Nordic Nights (The Alix Thorssen Mysteries)

by Lise McClendon

  My curiosity reaching the breaking point and her supercilious voice grating on me, I couldn’t resist rolling my eyes at Danny. He crossed his at me and chewed on his pen harder.

  “On this particular day I had decided to walk to some Indian mounds that were about five miles away. It was a long walk, ten miles total, and I had never attempted it before. But I felt strong, and strangely powerful. Purposeful, as if I had a mission. It turned out my premonition was correct.

  “The Indian mounds are not very interesting themselves because they are, after all, simply large mounds of earth overgrown with forest now. These had been excavated many years before. I reached them at about eleven o’clock in the morning and sat down to rest. I had brought along food and water and began to eat an apple from my pack.

  “As I sat under a beech tree, I felt at peace in this burial place, despite the fact that the bones had been disturbed by archaeologists. At least, at first I did. I let myself be still and listen carefully to the earth. Yes, there was peace there. The Indians had lived hard but well, and buried their dead with dignity.

  “Then I felt something else. A kind of agony, almost like a scream coming up from the land. I shook it off and stood up, and laughed at myself. I don’t believe in evil spirits, I told myself. I must have a vivid imagination.” Isa paused, touching her chest with long, graceful fingers, taking a deep breath. Where was Peter? I wondered. He was usually her shadow, and yet he was nowhere to be found in the full room.

  “I paced around the mounds. There are three of them in this spot, each about fifteen feet high, thirty or forty feet across, and rounded. I thought about climbing to the top of one but decided it would be disrespectful. I came back to the beech tree and listened to its leaves rustle in the wind. Still the feeling persisted, that something terrible had happened here. So I moved closer to the scrapes made by the archaeologists, the hole in one side of the closest mound.

  “It had weathered badly over the years. Rain and snow had washed away the earth, caving in parts of the hole. It might have once been ten or fifteen feet deep, but now only about six feet of it was open, the rest filled with debris. An old cottonwood tree had grown next to it, then died, leaving just the leafless trunk, limbs broken by the wind.

  “I stood at the entrance of the decrepit excavation, the sun on my shoulders. But did I feel warmth? No, I did not,” Isa told us, her eyes closed, remembering that oh-so-fateful day. The woman should seriously consider acting, I mused.

  “I looked into the darkness and saw only dirt, rocks, and roots. Then I stepped closer, against my will. I truly felt a chill from this mound, this gaping cave in its side. But something wanted to be seen, and I guess no one else had been this way for a long, long time. Because, as I moved closer, I saw this rock sticking out from the edges of the cave wall, near an obvious cave-in.

  “The rock had a carved look to it, square corners. I touched it carefully with one finger, rubbing at the dirt that clung to it. Something was scratched on it. I began to dig. It took a long time, because I had to be careful. But finally, nearly two and a half hours later, I had unearthed the stone.”

  “Fuck.”

  Danny stared at me, frowning. I hadn’t realized I had spoken aloud, in a voice higher than a whisper yet. But I didn’t have time to curse again, as Isa continued.

  Lucinda had bent down and brought up from under the table an object wrapped in black velvet fabric. Isa now carefully unwrapped the velvet, spreading it wide on the tablecloth, and lifted the stone so that the reporters could see it.

  “This is that stone. You can see, barely, the carvings on it, but they are no doubt meaningless to you unless you read old Norse. I have had this stone authenticated by three of the top scholars in the field of Scandinavian history and antiquities. You will hear from one of them today. Before he speaks, however, let me just summarize what he will verify to you.

  “We believe that this stone, carved with ancient runes, old Norse lettering, is proof that an expedition of Viking sailors reached the New World in the fourteenth century. This is the second such stone found on this continent, the first being the Kensington Stone found in Minnesota a hundred years ago. We believe that this stone was left by the same party, perhaps as they knew they were dying, captive to Indians.”

  “What does it say?” a reporter impertinently asked.

  Isa blinked, emerging from her narrative. “Let me introduce Professor Hjelmseth from the University of Northern Minnesota. Professor?”

