I didn’t regret the bodyguard job that ended up with Muy Estobal’s bullet in my gut and Estobal himself dead and el Señor angry at me. We’d needed that job. Without it, Ginny might not have recovered her essential self-esteem, her ability to function. Now she’d resumed being the woman I liked and desired and trusted.
So what was wrong? Why did I get the impression that we didn’t love each other anymore? Why were we still afraid of each other, angry at each other?
Actually, her feelings weren’t hard to understand. She was angry at me because I’d pushed her into opposing el Señor. I’d forced her into the position of having to wear her claw or quit altogether. And because after all this time I still wanted a drink. I’d been a drunk for too long, and I wanted a drink for the same reason every drunk wants one. To prove I deserved it. Confirm my worldview, as they say. Reassure myself with the certainty of my own unworth. Which didn’t exactly make me an easy man to trust.
But why was I angry at her? Was it simply because she kept me away from alcohol? Was it because nothing she did ever solved any of my problems?
On some level, I knew that being angry at her and being angry at myself were the same thing. But at the moment I couldn’t pin down why.
She didn’t break the silence until she stopped. Then she said, “Time to shift. I told Altar you’re injured, but I don’t want anybody to think you’re incapacitated.”
Oh, well. I was about as ready as I was likely to get. While she opened the door, I rolled off the seat to get my arms and legs under me. Then I crawled backward out into the snow and stood up.
Sort of. My posture wasn’t notably upright. But at least I could breathe the sharp winter and look around.
The air tasted cold and clean, like someone had just invented it for the first time. On the other hand, the wood smoke over the lodge reminded me that there was usually nothing new or even particularly clean about the things people did indoors.
Nevertheless I had to admit that Deerskin Lodge was a good place for a mystery camp—isolated, self-contained, and beautiful. We stood on a rise at the front gate, with the lodge and its outbuildings below us at the end of a driveway at least a hundred yards long, in the bottom of a hollow with mountains on three sides, a barbed wire fence around the whole spread, and the next phone a good hour or so away by car. The real world sure as hell wasn’t going to intrude here—which, when I thought about it, struck me as a mixed blessing.
Most of the hollow had been cleared, but the people who built the camp had obviously tried to preserve as many of the original trees as possible. In fact, the middle of the lodge roof had a particularly patriarchal longneedle pine growing out of it. And a dozen or so evergreens still occupied the hollow, most of them down near the buildings.
Aside from the lodge itself, I counted six outbuildings. Most of them looked like cottages, and I jumped to the brilliant conclusion that they housed the staff. I couldn’t tell how many of them were occupied, but two had smoke whispering from their chimneys and vehicles parked outside, a battered old sedan, a stretch pickup truck, and a Land Rover.
At a guess, the lodge looked big enough to feed, shelter, and recreate twenty people or so, with room left over for plenty of closets, complete with skeletons. It had been built in a haphazard—i.e., rustic—way around its central tree, but one wing plainly included a kitchen, and the others probably held bedrooms. Unlike the trees, the pitched roofs had shed the snow, baring their shingles. Small vent windows under the eaves let air in and out of the attics.
Out front stood a van that could’ve carried ten people and their living room furniture. If that was Sue-Rose Altar’s idea of transportation, you had to admit she at least knew how to take her hobbies seriously.
Ginny studied the terrain with a wistful look on her face. After a minute she murmured, “Kind of makes you wish we really were on vacation, doesn’t it. This would be a good place to relax.”
For absolutely no good reason at all, I suddenly wanted to burst into tears. The joys of convalescence. I would’ve been willing to sacrifice actual body parts to make our relationship into one where we could take vacations together.
The expression on my face must’ve revealed more than I wanted. Holding me with her gray stare, she asked carefully, “You all right?”
I wasn’t equal to answering that question. Instead I told her one of my usual lies. “I don’t like feeling this weak, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”
Like the rest of my lies, this one wasn’t a lie because it was untrue. It was a lie because it wasn’t enough.
