I am.” Pix wondered how the woman knew.
“I saw you last night. Is that your mother with you? I told my husband it must be. You’re like two peas in a pod. I’m Carol Peterson, from Duluth. In Minnesota. My husband, Roy, is with me and my son, Roy junior, and his new bride, Lynette. Lynette’s not Norwegian, probably not a drop of Scandinavian blood in her body, but we love her anyway, and she wanted to take her honeymoon here to get to know our roots just as much as Roy junior did.”
The elevator doors opened. They stepped out into the lobby and Carol finally came up for a breath. Pix knew she was expected to make a comment, and the one running through her head—something like wouldn’t Lynette have rather had root canal work than come to Norway with her in-laws on her honeymoon—was not appropriate. She settled for a straightforward introduction.
“I’m Pix Miller, and yes, I am traveling with my mother, Ursula Rowe. We’re from Aleford, Massachusetts.”
“Massachusetts, now that
“Yes, it is.”
“I watch
“Have you been with the tour since Copenhagen?” Pix was pretty sure she hadn’t seen the name Peterson among the new arrivals, and the woman was a gift, a veritable font of information.
“Oh, yes, and it’s been a dream come true. We’re going to Kristiansand at the end of the tour. I have some cousins there I’ve never met. We wanted to stay in a hotel, but they just wouldn’t hear of it.”
Pix interrupted. It was close to 10:30 and she didn’t want another chance to slip by. The buses would board at eleven.
“One of the people at our table last night was telling us about some trouble. That one of the staff drowned. It must have been horrible.”
“Well, we didn’t see him drown”—Carol Peterson was clearly of the “out of sight, out of mind” school—“and none of us really knew him.” She paused, but Pix was sure she’d go on. There was empty air to fill. “The young people who took their place are much, much better. More efficient and, believe me, much nicer.” She punctuated the last comment with an extremely knowing look.
“Them? I thought it was just one person.”
“He had this girlfriend. She was working on the tour, too. They slipped off to get married, which, I told Lynette, was very irresponsible, because if you elope, you’re always sorry later. No gown and no presents. Oh, maybe a few, but nothing good.”
“So, you thought it was irresponsible of them?” Pix tried to get her back on track, prying her away from place settings and a lifetime supply of Tupperware.
“Of course it was! To leave us all in the lurch like that. Why, Jan and Carl couldn’t manage all the bags, and we got delayed while they tried to find out what happened to them, so we missed dinner in Bergen the first night!”
Pix tried to appear sympathetic, but it was hard. Very hard.
“You said the new people are nicer?”
“The boy was all right, although he seemed a little moody. I think when you’re working on a tour like this, you should at least try to look cheerful. But the girl was a witch, if you know what I mean.” Another look.
Pix did know and she was glad her mother wasn’t there. All restraint might have vanished and Ursula could very well have clocked Carol Peterson one.
“Oh dear. It sounds as if you had a problem with her.”
“I’ll say I did. First off, we had this poky little room in the hotel in Copenhagen—the staff hands out the keys—and she wouldn’t change it.”
“Maybe all the keys had been given out,” Pix said before she could stop herself. She wanted information and that meant not interrupting the silly woman’s tirade, and certainly not sympathizing with Kari. “Although,” she added quickly, “they can usually do something.”
“Exactly!” Carol said triumphantly. “We did get switched, but I had to go over her head, and after that she really had it in for me. Every time I asked her to do something, she either took her sweet time or pretended not to hear me. She knew what I’d said, too, because she heard me telling Carl and Jan about her. I thought they should know—for the good of the tour.”
The greater good, Pix thought dismally. Lord preserve us from all the things large and small resulting from this particular rationalization. She asked another question.
“How did you hear that the boy had drowned?”
“Jan told everyone and the police came. We were in Bergen. They wanted to know if anyone had seen anything. The girl has disappeared—or her body hasn’t turned up yet. I think they had a fight and she pushed him in, then realized what she’d done and jumped after him. We know they’d been fighting. Helene Feld saw them when she went to get something to eat.”
Bingo. Now Pix knew who had been the last to see them. She felt a warm—but brief—rush of gratitude toward Carol Peterson.
“There you are, dear.” It was Ursula. Pix made the introductions, heard again what a small world it was, Roy senior having been to Boston in 1985, and vowed to stand back until she saw which bus the Peterson clan boarded.
Carol was the type who asked questions. Lots of questions.
The Petersons got on one bus and Pix steered Ursula onto the other. Jan was standing in the aisle at the front with a microphone.
“Now we are on our way to the famous Stalheim Hotel, making one stop for a ‘photo opportunity’ and time to eat our box lunches either on or off the bus, as you choose. Do I have any German-speaking people aboard?” He
