by Mark McNease
“It hasn’t changed since the last time you read it,” Danny said. He was doing his best not to get caught up in Kyle’s anxiety. “You act like it’s going to disintegrate if you don’t keep handling it.”
Kyle didn’t respond for a moment, choosing to lose himself in thought instead. “It seemed a little easy, “ he said.
“What did?”
“Finding this! I can’t be the only one Teddy was always quoting that passage from the AA book to. It was his mantra, ‘Page 417, ‘Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today.’ He’d repeat it two or three times in a conversation. It’s almost as if someone wanted me to find it.”
“He did!” Danny said, exasperated. “Teddy wanted you to find it! He was afraid something might happen to him.”
Kyle wasn’t fully convinced and let his imagination take over, trying to make connections of events that seemed random. Teddy’s death, Happy’s body found in the creek. Sid was a killer, or at least a bystander to murder. He’d been there in the Lapinsky home when it happened. And so had Bo Sweetzer, then young Emily. And now the collision course they’d been on was coming to a head.
“Imogene will survive,” Kyle said absently, trying again to regain his composure, and the mention of his boss gave him a most unexpected idea. “Maybe she can turn what’s going on here into something for Tokyo Pulse.”
“Oh, great,” Danny said. “Never miss an opportunity when there’s news to be made. She really has you trained.”
“That’s not what I mean. But there’s a story here. They’re looking to beef up their general news and she wants off the finance beat, she doesn’t have the head for it.”
“She has a head?!” Danny said, trying to bring a little levity to the situation.
Kyle frowned. “She’s a very good reporter, Danny. It’s not that she can’t do this job, it’s just that it bores here. You have to admit finance is not very sexy. She might be able to take a story about murder at a country resort and get some attention.”
“Don’t forget the ‘gay’ part. Pretty soon we’ll be completely assimilated and lose the curiosity factor, better hurry.”
Kyle waved him off, not willing to get further into it. It was not that he disrespected his friend Teddy, or the Lapinksy family, or anyone else. But he was a realist as well. For one thing, they were all dead and wouldn’t care, and for another, someone should tell their story, it was a hell of a feature, and not some talking head from Philly6, either. The story was going to be reported regardless of how Kyle or Danny or anyone else felt about it. It might as well be Imogene who broke it.
“I’m going to call her back,” Kyle said, and he got his phone from the dresser. He dialed Imogene, glancing at his watch as he did: 5:30 p.m. They would need to leave soon for dinner and the party.
“Imogene, it’s Kyle,” he said into her voicemail as he headed into the bathroom to get ready. “There’s a story here you might be interested in. Not Manhattan-local obviously, we’re in Pennsylvania, but a seriously meaty story with history and cold cases and more angles than you could shake a microphone at. Maybe Lenny-san would go for it.” He was referring to her boss, Leonard Baumstein, who ran the small newsroom and reported up to his bosses in Japan. “Call me when you can.”
“I don’t know about you, Kyle,” Danny said from the living room.
“I don’t always know about me, either,” Kyle said, “but I’m in the land of the living and Teddy’s dead. He’s not coming back, he wouldn’t care who told the story. Hell, he would’ve been the first to tell me to call her anyway. He always liked attention, so why not give him that?”
Kyle closed the bathroom door before Danny could say anything else. Danny shook his head, reached for the remote and un-muted the television just in time for the local news. He had the uneasy feeling they would all be part of it the next time he turned it on.
Chapter 28
Room 202
Bo sat on the bed staring across at the wall. It felt to her almost like a trance state; she would know because she had been in this state before, just before killing Frank Grandy and Sam Tatum. A calm overtook her, and a sadness, too. Especially this night. It brought a finality the others did not. She had to admit that once she’d found Grandy and set off on her mission there was a sense of anticipation, of taking the next step, but after tonight there would be no more steps. Or, rather, she would be stepping finally into oblivion.
