Seven Deadly Samovars (8 page)

“Yes Maurice, How did you guess?” She pulled him aside and said in a confidential tone, “We have a very important mission for you and we need your help right away.”

Maurice started to turn back to finish the sketch of a geeky looking middle-aged man. “But
Cherie
,” he motioned to the line of customers with his chin, “eet is a very beesee day.”

Godiva looked at the signboard beside him, noting that his most expensive sketch was forty-five dollars. She opened her purse and slipped three bills out of her wallet and dangled them in front of the artist. She said in a stage whisper, “Here’s three hundred dollars. That’s more than you would make if you sketched all six of those people.”

Maurice magically morphed into Marty Feldstein. He dashed a quick signature on the barely finished sketch and hustled the man out of the tent. Forgetting to use the French accent, he called out to those still waiting, “Sorry folks, something just came up. Go see the museum or the glacier or go fishing. Have a nice day.”

He brought in his signboard and motioned toward a couple of director’s chairs. “Okay, ladies, what’s up?”

They explained the situation, described the Dumkovskys, and within fifteen minutes had a reasonably good facsimile of the two thugs.

After several hours of tromping around town without even stopping for dinner, a bedraggled Godiva wailed, “Come on, Sis, we’ve shown this sketch to everyone, we have to take a break. It’s already 10:30 and everything but the bars are closed. I’m getting foot-rot from these boots and a serious case of matted hair from this stupid rain hat. I need my beauty rest.”

Goldie gave in. It had been a rough day. “I guess I didn’t realize how much has happened today,” she sighed, “Mimi’s murder, Taku’s arrest, the shop break in, mayhem at the church, Belle’s burglary. Let’s walk up the hill and go to bed.”

“No way am I walking up that hill.” Godiva dug in her heels. Either we take a cab or you carry me.”

“But, Godiva, a cab? It’s only a few blocks.”

“Yeah, straight up. Look, there’s the cab company right across the street.”

The driver balked at such a small fare until Godiva flashed some folding money at him. His face brightened. “Hop in,” he chirped.

* * * *

They settled in the kitchen and shared a pot of Sleepytime tea and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. Godiva grumbled, “I feel like a drowned rat. I’ve got to get my hair done before we go to Seattle for the banquet. They probably won’t even let me in the way I look. I don’t suppose there are any decent hairdressers in Juneau?”

Goldie knew better than to try reasoning with her sister regarding hair, clothes or cosmetics. They were in completely different galaxies when it came to fashion and beauty care. “Tell you what, Godiva, I’ll call Ruby first thing in the morning and see if she can squeeze you in tomorrow.”

“Ruby? Doesn’t sound very classy. Can I trust her?”

“Hey, she’s a jewel.”

* * * *

At eight o’clock the next morning, Goldie fired up the rusty Subaru and hustled Godiva into it. The sun had come out and everything sparkled. Windows were flung open in all the funky little houses clinging to the hills. There were already three massive cruise ships in the channel, and by noon there would be four more fighting for space in the harbor.

Goldie parked in the tiny spot carved out of the hill behind the Silver Spoon Antique Shoppe. In the early 1900s, this end of Franklin Street was the red light district. The building that housed Goldie’s shop had once been a lively cathouse. Now the only cat in residence was fat old Midnight who sat on a footstool in the window watching the world go by.

They crossed the street, turned down an alley and arrived at the back door of another former bawdyhouse. Godiva read the scarlet letters above the door. “Radical Ruby’s? You are taking me to a shop called Radical Ruby’s? I don’t think so.”

Before she could turn and run, a tall, handsome woman beckoned them inside. “Come on in, Goldie.” Her eyes moved to Godiva, and she said in a cheerful voice, “And you must be Godiva.” Her shiny black hair and chiseled features spoke of her Tlingit heritage. “I usually don’t open until 9:30, but Goldie said you were desperate.” She spun Godiva around in the antique barber chair. “Hmmm, tell you the truth, it really doesn’t look that bad.”

While Ruby washed and massaged, snipped and fluffed, she eagerly ate up all the gossip about the murder and crime wave sweeping through Juneau. “I know that guy Taku, I don’t think he would kill anyone, especially not Mimi.”

Goldie nodded. “Yeah, that’s what my handyman says, too.”

Ruby stopped fussing with Godiva’s hair. “But, ya know, my brother’s had a couple of nasty run-ins with him. I have to tell you, Taku doesn’t have a great reputation.”