She went on studying me. “We’ll have to spend some time with Mrs. Altar. Hang on as long as you can. But if you need a break, let me know. I’ll arrange something.”
Still taking care of me.
When I nodded, we got back into the Olds. With pain throbbing in my chest, and my skull full of something that felt like grief, I concentrated on the road while she drove us down to the lodge.
Sue-Rose Altar must’ve seen us coming. She emerged onto the porch, a wide wooden structure that covered the front of the building, and waved at us while Ginny parked beside the van.
She was a tidy little woman, older than she appeared at first glance, with perfectly waved gray hair and a sparkle of childlike enthusiasm in her eyes. She wore a sable fur coat so lustrous that it may still have been alive, and her boots were clearly designed for feeling pretty indoors instead of for sloshing around in the slush.
For Ginny’s sake, I took a deep breath and tried to get out of the Olds as if I did that kind of thing every day.
Mrs. Altar greeted us delightedly. “Ms. Fistoulari. Mr. Axbrewder. How wonderful.” I noticed right away, however, that she didn’t risk her boots in the snow. Nothing gets past the hardened private investigator.
Leaning over the rail of the porch, she continued, “Did you have any trouble finding this place? I hope so. I love being so isolated. It’s just perfect. I get so excited before one of my mysteries, Rock can hardly stand me. Come up, come inside. Let’s get to know each other.”
Ginny gave me a look, just checking that I was still ambulatory. Then she put on her professional smile and led the way up half a dozen steps to the porch.
“Mrs. Altar.” She didn’t make any effort to hide her claw as she shook Sue-Rose’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Ginny Fistoulari. This is Mick Axbrewder.”
I lagged behind, doing my utter damnedest to pretend that I knew how to get up steps.
“Your husband,” Ginny added, “said you would help us get oriented, let us know what to expect, that sort of thing.”
“Buffy,” Mrs. Altar burbled. “Call me Buffy. Rock is so formal, but I don’t let him get away with it.” She didn’t seem to be aware that I hadn’t caught up with Ginny yet. “I’ll call you Ginny and Mick. We’ll all be on a first-name basis by suppertime tomorrow. It’s going to be great fun.”
That did it. Nobody calls me Mick. My friends have better sense, and my enemies don’t like the results. Before Sue-Rose “Buffy” Altar could go on, I surged up the stairs and said almost politely, “Call me Brew. I prefer Brew.”
Just for a second everything seemed to stop. Mrs. Altar blinked at me uncertainly. Ginny ignored me in a way that suggested she’d done this on purpose. I stood motionless with pain thudding in my guts and sweat creeping past my hairline despite the cold.
Then Mrs. Altar recovered her composure. “Well, of course. Brew. How nice. Rock told me you’ve been hurt. I think it’s very brave of you to come out and work for us so soon after your injury. But this will be just like a vacation. We’ll all have loads of fun. Come inside, and I’ll show you around.”
Her fur positively gleamed as she turned and moved briskly toward the door.
I gave Ginny my usual look of bloodcurdling happiness. She continued retailing her professional smile, no discounts for personal friends. Softly, as if she weren’t sure I could follow the conversation, she murmured, “‘Rock’ must be her husband.”
>
“Oh,” I said intelligently.
She went after Mrs. Altar. I shambled along behind her as well as I could.
Inside the air was warmer—but not as much warmer as I’d expected. Apparently Deerskin Lodge relied on fireplaces for a lot of its heat. The large room we entered had three of them, but they weren’t lit.
Built around the tree trunk, the room itself was a high-ceilinged lounge with waxed wooden floors, knotty pine paneling, rough-cut beams, any number of stuffed animal heads for decor, and sturdy furniture sprawling everywhere. The atmosphere had a faint tang of ashes, the kind of smell you get when a chimney isn’t working right and the fireplace has a minor back draft.
“This is the den,” Mrs. Altar announced. I wasn’t sure she’d ever stopped talking. “This is where we gather to reveal how we solved the crime. If we solved it. That’s my favorite part of the whole week. Don’t you just love those scenes in books where the famous detective explains his reasoning and takes everyone by surprise? I like to see how people react to the mysteries I’ve cooked up for them.
