Dutch Me Deadly (6 page)

Gary shook his head, his voice almost sympathetic. “You haven’t changed at all, Hennessy. Still the same mental giant you were fifty years ago.”

“Like you’re so smart,” Mindy fired back. “I didn’t see you graduating first in our class. Or second. Or third. I can’t imagine how disappointed your daddy must have been when you told him you got beaten out by an orphan, a social misfit, and a girl who was afraid of her own shadow. If Bobby hadn’t disappeared from the picture, you wouldn’t have even ended up in the top five. That would have killed your daddy, wouldn’t it? Hard to show your face around town when your kid’s high school career ends up a total bust. No basketball scholarship and no academic awards.”

“Ya,” Ricky piled on. “You must have been turning cartwheels when Bobby made his exit. Finnegan gets bumped up to valedictorian, Laura gets salutatorian, and you get upgraded to fifth in the class. Pretty convenient if you ask me.”

I sat up straight in my seat. Pete Finnegan became valedictorian only after the infamous Bobby Guerrette disappeared? I sidled a glance across the aisle at Pete. Hmm. How interesting was that?

“Are you accusing my Gary of something criminal?” Sheila demanded.

“If the shoe fits,” taunted Ricky.

“How come you’re not throwing accusations at Pete?” Sheila
raved on. “He’s the one who benefited most from Bobby’s absence.”

“And you know damn well I would have earned a basketball scholarship if I hadn’t blown my knee that last semester,” Gary defended.

“Ouch.” I cringed. “Basketball injury?”

“He slipped on a piece of toilet paper in the boys’ restroom,” Paula said with barely contained humor. “The captain of the basketball team, felled by a square of generic two-ply.”

“One-ply,” Ricky corrected. “They were too cheap to spring for two-ply.”

“Yah, well, if you football lunkheads hadn’t been horsing around,
it never would have happened,” Gary sniped.

“You can’t take a joke,” accused Ricky. “You never could. Getting rid of all the toilet paper in the restroom was hilarious.”

“You and your stupid prank ruined my basketball career,” Gary bellowed.

“Ya, he coulda been a contenda,” said Paula, aping Marlon Brando.

“Are you blaming me?” Ricky challenged. “Hey, I ain’t taking the rap for your accident. Nobody pushed you. You went down all on your own.”

“And one of these days
you’re
going down, too, Hennessy.” Gary’s
jaw pulsed angrily. “We’ll see how you like it.”

Mindy gasped. “Is that a threat?”

Paula threw her arms into the air and circled them around her head erratically, like a mime imitating chaos. “Geez-Louise, don’t get Mindy in a huff, or she’ll make up a derogatory cheer about you. Remember the one she made up about Laura and taught to the whole squad?
Lau-ra, Lau-ra, she’s so scary. Looks like a dog, and acts like a ferret
.”

I stared at Paula, horrified. Oh, my Lord. If my schoolmates had been that cruel to me, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to show my face in class again. The Francis Xavier cheerleaders apparently weren’t paragons of school spirit and good will.

They were bullies.

I sucked in a deep, calming breath.

I hated bullies.

“Ferret doesn’t rhyme with scary,” Sheila pointed out.

“No one asked you,” spat Mindy.

“Was there anyone on your squad of losers who realized that ‘scary’ could be rhymed with ‘fairy’?” questioned Paula. “Laura acted a hell of a lot more like the good fairy than a rodent.”

Mindy skewered her with a look that inspired more fear than the Death Star’s going operational. “You would have sold your grandmother’s dentures to be on the cheerleading squad, Paula Peavey, so I’m not listening to any of your trash talk. Here’s a cheer for you:
Paul-a, Paul-a, can’t you see? You’re eaten up by jeal-ou-sy
.”

Paula snorted with laughter. “Oh, please. Your glory days have gone to your head.” She flashed a snarky grin. “And everything else has gone to your butt.”

“Is the Laura you’re talking about Laura LaPierre?” I asked, leaping into the fray.

Dead silence, followed by an incredulous look from Mindy. “You know Laura?”

