Drowning Pool (Miss Henry Mysteries) (7 page)

In her first niche she encountered someone
that made her take a defensive stance and nearly screamed in terror, though it would mean discovery if she squeaked. Fortunately she realized in time that it was just a helmet fitted with a visor with details picked out in gold before she attacked it. There was a bronze plaque that said
German 1515
. No artist was mentioned. The silver face on the visor looked a bit like Picasso’s sketches of Don Quixote with a beaked nose and sad eyes that drooped at the corners. The mouth was open with gapped teeth showing. The expressive grimace made her think that the model had just taken a lance to the gut.

Discounting the human skin books, which were created by several different cultures, t
his was her first sign that there was some European art in the castle.

By then her teeth were on edge
, and she finished her tour of the library with more speed than thoroughness. If she really felt the need, she would revisit the library during daylight hours. It was time to get back to the illusory safety of her room where the only monsters were the usual NSA alligators under the bed.

She made it to her room undetected
by guards or other insomniacs, but by then she was cold and shivering. The fire had died down to embers. She climbed into bed, feeling the comforting weight of her wool blankets and every one of her less comforting fifty-three years. It was a long while before she slept.

Thankfully she slept a bit later than usual and therefore missed most of her fellow artists at the breakfast table. That was good. She was a morning person only in the sense that she liked coffee and the aesthetic of the sunrise. Sketching was fine too. It did not include talking to, or being talked at by, strangers while she was doing it.

Juliet was ready to brave the lions when she happened to glance out the window and saw a bird, a gorgeous creature with a long tail that looked like it belonged in an illustrated fair
y tales collection. The bird noticed her admiration. The look he gave her was coy, but he held still long enough for her to sketch him.

It came as no surprise that Raphael was not in the dining room. He tended to be a night owl and wanted company in the morning even less than she did.
What was more surprising—and more welcome—was a lack of other artists bickering as they broke their fast.

Someone had left a newspaper on the
enormous dining room table. It was an English-language newspaper though the masthead said Mexico City and was from the day before. Apparently the amenities of the house did not run to current newspapers being flown in.

The paper
was folded to the crossword puzzle. Whoever had started it must have felt confident because they had worked the acrostic in pen. Juliet approved. She always used ink for her puzzles because she felt that to attempt any sort of puzzle required the courage of one’s convictions. But the paper was thin as tissue and the puzzle-doer was either too impatient or too heavy-handed—a sculptor perhaps—and they had torn through the paper in several places. Juliet considered an attempt to finish the puzzle but decided it was too far gone to be worth the effort.

Besides, she had work to do
even if her enthusiasm for it was at ebb tide.

One of the footmen or waiters or whatever
-he-was appeared at her side as soon as she returned from the buffet and asked that she go up to the gallery when she was done eating. Mr. Smythe wished to assure himself that all was in place for the art show. The footman’s accent was thick, but it was not Mexican, nor any other kind of Latin. Juliet couldn’t place the accent exactly but was willing to bet that it was from one of the countries bumping up against Russia.

Juliet smiled and nodded.
This explained where the others were.

Unlike the other artists
at the show, Juliet lacked the rock-star mentality. It was, Asher Temple assured her, the one thing that stood between her and the artist’s limelight which they all seemed to crave. Certainly she was talented enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with most artists.

That was probably correct, but
those many years of self-censoring at home and hiding her light under a bushel at the NSA had cured her of any impulse to become a cult of personality. She did not want fame for its own sake. Her goal was to make enough money doing what she loved that she could eat and keep a roof over her head.

Juliet finished breakfast and then
, as per instructions, wandered up to the gallery where she gave an occupied Smythe a thumbs-up on where and how he had hung her picture. No words were exchanged because Oscar Dandie was whining on about the proper exposure and she didn’t feel like waiting around for him to finish. She was betting it wouldn’t be soon, and the only rescue in sight for Smythe was some other unhappy artist. That was handy since she didn’t want company on her rambles and she had a feeling that Smythe might well invite himself along.

Juliet began her tour of the fortress starting with the lowest levels where she was not likely to bump into her fellow artists
, who would probably spend the morning harassing Smythe and whoever else was in charge of getting their art displayed the way they wanted it. Some of the sculptures were large enough to need some extra muscle to move them around when the artists changed their minds a dozen times.

The stairs were deserted but she did not linger to
frown at the dead animals or vicious weapons stuck on the walls. She went to her room and armed herself with a sketchbook, a flashlight, and some insect repellant. She was off to find some clues and gather potential information as assiduously as her addled brain was able. She would sort out later what was useful information and what was not. For her, the process always began with collecting large swaths of data and looking for patterns or things that stood out. Hopefully the matter would end up being like pornography—perhaps difficult to describe, but she would know it when she saw it.

Feeling that it was expedient to get a better layout of the house in case she had to indulge in any more midnight prowls, she set about familiarizing herself with the ground floor, locating the exits
and potential hiding places. Juliet followed her nose and discovered the kitchens and admired them, though she did not intrude on the staff who were still doing dishes and carrying linens to what she assumed was a laundry. Juliet followed one of the maids, working on the theory that she had to be going somewhere, and somewhere was as good as anywhere when it came to understanding the general layout of the castle and planning her next midnight excursion.

