"Who's dead?" I asked, as more doors were flung open.

She pointed toward the spill of light in the room next to mine. I followed her gaze.

Supine on the floor lay Andrew Simon, his mouth contorted into a hideous rictus, his skin pasty even beneath his tube tan, eyes wide and bulging, hair disheveled, dressed in a handsome black satin smoking jacket with matching ascot that was pulled dreadfully askew. I thought the ascot was a bit over the top, especially since it looked as if Andy hadn't had a clue how to knot the thing. Now he'd never know.

Shirley Angowski was right. Andrew Simon was dead.

Not a good way to begin your Golden Swiss Triangle Tour.

Chapter 3

The hotel management allowed Nana and me to change into street clothes before they escorted us to a private office on the first floor. Street clothes for me consisted of a pair of London jeans and a warm Green Bay Packers sweatshirt. For Nana, it meant her Minnesota Vikings warm-up suit, but since we were going to be interviewed by the Swiss police, she decided to put on the dog, so she opted for the panty hose with the tummy control rather than the ones that were sheer to the waist.

I paced the office and peered through the window miniblinds into the darkness beyond. "What time is it?"

"A quarter to eight."

"But it's still dark outside. Why is it dark?"

"My guess is that the sun hasn't come up yet."

"Well, they should have said something in the brochure about Switzerland only having three minutes of sunlight per day in the month of October. We might have decided to visit the Congo instead."

"I'm not sure the Congo's still a country, dear."

Too bad Shirley Angowski wasn't here. She'd probably know.

"Why do the police need to interview us?" Nana wanted to know when I returned to my seat. "All the action happened while we were asleep."

"The police are interviewing everyone in the rooms adjoining Andy's. According to the night manager, they usually conduct the interviews one individual at a time, but they think you might be more comfortable with a relative in the room, so they're letting me stay."

"That's very considerate. They must suspect that my bein' grilled in isolation by the police might give me a coronary. I suppose that's a concern when you cater to the senior set. You were real nice to that Angowski woman, Emily. Too bad about her peignoir moltin' all over the place though. They'll never get all those boa feathers off the hall carpet."

Management had whisked Shirley off to calm her down before the police arrived. I didn't know where she was now, but her feather trail had terminated at the third-floor freight elevator. I'd felt a twinge of indignation as I'd passed by the shaft, and a twinge of guilt for my reaction, but it seemed the only way to get prompt elevator service in this building was to find a dead body in one of the rooms.