The Christie Curse (25 page)
Read The Christie Curse Online
Authors: Victoria Abbott
“The board of directors,” she said with a sniff.
“I should have known. Well, here’s the thing. The security there doesn’t seem to be
up to snuff as I made clear, and I’m not convinced the police are on the ball. But
I know a few people who are, and I’d like you to contact a decision maker at the hospital,
perhaps the CEO or the chair of the board, and ensure that my people are permitted
to watch Karen Smith’s door and keep everyone out. They will require access to the
room if medical personnel enter. The last villain was dressed as a surgeon.”
Vera shivered. “Dressed as a surgeon? May I know who these people are before I put
their names forward?”
“Believe me, she’ll be in good hands with them.” For one thing, they wouldn’t be falling
for any tricks by Eddie the postman or Officer Smiley, the so-called police officer,
or the man with the limp who had been disguised as a surgeon.
“Names?” she said.
I was startled as something black swooped toward me before I could answer.
“No! No! Sleep, sleep!” Well, that was a relief. It was only Signora Panetone, flapping
like a deranged crow.
“Sleep! Now! Yes!”
“Go back to bed, Fiammetta. Miss Bingham needs to speak to me without your squawking.”
Signora Panetone seemed to melt away into the darkness, muttering, “Sleep now.”
As if there’d been no interruptions, Vera Van Alst said, “Names, Miss Bingham?”
There was no avoiding it. “First names: Valentine. Daniel. William. Conrad. Last name,
Kelly.”
Of course, that would be Uncle Tiny, Uncle Danny, Uncle Billy and Uncle Connie to
me. The twins were incommunicado lately, but these four uncles were stalwart, strapping,
brave, untrusting and stubborn as anyone of Irish extraction could ever be.
“Tell your celestial contacts that these four men are in your employ for the moment.”
“What’s that going to cost me?”
“I’ll take care of it. But I don’t have pull with the hospital. You do.”
Of course, my uncles would do it for me in this life-and-death situation. I’d have
a chance to return the favor in time. Even so, I thought Vera might have argued in
favor of picking up the tab.
“We need to take care of this now. It can’t wait until morning.”
“And you need to remember what I am paying you to find.”
The door closed in my face.
As they say, point taken.
* * *
I MADE A call to alert the uncles. The great thing about being the only niece in the
family and the daughter of the beloved sister is that your uncles will do whatever
ridiculous thing you want. No charge. No guilt trips. No questions asked. Also as
they were unencumbered by jobs, they’d most likely be available. I was blessed, no
doubt about it. I hoped that their guard shifts at the hospital would be officially
approved. Otherwise a plan B would be needed, and that might be a bit more complicated
to bring about. Could I count on Vera to care enough to make it happen? I sure hoped
so.
In the meantime, I worried about Karen. I was pretty sure that Detective Zinger hadn’t
really believed me about the latest attempt on her life. I hoped that Karen would
be lucid enough to convince him and that the police would take her safety seriously.
With luck my uncles would be there in the morning, but what about overnight? I shivered
when I thought of someone creeping through the darkened corridors, disguised as a
doctor, a nurse, a cleaner, and outwitting the security guard. It was easy to blend
into the background in a hospital. And easy to get away, as I’d seen when Karen’s
assailant vanished as if he’d never existed. Which he had, I reminded myself.
Even my cabbage rose retreat wasn’t enough to take my mind off what was going on that
night. Neither was the stack of Christie reading. It would have been great to talk
to Tiff, but she must have been tied up with some emergency. I reminded myself of
the two-hour time difference and decided against leaving a “call me” message.
Talk tomorrow! xoxo
I tossed and turned. The third time I turned on the light, I decided I might as well
stay up and try to make sense of things. I figured that’s what Agatha Christie would
have done, as would her charming creations, Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot. I’d
learned a lot from reading Christie’s work as well as the many books about her. Could
I use any of that to help figure out this tangled mess? I decided, as I’d be awake
anyway, to do something about what was bothering me most.