“Well Ruby,” Godiva said. “From what you’ve told me the same could be said for your brother.”

“Don’t I know,” Ruby said. “I had to bail him out of jail last month.”

“Listen Ruby, I’m changing the subject now,” Goldie said. “This is a sketch of the jerks who beat up Father Innocent, busted up my shop and broke into Belle’s. Have you seen them around anywhere?”

Ruby studied the drawing and shook her head. “I haven’t seen them and from what you’ve said, I hope to heaven I never do.” Then she turned the chair around and handed Godiva a hand mirror.

Godiva studied her hairdo and looked surprised. “Ruby, this is fabulous! Your work is every bit as good as Jacques, my Beverly Hills hairdresser. And he doesn’t give me that wonderful scalp massage. How much do I owe you?”

“Well, I usually charge twenty-eight dollars, but since I had to come in early I’ll have to add ten percent. So that’s thirty dollars and eighty cents.”

“You’re kidding!”

Ruby hesitated. “Ummm, I guess I could knock off the ten percent if that’s too much.”

Godiva laughed. “Jacques charges a hundred and eighty five dollars for the same thing you just did, but without the massage. I can’t believe your price is so low.”

“Well, lots of my clients are strapped for cash, so I like to keep the price down. Plus,” she looked around the tiny shop, walls painted with faux texture and plastered with Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, “you can see I don’t have much overhead.”

Godiva opened her purse, extracted three tens and a hundred from her wallet and tucked them into Ruby’s hand. “Well, honey, I stiffed you on the eighty cents so to make up for it here’s a tip for a job well done.” Ruby smoothed out the bills. When she saw the hundred she let out a whoop and pumped Godiva’s hand. “Wow, I’m usually lucky to get five. Th-thank you.”

The twins walked out into the alley leaving a stunned Ruby blinking in the sunny doorway. Goldie and Godiva resumed their quest as they started up Franklin Street, showing the sketch to shopkeepers and pedestrians. When they passed the Glory Hole, Goldie looked through the window and saw several people clustered around something on the counter near the coffee pot. “Godiva, am I seeing things or is that a samovar?”

Godiva, who was trying to ignore the homeless men and women having breakfast at the shelter, forced herself to look inside. There on the table, beside a platter of day-old doughnuts was Belle’s birthday gift. It was drawing quite a crowd.

“Come on.” Goldie grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her into the big room full of oilcloth-covered tables.

One of the old timers looked up and saw them come in. “Hey Goldie, looky here what ol’ Jack found in a dumpster.” He pointed toward the new acquisition. It had a large dent in the side and the lid was missing.

Goldie zoomed in on Jack, beaming beside his treasure. “Yeah, I was like, dumpster diving behind that big building on Front Street and there’s this fancy teapot just layin’ there, right on top. I sez to myself, ‘Jack, this here teapot would really class up the ol’ Glory Hole,’ so I brung it in.”

“You found the samovar that was stolen from Belle Pepper yesterday.” She ran a finger along some of the dents and saw that it was damaged beyond repair. Jack looked frightened and upset, as if he were being accused of the crime. Goldie patted his arm. “Don’t worry about returning it to her. She’ll be happy to know you found it and brought it over here.”

Goldie pulled out the sketch of the Dumkovskys. “These are the thieves, have any of you seen them?” She passed the paper around.

“Belle shot one of them in the arm,” Godiva added.

“Whooee! Good for Belle!” one of the women shouted.

Everyone gathered around to look at the picture. “I seen these guys,” said a man in a bright red jacket. “Y’see I live in my van down in the Harris Harbor parking lot. Well, actually it’s an old UPS truck, kinda brown and rusty, it don’t really drive any more. I hope they don’t tow me away. There was a notice on the window.”

“Get to the point, Simon,” someone yelled.

“Oh yeah. Anyhow, I stepped out to go to the can, and there was this trail of blood on the floats. An’ I thought maybe a dog got hurt or somethin’ but then I saw these two guys climbin’ on board the
Custard Pie
. It was gettin’ dark but it looked like those guys in your picture.”

Godiva cocked her head. “The
Custard Pie
?”

“Yeah, y’ know, ol’ Cassie Custard’s boat. She usually lives on it, but the last couple days she’s been in jail. Drunk and disorderly.”

