Nice Weekend for a Murder

1

New York is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. And it wasn’t that great a place to visit, either, this time around.

When you make your living as a writer, at least as a writer of books, whether fiction or nonfiction or both, you must be resigned to the fact that occasional trips to New York City are a necessary evil. New York remains the hub of the publishing world, and if you don’t go in now and then to remind your agent that you are more than a faceless voice attached to a bad phone connection, and to have long lunches with editors who must be similarly reminded, then you might as well have stayed in Iowa.

I might as well have stayed in Iowa. The two editors of mine I lunched with — for two respective houses — were glad to see me and had a lot of wonderful things to say about how nicely some of their other writers were doing. My books, unfortunately, weren’t doing all that well. Oh, there’d been a flurry of activity when one of them sold to TV — and we even landed a book club sale; but a sale to paperback remained elusive and nobody was very optimistic. Including me.

And then my agent made my day... in the Clint Eastwood sense, that is. He had just read the four-hundred-page change-of-pace manuscript I’d sent him a few weeks before — the book that would change my career, my “breakthrough book.”

“Mallory, in good conscience,” he said, “I can’t even advise reworking this. It’d be a waste of bond paper. Put it in the drawer and try again.”

My agent and I went way back — almost ten years. One of my teachers at a summer writers’ conference had liked my first suspense novel well enough to write me a letter of introduction to this well-thought-of, if hard-nosed, agent, who had a stable of top-flight mystery writers. A hard, round ball of a man, Jake Kreiger was renowned for his lack of tact. As Curt Clark once said, “Jake Kreiger thinks tact is something you put on the teacher’s chair.”

I’d never run into this side of Jake Kreiger, not full-blast anyway; he always treated me kindly, if patronizingly. He had taken me on as a client based upon the manuscript I submitted to him way back when, thinking I was a promising kid. Trouble was, ten years later, at thirty-five years of age, I was still a promising kid to him. If I was still a kid, why were my temples turning gray?

So I fired him. He seemed surprised. He was a guy who landed million-dollar contracts for people, after all (not for me). He sat at his big desk in his little walk-down office on West End Avenue and looked, for a moment, like someone had punched him in his considerable stomach.

But he got over it quickly, handing me my thick manuscript with one hand and extending the other, offering it in a handshake, without standing, though he seemed sincere when he wished me the best of luck.

Now I was sitting on a bus, feeling like I was on my way to my draft physical. Anyway, that was the last bus ride I could remember being this depressed on. Of course, on that trip I hadn’t been sitting next to a beautiful young woman, which was certainly an improvement over the naive Iowa farm boy I’d been sitting by then, a redheaded hick who was excited about getting a chance to “shoot some gooks.” He had pronounced it “gucks,” actually, but I didn’t bother correcting him. Somebody else no doubt would. A gook, maybe.

But all of that was years ago. We’d both been to Vietnam, that naive farm boy and me — an only slightly less naive Iowa farm boy myself, come to think of it. I, at least, had made it back. And after several years of bumming around, in this job and that one, and the requisite bout with drugs, Haight-Ashbury style, I’d ended up going home again, to Iowa, Thomas Wolfe’s advice notwithstanding, where I took in some G.I.-Bill college and pursued my life’s dream of being a writer. Specifically, a mystery writer.

And the dream had come true. Half a dozen books later, and here I was — a published, publishing writer, who had moved out of his house trailer in a questionable neighborhood into a house in an unquestionable neighborhood and even got to go to the Big Apple now and then to spruce up his career.

Which at the moment seemed to be over.

“This is only a setback,” the beautiful woman sitting next to me said. Her name was Jill Forrest, and she was about the only positive part of my life I could think of at the moment. Well, my health was pretty good. Jill Forrest and my health. The rest you can have.

“That’s what General Custer said,” I replied. “Only a setback.”

Jill pursed her lips in a wry little smile. She was a dark woman about my age, with short, black, spiky hair and cornflower-blue eyes and wardrobe by Kamali. She’d grown up in Port City, Iowa, like me, but had gone off to the big city, specifically NYC, and become a success. She’d landed back in Port City recently for a tour of duty at the local cable station. That’s what she was doing these days: she set up new cable TV systems in cities and towns across the Great Plains, got ’em rolling, then mounted up and moved on to the next gunfight, like John Wayne. Her Port City mission was nearing its end, which was a sore point between us; this New York getaway together was a truce of sorts.

She pressed her hand against my sleeve. “Put those dreadful two days behind you,” she said. “We’ve got a lovely weekend up ahead. We’re just going to forget all about agents and editors and mystery writing.”

“Jill,” I said. “We’re on our way to Mohonk, remember? Going to a mystery weekend to forget about agents and editors and mystery writing is like going to Disneyland to forget mice.”

“We’re going to have a good time, Mal, dammit. You promised.”

“I know I did.”

“Besides, maybe being around some other writers will be good for you.”

“I’ll find out I’m not the only one having problems, you mean? Because it’s a tough business?”

“Yes. But more than just ‘misery loves company’ — you can get some advice about finding a new agent.”

I was worried about that. Working out of Iowa meant I had to have an agent; without somebody looking after my interests in New York, my career would be just another Iowa crop that failed. But I’d had Kreiger from the very beginning. I knew no other agents, had no idea how to go about acquiring one.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “I can talk to Curt, at least. He might have some ideas. And Tom.”

“Sure. This really is just a setback. In fact, I’d say it’s for the better.”

“For the better?”

“Yeah. Kreiger hasn’t been doing much for you lately, has he?”

“No. He’s been paying attention to his successful clients.”

“I saw how he treats you. Like a kid. You need somebody who respects what you’re doing. That new book of yours needs an agent who’ll get excited about it.”

“As opposed to one who suggests putting it in a drawer.”

“Right. And as for your editors, they seem to like you and your work well enough. So your last couple of books haven’t set the world on fire. So what? I’m sure they’ll be open to new things from you. In fact, if you can’t find an agent right away, you could show the new book directly to your editors.”

“Yeah! Why not?”

She smiled again. “Why not indeed,” she said.

Well, I felt a little better now. All I needed was a pep talk like that from her every ten minutes or so and I’d be fine.

In the meantime, the bus was moving along the New York State Thruway at a moderate pace; snow was coming down, traffic was slow, and the highway slippery. Me, I was homesick. Wishing I’d never agreed when my friend and, well, mentor Curt Clark invited me to be part of this mystery weekend. I’m not much for game-playing, after all. But the Mohonk people had paid for my plane ticket, in and out of New York City, meaning I could come in a few days early and squeeze in my business trip at their expense, as far as airfare was concerned. Which had made Mohonk seem like a great idea at the time.

I just hadn’t counted on getting so bummed out (once a hippie, always a hippie) in New York. Visions of my agent being excited over my “breakthrough book,” dreams of editors eagerly asking me to do even more books for them, for lots and lots of money, were replaced by the wet, gray sludge of reality that had settled in the space where my brain used to be.

So much for Jill’s pep talk cheering me up.

I wished I was back in my little house with the river view in Port City, Iowa; sitting in front of the fireplace with Jill and me and no clothes at all, wrapped up in a blanket while the Iowa winter whistled outside and didn’t get in, except through the occasional crack or cranny, and we didn’t give a damn because we had the fire and the blanket and each other.

But I was still in New York — albeit not New York City. Jill and I — and I did have Jill, if not the fire and the blanket — were on our way to Mohonk Mountain House, a resort near New Paltz, upstate. I didn’t know much about Mohonk, except that it was supposed to be a big, rambling old place, much in demand in the nicer months, and in the off-season it had been throwing some very successful, much imitated “mystery weekends.”

A mystery weekend is a gathering at which mystery buffs and puzzle fanatics converge and, forming into teams, try to solve a mystery. At Mohonk, the plots were always concocted by a famous mystery writer, acted out by invited guests who are themselves nationally known mystery writers (the latter a category I barely fit, if my ex-agent and current editors were to be polled on the subject). On this very bus were a gaggle of mystery fans, chattering and flying high, almost giddy, on the idea of the weekend to come. Most of these people seemed fairly normal, although there were more Sherlock Holmes — style deerstalker caps than I’d ever encountered on one bus before.

None of my fellow mystery-writer guests seemed to be on this bus, which had departed New York late this afternoon, Thursday. Some of them were going by car, and others had taken an earlier bus. Both buses had left from Casablanca — an Italian restaurant on Twenty-second Street in Manhattan with a Bogart/mystery theme. Its owners, Carl and Millie Arnold, were among the most diehard Mohonk players, I’d heard. They were on the bus, already planning strategies. Apparently the two of them had been on the winning team for three years in a row.

Everybody on the bus was having a great time. It was a party atmosphere — except for yours truly, party-pooper extraordinaire. I sat looking out a frosty window at the New York State countryside whizzing by; it didn’t look much different than the Midwest to me — more like Illinois than Iowa, maybe, but otherwise just generic winter countryside. Nor did New Paltz itself, as we moved down its main street of shops and restaurants, seem like anything other than the small college town it was. New York, strangely, seemed to be a part of America, once you got out of New York City, that is.

It was dark now, and we went over a bridge, took a right at the Mohonk sign, and started up the narrow blacktop road that climbed the mountain. The resemblance to the Midwest had come to an end. This was not a hill, which we have a few of in Iowa. This was a mountain. The real thing — rocky, big, and up. We stopped at a little rustic house, where the bus driver got out and checked in with a guard in a green blazer, who logged us in on a clipboard before allowing us on. Then the denseness of the snow-covered trees around us and the steepness of the climb settled in on us, as the bus finally began its upwardly mobile way through the darkness, creating an unreal mood. Almost a surreal mood.

“Agatha Christie, here we come,” Jill said.

