“Yeah, but you know how he feels about freebies. Even for you.”
“He’ll have to like this one. Mrs. Doan is on the library board and she’s already RSVP’d for the two of them.”
I was right. The station manager agreed to air a few spots, using my copy and photos, then summarily shooed me away. “I know you’re busy, so I’ll let you go now. Drop in anytime. Bye.”
“That was fast.” Rhonda raised a penciled eyebrow. “Did he throw you out?”
“He did, but he said okay first. That gives me time to visit with you. Got a minute?”
Smiling, she put down her magazine. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
That surprised me. “Am I that obvious?”
“Come on. Everybody knows I’m the eyes and ears around here. Everything comes by this desk”—she tapped her headset—“or through this phone. I never signed a confidentiality contract. I love to talk. What’ll it be? Mrs. Doan’s boob job? Wanda’s weekend in Vegas with the married science teacher? What?”
“You’ve got me,” I said, laughing. “But it’s about you.”
“Me? Nothing interesting ever happens to me.”
“You told me last time I was here that you’d spent some time with Eric Dillon.”
“Oh, that poor guy.” Her shoulders slumped and a look of genuine sadness crossed her pretty face. “He was so sweet. So smart too. I really liked him. Everybody at the station did.”
“You said you’d dated him a few times?”
A shrug of one shoulder. “Couple of times. Drinks. Dinner. You know. Casual stuff. Nothing heavy.”
“But you talked? Swapped stories?”
“Oh, sure. He told me about his home in Illinois, and how he got into the broadcast business—how he met Scotty—that kind of thing.”
“Didn’t he talk about his books at all? How he did his research?”
She leaned forward, eyes sparkling with interest. “That was the best part. I could have listened to him talk about those books all night. What an interesting life he had . . . until, you know—he got killed.”
“I know. What a shame. Did he tell you anything at all about the new book?”
“Quite a lot, actually,” she said. “I’m glad you asked. Nobody around here is much interested in that part—the research it took to write all those books. Did you know he learned to dive on undersea wrecks to do the Florida book? Explored old gold mines for the California one? Even went inside the pyramids in Egypt. He had adventures all over the world.” She looked around the room and dropped her voice. “He’d been working on the new one, the one he didn’t get to finish, for years. It was going to be different from the others—the best one of all, he said. A real mystery book—and at the end, all the treasures would still be lost—except one. He was worried about finishing the last chapter though. Something about finding the treasure before it disappeared, like all the rest of them.”
Five treasures are still missing. We’re pretty sure we know where the sixth one is. Who else knows?
“Did he tell you what the treasure was?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“The last time I saw him, he said that with any luck at all he’d be the one to find the golden goose. So I guess the treasure is something gold. He didn’t have much luck though, did he?”
That goose laid golden eggs.
“No, he didn’t. You never heard from him again?”
“I didn’t. He took my number and I hoped he’d call me again, but he never did.”
I thought about the piece of notepaper Karl Smith had dropped. It had women’s names and numbers on it. “Did he write your name in a brown notebook?”
“No. He put it into his phone.” She laughed. “He said the only phone numbers he wrote down anymore were the ones he used for passwords on the Internet.”
I was confused. “Passwords?”
“Yes. He used names of old girlfriends and their phone numbers for passwords. I told you he was smart. He figured no hacker would ever break a silly code like that. Listen, you want to go down to the studio and say hi to Marty?”
My mind was busy processing the information she’d given me, absorbing Eric’s revelation about the golden goose and Rhonda’s offhand comment about passwords. “Marty? Oh, yes. I do want to see her.” I waved the envelope containing the photos of Tatiana. “I have some photos for her to use as bumper shots.”
“I’ll go down with you. It’s time for a break anyway.” She fished the hand-lettered BACK IN FIVE sign from her desk drawer and led the way to the downstairs studio.
It took a moment for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. The long room with its black painted walls had sets for the station’s various shows in neat cubicles, along both sidewalls. Only one of the areas, the kitchen set up for the Cooking with Wanda the Weathergirl Show, was lit. The gray-haired camerawoman was busily sweeping the 1950s-style, random-brick linoleum floor.
