Alpine for You (15 page)

I squinted out the window, then on a whim, rubbed my hand across the glass, making a surprising clear spot. My imagined fog wasn't fog at all. It was condensation. There were so many people on the lower deck, and the ventilation was so poor, we were fogging up all the windows. Lovely. Now we couldn't see inside
or
out.

The stuffiness was so oppressive, I felt as if I was starting to smother. I needed fresh air. With the door to the companionway directly ahead of me, I slipped out of my booth and escaped to the upper deck.

Okay, so it was a little drizzly. A little misty. The air felt good on my face, and it was really quiet in the fog. Even the engine seemed muffled. And I was all alone up here. Almost. George Farkas was sitting on a bench that faced the prow. I guess he couldn't handle the stuffiness either.

"How are you doing today, George?" I called out as I headed in his direction.

He looked over his shoulder and gave me a finger wave. "I've been better," he said. "This cussed dampness is making my stump ache something fierce. Thought I'd come up here out of the crowd and unstrap my prosthesis for a spell. Didn't want to do it downstairs. Makes some people uncomfortable when you take your leg off in front of them." He'd set his prosthesis on the deck in front of him and was massaging his stump with both hands.

"Do you have anything you can take for the pain?" I asked.

"Pills are for sissies. Besides, this isn't so much a pain as it is a nuisance."

I guess I wouldn't tell him how many milligrams of painkiller I was taking for a simple toothache. "Well, I'm going to wander the deck for a while, George, but if there's anything I can do for you, you let me know."

"I sure will. That's nice of you to offer, Emily. Thanks."

I walked over to the starboard rail feeling much better about myself as an escort. Maybe I wasn't a total washout. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

Without the condensation hampering my view, I could see the vague contours of the shoreline and some private piers jutting into the water. I could only imagine how lovely the scenery would be on a day with blue sky and the sun reflecting off the water. I decided I'd have to visit Switzerland again one day. In the summer.

Somewhere in the fog I heard the muffled sound of another engine, and I turned to see a smaller cruise boat emerging from the mist on a parallel course to ours, heading in the opposite direction. Hard to believe there were
two
boats conducting scenic cruises on the lake today. I wondered what the volume of traffic was like on days when you could actually see something. Must be like rush hour in Chicago.

I waved at the other boat, but since no one was standing outside, no one waved back. Someone might have waved from belowdecks, but their windows were as fogged up with condensation as ours, so I didn't see them either. The two boats blew their horns at each other in what I figured was a gesture of greeting, then the other boat disappeared into the mist once again.

Well, that was exciting. I turned back to the rail, and after a few seconds, felt the deck tilt beneath my feet as we quartered into the other boat's wake.

BOOM. The first wave hit our prow. BOOM. We dipped into a trough and smacked into the second wave. BOOM. The deck pitched left and right. I clung to the rail for balance and hoped that everyone had remembered to take their Dramamine.

"SHIT!"

I spun around. George Farkas had hopped one-legged to the rail and was flailing his arms wildly toward the water. "My leg," he screamed. "It slid overboard!"

I rushed to his side and looked down into the lake. There was George's leg, bobbing just below the surface like a little nuclear submarine. "At least it's floating. We'll have to turn the boat around and pick it up."

"There's no time!" He ripped off his jacket. "I have to jump in after it!"

"WHAT?"

"That shoe is steel-toed. It's gonna drag my leg down like a sinker."

"Are you CRAZY? I bet you can't even swim!" What was
wrong
with these guys? Did they all have death wishes?

"Don't try to stop me, Emily. That leg is irreplaceable. It's made from the same material as the shields on the space shuttle. It's bulletproof. It's termite resistant. It can withstand heat up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit."

But the important question was, "Is it waterproof?"

"It cost twenty thousand dollars. Medicare doesn't cover it! I've gotta save it!" He thump-hopped to the nearest bench to remove his other steel-toed shoe. I shot a look into the water. He was right. His leg was starting to sink. Nuts.

I scanned the upper deck. Not a harpoon in sight. Probably not too many whale sightings on Lake Lucerne. Portable tables. A fire extinguisher. Trash cans. Ashtrays. Life preservers. I pondered the doughnut-shaped preservers strung along the rail. These were great for saving people, but they might not work so well on an artificial limb, especially if the limb wasn't attached to anything.

I peeked down into the water again. I caught a glint of metal in the tail of my eye and redirected my gaze to the rail, where I found a pole. An aluminum pole. It was as long as the device used by pool cleaners and secured by straps to the outside panels of the rail. At one end hung a mesh fishnet that was as deep as a giant's sock.
Fishnet?
Eureka!

I leaned over the rail and wrestled with the straps.

"Outta the way, Emily," George yelled as he threw his shoe aside.

