Toured to Death (6 page)

“He exists,” Amy insisted. “Why do you have to make things worse? He's following the tour, like Otto said. Maybe he's actually on the tour. That's possible.”

“Fine,” Fanny said. “Then the two of you can do the worrying for everyone.”

“Okay, okay,” Amy shot back. “I'm sorry I called. We'll handle it on our own.”

I
n the breakfast room the next morning, she broke the news, being careful not to imply a violent death, merely an unexpected one. Her guests seemed momentarily saddened, the same way they might react to the news of an earthquake in China or the death of an old film star they'd assumed was already dead.

“This was Otto Ingo's very last game,” Burt Baker said with gravity and a touch of pride. “We should dedicate it to his memory.”

Amy had never understood what dedicating something meant. It wouldn't change the game's outcome or how it was played or even what they were thinking as they played it. People liked to dedicate things. But what did it mean? She was in a cynical mood.

By acclamation, the living detectives dedicated their efforts to the deceased game master, then turned back to their coffee and croissants. Amy was tempted to ask Otto's assistant to identify himself—if he was there, which was by no means a sure thing. But under the circumstances, mere seconds after the announcement of Otto's death, she felt it would be too much like asking if there was a doctor in the house or a licensed pilot on the plane.

The luggage had already been taken care of, transported from the hotel hallways to the covey of waiting cars. Meanwhile, the teams were finishing up their breakfast and wondering where their first clue of the day would come from. When the sound of breaking dishes erupted from the nearby kitchen, they were ready.

The breakfast room fell silent. Into that stillness floated a muffled curse. A woman's voice. Then came another crash, like a dish being thrown against a wall.

Amy was pleased at how well the noisemaker was working. The owners of Hotel Cézanne, an older British couple, wonderfully friendly and cooperative, had placed some broken tiles and pieces of china in a wooden box. It was their own invention. Dropping the box onto the kitchen floor produced a nicely realistic sound. After the second crash of crockery, the dialogue started—raised, angry voices, which everyone in the breakfast room could recognize as belonging to their hosts.

“You mean he didn't give you a credit card?” the wife was heard shouting. “Not even for security?”

“He insisted on paying cash,” the husband moaned. A note of authenticity flavored his hen-pecked performance. “We have to accept cash. It's the law.”

“But no one pays cash. Only drug dealers and runaway convicts.”

A swarm of players were pressing their ears against the swinging door, all convinced that the “he” in question was their runaway friend, Daryl.

The husband tried to explain. “When he checked out, he said he hadn't made any calls. The system must not have updated the computer. So, the fellow cheated us out of one trunk call. Hardly the end of the world.”

“Idiot.” The crockery box dropped again, eliciting a startled jump from the mass of humanity piled against the door. “You never checked the computer, Nigel. Did you?” A practiced sigh. “All right. Where was the call to? How much was it for?”

“I have it written down right here.”

Pens were withdrawn from pockets and purses.

The phone number was barely out of the man's mouth when there was a stampede from the breakfast room. From there they went scurrying in every direction, some to their cell phones, some out to the cars, others racing upstairs to use their room phones. Amy waited in the breakfast room, out of harm's way. She had been up early, driving to Aubagne to plant the first clues, fighting the maddeningly slow farm traffic on one-lane roads, and getting back just in time to make her sad announcement. Now she relaxed over a croissant and a café au lait. By the time she cleaned her plate, the lobby was empty.

“Thanks a mint,” she said, walking up to the registration desk. “What a performance.”

Nigel Yardley glanced up from the computer, his green eyes twinkling over his half-glasses. “Our pleasure. Marley adores amateur theatricals. It's the one thing we miss, living here.” The owner's gaze fell back to the monitor. “I suppose you want to know the damage our little scene caused.” He laughed, a thick Yorkshire chortle. “Unlike my fictional counterpart, I'm checking the computer.”

“A few calls to the French Foreign Legion headquarters in Aubagne?” Amy guessed.

Nigel's finger scanned down the list. “Four. Room two-seventeen called twice. They must have been skeptical.”

“Who can blame them? Daryl is a bit old to be enlisting. Maybe he has something to forget.”

“There must be one very confused receptionist at the Foreign Legion.” Nigel chuckled. “I hope your people were discreet.”

“Me too. Do the French give prison time for crank calls?”

