Death of a Batty Genius (Stormy Day Mystery #3) (14 page)

Outside in the mountain air, I was more awake and alert than ever. The weather was surprisingly warm for late February, and I didn’t even need to zip my jacket.

The resort’s landscape lighting wasn’t completed, but enough lamps were in place for me to track Jeffrey by his kitty paw prints. As I walked, the snow condensed squeakily under my boots, partially melted. The temperature had risen above the freezing point, and Jeffrey’s tracks ran through both snow and patches of mud.

Jeffrey’s gray form zig-zagged ahead of me without a sound. The night was silent, except for owls hooting in the distance. He jumped on top of a sturdy boulder and tilted his head to look at me sideways. I approached calmly, and just as I reached for him, someone opened a patio door. In the relative silence, the click of the lock and the whoosh of the door sliding was enough to startle Jeffrey. He jumped straight up, onto a low-hanging tree branch. His butt swung clumsily before he caught his balance and started climbing the tree.

I hissed up at him, “Jeffrey McFluffy Trousers, get your furry pants down here.”

Two minutes passed.

“There’s more T-bone.”

No response.

I called up, “You’ll be staying there all night, because I’m not climbing this tree to get you.”

Ten minutes passed, and he showed no sign of coming down.

“You’re making a liar out of me,” I grumbled as I slipped out of my jacket, set it on the boulder, and started climbing. It was my second tree in two days.

At a height of about eighteen feet, I paused to catch my breath and admire the view. On one side, the dark valley stretched out forever in the moonlight. On the other side, the individual rooms of the lodge were lit up like display cases. Below my eye level was the lower floor, where all the guests were staying, as well as Butch and Marie. They’d said the upper floor wasn’t ready yet, nor the staff quarters.

If nobody was staying on the upper floor, why was the corner suite lit up? Had the workmen left the lights on?

The room was twice the size of ours, and instead of shades of slate and bark, it was decorated in shades of honey and rose petals. Was it a honeymoon suite? The walls were bare, but I spotted framed artwork leaning against the closet door, ready to hang. The art was a series of tasteful nudes.

Forms inside the room moved. My breath caught in my throat. The suite wasn’t empty. I held very still as two people stepped out onto the balcony.

Even in silhouette, backlit by the light inside the room, the two were easy to identify as Marie and her crush, Franco.

Franco said, “Is there a raccoon in that big tree? I feel like we’re being watched.”

“A raccoon?” Marie leaned out over the railing, peering in my direction. “I see something sort of striped. It could be one of the other wild things that live up here.”

“Must be a zebra,” Franco joked.

Marie laughed loudly, then sighed. “Franco, you always could make me laugh, and it feels good to laugh.”

“Save some laughs for tomorrow,” Franco said. “Thanks for showing me the room. Have a good night.” He pulled away from the railing and walked back into the room.

Marie stood alone on the balcony, saying to herself, “Marie, you can do this. Yes, you can.”

She turned and ran into the room after Franco, not bothering to close the sliding glass door.

“Franco, wait!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the bed. He followed, but slowly, as though conflicted, or playing hard to get.

Marie climbed on the bed, and said something I couldn’t hear.

Franco took a step back and said, “Really? You poisoned your husband?”

“No, no, it’s not like that. I just gave him a sleeping pill instead of the medication he uses to stay awake. He’ll be out for a few hours. Franco, this is our chance. Just one last time, for real, to remember forever.”

He took a step closer. “Just one time?”

She reached down to the hem of her dress and pulled the gray garment up over her head in one movement. Underneath the plain dress, she wore an elaborate contraption with black lace and garter belts. She took off her glasses and shook her hair out of her ponytail.

Franco let out a low whistle. “Damn, Marie. You’ve been hiding that hot little body all this time.”

“And it’s all yours.” She put her hands on her hips and beckoned for him to join her on the bed.

Meanwhile, outside their room and two stories up a tree, I decided I had no business watching that particular show. Jeffrey must have had the same feelings, because he walked across my shoulders on his way back down the tree.

I moved to follow him, but one of my feet had fallen asleep, and my first step down resulted in me losing my balance. The branch I reached for snapped dryly, the cracking sound causing the two people in the honeymoon suite to whip their heads in my direction.

I held very still, hoping they hadn’t seen me.

Within seconds, their focus was back in the room again.

Marie cried out, “Don’t go! Franco, don’t you dare walk out of this room or you’ll be sorry.”

He stepped back from the bed, away from her reach.

“Now is not a good time,” he said. “You always had the worst timing.”

“Because of Della? You’re too good for her. She doesn’t appreciate you.”

“Never mind her. The bad timing is about tonight. I’ll meet you here tomorrow night, same time. Right now, I’ve got to talk to Benji about something.”

“What are you talking about? What does Benji have that’s more important than… us?”

“He’s still got money. I’m going to help him out by holding some of it for him before he goes bankrupt.”

“Holding it? How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to pretend I’m blackmailing him. I figured out what happened with his old Plymouth, and I’m going to use that to get his money.”

