Bonnie of Evidence (25 page)

Was it possible the knife really
was
cursed? I felt like a dimwit buying into such foolishness, but the evidence seemed so overwhelming that—

Damn
.

What else could cause the kind of internal damage the women had incurred?

My shoulders slumped as I sank into the chair Wally had vacated.
I wasn’t a doctor. How would I know?
But the body of evidence before me pointed in only one direction, forcing me to concede, with great reluctance, that there existed a slim possibility that Isobel Kronk and Dolly Pinker …
might
have been felled by the power of an ancient curse.

There. I said it.

BOOM
!

The landscape art suddenly flew off the wall and fell onto the bed, followed by the appearance of a booted foot as it punched a hole through the wood paneling directly above the nightstand.

“Sorry about that!” Erik called out. “Foot slipped.”

I stared at the sole of his hiking boot as he wrenched it out of the wall, unable to drag my eyes away from the gaping hole.

I put my brain on rewind.

Felled by the power of an ancient curse
?

Either that … or a roundhouse kick to the abdomen by a man once dubbed the greatest kickboxer in the world.

SIXTEEN

“
J
OHN
O
’
G
ROATS IS
the northernmost settlement in Great Britain,” Wally informed us early the next morning as we motored along the narrow A836, bucking crosswinds that caused every rivet in the bus to creak and groan. The terrain was flat as a tabletop, with sweeping vistas of the rockbound, wave-battered coast to our left. A profusion of purple heather blanketed the landscape, adding cheer to the gray rock and dull grass, but when the color faded, I suspected this treeless, wind-torn moor could be the bleakest place on earth. “The town was named for a Dutchman who petitioned King James IV for permission to run a ferry between the mainland and the Orkney Islands. His name was Jan de Groote, and his venture was one of the big success stories of 1496, because the ferry has been in service ever since.”

“And it’s still seaworthy?” Margi called out, stupefied.

“It’s the same operation.” Wally chuckled. “Not the same boat.”

“It better have an engine,” hollered Dick Teig, “because I’m not about to tear my rotator cuff by rowing across
that
channel in
these
winds.”

“Then I assume you’re planning to stay on shore,” Alice chided, “because a boat built in 1496 is
not
going to have an engine.”

“Yes, it will,” argued Dick Stolee. “It just won’t be diesel.”

Oh, God
.

I clutched the hand-grip on the seat in front of me as the bus swerved in the battering winds.

The gang was on edge this morning because their cell phone service was still down, so they were having to talk to each other instead of text.
I
was on edge this morning because I thought I knew what had happened to Isobel and Dolly … but I was at a loss how to prove it.

“The ferry comes fully equipped with an engine, indoor and outdoor seating, a snack bar, and restroom facilities,” Wally assured us, “so no one’s going to have to stay behind. And just to finish my story, Jan is Dutch for John, but the O’ Groats appears to reflect the ferryman’s habit of charging each passenger one groat for the ride.”

I’d stayed up past midnight trying to resolve the “hole in the wall” issue with the hotel’s night manager. Since I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, I’d had to wake up Dad from a sound sleep to translate. And Mom decided to join us since she was awake anyway, worrying about how to prevent news of Nana’s incarceration from leaking to the Legion of Mary’s Newsletter committee. Erik explained the mishap by pleading the Little Miss Muffet defense: he’d spied an enormous black spider halfway up the wall, and he’d tried to kill it.

“With your foot?” I’d asked.

“Of course with my foot. You don’t think I was going to smoosh it with my hand, do you? I mean,
euw
.”

In the end, the manager apologized profusely for the insect problem and upgraded Erik and Alex to the bridal suite, bought Mom and Dad’s silence about the infestation by upgrading them to the room Mary Queen of Scots would have slept in if the hotel had been around back then, and fixed the unwanted porthole in my wall by taping a piece of cardboard over it and giving me a can of bug spray, just in case the spider had been traveling with an extended family. So everyone went to bed happy.

Except me.

I was going to have to tell my husband that I suspected our contest had been infiltrated by a killer who was using his feet as deadly weapons.

“The ferry isn’t scheduled to leave for another half-hour,” Wally continued, “so you’ll have plenty of time to grab a cup of coffee or use the comfort station before we board. And please remain in your seats once we’re parked because Emily has an important announcement to make about the contest.”

Buzzing. Whispers. Distrustful looks from the guests in the seats around me.

“What kind of announcement?” Bill Gordon yelled.

“We’ll be arriving at the harbor in a few minutes, Bill. I suspect you can wait that long to find out.”

I was a bit leery about how people would react to my idea, but Wally was on board, and I was pretty sure Etienne would be on board, too … once I told him, even though he’d probably never heard of Oprah. I would have told him this morning, if our five- minute time limit hadn’t expired before I could get it out.

“Is anyone seeing what I’m seeing in the water over there?” George asked in a disbelieving tone. “What is that? A reef ?”

I looked out the window to see a frothy swell of white water bubbling out of the sea like a tsunami wave, churning and roiling with volcanic intensity. Only, it wasn’t breaking toward shore. It was just staying in the same place, like a permanent gash in the ocean’s surface, bleeding out constant spume and brine.

“I’ve read about this,” Wally enthused, “but this is the first time I’ve seen it with my own eyes. What you’re witnessing, ladies and gentlemen, is the exact point where the Atlantic Ocean encounters the North Sea. There’s no reef. It’s just a friendly meet and greet between two powerful bodies of water.”

“Meet and greet?” questioned George. “Looks more like a full frontal attack to me.”

