Bonereapers

by Jeanne Matthews

  The clerk shook his head. “No, sir. I have not seen the weather forecast.”

  “What about Sergeant Lyby?” entreated Dinah. “There must be a policeman downstairs guarding the crime scene, right?”

  The voucher lady turned to Dinah. “What crime scene?”

  “Will you hold a moment, sir?” The clerk put a hand over the receiver. “She means the fitness room, madam. There was a mishap earlier today. There are no police, but we have locked the door for safety reasons.” He returned to the telephone, unflappable as a boulder. “If you call the desk at nine tomorrow morning, sir, we will know if the sleigh ride is possible. If not, the Svalbard Museum will be open. Or you can take a tour of Mine Number Three, which is interesting. It was the last coal shaft to be mined manually.”

  “Call Polar Travels,” demanded the voucher lady. “I made this reservation six months ago. I’m not paying a thousand kroner for a dinner in Longyearbyen that I paid for already in London.”

  “Their London office is closed for the holiday, madam. I will ring them first thing on Monday.”

  Dinah was at the end of her tether. “Are there no police of any kind whatever who can be reached in this town?”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve!” The clerk’s equanimity was clearly raveling. “Like everyone else in the world except the employees of this hotel, they have plans. If you are ill and need to be helicoptered south to Tromsø, dial one-one-two. Otherwise, you will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  It crossed Dinah’s mind to request that helicopter. She still had a bad feeling, a Nordic sense that the darkness was closing in on her, that it was inevitable, and she would have to face it alone.

  She gave herself a shake. It was childish to be freaked out by a twerp like Tipton Teilhard. She knew what he had done now, so it wasn’t as if he could sneak up on her. And she didn’t have to spend the evening alone. Lee seemed approachable. Or she supposed she might even foist herself off on Senator Keyes, or Jake Mahler and Herr Dybdahl, or Senator Sheridan and Erika. A fraction of an instant’s reflection and she rejected all of those possibilities. By now, she wouldn’t be surprised if Brander Aagaard had been released on his own recognizance. If she knew which hotel he was staying at, she’d call him.

  It was an hour until midnight but, behind her, a few members of the British tour group had already broken into a maudlin, off-key rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And auld lang syne.

  Those maniacs would be partying all night. All she had to do was make herself congenial and blend in for a few hours. Eventually, some of them would retire to the second floor and she would tag along until she could escape into her room and lock the door.

  She picked her way back through the crowd to the big stone fireplace where the singers were holding forth.

  For auld lang syne, my jo,

  For auld lang syne,

  We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

  For auld lang syne.

  A soft, dumpling of a man with a thatch of gray hair that made him look like a chinchilla draped an arm around her shoulder, nuzzled her earlobe, and crooned. We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine…But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld…lang…syne. If anyone had struck a match, his breath would have been combustible.

  Dinah disengaged herself and moved into a vacant chair away from the fire. She tossed her coat across the back, but she was still too cold to take off her sweater.

  We two have paddled in the stream,

  From morning sun till dine;

  But seas between us broad have roared,

  Since auld…lang…syne.

  If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with murder, she might have a shed a sentimental tear for her auld lang syne. She wondered what Jon would be doing when the New Year tolled across the seas in Hawaii, but checked herself and banished the thought. As for her not-so-auld lang syne, Thor Ramberg, she couldn’t let herself think about what he was doing or with whom. She was too angry. Even if he was no longer in charge of the investigation, even if he had no experience working a murder case, even if his superiors had it in for him, he ought to be here, the slacker. He should be here to see that no additional murders sullied Longyearbyen’s pristine reputation.

  And surely you’ll buy your pint cup,

  And surely I’ll buy mine;

  And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

  For auld…lang…syne.

