Death & the Viking's Daughter

by Loretta Ross

  “You’re always broke.”

  “I have a kid. Kids are expensive. And it’s not like his father has ever paid me a dime of child support.”

  “And why do you stand for that? There are people and … agencies … and … things that handle that. Garnish his wages. Throw his ass in jail.”

  “I’ve tried, okay. But he’s a slippery bastard. It’s not as easy as you seem to think.”

  “Whatever.” With an annoyed huff, Farrington snatched his change off the counter and charged out of the store. The woman sighed and glared after him, but picked up her baby and followed.

  Emily watched them through the window as they got into Eric’s car and drove away. The voice of the cashier drew her attention back inside.

  “Mrs. Morgan! You’re back!”

  She turned around. The girl working the cash register was an old friend’s daughter. “Oh, hello, dear. Yes, we’re just here for a visit.”

  “Well, it’s great to see you. Are you having fun?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s a lot of fun.” She pointed out the window, toward where Eric had been parked. “I think I’ve missed a lot here, though. Who was that young woman with Eric Farrington just now?”

  The cashier’s eyes lit up. “You don’t know?”

  “No. Know what?”

  “That’s Madeline Braun. She’s Death Bogart’s ex-wife!”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. “Oh really?”

  Death had been to Columbia many times but he’d never before ventured onto the campus of the University of Missouri. He parked in visitors’ parking and made his way past Ellis Library, an odd conglomeration of new glass and steel and old stonework, and crossed a curving road. All the buildings on the opposite side of the road sat with their backs to him. He followed a paved path between two of them and came out on Francis Quadrangle, the heart of the university.

  Once upon a time he’d marched for miles with a full pack and thought nothing of it. Now a stroll across an autumn campus taxed his reserves. He took his time, pausing now and again to look around and let his breathing recover from the exertion. The quad was a big, grassy rectangle distinguished by the presence of six massive Ionic columns, all that remained of the university’s original building. A few students clustered around them, leaning against them or sitting on the chest-high bases. One young woman sat alone in the dry grass with her back to the westernmost column and her head bent over a book. A young man had climbed up to stand on another, looming over his group of friends. It was a windy, mostly overcast day. Dead brown oak leaves skittered along the sidewalk and pale gold light shone down on old marble and yellowing grass.

  Death stood at the south end of the quad, with Jesse Hall, the main building, at his back. The school of journalism anchored the northeast corner and Peace Park opened from the southeast corner. While he was checking the campus map on his phone, the space around him suddenly filled with young bodies, and just as quickly it emptied again—students leaving one class and hurrying to the next.

  Wren had been a student here a few years back. Death smiled to himself, picturing her as a younger woman caught up in the bustle. Her red hair must have shone in the crowd. He knew she’d had a fondness then for glitter gel pens and teddy bears, and in his mind’s eye she was always laughing.

  According to the map, the building he wanted was on his right. But when he reached it and climbed the steps, it was closed. Not just locked, but shut down and dark, with an empty air that suggested an abandoned building. He checked the name on the front—Pickard Hall. The information in his quick Google search had said that this was where he was supposed to be, but obviously that was wrong.

  He returned to the sidewalk and snagged a passerby.

  “Excuse me, but I’m looking for the Museum of Art and Archaeology. I thought it was in this building. Do you know …?”

  The student, a reed-thin young man with thick glasses and a heavy-looking backpack, shrugged. “Nah, man. That building’s empty. They moved everything out of there three years ago. It’s, like, radioactive or something.”

  “It’s what?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  Death blinked, bemused. “Um, okay. Well, do you know where the museum is now?”

  “I think they moved the department next door.” He indicated the building Death had just walked past. “You could try there.”

  Death thanked him and did as he suggested. The building in question was named Swallow Hall. It was another old brick and stone affair, recently remodeled, and the sign by the door verified that it was now home to the department of Art History and Archaeology. When he went inside, though, there was no sign of any museum.

  He looked around for a few minutes and eventually found a sixty-

  something professor with his office door open. The man sat at an overflowing desk, poring over a stack of small blue booklets with a red ink pen. His office was crowded with bookshelves filled equally with books and fragments of pottery. The nameplate by his door read Dr. Bailey.

  Death tapped on the doorframe

  The professor looked up. “I’m still grading the Byzantine exam.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m not one of your students. I was just hoping to ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What happened to the museum? I was supposed to meet someone in the cast gallery, but the building is closed. A kid outside said something about radiation?”

  Dr. Bailey lay his pen down and sat back. “Ah, yes. Unfortunately, we’ve been displaced from our old home. They discovered the building was contaminated with traces of radiation.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Back in the early 1900s, Pickard Hall was used by the science department. They were doing experiments with radium before they realized it was dangerous. Just recently, they discovered the building still had traces of radiation. Less than the federal maximum allowed, but we still had to move. Our museum and the Anthropology Museum are out at Mizzou North now.”

  “Mizzou North?”

