“Evidently, I am.”
“Then I can see why they are attempting to evade you.”
I swallowed, fighting the swells of confusion that kept lapping against my consciousness. “I’m a sheriff.”
She proceeded the rest of the way down the steps onto the Persian carpet. She was tall and wearing a cloche hat, with lips compressed in consternation. “You don’t look very well—are you ill?”
“No, I—”
“Perhaps you should come in and have a seat by the fire?”
“There isn’t any . . . ” I looked around and noticed something orange flickering off the heavy beveled glass of the French doors to my right, and I turned to see a robust stack of logs burning merrily away in the hearth.
“. . . Fire.”
She walked past me. “It gets cold in the winters after all the help has gone, so I’ve become quite proficient at making and tending the hearth.” She jostled the raccoon that had nuzzled her armpit and grasped her wrist with its tiny paws. “Rebecca here gets cold, but I can’t imagine why, with the wonderful collegiate coat she’s got.”
I smiled, trying to be gregarious. “Spoiled.”
She laughed a wonderful laugh, like music from a bygone era. “Not spoiled—pampered.”
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead with the back of my working hand. “You . . . you’re in charge of the place?”
“For quite some time now.” She gestured to me. “Come, sit.”
I shook my head and immediately felt even worse. “I really should be finding these people.” I took a deep breath. “Would you mind if I use your phone?”
“You’re welcome to it, if you can figure it out. I’ve never had any luck with the contraption.”
I nodded, smiled at her again, and turned toward the registration desk. “I’m not too good with . . .” The phone that had been there when I’d entered wasn’t there any longer; instead there was a patch panel attached to the wall and an old Roman-pillar-style phone with an earpiece hanging from it.
“. . . Phones.”
She extended a fingernail and aimed it toward the wall. “It has to do with the apparatus of plugs, but I didn’t ever have to do that type of thing myself, so I haven’t learned.” She grinned a vivacious smile. “Spoiled, I suppose you would say.”
“I need to find these people.”
“So you said.” She picked up the candelabra. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat first, especially since there’s someone in the dining room who is waiting to see you.”
“No, I . . . What?” Summoning my energies, I looked around and noticed that the sheets were no longer covering the furniture.
She breezed by me to the left, where wet boot prints led around the stairwell through a doorway. She turned, the light from the candles illuminating only one side of her lean and handsome face. “Shall we follow?”
I straightened, ignoring my arm, and raised the .45 up past my face. “Maybe you should let me go first?”
“As you wish.” I stumbled forward, catching myself on the doorjamb as she watched me, and I was entranced by the reflection of her eyes. “Young man?”
“Yep?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No, ma’am, but I sure wish I had.”
She put the candelabra on the newel post again and crossed back to the desk, where she reached up and opened a recessed cabinet above her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Rebecca is very handy.” She looked at the critter, who had climbed into the cabinet near the ceiling. “The bottle, Rebecca, if you will.” A moment later the masked bandit reappeared with a small pint. “Thank you, dear.” She extended a hand and the raccoon climbed out and jumped into the safety of her arms.
She turned and walked back over, holding the bottle out to me.
“What’s this?”
“Medicine.” She gestured for me to take it. “At least that’s what the night watchman calls it.”
I stuffed my Colt under my arm and took it, the label aged yellow with a discolored ribbon and stamped seal wrapped near the cork. I read the label aloud. “OLD TAYLOR, OVER 16 SUMMERS OLD.” I tried to hand it back to her. “I don’t think I should have this.”
She fluttered a hand at me. “Nonsense, just a taste. I’ve been doing it for years.”
Sighing, I opened the bottle and took a swig—it was like a little spark at the back of my throat, flavorful and delicate with no aftertaste of the alcohol. “It’s good.” I took another.
She reached up and spirited it away; corking it as she crossed, she handed it back to the raccoon. “All the way in the back, Rebecca. We mustn’t let the night watchman know what we’ve been up to.”
I had to admit that the whiskey had helped. I nodded my thanks and started through the doorway, but the raccoon reached up and touched the saturated sleeve of my coat, first looking at it and then up at me with her little bandit face, the only sound the drip of something on the gleaming floor.
—
The Pheasant Room, at least that’s what the plaque above the door proudly proclaimed, was darkly paneled and appropriately full of pheasants, with a taxidermied bird forever captured in midflight adorning each panel above the mission-style windows that seemed to allow light in from the outside.
Maybe it was clearing up.
I stepped onto the wide-planked pine floor and glanced around the room at the dozen or so perfectly set tables—pristine, white tablecloths, sparkling silver, china adorned with those same pheasants, shining goblets, and fresh flowers in cut crystal vases finishing the arrangements.
Seemed a little over the top for a lodge that was closed up for the winter, but it surely was not my place to complain.
There was music playing from an old baby grand piano tucked in the corner—I was a fan of boogie-woogie and knew it was Sophie Tucker, the last of the red-hot mamas—but there was no one seated on the bench. The keys depressed and the song was unmistakable; I just wondered who was really playing and singing. I wandered over to the instrument and touched the keys with the barrel of my Colt, but the second the metal touched the ivory, the music stopped.
I stood there for a few seconds but then felt as though someone was seated at one of the dining room tables, so I turned very slowly and raised my .45, but lowered it to my side as I became aware that there was nothing there.
Taking a deep breath, I noticed that the tracks I had been following led past the sideboard behind me.
I stepped to my left but stumbled into one of the chairs and was suddenly overcome with a sense of fatigue and cold again. Standing there for a few minutes more, I decided I’d better get a move on and started to the left out of the dining room where I found myself once again in the front lobby which was now empty. I started up the steps—the creaking of the treads was obnoxiously loud, even with the carpet covering them, but I finally reached a small landing one flight up that overlooked the dining room where I’d just been.
There were two stairwells that led to the second floor, but with my head really swimming now, I took the nearest one. The hallway was tastefully appointed with period wallpaper and antique fixtures that glowed and flickered. Gaslights. Odd.
I slowly checked each door, starting with the nearest one, but they were all locked except the one on the far end. There were two letters on that door that read KC, and I carefully pushed it open to reveal a very nice room with a highboy, a four-poster bed, and a small writing desk. I glanced down at the desk and could see a brass plaque that read CALVIN COOLIDGE’S WRITING DESK, 1927, WHEN THE GAME LODGE WAS USED AS THE SUMMER WHITE HOUSE.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and backed out of the room, checking the knobs on all the doors in the hallway again, but none of them moved. I decided, as tired as I was, to go downstairs and wait until I heard something.
They went up, they would eventually have to come down.
Using the banister the entire way, I stopped at the mezzanine to look into the dining room and this time I could see that there was a hulking figure seated at one of the tables; he turned his huge double head and looked up at me.