Deadly Summer Nights

by Vicki Delany

  I took my coffee and went back to my room to get ready for the day. I would be late arriving at the office, but considering I worked most nights long after everyone had gone, I decided I’m entitled to the occasional instance of tardiness. I phoned the switchboard to get the day’s weather report. Midnineties, plenty of humidity, and no chance of rain. If I was going to be unprofessionally late for work, I’d dress unprofessionally, and I slipped into a pair of yellow pedal pushers, a short-sleeved white blouse with yellow stripes, and sandals. Last of all I tied a belt around my waist and fastened my key chain to it.

  Olivia glanced up from her magazine when I came out. Perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose. “Surely that is not what you are wearing to work.”

  “It’s time to let my inner rebel out. Did you go to the hotel last night?”

  “I skipped dinner, but I went to the ballroom later. Mr. Simmonds was quite amusing, although verging on scandalous.”

  “Should I ask him to tone down his act?”

  “Most definitely not. If people don’t want to be scandalized, they shouldn’t be attending a comedy show at eleven at night.”

  “Was there much talk about the death of Mr. Westenham?”

  Olivia pursed her lips and thought. She shook her head. “Not that I heard. And I would have. As nothing more seems to be happening regarding that, talk has moved on, as it so easily does. I understand there’s one waiter in particular who’s making himself an object of gossip among the weekday widows. Mrs. Liebert’s dramatic and overly dyed blond hair turned green in the swimming pool, and she refuses to come out of her room. Fortunately for the reputation of our stylists, the ladies said she refused to pay what she called the exorbitant fees at our beauty parlor and went to a place in town. Uninterested in the drama of ladies’ hair, the gentlemen were in deep discussion of one Mr. Black, who lost so much at the casino at the Concord the night before last, he will be talking to you about leaving prematurely and getting a refund. It was generally agreed that Mr. Black is a fool.”

  “He is a fool if he thinks I’m going to give him his money back. Have a nice day.” The screen door slammed behind me, and I skipped down the path that meandered near the woods. I was in a better frame of mind this morning. As my mother had said, our guests wanted nothing but the latest gossip, and the murder was getting stale without fresh developments. If the Kennelwoods had tried to frame us, I was on to them, and they knew I was on to them. They wouldn’t try anything like that again.

  I hoped.

  Breakfast was over, and everyone was getting a start on their day. Games were underway on the handball and tennis courts. As I came down the path, a cluster of bathing-suit-clad toddlers swarmed around me, gripping their plastic pails and spades.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Grady,” the nannies called.

  Two excessively thin women were relaxing on lounge chairs by the beach, cold drinks in hand and hats and sunglasses in place.

  “Five thousand dollars!” one woman said to the other as I passed. “Can you believe it! I heard she’s threatening to divorce him. He spent five thousand dollars for a car!”

  “It must be a mighty nice car,” her friend said.

  “No car is that nice.”

  The loudspeaker crackled to life, and Randy’s voice echoed over the lake and the hills. “Don’t forget, folks! The Miss Haggerman’s pageant is at four o’clock on the dock. This is for girls eighteen to twenty-nine, so you men won’t want to miss it! And, girls, get those Haggerman’s smiles on!”

  I actually laughed out loud. If there was one thing I did not have on last night at Kennelwood, it was a Haggerman’s smile.

  Charlie Simmonds was heading to the beach, but he changed direction when he spotted me. He had a loose robe thrown over his bathing suit, a threadbare towel over his arm, and a short glass containing a couple of inches of brown liquid in one hand. I couldn’t help but notice he had exceptionally thin legs and knobby knees. “You’re in a good mood this morning,” he said.

  “I guess I am,” I said. “Why would I not be? It’s a lovely day.”

  “Going to be a hot one.”

  “I was away from the hotel last night. How did your evening go?”

