Murder at Pride Lodge [A Kyle Callahan Mystery: 1]

by Mark McNease

  After the murders of her parents everything had moved so quickly. Her aunt had come to Los Angeles to identify the bodies, something young Emily thought was ridiculous. Who else would be dead in her parents’ bed? Many things were mysterious to her then, including the complete disregard for what a girl of ten may or may not want. She did not want to live with her aunt and the uncle who made her skin crawl. She did not want to be the live-in orphan, which is how she felt and how her new step-sisters treated her. Her mother and aunt had never gotten along, and Emily knew her mother would be upset to know her only child had been shuttled off to Santa Barbara to live with her sister and him. That’s how her mother referred to her brother-in-law, simply as “him.” Never Joseph, never with anything that could be confused for affection or even respect. Her mother always had suspicions about the man, about how he made his money and his dictatorial way of being a husband and father. Unfortunately, Barbara and Carl Lapinksy thought they had all the time in the world and had neglected to make legal arrangements should something happened to them, which it did. Now they were long gone and one of the few things that remained of their ever having been on the earth was the small gold cross Bo fastened around her neck.

  She had been wearing the necklace the night they were killed. Even as a child she only took it off to bathe, and her father jokingly said he was concerned she would become a nun. He mistook her attachment to the crucifix for a devotion to the cross. Emily did not understand the whole Jesus thing and never really even considered the two to be connected, even though she knew many people wore crucifixes as professions of their faith. She had no faith, and she was not a nun. She was a killing machine that had been oiled and ready for three decades. Her surrender to the cross was her surrender to the memory of her parents, in this case her mother, and her complete acceptance of the commitment she had made as she watched the men flee from their home: I will kill you. As odd a thought as that seems for a ten year old cowering in a closet, it was the thought she had and the promise she made. I will kill you. I will find you. I will hunt you down.

  Here she was at last, having never known for sure it could come to pass. She had believed it would. She had kept things in place, ready to act. But until she saw the watch for sale she could not have sworn in a court of justice—for that is where she now found herself—that the opportunity would present itself and all her preparation would have been for good. What she was doing was good. What she was doing was right. No innocence would be violated; they had forfeited any claim to innocence when they left two people dead in a bedroom. She had carried out the Court’s decree with the men Frank and Sam, and now, once she was finished here, she would return to anonymity. She would replace the smile on her face, so familiar to her friends in St. Paul. She would tell them what a lovely time she’d had in Hawaii, her first trip in years but definitely not her last, so wonderful and relaxing and tropical. And she would close the lid at last—the lid to her past, to her parents’ coffins, to the hatred that had fueled her nearly her entire life.

  She slipped into her comfortable black loafers, adjusted her expression to be as soft, welcoming and unremarkable as possible, and headed downstairs.

  Dylan wasn’t able to have a seating arrangement at the tables, that would have been too formal, too deliberate, but he could steer people in the general direction of where he wanted them to be. The real challenge with a group like this was knowing who to keep apart, not who to seat together. Diane Haley, for instance, had been in a Cold War state with Marti Martin for years, ever since Marti stole Diane’s girlfriend so long ago neither of them remembered her name. Bad blood tended to stay bad, and no infusion of good will or forced togetherness would change that. The same might be said for Linus and Danny, although Danny wasn’t really the grudge holding sort. His dislike for the stuffy restaurateur didn’t cross the line into open warfare, but it would still be best not to have them next to each other. Linus enjoyed provocation and could be counted on to throw a flame or two regardless of the best intentions or efforts to ignore him.

  As the guests filtered in, Dylan accomplished his manipulation by carrying their Jack-O-Lantern patterns to the tables for them, chatting as he led them to where he thought they should be. He had planned it out ahead of time, knowing, for instance, that Linus would insist on the largest pumpkin in the room while Kyle would want something front-lit for the photographs he was always taking.

  Drinks were served to ease the social interaction. Austin, Dallas and Elzbetta saw to that, working on a single pumpkin for the three of them while taking turns filling drink orders. More than one person had said to Dylan that alcohol and knives were probably not a good combination, the meaning of which could be taken in several ways.

