by Maddy Hunter
With mumbles of anticipation the crowd started forging toward the gate. “Would you like me to take a picture of you and your grandmother before we hit the trail, Emily?” Tilly asked.
“That would be great.” I handed Tilly my new palm-size Canon Elph, showed her which button to push, and struck a pose with my arm around Nana’s shoulders. “So what’s your opinion?” I looked down fondly on all four-feet ten-inches of her, from her visor to her new white tennis shoes. “Would you rather be called vertically challenged or height impaired?”
“Say ‘Cheese,’” instructed Tilly. CLICK.
“‘Short’ works fine for me, dear.”
That’s what I loved about Nana. She was so basic.
Tilly held up my camera. “It’s rewinding, Emily. You’ll need to reload.”
“A timely reminder. My film’s back on the bus. You ladies go on ahead. I’ll catch up to you in a minute.”
Bernice tugged on Tilly’s sleeve as they fell in behind the rest of the group. “Will you point out that Pete fella to me so I can stay upwind of him?”
I scooted up the back exit stairs of the bus, spied Michael at the front of the bus checking gauges and making notations in a log, yanked my shoulder bag down from the overhead compartment, and slipped unobtrusively into my seat to search the contents. Sanitizing hand wash. Anti-itch cream. Pepto-Bismol tablets. Band-Aids. Breath mints. A package of semicrushed cheese crackers with peanut butter filling. I peeked out the window to find the group filing quickly through the main gate. Pen. Mini Maglite. Lipstick. Sunscreen. Change purse. Blush. I heard a soft shushing sound. Mini umbrella. A Fleximap of Ireland. Dental floss. Had I forgotten to pack extra film? I upended my shoulder bag onto Bernice’s seat and riffled through the pile. Emory board. Collapsible drinking cup. Compass. So that’s where it was! I thought one of my nephews had eaten it on our last camping trip to Wisconsin. A dog-eared copy of Frommer’s Ireland. A canister of Kodak Advantix film. My film! Yes!
I grabbed the film, reloaded my camera, then opened the mouth of my bag wide and shoveled all my stuff back in. Good thing I’d only brought the essentials. I gave the lumpy contour of my bag a satisfied pat. And Ernie Minch thought the trunk space in his Edsel had been impressive.
I peeked out the window. The last of the group had disappeared through the gate. I’d have to hurry to catch up. I stashed my bag in the overhead again and ran to the back exit.
The door was closed.
Closed? Why was it closed? I looked toward the front of the bus. No Michael. I descended the step well and pressed the exit bar, but it didn’t depress. I tried again. Same result. I pushed on the door. It rattled but didn’t open. I pushed harder. It didn’t budge. I threw myself against it.
Nothing.
Uh-oh. I was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.
Suppressing a twinge of panic, I raced down the aisle to the front of the bus and sprinted down the step well. I braced both my hands against the exit bar and pressed downward.
Nothing. I angled my shoulder against the door and shoved with all my might.
The door remained stubbornly closed. No creaking. No rattling. No nothing. Okay. This was a no-brainer. The bus was locked.
But how could it be locked? I WAS STILL INSIDE!
“Let me out of here!” I pounded on the door. “Can anybody hear me? I’m not supposed to be in here! Can somebody open the door?”
We were parked at the far end of the lot, beside a field of scrubby grass, so there wasn’t much foot traffic around us. If I expected anyone to hear me, I was going to have to draw attention to myself in another way.
I hurried back up the stairs and regarded the wind-shield, the dashboard, the steering wheel. Aha! I slammed the heel of my palm down onto the horn.
Nothing.
Nothing? How could there be nothing? I pressed it again, and again, and again. Okay. Another no-brainer. The horn was broken. Maybe it had gotten damaged in the mishaps with the side mirror and rear fender yesterday, though I’m not sure how that would be possible. Great. Now what?
I wandered back down the aisle, opening windows as I went. “Can somebody help me?” I yelled to nobody as the wind threw the words back in my face. I eyed one of the windows, thinking I could escape out the top, but it was a long drop to the ground, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t dressed for the occasion. I mean, I was wearing kid-skin mules with a two-inch stacked heel. Probably not the most practical shoes for a hike to a rope bridge, but they made my feet look really small.
I slumped into a seat and sighed my disgust. “Well, Emily, you’re going to have some sensational photos of the Rope Bridge to show people back—” A muffled tone interrupted me. A digital tone that sounded much like the song, “New York, New York.” Ethel Minch’s cell phone! Of course! I could phone 911 for help! If there was such a thing in Ireland.
I dug my Ireland guidebook out of my shoulder bag and found a listing for emergency numbers. Yes! Nine-nine-nine worked in both the republic and Northern Ireland. I tried not to let my head swell too much with my own genius.
Ethel’s phone continued to ring, leading me to its whereabouts in her pocketbook, which she’d hidden beneath the seat in front of her. When it stopped ringing, I entered a series of codes that were conveniently taped to the housing, then punched up 999. “Police, Fire, Ambulance,” the dispatcher answered.
