The Puffin of Death

by Betty Webb

  To my surprise, I found myself fascinated by the adventures of Jade L’Amour. By the eighth chapter, the plucky archaeologist had saved a child from drowning in a tsunami, been clubbed over the head by an irate village shaman, and had fallen down a hidden well, all of which played merry hell with the Zac Posen evening dress she’d worn to a diplomatic reception an hour earlier.

  Using her impressive martial arts skills Jade had also disarmed a knife-wielding art smuggler, hot-wired his treasures-packed van to escape the lava flow from an erupting volcano, romped through a passionate night with a French diplomat, and uncovered a relic at her dig the next morning that proved the Vikings had visited Tahiti in the early tenth century. It was only when I reached chapter eleven, which took place during a fire walk, that I remembered something odd.

  Benjamin Talley had woken up everyone at hotel at two in the morning, panicked that his wife had left for a walk at ten and hadn’t returned.

  He’d never explained why it took him four hours to sound the alarm.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, I informed Bryndis that my plans for the next few days were complicated enough for me to need my own car. She argued, of course, insisting that she could always find a ride back and forth to the zoo, but I put my foot down, pointing out she had been generous enough.

  “I might be gone for a couple of nights, and you shouldn’t have to scramble at the last minute to find rides.”

  She grumbled some, then gave in and told me the name of a car rental place. An hour later, I was following her to the zoo in a brand new Volvo, this one a bright red, the better to find it in a snow bank—if there’d been any snow.

  Magnus appeared thrilled to see me, but I suspected the little bear would be thrilled to see anyone who arrived with food. He burrowed through his breakfast, grunting and smacking his lips. After he’d finished his meal of fortified milk and fresh fish, I spent the rest of the morning caring for the foxes and the puffins. Skipping lunch, I bade farewell to Bryndis and the other zookeepers and headed for Gullfoss. The waterfalls were approximately seventy miles from Reykjavik, so I arrived at the bend of the glacier-fed Hvítá River around two.

  When I pulled into the crowded parking area I couldn’t see the falls, but I could hear them. The roar was so loud I almost wished I had brought along earplugs. Walking through the parking lot, I spied Oddi’s blue van, which meant the Geronimos had already arrived. A few steps further and the famous double falls came into view. To my surprise, they weren’t fenced off by safety railings. Apparently Icelanders weren’t as litigious as Americans.

  The falls were magnificent, but at the same time, terrifying. Set at seemingly impossible right angles to the river itself, they stair-stepped over an avalanche of boulders into a vast canyon before rejoining the lower reaches of the Hvítá. Their almost unearthly beauty was even more enhanced by a double rainbow arching over them. Although I hadn’t come here to boggle at scenery, I couldn’t help myself, and for several minutes I simply stood there taking in the view, enjoying the caress of the fine mist rising over the cliff edge.

  Finally, after being jostled one too many times by enthusiastic tourists flocking around the cliff-edged overlook to snap selfies, I came to my senses and started looking through the crowd for the Geronimos. They were nowhere to be seen. Guessing they had trekked up the hill to the gift shop or cafeteria, I climbed the stairs to the visitors’ center.

  The Gullfoss Café was a large glassed-in dining hall under a two-story, beamed ceiling. The aroma from a big vat of the cafeteria’s famous lamb stew reminded me I hadn’t eaten lunch, so I got in line, loaded my tray with soup and big chunks of bread, then wandered through the crowded restaurant until I found the Geronimos ensconced by the window closest to the waterfall. Elizabeth St. John had also beaten me here, but she was too engrossed in a conversation with Adele to notice my entrance.

  The moment he spotted me, Perry Walsh invited me to join them.

  “Have you heard about Dawn?” he asked, as soon as I’d settled myself at the table.

  Since Dawn had supposedly been an old friend, I tried to act more grief-stricken than I was. “I…I only found out yesterday, and it’s, well, it’s all so horrible. At least I have all those happy memories of her.” God, I felt like a hypocrite.

  Perry’s wife Enid looked so distressed I suspected she’d been crying. “Poor Benjamin, he went back to Reykjavik with her…” She cleared her throat. “With her body. I’ve never seen a man so complexly undone. Regardless of the trouble those two have had lately, there was never any doubt in my mind he was crazy about her.”

