eleven

“She wasn’t in the room when I got back from the show-and-tell last night, but I figured she might have sneaked out the back way to the spa, so I got ready for bed without thinking too much about it. You know Bernice. As much as she enjoys acting like a drama queen and getting all upset, she doesn’t stay upset for long.”

After throwing on some clothes, I’d scurried Alice off to Wally’s room, so she was obliging us by giving us the blow-by-blow of the night before.

“What was she upset about?” asked Wally.

“You were in the kitchen when the melodrama erupted,” I explained. “Long story short, the gang was trying to rein in Bernice’s negativity, and she reacted with a rant that ended when she left the dining table in a snit.”

“So she was mad at her friends,” concluded Wally.

Alice nodded. “And vice versa.”

“So…you called it a night despite Bernice’s being absent from the room,” Wally reiterated. “What happened next?”

“Well, I washed my face and brushed my teeth and flossed, of course. Then I crawled into bed and fell asleep. When I woke up this morning, I was still alone in the room and Bernice’s bed hadn’t been slept in, so I figured there was no help but to ruin your day by telling one of you.”

“We appreciate your alerting us first thing, Alice. Thanks.” Wally stared at me, befuddled. “You have any ideas where she might be?”

“She could still be in the spa.”

“I’ll check it out.”

“Did you find a note anywhere?” I asked. I mean, even Jackie had taken the time to write a note.

Alice shook her head. “I didn’t see one.”

“What about her belongings?” questioned Wally. “Is her stuff still in the room? Pocketbook? Cell phone?”

“Her suitcase is still in the closet. I didn’t look for anything else. But if she spent the night in the spa, she’s probably wearing her bikini. She was keeping it in the top drawer of her dresser with her underwear.”

That stopped me cold. “Bernice packed a bikini?”

“Sure did. Ordered it from Frederick’s of Hollywood online. It has a strapless top and one of those bottoms that’s got less fabric than a headband.”

“A thong?” asked Wally, trying unsuccessfully to mask his disbelief.

She snapped her fingers. “That’s what it’s called. A thong.” She pursed her lips in thought. “These high-fashion suits might be fine for Bernice, but I’m a full-coverage kind of girl myself.” Eyeing her watch with some anxiety, she stood up. “I’ve told you all I know. Would you mind if I head out to the dining room? Breakfast starts in a half hour and if I wait much longer, all the good seats will be gone.”

“Go right ahead,” said Wally as he ushered her to the door. “But would you mind if we gave your room a once-over to make sure there’s no note hiding in an obscure place?”

She reached into her pocket and retrieved her key, dropping it into his palm. “Bernice’s dresser is the one closest to the window.”

Wally exchanged an apprehensive look with me when she’d gone. “I’ll run out to the spa. You check their room.”

“What if we come up empty?”

“I’ll contact the Port Jacob police.”

“Will we have to wait forty-eight hours before we can report her as officially missing?”

“Not in England. The authorities want to be notified as soon as possible.” He handed me Alice’s room key. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Their room was neat as a pin. For all Bernice’s complaining about lack of maid service, both beds were made up with military precision with throw pillows and stuffed bears arranged almost playfully. I searched the closet, the bathroom, and every horizontal surface for a note but found nothing obvious. Moving on to her dresser, I found her pink and black polka-dot bikini right where Alice said it would be—in the top drawer with her lacy push-up bras and thong panties. As eye-poppingly risqué as the swimsuit was, it did symbolize a milestone for Bernice.

At least she’d discarded the idea of going au naturel.

I finished searching the dresser just as Wally arrived back from the spa. “She’s not there. Did you find anything here?”

“Way too much; none of it good. Her pocketbook was in the bottom drawer with her wallet, driver’s license, and credit cards still in it. She might have been angry enough to leave the tour, but not without taking her pocketbook with her. She wouldn’t get very far without her credit cards.”

“What about her cell phone and passport?”

“Not in her pocketbook. She usually kept her passport and extra cash in her neck wallet. I haven’t found that yet. Her cell phone isn’t here either, but—” I looked across the room, suddenly enlightened. “Missed a drawer.”

I walked around the bed to the nightstand, opened the top drawer, and removed the lone item that was tucked inside. “One cell phone. So she’d stowed her phone for the night, but she still must have been wearing her neck wallet, else I imagine that might be here, too. It’s too far for her to walk into town to find other accommodations. She might have called a taxi, but I didn’t hear a car drive up last night. Did you?”

He shook his head. “Could she have taken a walk along the coastal path?”

“I hope not. A chunk of the bluff disintegrated beneath my feet yesterday, so if she went anywhere near that spot…” My mouth went dry. “It’s a sheer drop-off to the rocks below.”