I released the pole, zeroed in on the leg, and plunged the net into the water. George thump-hopped to the rail beside me.

"What are you doing? You're gonna hurt it!"

I maneuvered the pole to the left. To the right. "My grampa used to take me fishing with him up in Minnesota when I was little. Gull Lake. I wasn't thrilled about sticking the bait on the hook, but I loved using the fishnet." Bracing myself against the rail, I scooped the leg out of the water. "I got pretty good at it, too."

"You did it! You did it!"

And best of all, I'd stayed dry.

"I'm gonna give you a really good evaluation, Emily. All fives. All outstandings."

"How do you know you'll be asked to evaluate me?"

"Because I'm the one who's supposed to pass out the forms."

Using the hand-over-hand method, I raised the net higher and higher out of the water.

"Careful," coached George. "Oh crap!"

"What?"

"There's a hole in the bottom of the net. Look. The toe of my shoe is poking through. I think the whole thing's ripping!"

"There should be a net on the other side of the boat."

THUMP-HOP. THUMP-HOP. THUMP-HOP. "I found it."

"Bring it here. We'll double net." I hand-over-handed faster. And faster.

"I can't work the straps loose! Hold on. Maybe if I lean over--"

With a final grunt of exertion, I swung the net over the rail, muscling the leg onto the deck like a Pacific tuna. "Forget it, George! We snagged it!"

I heard a loud plunking sound nearby. I looked cross-deck. "George?"

No George. Where'd he go?

Unh-oh.

I ran to the rail and looked down. George's little bald head was submerged beneath the surface. Arms flailing. Body thrashing. With a burst of strength he rocketed himself upward to yell, "I can't swim!" then disappeared beneath the waters of Lake Lucerne.

Of course he couldn't swim.

As I hurdled the rail, I heard footsteps behind me and a man shout, "Don't jump! Maybe vee can talk about it!"

SPLAAAAT!

S
quish. Squish. Squish.

George was transported by ambulance to a local hospital after his near drowning. "For observation," the medics said. The tour bus had dropped everyone else off downtown to shop, but I had walked back to the hotel and could feel my socks squishing inside my shoes as I approached the front desk. "I'd like the key to room 2248, please."

The clerk looked at me with the same horror Vera Miles had shown in
Psycho
when the chair spun around to reveal the decayed remains of Norman Bates's mother. In my head, I could hear the frenetic sound of Bernard Hermann's screeching violins. But unlike Vera Miles, the desk clerk didn't scream. She merely slanted one of her perfectly penciled eyebrows into a disapproving arch and stared.

Water trickled from the hem of my slacks and puddled onto the floor. Water beaded the ends of my hair and dripped into my eyes. I swiped at my face with my hand. "I took a dip in the lake."

"At this time of year?"

"Very bracing. You should try it. Have you found my suitcase yet?"

"Ah. The guest with the missing suitcase. Ms. Andrew, isn't it? Unfortunately, we're still unable to locate it. But you did give us until five o'clock to produce it, and right now it's only two. We still have three hours."

I knew I'd be sorry I'd given them that five o'clock deadline. "No suitcase." No surprise. "How long before you list it as stolen and report the theft to the police?"

"It's not stolen, Madame. There is no crime in Switzerland."

Of course there wasn't. That's why people were dropping like flies around here. "Do you at least have a key for me?"

She turned around and plucked a key from one of the cubbyholes behind her. "We were told you needed to be moved off the second floor, so we took the liberty of moving your belongings to room number 5111. I hope you don't mind."

Room 5111. If I was any farther away from the second floor, I'd be in another country.

"And please accept our regrets about this ongoing dilemma with your luggage. The staff feels so bad about your plight, we took up a collection for you." She handed me a white envelope.

They were spoiling everything. How could I be angry with them if they decided to be nice to me? I peeked inside the envelope.

"It's not much," the clerk apologized. "But it's out of our own pockets."

I poked my finger at the lone banknote and collection of coins inside. "This is very kind of you. I don't know what to say." I tried to decipher the numbers on the coins.

"It's twenty-two Swiss francs. In American dollars that would be thirteen dollars and fifty-four cents." She graced me with a genuinely sympathetic look. "Perhaps you could use it to help defray the cost of surgery on your nose."

I fingered the bridge of my nose to find it swollen like a walnut. Great. I could hardly wait to see what color it was. But $13.54 might almost be enough to buy my nephew a new Swatch cow watch to replace the one I ruined when I rescued George. And I swore, that would be my
last
purchase of a timepiece in Switzerland. I wasn't going to strap on another wristwatch until I reached the landlocked bliss of Iowa once again. I could be dense at times, but I knew when to throw in the towel.

Room 5111 was in another wing of the hotel, down a labyrinth of long corridors and angled into a maze of shorter ones. I opened the door, ready to switch on the overhead, but there was no need. The drapes were pulled back from a bank of French doors, allowing daylight to fill the room. I stood with my mouth hanging open for a full minute.

