The Burnt Orange Sunrise

by David Handler

  But Soave hadn’t steered Des wrong—the snow really did seem to be letting up.

  As he moved on to the next empty room, Mitch thought he sensed movement behind him in the corridor. But when he turned around, there was no one and nothing. Just the deserted hallway. He was spooked, that was all. It couldn’t be anything else—anything like, say, Astrid’s spirit wafting through the air. Not a chance. No way. Mitch steadied himself, breathing in and out, and continued his search. He found more open doors, more bare mattresses, more nothing. There was no evidence that anyone was hiding up here. He was sure of this.

  Until he went in room 31, that is. And once again sensed movement, heard movement—and then Mitch saw something out of the corner of his eye and he whirled and an immense pure white Maine coon cat leaped off of the dresser right into his arms, where it began to dig its front paws into Mitch’s chest and purr and purr, just as friendly as can be.

  “Well, hello there,” Mitch said, standing there stroking it while he waited for his resting pulse rate to dip back down below 185. It was a beautiful cat with startlingly bright blue eyes and the longest, softest fur Mitch had ever felt. A she, by the look of things. “What are you doing up here all by yourself, girl? You must be the lone-somest pussy cat around.” He put her back down on the dresser. Or tried to. She immediately jumped right back into his arms, scrambling up on top of his shoulder now, with her front paws thrown over onto his back.

  Together, they moved deeper into the room. The mattress in here was bare, just as in the other rooms. But there was more than one bed in room 31. On the floor next to the bathroom doorway Mitch found a cat bed lined with blankets and chock-full of rubber mousy toys. The bathroom did not smell particularly fresh—the litter box in there needed emptying. Kibble and water dishes were positioned on a rubber bath mat. There were plastic storage tubs of kibble and kitty litter, a litter scoop.

  There were also two hand towels on the towel rack. Both towels were damp, Mitch discovered. Somebody had been up here recently. Somebody had used these towels.

  He moved back out into the bedroom with the cat in his arms and his wheels spinning. So this explained the footsteps that he and Carly had heard in the night. Someone must have been up here feeding this cat, which was living up here on the unheated third floor all alone because … well, why was she living up here all alone?

  She was starting to wriggle around in his arms, so he put her down. She promptly began rubbing up against his leg and yowling at him.

  “Well, you’re quite the little talker, aren’t you?”

  In response, she darted toward the open closet and went inside. Mitch followed her, shining his flashlight around in there. Nothing. Just another empty closet. And yet the cat kept circling around and around in there, eager with anticipation.

  “What is it, girl?”

  She let out another yowl and began sharpening her claws on the carpet, her excitement mounting. The carpet in the closet was not the same as in the bedroom. It was newer and cheaper, made of some kind of synthetic material. Something that hadn’t been installed particularly well. Sections of it lifted away from the floor as the cat’s claws grabbed hold and pulled.

  In fact, the far corner over against the wall hadn’t even been tacked down at all.

  Mitch knelt there with the flashlight for a closer look. Strips of one-inch wooden molding were tacked in where the floor met the walls, anchoring the carpet in place. Or at least in theory. In reality, Mitch discovered that the molding strips were tacked to the wall but not to the floor—because the carpet slid right out from under them.

  The big white cat was all over him now, most anxious to get into whatever he was getting into.

  Mitch turned back enough of the carpet to expose a three-foot-square section of old, unpolished wooden flooring. Here he found a trapdoor with a recessed thumblatch. The trapdoor was about twenty-four inches square and reminded him very much of the one that was in the floor of his sleeping loft at home. His was there for ventilation. Why was this one here?

