awards and accolades for the critically acclaimed and bestselling passport to peril mystery series Bonnie of Evidence “[A] delightfully deadly eighth Passport to Peril mystery.” —Publishers Weekly
Dutch Me Deadly “Dutch Me Deadly, the latest adventure of [Hunter’s] endearing heroine and zany Iowan seniors, offers nonstop humor and an engaging plot woven so well into its setting that it could take place only in Holland. Despite the danger, I want to travel with Emily!” —Carrie Bebris, award-winning author of the Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery series “The cast of characters is highly entertaining and the murder mystery mixed with good humor!” —Suspense Magazine “A bit of humor, a bit of travel information and a bit of mystery add up to some pleasant light reading.” —Kirkus Reviews
Alpine for You An Agatha Award finalist for Best First Novel and a Daphne du Maurier Award nominee “I found myself laughing out loud [while reading Alpine for You] . . .” —Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine
Fleur de Lies
Top O’ the Mournin’ An Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller “No sophomore jinx here. [Top O’ the Mournin’] is very funny and full of suspense.” —Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine
Pasta Imperfect An Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller A BookSense recommended title “Murder, mayhem, and marinara make for a delightfully funny combination [in Pasta Imperfect] . . . Emily stumbles upon clues, jumps to hilarious conclusions at each turn, and eventually solves the mystery in a showdown with the killer that is as clever as it is funny.” —Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine
G’Day to Die “The easygoing pace [of G’Day to Die] leads to a satisfying heroinein-peril twist ending that should please those in search of a good cozy.” —Publishers Weekly
Norway to Hide “Norway to Hide is a fast-paced, page-turning, highly entertaining mystery. Long live the Passport to Peril series!” —OnceUponARomance.net
other books in the passport to peril series by maddy hunter Dutch Me Deadly Bonnie of Evidence
forthcoming in the passport to peril series From Bad to Wurst earlier titles in the passport to peril mystery series are available on kindle and nook: Alpine for You Top o’ the Mournin’ Pasta Imperfect Hula Done It? G’Day to Die Norway to Hide
Fleur de Lies A PASSPORT TO PERIL MYSTERY
maddy HUNTER
Midnight Ink
woodbury, minnesota
Fleur de Lies: A Passport to Peril Mystery © 2014 by Maddy Hunter. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition First Printing, 2014 Book design by Donna Burch Cover design by Kevin R. Brown Cover illustration: Anne Wertheim Editing by Connie Hill Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hunter, Maddy. Fleur de lies : a passport to peril mystery / Maddy Hunter. — First edition. pages cm ISBN 978-0-7387-3798-0 1. Andrew, Emily (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Tour guides (Persons)—Fiction. 3. Older people—Fiction. 4. Tourists—France—Fiction. 5. Americans-—France—Fiction. 6. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title. PS3608.U5944F58 2014 813'.6—dc23 2013050724 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Midnight Ink Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.midnightinkbooks.com Printed in the United States of America
dedication In memory of World War II veterans Frank Mayer, Gardner Holmes, and George Foley—three ordinary men who left ordinary lives in ordinary towns to save the world … and did. With thanks and admiration ~ mmh
acknowledgments I'd like to extend special thanks to Gail McDonald for suggesting the title for the French adventure. Gail’s great title inspired the awesome cover. Merci beaucoup, Gail! Thanks to my editors, Terri Bischoff and Connie Hill, for allowing me to write in my own voice. Ask any author. This is invaluable. Heartfelt thanks to my loyal fans who continue to follow the misadventures of Emily and the Iowa gang with such wonderful enthusiasm. I’ve said it before. You’re the best. My trip to France was something of a “bucket list” holiday. I’m a huge WWII buff, so it’s been a lifetime dream of mine to visit the D-Day beaches and surrounding villages. I wasn’t disappointed. My most memorable moment took place at Pointe du Hoc. As my husband and I waited our turn to climb down into one of the craters caused by Allied bombings on the morning of June 6, 1944, we smiled at a grammar school teacher who was trying to herd her class out of the crater. She was most apologetic that her wayward children were causing a delay, but then she looked at us and asked, “Are you American?” To which we replied, “Yes, we are.” She looked us both in the face and said simply and sincerely, “Thank you.” My eyes welled with tears. I got a knot in my throat. And I was truly never so proud to be an American. This book is my humble tribute to the servicemen and women who fought so bravely during that terrible time. They truly were … the Greatest Generation.
