The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  “You will. I promise.”

  * * *

  I WAS IN such a good mood that when I headed upstairs, I invited both cats back to my cabbage rose heaven. I had decided that I wouldn’t deal with what to do with the money until the next morning. I was looking forward to an excellent night’s sleep. I was going to need that to make the best decision about the Grants, which might not be the same as the right decision. I had just finished straightening up the walnut dresser and putting away my pot-and-pan alarm system when my iPhone buzzed across the room. I almost didn’t get the call from Sal in time.

  Sal didn’t give his name. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t phoning from any source that could be traced to him. “I tried to reach you,” he said. “It kept going to message.”

  “Sorry. It’s a rule at dinner here. And I had to make an important call. I haven’t had a chance to check my messages yet. Been a crazy, crazy day.”

  Sal said, “So, Jordan, regarding the matter we discussed earlier. The individual involved I understand is detained and rightly so. The local cops think they’ll clear up a number of crimes with this. I hear he became very violent. I hope that you weren’t injured.”

  “Just my pride. And my bruised neck and arms.”

  “On that matter, if you still need the information about Brian Underwood, there is no indication that he had any business connections at all.”

  I figured business was code. “None?”

  “Just the people he worked with. I believe those are the same connections you have. Van Alst, a Signora Panetone, and the postal worker, Eddie McRae.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “I am told that this Brian Underwood was injured in the same pileup that put your employer in a wheelchair for life. He lost his football scholarship. For some reason, your employer was covered by the right kind of insurance. Brian Underwood was not. Haven’t got all the details yet. She offered him a job afterward. Felt guilty, I guess.”

  “So that’s it. Vera and her staff were all he had?”

  “And his family.”

  “Family?”

  “Ex-wife, Martina, lives down in Albany. Remarried twenty years ago, to a Robert Snell.”

  I felt my throat constrict. “Snell?”

  “Yes. Mean anything?”

  I had to ask the question that Agatha would have expected much earlier. “Was there a child?”

  “One daughter.”

  “Ashley,” I said. “And let me guess, she took her stepfather’s name but later reconciled with her biological father.”

  “Oh, you knew that already.”

  “No, but I wish that I had. I am putting two and two together. Thanks, Sal. Now I need to figure out what to do about her. She knows that I was responsible for her father’s arrest and yet she said nothing about the relationship.”

  “Why would you tell her this?”

  “I feel so stupid. I didn’t know she was his daughter. I never suspected her for a minute.”

  “I thought you had the Kelly touch.”

  “She completely snowed me, Sal. She has her grieving-victim routine down. I can’t believe I fell for her misdirections. I bet she used an orange-in-a-sock trick to fake all those injuries. Uncle Mick told me about a guy who tried to scam his insurance that way once.”

  Sal said, “This seems like a very unpleasant way to earn a living.”

  “You should see her face, Sal. You’d never suspect her for a second. You’d never think a person would do that to herself.”

  “So why would she?”

  “To fool anyone who was looking into it, in case they found something that implicated her. Probably in case she was suspected in the attack on Karen. She reported her attack to the police. She had an alibi: the emergency room. That put her in the clear. When I started asking questions about Karen, Ashley played me to find out what I was doing and thinking. A good plan, on her part.”

  Sal’s voice dropped into the bass range, a sign that he was taking this very seriously. “Jordan, she is dangerous. Keep yourself safe.”

  “I will. I’m at the Van Alst house in my third-floor apartment. Vera has very good security.” As the words were out of my mouth, I realized how foolish they were. If Brian had a key and the code, Ashley would have had them too. She knew where the garret was. She knew I was in it. “You know what? Maybe I’ll spend the night at Uncle Mick’s. He and Lucky should be back in this evening.”

  “You’re vulnerable. I’ll send someone over.”

  I hated to think how much goodwill I would owe Sal after this. “Thanks. I’ll go pack now.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Sal said. “I’m making the call.”

  I was tossing a few items into my orange satchel when the knock came. I had just decided that the money was safe where it was for the time being.

  I left my bed and stared at my entrance door. Luckily I’d bolted it. Force of habit. Bang, bang.

  “Dessert! You eat. Eat! Yes. Yes.”

  I sagged with relief. I was too knotted up to eat anything, but I knew the signora wouldn’t give up. Might as well take the dessert with me. There would be a mountain of it. My uncles might find it a welcome change from violent green Jell-O or Pop-Tarts.

  I unlocked the door and opened it.

  “Signora,” I said with a smile. The smile didn’t last. “Ashley?”

  My mind whirled. What was she doing here? Had I missed a call saying she was coming? And why had she pretended to be the signora? It wasn’t like she had much of a sense of humor. One good thing: she didn’t know that I knew who she was. No one could say this wasn’t a complicated situation.

  “Going somewhere?” she said, stepping past me.

  “Yes, I’m going to see my uncles. Nice Signora Panetone impression. Priceless.”

  “Alex used to do it all the time. I guess I picked it up.”

  “Of course.” I had to make her believe I had no idea that Brian was her father and that she herself had been an accomplice to murder and assault. “I would have loved that dessert.”

