Bonnie of Evidence

THIRTEEN



I FORCED MYSELF TO remain outwardly calm, but inside, I was doing cartwheels. “So … Bill took advantage of the complimentary water on the bus yesterday?”

“Of course, he did. You don’t think he’d pay for it in the gift shop when he could get it for free, do you? He might be a sexual magnet, but he’s still a skinflint.”

“We’re going shopping,” Dick Teig announced as the gang paraded past me.

“We’re gonna look for some of them disposable cameras on account a we can’t take no more pictures if our phones are dead,” said Nana.

“Did anyone notice a camera shop on our way through town?” asked Tilly.

“How are we supposed to find the right store if we don’t have GPS to guide us there?” complained Dick Stolee.

“You could find it the old-fashioned way,” I suggested.

They paused en masse, hanging on my next word.

“You could explore on foot.”

Eye rolling. Snorting. Snickering.

“Oh, sure,” squawked Helen. “Do you know how fast we’d get lost?”

“You’re from Iowa,” I reminded her. “Iowans don’t get lost.”

They exchanged questioning glances with each other. “That’s right,” Dick Teig marveled. “I forgot about that.”

“Iowans don’t get lost?” George looked skeptical. “Are you sure?”

“George!” I scolded. “Don’t you remember navigating us single-handedly back to our hotel from the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge in Northern Ireland?”

He regarded me blankly. “Nope.”

“I remember George doing that,” Osmond agreed. “I just don’t recall being in Ireland. Did we have a good time?”

“Hey, guys,” I asked as I saw our bellman dithering over the best route to get around all of us. “Can you clear a path so the bellman can get through?”

They dutifully scattered to left and right, forming two orderly contra lines that the bellman trudged between, wheeling a huge tartan plaid suitcase behind him. “That’s Bill’s suitcase,” Stella observed from behind me, “but”—she had the grace to lower her voice—“how’s that poor schnook going to drag it up three flights of stairs with only one arm?”

“Say.” Dick Teig stopped the bellman as he passed. “Can you tell us where the nearest camera shop is?”

“Aye,” said the bellman, letting go the luggage handle to free up his hand for direction giving. “Ye hae nae sookie”—he gestured toward the town center—“and goon ma hook fer loony.”

“Right,” said Dick with a hesitant nod. “Everyone got that?”

Self-conscious looks. Desperate glances.

Margi plugged a finger into her ear and rattled it around for a couple of seconds. “Would you ask him to repeat it? I think my eardrum is punctured.”

“Ye hae nae sookie,” he repeated pleasantly, “and goon ma hook fer loony.”

“Okay,” said Margi, “it’s not my eardrum.”

“Could he draw us a map?” asked Alice.

The bellman shook his head. “Oi nae sinne doonan,” he said, rotating his lone hand in the air.

“What’d he say?” asked Nana.

“He says he can’t write with his left hand,” volunteered a glum voice from the lobby.

I stared at the gang. The gang stared at me. We all turned around to stare at Dad, who was still huddled in an armchair in the far corner of the now vacated room.

“You can understand him?” I asked with no small degree of astonishment.

“Sure,” he said without pomp. “Can’t you?”

“Uhhh—No?”

“Dick understood him, didn’t you, Dick?” prodded Helen Teig.

“Quiet, Helen,” he grumbled under his breath.

The bellman smiled cheerfully as he bobbed his head. “Dooky ma poon,” he said as he flexed his misshapen fingers.

Nana lengthened her eyes to tiny slits. “Are you sure he’s not speakin’ in tongues?”

“He says he could never hold a pen correctly in his left hand, so he gave up trying decades ago,” Dad translated.

“He said all that in three words?” gaped Osmond.

Dad looked slightly sheepish. “Well, I added a few prepositions for clarity.”

“Aww,” Margi commiserated, offering the man a sympathetic look. “The old Palmer handwriting method was a bear to learn, wasn’t it? I hear they’re not teaching it anymore, and people are so happy to be rid of it, they’re not even complaining about being illiterate.”

“So what’d he say about the camera shop?” urged Dick Stolee.

Dad boosted himself out of his chair and walked over to us with the hint of a spring in his step. “Out the front entrance, left to High Street, then a right. The camera shop is halfway down the block, next to the jewelry store, and they’ll be open late tonight. And if you tell them you’re guests of the hotel, they’ll give you an extra discount on all sale merchandise.” He made eye contact with the bellman. “Sound about right?”

“Dung ma hooey fer tootie poo tae glaum an furk a loon ma fanny.”

“What’d he say?” asked Nana.

“He said, ‘Yup.’”

“All right then,” Dick Stolee announced. “Let’s hit the road. If we hurry, we’ll be able to make it back in time for dinner.”

