A Fatal Fabergé

by Ellery Adams

  When Jazzy saw Molly come in, she moved over to her brushed steel coffee machine and started pushing buttons. She knew Molly would order her favorite French vanilla latte.

  “Hello, girlfriend,” Jazzy said as Molly stepped up to the counter. Her short dark hair was streaked with purple highlights, and her signature apron of the day, which she wore over frayed jeans and a tight halter top, read It’s all about the pie! “I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said. “I heard on the news this morning that a guest at the gala ball died last night. Were you and Matt there when it happened? They said the man fell out a window.”

  Molly hadn’t been paying any attention to the news, but Lombardi had obviously put out his press release. “We were there,” she said. “His name was Curtis Cobb.”

  “You want your coffee for here or to go?”

  “Here, please,” Molly said. “And I’ll have a slice of the pecan pie.”

  “Good choice.” Jazzy made all her baked goods from scratch, and Molly knew whatever she ordered would be delicious. The coffee machine stopped, and Jazzy poured her latte into a large mug. Then she went to the cabinet and took out the pecan pie, cut a large slice, and put it on a plate. “There was a Maxim Cobb a couple of years ahead of me at school. Are they related?”

  “Yes, he’s his son.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Poor Maxim.”

  “He’s having a rough time. His mother died a couple of months ago while on vacation in Florida. It was a drowning accident.”

  “How awful.” Jazzy pointed to the credit card reader. “Ready when you are.”

  Molly put her card in the reader. “I’m supposed to be meeting Maxim here. I’m going to write an article about his father.”

  Jazzy looked at her. “Was he an antiques dealer?”

  “He owned Rarus Books.” Molly lowered her voice, even though there was no one close enough to hear them. “He didn’t just fall out a window. He was pushed. Someone killed him.” Jazzy’s eyes widened. “For the time being, Lombardi’s calling it a suspicious death, but he’s investigating it as a homicide.”

  “And you’re involved, right? That’s why you’re meeting Maxim. Does your mother know you’re on another murder case?”

  “Mom’s been in Boston with Sean all weekend. They’re driving home tomorrow. I’ll tell her when she gets back.”

  Jazzy smiled. “Good luck with that.” She handed her the receipt. “Maxim just walked in the door. I forgot how handsome he is. Is he married?”

  “Yes, to a man named Kurt.”

  “Oh. Too bad.”

  Molly waited for Maxim to catch up to her, and then introduced him to Jazzy.

  “Joyce Chen, I remember you from the halls of high school,” he said. “How long have you owned this place?”

  “Going on five years,” Jazzy said. “What can I get you?”

  He looked at Molly’s coffee and pie. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  “Coming right up. If you two want to find a table, I’ll bring it over.” Maxim started to reach for his wallet, but Jazzy said, “It’s on the house. I’m sorry to hear about your father, and your mother.”

  “Thanks. It’s all a bit of a nightmare at the moment.”

  They chose a window table, and as they sat down, Molly said, “How is Natasha feeling?”

  “Better. They gave her prescription-strength ibuprofen, and it seems to be working. She went straight to bed when I got her home. On the drive back, I told her the truth, that I’ve asked you to investigate Dad’s death. She’s not happy about it. I explained you have a lot of experience, and as a favor to me, you’re also going to write an article about him. She was hesitant but finally agreed to meet you tomorrow morning at nine thirty.”

  “I’ll be there,” Molly said.

  Jazzy came over and set a plate and mug on the table in front of Maxim. “Enjoy your coffee and pie,” she said.

  When she’d gone, he sipped his coffee and took a bite of his pie. “Mm. This is really good.”

  “Jazzy is an excellent baker. I met her on my first visit to Burlington. She made our wedding cake.” Molly took a bite of her own pie and savored the flavor in her mouth. It reminded her of the best pecan pies she’d ever had in North Carolina, perfectly sweet and nutty, with just a hint of bourbon in its gooey filling. “Maxim, did you blame your father for your mother’s death?”

