by Peter King
When I finally left the conference room, I looked for a blond staff girl—any of them. The first one I encountered was Helga, according to her name badge. “Is Celia still on duty?” I asked.
“I think she’s still on mud bath duty,” she responded with a smile.
I went there with a cautious tread, but it appeared safe as half a dozen people were lolling in the thick brown mud and others were coming in. Celia was there and greeted me with a smile.
“I was in the mud bath earlier today,” I told her.
“Oh yes, of course. I remember.” She looked at my stern expression. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, I almost drowned.”
“In the mud?” she said, sounding unconvinced.
“You left me, saying you were going to adjust the temperature. You adjusted it too much—I almost boiled.”
I studied her carefully. There was no trace of guilt as she said, “I raised it one degree only.” Her brown eyes looked quite innocent. I pressed her further. “You said you’d be back in a minute or two. You didn’t return at all.”
She shook her head. “I had a message to say that I was to report for room service duty and that Anita was replacing me earlier than scheduled.”
“Anita did come early, luckily for me. I might have been dead.”
She was either a wonderful actress or quite blameless. “I am so sorry but I was only obeying instructions. I had no idea …” The blond hair danced as she shook her head again. “I cannot understand how the temperature could get that high. I will have the maintenance department look at it.”
I left her, a bikini-clad figure standing in the steamy chamber. If she was telling the truth, someone else had arranged the whole incident and turned up the temperature. I recalled Marta’s episode with the phone call that never came through. Had that been part of the scheme too, making sure I was alone?
Considered in isolation, it might have been an unusual collection of coincidences, but coming after my discovery of Kathleen’s dead body in the seaweed flagellator, the coincidence factor was too high. Assuming that she had really been dead, of course.
She must have been, I decided. That raised questions of who had taken the body—and where—and why. Further investigation was needed. That raised even more questions—like what—and how—and when. This place had become a mass of puzzles.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A REFRESHING GIN AND tonic before dinner helped a little. At the dining table, I was seated with a doctor with a passion for cooking, a retired airline pilot from Swissair who was thinking of opening a restaurant, an American couple now living in Spain, and our most recent arrival, the lady lawyer, Elaine Dunbar. She was already debating the legal rights of airline passengers with the pilot, who was beginning to bristle with all the chauvinism of a country that still didn’t really think that women had any right to be voting.
I started with the pancetta and artichoke fettucine, a Swiss-Italian dish. Again, I had to compliment the chef. He had used egg fettucine, which is much thinner and lighter than the regular kind. The artichokes had had their leaves carefully trimmed. The pancetta—bacon, cured but not smoked—had been cooked till just crisp, while garlic and wine accentuated the flavor.
The German part of Switzerland was represented among the main courses by lamb shank braised with red cabbage, and again Leighton Vance had performed outstandingly. A more earthy, peasant type of dish like this needed a wine with similar characteristics, and I selected a Château de Pibarnon, a red Bandol made from the Mourvedre grape. After some conversation at the table, I decided to go and congratulate him in person.
In the kitchen, busboys were still bringing in dishes and loading them directly into the washers. One sous-chef was scrubbing the wooden chopping boards and another—it was Mallory—was writing on a pad. She looked up, startled, then smiled when she saw it was me. “Making a list for tomorrow,” she explained.
No one else was there, and the kitchen was beginning to acquire the weary but satisfied look of an establishment that has done its work for the day. “I came to congratulate Leighton on the meal,” I told her, and described the dishes.
She dimpled and looked pleased. “I’ll tell him,” she said.
“What are your specialties?” I asked.
“Specialties?”
“What do you like to cook?”
“Oh, all kinds of dishes.”
“Swiss, French, German?”
“Yes, and Italian too. I love Oriental cooking and learning how their methods can be fused with ours.”
We talked about specific dishes, and she revealed a well-rounded knowledge. She must be a great help as a sous-chef and I told her so. “I love it,” she said enthusiastically.
We talked further, but she was becoming increasingly edgy and casting furtive glances at the door. I gathered that she was nervous that Leighton would return and repeat his earlier performance of throwing me out of his kitchen. I did not want to see her embarrassed, so I told her I’d talk to her again when she wasn’t so busy.
“I’m always busy,” she replied, then added quickly, “but please come again.”
One of the larger lounges was popular after meals, and at the door I met Elaine Dunbar. She was wearing a slightly severe light gray checked suit, which she probably considered appropriate attire for a lawyer.
“You’re Armitage, aren’t you?” she said.
“A popular misconception but an understandable one.” She hadn’t been paying attention when we had been introduced by Caroline upon the occasion of her dramatic entrance, but she had met a number of new people. I explained why I was not Armitage.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“I haven’t been in a spa before.”
“Neither have I.”
“I imagine that this is as good a place as any to get the atmosphere and the feel of cooks, cooking, and food,” I told her. “Just what you are looking for.”
