by Betty Webb
“I doubt it. His group, those birders, they’re all from Arizona, I think, and the Gunn Zoo is in California, so I don’t see why….”
“I was under the impression the two states touch.”
“They’re big states.”
This smile was fractionally cooler than the other. “Then that will be all, Miss Theodora Bentley of the Gunn Zoo. For now.”
I didn’t like that last part.
***
As it turned out, I’d been right to feel apprehensive. Less than an hour after the inspector allowed Bryndis and me to sit out the rainstorm at the Hótel Brattholt, he appeared at our table while I was in mid-bite of an excellent piece of Icelandic cod. Although I’d felt guilty about sitting down for a meal after such a tragedy, the matter-of-fact Bryndis pointed out that starving ourselves wouldn’t bring Simon Parr back from the dead. For her part, she was enjoying a heaping plate of fish and chips.
“His widow has been informed,” Inspector Haraldsson told us, sitting down. “Her name is Elizabeth St. John. For professional reasons, she does not use her husband’s name.”
“St. John?! That Elizabeth St. John? The writer?”
He nodded. “She is also, with her husband, a big lottery winner. So now you see why the man looked familiar. In June Mr. Parr and his wife appeared on many TV programs throughout the world. Why, I even saw them myself, on the television in my own living room. Lucky devils. Well, her, anyway. Him, not so lucky, considering that he is now deceased.”
As the old saying goes, them that has, gets. A few years back, while awaiting my annual checkup at my dentist’s office, I’d thumbed through a two-year-old copy of Entertainment Weekly, where I happened across an article about St. John. She’d made millions from her chart-topping romantic suspense novels, and her appearances at bookstores in the U.S. and Europe had drawn blocks-long crowds. In London, Prague, and Brussels, riot police had to be called to keep things orderly. Thinking about her probable annual income had made me jealous.
As if that wasn’t enough, more money poured in earlier this summer when her husband stopped at a convenience store and bought a loaf of bread, a bag of Fritos, a quart of milk, and one lone Powerball ticket. The ticket won the highest payout in Powerball history—more than a half-billion.
“On the news, Mr. Parr looked cheerful, holding up that big check for six hundred million U.S. dollars,” Haraldsson continued, looking wistful. “When I saw all those zeroes, I put myself in his place and thought of red Ferraris and warm vacations in Bermuda. And women, of course, many beautiful women, all eager to share in my good fortune. But what does Simon Parr do? He takes a bird-watching trip to Iceland.”
Haraldsson’s fantasy life didn’t interest me, but Elizabeth St. John’s writing did. I had never read any of her novels, but the dentist’s office copy of Entertainment Weekly had described Jade L’Amour, St. John’s protagonist. Jade was an Indiana Jones-type archaeologist who travelled the world uncovering international spies, unmasking murderers, and rescuing orphans, all while wearing designer clothes. The photograph accompanying the article highlighted St. John’s startling good looks: long, glossy black hair that hinted at an American Indian ancestor, navy blue eyes, and an aristocratic profile to die for. Sitting next to her was her husband, Simon Parr, who hadn’t yet grown his Elvis sideburns.
A few weeks after reading the article, I’d been channel-surfing on my tiny television and happened across St. John being interviewed by Barbara Walters. She was telling a doubtful Walters that today’s young women needed more believable role models than those found in Marvel Comics, and she wrote her books to fill that need.
But the woman in the Viking Tavern was not Elizabeth St. John. She was a dyed redhead with nowhere near the author’s mature beauty. Which reminded me of something that had come up in the Walters interview before I changed the channel. St. John said she and her husband had what they called a “European” marriage, which she defined as a marriage that gave them the freedom to occasionally “date” others. It kept their marriage fresh and exciting, she claimed. When Walters asked the writer her if she wasn’t afraid that such an admission might hurt her book sales, St. John answered, “I always tell the truth. Besides, Barbara, you of all people should know there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
I remembered something else, too. After the Walters interview, St. John’s book moved from No. 9 on the New York Times best-seller list to No. 1.
