by Mark McNease
“A couple of Christopher Lee Draculas,” Jeremy replied. He had a snifter of brandy sitting on the small stand by his chair. Kyle knew it would be top-of-the line and supplied by Jeremy himself. The old gent may love his visits to Pride Lodge, but there were some things even he was too particular about to leave to his hosts.
“They scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.”
“Me, too!” Ricki said from behind the desk. “Maybe I’ll join you.”
“Off to the bar?” Jeremy asked.
“Normally no, not by myself,” Kyle said. “But I thought a nightcap was in order. Danny’s asleep right about”—and he looked at his watch—“now.”
“Have fun. The kids are a little wild for me, as you know.”
By ‘kids’ Jeremy meant anyone under the age of sixty. Kyle waved to him, noticing the two men playing checkers had never looked up during the exchange, and made his way downstairs.
“Basement” wasn’t really a word that described the below-ground level of Pride Lodge. It usually conjured images of house basements with family rooms or exercise setups, washers and dryers and boxes stored away never to be opened. The basement of the Lodge was cavernous, as long and wide as the Lodge itself, and Pucky had had the idea to gut it, renovate it, and launch it as two clubs in one: a piano bar reminiscent of his favorites in New York City, and an adjacent karaoke club.
The following night the clubs would be combined for the annual Halloween blowout, but tonight they still maintained separate identities. He glanced into the karaoke club, christened “Club K” (not, he presumed, a reference to the infamous club drug Ketamine, but to “karaoke”), and saw a dozen people sitting at booths around a central stage area where Kevin was announcing the next singer.
He headed past it down the short hall and was immediately met with the sounds of Pete the Piano Guy playing and singing “Come In From The Rain,” the Melissa Manchester, Carole Bayer Sager collaboration that always gave him goose bumps. It was a melancholy song and he knew there wouldn’t be too many of those played this weekend.
He entered Clyde’s and glanced around. The decor consisted of loveseats, sofas and overstuffed armchairs accompanied by small tables for drinks; a bar area with a dozen stools, and in a corner a baby grand where Pete held court with just his voice, his music sheets, and a giant snifter as a tip jar. Kyle knew nothing about Pete except that he’d been the main entertainment here since Clyde herself passed on some twenty years ago. He rotated now and then with other local musicians, but Pete was the mainheadliner. The fact that so many of the Lodge’s staff and guests had been there for many years made it that much more welcoming. It was, Kyle knew, an old friend to many, and he nodded at Pete when he entered. He noticed Pete had lost weight: the piano player wore a tuxedo, his own gimmick, but Kyle saw it was a much smaller tuxedo than it had been the last time he and Danny were here.
There were probably twenty people in the bar, as Kyle made a quick headcount. Cowboy Dave was bartending, named so for his habit of wearing a cowboy hat even though there was nothing else cowboy about him. He, too, had been a regular presence at Pride Lodge for some years, certainly since before Kyle and Danny had been coming there, and Kyle said hello as he stepped to the bar and ordered a diet cola. He wanted his senses about him tonight and wouldn’t allow himself so much as a beer.
“How’s it hanging, Kyle?” Dave asked, sliding the soda across to Kyle.
“You’d have to ask Danny that,” Kyle said, winking.
“Good to know it still works at our age, ain’t it?” Dave said.
Kyle wasn’t sure how old Dave was, and he couldn’t tell if there was hair under the hat or not; he’d never seen Dave without it. But he looked to be about fifty, and a well-kept fifty at that. The kind of older man who did a hundred sit-ups in the morning while he watched the news.
“Sorry about Happy,” Kyle said, sipping his drink.
“Oh, he’ll come back,” Dave said, and Kyle saw a distress on Dave’s face that made him think the older man and the younger one had been more than co-workers. But he knew Happy and Teddy had had something going. In fact, that was what he thought Teddy wanted to talk about and why he was leaving the Lodge. Relationships get very complicated in close quarters.
