Alpine for You Page 9

  I shook my head. “I can’t afford to be in a pool anyway. I have to buy a new watch.”

  “You just bought a new watch. Don’t it keep good time?”

  I coaxed my sleeve up my arm to regard my watch face. The hands had stopped at 10:13. “It’ll give me great time twice a day, but when it’s not ten-thirteen, I’m going to have a problem.”

  When the elevator stopped, I pushed open the door and escorted Nana into the hall. We struck out along a corridor to our right, the motion sensors causing overhead lights to blink on as we passed, and followed a maze of hallways until we reached the rooms in the 4620s. “It’s right up ahead,” said Nana. “That’s my suitcase outside the door there.”

  Yup. There was Nana’s suitcase.

  “Where’s your suitcase, Emily?”

  Obviously not in the hall. I slid the room key into the slot, turned the knob and…CLICK. Okay. So I wasn’t a fast study. But I was trainable.

  The room was dark as a cave. “Hit the light, dear. I can’t see a thing.”

  I fumbled for the switch on the wall and squinted when light diffused throughout the room.

  “Well, would you look at that,” said Nana. I suspected she was referring to the fact that this room was exactly like the other room, with one exception.

  There were no windows.

  And from what I could see in a quick visual scan, no luggage either. Delightful. I wheeled Nana’s suitcase into the room and picked up the phone.

  “Front desk,” said the woman on the other end.

  “This is Emily Andrew in 4624. We’re in the wrong room again.”

  A pause. “What room are you supposed to be in?”

  “A standard room.”

  Computer keys clicking. “Room 4624 is a standard room.”

  “N-no, no. I want the standard room with the four-poster bed, the little balcony, and the Jacuzzi.”

  “There are no standard rooms with those features. What you’re describing is a prestige suite.”

  “Okay. I’ll take one of those.”

  “There’s a notation in our computer from your tour leader clearly specifying that you be assigned a standard room. If you wish to make a change, you’ll need to contact him to change the request in the computer. Is there anything else, Madame?”

  A slight pain started throbbing between my eyes. “Yes, there’s something else. You were supposed to deliver two pieces of luggage to this room. Only one arrived.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “That’s impossible. One moment please.” Whispering. Mumbling. “The bellman assures me he delivered two pieces of luggage to your new room, Ms. Andrew.”

  “He might have delivered two, but one is missing. Mine. It’s a twenty-six-inch tapestried pullman on wheels.”

  “We’ll look into it and get back to you immediately.”

  I hung up the phone and proceeded to massage my temples. “Is international travel always this difficult?”

  “I never been outside the country before, dear, but it don’t seem too difficult on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Should I unpack?”

  “You might as well. We can’t go anywhere until Wally changes a notation in the computer.”

  Nana looked apprehensive. “I hope they find your suitcase soon. I’m gonna feel a whole lot better about defendin’ myself when I can get my hands on that hair spray a yours.”

  I thought about calling Inspector Miceli to tell him my suspicions about Helen, but decided to hold off until I gathered more evidence. Bernice would probably offer Helen up on a platter during police questioning anyway, so Helen would be scrutinized at some point in time. However, if I was patient and said nothing, I’d be spared looking like a complete lunatic in front of Inspector Miceli if everyone, including me, was wrong.

  I’d just unlocked Nana’s suitcase when I heard footsteps in the hall, followed by an insistent KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. I checked the peephole and threw open the door. I seized Wally’s arm and yanked him into the room. “How could you think we’d want a room without windows?”

  “Hey, you asked for a standard room. That’s what I got you.”

  “You couldn’t have guessed I was a little confused about the room rating system? You couldn’t have guessed I was asking for an up grade instead of a down grade?”

  “Go ahead. Blame me. You women are all alike. You think every man has the ability to read your minds.”

  My ex-husband used to accuse me of the same thing. He was right, of course. All women expect men to be mind readers. I figured it was biological. “Well, you might have asked!”

  “And my mother wonders why I’ve never married.”

  “You need to change the room request you made in the computer.”

  “Sure. Why not? Are you going to tell me what kind of room you want this time, or am I supposed to guess?”

  “We want a room like the Rassmusons and Teigs.”

