The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  He blinked. “Vera gave Alex money? For a play? That’s what this is about?”

  “As if you didn’t know. I have a pretty good idea who got away with that. Someone Alex trusted. Maybe you’re Merlin.”

  “I don’t know any Merlin, and I didn’t know about the money. For a play? What kind of play? This changes things.”

  “Oh, it changes things all right.” If I didn’t know better I would have sworn this was news to him. But as they say, never kid a kidder, and I came from a family that could lie like rugs. “An unknown play by Agatha Christie. Probably one that might shed light on her mysterious disappearance in 1926.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. Wait a minute. How much money?”

  “Why should I answer your questions? You’ve done nothing but evade mine.”

  “Because I am a police officer.”

  “And I’m a citizen. There are lots of witnesses who have just observed you harassing me. So if you’re thinking that you can sneak up and attack me, you can forget it. The Kellys are watching.”

  This time he turned pale instead of red. “Attack you?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I’m not thinking about it. How could you even suggest such a thing? I don’t attack people. I help them. I am the good guy.”

  “Oh, spare me. And stay away from Karen Smith. We have people watching her.”

  His mouth hung open.

  I tossed my last grenade. “Who is the man with the limp? Are you working with him?”

  “The man with the limp?”

  “You heard me. Is he your confederate? Did you just pretend to chase him?”

  “Outside Karen Smith’s place? That guy.”

  “The same psycho who tried to get into her room in the hospital.”

  “I can’t believe you are saying these things.”

  Really, he could have had a career on Broadway. I started to wonder if he was telling the truth. But nobody could be that innocent. He was just born with the look.

  A squawking sound came from his patrol car. He turned and headed to the car, shaking his head. It was too bad Smiley was probably a thief and a murderer, because he was so damn cute. A girl’s got to protect herself from dangerous cuteness. I was pretty sure that Uncle Lucky had it all on video.

  Who knows why I called after him? “Don’t leave town.”

  He stopped and straightened up, but kept going.

  * * *

  I WAVED TO Uncle Lucky and headed home, not wishing to miss a meal at the Van Alsts’ for obvious reasons. Lucky went back to grilled cheese sandwiches (processed orange cheese only, please) and canned tomato soup before he and Uncle Mick, and Walter of course, set out for Albany and some unspecified business meeting. It’s always better not to know.

  I seemed to be developing a habit of arriving just in time for meals. Vera was already installed at the dining room table, glowering and looking like she didn’t plan to say a word to me.

  Not a problem from my point of view.

  The signora was set to swoop as soon as I sat down. There was something magic about all that.

  It started off simply with a minestrone soup that was like nothing I’d ever had before. Then out of the blue, lasagna arrived, and when I say “lasagna,” I mean a massive red-enameled casserole with enough in it for a platoon of soldiers, instead of one woman with a healthy appetite and another who seemed to live on the scent of books. Not that I was complaining. I did wonder where all the leftovers went. Had I known that lasagna like this was in the wings, I might have been a bit more careful about how much minestrone I inhaled.

  “Eat!” Signora shouted. “You eat. No, no, eat!”

  “Just watch me,” I said.

  Vera made three attempts to wave her away and in the end accepted a serving about the size of a playing card. She poked at it idly with her Francis I fork.

  “Interesting day today,” I said, giving myself a little time to rest and make room before finishing.

  “Eat!”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  “No, no, eat now.”

  Vera growled, “Fiammetta, stop that. Let her speak. Do you think you’re feeding the bears in the zoo?”

  It was always a bit zoo-like in the Van Alst establishment, but who was I to fuss?

  “Interesting in what way?”

  “There’s a police officer in town who knew Alex. He’d known him for years.”

  “Enlighten me. Why is this of interest? Surely Alex Fine knew many people.”

  “Well, this police officer has been following me, was in the vicinity of Karen Smith’s attack and must have known about the fiancée, Ashley Snell. He showed up after her attack too. He just moved to Harrison Falls, and everywhere I go to check things out, poof, there he is.”

  Vera shrugged and gave her rectangle of lasagna a sharp poke with the fork.

  I said, “His name is Tyler Dekker. Do you know him by any chance?”

  “No. I don’t know any policemen. Why would I?”

  “I told him I was on to him today. He knows what’s going on, and he may even be a part of it.” Of course, I suppressed my niggling hope that Tyler Dekker was telling the truth.

  “Was confronting the police an intelligent course of action?”

  “I needed him to know that I was watching him and other people were too.”

  “Seems unwise.”

  Signora Panetone took advantage of the conversation to slap down an extra piece of lasagna on my plate, although I hadn’t fully worked out a strategy to finish what I already had. As she approached the other end of the table, Vera yanked her own plate out of the way.

  “Very unwise,” she added, managing to look down the long table and straight into my eyes.

  Signora Panetone apparently admitted defeat and headed for the swinging door with the red casserole dish.

  “In my opinion, it was worth it to see if he’d blurt out anything about the man with the limp.”

  The signora paused in the doorway, weighed down by the lasagna. The door stayed open long enough for me to get a good look at Eddie, positioned just inside the door and leaning forward. He had obviously been listening to every word.

