“Is Stasia going to be all right?”
“Her injuries looked a lot worse than they are,” he said. “Once they got her cleaned up, it wasn’t so bad. She’ll be hurting for a while. Her nose is broken and one arm is sprained, but she’ll be okay. Physically, at least.”
“And otherwise?”
“We don’t know yet how much she’s involved with the husband’s criminal operations.”
“Some pretty bad stuff?”
“New Scotland Yard sent us some transcripts of his connections over there in the old KGB and in that ‘brotherhood’ he’s part of. Back when Boris’s wrestling career was winding down, he was getting well known in some circles as a ‘fixer.’ His underground contacts came in handy and there were plenty of people wanting things fixed. Boris was big enough, and mean enough, to do absolutely anything for enough money. Old Boris was the kind of ‘fixer’ who gets phony documents for terrorists, and acquires plastic explosives for people who want to blow up planes. There’s also a matter of priceless artwork stolen from various museums around the globe. He may be involved with that too.”
“I can’t imagine how Stasia got tangled up with such a person.”
He hesitated and I wondered how much of this he could share with me.
“Pete,” I said, “you know Aunt Ibby and I are mixed up in this whole mess. Have been ever since the beginning, when we bought the storage locker.”
“I know that,” he said. “You’ve both been a big help—even though you were meddling in things you shouldn’t have been. The truth is, if you hadn’t rushed out in the middle of the night and found Stasia . . . I hate to think of what could have happened.” He brushed baking powder from my cheek with gentle fingers. “You’re the hero of it all, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Saving Stasia just when you did prevented Boris from taking some innocent lives. And that vision you had? About the gardeners and the harvest? That gave us the location of what came close to being a disaster.”
I guess I’ll have to tell him eventually that it wasn’t exactly a vision . . . more like a B and E.
“You and your aunt will never get credit for all you did to solve this mess. I guess you know by now that the successful police work doesn’t always make the papers. You read more about the failures.”
“I see,” I said, although I really didn’t.
He took my hand. “I can tell you this much. Stasia will probably tell you herself anyway. She met him when she was fifteen,” he said. “Medvedev was a big star. Her dad was a fan. She thought she was in love.”
“That happens.”
“He seduced her. Her parents found out and disowned her. When she turned sixteen, he took her with him to Russia and married her there, under his real name—Ivanov. That’s when she stopped writing to her friend Colleen.”
I nodded, finally understanding. “She couldn’t let anyone know what her husband was doing. So young to be mixed up in such a mess. Poor Stasia.” I thought of the way she could shut down—go blank sometimes. Self-protection, I guess. “Do you know how Boris was able to open Dillon’s manuscript without the password page from the notebook?” I wondered. “I know those English-to-Russian pages were for him, not Karl.”
“Stasia said she helped him with that. She remembered that the missing page had American girls’ names on it, with seven digit numbers. Boris’s old KGB hacking experts broke that code in a day.”
“So Dillon had finished the book? The answers were all in there?”
“All of it. Homeland Security has a transcript. Dillon found out that the first three eggs had been sold to an anonymous collector in Russia way back in the twenties or thirties—someone very high up in government. I don’t know who. That’s classified. When they learned that the doctor had an egg, they tried to buy that one too. He refused, so . . .” He made a slashing motion across his throat. “We figure some long-ago hired hand killed him and took it.”
“What about the baker in Connecticut in the seventies? His egg was in the wedding cake.”
“The same family in Russia was still collecting the czar’s treasures. They wanted more of the lost eggs. Boris landed the contract and delivered one of them. He killed the baker.” He looked around the kitchen. “Do I smell cookies burning?”
That was the end of that conversation. I rescued the cookies and put them on a cooling rack. Pete made coffee and we ate the ones that were a little bit burned, just like Lucy and Ethel.
