Max Collins - Nice Weekend for a Murder

“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 blood-streaked face of a dying Kirk S. Rath.

“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 saw,” 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.”