CHAPTER 8
C
orsica would be a two-day stop. The chance to actually unpack had put everyone in a more relaxed mood, and allowed them to focus on things other than Daryl and his incessant travels. At dinner on the first night, Amy promised that nothing game related would occur before 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. No surprises. After that, they could expect the same unexpected chases and red herrings, secure only in the knowledge that whatever happened, they would be spending a second night at the Bellevue Grande Hotel. By the time dessert arrived, everyone had made plans, some for a morning on the beach, some for a relaxed brunch. No one suggested driving along the winding, rugged roads. They would be getting plenty of that when the game resumed tomorrow at two.
“Amy. Yoo-hoo, Amy.” The female voice carried well on the evening air.
The sound of someone calling her name had long ago ceased being pleasant. Amy continued down the long wooden stairs from the cantilevered hotel to the beach. She tuned out the voice and concentrated on the soft rush of surf on sand and breathing in the distinctive perfume of Corsica. The sweetly scented mixture of myrtle, lavender, and a host of other wild shrubs was unique to this island, an ever-present fragrance. Napoleon once declared, “I would recognize Corsica with my eyes closed.”
“Amy!” It was no longer avoidable. She waited until reaching the sand, then slapped on a welcoming smile and turned.
Georgina Davis, sandals flapping against the wooden steps, was hurrying down to catch her. “I kept calling,” she panted. “You were so deep in thought.”
Amy began to stroll along the beach. Georgina fell in beside her. Neither one spoke, which gave the moment a strange feeling of importance. For a while they trudged side by side, the dying froth nipping at their feet. Back at the hotel on the cliff, a Portuguese fado played on the speakers, a lament of melody and voice drifting down from the terrace.
“All those Napoleon clues today. And then Corsica?” Georgina wasn't comfortable with too much silence. “Daryl has a Napoleon complex.” She paused for a reply that didn't come. “The Dodos think we'll wind up in Elba, the place where he was exiled.”
“Are you pumping me?” Amy asked.
“Just making conversation.” They were approaching an outcropping of rock that marched out into the Mediterranean and marked the end of the beach. “I guess when we finally do catch up with Daryl, he'll be dead.”
“I suppose. This is a murder mystery.”
“You suppose? You're the cruise director. You must know how it turns out.”
Lying was an effort for Amy, one that she didn't quite feel up to tonight. “No, I don't. There's a packet waiting for me in Rome with the final scenes in it. We'll find out then. Otto insisted on this kind of secrecy.”
Georgina mulled over the revelation. “What a strange man. And you feel comfortable with this?”
“No, of course not.” Amy pivoted on her heel and began to retrace their steps in the wet sand. Georgina followed.
“I see.” She spoke slowly, her face turned toward the dark sea. “In light of Otto's death, I think there's something you should know.” It was almost a whisper. “This mystery of ours really happened.”
Amy exhaled with relief. She hadn't even been aware of holding her breath. She'd done her best to forget what Georgina had told her team, to shove it as far back in her mind as it would go. Now she didn't reply, purposely leaving a vacuum, which both nature and Georgina seemed to abhor.
“Five years ago. The man was Fabian Carvel.” She said the name as if Amy would recognize it, which she sort of did. “You know. Food Services? They own several chains, including Tico Taco. Tico Taco was the very first Mexican fast food. Fabian invented the concept.” The phrases sounded memorized, a testimonial that had been passed on to her and that she passed on in turn.
“We were at his Long Island estate.” Georgina continued to fill the pauses. “There were six of us at dinner, just like in the game. Fabian's wife, their son . . . a very similar set of circumstances.” She kept at Amy's side, gazing down at the tiny crabs that scurried away from the vibrations of their feet.
“It was somewhere in the second or third course that Fabian left the table. He claimed to be feeling ill. I thought it might be a mood swing. Fabian had them, you know. Unlike Daryl, our real-life tycoon had been known to walk out on people.”
