by Leslie Leigh
"I sleep here last night. I couldn’t fall asleep with that horrible wind and the snow and the man dying upstairs. Terrible. I come down here and get a book from the library and I sit and read on the couch till I pass out."
"Did you sleep well, at least?"
He stretched with a great deal of vocalization that sounded like a cockatiel squawking in protest at the approach of a cat. "No. One, maybe two hours."
Allie's stomach tightened. "And you've been down here the whole night?"
"Mmm hmm. I sit in library for a while then I come in here."
Allie realized there was very little chance Jürgen heard any of her and Del's escapades during the night. Still, there was a chance, and that worried her. She decided now was as good a time as any to begin her official investigation, if one could call it that.
She decided that caution, extreme caution, would be the watchword of the weekend's remainder.
"Jürgen," she said, "can you and I talk a little bit?"
The man smiled. "If we can have coffee."
6.
The coffee flowed, and so did Jürgen's conversation. The two sat in the little breakfast nook on the western side of the house.
"What is the last thing you remember about Bertie? Your last impression?"
"Well I would say when he brush-off his jacket."
"Explain."
"Well, I pass his room after dinner, because his room was near the top of the stairs. I looked in and I saw him brush his coat. Over and over again he brush like his life depends on it." Jürgen pantomimed the motion.
"Ok, so go on."
"That's it. I thought he was strange as I always did."
"Well, what did you do after that?"
"Why you ask all these things?"
"It's just... I want to find out what happened to Bertie."
"They say he had a heart attack. That's what you say."
"I know, but I want to figure out all the steps he took along the way that eventually led up to his death in the bathroom. That's all. It's just for my own...interest."
Jürgen shook his head. "You're beautiful but you’re very strange."
"I've heard that often. Did you hear or see him go into the bathroom?"
"Yes, that I saw."
"What time was that?"
"Oh, I don’t know. But I did see him, and then I shut my door. I heard the bathroom door close and the water go on for a long time. A few minutes later I hear footsteps pass my door. Then I hear smaller footsteps."
"Smaller?"
"Yes, like a smaller person walking. The footsteps come past my room and stop at the bathroom. I hear them jiggle the door handle."
"The bathroom door handle."
"Yes. It was locked I guess."
"Ok."
"And then the small footsteps walk past my door again."
#
As soon as she could, Allie got back to her room and jotted down a bunch of notes about her conversation with Jürgen in her journal. Whenever she wrote, she had a tendency to mutter under her breath. This was enough to awaken Del, who stirred and moaned and lifted her head, staring blankly at her roommate.
"Whah you doin? Stahp talking."
"Hold on," Allie said softly. "I just spoke with Jürgen."
"Ah you still talkin' to him?"
"Shush. Go back to sleep."
Del yawned noisily and rubbed her eyes. "I can’t sleep with you muttering."
"Then go downstairs," she said dismissively. "There's a monk down there making us breakfast."
"Excuse me?"
She looked up from her journal, annoyed at the interruption. She did little to hide the annoyance in her voice. "Actually, it's not a monk, it's just a brother. He's from a brotherhood next door, a mile away. Go say hi. He's making us breakfast. There's coffee down there too."
With a tired roll of the eyes, Del got up without a word and headed to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Allie scribbled as much as she could remember from the conversation, and wrote herself little notes in the margins.
This murder – murder, indeed, perhaps she was a bit premature with that charge – Bertie's death occurred in between two bedrooms: Jürgen's and Rachel's. So Rachel was next. She decided she'd better go in blindly to this conversation. Although she never really had much luck with this approach in the past, it felt right to do it this way. It helped her build conversational chops, and relieved her of the pressure of having to stick to a script.
It was early still. She decided to wait until after breakfast.
When Del came out, Allie was standing there waiting for her. She thrust the paper in her face. Del read it over.
"This is... I can’t believe it."
"Bertie's a fence. Do you know what a fence is?"
"Where'd you get this?"
"Our friend Bertie had this hidden in his suitcase."
"Unbelievable."
"I trust you agree this puts a whole different light on things, Watson?"
"Sure does. I'm going back to bed."
"You can't. Breakfast."
Del ran a hand through her hair. "This should be fun."
#
Breakfast was a strange, stilted event, as if all the awkwardness and angst of the entire weekend were compressed into this tiny space surrounding the table in the breakfast nook. Larry and Molly Townsend were up, chatting freely and seriously with Brother Al while he puttered in the kitchen. The couple helped to bring plates of steaming food – scrambled eggs, rashers of bacon, a heap of buttered sourdough toast, and a crystal pitcher of orange juice, not to mention the all-important porcelain carafe of fresh, piping hot coffee surrounded by assorted creamers and a sugar bowl made of fine china.
Everything looked and smelled delicious, but the atmosphere was leaden. The guests sat sullenly before their plates. Brother Al did his best to engage everyone in conversation, which worked until the inevitable lull was reached, and everyone shut up and stared awkwardly at their food. No lack of appetites anywhere to be found, which Allie thought was odd. She was ravenous herself, which made her think that this was probably a normal response to being so close to death. Self-preservation takes many forms, and in this house a specific form had manifested in the shape of a half dozen growling tummies.
