The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  I had no intention of following her. None whatsoever. Completely out of the question. On the other hand, however, Ginny had told me to get into the spirit of the occasion. And avoiding how I felt about that was probably the most important thing in my life at the moment. The spirit of the occasion, sure.

  Making no effort to be inconspicuous, I lumbered after Simon Abel’s girlfriend.

  I caught up with her in the dining room. She’d acquired the decanter of port and two glasses. Faith and Ama had cleared away the dinner dishes. I could hear the Hobart running in the kitchen. It sounded the way my stomach felt.

  Cat treated me to her best imitation of arch allure. “Come to the parlor,” she said. Like the spider to the fly.

  “The parlor?” I hadn’t known that the lodge had a parlor.

  “It’s this way.”

  The spirit of the occasion. I followed her some more.

  Clearly I should’ve done some exploring. Then I would’ve known about the parlor, a medium-sized room complete with a thick Persian rug, a fireplace, a couple of windows, a wet bar, two deep armchairs, a love seat, and altogether too many doilies. The fire burned like the mouth of hell. Truchi or Reeson sure kept busy stoking all these blazes.

  Cat closed the door behind me. “Have some port?” She waggled the decanter.

  Well, I could make an effort to get into the spirit of the occasion, but I didn’t want to be ridiculous about it. Sighing, I shook my head.

  She shrugged, poured herself a glass. Then she put the decanter and the extra glass down on the wet bar. Outside the windows, the world had gone black. If I stood close to the panes, the light behind me showed snow still coming down as if the heavens themselves had broken. A foot of it so far? More than that? But past the short reach of the light everything disappeared, swallowed by dark and cold.

  Slowly Cat ambled to the other side of the fireplace. We faced each other across the front of the hearth. She stood with her hips cocked so that the tight sheath of her dress stretched over her breasts. Her nipples hardened against the fabric, as alluring as the look in her eyes—and just as premeditated.

  “I get the impression,” she said, “that you don’t like me.”

  Opening gambit. Now it was my move. “I get the impression,” I countered, “that we’ve already had this conversation. What happened to Hardhouse? Did he decide to go back to his wife?”

  Apparently my brand of seduction didn’t trouble her. She chuckled deep in her throat. “Back to his wife? Not Joseph. A man like that never goes back.”

  “Then what went wrong? You can’t expect me to believe that he got tired of you in just one night.”

  Now she laughed out loud. “Well, thanks for that, anyway. I’ll take it as a compliment.” Hints of firelight caught in her eyes, cast a shade of unnatural red on her cheek. “I didn’t get tired of him, either. He has”—she grinned salaciously—“a lot on the ball. But I like variety.

  “I like strong men.” She hadn’t tasted her port yet. Still carrying her glass as if it made her more desirable, she started toward me. Her hips pulled against the sides of her dress. “As many as I can get.”

  Well, this was fun. If she had her way, I was about to become another notch on her garter belt.

  Smiling nauseously, I said, “That’s interesting. Simon says you do it because you have a self-esteem problem. You’re trying to prove that you can be loved because deep down inside you don’t really believe it.”

  Just for an instant, she faltered. Maybe Abel meant something to her after all. But her Avid Temptress pose met the challenge. She reached me. Her empty hand stroked the front of my sweater. Softly she pronounced, “Simon is a wimp.”

  I wanted to croak out a laugh—or a cry for help. “And you think I’m not?”

  Languorously—I think that’s the right word—she raised the hand with the glass and rested her wrist on my shoulder. Her free hand slipped to the back of my neck, drawing us closer. Her belly rubbed against my lower abdomen. Her breasts brushed my bandages.

  “You’re hurt, sure,” she breathed up at me. Firelight filled her eyes. “But under all that pain you’re made of iron. I can see it.

  “Kiss me. Hurt me if you want to. I love strength. I love strong men. I want to be kissed hard.”

  For some reason I thought I heard a shot.

  At exactly the same instant, a tidy circle appeared in one of the windowpanes.

  Poor Catherine Reverie, determined and doomed.

