Which wasn’t the way it actually happened, of course. Smithsonian hadn’t been there when I killed Estobal. And I hadn’t been full of tequila. Nevertheless my dream seemed inevitable, truer than reality. I felt almost grateful when a knock on my door woke me up.
“Come in,” I croaked like I was dying.
Whoever was outside tried to come in. Apparently, I’d locked the door.
When did I start locking my door? I could sort of remember having done it, but I couldn’t remember why. To keep Ginny out? Or Lara Hardhouse?
Trying to scrub the incoherence off my face, I stumbled out of bed.
When I got the door open, I found Mac Westward there.
Blinking at me as if he couldn’t believe his senses without corroborative testimony, he asked, “Were you asleep?”
I shook my head. “I had to get up to answer the door anyway.”
The situation didn’t seem to require courtesy—or even intelligence—so I left the door open and got back into bed.
Westward stood in the doorway for a while. Eventually, however, he reasoned his way to the conclusion that I’d invited him in. He entered the room and closed the door.
Sounding more than ever like an inedible vegetable, he observed, “You’re hurt worse than I thought.”
I couldn’t get Smithsonian out of my head. “Everything is worse than I thought,” I remarked profoundly. “Did you come to watch?”
“It’s tempting. The Altars outdid themselves with you. You would be the perfect victim.”
Until he said that, I hadn’t realized that he was capable of sarcasm.
“Westward”—I lacked the energy to look at him, so I kept my eyes closed—“you came to see me. I didn’t invite you. It’s your job to make sense, not mine. What do you mean, ‘The Altars outdid themselves’?”
He paused. Maybe he was searching for a comfortable chair. But I didn’t have to wait long before he began to explain.
“Two of us are actors. Two are private detectives. There are twelve candidates. But I can eliminate Connie and me. You may not know who we are, but too many other people do. And I can eliminate the Draytons. No actor—or detective—would choose medicine as cover. His ignorance would be too easily exposed.
“We’re left with eight possibilities.
“Mr. Azbrewder”—his voice took on a pedantic tone—“I’m morally certain that if Joseph and Lara Hardhouse were hired to be here, they were hired as actors rather than as detectives. That leaves only six people who could conceivably be detectives.
“Whom would you suspect? Houston Mile and Maryanne Green? Impossible. No one could trust a man like that—except possibly another Texan. What about Simon Abel and Catherine Reverie? Improbable. In my view, they both lack substance.
“Only you and Ms. Fistoulari remain.
“I grant that you, too, are an improbable candidate. You were born to be murdered, not to prevent murders. But Ms. Fistoulari is entirely credible. And if she is a detective, you must be also.”
All right, already. So Mac Westward was more awake than I’d realized. So what? As far as I was concerned, he could announce the murderer right now and take a bow. Buffy would be furious, of course—but the rest of us could go home.
“Mr. Westward,” I said in the general direction of the ceiling, “you didn’t come here just to persuade me that I’m a detective. Why don’t you cut out the rest of the lecture and tell me why you did come?”
He thought about that briefly. Then he asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Yes,” I said. “Cigars make me puke.”
Hell, it was my room, wasn’t it?
His silence conveyed a shrug. “I notice,” he commented after a moment, “that you didn’t ask me why I’m sure the Hardhouses aren’t detectives.”
I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to think about anything that involved Joseph and Lara.
He ignored my silence. “It’s because they take the initiative. An actor might do that in a situation of this kind. A detective, never. If a detective has his own agenda when he’s on a case, he’s useless. His job is to react to circumstances, not create them.”
Oh, good. Just what I needed, another sermon. Why did everyone in this fucking place think I required their wisdom?
“Get to the point, Westward.”
“The point? You really are a belligerent and unhelpful man. Perhaps I should reconsider my assumptions. It may be that your relationship to Ms. Fistoulari isn’t professional. You may not be a detective—you may simply have the misfortune to be her lover. That would explain your attitude.”
