From Bad to Wurst (12 page)

Dad stared at his sheet music and played a screechy chord that mashed way too many notes together.

“Does that sound right to you, Emily?” asked Mom.

“It'll get better. I think Dad's just warming up.”

The Germans sang louder and louder. They cheered. They laughed. They clapped their hands to the beat of the music. Either they were really into the song or they were trying to protect their eardrums by drowning out the accordion.

Dad's fingers slipped on the button board, sending a sliding scale of chords and bass notes into hair-raising tones that caused me to cringe.

Mom leaned toward me. “I know the reason your father never mentioned his musical talent, Em. He doesn't have any.”

Nana returned from the restroom and sat down beside me on the bench. “I was hopin' the song what them folks is playin' wouldn't sound as bad out here as it does in the potty.”

“And?” I asked.

“It's worse.”

“We need to get Dad off the stage.”

“How?” Nana winced as he hit another dissonant chord. “Dang, this is brutal.”

“We've gotta do something before he embarrasses himself any more.”

“You s'pose they got a fire alarm around here someplace?” asked Nana.

Mom grabbed my forearm again. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is that your father up on stage, Emily? Why is he playing the accordion? He can't play the accordion.”

Tell me about it
.

A half-second later, the music faded mid-note as a terrified scream pierced the rising din.

“
help
! Somebody help! She's not breathing!”

eleven

Etienne and Wally performed
CPR until the ambulance arrived and the paramedics could take over, which was a matter of mere minutes since the ambulance was already on the festival grounds. Etienne volunteered to accompany the ambulance to the hospital and promised to call us the minute he had a status report. The commotion brought the Guten Tags' performance to an abrupt end, but as soon as the medics left and the dust cleared, another oompah band took the stage and the festivities in the Hippodrom resumed in earnest—minus the participation of our tour group. We were all pretty shaken up, and the musicians were spent both physically and emotionally, so we opted to cut the evening short and return to the hotel.

Etienne called me on the walk back.

Zola Czarnecki hadn't made it.

She was dead.

I passed the information on to Wally, who made an immediate decision to conduct a group meeting as soon as we reached the hotel. We gathered in the Prince Ludwig room once again, but this time, instead of sitting in the audience, I stood in the front of the room with Wally. As soon as he completed a cell phone call to Etienne, he opened the meeting with our grim tidings.

“I'm afraid the news isn't good, folks. Zola Czarnecki has died.”

Gasps. Murmurs. A cry of “Oh, God,” from Maisie Barnes, whose piercing scream had sounded the initial alarm about Zola. And while the majority of faces in the audience registered shock, Wendell remained stone-faced, as if forcing himself to register no emotion at all.

“She's dead?” sobbed Maisie. “But…but…she was fine until she collapsed.”

“She showed no signs of physical distress before then?” asked Wally.

Maisie lifted one shoulder. “She said she had a little buzz on, so she was feeling a little dizzy. But she'd just polished off a liter of beer, so why wouldn't she feel dizzy? I felt dizzy, too. But then she started blinking really fast and twitching and gasping for air. And before I could even ask her what was wrong, she crumpled like a rag doll. I've never seen anyone go down that fast in my life.” She paused to suck in a calming breath. “Do the docs have any idea what happened to her?”

“Etienne tells me that an autopsy is being scheduled, so we won't know anything definitive until the results are back. But, since this will eventually become public information, I
can
tell you that Ms. Czarnecki was taking medication to treat a chronic heart condition. I know from your medical histories that some others of you are suffering from mild heart conditions, so given what's happened to Zola, I'd caution you to watch your alcohol intake. I'm not suggesting that her beer consumption caused her death, but until we hear otherwise, I'm asking you to play it safe.”

“Is this going to force you to cancel the rest of the tour?” asked Wendell.

The gang already knew the answer to that, so they began shaking their heads in unison like a display of metronomes. “We've set a precedent of never canceling the tour no matter how many guests die,” said Tilly, prompting the rest of the gang to nod in agreement.

Silence settled over the room as the musicians exchanged uncomfortable glances. “How many guests normally die?” asked Otis.

Dick Teig scratched his jaw. “Do you want exact numbers or would an average be okay?”

“
what
?” barked Wendell.

“What Dick means to say,” I interrupted, “is that since our tours are geared toward older adults, the law of averages sometimes catches up with us, so we've had to deal with a few instances where guests were…unable to complete the trip.”

