Healthy Place to Die (21 page)

“Now when you spear a bread cube,” warned Leighton, “be very sure that you penetrate the crusty side first—it stays on the fork that way. Some people keep the fondue melted over a hot-water bath, but a direct flame is much better as it forms a crust on the bottom of the pot, which greatly improves the flavor.

The rich smell of hot cheese had now devoured and replaced the aroma of the kirsch, and the large class was getting impatient to taste.

“Is the Italian dish that they call
fonduta
similar to this?” asked a voice.

“Not really,” Leighton said. “The Italians add egg yolks and milk—no liqueur—and they spread it on toast squares.”

The fondue was superb, and Leighton was complaining that it was eaten so fast that not enough time had elapsed to allow the buildup of a crust on the bottom of the pot. Now it was my turn, and I decided I had been too hard on the maestro. I was going to cook cheesecake, and surely it was not a dish to be snobbish about.

“We associate cheesecake with New York,” I began, “and in New York, the famous Lindy’s on Broadway always held the reputation of making the best. It was a great loss to the world of dessert lovers when the restaurant closed down, but I was among the fortunate few who managed to get the recipe.

“The moist chewy texture of the filling of Lindy’s cheesecake was perfect, and the light golden crust was bursting with butter and sugar. If you like a cake that is light and airy, fluffy and spongy—you don’t want this cheesecake. Lower-calorie and lower-cholesterol versions of cheesecake are plentiful, but they are not authentic. I am going to show you how to make the genuine Lindy’s cheesecake, and you can introduce your own variations from there.”

Faces looked expectant, and a few notebooks were poised.

I made the dough first, using only butter, sugar, vanilla, lemon rind, flour, and egg yolk. “Ideally, the dough should now be chilled for at least an hour,” I pointed out, “but we’ll chill this one just while I make the filling.” I rolled the dough, spread it on a pan bottom, and put it in the refrigerator. I set the pastry oven at four hundred degrees.

I made the filling, combining sugar, flour, cream cheese, grated orange and lemon rind, and vanilla, and beat it well in the mixer. I added eggs and extra egg yolk, stirred in cream, poured the mix into a previously baked crust, and put it in the oven.

“I am baking at five hundred and fifty degrees for twelve minutes,” I explained. “One of the secrets is to bake a further hour at low temperature—not over two hundred degrees. However, you don’t want to wait that long to taste it, so I prepared one in exactly the same way earlier this morning. It’s in the cooler and I’m taking it out now.”

It was a magnificent sight. Rich and firm, dense but silky, and it was obvious that it was going to be indescribably delicious. “You will be able to smell the citrus flavors released from the orange and lemon rinds by the cooking,” I said. “Inferior cheesecakes can be detected at once by their weak aroma.”

“You can put other toppings on it, can’t you?” came a question.

“Cherry, strawberry, pineapple, blueberry are among the fruit toppings, yes. Though the dyed-in-the-wool cheesecake fanatics insist that those are just for tourists.”

I had baked a large cake, large enough that there would be a good-size slice for everyone, and the consumption of this precluded any further questions. Millicent Manners was loud in her praise for a dish she said she never ate. Marta was near the front of the line and insisted on “only a half a slice,” but while I was answering another question, I noticed her slipping back for “just a half.”

By now, Michel Leblanc was there, making sure that everything was ready for his demonstration of how to cook cassoulet. It too was a great success, and the Frenchman had clearly had a lot of experience in preparing the dish, for he did so with great aplomb. Caroline de Witt came in near the end of Michel’s session, and when he concluded she rapped on the table for attention.

“Many of you are leaving this afternoon, so lunch today will be the last meal of the course for you,” she said. “We want to make it a special lunch, and so we are holding it in the Glacier Caverns.” There were a few “oohs” and “ahs” at this. Caroline went on, “As you well know, the caverns have been closed, but we have permission to open the outer rooms on this occasion. Many have asked about seeing them, so you will want to take advantage of this opportunity. So please come along any time after twelve noon.”

Her words drove all thoughts of Michel’s cassoulet out of my mind. Elaine was somewhere in the room, I knew, for I had glimpsed her during my presentation. I moved around in search of her.