By the time all of the cookies and tortes and tea cakes were packed and refrigerated, the sun was up and the day of the Library Bookmobile Benefit High Tea was upon us. Pete made a quick run to the police station to pick up Tatiana, whose dresses all had to be carefully ironed again, after being examined for clues or contraband and found free of both. Aunt Ibby and I drove doll and dresses to the library in order to complete the planned doll display, and to supervise the unpacking, unfolding and precise placement of tablecloths and napkins. Fresh-flower arrangements had been delivered and pronounced perfect.
Mrs. Abney-Babcock, accompanied by a very large security guard and two white-gloved women, proceeded to unpack and put in place the cups, saucers and cake plates from the much-praised and promoted set of her great-grandmother’s wedding china, to be enjoyed by the event’s biggest donors. Library volunteers arranged the plain white, but serviceable, rented china to be used by the rest of the guests, while I positioned the colorful matryoshkas and chess pieces on the table where Aunt Ibby would preside over the samovar, the silver trays, sugar bowl and cream pitcher. Mr. Pennington had been pressed into service to pick Nigel up at Logan Airport at noon.
From all of our outward appearances, no one would guess that none of us had slept, or that Pete, via phone, Internet and wire service was coordinating a nationwide search for Boris Medvedev.
CHAPTER 41
I sat beside Aunt Ibby as she proudly dispensed fragrant citrus Russian tea from the beautifully molded spigot on the side of the silver samovar. “It looks as though it’s a smashing success, don’t you think, Maralee?” she whispered.
“Sure does,” I agreed as I manipulated the sugar tongs, asking, “One lump or two?” to guests who passed by, carefully holding the precious blue-and-white cups. “Everyone seems to love the food. The press is interviewing people all over the place, and Tatiana is the star of the show. And look. All of the McKenna family is here.”
“I saw them,” Aunt Ibby said. “They’re all so pleased to see Grandpa Nick’s toys on display. The mayor could hardly believe that we had real English pastries, delivered fresh from Harrods this very morning. And I doubt that anyone but an expert could tell the difference between Karl’s Russian treats and ours.” We’d bowed to the constraints of time when it came to the requisite tiny sandwiches and had found a local caterer, who’d done a super last-minute job on the dainty tidbits.
“It’s just too bad that Karl and Stasia couldn’t be here to enjoy it.”
She nodded sad agreement. “I know. I wish things had turned out differently for both of them.”
When Mrs. Abney-Babcock took her turn to relieve me at the sugar bowl, I joined Pete and Nigel next to the front door. “Jolly good show, Lee,” Nigel said. “Ibby knows how to throw a party, doesn’t she?”
“You’ve been a wonderful help, Nigel,” I said. “Traveling all this way, just to deliver pastries.”
“Not just to deliver pastries, my dear. Your lovely aunt is reason enough for a man to make a transatlantic trip.”
That made me blush. It’s hard to think about a maiden aunt in her sixties who’s apparently still “got it.”
“Well, anyway,” I said, “the mayor is very impressed. She says there’s no mistaking Harrods demerara shortbread.”
“You’ve been a big help to the department too, sir,” Pete said. “The information you gave us helped a lot to get Lee, here, out of the doghouse with Chief Whaley, for snooping around where she didn’t belong.”
“Glad to
help out, old man,” Nigel said. “Thwarting a terrorist attack on an innocent amusement park before afternoon tea is no small feat.”
He must have known by my expression that I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh, dear, have I let the cat out of the bag? So sorry.” He didn’t look sorry at all, and I could have sworn he winked at me when he said it.
“Want to catch me up on things?” I asked Pete. “This sounds like something that will be in the newspapers soon enough.”
“It might not,” Pete said. “The ones we stop don’t make news. The successful ones get all the press.”
“Don’t you think I deserve to know?”
“I do.” His expression was serious. “If it wasn’t for you getting involved, we would have been too late.”
Nigel gave a slight bow. “Handed you a bit of a sticky wicket, have I? I’ll just join the ladies at the tea table whilst you two youngsters sort it out. Ta-ta.”
