The Christie Curse (32 page)

If you have a huge house full of valuable artifacts, it’s wise not to keep ladders
around. Vera would have made sure of that. I threw a few decorative river rocks at
the window, to no effect. I shouted, “I know you’re in there.” That didn’t work either.
Unsurprisingly.

I considered my options. I could go get my lock picks. You can run, Signora and Eddie,
I thought, but you cannot hide. You don’t know the Kelly side of me. And you
will
answer my perfectly reasonable questions.

On the way, I realized that Vera had also reacted to the talk of the man with the
limp. It hit me. They all knew who this was! I wouldn’t have been surprised if the
damn cat knew.

I took a turn on the endless corridor and walked to the elevator. On the second floor,
I made tracks to Vera’s room. I knocked, called and knocked again.

Silence.

Vera was my employer, and I decided that throwing rocks at her second-floor window
and/or shouting would not be in my best interest, no matter what she knew.

I did keep an eye out (including checking over my shoulder) on the way back to my
own room. I watched for a sneaky cat seeking official access to my cabbage rose garret.
This time, I got there without incident.

My bed beckoned to me, welcoming, cozy and safe. I made myself comfortable and lay
there thinking. The arrival of a smug cat, tail twitching triumphantly, didn’t shake
my concentration. I needed to figure this out. Agatha would not be proud of me so
far.

But who else could this limping man be? Someone connected with the house, with Vera,
with the signora and with Eddie. And apparently with me. There was simply no one else
around. I had accepted that Eddie might not be our villain. Even stretching my imagination
to the fullest, there was no chance that the signora could ever have been ten inches
taller and much less round.

Agatha would suggest that nothing should be taken for granted. Vera? If Vera could
walk, would she limp? Perhaps. Would she be able to get into the hospital and try
to smother Karen Smith? Could she run?

I closed my eyes to try to picture this. It didn’t matter whether she could run or
not, Vera was probably no more than five four, with narrow shoulders. She might be
mentally strong, but I had seen her thin arms. I felt strangely relieved in deciding
that she wasn’t the killer, but it was still a worry knowing that she was aware of
who he was. So who was he? It wasn’t like a bazillion people were in and out of the
Van Alst house. It wasn’t like the physio could have done it.

I stopped. She was tall with broad shoulders, big hands. She had access to the house.
It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for her to get her hands on the key and the code.
She was in and out of Vera’s bedroom. She would have known, or at least seen, Alex.
She’d been standing still the two times I’d seen her. Did she walk with a limp? Vera
and the signora would both know her. Would Vera and the signora try to protect her?
Would Eddie warn me about her?

I wasn’t going to hunt for the signora this time. Vera would know.

*    *    *

I TOOK THE creaky elevator back to the second floor and walked briskly to Vera’s bedroom
door. I knocked, trying to sound businesslike and confident. “I’m not going away until
you answer. Don’t make me call the police.”

What an insane bluff from one of the Kelly clan. When the door finally opened, Vera
glared at me. There are worse things.

“Your physio,” I began.

She narrowed her eyes. “Miss Orsini. What about her?”

“Does she have a limp?”

“Have you taken leave of your senses, Miss Bingham?”

“Maybe, but I need to know. Does she?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because she’s the size of the man I saw. Big shoulders. Because she has the run of
the place, she would have known Alex, and if she has a limp, then I have to warn you
that she’s dangerous. Very dangerous. I know you and the signora reacted when I mentioned
the limp, and I need to know if it is this person.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Miss Orsini may not be Miss Congeniality, but I know she’s not
your man with the limp. Let it go, Miss Bingham.”

The door closed in my face. Not for the first time either. I loved that Vera would
actually refer to someone else as “not Miss Congeniality.” On the bright side, she
hadn’t fired me for banging on her bedroom door. I felt like firing myself, though.
I had practically accused a woman of committing some horrible crimes based on some
very flimsy evidence. So much for innocent until proven guilty. Maybe the full moon
had made me crazy. But even if it had, shame on me.