  By the time Kyle and Danny arrived, Kyle with his ever-present Nikon slung around his neck, everyone was in place and already starting to carve. Diane and Marti were separated by an elderly gentleman from Long Island, a regular customer named Jeremy Johnston who took a bus to the Lodge twice a year for a week’s stay. Jeremy was the last person to retire at night, given special privilege to watch the great room’s wall-mounted television set well past midnight to accommodate his insomnia. He also had the odd habit of pushing a walker with him everywhere, which would seem natural for a man of 82 if he actually needed it to walk. For Jeremy it was a prop, like a cane might be for a man of an earlier era.

  “How you doing, Jerry?” Marti asked when he first approached the table. Marti Martin ran a travel agency that was barely hanging on. Her hair was gray and cropped short, almost military style, and she wore incongruously large, red plastic eyeglasses that made her head look more like a baby’s than a grown woman’s.

  “It’s Jeremy,” he replied. “You know that, Marti Martin.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m just checking to make sure you’re paying attention.”

  The old man was indeed paying close attention. That’s what he did: he watched everyone. He enjoyed the ruse of the walker. He needed it, to be truthful, since he sometimes lost his balance, but mostly it served as a form of misdirection. People would be paying attention to the walker while he was paying attention to them.

  Linus and his man-child were at the end of one table, near the fireplace. Next to them were the two sycophants. Danny recognized one of them and had in fact fired the man from Margaret’s Passion just that past June. He had been a new nighttime maitre d’, and even though Danny was the day manager, Margaret relied on him for the unpleasant tasks as well as the pleasant ones. The man’s name . . . what was it? . . . Fidel? Filio? Filo? . . . Filo had given it his best try but it wasn’t good enough. He had been short tempered with some of the diners and had an unwelcome air of superiority the other staff didn’t like, even leaving one waitress in tears. He had to go, so off Danny went to the restaurant late one night to tell Filo he wished him well in his future endeavors.

  “You remember Phineus!” Linus shouted at Danny as he and Kyle took their seats. “You fired him!”

  Phineus was clearly embarrassed and simply smiled in Danny’s direction.

  Kyle took a few quick photos of the tables with all the guests seated. He saw Maggie and Eileen, the twins, Elzbetta, Ricki at the desk (he never joined in and never explained his reasons), Dylan hurrying around making sure everyone was in place. There were some other guests on the porch, a few Kyle recognized and some he did not. There were also several empty spaces: the pumpkin carving took place on Friday afternoon when people were still arriving. It was a tradition; it had always been on Friday. It also allowed for the judging that night and the Jack-O-Lanterns to be displayed for the rest of the weekend.

  Just as Kyle was about to take a picture of the pumpkins on the table in front of them, the woman he’d seen eating alone at lunch took the empty seat to his left. She had short, curly brown hair that reminded him of the late Phoebe Snow. Unlike most of the others at the Lodge she was not wearing blue jeans, instead having on rather elegant black pants, a cream blouse and a gray sweater. He glanced at her
and saw she was wearing a crucifix around her neck.

  “Hello,” she said, seeming to enjoy the sizing up. She extended her hand. “My name’s Bo. Bo Sweetzer. You must be Kyle.”

  He shook her hand and she could tell he was puzzled that she knew his name.

  “I asked the desk guy.”

  “Ricki.”

  “Yeah, Ricki. I saw you this morning at the pool. My room’s above it on the second floor. You’re good with a camera.”

  “Not as good as I’d like to be,” Kyle said.

  “Yes, he is,” Danny interjected. “He’s just falsely modest.”

  “I’ve never sold anything.”

  “Because you’ve never asked to be paid!”

  “He’s right,” Bo said. “You could sell your photographs, absolutely. I’ve seen your website.”

