Bonereapers
Page 24
“Maybe another patient has come. Drink your tea and I’ll be back when I can.”
“Vanya, wait.” Dinah was seized by a feeling of dread. “Is there a rifle somewhere in the hospital?”
“Nei. That would be silly.” She hied off down the hall, chuckling at the silliness.
Dinah bounded out of bed, draped a blanket around her, and went to the door of her room. She didn’t know whom to be afraid of or how to protect herself other than to hide. The main entrance and registration desk was to her right. She turned left and was ten yards down the hall, looking for an unlocked door when she heard Erika’s voice behind her.
“Dinah. Where are you going?”
She turned. “Nowhere, really. Happy New Year, Erika.”
“Godt Nytt År!”
Dinah walked back to meet her.
She carried a large white teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck. She pushed the bear into Dinah’s arms. “A keepsake. So that you won’t forget our time together in Norge.”
Dinah eked out a smile. Erika hadn’t heard about her encounter with the polar bear. She couldn’t know how deeply unlikely it was that she would ever forget her time in Norge.
“Here now, get back to bed.” Vanya shooed them back into Dinah’s room. “And after I’d gotten you properly warmed up.”
Dinah climbed back into bed with the bear. Erika sat in the visitor’s chair. Vanya trundled off and left them alone.
Erika looked down at her lap and rubbed her thighs. “The governor phoned Whitney and told him the murderer has been apprehended. I guess I was wrong about Mahler. He had nothing to do with either murder. But Tipton? I can hardly believe it.”
“Just like in the books,” said Dinah. “The least likely.”
“I thought I would be your ‘least likely.’” She pushed her hair out of her face and smiled. “Whitney gave us an abbreviated account. He said there’d been a fall and you’d been hurt.”
“A few scratches.” Dinah almost laughed at her imitation of Nordic stoicism. “I’ll be discharged tomorrow morning.”
“Then I’ll tell you good-bye now. The governor has given us permission to leave and Jake has ordered the plane to be ready at six. We’ll be back in Washington tomorrow morning. Senator Fry is staying over for a day or two. He says the two of you will take a commercial flight.”
Dinah toyed with the bear’s ribbon. “Have you told Maks good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“Is he being philosophical about it?”
“Maks is fine. He has written a new song. It’s very good. I think it will be a big hit. He plans to cut another album with his wife.”
“He’s married? I thought he was incurably in love with you.”
“I’m his romantic invention, the Fata Morgana glimpsed once and gone forever. Maks has a very nice wife.”
Dinah digested this news without remark. She didn’t understand marriage and it was beginning to feel as if she never would.
Erika said, “Colt has decided to drop out of the presidential race. He’ll serve out his term in the Senate. In the meantime, he’s going to use whatever influence he has to find Hannalore. Perhaps Inge will take pity on us.”
“I wish you good luck, Erika. And when I get home, I’m going to buy the entire list of Fata Morgana CDs.”
“I’ll send you a boxed set. But you must promise never to play them when you’re alone and drinking wine.” Her hair fell across her face and she got up to leave. “Well, adjø, Dinah.” She paused and turned back at the door. “There’s a Norwegian superstition that if someone who likes you puts a curse on you, the trolls and evil spirits will see that you’ve already been cursed and they won’t bother with you.” She made a funny sound with her lips as if she were spitting. “Tva tva. And so now you have been cursed.” She laughed—it was the first time Dinah had observed the phenomenon. It transformed her for a moment, and then she was gone.
Dinah tossed the bear into the chair Erika had vacated and closed her eyes. She was thinking about the missing Tillcorp documents and what Tipton had done with them when Vanya brought her a supper tray at 7:30.
“I didn’t want to wake you, but Thor called. He asked if I would permit you to have a glass of wine. I said only if he brings enough for me. He will be here soon so eat your food. I won’t put up with a patient who doesn’t eat and then gets tipsy.” She set the tray on the bed and stood back. “There is roast turkey and tyttebær sauce left over from New Year’s Eve dinner.”
“It looks wonderful, Vanya. Tusen takk.” Dinah dug her fork into a strong-smelling, gelatinous substance on the side of her plate. “And what’s this?”
“Lutefisk,” said Vanya. “Lye fish. I made it myself. It is special. For the holidays.” She had such a proud, expectant face that Dinah couldn’t turn up her nose, although it was an effort to push a lump of the stuff into her mouth. “Wow.”
“Ja. It’s godt.”
The phone in Vanya’s apron pocket rang. She answered, listened, and held it out to Dinah. Someone is calling you from Hawaii.” She handed the phone to Dinah and left the room.
Dinah spat the lutefisk into her napkin. “Hello.”
“Norris Frye called and said you were in the hospital. Are you all right?” It was Eleanor.
