G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,47

At least there wasn’t no blood. I expect she’ll get a mite better with practice.” Nana waggled her earlobe. “What do you think? Genuine opal.”

“The poor girl grew so hysterical, we had to sit her down and put her head between her knees,” said Tilly. “The store manager finally had to escort her off the floor, which is when your grandmother and I decided to leave.”

“With the glove still hanging from your ear?” She looked as if she had a small udder attached to her head.

“The manager said someone was gonna have to cut the thing off with surgical scissors, and he didn’t have none, so we’re s’posed to go back tomorrow night. His wife’s a nurse, so she’ll be able to do it. But never mind about me. Finish what you was sayin’, dear.”

What had I been saying? Oh, yeah. “Remember the night when Conrad discovered Nana’s photo? He threw lots of botany speak at us, but I was the person who suggested we report the find to a higher authority.”

“I remember that, dear. That’s when he said he’d call the University a Melbourne.”

“He’d call them before I called them. Think about it. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“I do,” said Tilly. “If you called them, they’d need to see Marion’s photo to identify the plant, but if Conrad called them, he could tell them anything. He could even tell them to search for another family of plant altogether, and no one would be any the wiser.”

Nana sucked in her breath. “Tell ’em to search for the wrong plant. Dang. That’d be real smart a him. Then he could go back to find the real plant and keep that million-dollar award all to hisself. You s’pose he’s the one what took my other two snapshots?”

“Now there’s a thought,” I said, warming to the idea. “Maybe he’s playing a shell game with us. While our eyes are locked on one photo, he’s playing fast and loose with the other two.”

“What if Marion’s missing photos show something even more incredible than an extinct plant?” ventured Tilly. “What if she photographed a rare butterfly, or…or…”

“Or an extinct bird!” I chimed in. “Conrad is an avid bird-watcher.”

Nana gave us a hard look. “If he’s got them other two snapshots a mine, I aim to get ’em back; I just gotta figure out how.”

“And speaking of figuring things out”—I gave Nana and Tilly a puzzled look—“if the box Diana Squires sent to her laboratory didn’t contain our extinct plant, what did it contain?”

We decided to try something daring in order to find out.

We decided to ask her.

Henry had made dinner arrangements for the whole group at an Indian restaurant a half block away from the hotel, so at eight o’clock that evening, we were enjoying the ambience created by dark wood veneers, Indian prints, dimmed lights, high-gloss tabletops, sparkling crystal, and wonderfully evocative classical music. I guessed Adelaide hadn’t yet discovered Doris Day and Burl Ives.

“It sure didn’t look this fancy from the outside,” Nana said in a funeral parlor whisper. I’d snipped her glove down to a single finger and pinned it beneath her hair, so she was looking less like fodder for Pablo Picasso.

“Tell me, Mrs. S.,” Duncan asked as he opened his menu, “will this be your first encounter with Indian cuisine?”

“Pffffft. Indian food’s some a my favorite.”

I leaned back in my chair, astounded. “It is? Has the Windsor City Perkins started serving Indian food?”

“Nope, but I can’t get enough a them foot-longs at the casino. Don’t that count?”

“This restaurant specializes in Punjabi cooking, Mrs. Sippel,” Etienne explained. “It’s the cuisine of northern India. You might find the flavors a bit more exotic than an American hot dog.”

“How exotic?” she asked.

“Think hot dog with chili sauce,” said Tilly.

Nana nodded. “I can handle it.”

We were seated at a round table for five; most of the group were split up in groups of four and six. Diana Squires and Roger Piccolo had managed to wrangle places at the table with Heath and his mother, so I knew what the two scientists would be harping about for the next couple of hours. I hoped Guy Madelyn and Bernice, who were sitting with them, could divert the conversation to less controversial subjects, like maybe the death penalty or same-sex unions.

Jake and Lola sat at a corner table with Conrad and Ellie, whose body language indicated they were still miffed at each other. The rest of my Iowa contingent were scattered in foursomes throughout the