From Bad to Wurst Read online

  His expression grew puzzled as she flipped through several screens. “Who is this woman?”

  “Me.” She primped her hair. “Prior to the introduction of my beauty treatment.”

  “Where are the photos of the bomb site?”

  “You’re looking at ’em. This is me hovering over the guy who’d been operating the heavy machinery. See how sympathetic I look? This is me hunkering down beside one of the guys in the yellow vests. I had to watch where I was stepping because the place was like a swamp and I didn’t want to ruin my shoes. This is me listening for the sound of sirens. This is me—”

  Horn muttered something under his breath and stormed back to the podium.

  “I hope you realize you’re turning your back on some very important historical documents here,” chided Bernice. “You’ve just blown your chance to immortalize the face of a former magazine model in the German press.”

  Maisie Barnes hustled through the door.

  “Are you the last one?” Horn called out as she found a chair at the back of the room.

  “One more behind me.”

  He checked his watch again. “We’ll start without the straggler.” Gripping the sides of the podium, he ranged a flinty look over the room. “Secrets. You all have them, and you believe you’ll take them to the grave with you. But that’s where you’re wrong. Do you know how much information we’re able to compile on you from public records that are available to us over the Internet? Through social media? Through Interpol, state intelligence agencies, and cooperative programs with the FBI and NSA?” He paused for effect. “We can listen to your phones. Read your text messages. Discover your deepest and best-kept secrets with little effort at all.”

  He was beginning to sound like Vincent Price in a sixties horror flick. The only thing missing was the maniacal laugh.

  “My staff has been very busy today collecting data on all of you—one of you in particular. If you thought you could hide your secret from us, you were mistaken. We know.” He made a slow visual sweep of the room. “We know all about you. So I give you a one-time opportunity now to confess your crime. I can almost guarantee that our judicial system will deal with you more reasonably if you take responsibility, here and now, for what you have done.”

  I could hear chairs throughout the room creak and rattle as people squirmed in their seats.

  Dad raised his hand rather tentatively in the air. “Would this be a good time to report a theft?”

  “That’s being taken care of,” Etienne called out. “I left our contact information with the management at Kehlsteinhaus should the instrument ever reappear.”

  “Someone stole your instrument?” Horn asked Dad.

  Dad nodded. “It wasn’t mine. It belonged to the Peterson woman who passed away. I was just borrowing it. But one minute it was there, and the next, it was gone.”

  “What type of instrument?”

  “An accordion. A real nice one too. Kinda like the one Myron—”

  “It was her!” Mom sprang to her feet and pointed a damning finger at the doorway. “She’s the one who stole it. She’s the one I saw on the terrace.”

  Hetty Munk froze on the threshold, stuck halfway between in and out. She stared at Mom, mouth gaping and eyes aghast. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you. At the Eagle’s Nest. Outside the terrace door. It’s all coming back now.”

  Hetty inched nervously into the room and shifted her gaze from Mom to Officer Horn. “I’m a little uncomfortable mentioning this, but Mrs. Andrew has been mentally incapacitated for the last two days. She doesn’t even know where she is.”

  “Germany,” Mom fired back. “My brain’s been a little off, but there’s nothing wrong with my eyes. It was you outside that door.”

  Hetty shook her head in denial. “The terrace was buried under snow, Mrs. Andrew. The temperature was freezing. Why would I go outside in those conditions?”

  “To throw Bob’s instrument case over the mountainside, that’s why.”

  The musicians let out a collective gasp.

  Hetty rolled her eyes. “That’s absurd.”

  “You destroyed Astrid’s accordion?” Wendell asked in disbelief.

  “I didn’t touch Astrid’s accordion.”

  “You and Astrid were best friends forever.” Otis’s wistful tone couldn’t disguise an undercurrent of condemnation. “How could you do something like that to the instrument she loved?”

  Hetty fisted her hand on her hip. “I don’t believe this! You’re taking the word of a crazy woman over mine?”

