The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  “Jordan?”

  I jumped. “Lance, don’t sneak up like that.”

  He put a soothing hand on my arm. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to alarm you. By any chance did you check out Black Pine on Facebook?”

  “Me? With my two friends, one of whom is my uncle? I’m never on Facebook, and I doubt that Alex Fine was the type to be on it either.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Black Pine will probably have a page, and I bet there will be tons of photos going way back.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Sure enough, Black Pine Summer Camp was there. I found not only the current crop of lucky kids but also pictures from the past. I clicked into albums for the years that Alex would likely have been there. Jackpot. I spotted Alex before too long in a photo that must have been taken at the same time as the framed shot in his bedroom. He was wearing the same T-shirt. I held my breath as I moved the cursor over the images of the boys. Alex Fine. Tommy Bradley. Lorenzo Gomez. And the blond boy whose picture had belatedly made my spider senses tingle. No question about it, that boy was Tyler Dekker.

  Officer Smiley.

  The same Officer Smiley who’d been showing up all over town as I tried to find out about Alex Fine, Karen Smith, Ashley Snell, Merlin, the mysterious and possibly nonexistent play and now, the money. He’d been lurking, there was no other word for it, outside Sal’s office when I’d gone to get help. He obviously had known Alex long before he’d arrived to work in Harrison Falls. Yet he’d never mentioned that, although he must have realized I now had Alex’s job. Did he have some kind of hold over Alex? I found my heart beating a bit faster. What did it mean? No doubt Agatha Christie would have lifted an eyebrow to signal that people are often not who or what you think they are.

  Who and what was Tyler Dekker?

  “Well?” said Lance with a flirtatious grin. “Any luck?”

  “I have a name, and now I need to find out what the relationship was between this person and Alex.”

  He grinned. “Lucky lady. I have a contact for you.”

  “The director?”

  “Better. The camp nurse. She was a school nurse but did the camp in summer. She’s retired, but she’s a regular here, and she has a mind like a steel trap. What she doesn’t remember is not worth remembering.” He scribbled a name, address and a phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “I took the liberty of calling her to tell her she might be hearing from you. Hope that’s all right.”

  “You’re the best, Lance. I won’t forget this. I owe you.”

  “All part of the service,” he said, “but if you’re feeling particularly grateful, you could always meet me for a drink after work one of these days.”

  “Sure thing. Let’s make a plan as soon as life settles down.” The women in Harrison Falls would be wild with jealousy, but I wouldn’t say no to that.

  “By the way, who is it you think might be connected to Alex?”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  “Right. Because I’m such a blabbermouth. Everyone knows about us librarians with our megaphones, bellowing secrets.”

  I laughed out loud. “Because I don’t know if I’m right. But if I am, you’ll be the second person to know, after Jordan Bingham. Trust me.”

  * * *

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, I pulled up in front of Betty Leclair’s crisp well-maintained sixties-style bungalow. It turned out to be quite close to the library and not all that far from Uncle Mick’s shop. As usual, the scent of the freshly cut grass improved my mood.

  Betty Leclair opened the front door and waved before I got out of the car. She was a sturdy woman with a deep tan that set off her silver buzz cut. She seemed even more impatient than I was. She was sporting a fuchsia golf shirt and plaid Bermudas, and she had the kind of build that indicated she was serious about exercise as well as lawn mowing. Tennis? Golf? Maybe she was late for a tee-off.

  “How about the backyard?” she said. “Better than inside. I made some lemonade.”

  The lemonade was waiting, and we sat in Muskoka chairs with comfy cushions on a small deck in the only sunny part of her oversized shady lot. The trees were festooned with bird feeders. I would have liked to check out the mysterious garden with its ferns and hostas, but I was not there on a social call.

  “So,” she said when she’d poured me a frosty glass of lemonade, “what about Alexander Fine?”

  “I am trying to find out about another boy who seemed to be close to him and who may know something about his death.”

  “You don’t have his name?”

  Here’s where I got a bit evasive. “I think it was Tyler Dekker, but I need to confirm that. I am hoping you’ll remember.”

  “I remember Alex well. He was quiet. Intense. Serious. I saw him quite often.”

  “Was he sick?”

  “Accident prone, more like it. Or so it seemed at the time. Alex was always getting sunburned, scraped, or falling down or getting hit by stray objects. We were a bit less aware of things then, I’m afraid.”

  “Things?”

  “Bullying.”

  I’d been afraid of that.

  She said, “He never seemed to be able to stand up for himself, and bullies can sniff that out. I wish I’d been more aware. He was a nice little fellow, and he could have used our intervention.”

  “And Tyler Dekker was the bully?” I wondered how any human being could present such a misleading picture of himself.

  She sloshed her lemonade. “No. Of course not. Tyler was Alex’s protector. He was about the same age, but he was so much bigger than Alex, he seemed older. Once he arrived, Alex stopped getting hurt.”

  “Huh. So you’re saying he looked after Alex?”

  “Tyler made a big difference to Alex, and he flourished after that. Of course, he was never going to be a big-talking extrovert or anything, but he did well in the programs and proved himself quite athletic.”

