Toured to Death (11 page)

“Mr. Ingo never mentioned his name. We checked with the bank. He—or she, as you say—must have been paid in cash. I take it that he hasn't been in touch.”

“Not yet. He or she was supposed to contact me only in case of an emergency. Everything's been going so smoothly. . . .”

“That's good to hear. The wife and I always wanted to get to Europe. Maybe when the girls are a little older.”

“This person may not even exist, Sergeant. I mean, I wouldn't put it past Otto to invent some imaginary assistant, just to jack up the price.”

“A possibility.” He sounded unconvinced. “If he does get in touch, will you call me right away? It's important.”

“Uh, yes, of course.”

Rawlings gave Amy his home number, thanked her again, and wished her a happy conclusion to her tour.

For a full minute after hanging up, Amy sat and stared at the phone number. Why hadn't she said anything? Was she protecting Marcus? Protecting Marcus from what? Or was this just another example of Amy's penchant for ignoring unpleasant facts?

“One day at a time,” she told herself. “The game is over tomorrow. The tour ends the day after. Whoever said you can't run away from your problems just didn't run fast enough.”

Two more days. Then Otto and Marcus and this whole mess would be someone else's problem.

“I
t must be hard for you, being back in Rome and all.”

Holly Baker sat on a limestone step, hugging her legs. She was staring up at her uncle's profile, bathing him in the kind of profound, motherly concern that Burt Baker had grown very used to.

“Eat your
marroni,
” he said, holding out the waxed-paper cone of roasted chestnuts. “The clue told us to eat them.”

Holly made a face and pushed them away. “What difference does it make, eating them or not?”

The judge finished chewing his current piece of nut meat, then picked out another. “I don't know.”

They sat near the top of the Spanish Steps, just out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. The judge's legs were splayed out stiffly in front, and he gazed past them, down the river of steps to the Piazza di Spagna below. At the piazza's center stood the famous whimsical fountain, shaped like a sinking boat. Beyond it, alleys of stylish shops radiated from the expanse of sand-colored paving stones like the spokes of a half wheel. The piazza itself was dotted with postcard stalls and thronged with tourists taking pictures of one another to prove to themselves that they were here.

“Alice loved Rome,” Burt said softly.

“I like Paris,” Holly countered. They had stopped in Paris for a few days on their way to Monte Carlo, making Holly something of a world traveler.

Burt nodded. “Rome isn't easy. Paris has all that eye-catching architecture and those leafy, romantic parks. Rome is full of monuments and squares. And monolithic buildings that thrust out right to the sidewalk and reflect the heat.”

“It is kind of hot.”

“But behind those stone walls, that's what Alice loved.” He glanced up at the hazy blue sky. “You should see Rome from the air. All the roof gardens. And inside those monoliths, the hidden courtyards with their fountains, and maybe in a corner some two-thousand-year-old pillar stolen from the Forum by some medieval farmer and now holding up a wall. All the layers of art and history hidden from public view. Rome takes a bit of knowing to love.” He smiled. “Like me.”

“Everyone loves you, Uncle Burt. Too many people.”

Burt Baker thought carefully. “No one can take your aunt Alice's place. But sometimes I get lonely, pumpkin.”

“I know. You like that woman with the big chin and all the money.”

“Holly, you're being cruel.”

“Judge! Don't throw out your paper!” Their teammates, Carla and Rod Templar, were clambering up through the tide of tourists, waving an unfolded cone of waxed paper. “There's a message from Daryl on our sheet,” shouted Rod as he came closer. “It's in some kind of gibberish code.”

“I thought the street vendor might be a plant.” Burt shook his head in admiration. “Holly, take this.” A second later he dumped the remaining chestnuts into his niece's hands. “This is why we were told to eat.”

“Right,” said Holly and let the chestnuts escape. They fell like soft marbles down the long steps.

Burt unfolded his own cone and held it up to the light. There were deliberate lines and loops, half-formed letters visible where the wax had been scratched away with a sharp point. “You're right. It's some sort of gibberish.”

