The Puffin of Death

by Betty Webb

  “Adele, in what way did Simon ch—?”

  “Adele!” Lucinda called, stepping outside the goat barn. “You said you wanted to see the horses!”

  I looked over to see the Geronimos heading toward the corral, where three Icelandic horses stood looking bored. Still curious about Simon Parr’s Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality—and aware that I had only seen Mr. Hyde in action—I followed Adele over to the corral where the Icelandic horses were trying to pretend they didn’t hear the Geronimos calling, “Here, horsey! Here, horsey!”

  Behind the birders, Oddi rolled his eyes. I limped over to join him. “I’m surprised to see you here. I would have thought that given all that’s happened, you’d have lined up another tour.”

  He glanced at my foot. “I am surprised to see you here, too. But your injury does not seem as bad today as yesterday. You are a tough girl. As to my own presence here, Mrs. Parr asked me to stay with them until they return to the U.S. so that is what I will do.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Elizabeth St. John, who never used her husband’s name. “Who hired you originally? And how?”

  “Mr. Parr found me on the Internet. I have a big website, with many generous recommendations. He closed his eyes and quoted, “‘Oddi Pálsson showed us the Iceland that is seldom seen by the average tourist,’ and ‘Oddi Pálsson kept us safe even while glacier-walking.’”

  Kept us safe? There’s irony for you. “What do you think of them?” I asked. “The Geronimos?”

  “Nice people.”

  “Any one in particular who’s given you trouble?”

  “No.”

  I tried again. “How about Lucinda? She can be rather difficult.”

  “Not with me.”

  “Tab Cooper?”

  “He gives no trouble, either.”

  “His girlfriend Judy?”

  “Also no trouble. And it is the same with the rest of them.” Maybe it was my imagination but I could swear I saw the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  Since pumping the tour guide for information was getting me nowhere, I left him for a try at Enid Walsh. “Considering everything that’s happened, I’m surprised to see you guys out and about,” I said, sidling up to her.

  She managed to tear her eyes away from the horses long enough to give me a wondering look. “I could say the same thing about you, Teddy. How’s your foot?”

  “All better,” I lied. To keep the conversation going, I started talking about Magnus. After telling her about the care and feeding of orphaned bear cubs, I discussed the time and expense it took to transport them from one zoo to another across international waters.

  “You can’t simply put them in a crate and load them into the belly of a plane,” I said. “Their crate has to be constructed just so, they have to have access to food and water….And there’s a pile of paperwork to fill out, too, both in Iceland and in California. These days I’m drowning in red tape.”

  When she made a face, I realized I had struck a nerve.

  “Red tape, ugh! It’s given me and Perry nothing but grief. As far as I’m concerned, the market’s being hamstrung by red tape and paperwork. Write this, write that, attach affidavit this to affidavit that, connect provenance A to provenance C…The whole thing’s gotten to the point where red tape has made it almost impossible for small businesses to survive.”

  “I know what you mean.” Writing up invoices that claimed fake gemstones were real had to be a major hassle.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, she said, “Poor Dawn loved our jewelry. She bought several pieces from us.”

  “When was this?” Before or after the Walshes got caught pawning off fakes?

  “Not long before we came here. A tennis bracelet and a necklace with matching earrings. Ben wants to bury her wearing them.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “This morning. Perry and I stopped by his room to see how he was doing.”

  I put the idea of fraudulent gemstones aside for a moment. “I hear he’s pretty broken up.”

  “He’s a mess.”

  “Why do you think Ben…?”

  Before I could finish, one of the horses farted in our direction. Whether done intentionally or not, the result was that the birders moved away from the corral. I moved with them.

  “Disgusting creatures,” I heard Lucinda mutter.

  “What were you about to ask about Ben?” Enid said, as I followed the group toward the mink enclosure.

  “If he was divorcing Dawn, why would he be so broken up about her now?”

  Another wondering look. “Divorcing? Who told you that?”

