“Petyr Von Kyburg, you are being arrested on suspicion of murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will—”
“What? No!” Petyr struggled, as they put handcuffs on him. “Mother, tell them that’s not true! Tell them!”
“You have to admit it,” Maria said, wiping her tears. “You did it, didn’t you?”
His eyes were wide. For a minute, he locked eyes with his mother.
“You don’t believe this?” he asked.
She didn’t reply.
His shoulders slumped.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll confess. Take me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Petyr!”
“No. Katya. Please,” Petyr said. “You don’t understand.”
“No. I don’t. There’s no way you did it! There isn’t!” Katya was hysterical as the officers led him out. “Don’t take him away from me! Please!”
“Ma’am. We have to do our job.”
“Let him go, Katya.” Nora held her friend back. “He’s arrested, and he’ll be soon cleared. You’ll see. Right, Petyr?”
Petyr didn’t answer. With a grim face, he let the policemen lead him away to their boat.
“I can’t believe this,” Katya said. “How could they do this? How could they!”
“We all changed clothes,” Maria said. “When we were done mushroom hunting.”
“So?”
“So Petyr had left his shorts lying around in the bathroom. They checked and found traces of poison mushrooms inside his pockets,” Maria said.
“Well that can’t be true!” Katya said. “That doesn’t mean anything! Someone planted it! Of course they did! Petyr wouldn’t have any motive to kill his father!”
“Petyr was… Petyr had some motive,” Maria said.
“Why would he? He had everything! He had me, and we were planning to get married. He had an amazing business which was earning millions of dollars- and—”
“Katya.” Maria was calm.
“And it just doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t!” Katya said. “Please, Nora, you have to figure it out. You do.”
“Katya,” Maria said again. “Did Petyr tell you his business was earning millions?”
Katya’s head snapped towards her.
“What? Yes. Of course it was.”
Maria sighed, and sank down on the sofa.
Lila climbed down the stairs.
“I heard some noise,” she said. “Johann’s still asleep. All that vodka knocked him right out.”
“Petyr’s been arrested!” Katya said hysterically. “Somebody tell me what’s wrong with the world because Petyr’s the sweetest man I know. He hasn’t done it! He hasn’t!”
Lila’s eyes grew wide.
“So it was him all along?”
“Did you suspect?” Nora asked.
“I… I didn’t want to,” Lila said. “I hoped it wasn’t Johann, and I didn’t want him to say something that the police would misunderstand. I’m just… I’m just glad that it wasn’t him.”
“Glad? You’re glad that my Petyr’s been arrested!” Katya tried to charge at Lila, and Nora held her back.
“Katya.” It was Maria again.
“What?” Katya snapped.
“It has to be Petyr,” she said, and her voice was like broken glass. “He needed money. His father refused to give it. So Petyr killed him, likely thinking he’d inherit something.”
“What kind of mother are you!” Katya screamed. “How can you accuse your own son of this!”
“What kind of mother am I?” Maria laughed. “The kind who’s not afraid of telling the truth.”
*****
Chapter 8
“What is the truth?”
“Petyr’s business was a flop,” Maria said. “He’d made it work initially. He was raking in money hand over fist. But then the operational expenses began. He got struck by two lawsuits by competitors. He had a major client refuse to pay him. He told me that he began to grow desperate to keep it afloat.”
“Is that when he came to you?” Katya asked. “No. He was far too proud to take money from you or his father. He’s often said he’d rather die than give his father the chance to crow in front of him. There’s no way he came to you.”
“He didn’t come to us,” Maria said. “He used money that you’d set aside for your Yoga Studio.”
“What?” Katya looked like someone had struck her between the eyes.
“38,675 dollars,” Maria said. “Am I right about the sum?”
“Yes… but… Petyr..”
“The two of you had a joint bank account, didn’t you?” Maria asked. “He found it easy to take the money. He thought he’d have it back to you in a week, with interest.”
“He didn’t ask me,” Katya said, tears in her eyes.
“No,” Maria said. “He didn’t. He was a secretive boy. Even as a child, you could never really tell what he was thinking.”
There was a huge boom. The sky turned red, and then purple as fireworks began.
“Happy Fourth of July,” Katya mumbled. She fell onto a chair and closed her eyes. “So he came to you for the money after he realized he couldn’t repay me?”
“Exactly,” Maria said. “For us, 40,000 dollars is a relatively small amount. It’s what Lila spends on shopping each month, I think. But for Petyr to come back took immense courage. He told me it was a loan, not a gift. He said he’d pay it back as soon as he could. I believed him, of course I did. But his father… his father forbade me to give him the money.”
“What then?”
“They had a huge fight,” Maria said. “Reynold was an egotistic man. He forced Petyr to grovel. I could see Petyr hated each second that he had to ask his father for money. It was like everything he was came crumbling down.”
“Poor Petyr,” Katya whispered. “His worst nightmare coming true.”
Nora marvelled that even now, when Petyr had betrayed her, Katya could still feel bad for him.
