The Christie Curse (29 page)

“My money’s gone.”

“Ashley didn’t mention any money. Just that Alex was going to make the arrangements.”

“I told you Alex was secretive. From what I’ve heard, that girl is quite a talker.
He wouldn’t have told her. He wouldn’t have wanted her to blab.”

I almost grinned. “Blab” was not a word I’d expect to hear from Vera. But I agreed.

She said, “If he hadn’t needed to
get
that money from me, he wouldn’t have told me anything either.” She managed a small
bitter smile.

Vera was right. Ashley wasn’t the sharpest knife and she would have let it slip to
some customer without imagining any consequences. Word would have spread like wildfire.
Had she done that without knowing what she was saying?

She must have known something without realizing the significance. Or someone thought
so. My guess was that person was worried Ashley would remember a conversation about
Alex’s project and recall a face or a name.

“If Alex was murdered to get the money, then it must have been a fair amount. How
much was involved?”

I waited. I didn’t see any value in letting her off the hook.

She glared at me.

I said, “I assume you’d like to see this person stopped before anyone is wiped out.”

“Of course. What do you think I am? Some kind of monster?”

The answer that came to my mind was “a self-centered, antisocial, obsessive collector.”
But most likely not a monster. “I think you were thinking about the object of your
desire and it blinded you to what was going on.”

“Someone must have found out, even though Alex was so secretive. But who could have
known?” she said.

“Whoever was meeting with Alex to sell the manuscript.”

“Merlin. Of course. He got to keep it all,” Vera said. “My money and my play.”

I interjected, “Or there never was a manuscript and he was after the money anyway.
He just had to kill Alex to get his hands on it. If Merlin knew when and how Alex
was traveling, he could have intercepted him and pushed him onto the tracks.”

“I preferred to believe it was an attack by a deranged homeless person.” Then Vera
muttered, “Unless Alex was in on the scam all along.”

I shook my head. “I think there was more to Alex. His parents believed he was a strong
and reliable person.”

Vera’s face was gray and drawn, her gravelly voice softened. “I am afraid you may
be right.”

Could it be that she accepted some responsibility? In fairness, Vera hadn’t pushed
Alex onto the tracks, but perhaps she had mentally pushed him into something shady
and perilous. We sat in silence. I was thinking about what had happened to the money,
to Alex, to Karen and to Ashley and whether lily-white Eddie McRae was involved in
any of it. I assumed that Vera was thinking the same kind of thoughts.

Signora Panetone crept forward, the large tureen at the ready. “Soup!” she said, a
bit of hope in her voice.

Vera waved her away.

Even I wasn’t hungry anymore.

*    *    *

I CALLED ASHLEY’S cell. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. I’m going to have to go to work, though. I can’t hide out at my dad’s forever.”

“Is he with you?”

“Yes. I’m all right when he’s around.”

“Can he watch out for you at the concession? Is he strong enough to protect you?”

She hesitated. “He has his own job. I don’t want him to lose it.”

I was hoping to find the permanent solution to Ashley’s problem. But I needed to know
she was safe for the moment. “It won’t be forever. Promise me you won’t go anywhere
alone.”

“There’s an antique fair today. There are tons of people. Dad can get away to help
me set up and close down.”

“I don’t know if that is enough, Ashley. I’ve learned something new about Alex’s death.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. “What? What could you have learned about Alex’s
death?” Her voice cracked. “I was there when—”

I waited until she stopped sobbing. She said, “Tell me. I want to know what you’ve
learned.”

“Possibly the reason why Alex was killed.”

“Reason? Crazy homeless people don’t have reasons. It’s the voices in their heads.
That’s what everyone keeps telling me. They can’t help it.”

I waited again while Ashley sobbed. After a while she said, “The therapist says it’s
better if I can learn to forgive. But I will never forgive him.”

“I’m not so sure that he was crazy. Maybe he just looked like a street person. There
may have been method in his madness.”

I wondered if she’d understood. I heard nothing but silence. I blundered on. “There
was a lot of money, Ashley. Alex planned to give it to the person who said he had
the manuscript. I guess that was Merlin.”

