The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  “Exactly.”

  “You don’t find that a bit weird?”

  “Of course it’s weird. Everything that’s going on is bizarre and horrible. But Karen must know something so damaging that someone is willing to kill her to prevent her from talking.”

  “Talking to whom? About what?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure the person who is trying to kill her believes she knows who he is. I find that interesting, don’t you, Detective?”

  After a few more desultory questions, including my name, address and telephone number, yet again, he uttered the usual cliché: “Don’t leave town.”

  “I don’t live in Grandville, as you know,” I said. “You can find me in Harrison Falls.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Have you put someone in place to make sure Karen Smith is not attacked again?”

  He squinted at me.

  I said, “Two attempts on her life. We don’t want the third one to be the charm. I mentioned it to the other officers.”

  He moved off and spoke into his cell phone. It was not my business apparently, although I had raised the warning flag. I waited.

  “The hospital administration will place a security guard at her door for the next while. You can rest easy.”

  “How long?”

  “Hard to say, but they won’t let anything happen to her.”

  Oh sure, I thought. Isn’t that what they always say just before the next person dies? Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you. You’re safe with us.

  Before I could make this comment, I spotted another familiar face in the crowd still milling around the front of the hospital.

  Well, well. If it wasn’t Officer Smiley. In civvies, this time. How long had he been there? That was the question. Like Eddie, he didn’t hang around to chat.

  * * *

  EIGHT O’CLOCK WAS looming, and I was conscious that I would barely make it to dinner in time. I squealed into the driveway at the Van Alst house, raced along the endless hallway and took the stairs two at a time. I managed to change into my standby silk shift and hop into a pair of heels. I grabbed my mother’s pearls, the always necessary cardigan, and I even stopped long enough in front of the mirror to slap on a bit of lip gloss. The baseball cap hadn’t done me any favors, and I had to do something about that, although I was out of time. On the way down the stairs, I managed to walk very fast and twist it into a makeshift updo. I hoped I resembled something human. No time to check.

  In the hallway, I was almost knocked over by the same large, ungainly woman I’d seen a few days earlier. She stared at me in alarm and seemed to bolt through the door and off toward the parking area. “Excuse me” would have been good. My family might be crooks, but they had managed to teach me manners.

  Although she’d barely arrived ahead of me, Vera Van Alst still glowered from the end of the long table and made a big show of checking her watch.

  “Eight on the nose,” I breathed as Signora Panetone exploded through the swinging door, bearing a platter with a mountain of gnocchi.

  “Eat!”

  I was all for it. This chasing around after shadowy crooks and pillow-wielding thugs might not have yielded any answers, but it did make a girl hungry.

  “Sure thing,” I said as she swooped by and loaded up my plate with feather-light gnocchi in a delicate tomato sauce topped by generous heapings of freshly grated Romano and Parmesan.

  “I missed you this morning,” I said to Vera. “I hope you are feeling better.”

  I guessed the grunt meant something: yes or no or kiss my foot. I sampled the gnocchi before I sprung my surprises.

  As Vera stared at the tiny bit of food on her plate, occasionally pushing a gnocchi with her Francis I fork, I said, “A couple of interesting developments.”

  Vera raised an eyebrow.

  I had her attention. “Someone tried to kill Karen Smith today.”

  That earned me a frown.

  “Right in the hospital.”

  Vera pursed her lips.

  The signora stopped swooping, put down the platter and crossed herself.

  “Whoever did that is dangerous.”

  Vera stared off at the sideboard where a cat was poised to spring. Damn. I had forgotten my boots.

  “And perhaps not only dangerous to Karen Smith. I think he believes she knows who he is. Maybe he thinks you know something too.”

  “Me?” Vera scowled. “What could I know about him?”

  “You tell me. But for the record, last night I saw a dark figure skulking around the house.”

  “Skulking?” Vera snorted. “Is this fiction? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I shrugged. “Have it your own way. But I know what I saw. A large man was skulking near the side door.”

