Nice Weekend for a Murder (A Mallory Mystery) Page 5

  “You know what I mean. It’d be very romantic, the fireplace going in this otherwise dark room.”

  “ ‘Otherwise dark room,’ huh? Pretty fancy talk. You must hang around with a writer or something.”

  She snuggled closer. “An author,” she said.

  “We’ll have our fire tomorrow night. Forecast says it’s going to get colder and maybe snow some, over the weekend.”

  “An author who talks like a TV weatherman,” Jill amended, then sat up in bed and stretched; the moonlight made her body look smooth, bathed it in ivory.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said, yawning.

  “Do you want to get dressed and take in Pete’s movie, after?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen Laura a million times. Anyway, I’m bushed. You can go if you like, though.”

  “You’d trust me?”

  “For the next couple hours or so. Your powers of recuperation being what they are.”

  “You couldn’t have trusted me that long when I was twenty-five.”

  “Well, Mal, you’re thirty-five, like the rest of us, and I’ll trust you till midnight.”

  She slid out of bed and padded barefoot into the bathroom and the sound of the shower’s spray soon began lulling me. I lay there trying to decide whether I wanted to get out of bed and get dressed and take in that flick. I was fairly keyed up, despite the long day. But the sheets felt cool and the blankets warm and the bed soft and the phone woke me.

  It was only a minute or so later; the shower was still doing its rain dance. But the phone, over on the table by the window, was ringing.

  I sat up, yawned, tasted my mouth (which in one minute had accumulated the unpleasant film and sour breath of a full night’s sleep) and bumped into things as I made my clumsy way across the room to the insistent phone.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Mal? Curt. I hope I didn’t wake you—it’s early yet, I didn’t expect you to sack out so soon.”

  “Me, either.” He sounded a little hyper. “What’s up?”

  “I wondered if you’d mind doing double duty tomorrow.”

  “How so?”

  “You have a speech to give, but after that, we need to fill Rath’s slot with something, remember?”

  “Yeah....”

  “I was hoping you and Tom and Jack could throw together a sort of panel on the resurgence of the hard-boiled private-eye in mystery fiction.”

  “That’s a mouthful, Curt... but, sure. Why not?”

  “I knew you’d come through for me.”

  “You sound a little frazzled.”

  “Mary Wright’s upset with me. She’s an efficient young woman, but she doesn’t deal well with surprises, or with changes of plan. She doesn’t know how to think on her feet, like us mystery writers.”

  “I do most of my thinking sitting down, but I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, I promised her I’d get everything rescheduled tonight. That way she can sleep soundly, I guess.”

  “Well, anything I can do to help out.”

  “Much appreciated, Mal. I guess I screwed up, thinking I could depend on that pompous ass Rath to play my corpse.”

  “The only thing you can depend on that pompous ass to be,” I said, “is a pompous ass.”

  “You’re right,” he said, laughing a little. Then he sighed. “This thing is starting to get to me. I just hope we don’t get snowbound.”

  “Why, is that what they’re predicting now?”

  “Yeah. Heavy snow tonight or tomorrow. Is it snowing out there?”

  I glanced out the window. It wasn’t snowing; there was nothing out there, except two people standing on that open walkway bridge, in the gazebo. They seemed to be arguing.

  “No snow,” I said.

  “Yet,” he said fatalistically.

  We hung up, and I stood there a moment looking out at the moonlit lake and cliffs and evergreens.

  But those people in the gazebo got in the way of any peacefully reflective moment.

  The two figures were both heavily bundled in dark winter clothing, one of them, at left, a stocky figure in a red and black ski mask—probably, but not necessarily, a man. The other, at right, was bareheaded and obviously a man, or one very shorthaired woman. Two figures standing on the gazebo at night was hardly remarkable, even if they were arguing—except these figures were going beyond that, shoving each other around. The bareheaded guy gave Ski Mask a shove that about knocked him (or her) off the bridge—a fall of about a story and a half.

  Ski Mask managed to keep his/her balance, and the shoving stopped, but the body English of the two figures was even more disturbing. They were, indeed, arguing. Violently. Their gestures, at least, were violent.

  It wasn’t my business, but I couldn’t not watch; and I felt oddly removed from it—distant—as if I were the audience and they were the play, an ominous pantomime, as the thick pane of glass that separated me from the outside was keeping the sound of the argument from getting in. I couldn’t hear them argue, but I could watch them. Which I did, my face tensed, my eyes narrowed, watched the quarrel turn into something ugly.

  Something dangerous.

  The bareheaded man pushed past Ski Mask and walked down off the bridge, onto the patch of ground sloping down to the lake, which stretched out before my window; his feet scuffed the powdery snow.

  Ski Mask followed quickly, down off the bridge, sending up little flurries as his/her feet cut a quick path toward the bareheaded man, who didn’t seem to know his pursuer was behind him. Something caught in my throat as I saw an object in Ski Mask’s hand catch the moonlight and wink.

