Stealing the Countess (10 page)

I stepped outside and stretched while taking in a lungful of cool, clean air. Bayfield had quieted down considerably by then. I saw only a handful of people on the street and only a few vehicles, all of them on the main drag.

I headed west toward the Queen Anne. I walked only a couple of blocks, yet downtown had already become a blur of lights in the distance. Lamps still burned in some of the homes I passed, and occasionally I saw the flickering blue-gray hue of a TV, but most of the houses were dark. Early to bed, early to rise, I thought. I already missed the city.

The farther I moved away from downtown, the darker and quieter it became. My shoes on the pavement made the only sound I heard until— Tap. Tap. Tap. The noise startled me. I stopped walking and listened.

Tap. Tap. Tap. It reminded me of the dripping of a faucet. I pivoted slowly to determine where the sound was coming from and failed.

Huh.

I continued walking. The sound became louder; it reverberated almost like an echo. I stopped again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

What the hell?

Granted, I was feeling a little light-headed by then—after all, I had consumed five beers, two glasses of wine, and a shot of bourbon since late afternoon. Still … My first thought was that Shanklin and his pals were stalking me, yet there was no sign of them.

The man in the sports coat? Officer Pilhofer?

I couldn't see them, either.

My hand went to my hip where I would have holstered my gun, but what I had told Chief Neville earlier was the truth—I wasn't carrying in Bayfield. Instead, my nine-millimeter SIG Sauer was nestled against the spare tire in the trunk of the Mustang. I kept walking.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Up ahead I spied a dim light. It disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, and then I saw it again. I slowed my pace. The light seemed to be attached to a shadow. The shadow moved beneath a yellow streetlamp. It was a figure of a woman. She was wearing a dark cloak with the hood pulled over her head and carrying a lantern. In her hand was a walking stick—no, a staff with some kind of crystal fixed to the top. I called to her even as I sped up.

“Miss? Excuse me. Miss?”

The shadow passed through the streetlamp's circle of light and disappeared into darkness.

I started jogging. I reached the streetlamp and kept going in the direction of the shadow. I could no longer see the lantern. I stopped.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I moved forward again. I thought I saw the light up ahead, yet when I reached the spot, it was gone.

“Miss?”

I seemed to be alone at the edge of a park; there was an iron bridge spanning a deep gorge and plenty of trees.

Tap. Tap …

The noise stopped.

I waited for it to continue; heard only silence.

Minutes passed.

This is what comes from mixing your drinks,
my inner voice told me.

*   *   *

It was 11:00
P.M.
when I returned to the Queen Anne. I saw no one and heard nothing as I climbed the wooden steps and went to my room. I was more than half in the bag, but at least I knew it. I set my alarm and lay down fully clothed on the bed. It took me about two minutes to fall asleep.

The alarm went off at exactly 3:00
A.M.
—the “witching hour,” although I'd be damned if I knew why demons would prefer that time of night; the shadow I had encountered earlier was wandering the streets closer to ten thirty. I silenced the alarm as quickly as I could for fear of waking my neighbors. Afterward, I stepped into the washroom and threw water on my face. I dried off and moved to the door. I put my ear against it. Heard nothing. I opened the door and stepped through it. I wasn't singing bar songs, yet I wasn't being particularly quiet either. Instead, I walked down the stairs and out the front door as if I owned the place.

The streets of Bayfield were empty; there was no pedestrian traffic and no vehicles of any kind. I walked slowly around the block. No one asked who I was or where I was going, no dogs barked, and I heard no tap, tap, tapping, only the sound of leaves trembling in the light breeze.

I reentered the Queen Anne. This time I moved slowly and carefully, as a thief might. I mounted the wooden stairs, transferring my weight from foot to foot in search of a creak. There was none. I walked all the way up to the third floor. The door to the Queen Anne Suite was at the far end of the corridor. It was closed, as I would have expected. I carefully gripped the doorknob and tried to turn it. It was locked. I rested the flat of my hand against the wood and counted slowly to ten. No one shouted, no one screamed, no one demanded to know who was out there. I stepped back and slowly made my way to my own room. I had heard no one, and apparently no one had heard me.