  “A former cancer hospital. And, yes, I see the irony. Take Providence to Business Loop 70 and turn left. It’ll be on your right.”

  Death thanked him and had turned to go when a missing person poster on the side wall caught his eye. He nodded toward it, a question forming on his lips, but Bailey spoke before he did.

  “A former colleague’s daughter. They never found her, I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t think they still might?”

  Bailey shrugged. “I suppose anything’s possible, but it’s been almost forty years.”

  “Right. I think I met her father the other day,” Death said.

  “Neils Larsen? Really? Where’d you see him at?”

  “Down by Truman Lake. There’s this Viking kind of village—”

  “Arnhold. Sure. You a reenactor?”

  Death grinned. “No. My fiancée was working at the yacht club next door.”

  “Oh, good Lord. Is someone trying to make a go of that place again?”

  “No, it’s being sold off. Wren’s an auctioneer. You’re familiar with the yacht club? Are you a reenactor?”

  “No, though I’ve been out to Arnhold a time or two. I’ve been to the yacht club a time or two as well. When it was open, back in the day. Back then pretty much everyone in the department got dragged out there sooner or later.”

  “Really?” Death eased himself into a visitor’s chair. “How’s that?”

  “Guy who owned it is a history buff, for a given value of the term history buff. That is, he’s interested in anything that glorifies his personal history. His family came from northern Europe. You tell him he’s probably descended from noble Viking warriors and you’ll be his new best friend. Tell him Iron Age Switzerland saw people practicing human sacrifice and he’ll never speak to yo
u again.”

  “And would that be a bad thing?”

  Bailey laughed. “From a personal perspective, no. But from a professional one, yes. See, the thing is he’s loaded. Seriously. Guy practically owns his own mint. And with the proper amounts of flattery and persuasion he can sometimes be convinced to part with a little of it for a good cause. So whenever the head of the department was trying to find funding for a new expedition or a piece of equipment or something, he’d round up whoever he thought could sway Bender and drag them down to the yacht club for a weekend.”

  “Bender?”

  “Yeah, Claudio Bender. And his son, Henry, who is my age and still follows him around like a shadow, catering to his every whim.”

  Death laughed, then glanced at his watch and rose. “It was nice meeting you. I’d better go find that museum. I’m going to be late. Thanks for the info.”

  “No problem.”

  He started to leave, then turned back with an afterthought. “By the way, um. How bad is that radiation? It’s just, my fiancée minored in art history when she was here, so …”

  “Oh, it’s not too bad,” Bailey said.

  “Oh good.”

  “I mean, you might have glow-in-the-dark kids, but hey! At least you’ll save a fortune on nightlights.”

  Two blocks shy of Wren’s house, Edgar eased his truck over to the side of the road and put it in park. He turned off the engine and slid around in his seat to face his wife.

  “What are you going to say?” he asked.

  Emily was still fuming. If anything, she was angrier now than she had been when she first returned to the truck.

  “I’ll just smile and say, ‘Hello, dear. So where’s this lousy, scumbag of a deadbeat father you think you’re going to marry?’”

  Edgar made a show of considering it. “Do you think that might not go over too well?” he ventured at last.

  “Well, what do you suggest I say?”

  “I don’t think you’d ought to say anything.”

  She glared at him. “What? But—”

  He held up one big hand and tipped his head. “Don’t you think we might not know the whole story here?”

  Emily sighed and slumped in her seat, pouting.

  “Wren’s not an idiot,” Edgar continued. “She’s not going to involve herself with the sort of man who’d let his child go hungry.”

  “So maybe she doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know? That he has an ex-wife with a toddler? An ex-wife who’s running around town with Eric Farrington? This is East Bledsoe Ferry. I doubt there’s anyone in the county who doesn’t know.”

  “Well, then …” his wife trailed off uncertainly.

  “I’m just saying that if you go off half-cocked, it isn’t going to do anything but start a fight.”

  “So, what? I’m supposed to just act happy that our daughter’s planning to marry this lowlife scumbag?”

  “We only have one side of the story here.”

  “But his ex-wife said—”

  “And she might be lying. We don’t know her and we don’t know what’s going on. You know, and I never thought I’d be saying this, but Eric Farrington was right. There are people who track down deadbeat dads and laws to put them in jail. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that if Death really is neglecting to pay child support, he hasn’t been arrested? It’s not like he’s hiding. This is a small town,” Edgar said again. “I just think we need to wait and see what we can find out.”

  Emily thought about it for a minute. “So I should go in and say, ‘Hi, honey. So tell me all about Death. Like, why isn’t he paying any damned child support?’”

  “Yeah, because that wouldn’t start a fight at all.”

  “What? I’m not allowed to ask?”

  “If you assume the worst, you’re not only insulting her boyfriend, you’re insulting her judgment. Trust me. I’ve been dealing with you Morgan women for a long time. This is not a good plan.”

  Emily sulked some more. “She could have been honest with me about it. Whatever it is.”

  “How wasn’t she honest? She told you Death had been married before, didn’t she?”