  “Amnesia is not classified as a mental illness,” corrected Tilly, “so I take umbrage with your use of the pejorative term crazy.”

  “What’d she say?” asked Arlin.

  “That accordion was the only thing we had left of Astrid,” snuffled Gilbert. “We could have put it on display at our gigs. We could have honored her memory by having her name engraved on a special plaque that we could attach to her silver case. We could have—”

  “Give me a break,” whined Hetty. “Astrid, Astrid, Astrid. She’s dead, all right? And fawning over her sainted accordion isn’t going to bring her back. Deal with it.”

  Wendell shot to his feet, anger darkening his features. “You’re glad she’s dead, aren’t you? You didn’t like Astrid. All these years, you…you were jealous of her. Jealous of her talent. Jealous of her personality.”

  “And her looks,” said Otis.

  “And her lingerie,” added Gilbert.

  I sat up straighter in my chair. Gilbert knew about Astrid’s lingerie? But how—

  “If I was jealous, it was all your fault,” she shouted at the three Guten Tags, stabbing her finger at each of them. “How do you think you made me feel when you’d bounce off happily with Astrid but trudge beside me like…like you were slogging through mud?”

  “It wouldn’t have hurt if you’d bought a few enticing outfits,” suggested Otis.

  “On my wages?” cried Hetty. “Are you kidding?”

  “And Astrid always served treats,” Gilbert reminisced. “Italian wine served at room temperature. Chilled specialty beer. Truffles she made herself.”

  “Café au lait mousse,” reflected Wendell, sighing. “Raspberry parfait. Orange dreamsicle.”

  “Cheese spread and crackers,” Gilbert continued. “Cheese logs at Christmas.”

  “I served you treats,” defended Hetty.

  “Yeah.” Otis pulled a face. “Peanuts.”

  “I’ll have you know that peanuts are a wonderful source of protein, dietary fiber, and omega-3 fatty acids,” she countered. “They’re much more heart healthy than artery-clogging café au lait mousse truffles.”

  Otis curled his lip with distaste. “What I meant to say was unsalted peanuts.”

  “Astrid was my Stepford wife,” mused Wendell. “When I was with her, I felt tall and…and clever and interesting.”

  “She made me feel like a superhero,” lamented Otis.

  Gilbert smiled. “She told me I performed like a V12 diesel engine—smooth camshaft, unflagging throttle response, super flexible torque, and horsepower off the chart.”

  “I might have told you the same thing if you’d ever turned your key in the ignition,” wailed Hetty. “I’m fed up with the three of you! Astrid got Superman and diesel engines. What did I get? Underdog and flat tires!”

  Uff-da. Were they talking about what I thought they were talking about?

  “Hold it.” Maisie Barnes unfolded herself from her chair and stood up, an incredulous grin on her face. “Are you telling us that you’re, what—swingers?”

  The Guten Tags looked from one to the other as if realizing, only now, that they’d aired their dirty laundry in front of the entire room. Wendell puffed out his chest and hitched up the waistband of his pants. “Yeah, we’re swingers.
So what?”

  The room exploded in a cacophony of gasps, snorts, and snickers.

  “They swing dance?” enthused Osmond. “I used to swing dance.”

  “They’re not dancers,” hooted Dick Teig. “When they swing, they’re not doing it on the floor of any grange hall.”

  “And they’re not vertical,” said Dick Stolee as he choked back his laughter. “They’re horizontal.”

  “Like yoga class poses?” asked Alice.

  “They’re not doing yoga,” Stretch translated. “They’re pulling the old switcharoo. They’re swapping partners for the purpose of—how should I word this?—engaging in intimate after-hours activities on a regular basis.”

  Nana raised her hand. “Is this a private club or can anyone join?”

  Laughter. More gasping. Schoolchild giggles.