“In a roundabout way,” I fibbed. “She’s quite the celebrity. Did any of you read the interview she gave to
Fitness Magazine?
It was dynamite. She offered tips on how to stay ultra toned and flab-free past sixty-five. And she should know, because she looks like she has about zero percent body fat.” I smiled at Mindy. “She provided statistics on the high correlation between a pissy attitude and the high incidence of halitosis, boils, and rickets.” I smiled at Paula. “And she gave pointers on how to turn ordinary business ventures into cash cows. I guess she’s an entrepreneurial genius with more money than God.” I smiled at Gary. “Have you spoken to her?”

Eyes bulged. Expressions froze. Jaws fell.

“We haven’t run into her yet,” Mindy finally said in a small, tight voice.

“Well, you might not recognize her because she looks like she graduated last year instead of fifty years ago. What a knockout! You must be thrilled that a member of your class has made such a big name for herself. I think
Vanity Fair
is doing a feature article on her next month, and after that, she’ll be on the cover of
Vogue
. You should corner her sometime so you can reminisce about old times. I bet she’s dying to thank all of you.”

Ricky looked confused. “What’s she got to thank us for?”

“For treating her the way you did. If you’d been nice to her, she probably would have stayed in Bangor … and ended up like the rest of you.”

The floor tilted as we quartered into a wave. “Oh, jeez,” Ricky
squawked, grabbing the table with both hands. We slammed into a trough with a
boom
strong enough to shake the table and cause
the silverware to jump. Dishes rattled. Soup sloshed onto the table-cloth. And Ricky’s head fell forward as if he’d been guillotined.

“Is everyone ready for the next course?” I asked brightly as our waiter strode toward us, seemingly immune to the lurching deck. “Wow. Looks like a week’s worth of food. Hope everyone’s hungry.”

Ricky let out a groan like a wounded animal.

“Would you get him off the table?” Paula exploded. “Unless you expect the waiter to serve the next course around his head.”

“Is he going to be sick?” Sheila asked anxiously.

I stuck my nose in the air and sniffed. “Smells like onions, and hot chile oil, and peppercorns, and—”

“Somebody …” Ricky pleaded in a whisper of breath, “shut her up.”

“Bang Bang Chicken,” our waiter announced as he snapped open his tray jack and set his heavy serving tray atop it. “Very piquant.” He arched his brows at Ricky’s head. “Does der gentleman vish to try der entree?”

“He’s feeling a little out of sorts,” explained Mindy, “but he wouldn’t want his meal to go to waste, seein’s as how it’s already paid for, so you can give it to me, and I’ll just pick on it after I finish mine.”

“Give her mine, too,” Sheila instructed. “There’s no way I can enjoy my meal with Jumbo’s head in my lap.”

“His head is nowhere near your lap,” argued Mindy.

“How would you know what a lap looks like?” railed Sheila. “When’s the last time you saw yours?”

Paula laughed. “I doubt she can remember that far back.”

“I’ll tell you what I
do
remember,” Mindy shot back. “I remember who Bobby Guerrette refused to go to Senior Prom with. The girls were supposed to ask the boys. Remember him turning your invitation down flat? He decided to stay home rather than go with you. How’d that make you feel, Paula? Or did it happen too long ago for you to recall?”

“Witch,” hissed Paula.

“Bitch,” spat Mindy, proving that her rhyming skills had improved appreciably since high school.

“Duck!” cried Sheila, which seemed a lame entry in a name-calling contest, until I realized it wasn’t a name.

It was a warning.

“He’s ready to blow!”

Which he did, with animation, sound effects, and impressive range.

“Jeesuz, Hennessy!”

“OH MY GOD!!!”

I launched myself out of the booth, escaping across the aisle before my cashmere twinset fell victim to Ricky’s malaise. Unfortunately, my dinner companions were less mobile, so they bore the full impact of the assault, their screams and cries attracting the attention of the entire boat.

I regarded them in disbelief. Ugh. They could kiss those clothes good-bye. I couldn’t even read their nametags anymore.
Euuuw.

As the scene escalated into a full-blown shouting match, I realized that even though I’d failed to trick them into coughing up any new details about Charlotte’s death, I’d learned two intriguing facts: first, that Pete Finnegan had benefited hugely from the death of a fellow student fifty years ago, and second, if Ricky Hennessy had been able to throw a football half as far as he could hurl, he could have gone pro.

