Death & the Viking's Daughter

by Loretta Ross

  Copyright Information

  Death & the Viking’s Daughter © 2018 by Loretta Ross.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2018

  E-book ISBN: 9780738753911

  Book format by Cassie Willett

  Cover design by Ellen Lawson

  Cover art © Tim Zeltner / i2iArt.com

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ross, Loretta, author.

  Title: Death & the viking’s daughter / Loretta Ross.

  Other titles: Death and the viking’s daughter

  Description: First Edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Midnight Ink, [2018] |

  Series: An Auction Block mystery ; #4 |

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017038805 (print) | LCCN 2017042165 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738753911 () | ISBN 9780738752372 (alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Auctioneers—Fiction. | Missing persons—Investigation—

  Fiction. | Private investigators—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3618.O8466 (ebook) | LCC PS3618.O8466 D47 2018

  (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038805

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightinkbooks.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my big brother,

  Jerry Dean Hicks, whose service in Vietnam inspired

  Death Bogart’s service in Afghanistan. R.I.P. Semper fi.

  one

  “Now, there’s a body in the rosebushes. Is that gonna be a problem?”

  The stairway that climbed the south wall of the living room rose at a gentle incline. There was a floral-patterned carpet runner down the center of the hardwood steps and a sturdy bannister. The whole thing was beautifully proportioned, elegant without being pretentious.

  Wren Morgan leaned on the newel post and studied Myrna Sandburg.

  “You mean like an old grave? Like from the 1800s?”

  “Oh no. We put him there in ’92.”

  Myrna, Wren judged, was in her mid to upper seventies. Her white hair was cut in a fluffy bob and she wore pumpkin-colored polyester slacks and a pale gold sweater that appeared to have been crocheted by hand. She did not look like a homicidal maniac.

  “Well, who was he?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just some drifter that was passing through. We never knew his name. We call him Bob. John Doe seems like such a cliché, don’t you think?”

  “Mrs. Sandburg, I don’t understand.”

  “Well, it was because of the eminent domain, you see.”

  “Not really … Was the government trying to take your house?”

  “They didn’t actually try, per se. But at one time they were certainly talking about it. You know, this road out front, it doesn’t really go anywhere now.”

  “Yes, I noticed that.” It was one of the things Wren found attractive about the property. It was the last house on a two-lane blacktop. County maintenance on the road ended just past the driveway and the surface quickly deteriorated before disappearing under the lake. Anyone living there would have a decent road to drive on, but the traffic would be all but nonexistent.

  They were only about four miles outside the East Bledsoe Ferry city limits, but it would be as quiet as living far out in the country. Thomas, her burly old tomcat, and Lucy, her three-legged hound, should be safe from traffic without having to be penned up in a small yard. Wren had a weakness for strays.

  “Well,” Myrna said, “back in the early nineties some of the county road board members started talking about putting the road back through. It would be massively expensive to take it back along the old route, though, because when the dam went up and Truman Lake came in it covered more than a mile of roadway. But a couple of them fellers got the bright idea that if they ran the road right through my living room and down the back of our land, they’d hit a narrow point on the lake and it wouldn’t cost so much to build it. Well, we weren’t having any of that. So we talked to a lawyer and he told us that if there was a cemetery on the property, the government couldn’t take it. So we went to the coroner’s office and asked if he had a body we could have, and he did.”

  “I see,” Wren lied. She frowned, staring at the opposite wall. The room was an absolutely hideous shade of pink, but it could always be painted. “And they just had a body lying around that they let you have?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Of course, it was just bones by that point. Some hunters found him in the woods sometime in the mid-eighties. They couldn’t tell the cause of death, but they figured it was probably from exposure. They never did identify him and no one came looking for him, so they said we might as well lay him to rest. So we put him in the rosebushes, with a nice little stone and everything.”

  “Okay, I understand. And did that get rid of the government?”

  “It did. Well, that and they found out it was still going to cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. They decided maybe they didn’t need a back road shortcut to Toad Suck that bad after all. So, do you like the house?”

  Wren took a minute to look around again before she answered. It was a sprawling combination of country farmhouse and Queen Anne Victorian. The rooms on the first floor were large and airy, with wood floors and high ceilings. There were four bedrooms, one of them tiny and tucked under the eaves, a wraparound porch, and a real turret. Most of all, the house just felt good. It had such a warm and welcoming atmosphere that even the knowledge of Bob’s presence didn’t put too much of a damper on Wren’s enthusiasm.

