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

how he is.” Brian glanced at me, then looked away.
    “What are you not telling me, Brian? There’s something else, isn’t there?” I knew my son. I could read his face like a billboard. “You told Detective Kronenberg you spent last night in Geneva because you didn’t want to walk in here too late, but your flight was supposed to get to Geneva at ten in the morning. What happened?”
    “How do you know what I told Kronenberg?”
    “I overheard.”
    He stood up, snapped his wet towel against a supporting column. “I didn’t spend last night in Geneva. I was in LaMotte. I stayed at a hotel there.”
    I waited.
    “I had an appointment with a guy who’s been looking into the Merz family financial position. Particularly Stephanie’s share of the family holdings.”
    “I didn’t know she had any.”
    “Oh, she has—had—a lot. Importing, exporting and banking. Old man Merz is super-rich, although it’s practically impossible to find out how rich. Juergen and Stephanie both have minority shares in the family enterprises.” He exhaled loudly and sat back down. “Anyway, that’s what I was doing last night. I was in LaMotte talking to this guy who’s been checking into things for me. I had to lie to Kronenberg because I don’t want Dad or Juergen to know about this.”
    “You may have made a bad decision, kid.” I had never before had to criticize Brian’s common sense. It didn’t feel good. “What’s going to happen when Kronenberg finds out you lied to him?”
    “Why would he find out? He isn’t interested in me. I had nothing to tell him about why Steph would have done what she did. End of story.”

“I have a horrid feeling it isn’t the end of the story.” I watched his face for a minute. “What did this guy—spy—whatever—come up with? What did he tell you?”
    “It’s hard to find out anything for sure, Swiss banking regulations being what they are, but it seems their import-export enterprise is worse off than our John Deere business. In fact they’ve already declared bankruptcy, gone through a re-organization thing and reopened.”
    “Under new management?”
    “Not really. Seems like old man Merz is still, nominally, the chairman of the board but with Juergen actually making the decisions. He and Stephanie are both theoretically equal in terms of their voting shares.”
    “I thought you said old man Merz was super-rich. Now you’re telling me he’s bankrupt.”
    “I said their import-export business went bankrupt. Old man Merz still lives in a castle, he still has banking interests—artwork probably worth millions.”
    “What happens when old man Merz dies? He’s ninety-five years old.”
    “Depends on what’s in his will, doesn’t it?”
    I looked around at the blue tiled room, the pristine pool, and imagined the breath-taking view beyond the fogged-up windows. If the business was bankrupt, did that mean this house would have to be sold? Juergen’s home in Zurich? Were the personal finances of Juergen and Stephanie in jeopardy , or were they separate from the business? I asked Brian.
    “The business is incorporated. The only thing Juergen and Steph lose is the value of their shares in the business. What I’m worried about is finding out what happened to the two million , more or less, that seems to have gone missing from Lamb’s Farm Equipment, Inc. I suspect Steph funneled it into Merz Import and Export.”
    “And your father doesn’t know about this?”
    “He knows we’re bleeding red ink.” Brian stood up again and stretched. “But I’m not going to tell him about this until I know for sure what’s going on.”

    Seven
     
    In spite of the day’s horrors, night fell on schedule.
    Lettie slipped into the living room where several of us were watching the snowy peaks beyond the windows darken and said what we’d all have said if we’d been in normal frames of mind. She said, “I’m hungry.”
    I sat up straighter, tuned in to my inner self and felt the