*    *    *

THE CAT APPEARED out of nowhere. At least it was in an affectionate Dr. Jekyll frame
of mind and not an ankle-destroying Mr. Hyde mood this visit. It seemed to raise an
eyebrow, before curling up on the flowered duvet and licking its front paw.

I lay in bed envisioning psychotic attackers, stalker cops and felines who could turn
evil at any second. I’d checked and rechecked each bolt, latch and window, but if
the cat could get in, could a person? I let myself hope that Tiff would have a moment
to reassure me. I could still see Ashley’s bruised face and swollen eye. I did not
want to be next. I tucked myself into my bed. Somehow I felt safer there with my view
of all entry points, although I doubted a woman armed with a feather duvet had ever
stopped an armed intruder. Luckily, I remembered the bronze figure. I got up
and brought it over to my bed. First I sat it on my little side table. Then I rethought
that. It could be used against me, so under my pile of pillows it went.

“Hey, you.” Tiff was peppy, then turned serious as I filled her in.

“A girl attacked? An attempted murder in a
hospital
? I think it’s really time to go stay with the charming uncles, Jordan.” I knew she
would say that.

“Come on, Tiff. How could I leave Vera and Fiammetta alone if I thought it was too
dangerous to stay here? They’re a lot more vulnerable than I am.”

I ignored the crazy-making full moon. The wind picked up outside; a spooky low moan
pushed past the window sills, rustling papers at my bedside. Notes fluttered around
the apartment like small paper ghosts, upping the heebie-jeebie factor considerably.

“You are not safe. And your crazy boss is doing nothing to help. Get someone to ride
shotgun, but get the hell out of there.”

I put on a brave face, even if she couldn’t see it. “Tiff, I feel a lot safer here
behind locked doors in a house with a first-rate security system. Anyway, Mick and
Lucky and Walter are in Albany tonight, so they wouldn’t be much help, and the others
are guarding Karen. I just want to decompress, and I need you to tell me it’s all
going to turn out fine in the end. Can you do that without relocating me?”

Tiff laughed. “Of course. I was just being my usual safety inspector to the world.
But I do wonder about this job, Jordan. Maybe it’s not worth all the stress. To be
honest, I’m not quite sure what you are being employed to do, other than eat and find
injured people.”

“Don’t forget being belittled by the boss and pestering the recently bereaved.”

“Wait, what was that last one?”

Something caught my eye in the far corner. Was the wallpaper flapping at that uneven
seam? Ignoring Tiff as
she threw questions at me, I gingerly got out of my safe bed. The wallpaper rustled
above the small walnut dresser, drawing me into the dim corner. The pattern was not
only mismatched in that spot, but something about the beige curly stem of that rose
was off. Why hadn’t I found a lamp for that dresser? Using my iPhone screen to light
the way, I inched forward. The curlicue in question slipped away into the wall. For
a split second terror raised my hair at the roots.

Then I realized what was actually going on.

“Tiff, I’m going to have to let you go. I think I’ve finally figured out how that
cat keeps getting into my place.” That cat made a
murp
of protest. Before Tiff could say another word, I hung up. The walnut dresser was
stuffed with my belongings and had been heavy enough empty. I struggled to move it
out of the way. Next I reached to pull at the paper. Beneath the heavyweight cabbage
rose paper I found a space. I made tracks to the sitting area and repositioned my
reading lamp to get a better look. Not good enough. I pulled the lamp closer and angled
it so I could see. Then I stuck my head into the space. What the heck? I figured the
space must have been a closet at one time. But why would anyone paper over a closet
door? It wasn’t like there was any storage in this apartment. Of course, there was
probably tons of storage throughout the rest of the third floor, so it wasn’t really
an issue. I peered into the dim interior. What kind of closet had ropes and a pulley?
It finally dawned on me that I was staring at the platform of an old dumbwaiter. With
a Siamese cat hunkered on it. But, hang on a minute, wasn’t the cat on the bed?