He stared at me, his silence causing the hair on my arms to stand on end.

“I think I’ll just have a run outside to see if there’s anything suspicious going on near the cliff.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“Nope.”

“But what if—”

“Let’s not panic until we have good reason.”

I demonstrated my tentative assent by nodding like a bobblehead doll. “I’d take the back exit if I were you. That way you can avoid having to explain to the breakfast crowd why you decided to explore the coastal path before having your first cup of coffee.”

By the time I changed into some decent daywear and applied a little makeup, Wally was knocking on my door with his report.

“I located the landslip you told me about, but I didn’t see any further erosion along the bluff, so I hope that’s good news.”

“You and me both.”

“I also took the liberty of calling Constable Tredinnick. He was pretty reassuring that missing persons usually show up within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of their disappearance, but in deference to our schedule, he allowed me to file a report over the phone. I passed along every detail I could think of, including Bernice’s emotional state at the time of her disappearance, where we’ve searched, and what she left behind. He asked for a physical description, so I sent him the photo I have of her in my current guest photo file. How did we ever function without smartphones? I couldn’t tell him what she was wearing yesterday, but maybe Alice will remember. He said he’d show her photo around at the local hotels and B&Bs, and he’d stop by the inn sometime today to look around the premises, but he didn’t sound overly concerned.”

“Does he need to question anyone?”

“Only if she doesn’t reappear within forty-eight hours.”

“But she could be dead by then. Can’t we do something more proactive? Like…like form a search party or hire a pack of bloodhounds?”

“I don’t make the rules, Em.”

As nerve-wracking as it was to be told to take a deep breath and let the law handle it, it occurred to me then that Constable Tredinnick wouldn’t have to question the entire group because everyone had been gathered in one room when Bernice went missing.

Well, almost everyone.

Unlike Constable Tredinnick, I knew three bloggers I’d very much like to question.

Wally and I arrived in the dining room just as the breakfast crowd was breaking up.

“Awful good breakfast,” Dick Stolee announced to me as he gave his stomach a satisfied rub. “Too bad you missed it.”

I noted the time. “Missed it? But it’s only 8:10.”

Helen Teig pushed away from the table. “Since we were all seated by 7:30—well, everyone except Alice, who got here late and ended up in the chair that’s obstructed by the table leg—your grandmother decided to serve early. Family style. Pass the platter and dig in.” She gestured to the empty serving dishes strung out along the table. “Pancakes with real whipped cream and fresh fruit. Waffles. Sourdough French toast. Hardboiled eggs that were easier to peel than a ripe banana. Vegetable omelets. Sausage links and patties. Bacon. Cinnamon toast. Raisin toast. Plain toast with marmalade for fussy eaters. Plus coffee, tea, and a variety of cafe lattes, mochas, cappuccinos, and caramel macchiatos.”

I stared at her, dumbstruck. “Nana knows how to make lattes?”

“I think Jackie made them,” said Dick Teig. “She found a machine. They’re working in one well-equipped kitchen. That was the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, I kid you not.”

Osmond waxed philosophical. “It’s a darn shame Marion’s a millionaire. She could make a fortune as a cook.”

“When that Crabbe woman saw the spread your grandmother laid out, she even decided to end her hunger strike,” Margi said in an undertone. “Not that she offered a single compliment about the food, but I was keeping track. She downed five pancakes, an omelet, two waffles, and what looked like a whole pound of bacon in the space of ten minutes. I started setting the serving platters out of her reach so there’d be enough food left for the rest of us.”

I scanned the length of the table to find wadded-up napkins, empty plates, and two puny sausage links on a meat platter as big as a cookie sheet. I motioned to the platter. “That’s all that’s left? Two shriveled-up sausages?”

“Whoa! How’d I miss those?” Dick Stolee snatched the links off the platter and nibbled away at them as if they were logs going through a wood chipper. “These babies are too good to waste,” he mumbled around a mouthful of sausage.

Grace slatted her eyes at him. “Good move, Dick. Did it ever occur to you to save the leftovers for Emily and Wally?”

He swallowed dramatically, looking suddenly chagrined. “Oops. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. They looked so forlorn lying there all by themselves that I felt morally obligated to give them a home.”

“What a crock,” scoffed Lucille, smiling at her own comment. “That’s not me talking. That’s what Bernice would say if she were here.”

“Speaking of Bernice,” George piped up, “where do you think she is? Alice gave us the lowdown at breakfast.”

“We don’t know where she is,” replied Wally, “but we’re doing everything we can to find out. I suspect she might be nursing her bruised feelings in a safe and comfortable place somewhere nearby. We just have to figure out where. Constable Tredinnick is working on that, which reminds me—does anyone recall what Bernice was wearing yesterday?”