“Marty, look,” Rhonda called. “You have company.”
I wasn’t surprised to see the station’s top camera operator doing the cleaning lady’s job. Marty loves to stay busy and Mr. Doan likes his help to wear as many hats as possible.
That’s why Scott thinks about leaving WICH-TV. He’s field reporter, newsman and high-school sports commentator. All for one salary.
Marty got to her feet, washed her hands and rushed down the center aisle to meet us. “Barrett! Great to see you again.” Her handshake was firm, and her smile genuine. “What’s up?”
I put the envelope on top of Wanda’s freezer and pulled out the photos. “This doll is going to be on display at the library fund-raiser. I thought maybe you could use it as a bumper shot, with maybe a line or two of copy.”
She inspected the picture. “Nice shot. Cute doll. Yours?”
“I wish. No, she may have belonged to Grand Duchess Anastasia, the czar’s youngest daughter.”
“Really? Does she have a name?”
“Tatiana.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Rhonda said. “Anastasia named the doll after one of her older sisters.”
Marty and I both looked at the receptionist. “How’d you know that?” Marty asked.
Rhonda shrugged. “One of my degrees is in world history. Well, my five minutes is up. Gotta get back to work.”
Rhonda is a never-ending source of surprises.
* * *
I was anxious to get home to tell my aunt about the golden-goose remark and I knew Pete would be interested in Eric Dillon’s password trick. I pulled into our garage and was glad to see that the Buick was already there. I let myself into the back hall and knocked on Aunt Ibby’s kitchen door. “It’s open,” she said. “Come on in. I just this minute got here myself.”
“How’d the shopping go?” I asked as I stepped inside. “Did you find something you like?”
“I certainly did, dear. I bought two outfits. One for the theater with Rupert, and one for the high tea with Nigel. I feel like quite the social butterfly.”
“Good for you. Got a few minutes? I went down to the TV station this afternoon and learned a couple of things.”
“Come and sit. O’Ryan and I were just having a little afternoon snack.” The cat’s red bowl was filled with the different-colored, dry cat food that’s shaped like little steaks and cheeses and drumsticks and fish—as though cats knew what the shapes meant. So silly. My aunt’s snack was a sensible grilled cheese. “Want one?” she asked.
“Of course I do,” I said. “It’s one of my favorite childhood comfort foods.”
“I know,” she said, buttering both sides of the sandwich and flipping it into the old black iron skillet. “Tell me what you’ve learned. More about our case?”
“It’s not our case,” I scolded. “At least don’t let Pete hear you say that.” I took one bite of the perfectly golden melted cheese in the middle of the sandwich and heard Aunt Ibby’s phone ring.
“Now who could that be?” she wondered a
loud. “Hello?” There was a long pause and she covered the mouthpiece with one hand. “It’s Nigel,” she whispered. “Calling from London.”
I hoped all was well in the United Kingdom and that Nigel would be arriving in Boston on schedule. Aunt Ibby doesn’t like changes in plans, and, besides, she was counting on those fresh Harrods pastries. I listened to her end of the conversation and tried to figure out what was going on. I could tell that O’Ryan was listening too. He’d stopped eating in the middle of a pink fish, with his ears straight up, tail switching.
Other than the occasional “Oh, my goodness” and “Doesn’t that beat all,” she didn’t contribute much to the transatlantic conversation. She ended by saying, “One of us will pick you up at Logan Airport early on Saturday afternoon. Ta-ta!”
I was sure the scone-and-biscuit department was accounted for, but what else was going on? “What’s up?” I asked. “Is Nigel all right?”
She wasn’t smiling. “Yes. He’s fine. He’ll be here, as planned. But he’s concerned about us. About what we’ve been doing, you and I.”
“‘What we’ve been doing’?”
“The case. All of it. I’ve been e-mailing him bits and pieces of what we’ve learned so far. You knew he’d been in contact with Chief Whaley about an international matter?”
