I grabbed my jacket. Pete picked up the package with the clock in it, and after stopping to admire Old Paint in his lush, new green surroundings, we headed for the Willows.
The first thing we did was ride the merry-go-round. The original carved animals from the old structure are gone, but the sturdy replicas are clean and colorful. As the carousel picked up speed and my dappled horse rode up and down on his pole, I felt as carefree as I had when I rode the original version of the horse when I was a child.
Pete and I strolled the park, eating chop suey sandwiches and homemade ice cream, playing foosball (he beat me) and pinball (I beat him). We found a vacant bench under a white willow tree and I told him what Rhonda had told me about the passwords and the golden goose.
“That pretty much nails it, doesn’t it?” he said. “The page came from Dillon’s notebook and Smith was the one who dropped it.”
“Afraid so. Aunt Ibby is hoping it’s not true. She had a phone call from Nigel this afternoon. She’s been e-mailing him about the research she and I have been doing.”
“Chief Whaley had a call from him too.” He took my hand. “Nigel is worried about you and Miss Russell.”
“Yes. He told Aunt Ibby we need to be cautious and to stop messing with police business.”
“Excellent advice. Come on. Your hands are cold and it’s getting dark. Let’s go deliver that clock to Stasia.”
“Are you going to tell me what Nigel said to Chief Whaley? Why is he so worried about my aunt and me?”
“No. Not yet. We’re checking on it.”
“That’s what you say about everything.”
“That’s what I do about everything.” He pulled me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get rid of that damned clock before you change your mind about it.”
CHAPTER 37
Even in the dark the pink house stood out among its gray and white and tan neighbors. The pink scooter was locked to a chain-link fence and a small sign proclaimed: PALM READER—WALK-INS WELCOME.
Pete parked the Crown Vic in front of the open gate and together we approached a narrow porch. I didn’t see any lights on inside. “Maybe she’s not here.”
“It’s still early. She’s probably watching TV with the lights out.”
Pete carried the clock and I knocked on the door, painted a brighter pink than the rest of the house. “Stasia? It’s Lee Barrett. I’ve brought your clock.”
The door opened a crack, and a bright brown eye peeked out. “Lee? I’m busy. I have a . . . a client. Just leave it on the steps, okay? Thank you.” The door shut abruptly. Pete and I looked at each other. I backed away and headed for the car.
“Wait a minute.” Pete handed me the clock package and knocked much louder and harder than I had. “Stasia? It’s Pete Mondello. Are you all right?”
There was no reply for a long moment; then an overhead light clicked on and the pink door swung open. “Sure. Sure. I’m fine.” She stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her, and reached for the clock. “This it? Wow. Thanks, Lee. Thanks for coming over, Pete. Well, gotta go.” She stood there, clutching the package against her chest. The blank look I’d seen before came over her features. We’d been dismissed.
I stepped down into the yard and started toward the gate. “Good-bye, Stasia,” I said. Pete waited there, facing her. Again he asked, “Are you all right?” She didn’t answer or make a move to go into the house.
I climbed onto the step and tugged on Pete’s sleeve. “It’s okay. She does that sometimes when she doesn’t want to talk anymore. I’ve seen it before. She just . . . shuts down.”
“Okay.” He took my elbow with one hand, texted on his phone with the other and steered me toward his car. “I’m dropping you off at my sister Marie’s,” he said. “It’s right around the corner. She’ll take you home. I’m going back to keep an eye on Stasia’s house.”
“What’s wrong?” I didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one. He barely slowed down in front of the neat white ranch house. Donnie stood in the driveway, waiting for me. Pete stopped the car. “I’ll call you later,” he said, and that was that.
Marie drove me home, as promised. (Yes, Pete’s sister and brother-in-law are named Donnie and Marie.) I didn’t get much information from her either. “He doesn’t tell me anything,” she said. “That’s how cops are. Our dad was the same way. You’ll get used to it.” She smiled. “He knows what he’s doing. Don’t worry.”
