Max Collins - Nice Weekend for a Murder

When Jill came out, her slim dark body barely wrapped in a towel, another smaller one on her head like a turban, she looked like a cute Arab. I told her so.

“Oh?” she said. “And you look like hell.”

“Sweet talker.”

“Rough night?”

“Awful. Sick dreams. I don’t have to tell you what about.”

She sat next to me on the bed. “Does it seem any less real today?”

I hadn’t been up long, but, groggy or not, I was firm on this one. “No,” I said. “What I saw was convincing.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll think in the shower.”

I did; the water invigorated me, first cold, then hot, and some notions started tickling the inside of my skull and I started to smile. I’d been tired last night; beaten down by agents and editors and bus rides and, just possibly, Mohonk Mystery Weekenders. Screwy dreams or not, I’d had some sleep, and this was a new day. Something would be done about what I’d witnessed.

I started to sing.

When I came out in my Tarzan towel, Jill was dressed — a red jacket over a white blouse with navy slacks, patriotism Kamali style — and she smiled on one side of her pretty face and said, “You’re the only person I know of who sings ‘Splish Splash, I was takin’ a bath’ in the shower.”

“World’s number one Bobby Darin fan,” I explained without embarrassment and a little pride. “If you want something more current, go out with somebody ten years younger. Than either of us.”

“I better not risk it,” she said, sitting at a dresser before a mirror, putting on some abstract-shape earrings. “Heavy Metal in the shower might get me electrocuted.”

I was over at the phone, by the curtained window, dialing. “You haven’t even met this younger guy yet,” I said, “and already you’re in the shower with him. Have you no shame?”

“Who are you calling?”

“Front desk. Want to check up on something.”

“Front desk,” a female said. A nice sultry alto.

“This is Mr. Mallory in room sixty-four. I’m one of the guest authors this weekend.”

“Yes, Mr. Mallory.” Perky for an alto.

“I wonder if you could give me some information about the hotel?”

“We’re always anxious to provide information about the mountain house , Mr. Mallory.”

The staff got touchy here when you referred to Mohonk as a “hotel.”

“When my bus arrived last night,” I said, “a man was on duty down toward the bottom of the mountain. In a sort of a little house.”

“Yes. That’s the Gate House.”

“I didn’t see a gate.”

“There was one years ago. It’s still called the Gate House. We’re big on tradition at Mohonk, Mr. Mallory.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, the bus driver checked in with him before we headed up the mountain.”

“Yes.”

“Is that common procedure?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Mallory. No one is allowed in unless their name is on the list.”

“I see. You don’t get a lot of walk-in traffic at the hotel, then?”

“None. And it’s a house.”

“Right. How long is that guard on duty?”

“Well, there are several shifts. But someone is there all the time.”

“Someone’s on duty twenty-four hours?”

“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.”