by Leslie Leigh
Larry immediately got up from one of the comfy chairs and said, "We have a key to the rooms somewhere. I'll see what's up."
Allie followed him to a small table against the wall by the stairs. From a top drawer he extracted a single key on a large key ring.
She followed him upstairs while the rest of the guests remained in the drawing room.
"I hope everything's alright," said Larry. "He looked fine. Didn’t he look fine?"
"He looked ok to me," said Allie.
Larry pounded on the bathroom door. "Bertie? Bertie, are you in there? Are you alright?"
He threw a nervous glance over at Allie. She shrugged in response.
Slowly, he inserted the key. He waited a moment, and then knocked again. "Bertie? We're going to open the door, ok?"
He looked again at Allie. She nodded to him. And he turned the key and opened the door.
6.
"I don’t understand," said Allie. "You were right. He looked fine."
"Are you sure he's—"
"There's no pulse." She felt the man’s neck and shook her head. She put her head down close against his mouth to listen for breathing. His mouth smelled like garlic and mint and spicy cinnamon.
The body lay on the bathroom floor in front of the sink. A bottle of aspirin, opened and spilled with tablets everywhere, lay near him. The medicine cabinet was open. On the sink lay a box of toothpaste, unopened. The sink was dry and the hand towels neatly folded on the rack. In the wicker wastebasket was a balled-up tissue and a single Dixie cup, crumpled.
Coming off the body was a pronounced floral scent and tobacco. Bertie was meticulously clean right down to the tips of his fingers. His glasses were partially off his head, and there was a red gash with bruised flesh around it on the forehead.
"This gash here," said Allie. "He didn’t have this before."
She stood up and looked around. The porcelain sink had an ornamental tap in the shape of a swan's neck with a head that rose up and over and stared down into the sink. Allie went to it and looked closely. "There's a teeny bit of blood right there. You see it?" She pointed to the head of the swan."He was facing the mirror, probably getting the aspirin, when he fell forward. He must have hit his head on this. It looks like he may have had a heart attack. The aspirin. My husband had heart disease. We had aspirin on hand for angina pain." She took a deep breath and put her hand on her head. "Oh my."
"What do we do?" said Larry, a touch of panic in his voice.
"I don’t know. Why are you asking me? I never had to deal with this. Well, that's a lie."
"What does that mean?"
"I can’t explain right now. The point is, at that time there were cops there to handle it. No cops are getting through here tonight. Not with that blizzard out there and this house ten thousand miles from civilization."
She made a sudden move to inspect the faucet again when Larry stopped her. "Don’t touch anything."
"I wasn't going to."
"Don’t touch anything else. The body, the sink, anything."
"Larry, chill out. I wasn't going to touch anything. I wanted to take another look at the faucet is all."
"I'm sorry, I really am, I'm just—, my God, I don’t know what to do."
"Do you have a blanket or a sheet? A sheet would be better."
"Yes, of course." He left the bathroom quickly, muttering under his breath, "Where do they keep them?"
Allie took another look at the body, and then squatted down to get a closer look. She stood up with a very uneasy feeling in her gut. And then she turned and left and closed the door behind her.
7.
Allie sat calmly in a chair by the hexagonal bay of windows in their bedroom, staring at the snow while Del sat cross-legged on the bed, trying desperately to get service on her phone.
Allie turned away from the window. "I'm going to say something very strange."
Del looked up from her phone. "How is this different than any other time?"
"I'm serious. I want to ask you something: Why do you think Bertie was in the bathroom?"
"This is a serious question?"
"It is."
Del rolled her eyes and sighed. "I would say to do what most of us civilized folks do in the bathroom."
"Uh huh. And did you hear the toilet flush?"
"Would I have?"
"Um, yeah. The entire house hears it. It's this ancient plumbing. You flush the toilets here and Richter scales in New Hampshire go off. So I'm going to ask you again: Why was Bertie in the bathroom?"
"Oh jeez, Allie, give it a rest."
"Answer the question."
"I don’t know, ok? How's that for an answer?"