She would be fooling herself to think they wouldn’t connect her to this murder, and then the others. For all she knew, Linda Sikorksy had already been following her leads and instincts and may be closer to the truth than Bo could guess. She would be driving off from Pride Lodge, going west somewhere, maybe Chicago, where she would stop and plan, stop and re-arrange. She would never see St. Paul again.
She took her father’s gun from the velvet cloth she kept it wrapped in and held it in her lap. It felt heavier tonight. It weighed on her in a way it hadn’t before. The last time she used in, in Frank Grandy’s apartment in Detroit, it had seemed almost weightless, an extension of her hand. She had felt exhilarated, so thrilled to be able at last to silence the cries of her parents’ ghosts that she nearly levitated, or at least it felt that way. She had no remorse when she shot Grandy; certainly no more than he had had when he shot first her father, then her mother. Bang, bang. Just like that. Why hadn’t she cried out from the closet? Was it fear, or was there an instantaneous determination to survive this, and to survive it for vengeance? Could a ten year old girl in the moment of her life’s greatest crisis really be that calculating?
Yes, she thought. Yes, I was. Maybe I’m just cold inside and always have been. Maybe when I saw my father shot I knew then and there I would shoot back someday. Shoot back, or stab back, or strangle back, but the score would be settled, and yes, I knew even then.
She felt foolish in her cat costume. She was not a cat by nature. A serpent, perhaps, patient and deadly, but not a cat. That was part of her thinking, she knew, to obfuscate who she was and why she was here. It distorted the picture anyone might form of her, and distortions served her purpose. Cats did not shoot people, although they did pounce, and the thought of it made her smile. She reached up with her free hand and touched her face, so peculiar did the smile feel. Her smile had never been genuine since the day her parents died. It was a mask, a device, and suddenly the falseness of it startled even her.
She rose slowly, slipping the gun beneath the waistband of her costume. She would go to the party, smile and be a Halloween cat for a time, and she would wait. Once the opportunity came, and it would, she would lure Sid away from the crowd having its party, and she would put an end to him and to it, this lifelong ache and obsession. Within minutes after that, she would be gone. As for luring him, that might not be the right word. Challenge would be more accurate, since he knew who she was. He’d made that clear, and he would be looking for a chance of his own. Who struck first would decide the matter, and she had no doubt about who that would be.
Chapter 29
The Master Suite
Sid knew he should leave now. Maybe his instincts were too rusty after all these years; he hadn’t had to act this quickly in many years. And maybe it was sentiment, hesitation from loving the life he had with Dylan. A soft life, despite the demands of running a resort. A life of love and coffee in the mornings and the absolute quiet of the Pennsylvania countryside. He would never see it again, and he wanted to make as slow an exit as he could, providing it did not ensnare him.
Dylan was already downstairs at the party. He had been too nervous to linger in the Suite. He loved this life, too, but he worried much more about the details and the requirements than Sid did. Dylan was a fretter. He’d gone to the basement an hour before anyone else would arrive, determined to have every chair in place, every balloon and paper ghost. The good thing about his being so distracted was that Sid would be able to leave quickly, quietly and unnoticed. He just wanted one more look around, one more deep breath of air he wou
ld not breathe again.
He was taking only a suitcase with him. There was no need for more. He had no idea how to go about changing his identity if it came to that. He knew he could learn much from Bo Sweetzer, but she was the last person he ever wanted to see again. She had destroyed his life and it wasn’t fair. He had not pulled the trigger. He hadn’t even taken anything from the house! Yet she had targeted him and Sam for revenge, as well as the only man who really deserved it. Could he blame her? Yes, he could. He could blame her for saving her rage all these years and aiming it at an old man who had never meant her harm. Her obsession was costing him everything.
There was no plan A, let alone a plan B. His only plan was to get in his car and drive to New York City, or Queens or the Bronx. Somewhere he could melt into the urban landscape and make a plan. He’d have to get rid of the car. Maybe not get another one, cars were too easy to find. In a big city like New York or Boston he could live out his life never driving again. Would he need to change his name? How, exactly, does someone do that?