Nana's suitcase lay on a luggage rack at the foot of a canopy bed that was as big as a football field. Bernice's cuckoos and everyone else's sacks formed a tidy mound in the far corner of the room, on a carpet that was thick as attic insulation. The boudoir chairs were covered in peach taffeta and arranged in conversational groupings around the room. The fireplace was carved from marble with a gargantuan rococo mirror hanging over the mantel. There were two armoires, an antique desk, a crystal chandelier, and beyond the French doors, I could see the intricate wrought iron railing of the balcony. If the fog lifted, I might even be able to see across the street.

Yes! And I felt no guilt at all about the tactics we'd employed to effect the upgrade. If the Grand Palais Hotel was too cheap to buy a state-of-the-art security system for their computer, they deserved to be hacked into by seventy-eight-year-old grandmothers.

I ran into the bathroom, shedding clothes as I went. Huge Jacuzzi bath. Glass-enclosed shower. Plush towels on a heated rack. Vanity. Lighted makeup mirror. Blow-dryer. Little basket of scented soaps, shampoos, and body washes. Now
this
was my idea of a deluxe room in a four-star hotel. I spun around in a circle with my arms thrown wide. Yes! I didn't care what kind of mayhem went on in the room next door tonight, I was
staying
in this room. They'd need the Swiss guard to get me out of here. I glanced toward the mirror.

"EHHH!" My mouth dropped to my chest. That couldn't be my nose.

I rushed closer to see my reflection. Oh my God. It
was
my nose. Just my luck the deckhand had appeared when he did. In an attempt to save me, he'd thrown the life preserver from hell at me. And he'd been dead on. Clonked me right across the bridge of my nose.

I dimmed the light over the sink, but it didn't change anything. My nose was blue. I looked like I had a Smurf wedged between my eyes. I'd done a really good deed today. Was this fair that I should end up with a blue nose?

An hour later, shampooed, showered, and blow-dried, with a half pound of concealer on my nose, I slipped into one of Nana's plain black skirts that looked okay other than the fact that it was four inches too big at the waist. Since she hadn't packed suspenders, I rolled up the waistband and hid the lump it made beneath a white sweatshirt with a huge photo of a thirty-pound muskie lying on a bed of ice stamped on the front. I guess I was lucky Nana had decided to take a picture of the muskie instead of a picture of Grampa at the wake. Sporting a deceased relative on my chest was even less appealing than sporting a dead fish.

I power-walked along the promenade by the lake, past the casino and the Wilhelm Tell Restaurant, across the
Schweizerhofquai,
and along the
Rathausquai
by the River Reuss. My hair was starting to frizz in the drizzle, but I figured I'd wear it up tonight and plaster it with the extrahold hair spray Nana had bought on Mount Pilatus. I entered the sparkling glass doors of an upscale shop named Spengler, found women's wear on the directory, and took the elevator straight up.

The little black dress was
in
in Lucerne. The salesclerk showed me what was available in my size, and without noting the prices, I gathered up the sexiest of the lot and scurried to the fitting room. I'd determined the first one wasn't skimpy enough and was zipping myself into the second when I heard familiar voices in the room beside me.

"Do you think she suspects anything?" asked Helen Teig.

"How could she?" replied Grace Stolee. "She doesn't know any of the details."

"But I'm worried she might put two and two together. And then the jig would be up. Is that dress your size, Grace? It looks too small for you."

"I've lost weight since I've been on this trip. I'm sure it'll fit."

I stood very still, wondering who "she" was and what "she" wasn't supposed to suspect.

"Will it go just the same as we planned for Andy?" asked Helen.

"With one exception," said Grace in a sinister voice. "After last night, I think we should plan a little something extra for Emily. Something...special."

I sucked my breath in so hard, I sounded like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. I wanted to yell out, "Emily who?" But since I was the only Emily on the trip, it was fairly obvious "Emily who." Oh my God. I'd been right. I was next on the "To Kill" list!

"Help me with this zipper, Helen. I think it's stuck."

"It is. I can't get it past this roll of fat at your waist."

"That's not fat. I'm retaining water."

I could almost see Helen rolling her eyes. "My niece said that used to be Andy's favorite line. He swore he wasn't fat. He was just retaining water."

Retaining water. Right. Andy Simon had been short and stout. Just like the Little Teapot.

"How
is
your niece?" asked Grace. "Is she on the mend?"

"With the help of Prozac and therapy. It's terrible the effect a man can have on a woman. Poor girl didn't realize Andy Simon wasn't worth trying to kill herself over. But he got his, didn't he? If I'd had my way, though, he'd have suffered a lot more before he died."

