The Christie Curse (31 page)

I didn’t like to turn, but I had the impression that people were gathering on the
opposite sidewalk to watch the proceedings. The large blushing policeman yelling at
the innocent young woman—at least that’s what I hoped they were thinking. Luckily,
I had taken the time to dress decently.

“You think I wanted the job with Vera Van Alst because I am a crook?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“The shoes are vintage and I came by them honestly, which is the same way I got my
job. I think Vera is the victim of some dangerous criminal, and as it’s not me, it
must be you.” Even I could see the flaw in that logic, but he’d really made me mad
bringing my family into it and then questioning my honesty. “Someone got away with
the money that Vera gave to Alex to negotiate for the Christie play. Who was in a
better position to do that than his old friend?”

He blinked. “Vera gave Alex money? For a play? That’s what this is about?”

“As if you didn’t know. I have a pretty good idea who got away with that. Someone
Alex trusted. Maybe you’re Merlin.”

“I don’t know any Merlin, and I didn’t know about the money. For a play? What kind
of play? This changes things.”

“Oh, it changes things all right.” If I didn’t know better I would have sworn this
was news to him. But as they say, never kid a kidder, and I came from a family that
could lie like rugs. “An unknown play by Agatha Christie. Probably one that might
shed light on her mysterious disappearance in 1926.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Wait a minute. How much money?”

“Why should I answer your questions? You’ve done nothing but evade mine.”

“Because I am a police officer.”

“And I’m a citizen. There are lots of witnesses who have just observed you harassing
me. So if you’re thinking that
you can sneak up and attack me, you can forget it. The Kellys are watching.”

This time he turned pale instead of red. “Attack you?”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m not thinking about it. How could you even suggest such a thing? I don’t attack
people. I help them. I am the good guy.”

“Oh, spare me. And stay away from Karen Smith. We have people watching her.”

His mouth hung open.

I tossed my last grenade. “Who is the man with the limp? Are you working with him?”

“The man with the limp?”

“You heard me. Is he your confederate? Did you just pretend to chase him?”

“Outside Karen Smith’s place? That guy.”

“The same psycho who tried to get into her room in the hospital.”

“I can’t believe you are saying these things.”

Really, he could have had a career on Broadway. I started to wonder if he was telling
the truth. But nobody could be that innocent. He was just born with the look.

A squawking sound came from his patrol car. He turned and headed to the car, shaking
his head. It was too bad Smiley was probably a thief and a murderer, because he was
so damn cute. A girl’s got to protect herself from dangerous cuteness. I was pretty
sure that Uncle Lucky had it all on video.

Who knows why I called after him? “Don’t leave town.”

He stopped and straightened up, but kept going.

*    *    *

I WAVED TO Uncle Lucky and headed home, not wishing to miss a meal at the Van Alsts’
for obvious reasons. Lucky went back to grilled cheese sandwiches (processed orange
cheese only, please) and canned tomato soup before he and
Uncle Mick, and Walter of course, set out for Albany and some unspecified business
meeting. It’s always better not to know.

I seemed to be developing a habit of arriving just in time for meals. Vera was already
installed at the dining room table, glowering and looking like she didn’t plan to
say a word to me.

Not a problem from my point of view.

The signora was set to swoop as soon as I sat down. There was something magic about
all that.

It started off simply with a minestrone soup that was like nothing I’d ever had before.
Then out of the blue, lasagna arrived, and when I say “lasagna,” I mean a massive
red-enameled casserole with enough in it for a platoon of soldiers, instead of one
woman with a healthy appetite and another who seemed to live on the scent of books.
Not that I was complaining. I did wonder where all the leftovers went. Had I known
that lasagna like this was in the wings, I might have been a bit more careful about
how much minestrone I inhaled.

“Eat!” Signora shouted. “You eat. No, no, eat!”

“Just watch me,” I said.

Vera made three attempts to wave her away and in the end accepted a serving about
the size of a playing card. She poked at it idly with her Francis I fork.

“Interesting day today,” I said, giving myself a little time to rest and make room
before finishing.

“Eat!”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“No, no, eat now.”

Vera growled, “Fiammetta, stop that. Let her speak. Do you think you’re feeding the
bears in the zoo?”

It was always a bit zoo-like in the Van Alst establishment, but who was I to fuss?

“Interesting in what way?”

“There’s a police officer in town who knew Alex. He’d known him for years.”

“Enlighten me. Why is this of interest? Surely Alex Fine knew many people.”

“Well, this police officer has been following me, was in the vicinity of Karen Smith’s
attack and must have known about the fiancée, Ashley Snell. He showed up after her
attack too. He just moved to Harrison Falls, and everywhere I go to check things out,
poof, there he is.”

Vera shrugged and gave her rectangle of lasagna a sharp poke with the fork.

I said, “His name is Tyler Dekker. Do you know him by any chance?”

“No. I don’t know any policemen. Why would I?”

“I told him I was on to him today. He knows what’s going on, and he may even be a
part of it.” Of course, I suppressed my niggling hope that Tyler Dekker was telling
the truth.

“Was confronting the police an intelligent course of action?”

“I needed him to know that I was watching him and other people were too.”

“Seems unwise.”

Signora Panetone took advantage of the conversation to slap down an extra piece of
lasagna on my plate, although I hadn’t fully worked out a strategy to finish what
I already had. As she approached the other end of the table, Vera yanked her own plate
out of the way.

“Very unwise,” she added, managing to look down the long table and straight into my
eyes.

Signora Panetone apparently admitted defeat and headed for the swinging door with
the red casserole dish.