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one
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in the greatest single-day troop movement in recorded history. The operation was called “Overlord,” and its purpose was to establish a beachhead from which troops could punch through German lines to recapture the cities and towns that had lived under Nazi occupation for four horror-filled years. The British landed on a five-mile crescent of beach code-named “Gold,” which sat in the middle of the string of five D-Day beaches. At the far west end of this sandy crescent, flanked by towering limestone cliffs, lies the seaside village of Arromanches, which boasts an invasion museum, carousel, souvenir shops, and a parade of oncestately homes perched at the lip of the seawall. The houses look long abandoned, their windows boarded up, but in June of 1944, their location would have afforded them panoramic views of the spectacular white sand beach that stretched halfway to England when the tide was at its farthest ebb. 1
Having just led my group of a dozen Iowa seniors down a flight of stone steps onto the beach, we stood at the base of a high bank of large broken boulders that were stacked against the seawall in an obvious attempt to lessen the destructive force of English Channel storms. “Is the tide in or out?” asked Alice Tjarks as she glanced seaward. I regarded the half-mile expanse of dry sand and rippled tidal flats that stretched before us. “Based on pure observation, I’d say it’s out.” Iowans can scan a field of budding green leaves and tell you what crop is growing, but asking us to speculate on the status of coastal tides is even more absurd than asking us to demonstrate how to eat a liveboiled lobster. I’m Emily Andrew Miceli, who, with my husband, Etienne, is co-owner of Destinations Travel Company in Windsor City, Iowa. I leave the office quite frequently to escort a core group of seventy-, eighty-, and ninety-year-olds who’d rather spend their retirement years seeing the world than knitting or playing golf. Etienne sometimes accompanies us, but this go-round, he’s hosting a five-day travel seminar at the agency. So while we cruise the Seine River, traveling from Normandy to Paris aboard a small river ship, with optional tours available to explore historic sites in the French countryside, he’ll be pretty much incommunicado. At least for a few days. Eleven sets of eyes riveted on ninety-something Osmond Chelsvig, who, as a member of Windsor City’s Board of Elections for longer than half a century, usually settled the group’s most divisive flaps by requesting a show of hands. Osmond nodded thoughtfully. “Yup. Tide’s out.” Jaws dropped. Eyes widened. 2
“You can’t agree with her,” Helen Teig protested. “What happened to a show of hands? You always ask for a show of hands.” Margi Swanson’s voice rose with sudden panic. “Helen’s right. If we can’t voice our opinions on really stupid things, our whole social dynamic will be destroyed.” Gasps. Nods. An errant belch. “C’mon, Osmond.” Dick Stolee delivered a playful punch to Osmond’s bony shoulder. “Call for a vote.” “Nope.” Dick paused, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Oooh, I get it. Very clever, but don’t think you’re gonna get away with it. I’m onto you, fella. I wasn’t born yesterday. None of us were. And we know exactly what you’re doing.” “We sure do.” Dick Teig nodded emphatically before shooting his friend a quizzical look. “What’s he doing?” “We’ve come to expect underhanded stuff like this from Bernice.” Dick Stolee patted the shoulder of a woman with a dowager’s hump misshaping her back and sparkly Mary Janes dazzling her feet. “But we expect better from you, Osmond.” Bernice Zwerg fluffed the wiry bristles of her over-permed hair and smiled sourly. “Stow the flattery,” she snapped in her ex-smoker’s rasp. “I’m immune.” “He didn’t mean it as a compliment,” deadpanned Lucille Rassmuson. Dick Stolee let out a disgusted snort as he thrust an angry finger at Osmond. “He doesn’t care what the rest of us think anymore. He’s decided our opinions don’t have any value. He’s trashing the democratic process we’ve practiced all these years in favor of a dictatorship that lets him call all the shots. Do you know what this is a sign of ?” 3
“Maturity?” I suggested. “Armageddon!” whooped Grace Stolee, whose glee at providing a likely answer quickly dissolved into worry. “Except it better not be Armageddon, because I have dry cleaning to pick up when we get home, and I’ll be slapped with a stupid handling fee if I leave it there for more than a month.” “Voter suppression!” thundered Dick. “Osmond Chelsvig is guilty of the worst political dirty trick in the book. He’s denying us access to vote!” More gasps. George Farkas removed his Pioneer Seed Corn cap and rubbed his bald head. “I thought stuff like that only happened in places that are hotbeds of seething dissention and political unrest, like Egypt … or Florida.” My grandmother, whose name tag identified her as Marion Sippel, slid her wirerims up her nose to better see our own homegrown political trickster. “Gee, playin’ fast and loose with votin’ rights don’t sound like Osmond.” “It sure doesn’t,” he admitted. “Show of hands. How many people think I’m trying to suppress the vote?” I checked my watch and smiled. Back to the old routine in under one minute. There really was an upside to short-term memory issues. Osmond was exonerated in a classic squeaker—six votes to five. Bernice abstained on the grounds that voter suppression is a fiction invented by left-wing radical extremists and liberal morons, so she refused to vote on a flawed premise. Tilly thumped the beach with her walking stick, sending up a geyser of fine-grained sand. “Normandy beaches are renowned for
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their twenty-foot tides,” she announced in her former professor’s voice. “So we’re safe.” Grace Stolee exhaled a relieved breath. “The water’s out more than twenty feet, isn’t it?” “Looks like it’s out about a hundred miles,” said Dick Teig, squinting toward the water’s edge. “Good.” Grace kicked off her shoes and rolled up the hem of her pants. “I have an uncontrollable urge to dip my tootsies in the English Channel. Anyone else game?” Graduating at the top of her class from Beginners Swim at the Senior Center pool had turned Grace into an unabashed daredevil. The eleven nonswimmers in the group eyed her with various degrees of envy. “Showoff,” teased Margi. “I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near that muck,” whined Bernice as she positioned her foot like a ballerina modeling toe shoes. “Not in my new walking shoes.” She rotated her ankle to provide us with both left and right views. “Did I mention they were ridiculously expensive?” Dick Stolee flung his hands palms up into the air. “That swimming certificate of yours has gone straight to your head, Grace. Where’s my wife? The one whose only uncontrollable urge is to put the toaster away before I’ve finishing using it?” “Point of order,” Osmond spoke up. “Tides aren’t measured in distance. They’re measured in depth. Vertical depth. Kinda like what happens to the water level of a fish tank when you drain it.” I blinked at Osmond. He lived in a landlocked state. How could he possibly offer an analogy to explain coastal tides?
