“When you was talkin’ to Wally, dear, he didn’t have no bad news to share about the Dicks, did he? Since we run outta stuff for Grace and Helen to do, they’re gettin’ awful worried.”
I settled back in my seat, relieved she’d missed my
“I s’pose. Maybe I should tell the girls that no news is good news.”
“That’s the spirit.”
She fidgeted with her camera photos once again. “So when’s Wally gonna tell us that Paula was pushed?”
My eyelids flapped upward so fast, they nearly drove my eyelashes into my skull. Leaning in her direction, I said in a manic rush of breath, “Howdoyouknowthat? Nooneknowsthat.” I wheezed in sudden horror. “Didyouhackintotheautopsyreport?”
“I’m not that brave, dear. Holland don’t like foreigners hackin’ into their government files, so if they was to convict me, I’d have to serve more years in the pokey than I got left on the earth.”
“Here’s a thought. You can be thrown into jail back home, too.”
“But if I was back home, I’d get more visitors.”
“Howdidyoufindout? OhmyGod. DidBernicetellyou?”
“It’s on account of the course they was offerin’ at the senior center, dear. A young fella from the clinic showed us ways to deal with hearin’ loss, and I turned out to be pretty good at one a them.”
I eyed her narrowly. “Which one? Eavesdropping?”
“Lip readin’. He said he never seen no one take to it quicker than me. Isn’t that somethin’?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “You can read lips? Really?”
“You bet. At least, I can read ’em as long as I can see someone’s mouth, but it’s kinda hard when folks walk in front of you. If it hadn’t been for Peewee, I mighta caught Wally’s whole conversation.”
“How many people have you told about Paula?”
“I been keepin’ it to myself, dear. No tellin’ what the killer might do if word leaks out that the police are on to ’im. Folks like that will do crazy things when they’re backed into a corner.”
Yeah, just like a rat.
“Emily, I been thinkin’. You don’t s’pose the Dicks have ended up like Paula, do you?”
“No!” I lied. “They’re lost. I’m sure they’re lost, or, or something. Remember, they’re still wearing the wrong glasses, so they probably can’t read street signs worth beans.”
“I just hope they wasn’t nowhere around Paula when she got pushed. I worry that if the killer seen ’em …” She paused, her voice faltering.
“I know,” I finished for her in a hushed tone. I clasped her hand in mine. “I’m worried about that, too.”
_____
After a brief stop at Flanders Fields to visit a cemetery dedicated to the soldiers who died in the Great War, we headed toward the coast, to another town I’d never heard of.
“Oostende is a resort town on the North Sea,” Wally informed us as we rattled down roads that cut through land as wide and flat as an Indiana corn field. “The city center is a concrete jungle of high rises, shops, and grand promenades, but the real attraction in Oostende is its uninterrupted stretch of white sand beach, which played a prominent role in World War II. Hitler was so fearful that the coastal beaches of Europe would be invaded by allied armies, that as a deterrent, he ordered an intricate system of trenches, bunkers, and pillboxes to be built from Norway to the Spanish border. It was called the Atlantic Wall, and we’re going to see a well-preserved section of it today.”
“I thought we were scheduled to stop for Belgian waffles,” shouted Ricky.
“We are,” said Wally. “After our visit.”
“But I’m hungry now.”
A tightlipped pause. “There’s a cafeteria in the museum if you’d prefer to eat rather than tour the site.”
“Do they serve Belgian waffles?” asked Mindy.
“I don’t know what the cafeteria serves,” admitted Wally. “But the tour takes ninety minutes, so pick your poison. Food or history? It’s your choice. But you’ll need a ticket no matter what you decide to do, so you need to pick that up first.”
Dietger gunned the engine as we passed through the entrance gates, laying rubber across the parking lot like a hood on a joyride. Screeching into an empty space, he jammed on the brakes and snickered into the rearview mirror as the bus shimmied to a full stop. Wally was first out the door, and from what I could tell by his body language, he wasn’t a happy camper.
We followed a well-marked path through a field of tall coastal grasses toward a sprawling complex of buildings that were all painted the same color yellow. I hung out behind my group like an old mother hen, wanting them to enjoy the open-air museum, but hesitant to let them out of my sight. I was battling an unnerving feeling that something bad was about to happen, but my psychic wires were so crossed right now, my reception was probably a little dodgy. I mean, maybe what I was feeling was nothing more than an acute case of hunger pangs.
“Emily! Slow down, will you?”
I turned to find Jackie leaning on Beth Ann’s shoulder as she hobbled toward me, her mouth rounded into an O of pain. “Maintaining status as a fashion icon can be such a bitch.” She braced her free arm on my shoulder and hung her head, studying her spike-heeled size fourteens. “Tell me honestly, Emily, do these boots make my feet look big?”
Everything made her feet look big. Shoes. Boots. Sidewalks. But the great thing about a true friend is, she’d rather dodge the truth than hurt your feelings. “What a dumb question. I’m not even going to dignify it with an answer. But you don’t look as if you’re up for a ninety-minute walking tour.”
“My feet and I are going to sit this one out in the cafeteria. But I’m sending in Beth Ann to do reconnaissance.”
“On what?”
She broke out in a smile. “I have a plan.”
As we shuffled our way to the ticket office, she laid out the elaborate plan she’d concocted to discover Peewee’s true identity. “I figure his real name is on his driver’s license, so if we relieve him of his wallet, we just might find out who the heck he is.”
“We’ll handle it like a tag team,” said Beth Ann. “If he heads for the cafeteria, the ball will be in Jackie’s court, but if he decides to tour the wall, he’ll be all mine.”
I regarded them skeptically. “Do either of you have experience lifting wallets?”
“I accidentally shoplifted a ballpoint pen once,” said Beth Ann, her eyes clouding with guilt . “I had it in my hand and walked right out of the store without paying for it.”
“See?” said Jackie. “Accidental shoplifting. That counts, doesn’t it?”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s a great plan,” Jackie defended. “Peewee might have gotten away with giving the tour company a fake name, but to board an international flight, he had to have made airline reservations under the name that’s on his passport and/or driver’s license.”
I puffed up my cheeks and blew out a slow breath. “How about I speak to Wally about requesting some type of trumped-up passport check back at the hotel? It’s bound to be less dangerous than petty thievery.”
Jackie pondered my suggestion as we watched the group file into the ticket office building. “You can ask him, but if we see a bulge in Peewee’s back pocket, we’re going in.”
By the time we got inside, people were hitting the restrooms, checking out the photos and war artifacts that were on display throughout the room, testing the electronic audio guides that were being handed out as part of the self-guided tour, and picking up their tickets from Wally, who was finding a way to smile despite the angry set of his jaw. Peewee was notably absent, so assuming he was in the men’s room, Jackie and Beth Ann posted themselves outside the door to await his reappearance. I picked up my ticket from Wally, mentioning that I needed to speak to him when he was done, then hit the restroom myself, to find Nana and the other girls queuing up at the sink so Margi could wipe their audio guides down with hand sanitizer.
“This thing smells like doggie breath,” whined Bernice as she sniffed her freshly decontaminated device.
