The Puffin of Death

by Betty Webb

  I marveled at her equanimity. “It won’t be so beautiful if the thing erupts.”

  “The last time Hekla erupted was in 2000, and she is not due again until maybe 2032, so you’re safe. It is Katla, the witch, who is overdue.”

  “All the same…”

  She steered the Volvo around another sheep. “See, there you are, being American, worrying about some far off problem, while we Icelanders believe everything will work out in the end. Even if it does not work out, worries will change nothing.”

  Bryndis was right, of course. Worry alone never solved anything unless you took the necessary steps to solve whatever problem you were worrying about in the first place. For instance, look at Dawn Talley, nee ‘just Dawn.’ Worried sick that her husband might have killed Simon Parr, when all the while, the scenario was unlikely for two reasons. One, the chances of anyone smuggling firearms onto a flight these days was practically nil, even if Dawn’s husband had stowed it in his luggage, not his carry-on. Two, regardless of the feud between Simon Parr and Dawn’s husband, the idea that Ben Talley, owner of a big restaurant chain, would commit murder over Dawn or a disputed vote at some birding club was beyond ludicrous. We worry-wart Americans weren’t that crazy.

  As the Ring Road swept past green pastures, another element of our conversation began to bug me. If Dawn was really all that worried about her husband’s possible involvement in the murder, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep her mouth shut? Why seek out a total stranger—in a hotel ladies’ room, no less—and blurt out possible motives, however far-fetched? Was she truly that unintelligent? Or maybe she wasn’t dumb at all, and for her own reasons, had decided to throw suspicion toward her husband. If so, I guessed she’d soon be sharing her “concerns” with Inspector Haraldsson. Whatever was going on with the woman, I felt well out of it.

  By the time we reached the barren lava fields outside Keflavik and the Ring Road turned north toward Reykjavik, lost sheep sightings had dwindled to nothing, and the only holdup was traffic congestion. But Icelanders being the polite drivers they were, we encountered few problems, and were soon back in Bryndis’ cozy apartment on Baldursbrá Street.

  “So. What would you like to do now?” she asked, after changing out of her riding clothes. Apparently no longer concerned by the events at Vic, she was looking forward to the rest of the day. “Shop on Laugavegur? Hit some museums and galleries? See Hallgrimskirkja, the church built to look like the basalt columns at Vik? Or maybe we could take a nice walk down to the harbor and I can show you Harpa, our new concert hall? Harpa’s built right over the bay and has become quite the tourist attraction. Coming back we could see the Solfar Viking boat sculpture. And get hot dogs.”

  “Hot dogs?”

  Bryndis now wore gray linen slacks and a blue silk blouse. With her hair unpinned, the combination of chic sportswear and shoulder-length blond tresses made her look more like a fashion model than Dawn. But to be honest, Bryndis was at least ten years younger, and Dawn, stressed about her husband’s possible involvement in Parr’s murder, wasn’t having a good day. Stress can play hell with a woman’s looks.

  “You will love Bæjarin’s Beztu Pylsur. They serve the best, most famous, pylsurs—hot dogs—in the entire world,” Bryndis continued, unaware of my flashback to the morning’s sad events. “So famous that Bill Clinton and Madonna and that bad boy Charlie Sheen and James Hetfield from Metallica have all eaten there. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, when he was having the Glasnost meeting with Ronald Reagan, they say he ate there, too. I will treat you to a big eina með öllu, which means ‘one with everything.’ If a pylsur could help end the Cold War, it will help us recover from what happened at Vik. I keep seeing that dead man’s face. Ugh!”

  So much for Bryndis’ Icelandic stoicism.

  “Murder aside, I did enjoy the horses,” I said. “And yes, a walk down to the harbor sounds wonderful, as well as the whatsis, the hot dogs. But you don’t have to treat me, because the Gunn Zoo’s picking up the tab for everything.” Within reason, of course. The tab for hot dogs wouldn’t break Aster Edwina Gunn’s bank.

  “Then we will have two beztu pylsurs! Each! And Cokes!”

