Pasta Imperfect (31 page)

“Heavens no. This is daywear. Eveningwear is a lot more dramatic.”

EH! I studied the clothing on the bed. The metallic gold tank tops. The zebra-striped vests. The black leather pants. The see-through blouses and mesh sweaters. I couldn’t help being amazed that with all the exclusive clothing shops in Florence, Jackie had still managed to find a Frederick’s of Hollywood. But I had to hand it to her. There wasn’t a thing here that wouldn’t look dynamite with orange hair. She really did have great color sense.

“We’ve run into a small problem though,” Britha said to me. Or was it Barbro? Now that she’d dropped the rhyming gig, I couldn’t tell. “The tags are still attached to everything, and we don’t have any scissors. We could try gnawing them off, but our dentist says that’s very bad for your teeth.”

“As it happens,” I said, retrieving my Swiss Army knife from the pocket of my capri pants, “you’re in luck. Compliments of Nana. She bought this for me in Switzerland last year. It performs twenty-nine functions.” I held it out for their perusal. “Thirty if you count throwing it at someone.”

“It has a hole in it,” Barbro observed. Or maybe it was Britha. Geesch, where were their name tags? “Is it broken?”

I touched the hole fondly. “There used to be a little clock in that hole, but it got broken, so I pried it out. The rest of the gizmos work all right though.”

I plucked the miniature scissors out of the housing and with the twins’ help, began snipping tags from all their new purchases. There was quite a pile when we finished, which indicated a fact of which I’d been totally unaware.

Writing sentiments for greeting cards must be a lucrative business. Britha and Barbro Severid had spent a fortune.

“What color eye shadow would complement this?” one of them asked as she danced around the floor with an alligator jacket.

Hunh. I didn’t think Lutherans were allowed to dance. No, wait. That was the Baptists. Catholics could dance, they just couldn’t have sex until they were married. I didn’t know how the Baptists felt about sex before marriage, but I’d guess they’d say it was permissible as long as you didn’t assume any upright position that could be misconstrued as a rumba.

I gathered the tags off the bed and was about to trash them in the cylinder by the desk when something at the bottom of the wastebasket caught my eye. A bottle. The same bottle that had fallen through their plastic sack at the top of the Duomo.

Only now the bottle was empty.

I glanced in the twins’ direction. Jackie obviously hadn’t pierced their ears, so how had they used up an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol in two days’ time? Maybe they’d spilled it. Or more logically, maybe they’d decided to take sponge baths instead of hassling with the inadequate shower facilities. I remembered Mom giving me sponge baths with rubbing alcohol and water when I’d been feverish as a child. But it seemed they advised against that these days because of the toxicity, or something like that.

I held onto the tags, eyeing the bottle more closely. The label screamed
91%
in large blue numbers. Pretty strong solution. I usually bought the 70 percent solution to use as an astringent, but unlike the twins’ bottle, my sixteen-ounce bottle seemed to last forever.

Shrugging, I dumped the tags into the cylinder, my eyes suddenly freezing in their sockets as I watched them fall onto the bottle.
Emily, you dolt!
The “other” alcohol that had poisoned Philip Blackmore. Had it been rubbing alcohol? Was that what Officer Piccione had been trying to say? Oh, my God! But…but the twins hadn’t been anywhere near Philip at the wine bar. How could they have —

I tried to visualize every detail at the wine bar again. I could see Philip in his well-worn pink polo shirt. His deep tan. His silver hair. His hand clutching the stem of his wineglass. His —

In my mind’s eye, I telescoped closer, noticing something I hadn’t noticed before.

Uff da!
It was so clever. So perfect. So devious! I regarded the twins, my heart about to explode in my chest, my mouth dry as sandpaper. Oh, God. They weren’t sweet little old ladies. They were cold-blooded murderers! At least, one of them was, and I was pretty sure which one.

Mom had pretty much told me two days ago, but I hadn’t picked up on the clue. I COULD BE SO DENSE!

With Slinkies for legs, I leaned casually against the desk, struggling to continue smiling. “Wasn’t that great about Jackie winning the contest?” I asked, as they continued to fuss with their new outfits. “She never even gave a hint that she could write. Mom mentioned the other day that one of you wrote a book once. Is that true?”