Six

“Our waiter told us
the Bang Bang Chicken was real ‘pee-kant’,” Nana confided when we returned to the hotel, “but he didn’t say nuthin’ about it bein’ so dang spicy. Two bites done me in. Feels like I don’t got no skin left on my tongue.” Peering down the length of her nose, she stuck her tongue out and studied it cross-eyed. “Whath it look like?”

We were loitering in the lobby along with other guests who were reading the schedule on the whiteboard, bugging the front desk clerk for brochures, and queuing up at the elevator. “Skin’s still there,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and giving her an affectionate hug. “But I think ‘piquant’ is restaurant code for hot. Like, ‘Yeow, my mouth is on fire’ hot.”

“No kiddin’?”

“I’m surprised Tilly didn’t interpret for you.”

“We got split up, so she ate with George and I ate with a fella named Peewee. Awful nice young man. He’s one of them reunion folks. He don’t live in Maine no more though. He lives in Arizona in one a them retirement communities.” She scanned the lobby. “That’s him over there by the front desk, gettin’ hit on by Bernice.”

I found Bernice locked in conversation with a guy who probably had to duck his head when he passed through most doorways—a big bear of a man with shaggy white hair and a jacket that wouldn’t zip over his stomach. I laughed aloud. “I see him, but I can’t believe his name is Peewee.”

“He grew.”

“Why is Bernice hitting on him? Is she on the prowl for husband number two?”

“
Psssh
. You see the way she’s wavin’ her phone around? I bet she’s askin’ him to be her friend on Facebook. But it won’t do her no good because I already asked him, and he said he don’t do social networkin’.”

A lightbulb slowly brightened over my head. “My dinner companions mentioned that all you guys had been pestering them about Facebook. ‘Accosted’ was the word one of them used. So why the frantic push to collect more online friends?”

“You can’t never have enough, dear.” She whipped out her phone
and fingered the touchscreen. “What’s their names? Maybe I don’t got ’em yet.”

“You don’t. They’re not interested in sharing their personal information with strangers from Iowa.”

“But I wouldn’t be no stranger if we was friends.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Okay, what’s this really about?”

She peeked at me over the tops of her wire-rims, her eyes sheepish, her voice resigned. “It’s on account’ve Bernice. She’s been so obnoxious braggin’ about how many Facebook friends she’s got that the rest of us decided to one-up her. So it’s kinda turned into a competition.”

I regarded her sternly. “That’s why you’re pestering the other guests? You’re trying to sign up more friends than Bernice on Facebook?”

She nodded contritely. “Yup.”

I gave her confession a moment’s thought. “I like it! So how are you doing so far?”

She snapped back into action like a brand new rubber band. “We got a lot a catchin’ up to do, but we been gainin’ on her.” She quickly consulted her screen. “I got forty-eight friends so far. Tilly’s got fifty-two. George has thirty-five.”

“And how many does Bernice have?”

She swept her forefinger across her screen. “Six hundred eighty.”

“WHAT?”

“Ain’t that somethin’? Bernice don’t got no friends except me, and sometimes even I’m on the fence, so how’d she come up with six hundred?” Her phone chimed. “Oh, boy. Incomin’ text message.” She read the screen. “It’s from Margi. She says everyone’s starvin’, so we’re gonna get some dessert. You wanna join us, dear?”

Even though I hadn’t gotten beyond the Chinese vegetable soup course, I wasn’t ready to face any more food this evening, not with
Ricky Hennessy’s command performance still so fresh in my mind. “I’m looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath, and then I’m going to hit the sack.” I looked beyond the lobby proper to the French doors of the dining room. “Is the hotel dining room open for dessert?”

“Just a sec.” She typed my question and sent it off, then stayed focused on the screen as she waited patiently for a reply. “Margi’s good about gettin’ right back to me.”

“Where is she?”

“Right behind you.”

I turned around to find Margi standing by the revolving door, less than ten feet away, typing a message into her phone.

“She says the dinin’ room’s closed, so we gotta go someplace else.” Nana’s phone chimed again. “We’re s’posed to meet by the front door in two minutes.”

I glanced around the room. “That shouldn’t be too hard, considering you’re all standing within ten feet of the door already.”

“It’s nice to have a little cushion, dear. Takes some of the pressure off.”

As I ushered Nana toward the front entrance, Jackie pushed her way through the revolving door and swooped into the lobby like a rock star in search of an entourage, heels clacking and eyes gleaming.

