Aria in Ice

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  “I did, but I have no idea where that other book went. Trina probably didn’t have it, although it seems pretty obvious that she read Eduard’s journal and decided to take a chance and do a look-see around the boathouse.”

  Shay added, “Which was when some s.o.b. killed her. And she probably thought she was safe since she had a full house—excuse me—castle—that morning.”

  Jozef shut his eyes and thought for a moment. “I have an idea where that other journal could have been hidden. Miss Martin, would you accompany me through the rooms in the north wing? There is a small library in one of the bedrooms and it is very possible that the journal is in what you Americans call ‘plain sight’…simply stacked with the other books.” He smiled. “If you are not frightened to go into the north wing where so many bad things have happened.”

  Shay’s chin jutted out. “Me? Scared? Never.”

  Jozef turned and left the room. Shay followed but whirled around before she stepped through the doorway and winked at me, making sure first that Jozef didn’t hear her. “After all, I’m with the man who looks like God!”

  I bit my lower lip as Shay and Jozef disappeared into the ballroom. “I’m so sorry I ever said that. Shay will never let me forget.”

  Johnny laughed. “As long as no one tells Jozef, you’ll be fine. He’s a man of great faith and it would seem sacrilegious to him.”

  “I’m not talking.”

  “Well. So, they’re off in the north wing and we’re left to cool our heels and pray for divine inspiration. Shall we sing a bit of the Kyrie and ask mercy for all the various sins of Kouzlo Noc?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. Ignatz will hear us and decide it’s time to make a command performance. Where the heck is he when I need him?”

  “Not to be totally skeptical, but I can’t really see this ghost blasting out tunes for you on cue, Hon.”

  “Well, he does. Unfortunately I can’t ask him straight out for an answer to where he hid the damn flute and I have to use my imagination to figure out any clues.” Something nagged at me. “Wait. I do hear something.”

  “What?”

  “Hush. I can’t believe you can’t hear it too.”

  “I can’t. Sorry. My ghost-communing skills don’t match yours. Okay. What is it?”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated and Johnny remained silent. Ignatz had chosen something I couldn’t grasp for his concert. Partly because it was a damn short concert. Only about four measures in, the ghost stopped.

  “Johnny. This song. It’s not a classical piece. And it’s not one I’d’ve expected from Jezek since he died way before it was written. Durn. Right now it’s failing me. And there’s something you said a minute ago that’s kind of poking at the tip of my mind and it goes along with the song. It’s important for some reason.”

  “Want to talk it through? Or would you prefer that I not chime in with a hundred dumb thoughts?”

  I laughed. “You couldn’t have a dumb thought if you emptied your brain into a garbage disposal. Oh! Wait. That poke is back. Only this time it’s more like a thwack in my brain going ‘you dimwit it’s all there in front of you.’ What the heck am I trying to get at?”

  “Would it help to go back and remember what we’ve been saying?”

  “Yeah. Although, I have this feeling that it’s not what what should be important that is important. It’s more like bits and pieces of random words we’ve thrown out.”

  “Okay. Um. We were talking about God. We were talking about garbage disposals. Uh. We were…“

  “Asking for help only you said something about singing the Kyrie.” I inhaled. “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “Kyrie. That’s what I’m hearing. Only not Mozart’s. Remember the rock group called Mister Mister from the 1980s? Had a great song called Kyrie. Really good to do chaineé turns in dance class. Which is beside the point. You were talking about chiming in.” I paused. “Hang on. I just remembered there’s Auraliah Lee yelling “Requiescat in Pacem”every stinkin’ time she leaves the castle.”

  He got it. “Kyrie. Requiescat. As in Mozart’s Requiem Mass.”

  “As in the wind chimes at the bottom of the bell pull which rings out the notes of the Kyrie portion of Mozart’s Requiem.”

  Chapter 36

  Johnny and I raced to the back entrance where the tapestried bell-pull had nestled quite cozily next to the dragon-headed doorknockers for several centuries.

  “It’s got to be in the wind chimes. Aura Lee said I had all the information and she was right. I hope.”

