The Christie Curse (28 page)

I pulled over and gave the Fines a call. A bit soon, but after all, they had said
anything they could do.

“Vera Van Alst’s voice, can you describe it?”

A pause. “Just a woman’s voice, nothing out of the ordinary.”

I remembered how I’d reacted to Vera’s voice in our first meeting. It had taken a
lot of getting used to. “So not like crunching gravel?”

“What?” Mrs. Fine sounded startled.

I amended that. “Not deep? Gravelly?”

“No. Just a woman’s voice. A bit muffled, I suppose, like she had a cold, but not
deep. And not gravelly.”

And, therefore, not Vera Van Alst.

“Could it have been a man pretending to be Miss Van Alst?”

She paused for a few seconds. “I suppose.”

Interesting.

*    *    *

IT CROSSED MY mind that Uncle Lucky might like to get his Navigator back. He was unlikely
to squeeze himself into the Saab, and he tended to get bored with the Town Car. I
planned to return the SUV after a trip to the hospital in Grandville. I dropped in
to see how Karen was doing and found that nurses and residents alike were quite enchanted
by Uncle Danny. People say he can charm the pants off…I mean, charm the birds out
of the trees. He’s the most Irish-looking of us all, all wiry red hair and bright
blue eyes, an alarming mustache and a blarneyish tongue. He attributes that coloring
to a Viking ancestor named Olaf who he claims made a splash in Dublin round about
the ninth century. If you buy him a drink, he’ll tell you some tales about Olaf. I’d
advise any mesmerized listeners to hang on to their wallets.

Danny was happily seated in a very comfortable chair outside Karen’s door, playing
solitaire and no doubt about to tempt the unwary into a costly game of Texas Hold
’Em. Someone had provided him with an iced cappuccino and a glazed double-chocolate
doughnut. I noticed members of the female staff swaying their hips a bit more than
I remembered them doing previously. And, in fact, there seemed to be more walking
by than usual as well.

Despite this amusing scene, if you were a villain planning something, it would be
wise not to underestimate Danny.

Even though he’s a hugger and a kisser and that mustache tickles.

“Thank you so much for doing this, Uncle Danny. I know you’re busy.” Of course, none
of my uncles is ever really “busy”; they just have degrees of availability.

“Glad to. Nice place. Good food. Pretty ladies.”

I had to grin. “And Karen? Have you heard anything about her prognosis?”

“Pretty lady doc says that your friend is stable and they are thinking that guarded
optimism is the phrase.”

“That’s a relief. Are you okay here on your own? I plan to stir the waters a bit.”

Uncle Danny inclined his head toward what looked like an orderly checking a medical
instruction, but those hairy forearms and the Celtic cross tattoo should have been
my first clue that Uncle Billy wasn’t far. In the unlikely event that someone blindsided
Uncle Danny, Billy would bring that someone a little closer to his maker. Karen was
in four good hands. I loved those guys. I figured Danny’s early career choices of
riding rodeo in Alberta and later wrestling would pay off in a tight situation. Billy
was the family athlete: shot put, javelin, you name it. There wasn’t an item that
he couldn’t heave through the air with mind-popping accuracy.

“We’ll manage twelve hours each, and then the relief team shows up. Course, it’s more
likely that someone will pull something when things are quiet. Lots of traffic here.”

“Has anyone tried to get into her room?”

“Sure thing. Half dozen. I stay with them and check them out first. Billy watches
the hall. A stethoscope could fool nearly anyone, gotta admit it. But they’ve all
been who they said they were. Billy and I work well together.”

That reminded me. They weren’t the only people who might be working together. “Okay.
Here’s a picture of a guy to watch out for.” I handed over the print of Eddie McRae.
“But like you two, he may be part of a team. The other player is a big guy, limps,
sometimes more than other times, and may be wearing a baseball cap. Pass this on to
our relief team when they get here, please.”

The relief team would be Uncles Tiny and Connie. They made Danny and Billy look like
a pair of rookie candy stripers.

I figured if we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives worrying, it was time to
take action.

*    *    *

I TOOK A quick detour to get a dog toy for Walter in the Poocherie, a specialty dog
store in downtown Harrison Falls. I picked up a giant jar of gummy bears for Walter’s
caretakers at the Sweet Spot, the candy store in a little row of boutiques that occupied
our defunct department store. Harrison Falls was redefining itself after the slam
that the Van Alst Shoes failure had inflicted and building a new life fleecing, I
mean
attracting
, tourists.

Five minutes later, I parked the Navigator in its usual place and headed off to see
how all that dog sitting was working out.

The first thing I noticed was that Walter was parked on the sofa, bug-eyed with contentment.
I shook my head in case I was hallucinating. He looked quite comfortable on that heritage
quilt. I’d been hoping that would come to me eventually, but I wasn’t sure I wanted
it now. He welcomed me with his ragged smoker’s bark, and Uncle Mick popped out of
the kitchen. He had a can opener in one hand and a can of duck and sweet potato dog
food in the other. It’s a dog’s life all right.

“Oh, and about your Eddie,” Uncle Mick said.

“Not my Eddie, but what about him?”

“Nothing. Nada. Zip.”

“Really?”

“I don’t think the guy ever had so much as a parking ticket.” Obviously, my uncle
felt this was a character flaw.

“Did you find out anything about him?”

Mick shrugged and spooned dog food into the designer dish with the white paws on the
red background. It would take more than that to make the duck and sweet potato goop
look good, but Walter’s curly tail came to life.

“Grew up in Harrison Falls. Went to school here. Never left.”

“That’s it?”

“Works as a postal carrier. Quiet, close to retirement, no job problems, nothing on
his routes, no complaints.”

I shrugged in disappointment.