“I’ll have help tomorrow night,” Dave said. “Elzbetta for some lesbian vibe, it’s always good to have, and the twins. Ricki gets the night to party, it’s his turn this year.”
Kyle marveled at the planning, execution and sheer work of keeping an operation like the Lodge going. Someone on duty almost twenty-four hours a day. Bartending, the restaurant, it really was quite a daily undertaking.
“I never expected to see her here,” Dave said, indicating someone along the wall behind Kyle. “Maybe she’s curious. It happens.”
Kyle set his drink down, turned around, and was surprised to see Detective Linda Sikorsky sitting alone on a leather loveseat under a low-lit sconce. She saw Kyle looking at her and waved slightly. Kyle took it as an invitation, whether it was or not, and headed over to her.
She looked handsome dressed in civilian clothes. Sky-blue jeans Kyle guessed had been made to look that way with some sort of stone washing; a tan blouse with just a slight frill down the buttons; brown leather loafers. Even in street clothes she projected calm and confidence, and Kyle noticed for the first time her green eyes, made more startling by their obvious intelligence and curiosity. This was a woman who did not miss anything, and he suddenly understood that that’s why she was here: the good detective was interested in what she could learn from coming closer to what was very likely the scene of a crime.
“Mr. Callahan,” Linda said, patting the cushion next to her. “Have a seat.”
Kyle sat down and placed his drink on a side table. “Here for an after dinner drink?” he asked.
“What else would I be here for?”
He saw she was being mischievous.
“I’m not gay, not officially,” she said. “But I’m thinking about it. Which is still not why I’m here. I wanted to get a feel for things.”
“In a piano bar full of mature patrons.”
“At Pride Lodge,” she said. “The place has quite a history. I’ve been reading about it. Did you know it was a farmhouse in the early 1800s?”
“I had no idea.”
“Yes, and the man who owned it lost two children and his wife in rapid succession. Influenza. He was heartbroken, left the farm to decay and was never heard from again.”
“That explains the whispers of haunting.”
She arched an eyebrow and reached for her glass of white wine on a coffee table in front of them.
“Ghosts on the moors, you know.”
“More recently,” she continued, “what came to be known as ‘Pride Lodge’ was sold to Sid Stanhope and Dylan Tremblay. Or more accurately sold to one of them with the money to buy it.”
“Let me guess,” Kyle said. “Sid.”
“Yes, Sid,” she answered. “Who, most astonishingly, paid cash with the explanation he’d recently inherited it.”
“Lucky man, unlucky relative. Nobody wondered about such good fortune?”
“Cash is still king. Questions have a way of never being asked when there’s a million dollars on the table. Make that a million-five.”
Kyle was as torn as he was intrigued. He considered telling her about Dylan’s aside and that he had come here tonight to find out more from the man who, he had just learned, shared his love and life with someone he suspected of criminal activity. But if he told her she would likely get involved, or want to somehow listen in, and he wasn’t yet ready to give that up. He also didn’t know what it was he’d be giving up: he should wait and hear what Dylan had to tell him, then decide what to do with the information.
“You don’t think Teddy fell into the pool by accident, either,” he said, feeling a sadness as he remembered how the day had begun. “That means a lot to me.”
“As much as I’m starting to like you, Kyle, if
this goes anywhere, it’s going there for Teddy.”
He nodded, understanding. It wasn’t about what Kyle wanted or needed to be true, but what Teddy needed to be known.
It was then he saw Dylan in the hallway, looking at him. The two of them exchanged quick nods, as Dylan disappeared to the men’s room and Kyle got up to follow.
“Be careful, Detective Callahan,” she said.
No, Kyle realized, she didn’t miss a thing.
“Isn’t meeting in a bathroom a little . . . I don’t know, B-movieish?”
Kyle was leaning against the wall while Dylan poked his head out the door a last time to make sure no one was coming.
Dylan bent down and looked under the stalls: no one there, the coast appeared to be clear.
“I can’t risk being overheard,” he said, in a voice so low and soft he assured he would not be.
