As I stood there, frozen, trying to make sense of what I’d heard, the doorbell buzzed and buzzed again. Aunt Ibby was sending the get-out-of-there-fast signal. Before I could turn away from the counter, I saw the swirling colors on the side of the chrome toaster. The little girl in a blue dress rode on a wooden horse. The bear was close behind her.
I ran out the door, across the yard, through the hedges onto a side street. With my heart pounding, I tried to look nonchalant as the Buick came into sight.
“Come on. Get in,” she said, holding the door open for me.
“What happened?” I said. “Why did you ring the doorbell?”
“A police car went by, with lights flashing. False alarm, I guess. Sorry.”
“Any problems?” she asked.
“Piece of cake,” I lied.
“Did you learn anything?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll tell you later. And please don’t have any more great ideas today.”
* * *
We pulled into the tearoom’s parking lot just as another car pulled out of the space closest to the front door. “What good luck,” my aunt said as she backed into the slot. “Everything is falling into place so nicely.” She picked up Karl’s tray once again and we were barely inside the restaurant when the police car—red, white and blue lights flashing—came to a stop in the driveway. Pete and a uniformed officer got out, and, almost at a dead run, entered the building, showed badges to the flustered hostess and pushed through the louvered kitchen door.
The typical background sounds of a lunch crowd, the hum of conversation, the clinking of spoons on cups, stopped instantly. The room was silent. Then from the kitchen came a chilling wail.
“Noooo! Please, no!”
Amidst the silence the louvered door swung open again. Pete led the handcuffed man past astonished diners. As they passed us, we could hear the officer’s low monotone. “‘You have the right to remain silent. . . .’”
Tears streamed from Karl Smith’s pale blue eyes. “I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me. I swear.” Catching sight of us standing there, he called out, “Ibby, I’m so sorry! I’ve spoiled your party. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“‘If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. . . .’”
Pete acknowledged our presence with a curt nod. He held the door open for the other two men, opened the rear door of the cruiser and, with his hand on Karl’s head, guided him into the backseat. With police car sirens blaring, they were gone.
We looked at each other. “What are we going to do now?” I whispered.
Aunt Ibby signaled the hostess. “The best thing to do at a time like this,” she said as we followed the still-shaken woman to a table for two, “is to have a nice cup of tea and think things out.”
She was right, of course. We sipped Darjeeling tea and nibbled thin sandwiches of smoked salmon, with chive cream cheese and cucumbers, and thought things out.
“Obviously, our friend Karl is in serious trouble,” she said. “Whether he is or is not guilty of a crime—and I believe he is not—we cannot count on his help for our party, can we?”
“We cannot.” I agreed. “And I doubt that the cooks here can handle a special order like ours, considering that they won’t know if they even have jobs. Is there another place where we can get Russian pastries by tomorrow afternoon? Boston, maybe?”
“Nonsense. I have several of his very best recipes,” she said. “We’ll need to use both ovens, yours and mine. We can prepare all we’ll need.”
“You’re welcome to the oven, but as you know, I’m lacking in the cooking-skills department.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Now about the pastry carts, I’m quite sure Karl has left word that we’re to borrow them.”
“We’ll have to make two trips,” I said. “We’ll take one cart now and drop it off at the library. Then we’ll go home and you pick up my car and get started on shopping for baking supplies. I’ll take the Buick and get the other cart and try to round up Stasia.”
I hadn’t yet told her what I’d heard—and seen—on our recent housebreaking adventure, but decided it could wait until we’d implemented the current plans. First the hostess recruited one of the cooks to help us put the cart in the Buick and we dropped it off at the library before continuing to Winter Street. On the way past the Common I looked for Stasia on her bench, but it was empty except for a couple of pigeons. I reluctantly handed my aunt the keys to the ’Vette—I don’t really like anyone else to drive it—and slid behind the wheel of the Buick.
The second cart transfer went just as smoothly as the first. Things were humming along at the library, and colorful, oversized posters of the proposed new bookmobile were already in place.
