The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  “And you haven’t decided to sell any? That would explain it.”

  “Have you taken leave of your senses? Decimate my collection?”

  We stared at each other. “I wasn’t suggesting that you were decimating your collection, only that you may have replaced some copies with better ones. Or perhaps some were elsewhere to be, oh, I don’t know, appraised or repaired.”

  “Never.” Her espresso cup jumped as she banged the table to emphasize the neverness.

  “Good to know,” I said.

  “What were you really doing in the library?”

  I managed a look of surprise. “I was looking for a couple of Christie novels that I seemed to have missed. She sure did churn them out.”

  “Did you find them?”

  “Coffee!” The signora stormed through the door from the kitchen to the conservatory and topped up my cup for a fourth time. I might never sleep again. She swooped out again, probably to brew another vat.

  Finally I said, “What I found was holes, gaps on shelves. So I wondered if someone had taken a number of volumes for some reason. Or if the gaps were supposed to be there.”

  “What shelves?”

  “I was looking in the Nero Wolfe books. I noticed no copy of Black Orchids or The Second Confession, two titles I know. Do you own copies?”

  She paled. Her scowl deepened, although I wouldn’t have thought it possible. “It would have to be someone with an entry code.”

  “I suppose so. Who has the entry code?” I thought I knew the answer.

  “You do.”

  “And you can assume I didn’t take them because I just brought the matter to your attention and you had been unaware of it.”

  “Could be a ploy to throw me off.”

  I sighed to make my point. “Could be, but isn’t.”

  “If you think I don’t know about your unsavory connections, you have underestimated me.”

  “And you shouldn’t underestimate me. I am not unsavory and haven’t taken any of your books. If I had, how long would it take for you to discover them missing from the mezzanine? There’s lots of very stealable stuff in this house. So lucky for you, I’m on the up-and-up. Now, who else has the entry code?”

  She didn’t even blink at my audacious response.

  “I do, of course. You do.”

  “Alex?”

  “Alex did. Keys to the house and the code to the library.”

  “Did you get the key back, after he died?”

  She frowned. “I didn’t. I assumed it was destroyed when he was killed. It’s not much good without the alarm code. Am I supposed to worry that someone will get in and start plundering my collection?”

  “I think there’s already been some plundering.”

  “So it would seem.”

  I hesitated. “Do you think it was possible that Alex might have taken some of the books?”

  “A few months ago, I would have said no uncategorically. Now, who’s to say? Things are not as they seem.”

  “You’re telling me,” I muttered.

  “There’s no one else.”

  “The signora?”

  “Fiammetta would never, never, never take anything from me. She’s been with my family since I was born. My parents brought her over from her dirt-poor Italian village in 1956.”

  “But if she has keys and the code, then perhaps someone else could get access.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Does she have family? Friends who might not be quite as devoted to you?”

  She raised an eyebrow. I could see it had her thinking. “No,” she said. “But regardless, the signora and our gardener, Brian, who has been with us for more than thirty years, have keys to the house and the house code; however, neither one has ever had the access code to the library. It’s me, you and Alex. That’s it.”

  “What about Eddie?”

  “Fiammetta lets him in and treats him like a pet. Eddie doesn’t even have a key or the house code, let alone the library access.”

  “He’s here all the time, and I wonder why he was so interested in Karen Smith and in what I’m doing.”

  Vera’s nostrils flared slightly, and she pointed to the door. “I have nothing to worry about from Eddie. This conversation is at an end.”

  I left, but I knew my words had had an impact. With luck, her faith in Eddie might take a bit of a slam.

  * * *

  I WASN’T IN the mood for tragedy, but I had no choice. Alex’s death was really bothering me. I got into Uncle Lucky’s Navigator and drove out to see Alex’s parents. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and I was right.

  I kept an eye out for Officer Smiley as I drove, but he’d been keeping a low profile lately. Hopefully, that was good.

  At the Fines’ house, the garden looked even more neglected, too much for the Fines to cope with in the wake of Alex’s death.