  He grabbed on to the thumblatch and slowly lifted the trapdoor open, revealing utter darkness down below. He pointed his flashlight down there. He was looking into the closet of the room directly below this one. Its door was closed. Whose closet was it? He couldn’t tell. He could make out a couple of jackets hanging there, but from this angle he couldn’t determine if they belonged to a man or a woman. Briefly, he tried to count out where room 31 was in relation to the occupants of the second-floor rooms, but that just made his head start to throb again. So he flicked off the light and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

  Tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, Mitch gripped the edge of the floor with both hands and dropped down through the open trapdoor, hanging there in mid-air by his fingers, his legs waving wildly. Now all he had to do was let go. Which had sure looked a lot easier when Burt Lancaster and Nick Cravat did it in The Crimson Pirate. Those two had landed with nimble, effortless grace. Just as that damned show-off of a cat proceeded to do while Mitch continued to hang there and hang there, wondering what in the hell he had been thinking. Then he said his silent “Gerónimo!” and let go, touching down with a colossal, well-padded thud.

  At the sound of him crashing to the closet floor the door immediately flew open, flooding the closet with natural light. Someone stood silhouetted there in the doorway, hands on hips.

  Mitch scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off. Checked to see if his head had started to bleed again. It hadn’t. Then he smiled and said, “Hey, Spence, how’s it going?”

  CHAPTER 14

  IT WAS THE SOUND of Mitch touching down on the floor of Spence Sibley’s closet that brought Des running.

  Not that she had even the remotest idea what had happened. Her first thought was that Astrid’s Castle had just taken a direct hit from a short-range ballistic missile. It shook the floorboards and sent everyone spilling out of their rooms into the hallway, terrified. Everyone except for Spence, that is. When Des heard two—count ’em, two—male voices coming out of his room, she pounded on Spence’s door and was greeted by none other than Mitch. Also by a huge white Maine coon cat that Des hadn’t realized was even around until that very second.

  How did Mitch and that cat get inside of Spence’s locked room?

  She didn’t know. She only knew that Spence looked very unhappy.

  Mitch, meanwhile, was grinning at her like a gleeful, moon-faced boy. “There’s a trapdoor,” he explained, tugging her toward the closet so she could see for herself.

  “Time out. Where did this damned cat come from?” Des demanded, utterly bewildered. She also didn’t like to be tugged. Never had.

  “That’s Isabella,” Jory answered from the doorway, where she and the others were clustered. “She’s the castle’s unofficial mascot. Hey, Izzy. Here, girl…”

  The big white cat padded right over to Jory, who bent over and picked her up. Isabella scrambled up onto her shoulder and perched there contentedly.

  “She patrols the gardens most of the year,” Jory said, stroking her. “Just loves being outside, don’t you, girl? When it gets cold, she takes up residence on the third floor. We have a problem with mice up there. Plus Les couldn’t be around her. He was allergic to cats.”

  “So she’s got food up there?”

  “She’s got everything up there,” Mitch answered. “A bed, a litter box, hot and cold-running mousy toys.” He lowered his voice, adding, “The towels in her bathroom are damp, by the way,”

  “Who takes care of her?” Des asked Jory.

  “Norma did. Izzy was her cat, really.”

  “Was Norma likely to go up there in the middle of the night?”

  “If she was awake, sure.”

  “Jory, why didn’t you mention this to me before?”

  “I wouldn’t have let her starve or anything.” Jory stuck her chin out defensively. “It just seemed like you had more important things to worry about.”

  “True, that,” Des concede
d, studying the opening in Spence’s closet ceiling. “What can you tell me about this trapdoor?”

  “It’s a fire escape. Most of the old three-story houses had them. Otherwise, folks could get trapped in their top-floor rooms if a fire broke out during the night. Actually, those trapdoors were the only fire escape system Astrid’s had when Jase and I were little. Remember, sweetie?”

  Jase nodded his furry head.

  “Then the fire code got stricter and they had to install a sprinkler system and fireproof steel doors to the back stairs.”

  “Are you telling me that all of these second-floor rooms have trapdoors like this?”

  “Well, yeah,” Jory replied. “They carpeted over them upstairs but the rugs are just kind of toenailed in. In an emergency, there’s no harm in having an extra way out.”