Conversations were being conducted in twos and threes, and good-byes were being said. The room was filled with nostalgia and impressions were being exchanged. Elaine had caught my eye and we converged in a nearly empty spot. We were both circumspect about our reactions to Caroline’s statement, for though the room was buzzing with voices, someone might move close enough to hear us.

“Will this make it easier or more difficult?” I murmured.

“Think positively,” Elaine said in a soft voice. “Had anyone been watching us, he would have thought we were making an assignation.”

“With so many people there, we may find it easier,” I agreed.

“Yes. Let’s hope it doesn’t make it easier for them too.”

I wished she hadn’t said that.

O
PINION AMONG THE GUESTS
was divided about the Glacier Caverns. Some found it hokey, and the name “Disneyland” was being bounced around at various levels of comparison. Others found it “delightful,” while the universal adjective “interesting” was well to the fore.

Elaine and I had come early in case Janet was here already, but we saw no sign of her. The first chamber filled quickly and we viewed the exhibits. These were scenes from Swiss history and raised above the ordinary tableaux seen in museums and waxworks, as they were chopped out of the interior of the glacier—as was everything else.

The bluish translucent gleam of the solid ice statues gave them an unearthly look. Men, horses, weapons, flags, and standards were cut from the same frozen matrix of the glacier itself. The first displays showed a Roman legion marching out of an ice wall and represented the days when the Celtic people who settled in this region had first come face-to-face with the outside world when bronze-clad warriors of the armies of Rome came and subdued them. The glistening material from which they were chopped gave the legionnaires a ghostly reality.

In adjoining displays, giant statues towered twenty feet tall, and their names were cut into the ice pedestals: Theodoric, the great ruler of the Ostrogoths; Clovis, the Merovingian; Pepin; and the emperor Charlemagne. The mythical folk hero of Switzerland, William Tell, was the largest figure of all, dwarfing the tiny figure of his son, who was smiling in his evident faith in his father’s marksmanship. Battle scenes from the Burgundian wars had phantom horses of ice, and a more peaceful scene depicted Martin Luther and the reformer Ulrich Zwingli.

More guests were coming in now. Gasps of awe ricocheted back from the high ceiling in tinny echoes. We walked into the second chamber, which was the size of a football stadium and filled with panoramic scenes from more recent Swiss history.

We stood inside the huge arch separating this chamber from the next. “See her?” Elaine asked. We stood for some time as more guests trickled in, but there was no sign of Janet. “Let’s move on,” Elaine said.

Switzerland’s achievements in engineering occupied an enormous room: diesel engines and locomotives, aircraft and models of Alpine tunnels and bridges. Again, we looked for Janet, but there was no sign of her. Elaine and I were fascinated by a model of a hydroelectric installation above a massive dam. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” said a voice.

A cluster of guests were coming in behind us, and the comment came from the first of them, a woman with black hair and a pair of heavy black-rimmed glasses. Both Elaine and I were murmuring polite agreement and about to move on when the same thought occurred to us simultaneously. We both did a double take. The woman gave us a stare as icy as the vast chamber, and it froze any comment we might have made. We both looked at the woman again without making it obvious.

It was Janet.

She promptly looked away and walked slowly over to a display of agricultural equipment. It was not proving to be high in popularity, and when we strolled over to stand near her we were well out of earshot of the others. Anyone observing us would have taken us to be unacquainted as we chatted, seemingly strangers.

Janet wasted no time in small talk. “The expert broke Kathleen’s password. She has been coming here to the spa, and the spa has been giving her free vacations.”

Elaine asked. “Any clue as to why the spa would do that? Was she giving them publicity?”

“Quite the opposite, it seems.”

“She was blackmailing them to give her free vacations,” Elaine said. It was more of a statement than a question.

“It looks that way,” agreed Janet.

“Blackmailing them about what?” I asked impatiently.

Janet was about to answer but Elaine took over calmly. “A restaurant called the Bell’Aurora at a resort in New York State.” She looked at Janet. “Am I right?”