"'I don’t know' is the perfect answer, actually."
"Gold star for me."
Allie stood up and began to pace. "It's been bothering me." She stopped and looked at Del. "Why would he have locked the door if he wasn't there to use the bathroom?"
"Maybe he was doing something else. Washing his face? Brushing his teeth? Straightening himself out somehow? Lots of people lock the bathroom door for any old reason."
"The sink was dry. I mean, bone dry."
"Maybe Bertie wiped it clean. He seems like the type."
"Exactly! Just follow me here for a second. He washes his face or brushes his teeth, right?"
"Right."
"And he feels this pain in his chest like a heart attack, and so he goes into the medicine cabinet to grab some aspirin, right?"
"Right."
"The toothpaste was unopened. I saw it there right on the sink still in the box. So Bertie didn’t brush his teeth. If he washed his face, then why were his glasses on?"
"His glasses were on?"
"They were."
"Maybe he put them on after he washed."
"And stood there long enough for his angina pain to get so bad as to warrant grabbing aspirin?"
"I'm not following you, babe."
"Picture it. He goes and washes his face. He feels this pain. Maybe he felt it before he went in to wash and it finally got so bad that he needed to take the aspirin. Or maybe it came on suddenly. In either case, why would he finish washing up and wipe down the sink? Or let's say he finished and the pain came on suddenly. Why would he stop to put on his glasses?"
"You're making something out of this. This is Allie Griffin having fun with murder again."
"Excuse me!"
"I mean that in the nicest way, my darling. I think you want this to be a case of murder so you won’t have to spend a weekend in total boredom. Bertie could have washed, wiped down the sink, put his glasses on, fixed his hair, and kissed the mirror, and then felt his chest pain and then reached for the aspirin."
Allie went and sank back into the chair by the windows and rested her head on her hand. "You're right. I'm looking for murder where there is none."
She sat for several minutes, lost in thought, trying to clear her mind of the slow descent into trauma that the weekend had taken. If there was ever a time during this whole trip where she just wanted to be home with her cat, it was now. She pictured Dinah, her stubby little legs carrying her plump body over to the door when Allie walked in; rubbing her face all over Allie's legs – the traditional kitty cat "Hello" – with her little nose sniffing intently at her legs to try and discern all the foreign places this wonderful person had been to in her absence. If only she were a cat, able to tell the story of the world and all its secrets by sheer smell—
She picked her head up off her hand and said quietly, "His smell." She raised her voice so that Del would hear. "That smell. His smell."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Bertie had this scent to him. Like some kind of fine soap. Like those high-end, handcrafted soaps they sell in boutiques or by mail order only. It was like flowers and tobacco and whatever. Whatever it was, it wasn't any soap that was laid out for Larry's guests to use."
"So you're saying..."
"Larry didn’t wash his face in there. Not a
t that time." Allie stood up and stared at her friend, a feeling of eerie calm doing very little to untwist the knot in her gut that had begun the moment she set foot in this house.
"So, once again," she said, "why was he in there? And why did he lock the door?"
Del did not have an answer.
PART II
1.
The entire group assembled in the drawing room to talk about what had happened. As they got settled, a couple with stiff drinks in hand, the lights flickered once, causing everyone to stop breathing just for a moment and look up and around, as if the source of the electrical glitch was located in the air somewhere close by.
"We have a problem," said Larry Gordon. “The phones are out, and there's no mobile service either. Mobile service is usually spotty around these parts; with the storm raging out there, you can't get a signal for anything."
Larry's words seemed to sink right to the floor.
"Well, we have to do something," said Molly. "I, for one, do not very much like the thought of sleeping with that...that...upstairs." She gestured toward the ceiling.
Allie stood up. "What do you suppose we do? We can't disturb the scene."
"The scene?" Molly's expression was one of indignation. "It's not like a crime has been committed here."
"I realize that," Allie said calmly. "But you have to realize that any incidents of sudden death, even from natural causes, are usually matters for the police and coroner."
