by Mark McNease
Kyle had never been asked to do this before and looked at Danny for his reaction. Danny shrugged and carried their pumpkin himself as the Lodge guests all began to file outside.
The porch was spacious and not closed in. Pucky and Stu, then Dylan and Sid after them, had weighed enclosing it so people could sit out in inclement weather, but having it open to the air and the hill gave it a sense of flowing into the surroundings. There was a porch swing on each end, a bench along the bay window looking into the great room, and two small tables with deck chairs. A waist-high railing encircled it all. People were setting their pumpkins along the railing when Dylan took Kyle by the arm and lead him out into the yard.
“We’ll get a better perspective from a distance,” he said. “You’re a photographer, you know all about perspective.”
Kyle followed along as they stepped away from the crowd. It was late afternoon and the sun, while not down, was giving it up for the day. Another hour and they would be lighting the Jack-O’-Lanterns.
Once they were out of earshot of the other guests, Dylan, keeping his eyes on the porch, said to Kyle, “I need to speak to you privately, Kyle. It’s about the Lodge. About Sid.”
“Why me?” Kyle asked him, uncomfortable with the intimacy. He had known Dylan for the five years he and Danny had been coming here, but they had never been more than cordial.
“Because Teddy trusted you.” And then, without looking at Kyle, “I don’t believe it was an accident.”
“Nor do I, Dylan, but you can’t take conjecture to court. If you know anything, you should call the police, speak to that Detective Sikorsky.”
“I don’t know things for a fact. That’s the problem. I only have suspicions at this point, and I wanted to speak to you first. I think I know what Teddy wanted to see you about.”
Kyle’s head was spinning. He wanted answers as much as anyone, but he’d never thought they might come from Dylan. What benefit could he have in proving a murder on his property? It was the sort of thing that might make people think twice about staying there.
“Come to Clyde’s,” Dylan said, referring to the downstairs piano bar. “Tonight.”
Before Kyle could protest or ask him anything, Dylan headed back toward the porch. “Cinderella in the middle,” he said loudly for everyone to hear. “We’ll work out to the left and right from there. You’re all looking amazing! And don’t forget to pick your favorite, Ricki has ballots at the front desk!”
Kyle watched him begin to fuss with the pumpkins, as if they had actually just discussed arranging them. He was again struck by the imposition of intimacy, the sharing of a confidence, or at least promising to, that should be shared with the authorities. He decided he would hear Dylan out that night, and depending on what came of it, he would call Detective Sikorsky in the morning. He doubted very much she took weekends off in a homicide case.
Chapter Fourteen
Stanley and Oliver
Kyle was Stanley Laurel, being the taller of the two, and Danny was Oliver Hardy, which he was none too happy about: Hardy was the fat one.
“Just tell yourself he went on Weight Watchers and lost forty pounds,” Kyle said, adjusting his bowler hat in the mirror.
“There was no Weight Watchers then,” Danny said, applying a moustache while he glanced at a photograph of the old comedy team.
“You’re missing the point. There’s nothing insulting about going as Oliver Hardy. You’re not really him! You’re a . . . thinner Oliver Hardy.”
“Thanks,” Danny said, having caught the hesitation in Kyle’s voice. He was a thinner Hardy, for sure, thin enough he had to pad the suit with a pillow tied around his mid-section, but not thin enough to make the costume ridiculous.
About half the guests would dress for dinner, creating a mix in the dining room of people in casual clothes eating their meal with people in Halloween costumes. Some of them were as simple as a magician’s cape and wand, while others were elaborate and probably took an hour or two to prepare. The previous year Kyle had come as a scarecrow and Danny as a sultan, complete with a sultan’s multi-colored robe and a turban. Kyle had hated his costume and cursed his decision: it was made of straw and burlap, purchased on the internet, and it itched fiercely. He endured it for the weekend but gave it away afterward and vowed never to buy a costume online again. This year they’d spent one Saturday going around to various shops and carefully identifying what they would need to be a convincing Laurel and Hardy. It paid off, if Kyle said so himself, as they looked very much like the people they were impersonating.
