Nice Weekend for a Murder (8 page)

“That’s right.”

“Any way up to the hotel other than that road?”

“It’s a house, sir. And no there isn’t.”

“Any way to get to that road, bypassing the Gate House?”

“No.”

“Hmmm. I wonder if I could talk to the man who was on duty in the Gate House last evening.”

“Sir, I believe he’d be sleeping, now... and I couldn’t give out his home number. You might check with someone in management.”

“Okay. Thank you very much. You run a nice hotel here.”

“It’s a house,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice; she knew I was needling her.

Jill was putting on her lipstick. “What was that about?”

I slipped on my clothes and as I did told her what the front desk alto had told me.

“So if Rath
really
left,” she said, pointing at me like a teacher, “he’d probably have been seen by the guard at the Gate House.”

“Right. And more important—if he left only to
return
, he’d have been
seen
returning. Not only seen, he’d have had to log in with the guard.”

“You mean you’d have a specific time.”

“Exactly.” I was smiling. Also dialing.

“
Now
who are you calling?”

“Kirk Rath,” I said.

The cornflower-blue eyes got very large, and she sat on the edge of the bed nearby. I called the hotel (mountain house) operator and she put me through to information for Albany, New York; Rath’s home number was listed. I wasn’t sure it would be. On the other hand, somebody as adversarial by nature as Rath wouldn’t duck a fight by going through life unlisted.

The phone rang in my ear. I pulled the curtain as I waited. The view out the window seemed even less real in the cold gray dawn; several couples in winter clothes were making their way across the little bridge. One couple paused in the gazebo, to
chat, their breath smoking. I didn’t find it particularly inviting—winter not being my favorite season in any state, New York and Iowa included—but neither was it ominous.

On the ninth ring, he answered: “This is Kirk Rath.”

“Kirk!” I said. “This is—”

“At the sound of the tone, leave any message you might have for me, obscene or otherwise.”

Shit.

At the tone I said, “Kirk, this is Mallory up at Mohonk. If you’re alive, give me a call today, as soon as possible.”

I hung up. Scratched my head.

“Think he’ll call back?” she said.

“That hinges at least partly on whether or not he’s alive,” I said, sitting by her.

“Do you think he might be home and just has the answer machine on?”

“With answer machines, that’s always a possibility. It’s still relatively early—he could be sleeping. A little later this morning I can call the business number.”

“Didn’t you say the
Chronicler
was published out of his house?”

“Yup,” I said. “Everything but printed on the premises. But it’s a separate number, the business is, and I’ll bet his staff will be working there even if he’s not. They live right there. It’s like a big fraternity house, I understand.”

“So you can find out from
somebody
whether he showed up or not.”

“Should be able to.”

Jill sighed. “It’s too bad Rath himself didn’t just answer and put an end to this.”

I said, “Suppose last night he had second thoughts, and came back, to play his weekend role? And got killed—
really
killed—for his trouble.”

“Who
by
?”

“Jesus, Jill. I haven’t even been able to establish the poor S.O.B. is really dead. Don’t ask me to name the killer just yet, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, with a little smile.

“But one thing I do intend to find out,” I said, standing, looking down at her, touching her nose with the tip of a forefinger, “is which of these teams of game-players has theater pros on ’em, and who among ’em brought their makeup kits along.”

She stood and straightened the collar on my pullover shirt, the type the Beach Boys and I have been wearing for decades.

“Feeling more like a detective now, are you?” she said.

“Thinking like one. That long day yesterday threw me.”

She gave me a peck of a kiss and a wry grin and said, “Put on your
Miami Vice
jacket and let’s go down and have breakfast.”

“Did you have to mention
Miami Vice
? This is Friday and we still don’t have a TV.”

“I asked at the desk about that,” she said, helping me into my white linen jacket. “They have a projection TV in one of the parlors.”

“But will it fit in this room?”

I opened the door for her and in the hall we met Jack Flint and his wife, Janis, just coming back from breakfast apparently. Jack wore a lime blazer and a pastel green shirt, and Janis another floral print dress, yellows and greens; they looked like California. I wondered if, God help me, I looked like Iowa.

We exchanged good mornings and, with a small wicked grin, Jack said, “I hear you got stung last night.”

“Pardon?”

“Curt mentioned that some of the game-players staged a little skit outside your window.”

“So it seems,” I said. “I think George Romero directed it.”