  A blade.

  Ski Mask’s free hand settled on the near shoulder of the bareheaded man—they were less than a hundred feet from my window, now—and spun him around. I cried out, but couldn’t be heard, it seemed; my role was so minor in this little drama as to be meaningless. The bareheaded man’s back was to me now, as Ski Mask raised his/her arm, the blade catching the moonlight again and I yelled, “Hey! Goddammit, stop!”, my mouth almost against the window, fogging it up, and I rubbed my fist against the fog and cleared it and could see that knife going up, coming down, going up, coming down, stabbing, slashing, stabbing, slashing.

  The bareheaded man stumbled toward me; he was scarcely fifty feet from me when he fell, his face distorted from two long ragged red strokes from the blade, his dark blue quilted winter jacket shredded in front, turning wet with blood. Then he dropped into the snow, facedown, and Ski Mask began hauling him away by the ankles.

  I was trying to open the window now, but it was jammed, and I was yelling, screaming, they hadn’t even fucking seen me, and Jill hadn’t heard me either, the needles of the shower in her ears and I ran into the bathroom, pulled her out, confused, naked, and wet.

  “Mal, what the hell?”

  “Look out there!”

  “I’m naked, for God’s sake—I don’t want to stand next to a window.”

  I pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it at her.

  “Now, look, dammit! What do you see?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  I looked out the window.

  I didn’t see anything, either.

  Just the lake, the gazebo and bridge, the cliffs, the evergreens, the snowy ground, as peaceful and unreal as a landscape painting you’d buy in a shopping mall. You could see where some feet had disturbed the snow, but that was the only sign.

  The body was gone. From the window, at least, there was no blood in the snow.

  And certainly no body.

  Even if I had clearly seen through my window the bloodstreaked face of a dying Kirk S. Rath.

  6

  “I don’t know what the hell to do,” I said, although I was in fact in the process of doing something: throwing on some clothes.

  Jill was drying off with a towel, looking at me carefully, as if I were a UFO she wasn’t sure she was seeing.

  “You’re sure you saw what you said you sa
w,” she said flatly, a statement.

  “No, I’m not sure. It might have been Santa and his reindeer, or Charo’s midnight show at the Sands. But it sure looked like somebody getting murdered to me.”

  “Calm down,” she said, coming over to me, naked, which is no way to calm me down. She patted my shoulder, smiled reassuringly, like I was her child who’d had a bad dream.

  “I’m calm,” I said. “I am not having an acid flashback, either. Haight-Ashbury was a long time ago.”

  She tried a kidding smile. “Maybe you’re going into television withdrawal.”

  “Yeah, right. I haven’t seen any mindless violence all day, so my psyche conjures some up for me. Well, my imagination rates an Emmy tonight. Jill, I’m shaking. Excuse me.”

  I brushed past her and kneeled before the porcelain god and made that offering sometimes known as a technicolor yawn. Soon she was kneeling beside me, dressed now, putting an arm around me, patting me.

  “You’ll be okay, sugar,” she said.

  I stood up on my rubbery legs. “Try to avoid calling me any pet names that are in any way related to any of the major food groups, okay? For the next hour or so, at least.”

  “Anything you say, dumplin’,” she said, with her ironic smile, rising, and I told her she was a caution.

  Then I was heading out into the hall and she was following.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “Curt’s just down the hall... I got to talk to him.”

  “Maybe you should call the front desk. Call the cops.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll talk to Curt, first. He’ll know what to do.”

  I knocked and almost immediately the door cracked open and Curt peeked out; the sliver of him visible told me he was in his underwear.

  “Now you’ve got me out of bed,” he said, with a wry one-sided grin. “So we’re even. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  His face turned serious. “Is something wrong, Mal? Really wrong?”

  “I think I just witnessed a murder.”

  He pulled his head back and pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in an expression that said, Are you putting me on?

  “I am not putting you on. I just saw something, and it looked a hell of a lot like a man getting killed.”

  “You really are serious....”

  “I really am.”

  His expression grave now, he said, “Give me a second. Kim’s already in bed; I’ll just wake her and let her know I’m stepping out for a second.”

  The door closed. I heard him say something to Kim in there, and a minute or so later he emerged fully dressed, in the same patched-elbow sports coat and cords as before.

  “Let’s go to your room,” he said.

  “Good idea. That’s where I saw it from.”

  Jill and I led him there, where I took him to the window and pointed out at the now peaceful white landscape that had minutes before seemed violent and blood-red. I explained what I’d seen.

  As my explanation progressed, a sly smile began to form on Curt’s face; by the conclusion, he stood with his arms folded, rocking on his heels, looking down at me—both figuratively and literally—with open amusement.

  “I fail to see what’s even remotely comic about this,” I said, petulantly. Curt was one of my literary godfathers, and I didn’t like feeling a fool before him.

  “They reeled you in, Mal,” he said, chuckling. I hate it when people chuckle.

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  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.