Toured to Death (2 page)

“H
ow can you dictate my menu?” Emil Pitout snatched the printed card from Amy's hand and inspected it. “You are a chef perhaps?” The doughy man in the apron smirked—a needless smirk, since his tone was expressing it nicely. “Do you have a Michelin star you neglected to tell me about, eh? My apologies.”

Amy didn't take offense. She was too busy mentally translating the rapid stream of French and trying to phrase her own response. “I'm not a chef, Emil.”

“You must be. Perhaps you wish to cook tonight? I don't want to jeopardize your menu with my clumsy efforts.” Or at least Amy thought the word meant
jeopardize.
Something close.

Emil stopped to read the card. “Not bad,” he said grudgingly, as if he'd never seen it before. “But why must the dishes be just so?” The menu slipped from his fingers, drifting to the white tile floor. The entire kitchen was white and chrome and shining, like a surgical theater.

Amy hated arguing. She wasn't good at it, even worse in French. Her usual ploy was to surrender. It tended to cut short the inevitable bloody defeat. Only this time she couldn't.

“Because they must,” she ventured, bending down to retrieve the menu. “Emil, you've had this for a week. If there was a problem, you should have e-mailed me. It's a simple dinner, nothing out of season. A fish soup, coquilles Saint-Jacques d'Étretat . . .”

Emil snatched at the menu again, but Amy pulled it back. “You have been to the market? I came late this morning—five o'clock—so I probably missed you. The haricots verts were perfection. They would have thought me mad if I didn't buy them.” He pointed to a basket of the greenest green beans Amy had ever seen.

She was finally getting the point. “You want to substitute a vegetable.”

“The other, it was passable.” Emil shrugged, pointing to a basket of equally green broccoli heads. “But to take these poor fellows and then to pass up the haricots verts . . . What is the problem with one substitution?”

Amy honestly didn't know, but she had her instructions. “Emil,” she pleaded. “We are occupying sixteen rooms. And we paid a good deal extra to reserve the whole restaurant.” She was sounding like a pushy businessman. Even worse, an American.

“You think this is about money?”

Well, yes.
“Of course not.”

“It's not about money.”

“I'm sorry. No artist likes being told how to perform. The green beans look fantastic.”

“Look? Ha.” And in a smooth motion perfected over years of stuffing capons, he slipped a bean between his adversary's teeth.

“These are American tourists,” Amy mumbled as she crunched. “Which is not to say they don't appreciate food. Mmm, delicious. But they won't mind something not quite so perfect.”

“You think it matters who I cook for? You think I walk out into my dining room and say, ‘Oh, these people, they won't appreciate my food. I will serve them crap'?” Actually, Amy had been to Paris bistros that made this scenario sound plausible. “Americans come in, and they ask, ‘How is this cooked?' ‘What vegetable comes with that?' ‘Can I have this instead?'”

“Well, they are the ones eating.”

“They get the vegetable I decide goes best. It is part of the whole.”

“Emil.” Amy pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “If it were up to me, I would love green beans. But these are my instructions. People must sit in certain places and do certain things. I don't know why. Will this be a clue? I don't know. Will something be poisoned?”

“Poison?” Emil gaped in mock horror.

“You know what I mean.”

“You are going to poison my food?”

“Emil, please.”

“I call the police.”

How do you say ‘get off it'?
“I have told you over and over. This dinner is part of a murder mystery game. I can't change a thing.”

“Even pretend poison, I will not allow. . . . That thing that tastes of bitter almonds?”

“Cyanide. No. No pretend cyanide.”

Emil huffed. “You should not play games with food.”

For Amy, the ensuing compromise felt like a victory. At least she hadn't caved completely. The haricots verts, they agreed, would be a side dish, in addition to the broccoli. She just hoped that Otto Ingo's entire mystery didn't hinge on the absence of green beans at the opening night banquet.

 

It was a few minutes past noon on a cloudless day in mid-September. Amy Abel had changed into a crisp white blouse, lime-green clam diggers, and her favorite white and green espadrilles. Taking a deep breath of sea air, she strolled down the front steps and turned left onto avenue Saint-Martin.