“How did Mrs. St. John take the news about her husband’s death?” I asked Haraldsson, who was still yammering about warm beaches and beautiful women.
The inspector’s face revealed nothing. “When I told her about Mr. Parr’s demise, she shed tears, which is only what one would expect. They had been married for twenty-six years, you understand. But that brings me to you, Miss Theodora Bentley.” Some of the geniality had left his voice. After a few seconds pawing his big hand through his wet raincoat, he pulled out an iPhone, poked it a couple of times, then turned the screen toward me. It revealed an article in The Gunn Landing Reporter, with the headline, LOCAL ZOOKEEPER SOLVES MURDER. My photograph wasn’t flattering.
“As you can see, I’ve checked up on you,” Haraldsson continued, “and I think it might be wise to let you know, before things go any further, that the Icelandic National Police do not need your help. We are perfectly competent to investigate a suspicious death, even though—and being from a much more dangerous country than ours you may have trouble believing this—Mr. Parr’s is our first murder this year. We only had two last year, one committed by a Lithuanian, the other by a Dane. Both recent immigrants, both stabbings, one over a woman, the other over a card game. We Icelanders might slap obnoxious drunks from time to time, but we do not sneak around and shoot them in the back of the head. The use of guns as murder weapons is almost unheard of here.”
“Then where’d the firearm come from?” I asked, stung by his portrait of me as an interfering busybody. “Judging from the wound and the fact that there were no powder burns around it, I’d say he shot from at least several feet away by a small caliber handgun. Or a rifle.”
Bryndis gaped at me but Haraldsson’s polite expression never wavered. “I applaud your knowledge of ballistics, and, yes, the weapon is most likely the Finnish Sako that Ulfur, the hotelier here, reported missing this morning. I only mention this because he has been complaining to everyone, so it is no secret. Poor Ulfur. He needed that Sako to take revenge on the chicken-stealing fox that has plagued his farm for the past two weeks. But you see? Already you are sticking your pretty nose in. While I sympathize with your concern over the fate of a fellow American, please be aware that any interference on your part can create difficulties for all of us, so I would appreciate it if you concentrated on your little polar bear and your foxes and your puffins.”
Oblivious to my ire, he put his phone back into his pocket and stood up. “Good day, Miss Theodora Bentley. Enjoy your stay in Iceland.”
Chapter Five
“He likes you,” Bryndis said, watching Inspector Haraldsson’s retreating back.
I looked at her in amazement. “You’re kidding, right?”
“He called your nose ‘pretty.’”
“Which means exactly nothing.”
“It does in Iceland.”
While Inspector Haraldsson had been giving me my marching orders, the hotel’s crowded dining room had fallen strangely silent. I suspected a case of mass eavesdropping but recognized that in their place, I’d do the same. A member of their tour group had been murdered in the very spot they planned to visit.
But as Inspector Haraldsson had pointed out, it was none of my business. I hadn’t known the victim and I certainly didn’t want to know the killer.
Best laid plans, and all that. Later, as I was washing my hands in the ladies’ room, a woman approached me at the sink. I’d noticed her earlier in the dining room. A tall, slender, brunette w
ith startlingly green eyes, she was attractive enough to be a fashion model. In her youth, anyway. A closer inspection revealed fine lines parenthesizing her mouth. The man she shared her table with was as handsome as she was beautiful, too, but his chin and nose looked almost too perfect to be real.
“Um, I couldn’t help but hear you talk to that, um, cop,” she said, her voice high and hesitant as a child’s, yet she had to be at least in her late thirties.
“The whole dining room heard us. Inspector Haraldsson wasn’t exactly quiet.”
“I looked you up on my iPhone…”
Technology has its drawbacks. With a few taps on a screen, total strangers could find out everything about you. I forced a smile. “Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, she continued. “…and thought maybe you can help us.”
Us. I looked at her left hand. Yep, a wedding ring. Mr. Handsome was her husband.