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“We shouldn’t be asking if the tide is in or out,” advised Tilly. “We should be asking where the high water mark is located.” Alice ranged a curious glance up and down the beach. “There’s a mark?” “There should be a long, narrow field of debris on the sand somewhere,” Tilly said as she scanned the immediate area. “Seaweed. Seashells. Crustacean shells. Empty beer bottles. The tide deposits everything at the high water mark.” “So if we stay above the high water mark, we won’t get swept away by no rogue waves?” asked Nana. Tilly nodded. “In theory.” “Spread out!” shouted Dick Teig as he directed the gang left and right, “and if you find any of the crap that Tilly is talking about, give a holler.” “What if we all find it at the same time?” fretted Margi. “Should we appoint a spokesperson to give an official holler so we’re not all sending out mixed messages?” “Do we have an official holler?” puzzled George, looking a bit lopsided as his wooden leg sank into the sand. “My Dick was always fond of ‘Balls’!” Lucille reminisced, hand pressed to her heart out of respect for her deceased husband. “Remember? No one could hold a candle to my Dick when it came to cussing.” “I found it,” offered Nana. “Eww, did everyone hear what Marion just said?” Alice used her KORN radio voice to be heard above the din. “She’s got a winner.” “What’d she say?” asked Dick Teig. “I said, I found it,” Nana repeated.
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“Works for me,” agreed Osmond. “Show of hands. How many people think we should call out, ‘I found it!’ when we—” “We don’t need no show of hands,” Nana blurted in exasperation. She held up her new and improved iPhone and jabbed the screen with her forefinger. “It’s right here on YouTube. Some fella downloaded a bunch of photos showin’ what Gold Beach looks like at high tide.” She touched her fingertip to the screen. “Check your messages.” Like gunslingers going for their guns, they went for their phones. I would have gone for mine, but I was guessing I wasn’t in Nana’s “Golden Oldies” email loop, so my inbox would probably be empty. “This has gotta be a different place than where we’re standing,” scoffed Dick Teig as he studied the photo Nana had sent him. “Where’s the beach?” I peeked over Dick’s shoulder at a stunning image of white-capped waves swallowing up the sand all the way to the seawall. “I think it’s under the water what’s crashin’ against them rocks there,” said Nana. Heads swiveled toward the seawall, causing eyes to widen with fear as the reality of the situation set in. Helen dropped her gaze to her shoes, regarding them with mounting alarm. “Do you know what this means? If we stay where we are, when the tide comes in, it’s going to roll over all of us. We’ll be buried under twenty feet of water!” “You better hope your eyebrow pencil is waterproof,” Bernice taunted her. Helen gasped as she touched her painstakingly drawn brows. “It’s nonsmear and hypoallergenic, but I don’t know if it’s waterproof.” Her husband pulled a permanent marker out of his shirt pocket. “I gotcha covered,” he snorted proudly. “Green’s not your normal color, but it was the only one left on the shelf. Close enough, right?” 7
Sure, if she were an avocado. “Well, I won’t be under water,” boasted Grace, clacking the soles of her shoes together to rid them of sand. “I’ll be doing my awardwinning dog paddle to that ramp over there. I told you people it was time we learned to swim, but nooo. Swimming was too boring for you.” Alice frowned. “I thought we said it was too wet.” “Low-impact breakdancing had a much better time slot,” defended Lucille. “And we got to wear them slinky spandex unitards.” Nana gave her eyebrows a little waggle. “And we couldn’t complain about the reduced rates we got when our instructor made a group appointment for us at the chiropractor’s,” conceded Margi. “Okay, people, listen up.” I waved my arm above my head to indicate a time-out. “No one’s going to get buried under twenty feet of water.” “Nineteen point four feet to be exact,” amended Tilly. She held up her iPhone and shrugged. “I just Googled it.” “None of you are going to be buried by a sudden flood tide,” I reiterated. “It’s going to take hours for the water that’s down there”— I threw my hand in the direction of the Channel—“to work its way up here.” I nodded toward the seawall. “Six hours and thirteen minutes,” said Tilly, eyes glued to her iPhone. “Over six hours!” I repeated. “So you need to lighten up. You’re on one of the most historic beaches in the world. Do a little beachcombing. Take a few pictures. You’re safe.”