  “Man with the limp?” Vera frowned. “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  “Why do you mention him at all? Is he important?”

  “I saw a man with a limp trying to break in to Karen Smith’s place, and he later got into her room and tried to finish her off. No one else seems to know anything about him.”

  For some reason, conversation lagged from then on, although the signora livened things up for me by swooshing through the swinging door yet again to present us with an airy sponge cake dusted lightly with icing sugar. She followed that with a fragrant espresso. Vera managed to avoid eating the cake, although she did move it around on her dessert plate.

  As for me, I didn’t know when my life would revert to Alphaghetti and grape Jell-O, so I ate up with enthusiasm.

  After dinner, as conversation with Vera seemed even more impossible than usual, I hurried back to my room, attempting to get there before the cat did. As I reached the stairs, something furry brushed past me. I remained calm. In fact, I was proud of myself that I didn’t scream. I was getting used to that sneaky Jekyll and Hyde cat. My moment of proud calm didn’t last long. Someone cleared his throat, and I felt a hand land on my shoulder. I whirled and screamed enough to make up for at least twenty sneaky cat attacks. I shrank back against the wall, my mind racing. I’d never make it up the stairs with him right next to me. What could I use as a weapon? My shoe? My head?

  I knew from my self-defense training (the Kelly School of Anything Goes) that if you hit someone’s nose hard with the top of your skull, you can break their nose. It was my only choice. Plus of course, I was still screaming. I couldn’t believe that neither Vera nor the signora could hear me. I hoped someone was calling 911.

  Maybe this guy was going to ki
ll me, but he was going to have a serious souvenir of his action.

  I pulled back, preparing to lunge forward and give him a major nose job. But that was going to be tricky. Eddie was cowering, one hand covering his mouth, his other arm shielding his eyes. I couldn’t help but note that his nose would still have been an easy target.

  He pleaded, “Please don’t hurt me! Please stop shouting.”

  Hang on. This was all wrong.

  “I’m not shouting. I’m screaming. It’s not the same thing at all. And I have a right to.” I felt quite insulted.

  He lowered his hand. “What do you mean you have a right to? Why were you screaming?”

  “Why do you think?”

  He goggled at me.

  I said, “How about this for a reason: because you sneaked up behind me and touched my shoulder. Because a man has been killed and two women have been attacked, and seriously injured. That’s why.”

  His jaw dropped. His arms did too. Really, the man was a walking cliché. “But you can’t think that I wanted to hurt you?”

  “What else would I think? All the victims seem to have some connection with you.”

  “But I wanted to warn you.”

  “Warn me about what? Is that a threat?”

  “No! Not a threat. But you mentioned a man with a limp.”

  “Big deal. I already know he’s dangerous.”

  “More than that—”

  “No, no, no, Eddie, no! No talking! You come. Come now. Stop, stop, stop. Come.” The signora managed to get in between the two of us. She shook her finger in my face. “No police, no! Go away! Come, Eddie!”

  Eddie said, “But—”

  He was no match for the signora, who managed to drown out whatever he was trying to say to me as she hustled him down the endless hallway.

  I heard him call out “careful!” and “here.” The rest was lost in a sea of “No, no, no! Come, Eddie!”

  It would have been comic if it wasn’t so serious. Signora Panetone did have the advantage over Eddie as she could grab him by the ear, but he could hardly manhandle an elderly woman without being a beast. It was a smart play on her part. And it confirmed the conclusion I’d finally reached. Eddie wasn’t going to hit any woman. Or probably any man either.

  That was too bad because I’d really liked the Eddie theory. I had no attachment to the man, and it seemed to work beautifully. Right down to the bit where Eddie mentioned the man with the limp.

  After my rush of adrenaline, my knees felt wobbly. I looked up the stairs and saw the cat. It seemed to be gloating.

  I had no choice. I had to find out why I was being warned about the man with the limp. I already knew he was dangerous. And if Eddie had been listening, which he had been, then he was aware that I knew that.

  I raced down the hallway after them, but Signora Panetone had disappeared through one of the doors. I figured they were headed for the kitchen. Rather than get lost in the labyrinth that was the Van Alst house, I took my usual route to the dining room and went straight to the swinging door, through the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen. I expected to find them on the other side, but there was nothing but the huge old-fashioned kitchen with the eight-burner gas stove and the acre of ancient marble countertops. The evening’s dishes were still stacked by the sink, and the lasagna sat cooling on the vast harvest table in the middle of the room.

  No Signora.

  No Eddie.

  No answers.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WELL, I FIGURED the signora must have rooms somewhere. She couldn’t be in that kitchen twenty-four/seven, even though I sometimes wondered. I spotted a door on the far side of the room and headed for it.

  Closed.

  I turned the knob. Locked.

  I banged and shouted.

  “Signora! I need to talk to Eddie. I won’t hurt him. I won’t call the police. You need to open the door. I have to know who the man with the limp is.”

  “You go now! No Eddie. Eddie’s go home.”

  I gave up on that approach. I headed through the kitchen door to the side entrance near the signora’s vegetable patch, a practical corner on the ornamental grounds.

