The Marble Mask (16 page)

Arvin Brown took the picture in both hands and fondly regarded the old crook. “Wow. Isn’t that amazing. After all this time. Sure, I remember him. He was like a movie star when he came in—his coat draped over his shoulders, dark glasses. Not many people wore those back then, least not the locals.” He laughed, “And not at night. He tipped me the same as the bill—one hundred percent. Told me I reminded him of himself when he was a kid. If Spencer Tracy had walked in that night, I wouldn’t have been more impressed. He was amazing—just what I wanted to be.”

“Did you know who he was?” Sammie asked.

Brown shook his head. “Nope. A rich French-Canadian was all I knew. Never saw him before, never saw him again. You know what happened to him?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate. “Any idea why he was there that night? Did he ask directions to anyplace, or mention anyone local?”

“Nope. He seemed real at home, like he knew what he was up to. But then I figure he looked like that wherever he went.” He handed the picture back to me. “But I’ll never forget that face.”

Sammie pulled a pad from her pocket. “Mr. Brown, assuming this man was staying somewhere in the Stowe area that night—not a private residence—where might that’ve been? Especially for a high roller?”

He chewed thoughtfully for a while, staring at his plate. Finally, he looked up and answered, “Well, the Green Mountain Inn was in business. That’s a possibility. And the Summit House was still operating on top of Mount Mansfield. A lot of folks went there for the adventure of it. But it was kind of rustic, and I don’t see this guy doing that.” He hesitated and then said, “Truth be told, the place I’d bet on doesn’t exist anymore—the Snow Dancer Hotel. Funny name but a classy joint. That’s why it went under—owner spent too much pampering the guests, and they ended up not wanting to pay the price. He was from Spain, I think. Always dressed to the nines, complete with a walking stick. We kids used to make fun of him—thought he was a sissy. Anyway, I could see this gent hanging his hat there for a night. Be a perfect fit.”

Willy didn’t look impressed. “But the place and the Spaniard are ten feet under, right?”

Brown wasn’t put off by Willy’s tone. “True,” he admitted. “The building’s still there, though. Last I knew, it was a B and B. Very pretty, with a barn out back. It used to have all the original Victorian fixtures—carpets, furniture, chandeliers, the works—and I heard most of that’s still there. It’s called the Summit View now—must be a thousand with that name—but you could give it a look. That and the Green Mountain Inn, of course. They might even have records going back that far.”

He’d finished his meal by now and half pushed his chair away from the table, his tone hardening just a shade. “So I’m guessing I told you pretty much what you came for, and you’ve been careful about not showing your cards, which is what I guess you people do for some reason. But how ’bout a little even-Steven? What the hell’re you after?”

The three of us exchanged glances. Willy and Sammie both shrugged. Arvin Brown had been forthcoming with us. It wasn’t going to hurt to return the compliment.

“It’s going to be a letdown,” I warned him. “Your big tipper was murdered shortly after he left Mickey’s. We figured out he’d been there ’cause his stomach contents matched your menu on Game Night.”

Brown’s mouth fell open. “His stomach contents? But that was more than fifty years ago…” He paused and then murmured, “My God, the frozen man in the paper…”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

He stood up, bracing himself on the back of the chair, suddenly looking much older, and absentmindedly reached for his wallet. “I am, too.”

I reached out and grabbed his forearm. “The meal’s on us, Mr. Brown. Least we can do.”

He blinked a couple of times and looked at me. “Oh… thanks. It’s funny, but it’s not like that photograph brought back old memories. I mean, it did, but I’ll never forget that man. I saw that picture and it was like seeing my own father or something.” He paused and shook his head. “My father wasn’t any great shakes—I guess maybe that’s why. At that age, boys like to find someone to look up to, you know? What was his name?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Jean Deschamps.”

Arvin Brown nodded. “Thanks,” he said vaguely, and wandered out into the snow.

We watched him through the window as he stood motionless for a minute or so, letting a dusting of flakes settle onto his white hair. Then he walked carefully over to a large, new, fully equipped Suburban and climbed inside.

“I guess he took Deschamps’s example to heart,” Sammie said softly, as he soundlessly drove away.

