Drowning Pool (Miss Henry Mysteries)

by Melanie Jackson

  “Oh, good. Then perhaps our hosts will not feel that I am here solely as Mr. James’s floozy.” Juliet glanced at Guda Stoss. “Though if he does, I suppose that it is my own fault.”

  They entered the dining room. It was huge and depressingly formal. The roaring fire was a nice touch. The air in the desert got quite cold once the sun was down and the room needed something to make it welcoming.

  “Floozy?” This time the smile was open. “Oh, I don’t believe anyone, even Miss Stoss though she might pretend otherwise, would mistake you for that. I certainly wouldn’t, whatever else the others might fail to perceive about you.”

  Juliet wasn’t sure how to take that. Was it a veiled reference to her former career?

  “I think you underestimate Miss Stoss.”

  “No, I don’t think I do.” His voice was dry. “She just makes a habit of being offensive as a means of drawing attention, or so her file says.”

  He had to be hinting that he knew who she was.

  “I suppose that we have all been thoroughly vetted?” she asked.

  “Down to your pretty pink toenails.”

  “Red toenails. I painted them yesterday. Your information is out of date,” she chided.

  “I shall see to that omission at once, though I doubt Señor Calderon will be concerned at the lapse.”

  “Señor Calderon is in charge of security?” she asked.

  “Yes, and you may have every confidence that your art is safe in the castle,” he said as if this was a concern. His eyes flicked to his employer who was standing just inside the dining room door.

  Was it too soon to ask about medieval Italian art that was lying around the castle? Probably not, if Smythe was a friend, but most definitely if he was a foe. In any event she couldn’t risk it with so many people around them who might overhear the question.

  “I shall rest easy at night knowing my painting is safe.” Though she would rest even better if her person was equally secure.

  The furniture in the dining room was slightly oversized and she felt like a child who would need a booster chair to sit at the adult table. Conversation echoed until it got caught in the peculiar buttresses at the ceiling where it was swallowed. It was not a friendly room, even if you were seated above the salt.

  Smythe stopped before a tall wooden chair and pulled it out for her. There was enough space at the long table that they were not pressed cheek to jowl, which was fortunate because the array of cutlery at each place setting required rather a lot of space. Three knives, four forks, three spoons, and something that looked like a nut pick. Juliet was appalled.

  “How many courses are there?” she whispered.

  “Just nine,” Smythe whispered back. His breath tickled her ear.

  Nine courses? They would be eating until midnight. It would take everyone at least an hour to settle in after that. Possibly longer. She wouldn’t be able to explore until nearly dawn.

  Juliet took her seat with a word of thanks, slightly disappointed that she was seated between Matthais San Marco and Bertram Fröndenberger. At least Raphael was sitting across from her so she had something nice to look at when she peered around the giant candelabra.

  Henrik von Hayek stood, tapping his glass for attention. The throne at the head of the table was the last word in gothic awful. The canopy was probably supposed to represent deer antlers but looked like scythes. It dwarfed their host.

  Again there was no Mrs. Hayek, at least not in attendance. And Klaus von Hayek, the magnet that had ostensibly drawn them together, had yet to make an appearance. She wondered how sick he was that he couldn’t attend his own party or even see the art his guests had brought.

  Or could it be that he wasn’t in the castle? Had some urgent business called him away?

  “I regret that my father is not well enough to be with us tonight, but please don’t let his absence dampen your pleasure. A special feast of many regional cuisines has been prepared in your honor.”

  San Marco also stood and made an elegant toast to their missing host and they all sipped politely, though Juliet felt dirty drinking to the health of a Nazi collaborator.

  Juliet had attended enough dull formal affairs while in Washington that she knew what was expected of her. Repressing a sigh as a dish of something pungent, green, and soupy was put before her, she picked up the farthest spoon, dipped it in the green slush filled with lumps that looked and smelled like it had been pulled from the Sargasso Sea. She then turned to Bertram Fröndenberger and asked him what he was working on.

