Death of an Obnoxious Tourist

by Maria Hudgins

  “Don’t say that, Dotsy. You don’t know anything of the kind.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. But something terrible has happened.”

  “That’s Beth and Meg’s room,” Lettie whispered. She choked a little on her words.

  I turned to her; she was almost green. “How do you know?”

  “I was in their room last night. They sent me out for a Coke, and I got it from this machine right here.” Lettie pointed left, her finger against the window. From my window, I could just see the glow of the cold drink machine. “I counted as I went down the hall; there were five doors from their room to the machine—including their door.”

  “You counted?” From anybody but Lettie, that might have been a sign of incipient senility, but from Lettie, it was normal. She’d always been like that. Sometimes she misses the whole forest, but she counts the trees. I counted again to make sure. The open door was, indeed, the fifth one down.

  The security guard emerged and jerked his head to the right. He saw us. Tromping heavily the length of the passage, he pulled a big ring of keys from his belt and opened our doors. He shooed us with the back of his hand, and blustered, “Mi scusi! Per favore, no, no, va via, grazie . . .” in a flood of Italian that obviously meant, “Go away.”

  “Back to our room” Lettie asked when he had relocked the doors.

  I didn’t want to do that, because we’d just sit there and stare at each other. “We’re supposed to be at the bus. Let’s go through the lobby.”

  We could have gone straight out the side door from the stairwell to the parking lot, but I wanted to go to the lobby. Something might be happening there.

  Something was. Two uniformed officers flanked the man who was obviously in charge. His gaze swept the lobby as he conferred with a young woman wearing a hotel badge. There are a few people who radiate power, I’ve noticed. I don’t know what it is, but they seem to fill the space around them, and simply allow others to move about within their sphere. This was one of those people. He had a short, neatly trimmed beard and warm brown eyes. His gaze darted left and right. I guessed his age at about fifty-something; his hair and beard were about an equal mixture of black and white. I wondered if he was older or younger than I. The years pass so quickly now that I can’t keep my mental image of myself up to date.

  Lettie charged toward the center of the lobby, but I caught her arm. I didn’t want to intrude on the conference. Tessa and Amy burst through the lobby doors just then, laughing. Amy waved her arms in front of her, to augment some story that tickled Tessa. Their faces sobered quickly when the grim-faced woman with the badge motioned Tessa over.

  “Come on, Lettie. Let’s go out the side door.”

  We turned on our heels and retraced our steps. The side door was locked; a crudely printed sign with an arrow pointing toward the lobby was taped at eye level, and a uniformed sentry stood just outside so we had to walk through the lobby after all. The detective—I assumed he was a detective; plain-clothes policeman at least—had his back to us as we passed. I caught the looks on Tessa and Amy’s faces as I passed. Shock. They both appeared to have been drained of all blood. The detective spoke in a soft, measured tone to Tessa, who nodded ever so slightly in response.

  A doorman stopped us. He said, “Inglese?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you with a group?”

  “Yes, we’re with the Pellegrino Tour group,” I said.

  The doorman flushed brightly around the neck, but his tone of voice didn’t waver. “I need to write down your names and ask you not to leave the area for a little while.”

  Lettie and I spelled our names slowly for him. I saw him glance once or twice toward the summit conference in the center of the lobby as he wrote.

  “We were just going out to the parking lot,” I said. “Our bus is supposed to be out there.”

  “Yes, yes. That is fine. Your bus driver should be out there. He will explain to you.”

  But Achille wasn’t there. When we reached the bus, we found the Reese-Burtons, Lucille Vogel, and the Kellys standing beside it. On the far side of the parking lot, Crystal and Shirley Hostetter approached, looing grim.

  “Wullapar . . .” Geoffrey began.

  “I’ll tell them.” Victoria took over. “We got here just as Achille was dashing off in a dreadful rush over in that direction.” She pointed toward a street that ran eastward away from our hotel. “All he said was, ‘Miss Meg Bauer is dead. She’s been killed. You must stay here.’ And then he ran off.”

  “Onotelprop,” Geoffrey said.

