Nice Weekend for a Murder (5 page)

Rath stood leaning against a beam, his expression foul. Cynthia Crystal, whose urbane drawing-room mysteries had led one critic to dub her “the American Agatha,” was trying to hold a conversation with Rath. She was smiling, being very friendly, laughing in a brittle manner that Rath didn’t seem to be buying. Cynthia was a lanky, fortyish blonde, in a chiclooking charcoal suit (“Halston,” Jill whispered), and she was smoking nervously. I knew her pretty well, and liked her. I knew less well her live-in lover, Tim Culver, whose presence here surprised me.

Culver, a bearded man with wire-rim glasses and a quiet demeanor, looked something like Woody Allen’s older, better-looking brother. He was, in fact, Curt Clark’s older, not necessarily better-looking brother, older by about a minute that is. They were twins. Not identical twins, though the physical resemblance was strong. Otherwise they had little in common. Oh, they were both mystery writers, but Curt wrote comedy, whereas Culver was an exponent of the tough-as-nails school.
Where Curt was a witty, life-of-the-party type, Tim was rather dour. He stood slumped against another beam, a drink in his hand (he’d brought his own—Quakers, remember), in a tan corduroy jacket and jeans and an open-at-the-neck plaid lumberjack shirt.

“That’s a shock,” I whispered to Jill.

We were standing next to Jack Flint and his wife; Tom Sardini was chatting with Pete, the two of them standing as far away from Rath as they could and still be a part of the group. The crowd was noisy, eager for Curt to get started.

“What’s a shock?” Jill asked.

“I knew Cynthia was a guest, but I didn’t know Tim Culver would be.”

“Who’s Tim Culver?”

I nodded toward him, slightly. “That guy. He’s only the best writer alive in the Hammett tradition. He makes Elmore Leonard look wordy.”

“So why are you shocked?”

“He and Curt are brothers. Curt’s last name is Culver, too. Clark was his mother’s maiden name or something.”

“Yeah, so? What’s surprising about one brother inviting another brother?”

“They hate each other,” I said.

Jill blinked.

“Oh,” she said.

“Go away!” somebody said.

The crowd was noisy enough that the outburst didn’t get heard by anybody but us mystery writers and the first row or so of game-players. But those of us who heard it were startled.

It was Kirk Rath, speaking to Cynthia Crystal.

Cynthia Crystal, the critically acclaimed, Edgar-awardwinning author, whose biography of Dashiell Hammett had been called by Kirk Rath himself “definitive and masterful.”

“Don’t suck up to
me
, lady!” Rath snapped.

Cynthia was taken aback; she swallowed, said nothing. Now, Cynthia has a sharp enough tongue—she’s a cool, bitchy number when she wants to be. But the rude, powerful young Mr. Rath had knocked her back.

“I was just making conversation,” Cynthia said, still stunned. “Trying to be friendly....”

“Why?” he said archly. “What’s your motive? This is the
mystery
world—there’s
always
a motive.”

Culver moved away from his beam and joined this little Edward Albee one-act.

“You shut up,” he said to Rath.

Rath looked at him with cold anger.

“Your... lady, here, has been trying to get on my good side,” Rath said. “I resent that. Just because her last novel got a less than favorable review from us doesn’t mean her next attempt won’t be treated impartially.”

“Who said it wouldn’t be?” Cynthia said, genuinely confused. “I was just making some small talk. We’re both guests here....”

“Just keep your distance,” Rath said. “Both of you.”

Culver gripped both of Rath’s lapels and lifted the little critic off the ground. Culver said nothing at all, just looked at the wide-eyed Rath a moment, and set him back down. Rath swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry it would seem, and apparently couldn’t find anything nasty or witty or trenchant to say to Culver, who slipped an arm around Cynthia’s shoulder and escorted her a few paces away, near Jill and me.

“Hi, Cynthia,” I said.

She hadn’t noticed me before; she had tears in her eyes, which wasn’t common for this cool cookie, but she flung herself in my arms and gave me a hug.

“Mal,” she said. “Mal, it’s great to see you. How long has it been?”

“Two years, I guess. The Chicago Bouchercon. Looks like your next review in the
Chronicler
’s going to be a doozie.”

She laughed. “That Rath’s a prize, isn’t he? At least we get to kill him this weekend.”

