Dutch Me Deadly (7 page)

“Being a life coach is
only
the most thrilling job I’ve ever had, Emily. Better than acting off-Broadway. Better than caulking bath
room and kitchen tile. Better than writing a romance novel.
People
pay
me to tell them what to do. And they don’t snarl at me to butt out or get lost. They
want
me to make decisions for them. It’s the dream job of every control freak. It’s like—like being a parent, with financial benefits!”

Or a psychologist without a license. “Did you say you were actually certified to do this?”

“I most certainly am. It usually takes six months to complete the course work, but I took the accelerated course on the Web, so I was certified in two short weeks!”

I shuddered with terror. Jack telling people how they should live their lives was like Donald Trump telling men how to style their hair. “Two weeks and
bam
—a whole new career. I’m—I’m speechless.”

“I know. Isn’t it amazing? Internet training allows just about anyone to hang out a shingle these days.”

“How many clients do you have?”

“Well, only one so far, but I’ll probably have to beat them off with a stick when word gets out how good I am.”

“How did Beth Ann find you?”

“She read the ad I stuck up on the bulletin board at the salon. She asked Tom for particulars, he said he thought we’d hit it off, and here we are.”

I glanced across the room to find Beth Ann chatting with Mike and Mary Lou McManus and several other Mainers. “Actually, I’m surprised she responded to your ad. She seems so together. It’s hard to believe she needs help making everyday decisions.”

Jackie flicked her hand back and forth at the wrist. “Honey, the poor girl is a mess. Tom has done her hair for years, so he’s gotten an earful. Her husband left her. She got laid off from her job. Her father died. She might look cool, calm, and confident, but trust me, she’s being held together by piano wire.”

“She doesn’t seem to have any trouble mingling with people.”

“That’s because she’s on special assignment. If we’re going to nail the killer, we have to infiltrate the enemy camp, so she’s practicing her infiltration techniques—smiles, flattery, and a wad of Euros to defray the cost of Dietger’s tip. Money always talks.”

“Whoa! I never said anything about a killer.”

“You didn’t have to. Our dinner companions told us all about Charlotte’s dictatorship, so it was pretty obvious. Take it from
me, there’s a killer. And since you have such a lousy record for
apprehending criminals, I’ve decided you need more boots on the
ground to assist with the investigation, so Beth Ann and I are teaming up to help you.”

Oh, God
. Just what I needed. Scooby-Doo and friend turning my subtle fact-finding mission into an afternoon soap opera.

“So …” she leaned over close to my ear, “who do we think did it?”

Was I starting to question my own suspicions? Or was I simply afraid what Pete Finnegan might do if he found himself being stalked by a six-foot transsexual with a penchant for playing dress-up?

One thing was for sure though. If I refused Jackie’s help, she’d find a way to play detective anyway, so if I couldn’t talk her out of it, I’d be better off giving her my blessing to get into it … with a few guidelines. “Okay, Jack, you and Beth are in, but you need to follow the ground rules.”

“Yes! I love ground rules!”

“You hate ground rules.”

She sighed. “I know. I’m in denial.”

“Three things.” I waved a trio of digits in her face. “These folks from Maine aren’t cream puffs; they’re pretty tough hombres. So whatever you do, don’t bug them. Stay out of their personal space. And don’t ask them stupid questions.”

“How am I supposed to know if a question is stupid or not?”

“As a general rule? Anything out of your mouth that contains the words ‘Did you kill the tour director?’ is a stupid question.”

She looked confused. “Why is that stupid?”

“It’s a go,” Beth Ann announced as she joined us, “but it’s costing us twenty Euros apiece for the honor. Is twenty too much? Do you think I should have haggled the price down to ten?” She compressed her head between her hands and squeezed. “Did I do the right thing? I think I screwed up.” She gave Jackie a beseeching look. “I’ll die if I screwed up. Really. I’ll just open a vein, lie down, and die.”

Yup. Jackie had called that one. Beth Ann’s cool, calm, and confident demeanor was all window dressing, which meant that despite Jackie’s wanting to play Nancy Drew, her hands were going to be so full addressing Beth Ann’s insecurities that she’d have precious little time to derail my investigation.