  ***

  On this balmy August afternoon, the temperature hovered around seventy degrees Fahrenheit in downtown Reykjavik, keeping sidewalk musicians and other performance artists busy on Laugavegur Street. Across from an upscale women’s wear shop, two “Vikings” dressed in traditional garb play-acted a swordfight for tourist dollars, while a few doors down, a musician—her Chihuahua sitting patiently at her side—played a rousing rendition of Flatt & Scruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on her banjo. Cheered by this touch of home in such an unlikely setting, I threw a five-dollar bill into her banjo case.

  “Takk fyrir,” she said, repeating in English, “Thank you.”

  Although our stroll down Reykjavik’s colorful streets was pleasant, the image of Simon Parr’s mutilated face kept intruding in my mind. True, both times I’d seen Simon in action, he’d been behaving badly, but try as I might, I couldn’t keep the memory of his ecstatic face on television as he held up that check for 610.3 million dollars. Yet his generosity with his friends proved that he wasn’t a complete churl.

  Unlike animals, people are complicated. A bear acts like a bear all the time, and a tiger acts like a tiger. Even a lizard always acts like a lizard. But people constantly surprise you. Self-centered men risk their lives rescuing kittens from burning buildings. Beautiful women who act as if they don’t have a brain in their heads can be hiding a level of intelligence that would impress an astrophysicist.

  Besides Dawn’s husband, who else wanted Simon Parr dead? That wasn’t the only question nagging at me. I was also plagued by the suspicion that I had missed something at the murder scene, something important, but as much as I racked my brain, I couldn’t remember.

  By the time Bryndis and I reached the Ingolfsstraeti turning toward the harbor, I’d tried to distract myself by contributing to so many buskers that I’d run out of American dollars and had to switch to Icelandic króna. I would have bankrupted myself if not for Bryndis, who put a warning hand on my money arm.

  “Better save some for later,” she said. “While I was dressing, I received a call from Ragnar. He has invited us to a party tonight at his apartment. It is on Skólavörðustígur, in the middle of the arts district, so on the way, you will have plenty of opportunities to make our street performers happy.”

  Just before reaching the harbor, we paused in front of a small store named Ingolfsstraeti Bókabúð. Despite its difficult name, it was obviously a bookstore. But what caught our attentnion was the big sign in the window, printed in both Icelandic and English.

  MEET AUTHOR ELIZABETH ST. JOHN

  6 P.M. SUNDAY

  HEAR THE FAMOUS AUTHOR TALK ABOUT HER NEW BOOK

  * * * TAHITI PASSION * * *

  AND THE PROFOUND NEW LOVE

  HER HEROINE JADE L’AMOUR

  DISCOVERS WHILE CONDUCTING AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG

  IN AN EXOTIC TROPICAL PARADISE.

  FREE REFRESHMENTS

  Bryndis looked at me. “Uh oh.”

  “‘Uh oh’ is right. Think we should we go in and tell them what happened at Vik this morning?”

  “We had better. I know the manager, and would hate to see her spend her kronur on refreshments for a talk that will not happen.”

  The bookstore wasn’t as large as the three I’d visited yesterday. Having no room for a café, nothing but books lined the four walls. Banks of free-standing floor shelves provided more space for books, leaving only narrow aisles for customers, of which there were many. At first I couldn’t see how such a small store could host signings for even unknown authors, let alone a superstar like Elizabeth St. John, but as Bryndis led me toward the back, I saw a small alcove near the restrooms. In the alcove stood a table topped by the author’s photograph and a sma
ll stack of books. Unless there were more in the back room, they would surely run out.

  “Follow me,” Bryndis said, weaving her way through the racks. “Kristin is usually in her office.”

  From the entrance, the door to the office had been invisible because some clever artist had painted it to look like a filled bookshelf, but when Bryndis pushed against a book titled Landnámabók, it swung open. Inside a room the size of an American closet sat a young woman staring into a computer screen with a cross expression on her face. Small, fine-featured, with harlequin glasses perched on a tiny nose, with her light brown hair shorn in a pixie cut, she looked like a cranky elf. Upon seeing us, the elf pushed her chair away from her child-sized desk and greeted Bryndis with a broad smile and a rush of Icelandic.

  When Bryndis introduced me, Krista immediately switched to English. “An American zookeeper! I got my MFA at Georgetown University, and while there, I visited the National Zoo to see the pandas. Does the Gunn Zoo have pandas?”