“Seas might be more choppy today because of the wind,” Wally added, “so if you’re predisposed to motion sickness, I suggest you take a prophylactic before boarding the ferry.”

Snickering. Whispers. Snorts.

“
Psst
. Emily.” From behind me, Osmond poked his fingers through the divide between the seats to tap my arm. “I got a condom with me, but I don’t get how it’s gonna prevent sea sickness. What am I supposed to do? Wear it, or swallow it?”

I looked heavenward and shook my head.
Really? I mean, really
?

The harbor at John O’ Groats consisted of a parking lot filled with recreational vehicles and several single-story, whitewashed buildings spread out along a circular drive. After Calum maneuvered the bus into a vacant space and turned off the engine, I joined Wally at the front of the vehicle and took over the microphone, praying all the while for an outcome more favorable than total rebellion.

“Good morning. I thought this might be a good time to tell you about a new wrinkle I’ve decided to add to the contest.”

All eyes were focused on me. Faces conflicted. Mouths stiff.

“I wasn’t anticipating some of the problems we’ve run into, so to thank you for hanging in there with me and taking things in stride, I’m adding a few more prizes to the contest. Instead of giving away one free trip, Destinations Travel will be giving away”—I paused for effect—“five!”

Lips softened. Brows inched upward. Eyes gleamed with disbelief.

“One trip will go to the winning team, and the other four will be awarded to one member of each losing team.” It would cost the agency a fortune, but I figured we could recover more quickly from a one-time output of capital than from the bad publicity that litigation would bring.

Studied silence.

“Are you telling us that you’re chucking the competition?” Tilly asked in a stern voice. “That the geocaching skills we’ve honed over the past few months are being discarded in favor of a mindless and wholly random drawing?”

Uh-oh
. I’d expected Bernice to give me flak, but never Tilly. “I wouldn’t have expressed it in exactly those words, but I guess that’s what it all boils down to.” I flashed a self-deprecating smile. “Every team gets a pony.”

She thumped her walking stick on the floor. “Good. Timed events completely unnerve me.”

“Does this mean you’re pulling the plug on the whole operation?” asked George.

“No, no. You can still search for the cache; I’m simply making it less stressful by eliminating the time limits, the scoring, the opposition, the—”

“The fun,” hollered Bill.

The fun, the hostility, the resentment, the spitefulness
.

He snorted with indignation. “Who cares about finding the next cache if it can’t be dog-eat-dog?”

Two dozen hands shot into the air.

“Let me get this straight,” said Helen. “Even if we don’t find the cache, we’re still in the running for the prize?”

I nodded. “You got it.”

“This is great!” said Dick Teig. “We can screw up all we want and still score an all-expenses-paid trip. I like the way you think, Emily.”

Smiles. Laughter. Gasps of relief.

Well
. I smiled inwardly. That hadn’t been so bad.

“If you’re changing the rules, I want back in,” demanded Bernice.

I shot her a withering look.
Of course she did.

“You can’t get back in,” taunted Dick Stolee. “Once you’re out, you’re out. Right, Emily?”

“Well—”

Osmond popped out of his seat. “How many people think Bernice is entitled to participate in the contest again despite the fact that she threw the two surviving members of her team under the bus yesterday?”

Eyes narrowed. Jaws hardened. Hands remained folded in laps, except for Alice’s.

“I think we should let her back in,” she suggested in a tentative vibrato. “It’s the only Christian thing to do.”

“Taking up a collection is Christian,” argued Dick Teig. “How ’bout we do that instead?”

“My cell phone is back on!” cried George, prompting gleeful outcries and general pandemonium throughout the bus.

“Mine, too,” whooped Tilly. “And I have a message from Marion!”

“Me, too!” cried George.

Tilly adjusted her glasses. “‘Greetings from Big House. Jail not so bad. Pizza from Chinese take-out place last night. Pepperoni, snow peas, and squid. Would have preferred thicker crust.” Tilly grinned. “What did she send you, George?”

“Nothin’.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket. Red-faced and flustered, he stumbled into the aisle. “I could sure use a cup of coffee. Are you through with us, Emily?”

“She better be,” Dick Teig warned. “If that boat over there is our ferry, folks are lining up already.”

That’s all it took for the stampede to begin. The doors opened. Seats emptied. And before Calum could even clear the stairs to assist with deboarding, everyone disappeared through the rear exit.

Everyone, that is, except Bernice, who remained in her seat, staring at me without blinking, which disproved the popular myth that all septuagenarians suffered from dry eyes.

“I don’t care about the stupid vote,” she bellyached. “I want back in, and if it doesn’t happen, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” She gathered up her things and stepped into the aisle. “And furthermore, if my name isn’t in the pool for a free trip, I promise you one thing: you’ll never see Bernice Zwerg’s face on a Destinations Travel tour ever again.” Pulling the hood of her slicker over her head, she marched down the rear stairs, leaving me to smile giddily at Wally.

“I’d hold her to her promise if I were you.” He raised his hand for a high-five. “Make sure you get it in writing, signed and dated. Notarized if possible.”

I hesitated just long enough for him to give me an anguished look. “Oh, come
on
, Emily! You’re not seriously thinking about letting her back in. You’re this close to being free of her.” He did the thumb and forefinger thing. “We’re
all
this close to being free of her.”

“I know.” My shoulders slumped as my gut tilted with my conscience. “It’s just that … the part of me that doesn’t want to kill her feels sorry for her. She has no friends, no social skills—”