Death & the Viking's Daughter

by Loretta Ross

  Wren and her mother were sitting with Myrna in her dining room, chatting. Myrna had been doing some packing of her own. The walls were bare and the built-in china cabinet stood empty. Emily had a list of measurements on a notepad in front of her and was calculating how much fabric it was going to take for curtains.

  They heard the men’s voices first, a quiet conversation too soft for them to make out the words. Shadows passed the north window and then footsteps crossed the porch. There came a knock on the door.

  Myrna leaned back in her chair and shouted through the living room, “Death Bogart, is that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, what are you doing knocking on your own front door? Get that cute little hiney in here and keep us company!”

  The door opened and Death came in, blushing and bashful, with Edgar chuckling behind him. They joined the ladies at the table.

  “Randy’s been trying to call you,” Wren told Death. “He’s on his way here to see us. He’s acting really weird.”

  “That’s not an act. Weird how?”

  “Excited and secretive. He asked me if we saw him, but he won’t say who ‘him’ is. He said no one’s stealing his thunder this time. What’s he talking about?”

  “Heaven only knows.”

  Myrna got up and poured the men each a cup of coffee.

  “Myrna’s been telling us about her mother’s flowers,” Wren said. “We should plant some hollyhocks in the yard.” She looked toward the living room dubiously. “They come in other colors, right?”

  “Lots of colors,” her mother assured her. “Some morning glories and four o’clocks would look nice climbing the porch posts, too.”

  “And irises. I love irises.” Wren beamed at Death sentimentally. “Death gave me irises the first time we had dinner together.”

  “I got them out of a ditch,” he remembered. “Because I was flat broke but I wanted to give you flowers.”

  “That was so sweet.” Wren sighed. “It’s too bad they got shot.”

  Death winced and glanced furtively at his future in-laws. “Maybe we shouldn’t be telling this story.”

  “Car,” Myrna said, apparently at random.

  The other four looked at her and she nodded toward the front of the house.

  “There’s a car coming. You’ll start to notice them yourself after you live here for a while. Not a lot of traffic out this way. If you hear a car, it’s probably coming here.”

  Now that she was paying attention, Wren could make out the sound of an engine approaching. Death rose and strolled over to the dining room window. It looked north, toward the highway that led back to East Bledsoe Ferry. He pulled the curtain aside and leaned over an antique sideboard to peer out.

  “It’s Randy,” he said. “He’s just pulling into the driveway now.”

  “It’s good that he found the place,” Myrna said. “He hasn’t been here before.”

  “No, but I described where the house was when I told him we were looking at it, and he’s in the volunteer fire department so he spends a lot of time studying maps.”

  “And he knows Death’s Jeep,” Wren added.

  Randy pounded across the porch and rapped urgently at the door. Myrna looked at Death.

  “You wanna let him in, sweetie? Since you’re already up and all?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Death opened the door and Randy bounced in, manic with excitement. He was a walking exclamation mark. “Where’s Wren? And her mom? Is her mom here too?”

  “Yes. Chill. They’re in the other room.” Death led his brother into the dining room and Randy immediately focused on Wren.

  “Did you see him?” he demanded again.

  “See who?” she asked.

  Randy turned his attention to her mother. “Did you see him?”

  “Sweetheart, none of us know what you’re talking about.”

  He stood up very straight and tall and beamed at them.

  “Sit down,” his brother told him. “You’re making everybody nervous. Take a seat and tell us what’s going on.”

  Randy, still grinning, seated himself at the table and leaned forward, hands clasped on the polished surface. He looked around at everyone, one by one.

  “I found Bob,” he said.

  “Found him?” Myrna asked. “He better still be in that grave out there.”

  Randy glanced at her, caught off guard. “Uh, yes, ma’am. I’m sure he is. I mean, I think I found a picture of him when he was alive.”

  “What?” Wren demanded. “Where?”

  “On that thumb drive that Cameron Michaels gave you. I made a copy of the files and took it to work with me today. We had a pretty slow day so I had a chance to go over it, and there he was.”

  “That’s impossible,” Wren said. “Mom and I studied every picture in that file.”

  Randy held up a finger. “Which file?”

  Wren frowned. “The Ozark Hills Supper Club file. And the Cold Harbor Supper Club file, which turned out to be just one article where the writer got the name wrong. But the thing is, we looked at every single picture. We even used a magnifying glass for group pictures. He wasn’t there.”

  “No, he wasn’t.” Randy was grinning, drawing it out.

  “So where was he?” Death demanded. “Come on, man. Show us. Put up or shut up.”

  His little brother laughed and pulled out his phone. “I copied the article. It was in the file marked ‘Henry Bender.’” He read it aloud. “May 22, 1973. Fifteen-year-old Henry Bender today became the youngest pilot ever to land a plane at the East Bledsoe Ferry Municipal Airport. The talented youngster, who first soloed at the age of thirteen, flew his father’s private jet from Cincinnati to East Bledsoe Ferry so his father could check on the progress of the nightclub he’s building on the lakeshore. The Ozark Hills Supper Club, when it is completed, is expected to draw visitors from across the country. It will feature boating, dancing, gourmet dining, and performances by popular celebrities, and will make East Bledsoe Ferry a new hotspot for the fashionable set. When that happens, we will surely see a lot more of this young man.”