  “No doubt at all,” her husband echoed. “Well, I’m glad you’re here, Teddy. Our little group has been dwindling, so it’s nice…”

  Lucinda interrupted his welcoming words. “Ah, the mysterious zookeeper turns up again,” she said, acid dripping from her voice. “Tell me, Miss Bentley, to what do we owe the questionable pleasure of your company?”

  Perry’s shock rendered him speechless.

  Not so Elizabeth St. John, who rose to my defense. “Mind your manners, Lucinda. Teddy was a great friend of Dawn’s, and I, for one, don’t blame her for not wanting to be alone right now. Grief shared is grief halved.”

  “Sounds like something from one of your books,” Lucinda grumbled, but after a hard stare from Elizabeth, she fell silent.

  Judging from their empty plates and bowls, they had been in the cafeteria for a while. I’d eaten nothing but a packet of trail mix before leaving the zoo, so despite the tension at the table, I picked up my spoon and started in. The soup was as delicious as the guidebook promised, and I was so starved that I went back for seconds. When I returned to the table, much of the tension had dissipated, but the sadness remained.

  “That poor child,” Enid was saying, her old eyes red. “Yes, she was foolish to go walking alone in the dark so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that she slipped and fell into the bay, but oh, what a loss. So young, so beautiful.”

  “Not quite so young and beautiful anymore,” Lucinda ventured, after a nervous look at Elizabeth.

  Possibly thinking the same thing, Elizabeth said nothing. After all, Dawn had once been her husband’s mistress, and “European” marriage or not, she must have been relieved when Simon sent the former model packing.

  Ironically, Adele showed a sympathy similar to Enid’s. “Beauty is no guarantee of happiness,” she said. “Myself, I wonder if what happened was really an accident.”

  The table fell silent.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, when it because obvious no one else would.

  “Dawn and Ben had a big fight last night. I know, because my room was right next to theirs. I couldn’t make out what they were yelling about but whatever it was, it was serious enough that she slammed out of the room and took off. Then, when that Inspector Haraldsson asked Ben why she’d gone for a walk alone so late, I heard him say he thought she was getting some exercise, and since Iceland was so safe, he figured he didn’t have to worry. He never mentioned the fight.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “You mean Ben stayed in the room? Didn’t go after her?”

  “I didn’t hear him leave,” Adele answered, “so he must have let her go by herself. In retrospect, a big mistake.”

  But doors weren’t always slammed. They could be closed so quietly that the person in the adjoining room might not hear a thing. As it was, Ben’s story about that night had been bothering me, too, and I wondered if it had bothered anyone else.

  “Adele, did Ben explain why he took four hours before he sounded the alarm?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he did later. The inspector talked to him twice. The first time, Ben was so broken up he wasn’t making much sense. The next time the inspector talked to him in his room.”

  Like me, Elizabeth remained troubled. “Dawn could be a handful, but do you really think Ben would do anyt
hing to hurt her?”

  Adele looked at her in shock. “That’s not what I’m saying! It’s just that I think…I think maybe what happened to Dawn wasn’t an accident after all, that maybe she committed suicide.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, Oddi, the tour guide, eager to turn the conversation away from murder and suicide, ushered us down the stairs for a final look at the falls. The crowd had thinned somewhat, but the jostling back and forth still worried me, so I positioned myself several feet back from the cliff edge. Not that it made any difference. One heavyset man bustled toward me, apparently intent upon taking a selfie with the falls as backdrop. As he passed, he knocked into me, shoving me closer to the edge than seemed safe. Before I could return to my original position, he swung his camera around, inadvertently slamming his elbow into my head. This final blow tipped my balance and I began to reel backwards. If Elizabeth hadn’t grabbed me and pulled me back, I might even have gone over and been smashed on the rocks below.

  “Watch what you’re doing, you idiot!” she bellowed at the man.

  He didn’t hear, or pretended not to, and snapped another selfie.

  Unnerved, I let Elizabeth lead me to the foot of the stairs. “You okay, Teddy? You’re white as a sheet.”

  I tried to make light of the incident. “Oh, I always look like this when almost falling off a cliff.”