“I’m so glad you’re there,” I said breathlessly. “This is Emily Andrew from Windsor City, Iowa, and I’m locked in a bus in the parking lot of the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge.”
Silence. “Is this a crank call?”
“No! I’m locked in a tour bus. Really.”
I heard the click of computer keys. “Where is the bridge located?”
“Beyond the parking lot. A mile’s hike down the trail.”
“What town is it near?”
“I didn’t notice the name of any town. It’s a major tourist attraction! You don’t know what town it’s near?”
“Can you identify any distinct geographical markers?”
I peered out the window. “There’s a parking lot, and cars, and grass that’s kind of yellow and scruffy, and cliffs, and the ocean. Haven’t you ever been here?”
“Never.”
“How come?”
“No curiosity about the place.”
“Well, you should make it a priority because I hear it’s quite spectacular, unless you have vertigo. Are you acrophobic?”
“I’m agnostic, actually. We’ll send a unit straightaway.”
I disconnected, feeling much better about my situation than I had a few minutes earlier. I replaced Ethel’s phone, returned her handbag to its hiding place, and breathed a sigh of relief. All I had to do now was sit back and wait to be rescued. I’d catch up with the group and everything would be fine.
So how come I couldn’t relax?
I retreated to a seat overlooking the parking lot and pressed my forehead against the window. I knew exactly why I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t get Ethel Minch’s feet out of my mind. Etienne had said the maid might have been frightened to death by a woman with webbed toes. Ethel had webbed toes. Did that mean Ethel caused the maid’s death? Granted, Ethel’s hair and iridescent blue eyeshadow were pretty scary, but I didn’t think they were enough to scare anyone to death. And the timing wasn’t right. The maid had died while our bus was toodling around the countryside, clipping window boxes and ramming fences. There was no way Ethel could have been on the bus and in the castle at the same time. Hmm. Ethel had said Ernie was in Ireland looking for his roots, but what about her roots? Was she a small piece in a larger puzzle?
Just who was Ethel Minch? She might look like a colorized version of Gloria Swanson, but maybe her flamboyance was a deliberate ploy to disguise something more sinister. Looks could be deceiving. I’d found that out in Switzerland. I hoped I was wrong about Ethel, but I was getting some pretty bad vibes about the whole thing. This meant I’d have to dig into her family history to see i
f I could find some kind of Irish connection, but in the meantime, I’d fire my theory past Etienne to see what he thought. After all, he was the police inspector.
I could hardly wait to get back to the castle to tell him.
* * *
Two hours later I was still waiting. I guess the rescue team was operating on what Ashley called “Irish time.” Good thing I wasn’t choking on a fish bone.
I was speed-reading all 561 pages of Frommer’s for the second time when a soft shushing caused me to look up. Michael stood at the top of the step well at the front of the bus, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Bugger me! What are you doing in here?”
Up I popped, elevating my voice to match the volume of his. “You locked me inside! That’s what I’m doing in here!”
“The bus was empty when I left.”
“If the bus had been empty, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”
He rubbed his brow as if trying to figure out how this had happened. He wasn’t a good-looking man. His jaw was too heavy, his mouth too wide, his eyebrows too thick. His hair was thin and mousy brown, but I saw an intelligence in his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before—a spark of intensity that belied his inability to read a map or maneuver a bus. He speared me with an irritated look. “Why didn’t you shout for me to come back?”
“I would have if I’d seen you go! Shouldn’t you be yelling ‘Clear’ or something before you leave?”
“I’m driving a bus, not using defibrillator paddles. How come you didn’t leave with everyone else?”
“I did leave with everyone else! But I had to come back.” I shrugged. “For film.”
He threw his hand out in a dramatic flourish. “There you go. It’s yer own damned fault. You should have made some noise so I’d know you were here. You managed to open all the windows. You couldn’t yell to a passerby to help you out?”
“We’re parked in the ‘back forty,’ for crying out loud! Do you see any foot traffic out there? I tried to beep your horn.”
“Didn’t get too far, did you? It’s broken.”
“I noticed. Isn’t that illegal for a vehicle this size?”
He gave me another of his glowering looks. “Why didn’t you hit the Emergency button?”
I opened my mouth to parry further, then snapped it shut again. “Emergency button?”
He beckoned me closer and pointed to a button the size of a paperweight angled over the top of the door. “The Emergency button. You press it. The door opens. It prevents you tourists from getting locked inside. How else would you be able to get out?”
I didn’t feel this was a good time to mention the 999 rescue team.
“So you’ve missed it all then, have you? The coastal path. The bridge. The view of Scotland.”
Now that I was standing close to him, I realized the smell clinging to him wasn’t so much body odor as bad cologne or aftershave, and lots of it. Wow! He needed to think about switching to a name-brand product. “I haven’t missed everything yet.” I scooted down the stairs, trying not to inhale. “I can still catch up with everyone. It’s only been two hours. They’re seniors. They walk slowly.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Have a look across the car park. Aren’t those the folk from yer group heading this way?”