“His Plymouth? I don’t understand. That was over twenty years ago.” She crawled to the edge of the bed and reached for him, but he stepped back again. “Franco, don’t tease, and don’t lie to me.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. I’m going to keep the money. There’ll be enough to go around. Maybe I’ll share some with you, if you’re nice to me.” He shook his finger at her. “But you need to cool it for tonight.”

She grabbed his hand and proceeded to lick his finger.

He gave in and stepped up to the bed to kiss her, his hands all over her body. They embraced for only a moment before he pulled away and went for the door.

“Don’t go,” she begged.

Without a word, he left the room and closed the door.

Marie slowly got up, her shoulders slumping and her arms dangling at her sides. She closed the glass patio door, picked up her dress, but then dropped it and threw herself on the bed, face first. I couldn’t hear any sounds, but I could see by the shaking of her body that she was grief-stricken.

Despite witnessing her attempt to seduce Franco, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

Jeffrey enjoyed short excursions outside in the evening, but he always returned home before my bedtime for Kitty Playtime Hour.

He’d beaten me down the tree, so there was a chance he would beat me back to the room. I called his name and whistled for him as I walked back toward my patio, through patches of mud and crunchy snow.

Most of the rooms on the ground floor had their curtains drawn, but Christopher, in the room next to ours, had left his curtains open. His television was on, flickering blue light in the room. Christopher was crashed on the bed, eyes closed, asleep on top of the covers with his clothes on.

“Marie and her chocolates,” I said to myself, triggering a more worrisome thought. Our chef had admitted to swapping her husband’s medication in order to get him out of the way. How many sleeping pills did the woman have? And how far was she willing to go?

I stepped over the low shrubbery surrounding my room’s patio and froze. There was someone in my room, looking at my things on the desk. A man.

Chapter 15
 

If I hadn’t
just seen Christopher in the adjoining room, I would have thought the sandy-haired man in my room was him.

Standing just outside the wide-open patio door, I cleared my throat. “Mr. Biggs, I believe you may have wandered into the wrong room by accident.”

He dropped my book on the desk and whirled around, his hands raised. “I wasn’t snooping.”

“You’re in my room, looking at my things. Mr. Biggs, that is the textbook definition of snooping.”

“I was returning your cat.”

He pointed to Jeffrey, who sat on the room’s armchair, hind leg daintily pointed in the air while he performed his one-cat show, Watch Me Lick My Unmentionables.

I stepped inside and closed the door so he wouldn’t dart out again.

“How did you know the cat was mine?”

“You’re not the only one observing people’s behavior. I saw you putting steak in your purse, so when the cat sauntered into my room and squawked at me that he was lost, I knew he was yours.”

“Oh, you speak cat as well?”

“Enough to get by.” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned over my books again. He looked boyishly young, with his suit jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up.

He kept looking at my big book on the criminal code—the one so thick, I hadn’t yet dared to crack the spine.

“You seem interested in that one,” I said. “Would you like to borrow it for a few days? I have plenty of others.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, sure.” He held the tome to his chest like a shield. “I’ll get out of your way now. I’m going to raid the kitchen for a can of cola.”

“Sounds fun,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

He seemed perplexed by my offer, but didn’t refuse the company.

I gave Jeffrey a pat goodbye, then we left. Benji started toward his room, then stopped. “I probably can’t get in that way. My keys are back inside, and I left by the patio. I’ll have to go around through your room when we get back.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

He breathed heavily while we walked, as though something was bothering him. “I’m not trying to get into your room for anything else,” he said.

“I believe you.”

His breathing gradually returned to normal.

“Your cat is really nice,” he said.

“I’ll pass that along to him.”

We arrived at the kitchen and started looking around for anything resembling cola. All but a few safety lights had been switched off, and the space felt cavernous in the dark.

I asked Benji, “When you guys were growing up, what was Marie like?”

“She was nice, just like now.”

“Did you two ever date?”

“I always liked Marie more than she liked me. She said our chemistry wasn’t right. That’s one of the reasons I got so interested in chemistry. I wanted to make something that could help guys like me, to be more like Franco.”

“You wanted a drug to change your personality?”

He looked surprised that I’d understood what he meant. “Exactly.”

I smiled warmly. “I hope you eventually realized that your personality is just fine how it is, and you stopped trying to change it.”

“No, I didn’t give up. Chemistry isn’t astrology. It’s a hard science, and our minds can be easily manipulated. Science will never stop, so why should I? We’re on the brink of discovering compounds that can improve all of humanity. Maybe bring us closer together.”

“Benji, are you talking about chemicals that make people fall in love?”

“Of course not. That wouldn’t be ethical.”

“But changing someone’s personality is ethical?”

He kept checking cupboards as he answered, “There are countless chemical reactions happening in the brain at every moment. Some of those events can be manipulated, either by thoughts and actions, or by the introduction of artificial compounds.”

Laughing, I said, “Benjamin Biggs, tell me the truth. Have you or have you not used your genius chemistry skills to invent a love potion?”

“Of course not,” he said with annoyance. “Would I be here by myself if I had?”

“You tell me. Are you in love with Mar—”

“No,” he said, answering before I could even finish her name. “She’s with Butch now, and even if she wasn’t, she would never look at me the way she looks at Franco.”

“How do you feel about that?”