twenty

“You should have pursued a career in law enforcement, Mrs. Miceli.” Constable Tredinnick nodded toward the three members of the Cacciatore family who were squirming on the lawn by the spa, trussed up in blue-and-white crime scene tape like horror film mummies. “Very creative way to shackle the blighters.”

“We thought about restraining them with belts but the guys were tired of having their pants fall down, so we went with the crime scene tape instead.”

After freeing Osmond’s suitcase from its web of belts and putting Margi in charge of returning everyone’s cell phone, I’d called 999 to report a trifecta of incidents: the landslide, the end of a hostage crisis, and the capture of three dangerous criminals. Tredinnick had arrived just minutes ahead of a fleet of emergency vehicles whose personnel split their time between administering to the guests and evaluating the situation with the landslide.

The constable cast a troubled look about the debris-strewn mess in the parking lot. “I’m afraid Enyon’s going to be gutted when he sees what’s occurred in his absence. But at least he’ll know what happened to Lance and why. You’ve done my work for me, Mrs. Miceli. I’m feeling like something of a numpty.”

“It wasn’t me—it was the Cacciatores. They forced a confession out of Caroline with their threats…and their guns.”

An official in a hard hat and neon vest motioned to Tredinnick as he emerged from around the corner of the inn. “We’ll be needing to designate this area off-limits,” he announced as he joined us. “The whole bleedin’ bluff could collapse straightaway, taking the inn with it, so I suggest you load up your vehicles and get these blokes out of here.”

I stared at the official, dumbstruck. “Leave? But…but can we at least run back inside and get the rest of our stuff? The bloggers need their computers. I need my clothes. My tour director needs the guests’ medical history forms and our travel docu—”

“No one goes back inside.”

“But—”

“No one.” He departed with a stern warning. “Step lively before we start accumulating casualties, Constable.”

Omigodomigodomigod. This was a disaster. Everyone would be furious. No computers. No clothing. No footwear. No lodging. Omigod. No lodging?

On a brighter note, at least everyone had their cell phone back.

As Tredinnick escorted me across the parking lot, he slowed his steps, as if giving himself time to collect his thoughts. “You probably don’t need to hear any more bad news right now, Mrs. Miceli, but I think you should know. The police in Exeter tracked down the woman who matched Ms. Zwerg’s description, and…I’m afraid it wasn’t her.”

“It wasn’t Bernice? But…but…” A vibrating lump formed in my throat. Tears sprang to my eyes. “We can’t leave without her. I mean…we can’t. Have you considered a search party? Or a silver alert? Do you have those over here? Or bloodhounds? My agency will absolutely foot the bill. Have you checked the villages outside Exeter? Or Lyme Regis? Maybe she’s there already. Not a lot of women fit Bernice’s description. She has to be here someplace. Doesn’t she?” I gave him a pleading look as I dashed a tear from my cheek. “You have to find her, Constable. You just have to.”

“We’ll keep looking, Mrs. Miceli. I just want you to be prepared should we discover something you might not be expecting.”

He led me to his squad car, where Caroline sat hunched in the back seat, her clothing and hair hemorrhaging grime like Pig-Pen hemorrhages dirt. He opened the front door for me. “Whatever is said about the situation here today, Mrs. Miceli, I commend your skill in disarming the Cacciatores without causing a single bullet to be spent.”

“Disarming people is my grandmother’s specialty, not mine,” I sniffled as I slid onto the front seat.

“Your grandmother?”

“Tae kwon do. She has a black belt.”

Caroline leaned forward in her seat. “The police will understand why I did it, won’t they, Emily? They can’t throw me in jail, can they? They have to know how terrified I was. They have to know I had no other choice. It was self-defense. You can see it was self-defense, can’t you?”

Tredinnick leaned in, his gaze on Caroline. “Would you care to hear the results of the postmortem on Ms. Holloway, Ms. Goodfriend? She died from traumatic brain injury, the likely scenario being she was injured outside the hot tub and her body dumped into the water to make her death look like a drowning. But I suspect you’ll be able to provide more details for me at the nick.” He gave his head a disgusted shake. “How does such a right proper lady involve herself in the murder of two people?”

“I didn’t kill two people.” Caroline recoiled visibly. “I only killed one!”

A commotion erupted in the parking lot as Nana and company gathered in front of the squad car, clambering over each other to focus their cell phones on the tower of flames that had burst through the inn’s thatched roof and was spiraling upward with the force of a raging inferno.

The inn was on fire.

“YouTube’s gonna love this,” whooped Dick Teig.

Jackie pivoted toward me, hands on hips, eyes narrowed, brows arched, mouthing words with such deliberate slowness, I could actually read her lips.

