Alpine for You

by Maddy Hunter

  I knew exactly where that was. “Tanks.”

  Bernice beckoned me closer with her finger. “Just a suggestion, Emily, but if I were you, I’d lay off the sauce this early in the day.”

  I found Nana at the lookout point where I’d stopped earlier. She was on tiptoes, leaning over the rocky sill at the base of the opening that was carved into the mountain, camera poised against her eye. “Be cahrful!” I shouted at her.

  She angled around, surprised. “Have you seen this church, Emily? The Legion of Mary just started a thing where they give a prize to the best black-and-white photo used in the newsletter. If I can get a good picture a this church, I think I’ll be a shoo-in. They give extra points for religious content. Did you have a good lunch, dear?”

  “Tewwific.”

  “What?”

  “I bwoke my toof.”

  “Have you been drinkin’, dear?”

  “MY TOOF!” I pointed to my jaw. “I BWOKE IT.”

  “No.”

  “Yath.”

  “How?”

  “On a fock.”

  Nana’s eyes widened for a moment before she flashed a sly grin. “Imagine. Havin’ sex at this altitude. How nice for you, dear.”

  I waved off her comment and shook my head. “I need to fine a dentish.”

  “We’ll go and look for one right away. Just let me get one more shot.”

  “You wan me to take it fo you? I’m tawler.”

  “I’m not sure what the rules say about someone else takin’ the picture for you, so I better take it myself. I wouldn’t want the Legion to accuse me a cheatin’. But you could hold my legs to keep me from doin’ a nose dive.”

  She shimmied far out onto the sill, belly first. Marion Sippel. Also known as Little Egypt. I grabbed hold of her legs, envious that she had no fear of heights. Maybe it had something to do with her lower center of gravity. “Here we go,” she said. “That’s perfect.”

  I heard a click and a whir as the film advanced.

  “Have I got time for one more? I wanna get a shot straight down from here to show your mother how far up I was when I took this.”

  “Go aheadt.” I was from Iowa. Even in the midst of excruciating pain, I could be polite.

  “By the way dear, I think I spied Mr. Nunzio while Bernice and me was eatin’ lunch.”

  Nunzio? The police were supposed to drag him in for questioning. Did this mean they’d let him go? “Wheyre wazh he?”

  “He was standin’ in line to head back down the mountain. At least, I think it was him. Hard to tell with his trousers on. Well, would you look at that.”

  Oh, no. Now what?

  “My eyesight’s not what it used to be, but there’s somethin’ big and yellow on a ledge about a hundred feet down from here. It looks like some kinda Muppet.”

  “Maybe ish a kite.”

  “Do they have kites that look like Big Bird?”

  I was pretty sure Big Bird was a Sesame Street character rather than a Muppet, but I didn’t want to split hairs. “You beddah lemme see.”

  Nana wiggled backward until her feet touched ground again. “It’d be too bad if someone lost their kite. It looks like a real nice one.”

  I squirmed forward over the sill an inch at a time, my heart pounding with the height, the bottoms of my feet tingling, again. With my fingers gnarled into the far end of the sill, I pulled forward just far enough so I could peek down into the depths below. My stomach somersaulted at the sight that greeted me.

  It wasn’t a Big Bird kite on the ledge below. It wasn’t a Muppet at all.

  It was a Tweety Bird yellow raincoat.

  Unfortunately, Shirley Angowski was still wearing it.

  Chapter 8

  “Let me see if I have this down correctly.”

  I was seated in a small office in the Hotel Kulm, watching Inspector Miceli pace back and forth as he read aloud from his notes. My head throbbed, my jaw ached, and every time I said Shirley Angowski’s name, I got a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. In other words, I was a mess.

  “The last time you saw Ms. Angowski alive, she was on the stairway to the summit, with her leg wrapped around the railing, shooting pictures.”

  I nodded.

  “You initially thought she was about to commit suicide.”

  I nodded.

  “But you later learned she’d assumed the ill-advised stance simply because…she could. She was extremely surefooted and flexible.”

  “A gymnisht.”

  “And the next time you saw her, she was at the bottom of the escarpment.”