  “As you know, Miss Bingham, we have first-rate security here at the Van Alst house. I do not fear intruders.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring. The security’s pretty good at the hospital too. But someone tried to smother her with her pillow.”

  “I believe that if someone only attempted to kill Karen Smith, the security must be more than adequate.”

  “Wrong. I interrupted the attempt and the attacker ran off. The staff saw nothing and wouldn’t have been able to prevent it.”

  The scowl returned.

  “You should take me seriously. Is there something you know about what happened to Karen Smith or Alex Fine? If so, you’d better tell me, because this guy is playing for keeps and you are definitely involved somehow.”

  I thought I heard the signora mutter, “Madonna!”

  Vera merely stared at the table

  “By the way,” I said loudly, “I noticed Eddie was at the hospital too. Coincidence?”

  The signora snatched up the platter and vanished through the swinging door into the kitchen, nicking the frame of the door as she went. I guessed I’d hit a nerve.

  There was no dessert for me that night.

  * * *

  AFTER DINNER, I continued to worry. How safe was Karen Smith? How dangerous was this person? I figured two attempts at murder meant he was very dangerous indeed.

  How competent would hospital security guards be to deal with a determined killer? It seemed outside of the normal scope of hospital work. Would they leave the door unguarded for a bathroom break? Could they be fooled by the right person dressed like a resident or a surgeon? This was a hospital in a gentle and civilized community. What were the chances they would be equal to the task?

  Then there were the Grandville police. They’d be used to bar fights, stolen vehicles, domestic disturbances, small-potatoes robberies and speeders, plus a range of drug investigations and charges. But this level of violence with no apparent motive? I wasn’t convinced they could solve the case, and more to the point, I didn’t really trust them to protect Karen Smith. The fact that Officer Smiley was one of their number, even though from the next town, had something to do with that. No question.

  Karen Smith seemed to be the key to what was going on. Perhaps in time, she would be able to identify her own attacker, who would most likely be the same person who’d injured Ashley. I was pretty sure that the attacks were connected somehow to Alex Fine, the secretive Merlin and the mystery of the Christie play.

  So, what to do? I figured I would have one unlikely ally in this game of wits with the killer, and I needed to see her now. Seconds later I was knocking firmly and purposefully on the door to Vera’s suite, in her personal wing on the second floor, having managed not to injure myself stumbling through the dark hallways, and then surviving the clanking elevator.

  I didn’t intend to alarm her, so I announced myself at the same time. “It’s Jordan. I urgently need to talk to you.”

  She opened the door and glared up at me from her wheelchair. She was still in her day clothes, the same shades of pale mud that she’d worn at dinner a short time earlier. A copy of Christie’s Sad Cypress lay on her lap. Perhaps she’d actually been reading it, or more likely stroking it.


  She said, “You’d better have a good reason for disturbing me in my private quarters, Miss Bingham.”

  “I need your assistance to ensure that Karen Smith is not murdered. We want to avoid the ‘third time’s a charm’ principle. She’s the key to this and you can help.”

  “But what can I do?” For once, she seemed genuinely astonished.

  “I understand you are a major donor to the Grandville hospital.”

  “This couldn’t wait until morning? I do support the hospital, for reasons of my own.”

  “You have clout with the hospital administration.”

  “The board of directors,” she said with a sniff.

  “I should have known. Well, here’s the thing. The security there doesn’t seem to be up to snuff as I made clear, and I’m not convinced the police are on the ball. But I know a few people who are, and I’d like you to contact a decision maker at the hospital, perhaps the CEO or the chair of the board, and ensure that my people are permitted to watch Karen Smith’s door and keep everyone out. They will require access to the room if medical personnel enter. The last villain was dressed as a surgeon.”

  Vera shivered. “Dressed as a surgeon? May I know who these people are before I put their names forward?”

