Toured to Death (9 page)

A
my lay wide awake in the dark, wondering why exactly she was awake. She so rarely had trouble in this department. Was it the soreness? she wondered. The trauma and punches she'd endured in the curtain cocoon? Perhaps. Although a few aspirins had helped to ease the aches and she'd certainly slept through worse.

It wasn't her personal life keeping her awake. What personal life? And as far as she could tell, she wasn't obsessing about the tour. But, of course, the fact that she was thinking about not obsessing probably meant she was. She had just checked the bedside clock—4:58 a.m.—when there was a light knock at the door, a soft but insistent rapping of knuckle against wood. She got up, grabbed a hotel bathrobe and her nearest pair of glasses.

“Did I wake you?”

Marcus was standing in the hall. For a second, her heart beat a little faster. But the man was fully dressed, with a light jacket and a leather portfolio under his arm.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Five o'clock,” he answered without bothering to check his watch. “I've been trying to figure out how to fix the Montecristo thing. Get dressed. I've got a boat.”

“What the hell are you up to?” Given the time, Amy felt she was being more than civil.

“Bring a jacket, waterproof if you have it. How are your bruises?”

“Sleepy. Thanks for asking.”

 

It was wet and chilly on the motor launch, as predicted. At some juncture, while Alberto, the youngest of the local fishermen, skidded his boat across a black glass sea, Marcus shouted out an apology and even thanked her for coming. It was timed to seem offhand and inconsequential, delivered over an eighty-decibel background.

“What you said about Daryl having a reason for sending them to Montecristo . . .” Marcus's mouth was an inch from her ear. “It made me think.” The boatman cut the engine to half as they eased into the bay, and conversation became easier. “We have to find the right clues—hard but not impossible. The ruins, of course, are the island's most distinct features. The number of intact arches. The color of the marble or brick.”

Amy caught on. “You're making it a memory game. That's good.” For the tenth time this morning, she wiped the spray off her tortoiseshell Lafonts.

The sky had turned pearl gray in the east. Alberto tilted the outboard out of the water and let the launch gently beach itself on the island's pebbly shore. Amy asked him to wait, then raced to catch up with Marcus, who was scaling a boulder in order to get a quick lay of the land.

When the dawn finally came, they were sitting on a fourteenth-century foundation stone, munching on the bananas and apples they had providently thought to grab from the lobby's fruit bowl. Amy shielded her eyes from a cold sun that threw long, cloudless shadows, brightening the roofless peaks and solitary doorways.

The remains of the old convent were a gold mine of memorable images, and Marcus was even now putting the best ones into a rough draft. “We can make it like a treasure map. ‘Turn right. Pace out four times the number of stars in the stone crest.'”

“They'll remember details like that?”

“My Fidels took pictures. I'm sure the others did.” He flipped shut his notebook. “When they wake up tomorrow, we'll have this puzzle waiting for them.”

Amy thought forward to the next stop. Siena. “How is that going to work?”

“Tomorrow morning, when they're having breakfast, they're supposed to find a clue in the personal ads of the local English language paper. That's a cool way to get a clue, and I don't want to lose it. You and I will hide those six newspapers in various spots around the hotel garden.”

Amy grimaced. “Management's going to love that. Won't the papers get muddy?”

“Plastic bags.” He had an answer for everything, and for once, she appreciated it. “At breakfast tomorrow, instead of finding the papers at their table, each team will find a different treasure puzzle, based on their memories of Montecristo.”

“Pace out four times the number of whatever.”

“Right. They'll follow those clues, find the newspapers, and we'll be back on track. I can't wait to see Jolynn's face.”

Amy peeled her second banana and took a bite. “Tonight in Siena we'll write the puzzles, then go hide the papers.”

“Oh, boy. A second date.”

“A date.” Well, there it was. She let the moment linger, then stole a sideways glance.

Marcus caught her eye. “We could call it a work session.”

“No, a date's fine.”

“For all I know, you're married without a ring or happily attached.”

“Hardly.” She shrugged. “Not anymore.” It was her turn to keep things going. “So, what's a nice guy like you doing on a desert island?”

