Healthy Place to Die

by Peter King

  The afternoon’s sessions started with one conducted by Axel Vorstahl. He spoke on “the creative chef,” and I listened from the back of a packed room. His excellent talk was well summarized by his opening statements. “Here, we cannot teach you how to be creative. What we do is teach you what you need to know so that you can be creative. We want to help you reach the position where you can make better use of your imagination and originality—two qualities that really stand out in cooking when fully demonstrated.”

  All of us combined for a succeeding presentation, which described the various cooking methods and explained when each one could be employed to the best advantage. As Michel pointed out, “sauté,” “broil,” “bake,” “roast,” and “grill” each has its own advantages and disadvantages. This was a visual session wherein the pans and utensils for each process were demonstrated and the materials of which they were made were compared.

  It was an informative and undoubtedly useful presentation. Questions were asked and expertly answered, but the audience acceptance was at a lower level than at any of the preceding assemblies. I decided that a vital ingredient was lacking. It was an ingredient that all the other sessions had had, and that was food. Caroline was present, and I saw her making notes, presumably for elimination or at least improvement.

  We concluded at about four-thirty, and as we were leaving the room Elaine approached me. “Not quite as much fun without something to eat at the end of it, is it?” she asked.

  “You noticed that too, did you? Yes, I saw Caroline de Witt making notes. I think she felt the same way you and I did. Having pots and pans described and being told how to use them are important, but it lacks gustatory impact.”

  We walked outside, where the air was cooler than before. Wispy white clouds were drifting at altitudes below the tops of the visible Alps, and the sun seemed diminished. When we reached a quiet spot, Elaine stopped and turned to me.

  “I found a message in my box this morning. It told me to phone a local number at one this afternoon. I did and a woman’s voice invited me to a meeting.”

  “Someone you know?” I asked.

  “Kathleen Evans.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  KATHLEEN!” I GASPED. “BUT she—”

  Elaine pounced on my involuntary reaction. “Go on. She what?”

  It was confession time. A more accomplished liar could have squirmed out of the predicament, but I was never that good with “terminological inexactitudes,” as Winston Churchill once called them.

  I looked around to make sure that no one was within earshot. “I didn’t tell you everything,” I admitted.

  “Tell me now.”

  “I told you that I had a meeting with Kathleen in the Seaweed Forest—”

  “A meeting?”

  I had been through this before, explaining to Janet. I had withheld the most crucial part then, but now it was time to divulge it. “She asked me to meet her there—”

  “Did she say why?” Elaine’s questioning was becoming more like an interrogation. Her tone was sharper and her manner more aggressive. I felt like a transgressor who feels relief at confessing and finally being able to unburden himself.

  “She didn’t give any particular reason, no.”

  Elaine nodded. “Go on.”

  “When I got there, she was slumped against the weeds. I thought she was dead.”

  That slowed her down. “Dead? Why did you think that?”

  “Her face was flushed. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open. Those are symptoms of asphyxiation. She didn’t move even when I took her arm.”

  “Did you feel for a pulse? Check her respiration?”

  “I was doing so when I heard a sound, like someone moving very close by. I had heard it already, while I was looking for Kathleen. Just as I was about to try to find a pulse, I heard it again, much closer. Then there was a voice.”

  “Male or female?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Nothing I could distinguish.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I phoned reception. Told them to send someone at once to the Seaweed Forest, that there had been an accident.”

  Elaine was studying me, trying to determine how much of this was truth. I didn’t think there was much in my story to doubt—it sounded too improbable.

  “When was this?”

  “The day you arrived.”

  She frowned. “There was no alarm, no commotion, no authorities—nothing?”

  “Not a sign to indicate that anything had happened.”

  She digested that before murmuring, “That is very strange, very strange indeed.”

  “It certainly is. Maybe whomever the sounds and the voice came from were just innocent users of the Seaweed Forest, but I wasn’t going to stick around and be proved wrong.”