  This got his attention. He knew how many people visited his photoblog on any given day; he could track the statistics. It wasn’t something he did much, sensing its potential to become an obsession, but every now and then he looked at the numbers. If 500 people looked at AsKyleSeesIt in any 30-day period, he was doing well That this stranger, here for a weekend at Pride Lodge, had not only asked Ricki about him, but taken time to look at his site, was something out of the ordinary. While it was flattering, it was also a little unsettling, as if he’d finally acquired a stalker.

  “I used the Lodge’s laptop,” she said, nodding toward the old battered Dell that was always on a table by the checkerboard. “I’m impressed. Maybe I’ll be your first customer.”

  “First paying customer,” Danny said. “He’s had quite a few customers.” And to Kyle, “You see? It’s time to take it—“

  “Please don’t say it.”

  “To the next level.”

  “I hate that phrase. Along with a few others: next level, same page, bandwidth. Do you think we have the bandwidth to carve these pumpkins?”

  Elzbetta suddenly appeared between Kyle and Bo. She’d got into costume for the weekend and was dressed this year in a French maid’s outfit with an enormous Marie Antoinette wig. The studs were still in her nose and ears and her fingernails were painted black with tiny witches in the middle of each fingernail.

  “You did that yourself?” Danny asked, indicating the intricate paintings.

  “Kevin,” she said, meaning the karaoke host who seemed to have it in an unwritten contract he must be called “the Magnificent,” Like Michael Jackson having been called The King of Pop no matter how far down the throne he’d slid. Kevin McGill had been running the evening entertainment at Pride Lodge nearly as long as the Lodge had been in business. He didn’t show his face before mid-afternoon, which made Elzbetta’s fingernail painting this early in the day something of a rarity.

  “He just got in after lunch, “ Elzbetta said. “He’ll be down for dinner. What can I get you to drink?”

  “I’ll take a martini, vodka, straight up,” Danny said.

  “There is no such thing as a vodka martini,” Elzbetta said. “A true martini is made with gin.”

  “Then I’ll take a fake martini, vodka, straight up. And not the house swill, either.”

  “I’ll have Scotch and water,” Kyle said. “Plenty of ice. And whatever Bo’s having, our treat.”

  “Why thank you, that’s very nice of you! I’ll have club soda, please. Make mine neat.”

  Elzbetta nodded and hurried off.

  Watching her go, Bo said, “Not the costume I’d expect with someone so deliberately rebellious. She seems more the lesbian assassin type to me.”

  “A lesbian assassin,” Jeremy said, having deliberately overheard them. “Sounds like my kinda gal.”

  Just then Dylan interrupted with several loud hand claps. “Listen up, everybody!,” and when a few of the guests kept chatting, “‘Everybody’ is self-explanatory! It means every single person who can hear me!”

  “Does that include Staten Island?” Linus said, to approving laughter from his mini-entourage.

  “Each of you has a fresh pumpkin in front of you and the pattern you’ve chosen or been provided. These pumpkins are sacrificing their lives to provide us with a fabulous weekend, so don’t disappoint them! Next to each pumpkin you’ll find . . . “

  Kyle let Dylan’s voice fade into the background, much like the sound of a flight attendant giving survival instructions from the aisle of a crowded plane. He realized he needed before photos of the pumpkins to contrast with the after. He quickly picked up his Nikon from the table and set about taking pictures. He wasn’t worried about Dylan calling him out for not paying attention; the man was completely self-absorbed in his own central part of the afternoon’s drama. Kyle and Danny would carve one pumpkin together, leaving an extra one. This happened with most of the couples, whether they were involved or just friends. There was something about carving a pumpkin with someone that made it more enjoyable and less tedious; digging out the pattern with what amounted to a flimsy, small saw blade was a lot of work and better divided between two people. He snapped a photo of their pumpkin, then angled his camera for a shot at Bo’s. He noticed she had one of the X-act knives resting to the left of her pumpkin.

  “I see you’re a southpaw,” Kyle said to her, commenting on her left-handedness. “And a pro at pumpkin carving! I’d probably cut my finger off using one of those.”