  A middle-aged man stepped out of the crowd, nodding to Isa as she laid the rock back and stepped aside. He was tweedy and long-haired, gray, but had an attractive face and might be somewhat buff under all that wool. He pulled out wire-rims and squatted next to the rock so his face was right up against it.

  “You ask what it says. Let me do a word-by-word translation. Old Norse lettering is a primitive form of our English/Germanic alphabet, based on the same vocal sounds. This is an evolution of Old Norse, not the same version as the Vikings used. So here goes: Two men remain from Magnus Vinland. Captive. Tired. Then there is a typical Latin prayer, abbreviated as AVM, or Ave Maria.”

  From there the professor launched into a lecture about the King Magnus expedition, that Vinland was what the Vikings called North America, how the expedition had recently been learned of in old documents from the post-Viking period, how no mention is ever made again of the expedition, so it is likely that all the men perished. He summarized the information on the Kensington Stone as well for the reporters, who were looking a little restless by now, used as they were to politicians who at least understood the concept of the sound bite.

  “The Kensington Stone has had many detractors over the years. But also many believers. It was exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum and studied in depth. No one has ever come up with anything definitive on it, condemning it absolutely as a fraud or proving that it is absolutely authentic. Until now.”

  He stood up, picking up the small tablet carefully. “This stone, which Miss Mardoll found and has called the Isa Runestone, proves that the expedition described in the Kensington Stone was true. These men survived, only to die in captivity later. Ladies and gentlemen, now: the bottom line.”

  He paused. Maybe he did understand sound bites. “Viking explorers reached the New World more than a hundred years before Columbus. They traveled and saw the continent in a way that Columbus never attempted. The Vikings were here first.”

  I sank onto a park bench without bothering to brush the snow off it and lowered my head into my hands. The square was bustling with last-minute chiselers and carvers, but I couldn’t focus on them. The tapping irritated me. I covered my ears with my gloved hands and stifled a scream.

  That woman, her easy guile, her astounding nerve, her lying, her cheating! I could hardly fathom what she had done, and so calmly, so neatly. Experts even. CNN, for godsake. A preemptive strike with guns so big that even a return shot would glance off, maybe even boomerang back to harm the sender.

  Not a good sign, thinking about firepower. Not in the mood I was in. No, I had to concentrate on what I would tell my mother. And Hank. Maybe he wouldn’t hear about it for a few days, or at least we’d think of some easy way to break it to him. Did they let him watch television in there? I hoped not.

  But Una. I trudged back to the gallery, crestfallen and angry at the same time. The overcast skies hung, waiting for a sign from Skadi the snow goddess to let up already. Enough snow for one day. A little sunshine would cheer us up. Skadi, buried deep in her snow castle in the sky, wouldn’t hear of it.

  Una, buried deep in the comforter watching Oprah, didn’t want to hear of it, but I gave her no choice. I was gentle, sparing in the details. In other words, I cut to the chase. The rock had surfaced, someone else was claiming ownership, and getting it back wasn’t going to be easy, or perhaps even possible.

  She took it well. Those stoic genes are good for something. I suppose in her mind it was already gone, stolen, disappeared for good. She worried a
bout Hank, and we agreed to wait to tell him until we knew more. What more we needed to know, I wasn’t sure, but it made both of us feel relief not to have to spring this on him in his circumstances, which were none too pleasant anyway.

  The phone rang as I was talking to Una. She let me pick it up as she was wringing out a tissue and Oprah was blathering on about her new fitness book. It was Artie; someone was waiting for me downstairs.

  At the door, a thought. I turned back to my mother. “How did she know about it?” Una frowned up at me. “How did Isa know about the stone? Did Glasius mention it at the reading?”

  “I—I don’t know. I don’t see why he would have.” She rubbed the tissue on her nose again. “Why, Hank hadn’t even told him about it by then, had he? No, no, he didn’t tell him until afterward, at the funny bar.”

  “At the Six Point? When did you go there again?”

  “After the reception.”

