Max Collins - Nice Weekend for a Murder

“Okay, okay,” she said, patting the air. “Just think about it... Rath was a guy who liked to smear people. He was politically conservative, a regular self-styled William F. Buckley of the mystery world. If — and I say only if — he were gay, wouldn’t he be likely to hide it?”

“Jill—”

“If. Hypothetical time.”

“If he were gay, yeah, I guess he might try to hide it.”

“Somebody as hated as Rath, somebody as into smearing people as Rath, somebody who was very likely just as insecure as he was egotistical, sure as hell might have tried to keep his off-center sexual preference under wraps.”

“I just can’t buy it.”

“Change the needle. When you called his business, which is to say his home, where he and all the boys bunked, where did they say he was going on vacation?”

“Well... after Mohonk, he was going into the city. New York.”

“And didn’t they say he couldn’t be reached — that even his staff couldn’t reach him?”

“Yes. But I don’t see...”

With elaborate theatricality, she said, “Why would the editor and publisher of the Chronicler , a magazine so intrinsically tied to the personal vision of selfsame editor and publisher, not tell even his own staff where he could be reached? Does that sound like reasonable business behavior to you?”

“Sometimes executives do like to get away, Jill. Sometimes they need to be able to get away from the pressure, and the phones. That’s not so uncommon.”

“Yeah, and maybe he went into New York from time to time, for a little taste of forbidden fruit.”

“Bad, Jill. Very bad.”

“A tacky remark, yes, but to the point, wouldn’t you agree? A closeted homosexual — even if he is sharing that closet with a few other boys — might from time to time take a trip into the big city.”

“I suppose.”

“I rest my case.”

I gave the movie buff a slice of the world’s worst W.C. Fields impression: “And a pretty case it is on which you’re resting, my dear,” adding, natural voice, “although your argument is considerably less attractive. And even if you were right — even if Rath were a homosexual — what would that have to do with his murder?”

“I don’t know. But it does open up a range of motives that have nothing to do with literary criticism, doesn’t it?”

Yes it did. And it had been eating at me, a hungry mouse nibbling at the cheese between my ears.

Tim Culver had come over to the table to stand and talk to the seated Jack Flint; Pete Christian, who’d been sitting next to Tom, had gotten up, due to his usual restlessness, and wandered over into the conversation. Pete was congratulating Culver on the movie sale. Then one of the Mystery Weekenders approached Pete with a copy of his Films of Charlie Chan in one hand, and Jack’s Black Mask doubled with Culver’s McClain’s Score in the other. There had been an autograph session this afternoon at tea time in the Lake Lounge, with all the authors present; it had been just after the panel Jack and Tom and I’d been on. But a few of the Weekenders had not made it to the session, possibly because they were sequestered with their respective teams, working on the latest batch of clues and info pertaining to The Case of the Curious Critic , as gathered during the final interrogation session late this morning.

While Jack, Tim, and Pete stood signing books, Cynthia Crystal, a martini in hand, silver skin of a gown covering her, glided over and asked us when we were going to stop eating and start dancing. I had put the torte well away, by this point, but Jill was taking her time with the pumpkin pie.

So, with Jill’s blessing, I escorted Cynthia out onto the dance floor, where Bobby Darin was singing “The Good Life,” and I held her as close as I could and not get us killed by Culver and/or Jill.

“I shouldn’t have been so cruel,” she said, “that time you threw that pass.”

She was referring to that Bouchercon where, several years ago, we’d met; she and I’d hung around a good deal together there, and I mistook it for romance when it was apparently just friendship.

“I shouldn’t have thrown it,” I said, still embarrassed. “I was out of line.”

“Maybe,” she said, a smile crinkling one corner of her thin, pretty mouth. “And maybe it was a missed opportunity on my part.”

“You’re going to be a happily married woman soon.”

“I’ll be married,” she said, seeking a wistful tone. “But how happy I’ll be with a dour lug like Tim is debatable.”

“Why marry him, then?”

“I love him.”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s usually how I get in jams, too.”

She laughed a little, and it seemed less brittle than usual.

“Does anybody ever call you Cindy?” I asked her.

“Just my Aunt Cynthia.”

“You just aren’t the Cindy type, are you?”

“Sometimes I wish I were.”

I laughed, and held her a little closer. “No you don’t. You’re exactly who you want to be.”

She pulled away, appraising me, her smile cunning. “And who is that?”

“The smartest, prettiest, bitchiest gal around; the queen of the mystery writers.”

She sighed, pleasantly. “That sounds vaguely sexist.”

“What, ‘bitchiest’ or ‘gal’?”

“No — ‘queen.’”

“Ellery didn’t mind,” I reminded her.

She pretended to be irritated. “Did you bring me out here to flirt with me or tease me or what?”

“I brought you out here to dance.”

“I doubt that. You always have an ulterior motive. And we were at a dance together, at that Bouchercon, once upon a time. You sat out the whole bloody thing.”

“I only dance when they play Bobby Darin records.”

She rolled her eyes. “Spare me the Darin rap — I know all about your eccentric tastes.”

“Such as you being my favorite female mystery writer?”

She pursed her lips in a nasty smile. “You’re being sexist again.”

“Did I say ‘female’?”

“You most certainly did.”

“I meant to say ‘lady.’”

“Oh, that’s so much better.”

Darin was replaced on the turntable by that upstart Sinatra — “Strangers In The Night,” of all things. You wouldn’t catch Bobby singing scoobie doobie doo.

We kept dancing anyway. I sprung my ulterior-motive question: “What’s the deal with Tim and Pete Christian?”

“Pardon?”

“He and Pete seem to be getting along great.”

And they did: they were both sitting at our table now, chatting, although Pete was doing most of the talking.

“Why shouldn’t they be?” she asked.

“Well, Pete’s very bitter about what Rath did to his friend C.J. Beaufort; blames him for his death. And it was Tim’s interview in the Chronicler that supposedly put Beaufort over the edge...”

“Oh that,” she said, dismissively. “Tim smoothed that over with Pete right after Beaufort’s suicide.”

“How?”

She shrugged; it made her blonde hair shimmer in the dim lighting. “Tim’s known Pete for years,” she said. “He was well aware that Beaufort was Pete’s mentor. So he immediately called Pete and expressed his sympathy and said he’d never forgive himself for that interview. That ‘goddamn interview,’ to be exact.”

“And Pete understood?”

“Sure. Pete was burned by an interview in the Chronicler , too.”

“How so?”

“Same sort of thing as Tim — he was encouraged to be freewheeling in front of a tape recorder, and at the same time was promised that he’d get to edit the transcript before publication. Dear little Kirk didn’t send Pete the transcript, of course, and the published version embarrassed Pete royally — or so he says. I read the interview and didn’t see anything Pete needed to be sorry for having said.”