Chapter Thirteen --

 

When I came back to Bothwell Castle after I left the police station, I saw Marty’s car in the driveway. Hopefully, that was a good sign -- that he and Alberta had begun their dialogue. Nora was making phone calls in the library. Aunt Clementine was sitting in the living room, reading the latest New York Times bestseller. Andrew was with her, doing the crossword puzzle on the sofa. I made my greeting and then excused myself to head up to the Robbie Burns room. Don’t ask me why, but I had an enormous urge to take a long walk up to Monet’s Pond. I needed to see it again. I kept feeling like I missed something the day I found Damek Fischer’s body. I threw on my thermal underwear under my jeans and sweater, and then I pulled on my winter boots. This time I would be warm.

Gesso was being tickled on my aunt’s lap as Clementine sat on the loveseat. The pair of them looked so contented in their mutual love fest, I decided to leave the dog behind. That turned out to be very fortuitous, in light of the events that transpired. I grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen on my way out the back door, just in case it was dark when I returned.

It was just after three when I reached the pond. I figured I had about an hour and a half before the sun would slip away. Thinking back to the other day, when I came upon the body, I tried to remember the exact location where I stood when I stumbled upon Damek Fischer. The many investigators had trampled the snow crust on their way to and from the scene, but I recognized the spot by the indentation in the snow where the victim’s body lay and the icy footprints that still wore the marks of forensic science.

Once I found the spot, I followed the trail away from it. I was still curious about Fischer’s journey. Why had he come to this pond? How had he even known it was here? According to Matt Gromski, the preliminary exam suggested that the victim was strangled, using his own scarf. That explained why I didn’t see any signs of trauma. There was no blood, no obvious wound once the killer re-tied the scarf around Fischer’s neck. I could still picture that red scarf. Who would have guessed it was the murder weapon?

But that really wasn’t what brought me up here. As I gazed out on the white surface of the pond, I tried to remember what it was that bothered me. I’d had some time to study the landscape as I waited for the police to arrive. What had I seen? Footprints by the bridge. They seemed to stop in the middle of the bridge. But it was more than that. There was a hole in the ice just below the bridge.

What was Fischer doing on the bridge? Did it have anything to do with the art heist? Only one way to find out.

Before stepping onto the bridge, I looked at the boot prints in the snow. It looked like a couple of people had followed Fischer’s path, but for one difference. According to Gromski, the victim had been dead at least thirty-six hours before I found the corpse. And in that time, the snow on top of the pond had frozen, thawed, and frozen again, with three more inches added in between. That also meant that the ice in the pond had done the same. If the pond was ice-free when the Hungarian died, any item he dropped in had most likely made its way over to the dam, a mere ten feet away, and from there, fell into the small stream below. And that stream never really froze because the water was constantly in motion.

I felt a tiny bubble of excitement pop up into my conscious mind. What would he have dropped into the water? The missing artwork? Szabo could claim that the reproductions of the missing paintings were legitimate. It wouldn’t have seemed all that unlikely that the museum’s board of directors had photographed all of the artwork, and since digital prints were easy enough to make if she had access to the paintings, once the photos were approved for the art prints, there was no longer any need to hold onto the originals. Did that mean Fischer was instructed where to ditch them?

Maybe it was also true that there was no longer any need to keep Fischer around. Had Szabo killed him or was that a job for someone else?

I left the bridge and skirted the snowy banks of the winding stream. How fair would those canvases have traveled? I tried to imagine. Were they rolled up or just loose? Were they in a bag? Were the paintings weighted down?

“Excuse me,” said a heavily accented voice behind me. “I am lost. Can you help me?”

I turned to see the man who spoke those words. Heavy set. Dark hair, dark eyes with big bags under them. Thick hands. I noticed he played with his scarf.

“You’re trespassing,” I announced. Nice going, Maisie. You’re out in the woods, alone and unarmed. This is the time you decide to antagonize the killer?

That’s right. I knew the minute I saw him that he was the man who killed Damek Fischer. What’s more, he knew that I knew. And even as I tried to figure out how I was going to get away from him, he began to tell me his life story.

“I grew up on a farm in Kolontar. As a boy, it was my job to strangle the chickens. I got to be very, very good at it. So good, in fact, that when it came time to die, the chickens came to me of their own volition. I tell you think now because we both know there is no point in you trying to run away. It does not matter what you do. I will still catch you and strangle you. But if you cooperate, I will be kind. I won’t make you suffer.” His arrogance was amazing. He actually expected me to walk up to him and let him kill me.

“Wow, you’re truly a great humanitarian,” I scoffed. Frankly, I was in no mood for a necktie party. As I backed away, I tried to think of where I would go, how fast I could put some distance between us, and what I was going to do to get some help. I considered pulling out my cell phone and dialing 911, but that seemed like something that would aggravate the killer.

“I don’t do this because I like to take lives. I happen to be good at it. It is a skill that many people pay me lots of money to use.”

“Your mother must be proud.” I could see him slowly making his way along the snow, trying to close the distance between us. He slipped a couple of times, giving me hope. Perhaps he was less an agile gazelle in the snow than I. Perhaps my advantage was my training as a cross-country runner. I was used to running in snow. I was experienced in taking the hills, in pacing myself. This man was already huffing and puffing. I could see the tiny puffs of mist as they left his mouth. But even more important, I realized as I watched him maneuver his way around me, he had given this speech many times before, to his previous victims. He was used to saying those words. He was used to his victims being so horrified at the thought that they were about to die, they would inadvertently and unconsciously surrender to him. That’s how psychological warfare tactics work. It’s a head game, and if your opponent gets inside yours, it’s likely to be game, set, and match before you even have a chance to serve the ball.

