The Body in the Fjord

“Seen? No, no one saw them here.”

“But I thought the papers said something about Voss. This is Voss, isn’t it?” she said with the unsure air of a tourist about to find out she might have joined the wrong group and should be in Stockholm instead.

“Yes, this is Voss,” he told her patiently. Then, aware that she wasn’t going to leave until she’d heard some detail about the sad case that she could use to impress her friends back home, he added, “They left a message here saying they were running away together to get married.”

“How on earth could they leave a message if no one saw them?” Pix asked plaintively. Could this possibly work?

It did. “We got the message by phone. They were already someplace on the road.”

Pix feigned excitement, which wasn’t hard. Her first actual clue!

“And were you the one who spoke to the girl? What’s her name? Karen? Something like that.”

For a moment, the man seemed to succumb to Pix’s blandishments. He would be quoted someplace in the United States. He wondered if she lived near Minnesota and knew his cousin. “It wasn’t Kari—that’s her name. It was the man, Erik. He just told me to write the message down for the Scandie Sights tour guides who would be arriving by bus to take the train to Bergen.”

“I never dreamed that things like this could happen in Norway.” Pix as Blanche DuBois continued: “It’s such a calm and happy place. People are so kind.”

“Sad things can happen anywhere,” he told her solemnly. He was so nice, Pix felt a twinge of guilt as she thanked him, said good-bye, and raced for the door. She didn’t want to miss the bus. Or dinner.

Pix felt like a new girl. It was true that others had joined the tour at Voss, but the group that had been traveling together since the beginning was the in group, the popular kids. It wasn’t that they excluded the latecomers—just the opposite. As Pix and Ursula walked into the dining room at Fleischer’s Hotel and headed for the tables with the Scandie Sights cards, they were immediately urged by several people to join them. The veterans exuded an all-knowing air that became even more apparent as the meal progressed. Advice ran rampant. It was a table of six.

“Velkommen. That’s ‘welcome’ in Norwegian,” a plump woman with tightly permed curls said. “I’m Erna Dahl and this is my sister, Louise. Twins, although you’d never guess! We’re from Virginia. What about you?”

Ursula extended her hand across the table. “How nice to meet you. I’m Ursula Rowe and this is my daughter, Pix Miller. We’re from Massachusetts.”

“Oh, I just love Boston!” the woman seated next to Pix exclaimed. “We’re the Bradys—no relation to the Bunch—Marge and Don.” The introduction was so pat, Pix knew it had been repeated hundreds, maybe even thousands of times.

“Pix—is that a particularly New England name?” asked Louise Dahl. You would never guess the Dahls were twins. Unlike her sister, she was thin and her hair was straight and fine, falling slightly below her ears in what had been a bad cut and was getting worse as it grew out. The women appeared to be in their mid-forties.

Ursula gave her daughter a little pat on the hand. Think of Marit, it said. Think of Kari. You don’t get information if you don’t give, and this is no time to be standoffish, however much you dislike hearing this story in particular over and over again.

“No, it’s a nickname that stuck. Pix was the tiniest little girl when she was born. We called her our ‘little pixie.’ That became Pix, and most people don’t even know her given name, Myrtle—I am very partial to the ground cover; it has such lovely purple flowers.”

Pix flashed a game smile at the table. “Of course, I didn’t stay a pixie for too long, but by then, even I was so used to the name, we couldn’t imagine changing it.” She did leave out two facts—that Pix was definitely the lesser of two evils and that when she suddenly shot up to her adult height of five eleven in junior high school, she desperately wished her family could leave town and start over in a new place where she would be known as Jane.

“I hope you like fish,” Don Brady said. “I’m about to start sprouting gills.” Again, the Bradys seemed to have a set repertoire of remarks. His wife’s smile was a bit thin-lipped.

“I’m very fond of fish, and it should be done well here. This is a famous old hotel,” Ursula commented.

