Bonnie of Evidence

FIFTEEN



“DICK TEIG ADDED ANOTHER prescription to his drug list,” Wally informed me. “It apparently slipped his mind when he filled out the form you sent him.”

I’d arranged an after-dinner meeting with Wally to discuss whether we needed to make another appeal to the group for full disclosure on their medical history forms. Knowing guests were afflicted with thyroiditis or athlete’s foot might not make any difference in a medical emergency, but it might make the medical examiner’s job a little easier should anyone else suffer the misfortune of landing on his autopsy table.

“Nana mentioned Dick had stopped by the Urgent Care Clinic before we left Iowa. Something about an acid reflux attack at the Senior Center’s All-You-Can-Eat Taco Buffet. So what’s he taking for it? Ranitidine? Omeprazole?”

Wally handed me the form. “Viagra.”

“Oh.” I pinched my mouth tighter than a closed fist and forced my shoulder into a casual shrug. “Did you know Viagra has recently been found to have a dual purpose?”

He flashed me a wry look. “It can actually cure acid reflux?”

“No, but it apparently works wonders with altitude sickness.”

Wally grinned. “I’ll remember that if I ever plan an orgy on top of Mount Everest.”

We were sitting in my room with its twin beds, wood paneling, late-model TV, and starving artists’ landscape art hanging above the headboards. The rug was tatty, the space cramped, and there was no vanity in the bathroom to store things on, but we had an immersion heater that boiled water in less than a minute, and two cups that didn’t have chips in them—a circumstance that had probably caused the rating in the official hotel guidebook to soar from one star to two.

Wally perused another form. “In the spirit of full disclosure, Margi Swanson adjusted her weight by a few pounds. Upward. She says she’s retaining water. Your father adjusted his weight by a few pounds. Downward. He claims to have lost significant muscle mass over the last three days.”

I grinned, disbelieving that Dad had wanted to appear more bulked up on paper.

“Osmond Chelsvig changed the year he was born.”

“I knew it!” I slapped my palms triumphantly on my knees. “I knew he had to be a whole lot younger than ninety-six.”

Wally shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the ceiling.

I froze. “He’s older?”

“And trust me. You don’t wanna know by how many years. Your grandmother switched her height from four-foot-ten inches tall to four-foot-nine.”

“Oh, my God. She’s lost a whole inch?” Mom was right. Nana was shrinking faster than a snowman in a heat wave. Which made me question the wisdom of her impulse to ditch her entire supply of supplements at breakfast.

“And that’s it.” He grabbed the wad and waved them in the air like day-old newspapers. “If some of these people have medical secrets, they’re taking them to the grave with them.”

“Neither of the Gordons expanded their information?”

He shook his head. “We’d be smart not to waste our breath on Stella and Bill, Emily. They’ve told me their personal information is none of our business, and they’ve no intention of budging. You can bank on it.”

“What about … Erik Ishmael. Anything out of the ordinary in either his or Alex’s medical histories?”

Wally riffled through the papers. “Erik takes a prescription pain reliever. A pretty powerful narcotic actually. No mention of what the problem is. He also takes a slew of dietary supplements and metabolites. Looks like he’s downing every nutritional supplement the industry pushes at jocks to help them keep their competitive edge.” He turned the page over. “No mention of his athletic background, but he probably excelled at some noncontact sport that didn’t threaten to damage his cheekbones. Ping pong maybe?”

Erik must have been a skilled kickboxer indeed to have escaped the inevitable punishment of having his entire face rearranged in the ring. Either that, or his earnings had allowed him to spring for cosmetic surgery from some of the finest surgeons in the country. “How about Alex?”

Wally scanned the sheet. “He’s on drugs for high cholesterol and hypertension. Pretty ordinary stuff.” He chuckled as he slid the forms back into his leather carryall. “Did you know the guy is an honest-to-goodness rocket scientist?”

