Death of an Obnoxious Tourist Read Online Free PDF Page B

with nothing but an empty back account. It’s taken her all this time to get her finances in order . . . but you asked about the theft. She’s already called the credit card people and the traveler’s check people . . .”
    I stopped her with a touch on the arm as the subject of our conversation tramped up behind us. Beth’s face, red and set in a tight-lipped scowl, was wet with sweat, her hairline dripping. She swung a pot of paper-white narcissus recklessly, holding it by the rim with one hand; the entire contents threatened to plop out on the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it!” she growled over her shoulder to us, as she headed for the elevator.
    Lettie and I had enough sense to stay quiet. We watched the door close and the red lights blink in succession until it paused on the third floor.
    “What was that about?” Lettie asked.
    “Apparently somebody ‘said it with flowers,’ and Beth doesn’t like what they said.”
    “Who would send her flowers here?” Lettie turned to me, eyebrows lowered.
    “Achille? But why would that make her mad?”
    An eruption of shuffling and confusion from the general area of the reception desk made Lettie jump. I hopped out of my chair to peek around the corner. A manager in a black tie dashed through the half-door beside the desk, a walkie-talkie against his mouth, and the man I had seen asleep near the front door a few minutes ago blossomed instantly into a security guard and ran to the elevator door. By the time the elevator reached the ground floor, four employees, including the woman from the concierge desk, had gathered to scowl at the row of red lights, as if scowling would speed it up. They hissed softly at each other in Italian.
    When the wall had gobbled them up, Lettie and I stared at each other and then at the row of red lights. The elevator inched up to the third floor and stopped.
    Lucille Vogel came out of nowhere, smiled serenely, and punched the up button. “Hi, ladies. I guess you’re not going on the bus trip either.”
    Strange. Not only did the comment seem inappropriately casual—we knew something was dreadfully wrong, although there was no reason Lucille should have known it—but it was the first time I had seen Lucille smile. Or say anything remotely pleasant. She had, up to that point, been a little black cloud over our group, but now she seemed, well, sweet.
    I found my voice before Lettie did. “We’re not leaving until six. Tessa had something come up.”
    “It’s almost six, now,” Lucille said.
    I checked my watch. It was a quarter to six. Lucille pushed the up button again and waited. The elevator light didn’t budge.
    “It’s stuck,” Lettie said, after a suitable length of time. “Let’s take the stairs. Are you ready to go up, Dotsy?”
    I was ready to find out what was going on, but I didn’t want to do it with Lucille Vogel. Our room was on the first floor, which in Europe is the one above the ground floor, so Lettie and I slipped through the first set of swinging doors off the stairwell, leaving Lucille to climb another flight by herself. I nipped into a cubbyhole out of the line of sight from the small windows in the stairwell doors and waved Lettie over. “Let’s wait until she’s out of the stairwell and go on up to the third floor. I want to find out what’s up.”
    “Is your antenna beeping?” Lettie has the nicest ways of calling me a snoop.
    “My antenna is about to short out.”
    The stairwell doors on the third floor landing were locked. I peeked through the little window on the right hand door, while Lettie took the one on the left. I’m sure that, from the other side, we looked like a pair of those big-nosed “Kilroy was here” cartoons. The fifth door down on the left was open, and the hallway was empty except for the man with the walkie-talkie and the black tie. He stood at the open door, gulping air. He stumbled as if he was about to pass out. The woman from the concierge desk, a brisk,