Nice Weekend for a Murder

When Jill came out, her slim dark body barely wrapped in a towel, another smaller one on her head like a turban, she looked like a cute Arab. I told her so.

“Oh?” she said. “And you look like hell.”

“Sweet talker.”

“Rough night?”

“Awful. Sick dreams. I don’t have to tell you what about.”

She sat next to me on the bed. “Does it seem any less real today?”

I hadn’t been up long, but, groggy or not, I was firm on this one. “No,” I said. “What I saw was convincing.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll think in the shower.”

I did; the water invigorated me, first cold, then hot, and some notions started tickling the inside of my skull and I started to smile. I’d been tired last night; beaten down by agents and editors and bus rides and, just possibly, Mohonk Mystery Weekenders. Screwy dreams or not, I’d had some sleep, and this was a new day. Something would be done about what I’d witnessed.

I started to sing.

When I came out in my Tarzan towel, Jill was dressed — a red jacket over a white blouse with navy slacks, patriotism Kamali style — and she smiled on one side of her pretty face and said, “You’re the only person I know of who sings ‘Splish Splash, I was takin’ a bath’ in the shower.”

“World’s number one Bobby Darin fan,” I explained without embarrassment and a little pride. “If you want something more current, go out with somebody ten years younger. Than either of us.”

“I better not risk it,” she said, sitting at a dresser before a mirror, putting on some abstract-shape earrings. “Heavy Metal in the shower might get me electrocuted.”

I was over at the phone, by the curtained window, dialing. “You haven’t even met this younger guy yet,” I said, “and already you’re in the shower with him. Have you no shame?”

“Who are you calling?”

“Front desk. Want to check up on something.”

“Front desk,” a female said. A nice sultry alto.

“This is Mr. Mallory in room sixty-four. I’m one of the guest authors this weekend.”

“Yes, Mr. Mallory.” Perky for an alto.

“I wonder if you could give me some information about the hotel?”

“We’re always anxious to provide information about the mountain house, Mr. Mallory.”

The staff got touchy here when you referred to Mohonk as a “hotel.”

“When my bus arrived last night,” I said, “a man was on duty down toward the bottom of the mountain. In a sort of a little house.”

“Yes. That’s the Gate House.”

“I didn’t see a gate.”

“There was one years ago. It’s still called the Gate House. We’re big on tradition at Mohonk, Mr. Mallory.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, the bus driver checked in with him before we headed up the mountain.”

“Yes.”

“Is that common procedure?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Mallory. No one is allowed in unless their name is on the list.”

“I see. You don’t get a lot of walk-in traffic at the hotel, then?”

“None. And it’s a house.”

“Right. How long is that guard on duty?”

“Well, there are several shifts. But someone is there all the time.”

“Someone’s on duty twenty-four hours?”

“That’s right.”

“Any way up to the hotel other than that road?”

“It’s a house, sir. And no there isn’t.”

“Any way to get to that road, bypassing the Gate House?”

“No.”

“Hmmm. I wonder if I could talk to the man who was on duty in the Gate House last evening.”

“Sir, I believe he’d be sleeping, now... and I couldn’t give out his home number. You might check with someone in management.”

“Okay. Thank you very much. You run a nice hotel here.”

“It’s a house,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice; she knew I was needling her.

Jill was putting on her lipstick. “What was that about?”

I slipped on my clothes and as I did told her what the front desk alto had told me.

“So if Rath really left,” she said, pointing at me like a teacher, “he’d probably have been seen by the guard at the Gate House.”

“Right. And more important — if he left only to return, he’d have been seen returning. Not only seen, he’d have had to log in with the guard.”

“You mean you’d have a specific time.”

“Exactly.” I was smiling. Also dialing.

“Now who are you calling?”

“Kirk Rath,” I said.

The cornflower-blue eyes got very large, and she sat on the edge of the bed nearby. I called the hotel (mountain house) operator and she put me through to information for Albany, New York; Rath’s home number was listed. I wasn’t sure it would be. On the other hand, somebody as adversarial by nature as Rath wouldn’t duck a fight by going through life unlisted.