Culver said, “That boy’s a born murder victim.”

“He wouldn’t make it past the first commercial of
Perry Mason
,” I agreed. “Too bad this is reality.”

The first few rows of players were abuzz; some had witnessed Rath’s outburst, and others were hearing about it via the grapevine.

“All part of the show, kids,” Curt Clark said, stepping out before the crowd, a clipboard in hand. He adjusted his glasses and glanced at the top sheet and said, “Many of you have been here before, but for the newcomers let me explain that you’ve been divided into teams. We’ve already passed the badges out, some of you are wearing them already, I see—fifteen or so players per team. We’ve kept couples together, but otherwise the teams were randomly selected. We’ll have a lot of fun this weekend, and not all of it involves the mystery you’re going to
attempt
to solve....”

Smiles and murmurings followed the word “attempt,” rolling like a wave across the crowd.

“Our honored guests will be playing roles in the little melodrama I’ve concocted,” Curt went on, “and you will have at them only
twice
. On both Friday—that’s tomorrow—and
Saturday—that’s the day after tomorrow—you’ll have a one-hour interrogation period, during which members of your teams can grill the various suspects. You’ll know them by their badges, which will be clearly labeled ‘
SUSPECT
.’ Now, they all have to tell the truth, at all times... all of them except the
murderer
, that is.”

Laughter.

“And on Sunday morning, your teams will present
their
versions of how to solve
The Case of the Curious Critic
. There will be two awards—one for the team coming closest to the solution as I’ve devised it, and another for most imaginative presentation. And, yes, it is possible for one team to win both awards, though it hasn’t happened yet. The members of the winning teams will be presented with a reservation for the
next
Mohonk Mystery Weekend.”

That brought applause, even though the reservations were
not
all-expenses-paid; they were in fact no-expenses-paid—but the Mohonk Mystery Weekend sold out every year in less than an hour, and hundreds, to put it conservatively, were shut out accordingly.

Curt explained that the weekend would also include movies, lectures, and a dance; he then began to give each of us guests a gracious introduction.

Finally he got to Kirk S. Rath.

“And now,” Curt said, “allow me to introduce the critic we love to hate, a man who truly needs no introduction—our very own murder victim,
The Mystery Chronicler
’s Kirk S. Rath.”

There was considerable applause, even whistles, for Rath, who did have his public. You couldn’t take that away from him. He was seen by many mystery fans as daring, iconoclastic. I found him a terrible, pretentious writer, but had to admit he could be entertaining in his boldness.

When the applause died down, Rath stepped forward; none of us had spoken after our intros, but Rath, it seemed, had something to say.

“I think you people are pitiful,” he said, speaking not only to the other professionals/guests, but to the fans/players before him. A sea of smiles ebbed.

“If you’d ever read an issue of the
Chronicler
,” he said, “you’d know I’ve striven to make the mystery something that could be taken seriously, that could be viewed as literature, not mere pulp. Now, I’m not without a sense of wonder, a sense of fun... and I thought I’d enjoy this weekend. But what I see here—this assemblage of alternately rude and fawning writers, this horrific assortment of starry-eyed fans and drooling ‘gamers,’ armed with pocket calculators and deerstalker caps—is perhaps the most nauseating sight I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. You’re denigrating, belittling, a serious American art form, a form perhaps second only to jazz in its cultural worth—
at its best
, that is, as opposed, say, to its nadir as represented by the likes of such small fish as Mr. Sardini and that pretentious poseur who signs his work only ‘Mallory.’ ”

Every jaw in the house had dropped to the floor.

Except Rath’s, which was still churning: “I have a certain respect for the work of Curt Clark. So when he approached me, I agreed to attend this charade—only to discover when I arrive that I’m to play a cruel parody of myself, and
then
to be ‘murdered,’ to play a corpse, to be what so many of you wish I truly were: dead. Well, you’ll have to find yourself another body. I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m not playing.”

And Rath walked through the crowd’s Red Sea, which parted for his Moses, and was gone.

Curt calmed the crowd by pushing the air with his palms and smiling.

“We all know Kirk’s a shade temperamental, but I’ll do my best to catch him and convince him to stick around for the fun. In the meantime, Pete Christian has a movie scheduled for about half an hour from now, in the Parlor upstairs. I think you’ll find it apropos.”