“More like Stephen King,” I said.

Because suddenly the hotel was looming up before us like a monstrous movie set, a sprawling Victorian affair with towers and spires and gables and windows and windows and windows and balconies and balconies and balconies, wooden wings alternating with stone ones, a man-made cliff rising into the night sky.

Many of the players on the bus seemed unimpressed; they had been here before — they weren’t naive Iowa farm boys, either. They were imperturbable Easterners, scurrying toward the entrance as bellboys in winter coats began transferring luggage from the underbelly of the bus onto carts.

I, on the other hand, stumbled off the bus with my mouth open and my eyes open and my mind reeling and just stood there.

“What the hell planet is this?” I asked nobody in particular.

“The planet Mohonk,” nobody in particular responded, nobody in particular being Jill.

Some snow was falling, lightly, and the air was bitter cold. Everybody’s breath was visible as we moved into the hotel and into warmth and another era. A Victorian era, where the woodwork was dark and polished, the halls were wide and carpeted, off of which were little parlors — sitting rooms — where the furniture was antique and plush, the lighting soft-focus and yellow. Wonders never ceased: frondy plants and fresh-cut flowers were everywhere; wide wooden stairways rose like a challenge to ignore those newfangled elevators; here, a carved-wood and stone fireplace; there, a Chinese vase as tall as an eight-year-old child.

Which was fitting, because it was like being a child again, in your grandparents’ house, where everything seemed to belong to yesterday, and where the rooms went on forever, and where the air was musty and fresh at the same time.

Jill saw it a different way; she cuddled to me and said, “It’s like a huge haunted house... only we’re the ghosts.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning.

Because suddenly I wasn’t depressed anymore.

Why? Hey, I’m a mystery writer, after all.

And this was a great place for a murder.

2

The lines at the check-in counter were long, but in their vicinity we ran into Tom Sardini, an old writer pal of mine, who was already checked in. He stood with us while we waited, so we at least could talk (or, as they say in New York, schmooze).

Old pal Tom wasn’t all that old, really — in his early thirties — but we went back seven or eight years. Tom had written me my first fan letter, and I’d given him some help with some of his early manuscripts. He had gone on to be a successful writer himself — more successful than I actually, which is an excellent argument for not helping out aspiring writers.

Except that I liked both Tom and his stuff, anyway that which I’d been able to keep up with. He was widely known as the “fastest typewriter in the East,” books flying out of his word processor from his Brooklyn home in a blur of typescript, the royalty checks flying in the same way. He was making a small fortune (maybe not so small) by churning out adult westerns — his “Shootist” series of paperbacks was among the top three in the field; but his love was private-eye fiction: He was the founder of the Private-Eye Writers of America, and more important, his latest novel about ex-boxer-turned-P.I. Jacob Miles was so good I hated him.

Which is exactly what I told him, as I gave him a hug.

“This is Jill Forrest,” I said, and Jill smiled at him and they shook hands. What kind of world is it, when two men hug, and a man and woman shake hands?

Tom, by the way, was five-ten, bearded, bespectacled, and a tad overweight, as befits a successful writer. I was leaner and taller and better-looking. Well, leaner and taller, anyway. He wore an off-white long-sleeved shirt and slacks; I was wearing jeans and a dark green sweatshirt that said “THE BUTLER DID IT,” if it matters, winter coat slung over my arm.

“I’ve heard all about you,” Tom said to Jill, taking in her slim figure with an appreciative smile. That figure was ensconced in a white and gray vertical-striped top and snug, black leather trousers, ball of white fur winter coat draped around her. She was a slightly snazzier dresser than me, as you have already gathered.

“I’d imagine you have heard about me,” she said. “I’ve seen Mal’s phone bills.”

Tom and I shared long and expensive phone conversations into the wee hours; friendships in the writing game often require long-distance maintenance.

“And,” Jill went on, showing Tom the ironic smile that was among the laundry list of reasons why I fell in love with her, “I’ve heard about you, too. Is it true you’ve written more books in your short life than Mal’s read in his longer one?”

“Probably,” Tom said.

Jill turned to me and squeezed my arm. “Look, I’ll get in line here, Mal, and get us checked in. You two go sit over there and insult each other for a while.”

We took her advice, settling down on a velvet-cushioned settee. Various game-players were milling about expectantly, but here and there people sat and quietly talked — Tom and I, for instance, basking in the soft yellow lighting and warm, homey atmosphere of the old resort.

“Where’s Anna?” I asked.

“She couldn’t make it this trip,” he said with a regretful little shrug.

“I haven’t seen Anna since Bouchercon,” I said. Anna was Tom’s lovely, zoftig, Oriental spouse, who’d accompanied him to the annual mystery convention, held last year in San Francisco. “Hey! Wasn’t she pregnant?”

“You really are the king of amateur detectives,” he said. “She was only six months along, and you figured that out.”

“My powers of observation are legend,” I said. “Meaning, greatly exaggerated. So, what? She’s home nursing a two-month-old?”

“Literally,” Tom said, nodding. “Normally, I wouldn’t do one of these things without her — but being invited to be part of Mystery Weekend at Mohonk is kind of an honor.”

And it was. If I wasn’t a friend of Curt Clark’s, I wouldn’t have been invited; I was just too small a fry in the mystery world to qualify. Curt, who was the latest of several top-rank mystery writers to head up the Mohonk Mystery Weekend, was “an acknowledged master of the comedy caper,” as The Mystery Chronicler had put it.

“I see you’re going to be speaking tomorrow afternoon,” he said, referring to a program he held in one hand. “On ‘Translating True Crime into Mystery Fiction.’ ”

“I haven’t seen that yet,” I said, meaning the program. “All I got in the mail from Curt was the suggested topic for my speech, and a cast list and description of my character in the mystery. Which I assume each of us playing a role got, so we could put together an appropriate wardrobe.”

“Right,” Tom said. “I play a tough private eye.”

“Typecasting,” I said.

“I guess. All I had to do was pack a trenchcoat and fedora and.38. Well, it’s a full-scale replica of a.38, anyway. How about you?”

“I play a nerd,” I said. “Sort of Pee-Wee Herman on the Orient Express. And no further comments on typecasting are necessary.”

“All I can say is, some of us are obviously typecast. Did you get a load of who the murder victim is?”

“No. I mean, from the write-up Curt sent me about my character, I gather it’s a critic.”

“It sure is a critic,” Tom grinned.

“Can I infer, then, that the role of critic is being played by some real critic?”

“You can. Care to guess who?”

“I don’t remember seeing a critic on the guest list...”

“Clark left that name off the list. He likes to play things cute, you know. That’s what he’s famous for, in those books of his — his wicked sense of humor.”

“Who, then? The only critic I can think of that anybody might want to murder is that weasel Kirk Rath.”

Tom beamed. “The very weasel in question.”

Kirk S. Rath was, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, easily the most famous and controversial critic in mystery circles. A smug, pedantic critic (his professed role model being John Simon), Rath was the editor and publisher of The Mystery Chronicler, published out of his home in Albany. This monthly magazine, famed for its in-depth interviews with mystery writers and its scholarly, yet entertaining, articles about the classic writers of both the drawing-room and tough-guy schools of mystery fiction, had been the surprise publishing success of the mystery world in recent years. Starting as a fanzine, The Mystery Chronicler had spread to the mystery bookstores and now was circulated to several of the major bookstore chains.

More important, it was widely circulated to libraries, and was having a big impact on which mysteries got bought by the libraries themselves, which, of course, was the major market for most hardcover mysteries.

For all its distinctions, however, The Mystery Chronicler was best known for one thing: the articulate but mean-spirited, often viciously personal criticism written by smug young Kirk Rath himself. Rath was currently tied up in no less than three libel cases, all stemming from his personal attacks upon various mystery writers.

“Brother,” I said. “I don’t know if I share Curt’s sense of humor on that one. Every guest he’s invited has reason to hate Rath.”

“Including you.”

“Yeah, he’s fileted me a few times. And you, too.”

“He really hates my work,” Tom said, rolling his eyes. “ ‘Sardini also writes adult westerns. Perhaps the prolific Mr. Sardini should stick to sagebrush and sex; his private-eye “yawn” features a dim-witted detective who may be the most singularly uninteresting character in mystery fiction.’ ”

“Don’t tell me you memorize bad reviews.”

“They sear into my brain like a branding iron, as we cowboy writers from Brooklyn like to say. So... what did Rath say about you, Mal?”

“Which time?”

“Last time.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try.”

“Umm, it might’ve been something like ‘Mallory writes fictionalized accounts of real-life cases, and this latest is his most unengaging, unconvincing mock-up of all — thin on character, weak on basic storytelling skills.’ ”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “I don’t let bad reviews get to me, either.”

Jill came over with our room key and said, “We’re on the ground floor. I’d been hoping for one of those rooms with balconies and a view, but what the hell.”

“I’m just down the hall from you,” Tom said to her as he and I stood. “So my view isn’t any better.”

“Maybe Kirk Rath’ll let us borrow his view,” I said. “No matter what floor he’s on, it’s bound to be aloof.”

“The room’s this way,” Jill said, gesturing; she’d had enough snappy patter and milling around. “I want to freshen up before dinner.”

We told Tom we’d see him in the dining hall, and I followed Jill around a corner, down a wide corridor, subdued wallpaper and polished woodwork all around; it was one of those endless halls like in the movie version of The Shining (Stephen King again — he’s everywhere) and I half expected that little kid to come pedaling his Big Wheel around the corner at us.

But he didn’t and we finally found our room — 64 — and Jill worked the key in the lock, saying, “Tom seems like a nice guy.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “And he’s probably written another book since we saw him last.”