“This time we have eight guests. That makes fourteen people altogether, eight of them, me and Rock, you two, and our two actors. But remember, I want you to act like guests as much as you can. That’s part of the fun, not knowing who the real detectives are. You can make up any cover you want, I don’t mind, I like surprises.”
“What can you tell us about the guests?” Ginny put in when Mrs. Altar paused for breath. “The more we know, the better we’ll do our job. And the better cover we can figure out.”
Buffy gave her an arch glance. “I’m sure that Rock told you we don’t want to reveal who the actors are—or what the mystery is. That’s part of the fun, too. We’ll all be on the same footing.” All of us, of course, except Rock and Buffy. “But I’ll be glad to give you the names.”
“Please,” Ginny replied with just a hint of asperity.
“Well, let’s see.” Mrs. Altar made a show of consulting her memory. “There’s Mac Westward and Constance Bebb. They’re famous—they’re ‘Thornton Foal,’ the novelist. They like to come to camps like this for ideas and atmosphere. Then there’s Houston Mile and Maryanne Green. Houston has been to two of my camps before, but I’ve never met Maryanne. He always brings a different woman with him.
“There’s Joseph Hardhouse and his wife, Lara—and Sam Drayton and his wife, Queenie. One of them is a doctor. Sam, I think. Yes, that’s right. Joseph owns a chain of restaurants. Oh, and Catherine Reverie and Simon Abel. They’re from back east. They want to try running a mystery camp of their own, and they’re coming to see what it’s like—see how Rock and I do it.”
Yep, that was it. Counting on my fingers, I got up to ten. Eight guests and two actors. Just enough suspects to be a challenge. Not enough to be realistic. I thought it would be a good idea to sit down, but I couldn’t find an excuse, so I stayed on my feet and tried not to sway too much.
“Why do the rest of them come?” Ginny asked. She meant, Why do grown people waste time on something like this? “You explained Mac Westward and Constance Bebb. Simon Abel and Catherine Reverie. What about the others?”
“Why, for the same reason I’m here,” Mrs. Altar replied with polite astonishment. “They love mysteries. They like to be involved.”
Oh, naturally. Why didn’t I think of that?
I could tell from the shape of Ginny’s smile and the tightness around her eyes that she shared my reaction. She wanted a better explanation.
The truth probably had something to do with liking excitement and safety at the same time. Thrills without risk. Like riding the roller coaster in an amusement park instead of, say, tackling white-water rapids in an open canoe.
No doubt about it. I was going to have a wonderful time.
“Come on,” Mrs. Altar continued. “Let’s look around.”
As we crossed the den, I was vaguely surprised that the floorboards didn’t creak. Wooden floors usually don’t like me much. But Deerskin Lodge had been built to last.
The next big room was the dining room. It had a fireplace at either end, massive wrought-iron lighting fixtures, and one long table of polished pine, with enough heavy chairs to seat at least fourteen people. But I ignored details like that. Instead I focused on the fact that the walls were decorated mainly in gun cabinets.
Rifles on one wall. Shotguns on the other. Handguns interspersed here and there. I recognized a Winchester .30-30 carbine, a Purdy that looked powerful enough to buckle plate steel, even a General Patton Commemorative six-shooter. They were all mounted for show instead of use, all closed behind glass doors. But when I touched the latch on the nearest door, I found that it wasn’t locked.
Under each of the cabinets were rows of drawers. Mrs. Altar had already moved out of the room, still talking, but Ginny paused to watch while I pulled a drawer open.
It was full of ammunition. In this case, rounds for the .30-06 Remington mounted level with my nose.
I checked three or four drawers. Each held ammunition for the guns in the cabinet above it.
Murder on Cue might as well hold its mystery camps in an arsenal. Rock and Buffy had enough firepower at their disposal to slaughter an entire regiment of paying guests.
Ginny wheeled away from me and cut into our guide’s monologue. “Mrs. Altar.”
Sue-Rose stopped. “Please, call me Buffy. I mean it. I really can’t abide formality.”