I smiled impishly.
Thank you, Jesus
!

“Twenty Euros is a fair price,” Jackie reassured her. “You think twenty Euros is fair, don’t you, Emily?”

Twenty Euros was highway robbery, but Beth Ann didn’t need to hear that, especially if she was carrying sharp objects in her shoulder bag. “Sounds good to me.”

Beth Ann gasped with relief. “Ehh! I was really sweating it.” She
fanned her face at warp speed. “We can leave as soon as two
couples and a female guest change their clothes. They were sitting in the booth where the guy got seasick and blew his cookies all over his table companions. I’m surprised they’re coming with us. Word on the grapevine is that the aggrieved guests are so incensed, there could be an old-fashioned rumble.”

“How very
West Side Story
of them,” cooed Jackie. Then to me, “Do we need to cover that?”

“Consider all guests in the Maine contingent persons of interest,” I suggested. “You can judge for yourself what you want and don’t want to cover.”

“I don’t want to cover a rumble,” she said with an admiring glance at her hands. “I just had my nails done.”

Figuring my influence here was about spent, I spotted someone standing by herself near the front door and realized there was one more thing I needed to do. “Stay out of trouble,” I cautioned Jackie and Beth Ann before making my way across the lobby to the pretty blonde in the skinny jeans and ponytail. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said by way of greeting, “but my name is Emily, and I have a confession to make.”

“Don’t we all,” she said, laughing. “Glad to meet you, Emily. I’m Laura, and if you have something to confess, I’m all ears.” Her smile was magnetic, her eyes warm and lively. She looked like the type of person who could coax a cat out of a tree or a child out of a tantrum. I liked her already.

“You’re going to think this is pretty weird, especially since you don’t know me, but I took the liberty of inventing a personality profile for you at dinner tonight.”

Her smile widened. “Did you make me sound good?”

“I made you rock. You are now as financially savvy as Oprah and as physically fit as Wonder Woman.”

She threw her head back with laughter. “Fantastic! Do I wear hot pants and a brass bra?”

“You’re wealthy enough to wear whatever you want. You’ve already done an interview for
Fitness Magazine
with tips on how to remain flab-free, optimistic, and disgustingly rich throughout retirement, and next month, you’ll be doing a feature article for
Vanity Fair
and a cover shoot for
Vogue.”
I shrugged. “Just a few minor events in your life.”

“
Vogue
? Boy, have I come up in the world. I may have to drag out my curling iron and rethink my makeup. So, tell me, what necessitated the grand fiction?”

I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut. Hold it. I couldn’t tell her all the hurtful things her classmates had said. The idea was to stick up for her, not rip the scab off an old wound. I stared at her stupidly, hoping the ground would open up beneath my feet so I could disappear into it.

“Ouch. That bad, hunh?” She smiled sympathetically. “Maybe I can make this a little easier for you. Who did you eat with this evening?”

“The Hennessys—two n’s, two s’s, no e before the y—the Bouchards, and Paula—”

“Peavey,” she finished for me. “Say no more. I get the picture. I guess they made it clear that I was the butt of their jokes for four years. I’m so sorry you had to sit there and be exposed to their negative energy. Did Paula recite the twisted rhyme they made up about me?
Lau-ra, Lau-ra, she’s so scary. Looks like a—
”

I held up my hand. “Hearing it once was more than enough. It was really mean, not to mention it didn’t even rhyme.”

“I know. And Mindy, being the master of iambic pentameter that she was, never figured out that ‘ferret’ didn’t rhyme with ‘scary.’ ‘Fairy’ would have been a better choice. Even I knew that. I’m surprised her grades were even good enough to graduate with the rest of us, but she was already planning her wedding senior year, with a bun in the oven, so Sister Hippolytus probably wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. Not the kind of image our high school wanted to promote, especially back then.”

I shook my head. “How were you able to handle the humiliation for so many years without cracking?”

“I knew myself better than they knew me. I might have been
painfully shy and geeky, but I knew that there was an attractive
extrovert hiding somewhere inside me, so I just kept my mouth shut and my nose in my books and bided my time until I could head off to college.”