“I told you I needed to check my cake.”

With the help of Constable Tredinnick, we found alternative lodging for everyone in two different B&Bs in Port Jacob, with its impossibly steep hills and bone-breaking cobblestones, settling everyone into their new digs before eight o’clock that night. And thanks to the gang’s neurotic compulsion about keeping their belongings safe, everyone except Osmond escaped with fully packed luggage. The bloggers, Jackie, Wally, and I lost everything, but even though we didn’t have a change of clothing, toothbrush, or underwear, we still had the critical documents we were carrying in our neck wallets. I encouraged Jackie and the bloggers to go out tomorrow and buy whatever essentials they might need with the knowledge that they’d receive full reimbursement for their purchases from Destinations Travel.

We might not have a stellar travel record, but we had really good insurance.

The bloggers were especially hobbled after their computers went up in smoke, but they located an internet café on a nearby street so they figured they could post their blogs in other internet outlets along the way without much hassle. I appreciated their being so flexible and felt more than a twinge of conscience about my thinking them capable of murder. But the niggling question still remained. If Caroline hadn’t killed Heather, who had? And even though the bloggers might not have killed Lance, did that necessarily exonerate them from the thievery that had taken place? They could still be part of a criminal burglary ring despite their denials to Constable Tredinnick that they knew each other back in the states. But how could I prove they were lying?

And then there was the continuing worry with Bernice.

I knew it would feed her ego to know that every police force in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset was trying to track her down, but what if something really horrible had happened? What if she wasn’t planning to surprise us in Lyme Regis? What if she’d been hit by a car and was lying dead in a gutter or a culvert? What would I say to the gang? What would I say to her family?

“Are you up for hitting the hardware store before we hit the sack?” asked Jackie as she peered out our bedroom window. Our B&B was located at the top of High Street, directly opposite Kneebone Hardware and Museum, so we had convenient access to all the local shops. “At least we can buy a couple of toothbrushes and some floss before we go to bed tonight. I refuse to invite the beginnings of tooth decay into my mouth simply because I’ve had a lousy day. The lights are on, so the store’s still open.”

We’d been so anxious to shower when we’d checked in that we hadn’t obsessed about not having a set of clean clothes to change into, but Wally had come to the rescue when he appeared at our door with an armful of elastic-waist slacks and sweatshirts. “Your grandmother figured you’d need something that wasn’t dirt encrusted, so she asked the group for clothing donations. Hope you can find something that fits.”

Zoning out on the bed in a floral sweatshirt and swishy wind pants, I tried to recall what my Escort’s Manual said in the section entitled Paradise Lost: When Luggage Goes Missing. I was pretty sure it advised the efficient tour escort to assemble care packets for the affected guests, rather like the ones hotels give out to guests whose bags have been lost in transit. A small gesture of goodwill might go a long way with the bloggers, but let’s face it: I had a lot to make up for.

I swung my legs over the bed and stood up. “Okay, Jack. Let’s do it.”

We headed out the door—me in my outdated hand-me-downs and Jackie in high-water pants and a sweatshirt cluttered with bird decals and really big rhinestones. She glanced down at the bare skin exposed between her pant hem and ankles and grimaced. “How is it that I always seem to be traveling with midgets?”

Kathryn Crabbe emerged from the room at the end of the hall, off-balance and limping. She clutched the wall for support even before taking two steps.

“Are you okay, Kathryn?” I called.

“I was just on my way down to see you. I needed a break from beating the dust out of my streetclothes.” She tightened the belt on the terrycloth robe that the B&B provided as an amenity to all its guests. “I can’t go out, Emily. I can’t try to maneuver over those cobblestones again. Not with these legs.” She leaned over to rub her knees. “They’re so stiff, I doubt I can walk down the hall. What am I going to do? I need clothes. Toiletries. But I’m as good as an invalid right now.”

I took her arm. “Well, first thing we need to do is get you back in your room and seated so you don’t fall down.”

With Jackie on one arm and me on the other, she shuffled back to an armchair and sat down. “It’s not so bad when I have support. Maybe what I need is a cane like Tilly’s. Only until the stiffness goes away.” She leaned back in her chair, the epitome of hopelessness. “If that’s even doable.”

“But it is.” I offered her a reassuring smile. “Which do you prefer? A walking stick, a cane, or a wheeled rollator? Because I can have one here for you in a matter of minutes.”

“How?”

“Tour escorts are very clever people, Kathryn. We have our ways.” It also helped that the region’s one-stop shopping place for ambulatory assistance devices was located across the street.