He glanced at Nigel’s departing back. “Okay. Here it is. Between Stasia’s being ticked off about the beating she took—and even more furious because he called her ‘old’ and ‘fat’ and said he had a younger bride in Russia ready to share his millions—and to top it off, he’d already smashed her cuckoo clock—and Karl Smith’s spilling everything he knew, we were able to move on this before it turned to a real tragedy.”
I gasped. “You’re talking about a real attack. On the park with the old carousel.”
“Right. He’d already had some of his goons disguised as gardeners plant bombs all around the perimeter of the park. It was your vision that tipped us off to the gardeners. When he got there early this morning, he phoned in the threat. Again, because of your tip, we knew he had the whole operation planned for four o’clock, Colorado time. As soon as the dogs started sniffing out the explosives, they’d planned to detonate a couple of them. In the confusion Boris and one of his badass friends from the brotherhood would saw the horse apart, grab the egg and join the crowd running from the park. As soon as they were out, they’d blow up the carousel, destroying the evidence, head for the airport and be home free.”
“But you stopped them in time. Nobody got killed.”
“Everybody’s okay. He shouldn’t have let Stasia in on the plan, but he figured as his wife she’d never have to testify against him. Like the man said, ‘Cherchez la femme.’”
“What about Karl? How in the world did he get involved in such a mess?”
“Smith was in some kind of church outreach program, teaching ex-prisoners how to get jobs in the outside world. He was teaching Boris how to cook.” Pete, ever the cop, surveyed the room as he spoke. “Smith wanted to buy that restaurant, but had no money. Boris had contacts for big money—at really high interest. When Smith couldn’t pay, he got roped into the trash-picking run and then the break-in at Paul’s.”
“I hope you’re not going to tell me that Karl killed Eric Dillon.”
He smiled and took my hand. “No, that was Boris. When Karl saw the body, he got sick.”
Another question bothered me. “How did Boris know Eric Dillon was onto what they were doing?”
“Funny thing about that,” Pete said. “According to Stasia, he didn’t. He spotted Dillon outside the window. Killed him just so he wouldn’t identify him and Smith. Took the laptop and destroyed the memory card, but he didn’t know about the treasure books until it was in the papers.” Pete shook his head. “Bad luck. Boris thought the egg was in your horse. So did Stasia. Dillon had already figured out that it wasn’t. We think he just wanted a picture so he could easily pick out the twin horse back in Colorado. He’d already bought a plane ticket to Denver for the next morning.”
“So Boris killed Dillon with the same kind of garrote he’d used on the baker. Gruesome thing,” I said. “I guess he thought it looked like bear’s teeth.”
Pete laughed. “Stasia says he was really mad when everyone blamed that old witch, Baba Yaga. He’d intended for them to blame a bear.” He suddenly dropped my hand. “Oops. Excuse me, babe, I think I just saw a guy slipping one of those blue-and-white dishes into his pocket. Gotta go.”
I watched as Pete approached a well-dressed, but red-faced, man and diplomatically retrieved the “accidentally” pocketed dish. I smiled and remembered that we’d planned extra security to make the library the safest place in Salem because we’d halfway expected a visit from a murderer—not a light-fingered, white-collar saucer snitcher.
Sipping tea from a plain white cup, I thought about that peaceful picture of the amusement park, where there certainly would have been families and kids. I knew there were lots of details to clear up among Pete and me and Aunt Ibby about this case.
Yes, I was calling it a case—just as though I was a real girl detective. I knew, too, that most of it would never be in the papers, and that we’d all keep what we knew among us three.
I was perfectly content to replay his words quietly in my mind—“If it wasn’t for you getting involved, we would have been too late.”