  I wasn’t holding her. My arms still hung at my sides. She had no one to catch her. She thrashed like a convulsive and went down, splashing blood and bone and gray meat from an appalling hole in the side of her head. In the process, she spilled her port all over me. It soaked into my sweater, rich and cloying, and it made me stink. The glass rolled off into a corner somewhere and broke.

  The spirit of the occasion. Sweet Christ.

  This was going to be one hell of a vacation.

  10

  Ignoring the pressure on my guts, I dropped to my knees and lifted her in my arms as if I thought I could make a difference. But Catherine Reverie was the deadest looking body I’d seen in a long time, all the grace and desire and confusion blown out of her. Her blood added its stain to the port on my sweater. The rug was definitely ruined.

  After a while, I realized that I wasn’t accomplishing anything. There were things I ought to do. If I could just figure out what they were.

  Ginny would know.

  I lowered Cat to the rug—lowered her gently, not because she cared, but because I did. Heaved myself upright. Lurched to the door and opened it.

  “Ginny,” I panted. “Come here.”

  She would never hear me if I didn’t do better than that.

  “Ginny!”

  She emerged from a room just a few doors away, flashing her gray eyes and her claw. The room must’ve been Joseph Hardhouse’s. Why else would he appear right behind her as she strode into the hall? On the other hand, they both had all their clothes on. They didn’t even look rumpled. Her right hand clutched her purse.

  Relief twisted along the pain and the sloshing wetness in my guts.

  “Brew?” Ginny snapped. Her attention focused on me, sharp, capable, and complete. It steadied me almost immediately. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Other people heard me shout as well. They came into the hall from the den, Drayton first with Mile and Maryanne behind him and others trailing. But Ginny arrived first. I pointed her into the parlor. Then I shifted my bulk to block the doorway.

  Hardhouse glared at me, his face dark with irritation. His hair formed a carnivorous streak across his skull. But I didn’t let him pass.

  Chewing unladylike obscenities, Ginny scanned the parlor, Cat’s body, the windows. Quickly, carefully, she jumped over Cat to the fireplace, then reached around to the windows one at a time and pulled down the blinds. Which should’ve occurred to me. If a sniper wanted to kill one of us, why not all of us? Maybe he’d only left me alive because I’d knelt down beside the body, out of the line of fire. I wasn’t doing my job.

  As soon as she’d covered the windows, Ginny wheeled toward me.

  “What happened?” she demanded. “Did you see anything?

  “Were you,” she continued as if the smell of port filled her attention and no other question mattered, “drinking with her?”

  She jerked me off balance as effectively as a magician doing misdirection. I gaped at her and did nothing to prevent the guests from pushing past me into the parlor.

  Drayton and Hardhouse stooped beside the corpse. Hardhouse’s anger had shifted. Now he looked both furious and ecstatic. In contrast, Sam concentrated too hard to show any reaction.

  “Shee-it. Shee-it.” That was Houston Mile. His face had gone pasty, like rancid cooking oil.

  When Maryanne saw Cat, she gave a little squeal and tried to throw herself into Mile’s arms. He shoved her away so hard that she sprawled on the love seat. Warding off panic with both hands, h
e backed toward the corner and wedged himself in as if he were trying to hide.

  Just for a second, Maryanne stared pure hate at him. Then she began to bring great wrenching sobs all the way up from the pit of her stomach. They shook her whole body, but they didn’t make a sound. She was as quiet as Cat.

  Buffy, Rock, and Connie all seemed to appear at the same time. Buffy arrived bright with anticipation. Presumably she believed that one of her murders had been committed. She went right up to the body like she meant to congratulate Cat for an outstanding performance.

  Then she broke into screams.

  She had a throaty yowl, full of harmonics and horror—it went right into my bones. And she didn’t stop. She screamed and screamed—

  “Rock!” Ginny yelled. “Make her shut up!”

  He didn’t do it. Cat’s body fixed his attention as if it were the only thing left in the world.

  A lot of people react that way to violent death. They can’t integrate something so far outside their range of experience. It changes the meaning of everything they know.

  From the floor, Sam muttered through his teeth, “What did she do to deserve this?”