Janis cocked her head like she hadn’t heard me right, not understanding the reference; movie buff Jill said to her, “
Night of the Living Dead
.”

“Oh,” Janis said. Nice of Jill to coach the wife of a screenwriter in film lore.

Meanwhile, Jack was laughing. “Bunch of overgrown kids. We’ll be putting on a show for
them
, in an hour or so.”

He meant, of course, Curt’s mystery in which we were playing roles.

“Yes,” Janis said, “and I’m scared to death.”

Jill resisted telling her that that was the title of Bela Lugosi’s only color film and said instead, “Why? Are you playing one of the suspects?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Janis said, with a nervous little smile. “Aren’t you?”

“No. Mal didn’t tell them I was coming along till the last minute.”

Janis grasped Jill’s arm, in mock panic that was only part mock. “You wouldn’t want to take over
my
role, would you?”

Jill grinned and shook her head no. “I’m no mystery fan, or puzzle freak, either. I’m here for a little peace and quiet; I mean to roam these endless halls and sit in every one of the hundred and eighty-one gazebos on this property. As Elmer Fudd once said, ‘West and wewaxsation at wast.’ ”

I put a hand on Jack’s arm and said in almost a whisper, “Did you see any of that out your window last night?”

“Your little passion play? No. When did it go on?”

“Just before eleven.”

“Janis and I went up and watched Pete’s flick. I’d forgotten how good
Laura
was.”

“Yeah,” I said, glumly, “well, my favorite Otto Preminger film is
Skidoo
.”

Jack did a little take; he’d apparently seen
Skidoo
.

“He’s kidding,” Jill said, and took me by the arm and we exchanged good-byes with the Flints and were off to breakfast.

Where, in the big pine dining hall, we found Tom Sardini sitting at our designated table, having a cup of coffee; Cynthia Crystal and Tim Culver were over at Curt’s table, only neither Curt nor wife Kim were present. I said good morning to Cynthia and Tim, both of whom (even the normally dour Culver) grinned at me. I had the feeling I was a comical figure.

Jill went on over to our table, but I stopped and stood behind and between Cynthia and Culver, and leaned in, a hand on the back of either of their chairs.

“Good morning, gang,” I said. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, Mal,” Cynthia said, the arcs of her pale blonde hair swinging as she looked back at me, blue eyes sparkling, “I just
treasure
it when you behave like a gullible hick.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Takes me back to the days when I traveled with Spike Jones and the band.”

Culver’s smile was gone now; he sensed my feathers were ruffled. So did Cynthia—she just didn’t care. But Culver said: “Curt told us about that practical joke. Didn’t mean to rub it in.”

“Oh, Mal,” Cynthia said, “how could you fall for amateur theatrics like that?”

“Why?” I said, looking at her sharply. “Did you see it too?”

“No, no,” Cynthia said, brushing the notion away with one lovely hand. “Last evening Tim and I went walking for hours around this charming old hotel.”

“House,” I corrected.

“Whatever,” Cynthia said. “But I’ve done several of these weekends before—never Mohonk, but Tim and I were on an ocean cruise variation of this, for Karen and Billy Palmer, last year. We know all about the lengths these lovable loons will go to, to get in the spirit of mystery and crime and spillikins in the parlor.”

At Mohonk, that could be a lot of spillikins, because there were a lot of parlors.

I said, “Your room does look out on the lake, though.”

“Yes,” Cynthia said. “And it’s a lovely view.”

“That’s debatable,” I said.

She pressed my arm. “You’re such a child. That’s what I love about you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I figure immaturity is one of my more admirable qualities. That, and poor judgment.”

Culver said, “You don’t seriously think you saw anything more than some amateur theatrics, do you?”

“I guess not,” I said.

Cynthia’s brittle laugh rose to the high ceiling. “If only it were true.”

“Pardon?” I said.

She was putting preserves on a muffin as she responded: “If only somebody
had
knifed that little bastard.”

I had no answer for that, so I smiled and nodded and joined Jill.

“So,” Tom said as I sat across from him, “somebody made a sap out of you.”

A waiter poured coffee in my cup and I drank some. “It’s nice of Curt to tell everybody what a fool I made of myself last night.”

Tom smiled; even his beard twinkled. “So they murdered ol’ Kirk Rath in the moonlight, huh?”

“That’s what it looked like.”

