Death of a Batty Genius (Stormy Day Mystery #3) (21 page)

The mood in
the car was tense as we drove back toward the lodge. We made some phone calls to report the mudslide as well as that Della had been on the road, in her little green Beetle.

The dispatcher Jessica spoke to said there was nothing to worry about, that Della would likely turn up in town, and the roads would be cleared shortly. None of us felt reassured.

I sped up each time we passed through another mudslide zone, then slowed to a safer speed after we were clear.

When we reached the generic sign that promised lodging ahead, I broke the grim silence. “Did you guys see that sign? Lodging in three miles. Maybe they have a room for us.”

Jessica played along. “On this mountain? I think I’ve heard of an old hunting shack up here, with a funny name, like the Perturbed Badger.”

“Do you mean the Slightly Damp Hedgehog?”

“Maybe it’s the Flapping Raven,” she said. “Or the Banjo-Playing Owl.”

“I hope it’s half as nice as the Baritone Weasel.”

She gasped theatrically and held her finger in the air. “I looked at the map earlier, and I remember now. This place up ahead is a five-star lodge called the Gargling Peacock.”

“Are you sure? I’ve been on this mountain before and have a souvenir matchbook for the Nocturnal Parakeet Who Tweets at Midnight.”

“You may have visited before they renamed it. They did that a few times. At one point it was called the Salty Salamander Who Has a Dragon Tattoo.”

“Isn’t that in Sweden? This place, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, has a more American-sounding name, and it’s definitely a type of rodent.”

“The Flatulent Hamster?”

“Yes, that’s it! I hope innkeepers will put us up for the night at the Flatulent Hamster.”

Behind us, Christopher groaned.

Everyone hushed when we pulled up to the Flying Squirrel Lodge. The external landscaping lights were out, and the dark building jutted from the mountain like a modernist mermaid on a boat headed into battle.

With Jeffrey tucked inside my jacket and our luggage in tow, we ducked our way through the rain, circling wide around the worst of the mud. The front door had been left unlocked, and the lobby was empty and dark.

Overhead, the elaborate blown-glass chandelier, which had been so cheerful in the day, hung over us like a sea monster with darkly gleaming tentacles.

“The power must be out,” Christopher said.

I re-opened the front door a crack. “Do you two hear that hum? It must be the emergency generator, running the safety lights and bare essentials.”

“Darn,” Jessica said. “Karaoke night is cancelled.”

“And tonight was Beatles night,” I said.

Christopher hunted around the vacant check-in counter and found our old room keys.

Before retiring for the night, we looked around for Butch and Marie. They weren’t in the kitchen or any of the other common areas, nor was anyone else.

We’d been in the car for several hours due to the poor road conditions. It was nearly nine o’clock—too late for dinner, but strangely early for everyone to have gone to bed.

We knocked on the doors of the other guest rooms, but nobody answered. The owners and other remaining guests were hiding from us, sleeping, or… checked out.

“Marie had those sleeping pills,” I said. “What if she put the others to bed so she could meet Franco in the honeymoon suite for their planned tryst?”

None of us relished the idea of catching them in the act, but we went up to the suite anyway and knocked on the door.

Nobody answered, but Christopher swore he could hear movements inside the room.

Jessica said, “Marie’s probably just passed out in there.”

“Call her phone,” I suggested, so Christopher did.

A ringtone sounded on the other side of the door, then went silent.

Christopher knocked again. “Marie, it’s just us. The roads are blocked by a mudslide, and we need a place to stay. We’ve got the keys and we’ll be in the same rooms as before.”

I added, “I’m really sorry things have gone sideways.” No response. “Marie, I’m basically an expert on things going wrong with Fairchild men. Let me know if I can help with anything.” I rubbed my sore rib, bruised from our misunderstanding in the parking lot. “And I’m not mad about what happened earlier. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

We waited another minute. Christopher got a text message from her on his phone:
You can stay as long as you need. I’m okay. Just let me have some space.

We were halfway down to our rooms when she sent a second message:
In the cooler is some sliced roast beef that would make nice sandwiches.

We all enjoyed the roast beef in the comfort of our room, in the warm glow of the single safety light by the door plus some candles Jessica had brought.

We humans had our beef in sandwiches with lettuce and horseradish, and the cat had his just how he liked it—dragged onto the room’s only carpet, which was the bath mat.

We still hadn’t seen the other guests, and there were no more messages from Marie.

As the hour drew closer to midnight, Christopher lingered on our side of the adjoining rooms.

“Why’d you bring candles?” he asked Jessica.

“My mother always brought candles on trips,” she said as she lit more votives on the room’s dresser. “We traveled on the thrifty side, and cheap motel rooms smell like a hobo’s armpit.”

“Those candles must be gardenia,” Christopher said, smelling deeply. “Gardenia is my mother’s favorite. I’d pass along the travel tip about the candles, but she’d never set foot in a motel, and she prefers to travel light, anyway.”

