Bonnie of Evidence

by Maddy Hunter

  Officer Bean’s expression grew sober. “Ye distributed medications at breakfast this morning, Mrs. Sippel?”

  “They wasn’t medications, Officer. They was supplements. Herbal supplements.”

  Mom gasped so loudly, she probably collapsed a lung. “Mother! You gave away the supplements I bought you?”

  “You bet,” Nana fired back. “They was makin’ me lopsided.”

  “They were not.”

  “Were so.”

  Mom let out a cry of irritation. “If swallowed with a full glass of water as intended, those supplements are supposed to strengthen your bones and improve your lopsidedness.”

  “My lopsidedness improved the minute I give ’em away. So there.”

  Alice raised her hand. “I swallowed several of Marion’s supplements this morning. Am I going to die, too?”

  Whispers. Chatter. Alarm.

  “I wouldn’t put it past a Maccoull to try to kill all of us,” Bill accused. “How do we know she didn’t slip Isobel a poison pill and kill her, too?”

  “The nerve of you!” I snapped at Bill. “My grandmother is not a killer. Have you lost your mind? Look at her!” She executed a little finger wave as all eyes focused on her. “Is that the face of a cold-blooded killer?”

  Officer Bean apparently thought it was. “Can ye tell me whit kind of supplements ye were passing out, Mrs. Sippel?”

  “The stuff what’s s’posed to keep us old folks livin’ forever. Big honkin’ capsules. Bark. Weeds. Warts.”

  “She not ingesting warts,” Mom explained helpfully. “She’s taking St. John’s wort, which is an excellent herbal for fending off

  depression.”

  “It don’t work,” fussed Nana. “I get depressed just thinkin’ about havin’ to unscrew the caps off all them bottles three times a day. My wrists can’t take the strain.”

  Officer Bean smiled gently. “Perhaps ye’d be good enough ta come down ta the station with me, Mrs. Sippel. I think we might need ta discuss this more thoroughly.”

  “You’re arresting my mother?” shrieked Mom.

  “I’m taking her in fer questioning,” said Bean.

  “You can’t do that,” Mom pleaded. “She’s old and fragile. She could suffer a stroke at the mere thought of riding in a police car. My daughter is right. My mother is no killer. If you leave her at the hotel with me, I’ll take full responsibility for her. I swear it. I’ll move into her room with her, and I won’t let her out of my sight.”

  Bean’s jaw pulsed with indecision. He leveled a look at Nana. “Whit do ye think of that proposition, Mrs. Sippel? If I question ye here, do ye promise to remain under yer daughter’s supervision until after the postmortem?”

  “Of course she promises,” Mom answered for her. “What other option does she have?”

  Nana looked from Mom, to Officer Bean, to Mom again. Popping out of her chair, she marched over to Officer Bean. “I’m exercisin’ my other option.” She offered up her wrists for handcuffs. “Book me.”

  “Mother!”

  “I don’t need ta book ye, Mrs. Sippel. I only want ta—”

  “You got a TV in that jail a yours?” she interrupted.

  Bean’s eyes twinkled. “Do we ever. A new, eighty-inch, flat- screen, LED-based LCD HDTV with a DVR that can record up ta five programs at one time.”

  “Cable?”

  He grinned. “We just got hooked up ta satellite.”

  “That clinches it,” said Nana. “I’m goin’ with him.”

  George heaved himself to his feet. “If Marion goes, I’m going, too.”

  “So am I,” said Tilly as she boosted herself out of her chair. “Good friends don’t abandon each other, even when there’s incarceration involved.”

  And on that note, the entire Iowa contingent stood up. Margi raised her hand. “Before I commit, could you tell me what your bathroom facilities are like?”

  “Is this going to be a sleepover?” asked Grace. “We’ll have to pack Dick’s CPAP machine if it is. Have I ever mentioned how inconvenient it is to live with a man who teeters on the brink of death every time he falls asleep?”

  “If we spend the night in jail, are we going to be back in time to catch the bus to the Orkney Islands tomorrow?” Dick Stolee inquired.

  “What about breakfast?” asked Dick Teig. “What kind of grub do you serve at your jail? Buffet or sit-down?”

  Bean waved off the crowd descending upon him. “I’ve no way ta accommodate all of ye. I’m sorry. Mrs. Sippel can choose one of ye ta accompany us, but only one.”

  “I’ll go,” I offered.

  “Oh, no you won’t,” countered Mom. “She’s my mother and my responsibility. I’ll go.”

  Nana craned her neck to look up at Bean. “What’s the sleepin’ situation like in your cells?”

  “We just purchased new single beds with memory foam mattress toppers. I actually tried one out myself and found it quite comfortable.”

  Her eyes lit up. “In that case, I’ll take George.”