“How did you know Fabian?” It was Amy's first comment since the start of Georgina's confession.
“We met one winter, when he and Doris rented a house near mine in Palm Beach.”
“Doris?”
“His wife. Doris? Dolores?” Her eyes never lifted from the sand. “Anyway, after he left the dining room, no one saw him again. And, just like in the game, everyone had some reason not to notify the police.”
“What was your reason?”
Georgina tittered, perhaps at the ridiculousness of the question. “Nearly everyone. You know what I mean, the same sort of thing with the inheritance and the stock offering. I tell you, when I heard those actors doing their speeches, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”
“So, you didn't go to the police.”
“The family put out the story that Fabian was ill, then hired a private detective. It was a secret investigation. There weren't any rhyming clues or other such nonsense. But they were able to trace him through his credit cards. Columbus, Chicago, Salt Lake. I'm making that up. But they were all cities leading west.”
“His own little road rally.”
“It does lend itself to that format,” she conceded. “For about a week, no one heard anything. And then Stu Romney received an e-mail from Fabian himself.”
Amy started. Had she heard right? “Stew Rummy?”
“No, no. Stu Romney. Another little play on names. You can't fault Otto for his sense of humor. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the e-mail. Fabian claimed it had been some business emergency that took him away. He was back in San Diego. That's where he'd founded the company. San Diego. The e-mail told Stu to fly out there right away. Stu was to check in at the Marriott or the Sheraton or the Hyattâone of thoseâand wait there for a phone call.”
“Was the e-mail really from Fabian?”
Georgina shrugged. “The detective was suspicious. He suggested all six of us go out there together, not just Stu.”
“You mean all six of you flew out to San Diego? Why?”
“Well, we were all of us worried and curious, and I had the free time and . . . Oh, I see what you're asking. Why did the detective want all six of us to go?”
“He must have suspected one of you of being involved.”
Georgina stopped trudging through the sand and glanced sideways, addressing herself to Amy's sandals. “How do you figure that?”
“He wanted to keep an eye on you. Control your movements.”
She began to walk again, eyes returning to her own feet. “I suppose it's possible. We all flew out on a company jet, and we all stayed at the same Sheraton, Marriott, Hyatt. The detective kept us together for several hours, waiting for Fabian to phone. When it got late and he still hadn't called, a few of us went up to our rooms.
“I was getting ready for bed, watching the news, when
THIS JUST IN
came up on the screen. To this day, I can't see
THIS JUST IN
without thinking of that night. Fabian Carvel had been found, stabbed to death in a back alley in Old Town, the victim of a muggingâapparently.”
Amy recalled it now, vaguely. The New York press had speculated about it for exactly one day. What had a fast-food magnate been doing at night, alone, walking down an alley in one of San Diego's more colorful neighborhoods? Illicit sex was the media's unsubstantiated conclusion, despite Fabian Carvel's age. Something seedy and perverse and that made a nice headline. Then, just as suddenly, it was old news.
“Was anyone ever arrested?”
“No one. Once the police discovered the private detective and the e-mail, we were all of us under scrutiny. It didn't take long before someone squealed and they found out about the dinner and his disappearance.”
“I don't remember reading anything about his disappearance.”
“The police were good about keeping that quiet. I guess money and power are useful, after all.”
“Go figure.”
“There were rumors, of course. All kinds of nastiness. I know this barely made a blip on the world's radar. But in our little world, it didn't die down for years. Darling, if you thought boarding school was full of rumors and backbiting, that's nothing compared to . . .” She bit her lower lip. “I didn't mean boarding school. What do you call it? You know, before college?”
“We call it high school.” There were times when, purposely or not, Georgina made it clear that her world was not yours.
“Right. High school. Well, this was ten times worse.”
They had reached another set of wooden stairs from the beach up to the hotel. Georgina sat on the third step. Amy joined her, and together they gazed out in the general direction of Italy. The Portuguese fado had faded into ricocheting echoes. The silence between them grew almost palpable, as if one was afraid of saying too much and the other was afraid of asking it.