“Well, would you look at that,” said Nana. “It’s that nice girl what you was married to.”

“Mrs. S!” cried Jackie, smothering her in a rib-crushing hug that pushed her wirerims off her nose and flattened her hair. “I waved to you at dinner.” She readjusted Nana’s glasses and fluffed her hair. “But you had your back to me, so you probably didn’t see me. So what did you think of the meal? Pretty awesome Asian fusion, huh?”

Nana gave her teeth a thoughtful suck. “Osmond said the rubber in the soup was a bit salty. Margi ate one a them slices a toast with the onions and said it bit back. And Bernice said cat food woulda tasted better. Don’t know if she was talkin’ about canned or dry.”

“But the Bang Bang Chicken, Mrs. S. Wasn’t it the best?”

“It burned the skin off my tongue.”

“Mine too!”

“And I don’t got no feelin’ in my lips.”

“Me either!”

“So what’d you like about it so much?”

Jackie paused, looking suddenly bewildered. “That it burned the skin off my tongue and left me with no feeling in my lips. I thought that’s what made it so good.”

Nana peered up at her, smiling indulgently. “You’re very tall, aren’t you, dear?”

“What did you do with Beth Ann?” I inquired when “lookalike Emily” failed to follow Jackie through the door.

Jackie tittered excitedly. “If all goes according to plan, she should be negotiating with the people from Maine right now.”

“About what?” asked Nana.

She bowed her head and cupped her hand over her mouth, her voice low and conspiratorial. “Our dinner companions expressed a keen interest in seeing the Red Light District at night, so they’ve offered Dietger a really big tip to take them on an unauthorized field trip. Beth Ann and I are trying to get in on the action.”

Nana’s jaw dropped to her navel. “
The
Red Light District? The real one? The place where ladies of the evenin’ earn high-yieldin’ investment capital by boinkin’ complete strangers in storefront windows?”

Jackie nodded. “Impressive, isn’t it? The Dutch are so enterprising.”

“Are you guys nuts?” I looked from one to the other. “According to the guidebooks, the Red Light District is a seamy cesspool of perversion, pot, porn, and prostitutes. It’s overrun with sex shops, opium dens, live nude revues, junkies, drug dealers, brothels—”

Nana held up her hand. “You don’t need to say no more, dear. I get the picture.” She stared up at Jackie with an imploring look. “Can I go, too?”

“Nana!” I cried. “What are you thinking? It’s too dangerous! You— you could get mugged, or—or drugged—or kidnapped at knife-point and sold into white slavery.”

Her face lit up. “No kiddin’?”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you know how much hot water I’d be in if Mom discovered I’d encouraged you to wander around the Red Light District in the company of perverts and prostitutes?”

“I wasn’t plannin’ to tell her, dear.”

“Aw, c’mon, Emily, lighten up.” Jackie patted the crown of Nana’s head as if she were a favorite pet. “She’ll be with me and Beth Ann and all the people from Maine. What could possibly happen to her?”

Oh, yeah. That was reassuring. “Which would you prefer to hear first? Best-case scenario or worst-case scenario?”

“Who’s Beth Ann?” asked Nana.

“Oh!” Jackie gushed. “I need to introduce you! Beth Ann is my—”

I clapped my hands over Nana’s ears.

Jackie fired me a narrow look. “She’s going to have a
really
hard time hearing me with your mitts covering her ears.”

“I know.”

Nana tapped the back of my hand. “What’d she say?”

I shook my head and mouthed, “Noth-ing.”

“Marion!” Dick Stolee hurried over to us, his thumb resting on the button of his stop watch. “What’s the holdup here? We’re thirty seconds behind schedule. Time’s a wastin’.”

Nana squinted hard at his face. “WHAT’D HE SAY?”

I dropped my hands. “He says it’s time to go. Have a good time.” I scooted her toward him. “Eat hearty. Stay on the main thoroughfares. Don’t wander down any dark alleys.”

“Where are you guys headed?” asked Jackie.

“We’re going out for dessert,” said Dick, “but we don’t know where yet because Osmond is still tallying the votes.” He lowered his voice to an exasperated whisper. “Grace and Helen’s phones are out of juice, so he’s insisting on secret ballots.”