They looked from one to the other, shrugging.

“I’m pretty sure she was wearing slacks,” Alice ventured. “And a top.”

Nods of agreement. “I remember that, too!” enthused Margi.

That information might have had greater impact if the preferred uniform for all the ladies on the tour had been something other than slacks and a top. “Do you recall the color?” I asked.

“Green,” said Dick Teig. “I remember thinking her outfit matched that gross slime on the rocks at the beach.”

Helen thwacked his arm, glaring. “That wasn’t Bernice’s outfit. It was mine. Bernice was wearing hot pink.”

“She was wearing pink the day we arrived,” corrected Tilly. “If I’m not mistaken, she was wearing aubergine yesterday.”

“What color is that?” asked Dick Teig.

“Purple,” I spoke up.

Dick angled a frustrated look at Tilly. “If it’s purple, how come you just can’t say purple?”

Tilly looked down the length of her nose at him. “Because it’s not purple. It’s aubergine.”

“You could have said eggplant,” chided Dick Stolee. “I bet he knows what color eggplant is.”

Margi made a face. “I don’t like eggplant.” She backed up her assertion with a revulsive curl of her tongue, followed by a moment of reflection. “No, wait. Maybe I’m thinking of zucchini.”

“Does anyone besides me remember her wearing red yesterday?” asked Osmond. “I recall thinking at the time that the only folks who should ever wear fire-engine-red pants are golfers and clowns.”

I sighed. Yup. You couldn’t beat the accuracy of an eyewitness report.

Wally held up his hands to stop the barrage. “Thanks for your input, everyone. Her photo is probably more important than a description of what she was wearing anyway.”

“Not if she was dressed like a clown,” objected Osmond.

“Kitchen’s closed,” announced Nana as she and Jackie entered the dining room, greeted by spontaneous cheers and riotous applause.

“Will you give us a hint about what’ll be on tomorrow’s breakfast menu?” Dick Stolee shouted above the ovation.

Nana responded with a two-shouldered shrug. “Don’t know yet. I’m waitin’ on inspiration.” When the clapping died down, she began issuing orders. “How about you folks make yourselves useful by clearin’ off the table and stackin’ the dishes next to the sink so’s Wally can get ’em into the dishwasher? That’d be real helpful. We’re gonna need clean dishes for dinner.”

Motivated by the prospect of another mouth-watering meal, the troops did what Nana asked without a hint of complaint or chaos, though it helped that Jackie appointed herself field marshal and took charge of establishing traffic patterns. Off came the dishes and platters. Off came the napkins and tablecloth. Into the kitchen went everything that Enyon would need to launder. I motioned to Nana as the activity died down.

“If I scrounged around in the kitchen, would I find any leftover hardboiled eggs or waffles?”

“Didn’t you get no breakfast?”

“Wally and I were otherwise engaged.”

“That’s a real shame, dear, on account of all we got left is corn flakes.”

“Okay, then. Jackie has cookies. Maybe I can mooch something off her to tide me over.”

Nana glanced across the room to where Jackie had assumed the role of human doorstop to keep the kitchen door propped open and the troops moving. “You coulda knocked me over with a feather when that girl showed up to help me this mornin’, Emily. I never thought she’d be one to roll up them sleeves of hers and pitch in like she done, but I couldn’t of done it without her. Me and her make a crackerjack team, especially seein’ as how she can reach stuff that’s too high up for me to fetch. That was a real good idea you had, dear. Thanks.”

“I’m tickled it’s working out.”

With my worries about the Nana/Jackie working relationship being put to rest, I was freed up to address the next item on my to-do list, which would involve a bit more finesse than a friendly chat with my grandmother.

“Hey,” said Mason Chatsworth when he answered my knock on his door. He took a quick peek at his watch. “Am I late or something? I thought we were leaving at nine.”

“You’re not late. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about last night.”

“What about last night?”

“You heard that Bernice is missing?”

He held the door wider and motioned for me to step inside the room. “Yeah. We all heard the news at breakfast. How weird is that, huh? You have any clues about where she went?”

“Not yet, but that’s where you can help. Did you hear any strange noises in the corridor after you returned to your room last night?”

“I heard the fans blowing when I passed the Sixteen String Jack suite. Man, someone’s wasting a lot of electricity on a lost cause. That carpet’s not salvageable.”

“You didn’t hear, like, screams or footsteps or dragging sounds or any kind of commotion?”

“Dragging sounds?” He cracked a smile. “You mean, like the sound of someone’s body being dragged down the corridor?”

“Uhh…okay.” If Bernice hadn’t left under her own power, then she’d left under duress, which might have precipitated a whole host of unusual sounds that someone should have heard.

