The Christie Curse

by Victoria Abbott

  “Oh, that Eddie McRae. Never knows when to keep his mouth shut. None of anyone’s business.”

  I couldn’t have agreed less. “So what did happen to my predecessor?”

  Vera said, “As it turned out, he went out with a bang.”

  I stared at her. That didn’t mesh with Eddie McRae’s comment.

  “Coffee, yes, yes,” said Signora Panetone, filling my coffee cup.

  Vera said, “In that he managed to get himself hit by a train.”

  Signora Panetone stopped serving and made the sign of the cross. “Poor boy.”

  Vera ignored all that.

  “The country mouse wandered into the city, stumbled into the subway, was attacked by a homeless person, lost his footing and plummeted onto the track in front of an oncoming train. I trust you have no balance issues and a rudimentary understanding of the laws of physics and how trains work.”

  Wow, cold-blooded. “I’m quick on my feet and have no problem using the subway safely. I’m good with planes too.” Something was not right there, for sure. If he’d been smart enough to get the job, you’d think the poor doofus could take a subway without getting killed. And what kind of employer would talk like that after a tragedy?

  Signora Panetone crossed herself once more to be on the safe side. Was that because of the death or merely Vera’s untouched plate? Hard to know.

  Vera Van Alst showed no empathy about his passing, and I didn’t really appreciate the black humor. It would have been a nasty way to go. But then, Vera had all the warmth of a trout caught yesterday. Never mind, I didn’t have to like her; I just had to cash her checks.

  “And today’s strategy?”

  A cat brushed against my leg. I jerked away before I got scratched, but all I heard was a contented purr. A trick, no doubt. I wasn’t likely to fall for that.

  “I’ll start with some online snooping and then begin to visit contacts. Shake things up a little bit.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you have wireless Internet here?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you have any Internet service? I should have checked yesterday.”

  She shrugged. “Why would I? I don’t need a computer. I despise all this electronic folderol.”

  I bit my tongue so I didn’t blurt out, “Because you are not the only person in the world.” Instead I said, “That ‘folderol’ will speed things up if I can do much of my computer research here. That would give me flexibility.”

  “You’ll have to find another way. That will be all, Fiammetta. Stop hovering.” She wheeled back from the table. “Good day to you, Miss Bingham.”

  Right.

  * * *

  AFTER GATHERING UP my materials for a day on the prowl, I headed out. I decided to detour and take a walk around the side grounds. I was curious about the structures I could see from the conservatory.

  Up close the whole setup seemed to be made of leftover bits and bobs from other projects. I spotted pieces of battered fencing, some old wire hangers and a pair of plastic milk cartons, one red, one blue.

  A middle-aged man in a straw hat was leaning against a shovel. I recognized him from the ride-on mower, and I figured he was the same guy who’d been working in the tulip beds.

  “What is this?” I said.

  This time he grinned at me. “It’s Fiammetta’s vegetable patch.”

  Of course, it could only have been Signora Panetone’s garden; nobody else would have had the nerve to carve out this untidy little patch amidst the immaculate Van Alst gardens, let alone eat produce grown on the property of the most hated woman in Harrison Falls. Even I knew that gardens were full of plants in neat rows. I’d seen pictures. I said, “It’s not like other gardens.”

  He nodded. “It’s a Fiammetta special. It’s like nothing else in the world. That’s why it’s tucked out of sight, so that Vera can’t see it messing up the grounds.”

  What was I missing? “It’s different. Why aren’t there any plants in it?”

  “I guess you’re not a vegetable gardener.”

  “That’s an understatement. In my family we believe that vegetables come from cans. Fruit too, although some of it seems to grow in Jell-O and Pop Tarts.”

  He chuckled. “Well, until this week, the weather’s been bad. It’s been too cold and wet to plant much for most of the spring. Once we’re past Memorial Day, you just watch. She’ll grow tomatoes like you’ve never tasted in your life.”

  “I can’t wait.” I wasn’t sure I really believed it, but I was looking forward to being proved wrong. “And I’m Jordan Bingham, by the way. I work here now on Miss Van Alst’s collection.”