“But Alex didn’t have any money. Vera hardly paid him anything.”

“Believe me, Miss Van Alst provided the money for this sale.”

“Oh my God. Why wouldn’t he say? Wait, I know why. He worried about everything. He
would have been so afraid that I would tell someone.”

Again, I gave her time to calm herself down. Finally she said with a quavery voice,
“I have a hard time keeping my mouth closed. We were like opposites. If I’d been Alex,
I wouldn’t have told me either.”

I said, “The person who took the money may believe that you can identify him or put
two and two together.”

“You mean that’s why the guy came after me?”

“I believe so.”

“He’ll keep trying.”

“Yes.

“When I tell my dad this, he might be able to get the day off. Hang on.”

I hung on.

Ashley was breathless when she came back on the phone. “No worries. He’ll let his
boss know. We’ll stick together. We are quite a team.”

Even with all my uncles, I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a dad.
Despite everything, Ashley had some good luck in her life. I said, “I have to ask
you to keep thinking. There may be some tiny memory in the back of your mind that
will give us a clue as to Merlin’s identity.”

“All right. I’ll try, but I really don’t think I know anything.”

I made Ashley promise not to go anywhere without her father, not even to the corner.
“Remember, last time was right in your driveway. And if he found you, he could find
your father.”

“Thank you so much for all this, Jordan. I hope we can stop him before anything else
happens to anyone else, even you.”

“Stay safe.”

*    *    *

I KEPT THINKING about what I’d said to Ashley about tiny memories. Something was nagging
at the back of my own head. Some detail I’d seen in Alex’s room. One of those pictures?
I kicked myself for not taking the time to study them. I’d had keys and access codes
on my brain. Mind you, none of them seemed to have anything to do with Alex’s death.
I’d stared long and hard at the one of Alex and Ashley. All I got was a guarded slightly
awkward man in love and a donkey-faced girl who’d found the man of her dreams. Briefly.

The photos I hadn’t studied were the ones when he was a child and the shot of his
graduation. There was something about them. I gave his parents a call to plead for
one last trip to interrupt their lives. No answer. They’d probably already left to
visit the brother in Ithaca.

Damn.

I left a message and kept going. I had an idea who might have an answer. I really
didn’t want to use my breaking-and-entering tools on the Fines’ house.

*    *    *

AS I HUNTED for Lance in the library, the colorful displays of grinning kids surrounded
by books caught my eye. It reminded me how much I’d enjoyed the library’s summer reading
program when I was younger. I’d met the first people I had something in common with,
not including my larcenous relatives. I was still in touch with those friends even
though we were scattered across the country now.

The boys in the photos on Alex’s wall must have been important to him in the same
way. If I could track down one of the kids in the photos, I might be able to get some
insights into Alex.

Lucky me. Mr. Eye Candy Librarian was on duty. Lance grinned as I walked in.

“I’m looking for a summer camp. Say, Black Pine. Especially photos.” I didn’t mention
our meeting at the Café Hudson, although I’d sure thought about it. “Plus I need to
talk to someone who was involved with Black Pine Camp fifteen to twenty years ago
and who might remember Alex Fine.”

“Hello to you too, beautiful lady.”

“Sorry. Kind of caught up in some bad stuff right now.”

“No kidding. I’ve heard that bookseller, Karen Smith, is still in bad shape.”

“She is improving. But there’s been another attempt on her life.” I didn’t bother
to mention my various uncles keeping watch. They’re just too hard to explain quickly.
Especially to a man you are thinking about getting involved with.

“Another attempt on her life? But she’s in the hospital, isn’t she?”

“She is and she was attacked right in her room.”

“But you’re here looking for information on Alex Fine and summer camp. So do you think
there’s a connection between Alex and Karen?”

“I am pretty sure there is one. They moved in the same book circles.”

“And the connection with the summer camp?”

“That’s a stretch. I doubt it has anything to do with Karen. But I need to pursue
all angles.”

“You do know there are all kinds of privacy issues to do with kids.”

“I realize that, but we need a way to get past it. There’s a picture at Alex’s parents’
house that has me wondering, but they’ve left on a little trip. I don’t want to wait
until they get back.” And I don’t want to have to break in.