  “People!” she fumed. “There should be a law against such stupidity. C’mon, let me take you up to my car. I’ve stashed a flask of tequila in the trunk to help me over the rough spots, and you look like you could use a good belt yourself. It’s El Conde Azul Blanco. Potent, but smooth as butter.”

  Smooth or not, the thought of tequila on top of the lamb soup turned me off. “Thanks, but no thanks. I…”

  “What’s going on?” It was Lucinda Greaves. She’d left the group and was walking toward the staircase. “You look like a ghost, Teddy.”

  “Didn’t you see?” Elizabeth asked.

  “See what? So many people were in the way I could hardly see the waterfall.”

  “Some fool almost knocked Teddy off the ledge.”

  A mean look at me. “She must be exaggerating.”

  “Lucinda, for your information…”

  Eager to avoid a catfight, I interrupted. “I’ve changed my mind, Elizabeth. That shot of tequila sounds terrific.”

  Maybe the El Conde Azul Blanco was as good as Elizabeth claimed, but after two bowls of lamb soup and a heap of fresh-baked bread, one sip of tequila proved it made a lousy dessert. I was still tasting it when I climbed back into the Volvo. Elizabeth, in a generous mood, had talked me into following them to Haukadalur, famous for its geysers, and even to Thingvellir, whatever that was, the next day.

  “Poor Simon shelled out so much money for this trip and the hotel room would only sit empty now that poor Dawn is, ah, no longer with us, and Ben’s gone back to Reykjavik. Since you and Dawn were old school friends, I’m sure she’d want you to enjoy yourself.”

  Yet another person who professed to know the wishes of the dead. Still, I was happy to accept Elizabeth’s offer since it furthered my goal of proving Ragnar innocent of Simon’s murder.

  ***

  From Gullfoss, I followed Oddi’s van and Elizabeth’s leased Mercedes to Haukadalur, where two famous water spouts put America’s Old Faithful to shame. The larger one—Great Geysir—had lent its name to similar geysers the world over, but for the past few years, the smaller one, Strokkur, had begun to spout more frequently. After Gullfoss, watching a couple of geysers rise into the air seemed less impressive, so while Oddi and the birders stood around waiting for another eruption, I wandered down the well-marked path that led past numerous geothermal springs, one of them a bright turquoise blue. Given the boiling waters, I found it amusing to see signs warning tourists not to dip their hands in the springs, but the guidebook informed me that every year numerous hand-dunkers had to be treated for burns.

  Like most of Iceland’s landmarks, no opportunity had been lost in attracting money-bearing tourists. During my walk, I passed a golf course, a museum, a souvenir shop, a clothing store specializing in Icelandic sweaters, a snack shop, a more formal restaurant, and a plethora of signs pointing the way to good fishing spots on the Hvítá River. For the ice-walking crowd, there were directions to the nearby Langjökull glacier.

  An hour later, my sight-seeing finished, I caught up with the Geronimos as they were checking into Hótel Geysir, which despite its name, was actually a series of small chalets set alongside the Hvítá.

  My room was small but bright and afforded a nice view of the hot springs. Spaced a distance from the others, it gave me more privacy than I’d expected. A good thing, because I had phone calls to make and free Wi-Fi to utilize.

  After glancing at my watch, I discovered it was almost six, which meant that it was around ten in the morning in Gunn Landing. Joe always held a conference with his deputies at ten, and the chances were good my mother would be out shopping, so I decided to text everyone. Given my lack of experience with using my phone as a keyboard, I’m a lousy texter, but I was finally able to send off a message. I knew the text might alarm Joe, but it couldn’t be helped. He hated it when I snooped around crime scenes, but I hoped he would come through for me if only for the chance to deliver a warning and/or refer me to the proper authorities. I would deal with the fallout when I made it back to Gunn Landing.

  PLZ RUN CK ON LUCINDA GREAVES & JUDY MALONE & BENJAMIN TALLEY & TAB COOPER & ADELE COBB & PERRY WALSH & ENID WALSH. ALL LV N GERONIMO COUNTY AZ PSBLE MURDR SUSPCTS BT NO WORIES IM BEING V CARFL & AROUND PEPL ALL TIME. NO SOLO STUF I PROMSE. MUCH LUV & XOXO!

  My mother was a different matter. She hated texting but she hated having her shopping interrupted even more.