Radiant sunlight shone through the long windows, the view partially obscured by the four feet of snow that had accumulated over the past fourteen hours or so. The same icy mist Allie had seen earlier in the morning was still there, blowing about just outside the breakfast nook. Nobody cared enough to look up and marvel at the inherent loveliness of the scene even for a second.
Allie ate, lost in thought. Bertie had received a search warrant. The cops obviously didn’t find anything or he wouldn’t be here, unless he was a fugitive. But that was a bit farfetched. Still, if he were on the lam, this would be a pretty good place to hide: out here in the middle of nowhere.
No, he couldn’t be. It was too risky. They conducted the search and didn’t find anything. Still, Bertie was a suspect, and the police had found probable cause to believe he was a suspect.
So why did he bring the warrant here? And why did he feel the need to hide it?
"She spends most of her time on Jupiter."
That was Del's voice, and it shook her out of her intensive thoughts.
"What?" Allie said.
A slight chuckle went around the table, and Del said, "Brother Al here just asked you a question and you weren't paying attention, so I said, 'She spends most of her time on Jupiter.'"
"Ha ha," said Allie, making it plain she was not amused.
"It's ok," said Brother Al, "I have a sister just like you. Thinks an awful lot. Hard nut to crack."
"I didn’t sleep well last night, that's all."
"I'm afraid none of us did, darling," said Molly, a grave look on her face that made Allie more than a little nervous.
"Anyway," said Allie, "I'm sorry. What did you ask me?"
"I asked you what you went to school for."
"Oh, American Literature."
"Ah, a bookworm."
"Guilty."
"Well then, have you visited the Gordon library?"
"Not yet, but I intend to."
"So do I," said Rachel Forrester. "I figure I'm going to escape into some pages for a while after breakfast."
"You might as well," said Jürgen, "there's nothing else to do here. Until the police come. Then there will be plenty to keep us interested."
No one responded to that remark, which turned out, upon further reflection, to have multiple layers of meaning to it.
"Well, I just stole – oh, excuse me, ahem – I meant to say I just borrowed a book that I plan on rediscovering." He winked at Larry, who smiled back.
"Which one?" said Allie.
"The Sun Also Rises."
Molly Townsend put down her coffee cup. "I detest Hemingway. Always have, always will. Larry knows this too, poor dear. It's been a sore spot before. But I absolutely refuse to indulge him and crack open one of those wretched works."
Larry simply looked down, with not even the ghost of an amused expression on his face.
#
After breakfast, Allie and Del returned to their room.
"So, I need to ask," said Allie. "Am I crazy? Or did we see Bertie pass by our room last night after dinner, before I went to use the bathroom?"
"You're crazy, but you did see him. I did too."
"Ok, well, Jürgen said he saw Bertie pass his room and then heard the bathroom door close. He heard water running. For a long time, he said. Then, a few minutes later, he heard a second set of footsteps walk past his door again. Then he heard another set of footsteps, this time he said they were smaller. They passed his door, they stopped at the bathroom, they jiggled the doorknob, finding it locked, and then walked past his door again. Do you notice anything odd about this?"
Del thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "I don’t think so."
"Think. Picture it. According to Jürgen, he only heard the bathroom door close once. The second time he heard anything happening with the door it was someone jiggling the doorknob. We saw Bertie pass our room."
"Ok... and..."
"Del! He only heard the door close once. If that was Bertie, and then Bertie left the bathroom to pass our room, who did that second set of footsteps belong to? Don’t you see? Everything Jürgen described happened in the time span between Bertie entering the bathroom and yours truly going there and finding it locked. Bertie left, passed our room, then a second set of footsteps went to the bathroom, only this time, that person didn’t bother to close the door. And yet, someone with smaller footsteps goes to the bathroom door and finds it locked. Now do you notice anything odd?"
Del chuckled with amazement. "I can’t believe it. This is really weird."
"You're telling me. I'm willing to bet that the second set of footsteps that Jürgen heard was Bertie returning to the bathroom. The so-called smaller steps belonged to the person who, contrary to what Jürgen believes he heard, didn’t find the door locked – instead they locked the door themselves. Yours truly then goes past Rachel's room and finds the door truly locked, with poor Bertie inside, either dying or dead. God I hate to think of that."
"It's not your fault."
"I know; it's just a sick feeling I get when I think about it. So, the question remains: who locked the door and why did they lock it? Bertie was obviously suffering from some heart trouble, which is why he grabbed the aspirin. So why lock the door behind him?"
"To make it look as though... I don’t know."
"You almost had it there. I saw it in your eyes. we already established that someone wanted this to look as much like natural causes as possible, eliminating all suspicion of foul play by locking Bertie in the bathroom, making look like he'd done it himself. And you want to know the clincher?"
Del took a nervous breath. "Go on."
"Have you forgotten that this luxurious room of ours here was supposed to have been Bertie's from the beginning?"
Del's eyes widened.
"Let's assume for a moment that this was an instance of foul play. It would have been very easy to coordinate the whole affair without witnesses of any kind if Bertie had his own bathroom, would it not?"
"It certainly would have," said Del.