It could have been done like that,
my inner voice told me.
Assuming Paul Duclos wasn't a light sleeper, the Countess Borromeo could have been taken just that way.

So why didn't I believe it?

*   *   *

My alarm went off again. This time it was 6:00
A.M.
I opened my door and stepped into the corridor. There was movement in the room occupied by the sixty-something couple. I liked the idea that they were getting some early morning delight; I thought it spoke well for my future.

I took the staircase up. There was a morning news program playing softly from a TV behind the door of Victoria's Room, yet nothing from the Queen Anne Suite.

I took the staircase all the way down. This time I heard noises emanating from the kitchen and a woman's voice singing that she was all about the bass, the bass, no treble. Not Connor, I decided. Probably a cook he hired to prepare breakfast. I would have to learn when she arrived in the morning and what her routine was.

I returned to my room. True, I didn't see anyone, and no one saw me, yet the likelihood of encountering traffic made breaking into Duclos's room and stealing the Stradivarius while he was on his morning walk less viable. 'Course, I never cared for that theory anyway.

 

SIX

The four couples I had met the previous evening, plus one more, were all sitting at the dining room table and chatting amiably among themselves when I came down the stairs again at eight o'clock. A woman, standing at the buffet with her back to me, was pouring coffee from a silver pot into a china cup. There were murmurs of recognition as I entered the room. Alice said, “Good morning, McKenzie”—and the woman turned abruptly, an expression of shock on her face that quickly turned to pleasure.

She was wonderfully wholesome-looking, a twenty-eight-year-old Nordic princess with perfect teeth in a perfect mouth formed into a perfect smile, eyes glittering like liquid azurite, hair as lustrous as spun gold, skin that reminded me of fresh buttermilk. She was wearing khaki shorts that revealed long, sculptured legs, and a short-sleeve scoop-neck T-shirt made from stretch-fabric that clung to her athletic body like damp cloth. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met in person, although I would never admit that to Nina, and easily the most treacherous.

“Heavenly,” I said.

Connor chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen with a tray of mimosas that he doled out to the other guests. He heard the word and from the grin on his face obviously thought I was referring to the woman's appearance instead of her name—Heavenly Elizabeth Petryk.

“McKenzie,” he said. “Have you met Caroline? Caroline, this is McKenzie.”

Heavenly crossed the dining room with the coffee cup in her left hand. She extended her right.

“Caroline Kaminsky,” she said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Her eyes sparkled with humor.

“Ms. Kaminsky,” I said. “The pleasure is mine.”

She exhaled softly—apparently relieved that I hadn't given her up.

“Caroline is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,” Alice said. “She's investigating the Lake Superior shoreline for … what was it again?”

Heavenly paused at an empty spot at the dining room table. She looked at me with that beatific grin of hers. I stepped over and pulled out the chair. She answered as she sat.

“I was sent to conduct an inventory of aquatic invasive species in coastal wetlands,” she said.

“To what purpose?” I asked.

Heavenly knew I was testing her.

“To determine which of the region's canals and waterways are most susceptible to invasion by AIS such as Asian carp,” she said. “And to prioritize those areas for invasive species management and control.”

“What have you discovered so far?”

“My research remains inconclusive. I'll need to remain here for a few days more.”

“We're delighted to have you, Caroline,” Connor said.

I bet,
my inner voice said.

“I don't know if you know it, but McKenzie, he's also some kind of an investigator,” Alice said.

“Is that what he is?” Heavenly said.

“He's trying to recover the Stradivarius violin that was stolen last week, but he won't let us help.”

“I'd be too frightened to get involved with something like that,” Heavenly said.

Yeah, right.