  “And I am Brian Underwood. I take care of the grounds and the gardens, and I do repairs and maintenance. Nice to meet you, Jordan. And good luck to you. You’ll need it.”

  For all I knew Brian would go running back to Vera with whatever negative things I said. I kept it neutral. “I’m enjoying it so far.”

  “Well, look out. You never know when Vera’s got a black mood coming. Been like that for the twenty-five years I’ve been working here. You just have to grow a thick skin. And watch your back. She has a dangerous streak. Fiammetta, now, she’s thrilled to have you. Says you’re a real good eater.”

  * * *

  I STROLLED BACK along the elegant driveway that wound around the Van Alst house from the spectacular wrought-iron front gates to the rear entrance. I stopped at my vintage blue Saab, as pretty today as when it first rolled off the line in 1960. It had been passed from my grandfather to my mother and had been waiting for me the day I got my license. My Uncle Paddy dabbles in classic cars and kept it purring like a kitten. That car was the closest I’d ever come to having a pet.

  Harrison Falls being what it is, I was back at Uncle Mick’s in fifteen minutes. I kept my eyes on the road during the steep drive up the hill. It was a gorgeous spring morning: the sun was bright, the sky blue, the air full of promise and the scent of fresh green leaves and grass. Everywhere I looked, peonies were delivering their spectacular blooms. Spring in upstate New York seems to take too long to arrive, but it never disappoints when it finally does. By nine thirty that morning I was settled in Uncle Mick’s cluttered back office, ready to start creeping around the Internet. I turned down his offer to enjoy a double feature of Froot Loops and Count Chocula for breakfast. Ditto the instant coffee. Despite their fondness for “antiques,” my uncles are early adopters of every form of electronic communication, including some that are less than legal, but never mind that. I figured I’d get one of them to hook me up in the garret without Vera being any the wiser, but in the meantime, I needed access and privacy.

  I was eager to get to work. I did hope to ferret out some scraps of information about this play. I needed some hint about its existence. There had been no inkling of a previously unknown play, even in Agatha Christie’s own notebooks, as far as I could tell. Of course, I hadn’t had time to make a real dent during my first evening of burrowing through the pile of information I’d gathered. Still, the right search engines can pull up information that is unofficial, unverified, as well as inaccurate and downright dangerous. I looked forward to it.

  But first, I wanted to check out my predecessor, the country mouse. And now I had enough information to do that.

  It didn’t take long for Google to spit out a number of articles related to deaths in the subway. My predecessor had been Alexander Fine, a twenty-eight-year-old recent graduate of Ithaca College. He was from Darby, just ten miles away from Harrison Falls, and his parents still lived there, so naturally our local paper had covered his death thoroughly. I had missed the drama, being in the middle of end-of-term madness and marking, studying and writing like a maniac.

  In the article, my new employer was interviewed and showed her usual level of compassion. She did manage not to make a joke, so I supposed that was to be commended in a limited way: When reached for comment, his employer, prominent Harrison Falls resident Vera Van Alst, said, “It was a st
upid thing to happen. A waste.”

  And then I assumed she released the hounds on the reporter.

  Witnesses said during a hostile encounter with a deranged homeless man, Mr. Fine was pushed into the path of an oncoming train. His fiancée, Miss Ashley Snell, tried unsuccessfully to save him and had to be held back. The homeless man had already fled the scene with Mr. Fine’s laptop bag.

  Another article featured a photo that showed the devastated fiancée, long dark hair disheveled, her face distorted by grief, weeping, while emergency workers milled around. What a powerful illustration of the tragedy. Of course, it wasn’t the best circumstance for a flattering photo. It appeared that Ashley Snell was a donkey-faced girl with unfortunately close-set eyes and more teeth than mouth, but I put that down to a nasty photographer on some kind of a power trip. Some people are like that. The paper went on to say that Miss Snell was still suffering from shock and was requesting that people respect her privacy.

  No kidding.

  I couldn’t even imagine dealing with those vultures after you’d been coping with the horrendous death of your fiancé. And what kind of unfeeling monster would use that photo?