  “Good. I think it went real good. The audience seemed to think so, too. Look, as long as I have you . . . My scheduled gig ended here last night. My agent canceled tonight and tomorrow’s shows, but I have got to be on my way if I’m going to save any more appearances before my reputation is completely ruined. I haven’t heard another thing from the cops since I saw them on Thursday. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “No, I don’t. They’ve been quiet.”

  “I’m thinking if I just up and leave, they won’t even notice.” He fell into step beside me, and we carried on toward the main building.

  “Up to you,” I said, “but I wouldn’t chance it. Why don’t you give them a call? Or better still, drop into the police station. If you don’t want to take the bus, I can get one of the guys to take you into town next time they go.”

  “That’d be great, thanks. It’s the not knowing that’s so bad, right? My agent says we can’t take the chance on canceling any other shows and then me being told I can be on my way.” His face settled into serious lines. “You don’t think they’re planning a raid, do you?”

  “Who? The police? A raid? Good heavens, I hope not. Why?”

  “I don’t know much about how small-town cops operate, but I did have some experience of criminal investigations in my lawyer days. The first forty-eight hours after a murder’s the critical time for finding evidence. I’d expect them to be crawling all over the place, asking questions, trying to figure out who killed that guy and why. Instead, nothing. I’m thinking maybe they hope to take the killer by surprise.”

  “Surely not.” Raging gun battles echoing across Delayed Lake, accompanied by the screams of guests (not to mention the screams of Olivia and me), between the police and a gang of outlaws would definitely not be good for Haggerman’s reputation.

  “The police must have plenty of other cases to deal with,” I said. “It’s a busy time of the year around here.” Perhaps Mr. Westenham’s killer had followed him to the Catskills after all and returned to the city once the deed was done. The Summervale police might have handed the case over to the city detectives and forgot to let us know.

  “Speak of the devil,” Charlie said. “And he arrives.”

  A police car was pulling into the circle. Chief Monahan had come alone, and he climbed out from behind the wheel. He glanced around, saw me heading his way at a rapid trot, and remained by his car, waiting. Charlie came with me.

  “Good morning, Chief,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and not at all worried about what he might be here to tell me. “What can we do for you today?”

  “I need a word, Mrs. Grady.” Monahan, on the other hand, did not attempt to be cheerful. His round face was tight with anger.

  “Certainly. Would you like to come into my office? How about a coffee?”

  “No. This won’t take long.” He stepped toward me. I could smell the coffee and cigarettes he’d had for breakfast, and the smoke on his stained and dusty uniform. I took an involuntary step back.

  “You fired my boy.” His voice was low and menacing. “That wasn’t nice.”

  “Your boy? You mean—” I was about to say “Deputy Dave,” but then I remembered. “Oh, Francis. Your son. There was an accident in the kitchen and—”

  “He’s a good boy. A good man. He’s a hard worker. He was involved in an incident in the army that got blown up all out of proportion, it went on his record, and now he can’t land a decent job. And you—”

  “Please, Chief. Let me finish. I did not fire Francis. What did he tell you?”

  “He told me nothing. He spent last night at my sister’s place, like he does sometimes. He told her he’d been ordered to leave the kitch
en and not come back, and she called me this morning to tell me.”

  “That’s not the entire story. His supervisor and I decided the kitchen wasn’t the right place for Francis, so we transferred him to grounds maintenance. We move staff around all the time.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”

  “If you want, you’re welcome to go to the shed where we keep the maintenance equipment and ask if Francis reported there for work this morning. Although”—I cleared my throat—“you need to realize that the hiring—and firing—of staff here is strictly a business decision. I’ll always do what’s best for the hotel.”

  He stared at me, and I tried not to shift my feet. “What’s best for this hotel, Mrs. Grady, is not to get on my bad side. Do we understand each other?”

  “I fear we do.”

  “Glad to hear it. I think I will have a mosey around. Check on Francis, see he’s settling into his new job okay. Then I’ll want to make sure everything here’s up to code. We wouldn’t want any complaints made to the town, now would we?”

  “We would not,” I said.

