Nice Weekend for a Murder (7 page)

He chortled. I hate it even more when they chortle. “These Mystery Weekenders have obviously staged a Grand Guignol farce for your benefit.”

“What? You got to be kidding!”

“Not at all. Not in the least. You’ve never been to the Mystery Weekend here at the illustrious Mohonk Mountain House. You don’t
know
what sort of shenanigans to expect.”

“Shenanigans. Since when is slashing a guy to ribbons a
shenanigan
?”

“When it’s staged by some overly ambitious game-players.”

Jill was standing off to one side, but now she moved in between Curt and me, like a mediator.

“You’re saying this was a practical joke,” she said, “played by some of the Mystery Weekenders.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Kirk Rath stormed out of here, insulting the intelligence of the players, refusing to cooperate. Leaving before the fun could begin.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“So isn’t it natural that some of the players might want to stage what he denied them? Namely, his ‘murder’?”

I let out a sigh of exasperation. “And just how exactly did they convince Rath to stick around and go along with this farce?”

“They didn’t.”

“I saw Kirk Rath die!”

“Did you? How close was he to your window?”

I thought about it. “Well, not all that close—not all that far, either.”

“Could it have been someone else?”

“I don’t think so....”

“Possibly someone who looked something like Rath—similar hair, similar build.”

“Maybe,” I granted.

“And you had Rath on the brain—you had the ‘murder’ of Rath on the brain, specifically. If someone who resembled him were ‘killed’ outside your window, wouldn’t Rath come immediately to mind?”

“Curt, I don’t think so....”

He was shaking his head now, gesturing out the window at the now barren stage where I’d witnessed what he insisted was a performance.

“You haven’t been here before,” Curt said. “You don’t know the lengths these lovable crazies will go to. When we assemble
on Sunday morning, for the teams to present their solutions to my mystery, their presentations will be as elaborate as an off-Broadway play. And not far off Broadway at that.”

Jill looked at Curt thoughtfully and said, “You give an award for the team presenting their solution in the most creative manner, don’t you? Whether they solve the mystery correctly or not.”

“That’s exactly right,” Curt said.

“Don’t encourage him,” I told Jill sternly; she gave me an apologetic look and shrugged, but I could see she was being swayed by this. “You didn’t see what
I
saw,” I reminded her.

“She didn’t?” Curt said.

“No. She was in the shower.”

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” Curt shrugged.

“Why are you trivializing this?”

He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “I don’t mean to. I just know the foolishness that goes on here. Jill is right about the award for most creative presentation. Toward that end, many of the players bring along theatrical gear—makeup, fake blood, the works. A number of them are theater professionals. If they noticed somebody here who resembled Rath, and could convince him to play along, with a little expert makeup, they could, at a distance,
fool
somebody... like you. Not me. Because I’m a veteran of this cheerful nonsense.”

Cheerful nonsense.

“So,” I said, “I’m the butt of a fraternity initiation sort of joke, then?”

He waved that off. “Not you specifically. It could have just as easily been me that witnessed this ‘murder.’ The guests know that the authors are all grouped together in this wing of the hotel. Do you think it’s an accident that this event was staged
outside all our windows? You just happened to be the one of us who caught the show.”

“And the hook,” I said.

“And the hook,” he said, nodding. He slid an arm around my shoulder and walked me away from the window. Jill followed. “Mal, I’m convinced you’ve witnessed a prank, nothing more—a grisly piece of impromptu theater by some Mystery Weekenders unknown.”

“
I’m
not convinced,” I said.

He walked out into the hall and I followed him. So did Jill.

“Well,” he said, “we can go down to the front desk and report it. Right now. New Paltz is nearby; the police could come right up.”

“Let’s do that.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. Let me tell you why.”

“Please do.”

He gestured with an open palm, in a reasoning manner. “If the police come up here, you’re going to get some of the hotel’s guests in trouble, and some very bad publicity could be stirred up. You might put a damper on the whole weekend; Kirk Rath’s little temper tantrum would be nothing compared to this. I don’t think that would be a useful thing, do you?”