  Maxim took a drink of his coffee. When he set the mug down on the table, he said in a quiet voice, “You know what, Molly? I haven’t given it much thought. But I suppose if I’m going to be honest with myself, I have to say there is a part of me that blames him, because it was such a stupid accident. I don’t understand why he’d let her go for a moonlight swim in the first place. It seems like a dumb idea, don’t you think?” His eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I miss my mother, and I hate the way she died. It’s so unfair. It’s like she could never get a break. Not from her parents, or my father. Even at the end of her life, she died a horrible death.”

  “I know, and I’m so sorry.” Molly didn’t know what else to say. She drank her coffee and ate her pie, giving Maxim time to compose himself. When he seemed ready to talk again, she said, “I’ll be honest with you, my brief meeting with your father didn’t endear him to me. Was he always so, well, crabby?”

  “He was a difficult man,” Maxim said. “A real curmudgeon, if ever there was one. He enjoyed stirring the pot, upsetting people, pushing their buttons. I remember one time, when I was a kid, I heard him arguing with my mother in the kitchen. I came into the room, behind her, so she didn’t see me standing there, but Dad did. He looked at me and winked, like he was saying, Isn’t this fun, the way I’m tormenting your mother? It made me sick.”

  “Why do you think she stayed with him?”

  “Kurt thinks they had a codependent relationship, and they were both guilty of feeding off each other.”

  “He could be right,” Molly said. “It does happen, especially in long-term relationships. People are unhappy, miserable even, but they adjust, and make excuses.”

  “Kurt knows something about it because he had a bad experience in a previous relationship, long before he met me. He says he learned a lesson from it.”

  “Sometimes that’s all we can do, learn the lesson, move forward, and try not to repeat it,” Molly said. “But what do you have to say about it? Why do you think your mother stayed?”

  “I could be wrong, but I think she stayed because she didn’t want to prove her parents were right about my father. My mother was a proud, stubborn woman. She wouldn’t want to admit he couldn’t make her happy, that she’d made a mistake marrying him. It would give them a win.”

  “Were you close to your parents?”

  “I was close to my mother,” he said. “Dad and I got along as long as I agreed with everything he said and did things his way. When I left for college, I never looked back. My mother would visit me in Boston, but Dad stayed home. I think he felt the same way about me. The less we saw of each other, the better. He used the shop as an excuse not to visit me.” Fresh tears appeared, and he wiped them away with a napkin. “Sorry about that. Now that they’re both gone, I wish I had spent more time with them. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “No, it’s not crazy at all.” Molly took another bite of pie and sipped her coffee. “Meeting here for coffee . . . was there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes, actually, there is,” he said. “It’s something I promised my mother I would never tell a soul, and it’s not easy for me to break that promise, but if the police find out, they might think it has something to do with my father’s death. I don’t think it does, or maybe I should say, I don’t want to believe it does. Anyway, I don’t know what to do. Whether I should tell you or not.”

  Molly finished her pie and set her fork down. “It sounds very mysterious. But whatever it is, I can’t promise you that I won’t tell Lombardi. I will if I think it’s relevant to the case. So, it’s up to you. T
ell me, or don’t tell me, but don’t expect me to keep it a secret, too.”

  “Well . . .” Maxim hesitated. Molly waited. He was struggling, trying to decide if he should tell her, and she didn’t want to push him. He’d have to make up his own mind. When he spoke again, he talked fast, as if he was trying to get it all out as quickly as possible. “Okay, so last summer, my mother took an antique from the Gordon Collection without Aunt Natasha’s permission, and she enlisted Felix’s help to find a buyer for it on the dark web. You know what the dark web is?” Before Molly could answer, he kept going. “It’s where users can hide behind encrypted messages, and sometimes deals are made that people want to keep secret, like the one my mother was trying to make happen. She took a Fabergé egg, a family heirloom, and was going to sell it. Of course, in her mind she thought it belonged to her as much as it did to Aunt Natasha, but it’s very precious. It was a gift to my great-grandmother from the Empress Alexandra.”

