Aria in Ice

by Flo Fitzpatrick

There was no reasonable answer to this. Aura Lee didn’t expect one. She went right on. “So, did y’all have a good time at last night’s séance? Wasn’t it fun?”

  Fun would not have been my first choice of words. Hell and emotional exhaustion would have come closer to describing that little party. And now she was back to torment me.

  Aura Lee sat down on one of the embroidered chairs and gracefully tugged her skirt over her knees. “Well, let’s get on with it.”

  I ground my teeth and said, less than politely, “Auraliah? Miz Lee. Beg pardon, but get on with what? You said we’re not going to have to endure, I mean enjoy, a repeat of last night’s dip into the world of the undead. So, no offense, but why in hell are you here?”

  Her overly arched and dyed black eyebrows shot into her forehead. “Oh my. Don’t tell me ah haven’t said?”

  Shay finally found her voice. “We hate to tell you, but it’s a mystery to us.”

  “Well, dahlin’, that’s exactly why ah’ve come. Mystery.” Her smile dimmed. “No, that’s puttin’ it pohly. Sadly, there’s not just mystery, but danger. Terrible danger. Ah couldn’t make it yesterday in time to help that poor Trina, but then, sometimes ah’m not supposed to save the innocent. But tonight ah’m here to give a warning.”

  “Who exactly is in danger?” I asked, stilling my breathing and willing my voice to talk without cracking. I knew damn well who was in danger but somehow needed this bizarre godmother to state it before I’d truly believe it.

  “Oh, Hon, I thought that was cleeah. You are. Bad danger. You’all be all right if you can work out the details about the flute, but if not, well, ah guess ah’ll just be chattin’ with you in this room again sometime in the future, but you won’t be with me, or anyone else, except in spirit.”

  I let my breath out in a huge whoosh. Yep. Abby Fouchet’s name was next on the hit list. Even though I hadn’t figured out where the flute was or where Ignatz was buried. It didn’t matter. Even if I had somehow divined the whereabouts of the flute, if the killer assumed I was as greedy as he or she and that I’d keep this treasure for myself, I was looking at a quick dip in an icy moat without a paddle. I was most definitely in danger no matter what I knew—or didn’t know—at this point.

  All the fear I’d managed to squooch way inside me this past day came barrelling back. Shay had gone white. Our psychic wanderer was a great eccentric and fun for a charcter actress to play in a movie, but she’d also proven last night that she could work magic. I didn’t know if that was good or bad news.

  Cards on the table time. “Okay. Aura Lee? Where Ignatz is buried? And where is his flute?”

  She made no effort to deny that she knew exactly what I was talking about. “Ah cain’t tell you, Hon. Y’all have to work those l’il details out for yourself.”

  Shay’s face became grim. She yelled, “You come waltzing in here at midnight in your incredible pink fairy costume to scare Abby and make pronouncements, but you can’t give her one stinkin’, fantastic clue so she’ll be safe? What kind of nutcase tease are you?”

  Aura Lee wasn’t offended. She patted Shay’s hand, then turned and patted mine. “Now, girls, ah know this is difficult at this moment, but please try and look on me as Cinderella’s godmother. With Abby as Cinderella.” She giggled again. “As you noticed, ah’m kind of dressed like her, aren’t ah? Well, parts of me are. Sorry you’re scared, darlin’ but I’m in hidin’. Oh shoot, that reminds me, this tiara is borrowed. Ah’d best remember to return it before the police come runnin’ after me. And after ah replace the batteries. Some of these l’il lights just keep blinkin’ out.” She struggled to get her giggles under control. “Where was I? Oh, yes. Cinderella. Shohnuff, it’s true, her sweet godmother waved that pretty wand around and did marvelously lovely things with mice and pumpkins and fashion design, but Cinderella had to do her part, too. She was not some pampered l’il ol’Southern Belle wannabe lyin’ around before the Wo-ah of Northern Aggression who let everyone else do the work. No no. Cinderella, like a true Southern lady, cleaned and she got that house spiffied up. Then she used every ounce of bravery she possessed to go to the ball when what she really wanted to do was shout to the rooftops, ‘Ah found ma prince!’ Why, she had to keep her mouth closed and silent around her nasty family. But in the end, she won. Y’all understand?”