“I thought he was a nuclear engineer.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

I eyed him skeptically. “Don’t nuclear engineers deal with nuclear energy and rocket scientists deal with … rockets?”

“Whatever. He told me rocket scientist, so I’m thinking the two terms are interchangeable.”

Or had he simply forgotten what he’d written on the guest form? The same way he’d forgotten whether he lived in a condo or an apartment. I frowned, uncomfortable with the direction my thoughts were taking.

Wally leaned back in his chair and blew out a long, exasperated breath. “So what do you suggest we do about the contest? I hope you know it can’t go on like this. Two people dead? Guests at each other’s throats? It was a great idea in theory, but the reality isn’t quite living up to the hype.”

“Do you think we should throw in the towel?”

“In the interest of all involved, that would be the safest thing to do, but then you’re left with the threat of litigation. You’d be breaking a contract with a heck of a lot of people, and they might take exception and sock you with a civil suit.”

I sighed. “And then there’s Lucille Rassmuson who’d be very gracious in defeat, but who’s absolutely aglow that she’s found an activity where she’s more skilled than everyone else. How do I tell her to put away her GPS and enjoy the rest of the trip as a common tourist? Can you imagine her disappointment? She won’t be a member of the number one team anymore, the object of everyone’s attention and envy. She’ll just be plain old Lucille Rassmuson again, invisible senior citizen from Iowa. My gut is already starting to wrench just thinking about it.”

“It’s life, Em. Not everyone gets to win.”

“I know. But it seems so unfair.”

He picked up his carryall and got to his feet. “So what about tomorrow? Are you going to let the teams loose on the Orkneys or not?”

“No decision yet. I need to ponder more … and wait for Etienne’s input.” I walked him to the door and stepped into the hall with him.

“It’s too bad you couldn’t come up with an Oprah moment and find a way for everyone to win. That’d be a great way to ease tensions and improve morale.”

“And send Destinations Travel into Chapter 11 bankruptcy court. Good idea. Needs tweaking.”

Laughter echoed through the corridor as Erik and Alex emerged from the stairwell. “People, people,” Alex called out when he spotted us. “You should have stayed for the entertainment. Erik tried his hand at the bagpipes. I think he knocked every hearing aid in the room out of commission.”

“My piping was a hell of a lot better than his dancing,” said Erik as they walked toward us, stopping at the room next to mine. “He tripped over his own feet on a pathetically easy step and ended up in Bill Gordon’s lap. You should have seen the old windbag’s reaction. He went ballistic.”

Alex smiled enigmatically as he removed the key from his sporran. “Bill put on a good show, but I wasn’t fooled.” He gave his finely clipped eyebrows a flamboyant waggle. “He liked it.”

“Which explains why he dumped you on your keister,” Erik taunted. “Will you just open the door and wish everyone a goodnight?”

“Goodnight, all.” Alex swept his hand toward his waist and sketched a deep bow before making a dramatic exit into his room.

Erik rolled his eyes. “What can I say? The radiation has finally affected his brain. Big day tomorrow, folks. Get some sleep.” He executed a two-fingered salute before crossing the threshold and closing the door behind him.

I cocked my head, giving Wally a squinty look. “Are rocket scientists exposed to radiation?”

“Beats me. Why don’t you ask Alex?”

I just might have to do that, I thought after I closed my door and locked it. I stared at the phone on the nightstand, wishing Etienne would call with news. Any news. He’d been gone for five hours already. He should know something by now, shouldn’t he?

I turned the television on manually and flipped through the channels—all three of them. One was an international news network where the events of the day were being commentated by a bottle-blonde sex kitten with eye-popping cleavage. I was sure I was watching Fox, until my brain kicked in and I realized she was speaking a language that sounded suspiciously like Russian. The other two channels featured ghost figures delivering weather reports for the highlands and islands behind a veil of staticky snow. A weather channel marred by bad reception wasn’t my idea of exciting TV viewing, but the static provided the kind of subtle white noise that often helped people sleep … or think.