  Molly held up her hands. “Take a breath,” she said. In fact, she needed to take one, too. This was a major bombshell he’d just dropped in her lap. “Let me get this straight. Your mother took a Fabergé egg from your family’s art collection, an egg that the Empress Alexandra, as in Tsar Nicholas’s wife, of Russia, gave to her, and then she sold it without Natasha’s permission?”

  “More or less, yes,” he said.

  “How did your great-grandmother end up with it?”

  “Her name was Dariya Petrov, and she was a personal maid to the empress. She was with the Romanov family when they traveled to Tobolsk, in the Urals, in August of 1917.”

  “While the revolution was going on?”

  He nodded. “By October, the Bolsheviks had seized power, and their provisions ran low. By March of 1918, the tsar had to let go of ten of their servants, and my great-grandmother was one of them. According to the story that’s been handed down, the Empress Alexandra gave her several pieces of her jewelry, and the Fabergé egg, to thank her for her loyal service. Dariya went home to St. Petersburg, and married my great-grandfather, Motya Gorev. They sold one of the jewels to buy their way out of Russia and start a new life in America. When they got here, they changed their last name to Gordon, and in 1920 they bought Misty Vale.”

  “I don’t remember seeing a Fabergé egg at the museum.”

  “The egg has never been displayed, because it’s a family secret that we have it. I found out about it when I was seventeen, when my mother felt I was old enough to understand the importance of keeping quiet.”

  “Why did your family keep it a secret? People would love to see one of the lost Fabergé eggs. It should be in a museum, like the Gordon Museum. Was Natasha worried about security? Or did you all think your great-grandmother’s story wasn’t true, and she might have stolen the egg from the empress?”

  “Again, the story handed down to us was that great-grandmother didn’t want the Soviets to get hold of it, so she kept it locked in a safe. When she died, it went to my grandfather, and he kept up the tradition of secrecy, and Aunt Natasha did the same.”

  Molly couldn’t believe they were having a conversation about a Fabergé egg that had once belonged to Tsar Nicholas and the Empress Alexandra. This was the last thing she’d expected to hear when she’d agreed to meet him for coffee.

  “The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,” she said. “Why not make it public then?”

  “According to my mother, her father was worried if the Romanovs’ descendants found out that we had it, they’d demand its return. Aunt Natasha’s just as paranoid.”

  “So what if they found out? It would be hard to prove it wasn’t given to your great-grandmother as a gift, especially if there are records that show she worked for the tsar and his wife. I think it’s a shame something with such historical value has been locked away out of sight for so long.”

  “I agree. It’s exquisite, and it should be in a museum, where people can see it. But that’s not what the family decided, and I’m part of that family and swore to keep it a secret.”

  “Have you seen the egg?”

  “Yes, my mother showed it to me. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen photos of the Fabergé eggs made for the tsar, or read about them, but they have little surprises inside, and this one has a tiny gold dog with a collar of rubies and diamonds around its neck.”

  “Did Felix find a buyer?”

  “Yes, a private collector who asked to meet my mother in person, in Florida, that’s why she was there. My parents rented an Airbnb in Cocoa Beach. She had to bring proof of her lineage, as well as photographs of the egg, which Felix took. Dad went with her, but the buyer would only meet with my mother. When she got back from the meeting, she told Dad it went well, and the buyer was going to make arrangements for his own appraiser to examine the egg to confirm its authenticity. If it checked out, she’d get paid, and the exchange would be made.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Six million dollars,” he said. Molly felt her eyebrows shoot up. “It’s a bargain at that price. In 2002, the Winter Egg sold at auction at Christie’s for nine-point-six million dollars, and that egg was an Easter gift to Tsarina Maria Feodorovna from Tsar Nicholas the Second in 1913. At the time, it was the most expensive egg ever made by Fabergé.”

