Andy’s eyes went wide, but then he smiled. “No,” he said. “I guess not.” He paused. “But where did he go?”
Pete put an arm around the boy. “Son, Mrs. Hilger told me about that man... He was very unhappy. And unhappy adults sometimes do unpredictable things. He just packed up and left.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” Pete hugged his son. “Now do you feel better?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay.” Pete slapped Andy’s knee with one hand. “Let’s wake up your mom and get down to breakfast, so we can get on the road!”
Breakfast at Die Gasthaus was offered in either the formal dining room, outside on the patio, or in the privacy of the rooms.
The elderly couple staying in the Gold Room had decided to eat in the dining room; the wife was feeling much better this morning after a good night’s sleep.
The newlyweds, not surprisingly, were being served in their room.
Pete let Laura decide where they would eat — that was the kind of decision she always made, anyway — and she wanted to go out on the patio.
The three sat at a white wrought-iron table, with comfortable floral cushions on their chairs, surrounded by a variety of flowers.
Pete leaned toward Andy, and whispered that there didn’t appear to be any new additions in the garden today.
Andy smiled. Laura asked what the two of them were talking about, and they both said, “Nothing.”
Then Mrs. Hilger appeared in a starched white apron, carrying a casserole dish, which she placed in the center of the table. Pete leaned forward.
It was an egg dish, a souffle or something, and looked delicious — white and yellow cheeses baked over golden eggs with crispy bits of meat. Pete’s mouth began to water.
“Oh, Mrs. Hilger,” Laura said, “our stay here has been so wonderful!”
“I’m glad, dear,” Mrs. Hilger replied, as she gave each of them a serving on a china plate. “My husband and I enjoy making other people happy... people who are appreciative, that is. And we try, in our small way, to do what we can to make this world a better place to live.”
Pete, wolfing down the eggs, said, in between bites, “What’s in this, Mrs. Hilger? Is it ham?”
“No,” Mrs. Hilger said.
“Well, it’s not sausage,” Pete insisted.
Mrs. Hilger shook her head.
“Then, what is it?”
Mrs. Hilger smiled. “I’m sorry, but we never give out our recipes,” she said. “Our unique dishes are one of the reasons people come back... most of them, that is.”
Mrs. Hilger reached for the silver coffeepot on the table. “More coffee?” she asked Laura.
“Please,” Laura said. “With sugar.”
The woman reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a spoon — a silver one with red stones on the handle; she handed the spoon to Laura.
“Oh, how beautiful,” Laura said, looking at the spoon.
“There’s not another like it,” Mrs. Hilger said.
Suddenly Andy began to gag and cough, and the boy leaned over his plate and spit out a mouthful of food.
“Andrew!” Laura cried, shocked.
“Son, what’s the matter?” Pete asked, alarmed. The boy must have choked on his breakfast.
“I... I’m not hungry...” Andy said, his face ashen as he pushed his plate away from himself.
“Andy!” Laura said, sternly. “You’re being rude!”
But Pete stepped in to defend the boy. “He had kind of a rough night, Laura. That’s probably why he doesn’t have an appetite. Let’s just forget it.”
Laura smiled. “Well, I certainly have an appetite! Mrs. Hilger, I’d love some more of your delicious eggs... but I don’t want to trouble you, I can get it myself.” Laura started to reach for the dish, but Mrs. Hilger picked it up.
“Nonsense, my dear,” the woman said with a tiny smile, and she put another huge spoonful of eggs with the cheeses and succulent meat on Laura’s plate. “It’s no trouble. We at Die Gasthaus just love to serve our guests!”
Cat’s-eye Witness
Pierce Hartwell removed the pillow from his wife’s face, relieved to see her expression was not one of agony, but peace. She had not suffered. She had, as Pierce expected her death certificate would verify, passed away in her sleep.
The lanky, darkly handsome, pencil-mustached Pierce, wearing the wine-color silk robe he’d received from Esther on their tenth anniversary not long ago, took one step back, pillow still held delicately in two hands as if he had brought it to his wife’s bedside to present her with comfort, not oblivion. He stood poised there, as if waiting for Esther to wake up, knowing — hoping — she would not. The once beautiful, now withered features of the eighty-year-old woman had a calm cast, the simple white nightgown almost suggesting a hospital garment.
“Goodbye, darling,” he whispered to the dead woman, feeling something almost like sadness. He was breathing hard, as hard as when of late he’d made love to the woman, an act that had increasingly taken his full effort and intense concentration.
When he had married Esther Balmfry ten years ago, she had been an attractive matron, slender and elegant on the cruise-ship dance floor. Pierce, at that time forty-five and wearying of his gigolo existence, had considered Esther a prime candidate for settling down. Prior to this, he had flitted from one fading flower to another, providing love in return for financial favors; but he had never married. Never considered it.
But — on that cruise ship a decade ago — Pierce had noticed several others of his ilk plucking the faded flowers from his field, men younger, newer at the game, fresher. Pierce had begun dyeing his hair, and wearing a stomach-flattening brace (he could never, even mentally, bring himself to say “girdle”) and had sensed that perhaps it was time to settle down. Pick one rich old girl who he could put up with for a few years before that “tragic” day when his beloved went where all rich old widows eventually go.
And Esther was childless, had no close relatives — except for Pierce, of course. Her loving husband.
These ten years with Esther had been increasingly difficult. The remnants of her beauty waned, though her health remained steadfastly sound. Her last physical — a few weeks ago — had elicited a virtual rave review from her doctor, who said she had the body of a woman twenty years younger.
That was easy for the doctor to say: the doctor hadn’t had to sleep with her.
“My mother lived to see one hundred,” Esther had announced over muffins and tea last week in the breakfast nook, her creped neck waving good morning to him. “And father lived to be ninety-eight.”
“Really,” Pierce had said, spreading strawberry jam on his muffin.
“Looks like you’re going to be stuck with me for a while, darling,” she’d said, patting his hand.
He’d always been given a generous allowance, but Pierce knew that Esther’s fortune was a considerable one, and the life he could lead with access to that kind of cash would go a long way toward making up for the indignities of the last ten years. At fifty-five, he had living left to do. If he waited around for Esther to pass away of natural causes, he’d be a geezer, himself.
Or, if her health did finally go, but gradually, that fortune could be decimated by medical bills.
Pierce didn’t dislike Esther, though he certainly didn’t love her. He didn’t feel much of anything for her, really: she was just a means to an end. And now her end could be his means to a new, unencumbered life.
And then there was that goddamned cat: that had been another factor, another catalyst to spark this unpleasant but necessary deed.
Clarence, the mangy brown beast, named for her late husband, had turned up at the door last year and Esther had welcomed it in, grooming it, taking it to the vet to be “fixed,” lavishing attention upon the thing as if were a child. Pierce and the cat kept their distance — once the cat learned that Pierce would kick it or toss something its way, any time its mistress wasn’t about — but just the presence of the animal meant distress to Pierce, who was after all allergic to cats.