  “I hope I don’t hear any more of that communist talk here, either. I assume a garden job pays more than a kitchen helper?”

  It didn’t. I said nothing. We looked at each other. We might have stood there all day, engaged in a battle of wills, had not Charlie cleared his throat and said, “While you’re here, Chief. What about me leaving? Nice as this place is, I’ve got engagements in other hotels, and I’d like to be on my way.”

  Monahan broke eye contact with me. “Why you asking me?”

  “Thursday you told me I wasn’t to leave.”

  “I don’t care what you do,” Monahan grunted. He walked away, leaving his car blocking the driveway at the top of the circle.

  “Good thing I asked,” Charlie said. “Otherwise, I might have been here until Christmas. My act’s good, and I try to keep it fresh, but I don’t have that much material. My engagement scheduled for tonight’s been canceled, so I’ll leave in the morning, if that’s okay with you.”

  “What? Oh yes. That’s fine. We’ve made alternate arrangements to put up tonight’s act. But didn’t you find that a bit weird? How Chief Monahan suddenly lost interest in searching for communists, never mind murderers?”

  “That guy can’t hold two thoughts in his head at the same time. Right now he’s only interested in making sure his son still has a job. As I’ll be here one more night, I’m happy to perform this evening, as we discussed.”

  “We’ll put you on after the magician. Two sets?”

  “Sure. Will I see you there?”

  “I’ll try to catch it.”

  He threw his towel over his shoulder and headed toward the beach.

  My mind whirled as I watched Charlie settle himself comfortably into a lounge chair. I didn’t know what I’d do if Francis Monahan didn’t work out as a gardener’s assistant. Would I have to keep shifting him endlessly from one department to another, just to keep his father from harassing us? I might have to. So far, as far as I knew, Francis had been guilty only of being clumsy, and that as a result of being egged on by some of the other staff, but he’d been dishonorably discharged from the army, supposedly for theft. What would I do if I believed he was stealing from the hotel or, worse, from our guests?

  Nothing like that had happened, I told myself. No point in worrying about it until it did happen, which, hopefully, it wouldn’t. My attention was caught by a great deal of noise coming from one of the cabins close to the main building. Doors slammed, a man yelled, children wailed, a woman shouted. Three bellhops emerged from cabin two, laden with luggage. The Berkowitz family followed, dressed in traveling clothes, apparently about to prematurely check out of our mountain paradise.

  “I don’t wanna go!” a little girl, her black hair tied in yellow ribbons, screamed as her mother dragged her down the porch steps.

  “I don’t care what you want!” Mr. Berkowitz bellowed at her, which got the other girl, identical to the first but for the blue ribbons in her hair, to join in the screaming.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” Mrs. Berkowitz yelled.

  “I don’t want to hear another word out of you,” her husband replied in a voice loud enough to have birds lifting off the trees lining the lake. It certainly was loud enough to have every person in the lake, in the pool, on the courts, on the veranda, or walking along the path stop whatever they were doing to stare. “Not until I’ve dropped you at your mother’s, where you can spend the rest of the summer.”

  “No!” wailed Yellow Ribbons.

  The bellhops dropped the mountain of luggage on the edge of the driveway, and one of them ran toward the parking area.

  “It’s all right, dear,” Mrs. Berkowitz said to her daughters as they climbed the steps and walked past me. “We’ll have such a lovely time at Granny’s.”

  “I hate Granny!” Blue Ribbons yelled. Those girls had impressive pairs of lungs. She stared at me. I gave her a smile. She narrowed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

  While Mr. Berkowitz informed the reception clerk they were checking out and the Berkowitz children wailed, Mrs. Berkowitz spotted a friend and headed toward her. “My mother’s taken ill suddenly,” she explained. “The doctors say the end is near, and I’m rushing to her side. I only hope I’m not too late.”

