by Alex P. Berg
“So to recap,” said Shay. “The Vanderfeller family is in financial distress and has been for decades. There may or not be a curse afflicting the members of the family, as evidenced by, most notably, the deaths of several staff in a freak fire seven years ago, Nell Vanderfeller’s disappearance a few days later, and now Clarice’s disappearance. So far, everyone we’ve spoken to has more or less given us a coherent narrative, but not a soul has offered any ideas as to what might’ve happened to Mrs. Vanderfeller. Did I miss anything?”
I chewed on my lip. “I don’t think so. Who have we not talked to yet?”
“According to Marcus, we still have Fezig’s brother, Vezig, the housekeepers, Opal and her daughter Iolite, and…ah! The chef. Pierre.”
I kept chewing and added some finger tapping to my routine.
“Trying to figure out who you want to interrogate next?” asked Shay.
“Interview, not interrogate. I wish we could drag this lot to the station, but sadly we don’t have any probable cause yet. But no, I’m not. I doubt any of the remaining staff will have anything useful to tell us, except perhaps Vezig.”
“So what’s on your mind, then?”
“That fire. I have a hard time believing it was an accident. And then for Nell to disappear two days later? How does that happen? Those incidents have to be related. And now with Mrs. Vanderfeller vanishing? I know it’s been seven years, but still. That’s a cloud that doesn’t easily dissipate.”
“So despite the time gap, you think all three incidents are connected.”
“I mean, they have to be, right? The question is how?”
“They don’t have to be,” said Shay. “So how do you propose we proceed?”
“We don’t have a body to prod, otherwise I’d suggest we talk to Cairny. Honestly, not having one is throwing me off my game. But, lacking that…I say we head to the attic. Check out those family paintings Angela mentioned.”
Shay’s brow furrowed. “That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.”
“Think about it,” I said. “If I’m right and these three cases are related, then solving the mystery of Mrs. Vanderfeller’s disappearance is going to come down to history. Family history, specifically. Angela said she’s been painting her entire lifetime, including portraits of her folks. Maybe by examining her work we can find clues about what might’ve happened to Nell.”
“That seems like an extreme long shot,” said Steele. “Never mind that Angela implied she’d used her creative license in painting those images. Chances are you won’t glean anything at all from them.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’d like to take a look. Even if the paintings aren’t accurate representations of the past, they’re better than nothing. Even fiction is based on reality. Besides, you have to admit there’s something about Angela that seems, well…off. She’s odder than anyone else we’ve met, and that’s saying something. I can’t help but think she knows something she’s not telling us.”
“I think everyone’s holding out on us,” said Shay. “And I think the better option would be to keep talking to people. Easier to sniff the stink of a lie on someone than to spot one printed on canvas.”
“What can I say. I guess I’m more visual than you are. That’s why I like to keep the lights on while we…you know.”
Shay smirked. “Fine. Tell you what. You head to the attic and take a look at however many paintings you desire. After all, we did agree we needed to comb through the whole house. In the meantime, I’ll seek out more of the staff. Maybe the chef. I’m starting to feel a bit peckish, and I’m willing to bet I can convince him to feed me.”
For once, my own belly wasn’t rumbling in approval. Apparently the eggs benedict had staying power. “Works for me. I’ll look for you in the kitchen when I’m done.”
Shay gave me a smile and headed off down the stairs. I headed in the opposite direction, up to the third floor. Once I reached the landing, I wandered around for several minutes admiring the scenery before realizing I probably should’ve asked someone—anyone—where the entrance to the attic was. I wasn’t even sure what the entrance might look like. Did a separate staircase lead there, or was there a hatch? If so, did an extendable ladder drop down from it, or did I need to source my own?
As I wandered, I held true to Steele’s and my stated goal, passing through a half-dozen guest quarters, roughly as many washrooms, a billiard room, a smoking room (based on the smell), and a number of spider web-clogged storage spaces, all in search of Clarice’s body, or at least some remnants thereof. I didn’t possess Steele’s eyes, but I was fairly sure I’d be able to tell if someone had been murdered somewhere with only a cursory examination of the environs. It helped that many of the rooms looked as if they hadn’t been used in a decade. The undisturbed layers of dust, in this case, were my friend.