He was thinking it all through, trying to let it gel into definite, clear actions he could take, when a knock came at the door.
Odd, Sid thought. No one ever came to the Suite. Dylan would just walk in, of course. He sighed, annoyed that one of the guests would take the liberty of bringing some minor problem to his attention here, where he lived, and here was considered off-limits, even if there was no official policy about that. There were boundaries to keep, and someone was crossing them.
Sid left the small suitcase on the bed and went to answer the door. Whoever it was, with whatever needless complaint they had, could be dispatched quickly enough and he could get on with the sad task of saying goodbye without uttering a word.
Chapter 30
Unhappy Halloween
After falling off some the last few years that Pucky and Stu owned Pride Lodge, the Halloween party was back to its all time highs. Fifty-six guests, not including staff, and another seventy-five locals that Dylan had counted, all packed into the basement bars that had been turned into one large frightfest. No detail had been spared that day as every hand on deck spun cobwebs, hung spiders and placed cackling witches and howling skulls along the bar and table tops. DJ Slam, a college kid from Princeton, had driven in to make $500 for the night and keep the crowd on its feet.
The space was dark, and as Kyle and Danny ordered drinks at one of the corner tables in Clyde’s, Kyle had trouble telling the guests from the locals, and one person from another. He thought he saw Maggie dressed as a firefly, taking pictures on her smartphone, and Eileen not far from her as a mummy ordering beer at the bar.
“What do you think is going to become of the place?” Danny asked, having to raise his voice over a Lady GaGa song being played too loud for his tastes. Danny had never liked loud music, or any music when he was talking, and would even turn the radio news off in the car when they were having a conversation. It all became noise to him, especially when it was competing with him.
“Dylan’s still here,” Kyle said, sipping his margarita while continuing to scan the crowd.
“You think he’ll still want to be here if Sid . . . “
“Go ahead, say it. If Sid goes to prison. I can’t imagine Dylan leaving under any circumstances.”
“What if the bank takes the property?”
Kyle had thought about that. If Dylan was right and Sid embezzled the money to buy Pride Lodge, the bank was going to want its money back. Kyle had no idea what the laws were about something like that, but he imagined they favored the bank.
“Maybe they’ll come to some arrangement. I can’t imagine the bank wants an old, sprawling gay lodge on its hands, and selling it’s a pain. They’d take a loss, I’m sure. And anyway, it’s all conjecture. Wait and see.”
Danny was first to spot Detective Sikorsky coming through the door. She’d taken the easy way out, costume-wise, and was wearing just a long black wig, witch’s hat and cape, the kind of costume a mother would throw together quickly for a child.
“Good thing she’s not in the fashion industry,” Kyle said as Sikorsky waved and approached the table.
A sudden gasp of recognition went up in the room. Kyle, Danny, and even Linda mid-stride turned to the door that connected Clyde’s with the karaoke room and saw none other than Pucky Green standing in the doorway, smiling at everyone. He had forgone a costume, either not wanting to wear one or, more likely, wanting to make sure everybody recognized him. He hadn’t been to Pride Lodge in nearly two years, and even though people had speculated all weekend he would come, there was an assumption that he might not. It was a hard place for Pucky to be, as haunted by his memories and it ever could be by make-believe ghosts and plastic goblins.
“Who’s that?” Linda asked, sliding into a seat across from Danny.
“That’s Pucky Green,” Danny said. “The original owner of Pride Lodge, the visionary.”
“Ah, yes,” she said. She was aware of the Lodge’s history, having looked into it quickly the last thirty-six hours. “He moved to Key West after his partner died. On the steps, no less.”
The three of them were silent a moment, watching partygoers make their way to Pucky for a hug or a handshake, several of them trying to get him to sit with them. He seemed to prefer staying near the door, holding court for a time, and deserving to. If Pride Lodge truly belonged to anyone, it was Pucky.
“So,” the detective said, turning back in her seat, “what’s this evidence you have for me?”