  “Uh, Dawn.” And a couple other people.

  Enid snorted. “Another one of her exaggerations. Sure, they hit a rough spot a couple of months ago, but that kind of thing happened with them all the time, threats of divorce, him moving out, him moving back in, then back out, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Next thing you know they were all lovey-dovey again, but what can you expect? No matter what kind of crazy stunt she pulled on him, Ben was always a fool about her. Now, excuse me, but I want to hear what Oddi’s saying about minks in the wild.” With that she turned away.

  Properly shushed, I broke away from the group and headed toward the foxes.

  Loki and Ilsa had been fed an hour earlier, so now the only thing they needed was a clean enclosure and fresh bedding, so as I worked, I considered everything I’d learned.

  Other than jealousy, Ben Talley had no reason to kill Simon Parr—or at least I hadn’t found one so far—but despite Enid’s assurances, he could have killed Dawn. All you had to do was tune into the late-night news to see how often men killed the women they supposedly loved. Of course, it sometimes worked the other way, too, but Dawn was dead and Ben was still among the living.

  Something else Enid said struck me. Dawn bought jewelry from Hope Diamond Enterprises. Had the stones turned out to be fake, and Dawn threatened to go to the police? Or, given her love of money, even tried a spot of blackmail? No crook with any common sense would knowingly sell fake gems to a friend who lived in the same small town, but crooks often displayed a lack of common sense. Look at my own felonious father. A wealthy man in his own right, he’d embezzled millions from his own company merely for sake of an adrenaline rush.

  Crime could be as addictive as crack cocaine.

  Chapter Twenty

  Bryndis didn’t like what I’d proposed on the way home from the zoo, but she grudgingly went along with it. After we stopped by her apartment to clean up, she directed me to a small shop where I could buy flowers. The bouquet of white and cream dahlias—they were out of lilies—cost a small fortune, but I couldn’t show up at Ben’s hotel room empty-handed.

  “What do you think about this sympathy card?” I asked, showing her a pretty one with a picture of a sad-looking whopper swan on the front. The message inside was written in an elegant Icelandic script.

  “That’s a party invitation.”

  “Oh.” I put it back and picked up a card with a pied wagtail on it.

  She looked at the inscription. “My heart goes out to you for your loss. Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  “The card says that?”

  “It says the stuff about the heart. I said the rest.”

  “Of course I’m up to it.”

  “Mmph.”

  A few minutes later, as she parked her Volvo in one of the visitor’s spots at the Hótel Keldur, she said, “After what happened at Thingvellir, you would be wise to stay away from those people. Ragnar is no longer in danger of being arrested again, so you are taking a needless risk.”

  “Right, that’s why this is the last time I’ll talk to any of them, especially Ben.”

  “Mmph.” She was beginning to sound like Inspector Haraldsson.

  You could tell
how expensive the hotel was from the high-end cars in its underground parking lot. In the guest spaces, Mercedes and Land Rovers—the better to drive on ice-covered mountains—ruled the day, with a few Saabs, Lexuses, and Acuras thrown in to keep things interesting. Their elegance made the cars in the staff parking spaces look shabby by comparison: older-model Toyotas, Suzukis, Volkswagens, Renaults, and a sprinkling of American subcompacts.

  “I need to get this interview with Ben out of the way. Afterwards I’ll treat us to that play you were telling me about.” Deflection, deflection, deflection.

  “It is a one-man show, not a play. You do not feel guilty, intruding upon the poor man’s grief?”

  My attempt at deflection having failed, I sighed. Yes, I did feel guilty, but I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. As we walked toward the elevator, I made one final try. “Aren’t you going to lock your car?”

  “No one locks their cars in Iceland.”

  Right, because why would one cousin steal another cousin’s car? I kept forgetting how closely related all Icelanders were and how much their blood ties affected their behavior toward one another.

  “I will not go up there with you,” she said, parrying my deflection again. “Instead, I will wait in the bar, where I might be able to afford a bottle of Perrier.”