"Her boyfriend's a cop," added Del.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Whatever," said Del.
Molly threw up her arms. "Oh, this is ridiculous. I can't believe there isn’t anything we can do."
"We could lock the bathroom door and wait till tomorrow," said Allie.
"I'm with Allie," said Rachel Forrester, casting a sideways glance at her. "We shouldn’t interfere."
Outside, the storm winds shrieked.
Larry Gordon cleared his throat. "I think we all should probably try to get some sleep. I'll lock the bathroom door."
The guests all sat silently. Allie, Larry, and Molly were the only ones standing. Everyone was either looking at the floor or sat with their heads in their hands.
One by one, as if the result of a chain reaction, the guests began to stand, taking deep breaths and letting them out as sighs. Not a word was exchanged between anyone. It was like a funeral was letting out.
Molly Townsend left the room first, and quickly. Larry Gordon followed after. Allie looked at Del, shrugged, and started off toward the stairs. Del followed her. The women could hear Jürgen and Rachel bargaining over who would get to use the downstairs bathroom first.
2.
Allie paced the bedroom while Del lay face down on top of the still-made-up bed doing her nails.
"Suspects, pros and cons. Let's start with Monsieur Michaud."
"Oui, oui," said Del.
"Michaud had access to all food and plates."
"Right," said Del, "and you said Jürgen didn’t trust him."
"Jürgen doesn’t trust him for some reason. Cons to this theory?"
Del blew on her nails. "I guess he would have had to coordinate with the servers which guest would get which plate and that would be difficult."
"Not too difficult, but risky. He's involving someone else in the crime, which is very risky indeed. That person would have to be extremely loyal. How about Larry? Pros." She thought for a moment, tapping her pen against her chin. "I can't think of anything that would point to Larry...except..."
"Except what?"
"Larry knew the exact location of the key to the bathroom."
"Yeah, so? It's his house."
"I know it's his house, but he didn’t even know where they kept the sheets. We were in the bathroom and I told him to get a sheet to cover the body."
Del shivered at this utterance.
"When I told him that, he mumbled something like, 'now where do they keep the sheets?' Truth be told, he was nervous."
"Interesting. You think he could have locked the bathroom door after Bertie died?"
"He could have. But why would he do it?"
"Oh, and don't forget Jürgen doesn’t like Larry either."
"Right. But there's a serious con here, and that's the fact that Larry is just too passive to do anything diabolical. I just can’t see it. I know this fact neither proves nor disproves anything, but it is something to consider."
Del capped her nail polish. "So we'll have to revisit that one. Next?"
"Next is Molly. The pros. Well, we know she had access to the soup pot and possibly other items in the kitchen. Cons. Michaud would never have stood for it had he known she actually did something to his food. Chances are he tasted everything before it was served. Before and after his altercation with Molly."
"She was also pretty adamant about not wanting the cops involved, about wanting to move the body. Those go in the pro column, don’t you think?"
"They would, were it not for the fact that it's a natural thing not to want to spend an evening with a dead body lying around in your house."
"True that," said Del.
"True that. So now we come to Jürgen."
"Ah, Jürgen."
"Yes. We know Jürgen had a great dislike for Bertie for some reason."
"Are you getting the same feeling that I have about Jürgen?"
"That he doesn’t like anyone? Yes. So I'm willing to put that one aside. But I think we can agree that his getting up at dinner was a little strange, and puts him on our pro list."
"Agreed."
"The cons are similar to the ones for Michaud and Molly. He would have had to coordinate which dish would go to which guest. Easy if a server was involved, but risky."
"So we're left with Rachel," said Del.
Allie took a cautious breath. "Yes. Rachel."
The women sat silently thinking, and then Allie said, "I can’t think of anything that would point to her."
"Neither can I," said Del.
They listened to the wind howling outside, and to the motes of snow and ice pelting the windows.
"Except..."
Del waited, and then said, "Except what?"
"Except for the fact that I had to pass by her room when I went to the bathroom."
"And?"
