Healthy Place to Die

by Peter King

  “Many of you are leaving this afternoon, so lunch today will be the last meal of the course for you,” she said. “We want to make it a special lunch, and so we are holding it in the Glacier Caverns.” There were a few “oohs” and “ahs” at this. Caroline went on, “As you well know, the caverns have been closed, but we have permission to open the outer rooms on this occasion. Many have asked about seeing them, so you will want to take advantage of this opportunity. So please come along any time after twelve noon.”

  Her words drove all thoughts of Michel’s cassoulet out of my mind. Elaine was somewhere in the room, I knew, for I had glimpsed her during my presentation. I moved around in search of her.

  Conversations were being conducted in twos and threes, and good-byes were being said. The room was filled with nostalgia and impressions were being exchanged. Elaine had caught my eye and we converged in a nearly empty spot. We were both circumspect about our reactions to Caroline’s statement, for though the room was buzzing with voices, someone might move close enough to hear us.

  “Will this make it easier or more difficult?” I murmured.

  “Think positively,” Elaine said in a soft voice. “Had anyone been watching us, he would have thought we were making an assignation.”

  “With so many people there, we may find it easier,” I agreed.

  “Yes. Let’s hope it doesn’t make it easier for them too.”

  I wished she hadn’t said that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  OPINION AMONG THE GUESTS was divided about the Glacier Caverns. Some found it hokey, and the name “Disneyland” was being bounced around at various levels of comparison. Others found it “delightful,” while the universal adjective “interesting” was well to the fore.

  Elaine and I had come early in case Janet was here already, but we saw no sign of her. The first chamber filled quickly and we viewed the exhibits. These were scenes from Swiss history and raised above the ordinary tableaux seen in museums and waxworks, as they were chopped out of the interior of the glacier—as was everything else.

  The bluish translucent gleam of the solid ice statues gave them an unearthly look. Men, horses, weapons, flags, and standards were cut from the same frozen matrix of the glacier itself. The first displays showed a Roman legion marching out of an ice wall and represented the days when the Celtic people who settled in this region had first come face-to-face with the outside world when bronze-clad warriors of the armies of Rome came and subdued them. The glistening material from which they were chopped gave the legionnaires a ghostly reality.

  In adjoining displays, giant statues towered twenty feet tall, and their names were cut into the ice pedestals: Theodoric, the great ruler of the Ostrogoths; Clovis, the Merovingian; Pepin; and the emperor Charlemagne. The mythical folk hero of Switzerland, William Tell, was the largest figure of all, dwarfing the tiny figure of his son, who was smiling in his evident faith in his father’s marksmanship. Battle scenes from the Burgundian wars had phantom horses of ice, and a more peaceful scene depicted Martin Luther and the reformer Ulrich Zwingli.

  More guests were coming in now. Gasps of awe ricocheted back from the high ceiling in tinny echoes. We walked into the second chamber, which was the size of a football stadium and filled with panoramic scenes from more recent Swiss history.

  We stood inside the huge arch separating this chamber from the next. “See her?” Elaine asked. We stood for some time as more guests trickled in, but there was no sign of Janet. “Let’s move on,” Elaine said.

  Switzerland’s achievements in engineering occupied an enormous room: diesel engines and locomotives, aircraft and models of Alpine tunnels and bridges. Again, we looked for Janet, but there was no sign of her. Elaine and I were fascinated by a model of a hydroelectric installation above a massive dam. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” said a voice.

  A cluster of guests were coming in behind us, and the comment came from the first of them, a woman with black hair and a pair of heavy black-rimmed glasses. Both Elaine and I were murmuring polite agreement and about to move on when the same thought occurred to us simultaneously. We both did a double take. The woman gave us a stare as icy as the vast chamber, and it froze any comment we might have made. We both looked at the woman again without making it obvious.

  It was Janet.

