The Marble Mask

Chapter 13

The next morning was enough to make a skier’s heart swell. The storm had left behind a thick mantle of snow on the mountains and a sky of cobalt blue. It was calm, giving the illusion of warmth, and aside from a glare off the earth’s sparkling blanket that made dark glasses a medical necessity, it was embracingly beautiful-offering a rare moment in which the world feels safe and serene, and one’s mental state as sharp as the surrounding frozen air.

Unfortunately, the magic of such glimpses of perfection is that they rarely last for long. I hadn’t been standing in the Commodore’s rear parking lot for more than three minutes, watching the frozen white geometry of the large pond and distant hills beyond, before Willy Kunkle walked up behind me, heading for the car, and growled, “It’s just you and me-Sammie got yanked to do something for Auerbach. Christ, I hate days like today. You think you’ll go blind.”

I turned away from the scenery and followed him without a word.

The reasonable first stop on our list was the Green Mountain Inn, in the middle of Stowe village. Directly across the street from where a slow-moving and quirky trolley service had once delivered skiers from Waterbury in the 1930s-covering ten miles in an hour-the inn had become as much an institution as the church and the town hall down the street. It had also grown with the town, and now was so large that the word “inn” seemed as disingenuous as an elephant hiding behind a fire hydrant. Nevertheless, it was inviting and carefully appointed, filled with small luxuries designed to win a frazzled traveler’s gratitude. Willy and I were brought back to some considerably less appealing offices and wasted an hour talking to people who had no idea how to help us.

I had higher expectations during our drive out of town to the Summit View bed-and-breakfast. Ever since meeting Arvin Brown-and all through a dream-filled, restless night populated by dapper old gangsters and eager, bright-eyed urchins-I couldn’t shake the notion of some odd momentum growing, as if Deschamps and Mickey and Brown and the elegant, nameless Spaniard were all links in a chain designed to lead us to the truth.

Many times I’d looked into the inert faces of dead people, wishful that beyond what forensic science might interpret there’d be something less tangible but more revealing that would make everything clear. It reminded me of the beliefs of early scientists who experimented with the eyeballs of murder victims, hoping to see the imprinted images of their killers.

Nevertheless, watching Jean Deschamps’s relatively young face, literally frozen in time, and now knowing he’d swept a white-haired, wrinkled Arvin Brown off his feet as a child, I was imbued with a sense of loosening a knot in time, and thereby altering the future, if only by a fraction.

It never occurred to me to tell any of this to Willy, but as we approached the Summit View, I wished there was a way I could share my optimism.

As Brown had foretold, it was a jewel box of a building-an excess of architectural flourishes that no one in his right mind could afford nowadays. It was a miracle, in fact, that it hadn’t been whittled down like so many of its brethren, streamlined by a practical generation driven by time and money concerns to judge half a wooden Victorian wedding cake as better than none at all.

Not that my appreciation wasn’t heightened by the fresh icing of snow, the shimmering blue dome overhead, and the clear-cut backdrop of Mount Mansfield’s strangely haunting supine profile.

A round-faced, middle-aged woman came out onto the porch as we extricated ourselves from the car, and waved to us cheerfully.

“Good morning. Welcome.”

“God,” Willy murmured as I waved back with a smile.

“Are you here for a meal?” she asked as we drew nearer. “If so, we’d be delighted to have you. But if you’re looking for a room, I’m afraid we’re all booked at the moment.” She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Willy, whose appearance didn’t seem to pass her private muster.

As he often did, he picked up on this immediately. “We’re cops,” he said shortly. “And we already ate.”

I felt obligated then to haul out my overly resplendent shield. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation, ma’am. Sorry to bother you. We just wanted to borrow a moment of your time to ask you a couple of quick questions. Would that be all right?”

Disgusted, Willy split off around the right side of the house to better see the barn out back.

“What’s the matter?” the woman asked, watching him go.

“It’s purely informational. Concerns something that happened many years ago-long before your time.”

That brought her attention back to me. “What?”

