Dutch Me Deadly (11 page)

Mindy stood transfixed, but only for a heartbeat. “Did you say ground floor?” She seized Ricky’s arm. “Is that this floor or the one below us? Oh, never mind.” She pulled him away from me and hauled him toward the exit. “We’ll figure it out ourselves.”

That clinched it. There was officially something weird going
on, which meant I needed to find Wally so I could do the mos
t responsible thing I could think of.

Dump it all in his lap.

Leaving the group in Harold’s hands, I breezed across the floor, stopping short when I noticed Nana and the gang crowded onto the viewing bench at the far end of the next room. Built like an oversized ottoman, the bench provided seating on all four sides—a design that encouraged patrons to study the room’s masterpieces at length, which was exactly what my guys were doing.

Kinda.

“Were the faces in the painting clearer with pair number one, or pair number two?” Grace asked Osmond. She stood in front of him, a pair of eyeglasses clutched in each hand.

“Pair number one,” he said definitively.

“I think he means pair number two,” corrected Helen, standing beside an exceptionally large painting as if she were Vanna White poised before Wheel of Fortune’s letter board. “He mistook the milkmaid for Newt Gingrich with the first pair.” She swept her hand toward the milkmaid in question.

Osmond gave his head a scratch. “Can’t rightly remember what I saw now. Can I try ’em on again?”

“No retesting!” snapped Bernice. “One chance, that’s it, or the rest of us won’t get a turn.”

“Shouldn’t we be sterilizing the equipment after each use?” asked Margi. She yanked a pint bottle out of her handbag and smiled breathlessly. “I have sanitizer.”

Oh, good God. They were using a Rembrandt masterpiece as an eye chart.

I regarded the operation with a critical eye and shrugged.

Okay. That could work.

I shot through the remaining exhibit rooms, hit the stairwell, and bounded down the stairs two at a time. To my great relief, I found Wally seated on a bench in the entrance lobby, pocketing his cellphone.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I gasped out, sitting down beside him to catch my breath, “but—”

“Your Dicks haven’t shown up yet.”

My shoulders sagged with the news. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. I just got off the phone with the police.”

“But that’s partially what I needed to tell you. If Paula Peavey doesn’t rejoin us, you have to tell them not to spend a lot of time pounding the pavement for her, because I have it on good authority that she might have caught a flight back to the states.”

“Paula Peavey, on the other hand,
has
shown up.”

“Oh, my God. Really? See! That’ll teach you to be such a pessimist. Is she back at the hotel?”

“No. Her body was dragged out of the Kloveniersburgwal canal about an hour ago.”

Eleven

I wheezed so forcefully,
I nearly sucked my tonsils up my nose. “Ohmigod.” Was this why everyone was running away at the mere mention of Paula’s name? Was this why no one would admit how they got back to the hotel last night? They all saw something. Or did something. Or—“Ohmigod.” I squeezed Wally’s forearm as the puzzle came together. “They killed her.”

“What?”

“They. All of them. No wonder they’re stonewalling. They’ve committed murder!”

Wally raised his eyes heavenward. “I had to be put on two different kinds of blood pressure medication after my first run-in with you.” He plucked my fingers off his arm. “And I’m not about to fork out the co-pay for a third. Not with my crappy prescription drug benefits. That’s why you see me remaining calm and in control.”

“You’re hypertensive? Have you tried yoga? I’ve heard it can work wond—”

“Quiet!” He stuck his nose so close to mine, his breath singed my face. “Now, just so we’re on the same page, there was
no
murder.”

“But—”

“
No
murder. The police aren’t even planning to investigate unless the autopsy reveals something suspicious.”

“The suspicious stuff is happening right under our noses! The vacant stares. The urgent trips to the restroom. The—”

“They’re treating this as an accidental drowning, because as you may have noticed on your city tour—”

“We haven’t had the city tour yet.”

“As you’ll notice when you
take
your city tour, Amsterdam has so many canals, and so few guardrails, that one misstep can spell disaster.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Especially if you’re pushed.”

“She was not pushed.”

“How do
you
know? You never met Paula Peavey. She was a mean-spirited, unkind bully whose greatest pleasure in life was humiliating people. No one liked her. Even the people who associated with her hated her.”

“That doesn’t mean any of them decided to murder her.”

“Says you.”

“Say the police! I pulled Paula’s medical history form earlier. Did you know she suffered from vertigo? Just like in the Alfred Hitchcock movie. It can cause dizziness, loss of equilibrium, and a swimming motion in the head that can result in loss of balance.” His eyes gleamed with a “gotcha” look. “Still think she was pushed?”

“Yes.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Maybe.” I bobbed my head with indecision and tried not to look at him. “All right, how bad was her vertigo?”

“Severe.”

“So why would a woman with severe vertigo go anywhere near an open canal?”

“Why would a woman with severe vertigo go anywhere? Because she wasn’t living in a box. People travel despite their limitations, Emily. If they didn’t, you and I would both be out of a job.”