  Dinah harked back to all the clues she’d missed. Tipton’s mother served on the Board of the American Council of Arts with Portia Warren. Why had she not made the connection? Zeb Warren was Sheridan’s Republican rival. Apparently, Portia and/or Zeb had co-opted Tipton and turned him into a mole. He must have passed on the information to Warren that Mahler would be traveling with Sheridan to Norway. And for some reason, he had murdered Fritjoe Eftevang. He’d probably boosted the knife when he went into the kitchen to supervise the making of Keyes’ sandwiches. And how easy it would have been for Tipton to send an e-mail from Sheridan’s computer. He wouldn’t have needed to hack into the account. He was the techie, the trusted security guy. He would have had Sheridan’s password and could have gone in and monkeyed with the account whenever he wanted.

  The band launched into “Norwegian Wood” and the chinchilla look-alike led his off-key choir in a rousing sing-along.

  I once had a girl,

  or should I say…

  Dinah couldn’t stand it. She wasn’t feeling congenial enough to last through another forty-five minutes of this gin-fueled concert until midnight and the ultimate chorus of “Auld Lang Syne.” It was too…fatiguing. Too emotionally…emotional. She picked up her coat and headed back toward the ladies room for an illicit cigarette. It had been a hellacious year and, if she wasn’t going to be kissed at midnight, she deserved the license to do whatever else she pleased with her body, whatever else she deemed soothing and pleasurable. Anyway, this would be her very last smoke. Her birthday resolution hadn’t taken, but at the stroke of midnight, she would swear off tobacco forever more.

  She went into the ladies room and found it blessedly empty, but not quiet. She could still hear the merrymakers’ voices raised to the rafters, butchering “Norwegian Wood.” She rested her purse on the counter and dug around for the pack of Petterøes with both hands. Mittens, chemical warmers, chocolate mints. Another New Year’s resolution would be to carry a smaller purse and less stuff. Not every outing was a polar expedition, for crying out loud. She found the cigarettes at the bottom, slightly squashed, fished the matchbook out of the cellophane sleeve on the pack, and lit up. There was a chartreuse chaise longue under an Art Deco poster of a 1930’s jazz club. She threw herself down and brooded. There were a couple of half-filled plastic glasses on the side table, one with a blotch of red lipstick. It reminded her of Valerie’s lipstick.

  She inhaled indulgently. Recklessly. Like a character in an old movie. Like Bette Davis in All About Eve. A Bette Davis quote popped into her head. “Everybody has a heart. Except some people.” Wasn’t that the truth!

  She took a few more puffs, but the Petterøe wasn’t as soothing as she’d hoped. It left a bad taste in her mouth. She dropped it into a plastic glass. The ember sizzled in the un-drunk gin for an instant and died. She laid her head back on the chaise, closed her eyes, and wished herself a Happy New Year.

  “I wish I could…”

  The door opened. There was a blast of “Norwegian Wood.” She opened her eyes, but a brick crashed onto her head, ending wishes and music together.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Something was tugging at her, rooting under her back and shoulders, pulling on her arms, panting like a beast.

 
Bear!

  Dinah came to with a convulsive jolt. She was lying on her back and somebody in a black ski mask was trying to take off her coat. She punched him in the face as hard as she could.

  “Ow-oh!” He grabbed his mouth and toppled over on his back.

  Pain rocketed down her right arm and into her hand. Disoriented, she rose up on her elbows and wriggled away from him on her back. Her head felt as if she’d been clobbered by a wrecking ball. It took her a second to regain her senses, to realize that her hands were naked and ice-cold, to comprehend that she was in a fight for her life.

  She rolled over on all-fours and scrabbled to her feet, but her feet sank in deep snow. She clutched her injured hand. In the headlights of a car, she saw blood dripping from her knuckles onto the snow. She must have hit a tooth.

  “Give me that coat.” Tipton took off his ski mask and righted himself. He had his back to the headlights and she couldn’t see his face, but he was wearing the parka he’d worn the day they toured the vault.

  She looked down and saw that she was wearing his huge, down-padded coat. He had unzipped it and ripped open the Velcro collar. She rezipped and thrust her hands in the pockets as she backed away from him. “How’d I get your new coat?”

  “I put it on you so you wouldn’t be recognized. The Brits helped me drag my drunken girlfriend to the car. But now I want my coat back.” He slurred his words, as if he were talking through a fat lip. He moved toward her, miring to his knees in snow. He spread his arms to keep his balance. In one of them was a rifle.