  Elaine studied the sky with its fast-moving, thin white clouds. “It’s too unlikely a story,” she said. “It must be true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” I said indignantly.

  “Well, don’t be so high horse—you didn’t tell me all this before.”

  “Would you tell a story like that to someone you didn’t know well?”

  Her mouth twitched in a near smile. “I wouldn’t say we don’t know each other well. …”

  Some psychologist said that human relationships were never equal—that at all times, one or the other was dominant. Which way was it tilting now? I wondered.

  “Why are you telling me about this?” I asked. “Why don’t you just go and meet Kathleen, see what she has to say? No reason not to, you didn’t even know there was a possibility of her being dead when you got her message.”

  “Because she specifically said you and I should come together. Otherwise, she wouldn’t show up.”

  “Ah, and here I thought you were just being honest with me.”

  “I am being honest.”

  “Not altogether,” I said. “For instance, why did Kathleen contact you? You already knew each other, didn’t you?”

  I recalled seeing the two of them in close conversation on the day of Elaine’s arrival so this was something of a shot in the dark. It didn’t score a bull’s-eye, but it was inside the target area.

  “We didn’t exactly know each other but I knew her name and it turned out from our conversation that she knew mine.”

  “In what context?”

  Elaine hesitated slightly, obviously trying to decide how much to tell me.

  “So much for mutual honesty,” I said, hoping the jibe might prompt her to be impetuous, but I should have known better. Impetuosity was not one of her weaknesses. She did answer though.

  “It involves that case I was telling you about—”

  “The one you described as being a murder in a restaurant?”

  She nodded as if reluctant to answer but then she said, “We can identify it that way for now. Yes, that’s the case.”

  “So what’s your connection with Kathleen?”

  “She was proposing to do a story on it. The possibilities were considerable—a book perhaps, TV …”

  “I see.” Things were beginning to fit together. “So you think she may have been murdered because of something she knew concerning this case?”

  “I didn’t know Kathleen had been murdered. I knew she had checked out very unexpectedly and taken a flight out.”

  I felt deflated. I was not the only one ferreting out such information. Elaine went on, “She had flown here from New York with a stopover in Paris, so if she was returning, it was most likely by the same route.”

  “But she is not back in her office, and they are surprised that she is not still here at the conference,” I said.

  “Right,” Elaine agreed.

  “You know?”

  “Yes.”

  “You called her office too?”

  “Of course.”

  I was still mulling over this latest development. “You’re certain it was Kathleen y
ou talked to?”

  “I couldn’t be sure. I only talked to her that one time here at the spa, and voices can sound different on the phone.”

  “Where does she want us to meet her?”

  “At the Hotel Goldener Hirsch in the village.”

  “Today?”

  “Tonight at seven o’clock.”

  “Any idea where the number is you were told to call?”

  “I checked it, obviously,” she said in a voice that implied she wasn’t exactly an amateur. “It was a call box in the village.”

  “So?” I asked. “Are we going?”

  She checked the sky again. Presumably she obtained no meteorological inspiration. “What do you think?”

  “I say let’s go.”

  “Okay.” She nodded firmly. “I’ll order a taxi for six-thirty.”

  “I’ll meet you in reception.”

  Elaine wore brown slacks and a brown sweater with a striped brown-and-white scarf. The heavy brogues looked like suitable Alpine climbing gear, and a few minutes before six-thirty I was perusing the people in the lobby. I hadn’t completely gotten over my paranoia about the staff. My near misfortunes involving Rhoda of the blond staff beauties made me suspicious that some kind of cover-up would best be organized by the management but that had queries against it too. Certainly, the reception area was placid and innocent looking.