“Please,” he cajoled me, “don’t make this any harder than it has to be. You are a nice girl. You do not wish to suffer. I do not wish to make you suffer. I like the pretty girls. Under different circumstances, I would be a very nice lover for you.”

The thought of this man’s hands on my flesh made me want to vomit. It was enough to get me moving. By the time I put my first foot down on the bank and my second on the boulder in the middle of the stream, I could already hear the starter’s whistle in my head. I already knew the route I would take, and I knew what my advantage would be. I was across the narrow body of water before the hit man realized what was happening.

Once on the other side of the stream, I headed up and along the ridge, on the back side of Monet’s Pond. But rather than run the distance around it, I headed straight for the ice. I figured it was thick enough to support my body weight, especially if I was moving so quickly that I was faster than the cracking ice. Sure enough, once I started across, I just kept going, even as I could hear the ice splitting in my wake. Pumping my arms furiously, working my legs as hard as I dared, I could see the distance to the trail back to the castle was falling away. Another hundred yards and I would be there. I could hear the Hungarian man now swearing at me as he sidled across the ice. And then I felt a terrible rumble under my feet, and the ice began to part as if I were on a fault line in an earthquake. Not daring to look behind, I kept going, steeling myself to pull out that little extra bit of energy. Don’t hold back, Margaret Dawson Carr! You can do this! This is for the big championship, girl. Fifty yards. Forty yards. Thirty yards. Don’t think about going into the water. It’s okay if you do. Think of it as a triathlon. You’re a swimmer, too. And when you get to the hill, you will cover the cross-country portion of the race course by sliding on your fanny as far as you can go.

The ice finally broke open just as I got to within fifteen feet of the bank. I took that last stretch with some discomfort, forcing myself to belly flop on the ice, and when I reached solid ground, I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could and I booked it down that trail like I had a rocket pack on my back.

I made it to the house in record time, and even as I started up the back steps, I could see police cars coming up the driveway, their lights flashing. Changing course, I ran to meet them, breathless, but relieved.

“We had a report of a woman being menaced,” said a uniformed officer. “Is that you?”

For a brief moment, I was terrified that someone else in my family was in danger, but then the front door popped open and the Carr clan poured out en masse. All accounted for, I decided. “Yes, there was a man chasing me in the woods. He followed me up to the pond.”

“Can you describe him?” Officer Ajax wanted to know. I gave her a complete rundown on what transpired, including the man’s claims that he was a killer back in his native village of Kolontar. Moments later, as we were in the kitchen, Lieutenant Gromski arrived with a couple of uniformed state troopers. The hunt was on. They even brought Rin Tin Tin along to sniff the man out. My family had the good sense to step into another room, leaving me with the lieutenant and a couple of local cops for the debriefing. We were soon joined by a pair of state troopers in uniform.

While I sat at the farm table, surrounded by folks who wanted answers, I explained what drew me to Monet’s Pond, about my theory that the missing paintings might be in the water. I left off the part about Anna Szabo being involved in organized crime back in Budapest. After all, I’m just supposed to be an artist, not some crime-busting superhero.

“What I don’t understand is why didn’t the killer just throw the needle into the pond after he murdered the man. Why did Anna Szabo bring it here?” I asked the lieutenant. He gave me a satisfied grin.

“The needle had nothing to do with the murder. It’s all about Ms. Szabo’s claims. You’re supposed to be an addict. The needle contained traces of morphine. She needed to leave it in your sister’s house because she was setting you up for the fall.”

“Me?” Even knowing what I knew, I was still stunned. “Why?”

“I think we’ll leave it to the FBI to explain all that to you. They’re sending a team here first thing in the morning.” The lieutenant’s radio crackled to life. The conversation got lively, with a lot of back and forth. He spoke into the microphone several times, until he finally said, “Roger that. Out.”

I waited until he finished to ask Gromski what they found. Closing his notebook, he looked up at me.

“I have good news and I have bad news.”

“Bad news first,” I told him.

“The man who threatened you has not yet been located. We’ll increase patrols in the area and have a couple of uniformed officers check in a couple of times throughout the night.”

“Shoot,” I exclaimed. “I was hoping you got the bastard.”

“Looks like the bad guy is on the run,” one of the cops announced. “But we’ll get him if he comes around here.”

“I hope so,” I agreed. “What’s the good news?”

“We recovered the missing paintings, tossed in a couple of museum bags that were tied to a cement block. It wasn’t heavy enough to keep all that canvas submerged.”

“Ah, interesting.” I paused a moment, still processing the information. “Lieutenant, does it really make sense to you that the thieves would just dump those canvases? Even as minor works of art, they’re still worth quite a bit of money, aren’t they?”

“True,” he nodded. “You’d expect them to sell them off the market, to a collector willing to keep their secret.”

“But what if they couldn’t sell them?” I asked the assembled group.

“What are you getting at, Ms. Carr?” one of the uniformed troopers wanted to know. His name tag read “Quinn”. I looked at him as he waited for a reasonable answer and realized all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place for me.

“What if there’s another reason for getting rid of the evidence? And the dead man?”

“Like what? The paintings are forged?” Matt Gromski inquired, his eyes suddenly alert.

“And they already took possession of the real ones a long time ago, when they were sent out to be digitally photographed as part of the museum’s collection. The fake ones were returned in their place.”

“Which means they authenticated the fake paintings when they photographed them for the museum,” he reasoned, “instead of the real ones.”

“Would that be a motive for the murder?”