I do believe I’d hurt his feelings. Whatever brought him to me was something he cared about more than he liked to admit.
“However,” he went on, “you’re still the only one who can advise me. For my needs, your attitude may actually be a benefit rather than a handicap.”
That was too many for me. I opened my eyes. In fact, I sat up and dropped my legs over the edge of the bed.
“Advise you?” I demanded. “Me?”
“Why not?” He didn’t meet my gaze. Instead he stared at one of his cigars, watching the way he rolled it back and forth between his fingers, crinkling the wrapper. “You’re the only one here who may be able to understand my predicament.”
“Which is?”
He took a deep breath, let it out with a sigh. As if he were reading the words off the cigar band, he said, “I think Lara Hardhouse wants to have an affair with me.”
Oh, my. In fact, My goodness. What have we here?
Mac Westward, you’re scared. You’re scared of that woman.
“And what makes you think I’ll understand?”
He still didn’t look at me. “I also think she wants to have an affair with you.” For a moment, he fell silent Then he added, “If you want to know the truth, I think she wants you more than me. But she can’t have you. You’re invulnerable. You’re too full of self-pity to care what anybody else wants” The male half of Thornton Foal was actually sneering at me. “She’s picked me to be your replacement.”
“Westward”—for his sake as well as my own, I made an effort to pull myself together—“maybe I’m as full as self-pity as you think. Maybe that even makes me invulnerable. But I’m not stupid. It doesn’t matter what Lara Hardhouse wants. No one in his right mind would want her. That woman is trouble.”
When I said that, he stiffened. “She’s in trouble. It’s not the same thing.”
Oh, well. With a sigh of my own, I asked. “What kind of trouble?”
“Her husband,” Westward said promptly. “He has affairs himself—he has so many that his women have to stand in line. First Catherine Reverie. Then your Ginny. Queenie Drayton will be next. And he treats Lara like dirt. She needs someone to value her, someone to cherish her. She needs to believe that she doesn’t deserve what he does to her.”
Bullshit, I thought. Crap and bovine droppings. But I didn’t say that out loud. After talking to Simon Abel, I didn’t feel righteous enough. Instead I tried a different approach.
“Let me see if I understand,” I said in my best Sardonic Uncle Axbrewder tone. “You didn’t really come here for advice. You came because you want a clear field. You want me to promise that I won’t try to get into Lara’s bed ahead of you.”
Westward was an interesting fellow. I was morally certain, to use his term, that he was spitting mad. But he didn’t glare at me, or raise his voice. He didn’t even turn red. On the other hand, he did peel the wrapper off his cigar. Then he stuck the cigar in his teeth and lit it. Even though his hands shook.
“Mr Axbrewder,” he articulated, “what do you think the life of a ‘famous author’ is like? Autographings? Fans? Glamour and groupies? Nothing could be farther from the truth.
“The average mystery novel sells less than five thousand copies in hardcover. And less than forty thousand in paperback. If it’s published in paperback. Nobody reads mystery novels. Even the people here who recognize the name ‘Thornt
on Foal’ don’t actually read his books. I know that from listening to their conversations. Connie and I don’t attend mystery camps because we like them. We attend because without the tax write-off we can’t afford vacations. Neither of us owns a home. No bank will loan us money.”
For a moment, he hung fire. Then he mustered his courage and got to the point.
“I don’t get very many chances with women.”
Which explained why he thought that I would understand. And why he feared that I would get in his way.
His honesty deserved an honest response. Cutting right to the heart of the matter, I replied, “You say you want advice. Here it is. Watch your back.”
“Thanks,” he snorted bitterly. Puffing a cloud of smoke in my direction, he stood up and stomped out.
Damn cigar. The room smelled full of smoke and loneliness. But that didn’t stop me from lying back down in bed and pulling the covers up to my ears.
I slept longer than I expected—which should’ve done me good, I suppose. When I woke up, however, the sensation of fever in my head had intensified, and my intestines felt like they were sloshing around inside my belly. Oh, well.