“Yes, of course. I talked to Pete about it.”
“He didn’t tell me a lot. I suppose he couldn’t, but he’s been looking into this Boris person’s activities over there for the chief and he’s learned some disturbing things. He called to warn us to be cautious.” She looked down at her plate. “He said for us to stop meddling in police business. He was quite stern about it. Medvedev isn’t that man’s real name, and he’s very, very dangerous.” She repeated it. “That’s what Nigel said. ‘Very, very dangerous.’”
CHAPTER 36
I was pretty certain that Pete must know whatever it was that Nigel was hinting about. More than hinting. Was Boris wanted for something? I doubted that, or certainly the Salem police could have found out about it and arrested him by now. If he wasn’t Boris Medvedev, who was he? Maybe he’d taken the Russian word for bear for his wrestling image. A stage name. That made sense. So did the bear’s teeth necklace. The image of the ravening bear on the merry-go-round, attacking the helpless, little stationary horse, resurfaced in my mind.
“What do you think we should do about it?” Aunt Ibby’s voice interrupted the unpleasant thought.
“Do about it? There’s nothing much we can do, except take Nigel’s advice, I suppose. It’s the same as Pete’s. Stop meddling in police business.”
“You’re right. Want a soda with your sandwich?”
“Yes, please. In the can is okay.”
We sat in silence, sipping Mountain Dew, and then we both spoke at once.
“But if it wasn’t for us . . . ,” my aunt said.
“We’re the ones who . . .” I waved my hand in the air.
“We were on the right track with this, from the very beginning,” she declared, wearing her wise-old-owl face. “From the minute I recognized the McKennas’ house on Eric Dillon’s Facebook page.”
“From the time we bought the storage locker, really,” I put in, “and Eric Dillon followed you home.”
“Can’t very well stop now,” she said. “We’ll just be very cautious. Tell me what you learned at the television station. Did you talk to Scott Palmer again?”
“No. This time it was Rhonda. Seems she dated Mr. Dillon a couple of times.”
“Rhonda. That girl is a lot smarter than she looks, you know. What did she have to say?”
I told her first about the golden-goose remark. “He had to be talking about the goose that laid the golden eggs,” I said.
“Had to be,” she agreed. “Everything points to the eggs. I’m sure we’re right.”
“There’s more. I never told you about the notebook page I found on the ground on the Common. I think it came from the missing notebook, and I’m pretty sure Karl Smith dropped it there. Pete asked me to be quiet about it until he could do some checking.”
She frowned. “Do you think it would be proper for you to tell me about it now?”
“Yes. Now I know it’s from the notebook, and I know what it means. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Pete about it yet.”
I explained about Stasia translating recipes from Russian to English for Karl.
“That sounds reasonable,” she said.
I knew she didn’t want to hear anything bad about her new friend, so I tried to phrase things carefully. “Pete noticed right away that this particular page didn’t look like a recipe. It was a list of women’s names and what looked like telephone numbers.”
“That doesn’t sound like anything sinister,” she said. “Are you sure Karl dropped it?”
“No. I can’t be positive about that,” I admitted. “As Pete said, it could have just been a piece of litter lying on the ground.”
“Go on. What about it?”
“We realized that on this page the translation was from English to Russian, not the other way around.”
“Maybe Stasia translates for other people, as well as for Karl.” She sounded hopeful.
“That could be, except for what Rhonda told me.”
“Which was?”
“Eric Dillon used old girlfriends’ first names and telephone numbers for all of his passwords.”
“What a remarkably good idea. Anyone who found it would think it was just what it looked like.”
“It stands to reason that the password to the missing laptop is on that list.”
“And the missing manuscript of the new book is on the laptop.”
I nodded. “I’m thinking that manuscript holds the solution to the whole mystery of the missing eggs.”
