Murder Go Round

by Carol J. Perry

  I turned toward her and was met with a blank expression, a virtual thousand-yard stare. It was as though she hadn’t the slightest idea who I was. Clearly, there’d be no more interviewing today. I decided I might as well fill out my index cards with what information I’d gathered and headed for the coffee shop on the corner of Essex Street.

  I picked one of the smallest corner booths, bought a small coffee, reluctantly passed on the cinnamon doughnut and pulled the notebook, pen and index cards from my purse. Notebook first. I’d scribble down everything I could remember, then sort it all out later and put it neatly onto the cards.

  I began to write:

  Stasia knew my name. I should have asked her how. It was probably because of the TV show. She knew I was a teacher too. Or did she? Maybe she really saw that in my palm. She’s sticking to the Grand Duchess routine.

  I paused, thinking about what I’d learned. Her grandparents came here from Russia in 1915. Her grandfather had been a carpenter in the court of Czar Nicholas II. Her grandmother Lydia apparently suffered from dementia of some kind and didn’t remember where she put things. She barely acknowledged that she knew Colleen. Admitted that she’d lived “somewhere in Colorado,” but dodged the question of where. Says she’s not a “trusting person.”

  I chewed on the end of my pen for a moment, then wrote:

  Is she the bubblegum-blowing crazy lady who reads palms on the Common, or is the whole thing a big act? Is Stasia an intelligent woman disguised as an eccentric Salem character? If so, why?

  I wondered if Pete had found out anything about her that he could share. I reached for my phone and turned it back on. There was a voice mail from Pete.

  “You busy? Call me when you get a chance. I’ve got some artist’s sketches of those two characters that grabbed your stuff from Goodwill.”

  That was something I was anxious to see. He answered on the first ring. “Hi, Lee. Where are you now? Home?”

  “Nope. I’m in the coffee shop on the corner of Essex Street. You’ve got sketches, huh? Any ID?”

  “Not yet. I’d like you to take a look though. Maybe you’ve seen them somewhere, or even if you haven’t, I’ll feel better if you know who we’re dealing with. Will you be there for a few minutes? I can run over there with them.”

  “I’ll be here. I was just getting my palm read, over on the Common.”

  “Stasia?”

  “Uh-huh. I was practicing my interviewing skills while she told me my future.”

  “Learn anything interesting?”

  “About me? Or Stasia?”

  “Either one.”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. I’m making notes now.”

  For the next few minutes I read and re-read my notes, and at the same time looked back and forth, watching the door of the coffee shop, waiting for Pete to appear. It didn’t take him long. He spotted me right away and slid into the narrow booth, putting a large manila envelope on the table.

  “Here they are. I’ve already run it by the Goodwill people. They’re all satisfied that these are good likenesses of the men they saw. Ready to take a look?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Slowly he withdrew the first sketch from the envelope and laid it face up on the table. “How about this guy? Know him?”

  I took my time. This was important, I knew. The man had a neatly trimmed beard. His hair was brown and so were his eyes. His complexion was what I’d call olive; his eyebrows were on the bushy side. He didn’t look one bit familiar. “Sorry,” I said. “Maybe if he didn’t have the beard . . .”

  “Never mind,” Pete said, slipping the drawing back into the envelope and taking out the next sheet. “How about this one?”

  I recognized the blond man right away. The artist had even drawn him wearing a black turtleneck, just like the one he’d worn when Aunt Ibby and I saw him at the storage locker auction.

  I pointed. “This one. I recognize this one. He was at the storage locker auction.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. He stood off to the side by himself. He didn’t bid on anything while we were there. Lucky said he goes to all the auctions and never buys a thing.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Just a man Aunt Ibby and I met at the auction. He goes to all of them and he said that one”—I tapped the picture—“is a regular at auctions, but never bids on anything. He said the same thing about Stasia, come to think of it. I’d better write that down.” I reached for my notebook.

  Pete put his hand over mine. “Write it down later. What else can you tell me about this guy? What was he wearing? Did you see him talking to anyone else? How can I get in touch with Lucky?”

