Alpine For You Part 19

"Are you sure you want to do that?" It wasn't like d.i.c.k was going anywhere, and guarding a corpse wasn't one of the highlighted activities on Nana's holiday itinerary.

"I'm the Legion a Mary's official representative for visitations at Heavenly Host Funeral Home, so I'm pretty used to hangin' around dead people these days."

I dumped my purchases onto the other end of d.i.c.k's bench. After getting directions from Nana, I sprinted down the street toward the cafe. Wally was seated at a table drinking cafe latte. He was sporting what looked like a new green alpine hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. I grabbed him by the arm and urged him to his feet. "Nice hat. You need to come with me. We have a crisis."

"What kind of crisis?"

"You need to come now. Leave some money for the bill."

He slapped some coins onto the table and stumbled behind me as I dragged him into the street. "This had better be good," he complained. "I was only halfway through that cafe latte."

"d.i.c.k Ra.s.smuson is dead."

"WHAT?".

"Can you walk a little faster?"

"How do you know he's dead?"

"Because he's not breathing!"

"s.h.i.t," he said, doubling his pace. "s.h.i.t!"

"It looks like a heart attack."

"Great. This is just great. We'll never get him out of Germany if he's dead."

"Why not?" I hurried him toward the spa grounds.

"Because it's Germany! They don't like foreigners dying in their country. You wouldn't believe the paperwork. This happened to one of my colleagues a few years ago. An elderly man died, and the authorities kept the whole tour group confined for over a week asking questions, administering polygraph tests. It was a disaster. Triangle Tours lost a lot of money on that one because they had to reimburse everyone for the inconvenience plus pay for their lodging in Germany. If the same thing happens to us, Triangle is out a lot of money again, and I'm probably out a job. s.h.i.t."

It seemed this information might have warranted a footnote in the brochure. Triangle Tours strongly suggests you not die while visiting a foreign country, Germany in particular. Triangle Tours strongly suggests you not die while visiting a foreign country, Germany in particular. Of course, there was no guarantee d.i.c.k Ra.s.smuson would have heeded the warning, especially if it had been written in fine print. Of course, there was no guarantee d.i.c.k Ra.s.smuson would have heeded the warning, especially if it had been written in fine print.

Nana was sitting on the bench beside d.i.c.k when we arrived, shooing away flies with her handbag. I admired her courage for daring to sit that close to him. "I thought if we both sat here sayin' nothin' to each other, people would think we were married and wouldn't pay us no never-mind."

Wally felt for a pulse.

"Well?" I asked.

"s.h.i.t. He's dead."

"So now what do we do? Call the police?"

"NO! No police. We gotta get him out of here. We gotta get him back on the bus."

I thought about that for a full millisecond. "ARE YOU CRAZY?"

"Look, Emily. He can't stay here. We have to get him back to Switzerland and then then we can call the Swiss police. The Swiss are much more understanding about people dying on them than the Germans. We'll tell them he died in his sleep on the bus." we can call the Swiss police. The Swiss are much more understanding about people dying on them than the Germans. We'll tell them he died in his sleep on the bus."

"But that's a lie! We could end up in jail for obstructing justice, for perjury, for--"

"You better decide what you're gonna do fast," said Nana. "These flies are gettin' thick." She swatted d.i.c.k's arm with her handbag. He fell sideways and toppled off the bench.

"Oh geez," hollered Wally. We both seized an arm, hiked him up, and heaved him back onto the bench.

"You're lucky rigor mortis hasn't set in yet," said Nana.

Wally looked apoplectic. "Okay, Emily, here's the deal. You help me get him back on the bus, and I'll take full responsibility for the consequences. I won't mention your name. You won't even have to talk to the Swiss police when we get back. But we have to get him out of here before anyone else notices he's dead."

I didn't feel real comfortable about this, but I supposed the bottom line was, d.i.c.k was dead, and there was nothing we could do to bring him back. We wouldn't know how he died until an autopsy was performed, and since all the other autopsies had been performed in Lucerne, this one might as well be too. I just hoped we wouldn't be leaving vital evidence behind when we moved him. "All right," I conceded. "I'll help you."

"When are you gonna tell Lucille?" asked Nana. "She's bound to notice he's not breathin' at some point on the bus ride home."

Wally's eyes glazed over. "s.h.i.t. I forgot about his wife."

"Lucille won't be a problem," I a.s.sured him. "They had a big fight in the cafeteria. They're not speaking. They had no intention of sitting with each other on the way back to Lucerne anyway."

"Good. That'll buy us some time."

But it did nothing to solve our immediate problem. "Okay, how do we get him back to the bus without attracting attention?"

Wally executed a 360-degree turn, looking, a.s.sessing. He snapped his fingers. "The spa. You two sit tight. I'll be right back."

