Top O' the Mournin'

by Maddy Hunter

  “As an aside, darling, would you care to tell me how you got into the dungeon to smell him?”

  This could be a little sticky. I didn’t know if what I’d done would be considered breaking and entering, but I needed to play it safe. “It took a little ingenuity, the details of which I’m not willing to share at this time.”

  “You picked the lock.” He shook his head and tried to suppress a smile. “If I’d known you were so adept at breaking and entering, I’d have asked you to do it myself.”

  “You would? You wouldn’t have scolded me for setting out to perform an illegal act?”

  “Emily, darling, I might be an officer of the law, but I’ve learned that laws can sometimes be bent without being broken. Even I can turn a blind eye every so often.” His gaze shifted from my eyes to a spot above my right ear. “Though it’s increasingly hard to turn a blind eye when your hair is full of foreign matter. Hold still.”

  “More cornflakes?” I asked as he caught something between his fingers and coaxed it down the length of my hair. I eyed the BB-sized piece of grit in his palm. “Nope. Grape-Nut.”

  Etienne studied the morsel with appreciation. “Cheerios. Cornflakes. Grape-Nuts. They have an excellent assortment of breakfast cereals available here.”

  Good thing. They were going to need them.

  From the parking lot we heard the loud blare of a car horn. Etienne rose from his chair. “That’s probably my cab.”

  “Your cab?” I popped up beside him. “But…but…I haven’t finished telling you what else I found out.”

  He grasped my hand and pulled me along with him as he strode to the door. “Is it life or death, or will it hold until evening?” The horn blared again. He gave me one of those anguished looks that punctual people always give anything that is threatening to make them late.

  “It’s not life or death. It’s about a painting in my room.”

  “Your room. Perfect. Tonight then. You won’t have to tell me; you can show me.” He bent close to my ear, his breath warm against my lobe. “I hope this doesn’t interfere with your showing me the other intimate details in your room that crave my attention.” He kissed my mouth and bolted out the door, leaving my hand elevated in farewell and the rest of me in need of a cold shower. But remembering my dilemma with the dungeon door, I ran outside after him.

  “If you happen to pass a hardware store, would you pick up a flashlight and a skeleton key?” He waved to me as he stepped inside the cab. I watched the vehicle squeal out of the parking lot, not knowing whether he’d heard me or not. Oh, well, I guess it would be a surprise.

  As I made my way back across the lobby, I noticed Ashley standing at the front desk, jabbing an angry finger into the air in the vicinity of Nessa’s nose. I wondered what the desk clerk had done, or not done, to warrant Ashley’s wrath, but figured it didn’t have to be much to set Ashley off. She was so fond of reaming people out, I was amazed she could hold on to a job that required her to be nice for extended periods of time. All that phony Southern charm was such a crock. Funny no one had exposed her for what she really was. Knights might have lived and died by the sword, cowboys might have lived and died by the gun, but tour guides lived and died by the all-important standard evaluation form. Strange that it hadn’t proven Ashley’s downfall already. Hmm. Maybe Golden Irish Vacations used a new form that excluded the really profound questions, like:Was your guide informative? Was she courteous? Was she careful to avoid poking your eye out when she jabbed her finger in your face? That had to be it. The company had sanitized the forms to be more politically correct. They didn’t dare give guests a chance to say Ashley was hostile, two-faced, and crabby because the truth would hurt her feelings and she might decide to sue the hell out of them, which could plunge the company into bankruptcy. Geesch. I hated political correctness.

  As I rounded the corner of the front desk on my way to my room, Ashley stopped rebuking Nessa long enough to call out to me, “Did y’all enjoy your evening with your…friend last night, sugar? You’ll have to tell me what you did to amuse yourselves, especially dressed like you were. Loved the see-through babydolls.”

  Nessa took advantage of the interruption to escape to the grid of mail slots behind her and busy herself with extraneous pieces of paper. But she wasn’t so busy that she failed to toss me a grateful look over her shoulder. I smiled inwardly. I’d consider that my good deed for the day.

