“As I said, Miss Bingham, everyone is replaceable.”
I shook my head. “Not Archie.”
“Let me be clear. Not Archie Goodwin—although he most emphatically could be replaced—but I am speaking of you.”
I stared.
“This discussion is quite timely. Our association must come to an end.”
I felt a buzzing around my ears. Perhaps that was why I had trouble making sense of her words. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are fired.”
CHAPTER TWO
A JOKE, OF COURSE, I told myself. But Vera doesn’t joke. Not at her best moments. And this hadn’t been one of her best moments.
“What’s that, my girl?” Uncle Mick said when I reached him. Sounded like he’d just woken up.
“Let Uncle Lucky know he can stop moping in Manhattan. I’m coming home.”
“You quit? Well, how many times have we told you that those Van Alsts are too big for their britches?” There was only the one Van Alst and she didn’t wear britches, but Mick was still seething at some of the long-dead ones. He wasn’t alone in that view in these parts.
“Fired,” I said, clearly.
The line was silent. Finally Uncle Mick’s voice came back. “Thought you said ‘fired,’ my girl; nobody fires us—”
“I’ll need a van for my stuff. Kev will help me load it.”
Uncle Mick’s lovely tenor voice quavered. “Kev? Has Kev been fired too?”
“No need to panic. He’s still king of the castle here. Nope. It’s me and, as I said, I’m moving back.”
I was glad I hadn’t sniffled or wobbled when I was speaking to Mick. My knees were still weak as I packed my belongings in my beloved attic. “Replaceable. Fired.” Vera’s words ricocheted around my head. “No longer welcome at Van Alst House.”
The signora kept fluttering up the two flights of stairs and into my room, bearing cakes, toast, tea, coffee, cookies and what might have been veal cutlets.
“Eat! Yes! Yes! No, Vera will change mind.”
Nothing could stop the signora and I had given up, even before the cutlets. I had such a knot in my stomach that I thought I’d never eat again. Of course, aside from my bad feelings, it had only been an hour since breakfast. I emptied my wardrobe and the little walnut dresser. I had brought my own midcentury modern Lucite coffee table to Van Alst House, as well as my books and my collection of vintage clothing. Lately, I’d been collecting inexpensive vintage reprints of the Nero Wolfe (meaning Archie Goodwin) books. Now I’d have more time to read some more of them.
The two dogs lay on the flowered comforter, faces in paws, and watched me with concern. I tried not to sniffle and feel sorry for myself. There was no time to waste on that. I had until noon to be off the premises.
The most humiliating part was having to hand over my key to Vera. I noticed she didn’t meet my eyes.
* * *
UNCLE KEV WRESTLED all my gear down the steep stairs from the third floor to the back door.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered to me, “I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“What?”
“I’ll find out what’s going on.”
Oh boy. If Kev started getting involved anything could go wrong, and things were plenty messed up already.
“Please, Kev,” I said, firmly. “Don’t try to find out what’s going on.”
He wore his hurt feelings on his face. That usually worked for him, although not so well in our immediate family.
“I’m serious,” I added.
“But I’m in a position to find out—”
“Come on. You have a great job here and a good life. Don’t do anything to jeopardize that. Please.”
“Vera really likes me.”
“You know what? She likes me too in her own curmudgeonly way. But see what just happened?”
“I think that was because of this Muriel Delgado. Vera turned on you right after she barged in here.”
You mean, after you got her invited in, Kev. Luckily, I managed to keep that thought to myself. No point in rubbing it in. “Yes, I was just wondering about that myself. I’m pretty sure Vera was really happy with my services. I know my firing has something to do with whatever was said in the study. I wish I were as good at barging into rooms as Ms. Delgado.”
Kev opened his mouth.
“Don’t. This is Vera we’re talking about. She’s unpredictable and she can be vicious. My point is that she could turn on you too. Leave it alone.”
“She wouldn’t fire me.” Kev batted his ginger eyelashes.
“She could. And she would. Then you’d lose the best job you ever had.” It might have been the only job Kev had ever had. I couldn’t actually remember another one, unless a parole officer had been involved. Or unless there had been some awkwardness involving a getaway car, which wouldn’t be a real job.
“I really like it here. The food is amazing.”
“And there’s the lawn tractor and the snowblower and the plow,” I reminded him.
“It’s a great old place and the property is really special.”
“Yes, well, don’t question Vera or argue for my reinstatement or anything like that if you want to stay on. Promise?”
Kev moved his head in a way that could have meant anything from “Yes” to “No” to “I’m choking on a fishbone.”
I pressed on. “Keep in mind, Vera will be stuck here and whatever hold this Muriel Delgado has over her will get worse. I’m counting on you, Kev. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth closed.”
He nodded.
I said, “We’ll keep in touch with each other and you can make sure I’m always in the loop.”
Kev brightened. “I won’t miss a trick. I’ll be your man on the inside. Don’t worry about a thing.”
