Death of a Second Wife (A Dotsy Lamb Travel Mystery) Read Online Free Page A

room to fetch it.
    “Chet.”
    “Dotsy.” He stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek. “How’s school?”
    I told him the same story I had told Patrick earlier and asked about his business. Chet owns a John Deere franchise in the western part of Virginia, in farming country. Our son, Brian, has now joined him in the business and, I’ve heard, works harder and does more actual managing than Chet does these days. Brian has Sunday dinner with me almost every week, even though it’s a two-hour drive from his home to mine. I see more of him than any of my other four children, and he’s the one I imagine I’ll depend on most if I live long enough to need help. Brian was to be Patrick’ best man but he hadn’t arrived yet.
    “When will Brian get here?” I asked.
    Chet took a mouthful of his drink including at least one ice cube and crunched a bit before answering. “I don’t know. Stephanie probably knows.” Crunch. “Tomorrow, I think.”
    “If only Anne and Jeffrey could be here.” Anne is our youngest child and our only daughter, now living somewhere in the Bahamas on a boat or something. Anne rarely contacts me, and any address I manage to get for her is outdated by the time I get it. Jeffrey is our adopted son, now performing with a famous dance troupe. A biracial child trapped between two cultures and neglected by both dysfunctional parents, he came to us when he was seven. The day we adopted him was possibly best day of my life. Unfortunately, Jeffrey’s troupe was booked solid through the month of April so he couldn’t be here .
    Chet nodded in response to my comment but glanced toward the stairs as if he was distracted. His mind was on something else, I could tell.
    Juergen sidled up and handed me a glass of red wine, his animated watch face dancing as his wrist turned. That’s when I noticed the compass rose built into the watch’s face, swiveling to keep track of north as he moved.
    “I have to ask you something, Juergen,” I said. “Today, when you were driving me here in that little—thing, Gisele popped up out of nowhere. It was so strange. One second, no one was around and the next second, there she was. How did she do that?”
    Juergen grinned, glanced at Chet. “The bunker.”
    “The what?”
    “The bunker. Air-raid shelter. Bomb-proof, weather-proof, impenetrable to nuclear radiation, biochemical attack, you name it.” Juergen straightened his back, his chest expanding.
    “They’re all over Switzerland, Dotsy.” Chet interjected. “The Swiss don’t maintain a standing army because they are historically a neutral country.”
    I decided not to remind him I teach European history.
    “But that doesn’t mean we care to be vulnerable,” Juergen said, waggling a finger at me. “With mountains protecting us all around, we’re geographically insulated, but mountains don’t protect you from an air attack, do they? No. So during World War Two we built bunkers inside the mountains and disguised the entrances so they look like normal mountains.” He gestured toward the vista beyond the room’s picture windows. “But don’t let that fool you. These peaks can open up in a moment and out will come more artillery—ground-to-air missiles, tanks, guns—than you could ever want to face!”
    “We went through a phase in the United States,” I said, “during the fifties, of building bomb shelters, stocking them with food, and putting school children through horrifying air raid drills. We don’t do that anymore.”
    “ Ja. We don’t either.” Juergen ran a wrinkled hand through his grey hair. “After the Cold War, there didn’t seem to be much point, but there they were. We had already built them and it seemed a shame not to use them for something.” He tilted his head to one side. “We use ours to store ski equipment and wine.”
    “So that’s where Gisele came from. I knew there was a simple explanation.”
    “But just because we keep our skis and the family silver in them