THE CAMBODIAN CURSE AND OTHER STORIES

by Gigi Pandian

  “Right. The camera footage wasn’t deleted the night of the theft and murder. And it wasn’t tampered with in any way. The cameras were on, and after everyone else left for the night, the footage showed Margery going into her office. She left the door open. A bit later, William also returned to the museum to do some work in his own smaller office. He didn’t go anywhere near hers, but the hallway camera showed Margery’s door closing. Nobody else went near it. Neither the sculpture nor Margery ever left her office. Yet the door had to be forced open by the police after William supposedly heard her cry out. It has to be a trick that enabled him to have that alibi, though I can’t figure it out. And no, there are no secret passageways. The only secret room is the large safe in her office where the centerpiece sculpture was stored before it disappeared.”

  “There are no cameras inside either office?” I asked.

  “People need a modicum of privacy.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  The stairs creaked under our feet as we ascended the narrow, winding staircase leading to the second-floor offices. The only other way upstairs was a freight elevator twice as wide as I was tall, which was used to move the sculpture into the safe in Margery’s office. North had keys to all the rooms, and he explained that the multiplicity of keys was why the private offices had dead bolts, so the occupants could lock the door from the inside.

  While I looked through William and Emily’s offices, North went across the hall to Margery’s. I found references to the sculpture in each of their files, as it had been both the centerpiece of the museum and also clearly William’s favorite. It was also much beloved by Emily, and I wondered if William was telling the truth, if they were really just good friends. William had mentioned something at his house: Emily was interested in the curse as well.

  “What are you doing, North?” I called down the hall. When he didn’t answer, I was again struck by the niggling thought that North himself might be involved in the theft. But if so, why would he have involved me? Could there be something else he was looking for?

  I ducked under the crime scene tape and entered Margery’s office. “Earth to North.”

  “It makes no bloody sense,” he murmured.

  “How William did it?”

  North nodded, but his eyes remained fixed on the door I’d walked through.

  “I thought you didn’t care how it was done, as long as you got the sculpture back,” I said.

  “How am I going to prevent this from happening in the future if I don’t understand how a sculpture weighing hundreds of pounds disappeared, not only from a secure safe, but also a sealed room?”

  ix.

  “Now that we’re in the room where the crime took place, show me what happened,” I said.

  North toyed with his collar as he glanced nervously around the room. “Since Margery and William had grown apart lately, they didn’t travel to the museum together. Margery was working alone in her office in the evening after the museum had closed. She knew my security was good, and she wasn’t counting on one of the three other people who could get inside—William, Emily, and Clay—killing her.”

  “She was working here in this second-floor office?”

  North pointed to the corner. “That’s where they found her. She’d been hit with a heavy bronze statue she kept on her desk.”

  “You said William heard it happen?”

  “Yes. Margery was here working late when William arrived to do some work on his own. The security cameras confirm this timeline.”

  “Why were they both working so late?”

  “With The Churning Woman out of sight, they were trying to come up with what to feature instead, so everyone was working overtime. William says he saw the light on in her office, through the open doorway, but that he didn’t go inside to say hello. Again, the cameras confirm this. A few seconds later, the cameras also show Margery’s door closing. The office doors swing inward, so the cameras didn’t show if it was Margery or her killer who closed the door shortly after William’s arrival.”

  “But later,” I said, “there was nobody aside from Margery in the room.”

  North nodded. “By the time the police arrived, yes. William says he heard Margery cry out, so he rushed from his office. But keep in mind, the cameras don’t record sound. William tried to get in, but the door was bolted from the inside. When Margery didn’t respond, he called 911. They broke down the door and found her inside. Alone. Dead. With the safe wide open, and the sculpture gone.”

  “There aren’t any windows in here.”

  “No. The only windows are in the museum section of the building. So what do you think?”

  “I think I need some lunch. Alone.”

  As it happened, I didn’t end up eating lunch by myself. My best friend Sanjay was in town between performances and agreed to meet me for lunch at a Cambodian restaurant in the Mission district. A successful stage magician who performed as The Hindi Houdini, Sanjay had a big ego but an even bigger heart. There was a time when I’d briefly wondered if we might become more than friends, but it wasn’t in the cards. I was in love with another man, and as someone I saw several times a week and argued with just as often, Sanjay felt even more like a brother to me than my brother Mahilan.

  Since he was a magician, Sanjay had an insightful way of analyzing seemingly impossible situations. He thought about misdirection for most of his waking hours. But in this case, after I told him everything I knew over our lunch of shredded mango salad and fish amok stew, he sat back and shook his head.

  “I don’t see how it’s possible,” he said.

  “That’s not what you were supposed to say. I hoped you were wearing your bowler hat through our whole meal because you were going to pull a miniature sculpture out from under it, or something that would shed light on the problem at hand.”

  “Sadly, no.” He raised the hat and grimaced before quickly putting it back in place. His thick head of black hair was marred by a distressingly large strip of gauze.