  Johnny carefully removed the pull, then began to untie the wind chimes from the rest of the fabric. “Makes sense. Three chimes. No more, no less just like all the various uses of three in The Magic Flute. Ignatz was no dummy. He was being hounded for his flute by crazy fortune hunters even in his own time. He knew future treasure seekers would destroy every section of the north wing. I’m sure that’s where he lived his last days. And he probably reasoned that people would even turn to grave robbing in that old cemetery. The one that held the remains mostly of the members of his generation. So that was out.”

  “Hurry,” I urged him. “Let’s find that thing and split—now.”

  There was a cold chill between my shoulder blades. Something wicked was wafting this way.

  Johnny suddenly dropped to the ground. The man behind him calmly leaned over and grabbed the wind chimes out of Johnny’s limp hands. His other hand held a sock which appeared loaded with something which created a great blackjack. He dropped it on Johnny’s chest, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the dagger I’d seen him use in the crypt the first day I met him. He calmly removed it from his belt and waved it at me.

  “Thank you, Abby. Very kind of you and amazingly smart to finally figure out the answer to this centuries old puzzle. I was afraid I’d be stuck here for the entire time you were filming your stupid movie, waiting until you solved the mystery.”

  “Glad to oblige, Corbin,” I stated in a monotone. Then that serene countenance disappeared and Abby with the temper popped out. “ So, you’re the slimey, slinking , scummy, sordid, sonuvobitchin’ snake who’s been causing all the hurt and sorrow over the last few days!”

  “Snake? Fine alliteration, Ms. Fouchet but I don’t accept the slur. But then, you’re deep into Magic Flute, aren’t you, so perhaps the serpent in the first scene has stuck in your pretty frivolous head?” He paused, then thrust the wind chimes at me. “Here. You open whichever damn one holds the flute, you little fool.”

  “Why should I help you find it?” I asked with as much calm as I could muster in my voice. It still shook harder than twenty tumbleweeds in a Texas dust storm. And squeaked. Not a pretty sound.

  Corbin shrugged. “You’ll find it because otherwise I shall not only use this extremely sharp antique dagger to slit Johnny’s throat, but you’ll find it thrust into your ribs very soon thereafter. Not enough to kill you, dear, just enough to cause some pain.”

  “Oh-kay. Good reason.” With trembling hands, I was able to find the tip of the first chime and twist it open. It was a heavy metal material and it was old and rusted and not inclined to move but after a few desperate wrenches I got it loose.

  Nothing. I tried the second one. Same process and the same result. If the third chime didn’t yield one major magical flute, I was in big trouble. Of course I was already in big trouble. But, If I’d been wrong about the flute’s hiding place, I’d be in less trouble while Corbin Lerner debated whether he needed to kill me and Johnny or keep us alive in hopes that my deductions would be spot on for the next possible theory on where this treasure lay.

  Tamino in The Magic Flute undergoes three trials. I prayed that’s what Ignatz had tried to recreate with the wind chimes. I tugged and twisted and panted and twisted and finally, finally, the third chime was open.

  Buried inside was an old wooden flute. I drew it out of the wind chimes and held it out to Corbin, while anxiously looking at Johnny, still lying at his
feet. He hadn’t moved.

  Corbin grabbed the flute and began to scream. He dropped the instrument onto the dirt below us. His face became distorted with pain and anger. “Bitch! You burned me!”

  “What?”

  “That damn flute is blazing hot! It’s like grabbing a fry pan that’s been cooking on high flame! Damn you!”

  I leaned down and touched the flute. It hadn’t been hot to the touch when I’d drawn it out of the wind chime. It wasn’t hot now. What the hell was going on?

  “There’s nothing wrong with this, Corbin. Actually, it’s very cold for a flute that’s wooden, not metal. You’re imagining things. Your senses are tricking you.”

  I held the flute out again. This time he only touched it with one finger, then quickly drew that finger away while screaming again. Part of the screams were pain and part were curses I’d never heard before but was sure were damning me, Ignatz, and all our relatives to everlasting hell. Since some of the curses were in German, I was kind of guessing at the actual suggestion.