“Boy, Emily, you have quite an imagination. So I didn’t hear a body being dragged past my door last night, but I did hear some commotion from the lounge every so often. Voices. You guys were really loud. I eventually popped in my ear buds to drown you out so I could finish my blog.”

I predicted that millennials would live long enough to regret their unremitting use of ear buds. It boggled the mind over the potential sounds they were preventing themselves from hearing. The musical calling card of the Good Humor man’s ice cream truck. The symphonic chorus of Sunday morning church bells. The earsplitting whistle of a freight train speeding straight at them.

“Did you see either Spencer or August after you returned to your room?”

“Nope. They had blogs to write, too.” He drew his brows together. “You non-bloggers don’t get it. Blogging eats up a ton of time, especially for conscientious bloggers like myself. I don’t know about the rest of them—Heather and Spencer and August—but I’m having a heck of a time knocking out a daily blog with the tour schedule you’ve set up. I’m earning every penny of that discount you offered me. So you can tell that to Bernice…if she ever shows up again.”

I regretted she wasn’t around to hear Mason’s comment. Knowing that even one of the bloggers felt burdened by the discount would please her to no end.

I received pretty much the same story when I stopped by August and Spencer’s room.

“Unusual noises?” Spencer asked me. “Like what? Screeching? Gun shots?”

“All of the above?” I said.

He shook his head. “I was working on my blog, which puts me in a kind of meditative zone, so I didn’t hear a thing other than that annoying hum from the fans that are still blowing in the flooded room. Is it really necessary to run those things 24/7? It’s maddening. Listen to the racket they’re making.”

I listened, hearing nothing.

“You have to agree that it’s way beyond an acceptable decibel level.”

I cocked my head, straining to pick up a whirring sound. “Sorry. I can’t hear a thing.”

He regarded me, wide-eyed. “Geez, for someone as young as you are, your hearing sucks.”

“Don’t be cowed by Spencer’s superhuman hearing,” advised August from the room’s lone armchair. Computer balanced on his lap, he stared at his screen as he clicked away on his keyboard. “I can’t hear it either.”

I was impressed by August Lugar’s ability to talk and type while focused on the data on his computer screen. He’d probably never have to worry about walking and chewing gum at the same time. “So…did you hear anything last night that was out of the ordinary?” I asked him.

“Spencer snored. Loudly. But that seems to be a normal occurrence. Quiet would have been out of the ordinary.” He continued typing.

“You didn’t happen to see Bernice in the hallway when you returned to your room last night?”

“The last time either one of us saw Bernice was when she stormed out of the dining room,” said Spencer. He directed a look at August for confirmation. “Right?”

“Exactly.” August finally looked up, his eyes snapping with exasperation. “Not to be a bore, but I’d like to post this before we leave, and I’ve yet to put the finishing touches on it. So, do you mind?” He lasered a look at the door that was coupled by an expression indicating I should open it. Immediately.

“Don’t mind at all. Sorry to take up your time. Thanks for your help.”

But they’d been no help at all. Their room was located two doors down from Bernice’s and they’d heard nothing? Spencer, with his superhuman hearing, had failed to hear anything but the whirr of blowing fans? Mason’s room was at the opposite end of the hall, so he’d been more insulated from general activity. But Spencer and August were claiming that they’d heard no door close? No footsteps? No inkling of a disturbance or departure?

Gimme a break.

No one had had a window of opportunity to do anything nefarious last night except the two of them.

But maybe I’d asked the wrong question. Maybe instead of asking if they’d seen Bernice, I should have asked if Bernice had seen them.

Was it possible she’d caught them in the act of committing a crime? Picking the lock of someone else’s suite while the rest of us had still been in the lounge? Or sneaking out of another guest’s room, loaded down with cash and other people’s valuables? If that had been the scenario, would Bernice have been able to run away from them or would they have overpowered her before she’d had time to cry for help? Overpowered her and…

In my mind’s eye I saw the razor-sharp rocks jammed together at the foot of the cliff and heard the violent pounding of the surf.

I inhaled a deep breath, swallowing slowly.

Oh. My. God.

Had they killed Bernice? Killed her because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Who were these guys? Killers posing as tour guests? Thieves posing as bloggers? Scammers who made their living by stealing from unsuspecting seniors? Had August Lugar even been the target of a crime or had he made the whole story up in an effort to pose as victim rather than perpetrator? Could he find any better way to deflect suspicion away from himself than to pretend to be the injured party?

So maybe they’d been more help than I realized.

My gut was telling me that August and Spencer were in cahoots with each other, just like Helen and Margi had suggested last night. All I needed to do was find the thread that linked them together.

As I hurried back to my room, I forced myself to ignore the little voice in my head that taunted, “Good luck with that.”