  I gasped. The bandage began above his left ear and stretched more than three inches.

  “Bad timing on a new illusion,” he said. “Eight stitches.”

  “Are you okay? When did it happen? Why didn’t you call me?”

  He grinned at me. “It was down in LA. And I’m OK. I’m mostly concerned with my hair.”

  My tension eased and I laughed. Of course. Would his fan club, the Hindi Houdini Heartbreakers, still love him without his gorgeous hair? I expected they’d love the chance to give him some TLC.

  “What?” he said. “This is my livelihood here. I have to look my best. I’m going to have to perform in my turban until this heals, which rules out any of the illusions that need my magic bowler hat.”

  “Are you on pain medication? Maybe that’s why you can’t see any way out of this impossible setup.”

  “Nope. If there are truly no secret exits from Margery Lexington’s office and the videotapes haven’t been tampered with, this Cambodian curse looks a lot like it’s the only explanation. Which of course I don’t believe. Which leaves…”

  I leaned across the table. “You have an idea?”

  The waitress chose that moment to bring us coffees and pumpkin coconut pudding for dessert—which we hadn’t requested.

  “On the house,” she said, smiling shyly at Sanjay. She was cute. I wondered if he’d slip her one of his cards before we left.

  “Your idea?” I prompted again. My eyes didn’t leave Sanjay’s as I spooned sugar into my coffee. Which was a problem, since it turned out to be a spicy bird-chili salt. I took a sip and shuddered. That flavor combination was too strange even for me.

  “The videotapes might have recorded a true situation, but what if the timing is off? What if that happened another night? That must be it.”

  I shook my head. “I thought of that. The security expert confirmed the vi
deotapes weren’t tampered with. Plus it shows everything that happened.”

  “The security expert? Why are you working with a security expert? This puzzle was so interesting that I didn’t even ask you why you’re working on it.”

  “Because of the missing piece of history.”

  “You read about it and offered your services?”

  “Not exactly,” I mumbled.

  Sanjay sniffed the pudding. He was a notoriously unadventurous eater. “What aren’t you telling me, Jaya?”

  “You should leave the waitress your number.”

  “How do you know I didn’t already?” He grinned and deftly flipped his playing card size business card between each of his fingers. “But you’re the one using misdirection now. Changing the subject. I don’t know why, but don’t you have a real job with lectures or something to prepare for?”

  He was right. Sanjay was annoying that way.

  I left Sanjay to flirt with the waitress and went to my campus office to prepare for the following week’s lectures. Since Lane was traveling abroad for work, I should have been making better use of my time than solving a problem for Henry North. But I needed to be at peace with the fate of the unique Cambodian sculpture. I expected that William, if he was indeed guilty, would strike a deal with the prosecutors to get a reduced sentence if he revealed where he’d hidden it.

  Yet try as I might, I couldn’t focus. The curse hoax and William’s guilt didn’t fit together. I was missing something.

  The next day, I learned my suspicions were right. William was released on bail—and as soon as he arrived at home, someone tried to kill him.

  x.

  William had been poisoned. He survived the attempt on his life but was barely hanging on.

  North asked me to meet him at the hospital where he was keeping vigil with William’s sister as well as his co-worker Emily. I declined the invitation. I told myself I was done sticking my nose into the murderous mess of the Lexington Museum. I hoped to see the historical sculpture returned, but no more playing detective for me.

  If only life were that easy.

  When I let myself into my office on Monday morning, North was waiting for me inside. Admitting defeat, I taped a message to my door saying office hours would begin fifteen minutes late.

  “I suppose I should be brief,” North said, “if fifteen minutes is all I’ve got. You were right that it’s the mistress after all. Not the husband.”

  “I never said that. I just said I wasn’t convinced it was William.”

  “Potato, potato.”

  “Emily’s been arrested? And she wasn’t his mistress.”

  “Whatever she is to him, she hasn’t been arrested yet. But William was poisoned by his favorite treat: sugar-free almond flour cookies made with a pungent dried fruit imported from Cambodia that masked the flavor of the poison. Emily baked the cookies—supposedly to celebrate his release from jail—but he didn’t die quickly enough and called 911, so she wasn’t able to dispose of the evidence.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “But since I don’t know anything about poison, and I doubt this is a social visit, I take it The Churning Woman is still missing and that’s why you’re here?”

  A knock on the door interrupted us, so I didn’t get to hear whatever excuse North would come up with. I opened the door and let the student know I’d be a few more minutes.

  “What did that young ruffian say to you?” North asked as I closed the door. “You’re as white as a sheet.”

  I leaned my back against the door, my mind racing. “It wasn’t what he said. It was the interruption itself.” I thought about everything I’d learned over the last three days. “The office door being closed…The salt at the restaurant not being the ingredient I thought it was…Margery supposedly shaving her head for charity…”

  “You’ve solved it,” North whispered.