  “Why sell it on the dark web? She could have gotten more for it at auction.”

  “Yes, of course. But she couldn’t do that without Aunt Natasha’s finding out she’d taken it.”

  Molly set her mug down on the table. Her mind was racing. Maxim might not think the egg had anything to do with his father’s death, but it was practically screaming at her as the biggest motive of all.

  He said, “So what do you think? Would this be of interest to the police? Or will they think it’s nothing more than a family matter?”

  “You haven’t told me if the sale went through. Did it?”

  Maxim shifted on his chair. He was nervous, talking to her about his family’s secrets. He looked around the shop, and when he turned back to Molly, his eyes were worried. “A couple of days after my mother died, the buyer got in touch with Felix to set things up for the appraisal. When he told him about her death, he cut off all communication. By that time, Aunt Natasha realized Mom had taken the egg. When my father got home from Florida, she demanded that he return it.” He paused. “The problem is, he couldn’t give it back, because the egg is missing.”

  Molly sat back in her chair. “What? How can it be missing?”

  “My mother hid it somewhere in the cottage, a place only she knew about, and now no one can find it. As soon as my father got home from Florida, even before the funeral, he was looking for it. Aunt Natasha joined him, and Hattie, and he got me involved when I came home a few weeks ago. I didn’t know anything about this scheme to sell the egg until Dad told me about his troubles with the shop.”

  “On the phone call he made to you with Hattie in the room?” He nodded. “Did she already know?”

  “He told us together.” He paused. “At least, I think he did. She sounded surprised, but who knows? I couldn’t see them, we were on the phone. Anyway, Dad told me it was my mother’s idea to sell the egg and use the money from the sale to pay off all the debts and save Rarus Books.”

  Maxim was still talking fast. Molly had to concentrate to take it all in. “Was anyone else getting paid?”

  “Felix, of course, for helping them. I don’t know if there was anyone else. I never asked.”

  “What about Hattie?” He shrugged. “She didn’t say a word to me about the egg when I interviewed her.”

  “She wouldn’t, because my father made us both swear not to tell anyone. As if I needed reminding.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I can’t get the thought out of my head that maybe the buyer came to Vermont to talk to my father about it in person, because they didn’t believe the egg was lost, and when he wouldn’t give it to them, they killed him.”

  Molly was skeptical. “Why wouldn’t they believe him? He nee
ded the money.”

  “I don’t know.” He blew out his breath and ran his hands through his hair. It stuck up straight, like a duck’s quills. “Maybe they thought he was going to sell it to someone else and they got angry.” He looked at her. “What do you think? Could the egg be connected to his death?”

  “The egg is worth a lot of money, and whoever this mysterious buyer is, they made a substantial offer to buy it.” She paused a moment, organizing her thoughts. “Unless, of course, they never had any intention of actually buying the egg, but planned all along to kill for it. Are you absolutely sure your father didn’t find the egg before he died?”

  Maxim ran his hands over his face. “God, I’m not sure of anything right now. But I like to think if he had, he would have told me.”

  “Because if he did find it, it would be a game changer, and the reason he was killed,” Molly said. “He might have tried to sell it on his own, either to the buyer your mother met with or someone else, and in the process got mixed up with some dangerous people.”

  Maxim’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, man. This just gets worse and worse. But I don’t see how my father could do it alone. The original buyer had cut off all communication, and he had rudimentary computer skills.”

  “Are you sure? He was playing online poker.”

  “It’s not that complicated,” he said. “Navigating the dark web would intimidate him.”

  “What about Hattie?”

  He stared at her. “Yeah, she could do it. Before she came back to Vermont, she worked for a tech company in Connecticut. But if Dad did find the egg, why wouldn’t he tell me?”

  “Maybe he was afraid you’d tell Natasha.”