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She made a note of that next to the names. “So we have Matteo Frenzi, Dirk Buckner, and Dorrance Carroway? Those were the only ones on the plane, during the final leg?”
Arlo shrugged. “From what I can remember. And it was just a regular trip. One of a hundred I’ve done, just the same. We go to Monte Carlo for a few hours, then to Lyon or someplace in Belgium, and then home. That’s all.”
“So you don’t remember anything odd or strange that might have happened that time? Something Franklin Tate might have said?”
He scratched his baby-smooth jaw, thinking. “Nah . . . like what? I mean, he never talked to me.”
“But maybe something you heard him saying to someone else? Something that struck you as out of character, different for him?”
His eyes lit up. “Actually, now that you mention it, there was something. He was talking about his wife.”
“Something bad?”
“Not exactly bad. But I’ve been with Franklin Tate for fifteen years, and he’s had four wives in that time. The first three, he was always muttering under his breath about. Calling them the old ball and chain. That kind of thing. You know?” He shook his head. “But when he married Kiki, I thought, damn, he must really be in love. Because he wouldn’t say a bad thing about her. A lot of people accused her of being a gold-digger, but he’d always shut them down, defend her honor.”
“But something changed, the night he died?”
Arlo nodded. “I don’t know. Maybe they’d gotten in a fight, or something. But he called her the ol’ ball and chain. First time I heard him say that about Kiki. Said he couldn’t wait to get away from her.”
The response triggered a memory of something else Roberta had said. “Did he bring a protein shake aboard?"
"Oh, yeah. Always did.”
“Did you see him drink it?”
“Yeah. He was drinking it before we took off. I know because I went in back to ask Darla something and saw her making it. Gross, green shit. Looks like sludge.”
She sighed. If he was drinking it then, it was a full twenty-four hours before his passing. There was no way any drug would take that long to act. “He had it every morning, though. Did he have another one the morning he died?”
Arlo hitched a shoulder. “That, I don’t know. I was a little incapacitated at the time.”
“Can I talk to this Darla?”
He shook his head. “She’s part of the service. Like I said, I used to manage a bunch of people out of here, but in the past year, Tate cut things down. So the mechanics and flight attendants we hire don’t just work for us. They only work when needed. I’ve worked with her before, but she’s American. She could be anywhere, now.”
“There was another one, right? Flight attendant?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but she was new.”
She gritted her teeth, then reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, scouring the police report she’d gotten emailed to her earlier. Apparently, the flight attendants had given statements that confirmed very little, but someone had neglected to get phone numbers where they could be reached. “Do you have the number of the service, so I could call them?”
“Sure, back at the office. But I don’t know how that would help you. She might’ve found the body but she didn’t know him well.”
“I’m more interested in the drink she made for him, and if she made it for him that morning.”
“Yeah, beats me. It was easy to put together—any idiot could do it—but he used special ingredients. Kale and healthy shit.”
That was a bit more promising. But if the ingredients Kiki had provided were poisoned, why would he be fine the first time, but dead the second? Unless it took time to build up in the system? “Did he complain about feeling ill later in the day, after you left Venice?”
Arlo shook his head. “No. He jumped off the plane like he was ready to take Monte Carlo by storm. I remember Bernie and I laughing about all the trouble he was probably going to get himself into. Then he came back, drunker, but still raring to go when we got to Lyon later that afternoon. I was telling Bernie, I couldn’t believe that twelve hours after that, he was dead. They told us it was a heart attack. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“You don’t believe it was a heart attack?”
He shrugged. “I thought that’s what it had to be. The coke messed up his heart. But then I got the call from Roberta, who said Goldie was having you look into it, and it made me wonder.”
“You remember Goldie?”
He smiled. “Yeah. I liked her. She was real down-to-Earth. Tate’s other wives treated the help like they were nobodies. But Goldie was nice to all of us.”