Her mistake was apparent in the looks the others gave one another. How come she knows so much? This upstart. Ursula quickly made amends. Pix and she had decided not to reveal their intimate knowledge of the country, all the better to find things out, and she’d slipped up. Hastily she added, “At least that’s what it says in the brochure. I’m sure the guides and other staff have been giving you more details.”

Peace reigned.

“It is a famous old hotel and it’s still run by the same family, fourth generation. All these old hotels were built before World War One for the German and English who came here to fish and hunt,” Marge reported. Pix noted the large tote bag beside Marge’s chair, filled with guidebooks. The woman could lead the tour herself, hands down. But at the moment, Pix wasn’t interested in the hotel’s history. She was concerned with more recent events, and Ursula had given her an opening.

“How has the Scandie staff been? Someone on the train told us there had been a problem. A guide left or something like that?”

A waitress was bringing the first course, a Jarlsberg cheese tartlet, she told them.

Pix wasn’t sure whether the silence that had fallen was due to the desire for food at this fashionably late dinner hour or uneasiness. Erna Dahl answered her question.

“The staff has been wonderful, especially Carl and Jan, the guides. They can’t do enough for you and they are so informative.”

“They don’t talk too much, though,” her sister pointed out. “I couldn’t stand the type of tour where someone is constantly urging you to look at something, keeping up a stream of meaningless chatter.” She took a bite of her tartlet. Pix was sure she gave her sister a look that had more to do with the subject Pix had raised than the flakiness of the crust. Erna sighed and her curls quivered slightly.

“We did have two staff members who left the tour and it made things a little awkward in Bergen.”

“No one to carry the bags,” grumbled Don Brady. “Irresponsible kids.”

“They were running off together, eloping,” Erna continued. “But something must have happened on the way. The boy—his name was Erik—drowned. A terrible accident.”

Pix had no trouble voicing authentic concern. “How horrible! The poor girl!”

“Well, we don’t really know how she’s taking it,” Marge said brightly. “She didn’t come back, as you might expect, and we have two darlings now, Anders and Sonja. They’re over there at the staff table.”

Kari’s and Erik’s replacements were also blue-eyed, blond, and about the same age. Pix imagined that many of the people on the tour might have trouble telling them apart from Kari and Erik. Generic Nordics.

“When did all this happen?” Pix persisted. “It must have put a damper on the trip.”

“We don’t have any dampers on Scandie Sights tours,” announced a pleasant voice speaking English with the slightly British accent many Norwegians have, which with the lilt makes the clipped speech sound like a whole new dialect. “I’m Carl Bjornson, and you must be Mrs. Rowe and Mrs. Miller.” He flashed a grin at Jan, who was by his side. “I must admit, I had some coaching. Welcome to the tour.” He stretched out his hand.

“Is everything all right? Enjoying your dinner?” Jan asked. He still looked tired, yet some sort of liquid refreshment had bolstered his spirits. His voice was hearty and his cheeks flushed. His hair had been combed, but now the back of his shirt was untucked. He reminded Pix of her youngest child, Danny, almost thirteen, who could never seem to keep everything in place or clean all at once. If his shirt was tucked in, then a shoelace was untied. Hair combed, his hands would be dirty.

Carl was a head taller than Jan and would look younger longer, Pix instantly decided. Both men appeared to be in their mid- to late twenties, though Jan had already developed love handles that would no doubt continue to grow as his hair receded. Carl was lean, his eyes standard-issue blue, but his hair wasn’t blond. Instead, dark curls covered his head, curls that even the close cut he sported couldn’t quite tame. It gave him a slightly Mediterranean air, Norway by way of Barcelona. Definitely nice to look at.

He handed Pix and Ursula some sheets of paper. “This is our itinerary and we’ll confirm all the times as we go along. No one has missed the bus, train, or boat yet.” He sounded relieved. “The other page is a list of your fellow travelers and where they’re from.” He handed this single sheet to the rest of the table. “At the bottom, we’ve added