I acknowledged his premise with an ounce of grace and a pound
of skepticism. “I don’t buy it.”

“You don’t have to buy it. The police aren’t soliciting your opinion.”

“They will,” I grumbled. “After the autopsy.”

He chatted away as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll tell the other guests about the incident once we’re gathered back on the bus. I hate to ruin their day with news like this, but they have a right to know what’s happened to a fellow member of—”

“No!” I straightened up so fast, I heard my spine crack.

Wally bowed his head, his voice oozing sarcasm. “Now what?”

“Please don’t mention Paula, at least not until we get some positive
feedback on the Dicks. If my guys learn that Paula went missing because she was floating in a canal, they’ll convince themselves that the Dicks are floating in a canal, too, and the emotional upheaval might be too much for them to handle.”

“She wasn’t exactly floating,” he corrected.

“That’s not the point. I just want to spare Grace and Helen the needless anxiety of thinking their husbands are dead. Can you meet me halfway on this?”

Indecision flickered in his eyes, followed by a resigned snort. “All right, but I can’t wait forever. People have a right to know. I’ll give it until after our tour of the Anne Frank house this afternoon, and if we still don’t have any word on the Dicks by then, I’ll need to inform the group about Paula, whether you think it’s advisable or not.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. Thanks.”

He shrugged it off. “By the way, you might mention to the guests with those ‘urgent’ needs that they can take pills to treat the condition now, and the side effects are pretty minimal. Death only occurs in rare instances.”

My mind wasn’t focused on bladder control at the moment though. It was focused on something else he’d said. “If Paula’s body wasn’t floating, how did they find her so quickly?”

“A bicyclist spied something in the water that looked like a piece of polka-dotted kelp, so he got curious, took a closer look, and discovered it wasn’t a new species of kelp, but a woman’s polka-dotted scarf. Unfortunately, it still appeared to be attached to its owner. That’s when he called the police.”

“How did the police know it was Paula?”

“Contents of her fannypack. It was still fastened around her waist, which pretty much rules out robbery as a motive.”

Of course, robbery wasn’t a motive. Her classmates didn’t want to rob her; they wanted to kill her! “What did you say the name of the canal was?”

“Kloveniersburgwal.”

“And where is that located?”

“It runs south from Nieuwmarket to the Amstel River, on the edge of the medieval city.”

I pinched my lips in exasperation. “I’ve been here one day. I don’t know where any of that is. Can you give me some landmarks I might recognize?”

“Okay, you’ve been to the Red Light District. If you were walking home from there, you’d have to walk right by it to get back to the hotel.”

_____

“The bus will pick us up at this exact spot two hours from now,” Wally announced over the microphone, “so be sure and orient yourselves to the area so you won’t get lost.”

This was something of a no-brainer since we’d parked opposite a huge church whose spire reached the stratosphere. You could probably see it from Jupiter.

“The tour of the Anne Frank house takes about an hour,” he continued, “and it’s unguided, so you can view the rooms at your own pace. Be forewarned, they don’t allow large bags, backpacks, luggage, or picture-taking, so stow your cameras. The stairs throughout the house are typical Amsterdam stairs, meaning they’re extremely steep, so if you have problems with your knees, hips, or heights, I’d advise you to spend your time reading the display material rather than risk a visit to the secret annex.”

“Why can’t we take the elevator?” asked Ricky Hennessy.

“There’s no elevator,” said Wally.

“They should be reported,” huffed Bernice in a nasally voice. “It’s the law of the land. All public buildings must be handicap accessible.”

“We’re in Amsterdam,” Wally replied with restraint. “There’s no elevator.” He took a deep breath and continued. “After the tour, I suggest you pick up a bite to eat in the museum cafeteria. Prices are reasonable, and you can’t beat the view overlooking the canal. They serve coffee, tea, lunch, drinks, snacks, and killer apple pie from a local bakery. Any questions?”

“Is there an elevator?” Helen shouted out.

I hung my head.
Oh, God
.

“Where is it you said we’re going?” asked Grace.

In their defense, they were so worried about their husbands, they obviously weren’t thinking straight, but having them this addled could become dangerous. I leaned close to Nana and lowered my voice to an undertone. “How did Grace and Helen perform on the eyeglasses task?”

Nana gave me a thumbs-up. “They missed their callin’, dear. Them two girls are natural-born opticians. They done such a good job, everyone ’ceptin’ Bernice and George has got their own glasses back again. When the Dicks show up, we’ll do the final swap. And I sure hope it’s soon. Bernice is so afraid of walkin’ into another wall, have you seen what she done to herself ?” Stealing a glance in her direction, she whispered, “She’s got so much tissue shootin’ out her nose, she looks like a bull walrus.”