He smiled his killer smile. “It's a living. I worked for a bank until I was forced to reconsider my career path. A friend of a friend of mine knew Otto, so . . . I guess I'm out of a job again.”

“Well, I appreciate all your help.”

“You paid for it. What about you? What's your story?”

And so Amy told him—about her career as a copywriter for a Madison Avenue ad agency, about Eddie's murder, about her own breakdown, or time off, or whatever you want to call it. Marcus listened patiently and laughed out loud when she got to Fanny and her antics.

“I'd love to meet her,” he said, reaching into the bag for an apple.

“I'm sure you will.” Amy watched as he polished the apple on his jacket sleeve. “Those two robbers . . .”

Marcus moaned. “Just when I started to relax.”

“What were they doing with a list of rooms?”

Marcus crunched into his apple, chewed thoroughly, and swallowed. “Someone gave it to them, someone who knew which rooms would be empty.”

“A hotel employee? He sees everyone running off and chartering boats, meaning they'll be away for a few hours.”

Marcus shook his head. “Don't forget the telegrams. This had to be someone who knew the game.”

“Right. Someone from the tour?”

“Who else? People guessed we were coming to Elba. If our joker already knew someone here, someone who could arrange a robbery, he could have phoned ahead.” Marcus shivered in the morning chill and took another bite. “Would you have canceled the tour?”

“If the rooms had been robbed? Money and passports? Some people might have gone home. Rich people take that sort of thing seriously. They have this heightened sense of property, although I shouldn't generalize.”

“It would certainly have ruined the rally.”

Amy was at a loss. Otto's murder, the rock in Monte Carlo, and now the fake telegrams and the robbery. She didn't want to think about how these dots might be connected. And, for the same reason, she didn't want to bring up Fabian Carvel and the real-life case.

Being Otto's assistant, Marcus must know something about the Carvel case. So why didn't she ask? Was it because she didn't trust him? Maybe. The man lied with such incredible ease. “We should get moving.” Amy pushed herself up from the damp foundation stone and brushed off the seat of her skinny black jeans.

Marcus stood up and stretched. “It's a puzzlement,” he said, gazing back over the ruined wall to the pebbly beach where Alberto sat on the bow of his boat, smoking a pipe.

Alberto saw them. He stood up, too, knocking the bowl of his pipe against his heel.

“Kind of makes you want to take up the simple life,” Marcus said. “No mysteries. No worries.”

“He's probably thinking the same about us.”

“We should go. If memory serves, this is muffin morning.”

“Muffin morning,” Amy confirmed with a nod.

Marcus tossed the apple into a rocky field. He wiped both hands on his tan slacks, then held out his right. “Peace? You still mad at me for not telling you about my job?”

It was an awkward gesture, too formal for their current relationship. Amy took his hand. “Peace. By the way, how did you get Georgina to pretend you were together?”

“She's a sweetheart. We met at JFK on our way here. I was in the boarding area, reading an old Dorothy Sayers, the mark of a mystery junkie. I mean, you can catch anyone reading a mystery best seller. Even an old Agatha Christie will lure in the casual fan, don't you know. But Dorothy L. Sayers? My dear, I knew in a trice. Half a trice, if that doesn't sound like bragging.” He had eased into a Georgina impression so perfect that Amy could almost see the cleft in his chin.

“Bravo!”

Marcus laughed. “That's how she introduced herself. It seemed like such a perfect opportunity to disguise my presence. Mystery fans are always the first to volunteer for any little deception.”

“I'll have to remember that. Muffin morning,” Amy added, reminding them both of the need to hurry.

Neither said a word during the long ride back. The water was choppier now. At one point their bow hit a wave directly. Amy didn't see it coming and was thrown back, nearly teetering off the bench. Marcus was right there, catching her by both shoulders and steadying her. His hands stayed on her shoulders, firm and steady. Amy wondered if this might turn into a kiss. Did she want it to turn into a kiss? But it didn't. Just a warm smile and then it was over.