  Wally shook his head. “They’re in prestige suites. They requested standards, but their reservation got lost in some computer glitch, so the hotel was forced to give them upgrades. Moving to a prestige suite will cost you.”

  “That’s all right,” Nana piped up. “I’m rich.”

  He shrugged. “It’s your dime.” He handed me a large manila envelope. “These are the medical forms I mentioned earlier. All you Windsor City people filled them out, so you know what I’m talking about.”

  The bank had asked us to write down any medical conditions we had, what prescription and nonprescription drugs we were taking with us, and our primary physician’s name, in case of medical emergencies.

  “I hope I don’t have to tell you these forms are very sensitive and should be held in the strictest confidence. If any of this information gets into the wrong hands, we could be looking at major litigation.”

  I’d written on my form that I have flat feet and was packing bottles of Excedrin and Advil. It was comforting to know that if word leaked out, I could sue the hell out of Triangle Tours. “What am I supposed to do with the forms after the trip is over?”

  “Return the envelope to Mr. Erickson at the bank, and he’ll see that they’re destroyed. And speaking of Mr. Erickson, I just got off the phone with him. Apparently, when he went over to his sister’s house to tell her about Andy, she wasn’t home, so he tried her cell phone. You’ll never guess where she was when she answered.”

  There was only one place I knew would be considered a surprise if Louise Simon were found there. “Wal-Mart?”

  “Vancouver. She was about to board a cruise ship for Alaska.”

  “Vancouver? How did she get to Vancouver? She’s afraid to fly. That’s why she didn’t come to Switzerland.”

  “She didn’t come to Switzerland because she had plans to take a cruise with another man while Andy was away.”

  “No,” said Nana.

  “Yes,” said Wally, “and furthermore, when Mr. Erickson told her about Andy’s death, she said she wasn’t going to fly halfway around the world to baby-sit a corpse. She said Andy might have ruined her life, but he wasn’t going to ruin her vacation.”

  When a man spends his entire married life cheating on his wife, I guess he can’t expect special treatment when he drops dead. “So what’s going to happen now?”

  “Mr. Erickson will make all the arrangements to have Andy’s body flown back to the States, and Louise won’t have to file for divorce after all.”

  “She was planning to divorce Andy?”

  “That’s what she told her brother. She said, and I quote, ‘I’m through bankrolling this theater bullshit just so he can boink a bevy of buxom bimbos, then lie his buns off about it.’”

  I was impressed with Louise’s use of alliteration, especially given her pronounced overbite. But the revelation that she was ticked off about Andy’s philandering caused a lightbulb to go on over my head. If she’d decided she no longer wanted to be married to him, would she entertain a way to get rid of him that would spare her having to fork
over half her assets and putting herself through an embarrassing public divorce? Would she actually resort to murder? But how? She was an ocean away, which seemed like a pretty good alibi to me. The only way she could have caused his murder was if she’d gotten to him before he went away, or arranged for someone else to do the deed for her. Could she have been the one to tamper with his asthma medication? Or could she have hired someone who had a score to settle with him to pop him for her? Someone on the tour? Someone like…

  Helen Teig? Oh. My. God. Had Louise and Helen joined forces in some kind of twisted triangle to give Andy his due? Did they both have a hand in killing him, like in Agatha Christie’s tale of murder on the Orient Express? I hadn’t read the book, but I’d seen the movie a really long time ago.

  “I would have brought you the medications the bank gave Andy to take along with him, but the police confiscated all the drugs in his room. So if someone comes to you with a headache now, they’re on their own, unless you brought extra aspirin and cold medication along with you. And I guess you’d know enough not to give appetite suppressants to someone on heart medication.”

  Appetite suppressants? Right. Like someone would actually need a pill to help them resist eating the food in this place. “I’ll be sure to check out the medical forms before I dispense aspirin to anyone. And there’s one more thing you need to look into. My luggage is missing.”

  Wally gave me one of those “Aw, go on” hand gestures. “They probably delivered it to someone else’s room by accident. Not to worry. It’ll show up. There’s no crime in Switzerland, so you know wherever it is, it’s safe.”

  When he’d gone, I threw the manila envelope onto my bed and returned to the task of unpacking Nana’s suitcase.

