The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  As Don and Fernando talked, Fernando waved his arm in her direction, and she pressed closer to the wall. After a few more minutes’ conversation, Fernando stood up and went outside.

  She waited. Don stood by Fernando’s table, shifting his weight in a jittery little dance. After a few minutes, the front door opened again. It wasn’t Fernando. Tall, blond, wearing a dark overcoat, Eric Sondergard walked in and looked around him.

  49

  Marina watched Don and Sondergard. They know I’m still here. That’s what Don asked Fernando. They’ve told Fernando something, done something to him to get him out of the way. He wouldn’t be suspicious of anything Don said.

  Don and Sondergard were talking. Don was gesturing animatedly, and Marina could hear, in her mind, his repetition of what she’d just told him. About the steel, about everything.

  So Eric went to bed with me, created a subterfuge to lure me off to India, all in the interest of saving his own ass. He had understood her need perfectly, as he must understand Don’s. What had he used to make Don betray Sandy? Maybe Don didn’t like being the secretary, playing second banana. Maybe Eric figured out how to make Don feel important. Eric had to understand people, to be able to manipulate them so well. Who understands Eric’s needs, though? Possibly K. M. Lee, at Singapore Metal Works.

  Sondergard nodded and clapped Don on the shoulder. He started toward her, leaving Don behind him at the door. Marina moved back into the testing section, feeling her way around the machinery to the door of the evidence room. The key was slippery from the sweat of her hand, and the room was dark, but she managed to fit it into the lock and get through the door as she heard Sondergard’s footsteps approaching.

  Moments after the door closed behind her, a bright outline appeared around its edge. He’d switched on the light. She heard him move to the desk where the key was usually kept and stop.

  He was here to get Loopy Doop, not just to look for her. While she was away, it hadn’t been worth the risk of arousing suspicion by destroying the fractured steel itself, but now he’d have to. Evidence did sometimes get lost. Of course, they’d still have imprints and photos of the break, but nobody could do a hardness check from an imprint or a photo. Since maintenance was set to take the rap, there probably wouldn’t be a trial anyway. Fun World would try to settle out of court.

  All was quiet. He’d be feeling around for the key, opening the little box— She heard his feet shuffle, then the sound of his steps quickly receding.

  As long as Don was at the door she could never get across the open expanse of the pier’s interior without being seen. She was stuck. She moved to the bin where she’d hidden the Loopy Doop steel under the ironing-board cover.

  Eric Sondergard. Had Bobo been in on it too? Maybe not. Bobo had put her on the case, as the maintenance chief had called Breakdown in, without Eric’s OK. The minute that happened, Eric started to poke around for something to use against me, to disorient me if he needed to. He struck a gold mine. If I weren’t in such bad trouble I’d have to laugh. What a bonanza he got.

  She heard steps coming back. What now? Kick the door in, shoot the lock off like in the movies? There was nowhere to hide. She stood with her back to the bin where Loopy Doop sample was and locked her knees, standing as straight as she could.

  No shots, no battering force. Simply the sound of the key slipping into the lock and turning, then the blinding light pouring into the evidence room and Sondergard’s silhouette in the doorway. Don must have Sandy’s master key. Too bad she hadn’t thought about that.

  “So here you are,” Sondergard said.

  “Right back where I started from.”

  He moved into the room and now she could see him better. The lines in his face, the circles under his eyes, were deeper than ever.

  “You really screwed up with Loopy Doop, Eric,” she said.

  “You’re telling me.” He moved toward her. “Where’s the sample?”

  “You expect me to give it to you?”

  “Why not?” He sounded tired. “Really, Marina. When you come down to it, what the hell is it to you?”

  “Why should I let you get away with murder?”

  “It wasn’t murder. It was a miscalculation.” He took another step.

  “You made me think Catherine might be alive, sent me screaming to India—”

  “That was the only part of this whole debacle that was interesting. I even read a little of the Rig Veda. I don’t apologize. The trip probably did you a world of good.”

  “Is what you’re going through worth the money you got from Singapore Metal Works?”

  “I haven’t run the calculation lately.” He was close now. “I need the sample.”

  “You can’t have it.”

  “You don’t think I’ve gone through all this to let you put the brakes on, do you?”

  “No. I think you get the sample, and I— go into the bay, maybe. Off the Golden Gate Bridge, or is that too dramatic? Depressed over recent traumas in India.”

  “I hadn’t thought of the Golden Gate Bridge. You do have a flair,” he said.

  She moved away slightly and said, “You want the sample?”

  “I’m here to get it.”

  “Take it.” She pulled the plastic Fun World bag out of the bin and swung it at him with all her strength. The steel caught him in the ribs and he bent over, his face contorted. He fell heavily to his knees, coughing.

  As she backed away, she heard Don’s voice saying, tentatively, “Eric?”