“How much time before dinner’s served?” Alice called out as they rushed the front doors.

“Two n’ a half hours,” said George.

“Dang,” Nana wailed as they shot out the doors. “That don’t give us no time at all.”

“That suitcase belongs in room 312,” Stella told the bellman with an air of condescension in her voice, “and it’s filled with some irreplaceable stuff, so you better take extra care. My husband will have a bird if you damage anything on your way up.”

Irreplaceable stuff ? Irreplaceable, as in, a three-hundred-year-old dagger?

I fired a glance at the suitcase, noting the easy-glide zipper and absence of a security lock or TSA strap. Gee. Unimpeded access. How handy was that? “I’ll help him,” I offered, trying unsuccessfully to hide my excitement.

Stella regarded me, deadpan. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be so thrilled about the prospect of tearing your shoulder out of its socket. I hear the surgery to repair it is a bitch.” Hoisting the strap of her pocketbook higher up her arm, she marched through the outer lobby and out the front door, leaving me in sole charge of Bill’s luggage.

Almost.

“How about I give you a hand?” I chirped at the bellman as I gripped the handle of the bag. “This’ll free you up to deliver someone else’s.”

He clapped his hand on top of mine and let fly a happy stream of jibberish. I deferred to Dad for the translation.

“He says he’s got it.”

“But look how many other pieces he has to deliver.” I nodded toward the outer lobby, where our remaining bags were corralled in a roped-off area. “If I pitch in, we’ll have this stuff delivered in no time at all.”

The bellman shook his head. Dad offered a quick translation. “That’s a no.”

“What floor is that one headed for?” Wally called out as he strode toward us from the corridor.

“Third,” I said as I tightened my grip.

The bellman exerted his authority and tugged the handle away from me. I exerted mine and tugged it back.

“Out of the way,” Wally insisted as he knocked both our hands away, commandeering what amounted to a hostile takeover. “I’ll take it.”

“You can’t do that!” I protested.

“Fug yer gooney!” cried the bellman.

Wally paused. “What’d he say?”

“‘You can’t do that!’” Dad repeated.

Wally arched his eyebrows. “You can understand him?”

“Look, Wally,” I said in a breathless rush, “I can handle this. It’s very important that I handle this.”

“You have a good ear, Mr. Andrew.” Wally gave an approving nod, clearly impressed with Dad’s interpretive language skills. “How long have you been able to decipher the Scottish tongue?”

Dad marked the time on his wristwatch. “About three minutes.”

“How many bags do we have left?” Etienne asked as he sprinted down the corridor in our direction.

“Miceli! Did you know your father-in-law can understand the language, burr and all?”

“Seriously? I wish you’d said something sooner, Bob. I’ve been going around and around with the people at the front desk, and I still don’t know what they’re saying. You want to give it a try?”

Dad’s face brightened. “You bet.”

Etienne kissed my forehead on the way by while Wally charged down the corridor in the opposite direction, pulling Bill Gordon’s luggage behind him. “Hey, Emily,” he called back to me, “if you want to help out, there’s a couple of smaller bags in the corral that you could probably handle.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly as he wheeled the suitcase out of sight. “I’ll get right on it.”

_____

With Etienne preoccupied with hotel personnel and two whole hours to kill before dinner, I decided to bite the bullet and look into buying Dad a camcorder to replace the one he broke.

After taking a quick shower and freshening up, I purchased insect repellent and a fly swatter at the grocery market across the street, then hanged a left at a knitting store and walked a couple of blocks until I reached High Street, which seemed even more deserted than it had been before, if that was possible. Window shopping was obviously not one of the main pursuits of Wick’s elusive populace.

I found the jewelry shop halfway down the block, and next to it … a hardware store? I peered at the garden implements and boxes of casual china on display in the window, realizing this was the right place only after I saw Nana standing behind a sixteen-piece set of Corelle dinnerware, waving me away.

What?

I gave her a questioning look, to which she responded by raising a finger for me to wait.

“Is this the latest trend in merchandising?” I asked when she exited the building to join me. “Disguising a camera shop as a hardware store?”

“They got them disposable cameras all right, dear, and some real nice digital ones, but you don’t wanna go in there right now on account of the clerk’s a little overwhelmed. He don’t speak English real good, so we had to send a runner to fetch your father. And now we got another delay ’cuz your father’s a little winded.”

“Oh.” I craned my neck to watch the flurry of activity inside. “Well, if Dad’s inside, I’d better wait until he leaves because I want to surprise him with a new camcorder. Did you notice any camcorders for sale?”

“Yup. But folks was more interested in the hot ticket items.”