“Aw Simon, yer full of it,” another wharf rat joined in. He was thin with shaggy, long hair, full beard, bushy eyebrows, and hair coming out of his ears and nose. Godiva moved away from him because his clothes smelled like musty dishrags.

“I was sleepin’ in my little boat over there at the harbor. I’m tied up just on the other side of the
Custard Pie
, ya know.
Anyway, I seen two big ol’ gals gettin’ off that boat this morning. One was Cassie and t’other might o’been her sister. They’s big gals, and ugly as sin! Cassie ain’t no prize but her sister’s even worse.”

Simon became indignant, “Cassie ain’t got no sister, dummy, an’ I know for a fact that she is in jail. Should be gettin’ out tomorrow. Yer eyes is so bad you took them two men fer wimmen. You don’t see nothin since yer glasses got busted.”

“They was women. I swear.”

“Were not!”

“Were too! They was wearin’ dresses.”

The twins inched out the door as the bickering continued.

Goldie said, “Hey, Sis, why do you suppose they went through so much to get their hands on that samovar and then just dumped it?”

“Probably for the same reason it was so bashed up.”

TWELVE

       Maurice Flambeau was just setting up his canopy tent when the twins arrived at the edge of Marine Park. He looked up and hailed them over. “Want to thank you for that stack of cash yesterday. Took my lady friend out on the town with some of it.”

Godiva looked pleased. “Did you take her to some nice restaurant? The Baranof Hotel, maybe?”

A tourist passed by and Maurice’s accent magically appeared. “Ahh, no Madame, I took
ma Cherie
all the way to Gay Parree.”

Goldie whispered in her sister’s ear, “The Paris Bar at the end of Franklin Street.”

Godiva smiled. “Listen Maurice, we have one more assignment for you. And since no one is waiting in line yet, you can consider it part of yesterday’s job which I paid five times too much for.”

“Ah,
oui
, Madame, you have
beaucoup de credit
in this bank. What do you need?”

Goldie held out his sketch from yesterday, which was now wrinkled and creased. “We want you to draw these same two men with women’s clothes on.”

“Pardon?”

“Yeah,” Goldie said. “Draw some baggy dresses, maybe stripes or polka dots, and put scarves or hats on their heads.”

Maurice began a new drawing with the same faces and a different set of clothes. As he put the finishing touches on a shapeless polka dot dress, the young woman selling flight-seeing tours in the booth next to him looked over and gasped.

“Oh my god, Maurice. Did you see those two ugly women this morning, too? I couldn’t believe it! They were so gross.”

Goldie perked up. She looked at the girl’s nametag. “Tell me, Brittany, where did you spot them?”

Brittany pointed to the little float plane dock behind the Merchant’s Wharf. “They were boarding a yellow Cessna. At first I thought those tacky old women were taking an early morning glacier tour, but the plane was unmarked, so it wasn’t a regular company.”

“Did you recognize the pilot?” Godiva asked.

“Nope. I couldn’t even see the pilot. I was just kinda staring at those big goofy-looking women.” She looked embarrassed, “I know my mother taught me not to stare at people who look different, but I couldn’t help myself. Besides they were all the way over there.”

Godiva wasn’t finished, “What time was it?”

“Pretty early, my boyfriend drops me off downtown at about 7:30. I don’t start work until 9:00, so I was just sitting here in the sun drinking my coffee.”

Goldie and Godiva thanked Maurice and took the new sketch. Their first stop was Capital Copy on Seward Street, where they made a dozen copies each of the two drawings. From there they went to Heritage Coffee Shop, found a quiet table in the back corner and began to brainstorm.

Goldie took her yellow pad out of an enormous purse she made from the remnants of an old Kilim carpet. Godiva handed her a Mont Blanc fountain pen, but she had already pulled a Bic ballpoint out of her big handbag. She held it up. “Thanks, Sis, but I’ve already got one.”

Godiva shrugged. “Suit yourself. Where do we start?” She put the expensive pen back in her little Gucci bag and took a sip of her latte.

“Well, I keep going over my last conversation with Mimi and I really have the feeling it was something she found in those samovars that she wanted to show me, not just the samovars themselves. Maybe she took something out of them and set it aside. I feel like we have to get back into her place to see if we can find anything.”

Godiva nodded. “You handle old samovars all the time. Could someone actually hide something inside one that wouldn’t be noticed but might be discovered by accident, like if you were cleaning it?”