Dutch Me Deadly

Feeling a presence at my back, I looked over my shoulder to find Jackie practically on top of me. “You owe me,” she whispered out the corner of her mouth.

“I know,” I whispered back.

“Have I mentioned that Tom and I are thinking about starting a family?”

“I am not carrying your baby.”

“Party pooper.”

Harold’s voice thrummed with enthusiasm. “The Dutch masters developed a simple technique to draw our eyes to the parts of their paintings they wanted to emphasize. It involves a bit of geometry and …”

“Have you read Beth Ann’s recap of last night?” I asked as Harold continued.

“Not every word. Her handwriting is atrocious.”

“So, what did you make of it?”

“Rather amateurish, but she has a real gift for metaphors.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not talking about Beth Ann’s writing skills. What did you think about the blowup?”

“Oh, that.” She waited a beat to gather her thoughts. “I am so ticked off. It would have been the perfect opportunity for a well-dressed life coach to jump in and show these reunion screwups the error of their ways. Money in the bank, Emily, and I missed it. I’ll tell you one thing. Playing the part of the Good Samaritan is highly overrated.”

“Chip Soucy thinks that Paula Peavey suffered so much humiliation at the hands of her classmates last night that she might have left the tour and flown home.”

“That’s too bad. Now there’s one broad who really could have used my help. So”— she lowered her voice to a near inaudible whisper—“what’s my assignment for today?”

“Keeping your fingers crossed that the Dicks show up.”

“Oh, come on, Emily. No tailing? No disguises?”

“Not until the Dicks are back.” I sighed my frustration as I glanced around the room. “Have you seen Wally anywhere?”

“Men’s room. Ground floor. Last stall on the right.”

I arched a brow. “How do you know what stall he’s in?”

She sucked in her breath as she smoothed her skirt over her hips. “It’s like this. I used the old plumbing for so many years, I don’t always remember it’s been renovated.”

“You’ll notice this technique being used with absolute perfection in the next painting we’re going to discuss,” Harold announced. “An exquisite portrait entitled Maria Trip, and it’s right across the room. But before we move on, are there any questions?”

Bernice’s hand shot into the air. “Are you on Facebook?”

Oh, God.

I hung back as Harold herded the group toward the painting and began his spiel. Nana hung back, too, apparently as anxious as I was for a closer look at the masterpiece.

“Can you believe this is a three-hundred-year-old painting?” I asked her. “It looks more like a recent photograph.”

“What I can’t believe are all them wrinkles on the old girl’s hand.” Nana tsked. “Didn’t they have no hand cream back then? If my hand looked that bad, I wouldn’t want it in no spotlight. I’d want it Photoshopped.” She held up her own hand for critical analysis. “Mine don’t look as wrinkled as hers, does it?”

I regarded her misshapen knuckles, bulging veins, and liver spots and squeezed her hand with affection. “You have beautiful hands.” Others might disagree, but to me, they were the most beautiful hands in the world.

“I wish the Dicks was here,” she suddenly confided. “I know they can be dicks, but I miss ’em clownin’ around and actin’ like dopes. Isn’t that somethin’? I guess I’ve gotten used to ’em.”

“They’ll show up,” I asserted with more confidence than I actually felt.

“They better, and soon. I don’t know how much longer Grace and Helen can take the pressure. Did you notice Helen today? She don’t got no eyebrows. She forgot to draw ’em on. That don’t never happen.”

Uff-da. This was getting serious.

“I’m thinkin’ they need a distraction,” Nana advised. “Somethin’ to take their minds off the boys.”

“Good idea.” I gave her a hard look. “Were you guys able to get your eyeglasses straightened out back at the hotel?”

“The bus come, so we haven’t had no time to do it yet.”

“Then why don’t you plan to do it soon, and you can put Grace and Helen in charge.”

A smile split Nana’s face. “I like it.” She eyed the group as they streamed into the adjoining exhibit room behind Harold. “But Grace and Helen don’t never get elected to be put in charge of nuthin’, so I better give Osmond the poop so he can fudge the vote.”

“Assure him he won’t be prosecuted for voter fraud,” I called as she scurried to catch up.

I suddenly found myself the lone occupant of the room, save for Pete Finnegan, who’d lagged behind to study the portrait Harold had just finished discussing.

Hmm. I really needed to track Wally down, but finding Pete so accessible seemed like a sign from Above. Was he truly the bred-in-the-bone miserable cuss everyone accused him of being? The kind of guy who wouldn’t think twice about shoving you in front of a bicycle? Or did he have a kinder, gentler nature that was lying dormant just beneath his cranky crust, just waiting to be unleashed?

I bobbed my head in indecision. Eenie, meenie, mynie …

Okay, meenie won. Wally could wait.

I strode quietly across the carpet, stopping at the discreet barrier that fronted the painting of Maria Trip. “Does she look like someone you know?” I asked as I perused her pale face, frizzy hair, and huge man-hands.

Pete observed me out of the corner of his eye before inching sideways to put more space between us. “What’s it to you?”

“You look enthralled.”

He made a snarky noise in his throat.

“I sympathize with her hair. It looks like mine when the humidity goes off the chart.”

“No skin off my teeth.”

A declarative sentence! Well, minus the verb. “Unfortunately, I didn’t hear Harold’s spiel,” I lamented. “Did he have any insights to share?”

“No.”

“None at all?”

“NO!”

Oh, yah, this was going well. Might as well begin my fishing expedition before he up and left. I softened my voice and forged ahead. “Sad what happened to Charlotte.”

He let out a derisive pish. “If you say so.”

“Poor woman. I bet she never saw what hit her. She probably wasn’t bothered by speeding bicycles in rural Kansas.”

Silence.

“You must have had a ringside seat when the accident happened.”

He turned his head slowly in my direction, eyes slatted, brow puckered. “What?”

“You were already there when I arrived. Remember? I asked you what had happened, and you said you didn’t know? Actually, what you said was, ‘Dunno.’”

“What of it?”

“Well, my husband—he used to be in law enforcement—says that when we witness accidents, we can be so traumatized by what we’ve seen that our brains can trick us into thinking we saw nothing at all. It’s our body’s way of helping us maintain our sanity. Think of it as a computer reverting to safe mode to protect its internal data. But once the initial shock wears off, it’s not uncommon to start recalling things we swore we never saw.”

His mouth worked itself into a sneer. “You always talk this much?”

“Uh—so here’s what I was wondering. Since you were standing so close to the scene of the accident, have you recalled anything today that you didn’t realize you saw yesterday?” I was kinda hoping he’d remember pushing Charlotte into the street, but I was probably being too optimistic.