  He switched to English again and moaned. “It’s supposed to turn to gold. That’s the legend. The alchemists of the Masonic Lodge that Jezek belonged to were turning metals to gold. The flute was supposed to be magic because it is made of wood, yet turns to gold and then turns other materials to gold. What the hell is wrong with this damnable instrument?”

  Johnny tried to sit up. His voice was weak but determined. “It’s not the flute, Corbin. It’s you and your greed and evil. You took more than one innocent life. You bastard, you killed Trina and Fritz’s brother, didn’t you?”

  “Those were accidents. The kid was in the north wing, leaning out of the window and reaching for something above it. He was so excited I thought for sure he’d found the flute. So I reached around him to grab it and he toppled out. He was looking at a bird’s nest outside the sill. Idiocy. And Trina? The old broad was digging through all this junk in the boathouse and she found a set of panpipes and held them up like they had been gold. I grabbed her and told her I wanted the flute. She ran away toward the moat. I grabbed her again and she started screaming. She wouldn’t tell me anything I needed to hear. I pushed her and she fell into the moat.”

  A cry that would make a banshee’s hair curl arose from behind Corbin, in the doorway of the back entrance. Veronika Duskova was yelling and calling Corbin names that I tried to remember so I could ask Johnny, if we all lived through this, exactly what they meant. They sounded pretty rough even in Czech.

  Veronika threw herself on Corbin and began pounding at him with her fists. He still had the dagger in his left hand, the one not scalded by the flute. He quickly raised it to her neck and pulled her in front of him. “Shut up, you hag! I’ve had enough of screaming women and false hopes. Much as I do not want to take Ms. Duskova traveling with me, it’s best I do for the reassurance that you” he pointed to Johnny “and you” he pointed to a horrified Jozef who’d appeared from the outside of the house with Shay “won’t be tempted to do something dumb. Back off.”

  He turned, shifting the knife to touch Veronika’s back. Jozef didn’t waste a second. He threw a leather-bound object at Corbin’s hand. The knife dropped. Veronika immediately ran to the safety of Jozef’s arms. I noted, with the interest of an eternal romantic, that he held her with more than a little tenderness. I foresaw a nice merger between the Duskovas and the Jezeks.

  I shouldn’t have gotten so involved in watching the pair. Because Corbin, deprived of one hostage, decided he’d better get another. I was the closest—and the smallest. Corbin’s arm was around me and the knife was at my neck and I was being pulled toward the Jeep that was quietly parked by the edge of the cemetery.

  Johnny managed to get up but stopped when Corbin pricked the edge of my throat with the knife. “Want to see your girlfriend dead, Gerard? I have no qualms about spilling blood all over this damn place. It’s not like no one’s done it before.” He smiled. “ I’ll just drag our ghost detective up to the north wing for a nice fling right out the window like all the other losers who’ve been tossed for the last ten centuries.”

  Johnny was shaking with rage and frustration and fear. For me. I was in deep trouble here. Shay was edging closer to Corbin and me and I knew she was planning to throw herself on his back but I silently pleaded with her to hold off. That particular attack could get us both very dead. I stared back at Johnny while Corbin moved the knife directly toward my chest.

  “Don’t go feeling secure, Miss Fouchet. It’s more comfortable than holding the damn thing at your neck. In case you thought I was in danger of dropping it.”

  I didn’t answer. I kept staring at Johnny, then, since Corbin hadn’t moved, I sang the last few notes of the Queen of the Night aria. True, it wasn’t in Mozart’s original key, since I lowered it to one more comfortable to my alto range, but Johnny caught it. This aria is sung when the Queen of the Night is trying to persuade her daughter to kill the priest Sarastro with a dagger. It’s a series of very light notes that scale up and down in a staccato rhythm. Rather like a flute.

  Johnny moaned and sank back to the ground. Corbin laughed. Johnny quickly grabbed the flute and threw it at Corbin. It bounced off the hand that held the dagger. Apparently Corbin was still fixated about the heat because he howled as though he’d been scalded by boiling oil. His hand came away from my chest although he still gripped the knife. I rammed my elbow into his chest, turned and gouged my fingers into his eyes, then ran to the safety of Johnny. Shay galloped over to Corbin and delivered a nice kick to his head as he lay on the ground, whining and cursing.