  We had exchanged looks but no more when she had arrived a few minutes after me. We were now taking it in turns to watch for the arrival of one of the distinctive silver gray taxis. I relinquished my patrol and picked up a copy of the Herald-Tribune. I went looking for a place to sit and read it, or so I hoped it would appear. Elaine left the gift rack of ties, scarves, and trinkets to saunter past the big double glass doors. She turned her head and gave me a barely perceptible nod, then walked out. I gave the impression of having spotted a chair near the doors and went that way, then dropped the newspaper on to it and went swiftly outside to join her.

  As we pulled out of the long driveway on the spa property and swung on to the highway, I looked back. “Nothing in sight,” I murmured. She gave me a look that said she didn’t expect any pursuit, and I reminded myself that she didn’t know of the dangerous Rhoda. We settled down to the twenty-minute ride into Obergarten.

  It was a typically pretty Swiss Alpine village. Upon arrival, I had passed through it but had little chance to see much. At this time of the evening, such activity as the place possessed was already slowing down, and shutdown would probably be complete within the hour. Shutters were going up over storefronts and shades were being pulled down. A horse and buggy trotted by, clattering over the centuries-old cobbles, its day of service to the tourist industry ended. Baskets of flowers hung on buildings and lamp standards.

  The Town Hall flew the Swiss flag and the flag of the canton. Six wide steps led up to its ancient wooden doors, reinforced with black iron. Next to it, the Goldener Hirsch was the only hotel in the village, although a few guest cottages had signs at street corners.

  “We’re a few minutes early,” Elaine said, looking at an intricately decorated clock mounted over the hotel entrance. “That is, if that clock is right.”

  “This is Switzerland,” I reminded her. “Swiss clocks are always right. Let’s look in a shop window or two. Reconnoiter the street.”

  We looked at glistening chocolates, women’s clothes, kitchen appliances, hi-fis, and TVs. I was keeping an eye on the street, but everyone looked Swiss and honest without a doubt. As the hand on the clock slid past the hour mark, Elaine and I looked at each other and went in the main entrance of the Goldener Hirsch.

  The small lobby had a thick carpet and dark wood paneling. A monstrous grandfather clock ticked loudly, maps and old paintings covered the walls. At the desk, an elderly dignified-looking gentleman was reading a newspaper. He gave us a glance to see if we needed attention and, deciding we didn’t, went back to his paper.

  We walked through a narrow corridor with old photographs on both sides. The restaurant looked cozy, with gleaming white tablecloths, cutlery, and glasses glinting from the shaded wall lights. It had a few people in it and a waiter approached us. We told him “not at the moment,” scrutinized the faces at the table, and moved on to the Bierstube. Smells of beer and tobacco mingled companionably, but the only occupants of the room were four elderly men in lederhosen, playing cards at a table before the massive unlit fireplace.

  The guest rooms were all upstairs, and after a glance up the steep staircase, we went on past the kitchen, which emitted odors of roasts and stews, and into a lounge where a television set was showing a German cops and robbers program. The sound was low, and the pistol shots muffled. The only occupants of the room were a young man and woman drinking wine in an upholstered corner booth. They looked up in what might have been guilt but resumed holding hands as we turned to leave.

  “It’s still only a few minutes after seven,” I said.

  Elaine made a sound, easily interpreted as meaning she was intolerant of unpunctual people. We strolled around and checked all the rooms again. No change was apparent. Elaine clucked her teeth in exasperation.

  “We could have a glass of wine,” I said hopefully, but Elaine said, “We might be in the wrong room if we did that. Better wait in the lobby.”

  The elderly concierge gave us another glance; this time it lingered. “We’re waiting for a friend,” I told him, and he nodded. We took two of the basketwork chairs and sat. Time went by. Elaine drummed fingers in impatience. A red-faced man came in, exchanged a few words with the man at the desk, and went through to the restaurant. More time passed.

  A wall clock over the reception desk read twenty minutes to eight. Elaine glared at me and sighed heavily, shifting in the uncomfortable chair. She was about to speak when the door opened. A woman came in and headed for the staircase going up to the rooms. She was heavily built and wore an old thick woolen coat and a hat in the Alpine style. She went up the stairs and all was quiet again.

