Death of an Obnoxious Tourist (27 page)

“Why do I have to do all the dirty work?”

I waited at the window. This hospital was in a part of Florence I had never seen before; nothing medieval or charming here. The scene out my window could just as well be Richmond.

Lettie came huffing in. “I found him. I told him. He turned a funny color, but he didn’t say anything. He’s waiting for you at the elevator on the bottom floor.”

I found Marco talking to a man in a lab coat—not my doctor—when Lettie and I stepped off the elevator. Marco cut his conversation short and walked over to me. I said, “Good morning.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” He looked good enough to eat, so I concentrated on the wall behind his shoulder.

“We have traced that blue Fiat. It does belong to Gianni Diletti. Now, he is missing. I have sent men to his address, but we have found him yet.”

Why was he telling me this? We had already established that I couldn’t be trusted.

I told Marco about what I’d seen in the parking lot last night, but didn’t allow myself to look straight into his eyes.

“Very strange,” he said. “I will ask Tessa about that. I have not seen her since last evening.”

“Why don’t you call her cell, I mean her mobile phone?” I hadn’t heard the term cell phone used in Italy. They seemed to always say mobile.

“I do not know her mobile telephone number.”

“But you called it yesterday, didn’t you? When you arrested Beth?”

“No. I called Tessa at her room. First I called the home number that we had on record, her apartment telephone. Then, when I had no answer, I called her room at the Hotel Fontana.”

I glanced at Lettie and wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. If the call Tessa had gotten when she left our room in such a hurry yesterday wasn’t from Marco, then who was it from? It had upset her so much she hadn’t been able to tell us good-bye.

Marco lowered his voice and motioned Lettie and me closer. “I talked to the doctor who did the autopsy on Amy Bauer. He told me he cannot be sure, but it looked to him as if Amy may have been dead before she hit the ground.”

“You mean somebody killed her,” I said, “and
then
tossed her over?”

“He cannot be sure. She died from a compression fracture of the vertebrae in her neck.” Marco put his hand on the back of his own neck as Lettie and I moved in closer. “That could have happened,” he said, “because she hit the ground face first and pushed her head backward, or it could have been done by something that quickly snapped her head backward.” Marco demonstrated with his palm against his forehead. “And then she would, of course, have fallen. There is probably no way to determine which way it happened, but the doctor did point out, as I had already noticed myself, that the hillside was steeply sloped where she landed. If she had been conscious as she fell, it is unlikely that she would have turned her head so as to land face first.”

“Absolutely not.” To me, this sounded like proof positive that Amy had been attacked and then thrown over the balustrade. But without any other hard evidence, it wouldn’t count for much in a court of law. Why was Marco telling me all this? Maybe he was demonstrating how one goes about being open and forthright. Or maybe he was over his anger. Ah, the Italian temperament.

“So I need to find Gianni Diletti,” he said. “I have been informed that I cannot keep your group here in Florence any longer. Your tour company is taking you to Rome tomorrow, and there is nothing I can do about it. Just like Ivo the Gypsy, all my suspects will now be out of my control.”

“What about Beth?” Lettie asked.

“Her brother has hired a lawyer and they have arranged for her release. She will be free to go this morning, but she will have to stay in Florence.”

———

I needed an excuse to talk to the desk clerk—the young woman with the tight curly black hair—and I suddenly remembered the Bible I had borrowed. Perfect. Lettie talked me into getting some breakfast before we hit our room. We asked for a table on the patio and were seated between the oleander hedge and the gruesome . . . threesome? I checked their place settings. Walter, Michael and Elaine. There was no place setting for Dick.

Nodding discreetly in their direction, I mumbled to Lettie, “No Dick. Might that be the reason Elaine was crying last night?”

“Oh, yes. I forget to tell you because I only found out about it last night when you were . . . out.” Lettie grinned at her accidental double entendre. “Dick has gone off somewhere,” she whispered. “They don’t know where he’s gone, exactly, but he called Tessa just to let her know he’s still in town and she needn’t tell Pellegrino Tours that she’s lost another customer. That would make three, no four counting Crystal. No, five, because for a while there Shirley was also missing. But two came back, and five minus two—”

“I get the idea, Lettie.”

