Max Collins - Nice Weekend for a Murder

“Still,” I said, “that’s infuriating, being betrayed like that.”

“I hear the Chronicler ’s cleaned up its act,” she said, “in that regard at least. It got to the point where nobody in the business would grant them an interview till they started offering their various interviewees certain assurances in writing.”

After Sinatra scoobied his last doobie, we walked over to the table, and Cynthia moved on, and I sat next to Jill. She was a vision in a black-and-white sequined square-shouldered gown. A smirking vision.

“You two were pretty cozy,” she said.

“Old friends.”

“As opposed to strangers in the night.”

“Let’s dance,” I said.

“It isn’t a Bobby Darin song.”

It was Sinatra again, from a better period: “Summer Wind.”

“I’ll make an exception,” I said.

We danced, and I asked her why she seemed so jealous this weekend; it really wasn’t like her.

“I told you why,” she said.

“You mean because we’re going to be going our separate ways before long.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“We don’t have to,” I said.

“I know. But it would mean we’d have to compromise — or at least one of us would.”

“You mean, you’d have to agree to stay in Port City, or I’d have to agree to pull up stakes and head out on the prairie with you, rounding up cable rustlers or whatever it is you do.”

“You know exactly what it is I do.”

“Yeah, and you’re good at it.”

“I’m— I’m not so good at compromise, though.”

“Compromise isn’t something either of us does too well,” I said.

“I know.”

Sinatra sang.

“It’s a few months away,” I said. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“I love you, Nick.”

“I love you, Nora.”

We held each other and danced and Sinatra sang. He wasn’t Bobby Darin, but we made do.

We mingled the rest of the evening with our fellow suspects in the Curious Critic case, and with the various Mystery Weekenders, most of whom seemed a little keyed up, what with the big presentations coming the very next morning. But Jill and I refrained from doing any detecting, which is to say carrying on any conversations with hidden purposes.

With one exception.

Curt had been keeping his wife Kim out on the dance floor most of the evening; he seemed almost to be wooing her. But there was something wrong — Curt was trying awfully hard, doing all the talking; Kim seemed distracted, even a little morose.

But she looked wonderful — superficially anyway. She was poured into another gown, not unlike the black one she’d worn in her role as Roark Sloth’s ex-wife in the weekend mystery, only this one was white. She looked as pretty as ever, in that exaggerated cartoony way of hers, and sexy as ever, too, her breasts doing a first-rate Jayne Mansfield impression.

Only her eyes gave her away, her big brown eyes. They were dull and red and baggy.

Curt finally left her alone, at their table, some Mystery Weekenders dragging him away for autographs. I noted this from the dance floor, and Jill and I made a beeline for her. We sat on her either side.

“You look terrific tonight,” Jill said. “You’re going to be a big movie star someday and I’m going to brag about knowing you.”

“Thanks,” Kim said, dully.

This seemed short of what I’d expect from bubbly Kim, who, like any actress, had an ego at least as large as, well, Jayne Mansfield’s.

“You’re stunning in that gown,” I said, trying to coax some conversation. “But I thought you didn’t like tight clothes?”

“Curt likes me in them,” she said, distractedly.

“Kim, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She smiled bravely. “Nothing.”

“Could I steal you for a dance? Curt’s tied up.”

“No — no, I don’t think so.” There was a drink before her, Scotch on the melting rocks; she sipped it, hungrily.

“How did the interrogation go this morning?” I asked her.

She looked at me sharply. “What?”

“Uh, when you played your part.”

“My... part?”

“When you played Sloth’s ex-wife.”

“Oh. That. That went fine.”

She sipped some more Scotch.

I took aim. “Curt told you, didn’t he?”

She looked at me with narrowed eyes. Said nothing.

“He told you about Rath.”

She looked into the drink.

“He told you about what Jill and I found on our mountain hike yesterday.”

She sucked air quickly in, let it slowly out. Then she said, “Yes.”

I had thought as much, from the look of her.

I put my hand on her bare arm, which felt cold. “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” I said. “It’s a burden knowing, trying to keep up a party facade.”

She nodded.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, squeezing her arm a little, in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. “The snow’s stopped. The plows will be out soon. The police will be here before long.”

“I wish he hadn’t told me,” she said.

I shrugged. “Husbands tell wives things. It’s hard to keep a secret like that from somebody you’re living with.”

She smiled tightly, meaninglessly, stood, said, “Would you excuse me?”

“Sure,” I said, and she was up and gone.

“She’s been crying,” Jill said.

“Murder could spoil anybody’s weekend,” I said. “I’m all danced out. How about you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Isn’t there a movie pretty soon?”

I groaned. “Don’t tell me we’re going to do tonight’s movie?”

“It’s Mickey Spillane as Mike Hammer in The Girl Hunters .”

“Fitting of Pete to select that,” I admitted, interested in spite of myself. “An author playing a role in a mystery. Well, I can’t resist the Mick as Mike. You talked me into it.”

“I want to freshen up,” she said, standing. “Coming?”

I checked my watch; ten till eleven. The movie was at eleven-thirty.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Janis Flint yet,” I said. “Let me do that, and I’ll join you at the room.”

She said fine, and left, and I searched out the Flints; they were standing by an open support beam, talking with the Arnolds and the Logans — rival team players ganging up on a couple of suspects. On cue, “Beyond the Sea” hit the turntable, and I asked Mrs. Flint for the dance. She smiled and accepted.

She looked quietly lovely in a floor-length floral gown, albeit vegetarian thin; she was a wisp of a thing in my arms, and we floated around to the Darin strains. She had on a little more makeup than usual, and I was quite taken with her eyes, a soft green with flecks of black. Jack Flint was a lucky man.

“How did your interrogation sessions go?” I asked.

“Very nicely,” she said. “Your encouragement was just the boost I needed.”

“What role were you playing exactly?”

“Sloth’s older sister Emma,” she said. “The last person known to have seen him alive.”

“Did you kill him?”

She smiled in an unaffected way that Cynthia Crystal had only heard about. “I’ll never tell,” she said.

I laughed, and we floated some more.

As I walked her slowly over toward her husband, I asked, “How bitter is Jack about Kirk Rath’s bad reviews? I heard him say the Chronicler ’s keeping him out of the book market.”

“That’s just Jack talking,” she said with a quick dismissive shrug. “Both Mysterious Press and Walker are after him for another book. The editors are eager to get him back.”

“So why doesn’t he go back to it?”

“He will. He’s just amassing some ‘Hollywood money,’ as he calls it. When he’s built us some security, he’ll be back to writing his novels. Wait and see.”