Top O' the Mournin' (22 page)

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.

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 George 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.

Michael Malooley? What was
he
doing in there? Bus drivers never took the tour with the guests. They always hung out in the nearest café with the other bus drivers so they could drink coffee and tell bus driver stories. Pinpricks of unease rode my spine. I didn’t like this one bit. Michael and Ira had to have something heinous planned, and I figured Gladys was the target. Ira Kuppelman wouldn’t be the first well-to-do senior to want to knock off his wife. He looked good enough to attract younger women. That had to be the scheme. Get rid of Gladys in favor of a younger, prettier trophy wife. Gladys probably didn’t have a clue what was in the works, which meant that by the time the shuttle returned to pick us up, she could already be dead. I needed to warn her, and I needed to do it fast.

I stuck my pinkies in my mouth and let out an earsplitting whistle. Chatter ceased. Bodies wheeled around. I waved my hand above my head so everyone could locate me, then raised my voice so I could be heard. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think we can make better use of our time than to stand around here for twenty minutes waiting for a bus. We could all use the exercise after that meal last night. I say we walk. Are you game?”

“I’m not game,” said Jackie. “How far a walk is it? I’m not wearing the right shoes and I already have a blister on my foot from yesterday.”

“I’m game,” said Nana. “We’ve sat on buses long enough as it is.”

Alice Tjarks nodded. “I agree with Marion. Besides, that shuttle will need to be aired out before anyone boards it again. Did you see?” She lowered her voice. “Our bus driver is on it.”

“All those in favor of walking say, ‘Yea,’” Osmond Chelsvig instructed. Osmond had served as the president of Windsor City’s electoral board for decades, so he was a natural to call for votes, though with his hearing loss, I feared we might be facing a lot of recounts. “Opposed, say, ‘Nay,’” he continued.

“Nay,” shouted Jackie.

“By my count we have a bunch of yeas and no nays, so the yeas have it. We walk.”

Jackie thrust her hand into the air. “Wait a minute. I said nay!”

“Give it a rest,” I advised. “You’re outnumbered.”

“My vote was properly cast. It shouldn’t be discounted on someone’s whim. That’s only supposed to happen in presidential elections.”

“Maybe we should line up according to height,” Tilly Hovick suggested, directing people with her walking stick. “Short people in the front, tall people in the back.” I suspected Tilly might have taught kindergarten before she hit the college circuit, but I noticed confusion in the ranks as people stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to decide who was taller. Everyone had shrunk to about the same height. Uh-oh. We might never get out of here if a few people demanded to have measurements taken.

“Tell you what,” I called out. “Just start walking. You don’t have to be in any kind of order.” Tilly shot me a disapproving look, then shook her head in a way that suggested if mass chaos broke out,
she
would not be held liable. Jackie let out an exaggerated sigh beside me.

“Well, I’m not doing any more walking. I walked enough yesterday. I’m staying put and waiting for the next bus.”

I shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll see you down there.”