  I had a photo and a series of questions.

  The grief was no less intense than on my previous visit. I felt it seeping into my bones from the minute I walked through the front door. The Fines were oddly pleased to see me. The Pirouette cookies were produced. Tea too.

  “I have some questions for you. I am very sorry to disturb you again.”

  Mr. Fine said, “We’re happy to see you.”

  Mrs. Fine added, “It’s lucky you caught us. We are leaving to spend a week with my brother in Ithaca. Please come in.”

  “First of all, do you still have Alex’s keys to the Van Alst house?” I didn’t mention the library, in case that spooked them. Vera might have thought the keys were unimportant, but I figured a determined person could find a way to get the code. All it might take was a carefully hidden small camera, the type they use to steal credit card information in stores. Not that I have any way of knowing about those.

  Mr. Fine bristled just slightly. “The Van Alst key was in his personal effects. We would never keep something like that.”

  Mrs. Fine said, “Everything went back to his…employer. They would have been in that box.”

  “I know you wouldn’t, but I wondered if they might have been tucked somewhere and been missed.”

  His forehead furrowed. “Doesn’t your employer have them?”

  “She doesn’t.” Of course, I didn’t necessarily believe Vera about anything, including who had keys, but I thought she’d been sincere.

  Mrs. Fine bit her lip. She glanced at her husband. “I don’t remember putting that key in the box. Do you?”

  “Not specifically, but everything to do with that job went into the box.”

  Alex’s mother said, “We weren’t thinking very clearly.”

  Her husband added, “And we weren’t looking for keys.”

  They exchanged glances and shrugged at the same moment. “It’s possible they’re still here,” Mr. Fine said. “Such a small item. Do you want to have a look in his room? It’s still difficult for us.”

  Once again I found myself in Alex Fine’s boyish room. I don’t know what I thought I could find that I hadn’t the first time, but it was worth the try. I checked here and there, sliding my hands behind cushions, sticking my nose under the bed, checking behind books on the shelf. His clothes were still hanging in the closet, and I checked the pockets, but no keys. I stopped to glance at the photos on the wall, Alex and other young boys fishing. Alex at Black Pine Summer Camp looking very solemn with a group of four young friends. Alex still serious at his college graduation, arm in arm with a grinning blond buddy a good eight inches taller than he was. Their mortarboards were tipped at ridiculous angles over their faces. A solemn but happy moment. Then there were the photo-booth shots of Alex with Ashley, her smiling face turned toward his. In happier times, as they say. Who would want to damage these two harmless young people? Would Ashley be dead soon too if I didn’t figure out what was going on?

  Back downstairs, I told the Fines that there were no keys to be found. They seemed relieved, as if I’d suspected them of incompetent packing or keynapping.


  “Miss Van Alst asked specifically for the keys when you returned the stuff to her?”

  “We didn’t give them directly to her. We’ve never met her. She didn’t even come to the funeral. Sent flowers. What do you think of that? His own employer.”

  Tough one. I couldn’t see Vera faking sensitivity for the length of a funeral. So perhaps it was just as well. “That must have been hard for you. But she has many health issues. She’s confined to a wheelchair, and as far as I can tell, she never leaves the house.”

  Mrs. Fine said, “Humph.” I was inclined to agree with her.

  “So you didn’t even see her when you took Alex’s things from his apartment?”

  “No. Signora Panetone met us. We’d heard a lot about her. Alex used to do very funny imitations of her.”

  “Did you see Miss Van Alst when you dropped the box off?”

  “We didn’t drop it off. The box was picked up.”

  Well, Vera wouldn’t have picked it up.

  I raised my eyebrows inquiringly.

  “She sent someone to get it. A staff member, I suppose.”

  That was news to me and also a good segue into my question. I’d taken the time to print out the photo I’d shot of Eddie in the driveway. “This man?” I asked, flashing the photo and trying not to sound triumphant.

  They squinted at the shot and shook their heads in unison.

  “No. Not him.”

