Oliver Twisted (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 3) Page 22

  “A Dramamine overdose. But how did…oh no. My Gatorade. It didn’t taste right. But who…?”

  “I think it was Oliver,” Timothy said.

  “Oliver? Why would he poison me?” The kid was a brat, but I didn’t think he was malicious.

  “I think it was a practical joke gone wrong. When they took you to the ship’s hospital, he seemed subdued, maybe for the first time ever. The little shit.”

  “And he didn’t say anything? The poltroon.”

  Timothy opened my cabin door with a keycard. I reached into my skirt pocket. My cell phone was there, but my keycard was gone. I didn’t remember giving it to Timothy. Maybe he got it from the nurse? “Poltroon?” he said. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know.” But I was pretty sure I did know. It was just that the thought lurked somewhere back in the far reaches of my consciousness among the spiders. “Thanks for bringing me down.” I hugged Timothy. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “You sure you should be alone?”

  “I’m sure.” I was also sure that I didn’t want to be with anyone who might have tried to kill me on the silks and poison my Gatorade. And that included Timothy.

  “Okay.” He closed the door.

  I sank down on my bunk. Poltroon. I was pretty sure it meant coward, but where had I heard it? It was right before the show. Yes, Madame Defarge said it. Ada. Who now had Harley’s role. That seemed awfully convenient, but then the cruise probably needed a Madame Defarge more than a Little Dorrit, and they would’ve had to replace Harley from among the actors already onboard. Still…

  Something else bothered me. As I reached back in my memory for Ada’s pre-show Madame Defarge, a spider extended a leg out of its shadowy hiding place. I sat up and grabbed my library copy of A Tale of Two Cities. Maybe by reading I could find out what was bugging me while keeping any spiders at bay.

  It took me a good twenty minutes to find the line in the book’s five hundred and forty-four pages. There it was: “It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.” The knitted register, the knitted register, the knitted…scarf. The scarf Harley had been knitting, with the symbol of Russia and Valery’s name crafted into the design. A knitted register. Harley was trying to tell us that Val was a criminal. I put the book down. But why? Why not just tell someone? What had David said about her? That she was…

  I couldn’t grasp the thought because another one invaded my mind. Harley and Val. There was another connection. I could just…smell it? Yes. Now I knew where I smelled Val’s aftershave before. It was the same scent that had been in the bottle in Harley’s bathroom, the aftershave I’d doused myself with after her death.

  That’s why Val seemed so relieved to hear that Harley’s death was an accident. He’d said they were “buddy-buddy,” but I was pretty sure they were more than that. Maybe Harley discovered that he was stealing and confronted him. He must have thought he’d killed her.

  It all made sense, but I had no proof. I needed solid evidence, something like…jewels. A memory crawled toward the front of my mind—a necklace made of diamonds and teeth trailing out of Bill Sikes’s coat pocket. The teeth bit pointed to a hallucination, but was part of that memory based in reality? And why would Val have stolen goods on him during the show? Oh. I remembered the crush of people waiting to get into the theater. Great opportunity for a pickpocket.

  I leaned back on my bunk. What could I do? I didn’t think I could search Val’s costume. Besides, if he were smart, he wouldn’t keep the jewels on him for very long. I picked up A Tale of Two Cities again. Maybe there was another clue in the story.

  I began speed-reading the book, looking for anything that might jump out at me. Nothing.

  The poltroon quote echoed in my head. Why? I’d figured out the knitted register bit. What else was bugging me? Poltroon. A poltroon was a coward…a coward…I closed my eyes and saw a highlighted passage in a book, something about being cowardly: “I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right.” Yes. The passage Harley had highlighted in Great Expectations. She must have struggled with the decision to give up Val. Now David’s words came back to me: “She had a hard time speaking up, even if…”

  Had Harley told David about Val? Maybe gave him some evidence? Or maybe there was another clue in that quote? I tried to remember the rest of the line to no avail.

  I glanced at Ada’s bookshelf. No Dickens, just a couple of travel books. No matter.

  I could get a copy of Great Expectations from the library.

  Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

  I knew for certain Val was a thief. And I knew where he hid the jewels.

  CHAPTER 59

  No Better Place of Concealment

  I ran softly down the hall. Correction: I tried to run. My legs still felt rubbery from the Dramamine, and the floor didn’t stay quite still. So I sort of power-walked toward my destination.

  I arrived and put my ear to the door. No voices. I slowly pushed open the door, peeping around it, just in case someone was inside and not talking. I couldn’t see anyone, so I stepped inside the library.

  I stood still for a moment, remembering the scene that night: Val, still in his Bill Sikes costume, telling me he was getting a book to help him fall asleep. Val who couldn’t read English.

  I padded to the place where he pulled out a book and closed my eyes, the better to see my memories. What book had he taken? Yes. Our Mutual Friend.

  First I pulled out all the copies of OMF. I checked behind them and rifled through their pages. Nothing except a tale of money and greed.

