What Evil Lurks in Monet's Pond: A (12 page)

And for Anna Szabo to plant that syringe in
Nora’s vase in the hopes of implicating me in Damek Fischer’s
murder, she had to believe the CIA was closing in on her
activities, and it was only a matter of time before she was
stopped. Clearly, the Hungarian honey thought she could buy enough
time to finish what she was doing and get out of the US before the
FBI pulled her in. Maybe that’s why Ross was coordinating with the
New York field office.

What if Anna and her gang needed to loot the
Tattinger for the money? Hungary is a big European center for
money-laundering, and the more businesses they can concoct to look
like they produce legitimate revenues, the easier it is to clean
the cash. The art business is great cover.

The CIA would have a serious interest in
getting a foot into the organized crime in Hungary, especially
through Anna’s gang. Pornography, human trafficking, drugs -- they
all are businesses run by some very nasty people, and with a number
of former security people joining up to get in on the profits, that
made the business of the Tattinger Museum not only a national
security issue for the FBI, but also the CIA. One hand washing the
other. Maybe that’s why I was encouraged to give up my place in
Virginia, in favor of new digs in New York. Because folks would
count on me to turn to my sister for help in relocating. And they
would expect me to show up at Bothwell Castle. Did they also
arrange for Anna to believe I might be CIA? Is that why she planted
that syringe? I’m supposed to look like a CIA assassin? What am I
expected to do, whack my target with a paint spatula? Force
turpentine down his throat? Force him to eat lead paint until his
brain fails?

Then again, doesn’t it make you wonder what’s
in that syringe? I was curious. Curious enough to take it to the
cops and ask them to run a check on it. That’s actually what I did.
I called Lieutenant Gromski, who graciously agreed to meet me at
the station for a little pow wow. When I handed the bag over to
him, he took one look at the package and shook his head.

“You’re really something,” he commented as he
unwrapped the first bag, leaving the second intact.

“I’m guessing there aren’t any fingerprints
on the syringe, since she was wearing gloves, but I thought I would
be careful anyway. We don’t actually know what’s in there, do
we?”

“No, we don’t. But there is something we do
know. Anna Szabo once worked as a prostitute, according the the FBI
coordinator I spoke to in New York. In fact, they are sending a
team to take over this case.”

“They are?”

“Ms. Szabo hangs out with a pretty rough
crowd in her native country. And far from being a relative of
Viktor Szabo, the whole thing was a scam. Just between us, the FBI
is looking at the museum heist as a much bigger fraud. The museum
is missing close to $4 million from its various trust accounts, and
it looks like the gang found a lot of loopholes to exploit. If she
leaves the country before they finish the investigation, it’ll be
tough to extradite her and recover the money.”

“But why target my family?” I wondered. “I’m
an artist. My sister is in public relations. I don’t get it.”

“Your sister was telling people in town that
she was about to launch a new business. A lot of folks are
interested in what she does with Bothwell Castle. My best guess,
Ms. Carr, is that Anna Szabo was worried your sister would bring
too much attention to the Tattinger at a time she was trying to run
it into the ground.”

“So this isn’t about me?”

“Good heavens, no!” he laughed. “Why would it
be?”

Ah, the mark of a CIA spy. We always assume
folks are trying to get at us in some way. Professional paranoia.
It’s a mindset that helps us stay alive. I wasn’t completely sure
that Lieutenant Gromski was correct in his theory. I still thought
the CIA was a target because of the WikiLeaks. But I was more than
happy to hear him say he didn’t think it mattered. I even left the
police station thinking things would now proceed smoothly. Boy, was
I wrong.

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.”