“We’re touring the Anne Frank house,” Wally repeated in an even tone, “and for those of you who might need a refresher course, during World War II, thirteen-year-old Anne, her family, and four other people hid from the Gestapo for two years in the back section of this house. They were eventually betrayed, imprisoned, and transported to concentration camps, but Anne’s diary survived and remains one of the most seminal documents chronicling life in Amsterdam during Nazi occupation. I think it’s been translated into sixty different languages.”

“Isn’t that somethin’?” marveled Nana. “Who knew there was sixty languages?”

I dropped my voice another decibel. “Do you think Helen and Grace would benefit from having another diversion?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“Missing person forms. I was going to fill them out, but it might
be better if the girls did it. The paperwork is pretty extensive, so it’s bound to keep them busy for a while.”

“Any word on the Dicks?”

I sighed. “Still missing.”

“That’s not good. Them drugs musta wore off by now. Could be they’re just too stubborn to admit they’re lost. Think of the humiliation, dear. How would they ever show their faces in Iowa again if they was forced to break down and ask someone for directions? They’d be broken men.”

I prayed it was that innocent, but the longer they were missing, the more frightened I was becoming.

As the doors of the bus
whooshed
open, I scooted into the aisle to catch Helen and Grace before they left. “I have homework for the two of you,” I said amiably as I pulled a wad of papers out of my shoulder bag. “We’re going to put the police on the trail of the boys, so—”

“You haven’t notified the police yet?” cried Grace.

“It’s the same protocol as back home,” I reassured them. “A person has to be missing for a certain number of hours before the police can get involved.”

“Children get Amber alerts,” fussed Helen. “You mean to tell me there’s nothing like that available to track down old men?”

I shrugged. “Seniors are in a different category. They’re supposed to be mature enough to take care of themselves.”

“I wonder who decided that?” asked Grace.

“Someone who never met our Dicks,” said Helen.

“As I was saying”—I passed the forms to both of them—“once you fill out the paperwork, the police can do their part to help find the boys.”

As she riffled through the pages, Helen arched what would have been an eyebrow if she’d been wearing any. “How much time have we got to fill them out?”

“It’s not a test. You can take as much time as you need. But the sooner you finish, the quicker the police can step in.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Grace effused as she scanned the first page. “This is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Thank you
so
much, Emily.” She threw her arms around me in an uncharacteristic hug. “I’m so relieved!”

“No problem.” I returned the hug, flattered that she appreciated my efforts so much. “I promise you, we’ll find the boys if it’s the last thing we do.”

Helen regarded me, deadpan. “She’s not patting you on the back. She’s talking about her eyes. This is the first thing she’s been able to read since last night.”

Wally called out final instructions as we shuffled toward the exits. “Mind the traffic when you cross the street, people. We have reserved tickets, so we need to congregate outside number one-six-seven Prinsengracht and enter the museum as a group. Any more questions?”

He paused. “Okay, take note of the church on the corner as you
pass by, because it’s where Rembrandt was buried in 1669. It’s
called the Westerkerk and was built in 1620 as part of the Canal-Ring development. It’s famous for its fifty bell carillon, which plays Dutch folksongs for sixty seconds every fifteen minutes, twenty-four hours a day. If any of you have read Anne Frank’s diary, you’ll recall she mentions the bells of the Westerkerk by name.”

I exited through the side door, then corralled my people and herded them toward the traffic light at the corner. “Watch out for the trams,” I cautioned as we crossed to the opposite side. “And bicycles!”

Prinsengracht was a picturesque canal street with brick pavers, Victorian street lights, shade trees, park benches, and bicycles cluttered against every rail and railing like discarded erector sets. Watercraft motored up and down the canal, filling the air with sounds reminiscent of buzz saws. Houseboats as long as semitrucks lined the opposite side of the waterway, while glass-topped tour boats glided past them, their engines
putt-puttin
g along with a muted hum. As we hiked past the church, all fifty bells began ringing in the tower above us, marking the quarter hour with a rousing melody that echoed over the rooftops. The carillon smacked of Old World quaintness and charm, but I wasn’t sure how charming the locals found it at two o’clock in the morning. Then again, maybe the peel of bells became such an ordinary part of their lives, they simply stopped noticing it.

The reunion group was ahead of us, clumped in a Greek phalanx kind of formation that walled them off from nosy outsiders, like me, who wanted to pepper them with bothersome questions. Is this how they protected the secrets Pete accused them of hiding? By closing ranks? Were their purported secrets relevant to Paula’s drowning? Or were Pete’s accusations the rants of an antisocial genius who’d come unhinged and was trying to cover up his own involvement in the deaths of two women?

I was sure of only one thing: My instincts told me that someone in the group was a cold-blooded murderer with a deadly axe to grind, and if we didn’t nab him soon, he could very well kill again. But how could I sniff anyone out with all my potential suspects giving me the cold shoulder? If I sent them running in the opposite direction, how would I even get close enough to overhear a conversation or ask a question?

“Emily, will you stop walking so fast?”

I looked over my shoulder, a smile forming on my lips.
Bingo
.