Even without music or words, the air was alive with sounds: a pair of evening birds chirping in a thicket, the gentle stroke of the wavesâand the approaching sound, followed by the sight, of two pairs of legs slogging through the edge of the surf.
Amy could just make them out in the moonlight. Burt Baker was in a pair of shorts, his crutches maneuvering clumsily forward in the soft sand. Martha Callas was a few steps behind, kicking the foam in an almost natural display of exuberance. Her long, sunburned limbs flung bony and loose from her red, one-piece swimsuit and reminded Amy of a boiled crab struggling to climb out of a pot. As always, her silver hair was piled high in sprayed swirls, adding half a foot to her already substantial height and making her head into an almost surreal interpretation of a human bullet. Even in the forgiving moonlight, she looked ridiculous.
Every thirty seconds or so, a wave would break, threatening to knock the jurist off his crutches. At those moments, Martha would lose her flailing, crab-like demeanor and regard the judge with the wary eye of a lifeguard.
“She's hoping he falls,” Georgina hissed.
“You're cruel.”
“She wants to rescue him. If there's one thing I know, it's the rites of middle-aged courtship.”
Amy thought it over. “I suppose Burt Baker could be considered a catch. Divorced?”
“Widower,” Georgina said with assurance. “And too good of a catch for Martha Callas of Dallas.”
“She looks stupid,” a third voice offered.
Amy and Georgina swiveled their heads and peered up the length of shadowy stairs. Ten steps above them, a small silhouette sat crouched, arms hugging its knees.
“Holly, sweetie. Come join us.” Georgina patted the worn wooden ledge right above her own. “Come on. We were just dishing Martha.”
“I wasn't dishing anyone,” Amy protested.
The silhouette clumped down the steps, then collapsed right next to Georgina's hand. “She's so pathetic.” Holly was in a T-shirt and cutoff jeans and looked miserable.
“She is,” Georgina agreed, turning back to refocus on the frolicking duo. “But then, so are you, dearâif you don't mind my saying so.”
“Me?”
“This isn't
Wuthering Heights
. You can't just sit in the dark, pitying yourself. That's no way to get anything done.”
“I'm not pitying myself.”
“You know very well what I mean. It's natural for you to be a little jealous.”
“Martha Callas is a pig.”
“Well, we prefer a little more style in our dish, but that's a start.”
“And I'm not jealous. I'm just . . .”
“Nothing wrong with a little jealousy.”
“I'm not jealous.”
Georgina sighed. “Yes, dear. And meanwhile . . .”
An unexpectedly large wave nearly succeeded in knocking Burt sideways into the surf. Martha caught him under the arms, and they both whooped, half in fright, half in delight. Holly cringed as a high Texas twang of laughter bounced off the cliffs and vanished into the dark sea.
“And meanwhile . . . ,” Georgina purred. “I think the judge would much rather have you playing with him than some old, garish giant. What do you think?”
Holly didn't answer. She sat above them, motionless for another few seconds, then abruptly jumped to her feet, stumbled down the last few steps, and scampered across the sand. “Hi!” she shouted out to the surf-bound couple. “What are you guys up to?”
Burt and Martha greeted the twelve-year-old with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. Amy watched, fascinated, as the new configuration played out. Holly, to her credit, got right into the action, attacking the waves with determined glee and outdoing Martha in her spirited cavorting. Burt laughed, enjoying the rare spectacle of his niece enjoying herself. Martha fell in several steps behind them.
“What are you up to?” Amy couldn't see Georgina's face, but she was probably smiling.
“Why, Ms. Abel,” she drawled. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You encouraged her to vie for her uncle's affection. That can't be healthy.”
“One can't fight fair with a kid,” she answered. “A few sets of diabolical stepchildren taught me that.”
“Who's fighting with Holly? You?”
“Not at the moment. But I like to plan ahead.”