  “Yath.”

  “So the victim might have chosen to shoot a picture from an extreme camera angle, climbed onto the sill, lost her balance, and fallen. Or, while she was perched on the sill, someone could have pushed her. Do you know of anyone who would want to harm the victim?”

  “Nana tinks she sawh Mistah Nunzeoh outside the Swish Expwess, but she wathn’t real surh ’cause he had on twowzers.”

  “Ah, yes, Nunzio. The gentleman who tried to pick up Ms. Angowski in the hotel lounge on the night Mr. Simon died. She called yesterday to inform us she’d discovered his name.”

  “Maybe he kilt them both. Why did you let him goh?”

  “Because there is no Mr. Nunzio, Emily. He’s vanished. He was never registered at your hotel or any other hotel in the city. It’s not a question of letting him go. We haven’t found him yet to question him. If you say your grandmother saw him this morning, that means he’s still in the area, and I’ll recommend we broaden our search. But other circumstances have come to light that suggest Nunzio may be nothing more than a love-starved Italian.”

  “Wat?”

  “I’ll share that with you before you leave. Meantime, do you know of anyone other than Nunzio who might have reason to harm Ms. Angowski?”

  I shook my head. Her encounter with Dick Stolee earlier in the day didn’t seem significant enough to mention. And the Teigs and Rassmusons had been miffed at her for displacing the Stolees at the dinner table, but I’m sure that wouldn’t have incited them to murder her. Shirley Angowski had been a kindhearted, cheerful, guileless woman who didn’t deserve to end her holiday by falling off a cliff. I felt tears sting my eyes. I’d only known her for a couple of days, but I’d grown attached to her in an odd sort of way. “I’ll mith hur,” I slobbered as my emotions let loose. I’d probably never be able to buy another bottle of Revlon nail polish without envisioning poor Shirley Angowski at the bottom of the mountain. I might never be able to wear polish again.

  Inspector Miceli knelt in front of me and dried my tears with a crisply starched and folded handkerchief. “Poor, Emily. This has been terribly traumatic for you. It’s never easy discovering a dead body, and in the space of two days, you’ve discovered two. I do hope you’ve reached your limit.”

  I nodded, which prompted him to lift my hand to his mouth and place a soft, lingering kiss in the center of my palm. If this was the Swiss way of dealing with trauma, I liked their methodology. Electric warmth radiated through my body. I stopped breathing. The little hairs on my arm stood at attention all the way to my elbow. My heart pounded in my chest, in my throat, in my ears. He studied my face intently as he traced the curve of my jaw with a slow, seductive knuckle, then he stood up and leaned against the desk that was behind him.

  “For the record,” he said in a husky voice, “that didn’t happen.”

  I grinned numbly and gulped a mouthful of air. My tooth didn’t hurt quite so much anymore. Maybe the lack of oxygen helped.

  “On a more serious note,” he continued, “we’ll be sending a team of climbers down the mountain within the hour to recover Ms. Angowski’s body, which leaves us with the question of her camera bag. You say she was carrying it earlier in the day, but from what I can determine, it’s not on the ledge with her. She might have left it on the ground when she climbed onto the sill, and after she fell, someone could have picked it up, either to steal or to deliver to lost and found. O
r the perpetrator might have thrown it over the cliff after pushing her so as not to draw attention to it. There’s a deeper ravine below the ledge. If the bag is there, it might be our best clue as to whether Ms. Angowski fell accidentally or was murdered.

  “And to that end, we’ll be fingerprinting everyone in your tour group before they leave the mountain today in case we’re able to retrieve the bag. If someone’s prints other than Ms. Angowski’s appear on the bag, I’ll want to escort them to the station to find out why.”

  I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers. “Evhen me?”

  “I’ll fingerprint you personally tomorrow at the hotel, after you have your tooth looked after.”

  I didn’t know if taking fingerprints would involve his lips coming into contact with parts of my body other than my hand, but I was hopeful.