We stepped inside. The room was small — make that cozy — but it had its own polished-wood and brick fireplace with a fresh supply of firewood nearby. Our bags awaited us as well. The walls were papered in vertical stripes of yellow shades and the ceiling was high and the window looked out on a patch of snowy ground beyond which was the white frozen lake. A wooden, Japanese-style walkway bridge spanned a near section of the lake, from one ledge of rock to another, with a gazebo at midway point; the wooden bridge did not at all obscure the view of the lake, beyond which rock ledges rose, as well as towering evergreens, distinct and distinctly unreal in the blue-gray moonlight.

But back in the room we had a problem.

“Twin beds,” we said.

“There must be some mistake,” I said.

“Maybe it’s because we’re not married.”

“If it comes to that, I’m ready for a ceremony at sea. Where’s the captain of this ship?”

“Wouldn’t that be your friend Curt Clark?”

I paced between the beds. “When I made the arrangements with Curt, I told him I was bringing a female companion. I figured he would’ve guessed I didn’t mean my Aunt Mabel.”

“If you had an Aunt Mabel.”

“If I had an Aunt Mabel,” I said, and then, in mid-pace, I noticed something else that wasn’t there.

“Where’s the goddamn TV?” I said.

Jill poked around, looking in this corner, and that one; and in the bathroom, and she even, I swear to God, looked under the nearest bed.

“There doesn’t seem to be one,” she said.

“How do they expect me to watch Hill Street Blues?”

“Somehow I don’t think they do.”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do with my Thursday nights in Iowa?”

“We’re not in Iowa, anymore.”

“They got TVs in New York,” I said, irritably, “even upstate,” and went for the phone on the nightstand between the beds. Only there wasn’t one.

“There isn’t even a damn phone,” I said. “Maybe if I go down to the front desk, they’ll provide me with two tin cans and a long piece of string!”

“Cool it, lover,” Jill said, pointing to the table next to her. “There’s a phone here by the window.”

And there it was. It had been right in front of me before and I hadn’t noticed, so caught up in the view of the lake and mountains and such had I been.

“It’s on a long cord,” Jill said. “Want to move it over to the nightstand?”

“No,” I said, joining her, dialing 0. “All I want is my TV and a double bed.”

“I like a man who knows what he wants.”

“Curt Clark’s room, please,” I told the operator, and waited. I looked around the room some more, waiting for Curt to come on the line.

“If I got to pay a little extra myself,” I said, “I am going to get my double bed and TV. I’m a juggernaut on this one, kid.”

She gave me a thumbs up. She worked for a cable company. She believed in TVs. Double beds, too, for that matter.

The phone was ringing in Curt’s room and in my ear and it would have gone on forever, I guess, if I hadn’t hung up.

I stood. I spread my hands and said, not without a little desperation, “How do they expect us to have any fun in a room with twin beds and no TV?”

Jill shrugged expansively. “It’s a mystery to me... But then this is a mystery weekend, isn’t it?”

“Come on,” I said, taking charge, heading for the door. “If I know Curt, he’ll be down in the bar. We can get this thing straightened out.”

My hand was on the door but I stepped back; somebody had trumped my doorknob with a knock. Okay, then. I was game; I opened the door.

Curt Clark was standing there, with a big grin on his face — and where else did you expect it to be?

He moved in past us, a good-looking, rangy guy in his late forties, with thinning blond hair and dark-rimmed glasses; he was wearing a sports coat with patched elbows, and corduroy trousers.

“Ah, good!” he said, gesturing about him. “You got one of the nice rooms.”

“The nice rooms?”

“Well, they’re all nice, but they don’t all have fireplaces. That’s cute, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, uh... it’s cute.”

Curt turned to Jill and said, “And you must be...”

“Mal’s Aunt Mabel,” she said, smiling, shaking his hand.

He didn’t get the joke, but he knew an inside joke when he saw one and laughed a little anyway. “Funny,” he said, “I figured you for this Jill Forrest person Mal’s always raving about.”

Tom Sardini wasn’t the only reason my phone bills were thicker than my latest novel.

“That’s me,” she said. “I have to admit I haven’t read any of your books yet...”

“You’re in good company,” Curt said, smiling some more.

“But I intend to soon,” she said. “I’m not really a mystery fan—”

Curt waved a hand in the air. “Me, either!”

“—though I’ve started to read a few, on Mal’s recommendation. I’m enjoying them.”

“Let me guess,” Curt said, stalking our room, checking it out, peering out the window at the icy lake. “He’s feeding you Roscoe Kane intravenously.”

This time I smiled. “I haven’t hit her with any Kane, yet. I’m starting her off on Hammett and Chandler.”

“Good, good,” Curt said, planting his feet in one place. “In twenty or so years he’ll have you worked up to me.”

“Oh no,” Jill said. “You’re coming up next... right after Mickey Spillane.”

Curt laid a hand on his chest. “Rating right after the Mick on Mal’s reading list is a high compliment indeed. This doesn’t prevent me from being horrified, of course. Speaking of which, isn’t this place something? This is where they should’ve filmed The Shining!”

Him again.

“Actually, Curt,” I said tentatively, “we were wondering about the twin beds...”

“All the rooms have twin beds,” he said dismissively.

“Well, uh, what about the television?”

“There aren’t any televisions. Why, are you still watching television? Nobody watches television. I thought you were a writer, for Christ’s sake.”

“This place does have me a little confused,” I admitted. “Look, let’s go down to the bar. I’ll buy you a drink and—”

“There’s no bar,” Curt said.

I laughed. “I could have sworn you said—”

“There’s no bar,” he said. “I said that, yes. That’s because there’s no bar.”

I looked at Jill; she looked at me.

“This place is owned and operated by Quakers,” he said.

“Quakers?” I said.

“Quakers?” Jill said.

“Quakers,” Curt said. “You know — like the oats.”

“Nixon was a Quaker,” I said. “He drank.”

“Not here,” Curt said. “The hotel — which insists on calling itself a ‘mountain house,’ by the way, because the Quakers who originated the place didn’t want to own anything so decadent as a ‘hotel’ — has no bar, the rooms have no televisions, and there are no double beds. With that in mind, feel free to have as much fun as you want.” He checked his watch. “They’re serving supper now.”

“They do have food here, then?”

Curt grinned. “Sure, after you say grace,” he said, and went out.

I followed, and Jill hesitated at the door, locking up, then followed me.

“I’ll show you to the dining hall,” he said. Then he nodded to room sixty-two as we passed and said, “We’re neighbors, by the way. Feel free to knock for a cup of sugar anytime Kim and I aren’t in the room.”

Kim was Curt’s wife, a lovely woman in her late twenties, an actress.

“How did you do in the city?” Curt asked me.

“Well, I don’t have an agent anymore.”

“Jake Kreiger finally got to you, huh? What the hell, you’re due for a change.”

Jill said, “Maybe you could talk to your agent for Mal—”

I said, “Jill, please—”

Curt grinned. “My agent’s Jake Kreiger. Lack of tact doesn’t bother me much — I’m a native New Yorker.”

“Woops,” Jill said.

“Mal, forget all that career crap — the point of this place is getting away from it all,” Curt said, gesturing with both hands, walking fast. He seemed a little keyed up from all the responsibility. “Away from the modern world into something more peaceful.”

As he said this, three women in deerstalker caps scurried by, chattering like magpies.

“Right,” I said.

“Of course,” Curt said, as we followed him up the wide stairs to the dining hall, “there’s nothing like a little old-fashioned murder to liven things up a bit...”

3

The dining room was an expansive, pine-paneled affair with an open-beamed ceiling that went up a couple of stories, and would have seemed austere if not for the usual Mohonk soft yellow lighting from chandeliers. The scores of small tables with white cloths and hard wooden chairs were attended by young men, in gold jackets, and young women, in black dresses with white aprons, whose serving counters were built around support beams, coffee steaming, condiments awaiting someone’s need. It was like a Protestant church with food.

And the food was good, if surprisingly no-frills Midwestern in style. I was reminded of the many fine family-style restaurants at the Amana Colonies back in Iowa, where bowl upon bowl of basic but quite wonderful food is brought to your table till you say “when”; and those of us from farm stock take our good sweet time about saying “when,” too. Mohonk was the same dang deal — homemade bread and rolls, fruit, steaming parsley potatoes and mixed vegetables, and your choice of two meats, tonight fried chicken and roast beef, medium rare.

After two days in New York, lunching and supping with editors and my ertswhile agent at expensive hole-in-the-wall Manhattan eateries (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence) serving haute cuisine and sushi and the like, my middlebrow, middle-west taste buds were delighted to greet something so plainly, so purely food.

The heavy-set gentleman sitting opposite me — a barrel-chested man with short gray hair, gray eyes, and a startling tan, rather spiffily dressed in a blue blazer and open-collared peach-color shirt with a single gold chain at his throat — seemed to agree with me. He, too, was chowing down.

We had already introduced ourselves — he was Jack Flint (and I was Mallory, remember?) and I said I was pleased to meet him, and I was: he was one of my favorite writers in the genre, one of the handful of modern “tough-guy” practitioners that I kept up with.

Flint was in his mid-forties — and was that rarity among mystery writers: he had at one time been a private detective in what we laughingly refer to as “real life.” His detective novels were private-eye procedurals, dealing with such real P.I. practices as skip tracing and process serving, and were written in a beautifully understated manner worthy of Joe Gores.

“How does this compare to California-style fare?” I asked, knowing Flint was from San Francisco.

The pleasant features of his rather full face all seemed to smile at once, particularly the gray eyes. “It beats sprouts,” he granted me.

His wife, Janis, sitting next to him, was an unassumingly attractive blonde, wearing a white, yellow, and orange print dress and no makeup. She seemed to be eating only salad and such.