“Could we go inside?” I asked.

Her eyes widened a bit, as if she’d just dozed off. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have thought to offer.” She hesitated before adding, “Would your companion like to join us?”

“Probably not.”

“Good… I mean, that’s fine. You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.” I gestured for her to precede me back into the building.

“I’m Donna Robin, by the way. My husband and I are the innkeepers. I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment, though.”

“Glad to meet you. Joe Gunther.”

We entered a traditionally formal entrance hall-as decked out as Arvin Brown had said it would be-from which Mrs. Robin led us into a front parlor overlooking the driveway and the street beyond.

She took my coat and offered me a seat next to an elaborate fireplace, whose logs were already half consumed by a picture-perfect fire. “Would you at least like some coffee or tea? Some pastries?”

I shook my head, looking around. “No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s a beautiful place.”

“We love it. We bought it twelve years ago and have never regretted it.” She paused to sit down and then added, “Well, maybe a couple of times when the power’s gone out or one of the guests gets upset, but mostly it’s been wonderful.”

“That’s great,” I answered. “I understand the man who started it was from Spain or somewhere.”

Her face lit up. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? Federico Alvarez.” She rose eagerly to her feet. “Would you like to see a picture of him? It’s in the hallway.”

I reluctantly left the fire and joined her alongside the central staircase. Hanging on the wall was a tinted photograph of a stiff and formal man, dressed to the hilt, with a cane and a waxed mustache that floated away from his nose like two wisps of black smoke.

“Doesn’t look like a barrel of laughs.”

She smiled and nodded in agreement. “I think you’re right, but back then I guess formality went over better than it does now. Everyone expects you to be their best friend and perfect servant both. But from what I heard, he was definitely the latter. That’s one of the reasons I hung this here-to remind me to be the best hostess I can be. Mr. Alvarez supposedly set the standard.”

“And went out of business.”

She led us back to the front parlor and the fire. “Yes, I suppose even he was behind the times. Too bad, in a way. There’s something to be said for what he stood for.” She waved her hand around. “At least we can thank him for all this. He never let it slide.”

“Did he keep any records, do you know? Guest registrations, maybe? Or was all that gone by the time you moved in?”

“Oh no. They’re still here. In fact, they’re almost like part of a museum-in the barn. I guess toward the end, this inn became kind of an obsession for Mr. Alvarez. He couldn’t afford to operate it anymore, but he had enough to pay for certain ‘items of upkeep,’ as his will put it. It’s like a trust fund. We thought it was very odd when we moved in, and Dick-that’s my husband-tried to get us out of it so we could gut the barn and turn it into a health club or something, but apparently we can’t do that. Basically, the barn doesn’t belong to us.”

She laughed and made a self-deprecating gesture. “You’ll have to forgive me. Finances and legal stuff make my head spin. I take care of the cooking, the decorating, and the guests. Dick does the books. Did you want to look at some of that junk?”

“Could we?” I asked, this time far more enthusiastically.

“Oh, absolutely. It’s all in a closed-off storage area. There’s a lot of it, though, and it’s a real mess. The lawyers managing the Alvarez estate didn’t say we had to maintain it-just house it in perpetuity.”

We returned to the front hall, where she handed me my coat and donned one herself before leading me through the rest of the building and out the rear kitchen door.

Willy was still standing outside, but just barely, his toes on the threshold of the barn’s large double doors, which were open just wide enough to allow a single person to slip through. He stepped aside as we joined him, and nodded toward the inside, looking at Donna Robin. “Nice barn.”

She gave a startled glance, as if hoping she’d been invisible, said, “Thanks” barely audibly, and disappeared into the gloom beyond.

Willy shook his head and followed her.

There were windows high above us, so the barn’s interior wasn’t pitch-black, but given the glare outside, it still took us a few moments to adjust, during which Mrs. Robin found the switch to a row of overhead lights.