* * *
I headed back to the Common, hoping to see the familiar orange hair and bright dress in the usual spot. No such luck. I drove all the way around the square surrounding the park, just in case she’d decided to try a different spot for palmistry. No Stasia.
I wished I could talk to Pete about what to do next—especially about what in the world was going on with Karl—but I knew that he was much too busy. I hadn’t figured out how to tell him about the message on Karl’s phone yet. I was pretty sure it might be important. But I knew I’d have to tell him how I’d gotten the information, and I was not looking forward to that conversation.
I’ll just take a ride over to her house, I thought. If her scooter’s out front, there’d be no harm in knocking on the door. We do need that doll.
So that’s what I did. I parked right in front of the gate, where the pink scooter was chained to the fence, and walked up onto the narrow porch. I knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again, louder. “Stasia,” I called, my face close to the door. “You okay?” All was quiet.
Maybe she’s in a back bedroom. Maybe’s she’s sick. I started around the side of the building. I tried to look into the windows, but the tinted glass was backed by heavy draperies. There was a back door and it, too, was pink. I knocked. Nothing. I stood there, thinking of my next option when I heard a soft “meow.” I looked around and saw a small gray cat, daintily walking along the fence. She stopped and hopped down onto the top of an overflowing trash can. “Meow,” she said again.
The cat began to dig at the newspapers and aluminum cans piled in the can. As I watched, a tiny paw flipped something brown onto the ground. Litter-conscious me hurried across the sparse lawn and picked it up. I recognized it immediately.
Poor little Cuckoo. She was missing a foot and her head looked crooked, but it was my cuckoo. The cat jumped down to the ground, and I hastily brushed papers, sardine cans and rags aside, revealing the ruined clock. Springs and wheels and broken numbers, the pendulum smashed and even the sweet carved doors had been broken in half. I knew without doubt that it was beyond repair, even with skill like Paul Carbone’s. Sadly, I covered those remains with a tattered dish towel and slipped what was left of the bird into my pocket.
The gray cat, with a look of what I could have sworn was sympathy, walked slowly away. “Little cat,” I called softly, “did O’Ryan send you?”
She looked at me again. “Meh,” she said.
I climbed into the Buick and drove home without the doll, without Stasia and without any explanation of what was going on around me. I pulled my aunt’s car into the garage, noting that the Stingray had made it safely home too. I admit I took a quick turn around it—just to be sure all was well with that shimmering Laguna Blue finish—then hurried to the house.
As soon as I opened the door, I could hear Aunt Ibby humming in the kitchen. That meant that despite the morning’s drama, she was happily involved in food preparation. “Did you get everything you need?” I asked.
“I did,” she said. “Have you heard anything about poor Karl? Did you deliver the second cart? How does the library look? Did you see Stasia?”
“No, yes, fine, and no,” I told her. “I even went to her house. Couldn’t find her anywh
ere. What shall we do about the doll?”
“Why, Tatiana and her wardrobe are here. The whole package was on the front steps when I got home. I thought you’d carelessly dropped it off there. I was going to scold you for it.”
“Not me. I’d never do that. But the main thing is, the doll and dresses are safely here.” I was relieved and annoyed at the same time. “I suppose Stasia dropped them off. Have you heard anything about Karl? I had the radio on in the car and I didn’t hear a word about it.”
“No. I’d hoped you might have heard something from Pete.”
“Not yet. Is your date with Mr. Pennington still on?”
“Dear Rupert. He’s so understanding. I explained what was happening and begged off. He’s going to call me later.
“What can I do?”
“Food prep, my dear. It will be a good experience for you. Some of the pastry recipes call for the dough to be mixed in a food processor and then chilled overnight. All you need to do is follow the directions.”
I didn’t believe for a minute that I was in for a “good experience,” but I was willing to try my best—for Aunt Ibby and the bookmobile. Personally, I would have loaded those trays up with goodies from the closest Italian bakery and plenty of chocolate. Who would know the difference?