“This menu does play hell with a vegetarian,” I said to her.

She smiled shyly and nodded.

Jill, next to me, said, “I’m a something of a vegetarian myself, only I allow myself chicken and fish.”

Also hot dogs, tacos, and pepperoni pizza, if truth be told, but why spoil the spell?

Janis Flint said, “I eat fish too.” And smiled. She seemed almost painfully shy, but if anybody could bring her out, it would be Jill.

In fact, Jill began trading information with Janis — who, it turned out, was a grade-school teacher and who was involved in educational television, which gave cable maven Jill something to latch onto — while I questioned Flint.

At first I unashamedly told him about my agent problems, and he recommended his own guy — “He’s British and long on tact” — and wrote the info down on the back of one of his cards, telling me to feel free to mention his name. He had made a friend forever.

Actually, I was a little embarrassed by his straightforward kindness and, so, we ate in silence for a while after; silence but for Jill talking with Janis, who had loosened up some. I told you so.

“Haven’t seen a book from you in a while,” I said to him, finally.

Flint took time out from the breast of chicken he was working on to shrug and reply. “I’d like to, but the money is so much better in Hollywood.”

“Why, uh, have you moved there...?”

He smiled. “No, but I’ve been writing for them. A couple of Mike Hammers and a Magnum, last season; a Riptide coming up. And the screenplay for Black Mask.”

Black Mask was Flint’s most famous novel — a historical fantasy about a murder committed at a dinner attended by all the famous pulp writers of the thirties; Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett team up to solve the crime, which turns out to have been committed by Carroll John Daly. A movie had been in the works for years; Spielberg himself had optioned it. Big bucks.

“Is that movie going to happen?”

He shrugged. “They’re in so-called preproduction now. Spielberg has one of his film-school cronies on it. The shooting script doesn’t have much to do with my book or my script.”

“That must be disappointing.”

“No. It’s just Hollywood.”

“Well, I sure hope your Case File novels get going again.”

He raised an eyebrow. “After what the critics did to the last one, how dare I?”

“Don’t be silly. The critics love your books.”

“Well, the last Case File didn’t even rate a New York Times review... and that little S.O.B. Rath savaged it. Library sales were pitiful. The paperback bailed us out a little.”

“Uh... I guess you aren’t aware that...”

“Rath is an ‘honored’ guest here? Yes, I am. Curt warned me; he knows how I feel about Rath. I came anyway.”

“How do you feel about Rath?”

“Let’s just say I wish I was the murderer.”

I remembered some of Rath’s reviews of Flint’s books. Rath had called Flint misogynistic and psychopathic, because his most recent novel focused on a psychotic rapist (is there any other kind?) as narrator. It was a bold book, a chilling and distinctive performance, perhaps the best novel of its kind since Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. The latter sentence is my opinion, however — not Rath’s. Rath trashed the novel and, by assuming the narrator’s sensibilities mirrored the author’s, made the most unpardonable blunder in literary criticism.

“His Mystery Chronicler is probably the single major obstacle keeping me out of the book business,” Flint said matter-of-factly.

“Is he that important?” Jill asked, her conversation with Mrs. Flint having gotten sidetracked as Flint and my discussion about Rath gathered steam.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “He’s hurt me, too. My editor at Crime Club feels Rath’s negative reviews may be keeping my series out of paperback.”

“One reviewer?” Jill said. “That doesn’t seem possible!”

Flint wiped his chin with a napkin and gestured with a thick hand with delicate fingers. “It’s quite possible, Ms. Forrest.”

“Jill, please.”

“Jill. It’s quite possible. Mysteries don’t garner a lot of reviews, anyway... only those bigger books that ‘cross over,’ ‘break out of category,’ as they say. Enough negative reviews in The Mystery Chronicler can break a career.”

“That seems absurd,” Jill said.

“Doesn’t it,” Flint said.

A waiter leaned in and refilled my iced tea glass. “Actually,” I said, “most of the Chronicler’s reviewing is pretty evenhanded. They favor no specific school, but single out what they see as the best work in every phase of the mystery.”

“That’s part of the problem,” Flint said. “The Chronicler isn’t as consistently tough as, say, Kirkus. It’s just when they do do a negative review — and Rath almost always writes those himself — it’s a devastating one.”

Tom Sardini, who was sitting next to Janis Flint, looked up from his dessert — a portion of strawberry shortcake a story or so high — to comment, “Jeez, Jack, I thought you were one of Rath’s favorites.”

“I was for a while,” Flint said with a rueful smile. “He really put me on a pedestal. Called me my generation’s ‘Hammett,’ which is the kind of praise any writer in our field dreams to hear.”

I laughed, only there wasn’t any humor in it. “That’s his classic approach. He singles somebody out for praise, builds ’em up over a period of time and, then, when he deems ’em too big for their britches, tears ’em down. Rath giveth, Rath taketh away. He’s a Frankenstein who comes to resent all the monsters he’s created.”

“Your metaphor stinks, Mallory,” Flint said, in a friendly way. “It’s Rath who’s the monster.”

The table next to us was where Curt Clark and his wife Kim, an exaggeratedly pretty, rather zoftig brunette, were seated; so was another of the guest writers, my old friend Pete Christian, author of so many fine books on mystery movies. Curt rose and came over to check us out, apparently having overheard Rath’s name mentioned.

“Am I forgiven yet for inviting your Rath?” Curt asked us, eyes atwinkle, leaning in between Mr. and Mrs. Flint. “And that’s a pun, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Aren’t puns a capital crime in New York state?” Flint asked.

“I wish a bad pun were all that Kirk S. Rath was,” I said. “It’s easy for you to take this lightly, Curt. I’ve never seen him give you a bad review.”

Curt shrugged. “I don’t much care. I don’t read reviews.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Not more than three or four times,” he said. “How do you like the food? It’s not fancy, but there’s plenty of it.”

Jack Flint smiled up at Curt and said, “Do you always answer your own questions?”

“Do I? I don’t think so.”

Tom Sardini tore himself away from his strawberry shortcake long enough to say, “And where is the ever-popular Mr. Rath?”

“He’s already eaten,” Curt explained. “The dining room’s been serving since six o’clock, and it’s almost eight now.”

“He wasn’t on our bus,” Jack said.

“Or ours,” I said.

“He drove up in his own car,” Curt said. “Have you ever met Rath?”

The question seemed to be posed to me, so I answered it: “Yeah, a couple of times. He was at the last couple Bouchercons, and I ran into him at an Edgar Awards dinner a few years back. He was nasty, but he lacks sting when he isn’t in print. Strikes me more as immature and... well, naive, than anything else.”

“I’ve never met him,” Jill said. “And I’m dying to.”

Curt checked his watch. “Well, you’ll get your chance in twenty minutes. That’s when the game begins, downstairs in the big parlor. I know drawing-room mysteries ain’t the style of you hardbitten private-eye writers, but just do your best to fit in.”

Curt smiled and returned to his table, while a waitress set my strawberry shortcake in front of me. The berries were blood-red and juicy. Jill was already working on hers. Even the thought of Kirk Rath couldn’t kill our appetites.

4

Outside the dining room, Pete Christian caught up with us. Pete was a warm, enthusiastic man, an eternal precocious kid wrapped up in a slightly stocky, vaguely disheveled, middle-aged package. In his rumpled Rumpole-of-the-Bailey suit, he looked like the lone survivor of a town hit by a tornado — a survivor whose only comment was, “What wind?”

“Mal,” he said, eyes dancing behind dark-rimmed glasses, moustache twitching with his smile, “it’s so good to see you. I’ve been meaning to call.”

We shook hands and patted each other’s shoulders and grinned at each other.

“Jill, this is Peter Christian. He wrote that book on the Charlie Chan movies I loaned you, remember?”

“That was a terrific book,” Jill said, pumping his hand.

“Are you a mystery fan?” Pete asked her, pumping back.

“Not really. But I always liked Charlie Chan movies on the late show, when I was a kid.”

“My dear, you’re still a kid, but a kid with very good taste. I think Sidney Toler’s underrated, don’t you?”

“Definitely,” she said. “But then I even like the Roland Winters ones. I like all those old movies.”

“Well, then you’re in luck; I’m in charge of the film program here, and we’re showing three of the best ones... including Charlie Chan at Treasure Island.”

Her face lit up. “Ah! The one about magicians, with Cesar Romero.”

“Yes! And for the Warner Oland purists we’ll be leading off with Charlie Chan at the Opera.”

“Boris Karloff is wonderful in that,” Jill said.

Pete gave me a mock reproving look. “I thought you said she wasn’t a mystery fan! She knows more about mysteries than you do.”

“I now pronounce you man and movie buff,” I said. “You two can go trivially pursue yourself all weekend, for all I care. As far as I’m concerned, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”

We had been moving — Pete’s a restless type, and when you talk to him he paces, chain-smoking — and were now at the mouth of the Parlor, the massive capital P parlor, which was really a lecture hall and would double as the screening room. Both the dining hall and the Parlor were on the so-called first floor (the real first floor being designated as the ground floor, in the European manner).

“Are you going to be a suspect or a player?” Peter asked Jill.

“Neither,” she said.

“I hope you’re not here for a rest,” he told her, wagging a finger. “This place will be a virtual madhouse for the next forty-eight hours. The Mohonk Mystery Weekenders take their mystery very seriously.”

“I thought they were here for fun,” she said.

“You’ll find all sorts of brilliant professional people here,” Pete said. “Intensely competitive types in their work — and in their play. They’re out for blood, my dear.”

“I hope it doesn’t get unpleasant.”

“If you’re a student of human nature, you’ll have a fine time. Anyway, I don’t take this as seriously as some do, yet I’ve guessed the murderer seven out of nine times.”

“How many of these have you attended?”