“Hmm.” Nigel frowned as he tapped a line of green print. “And one trunk call to the States.”

“To the States? That must have been from before.”

“No. It's right here with the others. Room two-oh-four. Nine twenty-six a.m. A seven-one-eight city code.”

“Area code,” Amy corrected him, as she eased her way around the counter. Nigel adjusted the angle of the screen. “You're right. I wonder why someone would take the time.”

“Yes,” Nigel wondered as well. “They all seemed to be in quite the rush. Hardly the time to call home and chat. The seven-one-eight code is for . . .”

“The New York area. Brooklyn.”

Nigel tapped a few more keys. “Two-oh-four is a single. Nice-looking fellow.”

“Marcus Alvarez.”

“His home is in Brooklyn?”

“Palm Beach, as far as I know. How long was the call?”

“Three minutes and change.” Nigel could sense the travel agent's unease. He flourished a pen from his jacket pocket. “Do you wish to jot down the number?”

“No,” Amy said without thinking. “No,” she added with thinking. She was ashamed of her curiosity. “What do I owe?”

“Are you sure?” Nigel asked, his pen poised over a notepad.

“No,” Amy repeated. “How much do I owe?” She was going to ignore it. That was the best way to deal with almost anything.

V
inny Mrozek stroked his bushy mustache and struggled to recall the French he'd been forced to learn all those years ago. “These museums ought to write things in English.” Vinny's twin sons stood behind him. They were studying the old, historical print and working on their own interpretation of the plaque beneath it.

Dominick, the more analytical one, pointed to the central figure, a large-breasted woman standing on the top battlements of a seaside fort. She was facing away from the sea, and her hands were behind her back. Despite the yellowing paper and the complex cross-hatching, it seemed obvious that the woman was lifting up the rear section of her dress. “Looks like she's mooning the guys on the ship out there.”

Donovan snorted, then stopped. “Hey, that's it. She's mooning them. Outrageous.” He pointed, his finger smudging the dusty glass. “Dad, you see this? Dad?”

Their father grunted. “According to this, the woman's name was Caterina, a kind of local Joan of Arc. When Barbarosa and his pirates attacked, Caterina marched up and down the roof of the fort and, uh . . . she lifted up her
jupon,
you know, and, uh, showed the pirates her, uh . . .”

“Her butt,” Donovan shouted, his voice echoing down the spiral ramps of the ancient stone keep.

“Hindquarters,” Vinny said, using the translation he recalled from his days in cooking school.

“I'll say.” Dominick's eyes strayed from the figure and for the first time took in the rest of the print. “This is the same fort, isn't it? This is where she mooned them.”

The Naval Museum, an imposing stone fortress overlooking the Nice harbor, had indeed been the site of Caterina's defiance, and for perhaps the only time in their lives, the Mrozek twins felt a connection to history.

“Maybe that's what we're supposed to do next,” Donovan suggested. “You know, go up to the roof and . . .” He turned. “Hey, Jolynn,” he shouted, his voice echoing down the ramp. “Look at this. You're supposed to wave that little flag and moon the city.”

“Augh,” screamed Dominick in mock horror. “Show them your butt, Jolynn. Then we win.”

“And they lose.”

Vinny tried to hush his sons. All through the trip they'd been teasing their new stepmother, egging her on. He hoped she hadn't heard this latest, but who was he kidding? Jolynn could hear insults that hadn't yet been spoken. And this one had been shouted through a nearly empty fort.

“Dom. Don. Enough already.”

This vacation had been Jolynn's idea. Vinny had never suspected her of being a mystery fan. When she read at all, it was a magazine or a star biography. But she had somehow latched on to the notion of using this rally to bring her closer to the seventeen-year-old boys, Vinny's boisterous, football-playing baggage from a previous marriage. If it worked, he figured it would be worth the extravagance.

It wasn't working.

Jolynn was nearly twenty years younger than Vinny, late twenties to his late forties. She stood a good six inches below his brawny six feet plus, and the wedding pictures from three months ago showed her posing among the hulking Mrozeks, looking dour and dark and overwhelmed. Her black hair and exotic good looks stood in sharp contrast to the dirty blond homeliness that Vinny had inherited and passed on to his sons. She was their opposite in almost every way, as flinty and hard as Vinny was overstuffed and soft.

