A Party to Murder

by John Inman

  He corralled Jamie against the wall of the house as the wind began to pick up again, whipping their hair around and sending a chill up Derek’s spine. Although it was late spring, the storm had left a nip in the morning air. With the tempest trying to drag itself back to life, the cool air had turned even chillier. A fine rain began to fall, but the porch roof shielded them from it. They stood in each other’s arms, watching the distant trees grow dim behind the mist. The proximity of their bodies blocked the wind a bit, and Derek smiled again when Jamie tucked his hands inside Derek’s jacket pockets instead of his own to keep them warm.

  “Tell me again why we’re here,” Jamie said.

  Derek pushed Jamie’s hair from his eyes, but the wind blew it back a moment later. “It’s like we said last night. You wanted your damn door prizes, and you wanted—we both wanted—to spend some time alone without the distraction of friends and family. If I fall in love with you, Jamie, I want to know that I did it on my own without any outside influence. In other words, with nobody’s help but yours.”

  Jamie dropped his head to Derek’s shoulder. With his hands still inside Derek’s pockets, he clutched Derek’s hips, locking them together. “You have no idea what it does to me when you talk about falling in love.”

  With his mouth at Jamie’s ear, Derek faintly crooned. “Tell me, then. Tell me what it does to you.”

  But Jamie didn’t answer. Instead, Derek felt Jamie stiffen in his arms. He pulled back to gaze at Jamie’s face to see what was wrong. He found Jamie staring out at the cars again. His expression was more than troubled. He looked—confused.

  Derek whirled around to see what had so captured Jamie’s attention.

  “What?” Derek asked. “What are you seeing?”

  “The cars,” Jamie said. “They look like they’ve sunk into the mud. They’re sitting too low.”

  Derek blinked and peered more intently into the mist. Jamie was right. The chassis of every car, all four of them, appeared to be almost resting on the ground.

  Derek eased himself from Jamie’s arms, and the two of them stepped out into the rain, where fat drops were now plunking in puddles already standing from the night before. Behind them, the raindrops clattered across the house roof and plinked against the window panes. But they ignored it all. They ignored a sudden streak of lightning slicing across the sky as well. And the sharp crack of thunder that instantly followed.

  Derek began to run, pulling Jamie along beside him. He slid to a stop three feet from his car. Panting, Jamie stumbled to a halt right next to him. They both stared down at the wheels of the Toyota. Then their eyes wandered to the other cars, gazing disbelievingly at each of them in turn.

  It was true, Derek realized. The chassis of every automobile was setting too low to the ground, and the reason for it was obvious.

  Someone had slashed the tires.

  SOAKING UP rainwater and grappling with why someone would go to the trouble of slashing all the fucking tires, Jamie spotted something silver lying in the mud beside Derek’s front bumper. He leaned over and picked it up.

  Wire cutters.

  Derek said, “Oh, shit,” and leaped inside his car to pull a lever by the door. Jamie watched, confused, as Derek swung back out of the car and manhandled the Toyota’s hood open. He stood there with one arm up, holding the hood out of the way, while the rain pummeled the top of his head and his hair became slowly saturated.

  “What is it?” Jamie asked, moving closer. But he knew. He already knew.

  He and Derek stood side by side, staring into the engine well. There, what had once been a plethora of neat little doodads and gadgets (which was all Jamie knew about the workings of an internal combustion engine) had been reduced to a tangle of snipped wires and sundered connections.

  A sudden fury welled up in Jamie. The fury didn’t come because they were now really and truly stranded, or because the icy rain was dribbling down his neck, or even because there were two bodies back at the house and someone might very well have it in their plans to kill a few more, including themselves. No, the fury came simply because someone had dared do this to Derek’s car.

  He snuck a peek sideways to see Derek’s reaction. He was surprised to see Derek’s cheek sucked in like he was chewing on it, trying to work things out inside his head. He didn’t appear mad, which scared Jamie even more than he was already.

  “Are the other cars ruined too?” Jamie asked.