“All but one. This is my first time as a suspect.”

“I’m impressed,” she said.

“Mal,” Pete said, “sometime this weekend, we must get together. There’s something we need to work on.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been lobbying to get a Grand Master’s Award for Mickey Spillane.”

“From the Mystery Writers of America? Is there any hope of that happening?”

Pete shrugged elaborately, did a little take, put out a cigarette, found another, and got it going. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Spillane’s never joined the MWA, and some of the members feel he’s snubbed them.”

“Well, a lot of them have snubbed him. You can’t deny his influence on the genre, even if you don’t like his work. He deserves that recognition.”

“I agree, most heartily. I just wondered if you’d help me draft a letter on the subject to the proper committee chairman.”

“I’d love to.”

“There is a problem with that,” a voice said. Not my voice. Not Pete’s.

We turned to look at the source of the voice, which was across from us on a bench. A small, thin man in his late twenties in a gray three-piece suit with a dark blue tie snugged tight in the collar of a light blue button-down shirt sat with his legs crossed, ankle on knee, arms crossed, smirking. Handsome in an angular way, he was blue-eyed, pale as milk, with carefully coiffed longish blond hair. He had paid more for that haircut than I had for my last three.

“And what problem is that?” I asked.

“Mickey Spillane is a cretin,” Kirk S. Rath said. “He is — if you’ll pardon my crudity — a shitty writer.”

Jill swallowed and looked at me, knowing I wouldn’t take that well.

“If you’ll pardon my crudity,” I said, “you’re full of shit.”

And I turned back to Pete, who was, after all, the person I’d been having my private conversation with, and said, “When do you want to draft that letter? Let’s not make it tonight. I’m pretty wasted from two days in NYC, and that bus trip...”

Rath was standing next to me now; I hadn’t seen him come over. It was like a jump cut in a film.

“I don’t see any reason to get personal, Mallory,” Rath said.

I sighed. “You referred to a writer I respect — a man I’ve met and like — as a cretin. That strikes me as personal. Sort of like the personal conversation you inserted your opinion into.”

He smirked again. “Now I’m being accused of intellectual rape.”

“Hardly,” I said. “I don’t think you could get it up.”

The smirk dissolved into a sneer.

“You have a decided suicidal streak, don’t you, Mallory?”

“Why, because you’ll pan my next book? As opposed to those glowing things you’ve said about me in the past? Go to hell, Kirk.”

“You’re rude and you’re crude.”

“And I’m a hip-talkin’ dude. What do you know, Kirk? We’re rappin’! Now go away.”

Rath looked at Pete, sharply, and said, “I don’t like your choice of company, Christian.”

“I don’t like people who barge into private conversations,” Pete said, with some edge.

Jill glanced at me, and I glanced at her.

Rath pointed a finger at Pete like a manicured gun. “You’re vulnerable, too, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Pete said. “I haven’t forgotten what you did to C.J. Beaufort.”

“What I did? Beaufort wrote very bad books, and killed himself. I had nothing to do with either.”

“You destroyed him in print!” Pete was shaking a fist. “It shattered him!”

Rath ignored Pete’s fist and laughed. “Writers are public figures; their work is submitted for public consumption. If they can’t take the heat, they should get the hell out of the literature.”

Pete was trembling; really worked up. “C.J. Beaufort was a kind, gentle man... and he was my friend!”

I stepped in between Pete and Rath. “I hate to break up this little family reunion, but we were all due downstairs about five minutes ago.”

Rath shook his head, said, “You people are pathetic,” and clomped down the nearby stairs.

“So that was Kirk S. Rath,” Jill said, shaken.

“Himself,” I said, feeling a little battered myself.

“I should have thrown him down the stairs,” Pete said as we started down them. He was huffing with anger.

“I shouldn’t have baited him,” I said, regretting having ignited the scene between them. “I was rude and crude.”

“Nonsense! We were talking and he butted in. That arrogant little bastard. You knocked him down a peg or two.”

“Yeah, right. That brings his ego almost down into the stratosphere.”

Jill said, “He’s amazing. Did you see his eyes?”

“What about them?” I asked.

“He’s certifiable,” she said. “He’s a sociopath.”

“He doesn’t feel a shred of remorse over Beaufort’s suicide,” Pete said, a little amazed.

“Kirk Rath isn’t a sociopath,” I said. “He’s just immature. He’s an arrested adolescent. Or is that an adolescent who should be arrested?”

“You’re too easy on him,” Pete said, shaking his head, lighting up another cigarette.

“I think he truly doesn’t understand why his criticism is taken so personally,” I said. “He’s a permanent grad student, dazzled by his own William F. Buckley vocabulary and arch prose style.”

“He knows about the power of the pen,” Pete said, nodding, “But he doesn’t understand the responsibility that goes with it.”

“Maybe that’s why everybody and his duck is suing him,” Jill offered.

“C.J. Beaufort can’t sue him,” Pete said.

And he walked on into the large downstairs parlor where the game players were assembling.

Jill looped her arm in mine. “What’s the story on this guy Beaufort?”

“I don’t know all the details,” I said. “Beaufort was a pulp writer, dating back to the Black Mask days. He was an alcoholic. He had some success in the forties, then faded, and wrote paperbacks under many names, for many years. He had some vocal fans, Pete among them, but mostly he was thought of as a solid pro, a journeyman, nothing special. Till Rath.”

“What did Rath do?”

“From the beginning of the Chronicler, Rath used Beaufort as the consummate example of a talentless hack... really harped on it, making ‘Beaufort’ a virtual synonym for ‘hack.’ ”

By then I was whispering, because we were moving into the big, low-ceilinged chestnut-and-glass parlor known as the Lake Lounge, where several hundred mystery fans were sitting on the floor like Indians. A few were leaning against walls and beams and just generally cramming themselves in. Curt Clark and his wife and the other mystery-writer guests (and spouses and companions) were lined up along one side, and the mostly seated game-players were watching Curt and company with rapt attention.

Rath stood leaning against a beam, his expression foul. Cynthia Crystal, whose urbane drawing-room mysteries had led one critic to dub her “the American Agatha,” was trying to hold a conversation with Rath. She was smiling, being very friendly, laughing in a brittle manner that Rath didn’t seem to be buying. Cynthia was a lanky, fortyish blonde, in a chic-looking charcoal suit (“Halston,” Jill whispered), and she was smoking nervously. I knew her pretty well, and liked her. I knew less well her live-in lover, Tim Culver, whose presence here surprised me.

Culver, a bearded man with wire-rim glasses and a quiet demeanor, looked something like Woody Allen’s older, better-looking brother. He was, in fact, Curt Clark’s older, not necessarily better-looking brother, older by about a minute that is. They were twins. Not identical twins, though the physical resemblance was strong. Otherwise they had little in common. Oh, they were both mystery writers, but Curt wrote comedy, whereas Culver was an exponent of the tough-as-nails school. Where Curt was a witty, life-of-the-party type, Tim was rather dour. He stood slumped against another beam, a drink in his hand (he’d brought his own — Quakers, remember), in a tan corduroy jacket and jeans and an open-at-the-neck plaid lumberjack shirt.

“That’s a shock,” I whispered to Jill.

We were standing next to Jack Flint and his wife; Tom Sardini was chatting with Pete, the two of them standing as far away from Rath as they could and still be a part of the group. The crowd was noisy, eager for Curt to get started.

“What’s a shock?” Jill asked.

“I knew Cynthia was a guest, but I didn’t know Tim Culver would be.”

“Who’s Tim Culver?”

I nodded toward him, slightly. “That guy. He’s only the best writer alive in the Hammett tradition. He makes Elmore Leonard look wordy.”

“So why are you shocked?”

“He and Curt are brothers. Curt’s last name is Culver, too. Clark was his mother’s maiden name or something.”

“Yeah, so? What’s surprising about one brother inviting another brother?”

“They hate each other,” I said.

Jill blinked.

“Oh,” she said.

“Go away!” somebody said.

The crowd was noisy enough that the outburst didn’t get heard by anybody but us mystery writers and the first row or so of game-players. But those of us who heard it were startled.

It was Kirk Rath, speaking to Cynthia Crystal.

Cynthia Crystal, the critically acclaimed, Edgar-award-winning author, whose biography of Dashiell Hammett had been called by Kirk Rath himself “definitive and masterful.”

“Don’t suck up to me, lady!” Rath snapped.

Cynthia was taken aback; she swallowed, said nothing. Now, Cynthia has a sharp enough tongue — she’s a cool, bitchy number when she wants to be. But the rude, powerful young Mr. Rath had knocked her back.

“I was just making conversation,” Cynthia said, still stunned. “Trying to be friendly...”

“Why?” he said archly. “What’s your motive? This is the mystery world — there’s always a motive.”

Culver moved away from his beam and joined this little Edward Albee one-act.

“You shut up,” he said to Rath.

Rath looked at him with cold anger.

“Your... lady, here, has been trying to get on my good side,” Rath said. “I resent that. Just because her last novel got a less than favorable review from us doesn’t mean her next attempt won’t be treated impartially.”

“Who said it wouldn’t be?” Cynthia said, genuinely confused. “I was just making some small talk. We’re both guests here...”

“Just keep your distance,” Rath said. “Both of you.”

Culver gripped both of Rath’s lapels and lifted the little critic off the ground. Culver said nothing at all, just looked at the wide-eyed Rath a moment, and set him back down. Rath swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry it would seem, and apparently couldn’t find anything nasty or witty or trenchant to say to Culver, who slipped an arm around Cynthia’s shoulder and escorted her a few paces away, near Jill and me.

“Hi, Cynthia,” I said.

She hadn’t noticed me before; she had tears in her eyes, which wasn’t common for this cool cookie, but she flung herself in my arms and gave me a hug.