“Stop the balloting!” cried Jackie. “Have I got a place for you.” Grabbing Dick’s arm, she aimed him toward the front door. “Exit the building. Turn right. Walk two blocks, and it’s on the left-hand side of the street. A delicious little pastry shop with all kinds of scrumptious chocolate cakes and fruit tarts in the display cases. To
die
for.” She turned to Nana. “Trust me, Mrs. S, I guarantee you’ll be happier gorging yourself on chocolate than checking out the nightlife.”

“You think?” she said, not looking entirely convinced. “Well, maybe me and George can share somethin’. We love whipped cream and chocolate sauce.” She grinned wickedly. “Sometimes we even put ’em in a bowl.”

I hung my head.
Oh, God.

She looked up at Jackie. “If I give you my spare camera, would you take a few pictures? We’re studyin’ the seven deadly sins at the Legion of Mary this month, and they’re handin’ out door prizes for photos what capture the best nonliteral interpretation of the featured sin. Last week we done sloth.” A beatific smile split her face. “Next week, it’s lust.”

Jackie squeaked out a sound like a faulty vacuum cleaner leaking air. “There’s absolutely
no
picture-taking in the Red Light District, Mrs. S. None.
Nada
. Forget it. Show up with a camera anywhere in that part of the city at night and you could be flirting with serious consequences.”

“Red Light District?” hooted Dick. “Hell, I vote we cancel dessert. I didn’t know we had another choice.”

“You don’t got no other choice,” Nana informed him as she dragged him toward the waiting group. “You’re married to Grace.”

“Call me when you’re done eating to let me know you’re all back safely,” I called after her.

Jackie splayed her hand over her heart and smiled. “She handles disappointment so well. She’s an inspiration to us all.” She leveled her gaze on me, brows arched and sparks flying in her eyes. “So, would you care to explain?”

Even though we’d been husband and wife only briefly, we still retained the ability to discuss serious issues like veterans of a much longer marriage. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The earmuff business?”

“Oh, that.”

I looked to see who was within earshot, then motioned her to an isolated corner of the room. “Okay, Jack, here’s the deal. If I have to explain your flip-flops to Nana
yet
again
, I’ll probably overload her circuits and cause her to have a stroke. Or acid reflux. Or something equally life altering.”

“Flip-flops?” She stuck out her foot. “Hel-looo? I’m wearing boots.”

“Flip-flops, Jack. You’ve developed a pattern. When you were a
he, you married me but ran off with another guy. When you became a she, you married a guy, but now you’ve run off with another woman. What
is
it with you? Back and forth and back and forth. Can’t you just make up your mind and live with it?”

“Emily Andrew! Are you accusing me of leaving my adoring husband to engage in a tawdry affair with—with?” She paused, elongating her eyes to tiny slits. “Refresh my memory. Who have I run away with?”

“Duh? Beth Ann Oliver?”

“What?”

“Maybe you can’t help it, Jack. Maybe your brain chemistry is so out of whack that it’s caused an irreparable tear in your moral fabric.”

She circled her hand around her throat as if trying to hold together the fabric that hadn’t already split apart. “Oh, my God. This sounds serious.” She grew silent, then perked up again, as if her brain were rebooting itself. “Wait a minute. My moral fabric isn’t coming apart at the seams. You know why? Because I’m not cheating on my husband. You know why? Because Beth Ann isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Then who is she?”

“My client.”

“What kind of client tags along with you on a European vacation?”

“The kind who pays me to give her advice on a daily basis!”

I blinked my surprise. “You mean, like Dear Abby?”

“Oh, please. I blow Abby out of the water with all the services I offer. I’m available to accompany my clients to any location in the world. My advice is individual and immediate. I’m equipped to handle any problem from what book you should read next, to how to prevent yourself from falling apart when you smudge a fresh manicure. And as a special bonus, I offer professional fashion advice, lessons in makeup application, and best of all, free foot massages. I’d like to see Abby top that.”

“So, you’re like a globetrotting Dear Abby?”

She fisted her hand on her hip. “What I am, Emily, is an honest to goodness, card-carrying, board-certified … life coach!”

“Wow.”

“Isn’t that awesome?”

“Awesome. What’s a life coach?”

She groaned in disgust. “Have you people in the Midwest ever heard about
any
popular trend before it became passé?”

“Mom says we were ahead of the curve with the hula hoop.”