The next sensation—following astonishment—was pain. This cat reached out and raked
my nose with its claws. I yelped and sat back, holding my nose as the mean scratchy
cat stalked toward the bed and its sweetly purring twin leapt down and headed over
to me. It sashayed into the dumbwaiter
and disappeared to somewhere. But where? The dumbwaiter hadn’t moved. The cat was
gone. I leaned forward, worried about setting the mechanism going and plunging into
the bowels of the building. No one would ever find my body.

I clung to the back leg of the dresser as I checked up and down. My eyes were getting
used to the darn cat-free space. I could make out a dark shape in the farthest reaches.
A cardboard box. I reached over and pulled it out.

“How very Nancy Drew,” I said out loud. I peered back into the dumbwaiter space. I
saw the swish of a tail as the cat made its way to the other side and out. What was
over there? Just attic storage, I figured, easily accessible to felines who deigned
to go anywhere they wanted and especially where they weren’t wanted.

I carted the box back to the Lucite coffee table. The cat (Mr. Hyde) followed, looking
dangerous. It hopped up on the club chair. “Stay away,” I said. “I will defend myself.”
Once you start talking out loud to small mean animals, there’s no turning back. I
grabbed a tissue to dab at my nose, which was bleeding freely. I checked the mirror.
I didn’t have a bandage, but a ragged bit of tissue seemed to stem the bleeding. Not
my best look, for sure, but the least of my problems.

The box contained three black notebooks, and several volumes that looked like they
might be first editions from Vera’s private collection. There was also a small lunch
box. I opened that to find Ulysses S. Grant gazing up at me. Well, more than one Ulysses
S. Grant. Hundreds of him. In stacks. My guess was this was Vera’s substantial amount
of money. What else would explain it? Alex must have hidden it in the dumbwaiter.

I didn’t count the money. I didn’t even touch it. I got another tissue to wipe any
trace of my fingerprints from the top of the box and the sides of the dumbwaiter.

“I was really not expecting that,” I said to the cat. Sweat prickled the back of my
neck.

The cat said nothing.

That stack of notes was supposed to be missing. Vera thought her money was gone, perhaps
carried off by a deranged man in a subway station. I stared at them. There was more
than enough to fund my education. No one would ever know that Alex had hidden that
cash here, and if anyone did, it would be impossible to prove. I had no doubt that
I would get away with using this money for my quite worthy plans. My uncles would
be proud of me.

The cat watched.

I shook my head. I had decided when I first went off to college that I wouldn’t follow
in the family footsteps. Here was the test of that commitment.

I turned to the cat and said, “So close and yet so far away. But life’s like that.”

Because it felt good to be sharing this decision with another creature, even one that
had raked my nose. I added, “And here’s a bit more treasure. I bet these little beauties
are Alex’s notebooks.”

There was a small fortune and several very rare books, but to me the notebooks were
the real gold. I just wanted some information, and for reasons I cannot divulge, this
was not the first time I’d been in the room when bags of cash were dumped from a sack.

Notebooks one and two were brimming with research, and tucked between the pages were
many folded, terse notes from Vera wanting updates on Alex’s progress. In small neat
script, Alex had written to-do lists and info in the margins. These were what I’d
hoped to find in Alex’s belongings at his parents’. No wonder they hadn’t found them.
If it wasn’t for the cat, no one would ever have found them. I read Alex’s notes to
himself about contacting auction houses and following up on leads.

The third notebook looked almost untouched but also had random folded pieces of paper
poking out from its blank pages. I swear it felt like Agatha herself was beside me,
whispering a million questions in my burning ear.

I unfolded the first crisp white paper.

“Holy pay dirt, Batman,” I whispered.

The cat merely swished his tale.

My mind swam in a hundred directions, and my thumbs were already tapping
M. Merlin Rare Books and Collections in New York
into my iPhone. I turned up some Merlins in the world of collections, but not the
one I was hoping for. Alex had circled Vera’s name on the paper, and he had written,
How could he know this?
Possible fraud?
Does “Merlin”
have an accomplice?