“How many is a few?” questioned Gilbert.

“I think the body count is up to eight,” said Margi.

“Eight?” Dick Stolee guffawed. “Hell, it's twice that number.” He leveled a look at Margi. “Guests were dropping like flies long before you came aboard.”

Nervous grumbles. Shifting eyes.

“What kind of trips are you people offering?” demanded Wendell. “Shouldn't a Sounds of Music tour include some selections other than funeral marches and requiems?”

“You should have been on the last tour,” droned Bernice. “Black plague. Mass graves. Wall-to-wall undertakers. It was a real knee-slapper.”

“Your brochure never mentioned anything about guests dropping like flies,” Stretch accused.

“Please allow me to reiterate,” Wally said in a loud voice. “It's the policy of our travel agency to complete our tour no matter what happens. Our responsibility is to our remaining guests—the ones who put down no small amount of money to experience what our brochure promised.”

Arlin Foote, the Little Bitte's trombonist, stood up. “I'm only speaking for myself here, but I think the tour is great. I'm sorry we lost Astrid in that freak accident and I wish Zola was still with us because it would have been fun to have our fortunes told, but Emily's not responsible for any of the bad stuff that's happened. We had stage time at one of the Oktoberfest tents, people. How amazing is that? And the audience loved us. When have we ever heard applause that loud? It was the opportunity of a lifetime. And if we weren't on this tour, it never would have happened. So I think we should be grateful that folks are clamoring to listen to us and stop complaining about things none of us have any control over.” He gave an emphatic nod of his head and sat down. “That's all I have to say.”

Bernice let out a derisive snort as she caught my eye. “How much did you have to pay him to say that?”

Arlin stood back up. “My previous statement was unsolicited and expressed no one's view except my own.”

Silence. Soul-searching. Head-bobbing.

“Despite everything that's happened, I'm having a great time too,” admitted Maisie.

“Ditto for me,” echoed Stretch.

Nods. Smiles. Hapless shrugging.

Osmond sprang to his feet. “Show of hands. How many guests are having—”

“No voting!” I fired a look at him that sent him sinking back down onto his seat.

“Well, I'm glad our oompah band members are having a good experience,” Wally continued, “because unbeknownst to you, you're suddenly in great demand.”

“We're getting requests for appearances?” asked Wendell, with more than a little surprise in his voice.

“And how.” Wally pulled up the calendar on his phone. “Your reputation precedes you. Tomorrow we're scheduled to visit Neuschwanstein Castle, and the restaurant near the entrance has requested that you entertain the lunch crowd.”

“They want all
four
bands?” asked Otis with some hesitation.

“All four bands,” said Wally. “And tomorrow night you've been invited to entertain the dinner crowd at one of the premier Bavarian beer halls in the heart of Old Town Munich. You're gaining quite a name for yourselves.”

The Guten Tags crossed uneasy glances with each other. “Here's the thing,” offered Otis, his cheeks bright pink above his beard, “after our performance tonight, I'm not sure we're ready to—”

“Could I say something?” asked Dad as he heaved himself slowly to his feet. Head bent, shoulders slumped, he looked so demoralized, I felt an aching need to run over and hug him. “I'm sorry about flubbing up tonight and being such a disappointment to you, but if you give me one more chance, I think I can do a whole lot better. I won't blame you if you decide to can me, though. I was an awful embarrassment.”

“I didn't think you were so bad,” soothed Alice Tjarks. “I bet you played some chords no one ever attempted before. That's pretty gutsy.”

“I enjoyed every note I heard,” said Osmond.

“That's because you turned off your hearing aids after about three notes,” scoffed Bernice.

Osmond shot her a dour look. “I was trying to preserve the memory.”

“I used to get so nervous when I first started performing,” Hetty confessed, “that I always ended up with hiccups and couldn't play the first songs anyway. But no one ever scolded me for it. They just let me join in when I was able. And after my confidence got built up, I never had a problem again. So I know what Bob went through tonight, and I vote to give him another chance.”

Gilbert nodded agreement. “Hetty's right. It's not brain surgery, so no one's life is in the balance if one of us hits a wrong note.”

“Hell,” snorted Otis. “That Hippodrom crowd was so rowdy, they probably never even noticed that Bob was playing a different tune altogether.”

“I guess that says it all,” Wendell concluded. “We'll give you another shot at it, Bob. And in the meantime, if you have any questions about the music or need any help, let one of us know, and we'll be there for you.”

