Dutch Me Deadly by Maddy Hunter Read Free Book Online

with tourists, but not one person claimed to have seen anything. How unbelievable is that?”
    “Not as unbelievable as you might think, bella .”
    The lobby elevator dinged open to reveal the entire Iowa contingent staring mindlessly at their cellphones, heads down, shoulders hunched, and thumbs flying.
    “Any number of crimes can be committed in crowds where people are preoccupied with window shopping, talking on cell phones, listening to iPods, text messaging. We’re allowing crimes to happen in plain sight because we’re no longer aware of our surroundings. Too many other distractions vying for our attention.”
    I rolled my eyes as the elevator door slid shut with my guys still crammed inside. “Ya think?”
    “Do you know if the police are continuing to investigate the incident?”
    “According to the woman who was translating the blow-by-blow for me, the bicyclist involved in the accident swore that Charlotte stumbled into the street right in front of him.” The indicator needle over the elevator drifted to the first floor, second floor, third floor … “The police discovered a broken paving stone near the curb, so they put two and two together and decided that she probably tripped over it, stumbled off the curb, and never saw what hit her. Nice, neat, and tidy.”
    “A reasonable explanation.”
    “Not if you consider the ill will she’d stirred up with the guests. She’d already had one serious run-in with a grouchy guy from Maine who just happened to be in the vicinity when she took her spill. He conveniently disappeared after the police arrived, but I wouldn’t mind getting him alone so I could ask him a few questions. The bicyclist might have thought Charlotte stumbled into the street, but how do we know she wasn’t pushed?”
    “By the grouchy guy from Maine?”
    “Or by some of the other Mainers. They’re all old high school classmates, so they could be covering up for each other.”
    “Do you think they’re so fond of each other as to risk becoming accessories to a crime?”
    I gnawed my lip as I watched the indicator needle glide back t oward the first-floor lobby. “I don’t actually know that any of them like each other. In fact, I think the opposite is true. A few of them really despise each other. Or at least, they used to. Popular kids versus nerds and wallflowers. Bruised feelings. Emotional scarring. Youthful insecurities. The whole nine yards.”
    “I have another call coming in on line one, Emily. Could I trouble you to hold for a moment? I think it’s important.”
    Yeah, but … my call was important, too, wasn’t it?
    The elevator dinged open again.
    “This is the lobby, you morons! Are you going to get off this time?”
    “You’re standing on my foot!” snapped Margi.
    “I can’t move until Bernice moves,” whined Helen.
    “Can anyone see Marion?” George asked desperately.
    They were jammed in the car like college kids in a VW Beetle, hips bumping and arms tangling into knots as they struggled to squeeze through the door at the same time.
    “Press the button to keep the door open!” yelled Alice.
    “I can’t see the selector panel,” fussed Tilly.
    “That’s ’cuz Dick’s stomach is squashed against it,” cried Nana.
    Osmond’s voice rose to a fever pitch. “Well, yank him outta there before his stomach hits the button for the fourth floor again.”
    Amid a cacophony of frustrated grunts and grumbles, Dick got catapulted out the door and into the lobby. With the human log jam broken, everyone else staggered into the lobby behind him, massaging the kinks out of their necks and shoulders like the survivors of a train wreck. I shook my head, wondering if I should declare their phones a health hazard and demand they hand them over to me. One inattentive step in Amsterdam and splat ! They’d either be bobbing in a murky canal with the rest of the swill or flattened on the pavement like Charlotte. But they’d never give them up willingly.
    As I watched