The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  Constance Bebb, however, was at least one half of Thornton Foal, the famous novelist. She didn’t suffer interruption gladly. In an austere tone, she replied, “We wouldn’t be interested in these crimes if they weren’t committed by people who were smart or desperate or unscrupulous enough to try to avoid the consequences of their own actions.

  “Nevertheless the true function of the mystery novel is not to construct the physical or intellectual puzzles you complain about, Mrs. Hardhouse”—Connie didn’t pretend that she wasn’t snubbing Buffy—“but rather to search and analyze character, to probe emotional puzzles, to define the resources and restrictions which make one individual incontestably him- or herself and no one else. The true detective identifies who did it by understanding that only one unique person could have committed this particular crime under these particular conditions of stress.”

  By then Cat had apparently had all the edification she could tolerate. As Faith and Ama began to clear the plates, she announced brusquely, “I want some port. Do you have any port?”

  But Connie was determined to finish her speech. While Faith returned to the kitchen, Connie went on talking.

  “So you see, the suspense of the novel does rest on a puzzle. But it is an emotional puzzle, a psychological puzzle. And the better the construction of the puzzle, the more suspense it generates. Why do you like a certain character? Why do you care what happens to him or her? Is it because you understand them, or because you don’t? Is it because you believe they are capable of the crime, or because you believe they are not? And how accurate are your beliefs? The best mystery novels—like the best crimes—search and analyze the reader, the observer, by the very process of searching and analyzing the participants. Ultimately the suspense of the story arises from the fact that we ourselves are being tested by it.”

  When she finished, Mac Westward raised his glass like a salute and drank a silent toast to his collaborator.

  I couldn’t help myself. She made me look at her in a new way. Softly I murmured, “You’re starting to make me wish I’d read more mystery novels.”

  “You should,” she replied like a stern aunt. “There is no more profound question than the question of murder.”

  I doubted that. From my perspective, the question of suicide went deeper. I didn’t have too much trouble thinking about what made people decide to kill each other—or not. But self-murder was more like alcoholism. It was fascinating, almost compulsory, but I couldn’t get my mind around it.

  On the other hand, I had no intention whatsoever of mentioning a subject like that in front of a group like this.

  In any case, I didn’t get the chance. “You’re very persuasive, Ms. Bebb,” Hardhouse put in with an amiable chuckle, “but I think that last assertion was a little too sweeping.

  “Murder is only murder—you want somebody dead, so you do something about it. We all feel that way sometimes. And, as you say, under the right provocation we’d all act on it. A man comes home from work and finds his wife in bed with another man, so he shoots them both. We can all sympathize. But there’s no mystery in it. It doesn’t really ‘search’ us.

  “I think Buffy is right. What makes a murder interesting—what makes it ‘profound’—is the desire to conceal it. To benefit from it. Crimes of passion are just that, passionate, emotional. They don’t mean anything except that one person got upset, so another person ended up dead. Deliberate, premeditated, concealed crimes, on the other hand”—he smiled like the blade of a table saw—“have interesting implications.”

  They sure did—at least from my point of view. Especially if you were the intended victim. But I kept my mouth shut. Now was no time to mention el Senor. And I was busy watching Ginny.

  Her eyes practically glowed at Hardhouse. She seemed to find him more desirable by the minute. When she spoke, she sounded like she was challenging him—but she didn’t look that way.

  “Does this have something to do with your theory about why people kill each other?”

  He flashed an avid smile at her. “I can see,” he admitted, “it was a mistake to bring that up. I’ve made myself more obvious than I realized. If you want to play fair,” he added humorously, “you should try to forget I said any of this.”

  Right.

  Several of the guests may’ve wanted to pursue the subject, but at that moment the port arrived. Faith set an elaborate crystal decanter down in front of Cat, and Hardhouse immediately busied himself filling her glass. Then he offered port to the rest of the table. By the time everyone had turned him down, new conversations were underway.