Dad gave a nod of thanks. “Appreciate the second chance. I think I know what I did wrong, though, so I'm pretty sure I can fix it. I won't disappoint you again.”

He sat back down next to Mom, who grabbed his shirt sleeve in alarm. “What are you going to fix?”

“My accordion playing.”

“You don't play the accordion.”

“She's got that right,” crowed Bernice.

Hisses. Boos. Razzberries.

Wally called for order. “Before I let you go, I'll remind you that the schedule for tomorrow will be wake-up calls at seven, breakfast beginning at seven thirty, and departure for the castle at nine, so get a good night's sleep. You've had a busy day today, and tomorrow might even surpass it.”

Chairs scraped and creaked as the group rose en masse. While the musicians retrieved their instrument cases from alongside the wall, the gang gathered around Dad, bolstering his confidence with claps on the back and a flurry of thumbs-up.

“Chin up,” Lucille encouraged him. “I've heard worse. Not
much
worse, but definitely worse.”

Margi slapped a travel-size bottle of pink hand sanitizer into his hand. “You might want to use this on your accordion. If your keyboard was sticky, maybe that's what caused all those notes to play at the same time.”

The Dicks hurried over to me, Dick Stolee's expression signaling he was still hyped up about his recent windfall. “With Zola gone, I guess there won't be any fortunetelling in the lobby tonight, huh?”

“Good assumption.”

He scanned the room. “No one willing to take her place?”

I regarded him with amusement. “Are you looking to add to your windfall?”

“You bet,” he tittered, removing a violet-colored banknote from his wallet for show and tell. “See this? It's the highest currency available in euros.”

“Zola really nailed that, huh? But I had no idea online gaming paid out in actual cash.”

Dick Teig puffed his face up like a chipmunk whose cheeks had exceeded the maximum limit for nuts. “It doesn't. He won it off a scratch game at the corner market down the street, and he has
me
to thank. If I hadn't had a sudden craving for ice cream, he'd be maxing out another credit card on those stupid online slots.”

I winced. “You maxed out a credit card?”

“Yeah, but it only had a five-thousand-dollar limit.”

“
wha
t
?”

“Shh,” they warned in unison.

My voice rose to a high-pitched whisper. “You lost
five thousand dollars
in order to win
five hundre
d
?”

“Yeah, but it's euros, so I figure I'm only out about four grand.”

“Geez, Dick.”

“It was the windows clue that threw me off.” He held his five hundred euro banknote up, indicating the tall windowed building imprinted on the front of the bill. “See the windows on this building? I figure that's what Zola was seeing when she told my fortune. So my windfall didn't have anything to do with Microsoft or casino gambling. She saw an image of my actual payout.”

“You are in such deep doo-doo.”

“You think I should buy more scratch cards?”

“
no
!” I dropped my voice as they proceeded to shush me again. “No more scratch cards. No more online gaming. Just…just…pray Grace doesn't want to make any large purchases before you get that card paid off. If she finds out what you've done, she'll kill you.”

“I think I'm good on that,” he said with confidence. “Zola didn't predict anything about an untimely death for me.”

“She didn't predict an untimely death for herself either,” Dick Teig pointed out. “But guess what happened?”

I watched Dick Stolee's complexion drain of color as Nana shuffled over to me. “We're headin' up, dear. Tilly and your mother've already gone on ahead with your father.”

“I'm coming too,” I said, more than anxious to call it a day.

There was a log jam of Iowans, instrument cases, and other hotel guests at the elevator when we arrived. Since Nana was looking a little flushed, I suggested we have a seat in the lobby because it looked as if it might take a while for the crowd to clear. As we waited she began blinking, wriggling her nose, sniffing, and scratching her eyebrows, mimicking facial expressions reminiscent of the ones she'd used in Scotland in her unsuccessful attempt to put a hex on Bernice.

“Are you okay?”

“I think it's them flowers.” She directed an evil look at the overflowing floral arrangement on the display table. “My allergies must be kickin' in.”

“I didn't know you had allergies.”

“Seems I do now.”

“How about we find other seats?”

We moved as far away from the flowers and the elevator as possible, to a secluded alcove with a direct line of vision to another alcove where Otis, Gilbert, Wendell, and Hetty were involved in what looked to be a heated discussion. They were all talking at once, and to say they didn't look happy would have been an understatement. Finger-pointing. Fist-shaking. Eye-rolling. Arm-folding.