I saw what Willy had been complimenting. The barn consisted of a wide central feed passage built of broad old planks, lined on either side with rows of horse stalls, all lovingly appointed with brass and wrought iron fixtures. Above us, the roof arched a good thirty feet overhead, with the hay loft tucked along the edges like a deep balcony. The whole place was spotless, obviously not used for its intended purpose, and yet still pungent with the lingering odors of leather, manure, and dry hay. I walked down the length of the floor, admiring the extent of the restoration.

“Mr. Alvarez?” I asked when I reached the far end, encompassing it all with a sweep of my hand.

Donna Robin laughed despite Willy’s proximity. “Once again. He had horses for sleigh rides and hay wagon excursions, but you’d hardly know, it looks so nice.”

“And your husband wanted to convert this?”

She looked slightly embarrassed. “I know. It does seem a shame. But we couldn’t do anything with horses, what with the expense and all, and the space was being wasted otherwise… Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“The barn’s got a usage restriction on it,” I explained to Willy, “maintained by the old Spaniard’s estate-name was Federico Alvarez.”

He furrowed his brow. “Why? I thought he was dead.”

“He was pretty eccentric,” Mrs. Robin said quietly, walking quickly toward me. “What you want to see is back here.”

She went to a door on the far wall, worked its lock with a key she’d pulled from her pocket, and opened it with some effort.

What faced us resembled the old attic straight out of Little Women-a helter-skelter piling of ancient furniture, dress forms, trunks, moth-eaten stuffed animals, and a few turn-of-the-century kitchen and laundry appliances.

“Jesus Christ,” Willy said.

Donna Robin didn’t take offense. “I know. I’m sorry it’s such a mess. We were never told to do anything with it-just to make sure it stayed put. I did poke around a little when we first moved in. I thought maybe I could bend the rules and bring some of the nicer items into the house. But there really wasn’t anything to work with. It’s old, but it’s also all pretty ordinary.”

She stayed by the door as Willy and I ventured forward, picking our way gingerly through a few narrow, haphazard aisles.

“It seems so strange,” she added, “given the rest of the place is so immaculate. I always wondered why he put such value on this.”

I couldn’t argue with her. It was strange.

“But the records we discussed,” I began. “The registration books…?”

“Oh, they’re here,” she said quickly, adding vaguely, “although I’m not so sure where anymore. They might be in a trunk or suitcase or something. I remember opening a lid or a top and just seeing them there-leather books with ‘Register’ printed in gold on them.”

I could tell she was getting restless, lingering by the opening, her hand still on the latch.

“This is going to take some doing,” Willy said.

I couldn’t disagree. We would need time and more people to even make a dent.

“Okay, Mrs. Robin, I guess we’ll take it from here. We’ll try to be as fast and discreet as we can, but I’m going to have to bring in some help. I hope that’s okay. I’ll make sure there are no police cars.”

She hesitated a moment. “I don’t suppose I could ask what this is all about, in case the guests ask.”

Willy ended as he’d begun. “You got that right,” he said, and sent her on her way.

I found the registers two hours later, not in a trunk or suitcase but in a wooden box labeled “Toys.” There were six of them, one for each year, starting in 1944.

“Eureka,” I said tiredly, holding one of them over my head for the others to see, cold and bored enough by now to barely feel elated.

I was not alone in that. Tom Shanklin and Sammie, who made up our reinforcements, were as covered with dust and cobwebs as Willy and I and made their way to my side like miners at the end of a shift.

I handed them each a book and kept the remaining three for myself. “Let’s see if we can muscle our way into Mrs. Robin’s good graces for some coffee and a warm spot to read this stuff.”

I led the way across to the bed-and-breakfast, making sure Willy brought up the rear, knocked on the kitchen door, and entered. Donna Robin was standing at the sink, running water into a plastic bucket. While the others huddled on the porch waiting, I made my pitch and was granted access to the large wooden table by the stove, complete with coffee all around.

For the next hour, we combed through the old leather books, page by page, often pausing to confer about the nearly illegible handwriting. We were further slowed down by the need to go beyond merely looking for Deschamps’s name and search for anything that might seem unusual.