  Buffy went on screaming.

  Like a schoolmarm with a young bully to discipline, Connie stepped forward and smacked Buffy twice across the face, hard.

  Shocked, Buffy covered her stinging cheeks with her hands and sobbed into her palms.

  By then Lara and Mac Westward had arrived, holding hands demurely, like kids on their first date. But the sight of Cat changed his entire face. His usual congealed expression vanished, and his eyes burned sharply. He shoved past me and actively shouldered Hardhouse out of his way so that he could kneel beside Cat as if he wanted to study her—as if after years of writing about murder he wanted to see what it really looked like.

  Hardhouse surged to his feet, glaring dark emotions in all directions.

  “Brew!” Ginny barked through the confusion. “Who’s missing?”

  “Joseph.” The sheer intensity of Lara’s whisper made her voice carry. “What have you done?”

  So softly that I almost didn’t hear him, he hissed back, “Nothing. I didn’t do it.”

  “Queenie Drayton,” I answered Ginny. I still had a job to do. “Simon Abel.”

  But Queenie wasn’t missing. She appeared as I said her name. She paused in the doorway to assess the situation. If she were shocked or frightened, she didn’t let that deter her. As soon as she saw where she was most needed, she went to the love seat and put her arms around Maryanne.

  Maryanne buried her face in Queenie’s neck and continued sobbing.

  Ginny cut through the crowd toward me. Her purse lay on the floor under one of the windows. Her fist gripped her .357, and her claw moved like a threat.

  “Joseph!” she cracked out, as convincing as a whip, “Sam! All of you! No one leaves this room until we find Simon!

  “Rock, you’re supposed to be in charge here. Go to the office, use the phone. Call the nearest cops. Do it now.”

  Her voice lashed him into motion. He left the parlor like a frightened sleepwalker.

  “Come on, Brew,” Ginny commanded.

  I followed her out into the hall and swept the door shut.

  She knew where Simon’s room was. She’d been paying attention when Buffy handed out living assignments. Faster than I could move, she headed into the den and down the other hall. I was a good ten steps behind her when she reached Abel’s door.

  She didn’t wait for me. Before I got there, she turned the knob and threw the door open.

  Ginny! She should’ve waited, she needed me to back her up. Pulling out the .45, I lurched into a run.

  The room was empty.

  “Damn it,” I panted thinly, hardly able to breathe, “don’t do that. You know better.”

  She ignored me.

  As soon as I stopped swearing at her, I noticed the cold.

  Abel had left his window open.

  Snow had fallen on the sill, on the floor inside the window. Not a lot, maybe no more than an inch. Just enough to make it obvious that the snow hadn’t simply settled there. It had been disturbed on the floor and the sill. As if Abel had gone out that way.

  Ginny pulled the blind down. Then she checked the bathroom. I checked the closet. Nobody there either.

  Haste and panic made pain throb in my abdomen. My guts seemed to flop around loose inside me. A minute passed before I realized what was in the closet.

  “He’s still outside,” she said.

  And, “He won’t get far.”

  And, “We need to get all the blinds down. Maybe Cat isn’t his only target.”

  “Ginny,” I said like a choked fish.

  On the floor of the closet, I could see a bit of snow. It looked like the remains of a footprint.

  A rifle stood poorly concealed in the corner.

  Ginny looked at it. She studied the snow. Using one of Abel’s shirts so that she wouldn’t ruin too many fingerprints, she picked up the rifle and sniffed the muzzle. Then she showed it to me.

  I recognized it from the collection in the dining room—a Winchester .30–30 carbine. Its muzzle gave off the unmistakable smell of cordite and burned oil.

  I put the .45 away.

  “Why,” I asked the cold and the fever, “didn’t he close the window? Did he think we wouldn’t check his room?”

  “Maybe he isn’t very smart.” Ginny gave me the Winchester to carry. “Let’s check the cases, see if anything else is missing.”

  I nodded. Maybe I was being stupid. I simply couldn’t imagine Simon Abel blowing that hole in Cat’s head.