  She promptly looked away and walked slowly over to a display of agricultural equipment. It was not proving to be high in popularity, and when we strolled over to stand near her we were well out of earshot of the others. Anyone observing us would have taken us to be unacquainted as we chatted, seemingly strangers.

  Janet wasted no time in small talk. “The expert broke Kathleen’s password. She has been coming here to the spa, and the spa has been giving her free vacations.”

  Elaine asked. “Any clue as to why the spa would do that? Was she giving them publicity?”

  “Quite the opposite, it seems.”

  “She was blackmailing them to give her free vacations,” Elaine said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “It looks that way,” agreed Janet.

  “Blackmailing them about what?” I asked impatiently.

  Janet was about to answer but Elaine took over calmly. “A restaurant called the Bell’Aurora at a resort in New York State.” She looked at Janet. “Am I right?”

  “Yes.” Janet’s eyes were flinty through the heavy black-rimmed glasses. “Where a husband-and-wife team of chefs were just becoming famous when a guest was poisoned. You’re probably more familiar with this part,” she said, turning to Elaine.

  “Initially, the poisoning was thought to be accidental. Then it came out that a love triangle had existed between the husband, the wife, and a guest. There was a trial for manslaughter but the verdict was not guilty.”

  Janet nodded. “That’s what you were researching at the Manhattan Law Library.”

  “So was Kathleen.”

  “She wanted to do a series of articles on husband-and-wife chef teams,” said Janet. “She must have stumbled across this story in the course of her research.”

  I was determined to get in on this. “Whereas you,” I said to Elaine, “were intrigued with the legal potential of the food and restaurant business and came across the story of a poisoning in a restaurant. What I don’t see is how that brought you here to the spa.”

  “Especially as the couple changed their names,” added Janet.

  It was a good thing that I was faster on the uptake in the field of food detection than in crime detection. The significance was only just beginning to sink in.

  “Just a minute. Are we saying that Leighton and Mallory Vance are the chef couple from the poisoning at this place in New York?”

  “Some of the notes in Kathleen’s file include a local newspaper account of the trial. The names are different,” Janet said.

  “It’s quite legal to change your name,” said Elaine dismissively. “Also it’s understandable that they would want to do so if they intended to pursue their career—and they obviously did, coming here to Switzerland.”

  “There has to be more to it than that,” I said, musing. “A place as prestigious as this would need extensive references.”

  Neither of them answered. I wasn’t sure whether either of them knew the answer or had some reason for not replying.

  “There must be even more to it,” I persisted. “Blackmailing for vacations? Sounds a bit weak. Certainly not enough motive for murder. So what’s our next move?” I asked.

  Still neither responded.

  “Do we have a next move?” I wanted to know.

  In the next room, a great ice table made a splendid setting for a farewell banquet, under a glistening dome of shiny blue ice. One wall was a faithful replica of the front of a medieval château, complete with moat, drawbridge, and portcullis. A sign in red was not legible from this distance but looked like a warning not to enter. The other walls had banners of the cantons and the national flag, with the familiar red cross on a white ba
ckground.

  Ice tables don’t groan, so it could not be said that this one groaned under the weight of its spectacular spread of food, but it had every reason to do so. It was buffet style and was a mouthwatering selection that already was outweighing the glacial attractions of Swiss history, agricultural equipment, and Swiss engineering achievements. Guests were flocking round the table, and the rattle of cutlery on plates was like hail on the roof as it echoed down from the icy blue dome.

  “The Swiss are so boring with their accomplishments,” Oriana Frascati hissed to me as she loaded a plate with smoked salmon and tiny puff pastries filled with shrimp.

  “You should speak more charitably of your neighbors,” I reprimanded.

  “Hitler should have listened to Mussolini when he wanted to invade Switzerland,” Oriana said haughtily, reaching for cheese rolls made with four kinds of cheese.