  Derek slowly nodded, still gazing into the ruins of his Toyota’s engine. “They pretty well have to be, don’t they,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. “It wouldn’t make any sense to dismantle one car and leave the others. And even if the engines aren’t ruined, the tires are all flat. We wouldn’t get very far on the rims. Even if there were a bridge behind us still standing.”

  They stared at the ruined engine for a long minute, listening to the rain, getting wetter by the second. Finally, Jamie couldn’t stand it anymore.

  He stepped forward, once again tucking his hand into Derek’s pocket, for the connection more than anything else. It would take more than one dry pocket to warm the chill in his heart.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Derek. Tell me what we’re going to do.”

  Derek slid his gaze around to settle it on Jamie’s face. There was something in Derek’s expression Jamie had never seen there before. It was a cold and calculating thing. Where before there had always been warmth and humor, and sometimes immeasurable lust, in those chocolate-brown eyes of his, there was now an icy, rising awareness. And Jamie knew exactly what it meant.

  “We’re really in trouble here, aren’t we?” Jamie asked. “Someone is really out to kill us. All of us.”

  Derek slowly nodded. “I couldn’t believe it at first, but, yeah. I think that’s exactly what’s happening. We’re being systematically hemmed in. All routes of escape are now cut off.”

  Jamie turned and stared back through the rain at the old house half-hidden in the mist. Smoke rose from two of the chimneys. Golden light shone through the dining room windows, and now and then a shadow passed in front of them. People were milling about, gathering together, partaking of a half-wanted breakfast, perhaps, wondering what they were going to do. How they would get away.

  Derek’s next words did not surprise him at all. “It’s not only us, Jamie. I think everyone inside that house is in danger.”

  “Except for the killer,” Jamie said.

  “Yes, except for the killer.”

  Derek took Jamie’s hand and pulled him toward the house, if for no other reason, maybe, than to get in out of the rain. Thunder and lightning was booming and flashing across the sky again, the storm working itself up to round two. The rain was so heavy now Jamie could hardly see the house in front of them until they raced up the porch steps.

  There they found a fellow guest. Waiting.

  CLEETA-GAYLE’S eyes were puffy and her complexion more pallid than usual. Derek thought she looked like she hadn’t slept very well, or possibly not at all. Her frazzled hair was a bird’s nest on top her head, as if a brush hadn’t touched it since she’d crawled out of bed. She was dressed in the same simple dress she wore the day before, but now she had a long raincoat pulled over it, unbuttoned in the front. It was flapping in the wind. Derek expected to see a suitcase in her hand again, but perhaps she knew better this time around. Maybe she knew as well as they did just how trapped they really were.

  When she spoke, the earliness of the hour and her obvious weariness somehow managed to accentuate her Appalachian drawl. Or maybe it was simply the terror Derek spotted lurking in her eyes.

  Derek figured they were all well past the point of wishing each other a good morning. Cattle in the queue at the stockyards waiting to be turned into ground beef probably didn’t say good morning to each other either.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, while he and Jamie shook themselves off after ducking under the porch roof to escape the rain.

  “What’s w
rong?” she asked through pinched lips. There was a distinct tremble in her chin, like a subterranean earthquake jarring her skin from within.

  Derek didn’t see any reason to mince words. “Someone disabled the cars. Unless there’s a mechanic hanging around I haven’t met yet, not to mention a bridge builder, no one is going anywhere anytime soon.”

  Cleeta-Gayle didn’t seem surprised. “Someone tried to get in my room last night.”

  Jamie stiffened at Derek’s side. “What do you mean?”

  She wrapped her arms across her chest as a tremor rattled through her whole body. The shiver was either from fear or cold. Derek didn’t know which. She tucked in her quivering chin and glared out at them. For the first time, Derek thought he saw a glimmer of spunk shooting out of those wounded, weary eyes. Behind the fear, the faintest glimpse of anger lurked.

  “I heard footsteps in the hall. Then someone jiggled the doorknob to my room. They did it gently, like they were trying not to be heard. I had the lights out, so they probably thought I was asleep.”