  That came as a surprise. I thought hard. “Was it the little Italian lady, Signora Panetone?” I was distracted by the image of the signora veering through the countryside shouting, “Stop! Stop! You stop! Eat!” No, that didn’t make sense. Maybe it had been Brian. He did everything else for Vera. “Who did pick it up?”

  “He didn’t give his name. He said Miss Van Alst had sent him to pick it up, and we’d already had a call from her to tell us to have it ready right away. Without delay.”

  A couple of possibilities occurred to me. This sounded uncaring even for Vera. It made me wonder. Perhaps Vera hadn’t been behind getting the box.

  “I understand. And you’re sure the call came from Miss Van Alst.”

  “We have caller ID, and it showed ‘V Van Alst.’”

  So much for those ideas.

  “What did he look like? Old? Young?”

  “Middle-aged, I guess. Fiftyish. A fairly big man. That’s all.”

  I said, “Glasses?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Hair color?”

  “Sandy. Brown with gray. Just kind of ordinary.”

  I had an idea. “By any chance, did he have a limp?”

  She said, “He did, now that you mention it.”

  Well, now we were getting somewhere. If only I could figure out where.

  Mr. Fine said, “These questions, it makes us wonder.”

  Mrs. Fine nodded. “There’s something funny going on. In your opinion, is it all to do with Alex’s death?”

  I took a breath. “Some events have made me wonder what really happened to Alex.”

  They both zeroed in on me. “What type of events?” Mr. Fine asked.

  I explained about the attempts on Karen Smith and Ashley and watched as Mrs. Fine gasped. “Who could be doing these things? It couldn’t be that same homeless man who pushed Alex to his death.”

  I said, “I don’t know, but it seems that there must be a connection. I understand that the police never found that homeless man.”

  Mr. Fine said, sadly, “No. We hear from the detective in charge of the investigation every now and then, but they have no new leads. We have tried to feel compassion for this man. Many of these people are seriously mentally disturbed. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  Mrs. Fine added, “But it was hard to believe that Alex could have fallen in that way. He was just so cautious. And I know he would have been wary of a person like that…”

  Alex’s father took up when she trailed off. “He would never have stood so close to the edge in the first place. It just wasn’t like him.”

  She whispered, “Not like Alex at all.”

  Her husband said, “You understand that we could never bear to watch any of the images after the first time.”

  I sure did.

  * * *

  I COULD STILL feel their sorrow clinging to me as I drove from Darby back to Harrison Falls. They had hugged me and promised to do anything to help. I just couldn’t think of what they could do.

  I supposed the drive was pleasant, but I couldn’t really tell. My mind was on the strange situation. Someone had arranged to get Alex’s things. That someone may or may not have been Vera. Vera hadn’t told me, although that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The person who’d picked up the box sounded like the large, limping man I’d seen by Karen’s apartment, but was definitely not the same person who’d attacked Ashley. Were there two people working together? Was that why things didn’t add up? Was Eddie one of them? Eddie seemed to have the run of the kitchen area. Could he have pretended to be Vera with her gravelly voice? The Fines had never met Vera, and they wouldn’t know that she had such a distinctive way of talking.

  I pulled over and gave the Fines a call. A bit soon, but after all, they had said anything they could do.

  “Vera Van Alst’s voice, can you describe it?”

  A pause. “Just a woman’s voice, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  I remembered how I’d reacted to Vera’s voice in our first meeting. It had taken a lot of getting used to. “So not like crunching gravel?”

  “What?” Mrs. Fine sounded startled.

  I amended that. “Not deep? Gravelly?”

  “No. Just a woman’s voice. A bit muffled, I suppose, like she had a cold, but not deep. And not gravelly.”

  And, therefore, not Vera Van Alst.

  “Could it have been a man pretending to be Miss Van Alst?”

  She paused for a few seconds. “I suppose.”

  Interesting.