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“How do you know?” argued Bernice. “Are you the resident expert on Normandy tides?” “No, but I’m the resident expert on schedules, and according to ours, we have to be back on the bus in a little over an hour, so we’ll be gone before the tide becomes an issue.” Panic swept over them like a flash fire. “Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?” chided Dick Stolee as he wrapped his hand around his wife’s arm. “C’mon, Grace, put your shoes back on. We’ve gotta get back to the bus. We’re late.” Feet shuffled. Arms flapped. Sand flew. “You are not late!” I pleaded as they stampeded back toward the stairs. “You have a whole hour. The bus will not leave without you!” “We can make it on time if we don’t lallygag,” Dick Teig exhorted the troops. “How far away is the bus parked?” Lucille gasped out from the back of the pack. Nana charged up the stairs in her size 5 sneakers, muscling out Bernice and Dick Teig to arrive at the top first. Wow! That low-impact breakdancing class of hers had really improved her range of motion and stamina. “Hold it, everyone!” Margi paused against the handrail halfway up the stairs. “I wanna get a picture of the high water mark.” She took aim at the beach with her iPhone. “Did we ever find it?” When they were all safely off the stairs, I called out one last essential nugget. “If you need to use the comfort station, the entrance is on the outside of the museum.” I gestured to the building beyond the carousel that called itself the Musée du Debarquement. “And don’t be surprised if you have to cough up some money to use the facilities. I warned you about this before we left home, so have some coins ready.” 9
“Shysters,” groused Bernice. “I’m not paying to use their dang potty.” “So what are you going to do?” asked George. “The toilet on the bus is out of order.” “I’ll just cross my legs until we get back to the ship.” All color drained from Margi’s face as she appeared to realize how she might be affected by her seatmate’s threat. “Would someone not wearing white linen pants like to change seats with me on the bus ride back? I’ll reward you with a free bottle of hand sanitizer.” Ever since winning the grand prize in our church raffle, Margi had been wearing linen and bamboo rather than polyester and nylon, proving that a five thousand dollar gift certificate to Farm and Fleet can turn even a fashion-challenged Norwegian into a stylish clotheshorse. While Margi lobbied to exchange her seat for one in a potentially less hazardous location, I untied the ribbon straps from around my ankles, stashed my sandals in my shoulder bag, and headed for the tidal flats, determined to investigate a gargantuan platform that was marooned on the sand like an alien spacecraft. It was the size and shape of a tennis court and reminded me of an above-ground pool that had collapsed and tilted. Strands of slick green seaweed hung like dreadlocks from its concrete shell; rust bled red along its steel reinforcing bars; algae devoured large chunks of the outer skeleton and looked to be spreading like a flesh-eating virus. Holes punctured the structure’s skin like open wounds, some no bigger than a basketball, others the size of a two-car garage. A warning was painted across the concrete in large white letters: Access Interdict, followed by a word I had no trouble understanding: Danger. I had no idea what the thing was, but it was obviously really old, and probably linked to the slew of other odd structures that were strewn 10
both across the beach and in a semi-circular formation farther out to sea. I shot a picture of the leviathan with the iPhone Nana had given to me for my birthday, then with my feet slapping wetly on the rippled sand, circled around the platform to view it from the side that faced the Channel. “I don’t care what it is or why it’s here,” drawled a honey blonde in a strapless sundress and alligator cowboy boots. “It’s just plain nasty.” “I’m with ya, hon,” agreed a Swedish blonde in white leggings, halter top, and a wide-brimmed Western hat that was woven from straw. “If this thing washed ashore on Padre Island, we wouldn’t put it on a postcard. We’d blow it up.” “With what? Dynamite?” The third person in the group, a platinum blonde in a sleeveless cowl neck and half boots, flipped her silky locks behind her shoulders and cocked a hip that was intimately outlined beneath skinny snakeskin jeans. “I wouldn’t need dynamite. I bet I could break that thing up into a million pieces with my AK47.” Making a muzzle of her index finger, she sprayed a flurry of bullets into the platform with her invisible weapon, blasting it into a million imaginary chunks. The booted blonde in the strapless dress gave her wrist a sassy flop. “AK-47s are so common. Shoot, everyone has one.” She arched her eyebrows and smiled coyly. “Did I tell you about my new subcompact semi-automatic? It’s a Kahr P380.” She paused for effect. “And it’s pink!” She screamed the word, tossing her head back and doubling her fists in a shameless display of ecstasy. “Ewww!” cried the blonde who’d advocated blowing up Padre Island.
