by Cathy Ace
“Nothing simple,” said Svetlana.
Art and Carl agreed.
Ian raised his hand. I smiled. “Yes, Ian?”
“So, let me get this straight . . . Miss Shirley planned to annoy the security company, Tanya killed her and tried to set me up, then Tanya killed Jack because she thought he might be Miss Shirley’s son, then Julie killed Tanya, then Julie killed herself. Is that right?”
I nodded.
“Wow,” was all Ian could manage. Then he added, “So Clemence lying over there nearly dead is just, what, collateral damage?”
“Sadly, yes,” I replied, looking over at the poor man, who was still breathing, at least.
“I still can’t believe it of Tanya,” said Tom, but with much less venom than before.
“No one alive here is killer?” asked Svetlana.
“No, there is no killer in the room. You’re safe,” replied Jimmy.
It was as though a weight lifted from each pair of shoulders in the room. Every face bore a thoughtful expression.
“What about the missing golden egg?” asked Carl. “How does that fit in?”
I smiled. “It doesn’t.”
“But it must. It’s gone,” he replied.
“You’re right,” I agreed, “but before I address that, I’d just like to get myself a glass of water.” Bud moved as though to get one for me. “Thanks, Bud, but I’d rather get it myself. I haven’t ventured back there yet, and you know how much I like to get behind a good bar.”
I walked around the end of the bar, turned on the tap, and let the water run. Feigning surprise, I picked up the priceless golden egg that lay at my feet, held it aloft, and said, “Oh, look—here’s the egg! I wonder who searched back here and couldn’t find it. It must have been flung across the room during the fight. Anyway, it’s not damaged, so I’ll just put it here on the counter with all these purses. No harm done.” I drank my water, then walked to the dessert table, where I kicked the end of the silver cake slicer that was poking out from beneath the tablecloth. “Oh dear, look, this has fallen on the floor. This shouldn’t be used again. It’s been on the carpet very close to where Jimmy fell earlier on, so there might be little pieces of glass on it. I’ll put it back on the table, but don’t use it.”
I hoped that I managed to be so casual about my discoveries that no one would catch on to what I was up to. The next comment to be uttered suggested I had been successful.
“Why would anyone use it?” asked Ian. “There’s nothing left to eat. Besides, with the stench in here, who’d want to?”
I threw Jimmy a meaningful glance as I said, “Jimmy, given your earlier comments, and Svetlana’s obvious lack of terror now, it might be a good time for you two to have a little chat?”
Both Jimmy’s and Svetlana’s expressions brightened, and he turned toward Svetlana, looking apprehensive. The Diva’s expression suggested he’d receive an agreeable welcome. Art, Carl, and Ian looked somewhat embarrassed. Tom was still in a world of his own, and Bud was looking rather surprised.
“I’ll come with you for moral support,” I said brightly, and I all but pushed Jimmy across the room. When we arrived at Svetlana’s side, I crouched to speak to her as quietly as possible, and motioned that Jimmy should bend in too.
“Svetlana, I know you took Miss Shirley’s glittering red purse—twice—and I know you lifted the egg when no one was looking. It might be only a ‘little one,’ but it’s worth a fortune. And I know you nabbed the cake slicer too. ‘No more La Gazza Ladra,’ that’s what you said to Svetlana, right, Jimmy?”
Jimmy nodded. His eyes betrayed his anxiety.
“I know that the translation of the title is The Silken Ladder, but as I mentioned I also know the alternative name for that opera. It’s The Thieving Magpie, isn’t it?” I knew I was right.
Again Jimmy nodded. This time his entire demeanor expressed defeat.
I pressed on. “Luckily for me, my sister, the opera buff, has mentioned that to me in the past, so I was finally able to make sense of your reference. Svetlana, I do realize that kleptomania is a very real condition. It’s not something you can always control. I daresay in your specific case, it’s driven by your challenging upbringing and further fueled by your love of pretty things, both of which are deeply ingrained as part of how you judge your self-worth. You need to get treatment, Svetlana. Soon. Now. A reputation is a very valuable, and fragile, thing. Rumors can run through a place like this very quickly. Jimmy, you might not be prepared to be Svetlana’s assistant anymore, but will you help her with this, at least?”