“Put them together.” Holly was peering over her uncle's shoulder. “Put the papers one behind the other.”

“What?” Carla didn't understand.

“They're part of the same clue.” Holly rolled her eyes in exaggerated annoyance, grabbed both sheets of waxed paper, and held them up to the light. Slowly she rotated them, one against the other, until the lines and loops on the one began to line up with those on the other. “We're on the same team, right?” She spoke almost tauntingly. “But they tell us to split up and get two different things of chestnuts. Why?”

“I'm sure you'll tell us,” said Carla.

“We're supposed to put them together. Sheesh. It's like we're back in grade school.”

“Holly!” Burt would have tried being firmer, but she seemed to be right.

The twelve-year-old squeezed the sheets together, visually combining the lines and loops on the two unfolded cones. Soon she was picking out letters, then combining them to form words. “Meet me.”

Rod was surprised. “Meet? We're actually catching up with Daryl?”

Holly continued. “Immaculate Conception. Capu—Capuchin Church.' Anyone know where that is?”

“Yes.” Uncle Burt shuddered. “Just a few blocks away. But I'm not sure it's the sort of place to take Holly.”

“That I'd like to see,” said Carla.

Rod looked at the long, flowing staircase spread out below them. “I hope we can get there from the top.” His gaze fell on Burt's crutches, then moved somewhat guiltily up to his face. “Can we?”

“Yes. It's closer to the top.” The judge grunted in anticipation, then braced himself against the marble rail and pushed himself up. “I think this is the end. This is where we find Daryl's body.”

“How can you know that?” Holly asked.

“You'll see.” He was already propelling himself upward, toward the smaller piazza. “It's on Via Veneto. Maybe four blocks away.”

They were still over a block from their destination when Holly tugged on her uncle's sleeve and nearly sent him sprawling. “Those damned Bitsys.” She had stopped and turned and was now pointing across the street and back twenty yards. “They're following us. Cheaters!”

Burt and the Templars saw the bevy of middle-aged women scurrying up on the other side of Via della Purificazione. “They're going to pass us,” Rod said, keeping his eyes averted from the judge and his crutches.

Martha Callas was at the front of the pack, consulting a small street map. Now she saw them and waved. “Hello!” She quickened her pace, and the other three Bitsys strode to catch up. “Looks like we're heading the same direction. Care to call it a tie?”

“No,” insisted Holly. “They're just following us.”

“Absolutely,” Rod called out. The striding, sweating women were even now crossing the street to meet them. “That's very generous of you.”

“Well, you are in the lead,” Martha cooed breathlessly. “And racing you in this heat wouldn't be civilized. After all, this is a vacation.” Gently, expertly, she wedged Holly out of the way and fell in beside the judge, threading her hand through the crook between his arm and the crutch.

They arrived at the Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception just in time to sight a third group making their way around the church's long main staircase to an unassuming entrance on the street level.

“Georgina,” called out Burt. He quickened his pace, inadvertently pulling himself free of Martha's velvet grip. “Shall we call it a three-way tie?”

“Not on your life. Even if we weren't in the lead, which we are, we could still kick out your crutches. We Dodos are ornery, and we need a win. Hello, Amy.” Georgina had turned to face their tour leader, who was waiting for them at the door. “Has our Daryl joined the Capuchin monks? I adore their coffee.”

“I'll tell them.” In deference to the location, Amy had changed into a gray silk dress, sleeved and waisted, with a conservative neckline, but still a few inches above the knee. “I take it the Dodos are claiming first?”

“The Bitsys and Prices have agreed on a tie,” Martha said. “For second.”

Amy noted the time, then adopted her serious face. “Only one team at a time. And please, it's a religious site. You should behave accordingly.”

The Dodos were ushered in while the others waited. According to a sign, the museum and the crypts were officially closed between the hours of noon and three. “We must have made a generous contribution,” guessed Georgina.

“A contribution,” Amy confirmed and led them past the first room, the museum, up to a dark-paneled door. A brown-robed monk opened it solemnly and motioned them into the next room.