  SRRY NOT CALL EARLIER BUT LVLY TRP 2 GULFOS, BG WATRFAL, NOW GYSIR WIT FRENDS & FMUS WRTR ELIZBT ST JOHN. NO WORIES. ALWYS WEAR BRA & SUNSCRENE & CREAM ON FACE EV NITE. XOXO!

  Most of that text was a lie. I can’t sleep in a bra, I hate sunscreen, and my freckles are allergic to night cream.

  Next up was a text to my boss, Aster Edwina.

  TEDDY HERE, MAGNUS A DOLL, EVRYTHNG OK, THX FOR WONDERFL VACAY.

  Romantic, familial, and work-related duties taken care of, I set up the laptop and started typing in last night’s events and today’s conversations. Only when entering my conversations with Perry Walsh did I remember my old friend Cowgirl Spencer. A real classmate instead of a made-up one, whose parents ran a large Angus cattle ranch a few miles outside Apache Crossing. She had always loved reading Agatha Christie mysteries almost as much as she loved competition. Back in school, she’d been dubbed Cowgirl Spencer not only because of her background, but because she and her horse, Big Mac—yes, we were allowed to board our own horses at Miss Pridewell’s Academy—won more blue ribbons than the rest of us put together. I vaguely remembered hearing that after graduation Cowgirl finished up her education at the University of Arizona, married, divorced, and was now running her aging parents’ spread.

  What was the name of that ranch? I should remember, because we used to make fun of it. Oh, yeah the Lazy S, and teenagers being teenagers, we’d promptly reduced that to its lowest common denominator.

  I wondered if, by any chance, Cowgirl had ever run into any of the birders. She didn’t seem the birding type, but it was worth a try. And given her love of one-upmanship, if I worded a message in the right way, she might bestir her lazy S enough to help me out. The fact that I had already texted Joe for the same information made no difference; gossip can be more revealing than police records.

  A quick search of the Internet brought up the Lazy S website, where I found a picture of Cowgirl Spencer wearing a Stetson and as good-looking as ever, albeit slightly weathered. She must not apply night cream on a regular basis, either.

  As with most websites, this one offered a contact button. I clicked o
n it and wrote an email:

  Howdy, Cowgirl!

  Theodora Iona Esmerelda Bentley here, emailing you after all these years from the icy reaches of Iceland. Somehow I’ve gotten myself involved in a murder investigation up here, and remembering how much you love mysteries, I was wondering if you can help me out. Do you know anyone who belongs to the Geronimo County Birding Association? I’ve looked them up on the Net but can’t seem to find out any information at all. You know me—I was never good at that sort of thing.

  Big fat lie there, but knowing Cowgirl Spencer, she’d jump at the chance to show me up.

  The people I’m most interested in finding out about are Simon Parr, Elizabeth St. John (yes, the famous writer!), Adele Cobb, Benjamin and Dawn Talley (she’s a model and used to be known as just “Dawn,” you might have seen her picture on the cover of Cosmo), Lucinda Greaves, Judy Malone (she’s Lucinda’s daughter), Perry & Enid Walsh, and an actor named Tab Cooper. If you know anything about them, especially anything dastardly, email or text me back or give me a call if you’re not too busy shoveling manure. My cell number is 1-831-555-7691.

  P.S. Even gossip will be appreciated!

  Your old Pal,

  Freckle Face

  After reading the message several times, I hit “send” and returned to my typing. I had finished typing the conversation I’d had with Elizabeth prior to Inspector Haraldsson’s appearance when my phone rang the opening bars of “Born Free.”

  I looked at the phone and saw a 520 area code. Arizona.

  I snatched the phone off the bed and answered it. “Freckle Face here. Could that possibly be Cowgirl Spencer, calling me all the way from what she used to refer to as Butt Hole, Arizona?”

  A familiar cackle. “Don’t forget much, do you, you little snit? Yeah, it’s me, and yeah, I’m still living in Butt Hole, but you had me the minute you typed the word ‘murder.’ So which one of my ex-husband’s fine feathered friends did you kill? If you need bail money, count me out. I’m broke. You wouldn’t believe how much cows eat. When you emailed, I was online doing my accounts, and believe me, they’re not pretty.”