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.