  Leaving them to their family drama, I crossed the lobby, grabbed a copy of this morning’s Summervale Gazette from the newspaper box next to the reception desk, and glanced quickly at it without slowing down. A picture of a fire-blackened building surrounded by woods filled the top half, and I didn’t bother to read the article. I flipped the paper over to see a small box in the bottom corner, below the fold, which said the police were continuing to investigate the “mysterious death” at Haggerman’s Catskills Resort and an arrest was expected soon.

  As I knew nothing about any imminent arrest, I dared to hope the whole affair would turn out to have nothing to do with us, or with anyone staying here. I threw the paper onto a low table and walked through the outer office to the sound of the clerks giggling. I stopped at my door and turned to face them. “What?”

  “Nothing, Mrs. Grady. Nothing at all.” Heads bent back to their work. Giggles continued.

  I unlocked my own office door and stepped inside. An elaborate display of long-stemmed red roses in a glass vase sat on my desk. A card addressed to me was tucked into the foliage, and I picked it up and opened the envelope.

  Sorry things ended on an unsatisfactory note. Try again soon??? J

  I reached out and ran my index finger over a velvety petal before sticking my head into the outer office. “How did that delivery get in here?”

  “Darlene at reception called Mrs. Rostov,” a clerk said. “Mrs. Rostov accepted the flowers and unlocked your door.”

  “Thank you.” Satisfied that no one had broken into my office, I dropped into the chair behind my desk. I plucked a freshly sharpened pencil out of the overflowing container and took the topmost message slip off the pile. My eyes wandered to the flowers. They were lovely, deep red, long-stemmed, and perfectly fresh, and they must have cost a fortune. I’d ruined Jim’s night out, and I felt bad about that. Then again, he got away without paying the bill.

  Thinking of last night made me think once again about the Kennelwoods, father and son. I had to admit to myself that I found it hard to believe Richard would kill a stranger for no other reason than to put Haggerman’s in a bad light. But what if Harold Westenham was not a stranger to Richard or Jerome Kennelwood? Jim had said his uncle was the most pedantic person he ever knew. If that was so, Harold likely did research on the area before coming here. Did he learn something about the Kennelwoods? Or did he already know something and came here intending to confront them over it?

  That line of thought, I realized, could apply to anyone at Haggerman’s, staff or guests. It was
not my problem. I swiveled my chair so I was looking out the window and chewed at the end of my pencil.

  “Those are gorgeous,” Velvet said.

  I swung around. “Nice enough.”

  “Oh yeah, play it cool.” She snatched the card off my desk. “J. Jim, I assume. What happened last night that he has to apologize? Don’t tell me he—?”

  “No, nothing like that. I had a run-in with the Kennelwoods. Junior and Senior.”

  “The delectable Richard? Do tell.”

  “Is he delectable? I never noticed. I haven’t had breakfast. Didn’t even finish my coffee. I need a change of scenery. Let’s go into town.” I stuffed the pencil into its container and threw the message slip on top of the pile.

  “Now?”

  “Do you have something going on?”

  “I’m free for a while. The teen girls exercise group in the pool is at one. At three I have to join a mixed-doubles tennis game. Hottest time of the day, what a great idea. One of the players tripped last night and twisted his ankle, so I’ve been asked to be the substitute. Randy and I are supposed to be the judges at the beauty pageant at four, but I’m hoping to get Olivia to take my place.”

  “You should be in the pageant,” I said. “You’d win.”

  “That’s not happening. I have evening calisthenics at six, the bingo game to call at eight, and dancing in the ballroom until midnight.”

  I grabbed my purse. “Let’s go. I’ll have you back in time.”

  “Might as well. I’ll come with you, wherever you’re going, if you agree to talk to Olivia about the beauty pageant. I was on my way to your house when I decided to pop in and ask how your date went.”

  “I will, and it was not a date.”

  “So you keep saying. I’d say those flowers say otherwise.” She bent over the roses and breathed in deeply. She lifted her head, her face crossed with disappointment. “No scent.”

  “The Berkowitz family in cabin two left very suddenly. Do you know what happened?”