The twin who wasn’t dancing with the alligator jacket turned abruptly to look at me. “Your mother told you about my book? How could she know that? I’ve never told anyone about that.” She paused thoughtfully, and in that instant, I could almost see the lightbulb flickering on over her head. She stabbed a finger at her sister. “
You
told her, didn’t you, Britha? Margaret Andrew volunteers at the library with you. You gave away the secret I asked you never to tell anyone!”

Britha clutched the alligator jacket contritely to her chest. “I’m sorry! But you wrote it so long ago, I didn’t think you cared anymore.”

“Ofcourse, I care! I’m extremely sensitive about my failures. How would you like me to run around giving away all
your
secrets?”

Britha contemplated that for a moment. “Actually, I don’t think I have any.”

“Are you sure?” Barbro asked, frowning. “What about the time you Vaselined the collection plate at the ten o’clock service. Are you still keeping that a secret?”

“I did that? I thought you did that.”

“I think
both
of you are keeping secrets,” I broke in. “Tell me, how surprised were you to discover Philip Blackmore was on this trip with you? Quite a coincidence, hunh? The editor who rejected your stewardess novel years ago appearing in the flesh. That’s the connection, isn’t it? Gabriel Fox ruined Sylvia Root’s career with his harsh comments. Were Philip Blackmore’s comments about your manuscript so devastating that even after all these years, you had to get even?”

Barbro’s face seamed with a woeful expression. Her voice grew soft. “His comments weren’t
all
devastating. He told me I’d selected an excellent weight typing paper for the manuscript.”

Oh, that’s right. He’d mentioned he always liked to say something positive about a writer’s work. “But you never wrote another word of fiction! He ruined your budding career.” I drilled her with a somber look. “That’s why you killed him.” I paused. Damn! I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore!

Barbro did a double take. “I did?”

“Yes, you did. And I’ll tell you exactly how you did it.” I retrieved the empty bottle of rubbing alcohol from the wastebasket and held it in the air as exhibit A. “You emptied the contents of this bottle — which is highly toxic if swallowed — into one of Philip Blackmore’s bottles of drinking water.”

Barbro stared at me, wide-eyed. “How did I do that?”

“You…you sneaked into his room, dumped some of the good water down the sink, and replaced it with the isopropyl alcohol.” I recalled his violent reaction to the water earlier in the day. He’d spat it out because of its taste, but he hadn’t been tasting sewage. He’d been tasting isopropyl alcohol!
Uff da.
He’d still be alive if he hadn’t forced himself to finish it.

Barbro seemed intrigued. “How did I get into his room?”

“The same way my mother got into mine when I wasn’t there. She grabbed the key off the board when the front desk was unattended and let herself in.”

Barbro broke out in a wide smile. “I’m very cunning, aren’t I? But tell me, Emily, are you sure it was me? To tell you the truth, I don’t remember doing any of that.”

Britha sucked in her breath. “Oh, no! First, Mumma, now you. Stage one dementia!”

Barbro appeared disoriented, but I wasn’t going to let that fool me. In the past year, I’d dealt with killers more clever than Barbro Severid. “Philip Blackmore ruined your life, and you never forgave him, did you? You wanted the fame and fortune that bestsellerdom would bring you, but instead you had to settle for the anonymity of penning greeting card sentiments in a small town in Iowa. He destroyed your dreams. Dashed your hopes. And you hated him for it. So you killed him.” I narrowed an eye at her. “I know it’s none of my business, but how’s the money in the greeting card business? I bet you make a decent wage, don’t you?”

Barbro tilted her head to observe me from another angle. “If my recollection is right, Emily, I think I’ve enjoyed writing greeting cards. No pressure. Few deadlines. And I’ve gained celebrity in a behind-the-scenes kind of way. Did you know I penned the saying ‘Have a nice day’?”

“Mom mentioned that! Do you know how many languages it’s been translated into? Do you receive royalties on foreign translations?”

But Barbro wasn’t paying attention to me any longer. She was staring at my cell phone on the bed. “I suppose you’ll have to call the police to report what I’ve done. I just wish I could remember all the details so I could give them a full confession.”

Aw, that was so sweet!

“They won’t prosecute if she’s suffering from dementia, will they?” Britha asked me.

Barbro eyed her sister. “Why did we buy rubbing alcohol in the first place? I wanted to buy insect repellent, but you insisted we buy alcohol. Why was that?”