“Oh, my God.” Georgina couldn't help herself.

This lower level of the Capuchin Church was in reality five crypts, lined up one behind the other. The vaulted rooms had a rectangular floor plan, and each was about the length of a limousine. All four walls were roped off, leaving only a walkway down the middle, which led the visitors from one chapel into the next. Even if the public were allowed near enough to touch anything, it was doubtful that many would, since the rooms were decorated almost entirely in human bones.

“I've heard of this place,” Paul Wickes whispered. “These are the bones of the monks themselves.”

Georgina was staring at several full skeletons dressed in brown robes, one of whom bore a disturbing resemblance to the man at the door. As she walked from room to room and grew accustomed to the theme, the gruesome ingenuity of the place became apparent.

Few of the skeletons were complete sets of bones, the demands of design having clearly won out over mundane anatomy. One chapel was laid out in a head motif. Three of its walls were decorated in jawless skulls. Some were stacked in simple, mind-numbing piles; others arranged in fanciful designs, the skulls alternating playfully with collarbones and femurs. Everywhere, hundreds of empty, dusty eye sockets stared out.

In the next room, what had originally looked like a rococo ceiling turned out to be a rather graceful combination of finger and foot bones. Along one wall, a clock face of bones—nonfunctioning, thank heaven—was surrounded by dainty rosettes and topped by the needless but still chilling axiom “Tempus fugit.” All in bones.

“There must be thousands.” Georgina spoke in awe as she passed under an archway lined with short leg bones. Or were they arms? She forced her gaze to the floor. “I never knew you could do so much with bones. Well, I never gave it much thought. Can you imagine being a priest around here?”

“I'll bet their benefits include a funeral package,” Paul said. It was funny enough, but no one laughed.

At the end of the fifth chapel, an open door beckoned them into a shadowy, lightless chamber.

“I'm not going in there,” Paul declared. “I don't care. . . .”

Then a switch was flipped by an unseen hand. Inside, a single naked bulb dangled from the ceiling and revealed what was probably a storage room, now converted into the setting for the mystery's climax.

“Oh, good,” Georgina sighed. “It's just Daryl.”

On the floor in the middle of the vaulted room was the actor they all recognized from Monte Carlo. He was lying in a pool of fake blood, the handle of a knife protruding from a latex gash in his chest. After the last five rooms, this bloody crime scene was almost a relief.

Without exchanging a word, the Dodos began to search for clues, poking around the pretend corpse with a reverence for life, which they probably wouldn't have felt had they not just been forced to confront so much death.

“Take out your notebook,” Georgina instructed her second in command. “Poor Daryl. He deserves our best.”

T
he interrogation took place on the roof garden, offering a spectacular view of the Capitoline Hill on one side and the Tiber on the other. The hotel staff had spaced six tables evenly around the garden, then had set up an open bar in the middle. This would be the teams' only chance to grill each other. And while they might not be assured of complete and honest answers, at least they wouldn't be lied to.

For today only, outright lies were forbidden. Teams could even ask, “Are you the killer?” although it wouldn't do much good. No one knew that answer, not even the killer, who, if he wanted to win the game, would be put in the awkward position of having to accuse himself.

At Amy's urging, the captains pulled together their own costumes and did their best to inhabit their characters. Martha, as the daytime drama queen, had constructed a tacky Hollywood outfit that featured various bits of lingerie. This she wore gamely, despite her size and the autumn chill, which was producing expansive fields of purplish goose bumps. A dark suit and bow tie made Marcus resemble a butler more than a private secretary, while Georgina autocratically refused to change a thread or a gesture—which made her an absolutely perfect Dodo.

A captain presided at each table, and in round-robin fashion, the three non-captains from each of the other teams sat down and posed their questions, trying to piece together the hidden, secret motives they all so jealously guarded. “Were you and Daryl having an affair?” “How much of the company do you own?” The captains were forced to give answers that could turn out to be either misleading or revealing, depending on their skill. Amy spent her time settling small disputes.