“I tell ya,” Tom said, “this place is like some kind of demented summer camp. I mean, they really go all out here.”

“No kidding.”

I wrote up our order on the little menu sheet provided for us—French toast for me, scrambled eggs for Jill—and Tom sat appraising me over his coffee cup.

“What is it, Mal?” he said.

“What’s what?”

“Come on. I’ve known you for a long time. Nobody likes a joke better than you. But you’re bristling about this thing.”

“I was in a great mood till I walked in here and realized I was wearing size eighteen shoes.”

Jill seemed uneasy; I think she was hoping I’d leave this alone. And I would have, but Tom pressed on: “I still say you like a good laugh. But you’re not laughing. Why?”

I smiled at him, a poker player’s smile. “What would you say if I told you I’m not convinced what I saw wasn’t real?”

His expression turned blank. “You think somebody killed Kirk Rath outside your window. Really
killed
him?”

I shrugged. Sipped my coffee.

“Aw, Mal, that’s crazy.”

“If murder never happened, Tom, we’d be in another line of work.”

He gestured with two hands; be reasonable. “But Rath left,” he said.

“Supposedly. Where’s your room?”

“What?”

“Your room. We’re in number sixty-four. What room are you in?”

“Just up the hall from you—fifty-eight.”

“Do you have a view of the lake from your room? The gazebo, the little Japanese bridge?”

“Sure.”

“Did you see anything last night? Around ten-thirty?”

“Just Pete’s movie.”

“Did you see Jack Flint there?”

“He was sitting a few rows behind me. Why? What is this,
Dragnet?
”

Jill said, “Don’t mention TV shows to him, Tom. He’s still suffering video withdrawal.”

Jill was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t necessary; Tom wasn’t offended—he was just curious, interested.

“You really think Rath was murdered,” he said.

“It’s a possibility, that’s all.”

“And I’m a suspect!” He said this with glee.

“He suspects everyone,” Jill said, “and he suspects no one.”

Now I was a little embarrassed. Just a little.

“Look,” I said, “I just want to know if I’m the only guy who saw this particular
Saturday Night Live
sketch.”

“TV reference again,” Jill said. “Watch it.”

“Maybe it was staged specifically
for
you,” Tom said.

“Curt didn’t think so,” I said. “Everybody knows all the guest authors are billeted in that wing. Curt says I just happened to be the one who got snookered.”

Tom pushed his empty coffee cup aside. “What do
you
think?”

“I think I’m going to do what all these game-players are doing this weekend.”

“What’s that?”

Dum da dum dum.

“Play detective.”

YOU ARE LESTER DENTON—age thirty-seven. Small-town boy, introverted, Middletown High Class of ’67—Least Likely to Succeed (also member of Chess and Poetry Clubs). A life-long nerd, you are an asexual bachelor living with your rather wealthy, widowed mother. Despite being a timid soul who rarely ventures out of the house, you have succeeded in realizing a lifelong dream: you have had a mystery novel published,
The Apple Red Take-off
. But your dreams have been dashed by critic Roark K. Sloth, in whose
Mystery Carbuncle
your debut novel has been unmercifully panned. You blame the lack of financial success of the novel directly on Sloth’s heartless review. When you check into the Mohawk Mountain House one wintry Thursday evening for a mystery writer’s convention, you are at first distressed to find Sloth one of the guest lecturers. Then, upon second thought, you decide his presence presents a unique opportunity to rectify an unpleasant situation. You go to Sloth’s room that evening and offer the critic money to “simply ignore” the next (and, if sales don’t pick up, probably last) Lester Denton novel,
Death Is a Fatal Disease
. Sloth not only laughs at you, he pledges to reveal your “pathetic” attempt to bribe him in a
Carbuncle
article; and when, though flustered, you shrewdly point
out that there are no witnesses to the bribery attempt, and therefore Sloth would be putting himself on the line for a libel suit, the critic laughs smugly and reveals a pocket tape recorder—on which the entire conversation has been captured! You leave, tail tucked between your legs, defeated, but notice private eye Rob Darsini coming down the hall, apparently on his way to Sloth’s room. The next morning, you are as surprised as the other guests to discover that Sloth has been found dead in his hotel room with a knife in his back, slumped over his typewriter, a sheet in which bears the cryptic dying clue: TOVL FOF OY. And no tape of your bribe attempt is found.