  “I wouldn’t mind takin’ a cruise to Alaska,” Nana said as she gathered up some of her toiletries. “But I saw on one of them late-night shows on the Fox Channel how a woman flushed while she was still sittin’ on the potty on one of them luxury liners, and the vacuum sucked her insides right out of her. They had a devil of a time stuffin’ everything back into the right place again. That was a pretty good night for TV. Did you catch that one, Emily?”

  BAM BAM BAM. Nana and I looked at the door, then at each other. It sounded as if someone was trying to kick our door down. “Maybe it’s the bellman with your suitcase,” Nana said.

  I peeked through the peephole then opened the door.

  Bernice. She’d kicked rather than knocked because she was hugging a dozen plastic shopping bags against her chest, all imprinted with the Bucherer name. My eyes narrowed into a suspicious squint. If I couldn’t trust that she was deaf, could I trust anything else about her? “Been on a shopping spree, have you?” I said, as she shuffled into the room.

  “Cuckoo clocks.” She paused in the middle of the floor. “Would you help me put these things down? I think they’re pretty fragile.”

  We unburdened her of her load, setting the parcels carefully on my bed. “I suppose you want me to help you to your room with your packages,” I said coolly.

  “I’m not taking them to my room. They’re staying here.”

  I nodded as if I was following her logic. “Why are they staying here?”

  “Because I don’t have room for them in my suitcase.”

  “You’re one up on me. I don’t even have a suitcase.”

  “But you’ll have access to Andy’s coffin. Won’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Here’s the bottom line, Emily. Coffin’s are pretty big, and Andy wasn’t. There’ll be a lot of empty space in that casket of his on the flight back to Windsor City, so I want you to cushion my clocks in there with him. Like bubblewrap. I figure the extra bulk will keep him nice and cozy so’s his body won’t be flopping all over the place if we run into turbulence. Louise will probably thank me. She wouldn’t want him to get all banged up for the viewing.”

  The pain between my eyes grew worse. I regarded the mound of bags on my bed. I regarded Bernice. I forced myself to remain calm. “ARE YOU NUTS?”

  She gave me a blank look, then tapped her right ear. “You need to speak up, Emily. I can’t hear you.”

  Like I was going to fall for that again. “I have no authority to transport cuckoo clocks in Andy’s coffin, Bernice. You probably need to have them shipped home.”

  She smiled that vacuous smile of hers. “I knew I could count on you, Emily.”

  “Bernice. Look at me.” I enunciated very slowly. “I. CAN’T. HELP. YOU.”

  “Pack ’em real nice now.” She headed for the door. “I paid a small fortune for those cuckoos, so I don’t want anything happening to them. We shouldn’t have any problem clearing Customs in Chicago. I bet they don’t open coffins. And when we get home, as soon’s you hear which funeral parlor Andy’s going to be waked at, you let me know and I’ll rush right down to pick ’em up. You’re a natural at this escort business, Emily. Much better than Andy would have been.”

  The door closed. Nana shook her head. “She’s tryin’ to butter you up, dear. She actually paid you a compliment. I don’t believe anyone on the planet has ever received a compliment from her before.”

  I stared at the packages on my bed again. “How can she afford to buy cuckoo clocks? I thought she was one step away from the poorhouse. How can she even afford to be on this trip?”

  “When she heard who all was signed up to go, she didn’t wanna miss out, so she pestered her son until he finally gave her the trip as a birthday present. He forked over a bunch a spendin’ money, too. But he can afford it. He owns some big company in Ames.”

  “Who was she so fired up to be traveling with?”

  “Me, for one. I don’t wanna sound snooty, dear, but I think Bernice is a little jealous ’bout my lottery winnin’s, so she needs to prove she can go anywhere I can go.”

  “She used to have money, didn’t she? When she was modeling? What happened to it?”

  Nana shrugged. “Don’t know. But she’s lucky to have a son generous enough to finance her holidays.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder if the motivating factor was generosity or temporary relief from Bernice’s nagging. I pressed my thumb to the bridge of my nose. “I need drugs. Ibuprofen. Acetaminophen. Aspirin. Anything.”