“I... suppose not.”

“Besides which, everybody here saw Rath leave in a huff. In a minute and a huff. How could he be who you saw out your window? He
left
.” Curt hunched his shoulders and gestured with both hands in mock seriousness; very melodramatic, he intoned, “Or did he come back? If so, why? In which case, what was he
doing
here, then?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, ignoring his kidding manner. “But those strike me as legitimate questions.”

“You strike me as somebody who’s had a long day and ought to catch some z’s.”

“I’m tired, but I’m not seeing things.”

“I know you aren’t,” he said, unconvincingly. “Hey. Why don’t you go have a look around outside? If you find anything, see anything, come knock on my door. I’ll be up for another hour—I’m working on some last-minute materials for tomorrow’s fun and games. We have to kill Rath again tomorrow morning, you know—
in absentia
. Anyway, if after that you still want to go down to the desk, I’ll accompany you.”

“All right,” I said.

He smiled and patted my shoulder again. “But if you don’t find anything, then go get some sleep. These game-players are crafty and they’re cute—don’t let ’em get to you. You’ll need to be fresh in the morning. You have to play one of my suspects, remember.”

Then he shut himself back in his room.

I looked at Jill.

“Could he be right about this?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But do you think he’s right?”

“No. But
he
thinks he’s right. And I can see how this looks to him.”

“Yes.”

“Only he didn’t see what I saw out that window, did he?”

“No.”

“Let’s get our coats.”

“Let’s,” she said.

I stopped at the front desk and asked if I could borrow a flashlight; the guy behind the counter was accommodating and friendly—he didn’t even ask what I wanted it for, he just handed
it to me. I wondered how accommodating (and friendly) he’d be if I came back later and reported a murder. Not to mention a disappearing corpse.

And it had disappeared, all right. The snow on the ground outside my window showed footprints, and you could see where something had been dragged away—but only for a few feet. Then the footprints resumed; only the wind was blowing the snow around and to call these footprints, in the sense that some real detective could pour plaster of Paris into them and make a moulage and trap a suspect, would be a joke. You could tell somebody had been walking in the snow, and that was all. That was the most you could say.

And there was no sign of blood. Or theatrical makeup or ketchup either.

I poked around with the flashlight, looking in the trees and bushes, Jill at my side. Nothing. We walked up on the bridge; stood in the gazebo; looked out at the impassive frozen lake and the mountain beyond. The night was chilly, and the wind had teeth. So did we, and they were chattering.

We went inside.

We went to bed.

“Some detective,” I said.

She was cuddling me on my side of the pushed-together twins.

“Who says you’re a detective? You’re a writer.”

“I’ve played at detective before. You helped me once, remember?”

“I vaguely remember.”

That was sarcasm: the time she’d helped me out, she had seen the aftermath of some very serious violence; I’d almost been killed, and two other men had. So she knew that none of
this was anything I was taking lightly. She also knew I’d had some experience with crime, with violence, and wouldn’t be easily fooled by pranksters.

“Want to go down to the front desk?” she asked.

“And report what I saw?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what I saw anymore.”

“Could it have been staged, like Curt thinks?”

“It did seem sort of... ‘Staged’ isn’t the word exactly. But it was like I was watching a scene in a movie, not real life.”

“Don’t discount its reality for that reason. I was in a rather bad accident once; I wasn’t hurt badly, but the car I was in got hit by a drunk driver.”

“Jesus. I never heard this story.”

She was sitting up in bed, now. “Well, this guy and I were driving home late at night, and a drunk driver got hypnotized by our lights or something and kept coming right at us. He wasn’t going fast, really, and we were able to slow almost to a stop, by the time he hit us. We swerved and he crashed into the side of the car. The guy I was with broke his arm; I had a little whiplash, is all.”

“That’s a relatively happy ending, then. But what’s your point?”

“My point is this: I had a minute at least during which to watch that car come toward us. Knowing the accident was going to happen. Knowing I might be killed.”

“Did you panic?”

