“Exactly. And you see how random patches here and there have bits of embroidery on them? Little outlines of the images on the fabric? Flowers and animals and stars and such?”
“Sure. That’s one of the things that makes the whole thing so beautiful.”
“The embroidered motifs on the state-shaped pieces are different from the others. Look again.”
It took me a moment to locate Connecticut because it’s so symmetrical. But once I found it, I saw what she meant. There was the number 3 I’d noticed before. It was twined around something that looked like a spoon. There was also a tiny, three-tiered cake, perfect down to the cherry on top. “The baker,” I said. “The poor, murdered baker.”
Kentucky had number 4 and a horseshoe. The horse trainer, of course. California had numbers 1 and 2. It took a moment to figure out the meaning of the needlework motifs—two pairs of white gloves. “Get it?” Aunt Ibby asked. “The white gloves? They stand for the valet and the butler. I’m quite sure that back in 1915 servants wore white gloves. And look. There’s a little teakettle on a tray, just in case we didn’t get the glove clue.”
“Embroidery for Dummies,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. It just reminded me of a book I saw today. Now, what’s that black blob on Massachusetts, with the five on it?”
She handed me the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. Take a peek through this. See what you think it is.”
The thing lost its blobby look when it came into sharp focus. “It’s a doctor’s bag,” I said. “Number five is the doctor.”
“So number six must be in Colorado, where the Novikovas lived before they came to Salem.”
The Colorado patch was a nice, neat oblong. Nothing to distinguish it from other oblong patches, except for the extra embroidery. The picture Lydia had chosen for Colorado was a saddle with a rose and number 6 on it. “There it is. My horse has a saddle and a carved rose. All six of the friends accounted for. But what does it mean, besides telling us where they all settled? We already knew that. If the six numbers are connected to treasure, where is it? What is it? We know there was nothing in the horse.”
“We need to look closer. What else is on the state patches that isn’t on the others?” Aunt Ibby asked, picking up the magnifying glass and walking around the edges of the table. She peered at Kentucky. “It’s such intricate, beautiful needlework. Here’s a little flower, and a tiny bug. The other things are just lovely delicate shapes, like this little rainbow-colored oval.”
I looked up from the Massachusetts patch. “Hey, there’s one of those rainbow ovals here too. See it, just under that green frog?”
A quick check of the other four numbers revealed that identical, colorful ovals decorated each one. “What if they’re not just ovals,” my aunt said, looking up from Connecticut with the magnifying glass still in front of her eye. “What if they’re eggs?”
We spoke the magic word in unison.
“Fabergé.”
A quick glance passed between us and together we dashed for Aunt Ibby’s office and that amazing font of knowledge—the Internet.
“The missing Fabergé eggs!” My aunt’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “How many of them are there anyway?”
“Not many.” I remembered reading the occasional newspaper article about the fabulous jeweled eggs Peter Carl Fabergé and his company had created for the Russian czars.
She answered her own question. “There were around fifty of what they call ‘the Imperial eggs’ to start with,” she said. “There are apparently seven still missing.”
“We might know what became of six of them,” I said. “Czar Nicholas II could have sent them to America with six trusted servants.”
“Eric Dillon must have figured it out. He must have known what’s become of those eggs. That’s what the new treasure book was going to be about.”
“Scott said there were numbers and doodles in the notebook. I’ll bet some of those numbers would match up with the designs on the quilt.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “But I’ll just bet Dillon was as cryptic in his notebook as Lydia was with the designs on the quilt. Scott couldn’t figure out what it was all about, could he?”
“He says not. And, anyway, he says Boris stole the book from him before he had a chance to really look through it.”
“You sound hesitant. Don’t you believe him?”
“With Scott, that’s hard to say.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about Grandpa Nick,” she said. “And about the people who knew him. Tomorrow I’m going to talk with one of his old friends. Someone he trusted—and now that I think about it—if we’re right about this—someone who might possibly know about the eggs.”
“You are? Who is that?”