  We moved more slowly now. We had more reason to be cautious. From the hall we reached the den. We couldn’t hear Buffy sobbing. We couldn’t hear voices at all. Like the rest of the rooms, the parlor was too well insulated.

  Don’t be stupid, I told myself. Not now. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her. You can’t judge the intent by the wound it makes.

  We encountered no one in the den. Or in the hall between the den and the dining room. Or in the dining room. The Hobart in the kitchen had finished running. For a second I assumed that the kitchen was empty, too. Then I heard noises that sounded like flatware and plates being stacked.

  “Sonofabitch,” Ginny gritted under her breath.

  At least half a dozen guns were missing.

  I remembered some of them. The Purdy shotgun. A Ruger .357 Magnum. And, of all things, the General Patton Commemorative.

  The rest could’ve been anything.

  Reeson was bound to have an inventory. He could tell us what kind of firepower we were up against.

  But it didn’t make sense. Anyone who needed that Purdy or the Ruger would have no use for a Commemorative six-shooter.

  Unless he—or she—knew nothing about guns.

  “Looks like we’re in for a siege,” I commented, feverishly casual.

  “Sonofabitch,” Ginny repeated.

  She led the way into the kitchen.

  We found Faith Jerrick there alone, taking dishes from the Hobart and piling them neatly on one of the countertops. She raised her head when we came in. I’d never seen her look anyone in the eye, but she sure as hell looked at Ginny’s revolver. As she stared at it, she turned so pale that I seemed to see the pure color of her bones through her skin. One hand crept up to the fine chain around her neck and clutched at her crucifix.

  At first Ginny and I didn’t say anything. We concentrated on making sure that Faith didn’t have company.

  I carried the Winchester like a club—which I guess made it obvious that I wasn’t about to do any shooting. Faith kept her attention on Ginny. Voice shaking, she prayed, “May God forgive you for what you do.”

  Just for an instant, Ginny flinched in surprise. Then she glanced at her .357 and made a disgusted gesture. “There’s been a murder,” she rasped. “The killer is outside. He may want to shoot someone else.” Then she jumped to a decision. “But you should be safe. If anybody w
anted to kill you, they could’ve done it long ago. And they wouldn’t have shot one of the guests.

  “We need Reeson. Can you go get him? I could send Brew, but I want him with me.”

  She wouldn’t be in danger. Unless she accidentally encountered Cat’s killer.

  I should’ve gone. That was my job. But I didn’t have the strength for it. And Ginny was in charge.

  Faith jerked a nod. Like a woman who would’ve panicked and run if such things hadn’t been forbidden by her religion, she turned for the back door. In this case, however, her religion probably had more to do with Reeson than God.

  We had to keep moving, search the rest of the lodge. We couldn’t just stand around waiting for Reeson. But before we could start, we heard something that sounded exactly like the front door of the den opening. We heard boots stamping the floor.

  Ginny headed in that direction fast. Changing my grip on the .30-30 as I stumbled along, I did my best to keep up. I wasn’t more than five steps behind her when she charged into the den.

  Simon Abel blinked at us. He wore a heavy winter coat and cap, but I couldn’t make out the details. They were caked in snow. Snow clung in clots to his legs and feet. He looked like he’d been out making snow angels.

  Ginny barked, “Freeze!” in a voice that threatened to crack the floorboards. Her .357 lined up straight on his face.

  He didn’t freeze. Maybe he was too scared. He wheeled away as if she’d already fired.

  Inadvertently he blundered against the door and knocked himself down. Snow blew across him from the porch. Eighteen inches of it had accumulated outside, and it was still falling.

  Ginny rushed forward, crouched nearly on top of him. Then she corked the muzzle of her gun on his nose.

  Eyes white with alarm, he gasped out, “Don’t shoot! I killed her! I confess! Don’t shoot me!”

  I stopped. Ginny didn’t need me. Not now. Maybe she never did. I could afford to take a few moments, try to get my breath back. Find some answer to the pain.

  Altar came into the den. Presumably he’d just left the office. He moved slowly, almost aimlessly, like a man who couldn’t remember why he was here.