The small luxury hotel had been hard to find. According to Otto's specifications, it had to possess a terrace opening directly onto the dining room and should, as much as possible, resemble a private home. Deluxe accommodations in Monaco tended to be large affairs. The smaller, homey hotels were generally of a lower grade, something that might have been all right with Otto but that would not have suited Amy's clients.

Salvation had come in the form of the Hotel Grimaldi, an eighteenth-century mansion on the spit of land known as Monaco-Ville. Halfway between the oceanographic museum and the cathedral, the Grimaldi was in a district filled with ancient squares and serpentine alleys, hardly the center of jet-set action. But this tiny gem was positioned right next to the seaside cliffs. And the view from the terrace was as good as you'd find at the Fairmont Monte Carlo.

Amy had left her to-do list back in her room. This was meant to be a break.
Perhaps lunch at an outdoor café,
she thought as she wandered away from the crashing waves. Emil was in his kitchen; the guests were all checked in; the actors would be needing her for the rehearsal in the dining room, but that wasn't until three. Before she knew it, Amy had mentally re-created the to-do list.

She'd barely traveled at all since Eddie's murder. Could it be almost two years? Time had glided by in a haze of despair. It had all been so senseless, so random. Hundreds of times she had gone over—still went over—the events of that Saturday night in early November. If only they hadn't had that fight. If only Eddie hadn't gone out for a walk. If only he had stormed out five minutes earlier or later or hadn't turned down Minetta Lane. All the millions of little forks in the road, the inconsequential moments you never gave a second thought to until they heartlessly, mechanically clicked into place and destroyed your world.

Amy knew this was all part of not letting go. But how could she let go? It had been the beginning for them, a burgeoning world of inside jokes, of quiet, cuddly mornings, and little traditions. . . all gone in an instant.

Amy tried to focus on the modest glories of the neighborhood, on the neat rows of window boxes, on the brass railings glowing richly in the sun. Which was worse? she wondered. Thinking about Eddie or obsessing over the game?

This rally had been her brainchild, combining her two great loves, travel and mysteries. The idea had come to her fully formed after she'd read a
New York Times
article about a mystery event at the Guggenheim.

Mystery parties were not new. They had been around for decades and usually consisted of a poorly written mystery, two hours of half-drunken role-playing in someone's living room, and a disappointing solution that didn't quite make sense.

But what if you could make it bigger and better? What if you fully immersed the players, took them on a journey, and made the mystery last for weeks, not hours? This Otto Ingo, barely mentioned in the
Times
article, seemed to be just the kind of man to approach about her idea.

Amy had assumed there were others like her, but with money: mystery lovers willing to pamper themselves to the tune of two weeks and many thousands of dollars. So she'd gone out on a limb, getting in touch with Otto, arranging the tour, creating the brochure and the Web site, all on her own. Well, not quite on her own. Her mother had been loyally at her side, to complain and tell her they were headed for disaster.

The rally had filled up quickly, much to Fanny Abel's amazement. If everything went right, the Monte Carlo to Rome Mystery Road Rally would put their little agency on the map, giving it a distinctive niche in the cutthroat travel market.

If things went wrong . . . For a woman who hated risk, who had moved back in with her mother rather than live alone, Amy was taking the risk of a lifetime. She was painfully aware that there was no other tour operator sharing the downside. And that was the reason why she kept reviewing her mental checklist.

Amy turned down a narrow pedestrian lane. The air was balmy, with that distinctive resort smell—coconut oil and citrus and aloe. Strolling in the welcome shade, she was jostled by the amiable tide, a couple here, a trio there, a small roadblock of Germans hovering around a particularly cheap postcard rack.

This scent, so suggestive of languid, half-forgotten vacations, was it seeping out of the rows of plastic bottles in the souvenir shops or evaporating straight off the tourists? Perhaps it was part of the atmosphere, the result of so many decades of slathered, half-naked bodies leaning against porous limestone columns or dripping their fragrant sweat onto the cobblestones.