  “My treat.” I handed her five thousand kronur, courtesy of the Gunn Zoo. It sounded like a lot, but in actuality was less than forty dollars American. “Maybe it’ll get you a beer.”

  “Not in the Keldar. Promise you will be careful, okay?”

  “I’ll warn Ben there’s a Valkyrie waiting for me in the bar, and if I don’t turn up within a half hour, she’ll charge in to rescue me with her sword and shield.”

  “Smart mouth.” But she smiled.

  We parted ways in the lobby, me for the elevator, her for the bar.

  Enid had given me Ben’s room number, but due to the labyrinthian hallway, I took a couple of false turnings before I found it. Finally, standing in front of the black enamel door, I took a moment to get my courage up, and even then my knock sounded hesitant.

  Ben opened the door almost immediately. He looked like hell and smelled like he hadn’t bathed in days. “Oh. It’s you.”

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “Elizabeth said she’d stop by.” He eyed the dahlias. “Well, you might as well come on in. The more the merrier, I guess.”

  He led me into a suite identical to Elizabeth’s, all black and white and chrome. The only spots of color came from several vases of wilting flowers set around the room. He took my bouquet and stuffed it into a vase already filled with dying lilies.

  “I’m so sorry…” I began.

  “Yeah, yeah. Want a drink? The Chivas is gone but there’s some Gray Goose left.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He slumped down on the sofa and grabbed the half-empty glass off the table next to it. He took a sip of the clear liquid inside, made a face, took another sip. “I’m not really a vodka guy, but any port in a storm, right?”

  He was drunk, which may or may not have been a good thing, so I took a deep breath and started in. “Ben, I’m confused about a couple of things.”

  “Join the club.” More Gray Goose.

  “Someone told me you packed a Glock in your suitcase on the way to Iceland.”

  “Then someone told you wrong. I thought about bringing it, but then I had a rare attack of common sense and left it at home.”

  “I also heard you got into a shoving match with Simon at the Phoenix airport.”

  He took another sip of vodka, this time keeping the glass in his hand, like he was afraid to let go. “Sounds like the same little someone who told you I packed my Glock. But yeah, I got a little physical with the guy. Served him right, too, him all of a sudden acting like a big shot just because he won a pile of money.”

  “The altercation—at least the story I heard—was about Perry Walsh being elected president of the Geronimos, not about money. Is that true?”

  “Another small nugget of truth. Adele was running for president, but Simon rigged it so his good buddy Perry Walsh won. Adele’s as straight as they come, but Perry’s a crook. God knows what’ll happen to our treasury when he and his Enid get their hands on it. So to an extent, the ‘altercation,’ as you call it, was about money, and its looming vanishing act.”

  Since he was being so cooperative, I decided to go ahead and ask the big question. In vino veritas, and all that. “Did you kill Simon?”

  He made a sound somewhere between a growl and a bark. “Don’t be an ass, woman! I know damned well that my dearly beloved wife is the one who pointed the finger at me.” He finished the rest of the vodka in one big gulp, then stared mournfully at the empty glass.

  “Dawn wouldn’t do anything like that. She was a lovely person.”

  “Dawn was a lying bitch.”

  “Uh, well, she could be rather spirited.”

  “An unfaithful slut.”

  “Marriage can certainly be diff…”

  “A narcissistic, thieving, ungrateful whore.”

  ‘You know, maybe I will have that drink.” I hurried to the wet bar and poured myself a finger of vodka, which wasn’t my thing, either, but as the man said, any port in a storm. “Thieving, did you say?”

  “Greedy slag always went for the pot of gold, never mind the rainbows.”

  Keeping the wet bar between us—just in case—I took a not-so-wild guess. “You’re talking about Simon Parr again, right?”

  He toasted me with his empty glass.

  I bolted my Gray Goose. “I’ve heard so many conflicting stories, Ben, so help me get this straight. Were you and Dawn going to get a divorce or not?”

