ordered a bottle of vintage wine that she had never heard of before though it cost
1,200 kronor, drank one glass, and nonchalantly left the rest before she went into
the hotel bar. She left absurd tips, which certainly made the staff notice her.
She spent quite a while allowing herself to be picked up by a drunk young Italian
with an aristocratic name which she did not bother to remember. They shared two
bottles of champagne, of which she drank almost one glass.
Around 11:00 her intoxicated suitor leaned forward and boldly squeezed her
breast. She moved his hand down to the table, feeling pleased. He did not seem to
have noticed that he was squeezing soft latex. At times they were so loud that they
caused a certain amount of irritation among the other guests. Just before midnight,
when Monica Sholes noticed that a hall porter was keeping a stern eye on them,
she helped her Italian boyfriend up to his room.
When he went to the bathroom, she poured one last glass of wine. She opened a
folded piece of paper and spiked the wine with a crushed Rohypnol sleeping tablet.
He passed out in a miserable heap on the bed within a minute after she drank a
toast with him. She loosened his tie, pulled off his shoes, and drew a cover over
him. She wiped the bottle clean, then washed the glasses in the bathroom and
wiped them off too before going back to her room.
Monica Sholes had breakfast in her room at 6:00 and checked out of the Zimmertal
at 6:55. Before leaving her room, she spent five minutes wiping off fingerprints
from the door handles, wardrobes, toilet, telephone, and other objects in the room
that she had touched.
Irene Nesser checked out of the Matterhorn around 8:30, shortly after the wake-up
call. She took a taxi and left her luggage in a locker at the railway station. Then she
spent the next few hours visiting nine private banks, where she distributed some of
the private bonds from the Cayman Islands. By 3:00 in the afternoon she had
converted about 10 percent of the bonds into cash, which she deposited in thirty
numbered accounts. The rest of the bonds she bundled up and put in a safe-
deposit box.
Irene Nesser would need to make several more visits to Zürich, but there was no
immediate hurry.