  Fortunately he wanted to tell her every detail of his project so it was several minutes before she needed to speak again.

  Eventually Fröndenberger ran out of things to say about altarpieces and asked Juliet what she was doing. She did not feel like explaining that her next job would be screening Halloween t-shirts and trick-or-treat bags, so she invented a task, which seemed like a better and better idea as she talked about it.

  “I am thinking of painting something local that has grabbed my interest. I will start with sketches—that is always how I begin. It allows me to drink in the atmosphere. But when I am home and have my paints I will do a better study.”

  “And what is this local place or thing? There is very little in this area except fish and turtles. There are also, I believe, poisonous snakes and insects.” The tone was slighting.

  Juliet rather liked fish and turtles but realized that cathedrals were more Fröndenberger’s natural habitat.

  “There are gardens,” von Hayek said, proving that he was keeping at least half an ear turned their way. “Many are overgrown though and I fear that there are rats in the untended areas.”

  He sounded apologetic, but Juliet wondered if it was meant to discourage her from wandering. If so, that might be a sign that she was on the right track.

  “I am not especially fearful or bats and rats and things that usually bother other people,” Juliet said. “I live in a wild bit of forest where nature is not held back by doors and windows. I’ve learned to cope with the creepy-crawlies.”

  Fröndenberger snorted. This wasn’t entirely true about the artists’ compound being wild, but she wanted to establish the idea that she would not need a particularly pressing reason to be wandering around the foliage while she looked for hidden doors—if that became necessary.

  “Have you heard the legend of the god of the Smoking Mirror and his handmaidens?” she asked the table at large. “They are—well, like the Greek Naiads—who live in the local pozas. You can tell where they are because water lilies grow from their bodies.”

  If she had thought that this bit of morbidity would discourage Bertram Fröndenberger from further conversation, she was mistaken. It had also caught the attention of Matthias San Marco.

  “Naiads? But how lovely. But what is this story and who is Smoking Mirror?” Fröndenberger asked, his expression warming to genuine interest.

  “About the god I cannot speak with any authority. I would love to see a local picture or sculpture of him since there are supposed to be differences. But the maidens….” Juliet decided to go for it. It would give her a good excuse not to eat any more of the bitter goop. The story she had read online would require some editing and enhancement, since it was purportedly an English translation or a Spanish translation of a Latin account, written by a monk who had a dry style and who was likely not given to factual accuracy when local legend conflicted with his own doctrinal training.

  “The poza is the life blood of the desert, an oasis for man and animal alike. Rains are rare here in the wastelands and perhaps that is a good thing if the legends are true. For it seems that the god of the Smoking Mirror may travel down these seasonal rivers and seek out the unfortunates who die in childbirth, for it is they who become his handmaidens.”

  By now Raphael was also listening. Though he was two seats down from Raphael, she had the feeling that Smythe was paying close attention too. She decided to pull out a few more stops on the tremolo. Let them think she was a
kook who believed in ghosts and goblins. It was excellent cover and would make everyone underestimate her intelligence.

  “It was a strange night. The air was damp, drowsy with heat, and the evening was full of scents both pleasing and dreadful. Plants blossomed madly in the sudden showers of rain that had fallen all day and into the night, but they decayed too because it was not a healthy water. It was red—red with dust probably—but it looked like blood and was poison to the land.

  “Cora was large with child, her first, and she was also large with worry because the rains had created a flood around her house and her husband was not able to get to the village and fetch the midwife. She had been in labor a long time and was growing exhausted. Her husband, too, was filled with dread. His mother and sister had both died in childbed during the summer rains and he knew all too well the story of the Smoking Mirror.”

  Juliet looked up and down the table. She had nearly everyone’s attention, including her host.

  “There was a scream outside. One of the goats was caught in the rising water. Cora’s husband went to help because they were poor and the goat was important. But he was also caught in the waters—perhaps snagged by a branch or perhaps by something else—and since it was dark and there was no moon it took him a long time to rescue the animal and fight his way back to their house.