  “We had a lovely evening,” I fired back at Ashley. “It was especially exciting after the power went out.”

  “I’m sure it was.” Ashley faked a honeyed smile. “Lots of heavy breathing was there?”

  “Lots of…bubbly.”

  “Champagne? Y’all were able to order champagne? I tried to order champagne, and they told me they didn’t have any.”

  “Maybe it’s your accent. I bet they couldn’t understand you. You should try again.”

  She squinted at me like a clueless Neanderthal before trying to gain the advantage. “Not to rain on your parade, Emily, but if you can’t control your people any better than you did this morning, I might have to write you up. And you really don’t want that to happen. It could ruin your career as a tour escort.”

  She…I…Uff da! “My people wouldn’t be out of control if someone could explain why two people died in the last two days. When they think they might be next in line, they panic!”

  “Nonetheless, I don’t expect them to start food fights. If there are cleanup costs, you’re footin’ the bill.”

  I drilled her with one of Nana’s patented steely-eyed looks. “Lest it escape your notice, you’re not the only one around here who can complain about the people in charge, or ruin careers.”

  She propped herself up higher on her crutches, oozing confidence. “Try it, sugar,” she challenged, “but I mean to tell you, that dog don’t hunt.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Hunh. She wasn’t the only one who could throw around trite catchphrases. “Well, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

  She smiled a saccharine smile. “My daddy owns the company.”

  Yup. That explained a lot of things.

  Fuming about the unfairness of nepotism, I returned to my room and was about to unlock my door when I noticed Ira Kuppelman and Michael Malooley engaged in quiet discussion in the shadows at the end of the hall. Now that was odd. What would a man whose wife was related to Oliver Cromwell have in common with a man who professed unmitigated hatred of Oliver Cromwell?

  Ira handed Michael a sheet of white paper that Michael initially rejected, then stuck in his shirt pocket begrudgingly, shaking his head all the while. What had Ira asked him to do? And why was Michael saying “No,” then changing his tune and nodding yes? Strange bedfellows, Ira and Michael. Had I paired up the wrong people? Was Michael doing Ira’s bidding instead of Ethel’s? But why would Ira want to frighten anyone to death? What was in it for him? What was his motivation? And then it hit me. The oldest motivation in the world. Uh-oh. I didn’t like the looks of this. I opened my door with the sudden fear that if we discovered body number three today, it might belong to Gladys Kuppelman.

  Chapter 12

  As we pulled into the parking lot of the Giant’s Causeway on the North Antrim coast, Ashley threw a few details at us in a voice that could melt butter. “Some folks call this site the eighth wonder of the world, and after y’all see it, you’ll know why. What y’all are about to see is a geologic puzzle.”

  The word geologic caught my attention as I sat catnap-ping beside Bernice. Wow. A four-syllable word. She was pulling out all the stops this morning.

  “The site consists of about thirty-seven thousand columns made of a volcanic rock called basalt. They start at the base of the cliff and descend like stepping-stones into the sea. Some of the columns stand forty feet high, and what y’all will notice is that they’re mostly shaped like perfect hexagons. Not all, mind you. You’ll see some columns with four, five, eight, or ten sides, but the regularity of the six-sided ones have geologists baffled.
I guess it’s unusual for nature to be that consistent, especially when you consider there are no two snowflakes that are alike.”

  “What does she know about snowflakes?” Bernice muttered. “Listen to that accent. She’s probably never even seen snow.”

  Bernice was in a particularly sour mood this morning. I figured it had something to do with the Grape-Nuts she’d inhaled up her nose in the food fight. “That’s a really attractive turban you’re wearing, Bernice. Magenta is a good color on you.”

  “It’s not mine. It belongs to Alice Tjarks.”

  “Well, that was nice of her to lend it to you. I’ve never had much success with scarf turbans. They keep unraveling on me. Yours looks pretty secure.”