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“Get out!” cried the blonde who’d riddled the platform with invisible bullets. “Did y’all hear about that blue state that has a referendum to outlaw the sale of all forms of ammunition?” asked Alligator Boots. “If it passes, folks’ll still be able to stockpile as many weapons as they want, but they won’t be able to fire them. Idn’t that just criminal?” “Is that constitutional?” asked Snakeskin Jeans, wrinkling her nose in an adorable gesture. “Heck, no.” Western Hat puffed out her bottom lip in thought. “There’s an amendment protecting ammo, isn’t there?” “Tenth!” threw out Alligator Boots, her expression growing serious. “That’s the one that comes after the Ninth, right?” Western Hat coiled a strand of her long, glorious hair around her finger. “I thought the Tenth was the one that abolished alcohol.” Snakeskin Jeans gasped. “The government abolished alcohol? No kiddin’? Even during Happy Hour?” I suspected the trio would have to do some serious cramming to qualify for an appearance on Jeopardy, but they possessed a quality that was far more marketable than instant game show celebrity. They were jaw-droppingly beautiful. Their hair was so blonde that it looked like liquid sunshine shot through with skeins of spun gold. It cascaded around their shoulders in the kind of long, sexy waves that invited a man’s touch and roused a woman’s envy. They looked to be related by either birth or sorority affiliation, flaunting toned muscles, even tans, and complexions so flawless their faces looked airbrushed. Their cheeks were tinted the perfect shade of pink; their eyelids dusted with shadow that created depth and allure; their full, collagen-injected lips so
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highly glossed that looking at them in direct sunlight might cause blindness. I’d noticed them aboard ship, so I knew they were part of our tour group, but this was the first time I’d seen them without a wall of men forming an impenetrable circle around them. “Group photo, group photo!” Western Hat waved her camera above her head, then, spotting me, brandished it in my direction. “Honey, would you mind doin’ the honors?” Flattered to be acknowledged by the fetching threesome, I flashed a smile that I hoped was every bit as blinding as their lip gloss. “You bet.” Western Hat sashayed toward me in her bare feet, walking with the kind of hip swivel that could eject both joints from their sockets. I met her halfway, so dazzled by her looks, I couldn’t help staring. She handed me her camera. “Thanks.” I fought off a twinge of jealousy that my gene pool hadn’t included Rapunzel’s hair, spray-on leggings, and a cowboy hat worthy of a Vegas pole dancer. “Nice hat,” I said in a burst of chattiness. “Idn’t it though?” She trailed her fingers around the brim. “I have a whole closetful back home. And they’re crushable, so I packed a slew of ’em for the trip.” She glanced at my name tag, her exquisitely plump lips curving into a smile. “Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit.” I didn’t normally wear a name tag, but I’d grudgingly hung one around my neck this morning to give guests a chance to see that I was one of them. “You’re on our tour?” she tittered. “Shame on me for not noticin’ you sooner, sugah.”
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“No problem.” If I had to fend off a crush of admirers every time I poked my head out my cabin door, I might not notice anyone else with mammary glands on the tour either. “Hey, y’all, this is Emily. She’s on the tour with us.” Waving. Half-hearted smiles. Quick mirror checks to remove errant particles of food from their teeth before the big photographic event. “I’m Bobbi,” said the blonde, “and you’re a real doll to do this.” Her guest ID indicated her full name was Bobbi Benedict, from Corpus Christi, Texas. I couldn’t guess her age, but unlike movie stars whose fading youth can be masked through the miracle of soft focus camera lenses, Bobbi Benedict was even more gorgeous up close than she was far away. As she sashayed back to join her friends for a group shot, I studied the settings on her camera and wondered how my hubby would react if I flew home as a blonde. “Bobbi!” cried a voice from across the beach. “Dawna! Krystal! Wait up! I want to be in the picture, too!” The woman running toward us was dressed in a skintight minidress that inched higher up her thighs as she raced across the tidal flats, splattering wet sand with the abandon of a child jumping into a mud puddle. Her legs pumped like pistons. Her mane of long hair whipped straight out behind her as she gained speed. Her oversized metallic handbag banged against her hip with every footfall, calling into question her choice of fashion accessories today. She was six feet tall, shaped like an hourglass, boasted the kind of beauty that most women could acquire only through heredity or expensive plastic surgery, and. unlike her girlfriends, was unabashedly brunette.
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Her name tag identified her as Jackie Thum, and years ago, when she’d been a Broadway actor named Jack Potter, I’d been married to her.
