Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,51

at four. I'll ask you all to be aware of the time and be as prompt as possible returning to the bus, which will pick us up where it drops us off, so make a note of where that is. Landmark is treating you all to dinner this evening at the elegant La Taverna del Bronzino, and our reservation is for seven-thirty sharp, so we don't want to be late."

Oohs. Aahs. Titters of excitement.

"Any questions?"

I had plenty, but they had nothing to do with our schedule.

A quick hour and a half later, I found myself in the city of Pisa, gaping at four marble buildings so brilliantly white, I feared staring at them in direct sunlight might cause permanent blindness. They sat perched on a long span of lawn as manicured as stadium grass, with the famed Leaning Tower spiraling upward to my far right, looking like a fancy grain silo knocked off kilter by a gale force wind. We were on a walkway that fronted a huge cathedral, huddled around an attractive middle-aged woman who spoke heavily accented English. "My name is Giovanna, and I be happy to be your guide today."

I stood on the outer fringe of the group, close enough to keep tabs on the handful of guests who'd had access to Jeannette right before she died, but far enough away so as not to be obvious. One accidental death on tour was suspicious enough, but two had raised enough red flags in my mind to cause major clutter. I'd been through this before. Twice. And I knew that anything mimicking an accident usually wasn't. If there was death involved, it was always deliberate. In my book, there was no such thing as an accident on tour.

"You suppose they have a restroom somewhere around here?" Jackie asked, dragging herself up behind me.

"You could wait for the question - and - answer period and ask the guide."

"Nah. That'd probably start a stampede." She shifted a cloth sack she was carrying from her hand to her shoulder.

"What's in the sack?" I asked.

She flashed me a coy smile. "Just stuff."

"I take you tru two buildings on duh Campo dei Miracoli -- duh Field of Miracles -- dis morning," Giovanna announced, indicating the expanse of lawn to our left. "Duh catedral behind me was begun in ten sixty-tree and fuses to-gayder Roman, Islamic, and Byzantine architecture. It is very particular. And like our fay-mous bell tower, it also tilts, but not so much. Duh building, it's so much bee-ger."

But for her teensy problem pronouncing "th," Giovanna showed great command of the English laguage.

"How come the buildings are lopsided?" Dick Teig threw out.

"The subsoil, it's made of sand. No good for building. And duh founday-tions are shallow. So duh buildings, dey lean. Duh bell tower was begun in eleven seventy-tree, and a hundreyd years later, even before duh tird story was complete, it began to tilt sideways. Duh architects and engineers warn us for six hundreyd fifty years dat duh tower will collapse, but duh tower, it still stands, and is very suggestive. You follow me now and I give you more history of duh Torre Pendente."

The tour group moved en masse down the pathway to the tower, guided by the upward thrust of Duncan's striped umbrella. Brandy Ann and Amanda were slightly ahead of me and when the crowd around them thinned, I scooted up beside them.

"Hi, guys. How's the writing going?" I figured that was a much more benign opening than, "How very curious that you were at the top of the Duomo yesterday when Jeannette Bowles fell to her death."

Brandy Ann glanced at me, her expression not exactly mirroring delight. "The writing's coming along. We helped each other tie up some loose ends yesterday, finished up our proposals last night, and dropped them into the box in the lobby this morning. So it's over except for the waiting."

I wondered if "tying up loose ends" could be a metaphor for "knocking off the competition." "You two are really fast. Sounds like rooming together worked out pretty well for you."

"Yeah," said Brandy Ann in a tight voice. "It was unfortunate about Cassandra, but what are you going to do? We had to make the most of it."

"We were lucky to get any writing done yesterday though," Amanda complained. "We were taking the stairs back down from the top of the Duomo yesterday afternoon when that Bowles woman fell, so we got stopped by the police for questioning when we reached the