THE NEXT MORNING WAS ENOUGH TO MAKE A
skier’s heart swell. The storm had left behind a thick mantle of snow on the mountains and a sky of cobalt blue. It was calm, giving the illusion of warmth, and aside from a glare off the earth’s sparkling blanket that made dark glasses a medical necessity, it was embracingly beautiful—offering a rare moment in which the world feels safe and serene, and one’s mental state as sharp as the surrounding frozen air.

Unfortunately, the magic of such glimpses of perfection is that they rarely last for long. I hadn’t been standing in the Commodore’s rear parking lot for more than three minutes, watching the frozen white geometry of the large pond and distant hills beyond, before Willy Kunkle walked up behind me, heading for the car, and growled, “It’s just you and me—Sammie got yanked to do something for Auerbach. Christ, I hate days like today. You think you’ll go blind.”

I turned away from the scenery and followed him without a word.

The reasonable first stop on our list was the Green Mountain Inn, in the middle of Stowe village. Directly across the street from where a slow-moving and quirky trolley service had once delivered skiers from Waterbury in the 1930s—covering ten miles in an hour—the inn had become as much an institution as the church and the town hall down the street. It had also grown with the town, and now was so large that the word “inn” seemed as disingenuous as an elephant hiding behind a fire hydrant. Nevertheless, it was inviting and carefully appointed, filled with small luxuries designed to win a frazzled traveler’s gratitude. Willy and I were brought back to some considerably less appealing offices and wasted an hour talking to people who had no idea how to help us.

I had higher expectations during our drive out of town to the Summit View bed-and-breakfast. Ever since meeting Arvin Brown—and all through a dream-filled, restless night populated by dapper old gangsters and eager, bright-eyed urchins—I couldn’t shake the notion of some odd momentum growing, as if Deschamps and Mickey and Brown and the elegant, nameless Spaniard were all links in a chain designed to lead us to the truth.

Many times I’d looked into the inert faces of dead people, wishful that beyond what forensic science might interpret there’d be something less tangible but more revealing that would make everything clear. It reminded me of the beliefs of early scientists who experimented with the eyeballs of murder victims, hoping to see the imprinted images of their killers.

Nevertheless, watching Jean Deschamps’s relatively young face, literally frozen in time, and now knowing he’d swept a white-haired, wrinkled Arvin Brown off his feet as a child, I was imbued with a sense of loosening a knot in time, and thereby altering the future, if only by a fraction.

It never occurred to me to tell any of this to Willy, but as we approached the Summit View, I wished there was a way I could share my optimism.

As Brown had foretold, it was a jewel box of a building—an excess of architectural flourishes that no one in his right mind could afford nowadays. It was a miracle, in fact, that it hadn’t been whittled down like so many of its brethren, streamlined by a practical generation driven by time and money concerns to judge half a wooden Victorian wedding cake as better than none at all.

Not that my appreciation wasn’t heightened by the fresh icing of snow, the shimmering blue dome overhead, and the clear-cut backdrop of Mount Mansfield’s strangely haunting supine profile.

A round-faced, middle-aged woman came out onto the porch as we extricated ourselves from the car, and waved to us cheerfully.

“Good morning. Welcome.”

“God,” Willy murmured as I waved back with a smile.

“Are you here for a meal?” she asked as we drew nearer. “If so, we’d be delighted to have you. But if you’re looking for a room, I’m afraid we’re all booked at the moment.” She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Willy, whose appearance didn’t seem to pass her private muster.

As he often did, he picked up on this immediately. “We’re cops,” he said shortly. “And we already ate.”

I felt obligated then to haul out my overly resplendent shield. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation, ma’am. Sorry to bother you. We just wanted to borrow a moment of your time to ask you a couple of quick questions. Would that be all right?”

Disgusted, Willy split off around the right side of the house to better see the barn out back.

“What’s the matter?” the woman asked, watching him go.

“It’s purely informational. Concerns something that happened many years ago—long before your time.”

That brought her attention back to me. “What?”

“Could we go inside?” I asked.

Her eyes widened a bit, as if she’d just dozed off. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have thought to offer.” She hesitated before adding, “Would your companion like to join us?”