I stared mindlessly at the screen, casting about for something to boost my spirits, but all I kept hearing was Wally’s words, playing back on an endless loop in my head: two people dead and guests at each other’s throats.

Two people dead.

Nana would tell me that people die all the time, especially old people. Since our tours catered to seniors, the law of averages was simply doing its thing, so I shouldn’t spend time fretting over mortality charts.

But Isobel and Dolly weren’t that old, a voice inside my head argued. They should have had a lot of years ahead of them.

So why had they died? Why them? Was it happenstance—I turned my head in slow motion to eye the shoulder bag I’d dropped on the bed—or something else?

Dragging the bag toward me, I removed Hamish Maccoull’s dirk and set it beside me, unwilling to buy into the mythology.

It was a knife. A very old and possibly bloodstained knife. Bad luck could not hitch a ride on an inanimate object by order of a man who’d been dead for over three hundred years. I mean, even if the whole curse thing had been powerful enough to actually frighten clansmen to death three centuries ago, the twentieth century had introduced a concept that people took far more seriously than ancient curses.

Expiration dates.

Everything expired these days—driver licenses, passports, anti-aging eye creams. Shouldn’t curses follow suit?

I shot the knife a defiant look. “I’m revoking your active status and placing you on the inactive list. What do you think of that?”

I paused for a moment’s reflection … and hung my head.

Oh, God. I was talking to a knife.

I leaped half a foot off the bed as the phone rang out like a fire station bell on steroids. “Geez!” I ran around the foot of the bed to grab the receiver. “Hello?”

“They’re allowing me no more than a five-minute conversation, bella, so I’ll need to talk fast. Personal calls using department equipment are apparently frowned upon.” He jacked his voice up a notch. “A problem that could be resolved if the existing phone system had more than one line.”

I smiled. “Did the person that was directed at hear you?”

“Probably not. He’s too busy staring at his gigantic flat-screen TV. Did you know they can pick up Fox News over here, Emily? But the really odd thing is, they’re dubbing the female commentator in Russian.”

“Have the officers finished questioning Nana?”

“For now. She answered all their questions honestly and without hesitation, but they’re insisting she spend the night.”

“Oh, no. Why?”

“Because the postmortem was inconclusive. They don’t want to let your grandmother go until they have a better idea of what actually killed Dolly.”

“And when is that likely to happen?”

“This is probably going to sound vaguely familiar, bella, but the medical examiner needs to send lab samples to a facility with higher tech equipment before he can fill out the death certificate.”

I sucked in my breath. “Just like Isobel?”

“Unfortunately. And the similarities don’t end there.”

A nerve-rattling crash erupted from the room next door, followed by a brief exchange of angry shouts. I flinched. Man, I couldn’t guess what Erik and Alex had broken, but if it was hotel property, they better offer to pay for it.

“The ME completed the autopsy in record time,” Etienne continued, “but his initial analysis has caused a headache for Officer Bean. Apparently, Dolly died from a condition the ME has never had occasion to see before.”

A chill darted up my spine and shot tingling sensations all the way to my fingertips.

“Her stomach appears to have exploded.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do the police know about Isobel’s exploding stomach?”

“They do now. Provincial labs might not boast cutting-edge technology, but they have an outstanding computer system with an easily accessible data base. Bean was all over it.”

“What does that mean for Nana? Oh God. They can’t be thinking she’s responsible for two deaths, can they?”

“Let’s just say, Bean isn’t about to let her slip through his fingers.”

“But she has no motive!”

“The contest,” he said flatly. “He floated a theory that your grandmother wanted to slow Dolly’s team down in order to give her own team a chance to catch up, so she slipped a debilitating substance to Dolly, all dressed up as a dietary supplement. Regrettably, it not only slowed her down; it ended up killing her.”