  “But when he finally returned it was to tragedy. There was blood on the floor but Cora was gone. He ran outside, following the trail of blood and calling her name, but she was nowhere to be seen and she did not answer.

  “The floodwaters were ebbing by then and the sun was on the rise. Of his wife there was no sign, but floating away down the rust colored stream was a white gown and a water lily with a flower of darkest red.”

  Juliet stopped, surprised that she had made up all those gory details. But somehow it felt like an emotional truth so she didn’t try to correct anything. Nor did she add the part about the handmaiden coming back at the next full moon to suck her husband’s brain.

  “Allmächtig!” Fröndenberger exclaimed. “And you wish to paint this? But why? It is so tragic.”

  “Just the lily and for my personal collection,” Juliet said, reaching for her glass of wine. “It would be a sort of memento mori. And is not life so often tragic? It is for the artist to find the beauty in it. For, after all, it is the art that be there after we have gone.”

  This was pretty high flying rhetoric for someone who designed t-shirts but Fröndenberger nodded, apparently struck by this idea.

  Conversation started back up again and Juliet finally forced herself to turn and talk to San Marco. As he blathered on about his own inspirations, Juliet glanced at Raphael who was clearly amused by her antics and then at Smythe who was looking quite inscrutable. That could have been because he was thinking hard, or because he was trying not to breathe in any of Guda Stoss’s rank atmosphere which was gradually drifting down the table. Did the creature think her talent would wash off if she bathed?

  Her last place to look for an audience reaction was at her host, but he was addressing himself to Judith Karenina so she couldn’t tell if he approved of her dramatic performance. She hoped that he had. Her desire to sketch water lilies and find a sculpture of the nasty Smoking Mirror would give her a great excuse to wander around the castle and the grounds and to generally be nosy in places where most people wouldn’t go, and he would hopefully think her too daft and poetic to be a threat to any illegal ventures that he was currently enterprising.

  It would be nice if he were fooled because she had the feeling that Smythe most definitely was not.

  Chapter 7

  Juliet had done little more than taste each course, but she knew that if she went to bed too soon she would be fighting heartburn all night. Besides, she wanted to have a little wander about after everyone had had a chance to get to sleep. Memories of her last visit to a castle crowded in like beggars with their hands outstretched. Knowing they would overwhelm her if she closed her eyes, Juliet got another turn around the room and stopped at her window. Across the plaza some other insomniac was pacing before an identical window.

  What was she doing? Her last days at the NSA were plagued by vile emotions and disloyal thoughts that they would have strip-mined from her had they suspected that they existed. It was not an experience that she wanted to relive even at a distance.

  It was a relief when Raphael tapped at the connecting door, breaking in on her incipient ruminations.

  “Come in,” she said. “I was just sitting here repenting my sins of gluttony.”

  “I gave up at course five,” Raphael admitted.

  “I tried to be polite and try everything. Which was a mistake. What was that green stuff? It tasted like avocado, pesto, and wheatgrass—with maybe some grasshopper and dead prawn.”

  “I think it was.” He rolled over to the fireplace where a small fire burned merrily. It was needed. The room felt chilly. “What do you think of our host? Do you think that you’ll be able to find what you are looking for in this rather strange abode?”

  “Do you think it is safe to talk?” she asked softly, sitting down next to him.

  “If we do it very quietly and near the fire.”

  Juliet leaned close to the snapping flames that were crackling happily as they found pockets of pitch.

  “Well, seducing him for information won’t work. I doubt his sweet nothings run to blurting out where he keeps the family’s illegal treasures. Besides, I don’t think he is all that interested in women. Not that he’s gay. It’s just that he likes things more than people. I think it will all come down to observation, eavesdropping, and snooping. Maybe bribes or blackmail if I can get some leverage. For someone else to use,” she added as a matter of form.