  If I’d calculated correctly, I figured I knew which window belonged to the signora’s hideout. The window was slightly open. I looked around for a ladder or something to climb on. No joy.

  If you have a huge house full of valuable artifacts, it’s wise not to keep ladders around. Vera would have made sure of that. I threw a few decorative river rocks at the window, to no effect. I shouted, “I know you’re in there.” That didn’t work either. Unsurprisingly.

  I considered my options. I could go get my lock picks. You can run, Signora and Eddie, I thought, but you cannot hide. You don’t know the Kelly side of me. And you will answer my perfectly reasonable questions.

  On the way, I realized that Vera had also reacted to the talk of the man with the limp. It hit me. They all knew who this was! I wouldn’t have been surprised if the damn cat knew.

  I took a turn on the endless corridor and walked to the elevator. On the second floor, I made tracks to Vera’s room. I knocked, called and knocked again.

  Silence.

  Vera was my employer, and I decided that throwing rocks at her second-floor window and/or shouting would not be in my best interest, no matter what she knew.

  I did keep an eye out (including checking over my shoulder) on the way back to my own room. I watched for a sneaky cat seeking official access to my cabbage rose garret. This time, I got there without incident.

  My bed beckoned to me, welcoming, cozy and safe. I made myself comfortable and lay there thinking. The arrival of a smug cat, tail twitching triumphantly, didn’t shake my concentration. I needed to figure this out. Agatha would not be proud of me so far.

  But who else could this limping man be? Someone connected with the house, with Vera, with the signora and with Eddie. And apparently with me. There was simply no one else around. I had accepted that Eddie might not be our villain. Even stretching my imagination to the fullest, there was no chance that the signora could ever have been ten inches taller and much less round.

  Agatha would suggest that nothing should be taken for granted. Vera? If Vera could walk, would she limp? Perhaps. Would she be able to get into the hospital and try to smother Karen Smith? Could she run?

  I closed my eyes to try to picture this. It didn’t matter whether she could run or not, Vera was probably no more than five four, with narrow shoulders. She might be mentally strong, but I had seen her thin arms. I felt strangely relieved in deciding that she wasn’t the killer, but it was still a worry knowing that she was aware of who he was. So who was he? It wasn’t like a bazillion people were in and out of the Van Alst house. It wasn’t like the physio could have done it.

  I stopped. She was tall with broad shoulders, big hands. She had access to the house. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for her to get her hands on the key and the code. She was in and out of Vera’s bedroom. She would have known, or at least seen, Alex. She’d been standing still the two times I’d seen her. Did she walk with a limp? Vera and the signora would both know her. Would Vera and the signora try to protect her? Would Eddie warn me about her?

  I wasn’t going to hunt for the signora this time. Vera would know.

  * * *

  I TOOK THE creaky elevator back to the second floor and walked briskly to Vera’s bedroom door. I knocked, trying to sound businesslike and confident. “I’m not going away until you answer. Don’t make me call the police.”

  What an insane bluff from one of the Kelly clan. When the door finally opened, Vera glared at me. There are worse things.

  “Your physio,” I began.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Miss Orsini. What about her?”

  “Does she have a limp?”

  “Have you taken leave of your senses, Miss Bingham?”

  “Maybe, but I need to know. Does she?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  �
�Because she’s the size of the man I saw. Big shoulders. Because she has the run of the place, she would have known Alex, and if she has a limp, then I have to warn you that she’s dangerous. Very dangerous. I know you and the signora reacted when I mentioned the limp, and I need to know if it is this person.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. Miss Orsini may not be Miss Congeniality, but I know she’s not your man with the limp. Let it go, Miss Bingham.”

  The door closed in my face. Not for the first time either. I loved that Vera would actually refer to someone else as “not Miss Congeniality.” On the bright side, she hadn’t fired me for banging on her bedroom door. I felt like firing myself, though. I had practically accused a woman of committing some horrible crimes based on some very flimsy evidence. So much for innocent until proven guilty. Maybe the full moon had made me crazy. But even if it had, shame on me.

  * * *

  THE CAT APPEARED out of nowhere. At least it was in an affectionate Dr. Jekyll frame of mind and not an ankle-destroying Mr. Hyde mood this visit. It seemed to raise an eyebrow, before curling up on the flowered duvet and licking its front paw.

  I lay in bed envisioning psychotic attackers, stalker cops and felines who could turn evil at any second. I’d checked and rechecked each bolt, latch and window, but if the cat could get in, could a person? I let myself hope that Tiff would have a moment to reassure me. I could still see Ashley’s bruised face and swollen eye. I did not want to be next. I tucked myself into my bed. Somehow I felt safer there with my view of all entry points, although I doubted a woman armed with a feather duvet had ever stopped an armed intruder. Luckily, I remembered the bronze figure. I got up and brought it over to my bed. First I sat it on my little side table. Then I rethought that. It could be used against me, so under my pile of pillows it went.

  “Hey, you.” Tiff was peppy, then turned serious as I filled her in.

  “A girl attacked? An attempted murder in a hospital? I think it’s really time to go stay with the charming uncles, Jordan.” I knew she would say that.