Death of a Second Wife (A Dotsy Lamb Travel Mystery) (16 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with?”

“Because I didn’t want my father to know I was in LaMotte, and I felt like I had to tell you the same story I told him. I didn’t think it would make any difference—at the time.”

“Now it does.”

“Right.” Brian told the story of his meeting at the Black Sheep with the man who had been checking into the Merz family businesses. Words flew from his mouth faster and faster as he talked about Stephanie’s role in Lamb’s Farm Equipment, her stake in MWU, the Merz family’s import/export business, and Chet’s ostrich-like refusal to see the problem.

Kronenberg stopped him with an upraised hand a couple of times, letting Sergeant Seifert catch up in his notes. “And this meeting took place in the Black Sheep Bar. Now you’re going to tell me you just happened to run into your father there.”

Brian’s face reddened. “Well, yes. I did. But I couldn’t let Dad see me, so I got out of there as fast as I could.”

“What a coincidence
. You were actually there, and saw your father where he said he was, on the evening for which he needs a witness to his whereabouts.” Kronenberg slapped his open palm on the desktop. “I don’t believe in coincidences!”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“You understand, Mr. Lamb, that I’ll need confirmation of your story. What was the name of this gentleman you met in the Black Sheep?”

“I don’t feel comfortable tel
ling you his name, because—”

Kronenberg withered him with a stare.

“But, of course, you need the name. I understand. Of course.” Brian threw up two hefty hands, protectively. “He’s going to be furious when you call him. I promised the guy nothing he told me would go any further and I wouldn’t involve his name in anything that came up later. He was probably thinking about a possible lawsuit. But not murder!”

“His name, please.”

Brian cleared his throat and croaked, “Francois Bolduc. Lives in Zurich,” then pulled out his cell phone and dictated the number.

“Can anyone verify that you really went to the hotel after you left the bar?”

“Talk to the concierge. A man was on duty that night. I asked him about getting a taxi in the morning.”

“You’ve talked this over with your father?”

“No. He knows nothing about this.”

“What about Juergen Merz?”

“I haven’t talked to him, either. I’m not looking forward to him finding out I’ve had a spy looking into his business affairs.”

“Have you any reason to think the murders of Stephanie and Gisele were related to these business problems?”

“I have no idea why either of them was killed.”

Kronenberg glared at him.

“No idea at all.”

Seventeen

I felt as if I should tiptoe around the house and peek into each room before entering, the eerie calm a paper-thin blanket over the tumult beneath the surface. Lettie and I had talked until two a.m. after I came in from star-gazing with Juergen. It had taken Juergen and me quite a while to get rid of Babs Toomey, determined as she was to out-last me and have Juergen to herself. Under the Alpine stars. How romantic. Every time I tried to leave, he’d grab me by the collar and insist I wait until he located one more nebula, one more star cluster, in his telescope. I could tell he hadn’t finished all he wanted to tell me about Gisele, but he finally gave up, packed up his equipment, and handed Babs something heavy to carry back.

Patrick moved his things upstairs to the room beside Lettie and me, the one Babs and Erin had vacated. Lettie told me Patrick and Erin had retreated to that room, closed the door, and talked for more than three hours, emerging occasionally to replenish the contents of their glasses. Coke, she thought.

I carried my morning coffee to the living room and found Juergen sitting in his favorite chair, the big leather one with the butt-sprung seat. His face now drawn and haggard, he looked years older than the energetic man who picked me up from the taxi four days ago. The laptop on his knees wobbled as he typed an email message to someone, hit “send,” and picked up the cell phone chirping on the arm of his chair.

I slipped out the sliding glass door to the deck, respecting his privacy. To the south, I saw Chet sitting on a rock near the edge of the precipice that marked the limit of Chateau Merz’s lawn, and from where I stood it looked as if one step forward would send him over the edge. I caught my breath. His silhouette sloped from his head to his elbows as if he had no shoulders left. Where was Brian? Still with Kronenberg in the van? Spilling his guts? I wished I were a fly on the wall inside that van.

Stepping back inside, I pulled the door shut behind me.

Juergen closed his laptop, set it on the ottoman in place of his feet, and scrubbed his face with both hands. “I have to go to Zurich. They’ve taken my father to the hospital.”

“What’s wrong?”

“They don’t know yet.” He stood, his gaze swerving to the windows. His eyes teared up. “What next? My God, what next?”

“How will you get there?”

“I left a car at a garage in LaMotte.”

I wondered how many cars he had. I wondered if he had a plane and whether he ever flew into the landing strip I’d discovered.

“I must go and talk to Kronenberg,” he said, and then he shocked me. “Would you like to come with me to Zurich?”

I’m sure I stammered a bit before I answered, “I’d like to, but I really need to hang around here. I haven’t talked to Patrick since . . . since yesterday. And we do need to talk.”

“Of course. I didn’t think.” Juergen turned his back to me and stepped closer to the windows. “I’ll probably be back late tonight or early tomorrow. I’ll call the house here and check on things periodically.” He slid a door open and stepped through to the deck, then turned back to me. “Take care, Dotsy—keep your eyes and ears open.”

* * *
* *

From my bedroom window, I watched Brian slog across the meadow from the van to the house. A minute or so later, Juergen made the reverse trip. I watched for perhaps ten minutes, then saw him leave the van
, taking the path north of the house that led eastward to the elevator hut. Meanwhile, Lettie came in and flopped onto her bed.

“Juergen’s father has been taken to the hospital,” I told her. “He’s going to Zurich to see him.”

“I assume he cleared it with Detective Kronenberg.”

“Do you know what Juergen just asked me?
” I turned from the window and looked at her. “He asked me to ride along with him to Zurich.”