  I scribbled, S. No bid, so I wouldn’t forget, and started to answer Pete’s questions. I ticked them off on my fingers. “When I saw the blond man, he was all dressed in black. Black turtleneck, black jeans, black Nike sneakers. I didn’t see him speak to anyone else. He stood by himself. Apart from the crowd.”

  “You sure he wasn’t with Stasia?”

  “He could have been with her, I suppose, but he wasn’t standing near her, looking at her or speaking to her. Not that I saw.”

  “Okay. How about Lucky? Tell me about him.”

  “We call him Lucky because he was wearing a T-shirt with that word on it. But a woman there called him Lucky, so maybe that’s really his nickname.” I knew I wasn’t being much help. “He told us a story about somebody who won a storage locker and found a corpse in a barrel inside it. Lucky said a man had murdered his wife and put her body in a barrel. It was discovered when the second wife didn’t pay the locker rent.”

  “Probably true,” Pete said. “I’ve heard of similar things happening more than once. Anything else?”

  More than once? That’s weird.

  I thought about the auction, trying to remember our brief conversation with Lucky.

  I snapped my fingers. “Hey. This might mean something. Lucky said that he hears about the locker auctions through ads and by e-mails from the auctioneer. Maybe the blond man is on the auctioneer’s e-mail list too.”

  “Good one, Lee.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Did I ever tell you you’d make a good cop? Thanks. Gotta go. Call you later.”

  Whoosh! He was gone. I grabbed a refill and got back to work on my notes:

  Stasia didn’t bid on anything. Was she in the habit of traveling around to storage locker auctions? Or just Salem auctions?

  I looked over my notes carefully. Had I missed something? I should have recorded it. I tried to play the conversation with Stasia back in my head, but nothing new emerged. With the notebook and pen back in my purse, the rubber band secured around the still-blank index cards, I started for home.

  I walked down Oliver Street, which runs past our backyard, and pushed open the gate. I peeked in the garage window and noticed that the Buick was missing. Monthly library board meeting, no doubt. I hurried along the garden path to where O’Ryan waited for me on the back steps.

  I unlocked the back door and together we hurried up the two flights. As soon as I’d entered the living room, I could tell that O’Ryan had been busy. Once again the Statue of Liberty pencil sharpener was on the floor—in the middle of the room this time, and beside it was the little bronzed skier. That one was a souvenir of a ski trip Johnny and I had taken to Vail. Vail, Colorado.

  Stasia once lived somewhere in Colorado.

  O’Ryan hopped up onto the zebra-striped chair and sat, watching me. I tossed my purse onto the couch and picked the pencil sharpeners up, holding one in each palm, balancing the two. “What do they mean, cat? What are you trying to tell me?”

  He shook his big, fuzzy head from side to side, almost as though he couldn’t believe anyone could be so obtuse, then jumped down from the chair and headed down the hall toward the kitchen. I put the pencil sharpeners back on top of the bookcase, then followed the cat. I wasn’t too surprised when he walked right through the kitchen and trotted straight into the bedroom. N
o doubt I was in for another mirror-gazing session.

  O’Ryan jumped onto the bed, turned around once, sat facing the mirror and looked at me. “Okay, cat. I get it.” I gave him a gentle shove. “Move over.” Together we faced the glass. The pinpoints of light, and then the swirling colors appeared. I wondered if he could see them too. I didn’t feel the anxiety that usually accompanies the beginning of a vision. Maybe I was getting used to this strange “gift.”

  Once again, I was on the deck of a ship. Six men, with their backs to me, looked across the water to where, in the distance, Lady Liberty lifted her welcoming torch.

  “Yes, I’ve seen this one before,” I told the cat, much as though I was discussing the rerun of a TV show. “Aunt Ibby and I figured out that it’s Nikita Novikova coming to America in 1915.”

  The man who’d smiled at me before turned and smiled again.

  Hello, Nikita.

  Then, turning slowly, one of the other men did the same.

  The murdered baker from Connecticut came to America in 1915 too.