“Father Richard, the old priest from St. Vladimir’s. I called the church and found out he’s in a nursing home in Danvers—well and happy and would be glad to see me. I’m going tomorrow afternoon. I think I’ll bring him a gift of one of the carved chess sets we found in the toy box. Want to come with me?”
“I’d love to, but tomorrow afternoon Pete and I are going to pick up my horse from Paul. It’s the only time we can borrow the truck, and, well, I just can’t wait to see the finished product. I’ll tell Pete about our Fabergé egg theory too, but I’m thinking he probably won’t buy it.”
“He should. It’s a pretty good theory. Well researched.”
“Maybe.” I was doubtful. “Think about it. It starts with me seeing a vision in a mirror. Then you and I make up a story about a long-dead czar trusting a half-dozen household servants with some kind of treasure. A neighbor shows us a carved Easter egg. We see some embroidered ovals on an old quilt and decide we’ve discovered a lost fortune that experts have spent a century looking for. I’m not even sure I buy it.”
“I do.” Confident smile. “You’ll see.”
* * *
I didn’t see my aunt the next morning. She left a message on my phone saying she’d be at the library firming up plans for the tea and that she’d leave from there to visit Father Richard. There was no mention of eggs, fried, fictional or Fabergé.
I lit a red candle, per River’s instructions, and browsed through the Dumas book in an attempt to see if the adventures of the detective Monsieur Jackal related in any way to our mixed-up mystery, or at least to see why Eric Dillon had used the phrase “Cherchez la femme.” It wasn’t much help. In the book Jackal tries to solve a cold case involving three people: an artist, a writer and a doctor. The detective decides to “look for the woman.” Okay, so we had an artist, Nikita Novikova, a writer, Eric Dillon, and a doctor, Yakovlev—who disappeared from Boston. A big, crazy coincidence. Or not? Was the murdered writer looking for a woman? Who?
I tossed the book aside and removed the index cards from the bureau. I reshuffled and separated cards relating to women from the others. Which women knew the artist? Stasia, Lydia, Colleen and her mother. Which knew the doctor? Lydia certainly did. And who knew Eric Dillon? That eliminated Lydia. He’d probably talked to Stasia. She was easy enough to find on the Salem Common. He could have spoken to Mrs. McKenna or Colleen when he’d posed for a photo in front of their house. Clearly, I needed to conduct some more interviews.
Cuckoo said it was noon. I didn’t expect Pete until two o’clock, so I had plenty of time for a trip to the Common. I blew out the candle, hoping it had burned long enough to do its cleansing magic, pulled on a warm jacket, put a few ten-dollar bills in my jeans pocket, then stepped outside. Walking along Winter Street, I could see across Washington Square. Stasia was sitting in her usual spot, but she wasn’t alone. I recognized the man right away. It was Karl Smith.
I hesitated. The two appeared to be in deep conversation, the neat blond head and the wild-haired orange one close together. Should I interrupt? Why not? It was a public park in the middle of the city in the middle of the day. I quickened my step and crossed the
street onto the path leading to what I’d come to think of as “Stasia’s bench.”
The pigeons scattered in a flutter of wings as I approached and the two looked up. Chef Karl spoke first. “Ms. Barrett, good afternoon. Do you know my friend Stasia?”
“Hello, Mr. Smith. How are you, Stasia?” The woman didn’t answer, but moved over to make room for me beside her. I took the proffered seat between the two. Awkward.
“Stasia sometimes acts as translator for me,” Karl said, hastily tucking a sheaf of papers into his jacket pocket. “My Russian recipes are authentic and being unable to read the language is inconvenient.” He stood. “I won’t take any more of your valuable time, Stasia. I’ll see you later. Good-bye, Ms. Barrett. Do give my regards to your aunt.”
He left us, walking with such quick steps that he was out of sight within less than a minute. “You want another reading so soon?” She reached for my hand.
“Not today.” I pulled a ten from my jeans. “I wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions. About your grandparents.”
She waved the bill away. “Are you interested in my family because of your horse?”