Tom Shanklin, however, hit exactly what we were after. “Jean Deschamps,” he said quietly. “January sixteenth, 1947. One night only.” He shoved the book over to me. “There’s a note next to it-different handwriting. I can’t make it out.”

I looked at it, Sammie leaving her chair to bend over my shoulder. “It’s not English,” she commented.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Willy got up abruptly and crossed over to the oversized steel fridge, yanking open its door. Mrs. Robin had long since left us.

“Spanish,” I said. “At least I think it is. Close the door, Willy. Who knows what ‘efectos personales en maleta en guardarropa’ means?”

Willy slammed the fridge shut. “Doubt anyone would know with that accent. This is bullshit.”

He marched out through the swinging door leading to the front of the building, leaving us all staring after him. “Where’s he going?” Shanklin asked, still new to Willy’s volatility. Sammie smiled, her expression betraying more than friendship.

“To get a solution.” Like kids eavesdropping on their parents, we quietly moved to the door and held it partially open, hearing voices several rooms down.

“Mrs. Robin,” we heard Willy say with disarming friendliness.

Her voice, in contrast, sounded almost alarmed. “What?”

“We’re in kind of a jam back there, and I suddenly thought you might be the perfect person to help us out. Wonderful coffee, by the way-a lifesaver, today especially. Really appreciated it.”

She was obviously taken off guard. “Oh… You’re welcome,” she said warily. “Did you find what you were after?”

“Well, that’s the problem. We’re not sure. We’ve got something written in what we think is Spanish. I thought maybe in a high-class place like this you might have a guest who knows enough Spanish to translate it for us.”

“Spanish,” she repeated. “Of course. That would have been Mr. Alvarez, probably writing a note to himself. We found several scraps tucked away like that when we moved in, mostly in the kitchen.”

“That must’ve been fascinating,” Willy commented, almost convulsing Sammie with suppressed laughter.

“Well, they weren’t really,” Donna Robin admitted. “Mostly just one- or two-word reminders. Actually, all the guests are gone right now-skiing or shopping or whatever-but I might be able to help. I speak some Spanish.”

“Great,” we heard Willy say, as we retreated to the table and pretended to be hard at work.

Footsteps approached and then Willy ushered in Mrs. Robin like a favorite aunt. “I think I found our translator,” he announced.

She blushed and quickly added, “I’m not making any promises. It’s not like I’m fluent or anything.”

I stood up and made room for her before the open register. “Right there,” I said, tapping the phrase with my finger.

She took my place, removed a pair of reading glasses from her cardigan pocket, and sat silently for a moment, studying. “Let’s see,” she said to herself, “ ‘maleta’… that’s ‘suitcase.’ And ‘guardarropa’ I think is ‘wardrobe’ or ‘closet.’ I wonder what that means?”

None of us had any doubts. Half the contents of the barn’s back room was luggage of one sort or another, and most of it was full. All the boredom and tedium of the past several hours vaporized. As a single unit, we headed back outside, Willy first, having dropped his charm like a hot rock.

“Thanks, Donna,” I said, last in line. “You’re a godsend.”

It didn’t take us long after that, although Federico Alvarez would not have been pleased with our methods. We went through trunks, suitcases, packs, and boxes like a herd of thieves, not quite throwing the contents of each piece over our shoulders, but close enough. Finally, fittingly, Willy said, “I think I got it,” and stood back from an open pigskin valise filled with neatly folded, slightly moldy, expensive clothing, on top of which was a leather toilet kit with the initials JMD stamped on it.

“Deschamps’s middle name was Marie, right?” Willy asked.

“Right,” I said, standing beside him, slightly amazed at our luck. Looking down at the same clothes that had so impressed Arvin Brown, packed by the man I’d met in the autopsy room, I was left revisiting the historical ambiguities that had haunted my dreams the night before-and wondering if they hadn’t been prescient after all.

“Better wrap it up,” I said. “We’re going to want to take our time with this.”