Dutch Me Deadly

writing again, so I figured I had to break down her defenses by taking the back door approach.”

“You couldn’t have just joined a critique group? Isn’t that what aspiring writers do?”

“That’s what I should have done, but what do they say about hindsight being 20/20? A critique group sure would have been cheaper. Jackie charges a bloody fortune for her life coaching services.”

We wandered over to the far embankment and peered across the noisy highway to the wide strip of sand beach that Hitler had been so fanatical about protecting.

“How can you afford to pay her? She said you’d lost your job.”

“My job, my husband, my dad. Dad had a life insurance policy, so that’s kept me flush for awhile. But to be honest, after he was gone, I lapped up the one-on-one attention from Jackie. It was like a spa treatment for my emotional health. I was so depressed after he died that I turned to journal writing as a kind of catharsis. And then I thought, why not a book? Something that could generate income. But I got impatient.”

“Which is when you decided to take advantage of Jackie’s ad?”

“Yeah. Everyone in the salon knows she wrote a book, so I thought if I could establish a good rapport with her, I could coax her back to novel writing, and maybe convince her that I could be a worthy partner. I have some great plots in my head. I just need her to show me the ropes. Really, Emily, with her chutzpah and my determination, we could be the next big brand name in publishing.”

“You and Jackie would be to books what Huntley and Brinkley were to TV?”

“Yeah! Kind of. Please don’t think I’m a charlatan. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. And now that you’ve found me out, I’m even less proud.” She had the decency to look embarrassed and a little humble. “Life is funny isn’t it? I came on this trip hoping to find a writing partner, and I may have found a soulmate instead. And I didn’t even have sign up with Match.com.”

From the depths of a nearby concrete pillbox, we heard a loud sneeze, followed by another, and another, and—

Adrenalin pumped through me as Peewee emerged from the stairwell.

“Don’t go down there if you’ve got allergies!” He waggled his audio phone in our direction before tromping back down the stairs to the path.

“His jacket is too long,” fretted Beth Ann, reverting back to detective mode. “It falls clear over his tush. How am I supposed to check out his pockets?”

“Forget his pockets! Would you just tell Jackie the truth?”

“I’ll tell her the truth. I promise. But I really need to follow this guy. If I can’t snatch his wallet, the least I can do is tail him. He’s not who he says he is, Emily. And he’s carrying a weapon. This is serious. Wish me luck.”

She charged across the battery and hit the stairs, leaving me to puzzle over her words. A weapon? What weapon?

Only then did I consider what I was carrying in my hand—a fifteen-inch-long hard plastic shaft, equipped with a ten-digit keypad, a readout window, and a speaker tucked inside the molded earpiece. It might look like an audiophone, intended to provide visitors with taped information about each venue, but Beth Ann had been right to call it a weapon. It could easily double as a truncheon or billy club … and everybody had one.

Holy crap. I pounded down the stairs and hiked down the path, through flat, sandy terrain blanketed with dune grass and around embankments reminiscent of Indian burial mounds. At the end of the path, a brick staircase descended into a gully surrounded by towering dunes. I pelted down the staircase and crossed a short footbridge that opened onto a supply platform and guardhouse, then worked my way back to an enclosed field, where anti-tank and anti-landing craft obstacles dotted the landscape like gigantic weapons of torture. Euw. But the good news was that Nana and company were captivated by the display, because they were all here, listening dutifully to their audio phones.

Peewee and Beth Ann, on the other hand, were nowhere in sight.

“Isn’t this somethin’?” Nana marveled when I joined her. “The Germans planted all them contraptions on the beach so’s the allies couldn’t land their boats. I bet they couldn’t get away with it today. They’d probably get fined for litterin’.”

It was quite a display. Long metal bars angled into concrete blocks. Iron bars bolted into the shape of supersized isosceles triangles. Deadly looking metal configurations that resembled giant jacks. And farther afield searchlights, field cannons, and machine guns that would have made Al Capone salivate.

“Did you see Beth Ann go by?” I asked her.

“Yup. And just about everyone else, too. For all the talkin’ that Ricky Hennessy done about bein’ hungry, him and his missus never set foot in the cafeteria. They’re up ahead, doin’ their best to ignore that Bouchard fella and his wife.”

“Mike McManus and his wife are ahead of us, too,” said Alice.

“And Laura LaPierre,” added George.

“And Peewee and Chip,” said Helen. “They shot past like streakers, only with their clothes on.”

Gee, if none of my prime suspects went to the cafeteria, that meant they were all wandering around the site. Great. But at least if my guys stuck together, they’d be out of harm’s way, and I aimed to keep it that way.

“How’s the narrative?” I asked Nana as I punched the site number into my audiophone.

“Good, dear.”

“Lousy!” sniped Bernice. “It’s not even in English.”

Nana gave me the eye. “She reached in the wrong bin. Hers is in Italian.”

Ten minutes later, as I was mustering everyone along the path toward the next exhibit, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Mission accomplished,” Wally whispered as he drew alongside me. He rattled a set of keys in his pants pocket, looking extremely satisfied with himself.

“Bus keys?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You fired him?”

“One of the greatest pleasures of my life.”

“How’d he take it?”

“Not well. He’s probably still back at the ticket office spewing epithets in five languages.”

“You are the man.”

“I gave him cab fare to his apartment and told him I wanted him gone by the time I got back.”

“Thank you from all of us. We may yet live to tour another day.”

He winked impishly. “You bet.”

I eyed his audio guide. “What are you doing now? Taking the self-guided tour? Haven’t you been here before?”

“Years ago, but I want to blow off some steam, so I’m visiting it again. Maybe by the time I reach the end of the tour, I’ll feel more like myself again.”

The path morphed into a brick-lined trench that cut deeply through the terrain. Tunnels radiated in every direction, ushering us into life-like dioramas of the officers’ quarters, communications bunkers, storage bunkers, men’s sleeping quarters, munitions bunkers, and lookout bunkers that sported panoramic views of the sea, with cheat sheets identifying enemy aircraft still attached to the wall. We climbed up stairs and down stairs, inside and outside, observing gun pits, machine gun nests, field guns, anti-tank grenades, and swiveling flak guns. We found ourselves encased by bricks, concrete blocks, and sandbags, with camouflage netting above and darkness below, in bunkers that burrowed deep into the bowels of the earth. That fortifications like this had once stretched for five thousand miles boggled the mind.

Forty minutes into the tour, slowed by Bernice’s having to borrow someone’s audio guide at each venue, my natives started to get restless.

“If you hadn’t been so all fired up to get your device before everyone else, you might have reached into the right bin,” scolded Helen. “The bin that said ‘English’!”

Bernice ripped her wire rims off her face and brandished them in the air. “I’m wearing your husband’s freaking glasses! I thought it did say English!”