By then I was sitting comfortably at the table, a scone on my plate.

“May I trouble you for the marmalade?” I said aloud.

The fifty-something woman whose name I had forgotten passed it to me without comment.

Conversation picked up after that, none of it about the Countess Borromeo, I was happy to hear. Mostly, it dealt with the adventures the vacationing couples had already enjoyed in Bayfield and the ones that they were hoping to embark on. Meanwhile, Connor deftly served our breakfast. It consisted of poached pear with yogurt sauce, raspberry-stuffed French toast, baked eggs with tomatoes and basil, red new potatoes with dill, hickory smoked bacon, lemon-iced buttermilk scones, and orange and cranberry-raspberry juice. What I enjoyed most—the bacon. You can't take me anywhere.

Connor had returned to the kitchen by the time I asked, “Have any of you seen a woman dressed in a black cloak and carrying a lantern and a long staff with a crystal on top?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” said the fifty-something woman. “The Ghost Lady.”

“Ghost Lady?”

“She conducts ghost tours of the city, pointing out those places that are supposed to be haunted. Tells stories—she's wonderful.”

“She's a real flesh-and-blood woman, then.”

“Oh, yes. What did you think?”

“I saw her walking late last night and I didn't know what to think.”

“Did she frighten you, McKenzie?” Heavenly asked. “Were you sure you were seeing a ghost?”

“I was just curious,” I said.

“She claims that a man was murdered in the Queen Anne,” the fifty-something woman said.

“Don't say that, Cassie,” her husband said.

Cassie,
my inner voice said.
I remember now. Her name's Cassie. And her husband's name is … arrrg.

Cassie leaned forward and lowered her voice.

“The man who originally built this house was very rich,” she said. “He owned a sawmill, fishing boats, a brownstone quarry, a hotel—a lot of things. Only he died without leaving a will—or at least no one found a will—so everything went to his eldest son, which started a family war that lasted over a hundred years.”

Cassie edged even closer to the table; we all leaned with her.

“People were murdered,” she said. “They say—the Ghost Lady says that some of their spirits still haunt Bayfield.”

She doesn't care for a high-profile burglary,
my inner voice said.
But cold-blooded murder and ghosts—that's something she can get behind?

We were so intent on what Cassie had to say that we didn't notice when Connor reentered the dining room.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You've been on one of Maggie's ghost tours.”

Cassie sat back in her chair. She seemed embarrassed.

“Is any of it true?” Alice asked.

“Not very much,” Connor said. “But Mags was never one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. I'll give her credit for one thing, though—she knows more about what's going on in Bayfield than anyone.”

“Perhaps she knows what happened to McKenzie's violin,” Heavenly said.

*   *   *

I was a little surprised that Heavenly was the first to leave the dining room. Soon the remaining guests followed suit, leaving me alone. When Connor retired to the foyer to help the sixty-something couple check out, I made my way into the kitchen. I found a woman cleaning pots and pans while she hummed to herself.

“Breakfast was wonderful,” I said.

“Thank you. But…” She wagged a finger at me. “No recipes.”

Her smile made me smile.

“I wouldn't dream of trying to re-create your meal,” I said. “I don't handle failure very well.”

“Oh, it's not that hard.”

“Have you been working here long?”

“A couple of months. I cook Wednesday through Saturday in the mornings here and then at Hill House in the evenings.”

“Long days.”

“No, no,” she said. “I'm here starting at about six and done by nine-ish. I'm at the restaurant from four through ten at night, when we stop serving, so it's only a nine-hour day with a six-hour lunch break, and I get Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off.”

“Were you responsible for the garlic chicken penne I had last night?”

“I wasn't cooking, but … it is my recipe.”

“Delicious.”

“We're going to be real good friends, I can tell.”

“My name is McKenzie.”

“Connor mentioned you. You're investigating the violin thing.”

“I am.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You said you arrive here at six?”

“Usually. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later, depending on how complex the menu is that day.”