EPILOGUE
Eventually I did get most of the story. Pete told me all that he could without violating police department rules, Homeland Security mandates or New Scotland Yard confidences. The Colorado police apprehended Boris at the park before he’d had a chance to blow anything up, and Stasia was happy to testify against him. It seems there was more than one wife waiting in the wings. There were several Mrs. Ivanovs, each involved in one or another of his illicit schemes. Each of them, like Stasia, had expected to live a life of luxury in a Russian mansion with her multimillionaire husband, and each was willing to talk. Boris will live out his days in a maximum-security prison, guilty of the murders of Eric Dillon and Alex Chopiak, the baker, with even more trials pending. Dillon’s stolen laptop is now in the hands of his publisher, so soon readers will know the whole story of the missing eggs.
Stasia’s orange-haired, oddball Salem character persona was, as I’d suspected, an act. She was there simply to locate the locker. Boris knew that she’d recognize her grandparents’ belongings, and that no one would ever peg the local crazy lady as part of an international crime ring. She didn’t go to jail because she was helpful to the authorities, both here and overseas. On probation, she stayed in Salem and is often seen feeding the pigeons on the Common. She returned her hair to its natural salt-and-pepper gray, but was never able to kick her bubblegum habit. Tatiana went on a tour of American museums and arrangements have been made for her to visit Russia too.
Karl Smith now works in the kitchen of the county’s newest correctional facility, and will be there for some time to come. St. Vladimir’s is keeping the Russian Tea Experience open, using Karl’s recipes and making enough money to show a little profit for the church. The library high tea put the bookmobile fund over the top and soon kids all over Salem will have the reading adventures Aunt Ibby has long envisioned for them. The Fabergé egg, valued at fifty million dollars, was safely nestled right where Grandpa Nick had hidden it so many years ago—inside my horse’s twin. It was carefully extracted from the horse and it now belongs to the people in Colorado who’d had the foresight to preserve the precious, old carousel for the enjoyment of generations of kids.
Nigel St. John extended his stay in Salem for an extra week and has invited Aunt Ibby to spend next New Year’s Eve with him in London. I’ve learned to make Russian tea cakes—those little powdered-sugar things—for Pete, who’s been quite understanding about my interfering in his investigation. In fact, he thinks that if it all wasn’t such a top secret international case, I’d probably get a medal.
Chief Whaley isn’t buying it. Still thinks I’m a nosy pest. Maybe he’s right.
I haven’t seen the little gray cat again, but I have a feeling that someday I will. I told O’Ryan that, but he just said “meh” and licked my face.
From the Tabitha Trumbull Book of New England Cookery
(Recipes adapted and edited by Isobel Russell)
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Back in the l
ate-1800s, Captain Lorenzo Baker of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, was about to return home from a trip to Jamaica. Just before he left, he picked up a bunch of green bananas and tossed them into the cargo hold. Of course the bananas ripened nicely during the voyage home, and Wellfleet folks raved about the exotic, new fruit. Next trip out, and knowing a good thing when he tasted one, Captain Baker filled the hold with green bananas and steered straight for the Boston market. Orders poured in, and before long his voyages to the West Indies were strictly for bananas. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, boats built especially for carrying bananas were being built; and with the advent of the railroad, people all around America could enjoy the novel delicacies.
Captain Baker, by the way, formed the Boston Fruit Company, which later became the United Fruit Company, and made himself a tidy fortune.
1¾ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
⅓ cup shortening
⅔ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup ripe, mashed bananas (2 to 3 bananas)
1 cup mini semisweet chocolate morsels
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat shortening until creamy. Add sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs and continue beating until well blended. Add flour mixture alternately with bananas, a small amount at a time, mixing after each addition enough to moisten dry ingredients. Stir in mini semisweet chocolate morsels. Turn into greased 9x5x3 loaf pan. Bake in 350-degree oven about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until done. Test with toothpick or cake tester after one hour.
Karl Smith’s Russian Tea Cakes
(Pete’s favorite)
1 cup soft butter
½ cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2¼ cups sifted all-purpose flour
Murder Go Round Page 28
