Pasta Imperfect Read online

  “Too racy?”

  “Too flimsy. George needs extra support.” She pulled a pair of what looked like Bavarian lederhosen out of the sack. “So I got him boxers.”

  I squirmed my way through the foot traffic clogging the piazza, circled around the north side of the Duomo with its gleaming pink, white, and green marble, and found the hair salon located in a pristine limestone building with brown-shuttered windows, decorative stone medallions, and window boxes hanging from wrought-iron balcony grills. Before opening the polished wood door, I gazed upward at the monstrous Duomo, wondering why Fred would agree to climb to the top if he was afraid of heights. Talk about being a glutton for punishment. And why make the climb with Brandy Ann and Amanda if they’d hurt his feelings so badly?

  Something had happened to get them together. Maybe they’d kissed and made up. But in light of my suspicions about Brandy Ann and Amanda, I hoped Jackie watched Fred closely. I’d hate for anything to happen to the poor little guy. He just seemed so…helpless. Or maybe a better word was, hopeless.

  However, speaking of kissing…

  I retrieved my phone, punched in a number, and waited.

  “Miceli.”

  “I’m sorry we were cut off, too.”

  A pause. “Ahhh, Emily. I miss you.”

  “I think we need to remedy that. Where are you? The casino?”

  “I’m at my great-aunt’s. They’ve lit all ninety candles on her birthday cake and she’s methodically blowing each one out, which could take a while. She’s been a two-pack-a-day smoker for seventy-five years.”

  Gee, if the party was winding down — “I have an idea. When the party’s over, you could hop a train and tell me how much you miss me in person.”

  “The next time I see you, darling, I’ll be doing more to your person than just telling you I miss you.”

  Euw, I liked the sound of that. “Would tomorrow be too soon? I don’t necessarily have to visit Pisa.” I stared at my reflection in the window of the salon. “But I should warn you. The next time you see me, I might look a little…different.”

  Another pause. “Different can be good.” He breathed heavily into the phone. “Different…how?”

  Bless his little Swiss heart. He was trying so hard to be open-minded. “I’m hoping it’ll be a pleasant surprise.” To both of us.

  “And I hope you don’t mind, Emily, but I’ve assured the entire family that they’ll have an opportunity to meet you very soon. They tell me I made the same promise before leaving for Ireland last month and that I vowed to return home with surprising news, but my mind is a little fuzzy on what the surprise was supposed to be. Did I give you any indication about a surprise?”

  Okay, this was encouraging. “You did mention something about a question you wanted to ask me.”

  I heard a frustrated sigh from his end. “It’s not much to go on, but I’m a police inspector. I’ve solved crimes with less information than that. Perhaps — Damn!” Shouting. Scuffling. Then in a rush of breath, “I need to go. My aunt was too slow. The tablecloth is on fire. Someone grab the water pitcher! Love you.” Click.

  “Hello, pretty.”

  With the phone still pressed to my ear, I turned around to find Duncan giving me an odd look. “What happened?” he asked, touching his hand to my hair.

  I smiled self-consciously. “An encounter with a Zippo lighter. The lighter won.”

  “Ouch.” He winced before mustering an optimistic grin. “But you’ve come to the right place. Donatella cuts my hair. She’s a genius. You wouldn’t believe what I looked like before she got her hands on me. Cowlicks. Split ends. Sun damage. People mistook me for Don King.”

  “You’re just saying that,” I accused, disbelieving that his stunning mane of hair could ever have been anything other than gorgeous.

  “Scout’s honor. No worries. She’ll make you beautiful.” His eyes did that lingering thing again. “Or should I say…more beautiful.”

  Unh-oh. Okay, moving right along — “Would you be able to switch Jackie Thum to another room?” I was all business again. “She seems to have a personality conflict with her present roommate.”

  “Jackie Thum.” He pinched his eyes shut, plucking data from behind his lids. “Her roommate is Jeannette Bowles. Food critic. Burlington, Vermont. She’s won a truckload of writing awards and listed every single one on her travel form — in the Medical History section. I guess you have space for that if you’re healthy.”

  Another award winner? I bet Keely wouldn’t be too happy if she found out about that.