Pete stepped forward and said, “It’s
Laura
—the classic Otto Preminger film featuring Clifton Webb as an obnoxious critic.”

That got some laughter going, but it was mostly of the nervous variety; Rath’s outburst had cast a shadow over the previously lighthearted proceedings. The casually dressed guests—ranging in age from late teens to senior citizens, with all stops between represented, baby-boomer Yuppie types perhaps the most predominant—rose slowly from the floor, as if their collective bones ached. Chatter soon filled the air, but the merriment quotient seemed low.

“What do you make of that?” Jill asked, looping her arm in mine again, as we headed out into the hall.

“Kirk Rath’s a self-important dope,” I shrugged. “That’s hardly a news flash.”

We headed down a hall toward our room and, soon, up ahead, there was Curt, who was standing talking with an
attractive brunette about thirty or so, her nice shape snug in a navy-blue blazer and gray skirt that seemed to say “hotel management,” not guest.

It was an animated conversation, which carried. Curt was shrugging, smiling, doing a lot of body movement in an apparent effort to be charming as well as apologetic. The woman was frowning, shaking her head, not quite buying it. But she seemed more worried than cross.

“I just don’t like seeing our Mystery Weekend begin with the murder victim refusing to cooperate,” she said.

“I think he’s been very cooperative,” Curt said. “Everybody in the hotel wants to kill him.”

“I don’t find this amusing, Mr. Clark.”

“Curt. Please. Curt.”

“Curt. But our guests pay a premium price for a fun-filled weekend. Your corpse might be better behaved.”

Jill and I had caught up with them now.

“Kirk Rath doesn’t take dying lying down,” Curt was saying, then noticed us: “Oh, Mal—Jill.” Curt gestured to the brunette. She was wholesomely pretty; her face was rather full and her eyes were dark brown. Unlike some career women, she took it easy on the makeup. Maybe she was a Quaker.

“This is Mary Wright,” he said. “She’s the social director here at Mohonk, my boss... for the weekend anyway. This is Jill Forrest, Mary. And this is—”

“Mallory,” she said. She smiled at both of us, but extended her hand only to me. “No introduction necessary. You look just like your dust jacket photo.”

Jill said, “I think he looks more like his driver’s license photo.”

Mary Wright ignored that, continuing to hold my hand, saying to me, “I try to read something by all our guest authors. I enjoyed the book I read of yours very much.” She still held my hand; hers was warm, mine was sweaty.

Jill seemed less than thrilled that Mary and I were hitting it off so handily, and said to Curt, “Is that little creep really gone?”

“Rath? Yes, I’m afraid so. Thought I might head him off at the pass before he lammed out of here, but no luck. He must’ve intended doing this all along: he hadn’t even checked into his room. He walked directly outside from the Lake Lounge, climbed in his car and drove down the mountain.”

Mary finally released my hand, and made a frustrated face. “I’m afraid Curt is right. Our bell captain saw him go.”

“What now?” I asked. “Can you stage one of these things without a corpse?”

“Sure,” Curt said, waving it off. “Piece of cake. Rath’s participation this weekend was minimal, anyway... just a gimmick, really.”

I nodded slowly. “You mean, having the murder victim be the critic every mystery writer would most like to kill.”

“Right. All that was required of Rath was to pose briefly as a bloody corpse tomorrow morning. That and give a lecture and question-and-answer session tomorrow afternoon, after yours. We’ll have to fill in there, of course, but we’ll come up with something. Rath’ll just have to die offstage.”

“We can proceed easily without him,” Mary Wright admitted. But she was still troubled: “What bothers me is his obnoxious behavior back there... the cold water he’s thrown on my guests.”

“They’ll get over it,” I said. “They’re here for a good time, and one pompous put-down from the likes of Rath won’t keep the wind out of their sails for very long.”

“I hope so,” Mary said doubtfully. She smiled, prettily, extended a hand again. “Anyway, your concern is appreciated. And it was a pleasure meeting you, finally.”

And she was squeezing my hand again. Giving me a look as warm as her grasp.

“Pleasure’s mine. Try another one of my books sometime.”

“I intend to,” she said, letting loose of me slowly, her fingers brushing my palm rather seductively. “Curt, let’s go to my office and figure out exactly how we’re going to restructure this thing....”