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“I stopped at the souvenir shop to buy a booklet,” she choked out as she sprinted toward the platform to join the blondes. “Ewww, you’re spraying gunk,” yelped Bobbi, ducking behind her companions to avoid the mud splatter. “Cut it out!” snapped Alligator Boots as she swiped a glob of wet sand from her designer footwear. “Sorry.” Jackie shrunk visibly beneath the unforgiving glares of the toothsome threesome. She dropped her shoulders and hung her head with proper contrition before bouncing back in a burst of excitement. “So, where do you want me?” Snakeskin Jeans flashed a squinty look that said, “Anywhere but here,” but to Jackie’s face, she said, “You know something? I don’t think the light’s quite right anymore. So let’s just skip the photo for now and try for a better shot later.” I focused Bobbi’s camera and captured all four of them within frame. “The light looks great to me,” I called out.
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Bobbi hustled out of frame as if her feet were on fire. “I’m all in for waitin’ on the picture takin’. We can find a better backdrop than a piece of rusty old junk.” “It’s not a piece of junk,” Jackie enthused as she whipped a booklet out of her shoulder bag. “It’s part of the artificial harbor that the British—” “How about we saunter through some shops to see what kind of cosmetics our competitors are peddling?” Alligator Boots proposed, sending her two companions into fits of glee. “Ewww!” cried Bobbi. “You think we have time?” Snakeskin Jeans clapped her hands with excitement. “Yes! I don’t know why we’re lookin’ at all this sand anyway. It’s borin’.” Jackie waved her booklet with the zeal of a cheerleader waving her pompoms. “But it’s one of the D-Day beach—” “We’ve only got an hour,” interrupted Bobbi, “so we better get our tushes in gear.” “We can skip the shop where I bought my booklet,” Jackie offered helpfully. “It’s the one directly across from the museum. They had no beauty products whatsoever. It was really disappointing.” “Jackie, sugah.” Bobbi smiled sweetly. “Since you’ve already hit some of the shops, would you do me a Texas-sized favor and take some pictures of the beach so I can show the folks back home? Emily will give you my camera.” She nodded toward me before bobbing her head back and forth with abbreviated introductions. “Emily, Jackie. Jackie, Emily. And lemme tell ya, I’m happy to entrust it to another Mona Michelle rep, ’cause I know you’ll take good care of it. You wouldn’t believe what I paid for the thing.”
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“Of course, I’ll take care of it.” Jackie splayed her hand over her chest as if pledging an oath. “I’m honored that you asked me. This is such an historic beach. It’s where—” “Come on,” Snakeskin Jeans urged, prodding her companions with a meaningful look. “The three of you scoot,” Jackie insisted, as if she were playing mother hen to her baby chicks. “I’ll take some pictures, and then I’ll catch up with you.” “You’re just an ever-lovin’ doll,” Bobbi called over her shoulder as she and her friends scurried away like cockroaches escaping the glare of an overhead light. “We’ll flag you down when we see you!” Oh, sure. Like that was going to happen. “I won’t be long!” Jackie waved to their retreating backs before exhaling an immensely satisfied sigh. She stashed her booklet in the outside pocket of her bag, then turned to me, aflutter with anticipation. “Aren’t they the best? I mean, I’ve only known them for half a day, but we’ve already bonded like this.” She twined her middle finger around the knuckle of her highly lacquered forefinger. “The four of us are going to be best friends forever!” Clasping her hands, she steepled them against her heart like a music idol about to burst into song. “It’s so awesome being part of a clique, Emily. Overnight, I’ve become one of the beautiful people—the ones who get immediate seating in restaurants, wolf whistles from construction workers, upgrades to the exit rows on airplanes. It makes me feel so much better than everyone else.” She paused, her eyes suddenly narrowing with a hint of self-awareness. “Do I sound like a snob?” “Yup.” She arched her exquisitely waxed brows and smiled. “You’re such a kidder.” Readjusting her minidress over her hips, she struck a wist18
ful pose, as if recalling her life before facial hair remover creams and PMS. “You know, Emily, guys are so clueless about this whole bonding thing. I mean, I’m not knocking the really deep discussions I used to have with my buds about football and beer, but it’s so much easier to bond when you’re talking about really intimate things, like eyebrow threading and breast implants. Not to toot my own horn, but if you noticed the way the girls were fawning all over me, you might have to agree that I’m taking to this bonding thing like a diva to the red carpet.” Unwilling to break the news that her clique had just ditched her like the butt-end of a stale cigar, I forced a smile. Her gender reassignment surgery might have allowed her to become female, but she was way behind the developmental curve when it came to recognizing cold shoulders. “Yup,” I agreed. “You’re a natural.” “Really? You’re not just saying that because you always avoid conflict and we used to sleep together?” I crooked my mouth and held out Bobbi’s camera. “You’re going to need this if you plan on taking any pictures.” “BE CAREFUL!” She sucked in her breath and rushed over to me. “Bobbi might not like me anymore if you drop her high-end, stateof-the-art camera.” “It’s a single-use disposable.” “What?” She lifted it from my grasp as if it were a live grenade and cradled it in her palm, assessing the shiny buttons on the plastic casing. Puzzled, she turned it over in her hand. “Okay, but … it looks like a really expensive disposable.” Jackie might be lagging behind her female counterparts on the cold shoulder graph, but she was off the chart when it came to denial. “Bobbi probably didn’t want to fuss with any complicated 19