  “Since Jackie’s part of your group, I could move her into your room.”

  I thought about Jackie. I thought about Mom. I thought about the two of them in the same room for eight hours or more. I broke out in a cold sweat. “Um…”

  “Or I could put her in with Keely.”

  Gum snapping. Bubble blowing. Incessant chatter. Endless self-promotion. “That would work.” Okay, so maybe I still had unresolved issues from when Jack walked out on me when we were married. I’ll admit it. I’m human.

  “Problem solved.” Duncan opened the salon door and, with an encouraging arm around my shoulder, ushered me inside. “I have a couple of minutes, Em. Come on in. I’ll introduce you.”

  Two and a half hours later, I exited the salon with hair that was shiny, sassy, and short. It framed my face. It hugged my neck. The style would look good wet, dry, or mussed, with or without gel, mousse, or pliable styling paste. She’d added color that enhanced the richness of my natural shade. I didn’t feel like Emily Andrew, Iowa tour escort, anymore. I felt like Emily Andrew, Italian sexpot. Sultry. Steamy. Voluptuous. Broke.

  It was damned expensive transforming into an Italian sexpot.

  Click clack click clack click clack.

  “Wow! Would you look at you?” Jackie shouted as she hurried in my direction.

  I spun in place so she could get the whole 360-degree view.

  “I love it. I absolutely love it. Turn around so I can see the back again. This is so you, Emily. It’s perky. Stylish. Avant garde. I told you you needed to update the old frizzy curls. Don’t you think it’s you? Don’t you love it?” She ruffled the top of my hair with her fingers. “Okay, Tom would insist that I ask. How much?”

  “A million lire.”

  Her hand froze in midair. “Five hundred dollars? Girl, you got robbed.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t smell like raw sewage anymore. What about Brandy Ann and those guys. Did you find them?”

  “Did I ever. I spotted them in line at the side entrance of the church, so I played it real cool and spied on them from behind a parked car. And guess who else I spotted standing at the front of the line.”

  I shrugged.

  “Gabriel Fox, my roommate, and our friend, Keely.”

  I frowned, suddenly bothered by Keely’s proximity to the award-winning Jeannette Bowles. “Odd combination. But Keely is sucking up to everyone, so I shouldn’t be surprised. So what happened at the top of the Duomo? Were there any words exchanged when Keely ran into Brandy Ann and Amanda? How was Fred holding up? Did he look like he was having a good time?”

  “How would I know that?”

  I waited a beat, steadying my gaze on her. “Didn’t you follow them to the top?”

  “Climb those stairs again?” She howled with laughter. “What are you? Crazy? Do you have any idea how hot that stairwell is right now? This late in the afternoon, everyone coming out of that place is gonna be dying from heat exhaustion.”

  I stared at her, deadpan. I wondered if this would be a good time to tell her who her new roommate was going to be. “Okay, Jack. Here’s the thing. When you say you’re going to tail someone? YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM!”

  “Hey, I did my part! I stood over by that car in the hot sun, waiting for them to come down.”

  “And?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “And people had to be crawling up and down those stairs because I never saw any of them come out.”
She curled her lip in distaste. “No offense, Emily, but this surveillance business isn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. In fact, it’s pretty boring. I’d much rather —”

  “EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  A woman’s scream. Loud. Shrill. Terrified.

  “EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  “Where’s it coming from?” Jackie cried.

  I turned in a circle, listening. “I can’t tell. It’s bouncing all over the place.” But the horror of the sound was undeniable, causing the down on my arms to stand on end. I saw a man race toward the back end of the Duomo, followed by another man, and another. Curiosity seekers hotfooted past us — a few stragglers that swelled into a sudden crowd. I looked at Jackie; Jackie looked me — the obvious remaining unspoken between us.

  That scream could belong to anyone, including any of my group of Iowans.

  We hurried down the sidewalk, following the crowd toward the east end of the church.

  “EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  The crowd stampeded across the street and followed the fenced barrier around the back end of the Duomo. We ran past a massive hexagonal pod that bulged outward from the structure, and after rounding a second one, caught sight of a mound of colorful fabric abandoned on the pavement near the base of the church, in the narrow bay between the south and east pods.