  “I do not believe this,” Des fumed, realizing she hadn’t gone in their closet last night. Hadn’t so much as opened the door. Just thrown her clothes over a chair and jumped into bed, as had Mitch.

  “Hey, look at it this way,” he said brightly. “We can definitely set aside our ghost theory now.”

  “Mitch, did you just land on your head?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Can you keep an eye on these folks for me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Des herded everyone into Spence’s room, then unlocked the housekeeping closet out in the hall and fetched a broom. She went from room to room, checking the closet ceilings. Each had a trapdoor, just as Jory had said. With the broom handle, each trapdoor could easily be pushed open under the detachable third-floor rug—including the trapdoor in the very room she and Mitch had slept in. She positioned the dressing table chair underneath theirs. Standing on it, she did not find it particularly hard to pull herself up and into the closet of the third-floor room directly overhead. Admittedly, it was her business to stay fit. But any of these people could have managed the physical part of this, she believed. With the possible exception of Teddy. And Teddy wasn’t an issue since he had been downstairs playing the piano, not locked away in his room.

  Des nosed her way around the chilly, vacant third floor, her mind quickly playing it out. Once Les’s killer had made it up here, he or she could have accessed the staff stairs by means of the third-floor hallway door and taken those stairs straight on down to the kitchen, bypassing her second-floor lookout entirely. After cold-cocking Mitch and killing Les, he or she had then stashed their wet things somewhere and returned to the third floor by those same stairs—using the towels in Isabella’s bathroom to dry off before dropping back down into their room, completely undetected. A well-positioned chair would have prevented the seismic disturbance that Mitch had set off when he’d touched down.

  Des stretched a length of crime scene tape across the bathroom door, wondering how many sets of fingerprints they would find in there, and to whom they might belong. She also devoted a great deal of energy to beating the living crap out of herself for not hanging up her pants in the damned closet last night. If only she’d gone in there. If only she’d gone in there and looked up. If she had, Les Josephson would still be alive right now. This should not have happened. No, it should not. She was off her game. Enraged, she paced the third-floor corridor, calling herself any number of vile, politically incorrect names.

  Her cell phone squawked. She went over by the windows in Isabella’s room to answer it.

  And Soave said to her: “Yo, you are on a roll, Master Sergeant.”

  “Could have fooled me,” she growled back at him.

  “Hey, I don’t like your tone of voice. You sound down to me. Are you down?”

  “Rico, I don’t have very much to be up about right now.”

  “You can’t do this to me, Des. I need you to be up.”

  “Yeah, why is that?”

  “You’re my mentor, that’s why. If a boy sees his mentor falter, it completely wrecks him.”

  “Rico, maybe the blood to my brain is starting to freeze, but you actually sound serious.”

  “Des, I totally am.”

  “In that case, feel free to cheer me up. What do you have? And please make it good.”

  “Yolie got through to Tom Maynard of Dorset Pharmacy.”

  “What did Tom have to say?”

  Des’s heart immediately started beating faster as Soave told her.

  “So, what, you’re not getting anywhere at your end?” he asked when he was done reporting.

  “Starting right now I am, Rico,” she said, gazing out the window at the frozen outside world. “Believe it or not, the snow has just about stopped here. How is it where you are?”

  “Same. The SP-One pilot says he’ll be good to go by the time we get there. Yolie’s on her way over here right now. I figure we’ll be on your doorstep in an hour, maybe ninety minutes. Sound good?”

  “Way better than good. See you then, wow man.”

  After she rang off, Des idled there by the windows for a moment with her engine revving. Then she shook herself and went down through the open trapdoor into Spence’s closet, with an assist by Mitch.

  “Okay, everyone, new plan,” she announced briskly. “We’re moving downstairs to the taproom until the Major Crime Squad arrives.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Carly sighed in relief.

  “Amen,” echoed Teddy.

  “Sanity restored,” Aaron declared, nodding his large head in agreement. “At long last.”

  “Is it okay if I make us some sandwiches and coffee?” Jory asked.