  He was in the doorway. She got ready to swing again, but he rushed past her to kneel at Sondergard’s side. Clutching the bag, she ran for the door.

  50

  Several weeks later, Marina received a letter from Vijay:

  My dear Marina,

  What an incredible business this is! I have spoken with Mr. Vincent Shah, and he admits to sending the letters and making the telephone call, but he says Mr. Sondergard told him it was for a joke on a friend only. He is very frightened, and will cooperate with the police to the fullest extent.

  It seems you hardly need Mr. Shah to bring Mr. Sondergard to justice. Imagine a man who would put the lives of others, children even, in danger for his own gain! And trick you into coming to India, too! Although for that I think, evil as he is, I owe him a debt.

  There are now few newspaper stories about Nagarajan-Baladeva. I have heard, though, that the people around Goti are saying he is not dead at all, and will return in another guise. People always wish to believe such things, I think.

  I have arranged for a new bullock cart to be presented to Nathu Dada. He had expressed to me his need for this when we were at his farm.

  Sushila and I are to be married in a month’s time. I shall wear a red turban, and ride a horse, and my young cousin will hold a parasol over my head. It surprises me that my mother did not insist on hiring an elephant for the occasion!

  I will close this letter now, Marina. I think of you often.

  Vijay

  Marina put the letter down on the kitchen table, amid the clutter of a late Saturday breakfast. She would write soon and tell Vijay how the case against Sondergard was progressing. The Fun World empire was in turmoil, was probably finished. Bobo, energized more by fury at Sondergard, she thought, than anything else, was running the company. “The crap he used to tell me about you you wouldn’t believe,” Bobo had said when she visited him. “He even told me— you have to forgive me for saying this—he even told me you’d made some sort of advances to him. Can you beat that?” His eyes reddened with indignation.

  “Eric had to control, to manipulate everything,” Marina told Sandy, realizing she was talking as much about Nagarajan as Sondergard. “He found out where the weak spots were. He didn’t care who he hurt, or even killed.”

  Sandy was gray, shaken. Don’s defection had devastated him. He spent a lot of time talking about security measures, procedures to assure he would never be betrayed again. “You have to face it. Complete control isn’t possib
le,” she said.

  “I’m damn well going to have complete control of this place from now on,” Sandy said.

  Balmy air drifted through the open window, and sunlight gleamed on leftover jam, toast crumbs, the last half-cup of coffee. In another apartment, somebody’s stereo was playing. She listened. The music was faint, but it might have been the Vivaldi that was one of Patrick’s favorites. Impossible to tell for sure. As she listened, she watched the sunlight playing over Patrick’s copy of The Gramophone. When the music ended, she got up. There was no such thing as zero risk. She had decided to make a phone call.

  THE END

  Dedication

  To My Mother

  Acknowledgments

  Ernie Eason patiently and imaginatively contributed his technical expertise to this book. I couldn’t have done it without him, and am deeply grateful. Thanks are due to Kirin Contractor for her invaluable advice and to David Mandelbaum, who answered some of my questions about India.

  Responsibility for the many liberties taken with their areas of expertise is mine.

  I would also like to thank Steve Whealton, Alan Friedman and Paul De Angelis for their help.

  Some details of Indian serpent-worship were taken from Indian Serpent-Lore: Or, the Nagas in Hindu Legend and Art by J. Ph. Vogel (Arthur Probsthain, London, 1926).

  I am grateful to Dr. G. Nagarajan, of Bangalore, India, who I hope will not regret telling me the meaning of his name.

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  Also by Michaela Thompson:

  PAPER PHOENIX

  THE FAULT TREE

  VENETIAN MASK

  The Georgia Maxwell Series

  MAGIC MIRROR

  A TEMPORARY GHOST

  The Florida Panhandle Mysteries

  HURRICANE SEASON

  RIPTIDE

  HEAT LIGHTNING

  About the Author

  MICHAELA THOMPSON is the author of seven mystery novels, all of them originally published under the name Mickey Friedman. She grew up on the Gulf Coast in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, the locale described in Hurricane Season, and still spends a significant amount of time there. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and a freelance journalist, and has contributed mystery short stories to a number of anthologies. She lives in New York City.

  Praise for VENETIAN MASK by Michaela Thompson:

  “The decaying splendor of Venice forms the backdrop for a complex and unusual murder mystery … an elaborate, surrealistic book ripe with atmosphere, plot and characterization.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “…kaleidoscopic, satisfyingly intricate … a brainy, psychologically astute cut above most mysteries.”

  —People Magazine

  “[Ms. Thompson] is an enthralling entertainer, and one familiar with every nuance of Venice and Carnival.”