Eventually, I stumbled across it: the attic staircase, a metal spiral tucked into one of the mansion’s corners. The stairs themselves were narrow, but the hatch at the top was broader than I’d expected—broad enough to allow entry to a guy like me holding one of Angela’s medium sized paintings, if not one of the large ones.
I unlatched the door. It creaked as I pushed on it, and a scent of mothballs greeted me. I crawled through the opening, propping the hatch open using an attached strut, stood, and looked around.
It was spacious for an attic, but given the mansion’s size, I didn’t expect anything else. Light shone through windows at the front and back of the home, making the space at least as bright as the corridors underneath. Dust motes swirled over large white tarps, under which sofas and tables and dressers poked through like muscles from under skin. Hefty brick columns punched through the floor at regular intervals, obscuring my sight lines, as did the wooden beams which crisscrossed back and forth above me, supporting the enormous weight of the roof.
Despite the clutter, I spotted a crop of paintings a ways ahead. I set out in search of them, the subflooring creaking underneath me as I walked. While dust caked many of the items in storage, the pathway between them wasn’t as filthy.
The paintings also seemed to have been recently dusted. I flicked through them—there must’ve been hundreds—ignoring the landscapes and flowers and bowls of apples as I searched for portraits of the Vanderfellers, Nell in particular.
The more I searched, the more vindicated I felt. The portraits held a wealth of information among them, far more than I’d anticipated. It wasn’t just Angela’s spare works that had been put in storage, but portraits going back generations. I found numerous likenesses of Frederick Claypoole Vanderfeller, from the youthful to the wizened, all of which I managed to attribute to him only thanks to the inscriptions. Though he’d started out as normal as could be, he’d slowly swelled and grown hairier over time, asymptotically approaching a walrus in a tuxedo.
Pictures of Edward and his late wife also existed, as well as portraits of Clarice Vanderfeller as a young woman. At the time, she resembled a cross of her two youngest daughters, with Angela’s pale blonde hair but Nell’s curls and rosy cheeks. I even found a portrait of Marcus as a young man alongside his parents, a rather stern-looking gentleman with enormous sideburns and a soft-featured woman with a warm smile. After staring at the likenesses for a moment, I determined the painting I’d seen in Angela’s studio couldn’t have been of Marcus, or if it had been she’d either never seen this particular portrait or she’d stretched her artistic license too far. The faces weren’t quite the same.
In addition to those older portraits, I found numerous depictions of Nell, the overwhelming majority of which featured Angela’s flowing signature in the bottom right corner. Unfortunately, none of paintings had been dated, which left me scratching my head. All of them showed Nell in the same state, smiling and delightful and roughly seven or eight years of age. Then I realized why. Angela must’ve painted them following Nell’s disappearance, which would explain why Nell didn’t change. She was a figment of Angela’s imagination, po
rtrayed as she remembered her before the grim event that ripped her from her family’s side.
Her loss must’ve impacted Angela greatly based upon the number of portraits she’d painted. That in itself was a useful piece of information, but of the true knowledge I’d been after, clues that might’ve spoken to Nell’s mysterious disappearance, I found none.
I hated it when Shay was right.
I heard a clatter and a thump, and I pulled my head up from a stack of canvasses, swiveling it about like an alarmed bird. It took me a moment to figure out what had happened, but then I saw it. The hatch back to the third floor had closed.
I swore and stomped back over there. The strut holding the door in place had spun to the side, broken off from its attachment. Luckily, a handle had been affixed to the back of the hatch, undoubtedly for moments like this. I tugged on it. It didn’t give.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I recalled the latch I’d undone upon opening the hatch. It must’ve caught. I pounded on the wood. “Hello? Anyone there? I’ve got a bit of a problem, here.”
