The Christie Curse (11 page)

There was no backing out now.

*    *    *

ALEXANDER FINE’S ROOM, spotless and minimalist, was sparsely decorated in IKEA furniture.
The walls still held every merit badge and honor roll certificate, as well as a chess
trophy and a fine selection of summer camp photos featuring the solemn olive-skinned
boy. To make things worse, he was smaller than the other boys around him. I sure hoped
these early years hadn’t been hellish.

I spent an hour sifting through what was left of Alexander Fine’s life. Much of it
was research for his dissertation. There was no mention of Vera, nothing about the
play or even Christie. No books by or about Agatha Christie. No files. That seemed
strange to me. It was such a compelling project that I found it hard to believe he
hadn’t written a single word about it anywhere. Where was his notebook? Had it been
stolen with his laptop bag? Or did he even use a paper notebook? I have always kept
a dedicated paper notebook, quite aside from any computer files. Life is safer that
way. Electronics get fried, lost and upgraded, or like Alex’s laptop, stolen. But
maybe Alex didn’t think that way. Maybe he had everything on a desktop computer. If
so, where was that? I checked the box. Sure enough, a printer, and a small webcam,
but no other computer, iPad or mini.

I turned back to the room. The saddest thing was a strip of photo-booth pictures of
Alex and his fiancée, Ashley. They were the happy kind where everyone clowns around.
Ashley was as tall as he was. She had her face turned toward him. Alex was smiling.
Alive. Almost carefree, but not quite.

The Fines were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I said, “I didn’t find
any notebooks here. Is there anyplace else they might be?”

Neither one said anything, but I could tell that the question had upset them. I waited
for a few more seconds and said, “Would they be with his fiancée?”

Both parents looked like they might have just smelled something very bad. It crossed
my mind that with all the photos of Alex in the living room, there wasn’t a single
one of him with Ashley. Maybe they had had trouble letting their only son leave the
nest. Perhaps his fiancée deserved even more sympathy if Alex had been still tied
to his parents.

Silence.

“So no chance there’s anything with Ashley?”

Mr. Fine said, “She wasn’t interested in Alex’s work.”

His wife said gently, “But she loved our boy.”

Mr. Fine nodded. “For anything else, you should ask your employer. After Alex died,
we brought his things back here from the apartment at the Van Alst house. We wanted
everything that was connected to him. We were…”

“Of course, you were.”

Mrs. Fine blurted out, “And then Miss Van Alst called and was very unpleasant. She
asked us to send everything about the project to her. Books, notes, everything. She
said that she’d paid for them and therefore they were her property and if we didn’t
cooperate, she would take legal action.”

He added, “We were so shocked that we didn’t seek legal advice ourselves. We just
packed them up for her. I’m surprised she sent you here, after that.”

Well, this was embarrassing. “She didn’t send me. Actually, she doesn’t even know
that I am here. I took the initiative. Alex was doing the same job as I am, and I’m
sure he really cared about the project. I thought I might learn from his work. I didn’t
ask Miss Van Alst about his materials. And I didn’t mean to upset you. I am so sorry.”

Mrs. Fine patted my arm. “It’s not you, dear.”

I was going to burn forever for bothering these people.

But Vera was definitely going to a deeper, hotter level.

*    *    *

ON THE SCENIC drive back to Harrison Falls, I asked myself what Vera could possibly
have gained from not telling me about Alex Fine’s research materials. Was there information
she didn’t want me to have? Either Alex hadn’t found anything useful, in which case
I could save time by not following the same leads, or he had found something and Vera
had chosen not to share it with me. What would be the point of that? What game was
Vera playing? Why would she have been so cruel to the Fines? Obviously, things weren’t
as they seemed. I had to find out what was really going on.

Alex Fine’s fiancée seemed like a logical place to start.

*    *    *

I SPOTTED OFFICER Smileypants in the distance in his squad car and managed to veer
off the main road and take a diversionary back-road route to Harrison Falls. No point
in asking for trouble, even if trouble was kind of cute.

After arriving at Uncle Mick’s, I skillfully evaded my uncles’ questions about Vera’s
finances and general lifestyle and scampered off to do some online research. I looked
over the articles on the train accident, and it dawned on me that all the information
about the project might have been in the stolen laptop. I gave a little shiver. If
Ashley Snell didn’t have any information, I was going to have to discard this line
of inquiry and start again. It was easy enough to get an address for Ashley Snell.
You can find anything online. She might have wanted privacy, but she’d left a trail
of bread crumbs right to her front door.

I promised the uncles that I’d dish the dirt on Vera on my next visit, and I asked
Uncle Lucky to figure out a way that
I could have Internet at the Van Alst house. I was in the Saab and on my way before
they could mount a counteroffensive. If I knew Lucky, I’d have service by nightfall
and no one would have even seen him come or go.

*    *    *

OF COURSE, IT would have been wonderful if Ashley Snell had actually been at home,
but she wasn’t. Ashley rented apartment A, the first floor of a small two-story house
on the outskirts of Harrison Falls, not far from Grandville. I banged on the door
extra long just in case. It wasn’t like I was the sleazy media. I convinced myself
that Alex Fine would have wanted this. Officer Smiley, on the other hand, was right
behind me, with his roof lights flashing as I walked away from Ashley’s house.

The fact that I hadn’t done anything remotely wrong had no impact on my aversion to
the law. It was automatic. I was well trained. Anyway, it wasn’t as though I liked
Officer Smiley or anything, I reassured myself. Cute, yes, but too pink cheeked. Too
blond. Too pretending to be nice.