“Why? I mean, was it like a come-on or more like
so we can talk?”

“I’m not sure. If it was a come-on, I’m flattered. He’s probably ten years younger than
I am.”

“Have you called Marco yet?”

I had forgotten about calling Marco. When we were at the Black Sheep last night, Lettie and I had decided the smartest way to start making sense of my tangle of observations was to call Marco, the policeman. “I’ll do it now.”

I grabbed my cell phone and headed for the deck. Out there, I’d found, I could get a stronger signal. Passing through the living room, I noticed Juergen’s laptop still sitting on the ottoman. I picked it up. Its cover was closed, but it was warm on the bottom.

“Juergen left this thing turned on and now he’s gone to Zurich,” I said to Lettie, who had followed me down the stairs. “The battery will go dead before he comes back.”

“Do you know how to turn it off?”

I opened the cover and found the screen still lit, his email inbox displayed. “He forgot to log out of his mail, too.”

We weren’t really snooping, I reasoned. We were doing him a favor. Lettie shouldered up to me and we scanned his incoming messages. Most of the senders and subjects were in German, but a few were in English. A couple of the names sounded Russian. Lettie pointed to one with a
subject line that read, “Done.”

“Click on that one, Dotsy. Apparently it’s in English. Let’s see what it’s about.”

“No way. You see the little bullet on the left side? That means Juergen hasn’t read it yet. If we click on it, the little bullet will go away and Juergen will know someone read it before he did.”

“Whatever.”

Lettie knows I hate that word. It’s her way of saying, “Whatever.” The last three incoming messages, all unread, came from a Kamilla Duerr. Two of those had arrived within the last ten minutes. I shut down the computer and took it to Juergen’s little office on the stairwell landing behind the living room.

* * *
* *

Marco answered on the third ring with,
“Pronto,”
an Italian greeting that always makes me feel I should hurry up. “What time is the wedding?” he asked. “Are you getting dressed now?”

“There
is
no wedding. It’s been called off.” I explained and could almost hear Marco slapping himself on the forehead when I told him Erin might already be married.

“Stai mentendo!”
he said. “Tell me you are lying!” He asked how Patrick was taking it, and I had to confess my son and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk yet. “So what are you waiting for? Come to Florence! We are having a festival and I miss you!”

“I can’t. The Swiss police have my passport and I can’t leave the country. I’m afraid Chet’s wife and the house cook have been murdered. We’re all suspects.” This prompted a torrent of Italian from the other end. When Marco’s verbal monsoon abated, I said, “I need your help.”

“I cannot help you. I told you, I cannot leave Florence until the festival is over.”

“I don’t mean
come here,
I mean
listen
. Several things have happened that I can make no sense of, and I want to pick the brain of a man who knows all about international crime and Italian shoes and spies—and Johannesburg.”

Marco loves flattery. He laughed in that hearty way he has, then listened while I poured out my crazy laundry list of unexplained observations. He said, “Johannesburg is in South Africa, of course, where they mine gold, silver, and diamonds. Crime in South Africa is something you do not want to get mixed up in. It is horrible. The conditions in the mines are inhuman. As for your spies in gliders, you can find out who is doing this by simply asking. Go to the place—the landing strip—and ask them who flew on a certain day. It is not privileged information.”

“And Marco? Somehow, Russian names—the Ukraine—there may be . . . oh, I don’t know what I mean.”

“Russian, did you say?” He paused. “That rings a bell in my head. Something.”

“What?”

“I do not know. Let me think about it. I will call you back.” He paused. “What do you need to know about the red shoes?”

I laughed. “Nothing. If I get a chance I’ll take a picture of them and you can find out who made them. Maybe they keep a list of fools who pay that kind of money for a pair of shoes.” I paused, and then added, “I miss you, Marco.”

“I miss you, too.”

* * * * *

I wore a silly smile for an hour after that call. Patrick found me in the kitchen and consented to let me make him a sandwich. We ate at the butcher-block table in the middle of the room.

“Where have you been all morning?” I asked.

“I went down to LaMotte and talked to Father Etienne.”

I felt a little jab. He’d confided in Father Etienne rather than me, his own mother. I tucked that hurt away and said, “Did it help?”

“Sort of. He’s hard to understand. His English is not good, but mostly he just listened.”

Patrick tamped wayward breadcrumbs with his middle finger. “He asked me how I could have been so stupid—he didn’t say stupid, he said naïve or something—means the same thing. He also told me I owe you a big one. A big thank you. If you hadn’t picked up on that phone number and followed through on your hunch, I might be getting married,” he looked at his watch, “in about one hour from now.” He put down his sandwich and reached across the table. Laid his hands on mine. “Thanks, Mom.”

“I wouldn’t say it was a hunch. More like a loose thread. Besides, you were going to call it off anyway, weren’t you?”

He helped me load the dishwasher, pausing at one point to slip his arm around my waist and kiss the top of my head. I knew he had more to say, but our kitchen chores were done. “I need to go back to that landing strip, Patrick. Will you go with me?”

“What for?”

“I’ve seen that glider again. The one we saw up there. It’s flying over this house oftener than you’d expect if it’s only for fun. I want to know who’s doing it, and Marco told me all I have to do is go and ask them.”

“Another hunch? Hey, what’s up? Are you and Kronenberg in a race to see who can solve these murders first?”

“Never mind. Humor me. A walk will do us both good.”

* * *
* *

Before we could leave the house I had to shake Chet off. He wanted to come with us
, but I knew that would kill the conversation I wanted to have with Patrick. “Don’t leave me here with Babs Toomey,” Chet pleaded.

I laughed. Babs was really casting her net wide. I reminded him that Lettie was upstairs and he could, if need be, hide behind her skirts.