Jimmy nodded eagerly. “Of course I will. Even if she doesn’t want my affection, she’ll always have my loyalty. And thank you, thank you so much for giving me that little heads up before. It gave me a chance to drop the cake slicer when I ‘fell,’ and to hide the egg behind the bar. No one need know, right?”
“They won’t know from me,” I replied. “But this needs to be addressed, by a professional. It won’t just go away or stop. You understand that, Svetlana, right?”
Svetlana Kharlamova, world-renowned diva and an undoubted thief, pursed her mouth like a pouting child, dropped her eyes, and slowly nodded her agreement.
“Thank you,” she said. I didn’t get the idea she said it that often. “You very kind. Jimmy very kind. Miss Shirley very kind. She know. She not speak. I not bad. I work with doctor, I promise. Jimmy helps. Jimmy very good man. Very handsome man.” She looked up at Jimmy and smiled an almost girlish smile. “We talk alone now?” she said to me.
I stood upright, groaning. “Yes, you talk alone now,” I said as I walked away. I wondered if they would make a go of it.
Returning to the remainder of our group, which now consisted of just Carl, Art, Ian, Tom, and Bud, I said, “They should be here soon. How do you think we should play this? Do you want to explain it all to the cops, Bud, or do you want me to do it?”
“I’m happy to make the introductions, but I think it should fall to you to explain the details, Cait, and I’ll back you up,” said Bud.
The men nodded their agreement.
“Hell of a night,” Art said, then added, “though it’s the afternoon now. I don’t even know what day it is. I’m going to sleep for a week after this.”
“You’re not wrong,” said Ian. “I should have been on duty downstairs in Babushka Bar at ten this morning. Could you square it so I get a couple of shifts off?” he asked Art.
“Sure,” replied both Art and Carl.
“How are you doing, Tom?” asked Bud, his arm draped across Tom’s shoulders. “Alright?”
Tom looked dazed. “No, not alright. Totally and utterly not alright. I know that what you said makes a sort of sense, Cait, in that it’s a logical explanation of all the facts. But I didn’t think Tanya had it in her. To kill. Nor Julie, for that matter. I must be a terrible judge of character, I guess. Mom says I’m only good with ingredients, not people. I guess she’s right. I just can’t—”
Bud hugged Tom. “Hey, come on. Don’t beat yourself up about it. We all make mistakes about people. It’s easily done.”
“So who do you think gets Miss Shirley’s shares?” asked Carl. “I guess it’ll be me, with Tanya and Jack out of the way.”
“Oh, don’t be too quick to think that,” replied Art.
“Why not?” asked Carl.
I smiled. “I think Art’s referring to the fact that we might have all been very wrong to think that Jack Bullock was Miss Shirley’s son. Yes, I’m convinced that Tanya’s father was one of her sons, but who’s to say who the other boy became? The way Miss Shirley treated Jack Bullock might just have been one of the things she did out of the kindness of her heart. I suspect she helped people along as some sort of overcompensation for having given up her babies, but we don’t know that Jack was her son. Tanya’s father’s twin could be living any sort of life anywhere in the world. We don’t know. Maybe Miss Shirley put some information in that letter she mentioned.”
“But ther
e was no letter,” said Carl sharply.
“How do we know there’s no letter?” I asked.
“Because Miss Shirley never gave a letter to Julie Pool,” snapped Carl.
By way of a response to Carl’s point, I asked Art, “Who’s your lawyer?”
Art looked puzzled. “I don’t know how that’s got anything to do with all this, but Julius Feldblum in Saint Petersburg is my guy. In Florida, not Russia, of course. He’s Stephen Feldblum’s brother. Heck of a family that one. Four brothers—an accountant, a lawyer, and two doctors. Their mother was one proud woman. Why?”
“Julie Pool thought that Miss Shirley would have given her that letter, and I think everyone agreed with that assumption. But Julie was employed by the Tsar! Organization, not Miss Shirley directly. It’s more than possible that Miss Shirley had her own lawyer, to whom she would have entrusted the letter.”