“Has anyone nominated you for sainthood yet?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I did my fair share of crying over having my feelings hurt, but I thought they were a bunch of loud-mouthed idiots who probably wouldn’t amount to much, so that kept me going.” Her eyes sparkled with sudden tears. “And I had a protector who always came to my defense when something derogatory was said about me. I wish I could have been so brave, but I took the coward’s way out. I simply told myself that the meanies were living the best years of their lives in high school, while I was looking ahead to bigger and better things. And see? I was right. I’m going to be on the cover of
Vogue
!”

“Boy, how do you resist wanting to pay them back for all the misery they put you through?”

“Believe it or not, I’ve forgiven them.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It was either forgive them or let the experience weigh me down for the rest of my life. So I chose forgiveness. It was very liberating. I highly recommend it. And it’s allowed me to direct my energy and talents toward something
con
structive rather than
de
structive. Revenge is such a downer. If you feed it enough negative emotion, it can eat you alive.”

She took my arm and navigated me away from the door as
Dietger stormed into the lobby like a prize bull stampeding through the streets of Pamplona. “Geesch. He walks the same way he drives,” she scoffed. “Like a maniac. I’m glad we’re going on foot tonight. The only thing we’ll have to dodge is bicycles. Are you coming with us? We’ll probably be treated to quite the spectacle for a measly five Euros.”

“Five Euros? Not twenty?”

“It’s probably worth five. No way is it worth twenty.”

Oh, God. I hope no one mentioned that to Beth Ann. We could be looking at a total nuclear meltdown.

“So, what do you say?” asked Laura. “Can I twist your arm? I think you and I have great friendship potential.”

“Thanks for the invite, but I’m forcing myself to do the responsible thing tonight by waiting for my group to return from their outing. They want their independence, but I need peace of mind.”

“Fair enough. I’ll catch you later then. And I can’t thank you enough for pumping up my brand at dinner. That was really sweet. I owe you.”

“No problem. It was worth the fib to see the shock on their faces. I wish I’d thought to take a picture.” As Dietger blared out orders to the assembled group, I was relieved that my guys would be safely ensconced in a pastry shop this evening while everyone else explored Amsterdam’s hellhole of live porn and illicit sex. Thank God. One less thing to worry about.

Laura scanned the crowd. “I’m trying to decide who I should hang out with on our field trip. My old friend Mary Lou or the guy who was the class clown?”

I was struck with a sudden thought. “Why don’t you hang out with your high school protector. Is he here?”

“I wish.” Sadness flooded her face. A faraway look filled her eyes. “There’s so much I’d like to thank him for. So much I—” Her voice cracked. She shook her head. “He’s not here. Bobby disappeared over a lifetime ago.”

I waited a beat. “Bobby?”

She nodded. “My protector. Bobby Guerrette.”

_____

As investigations went, I was discovering precious little about Charlotte but practically everything about Bobby Guerrette. Too bad Bobby hadn’t been our tour director. I’d gathered so much background information on him, I’d have the case cracked by now.

Once back in my room, I soaked in the tub for a half hour, slipped into something comfy, then curled up on the bed with a book and my phone. On a whim I tried Etienne at home, but when he didn’t answer, I had to satisfy myself by leaving him flirtatious kissy sounds on the answering machine.

He’d know it was me. We had caller ID, which made it impossible to make lewd phone calls anonymously anymore.

I turned the television on to an international business channel, opened my Dutch/English dictionary, slunk into a cozy cocoon of pillows and blankets, and began to peruse the section on what to order in a restaurant.

It was the last thing I remembered … until the phone woke me up.

Jackie’s voice. High and screechy. In full-blown panic. “You’ve gotta get down here, Emily! I’ve rounded up everyone else, but I’ve lost the Dicks!”

Seven

“How can they be
lost?” I ranted at Jackie forty minutes later. “What happened to the pastry shop? The chocolate cake? The anticipated sugar highs?”

“Oh, the rest of them are high, all right,” she shot back hysterically. “But it ain’t from sugar.”