“No. That’s the strange part. I felt detached. The world went slow motion on me. And—as you said—it was like watching a scene in a movie.”

“Then you think I may really have witnessed a murder.”

“I think you may have. What do you think?”

“I think maybe Curt’s right. Maybe it
was
a prank.”

“Yeah?”

“And maybe it wasn’t.”

She smiled, sighed. “We better try to get some sleep. You do have a role to play tomorrow morning.”

She was right; I was, after all, one of the prime suspects in Curt’s whodunit. I didn’t know what was going on in
that
mystery, either—all I knew for sure was that I wasn’t the killer.

But neither one of us could get to sleep till I got up and shut the curtain over that damn window.

Friday

Jill was showering again. The sound of it brought me up out of a deep but turbulent sleep. Closing the curtain on that window last night hadn’t kept the images I’d viewed out of it from returning to mock me in almost delirious Dali-esque dreams—none of which were sticking with me, exactly, as I sat up and rubbed the sand out of my eyes. But the feel of them lingered, the mood, and I knew they’d been about what I’d seen from my ringside seat at the window. I did remember one specific dream fragment: crashing through the window, glass shattering but harmlessly, I leapt like a hero into the fray, yanking the ski mask off the killer’s head... and seeing the face of a stranger.

When Jill came out, her slim dark body barely wrapped in a towel, another smaller one on her head like a turban, she looked like a cute Arab. I told her so.

“Oh?” she said. “And you look like hell.”

“Sweet talker.”

“Rough night?”

“Awful. Sick dreams. I don’t have to tell you what about.”

She sat next to me on the bed. “Does it seem any less real today?”

I hadn’t been up long, but, groggy or not, I was firm on this one. “No,” I said. “What I saw was convincing.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll think in the shower.”

I did; the water invigorated me, first cold, then hot, and some notions started tickling the inside of my skull and I started to smile. I’d been tired last night; beaten down by agents and editors and bus rides and, just possibly, Mohonk Mystery Weekenders. Screwy dreams or not, I’d had some sleep, and this was a new day. Something would be done about what I’d witnessed.

I started to sing.

When I came out in my Tarzan towel, Jill was dressed—a red jacket over a white blouse with navy slacks, patriotism Kamali style—and she smiled on one side of her pretty face and said, “You’re the only person I know of who sings ‘Splish Splash, I was takin’ a bath’ in the shower.”

“World’s number one Bobby Darin fan,” I explained without embarrassment and a little pride. “If you want something more current, go out with somebody ten years younger. Than either of us.”

“I better not risk it,” she said, sitting at a dresser before a mirror, putting on some abstract-shape earrings. “Heavy Metal in the shower might get me electrocuted.”

I was over at the phone, by the curtained window, dialing. “You haven’t even met this younger guy yet,” I said, “and already you’re in the shower with him. Have you no shame?”

“Who are you calling?”

“Front desk. Want to check up on something.”

“Front desk,” a female said. A nice sultry alto.

“This is Mr. Mallory in room sixty-four. I’m one of the guest authors this weekend.”

“Yes, Mr. Mallory.” Perky for an alto.

“I wonder if you could give me some information about the hotel?”

“We’re always anxious to provide information about the mountain
house
, Mr. Mallory.”

The staff got touchy here when you referred to Mohonk as a “hotel.”

“When my bus arrived last night,” I said, “a man was on duty down toward the bottom of the mountain. In a sort of a little house.”

“Yes. That’s the Gate House.”

“I didn’t see a gate.”

“There was one years ago. It’s still called the Gate House. We’re big on tradition at Mohonk, Mr. Mallory.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, the bus driver checked in with him before we headed up the mountain.”

“Yes.”

“Is that common procedure?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Mallory. No one is allowed in unless their name is on the list.”

“I see. You don’t get a lot of walk-in traffic at the hotel, then?”

“None. And it’s a house.”

“Right. How long is that guard on duty?”

“Well, there are several shifts. But someone is there all the time.”

“Someone’s on duty twenty-four hours?”