  “Where are we?” She tried to walk backward, but she felt like a fly on flypaper. Lifting her feet was a labor. They were weighted down by the heavy snow.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Whose car is that?”

  “Ditto.”

  She glanced around at the barren, snow-covered tundra and took another step backward. Was that dark structure sticking up in the distance the colliery beside Løssluppen Hole? That place was probably jumping tonight. If it was still night. She had no idea how long she’d been out. The year had probably changed. The weather had definitely changed. The wind had died. There were even a few stars. The only things that hadn’t changed were the darkness, the cold, and the expanding depravity of a murderer.

  She said, “I’ve already told Ramberg and Lyby that it was you who killed Valerie. The best thing for you to do is to make a run for it. You can go to Barentsburg, escape to Russia.”

  “You didn’t tell the police. I heard you asking. They’ve taken the night off. Nobody knows where they are.”

  “I told the bartender at the Beached Whale. Tobejus, he knows what you did.”

  “If you complained to him about finding a fingernail in my sweater, he probably took it as sour grapes, the whining of a jealous lover.” Tipton trudged forward faster than she could trudge backward. “We’re just a couple of romantic young people who came out here to make out and lost our way. Unfortunately, you freeze to death before I can bring help.”

  “If that’s your story, you can’t shoot me.” She turned around and trudged off in the direction of the colliery, if that’s what it was. Of course, she wouldn’t make it that far. Running was futile, but handing over the coat and lying down to freeze to death wasn’t in her DNA. She was half Seminole. Seminoles never surrendered.

  She slogged on, swinging her arms to increase momentum. Her face and hands burned from the cold and now both arms hurt. Her purse was still hanging around her neck. She could feel it swaying from side to side as she moved. Without slowing her march, she unzipped the coat part way and dug in the purse until she found her mittens and her balaclava. Her cap was in the pocket of the pea jacket back at the Radisson, but the balaclava would help. She’d read that fifty percent of a person’s body heat was lost through the head.

  Her heartbeat seemed inhumanly fast. The blood pumping in her ears drowned out every other sound. She no longer heard Tipton panting or the snow crunching underfoot. Working this hard, she would soon work up a sweat and when she stopped, hypothermia would set in. Tipton was also working hard. Maybe he would bonk first or have a heart attack. But she didn’t hold out much hope of that. He was young and a lot stronger than she’d thought. Strong enough to stab a man to death. Strong enough to bludgeon a woman with a dumbbell and lift her dead weight onto the top bench of the sauna. She should have realized he was the murderer with the first words out of his mouth at the Beached Whale. How could he know she’d had to look up to see Valerie’s body? The police wouldn’t have described the crime scene for him in detail.

  He caught the tail of her coat and tugged, but she bent forward and powered on like a draft horse.

  “Stop! Stop or I will shoot you.” He let go of the coat and she nearly fell face forward. “There are worse ways to die than by freezing, Dinah. After a while, you just go to sleep.”

  “You go to hell.” She staggered on. He must have been sweating profusely. She smelled the pong of wet dog wafting from the sweater.

  He jabbed the rifle into her back. “If you insist…”

  She stopped, pivoted from the waist, and threw both arms behind her like a discus thrower. Her left forearm bashed against the rifle and knocked it out of his hands. Tipton dived onto the ground after it. She hurled herself on top of him and pummeled him in the face and ears and neck, aware of the absurdity as her mittens cushioned every blow. He retrieved the rifle with one hand, and tried to smash the gun stock against her head. She dodged the blow, but he managed to roll her off onto her back. She was spent. It was hopeless.

  She was witnessing her own murder in a place and a manner that, even at this critical juncture, astounded her by its sheer improbability.

  With her last ounce of strength, she jerked an arm free and reached for the gun. Tipton ripped it free. They wallowed for a minute like weary wrestlers. Dinah found the trigger, the gun discharged with an ear-splitting explosion, and then the earth gave way.

  Avalanche.