“Mal,” she said. “Mal, it’s great to see you. How long has it been?”

“Two years, I guess. The Chicago Bouchercon. Looks like your next review in the Chronicler’s going to be a doozie.”

She laughed. “That Rath’s a prize, isn’t he? At least we get to kill him this weekend.”

Culver said, “That boy’s a born murder victim.”

“He wouldn’t make it past the first commercial of Perry Mason,” I agreed. “Too bad this is reality.”

The first few rows of players were abuzz; some had witnessed Rath’s outburst, and others were hearing about it via the grapevine.

“All part of the show, kids,” Curt Clark said, stepping out before the crowd, a clipboard in hand. He adjusted his glasses and glanced at the top sheet and said, “Many of you have been here before, but for the newcomers let me explain that you’ve been divided into teams. We’ve already passed the badges out, some of you are wearing them already, I see — fifteen or so players per team. We’ve kept couples together, but otherwise the teams were randomly selected. We’ll have a lot of fun this weekend, and not all of it involves the mystery you’re going to attempt to solve...”

Smiles and murmurings followed the word “attempt,” rolling like a wave across the crowd.

“Our honored guests will be playing roles in the little melodrama I’ve concocted,” Curt went on, “and you will have at them only twice. On both Friday — that’s tomorrow — and Saturday — that’s the day after tomorrow — you’ll have a one-hour interrogation period, during which members of your teams can grill the various suspects. You’ll know them by their badges, which will be clearly labeled ‘SUSPECT.’ Now, they all have to tell the truth, at all times... all of them except the murderer, that is.”

Laughter.

“And on Sunday morning, your teams will present their versions of how to solve The Case of the Curious Critic. There will be two awards — one for the team coming closest to the solution as I’ve devised it, and another for most imaginative presentation. And, yes, it is possible for one team to win both awards, though it hasn’t happened yet. The members of the winning teams will be presented with a reservation for the next Mohonk Mystery Weekend.”

That brought applause, even though the reservations were not all-expenses-paid; they were in fact no-expenses-paid — but the Mohonk Mystery Weekend sold out every year in less than an hour, and hundreds, to put it conservatively, were shut out accordingly.

Curt explained that the weekend would also include movies, lectures, and a dance; he then began to give each of us guests a gracious introduction.

Finally he got to Kirk S. Rath.

“And now,” Curt said, “allow me to introduce the critic we love to hate, a man who truly needs no introduction — our very own murder victim, The Mystery Chronicler’s Kirk S. Rath.”

There was considerable applause, even whistles, for Rath, who did have his public. You couldn’t take that away from him. He was seen by many mystery fans as daring, iconoclastic. I found him a terrible, pretentious writer, but had to admit he could be entertaining in his boldness.

When the applause died down, Rath stepped forward; none of us had spoken after our intros, but Rath, it seemed, had something to say.

“I think you people are pitiful,” he said, speaking not only to the other professionals/guests, but to the fans/players before him. A sea of smiles ebbed.

“If you’d ever read an issue of the Chronicler,” he said, “you’d know I’ve striven to make the mystery something that could be taken seriously, that could be viewed as literature, not mere pulp. Now, I’m not without a sense of wonder, a sense of fun... and I thought I’d enjoy this weekend. But what I see here — this assemblage of alternately rude and fawning writers, this horrific assortment of starry-eyed fans and drooling ‘gamers,’ armed with pocket calculators and deerstalker caps — is perhaps the most nauseating sight I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. You’re denigrating, belittling, a serious American art form, a form perhaps second only to jazz in its cultural worth — at its best, that is, as opposed, say, to its nadir as represented by the likes of such small fish as Mr. Sardini and that pretentious poseur who signs his work only ‘Mallory.’ ”

Every jaw in the house had dropped to the floor.

Except Rath’s, which was still churning: “I have a certain respect for the work of Curt Clark. So when he approached me, I agreed to attend this charade — only to discover when I arrive that I’m to play a cruel parody of myself, and then to be ‘murdered,’ to play a corpse, to be what so many of you wish I truly were: dead. Well, you’ll have to find yourself another body. I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m not playing.”

And Rath walked through the crowd’s Red Sea, which parted for his Moses, and was gone.

5

Curt calmed the crowd by pushing the air with his palms and smiling.

“We all know Kirk’s a shade temperamental, but I’ll do my best to catch him and convince him to stick around for the fun. In the meantime, Pete Christian has a movie scheduled for about half an hour from now, in the Parlor upstairs. I think you’ll find it apropos.”

Pete stepped forward and said, “It’s Laura — the classic Otto Preminger film featuring Clifton Webb as an obnoxious critic.”

That got some laughter going, but it was mostly of the nervous variety; Rath’s outburst had cast a shadow over the previously lighthearted proceedings. The casually dressed guests — ranging in age from late teens to senior citizens, with all stops between represented, baby-boomer Yuppie types perhaps the most predominant — rose slowly from the floor, as if their collective bones ached. Chatter soon filled the air, but the merriment quotient seemed low.

“What do you make of that?” Jill asked, looping her arm in mine again, as we headed out into the hall.

“Kirk Rath’s a self-important dope,” I shrugged. “That’s hardly a news flash.”

We headed down a hall toward our room and, soon, up ahead, there was Curt, who was standing talking with an attractive brunette about thirty or so, her nice shape snug in a navy-blue blazer and gray skirt that seemed to say “hotel management,” not guest.

It was an animated conversation, which carried. Curt was shrugging, smiling, doing a lot of body movement in an apparent effort to be charming as well as apologetic. The woman was frowning, shaking her head, not quite buying it. But she seemed more worried than cross.

“I just don’t like seeing our Mystery Weekend begin with the murder victim refusing to cooperate,” she said.

“I think he’s been very cooperative,” Curt said. “Everybody in the hotel wants to kill him.”

“I don’t find this amusing, Mr. Clark.”

“Curt. Please. Curt.”

“Curt. But our guests pay a premium price for a fun-filled weekend. Your corpse might be better behaved.”

Jill and I had caught up with them now.

“Kirk Rath doesn’t take dying lying down,” Curt was saying, then noticed us: “Oh, Mal — Jill.” Curt gestured to the brunette. She was wholesomely pretty; her face was rather full and her eyes were dark brown. Unlike some career women, she took it easy on the makeup. Maybe she was a Quaker.

“This is Mary Wright,” he said. “She’s the social director here at Mohonk, my boss... for the weekend anyway. This is Jill Forrest, Mary. And this is—”

“Mallory,” she said. She smiled at both of us, but extended her hand only to me. “No introduction necessary. You look just like your dust jacket photo.”

Jill said, “I think he looks more like his driver’s license photo.”

Mary Wright ignored that, continuing to hold my hand, saying to me, “I try to read something by all our guest authors. I enjoyed the book I read of yours very much.” She still held my hand; hers was warm, mine was sweaty.

Jill seemed less than thrilled that Mary and I were hitting it off so handily, and said to Curt, “Is that little creep really gone?”

“Rath? Yes, I’m afraid so. Thought I might head him off at the pass before he lammed out of here, but no luck. He must’ve intended doing this all along: he hadn’t even checked into his room. He walked directly outside from the Lake Lounge, climbed in his car and drove down the mountain.”

Mary finally released my hand, and made a frustrated face. “I’m afraid Curt is right. Our bell captain saw him go.”

“What now?” I asked. “Can you stage one of these things without a corpse?”

“Sure,” Curt said, waving it off. “Piece of cake. Rath’s participation this weekend was minimal, anyway... just a gimmick, really.”

I nodded slowly. “You mean, having the murder victim be the critic every mystery writer would most like to kill.”

“Right. All that was required of Rath was to pose briefly as a bloody corpse tomorrow morning. That and give a lecture and question-and-answer session tomorrow afternoon, after yours. We’ll have to fill in there, of course, but we’ll come up with something. Rath’ll just have to die offstage.”

“We can proceed easily without him,” Mary Wright admitted. But she was still troubled: “What bothers me is his obnoxious behavior back there... the cold water he’s thrown on my guests.”

“They’ll get over it,” I said. “They’re here for a good time, and one pompous put-down from the likes of Rath won’t keep the wind out of their sails for very long.”

“I hope so,” Mary said doubtfully. She smiled, prettily, extended a hand again. “Anyway, your concern is appreciated. And it was a pleasure meeting you, finally.”

And she was squeezing my hand again. Giving me a look as warm as her grasp.

“Pleasure’s mine. Try another one of my books sometime.”

“I intend to,” she said, letting loose of me slowly, her fingers brushing my palm rather seductively. “Curt, let’s go to my office and figure out exactly how we’re going to restructure this thing...”

And they were off, talking, gesturing as they went.

“She’s nice,” I said.

“ ‘It was a pleasure meeting you finally,’ ” Jill said with infinite sarcasm.

“Huh?”

“Come with me, Romeo.” She yanked me by the sweaty hand, and we walked down a hallway. It took a jog and we were suddenly at our room. She had the key and was working it in the door.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” I asked.

“What for?” she said.

“Just because I was polite to that girl.”

“She’s not a girl. She’s thirty-five if she’s a day.”

“So are you.”

“You always know just the right thing to say.” She opened the door and smiled tightly and gestured for me to go in. I did.

Jill began undressing, and I sat on one of the twin beds looking at her while she did. When she was down to her wisp of a bra and her sheer panties, she said, “If I hadn’t come along on this trip, you’d be cozying up to that little flirt, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Was that a gun in your pocket, or were you just glad to see her?”

“Hey, there wasn’t anything in my pocket!”

I got out of my clothes. Turned out the lights. Sat back down on the bed.

“You have no right to be jealous,” I said. “You’re the one who’s leaving me, after all.”