  “Not really. But since you and your wand do bear a striking resemblance tonight to at last fifteen fictional fairy godmothers, I’m going to just flow with this and not bitch too much about the fact that you’re withholding vital information about musical instruments and murdered flautists and probably who the killer is now roaming around this castle with me in his or her sights.”

  Shay jumped in, teeth bared. “Well, I’m sure as shootin’ going to bitch! You’re telling my best friend she’s in danger and then—what? Planning to step out into your pumpkin carriage and take off for a nice dinner in Oz?”

  “Ooh, I love Australia!” she exclaimed. “Y’all just have to go there sometime. The beaches are marvelous. Almost as pretty as South Carolina.”

  Shay shouted. “Not that Oz!”

  Aura Lee sighed. “Oh, ah see, you’re avoiding the subject and trying to be cute. Jivin’ me. Well, that’s fahn.”

  I held up my hand for peace and tried not to look at the bouncing tutu. “Shay, you calm down. Aura Lee, you, you… oh,blast it. Can you help at all? At least give me some teensy small hint?”

  “Oh, Hon, you have all the information you need. You jes’ need to put it together. And no, Ignatz Jezek is not gonna play that flute and lead you to the location like he’s some sort of dead Pied Piper. He’s got his pride, Shugah.”

  “Well, what about at least telling me who I’m in danger from? Is that breaking some sort of cosmic rule?”

  Aura Lee glanced at the clock over the mantel. It was like a complete repeat of last night after she’d let the Baron chew the scenery in his pivotal scene. “Look at the time! Ah have to get goin’. Oh! Ah almost forgot. Shay? Robby said to thank ya for the enchilada recipe. That l’il pinch of basil in the sauce jes’ made all the difference.”

  “Robby? As in my cousin, Rob? You’re friends with Rob? Is he still playing bagpipes? Where is he?”

  Aura Lee ignored the question. “Ah’m goin’ now. Ah’m glad there’s no snow tonight. Ah’d hate to get ma pretty boots all soaked in bad weather.”

  In a daze, Shay and I walked her to the back door. Déjà vu indeed. Once again, Aura Lee opened it, stepped outside, waved as she walked toward the cemetery, then called out “Requiescat in pacem.” Shay and I made the mistake of glancing at each other and shaking our heads in wonder. Mistake, because in the time it took to shake our heads just once, when we looked outside again, Aura Lee had disappeared.

  Chapter 35

  “Well, that was just too flippin’ annoying.” Shay stated in a flat tone.

  “Oh? And why would you say that? Because a short, zaftig, flaming pink Nutcracker Sugar Plum reject sailed in for ten minutes and tossed loaded missiles around using the ‘D” word—as in danger—and then took off in her non-existent horse and carriage?”

  Shay snickered. “No, that was merely frustrating. Annoying is having the fairy drop my cousin’s name and then take off without telling me where he is or what he’s doing or how they’re acquainted. She’s right about the basil though. Just a pinch. Amazing.”

  “When did you last talk to Cousin Rob?”

  Shay closed her eyes. “Uh, the day you called about Kouzlo Noc. He was in Mexico somewhere and I was still in Paris and I told him I was on my way to Prague to film at a haunted castle.”

  I groaned. “You actually said ‘haunted’?”

  “I did.”

  “Well, now the only surprise is that Rob didn’t pop in along with Aura Lee, his enchilada-eating buddy, for the séance last night.”

  Shay howled. “I’d wager any amount of money he’s the one who found the tiara for our Southern Belle psychic. In a flea market in Juarez or som
eplace. Leftover from a Miss Hot Tamale contest in El Paso after a bender.”

  I brightened. “I want one. Exactly like it for my next audition. Preferably one that has the little flashing lights on it. A perfect replica of Auraliah Lee’s. It would look really cute with my Von Trapp outfit from Katya the Ancient. Although, using a lit tiara here in the Czech Republic would be better used for those times when one needs to find one’s way through blinding snowstorms.”

  We tried to smile at each other, but my lips had started to tremble and I could see that Shay was holding back shouting obscene curses into a night which had apparently swallowed Auraliah Lee up whole.

  “Let’s go back in. It’s not snowing anymore but I’m feeling colder than I did during my wild ride on Yankee Doodle… oh my gosh, that was just yesterday morning.”