I carried the food-processing thing up to my own kitchen, along with a sheet of instructions, a bag full of ingredients and a recipe. I put on one of Aunt Ibby’s aprons (the one with the words Cat Mom), then sat down on a tall stool to figure it all out. Eye-glazing bewilderment was quickly followed by panicked uncertainty. I put the instruction sheet aside and stared at the phone. Call me. Pete.
It rang.
“Pete? What’s going on? There’s nothing on the news yet. Is Karl really under arrest?”
“He sure is. Murder one. Sorry you and Miss Russell had to see all that. I know she likes the guy.”
“Can’t you tell me anything at all about what’s going on? Karl’s been arrested and Stasia is missing, and somebody smashed the cuckoo clock, and . . .”
“What did you say about Stasia? She’s missing?”
“Yes. I went over there, and . . .”
“What do you mean you went over there? You promised to stay out of all this.” Cop voice, big-time.
“I had to get the doll for the library.”
“Oh, Lee. What am I going to do with you? Stay put. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes. I’m coming over. I’ll tell you what I can. It’ll be on the five o’clock news anyway. This place is crawling with press.”
By the time O’Ryan ran for the door, signaling Pete’s arrival, I had the processor instructions pretty well figured out. It wasn’t much different from reading a motor manual. I’d located the electric shock warning signal, the vertically projecting motor shaft, the circuit breaker and the feed blade. I’d even identified the dough blade I’d be using tonight.
Piece of cake. Or, in this case, piece of torte. Of course I hadn’t read the recipe yet.
I’d expected Pete to come in the back way and use his key, but I heard his footsteps outside the kitchen door and realized that he must have stopped downstairs to see Aunt Ibby first. He and O’Ryan came in together. O’Ryan headed for his food bowl while Pete gave me a quick kiss, tossed his jacket on the back of a chair and took the stool beside me. “What’s up with the apron? Looks good on you. Very domestic.”
“It’s all an act,” I said. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’m totally confused.”
He glanced at the blank screen of the TV. “News’ll be on in about ten minutes,” he said, “and you can see it in living color. But here’s what we’ve got. Smith’s DNA came back a match with the vomit specimen from the Dillon murder location. That puts him at the crime scene. It’s enough for an arrest.”
“He says he’s innocent. That he didn’t kill anybody. We heard him say so.”
Pete shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “They all say that. He lawyered up right away. High-priced top attorney. He’ll be defended well. But, Lee, it doesn’t look good for him.”
“You talked to Aunt Ibby?”
“I did, and she looked as close to tears as I’ve ever seen her. I tried to talk her out of this cooking project, but she says she needs to keep her mind off Karl.” He looked at the bags of flour and sugar lined up on the counter. “She’s got you involved too, I see.”
“Afraid so.”
“Okay. Now tell me what makes you think Stasia is missing? You say you went to her house?” The look was disapproving. Very disapproving.
“I did. Had to. She was supposed to bring the doll back—for the display at the library, you know? I looked for her at the usual place—even looked in different parts of the Common. No luck. I knew you had your hands full . . . so . . .” I put down the feed blade and spread my hands apart. “Anyway, it was broad daylight in a perfectly safe neighborhood. Your own sister lives there.”
He wasn’t buying it. “First of all, there’s no such thing as a perfectly safe neighborhood, including this one, which you of all people should know. So go on. What happened at Stasia’s house?”
I told him about knocking on the door, walking around, peeking in windows and getting no response. He just nodded. “All this creeping around where you have no business being was just about getting that doll back, I suppose.” His cop voice’s tone was classic disapproval.
“It really was. And the weird thing is, she’d already brought the doll back anyway. Aunt Ibby found it on the front steps this morning.”
“Seems like a careless way to handle a valuable antique. Go on.”
He sat up straight when I got to the part about the smashed cuckoo clock. “What?”
“Smithereens,” I said. “Total loss. Wait a minute. I’ll show you.” I went into the bedroom and retrieved the remains of poor Cuckoo from my pocket. I laid it on the counter. “There. Pitiful, isn’t it?”