“I have to. My job in Port City is finished.”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“I have to work, Mal.”

“There are other jobs. You could find something in Port City, or anyway the surrounding area.”

“And you could pack up and come with me. You’re a writer — you can work anywhere. Nothing’s keeping you in Port City.”

We’d had this conversation dozens of times, in minorly varying forms. My next remark would be that I had property in Port City — not only my house, but the farmland my parents had left me, which I had to keep an eye on, and... well, anyway, that’s what I would normally say next. And she had something to say that came after that, but to hell with it. An impasse is an impasse.

“We weren’t going to talk about this,” I said, “this trip.”

“I know.”

“So how did we get onto it?”

Her voice was a little sad as she said, “I guess I can’t stand the thought of, after I leave, you taking up with some little chippy the minute I’m out of the city limits.”

“Chippy?” I said, savoring the word. “Chippy? I was thinking more of finding some floozie. Or perhaps a hussy. Or maybe a bimbo; yeah, that’s the ticket. I think I’ll find me a bimbo to take your place, the minute you leave town.”

“Very funny,” she said, and there was enough moonlight filtering in through the window for me to see that she was indeed smiling a little.

“What do you want to do about these twin beds?” I asked.

“Push them together,” she said.

“Good idea.”

I moved the nightstand out of the way, and we mated twin beds, and then we just plain mated.

“We should have made a fire,” she said, snuggling with me in my twin bed.

“What do you call what we just did?”

“You know what I mean. It’d be very romantic, the fireplace going in this otherwise dark room.”

“ ‘Otherwise dark room,’ huh? Pretty fancy talk. You must hang around with a writer or something.”

She snuggled closer. “An author,” she said.

“We’ll have our fire tomorrow night. Forecast says it’s going to get colder and maybe snow some, over the weekend.”

“An author who talks like a TV weatherman,” Jill amended, then sat up in bed and stretched; the moonlight made her body look smooth, bathed it in ivory.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, yawning.

“Do you want to get dressed and take in Pete’s movie, after?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve seen Laura a million times. Anyway, I’m bushed. You can go if you like, though.”

“You’d trust me?”

“For the next couple hours or so. Your powers of recuperation being what they are.”

“You couldn’t have trusted me that long when I was twenty-five.”

“Well, Mal, you’re thirty-five, like the rest of us, and I’ll trust you till midnight.”

She slid out of bed and padded barefoot into the bathroom and the sound of the shower’s spray soon began lulling me. I lay there trying to decide whether I wanted to get out of bed and get dressed and take in that flick. I was fairly keyed up, despite the long day. But the sheets felt cool and the blankets warm and the bed soft and the phone woke me.

It was only a minute or so later; the shower was still doing its rain dance. But the phone, over on the table by the window, was ringing.

I sat up, yawned, tasted my mouth (which in one minute had accumulated the unpleasant film and sour breath of a full night’s sleep) and bumped into things as I made my clumsy way across the room to the insistent phone.

“Yes,” I said.

“Mal? Curt. I hope I didn’t wake you — it’s early yet, I didn’t expect you to sack out so soon.”

“Me, either.” He sounded a little hyper. “What’s up?”

“I wondered if you’d mind doing double duty tomorrow.”

“How so?”

“You have a speech to give, but after that, we need to fill Rath’s slot with something, remember?”

“Yeah...”

“I was hoping you and Tom and Jack could throw together a sort of panel on the resurgence of the hard-boiled private-eye in mystery fiction.”

“That’s a mouthful, Curt... but, sure. Why not?”

“I knew you’d come through for me.”

“You sound a little frazzled.”

“Mary Wright’s upset with me. She’s an efficient young woman, but she doesn’t deal well with surprises, or with changes of plan. She doesn’t know how to think on her feet, like us mystery writers.”

“I do most of my thinking sitting down, but I know what you mean.”

“Anyway, I promised her I’d get everything rescheduled tonight. That way she can sleep soundly, I guess.”

“Well, anything I can do to help out.”

“Much appreciated, Mal. I guess I screwed up, thinking I could depend on that pompous ass Rath to play my corpse.”

“The only thing you can depend on that pompous ass to be,” I said, “is a pompous ass.”

“You’re right,” he said, laughing a little. Then he sighed. “This thing is starting to get to me. I just hope we don’t get snowbound.”

“Why, is that what they’re predicting now?”

“Yeah. Heavy snow tonight or tomorrow. Is it snowing out there?”

I glanced out the window. It wasn’t snowing; there was nothing out there, except two people standing on that open walkway bridge, in the gazebo. They seemed to be arguing.

“No snow,” I said.

“Yet,” he said fatalistically.

We hung up, and I stood there a moment looking out at the moonlit lake and cliffs and evergreens.

But those people in the gazebo got in the way of any peacefully reflective moment.

The two figures were both heavily bundled in dark winter clothing, one of them, at left, a stocky figure in a red and black ski mask — probably, but not necessarily, a man. The other, at right, was bareheaded and obviously a man, or one very short-haired woman. Two figures standing on the gazebo at night was hardly remarkable, even if they were arguing — except these figures were going beyond that, shoving each other around. The bareheaded guy gave Ski Mask a shove that about knocked him (or her) off the bridge — a fall of about a story and a half.

Ski Mask managed to keep his/her balance, and the shoving stopped, but the body English of the two figures was even more disturbing. They were, indeed, arguing. Violently. Their gestures, at least, were violent.

It wasn’t my business, but I couldn’t not watch; and I felt oddly removed from it — distant — as if I were the audience and they were the play, an ominous pantomime, as the thick pane of glass that separated me from the outside was keeping the sound of the argument from getting in. I couldn’t hear them argue, but I could watch them. Which I did, my face tensed, my eyes narrowed, watched the quarrel turn into something ugly.

Something dangerous.

The bareheaded man pushed past Ski Mask and walked down off the bridge, onto the patch of ground sloping down to the lake, which stretched out before my window; his feet scuffed the powdery snow.

Ski Mask followed quickly, down off the bridge, sending up little flurries as his/her feet cut a quick path toward the bareheaded man, who didn’t seem to know his pursuer was behind him. Something caught in my throat as I saw an object in Ski Mask’s hand catch the moonlight and wink.

A blade.

Ski Mask’s free hand settled on the near shoulder of the bareheaded man — they were less than a hundred feet from my window, now — and spun him around. I cried out, but couldn’t be heard, it seemed; my role was so minor in this little drama as to be meaningless. The bareheaded man’s back was to me now, as Ski Mask raised his/her arm, the blade catching the moonlight again and I yelled, “Hey! Goddammit, stop!”, my mouth almost against the window, fogging it up, and I rubbed my fist against the fog and cleared it and could see that knife going up, coming down, going up, coming down, stabbing, slashing, stabbing, slashing.

The bareheaded man stumbled toward me; he was scarcely fifty feet from me when he fell, his face distorted from two long ragged red strokes from the blade, his dark blue quilted winter jacket shredded in front, turning wet with blood. Then he dropped into the snow, facedown, and Ski Mask began hauling him away by the ankles.

I was trying to open the window now, but it was jammed, and I was yelling, screaming, they hadn’t even fucking seen me, and Jill hadn’t heard me either, the needles of the shower in her ears and I ran into the bathroom, pulled her out, confused, naked, and wet.

“Mal, what the hell?”

“Look out there!”

“I’m naked, for God’s sake — I don’t want to stand next to a window.”

I pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it at her.

“Now, look, dammit! What do you see?”

“Nothing,” she said.

I looked out the window.

I didn’t see anything, either.

Just the lake, the gazebo and bridge, the cliffs, the evergreens, the snowy ground, as peaceful and unreal as a landscape painting you’d buy in a shopping mall. You could see where some feet had disturbed the snow, but that was the only sign.

The body was gone. From the window, at least, there was no blood in the snow.

And certainly no body.

Even if I had clearly seen through my window the blood-streaked face of a dying Kirk S. Rath.

6

“I don’t know what the hell to do,” I said, although I was in fact in the process of doing something: throwing on some clothes.

Jill was drying off with a towel, looking at me carefully, as if I were a UFO she wasn’t sure she was seeing.

“You’re sure you saw what you said you saw,” she said flatly, a statement.

“No, I’m not sure. It might have been Santa and his reindeer, or Charo’s midnight show at the Sands. But it sure looked like somebody getting murdered to me.”

“Calm down,” she said, coming over to me, naked, which is no way to calm me down. She patted my shoulder, smiled reassuringly, like I was her child who’d had a bad dream.

“I’m calm,” I said. “I am not having an acid flashback, either. Haight-Ashbury was a long time ago.”

She tried a kidding smile. “Maybe you’re going into television withdrawal.”

“Yeah, right. I haven’t seen any mindless violence all day, so my psyche conjures some up for me. Well, my imagination rates an Emmy tonight. Jill, I’m shaking. Excuse me.”

I brushed past her and kneeled before the porcelain god and made that offering sometimes known as a technicolor yawn. Soon she was kneeling beside me, dressed now, putting an arm around me, patting me.

“You’ll be okay, sugar,” she said.

I stood up on my rubbery legs. “Try to avoid calling me any pet names that are in any way related to any of the major food groups, okay? For the next hour or so, at least.”

“Anything you say, dumplin’,” she said, with her ironic smile, rising, and I told her she was a caution.

Then I was heading out into the hall and she was following.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“Curt’s just down the hall... I got to talk to him.”

“Maybe you should call the front desk. Call the cops.”

I shook my head. “I’ll talk to Curt, first. He’ll know what to do.”

I knocked and almost immediately the door cracked open and Curt peeked out; the sliver of him visible told me he was in his underwear.

“Now you’ve got me out of bed,” he said, with a wry one-sided grin. “So we’re even. What’s up?”

