Christietown

by Susan Kandel

  Tipped off by Rosie and then the local police, Archie was in the lobby of the Harrogate, determined to move slowly, as if his wife were a forest creature likely to bolt at the slightest rustling.

  He was seated in a wingback chair, his face buried in a newspaper.

  But he wasn’t reading.

  Not about how a medium in Guildford, channeling a twelveyear-old African girl named Maisie, had contacted Agatha through a used powder-puff.

  Nor about the hypothesis that she’d driven off in a dark red four-seater with a mystery lover, with whom she was ensconced near Pyrford.

  Nor about the most absurd of the theories, that she was living in London disguised as a man.

  He knew better than that.

  No, Archie wasn’t reading.

  He was lying in wait.

  Superintendent McDowall of the Claro Division was hovering nearby, wondering how this was going to play to his superiors. The twitchy manageress of the hotel, Mrs. Taylor, was pacing the floor of her office, anticipating with no great pleasure the theatrics to come. The esteemed members of the press were massing outside, the chill air biting at their ink-stained fingers.

  It was then that an unsuspecting Agatha came downstairs and seated herself in the lounge.

  Seeing all he needed to see, Archie signaled Superintendent Mc-Dowall.

  Yes, the woman in the pink georgette dress with the silk camellia at her shoulder was in fact his wife.

  He’d expected a scene. But when Archie approached Agatha, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. They sat together quietly by the fire. Later, they took a corner table in the restaurant.

  She talked. He listened.

  She confessed everything.

  Afterward, she told him she was deeply sorry.

  She whispered the words over and over again until they were just hollow sounds in her ears.

  After leaving Agatha in her hotel bedroom, Archie rang Styles to tell his wife’s secretary that she’d been found, and that she’d been suffering from amnesia.

  That evening, husband and wife slept in separate rooms.

  When it was time to leave the following morning, the cameras were poised to strike. Agatha held her head high as the bellboy opened the door of the waiting taxicab, which whisked them to the station.

  The railway staff had placed an Out of Order sign on the machine that sold penny tickets, hoping to keep the crowds at bay.

  After indicating they would be proceeding to King’s Cross station, they switched trains at Leeds, Agatha leading the way through a phalanx of indefatigable reporters.

  Westminster Gazette, the Daily News, the Daily Mail, the Leeds Mercury, the Daily Sketch.

  Agatha and Archie found their seats on the train.

  Agatha stared at Archie, who stared out the window.

  When he closed his eyes for some much-needed sleep, she reached into her handbag and took out the wedding ring she’d tossed so impulsively out of the car window that fateful night, eleven days earlier.

  Before catching the milk train to Waterloo, she’d gone back to find it. In the dark of the night, she’d searched through the leaves, disarranged her hair, scratched her face, blinked back the tears until she’d seen it, half-buried in the underbrush.

  “I know of no other experience which confers so much grace as loving and being loved by one person.”

  The words she’d once written came to mind, and to her surprise, she still believed them.

  Archie began to stir and Agatha slipped the ring back inside her purse. As she zipped it closed, she could see the gold glinting in the dying light.

  After that, she remembered absolutely nothing of her time at the Harrogate, nor of the long and terrible night that had preceded it.

  When it came to the story of Agatha Christie’s life, that chapter was lost forever.

  CHAPTER 50

  ece! Where are you?” Gambino shouted into my ear. I was in the foyer of the King’s Head inside one of those old-fashioned fire-engine-red British telephone booths with a gold crown at the top and seventy-two individually beveled glass windows. Not that I was going to tell him. Not with that attitude.

  “Where are you?” I yelled back. “You were supposed to meet me at the courtroom hours ago.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you. And I’m not the only one.”

  Two young women with Princess Di hairdos and tiaras were rapping on the phone booth now. They pointed at their camera. They wanted to take a picture. I held up my index finger and smiled. Apparently, they didn’t want to wait. Nor were they in a smiling mood. “I have to hang up in a second,” I said. “Sorry you couldn’t reach me. My phone’s been dead all day. What’s the big emergency?”

  His voice softened. “Are you sitting down?”

  “No,” I said, feeling suddenly faint.

  “Is there a chair nearby?”

  “No. What is it? You’re scaring me.”

  “Don’t be scared. It’s good news.”

  Turned out Annie was having her baby a little bit ahead of schedule.

  I flew out of the phone booth, nearly mowing down the Dianas in the process. The one with the bigger tiara yelled, “Screw you,” the other gave me a hand gesture that would’ve made the Queen Mum blush. You could tell right off the bat they were frauds.

  The folks at Cedars Sinai were more polite, with the possible exception of the valet, who looked askance at my unwashed Camry, which even I had to admit stuck out like a sore thumb amid the luxury vehicles swarming the underground parking lot. Annie’s water had broken this afternoon at four while she and Vincent were having a predinner corned beef and cabbage snack at the Farmer’s Market. The Farmer’s Market was on Third and Fairfax, and Cedars was about two minutes away. That’s how they’d wound up at the most expensive hospital west of the Mississippi. At least she’d get a private room and good drugs.