equipment,” I said in a charitable attempt to explain away the woman’s subterfuge. “Well, if simplicity is what she wanted, she bought the right camera, because this model only has one button.” As Jackie got off a shot of the chalky cliffs to our west, I ranged a long look toward the seawall, eying the three blondes as they climbed the stairs to the promenade that fronted the beach. “So your new best friends are the women you wrote to me about, hunh? The reps with the highest company sales?” “They’ve been the top income grabbers for years, so imagine their surprise when yours truly joined their ranks by outselling the gal who used to set the gold standard for the northern region. I executed quite a coup for an inconsequential upstart.” Which might explain why the ladies were “fawning” over her so much. In her torturous quest to find the perfect job, Jackie had quit her gig as a life coach to try her hand at something for which she was uniquely qualified: beauty consultant for the country’s largest independent cosmetic manufacturer, Mona Michelle. As a Mona Michelle representative, she was responsible for convincing scores of average Janes that their pathetic lives could turn on a dime and explode with excitement simply by using the right foundation to match their skin tone. She threw makeup parties. She demonstrated the proper technique for applying eyeliner without poking your eye out with the liner brush. She explained the need to buy really expensive skin care products that only her company could supply. She handed out free sample-size lipsticks whose labeling attested that no animals had been harmed in the testing of this product. And she rocked at it. 20
After only one year on the job, she was being rewarded for her stellar sales record with an all-expenses-paid holiday to France, which included a chance to rub shoulders with her company’s esteemed president, and an opportunity to pal around with the three other regional winners. Apparently, when her sales topped the million dollar mark, she’d be awarded the company’s highest honor—a pink Porsche with a Swarovski crystal-encrusted steering wheel, but according to her last email update, she hadn’t quite reached that pinnacle yet. “So if you’re the regional winner from the north, what parts of the country are the other three women from, because they all sound like they’re from the same place to me.” “You’re so good with accents, Emily. They are from the same place. Texas!” I cocked my head, flashing her a squinty look. “How is it geographically possible that three winners from different regions of the country are from a single state?” “Because more cosmetics are sold in Texas than in the other fortynine states combined, so our national map is basically an oversized map of the Lone Star State. Why do you think women in Texas look so great all the time? Two words: Mona Michelle.” Swinging around to face the Channel, she snapped several photos of a series of boxcar-shaped structures situated about a half-mile off shore. They formed an incomplete semi-circle around the beach, like a passenger train missing some of its cars, and were so massively big, I suspected if they were covered in artificial turf, the NFL could play Sunday football on them. Angling around forty-five degrees, she took aim at another seaweed-sprouting curiosity that lay on the tidal flats like the carcass of a prehistoric sea serpent. 21
Click. “Fini,” she said as she dropped the camera into her bag. “Bobbi might have a bird if I use up all her film.” “Do you have any idea what all these structures are?” I asked, wishing I’d done more research before leaving Windsor City. “You don’t know?” She gave her hands a little pattycake clap. “Ewww! I’m so glad you asked.” Whipping her booklet out of the side pocket, she flipped open the cover and held it at shoulder level while the interconnected pages accordioned downward like paper dolls. “Grab the end there, would you, Em?” I caught the tail end of the booklet before it landed in a tidal pool, then stepped away from her, stretching the pages between us. I scanned it from left to right. “A panoramic photograph?” “Of the very beach we’re standing on, only it was taken in 1945, three months after D-Day.” I looked from the photo, to the beach, back to the photo, comparing the “here and now” to the “then and there.” “Wow, this place was really humming back then.” “Well, duh? This is where the British built their artificial harbor so ships could deliver supplies to the troops, so of course it was humming.” The photograph depicted a moment, frozen in time, when ingenious engineers had cross-hatched the beach with floats, pontoons, and roadways, and created a working harbor farther out to sea with piers, loading docks, floating cranes, and mooring facilities that serviced ships that were anchored outside the staging area. Jackie trailed a finger along the photo. “Once a ship’s bow doors opened up, a fleet of jeeps and trucks whisked the cargo over the 22