I shivered at Helen's words. Was this an admission of guilt or just wishful thinking? Oh, geesch. What I wouldn't give for a tape recorder right now.

"So how come you went along with our idea?" asked Grace. "You should have told us how you felt. Maybe we could have altered our plans a little."

"Everyone was so enthusiastic. Besides, you're the one who'd been hurt the most, so if you still wanted to do it, I didn't want to be the fly in the ointment. And I liked Lucille's plan. She has a real knack for these things."

Lucille? Was Lucille the gang leader? It
was
like
Murder on the Orient Express.
Everyone had a hand in killing him. I sucked in my breath again.

"Did you hear something?" asked Helen.

"Sounded like a faulty vacuum cleaner," said Grace.

I slithered out of the dress I was trying on and reached for Nana's skirt. I needed to make a fast getaway before I was discovered.

"Funny thing about Lucille," Grace continued. "I didn't think she had it in her to mastermind something like this. She really surprised me."

Yeah. It was freaking amazing what a woman with no lips was capable of doing.

"So what do you think of this dress?" Grace asked.

"It's a smidgen tight, but I think it's you. Buy it."

I grabbed all the little black dresses and dashed to the register.

"Did you find anything to your liking, Madame?"

I flipped through the dresses and selected one that looked good. "I'll take this one."

"An excellent choice. And may I help you find shoes, hosiery, an evening bag, or other accessories to complement your selection?"

I slapped my VISA card onto the counter. "Just the dress. And could you speed it up. I'm in a hurry."

"Very good. Were you aware your nose is blue?"

"I missed you at supper," Nana called out to me from the bedroom. "Where did you eat?"

It was 8:45
P.M
. and I was in the bathroom, putting the finishing touches on my makeup before my date with Etienne. "I found a little tearoom up the street from Bucherer."

"We had mushy vegetables and some kinda meat in white sauce again. What'd you have?"

"Four different kinds of luscious pastry." If I was going to get whacked, I didn't want my last meal to consist of nondescript meat in white sauce. I wanted to go out the American way--crazed out of my mind on carbs.

"I wish I'd gone with you. I could use some luscious pastry. My triglycerides could use a boost."

I checked myself out in the vanity mirror one last time, then made a sweeping entrance into the bedroom. "Ta da!"

"Well, would you look at you," said Nana. "Just like Loretta Young. She used to make them grand entrances through fancy double doors on her TV program years ago. Just once I was wishin' she'd get her train caught between the doors so's I could see the surprise on her face, but all the times I watched, it never happened. It was my biggest disappointment of the fifties. But now
your
dress. There's not enough of it to get caught in the door. Turn around. Lemme see the whole thing."

I spun around on one black stiletto heel and kicked up my other foot in an ingenue pose. Luckily, the dress I'd selected fit like a latex glove. The neckline was low enough to show cleavage. The hemline high enough to show lots of leg. And in between, it was all sexy black shimmer. I'd bought strappy heels, black hose, and pinned my hair up into a French twist with a few wispy corkscrew curls tickling my neck. "I'm a knockout, right?" I asked Nana.

"Yup. A real knockout. Is your nose blue?"

"Unhhhh!" I ran to the mirror. "But I bought foundation. I bought more concealer. How can it still be blue?"

"It'll probably be dark where you're goin' tonight. Maybe your young man won't notice."

"But what if he does?"

"Then tell him the truth."

"The truth?" Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. Nana always had the most original ideas.

"You shouldn't be ashamed a your nose, Emily. You should be proud of it. You done a real brave thing today, and George is real appreciative. I'm sure he'll do something special for you to show his appreciation when he's released from the hospital."

Yeah. Maybe he could save me from the death squad that was out to get me.

"Are you plannin' to bring your young man back to the room with you tonight? If you are, I could make myself scarce and go visit Bernice."

Bernice. Unh. I sighed deeply. "About Bernice, Nana, how much do you really know about her?"

"She's the undefeated champ a the five-yard dash in the Senior Olympics. She's lived in Windsor City all her life. Loves to gossip. Don't have much of a sense a humor. She's treasurer a the Legion a Mary, but I'm not sure why 'cause her math's not real good. We keep comin' up short. I think we need to buy her a calculator. She was widowed real young. Would like to have some plastic surgery but can't afford it. I think she preferred the days when she modeled for that magazine. She still has old issues lyin' all over her house. They're the first thing you see when you visit her. She don't much like havin' a dowager's hump and wrinkles. She'd rather look like you, or maybe blond, like that Angowski woman. Why are you lookin' like that, dear? You look like you just seen a ghost."

Oh. My. God. Could Bernice have pushed Shirley off the cliff out of jealousy? Was she so bitter about getting old that she'd resorted to killing women who were younger and prettier? How twisted was that? "Nana, you may not want to hear this, but I think Bernice may somehow be involved with the deaths."