  “Believe me, she’ll be in good hands with them.” For one thing, they wouldn’t be falling for any tricks by Eddie the postman or Officer Smiley, the so-called police officer, or the man with the limp who had been disguised as a surgeon.

  “Names?” she said.

  I was startled as something black swooped toward me before I could answer.

  “No! No! Sleep, sleep!” Well, that was a relief. It was only Signora Panetone, flapping like a deranged crow.

  “Sleep! Now! Yes!”

  “Go back to bed, Fiammetta. Miss Bingham needs to speak to me without your squawking.”

  Signora Panetone seemed to melt away into the darkness, muttering, “Sleep now.”

  As if there’d been no interruptions, Vera Van Alst said, “Names, Miss Bingham?”

  There was no avoiding it. “First names: Valentine. Daniel. William. Conrad. Last name, Kelly.”

  Of course, that would be Uncle Tiny, Uncle Danny, Uncle Billy and Uncle Connie to me. The twins were incommunicado lately, but these four uncles were stalwart, strapping, brave, untrusting and stubborn as anyone of Irish extraction could ever be.

  “Tell your celestial contacts that these four men are in your employ for the moment.”

  “What’s that going to cost me?”

  “I’ll take care of it. But I don’t have pull with the hospital. You do.”

  Of course, my uncles would do it for me in this life-and-death situation. I’d have a chance to return the favor in time. Even so, I thought Vera might have argued in favor of picking up the tab.

  “We need to take care of this now. It can’t wait until morning.”

  “And you need to remember what I am paying you to find.”

  The door closed in my face.

  As they say, point taken.

  * * *

  I MADE A call to alert the uncles. The great thing about being the only niece in the family and the daughter of the beloved sister is that your uncles will do whatever ridiculous thing you want. No charge. No guilt trips. No questions asked. Also as they were unencumbered by jobs, they’d most likely be available. I was blessed, no doubt about it. I hoped that their guard shifts at the hospital would be officially approved. Otherwise a plan B would be needed, and that might be a bit more complicated to bring about. Could I count on Vera to care enough to make it happen? I sure hoped so.

  In the meantime, I worried about Karen. I was pretty sure that Detective Zinger hadn’t really believed me about the latest attempt on her life. I hoped that Karen would be lucid enough to convince him and that the police would take her safety seriously. With luck my uncles would be there in the morning, but what about overnight? I shivered when I thought of someone creeping through the darkened corridors, disguised as a doctor, a nurse, a cleaner, and outwitting the security guard. It was easy to blend into the background in a hospital. And easy to get away, as I’d seen when Karen’s assailant vanished as if he’d never existed. Which he had, I reminded myself.

  Even my cabbage rose retreat wasn’t enough to take my mind off what was going on that night. Neither was the stack of Christie reading. It would have been great to talk to Tiff, but she must have been tied up with some emergency. I reminded myself of the two-hour time difference and decided against leaving a “call me” message.

  Talk tomorrow! xoxo

  I tossed and turned. The third time I turned on the light, I decided I might as well stay up and try to make sense of things. I figured that’s what Agatha Christie would have done, as would her charming creations, Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot. I’d learned a lot from reading Christie’s work as well as the many books about her. Could I use any of that to help figure out this tangled mess? I decided, as I’d be awake anyway, to do something about what was bothering me most.

  Five minutes later, I was crossing the shadowy parking area. I checked the backseat of the Navigator, locked the doors and drove to the hospital.

  * * *

  “CHECK WITH DETECTIVE Zinger of the Grandville Police if you’re worried,” I told the young security guard who had the boring job of watching Karen Smith’s door while she slept the troubled sleep of the injured and drugged.

  I guessed the guard wasn’t worried, because she didn’t check with anyone. I made myself at home in the visitor’s chair by Karen’s bed.

  “Leave the door open to be on the safe side,” I added.