“I don’t understand. Why did Miss Shirley go through her will with Julie and not her own lawyer if she had one?” asked Carl.
I smiled. “It strikes me, from what I’ve learned about her, that Miss Shirley knew the true value of a dollar. Why pay for expensive external help by the hour when you already have people who can do the job on salary?”
Art grinned. “Just like Miss Shirley. She’d pay for a guy to hold on to a letter for her, but use the free legal help at her disposal whenever she could. Ian being on call as a barman at her house? She might have met him when she hired in outside help, but once he was on salary here, he was free to her. Same with this restaurant. Saved her a mint on catering at her home. Yep, certainly knew the value of a dollar,” mused Art.
Bud had left Tom’s side and was next to me. “I’ve checked on Clemence, and he seems stable. I’m taking comfort from the fact that I know paramedics have saved people who’ve slipped into a coma like this and been that way in their home for a day or so before being discovered. Let’s hope they can do the same for him.”
I nodded. “How’s Tom?”
“It’s going to take some time for him to get over all of this.” He looked around, then whispered, “What on earth was all that stuff about the egg? You’re a hopeless liar, Cait Morgan.”
“I’ll tell you when we’re alone, but for now just let it go? No need to make a big deal of it when we’re running through the case with the police, okay?”
Bud was just about to answer when a sound like a jet engine came from the ceiling above us.
“It’s the air-conditioning!” called Ian, closing his eyes with relief.
“Won’t be long now,” said Carl with the excitement of a small child.
“Thank heavens,” said Bud. “We’re nearly done.”
It Ain’t Over Till . . .
AN INSTANT AFTER THE AIR-CONDITIONING kicked in, a woman’s voice began to sing over the loudspeaker system.
Svetlana beamed. “Is me,” she said. “I have very good voice. Is short piece for encores. ‘O Mio Babbino Caro.’ From Gianni Schicchi. Puccini. People think is from Madame Butterfly. Is not.”
I knew the tune well, and my sister had talked to me about that particular opera years ago, when she’d first heard it. “That’s the opera with all the fuss about a will, right?” I asked.
Svetlana nodded absently. “Is beautiful aria. Very good for me.”
“An aria entitled ‘Oh My Beloved Father,’ from an opera about a contested inheritance? Very apt,” I observed.
A loud metallic shudder signaled that the collar surrounding the elevator was about to move. I was very grateful. Bud and I had been up and about for twenty-six straight hours, and I was beginning to flag.
As soon as the aria finished, Art led a little round of applause, nodding at the Diva, who allowed herself a gracious smile.
Jimmy clasped her hand to his chest. “Magnificent, Madame,” he said.
The Diva looked at him with real tenderness in her eyes. “Please. I Svetlana for you now. I Svetlana for my Jimmy forever, I think.” She nuzzled against him. It was a sight that gave me pause. Love is a very strange, powerful emotion, as is the need to not be alone.
As our applause died away and we watched the painfully slow progress of the metal cylinder as it rose, Bud grabbed my hand and said, “You never asked me why I brought my good suit to Vegas.”
For once, I didn’t quite know what to say. “It’s a very nice suit, and I assumed we’d be celebrating your birthday somewhere fancy,” I replied weakly. “Though I think a trip to the dry cleaner’s might be in order after all of this.”
He smiled. “You’re right. I look far from my best. Though I guess we could all do with a wash and brushup. But I don’t think that’s going to happen right away. Of course, our first priority is to see that Clemence gets the treatment he so badly needs, as soon as possible. And then? I guess it’ll be quite some time before the cops are done with all of us, though if you tell them what you’ve told us, I think things might go a little faster.”
We all nodded our agreement.
“So that means I have to do this now.” Bud rose from his seat, then dropped to one knee in front of me, taking my hands in his. Svetlana gushed, everyone smiled. My eyes began to fill up with tears. We all knew what was happening.
Bud looked serious as he spoke. “Just over a year ago I asked you to marry me, Cait Morgan, and you said no.”
“It was one year, two weeks, and three days ago, to be precise,” I said. “Not that I’ve been counting. I just happen to remember, that’s all.” I couldn’t help but grin as I spoke.