  “And would Alex have trusted Tyler Dekker?”

  “Absolutely. With his life, I imagine.”

  “You may not know the answer, but was Tyler Dekker from Harrison Falls?”

  “I don’t remember exactly where he was from, but Black Pine had kids from all over the state and beyond. But you know something? He’s here now. He’s even been by to say hello. He’s a police officer. Would you like me to introduce you?”

  “Thanks. I believe I have already met him. I just didn’t know about the connection, so I didn’t ask him about Alex.”

  She shook her head sadly. “It’s such a shame that Tyler wasn’t around to save Alex from that tragic death.”

  I nodded in agreement, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe she was looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps Alex had touched base with his old friend, and maybe that was the worst mistake he could have made. Miss Marple would have pointed a knitting needle at the police officer who wasn’t quite what he pretended to be. I didn’t want to share that thought with Betty Leclair, though. She’d been really kind to me and had obviously cared about both the boys.

  She was eager to get off to her game, and I needed to leave too. As I got into the Saab, my mind was racing. Had Tyler Dekker known about the sale of the manuscript? Given his job as a police officer, people would have trusted him. Was he involved in the theft of the money? Did he know about Merlin? Or worse, was he Merlin?

  Alex would have trusted him with his life.

  Maybe that had been his fatal mistake.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I WAVED TO Betty as she pulled away in her Volvo. I headed in the opposite direction, to Grandville and the hospital.

  I found Uncle Danny sitting outside Karen’s room, reading a dog-eared Danielle Steel novel while Billy lounged in a chair on the opposite side of the corridor. Billy appeared to be working on wiggling his ears. The uncles have a great capacity to wait and not be driven wild by boredom. I don’t like to ask how they honed that skill.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “Hanging in there. The girls tell me tha
t it’s looking a bit better.” Nurses were always “girls” to Uncle Danny, and they didn’t seem to be too bothered by it. I think it’s that curly hair and the bad-boy pheromones.

  “Any sign of a would-be intruder?”

  “Nope. Well, Billy thinks there might have been, but I didn’t see anything. You know he’s the one with the imagination.”

  I headed down to Billy, who was now apparently studying patterns in the ceiling tiles.

  “Possible intruder?”

  “You ask me, something wasn’t right. But some people demand an unreasonable standard of proof.” He nodded his head in the direction of Danny.

  “That a yes?”

  “It’s a maybe. Saw a lady acting strange.”

  “Strange?”

  “Walking head down toward the room. She sees Danny and she turns around. I get up to intercept her and she’s off like a rabbit.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yep.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Hard to tell. A platinum blonde. She had a scarf on, and she was wearing sunglasses.”

  “Sunglasses. Inside? Is that what alarmed you?”

  “Don’t really need them in this place. Same with the scarf. Not nearly enough light and no wind at all. Obvious she didn’t want anyone to recognize her.”

  “Did you go after her?”

  “She was fast, must have been expecting trouble. She shoved an empty wheelchair in front of me and gave me the slip. I started after her but figured maybe she was a decoy and I’d be leaving Danny on his own. That old trick.”

  “Right. But no one else came by or tried anything?”

  “Really quiet. Maybe I should have gone after her, but there’s me thinking it was a diversion to draw us away.”

  I had another idea. I’d been trying to think in Agatha’s way, that is, things not being what they seemed at first. “Crazy question, Uncle Billy.”

  “Shoot.” I can always count on Uncle Billy and his crooked grin.

  “Could she have been a man?”

  He frowned in concentration.

  I added, “Wearing high heels and a skirt? And a wig? Wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the world.”

  He nodded. “People make a living at it. She was a good height for a girl. Could have been a man, I guess. No beer belly.”

  Eddie McRae was slight, with narrow shoulders and no more than five eight. Could he manage to disguise himself as a woman? Could he fool anyone if he did? He was a postal carrier. He’d be fit, even though he wasn’t young. He’d be strong. His legs would be toned. The sunglasses and scarf would disguise the fact that he was no beauty. Unless…

  “Wait a minute! Did she have a limp?”

  Uncle Billy chuckled. “She didn’t, but I do after being slammed with that wheelchair.”

  I wondered if it would be possible for the man with the limp to fool anyone into thinking he was a woman. Then there was Officer Smiley; he was blond. Could he disguise himself that way and fool anyone? Too tall?

  At least we knew that there was good reason to keep the uncles on alert. Tiny and Connie would be warned too. There were way too many questions. And not enough answers. One thing I knew for sure: someone wasn’t ready to give up on silencing Karen Smith yet. I’d stirred the pot all right, but missed when it came to a boil.

  * * *

  EVEN IF YOU don’t know what to do exactly, you have to keep going. That’s another Kelly mantra. There seemed no way to discover who the woman with the scarf and the man with the limp were, but there was something I could try to find out and that was, just what was Officer Smiley up to? It was a good idea to confront him before he ran into Betty.

  I figured if he was on duty that afternoon, there was a chance he’d be where he was supposed to be, that is, Harrison Falls. It was a nice safe time of day in a nicely populated area. But just to be on the safest of sides, I conscripted Uncle Lucky. He loved to come along any time I had a plan. And he never bored me with idle chitchat. This time he took the Navigator. The Saab’s not his style. Walter came along for the ride.

