Death of a Second Wife (A Dotsy Lamb Travel Mystery) by Hudgins Maria

Author:Hudgins, Maria [Hudgins, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maria Hudgins
Published: 2013-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

I felt as if I should tiptoe around the house and peek into each room before entering, the eerie calm a paper-thin blanket over the tumult beneath the surface. Lettie and I had talked until two a.m. after I came in from star-gazing with Juergen. It had taken Juergen and me quite a while to get rid of Babs Toomey, determined as she was to out-last me and have Juergen to herself. Under the Alpine stars. How romantic. Every time I tried to leave, he’d grab me by the collar and insist I wait until he located one more nebula, one more star cluster, in his telescope. I could tell he hadn’t finished all he wanted to tell me about Gisele, but he finally gave up, packed up his equipment, and handed Babs something heavy to carry back.

Patrick moved his things upstairs to the room beside Lettie and me, the one Babs and Erin had vacated. Lettie told me Patrick and Erin had retreated to that room, closed the door, and talked for more than three hours, emerging occasionally to replenish the contents of their glasses. Coke, she thought.

I carried my morning coffee to the living room and found Juergen sitting in his favorite chair, the big leather one with the butt-sprung seat. His face now drawn and haggard, he looked years older than the energetic man who picked me up from the taxi four days ago. The laptop on his knees wobbled as he typed an email message to someone, hit “send,” and picked up the cell phone chirping on the arm of his chair.

I slipped out the sliding glass door to the deck, respecting his privacy. To the south, I saw Chet sitting on a rock near the edge of the precipice that marked the limit of Chateau Merz’s lawn, and from where I stood it looked as if one step forward would send him over the edge. I caught my breath. His silhouette sloped from his head to his elbows as if he had no shoulders left. Where was Brian? Still with Kronenberg in the van? Spilling his guts? I wished I were a fly on the wall inside that van.

Stepping back inside, I pulled the door shut behind me.

Juergen closed his laptop, set it on the ottoman in place of his feet, and scrubbed his face with both hands. “I have to go to Zurich. They’ve taken my father to the hospital.”

“What’s wrong?”

“They don’t know yet.” He stood, his gaze swerving to the windows. His eyes teared up. “What next? My God, what next?”

“How will you get there?”

“I left a car at a garage in LaMotte.”

I wondered how many cars he had. I wondered if he had a plane and whether he ever flew into the landing strip I’d discovered.

“I must go and talk to Kronenberg,” he said, and then he shocked me. “Would you like to come with me to Zurich?”

I’m sure I stammered a bit before I answered, “I’d like to, but I really need to hang around here.

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