Five minutes later, I was crossing the shadowy parking area. I checked the backseat
of the Navigator, locked the doors and drove to the hospital.
* * *
“CHECK WITH DETECTIVE Zinger of the Grandville Police if you’re worried,” I told the
young security guard
who had the boring job of watching Karen Smith’s door while she slept the troubled
sleep of the injured and drugged.
I guessed the guard wasn’t worried, because she didn’t check with anyone. I made myself
at home in the visitor’s chair by Karen’s bed.
“Leave the door open to be on the safe side,” I added.
She stared at me. I was glad I’d come. Mickey Mouse could have talked his way past
this girl.
The night promised to be longer than most, but I planned on figuring out who was who
and what was what in recent events. At least I had Christie in my corner, and I’d
brought a notebook along with me.
In the Christie world, things were never what they seemed. Insignificant items, seen
in passing, could be very important to the solution. People might not be what they
seemed, or they might not be where they should be. Someone might be present who should
have been elsewhere, or absent when they should have been present.
And if items weren’t where they should be, people were even less so. They might not
even be who they said they were. They might not have been doing what they claimed
to be doing or what other people thought they’d witnessed. Their relationships might
not be what they’d led us to believe. Their connections to other characters would
be very surprising when revealed. Even their crimes were not what they were supposed
to have been. One crime could be a smoke screen for another. Plus everyone lied. Even
villains couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth on the page. How unfair was that? No
wonder it took a Poirot or a Jane Marple (or occasionally Tommy and Tuppence) to solve
these cases.
Certainly the police didn’t have a hope. Mind you, fictional detectives usually had
the advantage of a closed cast of characters, while I had all of upstate New York—and
beyond—to draw on. I knew that if I didn’t figure out what
was going on, Karen Smith and Ashley Snell might never be safe. Other people might
be drawn into danger. And if I didn’t make some progress on my task of finding the
Christie manuscript, I would be out of a job. Vera had made that quite clear. That
would mean forgetting about returning to grad school for a while and—worse—leaving
my cabbage rose kingdom.
I sure could have used a sidekick.
As the clock moved slowly, I made a list of everyone I thought might be involved and
recapped what I knew. Of course, I didn’t necessarily know what I didn’t know, but
you can make yourself crazy if you think too hard. I had to work with what I had.
Under the names, I had notes and questions about motives, connections and general
suspicious elements.
Vera Van Alst
She was a bitter, selfish, difficult obsessive. She wasn’t one to pretend otherwise.
But what didn’t I know about her? How had she become an invalid? I didn’t know, except
that it had been the result of a car accident. I intended to find out. For all I knew
it was one of those missing bits of information that linked
all
the others. She knew Karen. Had she met Ashley? I made a note to check. Finally,
Alex had been in her employ.
She had nothing to gain from what happened to Karen Smith and Ashley Snell. Or did
she? Was this just an elaborate shell game with them as the victims and me as the
mark?
Karen Smith
What did I really know about her? She would have met Alex and Ashley at the book fairs.
Was she connected in any way with anyone else? She was seen speaking to Eddie. She
had a collegial relationship with George Beckwith and his wife, Jeannette. What was
her connection with the shadowy and possibly nonexistent Merlin? Someone had tried
to murder Karen, twice.
The man with the limp had tried to break into her apartment and her hospital room,
but no one had seen him at the fair. Whatever else, Karen was definitely connected
to something very bad. Maybe she was at the heart of it.
George and Jeannette Beckwith
The owner of Nevermore and his wife seemed harmless, and she seemed very nice. But
he’d been in the same book fair. They knew I was looking for someone. They would also
know Karen, Ashley and most likely Alex. He had encountered Vera, who had nothing
but contempt for him. Had Eddie talked to George at the fair as well as Karen? He’d
denied it, but I knew that everyone can lie. Would they have anything to gain by lying?
Was there business enough to support their hobby farm with horses?