When we pulled up in front of the Winter Street house, I invited her in to see Old Paint. She said she needed to get back to pick the boys up from a friend’s birthday party. “Don’t worry,” she repeated as I got out of the car.
So I finished my day with more questions than I’d started: What did Nigel and Chief Whaley know about Boris Medvedev that they weren’t telling us? Why was Pete staking out Stasia’s house?
By eleven o’clock I still hadn’t heard from Pete. I was tempted to call, but knew better. O’Ryan and I sat in the kitchen, listening to the wind whistling outside. “Getting cold,” I said to the cat.
“Mmrup,” he agreed, and moved away from the windowsill onto my lap. I patted his fuzzy head, and looked around the warm, cozy room. My phone was on the table in front of me. Silent. “Where is he?” I asked the cat. “Why hasn’t he called? He must know I’m worried.” O’Ryan nuzzled closer to my hand and delivered a comforting lick just as the phone buzzed.
“It’s me, babe,” Pete said. “You must have been worried.”
“I was just telling O’Ryan that,” I said, relief flooding over me.
“I’m on my way over to your place now. Okay?”
O’Ryan and I waited in the living room for the sound of Pete’s key in the lock. O’Ryan gave him a purring reception, with much ankle rubbing and a happy “mmrup,” while I hugged him close and murmured silly love words.
“What a reception,” he said, “I should stay out late more often.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Please don’t worry.” He returned my hug and added a long, sweet kiss. “I know what I’m doing.”
“So I’ve heard. Come on out to the kitchen. Coffee’s hot. Can you tell me what’s going on with Stasia?”
“Yes. There are definitely some things you need to know.”
So with a northeast wind whipping at the trees outside, a mug full of hot coffee, a warm cat on my lap and the man I loved across the table, I listened.
“After I dropped you off, I went back to Stasia’s street. I parked a little way off, in the shadow of one of the big chestnut trees, and shut off the engine.
“What were you expecting to see?”
He smiled. “I wasn’t sure. Just had a hunch that something was wrong in that house.”
“Was there?”
“Wrong? I don’t know. But surprising, definitely.”
“What happened?”
“So there I was, hiding under that old tree, freezing my butt off, when a car pulls up right in front of Stasia’s house. Green Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
“Not Karl Smith!”
“Ran the plate to be sure. Karl Smith. He didn’t get out. Sat there with the motor running for a good ten minutes. Then the porch light flashes once and goes off.” He leaned toward me, eyes fixed on mine. “The door opens and I see someone come onto the porch. It’s Stasia. She comes out and puts something in the backseat of the Jeep. She goes back to the porch and a tall guy comes out. They get in a big clinch, and then she goes in the house. The guy walks across the sidewalk to the Jeep. It’s dark. I can’t make out who it is. Just that he’s big.”
I realized I was holding my breath.
Pete leaned back in his chair and took a mouthful of coffee. “Then the door of the Jeep opened and the interior light went on. There he was in plain sight. Boris Medvedev. He put some kind of a briefcase into the backseat, then went back into the house again.”
It took a minute for all that to digest. Medvedev? In Stasia’s house? “She was afraid of him,�
�� I said. “She said her father was afraid of him too. Why would he be in her house?”
Pete shook his head. “She didn’t look afraid of him tonight on her porch. What I saw was definitely a more-than-friendly hug. Anyway, he came back out after a while, carrying a suitcase, climbed into the front seat of the Jeep and off they went.”
“Did you follow them?” I wanted to know. “Where did they go?”
“To the Beverly Airport,” he said, and drank some more coffee. The busy city-owned airport in nearby Beverly is home to lots of small private planes—some used for business, some for pleasure, some for both. Aunt Ibby and I traveled from there once on a friend’s private jet when the Patriots played the Packers in New Orleans.
“They flew somewhere?”
“Medvedev did. Private plane. I took the numbers and relayed them to the station. They’re running a check on it now. Smith took off and came back to Salem. I called you and came here. That’s all.”