  “Why are you telling me? Tell Alice. She’s the one who tied it.”

  Bernice could accept a compliment with such grace. “It looks very smart.” And it added a touch of class to her sweatshirt with the Monster Truck emblazoned on the front and her red polyester pants.

  “I think it looks stupid. Paisley. Who wears paisley anymore? But it was either this or a paper bag.”

  Ashley’s voice sounded over the loudspeaker again. “When you get off the bus, head toward the visitors’ center and proceed through the back door to the circular walkway that wends down to the shore. It’s a lovely hike for those of y’all who enjoy a scenic walk. If walkin’s not your thing, you can catch the shuttle bus at the designated area behind the visitors’ center. It’ll drop you right off at the Grand Causeway. We’ll plan to meet back at the bus in three hours, so check your watches and make a mental note.”

  “What did you say about a paper bag?” I asked Bernice as the bus rumbled to a stop.

  “I got made over last night,” she snarled. “By an idiot. Your grandmother got made over, too. She looks like she got her head caught in a SaladShooter, but her eyesight’s going, so she doesn’t know yet how bad it is. At least I know enough to hide mine.”

  I cringed. “How bad is it?”

  As the people around us stood and stretched and crammed into the aisles to disembark, Bernice pulled the turban off her head. “You tell me.”

  Eh! It was worse than Nana’s, if that was possible.

  “It’s called a choppy cut.”

  More like the machete cut. What hair she had left fanned over her scalp like sheaves of mangled wild grass, crisscrossing in random directions. This was really bad news. “The good news is,” I said, feigning optimism, “it’ll grow back. Let me help you get your scarf back on.”

  As I snugged it back over her head, the whole thing unraveled in my hands like cascading silk, slithering over her ears and halfway down her neck. Nuts. I did a quick sleight of hand with folds and knots and tail ends, then paused to observe my handiwork. “I like it.”

  Bernice stared at me, deadpan. “It didn’t droop over my eye when Alice did it.”

  “This is a good look for you. It’s sassy. Coquettish.”

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I CAN’T SEE!”

  “Okay, okay.” I tucked the overhang into a fold at her hairline. “There. Perfect.” Well, almost perfect, if you overlooked the fact that it was a little crooked. “If it falls apart again, have Nana give you a hand. She does the turban thing every night, only with toilet paper.”

  By the time we gathered our belongings and left the bus, the rest of the group was far ahead of us, heads down and arms swinging, trying to outpace each other in what looked like a spirited dash toward the visitors’ center. The Iowans were in power-walk mode because they wanted to be on time for the next event. The New Yorkers were in power-walk mode because fast is the only speed they know. I figured this phenomenon was a holdover from the days when streetcars were first introduced in Brooklyn. So many city dwellers were run over by the unwelcome new vehicles, people were forced to move really fast to dodge them. Streetcars may have disappeared, but New Yorkers seem to have retained the genetic imprint to move it, move it, move it. I guess that’s how the Brooklyn Dodgers ended up in Los Angeles.

  The visitors’ center was a one-story structure that looked newly remodeled, with lots of glass and layers of fresh paint. Once inside, we found ourselves in the middle of a gift shop, with an airy cafeteria-style eatery located at the back and a ramp that led to the shuttle bus area, with a turnstile at the bottom. While some of the group milled about the gift shop, I located a sign for the comfort station and headed toward the opposite end of the building. As I approached the area, the door to the men’s room swung open. I stopped short when a sheepish-looking Jackie, dressed in a sexy striped tank dress and leather wedges with a high wooden heel, shot a look both ways and slunk out the door.

  “Damn,” she complained, joining me. “I hate it when that happens.”

  I shook my head, admiring her chutzpah. “Let me guess. There weren’t enough stalls in the ladies’ room, so you decided to sneak into the men’s.”