The taxi driver had dropped me off at an unlit alleyway with instructions to head toward the neon lights at the end of the alley and cross the footbridge over the canal. “Der place you’re looking for vill be right in front of you.”

“You can’t take me right to the door?” I objected.

He’d snorted with laughter and driven away.

I understood the laughter now, because there were so many people jammed into the strip of real estate between the city’s two oldest canals that the street had morphed into a pedestrian mall. The Red Light District was apparently closed off to vehicular traffic to accommodate the hordes of curiosity seekers who were too mesmerized by the mind-numbing debauchery to take notice of the occasional car speeding straight at them.

I’d found Jackie pacing in front of a corner building called the Café Bar de Stoof—a luminous white structure whose enormous windows were set up on a grid as precise as an Iowa street map. Music screamed into the night from every opened door. Lights blazed like electric rainbows—flood lights, strobe lights, flashing lights, street lights. Graffiti defiled every staircase and door stoop. Whistles vied with cat calls. Onlookers lingered in boisterous circles, crowded the hoods of parked cars, and hung from the railings of staircases and balconies, chanting and singing with drunken abandon. A carnival atmosphere prevailed, reminding me of the annual Windsor City Hog Festival, only without the Tilt-A-Whirl or the hog.

“Define ‘high’,” I asked Jackie as a tattooed guy with spiked purple hair and anchor chains dangling from his nose sauntered up to us. He swayed slightly as he eyeballed Jackie’s boots.

“N
iiii
ce,” he slurred, sticking his tongue out as if to lick them. “My girl would look
sooo
hot in them. How about you slip ’em off and hand ’em over.”

Jackie stared him straight in the eye and lowered her voice to a deep basso. “How about you get lost before I rip that tongue ornament out of your head and use it to pierce what’s left of your brain?”

He turned abruptly on his heel and staggered back into the crowd, proving one of those axioms of human nature: it was mind-
numbingly scary to be threatened by a six-foot Barbie doll with Darth Vader’s voice.

“Pervert,” Jackie sniped. Wheeling around, she motioned for me to follow her down the alleyway behind us.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I chased after her.

She stopped in front of a gaggle of seniors who were huddled near a brick building, making strange animal noises and laughing giddily at each other. Jackie swept her arm toward them. “I did what I could. They’re all yours now.”

I did a sudden double-take. Oh, my God! It was them! I took a quick head count. Onetwothreefour—

“Look, everyone,” giggled Margi as she pointed at me. “It’s—You know. Her. The girl who’s on the tour with us.” She swayed against Tilly in super-slow motion and giggled some more.

Fivesixseveneight. EIGHT? That couldn’t be right. Onetwo-threefour—

“Are we on a tour?” Bernice twirled in a slow circle, head back and mouth open, as if she were trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue. “I was wondering what we were doing here.”

Fivesixseven … eight. Nuts!

“
Ewwww
,” said Alice, hugging George’s prosthetic leg to her chest and gazing skyward. “Look at the pretty colors.”

“Who’s missing?” I cried at them.

Osmond raised his hand. “I am.”

I looked left. I looked right. No Dick Teig. No Dick Stolee. No—. My heart stopped in panic. “Where’s Nana?”

They regarded me stupidly with their glassy eyes and goofy smiles.

“Why is there a bird sitting on your head?” asked Helen, tilting her head to view it from another angle.

Eh! Somewhere between the hotel and here, Helen had apparently lost both her eyebrows and replaced them with adhesive bandages that she’d colored with permanent black marker. Not the best fix, but in comparison to what everyone else around here looked like, it was actually quite attractive.

Tilly stared trancelike at my bare head. “That’s
Pteroglossus torquatus
,” she whispered in awe, “found only in the tropical rainforests of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras—”

“
Ewwww
,” cooed Alice, eyeing me in a similar manner. “Look at the pretty feathers.”

“—Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia—”

“There is no bird on my head,” I shouted.

“—Equador, Venezuela.” Tilly swung her walking stick into the air. “Do you want me to knock the damn thing onto its keister?”

“No!” I ducked as her cane whirled toward my head.

“Why is the pavement shaking?” asked Grace, squatting low and riding out the tremor like a surfer riding a wave. “
Weeeeee
!”