  “That’s right. He said, ‘On hotel property.’ He didn’t mean we have to stay right here in this spot.”

  “Dead?” Lettie’s face screwed up like a punctured balloon.

  “Killed?” Shirley had arrived in time to hear Victoria’s announcement.

  Lettie sank onto the steps inside the open bus door. “Meg! I can’t believe it.” She lowered her head to her knees.

  I knelt down to see if she looked like she was about to faint. To avoid staying bent like that any longer than necessary, I nudged her over and sat beside her. Meg, of all people. I wondered if we were going to indulge in a phony charade now. I was afraid we’d all feel obliged to pretend that we adored her, admired her, missed her. What would I say when I had to come up with something nice to say about her? She had good posture; that was about it. The worst of all possible scenarios, I thought, would be if we all found ourselves indulging in such disingenuousness to avoid being seen as a suspect.

  Lettie raised her head. “That must mean it was Beth who found . . . who found her. It must have been Beth who called the front desk. Oh, poor Beth!”

  Through the heat waves dancing across the asphalt parking lot, I saw Tessa coming toward us. At the same time, Michael, Dick, Walter, and Elaine appeared, having come apparently from the downtown area to the south. I was beginning to think of them as the “curious quartet” since they seemed to always be together, but somehow not to know each other very well.

  Tessa waited until we were all gathered. “Have you heard? Meg is dead.” She glanced around quickly, stopping at Lettie’s face. “The police have their hands full right now, but they’ll have to talk to each one of you individually. This was not an accident. It was murder.”

  The word sounded so cold coming from Tessa’s sweet young face. From where I stood, I only caught the immediate reactions of Crystal and Shirley. Crystal’s mouth quivered in what looked like a barely suppressed smile. Shirley caught her breath and glanced toward her daughter as if she would have preferred the child not hear the dreadful word, “murder.”

  “How?” Shirley swallowed. “How was she . . .?”

  “I think I’d better let the police tell you. And, oh yes. It’s not the police handling this. It’s the carabinieri. In Italy, as you may already know, there is a police force, and there’s the carabinieri—kind of like military police, but not really—it’s hard to explain. Their duties overlap a lot. Anyway, it was the carabinieri that were called, so they’re the ones handling it. They’ve asked me to act as interpreter although Captain Quattrocchi, he the one in charge at least for right now, speaks English . . . somewhat.”

  “When do they want to talk to us?” Lucille asked.

  “Well, that’s what I have to explain. It’ll take some time. They’re setting up an interview place now. They prefer to get information straight from each one of you individually. That is, to find out what each of you can remember personally, not what someone else told you. In court they call that hearsay, don’t they? Anyway, Captain Quattrocchi says he’ll get better information if you don’t influence each other with, you know, he said-she said stuff.

  “So, here’s the deal. He wants everybody to go to their rooms for now and wait to be called downstairs to talk to him. It’ll be dinnertime soon, so the kitchen will deliver your meals. Hey, free room service. Don’t knock it. So when you get to your rooms, you can call room service and make your dinner selections. They’
ll tell you what your choices are.”

  “Can I still get my vegetarian menu?” Wilma asked.

  “Sure.”

  We all trudged back to the front entrance as a group. As Michael held the door open for everyone, Shirley glanced over her shoulder. “She’s gone again! Sorry, Tessa, I promise I’ll come back, but I have to find my child first.”

  Chapter Five

  Our room in the Hotel Fontana had a tiny balcony with French doors that overlooked the heart of Florence. We could see the top of the Duomo behind the rooftops to the south and beyond that was the River Arno. If I looked straight down from our balcony rail, I could see the street in front of our hotel. I could watch people as they approached the main entrance. The hotel and its parking lot occupied the entire block. Ideally located between the railway station and the Piazza del Duomo, it was almost fully booked now, late June, as the tourist season got into high gear.

  We were, for the moment, its prisoners. I checked my blood sugar, and it was quite low. “Let’s order now, Lettie. I’ve just burned up my last biscuit.” That’s a phrase I’ve used ever since my son, Scott, said it when he was about six. One day he sprawled out on the lawn, unable to run another step, and groaned pathetically until I rushed out with a cookie to refuel his little engine. He looked up at me and said, “Thanks, mom, I just burned up my last biscuit.” He was so cute.