I visored my hand over my eyes and squinted toward the entrance gate. Nuts! There was Tilly in her red velvet beret, red blazer, and tartan plaid skirt and Nana in her Minnesota Vikings windbreaker and purple polyester slacks. They were leading the group back at breakneck speed, which led me to draw one conclusion: Nana had enrolled in the step-aerobics class I’d been encouraging her to sign up for at the senior center. Look at her! She was really hauling.
I walked across the parking lot to meet them, noting one other detail as I drew closer. Everyone’s hair was standing on end. Literally. Had crossing the bridge frightened them that much? If being eighty feet above the water could scare them like this, I shuddered to think what seeing a ghost would do to them. I started to count heads, hoping we hadn’t lost anyone.
Nana waved a handful of photos at me in greeting. “Emily, dear! Where were you? I was worried.”
“I ran into a little problem,” I said sheepishly. “I—uh—I got locked inside the bus.”
“That happened to me once,” said Bernice. “Going up to Mystic Lake Casino. I fell asleep, people flew the coop, and no one bothered to wake me up.”
“That must have been frightening for you,” I said, reliving my own experience.
“You bet. And it was cold up there in Minnesota. Subzero. I thought I might freeze solid before anyone found me.”
Poor Bernice. She probably wouldn’t have thought to blow the horn to attract attention, and I doubt she’d had access to a cell phone. What a traumatic episode for an elderly person to suffer through! Maybe that explained why she always seemed to focus on worst-case scenarios, why she tended to be so prickly. I studied Bernice’s face, feeling as if I was finally learning what made her tick. “How did you finally get out?”
“I hit the Emergency button.”
Okay. Maybe I should fling myself off the cliff now and get it over with.
“Aren’t we lucky Emily didn’t do that,” Nana stated emphatically. “Can you imagine what might a happened to our valuables if she’d hit that button and left the bus wide open? Some thief could a cleaned us right out. That was a big sacrifice you made stayin’ behind, dear. We all appreciate it, don’t we, ladies?”
Nana had this wonderfully subtle way of turning my most miserable blunders into my most noteworthy achievements. That’s what I loved about grandmothers. They made you feel good about everything, even your mistakes.
“You wanna see my pictures?” Nana asked, barely able to contain herself. “You can have a look-see at what you missed.” She thrust the top photo at me. “These are the stairs leadin’ down to the bridge. Musta been about a thousand of ’em.”
The staircase sure wasn’t going to win any awards for aesthetics or engineering design. It consisted of primitive tiers of wood, bare earth, and stone following the slope of the cliff in a steep, crooked path downward. I got dizzy just looking at it.
“Here’s one a the whole group at the top a the stairs. They don’t look too good ’cause they’re all wheezin’. And lookit everyone’s hair. Standin’ straight on end. The wind was blowin’ something fierce right there.”
I regarded the faces in the photo. “It’s not exactly the whole group. Where are the people from New York?”
“A lot of ’em started complainin’ that the path had too many dips. Too many rises. Too many potholes. Then they whined that they was havin’ to stop too much to shake gravel outta their shoes, so they called it quits halfway down the trail. They never made it to the stairs. Good thing I took your advice and signed up for that exercise class at the senior center, else I might a had to call it quits with ’em.”
“Step aerobics?”
“That class was full, so they signed me up for my second choice.” She offered me another photo. “This is lookin’ east over the cliffs. You see this land mass pokin’ out into the water at the tip here? That’s Scotland. Isn’t that somethin’?”
She showed me three more photos in rapid succession—a close-up of the stairs that showed how narrow and uneven they were, a body lying faceup near the stairs, a section of a chain-link fence that formed a protective barrier along the ledge side of the stairway. Didn’t look as if I’d missed too much so far.
I paused. I blinked. I stared at the photos in Nana’s hand. “Could we go back to the one of the man on the ground beside the stairs?”
Nana separated it from the others and squinted at it rather critically. “I shoulda got a better angle on this one. And the light’s all wrong. Makes the fella look all washed out.”
“He was alive? He wasn’t dead?”
She scrutinized the photo more closely. “He didn’t sound dead when he give me the okay to take his picture. You s’pose I missed somethin’?”
/>
“Who is this guy?”
Nana shrugged. “Some stranger gaspin’ for breath. Climbin’ those stairs really done him in. I think him suckin’ air like that lends the place real verisimilitude.”
Whoa! “‘Verisimilitude’?”
“That’s one a Tilly’s fancy words. Isn’t it a dandy? Means somethin’ looks kinda authentic.”
I shook my head. “Did you take any pictures of the bridge?”
“We never seen the bridge.”
“You WHAT?”
“We couldn’t get past the stairs.”
“You walked all that way and didn’t see the bridge?”