We took a large leather settee with a long table and ordered caffe lattes. “What am I looking for?” she asked, her voice just short of aggression.
“You’re looking for interfaces between the food and restaurant business on the one hand and the law on the other.”
“Something like that,” she said dismissively.
“I thought it a pretty good summary from what you told us when you arrived.”
Her profile was more attractive than her full-front view, I decided. It avoided the bold, somewhat dominant appearance that she displayed when viewed full face. This latter aspect would probably be valuable in a courtroom, though.
“People in the food and restaurant business that I have talked to so far have much too simplistic a viewpoint on their own position. They think everybody in the trade is kind and friendly and helpful. They refuse to see all the corruption and fraud that surround them.”
“And those are what you are going to seek out?”
“Did you know that in the United States, over a hundred million cases of food-related illnesses are reported every year?”
“Salmonella in chicken and eggs, undercooked ground beef, fish that are caught in polluted waters, fruit that have been oversprayed with pesticide,” I said. “But I didn’t realize the number was that high.”
“It’s higher in Europe, and food poisoning is only a start. Olestra is keeping batteries of law firms busy, and it’s only one of a great many fat substitutes that everybody wants because it’s easier than dieting yet causes severe intestinal problems in certain people. Now that the beef business is under close scrutiny, we can expect lots of legal cases from it.”
“Especially since the Oprah Winfrey case?” I said.
“Of course. She had the money to go to court, but for every Oprah there are hundreds of people out there with cases that could be just as sound.”
“Those are the ones you are going to represent?”
“Why not? Shouldn’t someone?” She was getting more vehement, so I stepped up my pace too.
“Are you going to tell me that the public needs protecting against dangerous foods and you believe it to be your mission to be their standard-bearer?”
Her face tightened, and I prepared myself for an onslaught. Instead, she laughed softly and leaned back, a woman now and less the lawyer. “No. I have no pretensions toward being a crusader.”
“Or even the Joan of Arc of the hamburger world riding fearlessly into the slaughterhouses?”
“Not even that,” she said, still smiling. “There are so many other areas where more legal participation is needed. In both Europe and the U.S., more than half of all the drugs approved annually are known to have serious post-approval risks. And then there’s advertising in which the interpretation of a single word could have catastrophic consequences for the consumer and for pharmacies and health food stores.”
“So it’s the prospect of myriad challenges that you relish?”
“And in an almost virgin field,” Elaine insisted. “A field that has been virtually overlooked.”
“Do you have any particular case in mind? I mean, have you been retained to undertake one such case?”
“I don’t have my shingle hanging out there yet. I will after I’ve spent a week here, though, and know more what I’m getting into.”
Our caffe lattes arrived. Elaine stirred hers and gazed into the milky depths. “In the final year of my doctorate, I did run across one case …”
“Aha, I knew it.”
“Oh, it influenced me, no doubt about that, but I had already decided that this was what I wanted to do in the practice of law. No, this particular case involved food poisoning, as a matter of fact, but it was in a restaurant. A lot of ramifications came into play and are still coming into play.”
“Still coming into it? The case is still on?”
“It’s being reopened.” She picked up her cup and sipped. “That’s why I probably shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“Will you be getting involved in this case when you open your practice? It sounds intriguing.”
“I don’t know. I’d like to get involved in it, but I don’t know.”
“It sounds as if there are personal aspects that attract you as much as the concept and the potential crime.”
She looked at me over her coffee cup.
“They do, and a lot more is to be revealed, perhaps very soon.”
The caffe latte was smooth. As I was taking the first sips, Elaine asked, “You are a detective of some kind, aren’t you? I recall now that when I came in and Caroline introduced us, she did say that Carver Armitage had to cancel and you were replacing him. What did she call you?”
“‘The Gourmet Detective.’ It’s just a nickname. I’m not a detective at all. I hunt for rare foods, seek out unusual food ingredients, advise on applications—that kind of thing.”
“It’s detecting in a way, isn’t it?”
“Only very peripherally. Oh, assignments sometimes take nasty turns, but most of the time it’s just an interesting but routine job.”
“Did you know any of the people here before you came?” I asked.
“No, none of them.”
We discussed several of the guests. Elaine showed a lively curiosity about all of them. “Professional interest?” I asked. She considered for a moment.
“It could turn out that way—very easily,” she said.
Elaine had some work to do, she told me briskly. I asked her if she was doing some pre-practice work. “In a way,” she answered. “A friend from law school is now practicing, and I’m helping her build a case. It’s the kind of case that I’m going to go for, so this is good preparation for me.”
“You mean it’s something to do with food?”
“Helen—this friend—is suing the city where she lives for supplying substandard water.”
“How does the city get away with that?” I asked.
“There are guidelines for water quality, but it is up to each water authority to enforce them.”
“And this city isn’t enforcing them?”
“Independent analyses have shown that the water does not meet federal guidelines. The city says the water meets state requirements and that is their first responsibility.”
“So the federal authorities should be putting pressure on the state.”