  “I didn’t sneak in. I walked into the rest room, headed for the urinal, got ready to whip out my equipment, and realized I don’t have any equipment. Jeez, you’d think I’d remember I don’t whiz standing up anymore, but every so often, I have these little mental lapses and end up in the wrong room. Old habits die hard.”

  “Guys have it so good,” I said grudgingly. “External plumbing. Zippered access. No lines. No waiting.”

  Jackie nodded. “I have one male acquaintance who decided not to make the leap into transsexualism after he saw the ridiculously long lines women had to wait in to use the rest rooms at Yankee Stadium. He figured he could discover a cure for cancer in the time he wasted queuing up to pee.”

  We made our way to the ladies’ room around the corner and took our places at the back of the line. “Is Tom here with you today?” I inquired, unable to locate him in the crowd.

  “He’s here. But we’re not speaking. He’s hidden my fuzzy pink slippers on me, the creep. He knows I love those slippers. They’re better than comfort food. He swears he didn’t touch them, but I can’t find them anywhere in the room, so you tell me. Did they decide to walk away by themselves? I don’t think so. He hid them. I didn’t realize how petty he can be.”

  Jackie’s slippers. Nana’s bathrobe. Etienne’s trousers. What was going on here? “Please tell me you’re going to make up before tonight.”

  “Why? What’s happening tonight? Oh, God, you’re not going to invite him to join in one of your dungeon adventures, are you? I’ll tell you right now, he won’t go. He’s allergic to certain kinds of mold, and he doesn’t like mice.”

  “Have you seen my grandmother today?”

  “Yeah. She looks like Peter Rabbit on speed. What happened?”

  “Your husband happened. He decided to give her a makeover last night to kill time. The choppy cut. If he’s free tonight, he’s going to apply color.”

  Jackie shook her head. “He wanted to give me the choppy cut, but I wouldn’t let him anywhere near me. That choppy cut is bad news. They love it in Hollywood, but that’s not a good barometer. Normal people sneak weird looks at you and ask if you’d like to borrow a comb.”

  “No color,” I stated emphatically. “Nana’s probably going to have a hard time clearing airport security with the haircut alone. I don’t want to see what’ll happen if her hair is pink.”

  “Tom has never done pink hair. Not even by accident.”

  “No color!”

  Jackie planted her fist on her hip and gave me an exasperated look. “So what do you suggest I do to keep him occupied this evening?”

  “You’re on your honeymoon,” I said in a meaningful whisper. “You figure it out.”

  After we did our thing at the comfort station, we passed through the turnstile near the cafeteria and exited out the back of the building. A blue-and-white shuttle bus was loading up passengers, but people were crammed in so tightly, I decided to wait for the next one. I’d been pinched, crushed, and pickpocketed too many times on crowded New York subways to ever want to repeat the experience. But I spotted Ge
orge Farkas with his nose pressed to one of the windows, and Bernice, and then I saw a lot of people who weren’t from Iowa: the Minches, the Kuppelmans, the guy who borrowed the furniture polish from the maid’s closet, Tom Thum. I shook my head. Nice of him to leave his wife behind. I took a quick inventory of the people still standing on the pavement and realized that all the New Yorkers except Jackie had made it onto the bus, and most of the Iowans hadn’t. This was one of the drawbacks of living in a state without a highly developed system of public transportation. You never learn how to shove people out of the way when you’re trying to board a vehicle with limited capacity.

  Ashley hobbled onto the step well of the bus and maneuvered herself around on her crutches to deliver a few last-minute instructions. “The shuttle runs every fifteen or twenty minutes, so the rest of y’all can either wait here for the next bus, or stroll down to the shore at your own pace. I see Emily’s here with y’all, so if you have any problems, you just give her a holler.” She flashed me a syrupy smile before hopping up the stairs, aided by a swarm of men who all but body-passed her to the front seat. The door hissed shut. As the bus pulled forward, I regarded the tangle of bodies squished together in the narrow space and nearly swallowed my tongue when I saw an unexpected face profiled in the window of the very last seat.