  Copies of The Pickwick Papers filled the bookshelf below. I had only gone through two of them when something slid to the floor. A passport. I shook the book and a driver’s license fell out too. I quickly pulled out all the copies and shook them. Two others gifted me with several stolen documents. Yes. But where were the phones and the jewels? They had to be here. The diamond and teeth necklace gnawed at my memory.

  Wait. The papers were hidden in The Pickwick Papers. I had no clue where to begin looking for phones since they weren’t around during the Victorian era, but jewels…damn. I really wish I’d read Dickens more thoroughly. A lot of people wore jewels—Miss Havisham in Great Expectations for example—and there seemed to be thieves in nearly every book, even…I turned around and pulled out a copy of Oliver Twist from the standalone bookshelves. I flipped through it, trying to find the scene where Oliver sees Fagin hiding his booty.

  There it was: Fagin stashed the jewels in a box in a hole in the floor. My heart sank. Ship’s floors were made of metal, no way to dig a hole in them. Still, I halfheartedly tapped my foot around the floor in the area, listening for a hollow sound. Nothing.

  Even so, I had a hunch I was on the right track. I slid Oliver Twist back in its place and pulled out another copy. Its weight shifted oddly, as if it were a box with a present inside. I opened the book and flipped through the first few pages. There it was, a hollow space in the book. Someone had glued the pages in the back half of the book together, cut a hole in the middle of them, and fit a small cardboard box into the hole. I pried off the lid with a thumbnail. Gold winked at me in the low light of the library. I drew out a heavy gold chain, a real Rolex, what looked to be a gold antique locket, and…

  “You discovered my secret place.” Val’s hand gripped my right shoulder. I turned to face him. He was too close, and his creepy colored eyes were cold. “I follow you.” He put his hands on my shoulders. It would have felt like an embrace if his hands weren’t so close to my throat. “I thought you might remember what you said onstage, so I follow you.”

  A memory swam toward me. “I said you were a thief, didn’t I? Did you have a necklace made of teeth and diamonds?”

  “Teeth
?”

  “I didn’t think so, but it seemed so real.” I should be more scared than I was. Was it intuition, or just the leftover drugs dulling my responses?

  “You remember what else you say?” Val backed me up against the wall of books. Now I was getting scared. “About Harley?” he said.

  “Harley.” My head hurt with the effort of thinking. “Harley was…she had epilepsy.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s why she died. She had night seizures?”

  “Yes.” Val’s eyes looked at me but he was somewhere else.

  “And she’d stopped taking her medication?”

  “She ran out. She did not want anyone to know, so she did not get more prescriptions.”

  “And she found out you were the thief.”

  “One of the thieves.”

  “All of that combined—the type of seizure, stopping her medication, and the stress of knowing…”

  “That I am criminal.”

  “Maybe. They don’t exactly know why it happens—it’s called sudden unexplained death for a reason—but it’s somehow connected to the epilepsy.” I looked at Val’s faraway eyes and my heart went out to him, criminal or not. “Were you with her when it happened?”

  Val gripped me harder, his mind back in the here and now. “Yes. I find scarf.” Of course, the coded scarf. “Though I do not read, I know about Madame Defarge’s knitting. I find scarf in her cabin. I see Russian bear and recognize my name. We fight, and she…she falls down. She shakes, and then stops. I go to her, but she…she was…”

  “She was dead.”

  “But it was not my fault?” His grip was hard enough to hurt now.

  “It wasn’t your fault. She just died.”

  Val released me. “Thank God. Thank God.”

  I slid sideways toward the door, just a titch.

  “No.” Val grabbed me again. “Now we must talk about Valery the thief.”

  CHAPTER 60

  With Desperate Determination

  “I do not want to go to jail.” Val’s heavy brows knit together, shading his eyes. “But I think you tell police. What to do?”

  I watched the shadows roll over Val’s face and stayed quiet.

  “I did not do much bad. The people I steal from, they are rich. They do not have to look in garbage for food. They do not sleep under bridges.” Val stiffened. “They do not have to do bad things for money.”

  “Is that why you did it? For money?”

  “No.” He seemed amazed I would think such a thing. “I have good job now, food, place to sleep. I do it for family.”

  Do it, present tense. Did that mean Val was going to continue with his criminal ways?

  “Or I thought I did. What you said about my cousin is true, I think.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I was. Truly.

  “I help him because he sends money back to his family. My family, I think. But now I know I have no family. My ‘cousin,’” he spit the word out, “used me like everyone else.”

  “About that police thing…”

  Val’s eyes narrowed.

  “If you gave up your cousin and the other thieves to the police, I bet you wouldn’t serve much time.” I really had no idea about sentencing, but it did sound likely.

  “Really?” Val’s eyes searched mine.

  “I think so.”

  But…

  Oh.

  Shit.

  I tried to hide the look on my face but obviously failed, because Val shook me by the shoulders. Not hard, just enough to remind me that he was capable of violence. “What?” He shook me harder. “What?”

  “Theo. We’ll have to explain Theo.”

  He stopped shaking me. “I do not understand.”

  I didn’t either. How did Theo fit into all this? “Theo found you out, didn’t he?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “You didn’t steal from him?”