“But that’s ridiculous! Nana doesn’t need to win our contest to finance her next trip. She’s a bazillionaire. She can afford to go anywhere she wants without having to knock off the competition. And furthermore, his theory is totally warped. Isobel died when Team Five was at the back of the pack, not the front, so why would Nana feel compelled to kill a woman who wasn’t even a contender at the time?”

He hesitated, lowering his voice to a seductive whisper. “Have I ever told you how irresistible you are when you’re railing against injustice?”

“Etienne! This is serious!”

“I know it is, bella. I’m sorry. It’s just that … I miss you.” With a sigh of resignation, he continued. “Officer Bean has also made some cryptic references to clan Maccoull and their legendary penchant for savagery and revenge. Do you have any idea what he’s referring to?”

I rolled my eyes. “More nonsense. Nana can explain, if they’ll let you talk to her. Is she nearby? Any chance I can talk to her for a few—”

“They’re giving me the signal, so I need to hang up.”

“Are you coming back to the hotel tonight or—”

“I’d prefer not to leave your grandmother alone, so I’ve requested a cot, and they’re amenable to my spending the night. I’ll call you tomorrow. Early. Ti amo, bella.”

“I love you, too.” The line went dead.

I placed the receiver back on the hook, my hand trembling with cold, my mind racing to make sense of the new information.

Two women. Two horrific deaths. Two identical pathologies pointing to a cause of death so violently lethal and rare, that it was unfamiliar to two separate medical examiners.

So what was the thread that connected the two deaths? Isobel and Dolly had obviously engaged in some activity or event that had condemned them to share the same fate. But what was it? Were they taking similar medications that might have been either contaminated or recalled?

Nope. Isobel had been packing an epinephrine pen; Dolly had been packing baby aspirin.

Did they share a genetic abnormality that might have manifested itself at the same time?

What were the chances? They weren’t related. Isobel had been a Campbell; Dolly had been a MacDonald. How could they share similar genes?

In fact, the only bond the women seemed to have had in common was that they belonged to the same team and despised each other.

And lest I forget, they were both thieves.

As the disturbance next door escalated to a shouting match, I walked to the foot of the bed to stare at Hamish Maccoull’s knife.

Isobel had told us why she’d stolen the dirk, but why in the world had Dolly? Had she intended to pawn it? Keep it? Use it? If she’d known about the curse beforehand, would she have stolen it anyway, or would she have been too superstitious to go near the thing?

I guess we’d never know now. But there were several indisputable facts we did know.

Isobel had stolen Hamish Maccoull’s dirk and suffered a gruesome death.

Dolly had stolen the dirk and suffered an equally gruesome death.

Their autopsies revealed their deaths were eerily similar … yet inexplicable.

So the question to resolve was, what would cause two human stomachs to disintegrate in exactly the same way, in a manner so alien to medical science, that it completely confounded local experts?

I hugged my arms to myself as I studied the knife, not daring to admit the inconceivable truth surrounding it.

Was it possible the knife really was cursed? I felt like a dimwit buying into such foolishness, but the evidence seemed so overwhelming that—

Damn.

What else could cause the kind of internal damage the women had incurred?

My shoulders slumped as I sank into the chair Wally had vacated. I wasn’t a doctor. How would I know? But the body of evidence before me pointed in only one direction, forcing me to concede, with great reluctance, that there existed a slim possibility that Isobel Kronk and Dolly Pinker … might have been felled by the power of an ancient curse.

There. I said it.

BOOM!

The landscape art suddenly flew off the wall and fell onto the bed, followed by the appearance of a booted foot as it punched a hole through the wood paneling directly above the nightstand.

“Sorry about that!” Erik called out. “Foot slipped.”

I stared at the sole of his hiking boot as he wrenched it out of the wall, unable to drag my eyes away from the gaping hole.

I put my brain on rewind.

Felled by the power of an ancient curse?

Either that … or a roundhouse kick to the abdomen by a man once dubbed the greatest kickboxer in the world.