  My black jeans, dressy for the hearing, sort of, were now wet in the seat and dirty from running to the Chamber office and walking back with Danny. He had had a million questions, and I wasn’t sure where to start, if at all. I had to tell him one thing, though, and that was to hold the story. He’d be glad he did, I told him. She’s a fortuneteller, I reminded him. Have there ever been better con men than fortunetellers?

  I pulled my blazer lower over my snowmelt ass as I lurched through my office into the gallery. The Norwegians were who I expected, back to discuss Glasius’s murals again. But I was only half right. Right country, wrong guys.

  Bjarne had one elbow on the jewelry counter, chatting with Artie. The gallery was otherwise empty, the mid-afternoon slump. I stumbled a little when I saw that blond thatch of hair, those dimples, remembering yesterday a little too well. He saw me, pushed off the counter, and smiled.

  “Why didn’t you call me last night?” he scolded after a friendly hug. “I had to drink that wine all by myself. And just thinking about you was nice and all, but I really had other plans.”

  Artie was rapt, watching Bjarne finger my hair. I grabbed the skier’s hand and pulled him back into my office. He spun into my chair and tried to drag me onto his lap.

  “Bjarne, please. This is where I work,” I said, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say. He looked good today, as always: jeans, blue fleece pullover, hiking boots, white turtleneck. “I know.” He grinned. “And unfortunately I have come to say good-bye. Tomorrow I leave, and tonight I must do some Chamber of Commerce thing. So unless I can talk you into coming out to the airport tomorrow morning very early, before the sun even rises—”

  I sat on the other chair. “I’m sorry about last night. Maggie wanted me to go to a party.” I remembered then what I said last night: I probably would never see him again. While he was here, in the flesh, that seemed like bad luck. Bjarne grabbed my hand and began playing with my fingers. It was all I could do to draw it back into my lap.

  “I don’t think I can take you to the airport—”

  “No, no, Reineking has that duty. I just wanted to see you before I left.” He frowned suddenly, looking away at my painting, the pile of pink While You Were Out slips, then back at his hands on the edge of the desk.

  “Did you—um, did you have a good visit to Jackson?”

  “Hmm? Oh, oh, sure.” He didn’t look at me, and his voice seemed different, sad.

  Artie poked his head into the office then. “Sorry,” he said, looking around eagerly as if hoping to catch us en flagrante delicto. “This call came in while you were out. Guy had a bogus accent.”

  He handed me a pink memo. I pressed it between my hands without looking at it. Artie went off to greet customers coming through the door. Bjarne stood up.

  “Come here,” he whispered, drawing me up into his arms. “Good luck.”

  The hug was almost platonic, no kiss. He didn’t look at me as he let go and hurried out. I watched him skip down the steps and look both ways for traffic before disappearing into the sidewalk crowds. So it was as I imagined. He just wanted a little romp, a conquest for every ski town. But something told me, a warm spot in my heart, that his wasn’t as cold as that.

  I was on the phone to Roscoe Penn before I looked at the message. Penn was giving me a little hypothetical legal advice about getting back something that is stolen from you when you didn’t legally own it in the first place. He had a client some years back who had a large amount of very old Anasazi pottery stolen from his home. He had bought it from pothunters who pilfer on BLM and reservation land, although he denied knowing it was stolen. At any rate, he found out who stole his pots and had Roscoe sue the guy. He won them back but in the process attracted the attention of the law. He was arrested for receiving stolen goods and pot hunting illegally, and his fine was more than the pots were worth. He forfeited the pottery too. Thanks to Roscoe’s excellent legal negotiating, he avoided jail time.

  “I’m off to L.A. tonight,” Roscoe announced at the end of this instructional tale, which would not cheer anyone’s heart around here. He’d be back as soon as he could to deal with Hank.

  I would have been upset about his abandoning ship if I hadn’t finally read the pink memo Artie gave me. It was from Peter Black. No number was given, only this message: “have them. leaving.” I hung up quickly.

  “Artie?! What kind of a message is this?” I whispered loudly in the gallery. Two customers were examining a weaving, pointing out colors.

  Artie threw up his hands. “That’s what he said to write. He was very anxious about something, kind of stammering. Who is he, anyway?”