“Dylan, listen —”
“I saw you with the cop lady. She shouldn’t be here.”
“You run a public establishment. Besides, she’ll be a lesbian soon and she has to start somewhere.”
“Can we not joke for the moment?” Dylan said, and Kyle realized he was truly afraid.
“What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know!” Dylan said, his voice rising. “I don’t know! That’s the problem. I think Sid stole the money to buy this place.”
“I thought he inherited the money from an aunt.”
“That’s what he said, but why is it I never met this aunt? And when I went searching . . . nothing, Kyle. If there was a rich aunt he never mentioned until she left him all this money, she did a very good job of taking any trace of herself to the grave. Wherever that it. No, I think he stole the money, and I think Teddy found out.”
“A fatal bit of information, so it seems.”
“Please, I so much don’t want to think that. We’ve been together for ten years. I know Sid, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
Kyle waited a moment, hoping Dylan would relax enough to have a conversation that wasn’t infused with panic.
“So he wouldn’t hurt anyone, but he would steal a million dollars, or whatever the Lodge cost . . .”
“Most of it’s the land. And yes, I’m afraid he would. But I can’t say for sure he did! He told me it was an inheritance.”
“Good timing.”
“Good timing, indeed. I never questioned him. There wasn’t any reason to, and . . . no desire to. I mean, this was the chance of a lifetime, a dream come true.”
“Where would he get his hands on that kind of money?” Kyle asked.
“He worked at a bank!” Dylan hissed, and it was suddenly clear. If Sid had stolen the money, he had embezzled it; a large sum of it, which could not go unnoticed, at least not forever.
“You need to speak to the police,” Kyle said. “And they need to speak to the bank.”
Dylan was crestfallen, his face expressing pain and indecision. This was his partner, his husband, the man he planned to spend the rest of his life with.
“I can’t,” he said.
Suddenly Kyle knew why they were having this conversation: Dylan wanted him to be the one to go to the authorities. He’d been able to reveal his suspicions to Kyle, but not to take it further, not to put his prints on a noose that might soon be around Sid Stanhope’s neck.
“I have to tell her,” Kyle said, meaning Detective Sikorsky. “I’m not in a position to do anything else with this information.”
Dylan nodded, having accepted as much.
Kyle felt terribly for this man whom he could at best call an acquaintance. They’d never had a long conversation, never shared a meal, but he thought of what it would mean to him if Danny faced a crisis that could separate them. Danny, of course, would never commit a crime, let alone murder, but life had a way of dropping boulders on the unsuspecting.
“I don’t know why I told you this,” Dylan said, regretting his decision to speak to Kyle.
“Because you have a conscience,” Kyle said, and he started to leave.
Dylan grabbed his arm. “He’s not a killer. I don’t know how Teddy ended up in the pool, but Sid didn’t put him there. I refuse to believe that.”
Kyle believed him—not that Sid was incapable of killing someone (a million-five was a serious motive), but that Dylan loved him enough to deny it. He patted Dylan’s hand, gently removed it from his arm and headed back to the bar.
Pete was singing Billy Joel’s “The Piano Man”, joined in the chorus by a half dozen guests ringing the piano. Kyle walked back in and looked to the sofa, only to see it was empty. He wandered to the bar instead.
“She left with someone,” Cowboy Dave said, knowing who Kyle was looking for.
So she wasn’t such a novice after all, and while she may not have come there looking for a date, she’d had no trouble accepting one.
“That Bo chick,” Dave said, as if Kyle must know who she was. His use of the word “chick” seemed dated and quaint, given that few women at Pride Lodge would consider themselves chicks.
It struck Kyle as odd; Bo had told Sid and the others at the table she would not be going to the bar later that night. He wondered if she’d simply had a change of heart, or if perhaps she hoped to get lucky. Rural Pennsylvania can be a lonely place at night, even at Pride Lodge.
Good for her, he thought, reflecting on the detective meeting up with the loner from St. Paul. Maybe fate would treat them well, at least for a weekend.