“Well, finally, Reynold told Petyr that he’d lend him the money, if and only if Petyr brought you down here for Fourth of July.” Maria said. “Petyr made him promise that he wouldn’t breathe a word of it to you. But… but Reynold kept hinting about it, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Katya said. “He kept bringing up money, but I imagined that he was boasting about how much richer he was than Petyr, and I didn’t care.”
“No. But I could see how Petyr was affected,” Maria said. “His eyes would grow cold. He’d act as if he was being poisoned. Soon, I think he snapped. He killed Reynold.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Katya said. “That’s not the kind of man Petyr is. That’s not the man I know him to be.”
“We hide the things we are most ashamed about from the ones we love the most,” Maria said. “That’s part of being in love.”
“No,” Katya said. “Maybe in your twisted family you taught them to hide your innermost self in love, but for me, it’s when you love someone that you show them all the parts of yourself, even the ones you don’t usually bring out in the light. I wish Petyr had told me. If he’d just owned up to taking the money, I would have forgiven him. I wouldn’t have asked him to go to you. I know what it must have cost him.”
“He couldn’t bear the thought of losing you,” Maria said. “I can see why. Poor Petyr.”
Another firework went up in the air, and through the window, Nora could see its fiery tail. It flashed, and for a minute the whole world seemed to be on fire, then darkness once more spread its wings.
There was a thud on the stairs, and Johann gave a curse. He made his way downstairs, holding his head in his hands.
“Ouch. That hurts,” he said, sitting on the chair. “I’ve had the worst dreams. What’s up with you ladies? Who died?”
At the sight of their horrified faces, he paled.
“So it wasn’t a dream,” he said. Tears filled his eyes. “Father’s really gone.”
Maria moved to him,
and gave him a hug.
“Where’s Petyr?” he asked.
“He’s been arrested by the police,” Lila said.
“Arrested?” Johann shook his head as if to clear it. “What are you talking about? Petyr… Petyr did it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Maria said.
“But I don’t understand!” Johann exclaimed. “Petyr is… there’s no way Petyr’s done it. He isn’t that kind of guy.”
“There’s evidence against him.” Maria said.
“He left his shorts on the bathroom floor.” Lila said. “The police found mushrooms in it.”
“But that’s impossible!” Johann said. “Petyr never even used the bathroom!”
“What?”
“It’s true!” Johann said. “Petyr was irritable, and he decided to go to his room instead of taking a shower. Don’t you remember that father commented on it, Mother?”
“He and I were wearing identical shorts today,” Johann said. “I’m the one who left the shorts on the bathroom floor.”
Outside, the world was rocked by blast after blast as more firecrackers were set off.
*****
Chapter 9
“What’s happening?” Maria sounded scared and low. “Johann, what are you saying?”
“Mother, Petyr can’t have killed father. He simply can’t. You know him. He had no motive.”
“He did have a motive,” Maria said. “Reynold was refusing to give him money.”
“Father? I had already given Petyr the money,” Johann said. “Father gave me grief about it, but I didn’t care. I kind of liked it, my first act of rebellion against him. My second was going to be when I quit my job at Von Kyburg Industries. Petyr’s my brother. When he knew you weren’t going to give in, he asked me to loan him the money. I fully believe that he’ll return it to me, and that he doesn’t need to. I love the guy.”
“You gave him the money?” Maria gasped. “But I don’t understand. Why would he come here with Katya then? That was Reynold’s condition.”
“Oh, I know it was. Petyr told me all about it. We laughed together. We decided that the best way to show Dad his place was for both of us to rebel at once. I and Petyr had a heart-to-heart not too long ago. It was he who told me that I should quit, rather than suffer by staying on.”
“I’ve always admired him for the way he stood up to Dad. I’ve always been afraid to do it myself because somewhere deep inside I believed Dad when he said I’d be a failure without him. But when Petyr and I talked he changed my mind. He said that he was a failure too - his business had failed, after all - but he wasn’t ashamed. He was still happy because it was his own choice to take the risk.
“Petyr told me that the freedom to make your own choices was the biggest thing in life, something that money couldn’t buy. He sparked a fire in me with his words. He told me that nothing would compare to the happiness I felt when I finally stepped out of Dad’s shadow. He helped me make up my mind.”
“I didn’t know this,” Maria said with a frown. “Any of this.”
“Well of course you didn’t. We took great pains to keep it a secret,” Johann said.
“I still don’t understand why he came here, then,” Maria said.
“He came here to announce his desire to wed Katya,” Johann said. “It’s a significant life decision, and he wanted to do it right. He wanted to be brave enough to face father down. The other reason he came was so that I could face father and tell him I wanted to quit too. We would do it together on the Fourth of July. Independence Day, the ultimate way to celebrate our independence. We thought it was symbolic.”
“This is terrible!” Maria said. “There’s been some horrible mistake.”
“Yes! There’s no way Petyr could have done it. Those were my shorts, I tell you,” Johann said. “The police should have realized their mistake by now.”
“They won’t have.” Maria said. “Because Petyr confessed.”
“He did what?”
“Petyr admitted to killing Reynold,” Maria said. “Why would he do that? If he wanted to confess he should have done it immediately. Why the delayed action? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“Why would he confess if he didn’t do it?” Johann said, baffled. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s clear enough,” Nora said. “There are several reasons he would do it.”