“I’m so glad we’re not in the City,” Danny said. “I’d have been roped into working Margaret’s for Halloween crowd control and you’d be dealing with Imogene fretting over every sequin on a fairy costume.”
“She’s a tube of lipstick this year,” Kyle said.
“You know what I mean. If you weren’t at her apartment helping her, you’d be on the phone offering reassurance.”
The two men were just about ready. Their plans for the night were simply to have dinner, after which Danny would return for some quiet time before bed. He was a people person when he was paid to be, at the restaurant especially, but when they managed to get away by themselves, he preferred to enjoy time reading, or even watching television, anything away from the crowd. Crowds were central to his job and, to some extent, his identity. He needed to keep the boundaries clear, to remind himself that he was not his job. After all, the years were passing ever more quickly and the next thing they knew it would be time for some version of retirement. What then? Would he find himself depressed, sitting in front of a window reliving his life in some kind of internal motion picture show? There was a risk in confusing your work with who you are.
“Danny?” he heard Kyle say, and he realized Kyle had been speaking to him while he sat thinking on the edge of the bed.
“What?”
“What do you suppose he found out, Dylan, and why would he want to talk to me?”
“I’m sorry—“
“I just can’t guess what Dylan wants to speak to me about. I told him to call the detective.”
“He’s probably not sure enough to do that,” Danny said. “It’s probably still conjecture for him.”
“Suspicions.”
“Exactly.”
“But about what?”
“Well, that’s what you’re going to find out, Mr. Laurel, when youse ‘av yourself a propah convahsation with the man.”
Kyle walked over to Danny, leaned down and kissed him. “That’s the spirit.”
“I hate Halloween.”
“You don’t hate Halloween, it’s your favorite time here, you’re just being contrary. Now let’s go eat.”
Kyle retrieved his camera from the dresser and the two of them headed to the Lodge.
Chapter Fifteen
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Bo sat gently rocking back and forth in the old chair in her room. It wasn’t a rocking chair, but she took comfort in the motion. It reminded her of being in her father’s lap so many years ago, when he would rock her and tell her stories before putting her to bed. Now, over thirty years later, it was his gun she took comfort in, caressing it with the fingers of her left hand. Her shooting hand.
It’s funny, the things we forget in a moment of crisis and chaos. Her father had kept the gun in a case in the closet, yet when he needed it he neglected it, choosing instead to hurry his daughter into hiding, to protect her and take his chances hand-to-hand. She supposed he had never expected to have to aim a gun at anyone, let alone pull the trigger. He wasn’t a gun man; her parents weren’t gun people. He’d simply had it as a precaution, like a life preserver that gathered dust inside a boat and was never worn. She had no idea what had gone through his mind in those seconds, if he had suddenly remembered the gun was in the closet with his ten year old child and it was too late; he would not risk exposing her to get the one thing that could have saved them. And the timing, too, all of it happening so fast.
Bo watched in horror as the man stepped into the bedroom and promptly shot her father, then her mother. Bang, bang, just like that. She didn’t know why she hadn’t screamed, or at least sucked her breath in so loudly it would give her away. But she hadn’t. She had stayed fixated on the horror. And then, when she was gathering her things to move to Santa Barbara and be raised by strangers called a family, she had taken the gun. The police hadn’t found it; they hadn’t been looking for any such thing. This was a burglary gone wrong; what you saw was what you got. So the gun had still been in the closet when she came to pack, and she had kept it with her all these years. Not only kept it with her, but learned to shoot it, and shoot it well. Which made it that much sadder knowing she would have to discard it, leave it rusting at the bottom of the Delaware River when she left this place, having put it to its only good use.