“They claim they are. In the meantime, an increase in spinal meningitis points a finger at the boron in the water. People are dying while bureaucrats argue whose responsibility takes priority.”
“Sounds to me like you’re taking on some tough opposition,” I remarked.
Her teeth gleamed. It was a smile that suggested the opposition could expect some tough times too.
When she had gone, I sat for a while. Finally, one of the blond staff girls walked by, and I raised a hand to attract her attention. She was just as attractive as the others and her name was Anna, her badge declared.
“Tell me, Anna, where is Rhoda? I haven’t seen her around.”
“She’s off for a few days. She should be back soon.” The girl smiled.
It sounded like a stock answer.
“She’s not ill, I hope,” I went on, trying to get something out of her.
“Oh, no, just some personal business, I think.” About to walk away, she added, “It leaves us a little short-handed.”
She walked away with that swinging gait that was typical of all of them. The gaits were not all exactly the same, though. With a little study, they could be used to identify the owner. More to the immediate point, though—the absent Rhoda who might know something about the attempt on my life in the mud bath and possibly Kathleen’s disappearance was not available for questioning.
It was not evidence, but it was certainly suspicious.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE TOPIC AT THE breakfast table the next morning was the perennial one of Swiss neutrality. Karl Wengen, the representative on the national council of the canton of Aargau, was at my table, and it was inevitable that someone should ask the question that the Swiss hear every day.
“How has Switzerland managed to remain neutral for centuries?” asked Bradley Thompson. As befitted a person who had built up a business virtually single-handedly, Brad was never shy about asking provocative questions.
“Four centuries, in fact,” Karl Wengen said. “It is four hundred years since we were involved in a war.”
“It’s so improbable,” protested an earnest Japanese lady with severe-looking spectacles and shiny black hair. She went on, “You are surrounded by warring countries—Germany, France, Italy, Austria—and yet Switzerland remains aloof. What is your secret?”
“No secret,” smiled Wengen. “Surrounded by other countries, as you say, and at the crossroads of Europe, how could we have secrets? If there is an answer, it is our preparedness. Every able-bodied male in the country starts National Service at the age of twenty. After four months’ training, he goes home but is eligible for active duty until he is thirty-two years of age. Until the age of fifty, he remains on the reserve and attends periodic training sessions.”
“But you are such a small country,” insisted the Japanese lady. “You could not resist an invasion. Why spend all that money?”
“Switzerland has less than half the population of Tokyo yet we can mobilize six hundred thousand men in forty-eight hours, ready to fight,” said Wengen proudly. “The entire population of the country can be accommodated in deep underground shelters. You must have seen some of them—they are visible from many of the major roads. They are also effective against nuclear radiation,” he said, adding slyly, “should any of our neighbors be so ill advised as to explode such devices. The most probable answer to Mr. Thompson’s question, however, is that any would-be invaders did not consider the effort of conquering Switzerland worthwhile. The country has no natural resources, no coal, no oil, no seaports—”
Across the table a Frenchman, who had told us that he was planning to add a restaurant to his delicatessen in Paris, entered the verbal fray. “Sur
ely it has one natural resource—its strategic location. It is right in the center of Europe.”
“But why invade and occupy it?” argued Karl Wengen. “World War Two was perhaps the only time when invasion seemed like a real possibility. Certainly it is the occasion that is uppermost in our minds as it is recent. Did the Germans invade then? No, in the first place, the Alpine terrain would have meant the commitment of large numbers of troops and the possibility of heavy losses. Only men specially trained in such difficult conditions can survive. In the second place, although victory for the German army might be considered to be the inevitable outcome, what would they have gained? No, my friends, it was much easier to conduct their campaigns in Europe and leave Switzerland alone.”
“Operate around it, you mean,” said the Japanese lady.
“Exactly. There was never a risk that Switzerland would be a problem to Germany while Switzerland remained neutral—”
“With a dominantly German-speaking population, Switzerland would not have had the least thought of acting against Germany in any way,” cut in Brad Thompson.
“Precisely,” agreed Wengen, “and to look at it from the German point of view, if they had invaded and conquered Switzerland, they would have created for themselves another enemy.”
It was a good opportunity for me to put in my contribution. “That makes a lot of sense. Look at Switzerland’s neighbors—Italy, already Germany’s principal ally; Austria, already part of the Third Reich, German speaking and with a big part of the population sympathetic to Germany anyway; and France, occupied by German forces. This meant that Switzerland was effectively surrounded by countries under German control. Switzerland couldn’t possibly be a threat to Germany in any way, and it could have some use as a conduit to the West.”
Perhaps that diminished the Swiss position, but if so, Karl Wengen showed no signs of annoyance. “It does not seem to be widely known, but at the end of 1939, we came into possession of some German army training manuals. These treated Switzerland as part of Germany. All the maps included in the manuals did not show Switzerland at all but showed the territory as incorporated into the Third Reich.”