  “I do,” she admitted. “Though it is a bit bigger than what we were looking for. I’ll have to have my boyfr—I mean, my fiancé come out and look at it.” She ran her fingers over the ring on her left hand, reminding herself that it was real.

  “You aren’t looking together?”

  “We thought, to start out, we’d each go look at houses on our own, as our schedules allow. When we find one we think might work, we’ll have the other check it out and go from there.�
�

  “But you’re going to have him come look at this one?”

  Wren smiled, understanding the older woman’s eagerness.

  “Yes, I am. I know you’re anxious to sell. Won’t it make you sad to leave, though?”

  “Oh, it will. But time marches on. And it hasn’t been the same since Brendan passed. I’m going to Chicago. My oldest son and his wife have built me a little cottage in their back yard, so I can live close but still have my privacy. I’ve never lived in a city before. It should be interesting. Always something to see or do.” Myrna took a light jacket from a hook by the front door. “Come outside and let me show you the property.”

  Wren obediently followed her out. November had settled, melancholy and dismal, over the Missouri countryside. The year was flying by, Halloween a memory already and Thanksgiving just a couple of weeks away. The thermometer in her truck had read in the low forties when she arrived, so it was still too warm for the snow that was forecast. More likely, if the heavy gray clouds produced anything it would be a stinging, cold rain.

  It had been a dry autumn and they could use the moisture. But it would still be depressing, as the fading daylight and falling temperatures always were.

  The house faced west, where the narrow, winding ribbon of road led to the main highway to the north. East Bledsoe Ferry, where Wren had grown up and lived all her life, was to the northwest. To the southeast was nothing but woods and lake. A small herd of horses occupied a field across the road and the nearest neighbor was almost a mile away.

  “It’s peaceful,” she observed.

  “That it is. In the spring, of a morning, the woods fill up with songbirds and you can watch the sunrise over the lake from the east window in the turret. On summer nights there are thousands of tree frogs and crickets singing in the darkness, and owls, and whippoorwills.”

  “It sounds lovely.”

  Myrna led her around the house to the southern side yard. “There are sixteen different kinds of rosebush planted here. Oh, I wish you could see them in bloom! I always get such a showing from them. Bone meal. That’s the secret. Lots of minerals.”

  There was a small, simple gray stele in the middle of the winter-

  bare canes. Myrna gave Wren a shrewd look.

  “The kind you buy at the store,” she added. “Not Bob’s bones. Bob’s in a box.”

  “Okay, great! Thanks for clearing that up.”

  They strolled on around the house. The yard was circled by field-fence, but it looked more decorative than something intended to keep anything out. On the back lawn there was a grape arbor and a clothesline. The gentle mound of a storm cellar rose in the southeast corner, and the northeast corner was obviously a vegetable garden, tilled and mulched now in preparation for the coming of spring.

  Beyond the fence, the land sloped down to a wooded hollow.

  “There’s a creek that runs across, along there.” Myrna pointed. “It empties into the lake. It’s not big enough to fish or anything, but it’s good for wading. The lake is shallow at the edge there and there’s a sand beach, so you can swim if you don’t mind a few fish and a little mud. The government has an easement all around the lake, so the property line actually stops fifty feet shy of the normal waterline.”

  “Any flooding?”

  “A little, when there’s really a lot of rain. At its highest, though, it’s never gotten as high as the tree line.”

  They continued on, back to the front. Wren was silent, pensive.

  “So, what do you think then?”

  “I think it’s nice,” she said.

  In fact, she thought it was too nice. She considered herself a simple woman with simple needs. This house and land seemed like more than she had a right to claim. It was too elegant. It was lovelier and more comfortable and more spacious than she deserved.

  But it wasn’t only about her anymore. She was looking for a home for Death. He’d had a rough time of it. He’d been wounded nearly to the death, left disabled and out of work. His parents had been killed in a car accident, his brother had been lost to him, seemingly forever, and he’d been betrayed and abandoned by his wife. Alone, in pain, homeless and penniless, he hadn’t complained or given in to despair. He’d soldiered on and fought his way back.

  If there was anyone in the world who had a right to a safe, comfortable home, it was Death. Wren wanted that for him, wanted it more than anything. And she could see them living here. She could imagine herself cooking in the big, light kitchen, the two of them hanging out in the living room on a lazy Sunday night. There was a small room downstairs that Death could use for a home office. In December they could hang Christmas lights from the gingerbread trim and put a lighted tree in the bay window.

  She could see them relaxing on the lawn on a summer evening. Lanterns hanging from the trees and fireflies chasing among the horses in the field across the road. Cold beer and baseball on the radio in the twilight with Thomas lounging on the porch rail and Lucy in the side yard.