  “It’s for the details,” she said, holding up her pattern. It was an intricate sketch of Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage being pulled by two horses. Once it was finished and a candle placed inside, the flame would shine through the carriage’s windows. “I’m used to detail work. I make jewelry for a living. I also restore old watches.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out her father’s pocket watch. Kyle had noticed the gold chain running up out of her pocket to a belt loop.

  “This one is very special,” she said, showing it to him. “It belonged to my father. I’d have to say it’s been my inspiration since I was, oh, ten years old.”

  Kyle peered at the watch. Even someone not schooled in watches or engraving could see it had been made with care. There was something delicate yet masculine about it, and it made him wonder, as he looked at the fine lines of the train station, how much of the little boy remains in a grown man: trains were something a child played with when he was ten, and built when he was thirty.

  “It’s lovely,” he said. “From what you’ve said, I take it your father’s passed on.”

  “Oh, yes. He and my mother both. At the same time. A freak accident.” She put the watch back in her pocket. “It’s not something I talk about. You can see some of my jewelry at my website, if you’re interested. BoAndBehold.com. Maybe we could barter, it’s the future of commerce, if you listen to twenty-year-olds obsessed with their carbon footprints. Something of mine for a photograph of yours. You could use it to get used to the idea of being paid.”

  Kyle was beginning to enjoy this woman’s company. There was something both inviting and off-putting about her, an unusual combination. He was a people watcher. He had always attributed it to a mix of introversion and curiosity, the essence of a photographer even before he’d ever held a camera . He saw the world, and life, as a series of images, instantaneous and continuous while constantly changing. Almost like one of those small picture books where the image moves as you flip through the pages. Kyle was always watching the image, always observing one moment’s connection to the next.

  Danny broke his reverie by saying, for the third time, “. . . Earth to Kyle, hello, Kyle?”

  Kyle shook off his thoughts and noticed that everyone had started carving, including Bo, who was holding her pattern against her pumpkin and poking pinpricks along the line drawing. Slowly, steadily, one quick saw at a time. Everyone was doing it now.

  “You hold the paper, I’ll cut,” said Danny. “When we get to the witch’s broom it’s your turn.”

  A half hour later Danny and Kyle were finished, the table in front of them littered with pumpkin bits. Kyle looked around
the room and saw the others either finished or nearing it. Bo had moved on to the X-Acto knife and was painstakingly slicing out the finest details of her carving.

  “It all looks amazing!” Dylan said. He was holding a drink by this time, and while he wasn’t someone who would indulge too much (bad for his image as well as his business), he wasn’t opposed to joining the Lodge’s guests in an afternoon cocktail. It was a holiday, after all, or at least as close to an official gay holiday as the year provided.

  “Now,” Dylan continued. “If I can get everyone to take their pumpkins and line them up around the porch railing—it’s wide enough, don’t worry—we can get the candles in and as soon as the sun goes down, we’ll be a proper haunted house!”

  “The ghost of Teddy,” Ricki said morosely and not too loudly. Dylan and some of the others clearly heard him. Kyle saw a brief cringe on Dylan’s face and was reminded that some people would find it inappropriate they were going on with the weekend at all. But it was Teddy’s favorite time at Pride Lodge; there was something to be said for not turning it into a memorial, a weekend period-of-mourning, for someone who would be laughing with the rest of them had his life not ended abruptly.

  People started gathering their pumpkins for the short walk outside.

  “Let me get some after photos,” Kyle said, and he grabbed his camera off the table. He quickly snapped pictures of his and Danny’s pumpkin, which, if you tilted your head at a certain angle and closed one eye, looked like a witch on a broom flying across the moon. Then he turned and took a photo of Bo’s pumpkin, which reflected her artistic expertise. He knew looking at it that her jewelry would be even more impressive: there was no need to close an eye or cock your head to tell what she had carved. Cinderella herself would ride in this pumpkin! He was about to compliment her when Dylan came quickly up to them, a pumpkin in his arms even though he had not carved one, and said, “Kyle, you’ve got an eye for these things—come with me and help me arrange all these pumpkins.”