  “She’s stood us up,” Elaine said grimly. “Let’s go.”

  I gave the old man at the desk a nod as we went out the door. “Should have asked where the taxi rank is,” grumbled Elaine as we started out along the street, which was now quiet and empty. A car came around the corner and slowed. In front of the hotel stood a row of large-diameter iron posts, set in the edge of the concrete sidewalk so as to prevent parking. On the other side of the street was a row of spaces with meters. As the car turned into one of them, I grabbed Elaine’s arm and pulled her into a shop doorway.

  “What are you—,” she was starting to ask angrily.

  “Shh!” I said, and was glad she was fast on the uptake. We saw the car door open, and a tall blond girl climbed out. I watched as the girl crossed the street and came toward the Goldener Hirsch. At the entrance, though, she turned and went along the sidewalk with clicking heels. Near the far street corner, she stopped and knocked at a door. It opened, she said a few words, and went in.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Elaine asked angrily. “Do tall blondes always have that effect on you?”

  “That one does,” I said. “She tried to kill me. Maybe twice.”

  A few blocks away, we found a busy, noisy bierkeller. “Safety in numbers,” I said, and we went down wooden stairs to a long room that sounded to be the loudest. We found a corner bench that nobody else wanted because it was too small. The room was full of students who, it seemed, were from Austria. The busload of them packed the room and they sat at long communal tables with tall steins of beer in front of them. They were laughing and shouting, arguing and disagreeing over everything but maintaining their good nature. They glanced curiously at us but quickly forgot we were there. The beamed ceiling was low and contributed to the din.

  Elaine had to raise her voice. “So what else haven’t you told me? About tall blondes?”

  I told her about Rhoda delaying me when I was on my way to meet Kathleen in the Seaweed Forest and how I suspected that it had been
during that delay that Kathleen had been flagellated to death and asphyxiated.

  “Except Kathleen wasn’t found when you reported this.”

  “True,” I agreed. “But there’s more. …” I told her about the incident in the mud bath and the temperature going up to the danger level. I described how Anita and Marta had saved me.

  “Anita?” Elaine asked.

  “Another of the blond beauties.”

  “And Marta? Oh, yes, the ex-movie star.”

  A dirndl-clad waitress with her hair in long pigtails was pushing her way through the clusters of students, nodding as she accepted orders for more beer. I ordered two steins also. Elaine shook her head. “You certainly live an exciting life. I thought you just detected foods? Are you sure you’re not moonlighting?”

  “And risking my life?” I said indignantly. “Certainly not.”

  “So you suspect this blond bimbo is involved?”

  “It looks that way. The trouble is, I can’t figure out what she’s involved in.”

  Elaine didn’t answer immediately, which prompted me to say, “Maybe you can, though. Maybe this is part of your investigation.”

  “No,” she said, almost reflectively. “I don’t see how it can be.”

  The students grew more rambunctious, but that mood phased quickly into some mournful college songs. The sound intensity mounted, and the low roof bounced the unmusical singing back at us. “This must be the college football team,” Elaine said. “It’s certainly not the choir.”

  We drank most of the beer, then I paid for it and we went out into the cool night, where the silence was deafening. A small square stood in front of what we found to be the railway station, and three taxis stood there. Only one driver was present, sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette.

  I signaled to him, and he nodded, put out his cigarette, and came to the car. I opened the door for Elaine and I heard her let out a gasp. “The lady said she was waiting for you,” the driver said in German, unconcerned. “Is that all right?”

  In the back of the cab sat a muffled figure. I climbed in after Elaine. We sat side by side on the wide seat, Elaine in the middle. “The lady,” as the taxi driver had called her, looked vaguely familiar and I leaned forward to get a better look at her. The cabbie got in and started the motor.