by Vicki Delany
“They’re planning a night attack,” Monahan said. “You’d better warn the folks in Washington.”
Jim threw the paper to the floor. “My uncle was writing a book! Not making plans for the overthrow of the United States government.”
“That’s enough from you,” Kowalski said. “I let you in here as a courtesy, but you’ve seen enough.” He turned to me. “I’m sealing this cabin. Got it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You can run along now, honey. And you”—he turned back to Jim—“can get lost.”
“Where do we start?” Monahan said. “What do you want me to do?”
“You?” O’Reilly said. “I want you to go back to issuing jaywalking tickets. Think you can do that?”
“The autopsy’s scheduled for later today. I’ll have a chat with the doc and get back to you on that.”
“Good idea,” O’Reilly said. “Now get lost and take these two with you. Oh . . . and, Westenham, if I see a word of this in the New York papers, I’ll know where to start looking.”
“When I have a story,” Jim said, “I’ll write it, and my editor will print it. A reclusive man trying his hand at writing a novel isn’t a story.”
I clamped my lips tightly together and forced myself not to speak. This was my mother’s property; the safety and well-being of everyone here, not to mention the livelihood of the staff, was my responsibility, and I was being patted on the head and told to leave everything up to the men. I knew better than to argue. If they got it in their heads that I was obstructing them, they might well accuse me of being in cahoots with Mr. Westenham and his phantom communist cell.
I left the cabin. Jim’s footsteps were heavy on the porch steps behind me. The chief of police followed us.
“Look,” Jim said to Monahan. “They’re FBI and national security’s their job. I get that. Your job’s finding out who killed my uncle. What’s next?”
Monahan peered at him through narrowed eyes. “We have this under control. I don’t need your advice.”
“You have absolutely nothing under control. You should be questioning the other guests and the staff. Did they see my uncle talking to anyone? Did anyone come to his cabin? Who did he have his meals with? Who—?”
“The head housekeeper’s name’s Tatiana Rostov,” I said. “She knows pretty much everything that goes on around here. I’ll ask her to speak with you, Chief Monahan. If you need a room in which to interview the guests in privacy, I can—”
“Good idea,” Monahan said. “Those old Russian ladies sure do love to gossip.”
“It’s not gossip,” I said. “It’s keeping track of the guests’ needs.”
“Same thing. I’ll talk to her and some of your staff, but there’s no need to disturb your guests.”
“Why not? Maybe someone—”
“Folks come here, to the Catskills, to Summervale, to your pretty little hotel, for a relaxing holiday. Men need a break from work in the city, and you ladies love to be pampered. I don’t want anyone disturbing that.”
The deputy stood in the shadows, camera around his neck, saying nothing, just watching.
“But—” I said.
“You’re new here, Mrs. Grady,” Monahan interrupted. “You might not understand how much towns like Summervale and all the rest need these people. They spend fifty weeks a year in a hot, stinking, crowded New York apartment, going out every day to do a job they hate. They save every penny they can all year long, because the only thing that gives them any pleasure in life is looking forward to their annual vacation in the mountains.”
“I know that.”
“Glad to hear it. Towns like Summervale, the only thing that keeps us going all year is the money these city folks spend over the eight short weeks of summer.”
“I know that, too.”
“You wouldn’t want folks thinking Haggerman’s here isn’t a safe place to come for this vacation, would you? Get them scared and they might decide to head back to the city early. They lose. The town loses. You lose.”
“But—”
“I don’t intend to lose. Dave, you head up to the hotel and ask them to find this Mrs. Romanoff.”
“Rostov,” I said.
“Yeah, her. I have to get back to town soon. We have more than one crime to deal with at a time, you know. The summer’s our busiest time of year. I’m glad to have the outside help.”
He glanced back toward cabin nineteen, and seeing that the FBI weren’t in desperate need of his expertise at the moment, he wheezed off down the path. Deputy Dave trotted silently behind, having carefully avoided looking at either Jim or me.
I let out a long breath. “That was . . . interesting. I didn’t get around to asking housekeeping to do up your room. Sorry.”
“I’m in no hurry,” Jim said. “In a situation like this one, sometimes I’d worry that some poor schmuck of a busboy was going to be railroaded.”
“Why?”
“Cop like Monahan wants nothing but the easy way out. He pretty much came out and told you he doesn’t care who killed Uncle Harold as long as it wasn’t one of your guests. Who, presumably, wouldn’t be spending any more money in Summervale if he was under arrest. Can’t upset your guests by asking them any difficult questions, either. Even though most of them would like nothing more than to be the object of police interest. As long as things don’t go too far, that is. If people start checking out of the hotel because of what happened and head back to the city, Monahan will be raked over the coals by the town council for not finding someone to blame and not having it all swept under the rug.”
“I can’t see this being swept under the rug.” I jerked my head toward cabin nineteen, from which I could hear drawers being opened and papers tossed. “Not with the FBI here.”
“Which is why I’m not too worried about your busboys. I would be worried about anyone who’s ever said a thing that might be seen as favorable to communism, though. You know anyone like that?”