“I’m fine, Eleanor.” Again the Nordic stoicism, but what was the point in describing all of her travails to Eleanor? There was nothing she could do, even if she were present. “I’m afraid I have bad news about your hapai banana, Eleanor. Now that it’s been saved for posterity here in Svalbard, the Seed Savers in Hawaii are bound by an international treaty to lend it out to anyone who asks.”
“Don’t worry about that. You didn’t I think I would send a real hapai to that ice cave until I knew the whole story, did you?”
Dinah laughed. “I should have known.” She tried to sound casual and offhand. “How is Jon?”
“Don’t worry about him either. He met a gorgeous Hawaiian girl over on Maui the day after Christmas and took her out last night. Today his head’s in the clouds. Looks like we’re gonna have a real Happy New Year.”
Dinah felt a small shock of disappointment. She was glad that he wasn’t pining away for her, but it was humbling to be so quickly relegated to Last Year’s Number. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one with fickle genes. “Aloha, Eleanor. I’m going to stay over in Norway for a few days. I’ll come and see you as soon as I get back.”
She had no sooner hung up than Thor walked in. His expression was somber.
“Did Tipton die?”
“No. He may lose his leg, definitely some toes, but he’s stable and out of intensive care.”
“Remind me,” she said, “never to jump to conclusions based on your face.”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “I brought wine and good news to go with it.” He set a paper sack on the chair with the bear and brought out a bottle of Tuscan wine and three glasses. “Vanya will come for her share in a while. She’s treating one of the British tourists for frostbite. Dessverre, large quantities of gin and Svalbard’s weather don’t mix.” He poured two glasses of wine and handed one to her. “Skäl.”
“Skäl,” she said and took a sip. It was a Brunello and very tasty. “Is there more good news?”
He gave the teddy bear a quizzical look and set it on the floor. “I have arrested the man who shot you?”
“Who? How did you find him?”
“Brander Aagaard has confessed.”
“Aagaard! But why?”
“He claims he didn’t intend to hit anyone. He’s nearsighted. He thought he was aiming above Erika Sheridan’s head, trying to frighten her away from the church. He thought she had gone there to collect something meant for him.”
Dinah’s thoughts sprinted through the chronology of events. A
agaard must have seen Erika in the street the night Eftevang was murdered and marked the color of her parka. When Dinah met him in the Kaffe & Kantine, he was lying when he pretended not to know whether it was Valerie or Erika who’d been out of the hotel the night before. He’d probably recognized Maks Jorgen, as well. Dinah had been wearing Erika’s parka that day, but the café was dusky and smoky and she’d taken the coat off too far away for him to see it clearly. “The something he went to collect, would that be the package of documents Tipton had promised Eftevang? The evidence of Tillcorp’s skullduggery in Africa?”
Thor’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. He appeared particularly pleased with himself. “The documents are on a CD I found in his hotel room. I’m having it checked for fingerprints. Aagaard will testify that Teilhard left the CD for him in the church and told him where to find it. He will testify that Teilhard told him these were the documents he had copied from Valerie Ives’ computer and promised to Eftevang. After the holidays, when the medical examiner in Trømso has returned to work, we will discover other evidence against Teilhard.”
“And you’ll keep your job?”
He sat down and savored his wine. “If I want it.”
She ate a bite of her roast turkey, not sure whether to follow up on that or not. She mulled Aagaard’s explanation. Something jarred. “He’s lying, Thor. I was walking out of the church. If he thought Tipton’s drop had gone haywire and Mahler or Sheridan had found out about it and sent Erika to get back the CD, he would have assumed she’d already found it and had it in her pocket. He would have been aiming to bring her down, if not actually kill her.”
“If that’s so, you’re very lucky.”
The repetition of that phrase sounded like a temptation to any listening trolls and evil spirits. Dinah reached out and knocked her fingers against the back of the wooden chair.
Thor said, “From the little part of the CD I have reviewed, there will be an investigation of the agriculture minister’s connection to Tillcorp and his role in promoting their interests. The government will, what do you say? Clean house.”
Dinah was too cynical to believe that Tillcorp would suffer any negative consequences in the U.S., regardless of how outrageous their actions had been. The scandal would be reported and then it would blow over and Tillcorp’s public relations team would set to work to gloss over the whole ugly mess in Africa. They would tout their incredible scientific advances—fruits that could vaccinate and fish the size of a school bus, and they would prosper. She tried to remember the Bible verse, something about the wicked in great power thriving like the green bay tree. Jake Mahler may have lost one prospective president, but he had bought himself another. He probably owned the movers and shakers of both parties. Americans may as well get used to the taste of genetically modified foods. The country’s amber waves of grain would all be patented Tillcorp products by the end of the decade unless there was some kind of a food revolution.
Thor said, “If you like, I’ll take you out to my cabin tomorrow and introduce you to Crockett and Tubbs.”
“I’d like that. Do you suppose there’s a chance of seeing the northern lights in the next few days?”
He smiled. “You can never predict the Guovssahas. They are spontaneous and transitory.”
Like human infatuations, she thought. But why fight it?
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