Mozzarella Most Murderous by NANCY FAIRBANKS Read Free Book Online Page A

of my earlobes sagging like a dachshund’s in my golden years. I’d seen women like that. What could they do? Have their ears trimmed? Perhaps there was a plastic surgery specialty for women with elongated earlobes. I’d heard of an eyelid ophthalmology specialty.
    “What’s so funny?” Hank asked as we got on the elevator. I told him.
    When we got to the desk to ask where the cocktail party would be held, the clerk said, in reasonable English, “I know the voice. The pornography signora. No?”
    I was horribly embarrassed and said, “I beg your pardon?” in a huffy tone.
    “No rule you must watch sexy films,” she assured me. “I go find where is party.” She tripped off, Hank looked to me for an explanation, and I said, “Don’t ask.” So we stood silently and eavesdropped on an English couple at the next registration spot, the man and woman both in tweeds, both somewhat frizzy-haired, although his was disappearing and hers was a strange taupe shade. He had spectacles sliding down his nose, and she was carrying a plant, roots dangling with dirt still clinging to them. Horticulturists? He probably had potting soil in his pockets, which bulged and sagged with the weight.
    Dottore and Signora Stackpole, as the desk clerk called them—could they be members of the conference? —were asking questions: Was the bathtub at the end of the hall or in their room? Would they need coins for the water heater? Could soft-boiled eggs and toast fingers be had from the breakfast buffet? What kind of tea did the hotel serve? Not made with tea bags, surely? Could the clerk name the flowers growing outside the entrance, and would they grow in England? Where was this cocktail party mentioned in the chemistry conference brochure?
    At this point Hank interrupted to introduce himself and me, and the concierge interrupted to tell us all that the cocktail party would be starting momentarily in the Victor Emmanuel room.
    “I can’t even think of cocktails, Francis,” protested the Englishwoman. “I need to pot this—whatever it is. What is it, young lady?” The desk clerk didn’t know and wasn’t sure patrons could bring uprooted plants into the hotel. “What I need is a good cup of tea and a lie down,” Mrs. Stackpole continued over the clerk’s remarks.
    Ignoring his wife, Francis Stackpole introduced himself and declared that he could use a nip of something stronger than tea. “Lead on, young fellow,” he said to Hank. Then the professor from England waved over a bellman and ordered him to take Mrs. Stackpole and the bags to their room. “Come down when you feel fit, old girl,” he said to his wife, and looked expectantly at Hank and me, as if we might have a “nip of something stronger than tea” on us.
    Before we could take Professor Stackpole to the party, and while Eliza Stackpole was instructing the bellman as to the exact placement of their luggage on the trolley, the Massonis stepped off the elevator, both children in tow. Bianca spotted me and led her family in our direction. More introductions followed, but not before Bianca assumed that Hank was my husband and had to be told that he was the husband of Professor Sibyl Evers of Rutgers, who had been stranded in Paris with my husband, Jason Blue. The Massonis looked very interested to hear this, causing me to think they might have misinterpreted the information.
    “Of course we have no idea whether they saw each other,” I hastened to add. “I mean whether they happened across each other—in the airport, that is.” I could feel my cheeks turn pink. “Or even if they’re coming in on the same plane.”
    Lorenzo Massoni gave me such a sweet, sympathetic smile that I felt like hitting him. He probably thought I was some pitiful, cuckolded wife. Although it’s husbands who are cuckolded, not wives , I reminded myself. What are wives when their husbands are running around on them? Besides angry? I couldn’t think of a word. Not that my husband even knows