“Probably not.”

“Good… I mean, that’s fine. You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.” I gestured for her to precede me back into the building.

“I’m Donna Robin, by the way. My husband and I are the innkeepers. I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment, though.”

“Glad to meet you. Joe Gunther.”

We entered a traditionally formal entrance hall—as decked out as Arvin Brown had said it would be—from which Mrs. Robin led us into a front parlor overlooking the driveway and the street beyond.

She took my coat and offered me a seat next to an elaborate fireplace, whose logs were already half consumed by a picture-perfect fire. “Would you at least like some coffee or tea? Some pastries?”

I shook my head, looking around. “No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s a beautiful place.”

“We love it. We bought it twelve years ago and have never regretted it.” She paused to sit down and then added, “Well, maybe a couple of times when the power’s gone out or one of the guests gets upset, but mostly it’s been wonderful.”

“That’s great,” I answered. “I understand the man who started it was from Spain or somewhere.”

Her face lit up. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? Federico Alvarez.” She rose eagerly to her feet. “Would you like to see a picture of him? It’s in the hallway.”

I reluctantly left the fire and joined her alongside the central staircase. Hanging on the wall was a tinted photograph of a stiff and formal man, dressed to the hilt, with a cane and a waxed mustache that floated away from his nose like two wisps of black smoke.

“Doesn’t look like a barrel of laughs.”

She smiled and nodded in agreement. “I think you’re right, but back then I guess formality went over better than it does now. Everyone expects you to be their best friend and perfect servant both. But from what I heard, he was definitely the latter. That’s one of the reasons I hung this here—to remind me to be the best hostess I can be. Mr. Alvarez supposedly set the standard.”

“And went out of business.”

She led us back to the front parlor and the fire. “Yes, I suppose even he was behind the times. Too bad, in a way. There’s something to be said for what he stood for.” She waved her hand around. “At least we can thank him for all this. He never let it slide.”

“Did he keep any records, do you know? Guest registrations, maybe? Or was all that gone by the time you moved in?”

“Oh no. They’re still here. In fact, they’re almost like part of a museum—in the barn. I guess toward the end, this inn became kind of an obsession for Mr. Alvarez. He couldn’t afford to operate it anymore, but he had enough to pay for certain ‘items of upkeep,’ as his will put it. It’s like a trust fund. We thought it was very odd when we moved in, and Dick—that’s my husband—tried to get us out of it so we could gut the barn and turn it into a health club or something, but apparently we can’t do that. Basically, the barn doesn’t belong to us.”

She laughed and made a self-deprecating gesture. “You’ll have to forgive me. Finances and legal stuff make my head spin. I take care of the cooking, the decorating, and the guests. Dick does the books. Did you want to look at some of that junk?”

“Could we?” I asked, this time far more enthusiastically.

“Oh, absolutely. It’s all in a closed-off storage area. There’s a lot of it, though, and it’s a real mess. The lawyers managing the Alvarez estate didn’t say we had to maintain it—just house it in perpetuity.”

We returned to the front hall, where she handed me my coat and donned one herself before leading me through the rest of the building and out the rear kitchen door.

Willy was still standing outside, but just barely, his toes on the threshold of the barn’s large double doors, which were open just wide enough to allow a single person to slip through. He stepped aside as we joined him, and nodded toward the inside, looking at Donna Robin. “Nice barn.”

She gave a startled glance, as if hoping she’d been invisible, said, “Thanks” barely audibly, and disappeared into the gloom beyond.

Willy shook his head and followed her.

There were windows high above us, so the barn’s interior wasn’t pitch-black, but given the glare outside, it still took us a few moments to adjust, during which Mrs. Robin found the switch to a row of overhead lights.

I saw what Willy had been complimenting. The barn consisted of a wide central feed passage built of broad old planks, lined on either side with rows of horse stalls, all lovingly appointed with brass and wrought iron fixtures. Above us, the roof arched a good thirty feet overhead, with the hay loft tucked along the edges like a deep balcony. The whole place was spotless, obviously not used for its intended purpose, and yet still pungent with the lingering odors of leather, manure, and dry hay. I walked down the length of the floor, admiring the extent of the restoration.