“Well, it’s been a very unusual one year, two weeks, and three days, Professor Morgan, and I’ve enjoyed every moment we’ve shared. Even those when our lives have been in danger, or we’ve been trying to save the lives of others. I have respected your wishes to wait for a year. I love you, Cait Morgan. Will you marry me? I haven’t chosen a ring, I know you’d want to do that yourself, with me”—he knows me so well—“but I want you to marry me, Cait. Now. Here in Vegas. As soon as we’re done with the cops. We can get refreshed and run off to one of those little chapels they have all over the place.”
“No,” shouted Art excitedly. “Do it here, in the Tsar! wedding chapel, on us. We’ll all come. We can be your witnesses. Maybe Madame Kharlamova will even sing for you . . .”
“Yes, yes, I sing at wedding,” Svetlana clapped her hands like a happy child.
I didn’t respond to anyone but Bud. He deserved that much.
I looked into the eyes of the man I’d first respected, and now loved. “Oh, my darling Bud, yes, I will marry you. But not here in Vegas. Not now. Could we wait a little? Please?”
Bud looked delighted, then crestfallen. “Oh, I’m so pleased, Cait. But why wait? There’s no one back in Canada we really want to be with us, right? We could be married by the time we fly back—” He paused. “I wonder if we’ll make our flight in the morning? That hadn’t occurred to me—oh well, we’ll just have to get home some way. So that’s even better, we could honeymoon here. Please, Cait?”
I squeezed his hands. “Bud, there’s nothing I want more than to be your wife.” I managed to stop myself saying ‘Mrs. Anderson,’ though I couldn’t help but think of the late, lamented Jan. “But I promised my sister, Siân, she could be at my wedding. With Mum and Dad gone, she’s the only family I have. We both thought it would never happen, but she’s been on at me for months to let her be with us when we marry.”
In the now-silent room, I could almost hear Bud smile. “Pretty confident I was going to ask you, eh?”
I nodded, a tear beginning to slide down my cheek. “It’s what I’ve been hoping for.”
“Your sister means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
I nodded.
“Right then, but she’ll have to come to Canada from Australia—we’re not going there. Maybe we will one day, but not for our wedding. And I don’t want to wait forever, either.” He smiled. “As soon as possible, please?”
I nodded. “How about Wales, between Christmas and New Year?
”
“Wales?”
I nodded. “If we go east and Siân goes west, it’s sort of halfway . . . There’s a wonderful place I know and love just outside Swansea. A fantasy building on a spur of land that juts into the sea. It’s wild and magnificent. I believe they rent it out for weddings . . .”
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” Bud grinned.
“Just a bit.” I indulged in what I trusted was an impish grin. “I’ve never thought of myself as a romantic, but it would be a wonderful place to get married.”
“Tell you what, you two,” piped up Art. “If we can’t host your wedding, I insist you have the ring on us—there’s a great jewelry store downstairs. We’ll move you to a suite until we fly you back to Vancouver on the Tsar! jet, whenever works for you.”
Bud looked at me but spoke to Art. “Thanks, Art. We’ll take you up on all of that, and I will take this woman to Wales to marry her. Three months, Cait Morgan. Right?”
“Yes, Bud Anderson,” I replied, every fiber of my body tingling. “Three months.”
I hardly noticed the first cop emerge from the elevator. The man I loved had proposed to me. I felt as light as air, and I knew the adventure of our life together was just beginning.
Bud held me and kissed me. After that delight, I felt my face crease into a broad grin, and I hummed the wedding march from Wagner’s Lohengrin to myself.
WATCH FOR CAIT MORGAN’S
NEXT MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE, IN
The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes.
Un (1)
GENERALLY SPEAKING, I BELIEVE THAT when life gives you lemons, you should make yourself a large gin and tonic. Or a lemon mousse. Okay, preferably both.
However, there didn’t seem to be a silver lining to the apocalyptic weather system that had turned the cliff-top castle in Wales where I was due to marry Bud Anderson in two days’ time into a creepy and uncomfortable place to be. Gale-force winds had quickly blown away all my romantic notions about Gothic Revival architecture.