  Wren and Death left their seats to lean over Randy’s shoulders as he swiped the screen. The print article slid aside and a picture came up of two young men standing next to a small aircraft.

  The younger boy was obviously Henry Bender. There was a second picture of him, a headshot, next to the first one. It was his companion who had caught Randy’s attention.

  He was a brawny young man, not too tall, with a round face and straight blond hair in a cut that reminded Wren of Hutch from Starsky & Hutch. He wore tight jeans that flared out at the ankle in a pale color that looked light gray in the grainy old black-and-white photo. His shirt was a tunic, tight across his chest and on his upper arms but loose below his waist and over his hands. He was, she thought, very seventies in his appearance.

  “It could be him,” Death agreed. “It would mean forensics got the coloring wrong. This guy’s more blond. And the hairstyle is off and the nose isn’t quite right. But it could be him. Wow. This could very well be him.”

  “Is there a name?” Wren asked.

  “Scroll down,” Randy said. “Look at the caption.”

  “You scroll down,” Death said. “You’re holding the phone.”

  “You scroll down. You’re the one who wants to see it.”

  “Don’t you want to see it?”

  “I already did.”

  Death rolled his eyes and reached over Randy’s shoulder to scroll down. “Fifteen-year-old pilot Henry Bender of Southgate, Kentucky, seen here with longtime friend Trevor Burt, 18, of Cincinnati.”

  There was a sort of finality in Death’s voice as he read it off. Wren tipped her head to look at him and saw him exchanging a glance with her father. Death raised one eyebrow.


  Edgar nodded.

  nineteen

  “Hello? Jackson? Hey, listen, is the sheriff there? He’s not? He’s where?”

  Wren tugged on Death’s sleeve. “Where is he?”

  He took the phone away from his mouth and put his hand over the speaker. “He got delayed on his way back from lunch. He had to arrest the Snyder kid for disturbing the peace again?”

  “Oh, yeah. He always gets drunk and tries to start arguments about baseball.” Wren made a face. “Like Matt knows anything about baseball,” she mocked. It never ceased to amaze Death how she knew everything about everyone in this small town.

  Death turned his attention back to the phone. “Okay, listen, I might have something for you.”

  “Be still my beating heart,” Deputy Jackson replied wryly.

  “Well, hey. If you’re not interested, I can call the city guys. I mean, it’s your case, but I’m sure they’d love to take the credit if this solves it.”

  “If they have as much experience with your stupid ideas as I do, they’re not going to be jumping for joy either.”

  “I was the one who found that picture,” Randy called from across the room.

  They were back at Wren’s, where they’d retreated to discuss the situation. The day had grown overcast and an early twilight was starting to fall, turning the world a dreary blue gray.

  Death nodded at his brother and spoke into the phone. “Actually, this one is Randy’s stupid idea.”

  “That’s not an improvement,” Jackson sighed. “Okay, what you got?”

  “We may have a name for Bob. You know? The body—”

  “In your rosebushes? I know. Where did he come up with it?”

  Death kept it simple. “He was looking through some old newspaper stories from the early 1970s and he found a picture of a guy who looks like the reconstruction.”

  “So this is just a shot in the dark?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Can you see if you can find anything about him?”

  “I suppose. Give me the name and anything else you have.”

  “The name is Trevor Burt and he was eighteen years old and living in Cincinnati in May of 1973.”

  “All right. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  Emily and Edgar were sitting in the two easy chairs on one side of Wren’s coffee table. Randy sprawled loosely across the love seat and Death helped himself to the end of the sofa. Wren came over to join him and for a long minute they just sat there, each lost in their own thoughts.

  “Are we going to say anything about this to the Larsens tonight?” Wren asked finally.

  “What’s to say?” Death countered. “At this point, we don’t know anything they don’t already know themselves.”

  “You have to say something,” Emily objected. “Ingrid was their daughter. They have a right to know.”

  “But all we have is speculation,” Death said gently. “A theory, and not a very complete theory at that.”

  “What exactly do you think happened?” Edgar asked.

  Death sighed and shrugged. Wren kicked her shoes off and curled up next to him on the couch.

  “It was the summer of 1978,” she said. “Ingrid was seventeen and traveling with a Renaissance festival dressed as a Viking maid. In late July they set up in Cincinnati. If Henry Bender was fifteen in ’73, he was twenty by ’78. He lived with his father across the river in Southgate, Kentucky.”

  “We know Bender Sr. is obsessed with anything relating to his personal history,” Death said. “We know he can be persuaded to donate money to the Museum of Art and Archaeology if the projects catch his interest, and I suspect he arranged for the theft of several things from various other collections related to northern Europe’s past. If his son shares that interest, it’s a given that Henry would have gone to the Renaissance faire when it turned up in his home town.”