“You think I have time to discuss politics in a Catskill summer?”
“No.” His face was dark. “My uncle was no communist, but that useless clown show has decided he was, and they’ll hear nothing to contradict that. There’s a reason those two FBI agents are stationed here, in your mountain paradise, and not in the cities where things are happening.”
We walked slowly down the hill. Ahead of us Delayed Lake sparkled in the sun. Orange paddleboats skimmed across the water, and the laughter of teenage girls on the diving platform echoed off the surrounding hills. A doubles tennis match was underway on the main court, and the old men were bent over their chess game. Two women passed us, fresh from the beauty parlor, their hair not giving an inch to the breeze and the scent of hair spray wafting after them.
“It is a mountain paradise,” I said. “Too bad I never get a chance to enjoy it. Tell me about your uncle.”
Jim stopped walking and stared out over the lake, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the hot sun washing over me, and said nothing, letting him take his time.
“As I said earlier, we were close when I was a kid. He wasn’t married, didn’t have any children of his own, so he came to our place in White Plains for Christmases, Thanksgivings, his summer holidays. He was a college professor, not much of one to throw the ball around for his nephews but fun in other ways: full of interesting facts. He encouraged me to always be curious, about everything, and I got my interest in journalism from asking him questions. He never considered a question to be stupid, and if he didn’t know the answer, he helped me find it. He joined the army soon as America got into the war, went to England in forty-two. He was in France and Germany in forty-four and forty-five, right in the thick of things, moving with the front lines. He was one of the first into some of the camps.”
As though a cloud had moved over the sun and a sno
wstorm threatened in the distance, I was suddenly cold. I wrapped my arms around myself.
“He never talked about what he saw there, but when he came home, Uncle Harold wasn’t the same. He’d always been a quiet man, but now he was morose. He’d always been a loner, but now he was a recluse. He didn’t try to go back to teaching, just sort of drifted around. He’d never married, so he had no family to worry about. He did some writing, historical stuff for dry academic publications. Six months or so ago he called me, said he was in the city doing research, and he suggested we have lunch. He was looking well, and I was pleased to see it. He’d started a book, he told me, which is what the research was for. It was going to be fiction, a novel. About a group of crack OAS agents who parachute into Germany in 1943 with the mission to assassinate Hitler and put an end to the war.”
“That must be what you read. The stuff about the blackout.”
“Not to mention the breathless French woman.” Jim chuckled. “He was excited about the book, and it was good to see some of the life coming back to him. I’m no psychiatrist, but I figured he was doing what he could to try to rewrite history. Two weeks ago he called me at the paper. I wasn’t at my desk, so he left a message with the switchboard, saying he’d rented a place in the Catskills, and he hoped to get his book finished by the end of July. He said he’d let me read it when it was done. And that was that.”
“The maps on the wall. He needed those for his research. He probably has scenes set in Washington and London. The same with the books. I can see him needing to refer to Churchill’s history, but why The Communist Manifesto?”
“You gotta have conflict among the group to make an exciting story, so it’s likely one of the characters in his fictional OAS team had communist leanings. Being Uncle Harold, the most pedantic person I’ve ever met, he’d want to know what would attract an intelligent man to that stuff.”
We stood together, looking out over the water.
Velvet was at the edge of the beach, watching Randy, up to his knees in the shallow lake water, chatting to two bathing-suit-clad women well into their ninth decade. She spotted me and trotted down the path toward us, very cute in her daring two-piece black suit and black cap. She pulled her bathing cap off and shook out her unfashionably long golden hair. Late June and she already had the start of an impressive tan.
I introduced her to Jim. When she heard his last name, her eyes flicked toward me, but she didn’t say anything other than “Pleased to meet you.”
“Having a good morning?” I asked.
“So far. Can’t have better weather for getting in the water, so Randy and I expect to be at it all day. Although”—she gestured to the women in the lake—“some of these ladies know perfectly well how to swim. And doesn’t he know it.”
Jim chuckled.
She fell into step beside us as we continued on our way. “Rumor has it the FBI are here investigating a communist cell operating out of Haggerman’s. My ladies are all atwitter at the very idea.”
“Nip that one in the bud mighty fast.” I made a mental note to get word to the staff that if anyone was discovered gossiping to the guests or within hearing distance of the guests about Westenham’s death, they’d be on the next bus bouncing down Route 17.
“As my room’s not ready,” Jim said, “I’m going to head into town. Regardless of what’s happening with the police investigation, I have to start making some arrangements. I called my dad earlier, he and my mom live in Florida now, but no answer. I have to keep trying.”
“You can use the telephone in my office,” I said. “If you need one another time, there are phones for the use of guests in the writing room and the games room.”
“Thanks, but no. I need to call the paper, too, find out what’s happening with the stories I was working on. Does the library in town have a public phone?”
I glanced at Velvet. She shrugged.
“There’s a phone booth outside the grocery store,” I said.
“Here comes the clown show,” Jim said. “Those two wouldn’t look more out of place if they were wearing snowsuits.”
