Mayhem (and Herring) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 6) by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2021-10-27T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

London’s companions gasped and looked back and forth at each other with alarm.

Sander started crying again.

“I cannot believe this,” he sobbed in Norwegian. “I cannot believe this.”

Honey asked the constable, “Do you mean that poor man really was murdered?”

Politiførstebetjent Kolberg said sternly, “I will ask the questions, if everybody does not mind.”

Honey closed her mouth firmly.

The constable paced the floor for a moment, then asked the group, “Did any of you have any sort of altercation with the deceased? Or do you know of anybody who did?”

Before anyone could answer that question, the outside door swung open. Mom was standing there in the doorway.

“What’s going on?” Mom asked anxiously. “What are the police doing here?”

Before anybody else could say anything, Gus Jarrett stood up and spoke sharply to Kolberg.

“I’ll tell you somebody who had an ‘altercation’ with him. Scott Raife, the guy this woman ran off with a while ago.”

Honey rolled her eyes and reprimanded her husband, “Come on, Gus. Don’t go jumping to conclusions already.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Gus said. Then he asked Mom, “Where is he, anyhow? Where did he go?”

London stopped herself from asking, “And where have you been?”

Looking seriously alarmed now, Mom came on into the building.

“Is Scott being accused of something?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Gus replied. “Just maybe of murder,”

Mom grew suddenly pale.

“I must ask you to take a seat,” the constable said to Mom.

Mom’s eyes grew wide. She hurried over to a chair and sat down with the rest of the group. The Wuttkes were holding onto each other for dear life, as if they were about to be attacked by a mugger or something.

Pointing to Mom, the constable turned to London and asked, “Is this one of the two missing people you mentioned?”

“That’s right,” London said. “This is my mother, Barbara Rose. The other was Scott Raife, another passenger on the Nachtmusik.”

She could see that her mother was trembling a bit now.

Nerves? London wondered. Or fear?

Mom looked around at everybody, “Would somebody please explain all this?” she said. “Is it true that somebody has been … ?”

Mom’s voice faded.

London explained as calmly as she could, “Since you and Scott … disappeared, Iver Nilsen fell to his death from up inside the lighthouse tower.”

Mom gasped again.

“But surely it was an accident,” she said.

Gus growled, “The cop lady doesn’t seem to think so. And I’ve got a pretty good idea who she ought to suspect of murder.”

For the first time, the constable sounded a bit impatient.

“I have no suspects—not yet,” she said. “And I will thank you all for refraining from accusing anybody. Could somebody tell me the nature of the altercation?”

London decided she’d better start explaining things.

“Everybody else aboard the boat was mackerel fishing, but Scott wanted to fish for sea trout. So he used his own rod and reel. He hooked something big—a cod, as it turned out.”

Kolberg squinted at London and said, “Fishing for cod is illegal in Oslofjord.”

Mardi Wuttke said anxiously, “But Carter and I didn’t do any fishing at all.

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