Fifteen minutes later he reappeared in a four-pa.s.senger motorized golf cart with a canopy. "I told the spa manager who I was and explained that one of my tour members was ill and needed to be transported back to the bus. They're keeping my pa.s.sport as collateral until I bring it back. Okay, ladies, let's load our pa.s.senger into the backseat."

I grabbed an arm. Wally grabbed an arm. "On the count of three," said Wally. "One. Two. Three!" I yanked. Wally yanked. We clean-and-jerked him off the bench. Momentum sent him flying forward. SMACK! Face first into the canopy of the golf cart. BOOM! Flat on his back onto the ground.

"This is going well," I said.

"s.h.i.t," said Wally.

"What's this gizmo on the back of the golf cart?" asked Nana. Wally and I took a peek.

"Looks like some kind of hydraulic lift," I said. Coloradans knew ski lifts. Californians knew face-lifts. Iowans knew hydraulic lifts, especially Iowans like me, who'd been raised on grain farms around heavy machinery. I hopped into the driver's seat and fidgeted with a few toggle switches. HRRRMMMM! The lift hummed into action. Ah, the genius of German engineering. I backed the cart up to the body and we hoisted d.i.c.k onto the lift. I hit the toggle switch again and d.i.c.k levitated upward like an oversize sack of seed corn.

"All right!" said Wally.

We swung his legs around and slid him onto the backseat in a sitting position, then stood back to a.s.sess our handiwork. Nana had closed d.i.c.k's eyes, but it hadn't helped much.

"What do you think?" Wally asked me.

"It looks like we have a dead guy sitting in the back of our golf cart."

"Maybe you need to gussy him up a bit so he don't look so dead," said Nana.

I looked at Wally. Wally looked at me. I stared at Wally's new green alpine hat and smiled. He swiped it off his head and stuck it on d.i.c.k's at a c.o.c.ky angle. We a.s.sessed again.

"Better," I said. "But he's still too exposed." I snapped my fingers with sudden inspiration. I dug into my shoulder bag and pulled out the sungla.s.ses Shirley Angowski had given me atop Mount Pilatus. I slid them onto d.i.c.k's face. We a.s.sessed again. "What do you think now?"

"Perfect," said Wally. "Hop in. I'm driving."

"You're driving?" I objected. "How come you get to drive?"

"Because I'm the one whose pa.s.sport is on the line if anything happens in transit."

I looked at Nana. Nana looked at me. One of us was going to have to sit in back with d.i.c.k. "You wanna flip a coin to see who gets to ride shotgun?" asked Nana.

Two minutes later we were whizzing across the spa lawn at the breakneck speed of eight miles per hour. Wally shot out onto the pedestrian walkway and banged a sharp left turn. d.i.c.k lurched forward and fell over into my lap. "You wanna watch the corners!" I yelled from the backseat as I propped him back up. I straightened his hat and sungla.s.ses and batted a few flies away. "How far to the bus?"

"Be there in a few minutes," a.s.sured Wally.

The driving was slow, with all the tourists crowding the walkway. "S'cuse me!" Wally kept shouting. "We're trying to get by here!" We spied Bernice as she hobbled in the direction of the parking lot, and when Wally slowed to let a stroller pa.s.s, she flagged us down.

"I can't walk another step. You got room for another pa.s.senger?"

"NO!" we yelled in unison. Bernice winced and grabbed her head as if she'd been zapped by chain lightning. I suspected if she wasn't deaf before, she was now.

Wally zoomed around the baby stroller and gunned the cart. Lars and Solvay Bakke were standing by a bench on the walkway and waved as we pa.s.sed by. "New hat, d.i.c.k?" Solvay called as we slowed for more foot traffic.

Being dead, d.i.c.k said nothing.

"Yoo-hoo," Solvay persisted. Sweat beaded my upper lip. Sweat bathed my palms. We were about to be found out.

"Hey," Solvay shouted. "Are you too good to talk to us?"

I waved to Solvay, then slid my left hand under d.i.c.k's elbow and popped his arm up so he could wave, too. I figured d.i.c.k would have wanted it that way. He wasn't a sn.o.b. He couldn't help it if he was dead.

We found the bus at the far end of the parking lot. It was completely empty. It was also locked.

"d.a.m.n!" said Wally. "We gotta find Max before people start drifting back." He checked his watch. "We only have a half hour."

"More like two minutes," I corrected. "Remember? Iowans are always early."

Max, our bus driver, was a big bull of a man who looked as if he might have been a Gestapo commandant before he made the big career move to tour bus driver. I gave the parking lot the once-over and noticed a small group of tidily dressed men standing by one of the other tour busses. "He could be over there," I said, pointing.

Wally took off like a shot. "He'd better hurry," said Nana. "Bernice will probably wanna chew on him for not givin' her a lift, so I expect she'll be showin' up any minute."

I looked over my shoulder to find Wally and Max locked in a heated discussion as they headed back toward the golf cart. Arms flew. Spittle flew. Max unlocked the door of the bus, then headed in our direction.