“Maybe a couple of walking sticks. They might help me blend in better with the locals.”

Kathryn Crabbe wanting to blend in? I didn’t see that coming.

“Okay. Walking sticks it is. Stay right where you are until we get back.”

Her voice stopped us at the door. “You embarrass me with your kindness, Emily, because I don’t deserve it.”

I turned around to face her, temporarily speechless.

“I’ve been rude and inflexible and demanding…and I’m sorry. You’d think I’d be old enough to know better, wouldn’t you? Apparently people who nurture oversized egos are rather slow learners.”

She stared down at the hands she’d folded in her lap. “I used to be a nice person. I really did. But something happened along the roadway of my life and I turned into an old, dry, bitter stick. I should have tried to make your job easier rather than harder. I shouldn’t have been so horrid to Heather. Her only sin was her taste in literature and her passion for pop culture, but I couldn’t let it go. I felt offended by her very existence. I shouldn’t have been so bullheaded about the fob-seal. It was hers, not mine. I’ve acted like a spoiled brat to everyone. I’ve shamed myself with my bad behavior, and I ask you to forgive me, Emily…if you can. I’m truly sorry that my participation in your tour has contributed to its ruin.”

I flashed an indulgent smile. If she was asking for a second chance, she’d asked the right person. I’d lost track of how many second chances I’d been given to conduct the perfect tour—the one where there was no body count. “Say no more, Kathryn. Apology accepted. But I disagree with you on one issue. It’ll take more than two unfortunate deaths, a missing person, a landslide, and a hotel fire to completely ruin our tour.”

But we were really pushing the envelope.

“Wow,” Jackie whispered as we stepped out onto the cobbled sidewalk. Streetlights flickered on overhead, illuminating the twilight, while the fluorescent tubing that framed Kneebone’s storefront windows brightened the shadows, spilling light onto the walkway and street. “Talk about throwing yourself on your sword. Do you think she meant it?”

“I’d like to think she did. Why? Don’t you?”

“I dunno. Honestly, Em, I’ve always thought you are what you wear, but I’m stepping out in public for the first time in my life in apparel that I shall charitably describe as grandmother-wear, so I don’t know who I am or what I think anymore. This outfit is really messing with my brain.”

A redhead with long straight hair and heavy bangs sashayed up the hill and paused near the display window of the hardware store to take a long drag on a cigarette. With smoke jetting from her nose and mouth like exhaust from a muffler, she looked up and down the street as if she were waiting for someone.

“If I were you, Jack, I wouldn’t be so quick to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since Nana was thoughtful enough to—”

“Hey you!” Jackie yelled to the girl in an indignant voice.

Oh, no. Was she about to hop up on her soapbox and lecture the girl about the dangers of smoking? Yup. That’s what the evening was missing—a treatise on the deleterious effects of chain-smoking on a woman’s complexion. “Cool it, Jack. You’re not the tobacco police. If she wants to light up, that’s up to—”

Muttering a string of scathing epithets, she pounded across the cobblestones like a racehorse out of the starting gate, high-kicking and arms pumping, heading straight for the girl.

“Jack!”

The girl froze in place—paralyzed, no doubt, by the sight of a six-foot transsexual in high-water pants and rhinestones charging at her. Her cigarette fell from her lips as she opened her mouth to scream, but Jack tackled her to the ground before she could utter a peep.

“Jack! What are you doing? Stop it!”

I charged across the street, grabbing Jackie’s shoulder as she pinned down the redhead. “Let her go! What’s wrong with you?”

“She’s wearing my wig!” With a burst of female outrage, Jackie reached down and ripped the wig off the girl’s head, brandishing it in the air in the same way Jason might have brandished the Golden Fleece. “How did you get my wig?”

Omigod. This was Jackie’s wig? Wow. It looked like something Cher might wear. I wondered how she’d feel about lending it out.

“It’s not your wig. It’s mine!”

“It was in my dresser drawer. How did it get from my drawer to your head?”

The girl kicked upward, struggling to free herself. “Get off me, you bleedin’ Amazon!”

I glanced at their tangled limbs, my mouth falling open when I realized what else the girl was wearing. “My shoes! You’re wearing my canary yellow ankle-tie flats. You…you stole my shoes!”

“I did not! I didn’t steal nuthin’. Jory gave ’em to me.”

Treeve Kneebone threw open the door of his hardware store, one hand on his walker, his voice booming out at us. “Wot’s going on out here?”

“Jory?” I asked the girl as I threw a questioning look at Treeve. “You mean Jory Kneebone? Treeve’s son?”

“Yeah, Jory Kneebone. He’s me boyfriend.”