Bo believed in coincidence. She had no patience for people who said there was no such thing. She simply considered it the universe putting what otherwise seemed random into some kind of order. Thus, had she not been paying attention that day, she would not have seen the watch for sale on BidderSweet. Had she not seen the watch, she would not have made her way to Detroit and used the very same gun she now felt pressing lightly on her lap to lower the volume of the voices that had been crying for justice in her head all those years. For that matter, had she not gotten sick, she and her parents would have been on a flight to London and everything about her life, absolutely everything, would be different. Surely this is the very definition of coincidence, with all its good fortune and its tragedy.
She stopped rocking. She got up and carefully slipped the gun in a dresser drawer, beneath her sweater and jeans. She would head downstairs for dinner soon. She didn’t want to go and would prefer to focus on her objective, plus her appetite had vanished as her anxiety slowly increased, but she knew appearance was reality. She had another day and night to go before slipping away; not showing up was the very way to draw attention to herself. She didn’t know if the custom here was to wear costumes for dinner and she didn’t want to do that anyway, so she would join the other Lodge guests as herself, the best costume of all. For Saturday night’s main event she had brought a cat costume that she purchased for $40 at a store along the way from Minnesota. It came in a box, that’s how cheap it was and how easily thrown away when this was over. Cats were patient, cats were predators, and as silly as it seemed, she took some pleasure in being a cat that had come to claim the canary. The old man, the one named Sid.
Well, Sid, she thought, glancing out the window at the night sky, I’m here, and the cage you’ve been hiding in won’t save you.
Chapter Sixteen
The Master Suite
Sid was disappointed with himself; he was not a man to panic, never had been. Even when the heat had been greatest, just after the murders, he’d been the one to remain calm. The fool Frank had shot that couple and the next day it was all over the news. Monsters kill parents, leave little girl alive. They shouldn’t have killed anyone, but if that was the way it played out they should not have left a witness. Not that she’d done the cops any good. All they had were three anonymous men and a dead couple. They’d been very careful up until then, no fingerprints, nothing to trace. The mail connection, sure, but by the time the police put that together in some little “ah-ha” moment, the three of them would be long gone and Frank’s girlfriend from the post office would be as well. Sid felt bad for her, even though there’d never been any proof Frank got rid of her, but if you play with fire you will surely be burnt. She had cast her lot with a sociopath, they all had, and look what it had cost them. Leaving his life a second time, vanishing again, would be emotionally difficult but not impossible. He didn’t have that many years left and he was not about to spend them behind bars or, worse, in an early grave.
He had no idea who was after him but he knew it was connected to the girl. She was behind this. She must have hired someone to hunt them down. An expensive proposition, given the amount of money someone this professional would charge. Two murders with a third on the way? Could it be? Might the little girl they’d missed while she cowered in her parents’ closet have found them thirty years later and still hated them enough to send a killer after them? Or had she simply never stopped hating them and bided her time until an opportunity came, the recognition of a face in a crowd . . . or a watch.
He was sitting at his desk as the sun slowly set to the west. It was that time of day, the gloaming some called it, when the landscape fell to the slowly lengthening cape of night. His knees were bothering him, especially the left one. He wanted to beg off dinner but knew Dylan would be disappointed. Appearances, Sid, appearances. They all come here, they pay good money, we want them back. Passing on the pumpkin carving was okay, but joining for dinner was a must. In a few minutes he would change into his nice slacks and a cardigan, slide his feet into his tan penny loafers, the ones with dimes in them, and make his way downstairs. But first he wanted to see something.
He went online and typed in the dead couple’s name. “Lapinksy murder Los Feliz 1981.” News that old might well not be online, but a dogged reporter—for she must have been dogged to chase this old hound down—had done a “where are they now” piece for the Los Angeles Times over a decade ago: where was the little girl now, on the twentieth anniversary of the unsolved murders that had rocked the tony neighborhood of Los Feliz. He began to read the article, only available because it had been referenced from another website, and saw that the reporter had been stymied as well. Emily Lapinsky had ceased to exist. She’d left Santa Barbara for Minnesota and vanished.