"Ok, so we know why our small-footed friend locked the bathroom door. Now the only question that remains is who. Now I don’t know about you, but I've actually taken a look at Larry Gordon's feet."
"Of course you have."
"Size eleven wide, if I had to guess. Tom had big feet too. That leaves us with Molly."
"No," Del said in disbelief.
"Larry doesn’t even know where they keep the linens, so do you really think he's the one who assigned the rooms? Whoever assigned these rooms to us wanted to make sure Bertie would have no reason to want to switch it with anyone else."
"But he did switch it," said Del.
"Precisely. Because I think he saw it coming."
"Very interesting," said Del, "but flawed."
"Pardon me?"
"You have two things here that don’t add up. I agree that Molly could have assigned the rooms. But you have no way of linking the small footsteps with her."
Allie sunk down in the chair by the bay of windows. "You're right again. Why can’t I get these things straight?" She sat for a moment, allowing herself the luxury of a self-indulgent sulk, then she straightened herself up. "Alright then, it's process of elimination time."
"Alright. Who will you start with?"
Allie stood up resolutely. "With the toughest one, of course. This can only get easier after interviewing Rachel Forrester."
7.
She decided that caution was the watchword when dealing with Rachel Forrester. Extreme caution. The woman was livid over Allie's insinuation that she was a suspect in Victoria Cardinal's murder earlier that year. She didn’t understand that they were all suspects, Allie herself included. Still, the watchword was caution.
She found the woman lounging in the library with one of Larry Gordon's classics in her hand.
"Franklin Library edition," Allie said, catching the woman off-guard.
"Hmm?"
"That book is a Franklin Library edition. I know them anywhere. They have a very distinct look to them." She got closer to Rachel, and then bent over to read the spine. "Moby Dick?"
"I never read it before," Rachel Forrester said with a shrug.
"How do you like it so far?"
"It's ok. I don’t really understand it. But the writing's nice."
"You're a woman after my own heart. Ray Bradbury said the best way to read Moby Dick is to flip pages at random and read a paragraph here, a sentence there, a few pages here, a few pages there, then once you feel as though you're falling in love with the writing, flip to the beginning and start reading from there."
"I don’t know if I'm ready for that kind of plunge."
Allie walked over to the bookshelves. "There are some great volumes in here. I've been meaning to come and take a look. You know how I love books."
"Oh, I know."
"I just haven’t been able to get here, you know, with...all this stuff..."
"Yeah." Rachel folded the book in her lap. "It's been weird. I don’t know what to make of it all."
"I felt so strange up there last night," said Allie. "I kept thinking about the events of the night. Let me ask you something. Did you hear any sounds coming from the bathroom at all while Bertie was in there last night? I guess you didn’t or you would have said something. That was stupid of me to ask."
"It's not stupid."
Allie sighed. "I don’t know. I just wonder if there's anything any of us could have done. It's this guilt-ridden hindsight I have. I had it with the Tori Cardinal thing, you know. You were there. Didn’t you feel it then?"
"I guess. I didn’t know Tori that well."
"Strange when you see someone die right in front of you. And now coming across Bertie, all that str
angeness came back. I felt...helpless."
Rachel Forrester nodded her head.
"Hasn't the vibe been really horrible in this house this whole weekend?" Allie asked.
"I guess."
"When we first pulled up, Del said, 'This place is definitely haunted.'"
The woman responded with a smile.
"Now I know what she meant. Haunted is in the eye of the beholder, but a haunted atmosphere can be created by people."
"You think too much, Allie."
"Everyone tells me that. I was talking to Jürgen and he said he arrived after you and Bertie. He said he and Bertie never got along. He said they never liked each other, and managed to hide it from the rest of us."
"Well, that's not entirely true."
"What do you mean?"
"Well..." Rachel shifted uneasily in her chair. "I'm guessing Jürgen didn't tell you about the real estate swindle?"
"Real estate swindle?"
"Ok, he obviously didn’t tell you. Jürgen and Bertie were actually friendly acquaintances at one point. They connected after Jürgen had returned from Switzerland with his master’s degree. He was looking to establish a dual residency because he'd been on the short list for some international neurological conference thingy. Anyway there was this piece of land for sale that was a pretty sweet deal. Bertie had gotten the tip from someone he knew and he passed it on to Jürgen. Jürgen went to visit it, found it was a beautiful piece of acreage, secured it, and a month later it was his. Well, a big surprise was in store for him when he arrived at the GPS coordinates the broker had listed on his paperwork: The property he actually bought was this unusable piece of rocky hill that would take years to convert into anything livable. Well, he went back to Bertie and was livid. Bertie claimed he gave him the right directions but Jürgen misread the lot number. Jürgen claimed it was a scam to unload a piece of garbage property and accused Bertie of fee-splitting. From what I gather, the only reason either of them came to this little gathering was because each one thought the other wasn't going to be here. Bertie thought Jürgen was in Switzerland and Jürgen assumed Larry wouldn’t invite him if he also invited Bertie."
"So that's why he said he doesn’t trust Larry."
"He said that?"
"He did, to me. In confidence, I think, so please don’t repeat that."