He waved goodnight at Dave and Pete, smiled at the enjoyment everyone was having at another Halloween weekend at Pride Lodge, and headed upstairs. As he came into the great room he saw old Jeremy in his chair, alone now, watching his Dracula movie in the dark.
“Good night, Jeremy,” he said, crossing in front of the television.
“Good night, Detective Callahan,” Jeremy replied, never taking his eyes off Christopher Lee.
It wasn’t until Kyle was almost back to the room that he reflected on what a strange thing it was for Jeremy to say. As if he had been in the booth with Kyle and the detective when she called him the same thing. It’s one thing not to miss a trick, another altogether not to miss one you never saw.
Chapter Nineteen
Natural Causes
Kyle was surprised to find Danny awake first on Saturday morning. He discovered it when he reached across the bed, half asleep, and found an empty mattress next to him. He looked up, focused, and saw Danny sitting at the small table with his restaurant notes and a reading flashlight.
“Why don’t you turn the light on?” Kyle said, his voice thick with sleep.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Danny said. He was wearing just his boxer shorts and t-shirt.
Kyle rolled back, facing the ceiling. “I thought you weren’t going to work this weekend.”
“I’m not working.”
“So what’s on your mind? You’re never up at—“ and he glanced at the clock on the nightstand—“six-thirty! On a weekend?”
Kyle remembered not getting back to the cabin until after midnight. “What’s troubling you?” he said, knowing from his years with Danny that the only thing that would have him out of bed this early was worry.
“She’s going to be eighty next week. That’s old, you know.”
Margaret Bowman was a second mother to Danny. She’d taken him under her wing and nurtured him along, and had hinted more than once to him that he was her heir apparent. With no children of her own, and no nieces or nephews who were interested in the business, even if she had been inclined to leave it to them, she had begun to think Margaret’s Passion would die with her. Then along came Danny and it seemed fated that they would form the sort of mentor/parent bond they had. Danny was dreading his own parents’ passing enough as it was; the thought of Margaret coming to the end of her years weighed on him.
“She’s sharp as a tack,” Kyle said. “And she still gets around very nicely. She comes down and talks to people in the restaurant. Why are you thinking about this?”
“I don’t know. I just feel time passing, that’s all.” And then, suddenly, “We should get married, next year.”
They’d talked about marriage ever since New York passed a bill making it legal. At first Kyle had wanted to make the trip to City Hall quickly, seeing the rush of excitement and the sight of history unfolding on television. He thought their fifth anniversary, which was only a month away then, would be an ideal time to get married. But the thrill quickly died down and both men decided to take an informed approach: what does marriage mean, what are the legal ramifications, what is the hurry? They knew they would do it, but they would do it in their own time. And now, unexpectedly, Danny was pushing to make it official: to be husbands in more than name only.
“Well,” Kyle said, “a wedding takes time. It’s October now—November, really—so maybe next summer . . .”
“Next year, for sure,” Danny said. Then, glancing at the seating chart for Margaret’s birthday luncheon, “I’m sure she’ll make it another year. Hell, another ten. She’s a tough old bird.”
Kyle wasn’t comfortable when Danny became melancholy. He knew Danny sometimes fell into a dark reverie about life without his parents, who were both in their late 70s, and the inevitability of losing Margaret. He even fretted every time they went to the vet that Smelly and Leonard were facing down Father Time as well. All of them were. Kyle just chose not to dwell on it. He picked up the television remote from the nightstand and turned on the TV, wanting to watch the news and change the subject.
There on the local channel was a young woman reporter, dressed warmly for the weather but still television-pretty with strawberry blonde hair and a face perfectly made up at six o’clock on a Saturday morning. Her breath was coming out in clouds, which told Kyle it was colder than it had been yesterday. Wetter, too, as it appeared to have been raining where the woman was. Identified on the screen as Ellie Cameron from Philly6, she stood in a wooded area while several policemen moved around behind her.
“The body found in Chester Creek has been identified as Happy Corcoran.”
“What?!” Kyle shouted, sitting up in bed.