The interior of the Naval Museum was little more than a huge spiral ramp five stories high, with display cases and paintings and an occasional cell off to the side, where the larger pieces of ancient weaponry were on display.

Jolynn trudged her way up to the fifth-floor level, pulling herself along the iron rail that jutted from the stone wall. Upon arriving, she proceeded to ignore her stepsons and shove a miniature flag into Vinny's paw. Her lilac perfume seemed strong enough to stir the flag into a flutter. “What the hell are we supposed to do with this?” she demanded.

They had been handed the strange multicolored flag at the museum's entrance by the man from the rental car agency. Against Jolynn's piercing protests, he had insisted on taking back their Mercedes, luggage and all, exchanging it for this flag.

“I'm not sure we were supposed to come in here,” Vinny said. “I mean, they take our car, right? Which means there's got to be another mode of transportation. A boat or a train.”

“This is supposed to be a road rally.” Although not technically a complaint, Jolynn whined it with the same intonation, and the boys registered it as yet another mark against her. “Why would they take away our car?”

“It's a mystery to me,” Dominick quipped for the hundredth time. Snatching the flag from his father's hand, the teen wandered up the ramp toward the open battlements. “What country is this from? Does anyone have a clue?”

“I still think Jolynn's supposed to show her butt,” Donovan cracked as he joined his brother in the dappled sunlight.

“They're just teasing,” Vinny cooed soothingly as they reached the roof of the fort and followed the boys outside. “They know how it gets to you.”

“Of course it gets to me. If you had raised them to be a little respectful . . .”

Only the faintest of breezes disturbed the air. The smell of the sea was mixed with a hint of diesel—and Jolynn's lilacs. Vinny had always had a sensitive nose. It was part of what made him a great chef. His initial attraction to Jolynn, he suspected, had been at least partly based on lilacs.

“Damn. Look at this!” Donovan was yelling excitedly from the far side of the roof. “I found it. I found another flag.” When Jolynn and Vinny caught up with the twins, they were standing by the battlements, fishing in their jeans for change.

“Anybody got a euro?” Dominick asked. His hand came out of his empty pocket and pointed to a duplicate of their tiny flag. The cheap, colorful cloth was taped to the side of a pair of pay-per-view binoculars.

 

Amy paced back and forth along the quai Lunel, peering up the streets leading to the Naval Museum, cleaning her glasses every minute, as if it would help. She'd been dreading this kind of situation, but sooner or later it was bound to occur. The first two days had been nearly flawless. The clues had been challenging without being impossible, and her game-loving guests had concluded each day in the glow of their own glory, sitting out on moon-swept terraces, sharing their tales of adventure. Even teams finishing well down the list took pride in their conquest of Otto's diabolical puzzles.

The endless job of dealing with high-paying clients had left Amy with little time to think about her problems. Otto was dead and the game was on autopilot, with the promised, paid-for assistant nowhere in sight. The game was based on a real millionaire's disappearance, and Georgina had been involved. Someone had thrown a rock at Marcus, and Marcus had, in turn, made an inexplicable call to Brooklyn. Amy preferred to ignore all this and sweat the small stuff.

She paced another circuit of the quai and checked her watch. Five of the six teams were on board
L'Albatros.
The impressive silver-white cabin cruiser was supposed to be at this moment ferrying the group from mainland France to the island of Corsica. But where were the Doloreses?

Paul Wickes, the Virginia headmaster, had miraculously recognized the old Corsican flag as soon as the Dodos handed in their car keys. They had arrived at the gangplank nearly two hours ago and were now relaxing on deck with their drinks.

Burt Baker and the Prices had arrived twelve minutes later, having done it purely by logic. It was, after all, a road rally. Giving up their car in a port city could mean only one thing. It was a short walk from the Naval Museum to the harbor, and
L'Albatros
was easy to spot. Among all the pleasure yachts and tourist boats, it was the only vessel flying a full-size version of the antiquated flag.

According to Otto's instructions, if the last team did not arrive within an hour and a half of the first, the boat was required to cast off. The latecomers would be left to telephone the Paris number and find their own way to Corsica, probably by the mid-afternoon ferry. A true gamesman, Otto had operated on the theory that a few harsh consequences would serve to heighten the adventure and make it more real. But then, Otto had never met Jolynn.