  I didn’t know the victim, his parents or his fiancée, and I still felt bad for all of them.

  The picture of Alexander Fine showed a man in his late twenties with dark hair, a receding hairline, large expressive eyes fringed with dark eyelashes and a slightly feminine pointed chin. The dark circles under the expressive eyes added a few years to his age. In his photo, he looked like he was about to apologize to the photographer.

  I wondered what he’d been doing in Manhattan. Had he had a line on the Christie play? If so, why hadn’t Vera mentioned that? She must have known if he’d been in the city on business for her.

  I reminded myself that it took only a few hours to drive to New York City. It could have been a romantic outing for a young man and his fiancée that ended in tragedy. But somehow I wasn’t buying that.

  As I was the new Alexander Fine, it seemed a good idea to make sure I knew what had really happened to him. Apparently the police didn’t. Later articles showed there were no leads on the homeless man and the police had no suspects, although Alex’s empty laptop bag had been discovered in a Dumpster the day after his death. Had it been a random theft of a laptop for a quick buck, or was there something more going on?

  I wondered if it was too soon to run into Miss Ashley Snell, accidentally, of course, while still respecting her privacy.

  I bookmarked a couple of articles and got on to strategy number two.

  Sal.

  Flipping open my phone, I zipped off a quick text to Tiff.

  Number 10 Bridge Street.

  * * *

  SALVATORE TASCONE’S NAME was nicely scripted in gilt on the door of Number 10 Bridge Street. I opened the door and walked in. Like everything about Sal, it was discreet. No indication, for instance, of what line of work he was in, if you know what I mean. The reception desk was decorated with the Marilyn Monroe look-alike filing her red nails. Sal appreciated that era. Once past the platinum-blond guardian at the desk, I found myself in a room that was as far from an office as any I’ve ever seen. A pair of tufted green leather club chairs faced each other. I tried not to drool at the sight of them. A polished French occasional table held a crystal candy dish and Sal’s highball glass, also crystal. Probably Waterford. Uncle Mick had mentioned that Sal was partial to it.

  Sal looked good in his green chair. He stood up as I entered and kissed me on both cheeks. He was six feet tall, slender, elegant in his custom-tailored suits, a gentleman transplanted from 1959. Seventy, looking fifty, you’d swear he just stepped out of Ocean’s Eleven, the original. He has always looked exactly the same: silver waves, thin face, sharp cheekbones and jaw, perfect but subtle manicure, black pencil-thin mustache, French cuffs, this time sporting Art Deco green tourmaline cuff links, a thousand bucks if they were a penny. Sal was a handsome man and one you knew you should be wary of. Forget the handmade leather shoes. Concentrate on the tight lips and the expressionless eyes. I managed not to shiver, but only barely. Sal is the go-to guy for coins, stamps, Georgian silver and anything missing from museums pretty much anywhere on the planet, despite his cozy setup in plain-vanilla Harrison Falls. In fact, Sal’s face was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard The Scream had been stolen.

  He never says much. Long pauses are a specialty. Most people start to sweat as soon as they get over their shivers.

  “I hear you’re looking for something, Jordan.”

  “Oh, you spoke to Uncle Mick.”

  “Not recently.” He indicated the guest chair with a courtly wave, sat elegantly back in his own chair and smoothed the immaculate creases in his trouser legs.

  I got the message. He already knew what I was looking for without hearing it from me or my uncle. I sat down too. “I am looking for something, but I don’t know if it exists.”

  Sal liked that approach. He raised his eyebrows in interest, and I continued. “A matter of an unknown play by Agatha Christie.”

  His eyes narrowed. Sal’s intense stares and long pauses tended to give me verbal diarrhea, never a good thing.

  “Never produced,” I said, fighting the urge to blurt.

  Sal permitted himself an almost imperceptible nod.

  “Maybe the only copy in the world.”

  He fingered his tourmaline cuff links.

  “Could even be in Agatha Christie’s own handwriting.” Now where the hell had that come from? I wasn’t even sure that Christie had written her novels and short stories longhand. Perhaps she’d typed them. Or dictated them. I reminded myself that I still had a long way to go researching what I was supposed to know.