It was a welcome sight, the gray docks of Marino di Campo growing solid and larger. Also growing solid and larger, but definitely less welcome, were the three anxious figures milling about the length of a pier.

Harry Greenbaum was there to grab the towrope. “Georgina told us you might be off together,” he said with a glare that began on Marcus, then moved on to Amy. The other Fidels remained icily silent. “Everyone else is halfway through the clue.”

“No!” Marcus said. “You should have started without me. Where's the clue?” With a nimble leap he was out of the boat. “What does it say?”

“We don't know,” Harry moaned. “It was in the middle of a muffin.”

“In the team captain's muffin,” Harry's sister added.

The three Fidels were hurriedly escorting their captain along the docks, back in the direction of the hotel. “The waiter put a muffin at your place setting,” said Harry. “But by the time we figured out what was happening, he'd already taken it away.”

“Well, ask for it back. Just go to the kitchen and ask the waiter—”

“Don't you think we tried?” said Harry. “Three times I used my Italian on that stupid waiter. And every time he brought us a new muffin.”

Amy couldn't suppress a laugh but managed to turn it into a cough.

“Finally, he said if we were just going to tear the muffins apart without eating them, we couldn't have any more. That's what I think he said.”

Marcus glowered over his shoulder, straight at Amy. “You told me we'd be back by breakfast. You said—”

“Oh, it's not her fault,” said Harry's sister. “But since Amy speaks such good Italian, maybe she can help. . . .”

“We'll do it ourselves,” Marcus snapped. “We'll tear that kitchen apart if we have to.” And he redoubled his pace, the warrior king leading his faithful Fidels into battle.

Amy stumbled to a halt and watched as they marched their way toward the Montecristo. Not for a second, not in a single word or glance, had Marcus given away the truth, to the extent that Amy herself was half convinced that their morning excursion had been all her doing and that she owed them all an abject apology.

T
he muffin clue led them from Elba back to the Tuscan mainland. Then came Siena and the Montecristo memory game. Not all the teams remembered the clues perfectly, not on the first guess, so there wound up being more than six holes dug among the hotel's lush flower beds. Fourteen holes to be specific—plus a hundred-euro tip to the gardener. But they all solved it, and they all went on to decode the personal ad in the newspaper.

After Siena came Assisi, their last stop before Rome. The end was in sight.

Amy's clients were looking forward to the Eternal City and the prospect of their last hotel. Other emotions were also in play. There was anxiety and excitement about the murder they all assumed was coming, about solving it. And in a few days reality would once again force them—some gladly, some not—back into the world.
Bittersweet
was the word Martha Callas kept repeating wisely, as if she'd just invented it.

The intensity of the rally had forged a bond among the captains. They were in general the most vocal and competitive of the players and had often been placed in conflict over rules and procedures, not to mention bragging and taunting and making excuses—integral parts of any good game.

A captains' dinner suddenly seemed appropriate, something off the itinerary, off the premises, and before the final barrage of competition that was to come in Rome. Amy arranged it with a minimum of fuss.

“Aren't you joining us?” asked Georgina as the six of them were about to hop into a pair of taxis. “You must.”

“It's for the captains,” Amy demurred. In truth, she was looking forward to a rare night alone, snuggling in bed with that novel she'd been neglecting.

“Nonsense,” Georgina insisted. “You're coming. A small thank-you for all your hard work. Our treat.”

“Our treat?” Jolynn asked. But the others took up the cause, and Amy had no choice.

La Taverna dell'Arco was the pride of Assisi, a cavernous underground dining establishment full of stone-vaulted atmosphere. In its early life, the tavern had been a monastery, home to those first modest followers of Saint Francis. Nowadays, waiters took the place of monks, flitting among the shadows, serving tourists instead of God and seeking tips instead of alms.

“Now be honest.” The second courses had just arrived, and Frank Loyola was waiting patiently, fork in hand. He always waited for the ladies, as he called them, to start, even when they told him to go ahead. “Did anybody actually get the clue about the patron saint of television? Us Stew Boys, we thought it was just one of Daryl's jokes.”