Unfortunately my health didn’t seem like a good enough excuse to stay in bed for the rest of my life, so I got up. I did my best to hide my wounds under a clean shirt and sweater. Then I went out to face the world.
I found Connie alone in the den. She sat at the card table, playing a kind of solitaire I’d never seen before. Apparently everyone else had found something else to do.
When I entered, she looked up and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Axbrewder,” without quite smiling. Maybe she would’ve welcomed a chat, but her manner didn’t actually encourage it, and anyway my head was too fogbound for small talk. Instead of joining her, I went to a window to look out at the weather.
A premature gloom had taken over the world, but I couldn’t see anything else. The heat of the fireplaces and the cold outside blanked the glass with mist. But I heard voices, so I moved to the door and stepped out onto the porch.
Buffy must’ve been ecstatic. She was getting all the ambience she could decently want. The snow came down as thick as rain, so thick that the gusts and swirls of wind hardly registered. At a guess, we already had six inches on the ground, and the depth of the early dusk promised more. For most practical purposes, Deerskin Lodge would be as isolated as she could wish.
I had a different reaction. Snow reminded me of Smithsonian. And Smithsonian made me think of people getting shot.
The people outside didn’t share my memories—or my mood. All this ambience filled them with glee. Laughing like schoolkids, Sam and Queenie had tackled Cat and Simon in a snowball fight, and Maryanne pranced through the middle of the battle like a cheerleader. As soon as they saw me, however, all five of them scooped up snow and flung it in my direction.
Waving my hands to ward off attacks, I retreated into the lodge.
But then I didn’t know what to do with myself. Indecisively I stopped to watch Connie’s game. Like almost everything else I’d seen since we arrived, her version of solitaire made no sense to me. After a minute I gave up trying to follow it.
“Tell me,” I asked, “are mystery camps usually this boring?”
She raised her head, studied me gravely. “Usually,” she replied, “they’re worse.”
For some reason, this failed to improve my humor.
Before long the combatants came inside, laughing with each other, scattering snow. When they’d warmed themselves at the fires, they dispersed to dress for dinner. That and Ama Carbone’s performance on the xylophone brought me to the belated realization I’d slept most of the afternoon away.
What this unaccustomed capacity for sleep meant I had no idea. Was I recovering? Slipping into peritonitis? Did I care? Not especially. When Murder on Cue’s guests had gathered, I accompanied them into the dining room.
We sat in the same arrangement as last night, with artillery and wrought-iron fixtures impending over us. Faith and Amalia served a dinner generically indistinguishable from the previous one—perfectly acceptable and maybe even tasty food, if your stomach could handle it. Cat Reverie demanded port again, and when the decanter arrived she commandeered it possessively, as if she wanted to prevent anyone—but especially Hardhouse—from sharing it. Other than that, none of us admitted that we might be less than happy with each other. The general mood was one of barely contained eagerness.
Mile bared his rotten teeth like a pouncing predator. Westward had an unexpected spot of color on each cheek, and he drank less than last night. Excitement seemed to ease Lara’s troubles somehow. She fixed her deep dark eyes on me repeatedly, but behind her somber expression she seemed less aggrieved, more at rest. Maryanne burbled like a kid. Drayton smiled at everything—except during those brief moments when he noticed that I wasn’t eating. And Buffy positively bristled with anticipation. Even Ginny had a glow that I hadn’t seen for a long time, at once satisfied and hungry, as if she’d found something to nurture her and intended to have more of it.
The sight felt like a knife in my wounded guts. I tried to distract myself by thinking about Lara. Unfortunately she resembled Connie’s card game. I needed someone to tell me the rules. Did she feel better because she’d had a reconciliation with her husband, or because she knew that she could use Westward to get even with him?
I had no trouble staying away from the wine. Fever was good for me, apparently.
