The Body in the Fjord

Pix wasn’t taking much note of what was going on, but Ursula poked her in the ribs. “Follow them,” she whispered. “Something’s up. They’re not smiling.”

Pix slipped away from the tour and pretended to be looking at one of the exhibits—weather on the glacier. Carl and Jan were going toward the phone in the small gift shop. She hastened toward a postcard rack, grabbed one, and went to pay the cashier. Carl was speaking and she didn’t understand what he was saying, but it was clear that something serious had occurred. He hung up, pulled Jan to one side, and spoke to him. The other guide’s face

paled and he put a hand on Carl’s arm. A few more words and they went back to the group. Pix was out the door, as well.

“Wait, you’ve left your card.” The clerk was running after her.

“Tusen takk,” Pix said, and was in time to hear “So we will be returning to the hotel for a pleasant afternoon.” Carl was smiling. Jan was smiling. At least their mouths turned up at the corners. Their eyes told a different story.

“What did I miss?” Pix asked Ursula.

“Apparently, we have to get back to the hotel because of the dinner schedule. We won’t have time to see the glacier, but Jan told everyone the museum is better.”

“Dinner schedule!” Pix was positive that when the tour was supposed to eat would not have caused the reaction she’d just observed. But what would have?

Marit was sitting on the small dock in Balestrand, next to the huge Midsummer bonfire pile, which had grown even more since they’d arrived. She spied Pix in the bow and waved her arm back and forth. Why would Marit be down here, so obviously waiting for them, abandoning her cover? Pix jumped to her feet and started toward the door of the cabin.

“What’s your rush?” Jennifer asked. She was stretched out on her back, looking up at the sky.

“I—I have to check on my mother,” Pix answered, and went straight inside to Ursula.

“Marit’s on the dock. She waved to me.”

Ursula understood immediately.

“Go see what’s happened. I’ll be fine.”

Pix grabbed her jacket from the chair she’d hung it on—the sun had made it unnecessary—and went to the upper deck.

As the boat drew closer, she could see Marit’s face was tense. She sat looking toward the fjord like some figure from Norse mythology. Pix thought she ought to be knit

ting a shroud or something. Shroud! Dear God, let it not be bad news about Kari.

Pix was the first off the boat. She went directly to her friend.

“What’s wrong. Is it Kari?”

“Nei.” Marit stood up and took Pix’s hand, pulling her in the direction of the hotel. “You’ve got to come. The man you found—it wasn’t an accident. Everyone at the hotel is talking about it and the police are here.”

“You mean Oscar Melling was murdered!” She—and Faith—had been right.

It was upsetting, yet why was Marit reacting this way—so fearfully? The older woman was setting a rapid pace.

“Murdered, ja,” she said, “and someone saw you from a window out near the place where he was lying.”

“Well, of course they did. I found him.”

Marit stopped and shook her head. “Saw you before that. Saw you at about the time the police think he was killed.”

Now fear filled Pix, too, like the tide rushing in. A cloud passed in front of the sun. She slipped her jacket on. It was cold.

Entering the lobby of the Kvikne’s Hotel alone after Marit went to meet Ursula, Pix debated the merits of approaching the police herself versus being approached by them. Her instinct was to find them as quickly as possible and tell all, but then again, this might seem suspicious. Why was she so anxious to speak with them? they might wonder. And of course the first thing they’d ask would be how she knew they were looking for her. Her long association with Faith Fairchild had taught Pix that her own instincts were not always to be trusted, whereas Faith’s were. Pix could not recall an instance in Faith’s own numerous investigations where the lady had gone to the police to share what she knew. Rather, Faith felt it was completely legitimate to hold out on them. “They wouldn’t listen anyway” was her oft-stated rationale. Pix

decided to adopt it now. In any case, she had to think of Marit. She had no idea how Marit had found out so much—Pix recalled mention of pumping one of the younger, less seasoned veterans of the force—and she had to protect the older woman. But how could she tell them anything without involving Marit? For instance, why she had come to Norway on the spur of the moment? It was a hopeless dilemma.

In the end, she did not have to agonize over her decision for long. Almost simultaneously, a clerk from behind the desk and a uniformed policeman stopped her before she could get on the elevator. After saying something in Norwegian—the two words “Fru Miller” needing no translation—the clerk withdrew hastily, leaving Pix with the young officer.

“Mrs. Miller?”

“Yes?” She unconsciously mimicked his questioning tone.

“Would you mind talking to the inspector who is looking into the death of Mr. Melling, the man from your tour you found this morning?”

Tempted to reply, Oh, that Mr. Melling, instead Pix meekly said, “Of course,” and allowed herself to be ushered into the Star Chamber. Sam would kill me, she thought. Well, if I ask to have a lawyer present, it really would look odd. Besides, her lawyer husband was thousands of miles away and need never know—at least not for a while.

The hotel had turned over a large conference room to the police. It was arranged for a business meeting, long tables in a U shape, with a pad and pen at each place. An overhead projector and screen were set up at the front, along with a television and a VCR. A smaller table and several chairs had been placed in front of one of the large windows on the outside wall. A pot of pink begonias sat squarely in the middle of each sill. With Pix’s and the officer’s arrival, there were exactly four people in the room.

A man got up from behind the small table.

“How do you do? I’m Inspektor Johan Marcussen,” he said, extending his hand. She took it, well aware how sweaty and cold her own must feel.

“I’m Pix Miller,” and I’ve been better, she finished silently.

“Pix—this is an English name I’ve not heard before,” he said.

She decided to let it go at that. Let him think it was a family name and—inwardly cursing her parents’ flight of fancy—it was.

“Please, sit down.” He pulled out a chair across the table from his. She had the fjord view. “Would you like some coffee?” This was one question that did not take her by surprise. She could not imagine anything, even a police inquisition, taking place in Norway without this beverage, and maybe some little cakes, too. Well, it would use up some time—she didn’t see a tray. Plus, when it arrived, it would give her something to hold on to.

“That would be very nice, thank you.” So far, so good.

The officer who had accompanied her left the room. This left Pix, the inspector, and another police officer, pad and pen—not the hotel’s—in hand.

Inspector Marcussen was tall, looming over Pix, and she judged him to be in his late fifties. His hair was gray and thinning, but he was extremely attractive. She had always thought that unattractive Norwegians were the exception, and piercing blue eyes like the inspector’s had held a special attraction for her since that long-ago summer visit when Olav something, a friend of Hanna’s, had flashed his at a very susceptible young American girl. The police at home did not have this effect on her. She’d known Patrolman Warren since he was a runny-nosed little boy, and his sister had been in Pix’s Girl Scout troop. Veteran police chief Charley Maclsaac may have had a certain appeal once, but there had been a few too many muffins at the Minuteman Cafe in the last thirty years. Johan Mar

cussen, on the other hand, would have been in the group with the ropes and picks in today’s glacier