  “Maybe.” My gaze snapped to North. “I need you to find out two things for me.” I wrote a note on a slip of paper and handed it to him. “Call me when you find out the answers.”

  He frowned. “Medical records? How am I supposed to find this out? The first is most definitely confidential.”

  “When has that ever stopped you before?”

  “True.”

  As I wrapped up office hours two hours later, North was waiting outside my door.

  “You were right,” he said. “She had stage four melanoma. And it wasn’t the force of the bronze statue hitting her that killed her; she overdosed on morphine. How did you know? And why does it matter?”

  “The only solution that made sense was farfetched, unless one final criterion was met. That wasn’t the main reason Margery Lexington killed herself, but—”

  “Killed herself?”

  I nodded. “That’s how the impossible crime was done.”

  “You’re forgetting that someone tried to kill William today. Unless she rose from the grave—”

  “I can explain that too. Let me start at the beginning. Margery and William had already drifted apart. The newspaper stories backed up William’s account that she was the philanthropist who was part of San Francisco society, whereas William was the scholar who kept his head down and attended to the museum. Reading between the lines of what William said and those photographs in the paper, she was concerned with being important. She was front and center in photos at galas and at volunteer photo-ops. She wasn’t the helpless victim she pretended to be when she hired you last month.”

  “I didn’t exactly say that,” North protested.

  “She told you how fearful she was of the letters. Of the curse. One thing I should have realized earlier, when I spoke to William, was that there was no curse until Margery invented it last month.”

  “Of course there was a curse,” North snapped.

  “Was there? Tell me, why exactly do we think so?”

  “Her grandmother Sarah wrote of it. That’s documented. Isn’t that what you historians care about? Historical documentation?”

  “What the accounts from Margery’s grandparents actually say,” I said, “was that they were ‘warned.’ They were warned by an understandably angry person whose heritage they were stealing.”

  “Margery said it was a curse, not a warning,” North began, then swore. “I answered my own question, didn’t I?”

  “I’m afraid so. Everything we know about the ‘curse’ is from what Margery told people this month. She planted the seed with her husband after she started receiving the threatening letters—which of course she sent to herself. Only then did she tell him the details of her grandfather’s death—details she had previously claimed not to know, but now she ‘confessed’ to William she’d held back because her grandmother had been afraid of a curse. Margery had also never told William the details of how her father died, probably because it was painful, so she used that as an opportunity to invent ‘mysterious circumstances.’”

  North swore.

  “There were no online references to the curse before she died,” I continued. “Not one. Just as there was no reference to the curse in the museum’s materials. I thought it was because they were interested in facts more than publicity, but it’s because it never existed.”

  “She hated him,” North said. “She hated William for making her feel superficial, and for leaving her emotionally for Emily. And William and Emily both loved that sculpture…”

  “And she was dying,” I said. “She didn’t tell anyone about the cancer, instead saying she shaved her head for a cancer charity. She and her husband had already drifted apart and were living separate lives, so the charade wasn’t difficult. Angry and alone, she thought up the idea to frame William for her inevitable death. And if he didn’t get arrested, the next time he baked his favorite dessert, he’d die. She must have known it was a risk. Even if both of those parts of her plan failed, then at least as a free ma
n he wouldn’t have his prized possession that he and his mistress both adored.”

  “But how did she kill him from beyond the grave?”

  “She’d already planted the poison.”

  “She wasn’t a monster who would have someone else die accidentally,” North said. “Hating your spouse enough to kill them is one thing, but leaving poison for any random person to die? I can’t see it.”

  “I can’t either,” I said. “William’s favorite cookies are homemade, and you pointed out the unusual ingredient used in them. I saw the makings for them on the counter, and I can’t imagine anyone else liking that recipe. Margery knew he was the only person who would be poisoned.”

  “But why the impossible crime? If she wanted to frame William in the first place, which she did so well in so many other ways, why make it seem like he couldn’t have done it?”

  “I don’t think she meant to have it look impossible. Remember she was working alone at the museum. She’d already removed the sculpture from her safe. She was planning on killing herself with a morphine overdose, making it look like someone was forcing her to open the safe and accidentally gave her too much of the relaxing drug. She was going to leave both the door to the safe and her office open—”

  “When William unexpectedly showed up at the museum,” North said. “That’s why she had to close her door and lock herself in, because she’d already started her plan.”

  “She had to think fast. She injected herself with the rest of the drug, then cried out and toppled a heavy sculpture so it would make noise and look like someone had hit her with it.”

  “And here I was thinking I was the king of contingency plans,” North murmured. “But Margery has me beaten. Killing herself and framing William. Or in case he wasn’t sent to jail she’d kill him from beyond the grave. Or at the very least she’d make sure he didn’t get to enjoy his favorite sculpture that he and his mistress loved. Bloody brilliant.”

  “She had a fourth plan too,” I said.

  North raised an eyebrow.