  I had to do something about the way I felt before it got out of hand. Also I couldn’t stomach the sweet sick smell of port. More by luck than skill, I managed to catch Ginny’s eye. After that I stood up and excused myself.

  Queenie looked at me mischievously. “Do you play bridge, Brew? If this were a Christie novel, we’d all spend the rest of the evening playing bridge. We need some way to pretend we don’t know one of us is going to be killed.”

  If she’d asked me that earlier, I might’ve said yes. Any excuse to spend some time in her company. But now I was too strung out.

  “Sorry,” I said—and tried not to wince at the sound of loss in my voice. “I only play bridge when I drink.”

  Walking roughly to hurt my guts—I needed the distraction—I went to my room.

  Ginny took forever to arrive. At least twenty minutes. She’d left my pills and vitamins on an especially delicate end table. I considered flushing them down the toilet. I considered smashing the end table. Finally I took some of whatever was in the bottles. Maybe if I tried to stay healthy, she’d give me another chance.

  When she knocked, I told her to come in. She stuck her head past the door, but didn’t accept my invitation. “I’m going to go corner Rock and Buffy,” she said in a vaguely impersonal tone. “You want to come? Don’t if you’re too tired. I can handle it.”

  I beckoned her in. “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” I lied. I needed some way to insist, and this was as good as any. “I’ve already cornered Rock.”

  “Oh?” At least I had her attention now. She moved into the room and closed the door behind her. Her claw resembled a surgical implement in the lamplight. “How did that come about?”

  I was sitting on the bed. In a better world, I would’ve faced her standing, but I didn’t trust my legs to hold me. In a far better world, I would’ve met her gaze.

  “After you went on that walk”—I did my best to sound noncommittal—“he came looking for us.”

  I paused. After a moment Ginny asked, “What did he want?”

  “Apparently the owners of the lodge told Reeson not to lock up the guns.” I had a talent for reporting conversations, so I repeated what Altar had said almost word for word.

  She didn’t like it, but she didn’t get mad. Frowning hard, she muttered, “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Just disgusted. Common sense must be an antisurvival trait. If too many people had it, we’d collapse from overpopulation.” Then she asked, “What did you tell him?”

  I was tempted—just tempted—to get mad myself. If she cared about stuff like that, she shouldn’t have left me to talk to him alone. But that would just give her an excuse to turn her back and walk out. Which was about the last thing I wanted.

  So I said, “I told him we’d let the matter drop.”

  She nodded slowly. “That’s probably what I would’ve done. Approximately. I don’t want to get fired. I can’t risk going back to town with you in this condition.”

  My condition. No question about it, I was really starting to hate my condition.

  I could tell she wanted to leave, but the expression on my face must’ve stopped her. Looking at me a little harder, she asked, “Was there something else we need to talk about?”

  Something else? Surely you jest. What else could there be? El Senor wants me dead, and Lawrence Smithsonian went out of his way to get us this job, and I’m losing you. I’ve
got a hole inside me you could drive a truck through. No, there’s nothing else we need to talk about.

  “Brew?” Her tone betrayed her concern. I still had the capacity to worry her. “What’s going on?”

  I had to do better than this. Too much was at stake.

  Touching the bed with my palms, I said almost like I wasn’t begging, “Stay with me tonight.”

  Her eyebrows went up. Her eyes flicked to the bed, then back to my face. “You just got out of the hospital,” she observed with studious neutrality. “Are you that well?”

  I shook my head. The truth, Axbrewder. Tell her the truth. Just this once.

  “I’m that lonely.”

  She moved closer, leaning over me so that I had to look straight into her eyes. For a long moment, her gray gaze seemed to search me all the way to the back of my brain. Instinctively I held my breath. She didn’t smile or glare or do anything else to reveal what she felt.

  Abruptly she pulled away and went back to the door. As if it were the last thing she would ever say to me, she replied, “God loves you. Sit on your hands.”

  Then she left.

  It’s an old joke. This guy takes a girl he doesn’t like to the prom. She’s miserable, she wants romance. Trying to get him to be nice to her, she complains, Nobody loves me, and my hands are cold. He says, God loves you, sit on your hands.