  “Mother!” cried Mom. “It’s a jail cell, not a college frat house! What in the world are you thinking?”

  Nana crossed her arms beneath her bosom and stared tight-lipped at Mom. “I’m not gonna tell you on account of I don’t think you could handle it.”

  “Who can’t handle what?” asked Etienne as he hurried into the room from the outer lobby, his arms clutching paper sacks from the grocery store across the street. “There’s a police car parked out front,” he said in a tentative voice. “That’s not for us … is it?”

  “Hold everything!” I waved my arms over my head as I hurried across the room. “Etienne is the perfect choice to accompany Nana to jail. He volunteers, don’t you, sweetie?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re going to jail with Nana,” I announced as I grabbed the sacks out of his arms.

  “Why is your grandmother going to jail?”

  “I’m bein’ held for questionin’,” Nana piped up. “But only ’til they get them results back from the postmortem.”

  “What postmortem?” He gave me a desperate look as I herded him toward Officer Bean. “Did someone die? Emily, what’s going on?”

  “Officer Bean will explain, won’t you, Officer?”

  “This is yer husband, Mrs. Miceli?” Bean eyed Etienne with the kind of universal respect that one officer of the law pays another. “The former police inspector?”

  Etienne extended his hand. “Etienne Miceli, Lucerne Police Department, Chief Inspector, retired.”

  “I’ll explain the situation on the way ta the station, Inspector.”

  “I’d prefer you explain—”

  “C’mon, handsome.” Nana grabbed Etienne’s hand. “If we hurry, we might be able to catch one a them late-night reruns of Law and Order. Your satellite picks up TNT, right?” she asked Bean.

  “Text me,” George called out to Nana as the trio headed toward the front door. Disheartened, he turned worried eyes on me. “Do you think she’ll be all right, Emily? I’m all for staging a sit-in at the jail if you think it would help. We could start an Occupy Wick movement.”

  “How many folks would have to show up for an occupy movement in these parts before it became a media sensation?” quipped Osmond.

  “In Wick?” Dick Teig guffawed. “One.”

  Wally raced into the lobby laden down with more grocery sacks. “Why are Etienne and Mrs. Sippel getting into a police car? What’s happened?”

  I hung my head. Oh, God.

  While the gang peppered him with disjointed snippets of our latest tragedy, I dumped the grocery sacks on the nearest chair before they dropped to the floor. What the devil was in them? Rocks? I peeked inside.

  Nope. Bottled water.

  Lucille hurried over to me, dragging Cameron behind her. “Go a
head,” she urged Cameron. “Tell her.”

  “We’re not going to be scared into quitting, Emily. Lucille and I are in it for the long haul.”

  “So please don’t end the contest,” Lucille begged me.

  I sighed deeply, giving vent to all my misgivings. “I don’t know, Lucille. I’m sure tempted. Seems all the contest is doing is stirring up trouble.”

  “We’ll show that Gordon fella a thing or two about spunk,” said Lucille. “A two-man team can win just as easily as a five-man team. Right?”

  “Right,” Cameron agreed. “We’ll just have to stay focused and watch our backs.”

  “You can watch my back while I watch Bill Gordon.” Lucille sidled a glance at him. “I don’t trust that fella, Emily. His wife either.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’m beginning to think this whole contest was the worst idea I’ve ever had. Let me talk things over with Etienne when he gets back from the police station. Maybe he can think of a way to modify the contest without leaving everyone in the lurch. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but—”

  “You can’t end the contest,” pleaded Lucille, looking as if she were about to cry. “Please, Emily. I’ve never been much good at anything in my life, but I’m good at geocaching, so please, don’t take that away from me. Cameron and I can actually win this thing. We’re this close.” She indicated a sliver of space between her thumb and forefinger. “I know I can afford to pay for my own trips, but just once in my life, I’d love to win something more exciting than another free scratch card at Hy-Vee.”

  I forced a sympathetic smile. “Whatever we decide, we’re going to be fair. Whether we continue the contest or not, someone is going to end up with a free trip. That’s a promise. Okay?”

  Looking beyond Lucille, I noticed Erik Ishmael and Alex Hart in the outer lobby, making their way toward us.

  “They’ve been gone a good long while,” Cameron quipped as the kilt-wearing duo entered the room, looking oddly disheveled and out of breath. “I wonder what they ended up doing that the rest of us missed out on?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t know.” But their arms were empty, so they obviously hadn’t been power shopping.

  “By the way,” said Cameron, “I remembered where I’ve seen Erik before. Came to me last night. His stage name is Fast Freddie Torres.”

  I frowned. “Stage name?”

  “Yah. He owns some of the fastest hands and feet in the world. I saw him perform in Vegas years ago. Fast Freddie Torres. One of the greatest kickboxers who ever entered the ring.”

  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 l
itigation. 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.”