  The lady at the information kiosk had seen my type before. After giving me a pat on the back and a booklet about anxiety disorder, she sent me to the maternity ward. On the way up, I became aware of a jackhammerlike pounding in the vicinity of my heart. I brought my hand to my chest, which seemed to alarm the man standing next to me, who breached elevator etiquette to reassure me that the cardiac-care unit at Cedars was world-class. I explained that I’d been stuck in an elevator recently, plus my only child was having a baby. Then I started to weep. That earned me another pat on the back. I watched the numbers light up on the monitor: 2, 3, 4. At last, the doors

  opened.

  “Cece!” cried Lael. “Finally.”

  “You’re here?” I asked.

  They were all there, assembled in the mauve-accented waiting area: Lael, Bridget, Gambino, Richard, Jackie, Dot, with little Alexander on her lap, and Vincent, who was as pale as I’d ever seen him, but grinning from ear to ear as he rushed up to give me a hug.

  “I’ve gotta get back in there,” he said. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Can I see her?” I asked, clutching the hem of his T-shirt like both our lives depended on it.

  Vincent shook his head. “It’s really important to Annie that it’s just the two of us in there. Please don’t take it wrong. It’s a bonding thing.”

  “Tell her I love her,” I said as he walked away.

  “She knows,” said Gambino, putting his arm around me.

  When Annie had arrived several hours ago, she was 100 percent effaced but less than one centimeter dilated. Her contractions were weak and were spaced fifteen minutes apart. The doctor had decided to give it three hours, but if there was no change, they were going to induce labor. Annie balked, but only until being informed that it would reduce the risk of a cesarean. The three hours were up thirty minutes ago. They’d gone ahead and administered Pitocin. Despite being informed that the contractions brought on by induction would almost certainly be severe, Annie was refusing an epidural.

  “No drugs?” I asked, weak at the knees.

  Lael shook her head regretfully.<
br />
  Bridget’s comment was, “I hear the Deluxe Birthing Room has a Jacuzzi.” Then, “The gift shop is very well-stocked.”

  Jackie and Dot were pacing the shiny faux-tile floor. Richard was reading the New York Times, a box of cigars at his side. It reminded me of the day Annie was born. Richard’s father had brought a box of cigars to Asbury Park General and forced his son to have one. Richard had promptly thrown up. I never knew if it was from the tobacco or the shock. He was twenty-two, I was barely eighteen. We knew nothing about life, less than that about raising a child. Still, Richard had been there for Annie. She’d spent summers and holidays with him, he’d flown out for graduations and special occasions. Not much in terms of time, but he’d given his love unsparingly, and it was a big part of what made Annie good and strong. Twenty-one years later he was still there, a newspaper in his hands. He’d always been better with words than with people. Just then, he looked up and caught my eye. I nodded at him. He nodded at me. It was the best we were going to do.

  “So now we wait,” I said to Gambino.

  We sat down next to each other.

  “What’s new?” he asked.

  A trick question. “You first,” I said.

  Gambino told me he and Tico had run into a brick wall with their murder investigation. It was obvious that the guy had been dealing drugs from prison, and that whoever had whacked him wasn’t enthused about the idea. It had to be someone higher up on the food chain. They’d left the thousand bucks on him deliberately. It was a show of power. But there was no forensic evidence. And thus no real suspects. What about the women? I asked. The wife and the girlfriend? They’d given up on him long ago, said Gambino. They were smart enough to know he wasn’t worth life behind bars.

  Then it was my turn.

  I told him about my visit to the wig shop and the nursery, and Lou’s and my mad dash for the courtroom. Mostly, though, I talked about Ian. We’d had a few minutes together after I made the phone call. It had been awkward. I’d put him between a rock and a hard place. He wanted to do the right thing; he wanted to run as fast and as far as he could. But we both knew there wasn’t anyplace he could run where he’d be able to forget what he’d done, regardless of how many larkspurs and hollyhocks and snapdragons were lining the path to his front door.

  Was that when McAllister and Mariposa showed up? asked Gambino.

  No, I said. That was when Ian reached into his pocket and pulled out his brown leather billfold. From between two twenties, he extracted a thin piece of yellowed paper with frayed edges. There was a gold monogram at the top: A.M.C.

  Agatha Miller Christie.

  Ian unfolded the piece of paper and placed it on the table in front of me. He watched my face for a minute.

  Did I know about the note Agatha had left behind for Archie before she disappeared? he asked.

  Of course I knew about the note. Archie had destroyed it.

  Was I so sure about that? Now Ian’s eyes were sparkling.

  Yes, I was sure. It was full of recriminations about Archie’s affair with Nancy. Archie destroyed it because he didn’t want anyone to see it.

  Ian shook his head.

  I looked down again.

  The note was written in a shaky hand I recognized.

  Where did you get this? I asked.

  Family heirloom, he replied.

  You picked it up at the memorabilia shop, didn’t you?