  “Just tell me, what did he say about have them?”

  He shrugged. “Just that. ‘Tell her I have them. She will know what I mean.’”

  “The runes? Did he say he had the runes? And where is he going?”

  Artie swore he knew no more. If I didn’t think Peter knew more about what happened the night Glasius was killed, I would have been very tempted to think, even say, Fuck the runes. They weren’t the big problem anymore. Glasius had wanted them, maybe even been killed over them. But what could they tell us now?

  Maggie’s laughter followed the tinkling of the front door behind us. She waved to someone on the boardwalk and came inside. Before I could say hello, she put her hands on her hips and gave a friendly frown.

  “And where were you, young lady? Well, no matter. Gloria and I looked over the ice sculptures without you.”

  I looked at my watch: 4:30. Shit. “Sorry, Maggie. You and Gloria did it together?”

  “Yeah, she’s not so bad when you get to know her. She had to get back to the office, so we went on without you. You aren’t mad, are you?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I’m grateful. You won’t believe the kind of day I’m having.”

  “I figured. I thought I saw Bjarne a minute ago; did he come in here?”

  I nodded, staring at the pink memo, trying to get it to talk. “Did you decide on prizes?”

  “Yes, but, well, there’s one sculpture you really have to see.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  All she would do was grin.

  “We gave it the blue ribbon, first prize,” Maggie was saying. “The transformation was just too complete.”

  Bundled up against the cold but wearing my clogs with too-thin socks, I stood with my mouth hanging open. Merle Tennepin had indeed transformed his obelisk of ice into something too fantastic. I glanced around at the other sculptures: the jackalope, the cornucopia, the elk head, the snowmobiler carved of ice. They were all unique, beautiful.

  “Maybe it’s because we thought it was a dick, I don’t know. To have it turn into this is such a wonderful shock,” Maggie said.

  It was a shock Merle Tennepin had taken the six-foot pointy-headed chunk of ice and made it into the most intricately carved totem pole, complete with food coloring dyes, eagle wings, gruesome masks, and animal heads. How it stood up with the heavy wings near the top, I didn’t know. The snowballs were no longer at the base. Two spotl
ights on the ground shone up at the sculpture. A bank of hay bales kept admirers back.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I whispered. It wouldn’t make Merle Tennepin any more pleasant to get a blue ribbon. But damn it, he deserved it. “What a relief.”

  Maggie laughed. “And to think—well, it did come to a girl’s mind.”

  Maggie went back to the apartment with me and whipped up some of her famous macaroni and cheese a la Velveeta. Luca came over to see Una, and we drank a little wine, ate some comfort food, and talked about the stone. I didn’t think it needed to be a secret any longer, not with national news coverage. Una gave me a look of disbelief when I told them about her finding the stone at Fort Union, but after the subject was broached, and exclaimed about excitedly by my two friends, she looked relieved.

  “Yes, yes, it was quite thrilling,” Una admitted, almost in spite of herself. “When I fist saw those letters, well, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “But who is this woman who says it is her own?” Luca asked, pouting.

  “Fortuneteller,” I said, wiggling my fingers in the air like a magician. “Full of spirits and bullshit.”

  “A thief,” Una added. “And a liar.”

  “Not to mention a bad driver,” Maggie said, glancing at Una’s cast. She had already decorated it with sixties peace flowers, and her signature.

  “She could have killed you!” Luca exclaimed.

  Maggie nodded. “But how are you going to get it back?”

  Quiet around the table. Una looked at the last macaroni elbow swimming in processed cheese and other artery-clogging agents on her plate. Luca raised her eyebrows at me. Maggie waved her fork around in the air and shrugged her shoulders. “Got any ideas?”

  “Maybe we should just accept that it’s lost to us,” I said. Una jerked her head up and stared. “I know it won’t be easy for Hank, or you. But I spoke to Roscoe Penn, and there really is no legal recourse. Technically, it didn’t even belong to you. It belongs to the National Park Service, the federal government. You weren’t supposed to take it out of the park.”