  I called room service, relaying the choices to Lettie and getting her the detailed description she required of just what fagiolini alla Fiorentina was. They assured us it was green beans in olive oil, not Great Northerns, if they even have such a bean in Italy.

  “Before we forget, Lettie, let’s make a list of everybody and where they were when . . . when we were sitting by the elevator.”

  “Why?” Lettie kicked off her shoes and curled up on her bed in a semi-fetal position. She stared blankly at the wall.

  “Because we’ll forget if we don’t do it now.”

  “Why do we need to do it at all?”

  “Because I have a feeling we’ll be glad we did.” That was no reason at all, but it was good enough to satisfy Lettie. She clasped her hands between her knees and sighed.

  “I feel worse about this for Beth than I do for Meg,” she said. “I guess that sounds awful, but . . .”

  “Not at all. It’s Beth that you’re close to.”

  “And she’s had so much trouble the last few years.”

  “Someone in our group did it.”

  “What? Oh no, Dotsy, how can you even think that?”

  “Have you ever heard of a tourist being murdered by a stranger in his or her hotel room?”

  “It could be a case of mistaken identity.” Lettie sat up. “Maybe a robber who thought the room was empty, and then Meg surprised him .”

  “Of course, that’s possible. It could have been a thief . . . startled . . . panicked.” It seemed as if that might actually be the most likely scenario, now that Lettie mentioned it, but I still wanted to make my list.

  I wrote the names on a sheet of hotel stationery and filled in the whereabouts as we rehashed the last couple of hours:

  Meg—in her room, as far as we know. (At least she was there when Lettie called, at about 4:45 p.m.)

  Beth—out, picking up potted plant, returned to hotel.

  Amy—out somewhere, came in with Tessa.

  Tessa—out somewhere, came in with Amy.

  Victoria and Geoffrey Reese-Burton—out somewhere, came in as Crystal was leaving.

  Crystal—in her room (or at least in the hotel) until shortly after 5:00 p.m., when she got off the elevator and left.

  Shirley—ditto, but left a few minutes after Crystal. Both she and Crystal came to parking lot at about 6:00 p.m..

  Dick, Michael, Walter, and Elaine (the curious quartet)—out somewhere together until they came to the parking lot a little after 6:00 p.m..

  Paul Vogel—?

  Lucille Vogel—out somewhere, returned late and walked upstairs with us.

  Wilma Kelly—went to the Bauer’s room and talked to Meg sometime after Lettie talked to Meg on the phone, then left the building.

  Jim Kelly—? Whereabouts unknown, until we all met in the parking lot.

  Achille—in the parking lot by the bus (at least he was there when I stopped by, around 5:00 p.m.)

  “So we can’t account for two people at all,” I said. “Jim Kelly and Paul Vogel.”

  Lettie folded her hands across her breast and stared at the ceiling. “Paul never did show up, did he? Even when we were all in the parking lot.”

  The phone rang and a voice said, “Mrs. Lamb, would you please come to the front desk?”

  I told Lettie to go ahead and eat when the food arrived and jabbed a straw into a little carton of orange juice on my way out. I kept a six-pack of individual cartons for just such times as this. The orange juice sent a marvelous burst of energy to my whole body as I punched the elevator down button.

  Captain Quattrocchi touched my elbow as he seated me in the little room that was obviously a manager’s office in normal times. Tessa sat beside the desk, and Quattrocchi rolled out the chair behind it for himself. “Mrs. Dorothy Lamb?”

  I nodded. He had a printout, presumably of our tour group members, and a yellow legal pad on the desk in front of him. “You know Miss D’Angelo, of course,” he said in a thickly accented voice. I nodded again. Captain Quattrocchi nodded to Tessa and gestured to her with his hand in a you-take-it-from-here sort of way.

  “As you can tell,” Tessa began, “Captain Quattrocchi speaks some English, but it’s important for us to communicate clearly. So he’ll ask you questions in Italian and I’ll translate to you. I’ll also translate your answers to him, so try to pause every so often. I can’t remember all that much. We are also recording this, but don’t let that make you nervous. It’s for clarity.”