The late summer sunlight met her at each corner, teasing her with its heat, only to retreat once she ventured on to the next block. Farther down, at the end of the block, Amy could see the shadows disappear, and knew that she was approaching a square.
Good.
She hadn't forgotten.

Dominick's was one of several cafés that poured their tables and umbrellas out onto place Saint-Nicolas, a picturesque square whose centerpiece was a statue of the somber Christmas saint. The old man peered down from the top of his lazy fountain, the water barely dribbling from the four lion heads that sprouted just below his feet.

They had eaten lunch at Dominick's on their very first trip, a three-week extravaganza fueled by sex and excitement and next to no money. How many more places would she find from their travels? Not that she was looking.

Amy settled into a white plastic chair at a red plastic table. She asked the waiter for a
croque-monsieur
and an Orangina and was surprised at how quickly the order arrived. That was the one advantage of coming here in high season. The cafés did their best to churn the tables.

Amy took her first bite, then turned her chair to get the best view. Only gradually did she become aware of a couple, an older woman and a younger man, staring at her from under an umbrella of the adjacent café.

Amy didn't consider herself the type to draw stares. True, she was tall and slim—not model slim, but close—with a five-foot-ten frame inherited from her father. In all other ways her looks were remarkably unremarkable. In her early thirties, an ordinary age, she possessed brown, slightly wavy hair cut to shoulder length and pulled back into a chignon. Her nose, mouth, ears, and brown eyes were equally ordinary. Eddie's best friend had once described her as the prettiest girl in the office. And although Amy had never worked in an office, the description rang true.

Her one extravagance was the eyeglasses. She loved them and felt they added some much-needed definition. A visual signature, with unlimited variety. Since childhood she had thumbed her nose at contact lenses. And the very idea of LASIK surgery . . . Her current favorite was a pair of Lafont sunglasses, with round tortoiseshell frames, and she was wearing them now.

Amy tried not to stare back but couldn't help glancing their way. And then it came to her. “Ms. Davis,” she said in a flash of recognition. No wonder they'd been staring. “Excuse me. I was daydreaming.” She tucked fifteen euros under her ashtray, took her plate and glass, and went to join them.

“Oh, you didn't recognize us. Admit it,” the woman purred.

“No, I did.”

“I forgive you.” Georgina Davis flourished an outstretched hand, as if to embrace her approach. “I barely recognized you myself. Your glasses are different.” She laughed in a pleasant, self-deprecating way. Her gold bracelets jangled as she moved an elegant crocodile purse an inch closer to her iced tea, her best effort to make room at the small table.

A British friend had once suggested that while some cultures might be obsessed with birth, education, or other barometers, in America things were more elemental. Beauty, youth, and money. This was how a democracy judged its people, he'd said, which explained why most U.S. magazines printed photographs of their subjects, found a way to mention their age, and always gave some hint of how well off they were. Amy had been appalled by the observation but now found herself using it to evaluate the two people seated around the curve of the table.

Georgina Davis was third-generation money, granddaughter of Davis Buttons, Inc., and worth a comfortable hundred million. A well-preserved sixty, Amy estimated, and probably ready to deny it.

In the final category, Georgina lost more of her democratic prestige. A soft aurora of strawberry hair did its best to soften a jaw that could be unkindly called lantern and a cleft in the chin too deep and heroic to be labeled a dimple. On a man it might be considered a strong face. A man at least would have had the option of cloaking it with facial hair. On a sixty-year-old woman, however, all you were left with was the odd impression that you were always catching sight of her from the wrong angle.

Her companion, Marcus—from her time with the travel documents, Amy recalled an Hispanic last name—rated much higher in the two less critical areas. He was about Amy's age and perhaps an even six feet, not tall enough for her to wear decent heels in his company, but . . . Why was she even thinking that? His face was long, with largish features—an aquiline nose and oversize ears partly covered by hair. He had a wavy, shiny jet-black mane, which complimented his olive complexion. Good hair and a killer smile.