Her smile was wry. “The mystery of the missing eggs. Another Nancy Drew title. And sad to say, it looks as though Karl is deeply involved in the whole mess, doesn’t it? He was at the storage locker auction. He helped Boris to take our trash, and he may have the stolen notebook—pages from it anyway.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“When you tell Pete what Rhonda said about the girls’ names and numbers being passwords, he’ll connect it to the page from the Dillon notebook. Maybe he’ll put Karl in jail!”
“Remember, there’s no proof that Karl dropped it,” I said, knowing that it was a pretty safe bet that he had.
“You’re right. Let’s not borrow trouble. We need to stay busy. Not in a meddlesome way, of course.”
“At least not in an obviously meddlesome way,” I said. “Any suggestions?”
“Let’s look up Fabergé eggs again. See if we’ve missed anything there.”
We picked up what was left of our sandwiches and sodas and once again headed for her office. She’s much faster on the keyboard than I am; so, as usual, I pulled up a chair beside her and watched as photos of Imperial eggs, one after another, appeared on the screen.
“Look at this one, Maralee,” she said. “Here’s an article about the most recent find. A Midwestern scrap metal dealer bought it at a flea market. He was going to melt it down for the gold. Turned out to be the third Imperial egg Fabergé made, and it was sold in 2011 to a private collector for thirty-three million dollars.”
“Thirty-three million dollars! Imagine finding a treasure like that at a rummage sale.”
“Or at a storage locker sale.” She winked. “It could happen. Maybe we should get on that auctioneer’s list and go to them regularly.”
“No thanks,” I said. “One was enough for me.”
We spent nearly an hour learning about the eggs—they weren’t very big, only about three or four inches tall—small enough to fit easily inside a doctor’s bag or a papier-mâché wedding cake or a wooden horse. “Look at that one,” I said, pointing. “It has a little cuckoo clock on the top.”
That 1900 Cockerel Egg reminded me of my promise to give Cuckoo to Stasia, so I excused myself from our cautious meddlin
g session, went upstairs and by quarter to five the cuckoo clock was carefully wrapped and boxed and ready to be delivered to Stasia. Cuckoo had been replaced on my wall by a vintage Kit-Cat clock I’d been saving for years. I knew Pete wouldn’t like googly eyes and wagging tail as much as I did, but at least this one didn’t talk.
* * *
“Do you notice anything missing?” I asked him just as soon as he stepped into the kitchen, followed by O’Ryan, who’d been waiting for him at the door as usual.
He spotted it right away. “That smart-ass little noisemaker is gone. Good riddance. The funny-looking black cat doesn’t meow on the hour or anything, does it?”
I assured him that Kit-Cat was silent, except for a friendly ticking sound when it rolled its eyes and wagged its tail, and told him I had the other clock ready to give to Stasia. “She doesn’t have a phone, so I suppose I’ll just drop it off to her at the bench on the Common someday.” I watched his face. “Since you know where she lives, maybe we could take it over there tonight. I know she’s anxious to get it.”
“Sure. She lives over near my sister’s place. Can’t miss it. A small pink one-bedroom place.”
“I’ve seen that cute, little house a hundred times,” I said. “It looks like one of those ‘tiny houses’ on the TV show. I never made the connection.”
“I hadn’t either,” he said, “until you told me about the pink scooter. I saw it parked in front of the house one day and there was Stasia sitting on her front steps.”
“What are we doing tonight anyway? You didn’t tell me, so I didn’t know exactly what I should wear.” I looked from my navy capris and white camp shirt to his jeans and Boston Strong sweatshirt.
“You’re perfect,” he said. “Just put on a jacket. We’re going to the Salem Willows amusement park. The traditional end-of-summer date.”
I put my arms around his waist and reached up for a kiss. “What a good idea. We haven’t done that for ages.”
Maybe a couple of hours of bumper cars, pinball machines and saltwater taffy will clear away thoughts of unwelcome visions and the very, very dangerous Boris Medvedev. I know I need to tell Pete about the golden goose and Eric Dillon’s password codes. That stuff can wait. I need a little bit of normalcy just now. Later. I’ll do it later.
Murder Go Round Page 24