No one answered. I tugged on the handle again, but it didn’t budge.
I sighed and headed back to the paintings. Surely there were other hatches. Maybe one of them would be less secure than the one through which I’d entered. In the meantime, I’d continue my investigation.
I only lasted a moment. As I kneeled in front of one of the Nell portraits, a shiver shot up my spine and down my arms. I felt an itch at the back of my neck, which usually meant only one thing.
I straightened and looked around, but I didn’t see so much as a mouse. Nonetheless, I suddenly felt an overpowering urge to leave the attic.
Unfortunately for me, the other attic hatches were as secure as the first. The windows, however, weren’t. I found a promising one, shimmied it open, and stepped onto the roof.
I immediately regretted my decision. Even though I knew the angle of the roof from the attic’s interior, I found the incline magically increased by a good fifteen degrees the instant I set my feet upon the slate tiles. I felt like a mountain goat who’d been lost at birth and raised by a family of ducks.
In a shambling crouch, I inched my way toward the edge, thanking my lucky stars that whatever dew the morning had brought had already evaporated under the sun’s rays. As much fun as slides were, I didn’t relish the thought of one with a three story drop off.
I also thanked Fezig for speaking the truth. After reaching the roof’s edge, swallowing hard, and clenching my bladder, I scuttled along until the nearest balcony, where I dropped down and tested the door.
It was open. The next time I saw the big ogre, I’d have to buy him a beer.
15
I found Steele precisely where she said she’d be—in the Aldermont’s kitchen, which like everything else in the mansion was oversized, grandiose, and could have its contents auctioned off to feed a gaggle of orphans for a few years. Polished pots and pans hung from hooks set in the high ceiling, any number of sinks and faucets gleamed with burnished copper, and a hemispherical stone oven radiated heat from its glowing orange mouth. At least whatever firewood burned deep inside its belly produced a pleasant, smoky aroma.
Shay sat on a stool in front of an enormous butcher block that served as a counter, the surface of which had been crisscrossed with decades worth of knife cuts. She laughed in response to something uttered by the man in front of her, a fellow with shoulder length, wavy grey hair and a scruffy beard whose follicles ran the gamut from black to white to every shade in-between. His thick eyebrows knit together like the weaves of a Verullian finger trap, and he wore a white chef’s coat over his broad if somewhat round shoulders.
“There you are,” I said, walking up to the counter.
“Daggers,” said Steele with a smile. “Nice of you to join us. This is Pierre LeBeau, the Aldermont’s head chef.”
“And only chef,” said LeBeau, his voice marked by a pleasant, lilting accent. “But to be fair, zis does make me ze head.”
The man gripped a bottle of beer in his hand. He lifted it and took a swig.
“Daggers. Pleasure to meet you.”
The man flicked his hand at me, busy swallowing.
I turned to Steele. “Learn anything useful in my absence?”
“Oh, absolutely. Did you know that when you poach an egg, you should add both salt and white vinegar to the water before bringing it to a simmer? And instead of cracking the egg straight into the water, you should add it to a ramekin, swirl the water with a spoon, and then quickly add the egg.”
“Zis will prevent ze egg from feathering,” said LeBeau. “Zat is not good.”
I blinked. “You’ve been talking about eggs?”
“Yes,” said Shay. “I also learned that it’s much easier to peel a hard boiled egg if you add it directly to boiling water instead of placing it in the pot with cold water right from the start. Chef LeBeau has an incredible wealth of culinary knowledge.”
LeBeau shrugged and took another swig of his beer. “Zis is true. Ze distressing part is how little I am able to use zis knowledge in my culinary efforts. My talents?” He tsked and flicked his fingers in the air. “Zey float away, like ashes on ze wind.”
I wasn’t sure that was the right metaphor, but given his obvious immigrant status, I was willing to give the guy a pass. “So Steele, you, ah…didn’t discuss our investigation?”