  “Are you the baker?” I asked aloud.

  The man tipped his hat, then faced the sea again.

  The vision faded away. O’Ryan, circling behind me, jumped down from the bed and went back to the kitchen, leaving me wondering what I was supposed to learn from the rerun shipboard scene.

  Not exactly a rerun.

  So maybe Stasia’s grandfather and the murdered baker had arrived in America on the same ship, on the same day. Who were the other four men? Were they people I needed to know about too?

  At that moment I remembered something else Stasia had said. Something I hadn’t written in the notebook.

  “My grandfather had the same five friends his whole life.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I knew then what we had to do and I could hardly wait for Aunt Ibby to get home from her library board meeting to help me get started. First we’d check vessels coming to Ellis Island from Russia during 1915. Next we’d check passenger lists. Find the Novikovas and the baker on the same ship. I had no idea how to go about doing that, but I was sure my tech-savvy aunt would have all the tools to get it done. According to my most recent vision, Grandpa Nick’s five friends were important too. If they were all on board the same ship, and they’d been friends for his whole life, it’s quite likely that they all came from the same place in Russia. Would my aunt be able to figure that out too? I had every confidence that she could.

  The cuckoo announced eleven o’clock. If Aunt Ibby’s meeting was of the usual duration, it would be over by now. Hoping she wouldn’t elect to stay and help check out books, I hurried back to the living room, retrieved my purse and once again spread my growing collection of index cards on the kitchen counter. The cat resumed his draft-protecting role on the windowsill, eyes half closed.

  Consulting my notebook, I began to fill in some fresh cards with the information I’d gleaned from my not-so-professional interview with Stasia, along with the conclusion I’d begun to draw from the morning’s new mirror vision.

  Abbreviating my notes, I filled out a few fresh cards. Maybe I’d learned more than I’d originally thought from Stasia. I added a question about Grandpa Nick and his five friends: Did all six men work in the court of Czar Nicholas II?

  I thought about the pencil sharpeners and added another card: Colorado is connected to the people arriving in New York. (O’Ryan thinks so.)

  I replaced the rubber band and looked with some satisfaction at the growing stack. I smiled at the cat. It was all beginning to make some sense. Not a great deal of sense to be sure, but some.

  Now, if my aunt will just hurry up and get home, we can start connecting the dots.

  Cuckoo announced eleven-thirty. As though on cue, O’Ryan jumped from his perch and raced down the hall toward the living room. I heard the small clicking noise the cat door makes when he’s in a hurry. Good. That meant she must be home.

  I followed the cat and by the time I’d reached the first-floor back hall, I heard the garage door closing. O’Ryan was already outside. I unlocked the door and joined him on the brick steps. Aunt Ibby pushed open the garden gate and waved to us. “What’s this? A reception committee?”

  “It is,” I said. “We could hardly wait for you to get here. I have so much to tell you.”

  “I have exciting news too,” she said, joining us on the back steps. “Let’s get inside and compare notes.”

  “Perfect. I have real notes to compare. You’ll be proud of me. They’re all neatly written on index cards.” I followed her into the hall and stood aside, waiting for her to fish the keys out of her purse and to unlock the kitchen door.

  “Such efficiency,” she said, “and I’m always proud of you.” She tapped her forehead. “My notes are still up here.” O’Ryan, my aunt and I stepped into the warm, cozy room. It smelled of gingerbread.

  “My cards are upstairs,” I said. “I’ll run up and get them.”

  “Good. I’ll change out of my librarian clothes and meet you back here in a jiffy.”

  I guess a “jiffy” in our house is something like Tabitha Trumbull’s a “pinch” or a “dab.” In this case it was time enough for me to swap the too-warm sweatshirt and the too-fancy boots for a Bruins T-shirt and sneakers, to grab the index cards and hurry back downstairs. Aunt Ibby, in flowered cotton, waited at the round oak table. I’m used to seeing surprises on that table—usually of the edible variety, but this time the surprise was unexpected. In the center of the table was the samovar, in all its gleaming glory. It was displayed on my great-grandmother Forbes’s huge sterling-silver serving tray and flanked by Grandmother Russell’s best antique Gorham coin silver sugar bowl and creamer.