“In a way,” I said, “Did the writer, Mr. Dillon, talk to you about your family?”
She looked away. “The man who died? Yes. I didn’t tell him much though. He was looking for . . . something.”
“Do you know what it was? What he was looking for?”
An annoyed shaking of her head. “I told you before. I don’t know. They never told me. But he knew what it was. He just didn’t know where it was.” She laughed. “He wrote down everything I said in his little brown book. He said he was a treasure hunter.”
“He wrote books about people who found treasures,” I said. “I guess the stories were treasures to him. Did he tell you any of his stories?”
“Oh, yes. He was a good storyteller. There was one about a man in Florida who found a whole lot of gold in a ship that was underwater, and another one about a man right here in Massachusetts who bought an old house and found out someone had used paintings by a famous folk artist to make the walls. He knew about that horse you bought, did you know that?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “We figured that out.”
“He told me a joke about it.”
“He did? A joke?”
“Yep. He laughed out loud. Sitting right there, where you’re sitting. Laughed so hard he scared my pigeons.”
“What was the joke?”
“He said he’d come all the way across the country to bet on the wrong horse.”
CHAPTER 32
As I walked along the path leading to Washington Square, I stepped on a piece of paper. I’ve been conscientious about picking up litter since I was little, thanks to my aunt’s rules on the matter, so I automatically picked it up. It looked to me like a lined page torn from a pad or a notebook. The lettering on it was foreign, and I realized right away that it must be one of Karl Smith’s Russian recipes. I turned back toward Stasia’s bench, but she was already looking into the palm of a new customer. I’ll ask Aunt Ibby to return it to him, I thought, folding the paper carefully and putting it into my pocket. I continued on my way to Winter Street, still thinking about Eric Dillon’s “joke,” and didn’t even notice Donnie’s truck until Pete beeped the horn. He rolled down his window. “Ready to go pick up Old Paint?”
“I’ll meet you out front in a couple of minutes,” I said. “Have to run upstairs and get my checkbook.”
He gave a thumbs-up and pulled ahead of me. By the time I’d reached the house, he’d already parked at the curb, climbed out of the truck and was sitting on the top step. “I’ll come up with you,” he said. “Look. O’Ryan’s expecting us.” The cat’s pink nose was pressed against the side windowpane.
I unlocked the front door. “Did I tell you O’Ryan tossed a little sewing machine on the rug?” We climbed the two flights to my apartment and stepped into the kitchen.
“No. Why? Is a cat playing with a sewing machine supposed to mean something?”
I realized as soon as I mentioned the sewing machine how nutty our patchwork quilt and Fabergé egg theory would sound to Pete—and even worse, how it would sound to Chief Whaley.
“No. Of course not. Just another silly cat trick.” I tried for a fast change of subject. “Wait here a sec while I grab my checkbook and let’s go get my fine steed.”
He raised one eyebrow in the way he does when I’m not making much sense, but he didn’t comment. I ducked into the bedroom, changed my jacket and picked up the checkbook. Within a few minutes we were on our way to Paul Carbone’s shop. Even though I wasn’t ready to talk eggs and embroidery with Pete, I thought he might want to know what Stasia had said about her conversation with Eric Dillon.
“The wrong horse, huh?” Pete frowned. “She didn’t tell us that when we talked to her.”
“I guess she just thought of it because of the way I asked the question,” I said. “I’ve been practicing interviewing techniques.”
“For your online criminology course?”
“No. For the course I’ll be teaching at the Tabby in a couple of weeks. I have to stay a little bit ahead of my students.”
“I don’t know if it’s about interviewing techniques—though I’m sure yours is great.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Getting a straight answer from Stasia is a hit-or-miss proposition. For that matter your friend Palmer is the same way.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s not as though they’re deliberately lying. It’s more as if they’re leaving a few little things out. Scott’s always been like that.” I thought about it for a minute. “But didn’t he say that Eric told him he was going to take a ‘comparison shot’? That kind of fits in with the ‘wrong horse’ joke, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does. Sounds like we’re dealing with more than one horse here, doesn’t it?”