  We talked animals for a few minutes—sorry, the Gunn Zoo had no pandas—before Bryndis got around to delivering the bad news about Elizabeth St. John.

  Krista’s reaction was unexpected. “It is kind of you to warn me like this, but I have already heard about the unfortunate occurrence at Vik. No problem. Not for us, anyway. Elizabeth called this afternoon to assure me that her signing was still on.”

  “Still on?!” I squeaked.

  “A strong woman, that one.” Krista’s voice was filled with admiration. “Just like her heroine Jade L’Amour. Yes, she is sad, of course, and yes, she cried a little as we spoke, but she said that—how did she put it?—oh, that the show must go on, that she had made her promise to us and her readers, and despite her personal misfortune, she will honor it.”

  Honor. Where had I heard that word earlier? Then I remembered. In the restroom at Vik, Dawn Talley had described the argument between her husband and the dead man over their birding organization’s vote as being a matter of “honor.” Briefly, I wondered if I should inform Inspector Haraldsson, then decided not to. Let the grump solve his own crimes.

  Krista was still talking. “It is a terrible thing to say, but all the publicity will help the signing. I have been worried about it, but now everyone will come to see the woman whose husband has been murdered.”

  “But will they buy books?” Bryndis asked.

  Krista’s grin didn’t diminish. “I will make them feel like murderers themselves if they don’t.”

  Krista’s expertise as a saleswoman became apparent when she insisted on showing me around the shop. Without sounding the least bit pushy, she managed to talk me into buying five books: four coffee table books featuring the scenic wonders of Iceland, and the fifth, an anthology of Icelandic sagas.

  “You will especially love Njál’s Saga, which has so many killings in it that even our historians sometimes lose count,” she said, swiping the Gunn Zoo’s Visa through the card reader.

  Books are heavy. Especially coffee table books and anthologies. Fortunately, my going-away present from my mother had been a Coach Studio Legacy handbag that doubled as a backpack, so I slung my haul over my shoulder and set off with Bryndis again, slumping only slightly. Fortunately, the rest of the walk to the harbor was downhill.

  “Sorry about that,” Bryndis said, as we trudged along. She, too, had been cajoled into buying several books, but unlike me, she’d purchased lightweight paperbacks. “I should have warned you about Krista,” she said, with a rueful smile.

  Ten minutes later we arrived at Reykjavik’s famed concert hall. A modern glass and steel building jutting out over the water of Reykjavik Bay, Harpa’s irregular colored panels, each a different shape and size, mimicked the translucent effect of stained glass windows. At night, Bryndis explained, the building provided an extraordinary light show as the colors flashed on and off, twinkling like a million stars going nova in a synergetic ballet. By day, you could stand inside the great hall and watch cod fishing boats steam into the harbor.

  As much as I enjoyed the tour through Harpa—in addition to hosting concerts and operas, the concert hall also provided a forum for post-modern painting and avant garde sculpture—it was nice to get back outside into the pollution-free Reykjavik air. And to tell the truth, I was starving, and looked forward to the trip across the street to Bæjarin’s Beztu Pylsur, which I now realized simply meant “the best hot dogs in town.”

  The joint wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t even indoors. A red and white shack fronting the harbor, it attracted enough customers that we had to stand in line for ten minutes before giving our order. Since the one picnic table was already occupied by a group of Japanese tourists taking snapshots of each other as they ate (what did that remind me of?) we milled around the sidewalk with other tourists and native Icelanders until we heard our number called.

  We ate while strolling down the harbor road. Gulls, gannets, and kittiwakes sailed over our heads, shrieking their sharp cries. Ahead of us, but miles distant, loomed Mount Esja, heralding the gateway to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Because the peninsula was reputed to be as mythic as it was picturesque, I felt a brief pang that I wouldn’t be traveling there. However, in less than two weeks, there was a limit to what I could see and do. As we rounded a curve in the harbor, the sight of Sólfar—Sun Voyager—a sculpture that resembled an old Viking longboat, took me out of my gloom. It had been positioned to face the setting summer sun, and golden late afternoon light gleamed along its steel surface.

  Very photogenic, as proved by the gaggle of tourists around it, all snapping pictures.