I smiled. “What’s considered a hot ticket item in Wick, Scotland?”

“SaladShooters and Chia pets. Back home, you can’t find ’em no time but Christmas, but here, you can buy ’em all year round. Isn’t that somethin’? Grace and Helen are lookin’ to have some shipped home to have on hand for family birthdays.”

“Have you bought your camera yet?”

“Nope. I couldn’t get near the checkout counter ’cuz the Dicks are hoggin’ the calculator, tryin’ to help the clerk figure out volume discounts.”

“So, you want to stroll down High Street with me until the dust clears in there?”

“You bet.”

“Do you need to tell George and Tilly where you are?”

“Nope.” She dug out her phone. “When the signal comes back on, I’ll text ’em.”

I regarded her oddly, noting a distinct improvement in her posture. “How come you’re not lopsided anymore?”

She steepled a finger against her lips and threw a conspiratorial look right and left. “Don’t tell your mother, but I lightened my load.”

Crossing to the opposite side of the street, we followed the sidewalk toward a neatly paved pedestrian mall flanked by buildings that evoked images of what the world would look like if its entire population suddenly disappeared. There was no line at the Lloyds Bank cash machine. No moms buying children’s clothes at M & Co. No customers fighting over free vouchers for cell phones at Woolworths. There was a certain charm to the place in an abandoned kind of way—the chimney pots crowded atop chimneys, the dunce-capped turret on the Crown Bar, the Victorian streetlights interspersed between wooden benches and baskets of summer flowers.

Nana looped her arm through mine as my stack-heeled slides clacked on the pavers, echoing through the emptiness. “You s’pose this is where them fellas at the History Channel filmed that series, ‘Life After People’?”

No customers at the news agents. No patrons seated around the outside dining tables at the freehouse.

“I’ve never seen that show.”

“If you got a notion that the planet’s in bad shape now, you oughta see what happens when no one’s around to screw it up no more.”

We peeked through the windows of an establishment called Morag’s, which seemed to play a dual role as a gift shop, selling boxed jewelry and animal figurines, and a restaurant, serving food other than Indian, Chinese, or takeaway. Their We’re Open sign hung inside the front door, but I assumed it was too early yet for the dinner crowd, because the place was empty.

“Morag’s,” Nana mused as we passed by. “I was readin’ about a Morag last night.”

“In the Hamish Maccoull book?”

“Yup. She was kin. The daughter of one of Hamish’s brothers, and she didn’t want nuthin’ to do with no marriage her folks was gonna arrange, so she threw a tantrum.”

“Did she have a crush on someone else?”

“Nope. She was just bein’ what you’d call a teenager.”

“So how did parents deal with difficult teenagers three hundred years ago when they couldn’t threaten them with loss of car or cell phone privileges?”

“They sent her off to fend for herself in the middle of winter with nuthin’ but the clothes on her back.”

“Ew. Harsh, much?”

“Yup. They found her body after the snow melted. Looked like she’d starved to death on account of she couldn’t find nuthin’ to eat.”

“Oh, my God.” We sauntered past an abandoned bakery shop and a real estate office, whose available listings were prominently displayed in the window. “That’s”—I shivered—“unconscionable.”

“You haven’t heard nuthin’ yet. You wanna know what Hamish done to a fella what he caught poachin’ on his land?”

I bolstered myself with a calming breath. “Does the story involve blood, violence, or keenly honed weaponry?”

“Don’t know. Depends on how sharp his broadsword was when he lopped the fella’s arm off.”

“Nana!” As we strolled beyond the real estate office, I passed a glance down the narrow lane that veered off to our left—which is when I saw the legs poking out from behind a black metal trash barrel. “Ohmigod.”

I rushed over to the body and dropped to my knees. “Oh, God. It’s Dolly.”

She was curled in a fetal position on the pavement, eyes wide and fixed, mouth gaping open, fists still clutched against her stomach. I tried to find a pulse on her neck, her wrist.

Nothing.

I shot a look at Nana. “Do you have a signal on your phone yet?”

She checked the screen. “Still out.”

“Try Morag’s. They must have a landline. Nine-nine-nine. And tell them to hurry.”

“Check her pocketbook, dear,” she said as she turned back toward the restaurant. “Maybe she’s got meds that can help.”

Help bring her back from the dead?

I stared at the steamer trunk of a handbag lying beside her.

And yet …

I grabbed it off the ground and tore open the zipper. Wallet. Passport. Baby aspirin. Breath mints. Mini bottle of water. Cosmetic bag.

I riffled through the contents, hoping to find at least one bottle of pills. What I found instead, hiding at the very bottom of the pile, wrapped in a plush terry washcloth, was Hamish Maccoull’s missing dirk.