He poked the little brown thing with a tentative finger. “Why would she do this? You said she particularly wanted the clock. It was smashed so badly it couldn’t be repaired?”
“Like somebody took a sledgehammer to the poor thing.”
“Wait a minute. Why were you looking into Stasia’s trash barrel in the first place?”
I’d avoided mentioning the small gray cat so far. What could I say? That I’d met a friend of O’Ryan’s who’d pointed it out?
“There was this cat digging around in the trash. I suppose she was looking for something to eat. She knocked a broken part of the clock onto the ground. That’s all.”
“Strange,” he said.
O’Ryan looked up from his bowl and said, “Meh.”
I took a deep breath. “Pete,” I said, “there’s something I need to tell you, and I don’t want to tell you right now how I know about it. Is that okay?”
“Another vision, I suppose,” he said. “Shoot.”
Good. He’s going to blame the visions. “It’s just kind of a little message,” I said. “I have no idea what it means if anything.”
“Go ahead.” He sounded impatient. I didn’t blame him.
“It’s for Boris, I think. Here it is. ‘The gardeners have planted the seeds. The harvest begins on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock.’ Does it mean anything?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe it does. Don’t worry about it—and thanks for telling me.”
CHAPTER 39
Pete was right about the TV news having the story about Karl’s arrest for the murder of Eric Dillon. We both went downstairs so that we could be with Aunt Ibby while she watched her friend, cuffed and orange jump-suited, standing before a judge. I noticed that she’d closed her eyes through most of it.
Scott Palmer did the standup afterward from in front of the county courthouse. “Local restauranteur Karl Smith is currently housed in the county jail,” he said in the breathless voice he used for such occasions—not at all like the jock voice he used for the high-school football games or the uptown, phony, big-network voice he used
for the rip-and-read national news stories that came over the wire. “Smith is the owner-manager of Salem’s popular Russian Tea Experience. He was arrested this morning at that location. We have several cell phone videos of the actual arrest taken by patrons of the restaurant at noon today.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Should have known there’d be the ever-present amateur videographers around. There were at least three videos—each one worse and sadder than the one before. There was even a close-up of Karl with tears rolling down his cheeks. In another we saw Aunt Ibby and me in the background and heard the officer reciting the Miranda rights as Karl stumbled out the door of his restaurant—possibly for the last time.
“I know he’s your friend, Miss Russell,” Pete said. “I’m sorry about all this. He has an excellent lawyer and he’ll get a fair trial, I promise you. But please be prepared for the worst. There’s evidence that positively places him at the crime scene.”
“Ha!” Aunt Ibby said. “At the scene isn’t the same thing as committing the crime, is it?”
“You’re right,” Pete said. “But for now, it’s all we’ve got. If Karl and his lawyer can prove he didn’t do it, you can be sure we’ll find out who did.”
“I’ll hold you to your word on that. For now, I have a tea party to run. Cookies to bake. A doll to dress.” She pulled the apron off and hung it on its hook behind the pantry door. “Maralee, the library will be closing soon. I’m going to take Tatiana and dash over there to meet Rupert.”
Pete looked at me. “Who’s Tatiana?”
“Stasia’s doll. Rhonda says she named it after the grand duchess’s sister.”
He nodded as though he understood what I was talking about. “Right. Rhonda and the grand duchess. Okay. Let’s go upstairs and play with the food processor.”
O’Ryan followed us back to my kitchen, where I inserted the dough blade into the mixer, put my largest green Pyrex bowl on the counter, while Pete read the recipe to me aloud. It took us over an hour. Most of the granite countertop was dusted with flour and I had a generous smudge of butter on my nose, but we’d produced three bowls of perfectly processed dough—each in a different flavor. Sparkling in their plastic wrap covers, they looked quite pretty on the refrigerator shelf. I was proud of myself. Aunt Ibby was right. All in all, it had been a good experience for me—though not one I intended to repeat any time soon.
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