“Saint Clara.” Burt nodded. “My niece picked up this little book on the saints. It's got this marvelous index that tells you which saint goes with what.”

“You mean, which saint goes with what wine?” Georgina teased. “Offhand, I'd say red for the martyrs.”

“No, you heretic. Which saint goes with which cause.”

“You mean she really is the patron saint of TV?” Georgina slipped her hand lightly onto Burt's forearm in what would have seemed like a natural gesture had she not already performed it once during cocktails and once during the first course.

“She is.”

“Are you sure you don't mean Santa Cable?”

Burt chuckled and patted her hand, a casual action that went unnoticed by everyone but Martha Callas. “Do you want to hear the story?”

“I'm on tenterhooks.”

Burt pivoted his body to once again face the heiress. “It seems that one year, on Christmas Eve . . . I guess this was about seven hundred years ago. Anyway, Saint Clara was a devout nun, and she desperately wanted to go to the midnight mass. But on this particular night, Christmas Eve, Clara was sick in bed, unable to move. So she prayed, of course—and, of course, a miracle happened. The wall of her little cell lit up like a TV screen.”

“No! And this was years before satellite.”

“Several years. So, Clara sat in bed that night, watching the wall. And there it was, the mass that was being said in the basilica across the street. On her wall. In color, I assume.”

Georgina released Burt's forearm and clapped her hands. “No wonder they made her a saint.”

Frank Loyola, for all his boisterous swagger, for all his practical jokes and backslapping friendliness, was now pursing his lips like a maiden aunt. “You shouldn't joke about other people's religions. You're in Italy, for Pete's sake.” And with that, the most vehement curse in his vocabulary, Frank returned to his small roasted bird arranged on a bed of fried polenta. No one else moved or spoke as he sullenly attacked his main course.

“I'm sorry,” Georgina apologized in the hush.

This wasn't the first time that Frank had called them to task. He was the only Catholic on board to defend vocally the Roman church and, at one point or another, had been a sanctimonious thorn in the side of nearly everyone.

As a captain, Frank had not been the best choice, either for his team or for the game at large. A man of nearly forty, he was a reluctant bachelor, respectful and ill at ease with women, and constantly on the lookout for “Miss Right,” as he was fond of saying. “He's holding out for a fellow virgin,” Georgina once quipped within his earshot, and he hadn't denied it or seemed embarrassed.

Frank had made his career as a police officer, and if there was a typical look, he had it—large and thick and stalwart. He was undoubtedly the least affluent member of the tour, perhaps the least educated. He was also one of the few members of New York's Finest, at least in Amy's experience, never to use profanity.

During a week and a half of late-night beers and small talk more plentiful than bar pretzels, Amy had pieced together a fairly complete portrait. Born and bred in the Bronx, Frank continued to live there, in the house he bought from his father. Francis Sr., also a cop, was retired now, a man just as religious and rigid as his son. But in the more amenable world of forty years ago, Big Frank at least had managed to find a compatible mate.

For this year's vacation, Frank had been planning to do another Knights of Columbus retreat when he saw the tour's Web site and impulsively dipped into his retirement fund. His one vice, so he piously claimed, was a lust for murder mysteries, not a common pastime in a profession that saw its share of the real thing. But here, too, breeding showed, and his taste was strictly limited to cozies, the Agatha Christie format. Murders were never graphically described, the motives never too sordid, and the action usually kept to a series of gentle interrogations.

The patrolman had been ill prepared for the irreverence of the other players and for Otto's sometimes ribald sense of humor. But his worst failing as a player was his reluctance to play his assigned role.

His character, Stew Rummy, according to his team's secret packet, wasn't a drinker at all but used this ruse to disguise his real vice, sexual addiction. Every woman Stew met became the object of his unbridled lust. Unfortunately, none of this had even been hinted at during the game, thanks to Frank's inhibited, moralistic role-playing. One of the teams was even toying with the theory that Stew was in reality a Jesuit priest who, at the time of Daryl's disappearance, had been in the process of converting the tycoon to a life of the cloth.