But since he was also too in my face, even if it was to smile in my face, I decided
to use Uncle Mick’s “take the upper hand” method and question the cops before they
could question me.

“What can I do for you, Officer?”

He laughed. “That’s what I was going to say. Hey, do you have a lot of experience
with the police?”

Now what did he mean by that? I didn’t want to look flustered, but a weird sound came
out of my mouth. Real smooth, Bingham.

“Is there a problem?” That came out all right, more or less like a normal person without
criminal connections.

“I just stopped to say hello. It’s a lovely afternoon.”

“You just stopped to say hello? To me?”

“Well, yes.” He leaned forward to sniff a cluster of low-hanging lilacs. My palms
had started to sweat. Should I be
flattered? Or worried? Did lilac sniffing symbolize anything? Why did I find that
chipped incisor so adorable?

He said, “So, visiting a friend?”

“No. Yes. Well, not exactly. I’m following up on some research.”

“Anything I can help with?”

My car was so close. My instincts told me to push past him, jump into the Saab, gun
it and be out of sight in two seconds. My rational side told me those actions wouldn’t
look good or end well. Some other part of me noticed the little freckles on the bridge
of his nose and wondered what it might be like to be tackled by him. I gave my head
a shake. “I don’t think so. Thanks.” I made a beeline for my car. I had just settled
in and snapped on my retrofitted seat belt when he tapped on my car window.

I rolled it down.

Apparently he had never stopped smiling. “By the way, who’s your friend?”

“What friend?”

“The friend you were visiting here. The one who’s not at home.”

I reminded myself once again that I had done nothing wrong. And I needed to avoid
telling fibs out of habit and inclination. “Not really a friend, just someone I need
to speak to.”

“Oh sure, but anyway. It’s a small town, I might know them.”

Fine. He might have some useful information. “Her name is Ashley Snell.”

A small shadow clouded his sunny smile. “Right. Wasn’t her…? Oh boy. That was an awful
thing. That poor girl witnessed it.”

Of course, he would know all about Alex and his terrible death. The fiancée too. Harrison
Falls was indeed a small town, and everybody knew everything about everyone’s
every action. It wouldn’t have surprised me if my uncles were already aware that I
was having this conversation.

I said, “I have to go now.”

He nodded. “I am glad that Ms. Snell has good friends like you.”

He sounded like he really meant it. For a second I wondered if I was dreaming.

*    *    *

I SPENT THE rest of the afternoon plowing through my stack of research material on
Agatha Christie, her disappearance and her plays. I worked undisturbed for hours,
if you don’t count Signora Panetone arriving with an afternoon snack of prosciutto,
melon and fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano. The cat, of course, came and went like magic.
I quite liked it when it was in a good mood, purring and wanting to snuggle up, but
when that leg-slashing business started again, I was prepared to try to chase it out,
while keeping a safe distance.

I now knew that
The Mousetrap
, Agatha’s most famous play, began life as a radio play, which was itself based on
a short story. It seemed to me that indicated there was hope. She’d done that with
The Mousetrap
, so she might have done it with something else. She’d asked that the short story
not be published in the UK as long as the play was running. I assumed that was not
to spoil the ending. But it was an interesting approach. She could have experimented
earlier and for some reason not wanted to release this other play. Perhaps she’d based
a book on it. Or a short story. Or it might have been too close to her real life.
She’d been going through an intense crisis. Maybe, if it existed, this play would
shed light on her unexplained eleven-day disappearance. Dramatize it. What if it showed
her in an unappealing light? That would make news even after nearly a century. People
love a good mystery, and this one would be a spectacular story.

Lots of sources mentioned the two unpublished Christie short stories that had shown
up in her notebooks, but if the play existed and if it had been written during her
disappearance, it would be in a whole different league.

I now had three possible theories: theory one, that she’d written a play in a fugue
state; theory two, that she’d reworked it into some other pieces, short stories, radio
plays, even an early version of a novel; and theory three, that someone was prepared
to make a fool out of a collector who would pay the big bucks for the privilege.

Someone would pay the big bucks, no question. Would someone even be willing to kill
for it?

I
WAS GETTING smarter about dinners with the crabby and deceitful boss. I always brought
a wrap. I wore my boots in case the cat was under my chair and in a mood. As I headed
down the steep dark staircases from my garret and walked along the corridor to the
dining room, I was steeling myself for battle. Not even the gorgeous room and the
food could take my mind off the fact that my employer was somehow playing games.

Vera Van Alst, a vision in frayed beige once again, raised a beige eyebrow as I arrived.
It may have been the hand-tooled cowboy boots. I smiled at her, all confidence. Two
can play games. Even so, I reminded myself that I had to tread carefully. I needed
this job. And I loved my funky garret and cabbage rose walls. Plus there was something
to be said for living in the Van Alst mansion and having platters of delicious food
placed in front of you three to five times a day.

The downside was not knowing what Vera was up to. I
didn’t mind grumpy, but I wasn’t crazy about deceitful and manipulative, when I was
the target.

If she really wanted this play, why wouldn’t she want me to benefit from Alex Fine’s
work? Why would she have asked his parents for his research notes and then not mentioned
it? I realized that I hadn’t been bright enough to ask them if they’d read the materials
that they’d turned over to Vera Van Alst. It had been an uncomfortable conversation.
Knowing how distraught they must have been, I was pretty sure they hadn’t.

As Signora Panetone burst through the swinging door from the kitchen, carrying a tray
of something that smelled delicious, I tried a preemptive strike.

“I have had a quite productive day. Finding leads, but I don’t really want to waste
time going over old ground. I’m puzzled by the lack of research notes from my predecessor.
How long did you say he worked on the project?”