  —The New Yorker

  VENETIAN MASK

  An International Thriller

  By

  Michaela Thompson

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  Venetian Mask

  Copyright © 1987 by Michaela Thompson

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eBook ISBN: 9781625173393

  www.booksbnimble.com

  Originally published by Scribner Book Company.

  First booksBnimble electronic publication: December, 2013

  Prologue

  In Venice, at Carnival, a veil writhes and unfolds in the wind. A mask peers from an upstairs window. Cloaked figures, unrecognizable, linger in shadowy corners. All this can happen, even today.

  In the dissolute eighteenth century, the Venice Carnival lasted six months. A black cloak, three-cornered hat, and white mask concealed the unalterable: sex, age, station. The disguised figure could be a debauched nobleman on his way to the gaming tables, a beautiful nun hurrying to meet her lover, a servant delivering a clandestine message. All were equal in anonymity. Recognition of reality was betrayal.

  Carnival has been resuscitated in recent years, propped up in the interest of luring tourists to Venice during damp and chilly February, with its frequent shrouding fogs, its almost certain rains, its entirely possible snows, its ever-more-likely acqua alta, the frigid high tide from the encroaching Adriatic. During the ten days before the beginning of Lent the streets of Venice are choked with people, some in costume, and some not. The Piazza San Marco echoes, not with the strains of the Venetian furlana, but with rock music loud enough to rattle the domes of the Basilica. Wine bottles smash on the ancient paving stones. Harassed waiters wearing paper hats serve pizza after pizza.

  Venice sinks, its serene magnificence peels away in the poisoned air. Beauty and death, death and beauty, entwine here as nowhere else.

  Venice has at times been a starting point— as it was for Marco Polo— but it has more often been a destination. Many Venetian stories begin elsewhere.

  As does this one.

  Part I

  Paris

  Sally Alone

  The cold of the stone parapet seeped through Sally’s coat as she leaned staring at the surging waters of the Seine. The sky was lowering, almost as dark as the water, and the wind rattled past the shuttered stalls of the dealers in old books and prints that lined the quay. She gazed at the leafless trees, the towers of Notre-Dame, the stone facades of this city she hated so much.

  Brian would have called Jean-Pierre. She imagined Brian in the hallway where the phone was, sitting on the backs of his heels and leaning against the wall the way he did. Would he be laughing with relief, his earlobes pink, or would he be serious, concerned? I don’t know how she took it, Jean-Pierre, she just walked out. I’m really worried about what she might do.

  She pulled her knit hat down over her ears. In Tallahassee it was eight in the morning, the day just starting. Pale sun lay on the white buildings around the capitol, sifted through Spanish moss. In Tallahassee it’s only eight in the morning, and this hasn’t happened yet. In Tallahassee, it wouldn’t happen at all.

  I don’t know what she might do, Jean-Pierre. What am I going to do? She turned away from Notre-Dame and continued along the Seine. When they’d come to Paris last fall, Brian had taken her on this same walk. His voice hoarse with excitement, he had read from his green Michelin guide to Paris— facts, figures, bits of history she immediately forgot.

  He was going to law school. That was the understanding when they got married. The word “Sorbonne” had never been mentioned before the wedding. He had sent off applications, gotten accepted. She had her brand-new degree, her elementary education credential. Then he saw a notice on a bulletin board, or overheard some conversation, and from then on it was the Sorbonne and nothing else.

  At the Pont-Neuf, she crossed to the statue. Henri IV. By this time, she knew who it was. She stood directly in back of the horse’s hindquarters and stared at its muscular bronze rump. I’m looking at myself. A horse’s ass. Because if I had any sense at all, I would’ve seen this coming, somehow.

  A real horse’s ass. Yet she had never understood or foreseen anything Brian did, so why should she have foreseen this? She had been amazed that he asked her out for the first time. He was so handsome and she, she knew very well, was nothing special. She had been amazed when he asked her to marry him. She had been amazed when he decided they had to come to France. Why shouldn’t she be amazed now?
>
  The only thing is, I wish he hadn’t brought me so far from home.

  She bent her head against the wind and continued down the quay.

  Brian And Jean-Pierre

  Jean-Pierre watched Brian thread his way through the crowded café. Brian was slim, with loose golden-brown ringlets that fell over his forehead. Apollo, Jean-Pierre thought. Michelangelo’s David. And then cursed himself for thinking of Brian in clichés. Brian is Brian. Brian is Brian, and that’s enough. Jean-Pierre was dark, with brushy black hair and a pouting underlip. He had often thought that when he and Brian were together they looked almost comically like Typical French Student and Typical American Student.

  Brian couldn’t possibly be anything but American. Jean-Pierre had seen it in that first blinding moment in the courtyard of the Sorbonne, had known even before Brian stopped him and asked, in halting, absurdly accented French, the way to one of the lecture halls. Jean-Pierre’s lips curled as he watched Brian’s rangy American walk.