"And she caught my eye and didn’t smile, didn’t wave, didn't wink, didn’t do anything that you do when you catch someone's eye. Instead, she turned quickly and started fluffing up her pillows."
"Ok, so you caught her fluffing up her pillows. So what?"
"So, in retrospect it looked as if she was trying to hide something under her pillows and was covering it up. She was fully dressed and ready to go back downstairs for after-dinner drinks. No reason at all to be fluffing up her pillows."
"You don’t really have anything there."
"On the contrary. What I have is odd behavior. I'm taking every bit of odd behavior into account here."
"Point taken. Any theories about what could have happened to Bertie?"
"Well," Allie said, "there's no window in that bathroom. Anyone that entered that room would’ve had to have come in through the plumbing, and somehow I think that's not the case. So we're left with the possibility that someone entered that bathroom, killed Bertie, then locked the door behind him to make it look as much like a sudden natural death as possible."
"Ok, so where are we? What do we do with all this info?"
"Well, we have to ask ourselves which theory is more likely than all the rest, the one where we have to do the least amount of assuming. Then we have to go and talk to people. Or I have to talk to people, and..." She grinned at Del, trying to convey a look of apology.
"I know that face," Del said skeptically.
"We might have to take a look at the body."
"What's this 'we'?"
"Alright, I might have to have another look at the body. We should also have a look at Bertie's personal effects."
"That I'll help you with. What are we
looking for?"
Just as Allie spoke, Del spoke the same words in unison: "We'll know when we find it."
Del smiled and shook her head. "Gee, how did I know you were going to say that?"
3.
Sneaking around upstairs was not going to be as difficult as the women had previously thought. The storm outside was now raging to the point where the winds produced rose to a fever pitch in wild howls, then died down to a dull moan, then rose again, and so it went on into the night. Padded feet and a watchful eye were all that were needed to make it safely to Bertie's room undetected. After carefully closing the door behind them, Allie clicked on her phone's flashlight and the two went to work rummaging through the dead man's possessions.
They whispered, though the noise of the storm was bad enough that one had to do so close to the ear of the other.
Bertie's bed remained neat to the point that it looked as though the man had not laid a single piece of clothing or baggage upon it, even though Allie had seen him unpacking that way. In fact, the entire room looked as though it had not been occupied at all. Everything was pristine to the point of obsession. They discovered Bertie's luggage in the closet, tucked efficiently to one side. A couple of white cotton shirts hung overhead. No ties. The dresser drawers contained scant few items as well. Two shirts, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, and that was it. All in all, it made sense for a man to pack this way, in contrast to Allie and Del, who had each packed a combined total of items that would shame a cabaret performer marooned on a desert island for a month. However, there was something in the scarcity of personal effects that made Allie a little sad, like seeing a lonely old man dining in a café late at night all by himself with nothing but a book to keep him company, knowing he'd go home that night to little more than the same. Allie felt for people like that; she was close to becoming one herself after her husband, Tom, had passed six years before.
On the top of the dresser was an old leather travel grooming kit. It was unzipped. Inside were leather straps to hold bottles and sundries of varying sizes. Here was the soap in the bottom part of the case, housed in a rusty metal box. This was obviously where Bertie's available cash went: to his personal hygiene. Bertie seemed to have spared nothing toward the goal of being the cleanest man on the face of the planet. If that meant spending more for soap than he did on his entire wardrobe, so be it. Next to the soap was a glass vial that was the home for Bertie's toothbrush. The rest of the kit contained spaces for the following: a tube of toothpaste, a razor, a shaving brush, a collapsible shaving mug, a tin of powdered shaving cream, a bottle of aftershave, a shoehorn, a nail file, a lint brush, deodorant, a container of talcum powder, a comb, and a final extra space for some miscellaneous item. All items were snapped into their proper place and all the straps were filled save for the miscellaneous one. She then noticed something. Many of the items had a brand label, and every one of these labels had been picked at. Tiny gouges in the upper right corner of every label, ostensibly made with a fingernail. Bertie's own personal method of marking his belongings?