Kyle reached into his jacket pocket for the email. He wasn’t sure it constituted evidence, or of what: that Sid had a dark past, that he was possibly involved in a crime? That Bo Sweetzer was connected, and that somehow it had all come together and caused the death of Teddy, and perhaps Happy? Were there others?
“He put it where I would find it,” Kyle said, handing the email to her. “In his AA book. He was always quoting a page, and sure enough . . .”
“Convenient,” she said, unfolding the email.
“I told you,” Kyle said.
“Shh.” Danny hushed him as Sikorsky read over the message.
Linda Sikorsky folded the email back up and put it in her blouse pocket. “This isn’t much, you know. And anyone could have written it.”
“But anyone didn’t,” Kyle said. It came from that man, Tatum. He’s dead, I read about it before dinner. An ice pick in the back of his head.”
“And you think Bo Sweetzer had something to do with that?” She felt herself blushing and was glad for the darkness of the bar. She had gone out with Sweetzer, not a date by any stretch, but still a revealing of herself. With a murderer? A criminal? She felt her stomach dropping.
“She’s not Bo Sweetzer,” Kyle said. “At least she wasn’t always. She was Emily Lapinsky, I’m sure of it.” And to Danny, “I should have brought that photograph, I could’ve used the Lodge printer. The resemblance is obvious.”
“The timing’s not right,” Sikorsky said, her mind starting to work out the puzzle. “She was here the night before Teddy Pembroke’s death, but what about Happy? And why would she kill Pembroke in the first place?”
“She wouldn’t,” Danny said. “That’s the point.”
“It’s Sid,” said Kyle. “There are two killers at Pride Lodge. That’s where this is taking me.”
Austin came up to the table carrying a tray of drinks. He was wearing a Frankenstein costume, complete with bolts in his neck. He looked the way the monster would if he’d been a post-Stonewall punk with blond and purple hair. “Courtesy of Mr. Hern,” he said, handing each of the three a special drink the bar had come up with just for this party. “Monster Mashes,” Austin explained.
“Of course,” Kyle said.
Danny peered around the room, trying to locate Linus Hern and his pocket-sized entourage. “Why would Linus Hern buy us drinks?”
“A truce?”
“More likely slow acting poison.”
“Do you want them or not?” Austin asked
.
“You can just leave them on the table,” Danny said. “And please tell Mr. Hern we appreciate the gesture.”
Austin set the drinks down and hurried off.
“He’s up to something,” Danny said, taking the drink and sniffing it. “No faint smell of almonds. Cyanide’s out.”
“You two really don’t like each other, do you?” Linda said.
“It’s a hate-hate relationship,” Kyle said. “And a long story. I’d even say they respect each other, the way a cobra respects a mongoose.”
“Please tell me I’m the mongoose,” Danny said.
Pucky had been making his way around the room, choosing not to sit anywhere. He was enjoying the attention, the glad-handing and congratulations, although he wasn’t sure why anyone would congratulate him. For still being alive? For surviving Stu’s death? He had arrived that evening and the “welcome backs” had not stopped since. He walked up to the trio’s table just as Danny was hoping to be the mongoose.
“I see you more as a cobra,” Pucky said to Danny, extending his hand. “Patient and wise.”
Danny would have none of the hand shaking and quickly stood instead, putting his arms around the old man. “You’re looking great,” he said.
Pucky was dressed like someone who lived in Key West, with lime green pants, a beige sweater and what looked like dock shoes, the kind you see people wearing on a cruise ship. Or a beach.
“I’ve gained a few,” Pucky said. He turned to hug Kyle, who’d also stood, as had the detective. It just seemed the right thing to do, paying deference to a Pride Lodge legend.
“Linda Sikorsky,” she said, extending her hand. Pucky took it in both of his and welcomed her to the Lodge, just as he would have when he ran it.
“Sit, sit,” Danny said, and to their surprise Pucky agreed. Apparently he was weary of walking slowly around the room hugging and shaking, shaking and hugging.