  An added bonus of having relatives like mine was that they could easily figure out where the police were at any given moment. That’s why they were walking free.

  After checking out the nearest Stewart’s and coming up empty (except for vanilla hazelnut coffee for me and Uncle Lucky and a maple-glazed doughnut for Walter), we went by the stoplight at Henry and Bridge, where cruisers are known to hide behind the spreading oak tree near the corner. No joy.

  But we struck pay dirt shortly after when we found Officer Smiley idling in his black-and-white on South Street near the roundabout, always a good source of revenue for the town, according to my relatives, who do not care to pay extra taxes in the form of tickets. I hopped out and approached from the rear. I leaned in his window and watched him jump. Of course, I could afford that because Uncle Lucky and Walter were across the street watching. No one would ever call them overly subtle.

  “We need to talk.”

  His neck flushed. “Hop in.”

  I grinned. “How about you hop out.”

  He got out of the car. How he’d gotten through the police academy was beyond me. The man lacked basic authoritarian-cop tendencies. Or else he was pretending he did.

  He was smiling as he unbent and looked down at me.

  I said, “It’s not a friendly visit. I need to know what your recent relationship was with Alex Fine.”

  He wasn’t very good at scowling, although he made a halfhearted attempt. “I don’t have one.”

  “Not now, because he’s dead, but you definitely had one. You deliberately didn’t mention anything about knowing him, although you had plenty of chances. I have proof that you knew him, that you were friends at camp. So I want to know about this year. The year Alex died.”

  He recoiled. “I didn’t see Alex this year.”

  “Pull the other one. You’re lousy at lying. Your color gives you away.” As I’d noted before, he seemed born to blush.

  He said, blushing a bit more, “I know that, but it’s the truth. Alex and I met at summer camp. Black Pine. And we stayed in touch for quite a while, even went to Ithaca College at the same time, although we didn’t see each other as much then. Then we drifted apart. I hadn’t seen him in about two years when he died. You can believe what you want, but that is true.”

  “But you’re here. In Harrison Falls where Alex lived. You’re telling me there’s no connection?”

  “There’s a connection all right. I wasn’t here before Alex died, but I am here because he died.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Not long before he was pushed in front of that train, he contacted me about something he needed to talk about. I was busy at work and I was helping my brother build a house, so I didn’t get back to him right away. I meant to, you know how it is. About a week went by and he called again and left a message. I was working nights and didn’t even get his message until the next afternoon. When I called him back, it was too late. He was dead.”

  Good cover.

  “Nice,” I said.

  He flushed again. “I felt responsible. He wanted to tell me about something he was involved in, something criminal perhaps or dangerous, and I let him down.”

  “Dangerous is the right word. So you’re saying you got a job in Harrison Falls because Alex died?”

  “A couple of weeks after, a job came up. I applied and here I am.”

  “Huh. And your connection to Karen Smith would be?”

  “She’s a crime victim too.”

  “But not in our town and somehow your new job doesn’t entitle you to break into her apartment.”

  “The same can be said for you.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “And I’m not a crook.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not a crook.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” I could feel my own neck getting red. It must have been contagious.
I needed to steer clear of this guy once I got my information.

  “Then you must be the only person in your family who isn’t.”

  “My family is none of your business, and they have nothing to do with this.”

  “What about the hulk in the Navigator?”

  “He’s here to make sure that nothing happens to me.”

  I thought those blue eyes would pop.

  “What could happen to you?” he said, looming over me, his hands on his hips. “You’re talking to a cop.”

  “That’s right. A cop who had a connection to Alex Fine and Karen Smith. Did you have a connection to Ashley too? Oh right. Of course you did. She was Alex’s fiancée. You would have known that. You’d probably even met her. No problem to find out where she lived. So let’s tally that up: one of those people is dead, one may not live, and the other was horribly beaten. Coincidence?” I may have raised my voice just a bit. A couple of teenage girls scurried to the other side of the street before they reached us.

  He said, “How about my take on it? Alex is killed and then his job becomes available to a woman who is a member of a family of well-known con artists. Karen meets this woman and then is bludgeoned and left for dead, coincidentally found by the same woman. This woman talks her way into Karen’s apartment on spurious grounds. But wait, Ashley talks to the same woman, and Ashley is attacked.”

  I didn’t like to turn, but I had the impression that people were gathering on the opposite sidewalk to watch the proceedings. The large blushing policeman yelling at the innocent young woman—at least that’s what I hoped they were thinking. Luckily, I had taken the time to dress decently.

  “You think I wanted the job with Vera Van Alst because I am a crook?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  “The shoes are vintage and I came by them honestly, which is the same way I got my job. I think Vera is the victim of some dangerous criminal, and as it’s not me, it must be you.” Even I could see the flaw in that logic, but he’d really made me mad bringing my family into it and then questioning my honesty. “Someone got away with the money that Vera gave to Alex to negotiate for the Christie play. Who was in a better position to do that than his old friend?”