  “And you weren’t?” Jamie asked.

  Her glare intensified. “I was praying.”

  “Did it help?” Jamie asked, unimpressed.

  She glowered at him but didn’t answer.

  “Was your door locked?” Derek asked.

  She gave a reluctant shrug, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Yes. There’s an old skeleton key in the lock. I twisted it when I got inside. But these old houses always have a single key that opens every door. My key surely isn’t the only one.”

  “No,” Jamie said. “Our door had an old skeleton key too. And they’re probably all interchangeable.”

  As if the same urge suddenly fell on each of them simultaneously, they all turned their eyes to the rain. It was really coming down now. They could hardly see through it to the cars and the trees beyond. Thunder was a continuous rumble overhead. When lightning seared the sky, they each stepped farther back from the edge of the porch, as if afraid they’d be barbecued in their tracks.

  Cleeta-Gayle at last turned her back on the storm. After a quick glance through the window to the dining room, where the other occupants of the house were huddled, eating breakfast, gossiping, complaining, she focused her attention once again on Jamie’s and Derek’s faces.

  “Someone here isn’t who they say they are,” she said. “How are we going to find out who it is?”

  “Are you absolutely sure you don’t know any of the other guests, or Mr. or Mrs. Jupp for that matter? Have you really never met any of them before?”

  “No,” she said. “I told you that before. Why, have you?”

  Jamie and Derek answered in unison. “No.”

  A silence settled over them, a silence only interrupted by the rising storm. The rain seemed to draw them like a magnet. After each of them had spent a little time lost in their own private thoughts, watching the sky unload before their eyes, Derek finally turned to Miss Jones and asked point-blank, “Why did you tell us about someone trying your door? Why did you trust us? Why didn’t you go to one of the others?”

  Her answer came without a beat of hesitation. “You have honest faces.” She centered her attention on Derek then, gently weeding Jamie out of the equation. His contempt for prayer had clearly rankled her. “And you look like someone who would know how to take care of himself.”

  Jamie turned to him and grinned. “My butch baby.”

  Derek laughed. Cleeta-Gayle did not.

  She did not look amused by the sweet talk between Jamie and Derek. She did, however, businesslike and without preamble, ask the question that was paramount in all their minds.

  “So tell me. What exactly are we going to do?”

  Chapter Six

  IN THE dining room, they found everyone sitting disconsolately around the long polished table. Many of them sipped coffee, but most of the plates were clean, so not much food was being consumed. Jamie speculated that appetites were at a minimum. No surprise there. The only exception was Tommy Stevens. His plate was piled high with bacon and eggs. He was working at it with his full attention, seemingly ignoring everyone else in the room.

  Oliver Banyon, seated beside him, looked up when Derek and Jamie and Cleeta-Gayle Jones entered the room.

  “Now what?” he asked. There was a bruise on his cheek.

  Jamie stared at the bruise. “What happened to you?”

  Tommy Stevens looked up from his plate. “We had a fight. He lost.” Banyon remained silent, but he didn’t look happy. He looked, if anything, embarrassed.

  Mrs. Jupp spoke up from the end of the table where she was seated by her husband. Apparently with murder being added to the program, the line between staff and guests had been forever obliterated. They were all in the same boat now, so social distinctions were moot.

  “Lover’s tiffs are the least of our worries.” She scowled as if the words were distasteful on her tongue, and turned her steely glare on Jamie as if he were the cause of all her misery. “We saw the two of you out by the cars. What has happened now?”

  Jamie didn’t like the way she stared at him, so he was less than gentle with his answer. “The cars have been messed with. Tires slashed, engines destroyed.” He reached out and snagged a strip of bacon from a platter. “Would anyone like to confess to the crime? Or perhaps tell us why you beat that poor old couple to death in the basement?”

  Banyon hurled himself to his feet. “You’re out of line! What makes you think one of us killed those unfortunate people?”