“Supposed to have a thing for Vera Van Alst.”

“What?”

“No accounting for taste,” Mick said, setting down the dog food for Walter. “Since
they were kids is what I heard.”

I
FOUND VERA in the library, a cool sanctuary on a warm day. I used my code to get
in. She seemed to wear a ratty dung-colored sweater no matter what day it was. She
was stroking the dust jacket of a volume. I couldn’t make out the title.

“You have disturbed the sanctuary of my collection with your tale of missing volumes.
Now I think that a full inventory will be required before I can rest easy.”

I didn’t care if she could rest easy. Something terrible was going on, and it was
worse than missing books.

“Seems Alex’s parents don’t remember whether his keys were in the box you insisted
on having returned.”

Made her blink.

In her normal gravelly voice she said, “I made no such request.”

“I realize that, but someone did, a woman, from this number.”

She frowned. “But except for you and Fiammetta and me, there is no woman in the house.
I didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t think it was you.”

“Fiammetta would be very distinctive.”

My heart wasn’t in it, but I had to ask. “Could she possibly fake it?”

“I doubt it very much. She learned English as a young adult when she came from Italy
to work for my family. She’ll never lose that accent. Did she insist that they eat?”

I chuckled. “It couldn’t have been the signora, and I know it wasn’t me. Do you want
to talk to the Fine family to confirm this?”

For the first time, I saw a flicker of alarm cross her features.

“I do not care to,” she said, as if I hadn’t figured that out.

“Then you’ll have to take my word for it. All this stuff is connected. I bet the missing
books are part of it too, so that makes it part of my job. I have to figure out what’s
been going on. By the way, Karen Smith is still in danger, although she’s improving
and is expected to survive.”

I left her to think about that, and headed toward the kitchen pretending to want some
lunch. I walked through the dining room and banged on the swinging door. Signora Panetone
popped her head out.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, still standing in the dining room, “but I’m awfully
hungry. Any chance of a sandwich or something?”

“You eat soup!” she shouted. “Good soup.
Carne in brodo.
Go to conservatory. I meet you with soup.”

“Sure thing,” I said, hoping that Eddie was listening. “Hold on, my phone’s vibrating.
I have to take this call. You need to heat the soup anyway, no?”

“All ready! Soup is ready now!”

I held up my finger and took the imaginary call.

“Hello?

“What?

“Great news! Are you sure?

“That’s wonderful. Thanks for letting me know, Doctor.”

I snapped the phone shut.

Signora Panetone said, “Is good? Good news?”

“Very good, Signora. My friend Karen is going to be all right.”

“Going home? I send soup!”

“No, no, not yet. She’ll have to stay in the hospital for quite a while, but she’s
conscious, awake.”

“Good, good. You go, I come.”

I went and made myself comfortable in the conservatory. Large fans made a little breeze,
and the whirr of the wheelchair approaching told me that Vera must have decided to
join me.
Carne in brodo
turned out to be meatballs in broth with, naturally, freshly grated Parmesan. Soup
and fragrant fresh bread was more than fine with me.

Vera parked herself on her regular side of the table and produced her best scowl.
She took a deep breath before saying, “I am sorry about what has happened to Miss
Smith. I have no idea why she was attacked.”

“And Alex?”

For once she didn’t meet my eyes. “I suppose I wanted to think that he was simply
careless and stupid. He was an odd young man. Very reserved. Hard to warm to.”

Hard to warm to?

I couldn’t imagine Vera really warming to anyone. She sure hadn’t warmed to me.

“He was secretive.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, but never mind that.

“Secretive how?”

A flash of the familiar Vera. “In a secretive way, of course.” She stopped, caught
herself. “I’m sorry. He kept things from me. He liked to have information that other
people didn’t. He wasn’t good at hiding that. You, for instance, are much more subtle.”

“Funny,” I said, “and all along I’ve thought you were keeping things from me. Which
you were, naturally.”

“I was.”

“And I hope we can get past that and put an end to whatever is going on. But you’ll
have to level with me.”

“Now I need to accept that boy must have been murdered.” She shivered, despite the
sweater and the warmth of the conservatory.

“Exactly, by someone posing as a homeless man, who then stole his laptop. And why
would someone murder him?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I leaned forward and said, “I think it’s time you told me the truth. Enough people
have suffered. I need to know why.”

At this rate, I’d be looking for a new job before dinner.

“Miss Bingham, may I remind you that it’s what
you
need to tell
me
that counts.”

“Miss Van Alst, you’re the one with the missing information.”

“Isn’t that what I pay you for? To find out things?”

“Books, yes. Research, yes. But I didn’t sign on to let people be killed. Was that
your intention?”

Her head snapped back and she glared at me. “Of course not. What do you take me for?”

I waited.

Finally she said, “Alex said he’d found the manuscript. Found the play. He said it
was called
When She Was Gone
.”

I’d suspected, but I should have known she’d been keeping something key from me. “Found
it? Where?”

“In New York City.”

It was quite a distance from the spa at Harrogate to Manhattan, but not impossible.
“How?”

“Through an intermediary.”

“Let me guess. The intermediary was Merlin.”

“Yes. Merlin.”

“And do you know where they were to meet?”

“He didn’t tell me. He needed the money to acquire the play. I arranged for it.”

“He took his fiancée when he went to the city.”

“Stupid. Lucky she wasn’t killed too. He didn’t mention that he was planning that.”

“You’re right, Ashley may have been lucky, but someone’s been trying to make up for
that. And by the way, she doesn’t really know anything about Merlin. If he even exists.”

Vera shrugged, tired out by all this truthfulness. “Maybe he doesn’t.”

“Exactly. There’s something not quite right about the whole story.”