“Mrs. Altar.” Ginny put a snap in the name. “I want all these guns taken down and locked away. Somewhere where your guests can’t get at them.”
Mrs. Altar positively gaped in surprise. “Whatever for?”
“You’ve hired Fistoulari Investigations for security. Those guns are a security risk. Your guests could shoot up half the county before we realized they have that little common sense.”
“Oh, really.” Mrs. Altar frowned in vexation. “You can’t be serious. What kind of people do you think come to my mystery camps? Rapists? Child molesters? This is recreation, fun. Our guests have always been responsible members of society. We’ve never had the least trouble.
“We only need security for the insurance. Rock must have explained that to you. You don’t have to worry about it. The job you’re really being paid for is to play along with our mystery, help us enjoy it.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Ginny retorted, “and I don’t care.” She wasn’t actually angry. She just sounded angry to make her point. “You hired me for security, and I mean to take it seriously. That includes routine safety precautions. Locking those guns away is definitely a routine safety precaution.”
Of course, she could’ve suggested locking up the ammunition instead. But that idea had a couple of problems. For one thing, it made her look like the kind of woman who backed down—which could make her job a lot harder later on. And for another, she knew as well as I did that a gun without ammunition is more dangerous than ammunition without a gun. If nothing else, people can hit each other with guns. They don’t usually throw ammunition at each other.
But Mrs. Altar didn’t care about things like that. Unlike Ginny, she was angry. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous. What good is a hunting lodge full of empty gun cabinets? What kind of atmosphere is that?” If she kept this up, she’d scorch the hair on her coat. “If we expected trouble, any trouble at all, do you think we would have hired you?”
When she heard what she said, however, she had the good grace to look a bit embarrassed. “I mean, Brew just got out of the hospital. Knowing you aren’t at your best, we would never have hired you if we weren’t sure there would be no trouble.”
“I appreciate that, Buffy,” I put in. “But guns are dangerous anyway. People want to touch them. You say your guests aren’t the kind of people who shoot each other. That makes the situation even more dangerous. People who don’t know much about guns are the ones who have accidents.
“We aren’t criticizing anyone. We aren’t even complaining.” Axbrewder’s best im
itation of sweet reason. Sometimes when Ginny acts fierce I back her up by acting soft. “The whole point of a precaution is to prevent trouble, not cause it.”
“Humor me on this one,” Ginny put in, sarcastic now instead of angry. “I’m the only security you’ve got. If I walk out, you won’t have time to hire anybody else. Locking up the guns won’t ruin your mystery. But without two professionals to play against, your guests might not have anywhere near as much fun.”
Obviously Mrs. Altar was accustomed to getting her own way. On the other hand, she must’ve been able to see that Ginny wasn’t bluffing. Frowning her irritation, she said, “Oh, very well. You can talk to Art about it. He should be around here somewhere. But Rock will be very displeased by your uncooperative attitude.”
Still fuming to herself, she led us out of the dining room toward the kitchen wing.
Ginny cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Makes you wonder,” I whispered, getting even with her for encouraging Buffy to call me Mick, “who used to do security for them.”
She snorted. “All right,” she whispered back. “I admit it. I should’ve found out more about how we got this job. I should’ve asked who used to do it, and why they aren’t doing it now. You satisfied?”
I wanted to say something about just how satisfied I was, but we were already entering the kitchen, and Mrs. Altar had stopped to introduce us to the two people there.
Speaking as someone who probably should’ve spent his life being a short-order cook instead of prying into other people’s misery, I was impressed by the kitchen. Deerskin Lodge had the equipment to take first-class care of its guests. The room was nearly as spacious as the den, with gleaming stainless steel food lockers built into the walls, massive conventional, convection, and microwave ovens, plus two huge gas cooktops and more appliances than I could count on short notice—can openers, coffee mills, Cuisinarts, blenders, knife sharpeners, the lot. Not to mention utensils and pots and pans, most of them hanging from racks bolted to the beams. Also a Hobart dishwasher big enough to double as a car wash.