Even castles need
ed a place for garbage, doing laundry, and storing garden tools. She had found it and it wasn’t all that interesting. It was also an unlikely place to be hiding a work of Renaissance art, but she looked anyway since she was there and the rooms were vacant and quiet except for the industrial size washing machine that was working with quiet efficiency. The dryer and steaming tables stood ready but were not yet in use.

Beyond the laundry she found the area that functioned as a garage and stood in the recessed doorway
, making sure she was not observed by the guards who were playing cards. The massive door was propped open with a heavy chair and looked like all the other doors in the castle and would be formidable when closed.

There
was a collection of vehicles, the armored car, the long, long limo, and two jeeps, with spaces for two more. She was sure that there were two more vehicles of some kind because there were damp spots on the tile, suggesting recent washing. Dust would be a problem both aesthetically and with things like air filters.

Perhaps the missing
men were out on patrol around the lakes. There really wasn’t anywhere else for them to go, at least no place nearby. That meant she wouldn’t need to worry about running into them as long as she remained within the grounds. And, happily the remaining guards seemed very involved in their tournament, so she should have at least a while to wander unmolested.

She spotted von Hayek with the Cro-Magnon who had loaded the armored car with their paintings and sculptures. They had their heads together on the far side of the limo away from the guards. They were unappealing individually
, but together they were unspeakable and sparked her intuition with both repugnance and fear. They were sociopathic tendencies coupled with violent inclinations that would be frightening to see if either of them was enraged at someone like, well, her. The mere thought of that made her want to go hide under her bed.

There was
no reason that she shouldn’t be in the garage but Juliet decided to continue her exploration elsewhere, and the nearest somewhere else was the kitchen garden. It was very tidy and boring and had nothing suspicious in it. There were sleeping hens which she was careful not to disturb, since she could still hear voices and didn’t want anyone to come looking for the source of the hens’ discontent.

Beyond th
e kitchen garden was a kind of patio with heavy wooden furniture and then a stone wall with an arch that was half-blocked by a craggy old vine that had thrust itself up out of the pavers, heaving them aside. There was also a fountain, but the coping was broken and it was filled with dead leaves and what looked the husks of beetles. One corner of the paving stones had begun to subside.

Neglected gardens could be beautiful with frenzies of unpruned flowers and
sprawling greens run amok. But this place had not been beautiful for a long time.

She hadn’t thought of it until then, but she was relieved that there were no signs of guard dogs. Not that she eschewed canine company
, but dogs tended to have big mouths and better ears than humans. The omission was an odd one though and she wondered if one of the von Hayeks had an aversion to dogs.

She moved through the
stiff tendrils carefully, thinking of spiders and ticks and other nasty things that might be living in them.

It was only when Juliet was past
the rogue plant that she was able to recognize the gnarled vines that had made their place with such determination. The bottoms of the creepers were naked, but it was lush nearer the top and the wisteria’s long lavender blooms wept petals down the wall. It was exquisite, but it was also very alone in its sea of stone, being the only living thing in that corner of the garden. It made Juliet feel rather lonely.

There were signs though that someone else enjoyed the place from time to time. There was a folding chair
with a dented seat and an old jam jar filled with hand-rolled cigarette butts. Of course, it might not be tobacco that they were smoking. Juliet leaned over and sniffed. No, that wasn’t tobacco.

That also suited her. The less alert von Hayek’s staff w
as, the better it was for her.

Hoping for an improved view
of the garden’s walls, she climbed on top of the folding chair, trusting it would hold her weight. She was just able to see over the stone barrier at the partitioned gardens beyond. The sun had not yet reached its zenith but already the air was close.

Juliet turned slowly and then reached for her sketchbook.
The walls seemed to be laid out in a pattern but not an entirely symmetrical one. It struck her as being more an accretion than a design plan, with walls put up willy-nilly as needed and with whatever material was available. There seemed to be no thought as to permanence. A map was clearly in order, at least until she had established the pattern in her mind.

She wondered at first about all the walls dividing up the gardens. She had seen something like
that in the old peach orchards of Paris. The walls helped contain both the heat and the cold, making it possible to grow the peach trees in spite of the sometimes bitter cold in winter. Could that be what the landscaper was trying for, open-air hothouses? Or was this maze designed to slow down and confuse trespassers if they breached the outside wall? And there was one wall that seemed very wide, perhaps an arcade? It was not stone but built of some kind of adobe which was eroding away. The rooftop might once have been used as some kind of walkway between wings of the castle, but the balcony was rotted through in places and birds had built their nests in the holes. Juliet placed no confidence of it holding anything heavier than a cat. There was a section of the garden covered in sagging camouflage netting that had been overgrown by some kind of vine and torn loose in places, though not to the degree necessary for Juliet to see into the space.