“Apparently, Dick is getting in touch with his inner self somewhere in Florence. Elaine is—well, she’s in a rather odd situation now, isn’t she?”

Lettie, having already eaten, ordered coffee, but I ordered a full breakfast. I checked my blood sugar. It was okay, but after last night I planned to check it every thirty minutes. I glanced at Elaine. Her dark sunglasses obscured eyes that I suspected were red and puffy.

“Look at them,” I whispered. “Each is playing a different charade. Elaine has to pretend the guy next door has gone walkabout, but there’s no reason for her to be upset about that, so she has to pretend she’s not upset. Walter has to pretend the guy next door is gone, but it’s his boss, the man who’s paying for his trip, for heaven’s sake, who’s gone. And Michael has to pretend his boss/roommate has disappeared on him, but it’s the guy next door.”

“You’re making my head spin, Dotsy.”

“Lettie,” I said, buttering a croissant, “supposing Amy was murdered. Can we assume the murder was committed by the same person who killed Meg?”

“No, I don’t think we can.”

“But then we’d be talking about two murderers occurring in one small group. That sort of defies the laws of probability, doesn’t it?”

“Not if Amy was the one who killed Meg, and somebody found out and sought revenge by killing Amy.”

“Okay, that’s possible. But wouldn’t it make more sense to give whatever proof you had to the authorities?”

“Not if you had no confidence in the Italian authorities. Not if you had a personal reason for not wanting your evidence to become known. Not if you just lost control of your anger. Not if—”

Stop. I forgot to take my ibuprofen. I really do have a headache, and you’re making it worse.” I shook two pills from my little bottle and swallowed them with orange juice. “I lean toward the one killer hypothesis, myself,” I said.

“One killer with one motive, or one killer with two motives?”

“Good question. You do amaze me sometimes, Lettie. It could be either, couldn’t it? Perhaps he or she killed Meg for whatever reason, and Amy discovered the killer’s identity. Amy could have been murdered to keep her from talking. But your idea about Amy killing Meg and someone killing Amy for revenge won’t work. We already know that Amy couldn’t have killed Meg because she and Tessa have given each other alibis, and they have an ATM receipt to back them up.” I paused a minute and thought. “Or both Meg and Amy could have been killed for the same reason. They were sisters, after all.”

“I think that’s Captain Quattrocchi’s idea,” Lettie said, “but I don’t buy it.”

We spoke to Elaine, Walter and Michael on our way out. They said they were still undecided about their day’s plans. Walter said he was eager to go to Siena, and Michael concurred.

“I don’t much feel like another bus trip today, especially if we’re going to Rome tomorrow,” Elaine said.

This would allow Michael and Walter a day to themselves, and I saw Michael glance at Walter.

“I’m going to the Ponte Vecchio to look at some gold necklaces in a little while, Elaine,” Lettie said. “Would you like to go with me?”

Elaine appeared startled by the offer. Her head jerked up, and she offered a weak smile, from the lips only. “How nice. Yes, thanks. I’ll walk down with you. Call my room when you’re ready to go.”

I placed my hand on Walter’s shoulder. “I’d like to see the rest of your pictures from the plaza. Could you help me hook your camera up to a computer? I’ll pay for it. If you could download them, I could do the rest myself.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said. “Say, nine thirty?”

Assuming the bus departed for Siena at the same time as yesterday, that would give us plenty of time. Especially since we now knew which computer to use.

I left Lettie in our room and carried the borrowed Bible to the front desk. I needed to speak to the girl with the little black curls, because, by process of elimination, I knew she had to have been the one who told Marco she had not delivered any urgent messages last Friday.

Lettie recalled seeing Ms. Black Curls behind the desk, but neither of us remembered seeing her in the group of hotel employees who’d dashed upstairs after Beth called to tell them about the dead body on the third floor. Neither Lettie nor I could recall Black Curls behind the desk Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. If she’d been there, Lettie would have recorded it in her data bank. I can depend on her for things like that.

A night clerk with blonde hair had loaned me the Bible. I didn’t see her. Good.