  We shut the massive door and hurried back to the relative safety of the sitting room.

  “Damn. Damn. Damn.”

  “Well, that’s descriptive,” I said.

  “I don’t like it, Abby. This crazy medium, ghost-chattering, clairvoyant loon scares you into nearly having a heart attack, drops some one-liners about how you’re in danger, doesn’t seem to give a Yankee Doodle Doo about helping you, then leaves us here at Spook Station and goes off to dine with her fellow tiaraed minions.”

  “You don’t like it? What about Danger Girl here?” I stared at my friend. “I’ve been kind of anxious or nervy these last few days, but it seemed almost a joke. Then Trina died and I felt all that horror and sadness but it didn’t seem to be touching me—I mean as far as the idea of Abby Fouchet in someone’s sights. Then Marta gets hurt and again, I’m worried and terrified for her but it still doesn’t penetrate that I could be next in line for a stair push even though I’m pretty damn sure everyone in this castle knows I’m in sync with a ghost and I’m the one who might find that flute. Then—tonight. Doorbell rings and in bounces Flora, Fauna and Meriwether all in one, and I’m now scared out of my wits because she’s right. I’m a target. Put a big red marker on my butt and call the hunters.”

  “Get out. Now. I’ll drive you back to Prague.”

  Johnny stood in the doorway of the sitting room, fully dressed and with as grim an expression as I’d only seen on those dragon doorknockers. Shay and I turned to face him as he urged me to make tracks for the city.

  “What? I can’t leave.”

  He took a long stride into the room. “Yes, you can and yes, you will. No stupid treasure is worth your life and I heard enough from Auraliah Lee—yes—I was sneaking around the ballroom and eavesdropping during her little diva scene—but what she said was enough to convince me that you do not need to be at Kouzlo Noc anymore.”

  “Sounds good, Johnny, except I have this suspicion that it won’t help now if I’m in Prague at my hotel or in Vienna drinking coffee and downing s achertortes by the plateful or in Manhattan in Times Square watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop. This killer is not going to stop merely because my geography changes. He wants that flute. He believes I can get it for them—and that, my friends, is the bottom line.”

  Johnny stared at me. “Shit.”

  “Precisely.”

  Johnny sat down on the sofa and pulled me down next to him. “I hate it when you’re right about death and doom and killers. And where are the Marricino brothers when they’re needed?”

  Shay dropped her bottom onto the hearth of the fireplace and growled. “So, lady and gent, what can we do? We must protect the innocent Abby Fouchet from whomever” she paused, “say ‘who’ and I’m throwing pokers at you both—and we must find the flute too.”

  I’d actually started to chortle over the “who/ whom” comment but when Shay mentioned the flute I sat straight up on the edge of the sofa.

  “Flute. Okay. That’s the answer.”

  “The flute? Definitely the objective, but why is it the answer?” Shay inquired.

  “Because it is the objective. Look. The killer wants the flute which he –or she—oh heck let’s just say ‘he’ for sake of argument and for the fact that I really can’t see Lily or Veronika skulking about pushing anyone into a moat or down a flight of stairs and the only other female around here is Shay and if she kills me I’ll haunt her mercilessly while she’s in the midst of kinky sexual activities and she’ll be too embarrassed to continue them. Where was I?”

  “Objective,” Johnny murmured.

  “Right. He, as in the killer, wants the flute. He probably has convinced himself that the flute is the answer to all his troubles in life. I’ll bet anything this guy thinks it will make him rich. Greed. I’m tellin’ ya, of the seven deadlies out there, greed is one of the worst.”

  “A-greed,” quipped my best friend.

  “Oh, hush.”

  “Well, I thought it was a nice pun—or something along those lines. Go on. I’ll try and refrain from humorous interjections.”

  “Yeah, right,” I snorted. “Okay. Logically, it seems to me that if I find the flute or at least put on a good show of leading him to it, then the killer will make pop out from wherever because he has to get his hands on the flute and then we can grab him and I’ll be out of danger. Yes?”

  Johnny pursed his lips. “I’m thinking. And I’m not thrilled with what I think you’re thinking.”

  I looked over at Shay. “Yes?”

  “It’s way too simple, which means it probably is the answer.”