“I’m only here to chaperone a few zoo animals back to the States,” I said, trying to sound apologetic about it.
“That inspector, Haraldsson, he was asking Ben too many questions.”
“Inspectors do that sort of thing.”
“But considering everything, I’m afraid they’ll pin the murder on Ben.” She looked down at her hands. They were trembling. “Given his past and all.”
I studied her reflection in the mirror. Either she was sweating, or there were tears on her cheek. “What do you mean, ‘given his past and all’?” A little voice told me to follow Haraldsson’s orders and keep my nose out of police business. I ignored it. I grabbed some paper towels and began drying my hands. “Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Ben’s had problems in the past, you see, and there was a big argument between him and Simon before we boarded the plane. He’s never liked Simon, so…” She bit her lip.
“If you’re that worried, maybe you should find an attorney.” I made for the door, but she moved quickly, blocking my path.
“An Icelandic attorney? You must be kidding. They’d love nothing better than to blame this on some tourist.”
Leave, Teddy. Shove this woman out of the way and leave right now. Go back to your table, tell Bryndis we have to go, and hustle your butt out of this hotel before you agree to do something you’ll regret later.
“Look, I have to…”
“Ben’s protective of me because of all the weird stuff that’s been going on with Simon lately. He bought a Glock and…”
Deflect. That’s what you learn to do when you work in a zoo. When a four-year-old asks you where baby chimpanzees come from, you ask them which they think is the smartest—chimps or orangutans. “Your husband didn’t bring a handgun on the plane with him, did he?”
An affronted look. “Ben’s not stupid.”
“Did your husband pack his suitcase or did you?”
“What difference does it make?”
She was beautiful, yes, but no Mensa candidate. “Think about it.”
After a moment, she said, “I’d have noticed if he packed his Glock.”
Which meant her husband did his own packing. “You need an attorney, Mrs…. Er, what did you say your name was?”
“I’m known as just Dawn.”
What an odd thing to say.
My befuddlement must have shown on my face, because she explained, “That was my modeling name, ‘Dawn.’ No last name, just ‘Dawn.’ Ben’s a Talley. You know, Talley, like the restaurant chain. It’s the family business.”
Talley’s specialized in New American Cuisine, which is to say, gussied-up hamburgers and ten-ingredient omelets named after movie stars. For a while there’d been a Talley’s in Gunn Landing, but it eventually closed for lack of business. The one in San Sebastian was still open.
I tried to sidle my way past her to get to the door. She sidled with me. Exasperated, I said, “Look, Dawn, if you overheard my conversation with Inspector Haraldsson, you know he told me to mind my own business. I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you. Besides, even if Haraldsson decides your husband is a suspect in the killing, which I doubt he will, Ben can afford to hire a top-notch attorney. He’ll be cleared in no time, and then you can continue on your tour.” A stretch of the truth there, perhaps. Especially if Ben had packed that Glock.
“I’m not hiring some crooked foreign attorney who’ll charge and arm and a leg and do nothing.”
Before I could point out that here in Iceland we were the foreigners, she rushed on.
“Ben has no alibi, you see. When I woke up this morning, it was around five and already light, and he wasn’t in the bed next to me or in the shower, either. When I was dressing he came back from wherever he’d been and he was wearing his heavy jacket. His hands were freezing, like he’d been outside.”
“You spent the night here? At Hótel Brattholt?”
“It wasn’t on our original schedule but then Simon, you know he treated us all to this trip, don’t you, all of a sudden he asked Oddi, our tour guide, to drive us down here late last night so we could get over to that cliff early.”
“Wait a minute. Did you say Simon Parr paid for your trip?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “You think the other birders could afford this trip on their own? As soon as Simon won that big Powerball, he started planning it. First class all the way, air fare, hotels, food, private tour guide, whatever, he took care of the whole thing. Maybe he looked like an idiot with those ridiculous sideburns he’d started wearing, but he wasn’t stingy. Anyway, as I was saying, earlier in the evening he was all excited, saying he’d heard there’d been some kind of Egyptian bird spotted down here, a hookah or something.”