Minnesota . . . Minnesota . . . didn’t he hear Ricki talking to one of the guests who said she was from Minnesota?
He read on and was thankful the reporter was as determined as she was. She found Emily living in St. Paul, designing jewelry she sold on the internet. Her name was now Bo, Bo Sweetzer. Bo did not give interviews, the reporter discovered. Bo denied being or knowing anyone named Emily Lapinsky.
Interesting, Sid thought, as he scanned the now-forty-year-old woman’s website, BoAndBeholdJewerly.com. Very good at what she did. The pieces on display were stunning and clearly custom made, as well as very expensive. Also of considerable interest, she was good at not having photos of herself, anywhere. There were none on the website, and it was only by spending ten minutes jumping from one hyperlink to another that Sid finally found a picture of young Emily, now all grown up Bo. She was at an art gallery opening, part of the background, but she’d been identified in the text and that is what snared her. It wasn’t a great photograph, but it was good enough for Sid to recognize her as the woman in Room 202.
So she hadn’t hired anyone, he thought, feeling a newfound respect for this woman as well as a growing apprehension. And while it was only conjecture at this point, he pondered how much determination it must have taken to vanish, to become not only another person, but a person on a mission, to wait and plan and when the chance came, to strike.
He erased his search history, something he’d been doing since that snoop Teddy started looking into things that were none of his business, and turned off his computer. It was time for dinner, time to greet the guests with a particular one in mind.
Chapter Seventeen
An Intimate Encounter
One of Dylan’s greatest strengths at running the Lodge, a strength he would otherwise never have known he had, was his insistence on treating the guests as if they were visitors to his own home, which they were. This was just a very large house and the visitors numbered in the dozens. Fifty-six to be exact, not counting the staff and the locals who came for dinner and the downstairs bars, swelling the annual Halloween party to well over a hundred. Dylan would accommodate anyone who wanted to dine with just a special someone, or friends who’d come together, seating them at a table for four, but he also enjoyed setting up tables for six or eight and mixing it up. He got the idea from a cruise he’d taken with Sid some years before, where passengers sit w
ith people they’d just met at the dining table their first night and get to know one another over the course of the cruise. Granted, it didn’t always work out perfectly, and occasionally table mates didn’t like each other, or they would stop coming to the main seating and eat elsewhere on the ship, but for the most part it was an effective social mixer, and that’s what Dylan was all about. Mixing it up, keeping it interesting for the guests, doing everything he could to make sure they’d be back.
Friday night in the dining room was always busy, and on a special weekend it could become chaotic, at least for the wait staff, cooks and extra help that had to be brought in. Ricki had transformed himself into a hostess in a shimmering red sheath dress and red hair bigger and wider than his shoulders. When Kyle and Danny made their first visit to Pride Lodge, neither one of them had realized that Ricki who had checked them was the same Ricki who seated them for dinner. He wouldn’t stay that way all night, changing back to jeans and a sweatshirt before heading downstairs for a night cap and a song at Clyde’s piano. The music was provided by one of two or three local musicians who took turns headlining. Legend had it the bar was named after the first piano player in the joint, an old woman who called herself Clyde and who died at the piano one Saturday night from an aneurism.
Also in attendance tonight was Kevin the Magnificent, rested from an afternoon nap. He lived in Stockton with his mother in a house along the Delaware River she’d owned with her late husband since the 1950s. It wasn’t grand, but its view of the river was spectacular, and, since Kevin was the only child, he saw no reason to move away. Mom was close to 90 and Kevin expected to soon be living alone. So there he stayed, and every weekend he would check into the Lodge, same room that he sometimes shared with one or two of the staff if things went on too long or they drank too much to drive home. Most recently his roommate had been Happy, and Kevin, though he’d not said anything, suspected something ugly had happened to him. Happy was a good kid, with the emphasis on ‘kid.’ He was legally an adult, but most people were still wet behind the ears at that age, still inexperienced in the survival techniques that saw one into one’s 50s and beyond.