  “I never get headaches, so I didn’t bring nothin’ like that with me. I got Gas-X and Polident though. Will that help?”

  The phone rang. I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “This is the front desk. Is this Ms. Andrew?”

  “Yes, it is.” I heard bottles clink together as Nana dumped the contents of her travel bag onto the bed.

  “About your luggage…”

  “Did you find it?” From behind me the sounds of rummaging, rattling, rustling.

  “It appears your luggage may have been seriously misplaced, Madame.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Nana chirped. “Did you know Dick Stolee has sleep apnea? Says here he has to wear some kinda mask at night. I wonder what he did before he got the mask? Do you s’pose poor Grace had to stay awake all night and smack him when he stopped breathin’?”

  I motioned for Nana to quiet down so I could hear the desk clerk.

  “In the history of our hotel, we have never had to deal with this kind of incompetence. This is a most unusual circumstance, Madame.”

  “A couple people have acid reflux,” Nana mumbled. “Your grampa had that, too, but back then we called it heartburn. And would you lookit the people walkin’ around with underactive thyroids? George Farkas. Bernice. Grace Stolee. Jane Hanson. Me.”

  “So what am I supposed to do until you find my suitcase? I have no clean clothes. No toothbrush.” The enormity of the situation suddenly hit me. “No mascara!”

  “We will do our utmost to remedy the problem, Madame. Until that time, I ask you to please bear with us.”

  I hung up the phone. “My suitcase has been seriously misplaced.”

  “Someone stole it?”

  “Misp
laced it. There’s no crime in Switzerland.”

  “Here’s somebody with gout,” Nana marveled. “Is that still around? I thought they got rid a gout about the time they got rid a Limbo.”

  “You shouldn’t be reading those forms, Nana. They’re confidential.”

  “If somebody gets sick when you’re not here, Emily, someone’s gonna have to read them. Would you rather it be me or Bernice?”

  She had a point.

  “I’m sorry about your suitcase, dear, but don’t let it spoil your trip. I’ll be happy to share my things with you. What’s mine is yours.”

  I winced at the green-and-red-plaid polyester pants with the elastic waist lying in her suitcase. That’s what I was afraid of.

  Nana was out the door before I was out of the shower the next morning. When I walked into the dining room for breakfast, I saw that even though it was still early, Nana’s table was full and the Iowa contingent was here in full force. I noted only one table of Rhode Islanders. I guess Easterners had mastered the art of sleeping in better than Midwesterners.

  “Is this seat taken?” I asked as I wandered to the same table I’d occupied the night before.

  “Emily!” Shirley Angowski flashed me a welcoming smile. “Sit down. Join us. We were just discussing our trip to Mount Pilatus today.”

  The Rassmusons and Teigs nodded to me over their coffee cups. Jane Hanson waved before returning her attention to her bowl of cornflakes. I stared at Helen Teig. She obviously hadn’t had enough light to apply her makeup this morning because her eyebrows were fern green. One of the hazards of keeping your eye shadow stick and eyebrow pencil in the same cosmetic bag.

  “Is that Alfred Dunner?” asked Helen.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Where?”

  “No. Are you wearing Alfred Dunner? I have a top just like the one you have on, and it’s an Alfred Dunner.”

  There were two of these tops floating around? Bad news for the sighted world.

  “Sleeves are kinda short,” said Dick Teig. “Are they supposed to stop at your elbows?”

  Of course the sleeves were short. The top belonged to Nana. She was four-foot-ten. She had arms like a dwarf. “The hotel misplaced my suitcase, so I’m having to borrow. Nana was kind enough to lend me this Alfred Dunner creation this morning. It’s her favorite.” It was a polyester pullover in pale pink with teddy bears dressed in tutus dancing all over the front and back. WE LOVE OUR GRAMMA was embroidered in bold metallic floss across the front. My brother’s kids had given it to her, which explained why it was her favorite. And since it was her favorite, how could I refuse to wear it when she’d offered it to me? I contemplated skipping Mount Pilatus this morning to run into town to buy something without teddy bears. Something sleek, black, and sexy. But I couldn’t shirk my escort responsibilities, so I’d have to wait until later. I glanced past the velvet draperies to the darkness beyond. Maybe the sun would even be up by then.