  Before Jamie could snap back, Tommy Stevens laid down his fork, propped his elbows on the table, and clasped his hands under his chin. He gazed up at Banyon trembling in fury beside him. “Geez, Ollie. For a college professor, you’re not very smart. The pool of suspects is rather thin, don’t you think? Since there is no one else on the premises, who do you think did the killing if not one of us?”

  Banyon glowered back. “Those killings happened before any of us arrived here. How do you know it has anything to do with us at all?”

  Tommy all but clucked his tongue at the level of rose-colored naïveté spilling from his lover’s mouth. “What else could it be? Do you really think we were all invited here and then some random murderer just happened by? Someone must have come here twice. Once to kill the old couple, and the second time to innocently arrive with the rest of us. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Jamie felt Derek’s hand brush the small of his back. “I think your friend is right,” Derek declared to Banyon. Then his eyes traveled to the other faces in the room. “Unless someone has a better theory.”

  At that moment, a crash of thunder as sharp as a hammer blow jolted the house. Everybody jumped. A water glass tumbled to the floor and shattered. It was Banyon’s. Mr. Jupp wearily dragged himself to his feet and set about sweeping up the broken glass with a tiny broom and shovel he plucked from among the fireplace tools.

  Jamie stared at the tiny shovel in Mr. Jupp’s hand. “That looks like the murder weapon we found in the basement.”

  All eyes turned to Mr. Jupp. “Jamie’s right,” Derek said. “If we look around, we’ll find one of the fireplaces short of its shovel. Not that it really gets us anywhere.”

  While everyone else continued to stare at the shovel, Cleeta-Gayle stifled a sob and moved to stand beside the fire. Derek and Jamie parked themselves at the table and began filling their plates. Mrs. Jupp, perhaps more out of habit than anything else, rose and filled their coffee cups from the urn.

  They offered polite thanks, and she gave a reluctant nod to show she had heard. Jamie noticed her hands were shaking as she delivered the cups.

  Mr. Jupp poured the shards from Banyon’s water glass into a trash bin by the sideboard. He quickly replaced the fireplace shovel in the rack of tools by the grate as if he couldn’t wait to get it out of his hands. Turning to Derek with bright, hopeful eyes, he asked, “Did you two find the phones you misplaced?”

  Derek shook his head. “They weren’
t misplaced. They were stolen. And no. I’m sure they’re gone for good.”

  “Someone seems to have thought this through pretty well,” Jamie added.

  “So you think the killer means to murder us too.” It was Mrs. Jupp. Again, a clump of hair had slipped from the net at the back of her head. She seemed to notice it as soon as she spoke and set about with a bobby pin, tucking it back into place. With her hands shaking, it was no easy task.

  Cleeta-Gayle spun from the fire and faced them all, her face taut, her eyes flashing. “Well, of course he means to murder us too! Why do you think we’ve been lured here?”

  Tommy Stevens smiled around a mouthful of eggs. “Seems to me it didn’t take a lot of luring. One simple invitation and we fell all over ourselves RSVPing the shit out of it.”

  “Watch your language,” Mrs. Jupp snapped.

  Banyon laid a gentle hand on Tommy’s arm. “Please,” he said. “Let’s try to be civil. Being at one another’s throats isn’t going to help. We need to work together.”

  “And do what, exactly?” Tommy asked. In the same instant, he brushed his thumb across Banyon’s cheek, the one with the bruise. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

  Banyon smiled. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time a boyfriend has popped me in the puss. I’m pretty sure I’ll live.” His gaze traveled to the little shovel still swinging on its rack by the fire. “Maybe.”

  Mr. Jupp stood at the dining room window, staring out at the rain. His back was as straight as a fence post. With his massive hands clenched into balls of muscle and bone, he looked like he wanted to hit something. Jamie wondered if it was the tender moment between Tommy and Banyon that irked his homophobic sensibilities, or whether it was the fact that he was on the menu for slaughter like the rest of them that was pissing him off.

  “Can we walk out?” Mr. Jupp asked, his tone thoughtful, as if he were thinking out loud. But once the words were actually uttered, he turned to face the room. “What do you think? Is there a chance?”