  “Good idea.”

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Hannah said.

  “Now can I go get some firewood?” Jase asked somewhat woefully.

  “I’m afraid not, Jase. The woodshed is a crime scene, off limits.” As the young caretaker’s face fell, Des added, “But I do have a job for you. The parking lot needs to be plowed. Could you do that for me?”

  “You bet.” Jase brightened considerably. “Be happy to.”

  “You’ll be needing the keys to your truck.” She reached into her pocket for his key ring.

  “Naw, I left ’em in the ignition. Always do.”

  Typical Dorset behavior. Des had never lived in a place where so many drivers left their keys in their cars. In fact, she hadn’t known such places still existed. “Mitch can give you a hand,” she said, glancing at her doughboy. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “Totally,” Mitch assured her. “Let’s get cracking, amigo.”

  They all started out of Spence’s room now.

  Until, that is, Des put her hand on Spence’s arm to stop him. “We need to talk,” she told the studio executive.

  “Whatever you want,” he said readily.

  Spence had kept a small fire going in his room. He poked at it and fed it with the last log from his woodpile, then sat in the armchair before it, looking very at ease and preppy in his burgundy crewneck sweater and flannel slacks. He was a handsome, well-put-together man. But he was also the type of man whom Des had never been attracted to. Too much smooth, corporate charm. Too few endearing personal quirks—they’d been bred out of him. Des preferred men who came fully equipped with all of their rough edges and flaws and surprises. Men like Mitch who were, for better or worse, real.

  “What’s that you’re working on?” she asked, noticing the Astrid’s stationery and ballpoint pen parked on the end table at Spence’s elbow.

  “A good old-fashioned love letter,” he replied.

  Des turned the desk chair around and sat, gazing at him. Spence gazed right back at her, unperturbed. He gave every indication of being agreeable, sincere and innocent. If this man was a cold-blooded killer, then he was in the wrong end of the film business—he belonged in front of the cameras.

  “I understand from Mitch that you’ve stayed at Astrid’s before.”

  “Many times, yes. Ever since I was a little boy. We held our Sibley family reunions here.”

  “Did you know anything about those trapdoors?”

  Spence let
out a laugh. “Hell, yes. Every red-blooded kid who’s ever stayed here knows about them. My cousins and I used to sneak from room to room in the middle of the night. We’d tell ghost stories, smoke cigarettes, major mischief like that. It was great fun.”

  “What happened to Les wasn’t great fun,” Des pointed out, knowing that it would be a long time before she forgot the sight of the innkeeper on the woodshed floor with that hatchet stuck in his head. She’d taken photographs, her third set of the day. It would take her months to draw her way out of this particular winter storm. “Someone used their trapdoor to sneak out and kill him.”

  “I realize that,” Spence said somberly, lowering his eyes.

  “Why didn’t you warn me about them, Spence? Don’t you realize you could have prevented his death?”

  “You seemed very sure of what you were doing, so I assumed that you knew. Didn’t think it through, I guess. I should have spoken up. You’re absolutely right.” He glanced up at her uncertainly. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “I have no reason not to,” she replied, wondering if he was lying to her. But say he was. Say he was behind all of this. How on earth had he been thinking he’d get away with it? He wasn’t dumb, and sure didn’t seem crazy.

  “Do you have any idea who did it?” he asked her.

  “It could have been anyone. Anyone who knew about those trapdoors. I assume Aaron does. Hannah I’m not so sure about. What would you say?”

  “About Hannah? I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask her.”

  “Then again, it could have been you.”

  “Well, it wasn’t,” he assured her wholeheartedly. “I have nothing to do with any of this. I’m as shocked and horrified as can be. Plus I’ve just watched a solid month of hard work go right down the drain. I can’t begin to tell you how many man-hours I’ve spent putting this damned weekend together. The movie-going public thinks these gala events just happen. That the stars rush in to attend every tribute or benefit that comes along. Trust me, they don’t. They have to be begged, every last one of them.”