  She sneered. “No dessert for you.”

  “Make yourself comfortable, Ashley. I’m just packing a few things. Uncle Mick will be here shortly.” Could I stall her until I had a good plan? Or any plan.

  “Quit bluffing. We need to talk about Alex,” she said, moving toward me.

  “What? Bluffing about what?”

  “Cut the crap. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t. And I have to get my stuff ready.”

  I backed toward the bedroom and my only chance of getting help. How long would it take for Sal’s “someone” to arrive? The window was open. If I could yell loud enough, maybe he’d hear me. Who was I kidding? Whoever the someone was, he’d be sitting behind closed tinted-glass windows, bored out of his gourd. There was no hope that Vera, sequestered in her second-floor suite, would hear me shouting, but maybe the signora was still around. Or Eddie.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said, following me right into the bedroom.

  “What is wrong with you, Ashley?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to cut the crap? See the gun in my hand?”

  I did. It looked like a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, but I could have been wrong. Guns are not my best thing.

  “So, you’ve managed to get Brian locked up. You think you’re pretty smart, but I am smarter. You are going to tell me where the money is.”

  “I don’t have the money, Ashley.”

  “You found where Alex stashed it.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you couldn’t find the money, why do you think I would be able to?”

  “Because it must be here. He never went anywhere but his parents’ place, my apartment and book fairs.”

  “It’s not at his parents’ place,” I said. “I checked that out. I was looking for notebooks and research information, but I couldn’t find anything.”

  “He hid it here.”

  “Why don’t you give it your”—I stopped myself b
efore I said “best shot.” “Maybe you’ll have more success than I did.” My Kelly lying genes weren’t enough to do the trick this time.

  “You think you’re so smart, but you let it slip when you talked to me earlier.”

  “I don’t have it yet, but I hope to find it. We can share the proceeds when it turns up.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Ashley, I’m sorry you got your hopes up. I think he must have deposited it in a bank somewhere. Perhaps the bank card will turn up.”

  That was a stretch. I knew, and I hoped she didn’t, that if you deposit more than ten thousand dollars, it triggers a bank report.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she sneered. “He wasn’t stupid.”

  “Oh, well. He could have opened a few accounts, each of them less than—”

  “Bad for you then. I’m going to shoot you somewhere very painful. Then maybe you’ll talk.”

  I thought I spotted a slight movement behind her in the living area. Maybe Ashley was going to shoot me, but someone was going to get an earful before that happened.

  I said, “You had me fooled for a while with your descriptions of Eddie as the man seen talking to Karen Smith. Did you set him up to show up at the hospital when your father tried to smother Karen? Nicely played.”

  She smirked.

  I said, “And making sure that I knew the man who attacked you didn’t have a limp; that really threw me off. It was all very clever. Still, you must have been disappointed to find out that the money was gone after Alex was killed. What a waste.”

  Her face twisted. The hands holding the gun shook. “He wasn’t supposed to die. He wasn’t supposed to struggle. He was just supposed to be knocked down and the satchel was supposed to be stolen.”

  “Brilliant. You could have kept Alex as your boyfriend and the money. Vera would have lost her investment. That was the whole point with your father, wasn’t it? To get back at Vera.”

  That took her by surprise. “You know about my father?”

  By this time it seemed like a good idea to let her think the whole world knew. “I’m not the only one, Ashley. As they say in the movies, you won’t get away with this.”

  “But you’re wrong, I will.”

  “Sorry. Too many people know.”

  “They’ll have to prove it then. No good for you, because you might be dead if you don’t tell me where the money is.”

  And just as dead if I did.

  “Did you and Brian panic when I called from Karen’s place? Did you think that I might be on to you? Is that why you decided to blacken your eyes? To throw me off the scent? Or did your father do that to you?”

  “My father would never hurt me! He loves me.”

  “Well, you know he’s going to get life. Legal fees will eat up everything, including Vera’s money, which by the way, I really don’t have. And as for you, it won’t take much for the prosecution to demonstrate that you were the one who knew something about the book business, that you made a play for Alex when he began to work for Vera. He was shy and socially awkward, and he fell into your trap.”

  “That’s not true! I loved him.”

  “Maybe, but you used him to extort money from Vera and because you did that he is dead. You were the one with the brains and connections to make this happen. You invented Merlin and sold Alex on the idea. Your father’s obsessive hatred was just the fuel. My guess is it started with Brian stealing books and you finding buyers for them. You were in a perfect position to do that. Then Brian wanted to go bigger. Really do her some damage? Or was it your idea?”

  Keep her talking.

  “He lost his job, his health and his sports scholarship because of her. Vera Van Alst ruined his marriage, ruined our lives. I would have been happy if she’d died. But the fact that she was greedy enough and stupid enough to pay that amount of money for a play that was a figment of my imagination, well that was just beautiful. She could have shared her insurance money with my father after the accident, but all she did was make him a garden slave. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “Until Alex was killed.”

  “I said that was an accident.”

  “And did Karen Smith need to be eliminated because she figured out your involvement?”