If she didn’t know a bird’s proper name it meant her husband was the birder. “I think you’re talking about a hoopoe, but those birds are…”
She didn’t let me finish. “This morning, when I asked Ben where he’d been, he told me he’d been out enjoying the fresh air. But I’m really worried! What if he did kill Simon?”
Belatedly, I snuck a quick look at the bathroom stalls. They appeared empty, but appearances can be deceiving. Lowering my voice, I said, “Dawn, you shouldn’t go around saying things like that to anyone, including me. The wrong person might overhear you.”
She ignored my warning. “You can help us, I know you can! I’d ask Elizabeth what to do because she knows all kinds of stuff, but she’s upset, and she’s gone back to the hotel in Reykjavik anyway, and these awful Icelanders, they want to jail everyone who doesn’t look like them!!” The waterworks started again.
Not my problem, not my problem, not my problem…
Oh, who was I kidding? I couldn’t stand to see anyone cry, not even a woman with an advanced case of xenophobia. Sighing in defeat, I asked, “All right. Why, exactly, do you think the police might arrest your husband for killing Simon Parr?”
“Because of the fight.”
“Fight? Before, you described it as an argument. Now you’re saying it was a physical fight?”
“There was some shoving. But there was another one, too, at last month’s birder meeting, when the Geronimos…”
“Geronimos?”
“The Geronimo County Birding Association, of course. They were having their yearly elections and Perry Walsh won, he’s his friend, but then he claimed he’d cheated because he knew he had enough votes to win and he was really mad about being accused of…”
The flurry of pronouns was confusing, so I stepped in to clarify. “This Perry person, he was Ben’s friend or Simon’s?”
“Ben’s friend, of course. Simon never liked him, said he was a crook.”
“Simon believed Perry Walsh cheated to win the election?”
She rolled her beautiful eyes. “Simon believed my husband cheated by stuffing the ballot box for Perry. Isn’t that what I said?”
Not really, but I let it pass. “Dawn, if Simon won a big Powerball, why would he care who won the presidency of a birding club?”
“He said it was some kind of honor thing.”
Only the misery on her face kept me from laughing. “An honor thing? Like, we’ll settle this at sunrise, and choose your weapons?”
She gave me a baffled look. “I don’t understand wha—’
My salvation arrived when at that precise moment, Bryndis opened the ladies’ room door. “Hey, Teddy, I was beginning to think you had drowned.”
Chapter Six
“What was that scene in the ladies’ room about?” Bryndis asked, on the drive back to Reykjavik.
“Just some woman upset about the murder.”
Bryndis took her eyes off the winding Ring Road to glance at me in surprise. “Her husband was the victim? I heard she went back to Reykjavik.”
“This one wasn’t the widow. Uh, there’s a sheep standing in the middle of the highway. It looks lost.”
She expertly swerved around the sheep and continued on. “Then why was she crying?”
“Worried, I guess.”
“You Americans worry a lot. We Icelanders, even though our volcanoes chase us down to the sea every few years, do we worry about it? No. We simply keep our bags packed. Speaking of volcanoes, there’s Katla again, over on your right. So beautiful, the way the sun makes rainbows on the ice. Maybe the old witch will erupt while you’re still here. Would not that be fun?”
“No.”
She laughed. “Volcano parties are the best parties. Everyone drinks and sings. Say, I have an idea. Tomorrow you are going with me to learn how to take care of Magnus and the foxes, so we will be busy all day. But Saturday, would you like to drive out to see Hekla, another volcano that’s even bigger than Eyjafjallajökull and Katla? In the Middle Ages people believed Hekla was the gate to Hell itself, that condemned souls traveled through it on their way to eternal damnation in a lake of lava. It’s a nice hike. Not the hike to Hell, of course, but through the valley surrounding Hekla.”