  Digging up Bob.

  “So you’re going to have your young man come look at it?” Myrna asked again.

  “Yes, I am. I have your number, I think. I’ll have him call you and arrange a time.”

  “Well, I’ll look forward to meeting him, then. What’s his name?”

  “Death Bogart.”

  “Deeth?”

  “Yes. It’s spelled like ‘death’ but pronounced ‘deeth.’ His mother was an English Lit professor. He’s named after a detective in an old mystery series by Dorothy Sayers.”

  “Wow.” Myrna blinked and tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. “That makes Bob sound downright boring.”

  Death Bogart pulled his 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee off the state highway and down onto a blacktop road that had seen better days. Off to his left, up against the edge of the autumn woods, stood a faded billboard, weathered to the point that it was barely legible:

  OZARK HILLS SUPPER CLUB

  Cold Creek Harbor—4.1 miles

  Members Only

  The road wound north, through the trees, following the line of the lakeshore so that every now and then Death caught a glimpse of silver water through the branches. The edges of the road were ragged, with chunks of asphalt falling away onto the verge, and the surface was littered with potholes that would swallow a lesser vehicle. It was narrow and he hoped not to meet any cars coming the opposite direction. Both would have to drop their outer wheels off onto the soft edge to pass, and the hills and curves were dangerous.

  At the end of the road was a rusted old bridge that hadn’t been maintained, and it was barricaded and no longer safe to drive on. A gravel path led away to his right, toward the lake, and opened out into a pair of parking lots. The lot on the left, against the creek, contained a single car: a clean, newer-model sedan. From this parking lot, a wooden footbridge crossed the creek. A split-rail fence lined a path through a sparse stand of trees, and in the distance Death could see a collection of unpainted buildings, weathered dark gray. They looked like the outbuildings of an abandoned farm, but the path was neatly maintained and there was a flag flying above the largest building.

  The lot to Death’s right was crowded with a familiar collection of cars and trucks, many of them with the logo of Keystone and Sons, Auctioneers, on the side. They were clustered in front of a low, sprawling building with the Ozark Hills Supper Club logo fading away on the front. At the northwest corner of the building stood a massive metal pole, its yellowed white paint flecked with rust. It had a large bracket at the top, but the sign it had once held was long gone. Behind the main building, a small, tall building stood right up against the water’s edge. A sign painted high up on the side read Ozark Hills Supper and Yacht Club Boathouse.

  Death drove slowly past the collection of vehicles, but Wren’s truck was not among them. Michael Keystone, just coming out of the building, waved to him. He was the youn
gest son of Sam Keystone, one of the twin brothers who owned the company. Death rolled down his window to talk.

  “No Wren today?”

  Wren had known the Keystone family since she was a child and had started working for them right out of college. She was an assistant auctioneer and an expert appraiser.

  “She’s supposed to be along in a bit,” Michael said. “We thought she was with you? She said she was looking at a house.”

  “Yeah. We’re not looking together right now. We both have an idea what we want so she’s looking at some and I’m looking at some, and if either of us finds one that looks promising, then the other will go see it and see what they think.”

  “That makes sense. Well, she should be along anytime now. Why don’t you wait for her? You can have my parking spot. I’m right up here by the door.”

  “Oh, I can park over there somewhere.” Death’s combat injuries had left him with a severely compromised lung capacity, a weakness that he hated to acknowledge. He had a handicapped parking tag in his glove compartment, but stubbornness (his brother called it “idiot jarhead pride”) kept it there.

  Michael waved one hand dismissively. “You might as well take this spot. I have to leave anyway. The electric company was supposed to have the lights on for us, but apparently there’s a line down somewhere. They can’t tell us how long it’ll be, so I’m going to go get a generator and some gas to run it.”

  “Need any help?”

  “Maybe getting it started when we get back. We haven’t used it for a couple of years, I don’t think. Go on in and take a look around. This place is nuts. Just take a flashlight.”

  Death backed out of Michael’s way, then maneuvered his Jeep into the vacant spot when the younger man was gone. He dug a flashlight from between the seats and climbed down, popping the collar of his denim jacket against a stiff breeze. Dead brown leaves chased each other across the gravel lot and a high-altitude wind sailed small black clouds along the underside of the silver-gray overcast.

  The building had an air of faded grandeur that was out of place on the deserted lakeshore. The walkway across the front was paved with tan stones in an ornamental pattern and empty fountains flanked the double entrance door. Broken metal poles embedded in concrete outside the entrance suggested that a canopy had once covered the door.