“In my opinion, it was worth it to see if he’d blurt out anything about the man with
the limp.”

The signora paused in the doorway, weighed down by the lasagna. The door stayed open
long enough for me to get a good look at Eddie, positioned just inside the door and
leaning forward. He had obviously been listening to every word.

“Man with the limp?” Vera frowned. “Who is that?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

“Why do you mention him at all? Is he important?”

“I saw a man with a limp trying to break in to Karen Smith’s place, and he later got
into her room and tried to finish her off. No one else seems to know anything about
him.”

For some reason, conversation lagged from then on, although the signora livened things
up for me by swooshing through the swinging door yet again to present us with an airy
sponge cake dusted lightly with icing sugar. She followed that with a fragrant espresso.
Vera managed to avoid eating the cake, although she did move it around on her dessert
plate.

As for me, I didn’t know when my life would revert to Alphaghetti and grape Jell-O,
so I ate up with enthusiasm.

After dinner, as conversation with Vera seemed even more impossible than usual, I
hurried back to my room, attempting to get there before the cat did. As I reached
the stairs, something furry brushed past me. I remained calm. In fact, I was proud
of myself that I didn’t scream. I was getting used to that sneaky Jekyll and Hyde
cat. My moment of proud calm didn’t last long. Someone cleared his throat, and I felt
a hand land on my shoulder. I whirled and screamed enough to make up for at least
twenty sneaky cat attacks. I shrank back against the wall, my mind racing. I’d never
make it up the stairs with him right next to me. What could I use as a weapon? My
shoe? My head?

I knew from my self-defense training (the Kelly School of Anything Goes) that if you
hit someone’s nose hard with the top of your skull, you can break their nose. It was
my only choice. Plus of course, I was still screaming. I couldn’t believe that neither
Vera nor the signora could hear me. I hoped someone was calling 911.

Maybe this guy was going to kill me, but he was going to have a serious souvenir of
his action.

I pulled back, preparing to lunge forward and give him
a major nose job. But that was going to be tricky. Eddie was cowering, one hand covering
his mouth, his other arm shielding his eyes. I couldn’t help but note that his nose
would still have been an easy target.

He pleaded, “Please don’t hurt me! Please stop shouting.”

Hang on. This was all wrong.

“I’m not shouting. I’m screaming. It’s not the same thing at all. And I have a right
to.” I felt quite insulted.

He lowered his hand. “What do you mean you have a right to? Why were you screaming?”

“Why do you think?”

He goggled at me.

I said, “How about this for a reason: because
you
sneaked up behind me and touched my shoulder. Because a man has been killed and two
women have been attacked, and seriously injured. That’s why.”

His jaw dropped. His arms did too. Really, the man was a walking cliché. “But you
can’t think that I wanted to hurt you?”

“What else would I think? All the victims seem to have some connection with you.”

“But I wanted to warn you.”

“Warn me about what? Is that a threat?”

“No! Not a threat. But you mentioned a man with a limp.”

“Big deal. I already know he’s dangerous.”

“More than that—”

“No, no, no, Eddie, no! No talking! You come. Come now. Stop, stop, stop. Come.” The
signora managed to get in between the two of us. She shook her finger in my face.
“No police, no! Go away! Come, Eddie!”

Eddie said, “But—”

He was no match for the signora, who managed to drown out whatever he was trying to
say to me as she hustled him down the endless hallway.

I heard him call out “careful!” and “here.” The rest was lost in a sea of “No, no,
no! Come, Eddie!”

It would have been comic if it wasn’t so serious. Signora Panetone did have the advantage
over Eddie as she could grab him by the ear, but he could hardly manhandle an elderly
woman without being a beast. It was a smart play on her part. And it confirmed the
conclusion I’d finally reached. Eddie wasn’t going to hit any woman. Or probably any
man either.

That was too bad because I’d really liked the Eddie theory. I had no attachment to
the man, and it seemed to work beautifully. Right down to the bit where Eddie mentioned
the man with the limp.

After my rush of adrenaline, my knees felt wobbly. I looked up the stairs and saw
the cat. It seemed to be gloating.

I had no choice. I had to find out why I was being warned about the man with the limp.
I already knew he was dangerous. And if Eddie had been listening, which he had been,
then he was aware that I knew that.

I raced down the hallway after them, but Signora Panetone had disappeared through
one of the doors. I figured they were headed for the kitchen. Rather than get lost
in the labyrinth that was the Van Alst house, I took my usual route to the dining
room and went straight to the swinging door, through the butler’s pantry and into
the kitchen. I expected to find them on the other side, but there was nothing but
the huge old-fashioned kitchen with the eight-burner gas stove and the acre of ancient
marble countertops. The evening’s dishes were still stacked by the sink, and the lasagna
sat cooling on the vast harvest table in the middle of the room.

No Signora.

No Eddie.

No answers.

W
ELL, I FIGURED the signora must have rooms somewhere. She couldn’t be in that kitchen
twenty-four/seven, even though I sometimes wondered. I spotted a door on the far side
of the room and headed for it.

Closed.

I turned the knob. Locked.

I banged and shouted.

“Signora! I need to talk to Eddie. I won’t hurt him. I won’t call the police. You
need to open the door. I have to know who the man with the limp is.”

“You go now! No Eddie. Eddie’s go home.”

I gave up on that approach. I headed through the kitchen door to the side entrance
near the signora’s vegetable patch, a practical corner on the ornamental grounds.

If I’d calculated correctly, I figured I knew which window belonged to the signora’s
hideout. The window was slightly open. I looked around for a ladder or something to
climb on. No joy.