  “Yeah, but just think of the trouble I could have saved myself if I’d killed the bitch years ago!”

  Ooo-kay. There was an ice pick lying next to the ice bucket. I picked it up. Again—just in case. “My friend’s waiting for me downstairs. He’s six-foot-six and knows karate.”

  “Lucky you. Did you know I went to prison for her?”

  He certainly wasn’t talking about Bryndis, so I took another not-so-wild guess. “For Dawn?”

  Another toast.

  “She ran that man down, not you, right?”

  He began another toast, then noticed his glass was empty. With a determined look on his battered face, he stood up and staggered toward me.

  I was saved from deciding what to do—run screaming into the hall or pour him another drink—when someone knocked at the door.

  “Don’t move, I’ll get it!” I rushed to the door and threw it open before I realized I still held the ice pick in my hand.

  “For chopping ice or self-defense?” Elizabeth St. John asked, gazing at the pick. She was carrying a large tray that held several covered dishes and a gigantic carafe of coffee.

  My smile felt phony even to me. “Just refreshing my drink. Want one?”

  “There’s been enough drinking around here already.” She entered the room and set the tray down on the chrome and glass coffee table. “What are you doing here, Teddy?”

  “Just stopped by to extend my condolences.” I motioned toward the dahlias.

  “I’m sure Ben’s grateful for your kind thoughts, but it would be better if you left him alone now. He needs food, not more vodka.” With that, she snatched my ice pick away, grasped me firmly by the arm, and escorted me to the door.

  “That did not take long,” Bryndis said, when I met her in the bar. Ragnar had joined her and they were drinking Ölvisholt Lava.

  “Interviewus interruptus.”

  Bryndis snickered, but Ragnar didn’t get it. “Isn’t that Latin?”

  ***

  After assuring Ragnar and Bryndis that my injured foot was almost back to normal, we walked from the hotel
to Harpa, the concert hall, where they treated me to an English-language performance of How to Become Icelandic in 60 Minutes, a one-man show written and performed by one of Ragnar’s friends. Bjarni Haukur Thorsson had spent enough time in the U.S. to realize how strange some Icelandic customs might appear to Americans, and did his best to explain them. Bjarni’s take on Iceland’s infamous “shower police,” whose indignities tourists had to suffer before taking a dip in the Blue Lagoon, had everyone in stitches.

  “But enough of high art!” Ragnar chuckled an hour later as we left Harpa. “Now we go get drunk!”

  If I had known he was taking us to the Viking Tavern, I would have begged off, but I didn’t, and so to my horror a few minutes later I found myself sitting two tables away from the remaining members of the Geronimo County Birding Association. Minus Ben and Elizabeth, of course.

  Lucinda scowled at me across their table, but Adele and the Walshes gave me half-hearted waves. As for Judy Malone and Tab Cooper, they were too engrossed in each other to notice anyone else in the room.

  “There is the woman Mr. Parr was so unkind to,” Ragnar said, gesturing toward Adele. “Instead of looking sad, she should be happy to know he will be unkind no longer.”

  Seeing Adele, who was looking depressed again, I mentally congratulated myself on my luck in finding Joe: Joe the kind-hearted, Joe the faithful. Speaking of Joe, hadn’t he once told me one of the main motives for murder was thwarted love? I studied Adele’s face more carefully and came to the conclusion that she didn’t look like a murderer. But neither had Ted Bundy.

  Unsettled, I returned my attention to Bryndis, who after a brief glance at her iPhone, began questioning Ragnar about his latest job as a film extra on some big Hollywood production being filmed at Vik. It was still early in the evening—for Icelanders, anyway—and the noise level in the tavern was low enough that I could hear their conversation.

  “Why do the producers think Americans will pay money to see a movie about berserkers?” she asked him. “They were a Viking phenomenon, and most Americans do not know what they are.”

  Ragnar shook his head. “Japan had their ninjas, America the lone cowboy, yet both are popular there. I am certain it will be the same with berserkers.”