  “Except that he wasn’t there that weekend,” Wren said. “At least, according to his father he wasn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Claudio Bender was at the consignment auction last week. I thought I told you that.”

  “Rude little old man on a scooter, right?”

  “Right. I mean, when you first see him you think, ‘oh, what a sweet little old man,’ but then he starts talking and you realize he’s not.”

  Death raised his eyebrows. “You asked him about his son’s whereabouts the weekend Ingrid Larsen disappeared?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Exactly what?”

  She shifted a little. She felt warm and soft and right nestled close against his side. “I just asked him if he remembered when Dr. Larsen thought he saw a ghost. Claudio told me they sent his son to search the shore but he couldn’t find any trace that anyone had even been there. Which means Henry was at the supper club.”

  “That … might very well fit,” Death said, not bothering to elaborate just then.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” Edgar said. “If Randy’s right and the body in the roses is Trevor, why hasn’t Henry said anything about it all these years? That picture has been up on flyers all over town for decades. And even if he didn’t see the picture, didn’t he miss his old friend? Didn’t he worry at all when they found a body? If your buddy went missing and then a skeleton turned up, wouldn’t you at least wonder?”

  “Guilty conscience?” Death guessed. “He knows something. If that body is Trevor Burt, he almost has to. Hell, maybe he put him there. We need him to tell us what happened. If he did it, we need a confession. Speculation is only going to take us so far.”

  “The Larsens seemed to think that Henry and his father will be at their feast tomorrow. Maybe we can just ask him,” Wren suggested.

  “Do you think there’s any chance he’ll answer?”

  “Do you?”

  Death sighed. “I’ve never met him. I have no idea what he might or might not do. If he’s there tonight, or tomorrow night, I’ll try to get him alone and show him the reconstruction. See how he reacts. But if he refuses to tell me what he knows, I have no idea how we could force him to.”

  Randy shifted sleepily on the love seat. “You could always go full Scooby,” he said.

  “Go full what?”

  “Scooby.” Randy opened one eye to look at his brother. “Fake a ghost and scare him into talking. I’ll dress up as Bob with a sheet on my head and go, ‘Woo! Woo! Why did you leave me lying all alone in the cold dark woods? Woo! Woo!”

  Death just looked at him for a long minute. Wren was giggling against his ribs. Emily was laughing and Edgar had a grin on his face.

  “You think it would work?” Randy asked “I think it would work. No?”

  “Okay,” Death said. “One, you’re too tall. Two, you’re too lanky. Three, that is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be rude about it.”

  “I know I don’t have to. That’s just one of the perks you get for having me as a brother.”

  Randy blew him a raspberry.

  Death gave Wren a one-armed squeeze and pulled himself up off the couch. “Shall we go meet the Vikings?” he asked.

  “What about the Benders?” Wren wanted to know.

  “If they’re there when we get there, we’ll play it by ear.”

  If Wren had heard the music without knowing where it was coming from, she’d have imagined she was listening to an oboe, a flute, and a piccolo. Maggie’s lur carried the main melody, while the pipes alternately complemented it and provided a counterpoint. Two young girls were playing the pipes. They wore matching dresses and overdresses. Their hair was braided on top of their heads and their long, hooded cloaks made Wren think of Little Red Riding Hood, except that they were blue. Little Blue Riding Hoods. Neils sat off to one side, watching, with his lyre propped on his knee and a flagon in his
right hand.

  A fire blazed in the fire pit and Wren and Death and Randy and her parents sat on rough-hewn benches at the edge of the circle of firelight, surrounded by men and women in the costumes of eighth-century northern Europe. It was a cold night, but not unpleasant given the fire and the press of bodies. The smoke from the fire carried old music up to a star-spattered sky and there wasn’t a modern light in sight.

  The music reached a low, melancholy passage and Neils set his mead down, stood, and strummed a chord on his lyre. He stepped forward, still playing. The women altered their music to complement his, lowering the volume to provide a background for his voice as he chanted:

  “Softest, sweetest, fleeting

  Songbird, long I sought thee.

  Weeping, haunted, wanting,

  Woeful, hope full waning.

  Lost beloved dove now,

  Love above all lingers.

  In imagination,

  Ingrid. Iridescent.”

  “Be careful of the honey mead,” Jacob Larsen said, leaning over Wren’s right shoulder to hand Death a mug. “It’s stronger than you expect. Wren, are you sure I can’t get you some?”

  She smiled up at him as the music ended. “Thank you, but no. I have to work early in the morning.”

  “What do you do,” a man to her left asked, “that you have to go to work on a Sunday?”

  “Wren’s an auctioneer,” Jacob explained. “She and her company are the ones who’ll be selling the old supper club tomorrow.”

  “Really?” The stranger, an older man with long white hair and a full beard, leaned to his side to give her a penetrating look. “Now that I might have to come see. I haven’t been inside that place in thirty-odd years.”

  Death ducked his head forward to look past her at the man. “Were you a member of the supper club?” he asked.

  “Not a member, exactly,” he said. “Bender invited me because he was involved in a research project I worked on back in the early eighties. I work for the Brandburg House. It’s—”