Haldemann got to his feet. “I’ll see you later, Mel,” he said. “And of course you know how much I regret all this.”
“Well, sure.” Mel was surprised again at Haldemann’s eternally apologetic manner. Haldemann was always apologizing for something that wasn’t his fault and over which he had no control. Like Ralph Schoen. Or the murder. The man just didn’t jibe with Mel’s preconception of a summer-theater producer.
Haldemann went out, still murmuring apologies, and Mel was left alone again in his cube. He was fully dressed, but he’d taken his shoes off when he’d come up here after dinner, and now he put them back on again. Anything would be better than solitary confinement in this box, with its unexpected and unwelcome slide projections on the ceiling.
There was an old-fashioned key in the door, on the inside. Mel took it, switched off the light, and locked the door behind him. He noticed that the door to Cissie Walker’s room was now closed. All the doors on this floor were closed, in fact, leaving the squarish hallway looking like another box. A magician’s box, lined with doors. Or something from one of those labyrinthine Chinese houses in Sax Rohmer.
He went downstairs and outside. The night was clear and cool; the sky velvet-black and sprayed with stars. A thin sliver of moon hung high over the lake.
The house he had just left loomed dark and bulky behind him. A light was on behind one second-story window, and the downstairs hall light shone through the glass in the front door, but other than that the front of the house was dark. The theater next door, the night having robbed it of its bright red veneer, was now only a barn again, hulking and silent and dark.
Across the road and down a ways to the left was the only bright spot in the night. A sprawling two-story stucco building was awash in light. Varicolored light shone from all its windows. A large and nearly empty parking lot at its side was lit by floodlights. A bright red neon sign in front of the building gleamed out:
Mel turned in that direction, walking along with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders unconsciously hunched to protect the back of his neck from the darkness. He was relieved when he came within the aura of light surrounding the Lounge. Taking his hands from his pockets, he strode across the blacktop and up onto the veranda
The façade of the Lounge was Southern plantation, complete with pillars and veranda and white front door. But inside the disguise was dropped completely; the interior was the stock bar decor to be found anywhere in the United States. A horseshoe-shaped bar dominated the center of the room, with booths at the side walls. The normal beer and whiskey displays, with all their flashing lights and moving parts, were crowded together on the back bar amid the cash registers and the rows of bottles. Most of the light came from these back-bar displays, aided only slightly by the colored fluorescent tubes hidden away in the trough that girdled the room high up on the wall. Lithographs of fox-hunting scenes predictably dotted the walls, and the imitation gas lamps jutting from the wall over each booth said Schlitz around their bases.
In the rear wall, to either side of the horseshoe bar, were wide arched entranceways leading to the dining room. In there were all the usual square tables with their white tablecloths and their place settings for four. And off to the right, flanked by maroon draperies, was the broad carpeted stairway to the second floor.
The bar was nearly deserted. Only one bartender was working, and there were no waitresses out here; it was still too early in the season. Two men sat together at the bar, chatting in a desultory manner while they ate cashews and drank beer. A man and a woman — he florid and wealthy-looking, she machined and expensive-looking — sat across from one another at a booth to the left. And finally, four people from the theater company sat at a booth on the right. They were Tom Burns, the stage manager, whom Mel hadn’t met until just before dinner, and three of the actors, Ken Forrest and Will Henley and Rod McGee, the three who were, like himself, all new here this year.
Mel walked over to their table and said, “Could you use a fifth, or are you all sticking to beer?”
Tom Burns looked up and smiled broadly. “Well, well, the tattletale! Get yourself a chair. Join us for the post-mortem.”
“Be right with you.”
Mel went over to the bar and got himself a beer. Then, because the booth would only fit four comfortably, he commandeered a chair, and brought it over.
Rod McGee, the thin eager cheerful one, was saying, “What do you think of that cop anyway? What’s his name, Sondgard? What do you think of him?”
“An extremely able man,” Tom Burns started to say, but Will Henley, big and dour, overrode him, saying, “I don’t think much of him. He doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, if you ask me.”
“I’ve known Eric a number of years,” Tom Burns told him, “and I believe he may surprise you.”
“He’s a teacher,” said Ken Forrest. His voice was low, almost diffident.
Mel said, “A teacher? What kind of teacher?”
“English,” said Tom Burns. “I don’t recall the college at the moment. Isn’t it someone’s turn to go for refreshments?”
“Yours,” said Henley.
But Rod McGee was already on his feet, saying, “No, it’s mine. Five beers. You ready, Mel?”
“I will be.”
McGee hurried away, and Mel turned to Ken Forrest. “You mean he isn’t a full-time policeman?”
“No, he’s a teacher.”
“He works here summertimes,” Burns explained.
“Fine,” said Henley sarcastically. “A part-time cop. He’s an amateur, for God’s sake. You really expect him to catch a clever killer?”
Ken Forrest echoed, “Clever?” His voice was still low, his manner that of a shy man unsure of his acceptance in any group conversation.
Henley slapped him down at once, saying, “Of course, clever! A lot more clever than our English teacher.”
Forrest retired deeper in his corner, and studied his empty beer glass. It was Mel who picked up the ball for him: “He doesn’t seem so clever to me. He acted like an animal. That doesn’t seem clever.”
“Why not? Cunning as a fox, you’ve heard that before.” Henley’s whole tone was belligerent; he leaned far over the table, frowning as he talked. “Here we’ve got a house full of people, maybe, I don’t know, how many of us? Ten? And this guy comes in and kills somebody right under our noses and goes right back out again and doesn’t leave us a hint of who he is or where he came from. You don’t call that clever?”
Mel said, “You think it was somebody from outside, then.”
“I don’t know, what difference does it make? One of us, maybe? In that case, he’s even more clever. He managed to leave us, go commit his murder, and come back, without any of us suspecting what he’d done. Face it, this guy isn’t stupid. Now, I don’t say this Captain Whatsisname is stupid either, all I say is this killer knows his business and Captain Whatsisname doesn’t know his business. He may be the greatest English teacher in the world, but as a cop he makes a good English teacher. That’s all I say.”
Rod McGee came back with the fresh beer then, and the subject shifted. For a while, they talked about the likelihood of there being a season here this summer. Bob Haldemann had told them all the same thing, that he hoped there would be but he couldn’t be sure yet.