  “Oh, grow up,” railed Wendell, jaw hardened, voice increasing in volume. “I don’t know what your problem is. Are we breaking any laws? No. Are we committing any crime? No. We’re divorced. We’re widowed. We’re not cheating on our spouses, so it’s none of your business how we spend our time after hours. News flash: single adults deserve as much TLC as you married folks, so how about you cut us some slack? You’re not the morality police. Deal with it.”

  “Oh, my stars.” Mom cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered in my direction. “He’s not talking about TLC at all, is he? He’s talking about S-E-X.”

  “The incidence of STDs in your age group has reached epidemic proportions,” Margi offered in a quick public-service announcement. “So you fellas better be taking precautions and using prophylactics.”

  “Why do they need protection?” raged Hetty. “They come to my room, they eat my peanuts, they fall asleep. What do they need protection from?”

  “Anaphylactic shock?” asked Alice.

  “I never fell asleep on Astrid,” Otis admitted in a proud voice. “Astrid knew how to entertain a fella.”

  “I never knew what she was going to do next,” Gilbert pined. “She was so full of surprises.”

  Wendell nodded agreement. “When she wore that little nylon number with the lace bodice…” He gave his lips a lusty smack.

  “The pink or the white?” asked Otis.

  “I cannot believe the time I’ve wasted on you three bozos!” shrieked Hetty. “It makes me want to spit. Did you get a thrill out of making me feel so…so unwanted? Did it make you feel manly to pander to Astrid’s every whim? Do you know how much that hurt me?”

  Otis looked unsympathetic. “It’s your own fault for not—”

  “Don’t you dare place blame on me, Otis Erickson, you…you underhanded sneak. What were you doing with Emily and Etienne when they were packing up Astrid’s belongings? You want to fess up to what you were looking for or should I take a wild guess and assume you were going out of your mind trying to find her journal?”

  Hey, I’d had that theory, too, hadn’t I? At some point in time.

  “You were looking for her journal?” barked Gilbert, bristling at Otis. “What gave you the right? Weasel! I knew you weren’t looking for any damn library book.”

  Otis’s cheeks reddened like Christmas tree lights. “I wanted a keepsake. Something to remember her by.”

  “Bull!” shouted Wendell. “You wanted to see what she’d written about you. You wanted proof in her own handwriting that she liked you best.”

  “She did like me best,” crowed Otis. “I was always her favorite. I didn’t need to read her journal to know that.”

  “Then why’d you go looking for it?” taunted Wendell.

  “I told you. I wanted a memento. Something she’d touched. Something she cherished. Something that might make me smile for the rest of my life.”

  “But you didn’t find it, did you?” needled Gilbert with no small amount of snark.

  Otis shook his head, bereft. “It wasn’t there.”

  “That’s because it was destroyed in the bomb blast,” snapped Hetty. “Isn’t that right, Emily? She was carrying it in her shoulder bag, so I guess you’ll never know which one of you she preferred, will you? I don’t know how you’ll ever survive the disappointment. Gee, my heart bleeds.”

  Emotion drained from the trio like air from inflatable yard ornaments. They stared at Hetty. They stared at each other. “It’s really gone?” asked Gilbert, looking as if he might burst into tears. He grew quiet, sullen. “I guess that explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?” Wendell asked him.

  “Why I couldn’t find it either.”

  “You went looking for it, too?” sputtered Otis. “Aww, hell, you’re the one who trashed her room, weren’t you? Geez, dude, you ever heard of restraint? You should have had more respect for her stuff. There was no need to tear up her room like that. Astrid would have been appalled.”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  Omigod. I’d been right. The room had been ransacked. I fired a look at Gilbert. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I’m sorry! I would’ve been more tidy, but I only had a small window of opportunity during the newspaper interviews, so I had, like…no time.”

  “How did you get into her room in the first place?” I demanded.

  A collective snigger rippled through the contingent of musicians.

  “We work in a lock and key factory,” said Stretch.

  “The operative word being key,” added Arlin.

  “All my employees acquire a certain expertise after a time,” Wendell spoke up. “Kind of goes with the territory.”