  She stared at me. I was glad I’d come. Mickey Mouse could have talked his way past this girl.

  The night promised to be longer than most, but I planned on figuring out who was who and what was what in recent events. At least I had Christie in my corner, and I’d brought a notebook along with me.

  In the Christie world, things were never what they seemed. Insignificant items, seen in passing, could be very important to the solution. People might not be what they seemed, or they might not be where they should be. Someone might be present who should have been elsewhere, or absent when they should have been present.

  And if items weren’t where they should be, people were even less so. They might not even be who they said they were. They might not have been doing what they claimed to be doing or what other people thought they’d witnessed. Their relationships might not be what they’d led us to believe. Their connections to other characters would be very surprising when revealed. Even their crimes were not what they were supposed to have been. One crime could be a smoke screen for another. Plus everyone lied. Even villains couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth on the page. How unfair was that? No wonder it took a Poirot or a Jane Marple (or occasionally Tommy and Tuppence) to solve these cases.

  Certainly the police didn’t have a hope. Mind you, fictional detectives usually had the advantage of a closed cast of characters, while I had all of upstate New York—and beyond—to draw on. I knew that if I didn’t figure out what was going on, Karen Smith and Ashley Snell might never be safe. Other people might be drawn into danger. And if I didn’t make some progress on my task of finding the Christie manuscript, I would be out of a job. Vera had made that quite clear. That would mean forgetting about returning to grad school for a while and—worse—leaving my cabbage rose kingdom.

  I sure could have used a sidekick.

  As the clock moved slowly, I made a list of everyone I thought might be involved and recapped what I knew. Of course, I didn’t necessarily know what I didn’t know, but you can make yourself crazy if you think too hard. I had to work with what I had.

  Under the names, I had notes and questions about motives, connections and general suspicious elements.

  Vera Van Alst

  She was a bitter, selfish, difficult obsessive. She wasn’t one to pretend otherwise. But what didn’t I know about her? How had she become
an invalid? I didn’t know, except that it had been the result of a car accident. I intended to find out. For all I knew it was one of those missing bits of information that linked all the others. She knew Karen. Had she met Ashley? I made a note to check. Finally, Alex had been in her employ.

  She had nothing to gain from what happened to Karen Smith and Ashley Snell. Or did she? Was this just an elaborate shell game with them as the victims and me as the mark?

  Karen Smith

  What did I really know about her? She would have met Alex and Ashley at the book fairs. Was she connected in any way with anyone else? She was seen speaking to Eddie. She had a collegial relationship with George Beckwith and his wife, Jeannette. What was her connection with the shadowy and possibly nonexistent Merlin? Someone had tried to murder Karen, twice. The man with the limp had tried to break into her apartment and her hospital room, but no one had seen him at the fair. Whatever else, Karen was definitely connected to something very bad. Maybe she was at the heart of it.

  George and Jeannette Beckwith

  The owner of Nevermore and his wife seemed harmless, and she seemed very nice. But he’d been in the same book fair. They knew I was looking for someone. They would also know Karen, Ashley and most likely Alex. He had encountered Vera, who had nothing but contempt for him. Had Eddie talked to George at the fair as well as Karen? He’d denied it, but I knew that everyone can lie. Would they have anything to gain by lying? Was there business enough to support their hobby farm with horses?

  Eddie McRae

  I knew he was a postie, but what was he doing hanging around in Vera’s kitchen? Mooching food? Signora Panetone seemed very fond of him, and Vera didn’t want to hear anything bad about him. Why would he have been at the book fair talking to Karen? Had he let something slip? Something about his relationship with Vera or perhaps Alex? Had he waited until Karen was alone and attacked her before she could tell me what she’d learned? Could he have been the person who assaulted Ashley? Perhaps because he knew she’d spotted him talking to Karen?

  Had he talked to others? George? What did his warning to me mean? Or had that been a threat? Why had he been at Grandville General Hospital? What was I missing?