  Quattrocchi began. “Dove lei era tra i quattro-trenta e . . .?”

  Tessa translated, “Where were you between four thirty and six o’clock today?”

  I told him about my solo trip to the Museo Archeologico and that I had returned to the hotel and spoken to Achille in the parking lot a little before five—five or six minutes to five, trying to be as precise as I could. Quattrocchi’s warm brown eyes made it hard to concentrate. I was glad Tessa could repeat my responses to him in a firmer voice than I was able to squeeze out at the moment, but I imagine he caught the quiver anyway. He glanced at my left hand—at my naked ring finger, I thought. My stomach did a little jump. Both his hands were devoid of jewelry.

  “. . . di venti cinque dopo sei.” Tessa relayed my words and waited for his next question.

  “Did you actually see Mrs. Wilma Kelly get off the elevator, Mrs. Lamb?”

  “Yes. She said she already knew we weren’t leaving until later, because Meg had told her.”

  “Sì, ha detto che. . .”

  We soon settled into a rhythm of question-translate-answer-translate. Quattrocchi paused now and again to jot notes on his yellow pad. He had large, strong-looking hands. I wondd if he wore contacts, so I shifted in my chair far enough to see his eyes from an oblique angle. He glanced up just then and grinned. Could he possibly have known what I was doing? The yellow jumper I wore had a slit up both sides that went a little too high. It didn’t bother me walking or sitting at a table with my knees under a tablecloth, but in this chair, my left thigh was exposed about halfway up unless I kept my left hand over it. I shifted again, moving enough yellow denim across my knees to tuck some under my leg.

  Tessa showed me out and asked the desk clerk to call Lettie. My interview had only taken about ten minutes, so I decided to browse the glass-fronted gift shop until Quattrocchi and Tessa finished with Lettie. From that vantage point across the lobby, I could watch the office door. After twenty minutes, it occurred to me that they’d probably take a lot longer with Lettie, since she had been in a critical spot throughout the whole relevant time period. From the time when Meg was certifiably alive—both Letti
e and Wilma had talked to her—until she was certifiably dead, Lettie had sat just outside the elevator, where she observed the comings and goings. In all the world, there was no better person than Lettie to have been sitting there. My little round friend sometimes missed nuances and deeper meanings, in fact she often did, but when it came to the minutiae of life, Lettie’s brain functioned like a thousand gigabyte data bank.

  I found some lovely stationery in a swirly Florentine pattern and was in the process of paying for it when I heard scuffling noises and Crystal Hostetter’s irritated voice, “Stop! You’re gonna make me drop it!”

  I poked my head out the gift shop door. Shirley had Crystal by the elbow. Crystal held a clear plastic bag, similar to the ones we use in the states for newspaper sleeves, in front of her like a hand grenade missing a pin. In the bag was a knife—unquestionably the “Coltello d’Amore.” How many buffalo horn-handle knives, engraved and inlaid with silver and ivory, does one see lying around in the street? I wasn’t close enough to tell if it was real silver, ivory, or buffalo horn, but I had no doubt it was the same knife Beth bought in Scarperia. I had never seen another even remotely similar to it.

  Shirley and Crystal both babbled, interrupting each other, until the desk clerk picked up the phone. “He’ll be right out,” the clerk said. Quattrocchi strode out and strode straight to the desk. He motioned to a uniformed officer who, until that moment, had been part of the wallpaper. The four of them hurried into the interview room, and a few seconds later, Lettie popped out.

  “Well, something more important than me came up. Did you see that knife?” Lettie glanced back over her shoulder, but the door had already closed behind her. “You should have seen Tessa’s face when they came in! That’s the knife Beth bought yesterday, Dotsy.”

  “I know. Did you hear Crystal or Shirley say anything?” We stood at the elevator, apparently on our way up to our room without having consciously decided to go there, and I remembered the stationery I hadn’t finished purchasing. I had left the gift shop attendant with both the stationery and ten Euros. It only cost five something.