  He wrote something onto his notepad, then ripped off the page and handed it to me. “This is the name and address of my dentist. I’ll call to tell him to expect you. And you needn’t worry about the expense. Once I speak to the hotel management, I suspect they’ll decide it’s in their best interest to pay your bill in full. An officer will meet you at the bottom of the mountain to drive you to his office, and he’ll wait to drive you back to the hotel.”

  “Wat about Nana?”

  “I’m afraid she’ll have to remain here with everyone else to be questioned and fingerprinted, but I can assure you, I’ll see her safely onto the bus before it leaves.”

  “I’d kith you if I thaut it wount huht too mush.”

  He gave me a sooty look that made my toes curl. “I’ll be happy to accept a rain check on that.” He escorted me across the room.

  “Wat were you gohing to tell me befaw I left?”

  At the door he turned me around to face him, stroked my hair back from my face, and lazily fingered the lobe of my ear. I held my breath again. If I deprived myself of oxygen much longer, I probably wouldn’t need a dentist at all.

  “Two things actually.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You are the most desirable woman I have ever met, Emily Andrew. If Swiss women were more like you, I would have remarried years ago.”

  Gee, I’m glad I asked. I could hardly wait to hear what the second thing was. I looked at him expectantly.

  “The second thing is, the serology and toxicology reports have come back on Mister Simon. They were positive for a substance called dimethyl sulfate.”

  “Wat’s that?”

  “Poison.”

  I shot up straight. “Poizun? Andy wath poizuned?” Oh. My. God. I’d been right. Someone had fiddled with his Piruter—Pirable—with his asthma medication. “Wath it in hiz inhalah?”

  “His inhaler tested negative for toxins. It was pure Pirbuterol Acetate. We’re uncertain how the dimethyl sulfate was introduced into his system, but whoever did it wanted to make sure Mr. Simon died an agonizing death, which suggests the killer had strong emotional ties to him and rather speaks in favor of Nunzio’s innocence. Mr. Simon suffered crippling seizures the night he died. I suspect that’s what you heard when you awoke that night. I’ve never known it to happen with a group of senior citizens, but it’s likely someone on your tour is a cold-blooded killer.”

  I arrived back at the Grand Palais Hotel five hours later with a temporary crown glued into my mouth. The pain in my jaw was gone, replaced by a tingling sensation from all the Novocain the dentist had administered. At least I could talk again, even if I couldn’t feel my lips.

  “Room 4624,” I said to the desk clerk. She looked up casually, then did a startled double take before checking the cubbyhole. I guess she didn’t get too many hotel guests with lips the size of pontoons.

  “That key is gone. Someone must have picked it up already.”

  That meant Nana was back. Good. I had lots to tell her. “Have you found my suitcase yet?” I needed my own clothes. I’d seen Nana’s complete wardrobe, and it only went downhill from the teddy bears in tutus.

  “We haven’t located it yet. I’m sorry.”

  I drilled her with a damning look that sent her back a step. “Not half as sorry as you’ll be if I have to wear teddy bears in snowsuits tomorrow.”

  I took the elevator up to the fourth floor and knocked on the door to room 4624. “It’s Emily, Nana. I’m back.”

  The door cracked open an inch. Nana poked her nose through the gap to eye me, then threw the door wide. “Had to make sure it was you and not someone tryin’ to sound like you. How’s your tooth?”

  I walked into the room and came to a grinding halt. “I have a temporary crown. What’s all this?” A three-foot-high mountain of shopping sacks lay cluttered on my bed. Big bags. Little bags. White bags. Blue bags. Paper bags. Plastic bags. “Did Bernice go on another shopping spree? I told her anything else she bought would have to go into her own suitcase.”

  “It was because of the fingerprintin’,” Nana explained. “Folks had nothin’ to do while they waited their turn, so’s they went shoppin’. All the gift shops were havin’ blowout specials on cuckoo clocks.”

  “But why is it heaped on my bed?”

  “Because Bernice told a few people you were such a dandy escort, you were gonna take care a shippin’ her cuckoos back home for her. Word got around, and everyone decided you might’s well take care a their cuckoos, too. I don’t s’pose there’s any chance you could jam all these packages in with Andy, is there?”