floating roadways to the beach, and from there, everything headed inland. Fuel. Ammo. Tanks. Guess how long it took to empty the cargo hold of a landing ship?” I shrugged. “Twenty-four hours?” “Eighteen minutes. Can you believe it? I can’t even blow-dry my hair in eighteen minutes.” “How do you know so much about World War II naval logistics?” I regarded her one-eyed. “Military History Channel?” She arched an eyebrow and tapped a finger against her earlobe. “Grampa Potter. Did you ever meet Grampa Potter?” I mined my memory for an image of Jack’s grandfather. “Uhh … cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth? Cute lisp? Smelled like mothballs?” Jackie frowned. “That was Gramma Potter. Grampa didn’t have a lisp. Anyway, he was a navy Seabee who actually helped build this harbor.” “No kidding?” “Yup. You should have heard the stories he told about how his unit blew up old merchant ships to form the breakwater out there. You wouldn’t believe the great sound effects he came up with, Em. Even with the cigar in his mouth. And you see those boxcar-shaped things? They’re made of concrete and were towed across the Channel from England to be the primary building blocks for the entire operation. Would you believe they weighed as much as six thousand tons apiece?” She regarded the photograph. “Gramps never could figure out how a six-thousand-ton concrete box could float while a four-ounce bar of Lifebuoy soap couldn’t.” She chuckled. “Poor Gramps. The relatives used to get so tired of listening to him repeat the same stories that they’d sneak out of the 23
room one by one. But I hung in there with him. Gramma, too. She’d just yank out her hearing aid, light up a stogie, and smile at him through a haze of cheap cigar smoke.” “That was really sweet of you, Jack.” Even as a child, his kinder, gentler feminine side had come to the fore. “I couldn’t leave. What if he remembered some gory details that involved shooting, stabbing, or blasting something sky high? No way was I gonna miss that.” I rolled my eyes. “Why are guys so obsessed with loud noises and gore?” She exhaled a long breath. “I dunno. But I have it narrowed down to either testosterone or political affiliation.” She peeked at her watch. “Are you ready to head back? I don’t want to lose track of the girls. They’re so helpless without me.” She executed a shimmy that rippled all the way down her body. “I’m their guiding force.” After collapsing the photograph back to its original booklet size, we struck out across the sand, aiming toward the stairs that fronted the carousel. “Which home visit are you scheduled for?” Jackie asked as she dug a sheaf of papers out of her shoulder bag. “I’m in group one.” “Shoot.” She made a face at the information on her itinerary. “I’m in group three.” One of the unique features of our river cruise was an opportunity to visit a French family in the Normandy countryside. Guests were being divided into groups of eight and would be dropped off at designated farms, villas, and chateaus where they’d be encouraged to discuss anything from local cuisine to politics with the host family. I didn’t know who else would be joining me in group one, but I hoped
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that whoever they were, they’d prove themselves to be worthy ambassadors of the United States and not ugly Americans. Please let Bernice be in someone else’s group. Please let Bernice be in someone else’s group. At the foot of the stairs, I paused to brush sand off my feet and slip back into my sandals. “I wonder which group the girls are in?” Jackie asked as she watched me retie the ribbons around my ankles. “Why? Are you planning to surprise your host family with a group demonstration of tone-correcting wands and cucumber facial masks?” She went statue-still for a long moment before shoving her itinerary back into her bag and grabbing her cell phone. “Ohmigod! Why didn’t I think of that? You’re a genius, Emily. An absolute genius! Mona Michelle goes international. Do you mind if I say it was my idea?” She tapped her screen and pressed her phone to her ear, bobbing her head impatiently. “Jack! I was teasing! You can’t pitch your cosmetic line on your home visit.” “Why not?” “Do the words ‘inappropriate’ and ‘tacky’ mean anything to you?” She pulled a long face. “How can Bobbi’s number no longer be in service? She gave it to me right before we boarded the bus.” Unh-oh. I didn’t like the sound of this. She punched her screen again and waited. “Well, this is really weird. Krystal’s number isn’t available either.” “Try blonde number three. Third time might be the charm.” “Can’t. Dawna couldn’t remember her number.” She clutched the device in both hands and stared miserably at the screen. “Do you
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suppose there’s something wrong with my phone?” She seized up with panic. “Or my hearing?” “You probably entered the numbers wrong, Jack. It happens.” Her eyes suddenly brightened. “Initializing Plan B.” Scrolling through her phone book, she hit another number and gnawed her bottom lip as she waited for someone to pick up. “Who’re you calling now?” “Your grandmother. She gave me her number yesterday, so if I got that one right, then maybe— Mrs. S.? I’m so glad you answered. This is Jackie. Quick question. Is this the right cell number for you?” She broke out in a giddy smile. “Well, thank God. I thought— Uh-huh … Uh-huh. Can you speak up a little, Mrs. S.? What’s all that yelling in the background? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You’re where? No kidding? Yup. She’s right here with me. Oh, sure. No problem. Thanks.” She waved her phone at me in a celebratory gesture. “I knew I wasn’t the one who screwed up.” She exhaled a long, relieved breath before breaking out in a wince. “But now I’m really in a bind.” “Why?” “Because someone’s going to have to tell Krystal and Bobbi that their memories suck, and if I tell them, it’ll probably ruin our friendship. Women really resent other women pointing out their flaws. So”— she flashed a hopeful smile—“would you tell them?” “No!” “Please?” I stared at her, stonefaced. “Where’s Nana?” “In the public restroom.” “Who was yelling?”
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“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Bernice’s hand is stuck in the donation box, so you better get over there fast because the attendant has the place in lockdown until they free her, and the line is backed up around the building.”
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