Bonnie of Evidence - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,2

are rewarded,” said George. “We get to see our names posted on the official geocaching website in really big black letters.”

Nana pulled a face. “That’s on account of folks what’s in our age bracket don’t got good eyesight no more.”

“I found a bottle of Jack Daniels in a cache near Lars Bakke’s grain elevator a couple of months ago,” Osmond reflected.

“And you didn’t offer the rest of us a little nip?” barked Dick Teig.

Osmond lifted his ninety-something-year-old shoulders in a helpless gesture. “It was empty.”

“Don’t look now,” Nana said as she shot a glance across the street, “but we got incomin’. And would you look at them long faces?”

The members of Team Five were clumped together at the crosswalk on the opposite side of the street, looking pouty and irritated as they waited for the traffic light to change.

“Do those look like the faces of a team that registered a find?” Dick Teig asked me.

He was right. They looked miserable. Uh-oh. “Look,” I urged the gang, “if it turns out they didn’t find it, would you try to be sympathetic when they join us?”

“You bet,” said Nana.

“He who laughs last, laughs best,” said Tilly.

George lifted his Pioneer Seed Corn hat to scratch the back of his bald head. “What does that mean anyway?”

Dick Stolee snickered as he elbowed my arm. “Did I call that or what? I’m telling you, Emily. The other teams are going to mop up the floor with them.”

“So how did it go?” I asked in a cheery voice as the five team members trooped onto the sidewalk.

“Why don’t you ask Bernice?” Lucille Rassmuson locked her arms across her chest and pursed her dime-thin lips in what was recognized as the Iowa version of a hissy fit. “She said she knew where she was going.”

Lucille was sporting a new, easy-care hairstyle for the trip. Gone were the tight, kinky curls of her home perm, replaced by longer, layered strands that hugged her skull like a bathing cap. She’d even tweaked the color, replacing her peach Margarita tint with a soft shade of powdery pink. If her late husband—cigar-smoking, practical joking Dick Rassmuson—had still been alive, he might have passed her on the street and not even recognized her.

“My coordinates were right,” Bernice huffed. “We were practically standing on top of the thing! It was Tweedledee and Tweedledum who dropped the ball.” She fired accusing looks at the two other women on her team.

“I beg your pardon?” Tweedledee’s mouth fell open, drawing attention to her beautifully capped teeth and neatly applied lipstick in the season’s most vibrant color. She’d listed her occupation as “retired retail buyer” on her guest information form, and judging from the way she’d added a stylish belt to glam up a simple sweater and designer jeans, I’d guess she’d been a whiz at it. Her name tag identified her as Dolly Pinker from Chicago. “There was no hidden cache in that alleyway. You entered the wrong numbers in your GPS.”

“Did not.”

“Did so. And you were too pigheaded to admit you were wrong, so thank you very much for helping us to end up with nothing. This is all your fault.”

“Is not.”

“Is so. I want to change teams.”

“Me, too,” said Tweedledum, whose real name was Isobel Kronk from Gary, Indiana. “I could use a free vacation, but it ain’t gonna happen with Wrong Way Corrigan calling the shots.” Isobel was hard-edged and rough-angled, with long gray hair, sun-damaged skin, and eyes that snapped with impatience. Her lone fashion accessory was a backpack handbag in an exotic animal print that made it look as if she had a zebra strapped to her back. She owned a scrap metal business in Gary, where she probably spent most of her time crushing car engines between her teeth. “Are we the only team who didn’t find the cache?” she asked me. “Our timekeeper refused to tell us.”

Unwilling to hammer the first nail into their coffin, I resorted to evasive tactics. “I’m sure the timekeeper simply wanted to tabulate all the results before she released—”

“Everyone scored a find except you,” ratted Dick Teig.

Dolly held up her iPhone. “Is this the alley where you found it?” The image on the screen showed a seemingly endless flight of stairs shoehorned between two buildings.

“We didn’t have to climb no stairs,” said Nana.

Dick Stolee scrunched his eyes in thought. “Are you sure? I remember stairs someplace.”

“Show of hands,” said Osmond. “How many people remember climbing stairs?”

“Geez-Louise,” griped Bernice in her former-smoker’s rasp, “would all