“That’s all? Are you going to arrest somebody? Anybody?”
“We’ll bring Smith in for questioning again, but he doesn’t have to talk to us if he doesn’t want to. It’s not against the law to drive a friend to the airport, any more than it’s against the law to help that friend look through other people’s trash.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’d like to interrogate the whole bunch of them, including Stasia, but that’s not the way it works.”
“You keep telling me I’d make a good cop,” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to be patient like you are. I’d go over there and pound on Stasia’s door and make her tell me what she’s doing, messing around with a creep like Medvedev. I’d make that chef admit whatever’s going on with the phony recipe translations. I’d throw that evil Russian Bear into a cell and lock him up until he admitted to murder.”
“Whoa! Wait a minute. Nobody said anything about Medvedev being a murderer—I mean outside of the ring. What brought that on? Have you been seeing things again?”
I hadn’t meant to tell him about the bear on the merry-go-round, but I did. “I know Medvedev is a killer,” I said. “I saw him—I mean the bear that I know is him—I saw him attack the horse that has the sixth egg inside. He made a red line on the horse’s throat with his teeth. It’s the horse on the merry-go-round in Colorado.” I covered my face with my hands, not wanting to see the scene in my mind again. “It was just like the line on Dillon’s throat.”
“And that somehow proves he killed Dillon?”
“It does to me,” I said, “but I know it’s nothing you can take to the chief. Nothing at all.”
“I’m sorry. I know Medvedev could be a killer. He’s done it before, in the ring. But as you just said, I’ve got nothing. His record is clean since he got out of jail. Hell, I can’t even get a warrant to X-ray that horse, and I’m pretty sure you’re right about that too.” He walked around the table and knelt beside my chair. “I need evidence. Something real.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. The things Aunt Ibby and I had thought of as evidence—embroidery, eggs, six long-ago friends, bear’s teeth—weren’t real. As evidence they weren’t even circumstantial. They’re only made-up stories.
I tried to think of something positive to say—to lighten the gloomy mood. “The plans for the tea are moving along nicely,” I said. “Aunt Ibby is so excited about it. Lots of reservations so far, and I guess the food is going to be spectacular. Only one more day to go before Saturday. We’re going tomorrow morning to pick up a couple of pastry carts from Karl and get the preliminary stuff set up at the library.”
Pete stood up. “Tomorrow’s Friday? Wow. Time flies. I have a Friday appointment with the fire marshal at eight a.m. to check things out at the library. Maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. We’re planning to be there at seven. Aunt Ibby has the key.”
“I’d better get going then,” he said. “We both have early days coming up.”
I kissed him good night at the door. As he turned to leave, I said, “Pete, do you have any red candles?”
A puzzled look. “Yeah. Marie gave me a strawberry one for my bathroom. Why?”
“Just light it once in awhile, okay? For protection.”
He smiled. “River?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Call me crazy,” he said, “but I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER 38
My aunt backed the Buick out of the garage at six forty-five the next morning. In the interests of time, and with her abject apology, we had a drive-through breakfast. I’d never told her, but during all the growing-up years of homemade, hot, healthy breakfasts, the occasional perfectly round yellow eggy thing on an English muffin and a cardboard sleeve of greasy home fries had been singular treats.
I told my aunt about the peculiar goings-on at Stasia’s house the night before.
“Good heavens. You mean she’s involved with the Medvedev person? That can’t be good. I had the impression that she was afraid of him.”
“I did too. And now he’s gone who-knows-where in a private plane.”
“Good riddance, I say. I hope he’s gone for good. Perhaps he was just saying good-bye. You said she knew him as a child. And as we know, Karl is a friend of his.”
“I hope it’s something that simple,” I said. “It’s too early for Stasia to be on her bench, but I really need to get in touch with her today to pick up Tatiana.”
“You’re right. I’d like to get the doll settled in the display case this afternoon. Stasia’ll probably be along later. Don’t worry. I know she’s excited about displaying her after all these years.”