“That’s enough!” I yelled. “Grace, stand up. There’s no earthquake. Alice, give George back his leg.” I narrowed my gaze as my brain caught up to my eyes. “Alice, why are you holding George’s leg?”

Jackie snatched Tilly’s walking stick off the ground and handed it to me. “They decided to play croquet,” she said under her breath. “George’s leg was the mallet. Alice was supposed to be up next.”

My jaw came unhinged. “What were they using for balls?”

She shook her head. “You don’t wanna know.”

Oh, God. “Eyes on me, everyone! One last time. Where? Is? Nana?”

“I had to go potty,” she called out as she shuffled up behind me in her little size-5 sneakers.

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding and wrapped my arms around her. “Stop doing that! You scared the bejeebers out of me.”

“Emily, dear, what a nice surprise. I wasn’t expectin’ to see you here. Listen, everyone,” she enthused as she turned to the group. “If anyone’s gotta go potty, I found a real nice one in that corner buildin’ over there. Only thing is, I think I was in the wrong section ’cause a fella poked his hand under the partition while I was sittin’ there doin’ my business. He didn’t speak no English, but I figured he didn’t have no toilet paper, so I helped him out and give him a big wad. Poor fella. God only knows how long he’d been holed up in that stall before I come along.”

I hung my head. Maybe it was time for me to switch careers to something less stressful—like, say, bomb defuser.

“Where’s that bird, Helen?” Margi squinted in my direction. “I can’t see it anymore. I think there’s something wrong with my glasses.”

Osmond removed his wire rims. “Here, try mine.”

“Stop that!” I scolded. “You can’t wear each other’s glasses.”

Nana’s shoulders slumped as if weighted by concrete shoulder pads. “You don’t know the half of it, dear.”

Why did I
not
want to know what that meant?

“Everyone is here except for Dick Teig and Dick Stolee,” I said,
raising my voice several decibels. “Does anyone know where they are?”

Jackie snorted. “Good luck with that one.”

“My Dick is missing?” Helen studied the faces around her with sudden interest. “When did that happen?”

Yup. It was going to be a long night. I rephrased my question. “When is the last time you saw the two Dicks?”

“September twenty-first, nineteen-fifty-nine,” said George.

Osmond raised his hand. “Why is Helen missing her dick? Did she have a sex change?”

“See what I mean?” taunted Jackie.

“What is
wrong
with all of you?” I cried.

“It’s on account a the chocolate cake,” Nana blurted out. “The pastry shop what Jackie sent us to was closed, so we found another one. But while we was sittin’ there, eatin’ our pastries, everyone’s eyes started goin’ berserk.”

I frowned. “Define berserk.”

“Well, the Dicks was complainin’ about lightnin’ bolts flashin’ in front of their eyes. George swore he seen giant flies attackin’ him. And Bernice said she could make me look a whole lot more like Winston Churchill if I’d let her move my nose closer to my eyebrows.”

“Hmm. Ocular migraines can cause symptoms like that, but I don’t understand why all of you started suffering the same effects at the same time. That’s really weird.” I tilted Nana’s chin up so I could examine her eyes. “Are you seeing anything unusual?”

“I seen Dick Stolee pull out his wallet to pay the taxi. That was pretty unusual.”

“So, everyone’s eyes went berserk except yours?”

She nodded glumly. “It was pretty disappointin’. Everyone else was seein’ fireworks and insects. All I got to see was George swattin’ kamikaze flies.”

I shook my head. “Why do you suppose you were the only person not affected?”

“I think it’s ’cause I didn’t eat no chocolate cake. They run out by the time I give ’em my order, so I got a poppyseed muffin instead and it tasted so bad, I give it to the Dicks. They didn’t notice it tasted funny on account of they eat so fast, they don’t know what they’re chewin’ half the time.”

“So everyone who ate the cake displayed symptoms?” This was becoming less of a medical enigma and more of a no-brainer. “Are you absolutely sure you went to a pastry shop?”

“It wasn’t a pastry shop,” Tilly called out. “It was a coffeeshop.”