“A whole herd of them?”
He rolled his eyes. “Let’s hope not. It’s one horse at a time for right now, and that’s Old Paint.”
The rest of the ride to Paul’s shop was quiet. That’s one of the things I love about being with Pete. We can lapse into periods of silence without one of us saying, “What’s wrong?”
We parked the truck close to the doorway, where a smiling Paul greeted us. “I could hardly wait for you two to get here. You’re going to be surprised, happily, I think.”
He was right. I was. My horse stood in the middle of the shop floor, straining at the halter, mane wind-whipped, right hoof raised. He looked beautiful, and very different from what I’d expected. No longer a pale palomino, he was a rich honey color. The once-brown streaked mane was pure white, made richer with bright gold-leaf highlights. The chipped pink rose was whole again, a brilliant scarlet, and the saddle and halter of polished black dazzled with multicolored jewels.
“What? How . . . ?” The transformation was amazing. “He looks like a different horse altogether.”
“I know he does.” There was pride in Paul’s voice. “When I began to sand him down, I found layer after layer of paint. So I took it down to the original colors—the colors the craftsman who created him chose in the first place. This, I believe, is how he looked when he graced some late 1800s carousel.”
“Late 1800s?” The date confused me. “No. It can’t be that old. Nikita Novikova carved it, and he didn’t arrive in America until 1915. Didn’t work in the amusement park until around the 1920s.”
Paul smiled an indulgent smile. “My dear, I know wood and I know paint. I’ve chipped away about thirty layers of old park paint. This charming animal is well over a century old. More like a hundred and fifty.”
If Paul was right, and I was pretty darned sure he was, then Grandpa Nick didn’t carve this horse, after all. I said so out loud.
“Maybe he didn’t,” Paul said gently. “But it’s a treasure anyway. Are you disappointed?”
“No. How could I be? He’s beyond beautiful. Thank you so much, Paul. May we take him home now?”<
br />
I wrote a check, protesting that the amount he asked was too low for the work he’d done, and Pete and I loaded Old Paint into the back of the truck, securing him with bungee cords from every possible direction. I’d given up on finding a new name, especially since we’d learned how extremely old his paint had actually been. I thought about that.
“It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
He knew what I was talking about. “It doesn’t. But Paul knows his business. If he says the horse is over a hundred years old, I have to believe him.”
“Grandpa Nick called the horse a ‘secret keeper.’”
Pete just nodded and grew quiet again. On the way home I checked the rearview mirror about every ten seconds, just to be sure Old Paint was still there. We stopped at the Northeast Nursery, where I selected plants and a variety of colorful pots for his bay window setting. I hoped my choice of greenery would meet with River’s approval.
* * *
Pete and I maneuvered the horse up the two flights of stairs, through the kitchen and down the hall to the designated spot in the window. Aunt Ibby had returned from her visit with Father Richard and she joined us for uncounted repeat trips, up and back, carrying pots and plants. Finally we all stood back to admire the result. It was everything I’d expected and more.
“Magnificent,” breathed my aunt. “Paul certainly works restoration magic, doesn’t he? You say the horse is twice as old as we thought?”
“That’s right. Doesn’t quite add up, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t at all,” she said. “Especially since we’ve seen a twentieth-century photograph of Mr. Novikova carving this very animal.”
That got Pete’s attention. Mine too. I’d forgotten about the McKennas’ photo gallery. “A picture?” Pete asked. “Where did you see that?”
“It’s in the McKennas’ house,” I said. “Front hall.”
“I mentioned the horse to Father Richard today, and he said he remembered seeing it at the Novikovas’,” my aunt said. “He and Nick often played chess together, you know. He was very pleased with the chess set I gave him, but says he has no one to play with anymore. Made me sorry I’ve never learned the game myself. I told him exactly what we knew so far. Didn’t think it would do any harm. I thought Father might be able to fill in some of the blanks for us. He told me that Nick mostly talked about the old days at Tsarskoe Selo and about his friends.
Murder Go Round Page 21