  Raphael raised an eyebrow.

  “That may be so. Do you feel confident playing fox and hounds with this lot? I must confess that I am not sanguine of your chances of accomplishing much with so many guards about.”

  “This isn’t play,” Juliet assured him. “And I wish madly that Esteban was here. I also wish I knew whether Smythe was for or against us.”

  “The secretary?” he asked with mild surprise. “I saw you talking to him.”

  “Ha! If he is only a secretary I’ll eat my hat. And to make matters worse, I think he might actually be smart.”

  “That is unfortunate.” This was said without irony.

  “Yeah, unless he’s on our side. I mean, not on von Hayek’s side.”

  “And you think he may be?”

  “Someone tipped Merton off about the roundel.”

  “Hm. Are you going to do any wandering tonight?” Raphael kept his voice and face neutral but she knew he was worried.

  “Maybe. Time is short and I want another look at the library.”

  “Shall I join you?” Raphael asked.

  Juliet looked at his face, which was pinched with exhaustion.

  “Nope. It’s just down the hall. You didn’t get the funhouse tour of the great stairway so you won’t know how weird all this is. Lots of weapons and dead animals—but European and African ones. Animals that is. The weapons are mostly African and South American, I think. And the taxidermy all looks a bit scruffy. Like maybe they were acquired by Klaus von Hayek before he skipped Europe and since he has been ill, his son hasn’t bothered to keep the moths away. Sort of the king is almost dead, long live the new king.”

  “Interesting. I have wondered at Klaus von Hayek’s failure to appear.”

  “Me too. And other things. Like how, though there are lots of dead European animals, and African and Aztecan spears and blades and such, I haven’t seen any art from the old country anywhere in the castle—not medieval or Renaissance era at any rate. Except the crucified Jesus in the library—and that may be South American. Anyhow, though Asher will disown me for this, I can’t tell with the modern blots. So, I thought maybe I would have a look at the books on the shelves and see which way the von Hayeks’ taste is trending. Maybe they really don’t like th
e old masters at all and Merton got the wrong end of the stick. It wouldn’t be the first time that intel was wrong.”

  “More likely everything has been put away while the art show is going on. Very well. It sounds safe enough. But wake me if you need me.” He touched her hand. “Juliet, I mean this. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “I will,” she promised. But only if she really, really needed him. Juliet knew she was opening Pandora’s box and felt no enthusiasm for the job, since the lock-picks and directives had been thrust into her hand by David Merton, who was a company man from the ground up, but he was also power-hungry and all about carving out his own empire. She was working with the assumption that whatever he wanted, it couldn’t be good. Juliet had had little choice, but there was no reason for Raphael to catch the blowback if things went wrong.

  She thought about mentioning how grateful she was for their relationship that free of underlying motives and agendas, but she decided that might sound too much like a speech from someone who was marching off to die and decided to save it. Besides, he already knew how she felt.

  Wandering castles that belonged to war criminals with armed guards was not Juliet’s favorite way to spend the long reaches of the night, but, thanks to her nap, she thought that she might actually manage to stay awake long enough to explore the library and check book titles for clues. She preferred to do this without someone looking over her shoulder. And if someone did see her—well, it was likely enough that she might want something to read.

  She had a flashlight which she brought in case the generator or batteries or whatever powered the lights were turned off before she was done. And because it was more discreet than leaving a path of burning lamps through the castle like a trail of blazing breadcrumbs that anyone could follow. Especially Calderon, the less-evolved head of security who had a very shallow brainpan.

  There was no need to creep down the hall since her shoes’ soles were made of leather, and the stone floor didn’t creak, and the doors to the bedrooms were a good four inches thick and would block the sound of anything less noisy than a marching band. But she tried to move quietly and quickly anyway, avoiding the many recesses where dead animals stood with their mouths frozen in disturbing snarls, since they looked so lifelike in the dim light which seemed to scatter and break into ineffective pieces every time it encountered something.