“Traveling light is a luxury of the rich, who can ask the concierge for supplies. My mother didn’t just pack candles. She had first aid supplies with extra bandages, laundry detergent, crisp bills straight from the bank teller for vending machines, and a wrapped mystery item for emergencies, to keep me and my brothers occupied—usually a travel-sized jigsaw puzzle.”

“Sounds like fun,” Christopher said, sounding wistful. “I’m an only child.” He laughed at himself. “As if it isn’t super obvious by how I am.”

“You’re okay,” Jessica said. “If you manage to woo Stormy back, do you want to have a big family?”

I grabbed the nearest thing—a pillow—and chucked it at her. She caught the pillow and tossed it right back at my head. “Let him answer the question,” she said.

We both looked at Christopher.

He swallowed and pulled out his phone. “I’m going to try Butch again.” A minute later, he reported, “Still not picking up.”

Jessica checked her phone. “Coverage is patchy up here on the mountain. If he’s in the part of the lodge that’s embedded in the rock, he’s probably cut off.”

I starting cleaning up, stacking our plates. “I’ll take these to the kitchen and do another round of the lodge to find him.”

Jessica put her hand on my arm and gave me a worried look. “Or we could stay here in the room until morning and
not
go running around a dark lodge during a power outage.”

Christopher walked to the patio door and peered out at the darkness. “Maybe they’re all outside.”

“Even better,” Jessica said sarcastically. “Let’s go outside in the dark and split up, all the better to be picked off one by one.”

Christopher turned and looked into my eyes. “We don’t need to split up. We could be together.” He blinked. “Looking for the others.”

Chapter 24
 

It was a
dark and stormy night when Christopher and I set out into the rain wearing garbage bags over our coats. We stopped at the trekking hut to upgrade our outfits to real rain gear, and picked up two lanterns.

Jessica had stayed behind in the room, running our base of operation. She would be making follow-up phone calls about the mudslide, getting the power back on, and finding contact information for the local search and rescue, should we need it for anyone we couldn’t locate. Franco hadn’t been seen since before breakfast, twelve hours earlier.

“I’ll go on my own to check the caves,” Christopher said as we closed up the trekking hut. “You follow the sound of the generator and check that area.”

“You get the dry caves while I take the rain?”

“We can cover more ground if we split up.”

“And if we’re alone, it’ll be easier for the serial killer who lives in the woods to pick us off one by one,” I joked. “You’re stuck with me, for now.”

He shot me a teasing grin. “What if I have to take off all this rain gear, and you see me in nothing but a wet shirt and get all flustered again?”

“Strip naked and do the Chicken Dance for all I care. And what makes you think I was flustered? You can’t fluster me with a mere sexy shower invitation.”

We entered the cave, turned a corner, and followed the tunnel deeper into the mountain.

We searched through the connected caverns, taking turns calling out for the others. Christopher had the map with him, but the cave system was simple enough that we didn’t need it.

Our search was fruitless. The caves were as lacking in people as the lodge was lacking in karaoke, at least until the power came back on.

As we stepped out of the caves and into the rain, I told Christopher that if he ever did get one of those secret cave maps, he had to share it with me.

He said, “Whenever I see anything interesting, you’re always the first person I think of.”

“Good. I’m particularly interested in maps of the caves closer to Misty Falls.”

“You want those gold doubloons.” He grabbed my arm as I stumbled over a soggy branch. “Careful now.”

“How do you know about the gold? I thought that was just a local legend people tell in town.”

“You’re forgetting I’ve been around your father a time or two, and after enduring a few six-packs of that beer he drinks, he starts with the local legends. Then his accent gets thicker, and he moves into the old Irish legends.” He chuckled. “There’s always poetry to be recited.”

I laughed with him. “And ballads to be sung.”

“What’s that one song your father loves, about the guy being shipped off to Australia after a woman sets him up for a theft? She’s got eyes like diamonds?

“‘The Black Velvet Band.’ One of Dad’s favorites.”

“We had some good times,” he said with a sigh.

“You and my father got along well enough, after the initial breaking-in period. And you handled my sister like a champion.”

“Sunny is a lot like you, and I had plenty of practice with you.”

I snorted. “She’s not like me. We’re polar opposites.”

“Just keep telling yourself that.”

We reached the lodge and circled our way around to the guest rooms. From the outside, all the rooms had the same eerie glow from their single safety light, except the one Franco and Della had been assigned, which had a patchwork of wood keeping out the elements.

We knocked on the glass doors for two of the other rooms, looking for Dion or Benji, but both had their curtains drawn and nobody answered our knocks.

We checked in with Jessica and let her know we were going to find the generator next.

“Have you guys been outside this whole time?” she asked. “I heard noises, like water running in the pipes. I popped my head into the hallway, but I got too creeped out to leave the room.” She waved one hand, fanning her face as her eyes welled up. “I think my blood pressure dipped. My vision got kind of distorted, and I thought I was going to faint.”