  They fell together, legs threshing, arms grabbing the air, rocks and snow pelting from above. Tipton caught at her arm, but missed. He plummeted past, slamming her sideways. Her back scraped against something hard and she slid to a bone-shaking stop astraddle some kind of a shelf or outcrop. Loose snow and dirt showered onto her head and shoulders and Tipton screamed.

  When her heart rate slowed enough to allow thought, she blew out a cloudy breath and looked up. The headlights from the car illuminated a more-or-less round opening approximately five feet above her head. Tipton moaned and she looked down. He was nothing but a dark shape, perhaps another ten feet below her.

  What was this? The freaking Well of Urd? The diameter of the opening was about two feet. Thor had said the area was riddled with abandoned mines. This must be one of them, or an air shaft for one of them. How deep was it? She couldn’t make out whether Tipton had hit the bottom or, like her, was cleaving to a narrow ledge.

  Wailing Jerusalem. What now?

  Air shafts were sometimes planned as escape routes for the miners, weren’t they? Maybe there were iron rungs or a chain or some kind of handholds above her. If there were, she needed better light to see them.

  “My leg,” moaned Tipton. “I think it’s broken.”

  An instant ago, they were locked in mortal combat. Suddenly, they were accidental allies, she and her would-be murderer trapped in the same hole. If they were going to survive, they’d have to help each other. She would have to think about how much she hated him tomorrow. “Do you have a flashlight?”

  “No.”

  Dinah had a small one on her key ring. She leaned all her weight into the wall behind her, took off her right mitten and held it between her teeth. With her naked hand, she unzipped Tipton’s coat and felt around inside her purse for the light. She found it and, scarcely daring to move, she unweighted one leg and shone the tiny cone of ligh
t on the protuberance that had arrested her fall. As nearly as she could tell, it was some kind of a pipe. It looked to be about ten inches across and extended about a foot from the wall. It was encrusted with dirt and permafrost and debris. She didn’t like to think how rust and the ravages of time had weakened it.

  She slid her light up the wall behind her to the rim of the shaft and down again. The wall looked to be solid coal, covered in places with whitish hoar frost. There were no handholds. She shone her beam all around their prison pit, looking for any kind of bar or pipe she could use to climb out. There was nothing. Except for the coal seam behind where she sat, the walls appeared grayish-white and porous—a mixture of frozen soil and dust and lumpy agglomerations of ice. This shaft must have been plugged for years. If it hadn’t caved in when it did, Tipton would have killed her. She could be one of the few beneficiaries of global warming. As the saying went, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.

  She shone the light on her wristwatch. It wasn’t there. She took the mitten out of her teeth. “What time is it?”

  The LED dial of Tipton’s digital watch flickered. “Two a.m. It’ll be hours before anyone finds us. We’ll die of hypothermia.”

  “No, we won’t. Use your cell phone.” She ransacked her memory. What was that number the desk clerk had said was the emergency number? “One-one-two. Dial one-one-two. They’ll send a helicopter.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Tipton?”

  “The phone’s not in my pocket. It must have fallen out.”

  She smothered a sob. “I’ll shine the light down there. See if you can find it.”

  He couldn’t. He said, “Use your cell. You have one, don’t you?”

  “It doesn’t work in Europe.” A ray of hope dawned. “Did you rent the car? It probably has a GPS.”

  “I don’t know. I borrowed it.”

  “From whom?”

  “Off the street. Somebody left the key in the ignition.”

  People will come, she told herself. Tipton didn’t know his way around and he wouldn’t risk getting lost. He wouldn’t have taken the car far off the beaten path. She felt certain they were near the Løssluppen. Some night owl leaving the pub late would spot the car with its lights on and investigate, or a party of cross-country skiers out for a New Year’s Eve lark would notice. She pictured the owner back in town rounding up a posse to come looking for his stolen property. Maybe he would bring Thor and Sergeant Lyby. Somebody would come. It would only be an hour or two. She could survive for two hours. All she had to do was keep calm, maintain her balance, stay as warm as she could, and not go to sleep. She zipped up the coat again and stuffed her hands under her arms.