  Elaine had drifted away and was talking to Brad Thompson. Janet was trying to keep out of range of Caroline de Witt, who was presiding over the table like a benign duchess. We had discussed our next move, which it had transpired we did not have. Janet was adamant that she was not going to leave until she found out what had happened to Kathleen. Elaine and I agreed to keep an eye on her. Janet’s sole clue was that she had seen Rhoda coming to the Glacier Caverns. That was suspicious only because the caverns were not supposed to be open at the time. Janet insisted she was going to look around now. She reminded us that the caverns were said to be extensive, so there must be chambers that we had not seen in our tour.

  “What are these?” Marta Giannini demanded, waving me over.

  I told her they were tiny crab cakes.

  “What’s that red in them?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Flecks of red pepper.”

  She tasted one and promptly took another.

  The blond staffers were moving through the crowd of guests, offering Swiss wine. It was from the Visperterminen in the Valais, the highest vineyard in Europe, and it was crisp and dry, more assertive than many Swiss wines. It was a good solution to the problem that has confounded many a hostess—which wine to serve with a buffet.

  “You read the brochure,” I said, motioning to the fluffy scarlet sweater that Marta was wearing. It was a dazzling garment, but I presumed it also had a practical purpose.

  “It’s not as cold here as I thought,” she said, “but I am glad I wore it.” She looked around carefully, making sure no one was near enough to overhear—just as she had in Games in the Night, when the will had just been read and a statue had fallen from above and only just missed her. “I do have a little more information for you,” she said in a hoarse whisper that had “conspirator” stamped on it.

  “Might be safer to talk in a natural voice,” I said, trying not to put it in the way that director von Stroheim might have. “Less suspicious.”

  We were evidently on different cinematic wavelengths, for she nodded and said with a straight face. “Yes, Mr. Capra.”

  “So you’ve been sleuthing,” I prompted her.

  “I didn’t have to. That Frenchman, Michel Leblanc, I know now what he and Kathleen Evans were talking about in the Roman baths and the other time, on the lawn.”

  “You do? What was it?”

  “Your coarse American expression is the best way to put it. He ‘came on to me.’”

  “Can’t blame him for that,” I said, hoping it sounded gallant. If it did, she failed to notice. “Thinking back to those two times I saw them, I’m sure that’s what he was doing then.” She twirled her champagne glass and put on a Hollywood smile. “Don’t say anything. Here he comes now.”

  Michel joined us, pointing to a toothsome array of tartlets on a glass tray. “I made those,” he said proudly. “Baked oysters.” We tasted and congratulated him.

  Small triangles of pizza had broccoli rabe, black olives, and smoked mozzarella and were proving a popular item. Toasted cakes fresh from the oven and piled with goat cheese shavings were going like—well, like hot cakes.

  I became aware of eyes on me from across the table. It was Elaine, and she was very judiciously flickering her gaze across the chamber toward the wall carved like a château front. I was just in time to see Janet disappear through the portcullis gate.

  Eating and drinking stimulate my brain. Anyway, I have always gotten away with that story, and it seemed justified now. Janet’s information clarified some of the mystery, but the whereabouts of Kathleen and her probable fate were still clouded.

  “Puzzling over what to eat next?”

  The question broke in on my thoughts. It was Leighton Vance in a snappy sky-blue blazer with an impossibly white shirt and white pants. He looked to be in a cheerful mood, and he was with Millicent Manners, uncharacteristically bucolic in a Tyrolean-style skirt and blouse.

  “It’s all so good,” I said.

  “A fitting farewell,” he said with a smile. “Have you tried the spring rolls?”

  “No, did you make them?”

  “One of my staff did,” he said, implying that making spring rolls was beneath his culinary dignity.

  I tasted one. “An interesting variation on the Oriental way of making them.”

  He had already turned his attention back to Millicent Manners, and my compliment fell on deaf ears. I drifted along the table, stopping to exchange pleasantries with the Japanese lady and with Helmut Helberg, who was lamenting the end of the week having arrived so quickly. I continued to drift until I met Elaine, disengaging herself from Gunther Probst.

