“You’re funny. No. You notice who isn’t among those present? And dead?”
“Poole. The room with the rumpled bed is obviously his. You must be right about him.”
I nodded. “And he’s probably disappointed he didn’t add us to his tally. He could be downstairs waiting.”
She shook her head. “No, he would have taken us out when we got here.”
“Probably. Shall we risk that?”
“...Maybe not.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “We’ll go down and check the lower floor. Make sure that we’re alone. You haul your travel bag along. Because then, you’re leaving.”
“I am?”
“You are. You can meet me at my A-frame or head back to St. Paul, as you please.” I got my car keys from my jacket pocket and handed them to her. “Just don’t take my Firebird with you if you head back to the Twin Cities, okay? Get some use out of that Camaro.”
She nodded, smiled.
We checked the main floor out.
Nothing, nobody.
It was possible we’d just played out a bedroom farce with the shooter, with us coming up and going into our room, and him then coming out of a victim’s room and going down. Fawlty Towers with guns.
Finally we hustled from the chalet into the parking lot to the nearby Firebird, staying very fucking low.
Then she was gone, with a throaty roar of my car’s engine, and I went back in.
Just me and the dead.
Fourteen
I called the front desk at the main lodge and got put through to Dan Clark, who was staying in a room there to be handy in case anything came up at the chalet. I felt like this qualified.
I met him at the door. He’d come over in his dark blue Jaguar sedan, which he didn’t look as spiffy as. His short dark hair managed to stick up a little on one side, where he’d slept on it, his face appeared a little puffy, eyes lacked their usual sharpness, and he looked like a guy who’d been woken up in the middle of the night. Which he was, although at after two AM, this really was morning, wasn’t it?
He looked more irritated than alarmed by this summons, as he came quickly but unenthusiastically from the parked vehicle to the doorway where I stood, his breath smoking with cold. He hadn’t taken time for a topcoat. He was back in the tan tailored suit and yellow, open-collar shirt, but they’d been thrown on.
All I’d told him on the phone was: “Get the hell over here. Quick. Bring nobody.”
“What is it?” he’d asked.
“It’s bad. Get over here.”
Now here he was, and I ushered him in. I’d turned a few lights on but the chalet remained underlit, although while I’d waited for him I’d lighted a fire in the big fireplace downstairs.
“Okay, Jack,” he said, “so what the fuck?”
“I’m going to give you a little tour of your facility,” I said. “There’s been some dramatic remodeling.”
He frowned, taking in the emptiness, which didn’t back up my implied crisis. “Where is everybody? Asleep?”
“You could say that.”
“Do we need to be quiet?”
“Not really.”
I showed him around the impacted rooms in the order that Lu and I had made our discoveries, starting on the third floor. Seeing pudgy Kraft in his pj’s on his back with a hole in his forehead, and that big blossom of blood framing his noggin, got an immediate reaction out of Dan. Well, a two-part immediate reaction. First the lodge manager froze, deer-in-the-headlights style. Then he ran into the bathroom and knelt at the porcelain altar and made an offering.
I was in the doorway of the john as he stood at the sink, running cold water and splashing it on his face. He toweled off and looked at me, horrified, the angular features of his narrow face twisted into a grotesque grimace, his handsomeness M.I.A.
“Do the others know?” he asked.
“Probably not. You okay?”
“No I’m not okay!”
“There’s more to do.”
He gripped my arm. “We’re not calling the cops. You haven’t called the cops, have you, Jack?”
“I have not called the cops. What are friends for, Dan? Come on. We’re just getting started.”
“What?”
I didn’t bother answering, just led him past the corpse and out into the hall.
My poker pal took in Callen’s bed-bound corpse, and Field’s, more stoically. He clearly had nothing left to puke up, and his comments ran to what you might imagine: “Jesus... oh my God... Christ!” Which sounds more religious than it was.
Then we were downstairs, him on one blue couch, me facing him on the other, with the fire crackling and snapping between us at my right and his left, its warmth providing a bizarre coziness, aided and abetted by the moonlight pouring in the tall windows.
I was sitting back, an ankle on a knee, arms along the top edge of the cushions behind me, the lined black leather jacket unzipped. Numb, Dan was sitting forward, knees apart, folded hands draped between his legs, shaking his half-hanging head.
Then something occurred to him, his chin snapping up, the eyes sharp again. “What about Poole?”
The shock of having three corpses as chalet guests finally dulled enough for him to realize the body count was off by one.
“Not here,” I said. “Room’s empty. I believe he did this.”
“What about your girl?”
“Mrs. William Wilson? I sent her off where she might not find things so unpleasant. Hey, things could be worse.”
“How in hell?”
I shrugged. “Those guys up there could have shit themselves.”
He covered his face with both hands. Not crying or anything. Just wishing this would all go away, I guess.
Then, getting himself together, he dropped his hands to his thighs and sat up straight. He was a professional, after all. An executive.
“Listen, Jack. With your... shall we say, ‘veterinarian drugs’ business... you certainly don’t need the kind of official scrutiny this thing could bring.”
“No argument there.”
“And if this became known to the public... my God, we’d be finished here. This lodge would be over, unless somebody figured out how to market a Manson Family vacation. And who would ever want to hire me?”
“It’s a pisser.”
He made a face. “These people... I don’t have to tell you. You were Vanhorn’s ‘silent partner,’ you said?”
I nodded.
Eyebrows high, he held two palms out, surrender-style. “I don’t want to know partner in what!”
“Well, crime of course.”
“Don’t tell me any more, Jack! Don’t tell me any fucking more. I know that these people — yourself included — are... connected. In a way, so am I. Chicago money is behind the lodge, you know that, right? And you know what kind of Chicago money I mean.”
“I do.”
He cocked his head, his voice quiet, reasonable. “So what I propose to do is call a number. I will report what the situation is here, and a clean-up crew will be dispatched. Before anyone gets a whiff of this, before the sun comes the hell up, this will be taken care of. Those things upstairs...” He pointed upward. “...will be gone. Disposed of. Do you understand?”
“I not only understand,” I said with a pleasant little smile, “I approve.”
He stood. Clapped once. “I’m going to make the call now.” He nodded toward the moon-swept parking lot out the windows. “Then I’m going to personally drive you home. We can talk later, but the short version is — none of this ever happened.”
“Fine by me.”
He sighed, smoothed his suitcoat, which could use it, and went off to the kitchen to use the phone. He spoke softly and I didn’t catch exactly every word of what he was saying, but the call was as he described it. Took him no longer than ordering a pizza.