“Yes.” Janet’s eyes were flinty through the heavy black-rimmed glasses. “Where a husband-and-wife team of chefs were just becoming famous when a guest was poisoned. You’re probably more familiar with this part,” she said, turning to Elaine.

“Initially, the poisoning was thought to be accidental. Then it came out that a love triangle had existed between the husband, the wife, and a guest. There was a trial for manslaughter but the verdict was not guilty.”

Janet nodded. “That’s what you were researching at the Manhattan Law Library.”

“So was Kathleen.”

“She wanted to do a series of articles on husband-and-wife chef teams,” said Janet. “She must have stumbled across this story in the course of her research.”

I was determined to get in on this. “Whereas you,” I said to Elaine, “were intrigued with the legal potential of the food and restaurant business and came across the story of a poisoning in a restaurant. What I don’t see is how that brought you here to the spa.”

“Especially as the couple changed their names,” added Janet.

It was a good thing that I was faster on the uptake in the field of food detection than in crime detection. The significance was only just beginning to sink in.

“Just a minute. Are we saying that Leighton and Mallory Vance are the chef couple from the poisoning at this place in New York?”

“Some of the notes in Kathleen’s file include a local newspaper account of the trial. The names are different,” Janet said.

“It’s quite legal to change your name,” said Elaine dismissively. “Also it’s understandable that they would want to do so if they intended to pursue their career—and they obviously did, coming here to Switzerland.”

“There has to be more to it than that,” I said, musing. “A place as prestigious as this would need extensive references.”

Neither of them answered. I wasn’t sure whether either of them knew the answer or had some reason for not replying.

“There must be even more to it,” I persisted. “Blackmailing for vacations? Sounds a bit weak. Certainly not enough motive for murder. So what’s our next move?” I asked.

Still neither responded.

“Do we have a next move?” I wanted to know.

In the next room, a great ice table made a splendid setting for a farewell banquet, under a glistening dome of shiny blue ice. One wall was a faithful replica of the front of a medieval château, complete with moat, drawbridge, and portcullis. A sign in red was not legible from this distance but looked like a warning not to enter. The other walls had banners of the cantons and the national flag, with the familiar red cross on a white background.

Ice tables don’t groan, so it could not be said that this one groaned under the weight of its spectacular spread of food, but it had every reason to do so. It was buffet style and was a mouthwatering selection that already was outweighing the glacial attractions of Swiss history, agricultural equipment, and Swiss engineering achievements. Guests were flocking round the table, and the rattle of cutlery on plates was like hail on the roof as it echoed down from the icy blue dome.

“The Swiss are so
boring
with their accomplishments,” Oriana Frascati hissed to me as she loaded a plate with smoked salmon and tiny puff pastries filled with shrimp.

“You should speak more charitably of your neighbors,” I reprimanded.

“Hitler should have listened to Mussolini when he wanted to invade Switzerland,” Oriana said haughtily, reaching for cheese rolls made with four kinds of cheese.

Elaine had drifted away and was talking to Brad Thompson. Janet was trying to keep out of range of Caroline de Witt, who was presiding over the table like a benign duchess. We had discussed our next move, which it had transpired we did not have. Janet was adamant that she was not going to leave until she found out what had happened to Kathleen. Elaine and I agreed to keep an eye on her. Janet’s sole clue was that she had seen Rhoda coming to the Glacier Caverns. That was suspicious only because the caverns were not supposed to be open at the time. Janet insisted she was going to look around now. She reminded us that the caverns were said to be extensive, so there must be chambers that we had not seen in our tour.

“What are these?” Marta Giannini demanded, waving me over.

I told her they were tiny crab cakes.

“What’s that red in them?” she asked suspiciously.

“Flecks of red pepper.”

She tasted one and promptly took another.

The blond staffers were moving through the crowd of guests, offering Swiss wine. It was from the Visperterminen in the Valais, the highest vineyard in Europe, and it was crisp and dry, more assertive than many Swiss wines. It was a good solution to the problem that has confounded many a hostess—which wine to serve with a buffet.

“You read the brochure,” I said, motioning to the fluffy scarlet sweater that Marta was wearing. It was a dazzling garment, but I presumed it also had a practical purpose.