  Men stared upward, pointing to the top of the Duomo. Women cupped their hands over their mouths, eyes wide with shock. Mothers scooped up their children and hugged their small heads to their chests, shielding their eyes.

  “Oh, my God!” Jackie gasped behind me.

  I looked toward the abandoned fabric again, my legs growing suddenly wobbly. I was close enough now to see that the fabric wasn’t a random assortment of cloth. It was a one-shouldered coral sweaterdress with a decorative leather shoulder strap, but it had looked better on Jeannette Bowles when she’d been alive.

  “That’s my roommate!” Jackie cried.

  I stared at the dead body, my stomach juices turning sour.

  I guessed Jackie wouldn’t be moving in with Keely after all.

  Chapter 8

  No one actually saw her fall,” Duncan informed us the next morning on our way to Pisa. “Unfortunately, most of the people on the gallery were congregated around a man who’d collapsed from apparent heat exhaustion, so while they were administering to him, Ms. Bowles, regrettably, fell to her death.”

  “That could have been me,” Jackie whispered beside me.

  “Jeannette?”

  She gave me a narrow look before covering up a yawn. “The guy suffering from heat exhaustion. Now, aren’t you glad I had sense enough not to climb those stairs again?”

  “Rough night?” I asked, when she yawned a second time.

  “My sleep cycle is really messed up.”

  Mine was improving. Surprisingly, I’d slept pretty well after Mom had helped me mend my clothes last night, so I was feeling good today. I was feeling especially good that I was out of my Laura Ashley dress and into a pair of white capri pants with a black-cropped U-neck. Yes!

  “The authorities are still investigating whether the death was accidental or deliberate,” Duncan continued over the loudspeaker.

  “Have they ruled out suicide?” someone asked.

  “The police captain I spoke with informed me that it’s rare for tourists to commit suicide while on holiday, especially if their plans involve leaping from a tall building. Historically speaking, people usually do that at home.”

  Unless they’re from Iowa, where the local architecture pretty much eliminates that option completely.

  “So what do the police think happened?” Dick Teig called out.

  “They’re not clear about what happened,” Duncan replied. “And they’re frustrated that by the time they arrived on the scene yesterday, people who might have been potential witnesses had already descended the stairs and exited the cathedral. They did round up some stragglers in the stairwell to question them, but from all accounts, no one saw much of anything.”

  “I’d like to say a few words if I may,” Gabriel Fox said, rising from his seat in the front. He turned, facing the rear of the bus. “Jeannette and I had an opportunity to chat at length yesterday while we were in the queue at the cathedral.”

  Not to mention while he was wrapped around her outside the baptistry.

  “For those of you who didn’t know her, I would characterize her as a confident, well-spoken woman with an insatiable appetite for good food and an award-winning talent for writing about it. Her reviews appeared in the cuisine section of national newspapers and travel magazines, and if she said the lobster thermidor at the Mount Washington Hotel was unsurpassed for flavor and texture, you knew to order it. Her awards included” — he slid his hand into his pants pocket — “just a minute. She gave me a list. Let’s see. The Julia Childs Food Review Award. Yankee Magazine Award for Culinary Excellence. The Washington Post’s Reviewers Choice Award. The Vermont Romance Writers Sexiest Cowboy Award.”

  She’d been writing about a cowboy? Hmm. I guess Gillian Jones couldn’t expect to corner the cowboy market forever.

  “The New England Romance Authors Spiciest Love Scene Award. The list goes on and on.” Gabriel returned the paper to his pocket. “Her passion for critiquing food was surpassed only by her passion for hiking dangerous mountain trails, spelunking, and wanting to write the quintessential love story. Unfortunately, we’ll never know how popular she might have become as a romance author. Her tragic death touches us all, so would you please join me in a moment of silence to commemorate the loss of fellow traveler and aspiring romance writer, Jeannette Bowles.”