As a group, we tried to act normal for a while. But at last Queenie couldn’t stand it. With a deliberate shiver, she burst out, “Someone say it. Tonight one of us will probably be murdered.”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Buffy chimed in. “Don’t you just feel like you’ve never been more alive in your whole life?”
Both Hardhouse and his wife nodded sagaciously. Westward nodded, too, but I was sure that he had no interest in murder.
“Well, Buffy,” Mile drawled, “Ah wouldn’t purely agree with them sentiments. Life is where you find it. If you’ve never stood there and seen a bitty ol’ oil well turn gusher—why, Ah’d say there’s all kinds of ways of feelin’ alive. Give a man a pretty little filly and let him teach her to run”—on cue, Maryanne produced a schoolgirl blush—“and you’ll learn somethin’ about feelin’ alive.
“But a situation like this one here, now, it do have its advantages. Knowin’ Ah might be killed, knowin’ Ah got to outsmart me a killer or die—why, it purely makes me feel like a gusher mahself.”
The leer he aimed at Maryanne wasn’t easy to misinterpret.
“Why?” I hadn’t intended to say anything, but Mile brought out the contentious side of my personality. “No one will actually die. Why do you care who it is? Why do you care if it’s you? We’re all safe. There aren’t any”—just for a second, I fumbled through my fever for the word I wanted—“any consequences.”
Ginny gave me an unreadable look. Rock nodded vaguely.
Buffy wanted to protest, that was obvious, but Sam forestalled her. As if he were practicing his bedside manner, he said, “You’re right, of course. This isn’t the real world. In the real world, crimes have consequences. There you have to care about them. Here you don’t.
“But none of us are confused about that, Brew. We know it isn’t the real world. It’s a vacation. And,” he added seriously, “it only works because we’ve all agreed to make it fun for each other.”
All except me, I thought. But maybe I was wrong. Some of the other guests may’ve made entirely different agreements.
Nevertheless I felt actively betrayed when Ginny put in, a bit too intensely, “Sam’s right, Brew. You should make an effort to get into the spirit of the occasion. It might speed up your recovery.”
I heard what she said. I even heard what she meant. Getting into the spirit of the occasion worked for her. She was recovering just fine. Without me.
There was nothing I could say to that, so I shut my mouth.
General conversation. Food. Anticipati
on. Some of the other guests viewed the world through a haze of wine. Personally, I viewed it through a haze of fever. Dessert. Coffee. I didn’t have any coffee. It might reduce the haze—and I needed the haze. It was my only protection.
When dinner ended, we went into the den and sat around the fireplaces and tried to pretend that we had something in common. Somehow I found myself cornered by Drayton. He must’ve made it happen on his own because I sure as hell didn’t have a hand in it.
“Are you all right, Brew?” he asked seriously. “You don’t look good.” I smiled like one of Reeson’s ghouls and beasties. Oh, sure. Absolutely. Of course. I feel great. “The truth is,” I admitted for the second time, “I got shot. I think my entire life has a hole in it.”
He ignored the metaphysical implications. “Shall I take a look?”
I shook my head. “You’re on vacation, doctor.”
For a moment, he studied me soberly. “You know, Brew,” he said after a while, “I can think of worse things than practicing a little medicine on my vacation.”
I considered my options. Queenie had told me to talk to him, but I doubted that she’d had a medical consultation in mind. For no clear reason, I trusted both of them. Maybe I trusted him because he’d married to her. That in itself was a significant recommendation. Or maybe I was just sentimentally vulnerable to people who knew how to love each other. But whatever the explanation, I didn’t want to talk to him in my present condition.
“I’ll let you know,” I answered as well as I could. “I’ve got enough pills to stock a drugstore. They’re bound to do me some good eventually.” Then I added. “Thanks for the offer.”
He frowned like he thought I was making a mistake, but he shrugged and left me alone.
Some time later, I noticed Cat Reverie trying to catch my eye. When I finally met her gaze, she gave me what they call a “meaningful look.” Then she moved away in the direction of the dining room.