“I can’t even think of one,” Johann said.
There was a long pause, as Nora scrolled through her smartphone.
“Answer me!” Johann said angrily.
“Sorry. I was Googling something. But don’t you see why he’d do it?” Nora asked. “But maybe Maria can tell you.”
There was a hiss and a boom outside. By now, used to them, the party ignored the firecrackers and focused on Nora.
“Petyr loves you very much, Maria,” Nora said. “He left you and Johann behind when he ran away to Portland, but he’s always felt very guilty about it. Like he betrayed the family. Hasn’t he, Katya?”
Katya nodded. “He has.”
“Well when he was arrested, he thought maybe it was Johann who did it. He looked at you, Maria, and he thought about how you’d feel if you found out it was Johann. With the shock and emotion, he decided that he’d rather confess himself.”
“That’s not possible!” Johann sprang up.
“Or maybe,” Nora said. “Maybe he thought you did it yourself. Maybe he thought you’d been the one to kill Reynold. That after years of suffering psychological abuse at his hands, you’d snapped. You were the one who handed Johann the basket of mushrooms this afternoon. You’re the one who brought them to me. I think Petyr thought that somehow, you’d decided to murder his father on the spur of the moment, but accidentally implicated Johann! After all, you were insisting that it was a suicide when it couldn’t possibly have been.”
“It’s a horrible lie!” Maria cried. “I would never have hurt Reynold! I loved him.”
“But she’s right. Why did you insist on calling it a suicide?” Johann asked.
“Because I thought it was one of you!” Maria said. “It had to be. What possible reason could Katya or Lila have?”
“Ah.” Nora smiled. “That’s an interesting question. What could their motive possibly be?”
All eyes were on her again.
“Katya, let’s see… Katya could have many motives. Reynold could have told her that she would never marry his son. She could have been afraid that he wouldn’t agree, and decide that he needed to be removed from her path.”
“Nora!” Katya sounded angry, and betrayed.
“But that’s not what happened,” Nora said. “Lila killed Reynold.”
“What!” Lila sprang up. “How dare you say something so horrible!”
“Oh, it’s horrible, but you aren’t calling it a lie,” Nora said.
“Johann, it’s about time you threw her out of here!” Lila said.
“Is it?” Nora asked. “Johann, I think it’s about time you called the police!”
“I’m going to go ahead and do that,” Johann said grimly. “But first, I’d like to hear out this awful accusation you’ve made, and then I’ll probably call them to have you thrown out!”
“It’s the only logical solution, isn’t it?” Nora asked. “Lila is the one who suggested mushroom gathering in the first place. When your father latched onto it, she made it sound like it was his idea. After a childhood in France where she went mushroom-foraging, Lila is one of the only people here who could know which mushrooms were poisonous. She has a degree in biology too. A good understanding of chemistry also, I assume.”
“But Lila never went near those mushrooms!” Johann said. “Petyr was the one who plated the dish. Mother was the one who brought them to you. Katya had a chance when she went out to help mother with the dishes, and afterwards too. But Lila never went near them!”
“Yes,” Nora said. “Which in itself is slightly suspicious. Lila made it very clear that she never went near that plate
. It’s true. She didn’t.”
“What then?” Johann asked.
“I was fooled because you overturned the table in your rush to reach your father,” Nora said. “In the hurry, you made all the plates crash to the ground, so that none of us could properly look at them, and the police had trouble with the forensics too.”
“Well?”
“The thing is, that poison was never in the sautéed mushrooms I created,” Nora said. “It was in the iced tea.”
Johann gasped.
“Lila made the iced tea. Lila served you all. How easy would it be to slip some mushroom powder into Reynold’s iced tea? She made a grave error though. She assumed we’d have lunch immediately.”
“Why is that an error?”
“Those mushrooms take at least two hours to act,” Nora said. “If we’d had lunch immediately, Lila’s plan would have worked. It would be appear that the sautéed mushrooms had killed him. But because you fought with your father, Johann, we delayed lunch. By the time he sat down to eat, the mushroom powder had been digested, and he died on the table. Now, the delayed action is a fact that the police haven’t thought of yet, but will soon. Especially after I tell them about it.
“I didn’t think of it either, until Maria said something about how she delayed actions, and regretted it. The phrase delayed action led me to Google, which led me to realize that the poison was never on the plate! After all, why would anyone start the dishwasher before we’d even had lunch? It was almost done when you kicked it, remember Johann? Why was it started? It doesn’t make sense, unless someone wanted to wash away the poison from the glasses!”
With a scream, Lila sprang at Nora, but Johann held her down. Struggling and cursing, Lila clawed at him, still trying to escape. Nora shut her eyes, but Maria acted. She punched Lila right in the jaw.
The three gaped at the matriarch, who stood over a now-unconscious Lila with a gleam in her eye.
“I never liked her one bit,” she said. “Reynold should never have forced you to marry her, Johann!”
“Why did she do it, though?” Johann said sadly. “I just don’t understand.”
The Milburn Big Box Set Page 49