  “Not unless they send him home in a UPS truck.” I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that when I opened them again, the packages would disappear and this would prove to be a bad dream. I opened one eye, then the other. Nope. Still there. “What am I supposed to do with all this stuff?”

  “You might wanna think about movin’ everything off your bed so’s you’ll have a place to sleep tonight.”

  I slumped into a chair. I looked at the cuckoos on my bed. I looked at the cuckoos on the floor. I wasn’t a math whiz, but given the small area of the room, when we transferred what was on my bed to the floor, we’d be fresh out of floor space. “Do you suppose anyone would notice if I strangled Bernice?”

  “With the way things’ve been goin’, someone might do it for you.”

  I moaned. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint everyone, but they can march right back here and gather up their purchases because I can not ship anything home for anyone.” I gave my head an emphatic nod, then paused. “Or would it be better if I found out what room everyone is in and delivered their packages to them myself? Kind of a personal touch.”

  “Are you thirsty, dear? I bought lemonade while I was out. I’ll pour you some.”

  I hung up my raincoat and kicked off my shoes while Nana disappeared into the bathroom. When she reappeared, she handed me a glass of pink lemonade. “Awful about that poor Angowski woman. Inspector Miceli asked me if I could account for my whereabouts this mornin’, so I was real glad I was with Bernice most of the time, except when she had to wait in that long line to use the potty and I had to buy film. It’s a real shame people keep dyin’. Our Swiss Triangle Tour seems to be turnin’ into the Bermuda Triangle Tour. Maybe Shirley was the last victim, but you know what they say. Death always comes in threes.”

  Cheery thought. “Did Helen Teig and Dick Rassmuson have alibis?”

  “I haven’t heard, but I do know that Jane and the Dicks and their wives were all together most a the morning. I’m not sure what any of ’em would have against that Angowski woman though. They didn’t even know her. Where’s the motive?”

  The only thing that popped into my head was that if Andy hadn’t died, Shirley would have become his lover. Had a jealous ex-lover of Andy’s punished her for making the attempt? Was the finger now pointing at Lucille Rassmuson?

  I chugged some lemonade, frowning when my chin and neck grew suddenly wet.

  “Did the dentist give you Novocain?” Nana asked.

  I held my hand under my chin to catch the liquid that was dribbling down my face.

  “Maybe you should hold off on the lemo
nade ’til you get feelin’ back in your lips.”

  I handed her the glass and ran into the bathroom to wipe my face. The phone rang. Nana answered. I looked at myself in the mirror. “YEOW!” I had raccoon eyes from crying. My lipstick was smeared across my cheeks. My foundation was streaked with iridescent brown patches that had formerly been eyeliner and shadow. I looked like something from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  “You don’t say,” I heard Nana say to the person on the phone. “Is that right?”

  I grabbed the soap and scrubbed my face. I felt like a criminal having to wash away the beautiful face Shirley Angowski had created for me. She’d been such an artist. A modern-day da Vinci. But where da Vinci’s work had lasted for centuries, Shirley’s had only lasted the morning. I guess that was the downside of working with water-based products.

  “I see,” said Nana. “You bet. Thank you.”

  I dried my face and regarded myself in the mirror again. Even though I was still sporting Angelina Jolie’s lips, I looked pretty ordinary without Catherine Zeta-Jones’s eyebrows and Bo Derek’s cheekbones. And then a horrible thought struck me. What if Inspector Miceli had found me desirable simply because of the magic Shirley Angowski had worked on my face? What if I never again looked as good as I’d looked this morning? Would he still find me desirable?

  I stared fitfully at the sink. Unh-oh. Had my big chance at romance just washed down the drain with my SPF 6 foundation?

  “That was the front desk,” Nana announced from the bedroom. “They found a new room for us, so we gotta move.”

  I shot my head out the door. “Really?” Could I put the fear of God in people or what?

  “They were real nice about it, Emily. Said they’d send a bellman up right away to transfer our luggage for us. We can even ride in the freight elevator with ’im to make sure our things actually arrive.”

  All right. Now we were getting somewhere. “Did they happen to say they’d found my luggage?”