Eddie McRae
I knew he was a postie, but what was he doing hanging around in Vera’s kitchen? Mooching
food? Signora Panetone seemed very fond of him, and Vera didn’t want to hear anything
bad about him. Why would he have been at the book fair talking to Karen? Had he let
something slip? Something about his relationship with Vera or perhaps Alex? Had he
waited until Karen was alone and attacked her before she could tell me what she’d
learned? Could he have been the person who assaulted Ashley? Perhaps because he knew
she’d spotted him talking to Karen?
Had he talked to others? George? What did his warning to me mean? Or had that been
a threat? Why had he been at Grandville General Hospital? What was I missing?
Officer Tyler Dekker (Smiley)
He seemed to be a police officer, but he engaged in behaviors that other police officers
didn’t. He was always near where the action was, just after it had taken place: Karen’s
attack, the
attempt in the hospital, the assault on Ashley. It was almost as though he’d anticipated
these shocking events. Or worse, caused them. I could find no connection between him
and Vera, except for me as an intermediary. I had no indication that he’d known Karen
or Ashley before, or Alex for that matter. However, it seemed quite likely that he
had shown up at Karen’s apartment and let himself in, or possibly even broken in.
There was something definitely not right about Officer Smiley. He was not who he seemed
to be. But who
was
he?
Signora Fiammetta Panetone
Was she a faithful retainer or something else? It was hard to imagine the signora
being anything other than a whirling food magician. But what was her relationship
with Eddie? She seemed to know everything that was going on. She’d reacted to the
talk about Alex and the discussion about the attack on Karen. She had the keys to
everything in the Van Alst house. Nothing happened without her knowledge. Did the
information stay with her? Or did it get passed on to someone more dangerous?
The man with the limp
I had to keep my eyes open for him in the hospital and elsewhere. Had he been at the
book fair? I couldn’t place him there, and neither Beckwith nor Ashley had seen him,
but I hadn’t been watching for a man with a limp. He knew where Karen lived, and he’d
showed up there. That meant he’d connected with her earlier, before the attack. Although
I had no evidence that he was behind the attack in the hall, there was no doubt he’d
tried to smother her in the hospital. Was he working with Merlin? Was
he
Merlin?
Merlin
Real? Not real? Real, but not who he seemed to be? What was he up to? And why?
How dangerous was he? He was connected to Vera indirectly, to Alex, and through Alex,
to Ashley. I knew of no connection between him and Karen, but it wouldn’t be surprising
given the business she was in.
Ashley Snell
Ashley didn’t know Vera, but she knew Alex, Karen, George and Jeannette Beckwith,
Officer (who is he really?) Smiley, and had seen and observed Eddie at the fair and
around town. Alex had revealed information about Merlin to her against his better
judgment. She was a person who talked without thinking. Had she blurted out the Merlin
connection to someone she shouldn’t have?
Alex Fine
Was he what he’d seemed to be—naïve, hardworking, honest, agreeable? Shy. Or something
more? He was connected to Vera, Ashley, Karen, and probably George, Eddie, the signora
and the mysterious Merlin.
What about his death? What had that been about? With two other attacks, was it really
possible that he’d been the victim of a random act of violence by a homeless man?
I needed to find out.
The play
The play (possibly nonexistent) was like a person in this whole complicated scenario.
Almost everyone had some connection. Vera wanted it. Alex had hunted it. Ashley had
found out things she wasn’t supposed to know about the seller. The signora probably
had overhead talk about it. Eddie most likely had eavesdropped and found out about
it. Karen might have had a lead on it. George and Jeannette most likely had heard
rumors. Merlin was the kingpin who might or might not be able to provide it (if he
was real). How did the man with the limp fit in with the play?
Missing info? Unknown connections?
What else was I missing? What didn’t I know? Why couldn’t I figure it out? It would
have been a good night to be Agatha Christie, but I was Jordan Bingham, perched on
an astoundingly hard plastic chair in the hospital, watching a woman sleep. It was
not a good night for me.
Karen didn’t stir all night, not even when the nurses made their infrequent visits
to check vitals. Each of them nodded to me, the caring “niece.”
