Pasta Imperfect (22 page)

“
Th
umwhere between a hundred forty-four and a hundred eighty dots.”

Yup. They’d sure nailed that down. “So you didn’t do any sightseeing around Pisa?”

“We was too busy for sightseein’, dear. And we was right there near the public potty, so it was real convenient. Especially for the fellas.”

George nodded agreement.

“Dick’s gonna make copies of the video and hand ’em out so’s we can relive the experience. Isn’t that nice a him? And he got some real good footage of the stream a people walking back and forth from the potty.” She lowered her voice again. “He even filmed a big argument between that lady book agent and the bearded man who’s the big shot editor.”

“Argument?” Okay, now she had my attention.

Nana looked both ways before continuing. “They was really goin’ at each other, Emily. Dick was standin’ too far away to pick up the sound, but I heard Sylvia yell at the editor fella that he’d ruined enough careers to last ’im a lifetime, and if he thought he was gonna ruin anyone else’s, it’d be over her dead body.”

“No kidding?” Oh, geesch. Why did people say that? Wasn’t anyone superstitious anymore?

“So he says, ‘That can be arranged.’ ”

“Oh, my God. He said that?”

George removed his seed-corn cap and scratched his head. “It wa
th
either that, or, ‘You’re
th
o deranged.’ I thawt he thed deranged.”

Nana shrugged. “George might be right, dear. Tell you the truth, I couldn’t hear too good at that point because it was Barbro’s turn to count and she started in with, ‘One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door.’ She come up with some dandy rhymes once she got into the hundreds.”

Unh-oh. Had Sylvia’s dislike of Gabriel hit the breaking point? Great. That’s what this tour needed. More ill will between the guests.

“And I seen Jackie pass by on her way to the potty,” Nana continued, “but she looked real different. Tell me, dear” — she bowed her head close to mine — “why was she dressed like that?”

I touched my forefinger to my lips for secrecy. “She’s undercover.”

Nana made a quiet O of her mouth and nodded understanding. She lowered her voice even more. “As what?”

The roar of an engine vibrated the pavement, and diesel fumes filled the air as our bus pulled up to the sidewalk. Bodies moved. Feet shuffled. And Nana and George hobbled off to beat the crowd. By the time the door
whooshed
open, the guests were lined up like beasts ready to board the biblical ark. I made a quick visual check.

I saw a lot of now familiar blond heads. Brandy Ann and Amanda were halfway back in the pack, weighed down by dozens of packages. Gillian Jones was standing beside Philip Blackmore, who was downing his water like a thirsty desert dweller. I hoped he realized there were no comfort facilities on the bus. Keely stood sandwiched between some guests I hadn’t met, her red hair considerably shorter, but not half as stylish as mine. Sylvia Root and Marla Michaels stood side by side, examining the outside of Marla’s shoulder bag. It would be a shame if her bag had gotten scuffed up in the purse-snatching attempt, but on the bright side, maybe the new markings would elevate it to one-of-a-kind status again.

I began counting heads starting from the back, where I found Fred looking nervous and agitated and checking behind him every five seconds. Curiosity getting the better of me, I sauntered over and took up a position behind him. “Did you enjoy Pisa?” I asked brightly.

He startled, then almost looked relieved to find me behind him. He trained a long, searching look over my shoulder. “You can have Pisa. I never want to come back here. Ever.”

“Why?”

“Because some pervert was following me around all day, is why! Probably wanted to pick my pocket, or steal my hat. Some weird cross-dresser with really big feet and a sinister face. Cripes, it was terrifying. I just want to get back on the bus where I’ll be safe.”

I knew I could count on Jack. He had really perfected the art of blending unobtrusively into the crowd.

“I’m here! I’m here!” I heard a voice yell far behind me. “Hold the bus!”

I turned around.
Speak of the day-vil.
Jackie was pounding the pavement toward us, hair streaming, arms pumping, trumpet skirt flying. Look at that. She was back to being a girl again. I excused myself from Fred and walked a few steps to meet her out of earshot of the group. When she caught up, she lunged for my arm and doubled over at the waist, sucking in air.

“I thought you were going to…leave without me.”

