Max Collins - Nice Weekend for a Murder

She shrugged. “A little. Some makeup and such. It’d be nice to bring more — all sorts of props and stuff. It’d really help score points in the ‘most creative’ category. But it’s hard to know what to bring, since we don’t know what the mystery’s going to be till we get here.”

“I want to ask you something,” I said. “And I promise if you’ll be truthful, you won’t get into any trouble.”

Jenny narrowed her eyes, leaned her head forward. “Trouble?”

“I would greatly appreciate it if you’d put my mind to rest and admit to what you did last night.”

Frank grinned. “Is that really necessary? We are married, you know.”

“I’m not kidding around,” I said. “Was it you?”

Jenny was shaking her head. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Mal.”

“You heard me being questioned about ‘Sloth’ being killed outside my window, last night.”

“Yes...”

“Well, something did happen outside my window last night.”

“We know,” Jenny said, shrugging again.

“You know?”

“Everybody’s talking about it,” she said. “It’s part of the weekend, right? Something Curt Clark staged to get things off with a bang?”

I sighed. “If Curt staged it,” I said, “he’s keeping me in the dark. He says it’s a prank pulled by one of the teams.”

“Oh!” Jenny said. “I get it. You thought we might have been the ones behind it... but we weren’t. I swear.”

“Don’t kid around with me, please.”

Frank said, “We’re not. Are you sure this isn’t Clark’s doing? Part of his weekend?”

“I was very upset last night,” I said, “and we’re good friends, Curt and I. He has a nasty sense of humor, granted. But he would’ve told me.”

Ever suspicious, like any true Mystery Weekender, Jenny said, “Where was he when the prank was pulled?”

“He was in his room,” I said. “I’d spoken to him on the phone, moments before. He just didn’t have time to get outside, even if he climbed out a window. Besides, the ‘killer’ was a short, stocky person; and of course Curt’s lanky and tall.”

“You’re telling us,” she said, surprised, “that this isn’t part of the mystery.”

“That’s right,” I said. “When somebody brought it up during the interrogation, I tried to deflect it, but I only helped things to get more out of hand.”

“So we know something the other teams don’t,” she said, with a smug, squeezed smile.

“Yes,” I said. “Though I wouldn’t mind it spreading to the other teams.”

“No way,” she said, with a wave of finality. “Let ’em do their own investigating.”

Brother.

“I’d like to ask a favor of you,” I said.

She shrugged. “Sure. As long as it doesn’t help out some other team.”

“Well, it does involve the other teams: do you know if any of them have theatrical pros on them?”

“A few that I know of do,” Jenny nodded. “I could ask around a bit. See if anybody wants to pool props and makeup. You’d like to know if any of the other teams staged that ‘murder,’ I take it?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“What’s in it for us?” she said, with an evil little smile. “Will you tell us whether or not you’re the killer?”

“No,” I said. “But I will do this for you: I won’t tell any other game-players that the prank isn’t a part of Curt’s mystery. That’ll give your team one up on everybody else.”

“Deal,” she said, and we shook hands.

They got up and wandered off, Jenny glancing back and reminding me that if I didn’t keep my end of the bargain, I’d have to talk to her lawyer; and Jill sat down.

“Who was the dish you were talking to?” she said.

“Don’t pinch me again, please, I think I’d cry.”

“I meant the guy,” she said.

I smiled and shook my head and filled her in. “How were the other interrogation sessions?”

“Interesting,” she said, her tan face impassive. “I don’t have any insights into your fellow suspects, though, I’m afraid. Nobody seemed particularly nervous, including Janis Flint. But one funny thing... did you know that what happened outside our window last night is getting itself worked into the weekend mystery?”

“Tell me about it,” I sighed. “I tried to do some fancy footwork around that and fell all over my feet. How’d the other suspects do, fielding it?”

She lifted one eyebrow for a moment. “A couple of them, it really threw. Specifically, Tom and Pete. Tom actually broke character for a moment and said he didn’t know anything about that.”

“Hmmm. How about the questioners?”

“I’ve got the names of a few intense types written down in my little notebook.”

“Good. Let’s go back to the room; I want to try to call Rath again.”

“Okay. Then some lunch, and then you have to give a little talk, right?”

“Right.”

“And then maybe we can bust out of this joint.”

“I don’t think so. I’m supposed to be on a panel after that, filling in for the missing Mr. Rath.”

“No you aren’t,” she said, with a certain glee. “Tom told me to tell you his private-eye panel won’t be till tomorrow afternoon; Curt’s own talk has been moved up in its place. So it’s official. We’re going over the wall, pal.”

I sat up; sought to be a man despite my nebbish exterior. “Oh yeah? You’re not going to drag me along on some damn nature hike, are you?”

“I most certainly am.”

“Jill, you disappoint me. What was the first thing the pioneers did when they got to the wilderness?”

“I know, I know. They built a cabin and went inside. You’ve told me a million times. But I’m not standing for being cooped up all afternoon with these mystery maniacs and puzzle paranoids — not when there’s a big beautiful outdoors waiting for us out there!”

“Okay. But you owe me one.”

She looped her arm in mine and batted her cornflower blues. “Sure. You can collect right now, back in the room.”

“Before lunch?”

“Why not? But you have to promise me one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’ll leave the little mustache on ...”

The Mohonk Hiker’s Map listed Sky Top as a “moderate walk” (as opposed to those walks labelled “short and easy” or “strenuous”). If this was a moderate walk, Mussolini was a benevolent dictator.

Of course, just on general principles, I hate the Great Out-of-Doors. I grew up on a farm, and from my early childhood swore I would one day live in the city — Port City, as it turned out, but that counts, technically at least. Will Rogers said he never met a man he didn’t like; I never milked a cow I liked.

The last period of my life during which I spent an inordinate amount of time in the Great Out-of-Doors was a place called Vietnam, where roughing it meant something other than a Winnebago and a six-pack of Bud. Camping trips don’t appeal much to those of us whose boondockers got soggy in a rice paddy. I swore to myself if I ever got back on good old dry American soil I’d spend as much time as possible indoors. Or, as I like to put it, the Great Indoors.

If this seems irrational and rambling, well, so was my state of mind as I climbed with the lovely Jill Forrest — whose very name suggests a kinship to trees, and she can have them — making our way up a seemingly ever-narrowing path with the mountaintop our goal.

Why does one climb such a path? To get to the top. And what does one do once one gets there? One hikes back to the bottom. Ask me why I do not want to climb a mountain and I will tell you simply: because it’s there.