She had just finished clarifying a point between the captain of the Dodos and the Doloreses, calling it in Dodo's favor. The Doloreses, Vinny and his twins, were enthusiastic rally players but indifferent detectives. They accepted Amy's decision and didn't even rephrase their query.

“If you'll excuse us . . .” Vinny glanced over at his wife's table. Jolynn was facing down an inquisition from the Fidels. “I think the boys and I might pay a call on the refreshments.”

“You still have about three minutes,” Amy said, checking her watch.

“I know.” The twins were already on the way to the hors d'oeuvres. “You won't tell Jolynn about this. She'll have my hide.”

“Not me,” Georgina vowed. “The fewer questions, the better.”

Amy watched as Vinny tiptoed around to the far side. All the other interrogations seemed to be going smoothly. “So, you have it all figured out?” she asked.

Georgina guffawed. “Darling, we haven't got a clue.”

“I thought the other day in Assisi . . .” Amy frowned. “I mean, when you had that brainstorm . . .” Okay. She might as well just say it. “It was about Fabian Carvel, wasn't it? You remembered something about his murder, not Daryl's.” As her words hit the air, she realized they sounded like an accusation.

“Fabian's . . . you think . . .” Was her smile trembling just a bit? “Really, dear. I can barely remember what I did yesterday. And you think something that happened five years ago—”

“Someone said or did something that reminded you.”

“No. It wasn't anything.” She lowered her voice. “It was a little inconsistency, that's all.”

“You know why he ran away.” Amy's guess was answered with a helpless roll of the eyes. “You do! Oh, my God! Georgina, this is serious. What made him leave the dinner table? Was it a guest? A family member?”

“No one, dear. That's the problem.”

“No one? What do you mean? Was it Marcus Alvarez?”

Georgina was taken aback. “So, you know about Marcus.”

“He was the real Fidel.”

“I didn't think he'd tell you. He made me promise not to.”

“Marcus is not your companion. And don't tell me the two of you met at JFK.”

“Yes, we did. Why are you so hard on me?” She glanced around at the other tables. “Shouldn't you be blowing your little whistle and sending in the next pack?”

“This is more important. You knew Marcus from five years ago.”

“Yes, yes, yes. But not well.” She reached across the table, grabbed Amy's glass of club soda, took a sip, then used a napkin to wipe her lipstick off the rim. “Marcus was always around the Long Island house, doing correspondence for Doris or keeping Fabian on his schedule. He hadn't been with them very long when it happened. After the San Diego trip and Fabian's funeral . . . we lost touch.”

“When did you restore touch?”

Georgina squirmed. Was this like the other interrogations? Amy wondered. Did the same rules apply? Evasions but no lies?

“I was in New York for Fashion Week. Well over six months ago. Marcus saw a photo of me on Page Six and called me at the Waldorf. We had drinks. He was very up-front about working for Otto. According to him, Otto was brilliant and underappreciated and just needed good management.”

“Did you know they were making it into a game?”

She shook her head. “Marcus told me they were working on a mystery rally. But I had no idea it was based on Fabian. He made it sound wonderful.”

“That's how you found out about the tour?”

“Uh-huh. By the way, your publicity was dreadful. My travel agent had the hardest time figuring out what I was talking about.”

“I'm a small operation.”

“Forgiven. I don't think Marcus even knew I'd signed up, not until we ran into each other at JFK.”

Amy rechecked her watch. Some of the teams had taken breaks and were standing with Vinny and his sons at the hors d'oeuvres table. “That day at the Waldorf, did you talk about Fabian and the case?”

“We did. In retrospect, I suppose he was grilling me.” Georgina raised her shoulders and grinned sheepishly. “You know how it is when you share a traumatic experience. It's always the topic of conversation, every time you meet. It was only natural that we gossip and speculate. Really, Amy, I still have the Stew Boys coming up. If we keep talking about the real crime, I'm going to get so confused. It hasn't been easy keeping things straight.”

“I sympathize. What did you tell Marcus about the murder?”

“Ask him yourself. Now it's really time for you to blow that whistle. Time to move on.”