  When the moment was up, Duncan nodded thanks to Gabriel before addressing us again. “Ms. Bowles was single and had no immediate family. We’re having trouble locating her contact person, so we’re in limbo until we can make the connection, which, in the long run, might not be a bad thing. The Florence police aren’t likely to release her body until they determine a cause of death, and it could take them dozens of man-hours to look over all those videotapes.”

  “What videotapes?” Fred called out from the seat across the aisle.

  “I suspect those of you who climbed to the top of the Duomo never noticed, but for insurance purposes, there are several security cameras mounted inconspicuously on the cupola. Even in Florence, Big Brother is watching. I imagine in a case like this, though, having a visual diary of the activity on the gallery will be even better than having an eyewitness.”

  “Everything that happened on the gallery is on tape?” Fred asked in a brittle voice.

  “Just like downtown London,” Duncan answered smoothly. “Or Disney World.”

  But Fred didn’t seem to find that comforting. He looked suddenly agitated. And a little gray.

  “I cautioned you yesterday about the stairs in the hotel,” Duncan continued, “and in light of this second accident, I’m going to caution you again. Please. Everyone. Be mindful of every step you take, no matter where you are, or how safe you think it is. And be especially cautious in Pisa around the Leaning Tower because it’s known as a haven for pickpockets and purse snatchers. To reiterate our schedule, when we arrive in Pisa, we’ll be meeting a local guide, who’ll conduct the tour of the buildings in the area. That should take a couple of hours. Afterward you’ll be on your own to eat lunch and shop until we head back to Florence at four. I’ll ask you all to be aware of the time and be as prompt as possible returning to the bus, which will pick us up where it drops us off, so make a note of where that is. Landmark is treating you all to dinner this evening at the elegant La Taverna del Bronzino, and our reservation is for seven-thirty sharp, so we don’t want to be late.”

  Oohs. Aahs. Titters of excitement.

  “Any questions?”

  I had plenty, but they had nothing to do with our schedule.

  A quick hour and a half later, I found myself in the city of Pisa, gaping at four marble buildings so brilliantly white, I feared staring a
t them in direct sunlight might cause permanent blindness. They sat perched on a long span of lawn as manicured as stadium grass, with the famed Leaning Tower spiraling upward to my far right, looking like a fancy grain silo knocked off kilter by a gale force wind. We were on a walkway that fronted a huge cathedral, huddled around an attractive middle-aged woman who spoke heavily accented English. “My name is Giovanna, and I be happy to be your guide today.”

  I stood on the outer fringe of the group, close enough to keep tabs on the handful of guests who’d had access to Jeannette right before she died, but far enough away so as not to be obvious. One accidental death on tour was suspicious enough, but two had raised enough red flags in my mind to cause major clutter. I’d been through this before. Twice. And I knew that anything mimicking an accident usually wasn’t. If there was death involved, it was always deliberate. In my book, there was no such thing as an accident on tour.

  “You suppose they have a restroom somewhere around here?” Jackie asked, dragging herself up behind me.

  “You could wait for the question - and - answer period and ask the guide.”

  “Nah. That’d probably start a stampede.” She shifted a cloth sack she was carrying from her hand to her shoulder.

  “What’s in the sack?” I asked.

  She flashed me a coy smile. “Just stuff.”

  “I take you tru two buildings on duh Campo dei Miracoli — duh Field of Miracles — dis morning,” Giovanna announced, indicating the expanse of lawn to our left. “Duh catedral behind me was begun in ten sixty-tree and fuses to-gayder Roman, Islamic, and Byzantine architecture. It is very particular. And like our fay-mous bell tower, it also tilts, but not so much. Duh building, it’s so much bee-ger.”

  But for her teensy problem pronouncing “th,” Giovanna showed great command of the English laguage.

  “How come the buildings are lopsided?” Dick Teig threw out.

  “The subsoil, it’s made of sand. No good for building. And duh founday-tions are shallow. So duh buildings, dey lean. Duh bell tower was begun in eleven seventy-tree, and a hundreyd years later, even before duh tird story was complete, it began to tilt sideways. Duh architects and engineers warn us for six hundreyd fifty years dat duh tower will collapse, but duh tower, it still stands, and is very suggestive. You follow me now and I give you more history of duh Torre Pendente.”