I wished he hadn’t said that because, after all, he was Kev.
* * *
AT 11:58, UNCLE Mick showed up with a van that was big enough for my belongings, spraying gravel and scattering the flock of wild turkeys that had been hanging around in recent weeks.
As we loaded my possessions into the back and the dogs into the front, he grumbled.
“What are all these coolers?”
“Um. Food from Signora Panetone. Lots of stuff.”
“Why does she need to send food? We’ve got lots of good food. You never went hungry growing up with us, my girl. Good American food. You sure you want to take this?”
“We can freeze it for emergencies,” I said tactfully. An emergency would be any time Uncle Mick was out of the house. I knew for a fact he was planning Alphagetti for lunch, with Pillsbury rolls as a special treat. And chocolate marshmallow cookies for dessert. Of course, they’d be good.
“Humph.”
He stared around truculently, watching out for Vera, but she didn’t show her face. Uncle Mick would have had a few choice words for her. Besmirching the honor of the Kellys and all that; even though I was technically a Bingham, I was definitely part of the Kelly clan.
“Bite your tongue, if you do see her,” I said. “Remember that Kev still has his job and we both agree that we don’t want him coming home.”
Uncle Mick’s cheerful pink face paled and he was uncharacteristically quiet for the drive home. I was glad. I needed the time to brood.
* * *
MY OLD BEDROOM in my uncles’ home was pink and white, the girliest place ever. Think of it as an oasis of frills in a houseful of Kelly green knickknacks and ginger chest hair. I sat on the bed and glanced around. Nothing had changed. This was my second time in eighteen months finding myself in my childhood digs. A herd of My Little Ponies gazed at me with pity. My uncles would always take me in. They’d raised me and they loved me, but ending up back where I started felt like failure to me. The first time was after my ex-boyfriend left me to
o broke and broken to continue grad school. At least I understood what had happened that time. Now here I was again. What was this about? I thought Moon Dancer shook her head a little in shame.
So I’d been fired. Big deal. People get fired all the time. Not in my family, of course, since all my uncles are what we like to call “independent businessmen.” Sometimes they call themselves “entrepreneurs” or operators of “creative start-ups.” But people who do get fired must get fired for a reason. I’d always supposed that as a rule, they’d done something wrong. I couldn’t think of anything that I’d done, except maybe tease Vera about Archie Goodwin.
Hardly a hanging offense.
I jumped when my iPhone sounded. Smiley!
“Hello, Officer Dekker,” I said trying to work a casual tone into my voice without much success. It would have been nice to cry on his shoulder, but we don’t really have a crying-on-shoulders kind of relationship. Anyway, he wasn’t there, was he?
His voice was low. “Sorry, I can’t talk long because we’re not supposed to be on the phone. I won’t be back for another week. Didn’t want you to worry.”
Didn’t want me to worry?
“I’ve been fired!” I wailed. It’s not like me to wail, but, in my defense, let me plead lack of sleep and extreme stress.
“What?”
“Fired. I’ve been fired.”
After a brief silence, he said, “The line is pretty bad. I thought you said you’d been fired.”
“I did say that. I have been fired. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” This was like being stuck in a Three Stooges film in which I got to play Curly, Moe and Larry.
“There’s a lot of noise here,” he said. “But who would fire you?”
I didn’t mean to snap at him. “Vera. Who else? She’s the person I work for, make that worked for.”
“But you do everything for her. You put your life on the line. You—”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but she did fire me and I had only a couple of hours to get my stuff out of Van Alst House.”
“Really? That’s incredible.”
“Yes and that’s because I was fired, and the apartment was part of my compensation for working there. Therefore, no working, no apartment.”
“But—”
“And no signora’s food.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Right now I’m back in my old bedroom at Uncle Mick’s. I don’t know what people do when they get fired. I don’t even know anyone who ever got fired.”
Smiley said, “I was fired once.”
“What? You never were!”
“For sure. From the ice cream shop the summer I was fifteen. Something about supplies running low whenever I was on duty.”
I laughed despite myself. “I don’t know what reason Vera had. Supplies weren’t running low, for sure.”
He said, “In the adult non-ice-cream world, people get fired because their jobs aren’t necessary anymore and they disappear, the jobs I mean.”
“My job didn’t disappear. In my position, I had lots to do.”
“Well, it’s not corporate downsizing, but she could be cutting costs. You said she sold some things lately, didn’t you?”
I thought about that reason. I knew well that the Van Alst pockets were not as deep as they once had been and Vera had been liquidating assets to keep her book addiction going. I said, “But even if that were true, I would have worked for less or worked less for room and board. I brought in money and I could have helped her bring in more. We could have arranged something that would have suited us.”
“Well, we can rule out any competency issues. You are one top-notch book hunter, Jordan.”
“Thanks.” He was right. I knew my stuff. I was valuable to Vera and I was getting better every day.