  I started to take out my own camera, then froze. Something had nudged my memory back at the hot dog stand, and now here. But what? Surely that was impossible, since I’d never been in Iceland before.

  Still…

  “Teddy, why do you frown?” Bryndis’ voice startled me.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “There seems to be something familiar about this.”

  “An attack of déjà vu? Ah, reincarnation! Perhaps one of your ancestors was a Viking and his genes are urging you to hop on Sólfar and sail away to loot and pillage.”

  Although the image of a red-headed Icelandic ancestor made me laugh, it wasn’t impossible. The early Vikings had taken thousands of villagers as slaves during raids on the Irish coast, so who knew?

  But I didn’t think so. There was something about the scene before me that…

  “Excuse me, miss, but do you mind getting out of the way so I can take a picture of that thing?” An expensively dressed American, from his accent, a New Yorker, sub genus Brooklyn.

  “No problem.” As soon as I moved, the man stepped forward, hefted a Nikon D4, and began to shoot.

  That’s when I remembered.

  Vik.

  Dead man.

  Nikon D4 lying on the moss.

  Could Simon Parr have taken a photograph of his killer?

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning I returned to the Reykjavik City Zoo to help Bryndis with the animals we were readying for transport and learn the finer points of their daily routines. The temperature had climbed to sixty-five degrees, and a gentle breeze blew in from the North Atlantic, making the animals frisky. Cows lowed, chickens clucked, pigs squealed. Only occasional yelps from the seal pool reminded me this was no mere barnyard.

  After tossing a few fish to the seals, Bryndis led me to the Icelandic foxes’ temporary enclosure.

  The six-pound foxes were little different in habit and diet than the Gunn Zoo’s coyotes and wolves. Shy, as most wild animals are, they kept to the back of their enclosure while we worked around them. We checked on their automatic watering system, making certain it wasn’t clogged, and at eleven-thirty on the dot—zoo animals are keenly aware of time—filled their bowls with a commercial dog food mixture. The only difference was that we added bits of chopped poultry, eggs, and a couple of frozen
mice, which more accurately copied their diet in the wild.

  Ten-month-olds Loki and Ilsa would accompany me back to the Gunn Zoo. Already separated from the rest of the zoo’s foxes for standard quarantine protocol, they were housed in a large pen near Regina, the reindeer. Ilsa, the steel-gray female, sat near a rock and watched curiously as I helped Bryndis clean the area, but Loki, the slightly paler male, ran back and forth along the fence line as if panicked by our intrusion.

  “He is more angry than scared,” Bryndis explained. “Monday, they received their shots for travel, and Ilsa didn’t seem to mind. I distracted her with a piece of chicken. But Loki hates the vet and any disruption in his routine, no matter how minor, so when we get to California, I will instruct your canidae keeper to be careful around him. Loki may be small, but his teeth are sharp.”

  Looking at the two foxes, it was hard to believe they would turn white in the winter, which in the northern wild, served as protective coloration against the deep snow. Although the commercial freezing units Aster Edwina had spent a fortune on would keep the temperature in our Northern Climes exhibit low, I wondered if they would fool Mother Nature. We’d find out in October, when the foxes were due to start morphing.

  Once the foxes were taken care of, we moved into the small quarantine shack where the two-year-old puffins were housed. At first I couldn’t see the injuries that Sigurd and Jodisi had received that insured an early death in the wild, but as Jodisi hopped toward me, hoping for a fishy treat, I saw that her injured wing drooped lower than the other.

  “She can hardly flap it, let alone fly,” Bryndis said. “Same with Sigurd. They are lucky that the parents of the little girl who found them at Vik brought them to us or they would have wound up as dinner.”

  The most dangerous time in a puffin’s life, Bryndis explained, came during their maiden flight to sea, which took place at night, when the former nestling, called a lundepisur, was around six weeks old. “They can get confused, and turn back toward their burrows. Sometimes they injure themselves trying to land, and that’s when birds of prey, or even foxes, get them. That’s what happened to Sigurd and Jodisi. The injuries, I mean. But like I said, they were rescued before they became meals. They’ve acclimated well to captivity, and have already raised one chick. Since we already had enough puffins, I drove it down to Vik and released it in the middle of the night, as the other lundepisur were flying away. And off she flew, a big, strong girl!”