Tom Hoke - Murder in the Grand Manor

He nodded. "Yes, it was a bit nasty. Do you know whose portrait it was?"

"I've never been in her rooms before. I don't know. You'll have to ask Lena."

He turned toward the dining room, but Aunt Annie grabbed his arm. "Not now Charlie.

You'll have to ask her later. That yard furniture will be through the front windows if you don't hurry up!"

If Jim were to have the dubious pleasure of renaming this particular hurricane, he would abandon the usual pattern. He could think of nothing more apropos than EXASPERATION.

There were any number of questions which might be answered if it hadn't been for this Act of God called Bertha.

His association with Aunt Annie told him he could never give her credit for stupidity. She had a wide-awake non-stop curiosity. Who was trying to fool whom, removing Mrs.

Benning's portrait from the gilt frame? It had to do with temporary urgency. Was Mrs.

Benning alive? Perhaps someone didn't want him to know what Mrs. Benning looked like. It also had to do with the reason Jerry Duprey hot-footed it to Bay St. Louis in the first place.

Lena certainly knew about the slashed portrait.

If it weren't for Bertha, he could corner the old girl and find out whose portrait was so outrageously destroyed. It was just possible he was being given the run-around, aided and abetted by Bertha.

With all this kaleidoscoping through his mind, he slammed out the front doors of the Grand Manor at Aunt Annie's command. Aunt Annie was right. He conceded Bertha would be quite a problem as the wind picked up. The wild Texas winds plus the gales blowing off Lake Michigan seemed like summer breezes compared to this blow.

The bay was dirty and angry and great with whitecaps. Water came in with a roar against the seawall, beyond the road separating the lawn of the hotel from the road and the beach.

Yesterday it was a beach. Today the beach was non-existent. It was almost dark. He wished it were dark enough to block out that water. It looked alive, vicious, and mean. He began to wonder, despite Aunt Annie's assurance to the contrary, if the water might rise and slowly cover the hotel like it had covered the beach.

A canvas chair flew by and he picked it out of the air and tried dodging a couple more of the same. Opening the outside door of the hotel, he thrust the chair and a small table that landed beside him into the narrow space separating the outside door from the lobby.

Now he could see why the double door protection. Grabbing a hunk of canvas around a shattered wooden frame, which must have originally been some sort of chaise lounge, he stuck it inside too. Then he turned as he heard a shout from the direction of the water.

Two men were pushing toward him with the wind. He looked up over their heads and saw the Man-o'war birds swooping above. Tribbles were right. They had scissor tails and were solid black. Lena was right too. They looked ominous. But what she hadn't said was these birds had a seven foot wing span!

Jim braced and went to meet the men. Behind them, on the road, was an amphibious duck.

Salt spray leapt at his face as he leaned into the wind.

One of the men looked like a tugboat captain.

He was short and squat, with a deeply sunburned face and graying windblown hair.

The other was taller and younger, with great muscular shoulders and bright blue eyes.

Tattoos ran up and down his arms. His hair was long and wild and black. The older man's shirt was plastered to his body. The younger one was barefoot and shirtless.

"Everything all right here?" one of them shouted. They weren't talking about him, personally. He got that in a hurry. They were looking at the hotel. Jim looked back at it too and should have given it a double-take. But that's twenty-twenty hindsight. He turned to them and nodded. It seemed hardly worthwhile to waste his breath against the wind.

"I see you've got company," the older one yelled, pointing at the cars in front of the hotel.

"I thought the place was abandoned. It's around town…doctor says Mrs. Benning died.

How many people are in the joint?"

Jim tried to come up with a reasonable answer, "About ten, I guess," he shouted back.

This might or might not be true. "Who are you?" he countered.

"Civil Defense," the younger man yelled.

"You're high here. Keep them inside or they might get hurt! We got to get a bunch of diehards off the point into the school building.

They never learn. We'll try to check with you later. You won't get water in the hotel, but we'll be getting the outer winds soon. Look out for the snakes tomorrow." They backed away, but the older man cupped his hands and shouted, "You better get those cars around back and away from the trees." They turned and struggled toward the road.

If these weren't the outer winds, Jim could scarcely wait until they arrived. What was it with the snakes?

Tiles began raining off the roof. A huge limb tore loose from a live oak tree and crashed onto the roof of a car. Jim hoped it belonged to the two salesmen and not the Tribbles. He hadn't seen this car when he had come in earlier. That limb turned a hardtop into a convertible in nothing flat. Civil Defense had something on the ball. The front part of the hotel was not exactly the place to leave a car.

Crawling into his rental car, he drove along the south side of the hotel past the door of the bar.

He remembered the shed he had seen the night before and drove the car behind it. He wasn't the only one with the same idea. He parked behind the shed next to the car Jerry Duprey had driven the night before.

Jim fumbled his way to the back door of the long side of the hotel and went into the first floor hall. As luck would have it, he ran into Aunt Annie near the lobby. She solved a problem.

"Get their car keys," he said breathlessly. "I want to move those cars to the back of the hotel as fast as I can right now." She nodded and scurried away. There was no time to explain to each owner, or discuss the fate of the smashed car. He went into the lobby.

Leddon was still anchored to the desk. Mrs.

Tribble was scrambling through a drawer in the dining room. Jim lit up a cigarette and leaned against the elevator cage wondering why he had to be a hero. Aunt Annie rushed into the lobby with the groom right behind her.

"Mr. Collson will help you with the cars, Charlie. He has the keys". Then she added,

"Wait a minute," and ran toward the kitchen and came back with one more set of keys.

Obviously these belonged to the man in the shorts. "His is the green Chevy," she said. "Be careful boys."

The groom looked disgusted. "It was my idea to come south," he allowed. "And now I'm a parking lot attendant. I guess it's better than bathroom duty with those two salesmen."

"Well, let's get it over with," Jim suggested.

"I'll move the green Chevy, and you get the right keys in the right cars. I might as well tell you somebody's out one car. Follow me around the south side of the hotel and park them back of the shed. It's more or less out of the wind and away from the trees."

Jim left him sorting keys and moved the Chevy. He switched on the radio and wished he had not done so. "Expecting winds of one hundred and fifty in the bay area…," the radio announced. He turned the radio off and parked the car beside his. He groped his way back to the front of the hotel and leaned in the car window where the groom was turning the key in an outdated Oldsmobile. "You take two, and I'll take the rest. Leave the keys in the locks in case we have to get out of the hotel.

There's a back door in the middle of the hotel."

No use in giving him the pitch on the wind.

Maybe they might do well to keep the able-bodied males able.

The groom nodded and drove off. Jim followed and waited for him to bring the next car. Then he pointed toward the back door.