At precisely seven o’clock we passed between the Ionic pillars in front of the main library and she inserted her key into the lock, pressed her employee number into a keypad, and an access number into another. A buzzer sounded and we went inside.
“I love the smell of this place,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “Books,” she said. “Books and magazines. Paper and ink. You love the printed word. Kindles and Nooks have their place, but they don’t have that smell.”
A couple of men from the Friends of the Library volunteers showed up a few minutes after we got there and were assigned to move tables and chairs onto the main floor to conform to the neatly drawn layout my aunt had prepared. Earlier in the week the rental company had dropped off cartons of snowy-white tablecloths, silverware and extra teacups and plates for those not fortunate enough, or important enough, to rate the expensive Canton china setups.
By the time Pete and Fire Marshal Jim Lynch arrived at eight, the library was buzzing with activity. Pete got right to work inspecting the security alarm system, the video cameras—both visible and hidden—and the door and window locks. He walked up and down each aisle, checked the stacks, the basement, the employees’ break room. The fire marshal examined the sprinkler system, the fire extinguishers, the exits, and probably every single electrical outlet in the building. As I’d observed before, Salem’s main library would undoubtedly be the safest place in the city—maybe the whole state—on Saturday.
By eight-thirty in the morning, the regular staff had arrived and early patrons began to drift in. After some minor confusion and questions about the roped-off tea party area, things seemed to be moving along to Aunt Ibby’s satisfaction. “Let’s go along to the tearoom now, Maralee,” she said. “We’ll be able to fit one of the carts into the Buick, and Karl will follow along with the other in his Jeep.”
We climbed into the Buick and fastened our seat belts. I waited expectantly for my aunt to start the engine, but instead there was a long pause. “Maralee,” she said, “I’ve been thinking.”
I knew that tone of voice, and sighed. “Okay. Spill it. Whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s trouble.”
“Not really.” She started the Buick and we rolled smoothly onto Essex Street—heading the wrong way. “It’s still early. We know Boris is far away. Karl has been at the shop for hours. Let’s drive past that house Boris and Karl are sha
ring. Just take a little look around. Hmmm?”
“We don’t even know where it is,” I protested, then caught her sly smile. “Or do we?”
“I was curious, you know? I had Karl’s address from a sweet thank-you note he’d sent me. It’s not too far from here. Look”—she pointed to the backseat—“I have Karl’s cookie tray. If anyone says anything about us being there, I’ll just say we’re returning his nice tray.”
“Well . . . maybe.”
“Goody.” She smiled. “Here we are.” We’d pulled up into the gravel driveway of a medium-sized white saltbox house. “Hurry up. We don’t have all day.” She reached into the backseat, retrieved the silver tray and headed for the front porch.
I tagged along behind her. “What are we going to do? Peek in windows? What?”
“I have it all figured out.” She whispered, even though there was no one around to hear. “I’ll stand here and pretend to ring the doorbell. You go out back and look around. In the windows or whatever.” Broad wink. “Maybe you’ll see a way to get inside. If I see anyone coming, I’ll really ring the doorbell and you just scoot over to the next street, and I’ll pick you up there. Simple.”
“Simple is right,” I said. “You and I are simple to even think about doing this.”
“As long as we’re already here,” she said in a most reasonable tone, “what harm can it do?”
So we did it, of course. Getting inside was easy. New Englanders are notorious for leaving doors unlocked. Probably even more common than the old key-under-the-flowerpot trick. The back door opened with the tiniest push. There were tall hedges all around the yard. Sure that no one could see me, I slipped inside. I was in a kitchen. Looked kind of small for a chef’s place, neat and tidy, with nothing on the counter except a toaster and a telephone. The OLD MESSAGE light on the phone blinked invitingly. I pointed a tentative finger and pushed. An accented voice spoke.
“Karl. This message is for Boris. He’s not answering his phone. This is Dimitri. Tell him, the gardeners have planted the seeds. The harvest begins on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock.”
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