"We gots to get body to h.e.l.l into bus," said Max. English obviously wasn't his first language. "Man can't die here. Better he die in Switzerland." He shoved d.i.c.k's hat and sungla.s.ses at me, then in one motion lifted d.i.c.k over his shoulder and carried him up the stairs of the bus. He made his way down the aisle to the back of the bus and unloaded d.i.c.k on the rear seat. Whew. Now that the hard part was behind us, maybe I could breathe a little easier.

"I'd better get his hat and gla.s.ses back on him," I said to Wally.

"Right. And we'll be making some hairpin turns on the way back to Lucerne, so you need to make sure he doesn't fall over too much. Try to keep him propped against the window."

"Excuse me?" My part in this was over. I'd helped get d.i.c.k back to the bus. What was this propping him against the window business?

Wally looked surprised. "You need to sit with him on the way back."

"ME? Why me?"

"Someone has to!" has to!"

"What about you? You're You're the tour guide. I'm only the escort!" the tour guide. I'm only the escort!"

"You've done such a good job with him so far, Emily. Can't you be a team player and follow through?"

"NO!".

"Well, you have to do it anyway because there is is no one else. I have to sit at the front of the bus and conduct the sing-along on the way back." no one else. I have to sit at the front of the bus and conduct the sing-along on the way back."

"I could conduct the sing-along," I protested. "I have a good singing voice. I was in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

Wally smiled. "Nice try. I don't think so. You better get back there and get settled before people start arriving. I need to get the cart back to the spa."

"But it's a long drive back to Lucerne," I shouted, as Wally hopped into the cart. "Shouldn't d.i.c.k be in a cooler or something? What happens if he starts to--you know--smell bad?"

Forty minutes later, as the bus headed out of the resort town of t.i.tisee-Neustadt, Wally made an announcement over the microphone. "Due to a malfunction in the ventilation system, I regret to inform you that the back half of the bus will be a little cool on the drive back to Lucerne. There are blankets in the overhead compartments if you need them. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause."

A little little cool? We weren't even on the main road yet and the tips of my ears were starting to freeze. I grabbed two blankets from the overhead compartment and tucked one around d.i.c.k and one around me. I know I'd said earlier that I needed to chill out, but this wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind. cool? We weren't even on the main road yet and the tips of my ears were starting to freeze. I grabbed two blankets from the overhead compartment and tucked one around d.i.c.k and one around me. I know I'd said earlier that I needed to chill out, but this wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind.

The weather deteriorated steadily as we headed south. Arriving back in Lucerne, we were welcomed by the normal fare of heavy drizzle and dense fog. I was so cold, I no longer had feeling in my extremities, and my lips were completely numb. I felt like Emily Andrew, human Sno-Kone.

"After dinner this evening there'll be a group meeting in the lobby for the Iowa contingent," announced Wally over the mike. "It's extremely important that all of you attend, so please be there."

The bus emptied amid grumblings from everyone about the trip home. The people at the front of the bus had been too hot. The people at the rear of the bus had been too cold. I'd have thought the people in the middle would have been just right, but even they had started to complain about an unpleasant odor wafting about the bus. Fortunately, my nose was a cube of ice, so I couldn't smell a thing. My only problem was hypothermia.

Wally made his way to the back of the bus and clapped me on the shoulder. "Good job, Emily. We pulled it off. I'll contact the authorities, and they can take it from here. Geez, you look awful. I hope you don't have frostbite." He hugged his arms to himself. "Man, it's freezing back here. No wonder your nose is purple. I'm heading inside the hotel. I'll wait for the police in there."

Nana helped me inch my way off the bus and into the hotel. Every bone inside me creaked with each step. "How come you're not cold?" I asked her.

"The change, dear. I haven't been cold since nineteen-seventy-two."

We picked up the room key at the desk and took the elevator to the fifth floor. "You may wanna take a long, hot bath in the Jacuzzi," Nana suggested when we were inside the room. "It might take the chill off. You want me to run the water?"

I nodded. My jaw was too stiff with cold to answer. My teeth were ice pellets inside my mouth. And through the cold, I could feel the area around my new crown start to ache again. Ah, yes, another banner day in the life of Emily Andrew.

I hung up my raincoat, kicked off my shoes, collapsed into a boudoir chair, and thought about what a horrendous day I'd had. The trickery. The deceit. The cold. Of course, my day hadn't been as horrendous as d.i.c.k Ra.s.smuson's. I shot up a little straighter with that thought. All things considered, my day had been considerably better than d.i.c.k's.

Nuts. I hated when that happened. I hated having my pity parties interrupted by the voice of reason.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

I stared at the door. Not the police. They couldn't get here that fast, and besides, Wally promised he wouldn't drag my name into the investigation.

I tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole. A man wearing a bellman's uniform was in the hall. I opened the door. "Ms. Andrew?"