“Oh, of course we did. Pierre told me all about his time working for the Vanderfellers. He’s been here for two decades, first in Edward’s employ and then for Marcus and Clarice. He related to me the…trials he’s faced over the years.”
I eyed LeBeau. “Trials? Do the Vanderfellers have a secret underground gladiatorial arena I don’t know about?”
LeBeau drained the last of his beer. “Of ze emotional kind, not ze physical. I graduated from ze most prestigious culinary institution in my entire country. Ze future was my playground, and zis opportunity, to be ze head chef for ze wealthiest family in New Welwic? It beckoned, but look at where it has brought me. Now I stand here alone, unappreciated, out of practice. If only my contemporaries appreciated my art, I could stand ze decay, but zadly, even zis is not ze case.”
He shook his head and reached into his front coat pocket, from which he retrieved a small metal case. He plucked from it a cigarette before heading to the stone heath. There, he used a burning ember to light his tobacco.
I eyed Shay. Her frown indicated she didn’t appreciate the recent turn of events.
“To be fair, I did say I wanted to know more about the history of the Vanderfellers,” I said, “but I don’t see how Mr. LeBeau’s career frustrations help us solve the mystery of Mrs. Vanderfeller’s disappearance.”
“We discussed the present as well,” said Shay. “Unfortunately, Pierre didn’t have much to add to the ever-expanding and yet still painfully thin narrative we’ve authored.”
“What can I say?” said LeBeau, still lounging by the hearth. “I cook ze cuisine, but I do not interact with ze Vanderfellers except when zey have requests. Ze butler, Lothorien, or ze maids bring zem ze food.”
LeBeau reached to his side and grabbed a large wooden paddle, a pizza peel if my culinary vocabulary wasn’t mistaken. He jabbed it into the oven, the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and shimmied it a few times before pulling it back out. He turned and deposited the contents onto the butcher block before us, a wheel of dough laden with white cheese, slices of tomato, and shriveled basil leaves.
“Ze margherite,” said LeBeau, with a flourish of the paddle. “It must cool for a few minutes, zen I will cut it.”
The delectable smell of the pie wafted into my nostrils, as did the unfortunate scent of LeBeau’s cigarette smoke. It mixed in my lungs before my stomach got in on the action, letting out a reluctant grumble.
I tried to wave the smoke away. “Steele, mind if I speak with you alone for a moment?”
She eyed the pizza hungrily bu
t gave in. “Sure.”
We stepped into the hallway. I lowered my voice. “So…anything you can share with me that you couldn’t in front of LeBeau?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. He went into great detail about his past, but it was more his own personal history than that of the Vanderfellers. As with everyone else, he claims to be totally befuddled in regards to Clarice, and while his on-the-job drinking and smoking aren’t necessarily good signs for him personally, I don’t get a dangerous or untruthful vibe out of him. It’s looking like if we’re going to solve this, we’ll have to do it on the backs of physical clues rather than verbal ones.”
I snorted. “You were here the whole time? In the kitchen?”
“Yes.” Shay peered at me. “You doing okay? You seem on edge. Plus you have a scrape on the side of your hand.”
“I do?” I looked down. Sure enough, there was some angry skin near my thumb, though no blood. “Must’ve gotten it scaling down from the roof.”
Shay’s eyes widened. “What?”
“While I was in the attic, the hatch closed on itself, forcing me to escape through a window and over to the nearest balcony. At least, I thought the hatch closed on itself. I got a weird feeling afterward, like I was being watched.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of the feeling? Of course. Of being watched, no. I didn’t see anyone around, and the attic was reasonably open.”
“But you think someone deliberately tried to lock you in there?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems a silly thing to do. If someone wanted to silence me, they’d have to do a lot more than shut me in the attic. Maybe someone disturbed the hatch as they were climbing up to the loft to spy on me.”
“Think they might still be up there?”
“I doubt it. Whoever it was probably knows the house much better than us. I’d wager they’re long gone.”
Shay chewed on her lip. “So how do you want to deal with it?”