  “That man wants to put everything on software,” she complained.

  I waited until we were in a comparatively safe zone, then said, “Did you see Janet? She went into the ice château.”

  “One second she was there, the next she was gone,” Elaine said. “I assumed that’s where she disappeared to. Are you going to follow her?”

  “Me? Well, I suppose one of us should.”

  “You’re the investigator,” she said, elegantly crooking a little finger as she picked up a rib glistening with a reddish sauce.

  “Actually, I’m not,” I protested. “Like I told you, I only—”

  “I know, I know,” she said impatiently, “but you’re the nearest thing to an investigator we have.”

  “Very flattering. I’m not sure what I can do, though.”

  “Have you tried one of these ribs? They’re delicious.” She was licking the sauce and it did look good.

  “Venison, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m having another.”

  “So while you’re stuffing yourself, you want to send me into the jaws of death?”

  “As a lawyer, I can’t recommend prowling around where signs specifically prohibit such an activity. On the other hand, I don’t see what else we can do. We have nothing to take to the police. One disappeared female, who for all intents and purposes has gone back to New York? They’d laugh at us—well, no, being Swiss, they’d be very polite—but where would that get us?”

  “Are you sure that the best alternative is sending me in there? Well,” I said, “it doesn’t matter. If Janet is in there, I have to go in after her.”

  “Stout fellow,” she said with only a touch of irony. “Only don’t say ‘I,’ say ‘we.’”

  “You’re coming too? I thought you were ducking out, sending me?”

  “Just wanted to see your reaction. Anyway, first, I need more sustenance.” She took another venison rib and I took one too. One of the blond staffers was nearby, pouring the very good Vesperterminen wine. Elaine and I both had refills, and I noted that the staffer’s name badge said “Olga.” “I haven’t seen Rhoda today,” I said to her. “Is she on duty?”

  “She’s on a few days’ leave,” the blonde replied.

  She gave me a dazzling smile and continued on her wine-dispensing mission of mercy.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” I murmured to Elaine.

  She didn’t offer any solace, being too busy scanning the scene. “Everybody
’s pretty well occupied right now,” she said quietly. “We’ll split up, go to the fringes of the crowd, one to the right, one to the left, then one at a time head for the château entrance.”

  “Portcullis.”

  “Whatever.” She was gone, and I had just time enough to empty my wineglass before I moved too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I’M NOT AFRAID OF the dark—well, no more than the average person anyway. This was a different proposition, though: these Cimmerian chambers were deep inside the bowels of a glacier that was not only millions of years old but sliding downhill at the rate of several inches a year. I kept reminding myself that this was Switzerland, and the Swiss are too realistic, too practical, too efficient to permit dangerous places like sliding glaciers. Besides, they would affect the tourist business.

  My worst fears, the ones about the dark, were not realized. A subdued yellowish light filled the chamber into which we passed. It was barely bright enough to read by but certainly bright enough to find one’s way in, presumably a permanent installation fed from one of the country’s many nuclear generators.

  Elaine and I walked on cautiously. Despite our attempts at stealth, our footsteps echoed from the ice walls and even our whispers seemed to fly around like bats. The layout of a castle was continued after we had passed through the portcullis and the main gate. This was a large courtyard. The floor was cut to resemble cobblestones and the walls were buttressed. A horse and carriage stood frozen, literally, while wax figures in costume stood poised to carry out their tasks.

  “I thought we would have caught up with Janet by now,” Elaine murmured.

  “So did I,” I agreed. “We could hardly have passed her so she must still be ahead of us.”

  “Wherever that is.”

  A door at either end was our next consideration. The first one I tried opened readily and we went through into the main hall. Trusses and beams were cut from the ice, and the open staircase on one side seemed ripe for a duel to be won by Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn. Even the massive chandelier was chopped from the ice and the minstrel gallery that looked down on the scene below lacked only a group of medieval musicians.