  He didn’t answer. His eyes had filled with tears.

  Oh, Cece, he said. Life is such a mystery, isn’t it?

  That was when Mariposa and McAllister appeared.

  And now it was Vincent who was standing in front of me.

  I leapt to my feet. “How is she?”

  “Do you mean Annie,” he asked with a smile, “or my gorgeous new daughter?”

  “A girl!” Richard cried from across the room. He reached over to hug Jackie. “You’ve got a sister!” he said to Alexander, who was jumping up and down. Alexander was always jumping up and down, but this time there was a reason.

  “Congratulations, man,” said Gambino, pumping Vincent’s hand.

  “Is Annie okay?” I asked him anxiously.

  “Your daughter is radiant,” he said. “Like every day.” He embraced me, then said, “I am the luckiest man in the world.”

  “Do you have a name yet?” asked Dot.

  “Radha.”

  Jackie gave Richard a sideways glance.

  “How exactly do you spell that?” Richard asked.

  “R-A-D-H-A. She’s a cowherdess who gets transformed into a goddess through love,” explained Vincent.

  I looked at Gambino, who whispered, “Don’t worry. We can call her Hot Rod.”

  After a long pause, Richard said, “I like it.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Radha. It’s beautiful.”

  “Annie would like to see you both,” Vincent said. “To introduce you to your granddaughter.”

  Richard and I stayed for an hour, fussing over Annie. Lying in the bed, with her daughter in her arms, she’d never seemed happier. And Vincent, well, he was beside himself. His smile, normally beatific, was otherworldly. Richard had forgotten all about the cigars. Instead, he snapped pictures of the tiny, perfect newborn. I was content just to stroke her skin. It was so velvety, like Annie’s had been. Baby back, Richard and I used to call it. The softest skin imaginable.

  Annie and Radha would be spending two nights in the hospital, just as a precaution. Once they returned home, the only thing the doctor was recommending was keeping the baby away from crowds for several weeks. It would give her immune system a chance to kick in. Would Gambino and I consider, Vincent asked as he walked us back to the waiting room, postponing the wedding for a few weeks so they could all be there?

  I laughed and told him it wouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t consider having a wedding unless Radha could be the flower girl.

  Gambino and I took Alexander home with us so Vincent could stay at the hospital with his wife and new baby. We fed the pets, had a midnight snack of orange juice and Oreos, and went to sleep.

  Sometime around dawn, the screeching of a siren woke me up. After tossing and turning for a while, I gave up the fight. I went into the bathroom, washed my face, put on my robe, and tiptoed out to the living room, a yellowed piece of paper in my hand.

  I know of no other experience which confers so much grace as loving and being loved by one person.

  That’s what it said, the note Agatha wrote to Archie, the note Archie claimed to have destroyed, the note that Ian had

  given to me for safekeeping.

  Bull’s-eye.

  The words hit me like a knife to the heart.

  I looked down at the beautiful ring Gambino had given me, and thought about the wedding we were supposed to have, the one I’d postponed without so much as asking him.

  I know of no other experience which confers so much grace as loving and being loved by one person.

  Loving and being loved by one person.

  If you don’t get it right the first time, you might get another chance.

  Some people take it, others run from it.

  Sitting there alone on my living room couch, the early morning sun streaming in through the window, I wondered, not for the first time, if I was the kind of person who took it, or the kind of person who ran.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, again, to my friends and family, who never seem to mind when I crib a line or two from them.

  Thanks are also due to my brilliant editor, Carolyn Marino, who bears no relationship whatsoever to Cece’s editor, Sally; and to the agent extraordinaire, Sandra Dijkstra. Samantha Hagerbaumer of HarperCollins is a delight to work with; ditto Taryn Fagerness and Elise Capron at the Dijkstra Agency.

  The literature on the Queen of Crime is vast. Agatha Christie’s autobiography proved invaluable, as did the biographies by Janet Morgan and Gillian Gill, and Anne Hart’s charming The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple. In researching Agatha
’s disappearance, I consulted a variety of works, fiction and nonfiction, including Carole Owens’s The Lost Days of Agatha Christie, Kathleen Tynan’s Agatha, and finally, Jared Cade’s Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, to which I am greatly indebted. Cade’s meticulous research and psychological insights provided the basis of my own reconstruction of what Agatha might have been thinking during those fateful days in 1926.

  My daughters started off indulging me and wound up Christie fans; my husband is more the hard-boiled type, but he lived and breathed Miss Marple for a solid year. Who could ask for anything more?

  About the Author

  Susan Kandel is a former art critic for the Los Angeles Times. She has taught at New York University and UCLA, and served as the editor of the international journal artext. She lives with her family in West Hollywood, California.

  www.susankandel.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY SUSAN KANDEL

  Not a Girl Detective I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason Shamus in the Green Room

  Credits

  Cover design by Barbara Levine Cover illustration by Paul Oakley/Bernstein & Andriulli, Inc.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  CHRISTIETOWN. Copyright © 2007 by Susan Kandel. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.