  Sal flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his snowy white French cuff.

  I said, “What do you hear about it?”

  Sal unbent elegantly from the chair and said, “I’ll let you know.”

  I recognize when I’ve been dismissed.

  * * *

  I FROZE WHEN I spotted the cop idling across the street from Sal’s office. Was he following me? Plenty of reasons for the cops to keep an eye on Sal, although wearing a Harrison Falls Police uniform and sitting in a marked car was a bit too obvious. But why was he smiling? Why was he getting out of his squad car? Instinctively, I flattened myself against the wall in case I’d blundered into the middle of a takedown. Caught between a cop and a bad place. But if I was trapped, then so were the three blue-haired ladies with walkers who had just emerged from the bingo hall. They clustered around Officer Smiley, looking like they were about to pinch his flushed cheeks or ruffle his wavy blond hair. He was over six feet, so they’d have to stretch to manage that. I think they were won over by his twinkly bright blue eyes. Beware, ladies, I thought.

  He disengaged himself from his new fans and crossed the street. His admirers hurried to catch up. He reached out his hand toward me, and I froze in slow-motion horror as he took my hand and shook it.

  Now the old ladies clustered around and turned to me. I swear they giggled. “Is this your girlfriend? Oh, she’s beautiful! Childbearing hips.”

  “No!” I gasped, but my protest was drowned by the rattle of the walkers as they headed down the street.

  Why the hell was he still holding my hand?

  “Tyler Dekker,” he said. The tips of his ears were glowing red. He had the kind of fair skin that was born to blush. The small chip in his left incisor just added to the charm of his smile.

  I stared at our entwined hands. This couldn’t be happening. And why was I feeling the heat? I hadn’t done anything illegal, but there was that lifetime of conditioning.

  “And you’re Miss Jordan Bingham.”

  There was no point in denying it, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. He could, though. “Just visiting?”

  “Just passing by, Officer,” I said curtly, hoping that Sal wasn’t watching this encounter.

  I managed to be on my way fast enough that
the most suspicious watcher couldn’t imagine that anything like an actual conversation had taken place.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JORDAN BINGHAM, WHY am I being graced with your gorgeous presence so soon after the last visit?”

  I smiled.

  That Lance DeWitt was so dreamy that if the Harrison Falls Public Library decided to charge fifty bucks a reference question, they would probably have plenty of takers. I kept my voice even and overlooked the small flutter in my chest. Other women in the library glared at me. Maybe it was the double-cheek kiss. Even though there was absolutely nothing between us, I still got a rush when my handsome friend worked his flirtatious magic.

  “Rare manuscripts and books, where would I find the people who know about them?”

  “Still on Agatha, are we?”

  “You know me, like a dog with a bone.”

  “Well, you could go online, but for the real inside story, let me help. There are some people you should stay away from. You think drug dealers and gangbangers can be violent, try crossing a rabid collector for his first-edition Dylan Thomas.”

  I knew my uncles had had a few close calls with obsessive collectors, but would that hold true for book collectors? “Just books, Lance.”

  “People get addicted to anything, dear Jordan, like I could get hooked staring into your gorgeous eyes.”

  I flushed foolishly. “Oh, come on, they’re—”

  “Some collectors won’t part with their prizes unless you pry them from their cold, dead hand. But they’d be happy to pry a desired object from yours. No matter what the cost to them. Or you.”

  “I find it hard to believe there’s much danger in this business.”

  “Where there’s desire, there’s always a dark side. Just be careful, Jordan.”

  Ten minutes later, I left the library with a fistful of brochures and a pair of trembling knees.

  Ridiculous really.

  * * *

  I TEXTED TIFF. Back at Mick’s.

  Uncle Mick was just about to serve up Kraft Dinner for lunch when I dropped in. KD was the foundation of the food groups for the Kellys. I am a Bingham, but I’ve had my share. Still, only day two in the Van Alst employ with Signora Panetone’s cooking and I was already being ruined for my uncles’ cuisine.