  “He means we’re good at picking locks,” said Maisie. “If we didn’t work for Wendell, we could all become independent locksmiths.”

  “Or professional lock picks,” offered Gilbert.

  I regarded the faces of the musicians, my gaze settling on Wendell. “Did you pick my door lock too? Did you riffle through Astrid’s suitcase looking for her journal?”

  Wendell tucked in his lips, guilt stamped all over his face. “If I’d known what Gilbert and Otis had been up to, I wouldn’t have bothered. Guess I was a little late to the party. I apologize for breaking and entering, but I swear I didn’t take anything. I just…I just wanted to savor whatever Astrid had written about me, because despite what my two friends claim, I know for a fact that I was her favorite.”

  “You were not,” grumbled Otis.

  “That’s bogus,” spat Gilbert.

  “You turkeys,” blasted Hetty. “I’m glad Astrid’s gone. And I’m glad her accordion’s gone, too. You boneheads might have robbed me of physical contact, but that accordion of hers isn’t going to gyp me out of another minute of performance time.”

  “You did throw it over the side of the mountain,” bellowed Wendell.

  “Someone had to! I did it for all of us—or did you want to spend the rest of the tour listening to solo performances from Emily’s father?”

  “Told you so!” cried Mom.

  Officer Horn put a bead on Hetty. “Did you just confess to destroying Frau Peterson’s accordion?”

  She bobbed her head. “You bet I did.”

  “In that case, I’m placing you under arrest on two counts of criminal activity. Theft and vandalism.” He produced his handcuffs as he crossed the floor and slapped them around Hetty’s wrists.

  “You can’t arrest me. I watch Law and Order. You need the owner of the accordion to press charges against me, and she can’t because she’s dead.”

  “A minor point,” noted Horn. “We’ll address it at the station.”

  Margi waved her hand over her head. “Excuse me, Officer. Can you charge her with Zola’s murder, too, so we can get out of here? Dinner’s in an hour.”

  “I didn’t kill Zola!” swore Hetty.

  “Do not move from your seats,” warned Horn, his body language threatening.

 
But the fuse had already been lit.

  Alarm began to creep through the room.

  Nana stuck her hand in the air. “Can them fellas tell us how they decided what girl got to swing with ’em on what night?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Gilbert. He removed his wallet from his pants pocket. “Our company keys.” He waved a key like the one Wendell had shown me in the air. “All employees at Newton get a key with their name engraved on the back. So after our band finished a gig that called for an overnight stay, us guys would toss our keys into a hat and the girls would pull out the two lucky winners.”

  “Astrid picked winners,” sniped Hetty. “My winners always turned out to be losers.”

  “You s’pose that system would work just as well if the names was on sticky notes?” asked Nana.

  I bowed my head and covered my eyes. Oh, God.

  “Say, fellas.” Bernice’s voice assumed a breathiness that made it sound less scratchy and more seductive. “Now that you’re short two playmates, will you be accepting applications for replacement models?”

  “Fifty-seven minutes until dinner,” alerted Dick Stolee.

  Horn narrowed his gaze as he probed the anxious faces before him. “I am warning you to remain seated.”

  “Is this like a time-out?” asked Lucille. “I always made my kids do time-outs on chairs in the kitchen.”

  “Do we have to sit here until every one of us tells you a secret?” questioned George.

  “There is only one secret I’m interested in hearing,” said Horn, “and that is which one of you killed Frau Czarnecki. When that secret is revealed, you’ll be dismissed.”

  “So it is a time-out,” groaned Lucille.

  “Does anyone remember that old quiz show I’ve Got a Secret?” asked Tilly.

  “I loved that show,” said Nana. “But I don’t recall none of them contestants ever admittin’ they whacked someone.”

  “How big a secret does it have to be?” asked Alice. “Can it be a small secret like a woman’s dermatologist talks her into having a Botox treatment at her last appointment? Or does it have to be something bigger like, say, the same hypothetical woman throws her old DVD player out in the regular trash rather than pay the fee to have it recycled?”