  Johnny kissed me until I turned to jelly. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. What about you? You looked down for the count. But you got up and you knew what I needed. I’m damn impressed.”

  “Well, it was a decently hard head blow, but not as bad as Mr. Lerner thought. I was faking about thirty seconds after he coshed me. Excuse me a second.”

  He ran to Corbin and held him down. “Shay? You can quit kicking him now. Anyone got a cell to call the cops?”

  Shay offered hers. “Is there a nine –one –one number here in the wilds of the Czech Republic that hits the Prague police?” she asked.

  Johnny shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’d rather call the police chief who gave me his card yesterday when he came with the doc to help Marta. From Abby’s favorite village. Abby? It’s in my shirt pocket if you’d care to do the honors so I won’t have to let go of Corbin here.”

  I carefully reached into the pocket and got the card, quickly handed it to Shay, then smiled. “I’ll do you one better, Mr. Gerard. In the interest of absolute security for this bastard.” I grabbed the long bell pull, now lying limply on the ground, then neatly tied both Corbin’ hands and feet together behind his back.

  Johnny looked at me with sheer admiration. “Wow. That’s a better move than Gregory Noble ever imagined. Where’d you learn that?”

  “Remember I did that summer stock season in Colorado? The big show was Will Rogers Follies and our ‘Will’was a ex rodeo star Taught me a dozen tricks during scene changes. You just saw my favorite. It’s called a ‘tie-down rope’ and it requires a dummy. So I used the biggest dummy at hand.’”

  Chapter 37

  If anyone is wondering where the rest of the houseguests had been during all the commotion, let me answer with a simple explanation. Trite, unimaginative, but simple. They’d all been snoring in their respective bedrooms because Corbin had spiked their cocoa with sleeping pills when he’d kindly offered to help Lily in the kitchen making midnight drinks.

  I didn’t hear about this until late that morning because Franz, Fritz, Mitchell and Lily didn’t make an appearance before well after ten. Which was fine with me. Being taken hostage, however briefly, with a knife aimed at one’s tender body parts, is very wearing on the psyche—not to mention the actual body that owns those tender parts.

  My police buddy, whose name I’d discovered only after seeing the card was Polici Ca
ptain Wolfgang Bernstein, arrived promptly after Johnny called him. He took a snarling and slightly bruised Corbin Lerner into custody to the village I’d at last discovered the name of—St. Agnes Crossing. Perfect.

  Corbin hadn’t been a good sport during his exit scene from Kouzlo Noc. He yelled and screamed and used language ill-befitting a University professor and scholar. Then he whined again and again about how he’d been tricked and destroyed. The man just unraveled. Not pretty.

  “That blankety-blank flute holds no magic!” I leave it to those possessing lurid imaginations or teenagers to fill in those blankety-blanks.

  After several minutes and different phrasings but the same intent of Corbin’s theme song, I’d walked over to the now-handcuffed Mr. Lerner (Captain Bernstein had admired my roping skills but exchanged the bell-pull for a set of steel handcuffs.) and stared the killer in the eye.

  “You’re very wrong, Corbin. Ignatz’ flute holds infinite magic. I believe it can change sorrow into happiness and protect those who hear it. Turn night into day, figuratively that is, if you see night as evil and sorrow and day as goodness. Study your Die Zauberflote libretto while you rot in prison, Corbin. The Ladies who attend the Queen of the Night are quite specific in their explanations as to what the flute represents and Ignatz Jezek miraculously instilled those powers into this instrument.”

  I held up Ignatz’ flute before the eyes of the angry Corbin Lerner, then swept my free arm around and pointed at Veronika and Jozef. “Sorrow into happiness. Right there. And when I heard Ignatz play I was protected. Shay and Johnny were protected. You touched it and you got burned. Enough said.”

  Corbin had been led away muttering about sacrificing everything looking for the fortune he’d been certain he’d possess when the flute magically turned everything he owned into gold. I guess he thought it would evoke sympathy but instead, his word choices reminded of the song by the classic rock band, Foreigner, “Cold as Ice” when they sang about greed. I gleefully made Corbin even more furious by belting it out, every durn chorus and verse.