  “Wow!” I said. “Are we expecting the royal family for tea?” I sat opposite her, trying to peek over and around the glitzy display.

  “Not exactly,” she said, beaming. “But doesn’t it look impressive?”

  “Sure does. I guess this has something to do with your exciting news?”

  “I could hardly wait to get home to tell you about it. I’ve come up with a grand idea for funding the bookmobile, and this morning the board approved it!”

  For years Aunt Ibby’s been part of every fund-raising effort for a special bookmobile to serve the children of Salem’s low-income neighborhoods. Apparently, her new big idea involved our family-heirloom silver—and included the samovar. “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “High tea,” she said, “at the library. It’s going to be the social event of the fall season. Everybody who is anybody is going to be there. Think of it, Maralee! Cream scones and tiny fairy cakes and madeleines! Dainty, little sandwiches! Truffled egg salad with cress! Oh, my dear, can’t you just picture it?”

  Her enthusiasm was contagious. “It sounds amazing,” I agreed. “But you’re not Superwoman. You’re not actually planning to prepare the food, as well as chair the event, I hope.”

  “Good heavens, no.” Her smile grew even broader. “It’ll be a real English high tea. I’m planning to have Harrods cater.”

  “Harrods? The London Harrods?”

  “The one and only. You remember my friend Nigel St. John?”

  “Of course. Nigel of New Scotland Yard.” She pronounced his last name as “Sin Jin.” Though I’d never met Nigel, I knew he was a “gentleman friend” of my aunt’s. Exactly what their history was, I didn’t know—didn’t want to know—but Nigel had been extremely helpful to us a year or so earlier when we’d needed some accurate overseas information. “What about him?”

  “You know that Nigel and I chat online occasionally, even on the telephone every so often.” I hadn’t known that, but nodded agreement. “Well, I told him about the tea and he suggested that we order everything from Harrods. He’s volunteered to pick it up and get an early flight to Boston on the day of the event!”

  “Nigel is going to carry by hand your truffles and fairy cakes and scones, all the way from England?”

  An unruffled, ladylike shrug of one s
houlder. “Of course he is. What are friends for?”

  “You’re a wonder,” I said. “When will this event take place?”

  “Next month. We’ve ordered the engraved invitations and Mrs. Abney-Babcock—you remember her? Louisa Abney-Babcock, the president of the library board? She’s graciously offered to lend us her great-grandmother’s double set of Canton china for the occasion.”

  “More than gracious, I’d say. That set must be worth a fortune.”

  “Priceless, I agree. But you have news too. Tell me everything.”

  “This may take a while. I’ve had a busy day.” I gave a little pinkie wave over the assembled silver. “Could we sit somewhere else? All this reflective stuff is kind of distracting.”

  “Oh, dear. I didn’t even think of that. Come on.” She stood. “Let’s sit in the dining room.” She led the way, with the cat and me following. I was happy to get away from the mirrorlike silver surfaces, even though there’d been no prevision swirls or sparkles in evidence at all. I placed my stack of cards on the long dining-room table and sat opposite my aunt. O’Ryan made himself comfortable on the needlepoint cushion on the chair next to me.

  “I’ll start with last night,” I said. “When Pete and I left for the movies, it was so pleasant outside that we decided to walk.” I traced our steps for her, told her about seeing the McKenna family in their yard and about how we’d joined them for s’mores. Taking the rubber band from my cards, I read aloud from the ones that referred to information the McKennas had given us.

  “Colleen McKenna and Stasia were pals when they were kids,” I read. My aunt was clearly surprised.

  “Now, that’s interesting,” she said. “Are they still friends? Now that Stasia lives here?”

  “No, they’re not,” I told her, “and maybe that’s even more interesting. But I’m getting ahead of my story. I talked to Stasia today.”

  “But . . . how . . . ?” I could almost see the questions forming in her mind.