  “I heard her leaving you that message when I was dropping off supplies at Yummers. Saying she was worried and mentioning something of concern to your employer. That had to be about the books from Vera’s collection. I knew that it was a mistake for Brian to sell them to a local dealer. I could tell by looking at Karen that she’d put it together. I called Brian and he said that he’d take care of her right away.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter because you are going down.”

  “And you are going to your grave.”

  “Might as well be comfortable.” I plunked myself down on the bed and leaned against the pillow. From the far end of the bed, the two cats watched with interest.

  I hoped like hell that whoever was out in the living room had gone for help.

  “If I give it to you, will you let me live? The money isn’t mine, so I would be considered a co-conspirator. No one would believe my story about finding it.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Will you let me live?”

  “Of course I will,” Ashley said with a fake smile.

  “All right,” I said.

  She moved closer, eyes gleaming.

  I waited until she got close enough for my purposes. That was close enough to see that the safety was off, not a good thing. The bronze was still under the pillow, and it was my only possible hope.

  “It’s just like you put your tooth for the tooth fairy,” I said idiotically. “Under my pillow. You can take it all, but you have to let me go, Ashley.”

  She said, “You are just toying with me. I’m looking forward to getting rid of you. I am going to take that money, and I am going to watch you die.”

  I’d had no idea this girl was so vicious and angry. Not for the first time, I thanked my uncles for teaching me to look unafraid and think on my feet no matter how bad the situation. My knees were wobbling. I could hear the thunder of my heart. My mouth was dry.

  Ashley lunged toward me, quickly. Too quickly.

  Bad Cat hates sudden moves. He reached out an elegant set of claws and raked her thigh.

  Shocked, Ashley shrieked and whirled.

  Bad Cat licked his paw. I dove for the bronze under the pillow. With the statue in my hand, I faced her. The trouble was I lacked whatever it would take to hit a human being in the head or even the hand with a heavy metal object. Karen’s injuries kept playing in my mind.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she mocked. “A stupid statue against a gun?”

  “This,” I said, whacking that gun. It flew across the room, hitting the floor with just enough force for it to go off. We both dove for it. I managed to butt heads with her as we tussled. I had the advantage as I still had the use of both my hands.

  My ears were ringing as I struggled to my feet. I gripped the gun and pointed it at her. “Stand up and move back.”

  “You won’t shoot me,” she sneered. “You can’t.”

  “I believe you are wrong about that,” I said.

  A voice came from the door to the living area. “Maybe she won’t shoot you, but I can and I will.”

  Ashley’s eyes widened as she turned to face Officer Smiley. Except he wasn’t smiling now.

  He said, “Just so you realize, Jordan, I wouldn’t have let her shoot you.”

  “Good to know,” I said.

  “I am really sorry you got mixed up in all this. I tried to keep an eye on you when I was tracking Ashley and her father, but you sure make it hard. Anyway, when I followed her here tonight, I knew this was serious and I had to rescue you.”

  “You didn’t rescue me, I rescued myself. You just saved me from shooting this little murderer. I’m thankful for that.” I was grateful that he was holding his police-issued Glock on Ashley and
especially happy that I didn’t have to find out the hard way whether I would have shot Ashley.

  But he wasn’t done. He had a few words for Ashley. “So, Ashley. You killed my friend, a fine, decent guy that I cared about. He really loved you and you used him. Now I’m going to make sure that you go down for it. I’ll be attending your trial every day, even if I have to quit my job, just so I sit and watch your face.”

  I was pretty sure that as a witness he wouldn’t be allowed to attend the trial when others were testifying. But, of course, I only knew that bit of procedure because of my unsavory family connections. That was another thought I kept to myself.

  “You can’t prove it,” she sputtered. Whatever you could say about her, she was no quitter.

  “That’s what tape is for, Ashley.”

  I for one hoped that as well as getting it on tape, he had called for backup. This girl was a tiger.

  “As long as you called it in,” I said meaningfully.

  He grinned.

  Ashley had started to wail. “I didn’t do anything, you stupid, nosy cow.”

  I don’t know who was more astonished, Officer Smiley or me or the guy in the dark shirt and tie with the gelled hair who appeared in the door behind Smiley. I supposed that the sound of the Smith & Wesson going off had been enough to get his attention behind the tinted window of whatever dark sedan he was driving. Of course, he wouldn’t know who Smiley was. This could take another turn for the worse.

  I shook my head. He frowned.

  “Thanks so much, Officer Dekker. I am so glad you followed Ashley. Did you say backup is—?”

  “On its way.”

  Sal’s someone disappeared faster than a Siamese cat on a mission. I gave a sigh of relief. Sal’s information had saved my life. I didn’t want to have it end badly for him and whoever he’d sent to protect me.

  Ashley still wasn’t done.

  “You can’t prove that I did anything. I had nothing to do with Alex being murdered.”

  “We’ll get you on conspiracy, theft, and obstructing a police investigation and half a dozen other offenses. We’re just getting started. You were involved in the commission of a felony. That means you’ll be culpable in Alex’s death, Karen’s attack and death threats against Miss Bingham here. Welcome to the justice system,” Officer Dekker said. No smile this time.