I said, “I suppose people get fired because they’re light-fingered. Vera would have had me tied to a chair and interrogated if that had been the case.” I take pride in my law-abiding life, so there was no chance that I had pilfered anything or otherwise crossed any legal or ethical lines.
He said, “Vera knows you’re not a thief.”
“I would have thought so too, but here we are.” I sighed. “How about down at the cop shop? What does it take to get handed a pink slip?”
“It’s pretty hard to get rid of us unless we start shooting innocent bystanders or sleeping with the chief’s wife. Even then—”
“Funny. So you’re immune?”
“Nope. Just hard to fire. But there’s lots of politics in policing, and people’s careers can take a beating because of departmental politics.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone hates them and starts a rumor. Someone is jealous and turns other people against them. Someone wants their job and undermines their credibility or messes with their mind or their cases. Politics. It’s everywhere.”
“I don’t think I was in any political danger from the signora or from Uncle Kev. Vera can barely find someone to deliver her paper, she is so despised in this town, as Uncle Mick enjoys telling me. Let’s face it, no one wants my job.”
I sat on my little pink bed surrounded by the trappings of my childhood and an empty case of beer, a holdover from the brief period when Uncle Kev had been living in my room before he hit the jackpot and moved into Van Alst House. I scratched my head. Smiley was giving it his best shot, but I needed to know the real reason behind my sudden dismissal.
“Nothing explains it,” I said.
He wasn’t giving up. “Sometimes people get fired because someone more powerful influences their employer to dismiss them.”
Twenty-four hours ago, it wouldn’t have made a bit of sense, but that was before Muriel arrived and changed the rules of the game. Kev was right. And now Smiley had put his finger on it.
“You know what? Last night a woman came to the house and Vera made us let her in and shooed us all away while she met with her in private. We didn’t see Vera again until the morning, and at breakfast she fired me with no warning.”
“But who is this woman?”
Right. I hadn’t explained that yet. “Muriel Delgado. She walked into Van Alst House with more confidence than anyone has ever faced Vera with, like she had a handle on something that the rest of us didn’t.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Not a thing. I’ve been checking the Internet and coming up empty.” Of course, Smiley was an agent of the law, and who better to find out about Muriel than my own personal police officer? “And that reminds me, I really need you to—”
I thought I heard bellowing in the background.
He lowered his voice. “Gotta go. I’ve been spotted talking on the phone. Sorry.”
I said, “But—”
Naturally, the phone was dead.
Fine.
I didn’t have the slightest idea why Muriel would want to get rid of me. None. But in the deepest fiber of my body I was now sure she was behind it. The question was, why? And not only why, but how? Even coaxing a smile out of Vera was impossible, but actually swaying her behavior? Vera was a mountain, never to be moved.
Was Muriel after the money that Vera paid me? It seemed a small amount for such a big presence. I couldn’t imagine her dancing to Vera’s tune or happily lounging in the attic room with the curling cabbage rose wallpaper while making deals for old mystery books. No. There was something bigger going on. And why would Vera even listen to her? Vera Van Alst was the least likely person in the world to tolerate a large imposing woman giving her orders and changing the comfortable facts of her existence. Perhaps Vera owed a debt to this woman and was too ashamed to share that with anyone.
From under the Care Bear lamp, I grabbed a Hello Kitty notepad with renewed purpose. I had to find out three things: Who was Muriel Delgado? What d
id Muriel Delgado want from Vera and Van Alst House? And why did she want me out of the way?
I felt Uncle Mick’s presence as he loomed in the door.
“You don’t mind so much being back here?” he said.
I got up and gave him a hug. “Never.” His flannel shirt smelled like Old Spice and Irish whiskey.
“You deserved better treatment. There’s reasons everyone hates that woman,” he said, darkly.
“I do deserve better treatment. But I don’t hate Vera. I think this woman who came to the house last night is the reason I was fired.”
“Sounds like it. But why would she want the Van Alst female to fire you?”
I shrugged. “I really have no idea. But I guarantee you, there’s something there. And I’ll make it my business to find out.”
It was taking Mick a while to get Vera out of his system. “I thought I’d come to like her or at least respect her over the past year and a bit, but this, this makes me think my original opinion of her was right.”
“I don’t want to judge her, Uncle Mick. I’d like to find out what’s going on before I make up my mind about it all.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Thanks. In fact, there is something—”
“Anything in the world. But it’ll have to be later, my girl. I’m on my way out. Pressing business elsewhere, as they say. A bit of business is bubbling up. Your lunch is on the table. Keep your strength up for the battle.”
With Uncle Mick gone, I let Walter and Cobain feast on the Alphagetti. They licked tomato sauce off each other’s whiskers after cleaning their plates. I guess this was my team of associates now. I reheated the signora’s cutlets and pasta alfredo. I did hang on to the marshmallow cookies. I’m sentimental about them. But for some reason, everything I ate tasted like sawdust.
The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) Page 3