Amy could predict the woman's reaction. “We paid for passage on that boat, not on some stinking, smelly ferry.” Every tour had a few malcontents. In this case, Jolynn Mrozek had single-handedly taken on the job.

“Any sight of the doleful Doloreses?” Frank Loyola shouted down from the bow. Day three and Jolynn was already a legend. Ten minutes ago the captain had blasted his horn. Twenty of the players were on board and anxious to get moving. “The captain's talking overtime,” Frank added. Amy wasn't sure if she was being teased or not.

Reluctantly, she raised a hand toward the bridge, signaling the captain to cast off. The deckhands waited for Amy to reboard, then began to unhinge the gangway. And that was when someone finally spotted the Mrozeks racing down the pier.

“How can you expect anyone to see that flag?” Jolynn said breathlessly as Amy ushered her up the restored gangway. “It's a good thing one of us had a euro.” Her eyes fell on the others. “Are people eating already? Is it a buffet? I hate being late at a buffet.”

Their opponents greeted them with the kind of good-natured ribbing that Vinny appreciated, the teenage twins endured, and Jolynn resented.

“If I'd known we were going to pay all this money to be laughed at . . . Oh. Box lunches,” she observed.

What would have been a six-hour ferry ride was reduced to under four by the power and design of the yacht. It was a perfect length of time to enjoy the cry of the gulls, the Mediterranean's salty spray, the sight of one scenic landmass receding and another one approaching. In between was a leisurely lunch. For those needing more stimulation, there were cards and board games and an Agatha Christie movie playing in the below-deck lounge.

The Mrozeks sat in a sheltered nook of the sundeck. The New Jersey family was at work on their box lunches, layering the cuts of prosciutto and smoked beef and the slices of provolone onto fresh baguettes, then lacing them with sliced tomatoes and red leaf lettuce. Dominick was the first to finish off his sandwich. He ignored the apple and pear and turned to the impressive slice of icebox cake that had been placed in a plastic bubble at the bottom of his box.

“How's the cake?” Burt Baker asked as he hobbled past their corner. Jolynn noticed Burt's sly smile and recalled that this wasn't the first time he'd hobbled past. Others were staring at them, as well, pretending not to.

“Good,” Dominick mumbled. He swallowed and prepared for a second bite.

“Why is he asking about the cake?” Jolynn hissed, suspicion rising in her voice. Reaching into her box, she retrieved her own plastic bubble. Right away she could see a design in white and red decorating the chocolate top, a design composed of thin lines of frosting that were not centered on the slice but went straight to the edge, as if part of a larger pattern. “Are we eating someone's birthday . . . ?” Then her mind flashed back to the inaugural dinner and the strawberry tarts. “Oh, my God. Dominick! Stop. The cake is a clue.”

The other Mrozeks froze in mid-bite, sandwiches dangling from their mouths. Blankly, they stared at Dominick and the half-destroyed field of icing.

“Shit,” he mumbled, crumbs dropping from his chin.

“Damn. They don't even let you enjoy lunch.” Jolynn gingerly took the piece of cake from her stepson's hands and placed it on the white scarf that they'd thrown over the vent cover to form their makeshift table. “Don't just sit there,” she ordered her family. “Get out your cakes. Careful with the frosting.”

A small crowd had gathered, keeping a respectful, perhaps fearful distance as Jolynn arranged her slice next to Dom's half-eaten ruin. She was trying to match up the red and white lines.

“Is it a message?” Vinny asked. “Maybe it's a map. We're lucky Jolynn's so observant, aren't we, boys?”

“Shut up, Vinny. We're a laughingstock.”

But no one was laughing. Whatever good-natured fun might have been sparked by the situation had been doused by Jolynn's blanket of bile. Vinny and his twins probably would have enjoyed their predicament, all harmless attention and good humor. They probably would have erupted into big, embarrassed grins and received a hearty round of applause. But not with Jolynn.

“You can still decipher it,” Burt offered from a safe twenty feet away. “It's a clue about Napoleon's birthplace. On Corsica.” He was rewarded with a punch in the arm from his niece.

“That's cheating.”

“Just trying to preserve the peace.”

“We don't need your condescending help,” snarled Jolynn.

Burt Baker sighed and checked his watch. The four-hour ride suddenly seemed like an eternity.