  In other words, Take care of yourself. For a change.

  I couldn’t stay awake. One advantage of convalescence. Since I had nothing better to do, I went to bed.

  7

  When I got up the next morning—later than usual for me—there didn’t seem to be any victims. Not yet, anyway. No strangled hilarious screams during the night. No blue marbles reported anywhere. As Buffy had promised. I didn’t exactly distrust her—but I didn’t exactly trust her, either. Or Deerskin Lodge. Or Murder on Cue, Inc. Just to be sure, I checked the roll.

  Listening shamelessly outside one of the bedrooms, I heard Houston Mile and Maryanne Green giggling. At least he was giggling. She may’ve been whimpering.

  Sam and Queenie Drayton were on their way to their room as if they wanted to do some giggling of their own.

  Off to one corner of the den, Rock and Westward sat smoking cigars at each other, engaged in a silent fumigation contest.

  Near one of the fireplaces, Buffy, Connie, Simon, and Ginny—of all people—sat at a card table, apparently playing canasta. I hadn’t realized that Ginny knew how to play canasta. In fact, I hadn’t realized that she knew how to hold cards with her claw. But she did both without any obvious strain.

  That left Joseph and Lara Hardhouse unaccounted for. And Cat Reverie. Maybe they were still asleep.

  My stomach hurt almost as bad as my soul, and anyway I hate the whole world until I’ve had some coffee. Ignoring various greetings, I shambled toward the kitchen in search of caffeine.

  In the dining room I found a breakfast buffet, complete with sweet rolls, scrambled eggs congealing over a can of sterno, orange juice, and—yes—coffee.

  I also found Lara. She sat at the table, pushing her food back and forth on her plate.

  Just my luck. The perfect breakfast companion. I had to admit that she looked as beautiful as ever, but the darkness in her eyes announced a restless night as plainly as a billboard. Whatever ate at her had become hungrier.

  I wasn’t what you could call grateful that she’d kept me away from the wine at dinner. Frightened was more like it. Something about the nature of her attention scared me.

  Hoping she’d leave me alone, I poured myself some coffee. But as soon as she realized that I didn’t mean to say anything, she started to talk.

  “That was a brave thing you did last night.” Her voice was like a caress. “Ginny doesn’t treat you very well. It would have been easy to have a few drinks, to drown your sorrows.” She made the cliché sound more poignant than I would’ve believed possible. “I admire courage like yours.”

  Involuntarily I stared at her. Courage? Are you kidding?

  Slowly she turned her coffee cup around and around in its saucer, but her eyes ignored her hands. “I wonder,” she murmured, “if you realize how attractive your courage makes you. Some women believe a perfect body and a healthy libido are what they want in a man, but I like courage”—she moistened her lips—“and pain. They give me hope.”

  I faced her with my mouth practically hanging open. No question about it, she was too many for me. There was more going on here than I could guess. And my famous intuition didn’t come to my rescue. It needed caffeine, just like I did.

  Fortunately, we were interrupted. Hardhouse and Cat Reverie came into the dining room, so absorbed in each other that they actually held hands.

  When they saw Lara, neither of them blushed. Neither of them even had the grace to look flustered. They let go of each other, however—that was something. With an empty laugh, Cat headed for the coffeepot. Hardhouse faced his wife as if the lines of his pugnacious features and the slickness of his hair held a message only she could read.

  The way I felt about Joseph Hardhouse had one advantage. Seeing him had the effect of kick-starting my brain. All of a sudden, the sheer shamelessness of his attitude, and Cat’s, seemed too blatant to be real. I recovered my ability to jump to conclusions.

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” I said almost pleasantly. “You actors have all the fun. Tonight you’ll switch partners and go through the same charade again. Is this Buffy’s idea of a murder scenario?”

  In unison, like they’d been practicing it for weeks, Hardhouse, Lara, and Cat turned to gape at me.

  Then Lara protested, “Oh, Brew! How could you think—?” Her voice was practically a moan. Turning her face away, she blundered up from the table and fled the room.