“I don’t think tour companies like to do that. Too much liability involved.” I slapped her on the back to assist her breathing. “What held you up?”

She waved her arm in the direction of the public restrooms. “Zipper got stuck. Then I couldn’t find my…eyeliner. And I put on the…wrong color lipstick, so I had to…reapply. But those unisex restrooms…are great. You go in a guy…come out a girl…and no one notices.”

She inched upward slowly, holding her side. “And to think I used to run…track in high school.” Spying Fred at the end of the line, she turned her back toward him and made a head gesture for me to step closer. “I stayed with him all day, Emily, except for the last two hours when he kinda gave me the slip. Into museums. Out of museums. Down by the river. Through the botanical gardens. And get this. He never saw me. Not even once.”

I smiled indulgently. “Imagine that. And did you find anything out?”

“Yeah, surveillance work is as boring as it was yesterday. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Being undercover didn’t help?”

She shook her head. “They make it look exciting in the movies, but it’s all a crock. You’re at the complete mercy of the person you’re tailing. Like, get this. Fred didn’t stop to have anything to eat today. Can you believe it? I’m starving! I’m surprised I haven’t passed out from calorie deprivation.” She glanced over her shoulder to watch the people filing onto the bus. “You have better luck with your three?”

“They shopped a lot. Pretty standard stuff. Nothing to report.” I sighed. Had we wasted an entire day playing Dick Tracey when we might have been doing something constructive like grave rubbings at the Campo Santo, or counting holes in the cathedral wall? Damn.

We boarded the bus and chatted up several people as we took our seats. At 4:05 Duncan navigated the aisle, took a final head count, and stopped to converse with several guests at the front of the bus. At 4:10 he and the driver stepped outside, and while the driver lit up a cigarette, Duncan kicked tires. At 4:15 we were still there.

Jackie peered out the window. “What’s the holdup? Mechanical problem? Jeez, we need to get going. If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’ll have to eat my shoe, and I’m not particularly fond of latex. Too chewy.”

I could feel an undercurrent of panic sweep through the bus. “We’re going to be late for dinner,” I heard Alice Tjarks announce somewhere behind me.

“We’re fifteen minutes late,” Dick Stolee said to the group.

“
Th
venteen by my watch,” George countered.

I could feel their collective blood pressure rising with the stress.

“Sixteen minutes now,” said Dick.

“Twenty!” said Britha Severid, who obviously hadn’t adjusted her watch properly for the time change.

Okay, time to find out what was going on. I walked the length of the bus and exited by the front steps. Duncan stood talking on his cell phone, glancing back toward the Field of Miracles. I waited for him to sign off before popping the million-dollar question. “My natives are getting restless. What’s up with the delay? Mechanical problem?”

He flashed me a tenuous smile. “Guest relations problem.”

“Anything I can help with? Guest relations are my specialty.” At least, they were when the guests were still breathing.

“Unfortunately, I may have to take you up on your offer. It seems Gabriel Fox has gone missing.”

W
HAT?”

“Mr. Fox is missing. Sylvia Root spoke to him outside the Campo Santo a couple of hours ago, but none of his colleagues have seen him since then.”

My heart thumped an odd rhythm in my chest. “Do guests go missing very often?”

“Happens all the time.” He flashed me a half smile and winked. “Happened to you on our first outing.”

Oh, sure. He
had
to bring that up.

“Guests get separated from the group. Lose track of time. Don’t notice their watches have stopped. Get too far off the beaten path and end up walking in circles. I’ve seen it all.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait for him.”

“You didn’t wait for me!”

“You’re considered a tour employee. Employees are supposed to be more resourceful than your average traveler.”

“But…but…what if I hadn’t been resourceful?”

Laughter rumbled in his throat. “Yeah, right.” He checked his watch impatiently. “We do have one extenuating circumstance in this case though. If we wait here much longer, it’ll affect our travel time back to Florence, which means we might miss our dinner reservations. And if that happens, it won’t be pretty.”

I’ll say. Especially if we had to watch Jackie eat her shoes.

“Landmark prepaid for fifty-three fixed price meals, so they will
not
be happy if they have to eat that bill.”