  * * *

  IT CROSSED MY mind that Uncle Lucky might like to get his Navigator back. He was unlikely to squeeze himself into the Saab, and he tended to get bored with the Town Car. I planned to return the SUV after a trip to the hospital in Grandville. I dropped in to see how Karen was doing and found that nurses and residents alike were quite enchanted by Uncle Danny. People say he can charm the pants off…I mean, charm the birds out of the trees. He’s the most Irish-looking of us all, all wiry red hair and bright blue eyes, an alarming mustache and a blarneyish tongue. He attributes that coloring to a Viking ancestor named Olaf who he claims made a splash in Dublin round about the ninth century. If you buy him a drink, he’ll tell you some tales about Olaf. I’d advise any mesmerized listeners to hang on to their wallets.

  Danny was happily seated in a very comfortable chair outside Karen’s door, playing solitaire and no doubt about to tempt the unwary into a costly game of Texas Hold ’Em. Someone had provided him with an iced cappuccino and a glazed double-chocolate doughnut. I noticed members of the female staff swaying their hips a bit more than I remembered them doing previously. And, in fact, there seemed to be more walking by than usual as well.

  Despite this amusing scene, if you were a villain planning something, it would be wise not to underestimate Danny.

  Even though he’s a hugger and a kisser and that mustache tickles.

  “Thank you so much for doing this, Uncle Danny. I know you’re busy.” Of course, none of my uncles is ever really “busy”; they just have degrees of availability.

  “Glad to. Nice place. Good food. Pretty ladies.”

  I had to grin. “And Karen? Have you heard anything about her prognosis?”

  “Pretty lady doc says that your friend is stable and they are thinking that guarded optimism is the phrase.”

  “That’s a relief. Are you okay here on your own? I plan to stir the waters a bit.”

  Uncle Danny inclined his head toward what looked like an orderly checking a medical instruction, but those hairy forearms and the Cel
tic cross tattoo should have been my first clue that Uncle Billy wasn’t far. In the unlikely event that someone blindsided Uncle Danny, Billy would bring that someone a little closer to his maker. Karen was in four good hands. I loved those guys. I figured Danny’s early career choices of riding rodeo in Alberta and later wrestling would pay off in a tight situation. Billy was the family athlete: shot put, javelin, you name it. There wasn’t an item that he couldn’t heave through the air with mind-popping accuracy.

  “We’ll manage twelve hours each, and then the relief team shows up. Course, it’s more likely that someone will pull something when things are quiet. Lots of traffic here.”

  “Has anyone tried to get into her room?”

  “Sure thing. Half dozen. I stay with them and check them out first. Billy watches the hall. A stethoscope could fool nearly anyone, gotta admit it. But they’ve all been who they said they were. Billy and I work well together.”

  That reminded me. They weren’t the only people who might be working together. “Okay. Here’s a picture of a guy to watch out for.” I handed over the print of Eddie McRae. “But like you two, he may be part of a team. The other player is a big guy, limps, sometimes more than other times, and may be wearing a baseball cap. Pass this on to our relief team when they get here, please.”

  The relief team would be Uncles Tiny and Connie. They made Danny and Billy look like a pair of rookie candy stripers.

  I figured if we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives worrying, it was time to take action.

  * * *

  I TOOK A quick detour to get a dog toy for Walter in the Poocherie, a specialty dog store in downtown Harrison Falls. I picked up a giant jar of gummy bears for Walter’s caretakers at the Sweet Spot, the candy store in a little row of boutiques that occupied our defunct department store. Harrison Falls was redefining itself after the slam that the Van Alst Shoes failure had inflicted and building a new life fleecing, I mean attracting, tourists.

  Five minutes later, I parked the Navigator in its usual place and headed off to see how all that dog sitting was working out.

  The first thing I noticed was that Walter was parked on the sofa, bug-eyed with contentment. I shook my head in case I was hallucinating. He looked quite comfortable on that heritage quilt. I’d been hoping that would come to me eventually, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it now. He welcomed me with his ragged smoker’s bark, and Uncle Mick popped out of the kitchen. He had a can opener in one hand and a can of duck and sweet potato dog food in the other. It’s a dog’s life all right.