  Cat broke into a smile that made my skin crawl.

  Hardhouse took a step toward me. His eyes looked as hard as his jaw, his forehead. With the index finger of his right hand, he tapped me gently over the heart. “Nobody here is an actor,” he articulated. “I play for blood, not sport.”

  Cat aimed her smile at him as if she understood.

  “But even if we’re all actors,” he continued, “it’s no business of yours. You have your own wounds, and they’re about as much as you can handle. You don’t need any more trouble.”

  I had to say something, so I rasped, “Actually, trouble is what I’m best at. Wounds just sharpen my concentration.”

  Listen to me, Hardhouse. Don’t mess with Ginny.

  I waited until he dropped his hand. Then I took my coffee out to the kitchen.

  I didn’t have any particular reason to be there. I just needed to leave the dining room—and I didn’t want to face Ginny in the den. For the first time, it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one who stood to get hurt in this situation. Axbrewder at his unselfish finest. If Ginny was attracted to Hardhouse, so attracted that she couldn’t stay away, he might do her real damage. She might end up looking at me the way his wife did.

  On the other hand, she wasn’t what you could call helpless. If he wanted to mess with her, he might wake up one morning with a stainless steel prosthetic device installed in his chest.

  He was right about one thing, anyway. It was none of my business. Even though the thought of them together made me want to scream my heart out.

  Thinking about Ginny reminded me of my pills. They hadn’t done me any good last night, so I decided to ignore them. I started on the coffee.

  The kitchen was deserted. Faith Jerrick must’ve been busy elsewhere. For a second I thought I caught a faint whiff of gas. Maybe Reeson wasn’t done working on the stove. Maybe he just hadn’t done a very good job. Or maybe I was wrong. The smell faded when I tried to verify it.

  After a while I noticed a hard rhythmic thunking sound in the distance. It seemed to come from outside the lodge.

  Sipping my coffee, I wandered over to one of the windows.

  The day was overcast, and it looked cold. Wind fussed through the bran
ches of the evergreens like it was in a bad mood. Apparently, the snowstorm Buffy had promised us was on its way.

  Not far from the cottages and the rear of the kitchen, Art Reeson stood chopping firewood.

  He was good at it. The ax rose and fell like an extension of his arms. He didn’t put any apparent effort into it, but chips flew from every cut. The logs almost seemed to fall into sections by themselves. He’d taken his jacket and shirt off, despite the cold, and his back steamed delicately.

  Well, if he could stand the weather, so could I. My coat was back in my room, but I had on a heavy sweater to conceal the bulk of my bandages. After I finished my coffee, I limped out through the kitchen and down the steps.

  I didn’t have anything particular in mind. He and I could discuss the guns again, but that was just an excuse. All I really wanted was to get away from Murder on Cue for a while.

  He saw me coming and stopped. The overcast made his black hair and dark skin look less stark, more natural—more like a way of blending into the generalized gray. If the clouds got any thicker, he might be completely invisible. Maybe night was his natural element. He scowled at me, but he didn’t seem angry. For all I knew, that scowl was his version of a smile.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Axbrewder?” he asked. His voice still sounded like it’d been hoarse for years. “You walk funny.”

  I scowled back. Two could play that game. “Old war wound.”

  He looked me up and down. Then he shrugged. “You’re a bad liar.” It was definitely possible that his scowl was a way of smiling. Or of concealing a smile.

  “Really?” I drawled. “Most people think I’m pretty good.”

  “Most people,” he pronounced with the same assurance he had when he swung his ax, “don’t know anything about liars.”

  “And you do?”

  “We’re all liars, Mr. Axbrewder. Most people don’t know anything about themselves.”

  “And you do, Mr. Reeson?” I repeated.

  Now he smiled. If his scowl was a smile, his smile must’ve been a glare of anger. “Call me Art We don’t really need all this firewood. But I didn’t have anything better to do this morning. Faith and the Carbones do all the real work around here. Come have a cup of coffee with me.”