I sucked in my breath with horror. “A coffeeshop? You were supposed to
avoid
coffeeshops. Remember? I told you at all three group meetings. I handed out special memos. I made a notation on the bottom of your itineraries.”

“We knew you talked about ’em,” Nana confessed. “We just couldn’t remember what you said.”

“To reiterate,” I announced pointedly, “Dutch cafes serve light meals. Dutch
coffeeshops
serve bakery items laced with marijuana and God only knows what other drugs!”

They exchanged sheepish looks with each other before dissolving into giggles again.

I eyed them accusingly. “You’re all high as kites, aren’t you?”

“Congratulations for just figuring that out,” quipped Jackie.

Tilly swayed against George, circling her arm around his neck for support. “I haven’t felt this good since I chewed root bark with the Pygmies forty years ago.”

“I haven’t felt this good … ever,” slurred Margi.

Nana looked up at me imploringly. “You s’pose we could stop by that coffeeshop again on the way home, dear? I know where it is.”

“No! Has anyone tried phoning the Dicks?”

They gaped at me. They gaped at each other. Helen whipped out her cellphone and stared at it in confusion. “Hey, who replaced my phone with a remote control?”

“I have one, too,” marveled Osmond as he studied his screen. “I wonder how many channels I get?”

No doubt about it. A career change was looking more appealing all the time.

Nana punched a key on her cell and waited. “I’m gettin’ nuthin’ but dead air on Dick Teig’s line, Emily.”

“What about Dick Stolee?”

She repeated the process. “Nuthin’ there neither.”

Unh-oh. This wasn’t good. “Are you a hundred percent positive you didn’t leave them back at the coffeeshop?” I mean, with everyone acting so batty, anything was possible. The Dicks could be sitting in the coffeeshop, wondering where everyone went.

“They was the ones what suggested we come down here, dear. They was the first ones into the taxis.”

“And then what?”

“The taxis left us off on some side street and we followed the noise ’til we found where the action was. We all kinda huddled together, wonderin’ what to see first, but the Dicks took off before Osmond could even ask for a show of hands.” She cupped her hand around her mouth and lowered her voice. “Last I seen of ’em, they was headed for someplace called the Moulin Rouge.”

I brightened a little. “Like the famous cabaret in Paris?”

“What’s that one look like?”

“It has a big red windmill and a marquee touting its musical revue and can-can girls.”

She shook her head. “Don’t think it’s the same franchise. This one’s got a sign toutin’ itself as an Erotic Nightclub and Live Sex Theater.”

Oh, God
. I inhaled a fortifying breath. I was Catholic. This was outside my comfort zone. “Okay, which way do I go?”

“Hang a left at the end of the alley and keep walkin’.”

“Does anyone have a spare leg I can use?” George called out. “Alice won’t give mine back to me.”

“Not until I have my turn!” she protested. “Everyone had a turn except me. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Jackie sympathized. Then with more enthusiasm, “Which is exactly why each and every one of you would benefit from the services of your own personal life coach! I have business cards. Anyone want one?”

Before Jackie could turn what remained of the evening into a private infomercial, I caught Nana’s eye. “Would you be a peach and dial up Alice’s cellphone for me?”

She punched her speed dial and handed me her phone.

Alice cocked her head as a muffled ring tone chimed nearby. “
Shhhh
, everyone. Listen. That’s my phone!” Unable to answer it with her arms full, she heaved George’s leg at him. With her hands free, she riffled through her pocketbook for her phone. “Hello?” she said breathlessly.

“Thank you for returning George’s leg,” I said before disconnecting. “Okay, everyone, listen up. I’m calling a couple of taxis to get you out of here. You will join hands and
not let go
of each other until you are safely inside the cabs. Jackie has volunteered to escort you back to the hotel—”

“I have?”

“—where she will entertain you with a short presentation about
her new business venture until you’re feeling more normal.”

Groans. Razzberries. “Borrr-ing,” crabbed Bernice.

“Ew.” Jackie perked up. “Good idea.”

“Keep them in the lobby and do not let them return to their rooms until I get back,” I instructed her. “I don’t want any of them mistaking their arms for wings and thinking they can paraglide off their window ledges.”