“I’m not sure.”

His face turned serious. “Is something wrong, Mal? Really wrong?”

“I think I just witnessed a murder.”

He pulled his head back and pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in an expression that said, Are you putting me on?

“I am not putting you on. I just saw something, and it looked a hell of a lot like a man getting killed.”

“You really are serious...”

“I really am.”

His expression grave now, he said, “Give me a second. Kim’s already in bed; I’ll just wake her and let her know I’m stepping out for a second.”

The door closed. I heard him say something to Kim in there, and a minute or so later he emerged fully dressed, in the same patched-elbow sports coat and cords as before.

“Let’s go to your room,” he said.

“Good idea. That’s where I saw it from.”

Jill and I led him there, where I took him to the window and pointed out at the now peaceful white landscape that had minutes before seemed violent and blood-red. I explained what I’d seen.

As my explanation progressed, a sly smile began to form on Curt’s face; by the conclusion, he stood with his arms folded, rocking on his heels, looking down at me — both figuratively and literally — with open amusement.

“I fail to see what’s even remotely comic about this,” I said, petulantly. Curt was one of my literary godfathers, and I didn’t like feeling a fool before him.

“They reeled you in, Mal,” he said, chuckling. I hate it when people chuckle.

“What the hell do you mean?”

He chortled. I hate it even more when they chortle. “These Mystery Weekenders have obviously staged a Grand Guignol farce for your benefit.”

“What? You got to be kidding!”

“Not at all. Not in the least. You’ve never been to the Mystery Weekend here at the illustrious Mohonk Mountain House. You don’t know what sort of shenanigans to expect.”

“Shenanigans. Since when is slashing a guy to ribbons a shenanigan?”

“When it’s staged by some overly ambitious game-players.”

Jill was standing off to one side, but now she moved in between Curt and me, like a mediator.

“You’re saying this was a practical joke,” she said, “played by some of the Mystery Weekenders.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Kirk Rath stormed out of here, insulting the intelligence of the players, refusing to cooperate. Leaving before the fun could begin.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“So isn’t it natural that some of the players might want to stage what he denied them? Namely, his ‘murder’?”

I let out a sigh of exasperation. “And just how exactly did they convince Rath to stick around and go along with this farce?”

“They didn’t.”

“I saw Kirk Rath die!”

“Did you? How close was he to your window?”

I thought about it. “Well, not all that close — not all that far, either.”

“Could it have been someone else?”

“I don’t think so...”

“Possibly someone who looked something like Rath — similar hair, similar build.”

“Maybe,” I granted.

“And you had Rath on the brain — you had the ‘murder’ of Rath on the brain, specifically. If someone who resembled him were ‘killed’ outside your window, wouldn’t Rath come immediately to mind?”

“Curt, I don’t think so...”

He was shaking his head now, gesturing out the window at the now barren stage where I’d witnessed what he insisted was a performance.

“You haven’t been here before,” Curt said. “You don’t know the lengths these lovable crazies will go to. When we assemble on Sunday morning, for the teams to present their solutions to my mystery, their presentations will be as elaborate as an off-Broadway play. And not far off Broadway at that.”

Jill looked at Curt thoughtfully and said, “You give an award for the team presenting their solution in the most creative manner, don’t you? Whether they solve the mystery correctly or not.”

“That’s exactly right,” Curt said.

“Don’t encourage him,” I told Jill sternly; she gave me an apologetic look and shrugged, but I could see she was being swayed by this. “You didn’t see what I saw,” I reminded her.

“She didn’t?” Curt said.

“No. She was in the shower.”

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” Curt shrugged.

“Why are you trivializing this?”

He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “I don’t mean to. I just know the foolishness that goes on here. Jill is right about the award for most creative presentation. Toward that end, many of the players bring along theatrical gear — makeup, fake blood, the works. A number of them are theater professionals. If they noticed somebody here who resembled Rath, and could convince him to play along, with a little expert makeup, they could, at a distance, fool somebody... like you. Not me. Because I’m a veteran of this cheerful nonsense.”

Cheerful nonsense.

“So,” I said, “I’m the butt of a fraternity initiation sort of joke, then?”

He waved that off. “Not you specifically. It could have just as easily been me that witnessed this ‘murder.’ The guests know that the authors are all grouped together in this wing of the hotel. Do you think it’s an accident that this event was staged outside all our windows? You just happened to be the one of us who caught the show.”

“And the hook,” I said.

“And the hook,” he said, nodding. He slid an arm around my shoulder and walked me away from the window. Jill followed. “Mal, I’m convinced you’ve witnessed a prank, nothing more — a grisly piece of impromptu theater by some Mystery Weekenders unknown.”

“I’m not convinced,” I said.

He walked out into the hall and I followed him. So did Jill.

“Well,” he said, “we can go down to the front desk and report it. Right now. New Paltz is nearby; the police could come right up.”

“Let’s do that.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. Let me tell you why.”

“Please do.”

He gestured with an open palm, in a reasoning manner. “If the police come up here, you’re going to get some of the hotel’s guests in trouble, and some very bad publicity could be stirred up. You might put a damper on the whole weekend; Kirk Rath’s little temper tantrum would be nothing compared to this. I don’t think that would be a useful thing, do you?”

“I... suppose not.”

“Besides which, everybody here saw Rath leave in a huff. In a minute and a huff. How could he be who you saw out your window? He left.” Curt hunched his shoulders and gestured with both hands in mock seriousness; very melodramatic, he intoned, “Or did he come back? If so, why? In which case, what was he doing here, then?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, ignoring his kidding manner. “But those strike me as legitimate questions.”

“You strike me as somebody who’s had a long day and ought to catch some z’s.”

“I’m tired, but I’m not seeing things.”

“I know you aren’t,” he said, unconvincingly. “Hey. Why don’t you go have a look around outside? If you find anything, see anything, come knock on my door. I’ll be up for another hour — I’m working on some last-minute materials for tomorrow’s fun and games. We have to kill Rath again tomorrow morning, you know — in absentia. Anyway, if after that you still want to go down to the desk, I’ll accompany you.”

“All right,” I said.

He smiled and patted my shoulder again. “But if you don’t find anything, then go get some sleep. These game-players are crafty and they’re cute — don’t let ’em get to you. You’ll need to be fresh in the morning. You have to play one of my suspects, remember.”

Then he shut himself back in his room.

I looked at Jill.

“Could he be right about this?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But do you think he’s right?”

“No. But he thinks he’s right. And I can see how this looks to him.”

“Yes.”

“Only he didn’t see what I saw out that window, did he?”

“No.”

“Let’s get our coats.”

“Let’s,” she said.

I stopped at the front desk and asked if I could borrow a flashlight; the guy behind the counter was accommodating and friendly — he didn’t even ask what I wanted it for, he just handed it to me. I wondered how accommodating (and friendly) he’d be if I came back later and reported a murder. Not to mention a disappearing corpse.

And it had disappeared, all right. The snow on the ground outside my window showed footprints, and you could see where something had been dragged away — but only for a few feet. Then the footprints resumed; only the wind was blowing the snow around and to call these footprints, in the sense that some real detective could pour plaster of Paris into them and make a moulage and trap a suspect, would be a joke. You could tell somebody had been walking in the snow, and that was all. That was the most you could say.

And there was no sign of blood. Or theatrical makeup or ketchup either.

I poked around with the flashlight, looking in the trees and bushes, Jill at my side. Nothing. We walked up on the bridge; stood in the gazebo; looked out at the impassive frozen lake and the mountain beyond. The night was chilly, and the wind had teeth. So did we, and they were chattering.

We went inside.

We went to bed.

“Some detective,” I said.

She was cuddling me on my side of the pushed-together twins.

“Who says you’re a detective? You’re a writer.”

“I’ve played at detective before. You helped me once, remember?”

“I vaguely remember.”

That was sarcasm: the time she’d helped me out, she had seen the aftermath of some very serious violence; I’d almost been killed, and two other men had. So she knew that none of this was anything I was taking lightly. She also knew I’d had some experience with crime, with violence, and wouldn’t be easily fooled by pranksters.

“Want to go down to the front desk?” she asked.

“And report what I saw?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what I saw anymore.”

“Could it have been staged, like Curt thinks?”

“It did seem sort of... ‘Staged’ isn’t the word exactly. But it was like I was watching a scene in a movie, not real life.”

“Don’t discount its reality for that reason. I was in a rather bad accident once; I wasn’t hurt badly, but the car I was in got hit by a drunk driver.”

“Jesus. I never heard this story.”

She was sitting up in bed, now. “Well, this guy and I were driving home late at night, and a drunk driver got hypnotized by our lights or something and kept coming right at us. He wasn’t going fast, really, and we were able to slow almost to a stop, by the time he hit us. We swerved and he crashed into the side of the car. The guy I was with broke his arm; I had a little whiplash, is all.”

“That’s a relatively happy ending, then. But what’s your point?”

“My point is this: I had a minute at least during which to watch that car come toward us. Knowing the accident was going to happen. Knowing I might be killed.”

“Did you panic?”

“No. That’s the strange part. I felt detached. The world went slow motion on me. And — as you said — it was like watching a scene in a movie.”

“Then you think I may really have witnessed a murder.”

“I think you may have. What do you think?”

“I think maybe Curt’s right. Maybe it was a prank.”

“Yeah?”

“And maybe it wasn’t.”

She smiled, sighed. “We better try to get some sleep. You do have a role to play tomorrow morning.”

She was right; I was, after all, one of the prime suspects in Curt’s whodunit. I didn’t know what was going on in that mystery, either — all I knew for sure was that I wasn’t the killer.

But neither one of us could get to sleep till I got up and shut the curtain over that damn window.