I turned my head to see Agents O’Reilly and Kowalski heading our way. City suits, shirts buttoned to the neck, ties, hats, polished shoes, arms stacked high with papers. The guests—bathing suits, sundresses, shorts, capris, bare heads—stopped whatever they were doing to gape.
“That’s not going to do much to stop the gossip,” Velvet said. “Mrs. Windermere is already checking out the younger one as to his eligibility as a prospective husband for her one remaining unmarried daughter. That the daughter seems not the least bit concerned about her lack of marital prospects is of no interest to the mother. A word of advice, Jim: be on guard. Mrs. Windermere has come to the Catskills this year with one goal only.”
Velvet, Jim, and I stepped aside to let the FBI agents pass. Kowalski’s eyes flicked toward me, but otherwise they didn’t acknowledge us.
Excited whispers followed in their wake.
“You can check in when you get back,” I said to Jim. “I’ll tell the desk what we’ve arranged.”
“Thanks.” Looking about as out of place as the FBI agents, he followed them.
“My goodness,” Velvet said once he was out of earshot. “A newspaperman and a handsome one to boot. Good job, Elizabeth.”
“Mrs. Windermere,” I said, “appears not to be the only one with eligibility on her mind. I did absolutely nothing except miss an hour’s work, which no one will have taken care of in my absence.”
Chapter 9
I headed back to my office to get stuck into the day’s labors, but I wasn’t fast enough. As I was leaving instructions at reception to have a room prepared for Jim Westenham, Chief Monahan bustled in, all red-faced, puffing, stuffed with importance. His silent deputy trailed along behind him.
“Mrs. Grady!” Monahan bellowed across the lobby. Our lobby isn’t that big, but clearly the chief liked to put on a display. “A word!”
I pasted a smile on my face. The few guests still inside at this time of day stopped all pretext of doing something and stared.
“Chief Monahan,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“Let’s talk in your office. No need to disturb all these nice folks.” He turned to his deputy. “Poke around the staff quarters. Ask them if they saw anyone sneaking into Westenham’s cabin or talking to him as though they didn’t want to be overheard. Don’t bother the guests, though.”
The deputy turned and walked away.
Did he talk? I wondered. I led the way through the door placed discreetly under the main staircase, down the dimly lit hallway, and into the outer business office. Phones were ringing, clerks talking, typewriters clanging. Smoke filled the air, and fans circulated. Every eye followed us into my office. I shut the door and went around the desk to sit in my chair. Monahan plopped himself into the room’s sole visitor’s chair.
“I’ve spoken to Mrs. Rostov,” he said. “She tells me Westenham asked for his privacy and said he didn’t want to be disturbed. He didn’t come to the dining room for his meals or join in any of the organized activities. Does that seem strange to you?”
“It might be considered so,” I said. “At a place like this, which is a family resort. On the other hand, if the man liked the Catskills and he wanted to be left alone to write his book, it’s not a bad place to do that. Particularly in cabin nineteen. I had a look at his booking when I was searching for his contact information last night. He specifically requested a remote and private room. Cabin nineteen isn’t one of the most expensive, as it doesn’t have a lake view.”
Monahan nodded. “As I suspected. Mrs. Rostov says she never met him. Did you?”
“Yes, I did. Twice. He was down by the lake yesterday afternoon, by himself, having a smoke. We said no more than two sentences to each other. I could tell he wanted to be alone, so I left him to it.”
“The s
econd time?”
“He came to the ballroom for the evening’s entertainment last night. We didn’t talk, but I saw him. That was . . . not long before he died. Again, he was on his own. He came in late, in time to catch the last act. I don’t think he even sat down. He stood at the back of the room and watched. He had a drink, but he didn’t talk to anyone. Not that I saw.”
“What was the act?”
“We have a comedian from the city here for a couple of nights. His first night was yesterday.”
“What’s this comedian’s name?”
“Charlie Simmonds.”
Monahan’s face looked blank. “Never heard of him. Westenham came to see his show, but nothing else?”
“The rest of the evening consisted of dancing to our house orchestra. If he was as much a recluse as would appear, he wouldn’t have been interested in dancing. Maybe he was a comedy fan. I didn’t see him leave.”
“A comedian from New York, eh? We know about them.”
“We do?”
“Where’s this Simmonds now?”
“I have no idea. He’s free all day to do as he likes. His first show’s at nine, the second at eleven. We put the entertainers up in staff quarters.”
Monahan pushed his chair back and stood up. “Let’s go see him.”
“Now? I don’t know where he is. He might not even be on the property. I don’t know if he came on the bus or has his own car.”
“If he’s a comedian, he’s probably still in bed.” Monahan stared at me. “Come along, Mrs. Grady. I need you to show me where he’s staying.”
“I’ll get one of the bellhops to take you.”
“You,” he said.
I indicated the stack of papers on my desk. The mountain of pink message slips by my phone. “But, but . . .”
“Let’s go.”
“Why don’t I send a runner to get him? If he’s not in, we’ve wasted our time.”
“Do you have keys for the staff rooms?”