Frank had already forgotten his outburst and was concentrating on his meal. “Delicious,” he mumbled and slurped, his mouth half filled with bits of breast meat. “Why can't they make this back home? I'm sure you can get this kind of bird, whatever it is.”

“I'm sure you can,” Jolynn Mrozek volunteered. The restaurant owner's wife was barely able to restrain her mirth. “In fact they're quite common.” Amy knew what she was about to say, and wished she wouldn't. “You ordered
piccione?
”

“Jolynn,” Amy warned. Ever since Montecristo, Jolynn had been relatively subdued, her supply of bile left to bubble and build like puss under the skin.

“That's a pigeon,” Jolynn chuckled. “You know, a flying rat. Why do you think no one else ordered it?”

“Oh.” Frank gulped, accidentally swallowing the last bit of his last mouthful. Everyone watched as the patrolman squinted, in some kind of pain. His fork clattered to his plate. “People actually go out in the street and catch those filthy, disease-ridden—”

“They're not the same,” Amy said. She tried to explain that cooking pigeons were specially raised on farms, not streets, but Frank's eyes refused to unsquint. “In most of the world, pigeon is a very common dish.”

Frank shook himself free of whatever images had been playing in his head. “Yeah, well, I guess I'm not as sophisticated as you guys. A little out of my depth, huh?”

“That's not true,” Marcus protested softly.

But it was. And it was this, and not the taste of pigeon, that seemed to linger so bitterly. This wasn't the first time that Frank had been made to feel out of place. But this time he was isolated, without the protection of his backslapping, all-male team. The rest of the table was grateful when Judge Baker cleared his throat and plowed into a new topic.

“You know, I'll lay you better than even odds that our killer . . . I know we don't even have a victim yet, but humor me. If this game is anything true to life, I'll wager the killer is a member of Daryl's family. I mean, in the real world the family is where most murders occur. I've worked in the court system long enough. Jealousy. Revenge. Money. It's all there. Especially money. It doesn't have to be a lot.”

“Yes.” Amy jumped in, happy to keep the topic going. “But this isn't real life.”

“Well, maybe that's Otto's twist. I know this doesn't follow the formula of ‘least likely suspect,' Georgie?” He turned to the woman on his right. “You're a dedicated true crime fan. What do you think?”

The woman who all evening long had been devoted to the judge's every move now seemed to be ignoring him. Georgina stared blankly ahead, wearing an expression not unlike Frank's, except that her forehead, which had undergone such massive medical efforts to remain wrinkle free, was furrowed into a deep, unflattering pucker.

“Of course,” Georgina mumbled to no one. “That's what it was. That's why he . . . I should have remembered.”

“Should have remembered what?” Martha pounced from across the table. And then she gasped. “You know who the killer is!”

Georgina had a second to deny it but didn't.

“Damn,” Martha growled. “I hate it when people have breakthroughs. It makes me feel stupid.”

“What did you figure out?” asked Burt. “Was it something I said?” His lips moved as he tried to recall his own words. Two other team captains had already taken out pencils and were jotting down notes.

Georgina blinked and refocused, back at last from her reverie. “It's no big thing,” she apologized, for once uncomfortable being the center of attention. “It probably has nothing to do with the murder. You know how it is when a notion suddenly strikes you. It's the most brilliant revelation, until you start thinking about it. Then it winds up being nothing.”

“What is this revelation?” Marcus asked. “If it's so nothing, you should let us in on it.”

Georgina turned on her “companion” with a trembling, thin grin. “Marcus, you've had exactly the same opportunity as I to figure it out. Exactly. That's all I have to say.”

“She knows,” said Martha. “The murder hasn't even happened, and she knows.”

The party never quite recovered. At the end of the evening, the check was delivered by a noiseless waiter and snatched up by Jolynn Mrozek. For the next minute, all that could be heard was the scratching of a pen on the paper tablecloth as the chef's wife skillfully divided the tab, assigning each drink and appetizer and bottle of wine to its appropriate consumer. The menu had left it unclear if a service charge was included. But Jolynn assumed that it was, and didn't add a tip.

“Is everyone ready to hear the damage?”