Dutch Me Deadly

The ride back to Amsterdam, hindered by road construction and lane-clogging traffic jams, was interminable. Halfway back, I received a call from an exuberant Beth Ann. “He’s conscious! He has a mean headache, but the doctors are going to do some kind of scan, and if there’s no indication of brain swelling, they’re going to keep him under observation for a few hours and then release him. Isn’t that great?”

A flood of relief washed over me. “Thank God.”

“And I have even better news. He remembers exactly what happened, which his doctor says is an excellent sign. He slipped on some loose mortar halfway down the staircase and went flying. He’s pretty embarrassed about the whole thing, and he apologizes for leaving you in the lurch, but his doctor told him that considering the stairs were made of brick, he’s lucky to be alive.”

“He fell?”

“Arse over teacup.”

“He wasn’t pushed?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Tell him we’re all thinking about him, and—and let me know how the scan turns out.”

I blew a long breath of air upward and reflected upon my recent gut instincts, analysis, and accusations. Could I have been any more wrong about Dietger?

Damn.

I slouched down in my seat, mortified.

I wondered who else I was wrong about?

Nineteen

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

The police greeted us at the hotel and led us to a ground floor conference room set up with several rows of folding chairs arranged in a semicircle. A podium stood in the front of the room. “Sit anywhere,” the officer in charge instructed us.

“Are you going to be serving snacks?” asked Mindy, as she pondered her seating choices. “Because we never stopped for the Belgian waffles we were promised and already paid for. Don’t think you can fool us with these bait and switch methods. I’m firing off a letter to corporate.”

“Would you prefer to send an e-mail?” Margi chirped helpfully. “I can access the Passages website from my phone.”

“What she’d prefer to do is make a scene and draw attention to herself,” sniped Sheila Bouchard. “She’s still operating under the misperception that she’s sixteen and a size 2.”

Mindy cackled with laughter. “And Sheila’s still operating under the misperception that she’s not a dried-up old stick!”

If we’d had access to snacks, this would be the point when someone would jump up and yell, “Food fight!”

“Would you two knock it off ?” Mary Lou chided with a sharpness that cut through the chatter. “Wasn’t it enough that the world revolved around your bleeping dramas back in high school? It was more than enough for us. Didn’t it sink in the other night? We’re sick to death of your bleeping shallowness, and your bleeping self-absorption, and your bleeping towering conceit.”

“I’m sick of Ricky thinking he was such a good bleeping quarterback,” shouted a man at the back of the room. “He bleeping sucked!”

“I’m sick of Sheila acting so bleeping uppity when everyone knows she’s in debt up to her bleeping eyebrows,” blasted a voice I didn’t recognize.

“Grow up!” Mary Lou screamed at the two women, her face splotchy with angry patches of red. “The rest of us have! Get over your bleeping selves. And if you can’t do that, do us all a favor and shut the bleep up!”

Whoa! Beth Ann had warned me these Mainers knew how to cuss when they got provoked. But who knew she’d been talking about Mary Lou? I mean, it just seemed so out of character.

Her outburst, however, was not unappreciated. As Mike wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders, a solitary clap echoed through the room, followed by another, and another, until the entire room was thundering with applause. Mindy and Sheila slinked off to opposite ends of the room, bristling with indignation, their displeasure palpable as they took their seats. Ricky and Gary walked shamefaced behind them, looking as if they might have spent better days spread-eagled on a proctologist’s examine table.

When the noise died down, the officer looked out over the room, his expression unreadable. “If you have acted dis way since your tour began, I’m surprised you have any guests left. Such delight in savaging each other. Are you politicians?”

“I apologize, Officer,” Mary Lou said in a small voice, minus the expletives. “I don’t usually allow my temper to get the better of me.”

He raised his eyebrows noncommittally. “My name is Officer Vanden Boogard.” He had a long face, a narrow nose, and piercing blue eyes that looked more predatory than a hawk’s.

“Are you on Facebook?” Margi called out.

“Hey,” Bernice piped up. “You can’t ask him that. That’s my line.”

“Wasn’t that a quiz show?” asked Osmond. “I think I used to watch it.”

“Maybe it has a Facebook page,” enthused Alice as she whipped out her smartphone. “We could become fans!”

Nana raised her hand politely. “Will we be takin’ a potty break any time soon, young man? Us old folks has got needs, ’specially the fellas.”

Ignoring the room at large, Officer Vanden Boogard removed a clipboard from the podium and leafed through several sheets of paper before looking up again. “Charlotte Gooch,” he said in an even tone. “Her death must seem like ancient history to you now. Do you recall Charlotte?”

“She was completely unsuited to deal with adults,” said Laura LaPierre. “She treated us as if we were kindergarteners.”

“She was a pain in the butt,” Ricky wisecracked.

“She yelled at us,” Gary spoke up. “If I wanted to be yelled at, I could have stayed home and let Sheila do it.”

Officer Vanden Boogard referenced his papers once again. “She died as a result of injuries suffered in a collision in Volendam. She stepped off a curb into der path of a bicyclist and died immediately.” He gave us a hard look. “Visitors to our country are always at risk to be struck by bicyclists. They never remember to look both ways before crossing a street or stepping onto a sidewalk. You Americans are der worst offenders, followed closely by der Canadians. Always listening to your iPods, or MP3 players, or text messaging on your cellphones. You come here to see der sights, but you’re so preoccupied with your electronic gadgetry, you see nothing.”

In the chairs around me, hands stilled on cellphones, fingers paused on keypads, backsides shifted uncomfortably on seat cushions. Hey, I liked this guy! But I wasn’t sure he had the most up-to-date information.

I raised my hand. “In light of the fact that two more people died after Charlotte, is there any evidence that the accident happened differently than it was first reported?”

“That she didn’t step in front of der bicyclist?” he asked.

“No, that she might have been pushed off the curb.”

Whispers from the Mainers. Gasps. Rubbernecking.

“Do you have any evidence that contradicts der original report?” he inquired.

“She always thinks she does,” mocked Bernice.

I shot her an exasperated look. “I don’t have any hard evidence,” I confessed, “but Charlotte had created such a poisonous atmosphere, and her accident seemed such a convenient coincidence, that—”

“You suspected one of der guests had taken matters into his own hands?”

I nodded. “Pete Finnegan. He’d had a terrible run-in with her on our first stop.”