  Val shrugged. “I did not have time.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and looked at me, his eyes no longer cold, but soft and pleading. “You help me, Ivy? So I don’t go to jail for long time?”

  “I’ll do everything I can. But Theo…” Theo had ruined Bette’s career because she found out how he made his money. She said it wasn’t drugs. Maybe it was jewels and stolen identities? “But you were planning to steal from Theo?”

  “Sure. He was very rich.”

  Val wouldn’t steal from one of his compatriots, right? So Theo wasn’t in on the theft ring.

  “Ivy?” Val brushed my face with the back of his hand. “Will you help me?”

  What was Theo selling? Just then I remembered Madalina in the bar, her beautiful face ugly with hate. I saw her wineglass shatter. I heard her say to Bette: “Children? No!”

  Theo sold children.

  “Omigod.” I wanted to simultaneously hug Val the motherless child and back away from Val the killer. “You were one of Theo’s orphans.”

  “I do not understand.” Val tilted his head to one side, his forehead wrinkling. He really did look like he didn’t understand. Then again, he was a fine actor.

  “Theo bought and sold children from Eastern European countries. You were one.”

  “No, I was not.” The head tilt was gone, replaced by a clenched jaw.

  “So you didn’t kill Theo?”

  “No. But I want to spit on his corpse.”

  “Were you the one who messed with the knot on my silk?”

  “No.” He pursed his lips. “I forgot about that.”

  “Did you just poison my Gatorade?”

  “No. That was Oliver. He is—”

  “Did you send me a beheaded Russian doll?”

  Val’s face blanched. “Ivy, you are in terrible danger.”

  “You are the thief—”

  “One of the thieves.”

  “Who stuffed Harley in the closet.”

  “Yes, that was me. But I did not kill her.”

  “And it wasn’t you who sent me a note saying you’d tell me everything if I met you onstage at one o’clock this morning?”

  “No. It was not.” Val’s hands moved to his throat. “And I am sorry. This is for your good.” He whipped off the scarf around his neck, grabbed my hands, pulled them behind my back, and tied them together tightly. He shoved me into one of the library chairs, kissed me full on the lips, and took off running.

  CHAPTER 61

  Make Haste!

  I couldn’t untie my hands. I tried. I gave up and struggled to my feet. I nearly lost my balance (damn Dramamine), but made it across the wavery floor to my next obstacle: the library door. The heavy door opened inward. How in the world was I supposed to pull it open?

  My mushy brain went to work. The door had a lever handle—easier than a knob.

  I tried using my mouth (I did say my brain was still mushy) but realized pretty quickly that wouldn’t work. I turned around, placed my tied-up hands on top of the handle, squatted so that my hands pushed down the lever handle, then used my free fingers to grasp the door and pull it toward me. Not that hard once I figured it out.

  Now I had to get to the theater. It should’ve been simple, but my mental state and tied-up hands made it slow going. I even took a wrong turn and ended up in the casino. “Hi,” I said to the few folks who were still up gambling. “Could someone untie me?”

  An older man with silver hair leapt to his feet. “Of course,” he said as he loosened my hands. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Oh, just playing a little game.” I winked at him. “And my boyfriend fell asleep. Too much vodka.”

  “Ah.” The gent reddened, cast a glance at a white-haired woman playing Nickleby’s Nickel Slots, and fingered the
neckerchief he’d just untied. “Would you mind if I borrowed it for the evening?”

  “Keep it. And thanks,” I said as I scooted out of the room. On to the theater. I pulled my cell phone out of my skirt pocket as I race-walked down the hall (running was still not an option). I punched in Uncle Bob’s number on speed dial. As soon as he picked up, I said, “Valery’s one of the thieves, but he didn’t kill Theo. He ran off to meet the real killer onstage. Meet me there ASAP.”

  “Ivy?” said a familiar voice. Not my uncle’s.

  “Timothy?” Shit, I dialed wrong. “I was trying to call Uncle Bob. Call him and tell him what I said, okay?”

  “I don’t have his number.”

  “Figure it out.” I hung up. The theater doors were right in front of me. How should I do this? Enter backstage, to begin with. Much more discreet.

  I went as quickly as I could to the backstage door and was just about to open it when a thought struck me. Val kept saying, “one of the thieves.” Oliver had said Timothy taught him to steal. Had I just called the killer and told him my plans?

  My seawater-and-spider-web-filled brain wasted precious seconds trying to figure out what to do, until raised voices from inside the theater prompted me to move. I quietly pushed open the stage door and slipped behind one of the black velvet curtains.

  “I know how you feel.” Val’s voice. “I am orphan too.”

  Too?

  “I do not think you know,” said Madalina.

  Shit, I was right. I just had the wrong orphan.

  “I do not feel,” she said. “That is why I can kill.”

  Even my web-filled brain knew that was a threat. What could I do? I looked around for a weapon. Everything backstage was locked up tight. I looked above me. I had it. I padded silently to the ladder that led to the catwalk and climbed up.

  “Maybe I teach you to feel,” said Val.

  I stole onto the catwalk. The two of them faced off below me onstage. Something glittered in Madalina’s hand. A knife?