“
Scuzi
?
Ritorno
. . .” I made some deliberately confusing hand gestures while edging toward the swinging half-door at the end of the counter. Just then, I spied the girl I needed, retreating down the narrow hallway behind the desk, and I dashed through, muttering, “Ah, there she is.
Un momento.
I need to give this to her.”

After explaining to the girl with black curls that this was the hotel’s Bible and I was returning it, I prolonged the conversation with, “I used this Bible for the memorial service we gave for Miss Bauer. Margaret Bauer. You know?”

“Ah, yes.” She adopted a suitably sympathetic expression. “So sorry.”

“You were here the day she died, weren’t you?”

“I was here earlier, but not when the body was discovered.”

“Were you here when Miss Bauer’s sister was called down to the desk? She told me she received an urgent phone call.”

“That is very strange. I was here, but I made no phone call to her room. There was no urgent message. I would remember.”

“Was there any message at all?”

“There was a note in her box. When she came to the desk, she was all . . .” Black Curls puffed her cheeks out and scowled. “She was upset. I gave her the note that was in the slot for her room and she said, ‘This is urgent? This is not urgent.’ Like it was a big deal. Then Tessa D’Angelo, your guide, came over and talked to her.”

So, there had been no phone call, but there
had
been a note.

I had fifteen minutes to spare before meeting Walter in the lobby, so I hurried up to Paul’s room. Lucille answered my knock.

Damn, how can I talk to him with her here
?

“Are you going to Siena, Lucille?” I asked.

“Come in, Dotsy.” Paul pulled a yellow T-shirt over his wet hair, then whacked a pair of socks against the dresser. “I’ve told Lucille about my assignment, so we can talk in front of her. Doesn’t make much difference now, anyway. It seems our man, Dick Kramer, has decided to . . . well, I don’t know what he’s decided, but I have enough stuff on him to write a book. I’m finished.”

Which assignment had he told Lucille about? The assignment given to him by Dick Kramer’s wife, or the one I gave him, the assignment to find out all he could about Meg Bauer’s past? I had already accepted the fact that if his sources back home discovered a connection between Meg and Paul, or Meg and Lucille Vogel, Paul wouldn’t pass that information along to me. Therefore, I might as well talk freely.

“Something Captain Quattrocchi told me this morning makes me think that this may be our last day in Florence,” I said. “Beth and her brother will have to stay, but the rest of us will go, so time is of the essence. What did your rsources back home find out?”

“Have a seat,” Paul said. “I talked to them yesterday. Hospital records and legal proceedings are hard things to get hold of, you understand, but my man thinks he’ll have something on that today. Up to now, the information has come from public records, tax records, talking to nurses. Meg was straight with the IRS. No criminal record, no hard evidence of pilfering drugs. I say ‘no hard evidence’ because Meg Bauer did have a suspicious amount of money for a nurse from an average middle-class home. My sources tell me that, when the bean counters get finished, they wouldn’t be surprised if her net worth doesn’t come to three million, or more. Real estate, municipal bonds, blue-chip stocks. She didn’t get that by clipping coupons.

“The hospital personnel she’s worked with are unanimous. They all say she was a bitch. They all seem to know of one incident or another where Meg was negligent, managed to get somebody else blamed for something she did, made mistakes with medications, or didn’t follow doctor’s orders. But we need names and dates, and that information would be recorded on the hospital records.”

“Which you think your contact will be able to get today.”

“Entirely off the record, of course. Anything we find out from hospital records will have to be kept confidential because it’s strictly illegal. You could use the information to shed light on this murder, but you couldn’t use it in court. You could allude to it if you’re working with Quattrocchi, but you can’t tell him where you got it. Understand?”

I nodded, but other than the possible size of Meg’s estate, he hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know.

Poor little Beth shuffled into the lobby between Marco and Tessa. Joe Bauer and a gaunt man—Beth’s lawyer?—followed. I was five minutes early for my appointment with Walter, so I joined them. I told Beth that Lettie was in our room and would love to see her. I asked Tessa about our plans for the day.

“The bus will leave for Siena at ten o’clock and should be back here by three-thirty or so. Then at five we’ll go to the hill country, to Cesare’s party and festival. I’ll join the group for that trip, but not the one to Siena.”