  “Married, yes. But she never said a word about him having a baby.”

  “The whole two times you’ve talked on the phone?”

  “She could have called more.”

  “Uh huh. And how many of those voice messages from her are still sitting on the phone waiting for someone to listen to them.”

  She made a face at him. “You don’t know how to retrieve them either.”

  He chuckled, a rumbling sound deep in his chest. “That’s not the point.”

  Emily sighed. “Okay, fine. What do you think we should do?”

  “I think we should play it close to the vest. Take some time to get to know the boy and try to find out what’s going on.”

  “If he turns out to be a con artist—”

  “It’ll hurt Wren. A lot. If that happens, I don’t want her to feel she can’t come to us. I don’t want to alienate her. So no accusations, no lectures, no gotcha moments. Okay?”

  Emily was silent for over a minute, looking away out the truck window.

  “Em?”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll do it. But don’t expect me to like it.”

  “No ma’am.”

  eight

  “Okay, so Rolly, Eldon, Tristan, and Cory are starting college next year, right?”

  Wren sat in her living room with her feet up on the coffee table and a notebook in her lap. She was surrounded by stacks of dishes, glassware, pots and pans, and random kitchen utensils. Behind her, in the kitchen, the cupboards were empty for probably the first time in decades.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Leona said over the phone. “Why?”

  “I was wondering about their living arrangements. Are any of them getting their first apartments?”

  “No, I believe they’re all going to live in the dorms, at least for the first year.”

  “Dang.”

  “Again, why?”

  Wren sighed. “I’ve just got a lot of stuff and I was thinking I could pass some of it on to help them get set up on their own.”

  “I see. You know, we could always sell it,” Leona suggested. “Put it in the weekly consignment auction.”

  On Friday evenings the local auctioneers took turns running a consignment auction in one of the barns on the county fairgrounds. It kept the building in use throughout the year, and a portion of the proceeds each week went toward supporting the local food bank.

  “Yeah, but I don’t really want to sell them,” Wren said. “I mean, I shouldn’t be attached to all of this stuff, but …”

  “But you are.”

  “Yeah. Does Mercy have a hope chest? I’ve got some nice things set aside she could have for her hope chest. We could let her pick out what she wants. And why do only girls get hope chests? Boys need dishes and linens and things too.”

  “That’s a good idea. And if the point is to set them up for having their own home, they should have some basic tools, too. For girls and boys both.”

  “Right! Like a hammer and some nails and screwdrivers.”

  “Pliers,” Leona agreed. “A utility knife. A flashlight.”

  “So can we make this happen?”

  “Let me look into it,” Leona said. “We’re not in a dire hurry here, are we? You’re not ready to move just yet and those dishes aren’t going to explode if we don’t instantly find them a new home.”

  “No. They’re just sitting all around my living room looking breakable.” Wren looked forlornly at the stacks of plates and bowls and the precarious towers of cups.

  Leona laughed. “Well, don’t break them. I’ll talk to the kids’ parents. I’m sure we can find a hope chest for Mercy. I don’t think she has one yet. And I
don’t see why we can’t get them for the boys too. Have you thought about offering Randy any? He’s looking for a house, right?”

  “Yeah, but he’s already got a whole household full of stuff in St. Louis. He finds a house, he just moves whatever he wants from there.”

  “Oh, of course. Well, hang in there. We’ll get it figured out.”

  “Thanks.”

  The two women said their goodbyes and hung up. Wren was just sitting there, thinking about nothing very much at all, when Lucy started barking joyfully in the front yard. Wren went to see what the commotion was about and saw her parents’ camper parking behind her truck in the driveway.

  She ran outside and down the steps and met them in the yard. Wren’s mom was a short, plump woman whose dark hair and eyes and tan complexion stood as evidence of her Native American ancestry. She had a cheerful demeanor and a perpetual smile that hid an iron will. She was smaller than Wren, and when Wren hugged her, her cheek pressed against her mother’s hair.

  Her father, on the other hand, was a big, blue-eyed man with strawberry-blond hair turning white. The top of her head barely reached his chest, and when he enveloped her in his arms she felt like a child again, safe and content.

  “I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Where were you when I talked to you last? Did you have a good trip?”

  “We were in Knoxville,” her dad said. Her mother had started for the house and they followed with their arms still around one another. “We’d have been here sooner, but there’s a lot of roadwork going on. Nashville was pretty much one big bottleneck and there was a detour in southern Illinois that took us miles out of our way.”

  Wren’s mother reached the door, pulled it open, and stopped. She was looking at the piles of dishes and things all over the living room, and her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened in disapproval.

  “So. You really do think you’re moving, then.”

  The parking lot at Mizzou North was nearly empty, and Death was able to find a close spot without using the much-hated handicapped tag he kept shoved out of sight in his glove compartment. He had been running early when he got to the main campus; now he was slightly late for his appointment. He’d phoned his contact and gotten no answer, but left a message on her voicemail and hoped she would be waiting for him.