“I hear you. We may have some photos here. We have a lot of vertical file material
on summer camps, and Black Pine is very big in this area. Give me a couple of minutes.”

I kept myself busy checking for any Christie reference books I hadn’t found yet, while
Lance went off on the hunt.
He returned with a stack of files and handed them off to me. I spent the next half
hour finding out more than I wanted to about summer camp. Everything but what I needed
to know.

“Jordan?”

I jumped. “Lance, don’t sneak up like that.”

He put a soothing hand on my arm. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to alarm you. By any chance
did you check out Black Pine on Facebook?”

“Me? With my two friends, one of whom is my uncle? I’m never on Facebook, and I doubt
that Alex Fine was the type to be on it either.”

“Doesn’t matter. Black Pine will probably have a page, and I bet there will be tons
of photos going way back.”

“I’m on it.”

Sure enough, Black Pine Summer Camp was there. I found not only the current crop of
lucky kids but also pictures from the past. I clicked into albums for the years that
Alex would likely have been there. Jackpot. I spotted Alex before too long in a photo
that must have been taken at the same time as the framed shot in his bedroom. He was
wearing the same T-shirt. I held my breath as I moved the cursor over the images of
the boys. Alex Fine. Tommy Bradley. Lorenzo Gomez. And the blond boy whose picture
had belatedly made my spider senses tingle. No question about it, that boy was Tyler
Dekker.

Officer Smiley.

The same Officer Smiley who’d been showing up all over town as I tried to find out
about Alex Fine, Karen Smith, Ashley Snell, Merlin, the mysterious and possibly nonexistent
play and now, the money. He’d been
lurking
, there was no other word for it, outside Sal’s office when I’d gone to get help.
He obviously had known Alex long before he’d arrived to work in Harrison Falls. Yet
he’d never mentioned that, although he must have realized I now had Alex’s job. Did
he have some kind of hold over Alex? I found my heart beating a bit faster. What did
it mean? No doubt Agatha
Christie would have lifted an eyebrow to signal that people are often not who or what
you think they are.

Who and what was Tyler Dekker?

“Well?” said Lance with a flirtatious grin. “Any luck?”

“I have a name, and now I need to find out what the relationship was between this
person and Alex.”

He grinned. “Lucky lady. I have a contact for you.”

“The director?”

“Better. The camp nurse. She was a school nurse but did the camp in summer. She’s
retired, but she’s a regular here, and she has a mind like a steel trap. What she
doesn’t remember is not worth remembering.” He scribbled a name, address and a phone
number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “I took the liberty of calling her
to tell her she might be hearing from you. Hope that’s all right.”

“You’re the best, Lance. I won’t forget this. I owe you.”

“All part of the service,” he said, “but if you’re feeling particularly grateful,
you could always meet me for a drink after work one of these days.”

“Sure thing. Let’s make a plan as soon as life settles down.” The women in Harrison
Falls would be wild with jealousy, but I wouldn’t say no to that.

“By the way, who is it you think might be connected to Alex?”

“I don’t want to say.”

“Right. Because I’m such a blabbermouth. Everyone knows about us librarians with our
megaphones, bellowing secrets.”

I laughed out loud. “Because I don’t know if I’m right. But if I am, you’ll be the
second person to know, after Jordan Bingham. Trust me.”

*    *    *

FIVE MINUTES LATER, I pulled up in front of Betty Leclair’s crisp well-maintained
sixties-style bungalow. It turned out to be quite close to the library and not all
that far
from Uncle Mick’s shop. As usual, the scent of the freshly cut grass improved my mood.

Betty Leclair opened the front door and waved before I got out of the car. She was
a sturdy woman with a deep tan that set off her silver buzz cut. She seemed even more
impatient than I was. She was sporting a fuchsia golf shirt and plaid Bermudas, and
she had the kind of build that indicated she was serious about exercise as well as
lawn mowing. Tennis? Golf? Maybe she was late for a tee-off.

“How about the backyard?” she said. “Better than inside. I made some lemonade.”