  “It’s also a good way to get yourself killed by this sicko,” Johnny uttered quite tersely.

  “Got any other ideas?”

  “Not at the moment. Other than shipping you off to an igloo in Alaska to be guarded by Inuit ice dwellers where you’d be less likely to be found—no.”

  I stifled my laugh. Mainly because I was afraid if I let it loose it would become hysterical. I didn’t need hysteria. I needed to stay focused. “Well, gang, this ‘draw out the killer’ plan does have one other little drawback.”

  “And that would be? And excuse me, but like we needed another drawback?” griped Shay.

  “I don’t bloody well know where the flute is! And while I’m positive Ignatz was the one flaunting his flauting to me yesterday when I rode the horse to Anonymity Town, I’m not so sure his ghost is going to drop any more hints than our Deep Southern fried fairy godmother.”

  “That is a drawback. But descriptive.”

  Johnny rose and began to pace. “Okay. I’d say the first order of business is to figure out where the flute is. Aura Lee said you had the clues, right?”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming about what those clues were, nor was she generous in hinting where to even start to look for those clues. Damn, damn, doo-doo! That’s the least she could have done before she went tippy-tapping out to fly back to Atlanta—probably without benefit of a plane. Anyway, it would have been nice of the woman to at least drop some giant breadcrumbs. I’d still have to put them together to make toast, so to speak.”

  “Then it’s time to do some major deducting.”

  “As Shay has said, a–greed.”

  All three of us got up and started pacing. We were all too active even on normal days to be able to get creative without a good deal of movement. So we criss-crossed one another and circled one another and miraculously didn’t bump into one another and barely noticed we were looking like hamsters on crack at a miniature rodent ‘rave.’

  I halted and put my hand up like one of the Supremes doing the chorus of “Stop in the Name of Love.”

  “Yes?”

  “We need Jozef.” I tapped Johnny’s shoulder. “Did you get a chance to talk to him about translating the book?”

  “He did.”

  We turned. Jozef stepped inside the sitting room. He was holding a book with a dust jacket that read The Whispering Ravens of Naked Rock. Another very cheesy gothic novel. I just hoped Shay hadn’t seen it because naked would be right back in the title of Silhouette Tower.

  “I told Johnny that I had already gone through the journal you
found in the north wing, Abby. The one that now has the jacket cover of Seduction of Countess Marissa. It belonged to Eduard Duskova—not the Eduard from Baron Smetana’s time, but a man who lived at Kouzlo Noc during the Mid-Twentieth Century. He was quite a scholarly man who became very interested in the legend of Ignatz Jezek. My father knew him and liked him very much. He always told me that Eduard wanted to find Ignatz Jezek to give him a Christian burial because he felt that someone in the family had done great wrong and murdered the musician soon after he had moved to Kouzlo Noc. Eduard did not really care about finding the flute; in truth he did not believe the flute held any special powers. He wrote in his journal that he believed that Ignatz had been thrown from the window of the north wing.”

  “Isn’t everyone?” Shay muttered.

  We stared at her. “Sorry. Trying to be funny to lighten a very tense moment. Failing miserably. Go on, Mr. Jezek, I’ll stay quiet.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” I grumbled. “She’ll be good, Jozef. Please, continue.”

  “There is not much more to say. He wrote something about wanting to search the boathouse because he felt that Ignatz’ body had been dragged there and dropped in the water beneath, but only days later the Nazi army entered and they took over Kouzlo Noc. Eduard was arrested and thrown into a concentration camp.”

  “Did he ever return to Kouzlo Noc?” I asked.

  “Yes, he did. He was the grandfather of Veronika and Trina and Marta. Their parents were killed when the Communists took over and Eduard raised them. But he never again wrote in the journal and his injuries from the camp were so severe there was no physical possibility for him to search the boathouse alone. I believe he gave up trying.”

  I was getting frustrated. “So we’re kind of back where we started—at least as far as the flute is concerned. I’ll bet that Ignatz body is buried under the boathouse but I’d really be amazed if the flute was with him. And if it was—were—whichever—I doubt it would be intact.” I looked over at Johnny. “Wasn’t there another journal though? Didn’t you tell me that the part of Eduard’s diary you read mentioned that someone else had written down some of their theories as to where the flute could be?”