“We could use the rubbing alcohol to treat the bug bites if we got any,” Britha explained. “And the alcohol was cheaper than the fly dope, remember?”

“What I remember is, we couldn’t read any of the labels to figure out which bottles were the antibug ones. You just went straight for the rubbing alcohol.”

Britha shrugged. “It’s always a good idea to have a strong medicinal disinfectant at hand. It also comes in handy for removing adhesive from fabric and ugly water spots from mirrors.”

“But the bottle is empty. I didn’t use it up. Did you?”

Unease flitted across Britha’s face. “I told you yesterday. I knocked the bottle over and accidentally spilled it.”

“Where?” Barbro shot back.

“On…on the bathroom floor!”

“Liar!” Barbro gasped. “There was a full bottle sitting on the shelf over the sink when I got up to use the john last night!”

Unh-oh. Could it be Britha who was suffering the stage one dementia?

“Oh, my stars!” screamed Barbro. “It was you! You did it! You’ve broken the Sixth Commandment!”

“I have not!” Britha screamed back. “I would never commit adultery!”

Oops. Wrong Commandment.

“The Fourth Commandment!” cried Barbro.

“I always obeyed our parents!” Britha flung back.

I rolled my eyes. Catholics might be notoriously unschooled in Bible verse, but we made up songs to help us remember the Commandments. “Try Fifth Commandment,” I urged Barbro.

“You’ve broken the Fifth Commandment!” she wailed.

“You killed Philip Blackmore!”

“I did not! You have no evidence. You can’t prove a thing! All you have to go on is what Emily says, and she thinks
everyone
is guilty!”

“That’s not true!” I protested. “I never accused Nana. Or Mom. Or George. Or Jackie.” But hold on. Barbro was claiming that Britha killed Philip Blackmore? That made no sense. That made no sense at all.

I raised a finger in the air. “Excuse me? Why would Britha want to kill Philip? I don’t quite understand the motive.”

Barbro made a wild gesture toward her sister. “Because he…!” She hesitated. “Because she…!” She lowered her arm and stared curiously at her sister. “Darned if I know. Why’d you do it, Brit?”

Britha Severid’s face flushed red as a cinnamon bear. Her eyes popped wide. Her mouth started to twitch. She glowered at her sister and screeched in a voice like an insane Teletubby, “Because of you! I did it because of you!”

Barbro looked stricken. “Oh, my Lord! What have you done? You didn’t have to kill him because of me! I haven’t suffered mental distress because of his rejection. He didn’t ruin my life!”

“Your
life? You idiot! He ruined
my
life!”

Okay, now I was
really
confused.

“What do you mean he ruined your life?” Barbro challenged. “You didn’t send a manuscript to him. He didn’t reject you!”

“But he rejected
you,
didn’t he?” Britha crowed. “And then I had to
live
with you all these years! Do you know what it’s been like? Listening to you try to rhyme every
goddamn
word in the dictionary?”

Barbro clapped her hand over her mouth. “Blasphemy!” she scolded. “Third Commandment! Third Commandment!” She looked at me for confirmation. I shook my head and held up two fingers. “Second Commandment! Second Commandment!”

“You couldn’t just talk like everyone else, could you?” Britha reproached. “Noooo. You had to rhyme everything. Mumma and Papa thought you were so cute. Well, you’re
not
cute! You’re a raving lunatic! An aberration! A freak of nature! And Philip Blackmore made you that way! If he’d bought your book, you might have ended up normal. But you’re not normal, and it’s all his fault! He’s to blame. I’m not sorry I killed him! He deserved to die for the living
hell
you’ve put me through all these years!”

Britha regarded her sister with a menacing look. “I almost got away with it. In fact, I could still get away with it if I play my cards right.”

Barbro wagged her finger at her sister. “Please don’t pout, but gambling’s out.”

“Why did I kill Philip Blackmore?” Britha screamed insanely. “I should have killed you!”

Dropping her alligator jacket to the floor, she launched herself at Barbro. BOOM! They fell to the floor in a heap, legs kicking, arms swinging.

Oh, God! I stared in horror as they rolled around on the floor like mud wrestlers, their hands locked around each other’s throats. I hoped they were both taking daily doses of Fosamax. We didn’t need any broken hips on this trip.

“Stop that!” I instructed, rushing over to where they were grappling on the carpet. “You’re going to hurt each other!”

“Get off —!” choked one twin.