“So…we leave him?” My guess was, Gabriel Fox was every bit as resourceful as I was.

“Not company policy, but I just checked with the head office, and they suggested a compromise. If someone stays behind to escort Mr. Fox back to Florence when he shows up, the company can avoid litigation for abandonment, mental distress, and pain and suffering.”

“Escort Mr. Fox back to Florence…how?”

“By train. The station’s a short taxi ride from here, just south of the river. And travel time to Florence is less than an hour. If he shows up within the next thirty minutes, we’d even make it back in time for dinner. So is your offer of help still good?”

“Ummmm…yeah,” I hedged, not knowing what I was letting myself in for.

“Great, I’ll even give you an option. You can either stay here at the pickup point to wait for Fox, or you can accompany the guests back to Florence. If you opt to head back with the group, remember that dinner reservations are at seven-thirty sharp and people need to dress, so try to impress that upon them on the trip back. No sweat suits. No running shoes. Plan to leave the hotel at six forty-five to allow time to navigate through traffic and it’s quite a little hike down some narrow alleys to get to the restaurant, so you’ll need time for that, too. The paving stones in those alleys are pretty uneven, so keep a watch that no one trips. Take your cell phone in case you need to call for emergency assistance. English isn’t spoken at the restaurant, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you. Smile a lot and use hand gestures. Should be a piece of cake. So what’ll it be? Stay here and wait for Fox or take charge of the group?”

He was kidding, right?

I squinted at my Florence street map beneath a street-light on the Via Nazionale and realized I needed to make a right turn to get back to the Hotel Cosimo Firenze. It was after midnight, and if Gabriel Fox’s watch had stopped, he never noticed, because he’d never shown up.

My imagination had kicked into overdrive as I’d waited for him at the pickup point. What could have caused him to miss the bus? Disorientation? Injury? Foul play? Was his disappearance somehow connected with the deaths of Cassandra and Jeannette? Was it odd that people had lost track of him at about the same time that Jackie had lost track of Fred? Or had his argument with Sylvia led to his disappearance? His words to me outside the baptistry played in my head:
Should I show up dead, be sure and check out Sylvia’s alibi.

Oh, God. I hated having an active imagination.

While I’d camped out in Pisa, I’d phoned the local hospital and police office to inform them of my problem and to give them a description of Gabriel in case he ended up at either place. My next phone call was to Etienne, to inquire if he’d been able to dig up anything on the names I’d given him.

“Your Fred Arp doesn’t own a credit card, drives a sixteen-year-old Buick, and has a checking account that shows an incredible number of debits each month for cat food and kitty litter. He visits his mother at an assisted living facility five times a week, and for the past twenty-six years, has been employed as organist for the Unitarian Universalist Society in Cleveland. He’s not hooked up to cable television, and he doesn’t own a computer. The man appears wholly above reproach, except for the high levels of exhaust emissions he discharges by driving such an old car. I haven’t received any information on the other name yet. I’ll call you when I do.”

There remained nothing for me to do then but wait. And the longer I waited, the more I began to question my theory that Gabriel had been the victim of some travesty.

Something didn’t feel quite right about the whole situation. Gabriel Fox was a savvy New Yorker. Detail-oriented. Sophisticated and cunning. I’d lived in New York. I knew that savvy New Yorkers didn’t lose track of time, even if their watches stopped. They were cognizant of schedules, and pickup points, and consequences, and I doubted they ever went missing…unless they wanted to.

And it was that thought that changed everything.

I berated myself all the way back to Florence for being so blind. He
wanted
people to see him arguing with Sylvia. He
wanted
people to think there was bad blood between them. And he’d played me like a harp about that one. If he disappeared, he wanted a cloud of suspicion hanging over Sylvia’s head, not only because it might taint her career and make her life miserable, but because it would divert attention away from the real reason he’d disappeared.

I turned right on the Via Guelfa and quickened my pace.

I knew my instincts about Fred had been right. He was too shy and introverted to be involved in any kind of wrongdoing. The only thing Fred was guilty of was observing something at the top of the Duomo yesterday that had put the fear of God in him, and I’d finally figured out what.