The Body in the Fjord

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.