by Nick Mamatas
“You sound like fat Norman,” Cob said. He finished the beer in a swig and crushed the can and threw it over his shoulder. When he walked past me, I half-expected him to affect a belch, but instead he just sauntered on, putting on his usual posture and usual stride like you or I would shrug on a familiar rain slicker when heading outside on a stormy day.
Ultimately, all I know of Cob is that he enjoys manipulations: of words, of entire genres, of people. Every utterance is a test or some attempt at intimidation. Every social interaction is an experiment. Did he have Cudmore send me Arkham? He had arranged the sale of it, so he knew. He knew everything—that I had the book, that I was eager to be rid of it, where I was going to be, and who might be waiting for me. It could have been him all along. Is Cob the monster at the end of this book?
16. The Colour Out of Space
Colleen struggled and got one arm free, then started jabbing everyone she could. Barry Hagman inhaled sharply and simply tackled her, pinning her to the floor, face down. He slipped his right hand under her armpit and locked her in a half-nelson. He was very heavy and planted his weight on Colleen’s torso, driving her into the carpeting. Only when Bhanushali gestured at her and said, “She’s turning purple,” did Barry shift some of his mass onto his knees and elbows.
“Thank you,” Bhanushali said. She stood up, head high, posture excellent, and walked to the microphone stand. Ranger moved out of her way with a practiced backward step. “I suppose you are wondering why I called you all together today,” she said, her face as solid as Lincoln’s on the penny. Then she broke into a sly and subtle smile. “I always wanted to say that,” she murmured.
“We have in this room a killer. A murderer. I intend to get to the bottom of the horrific crimes against our community this weekend. Colleen Danzig, I believe that you murdered Charles Cudmore and also Panos Panossian, and further set up Ms. Phantasia and his friend Chloe to take the fall for your crimes.”
Colleen nearly exploded out from under Barry. “No! Are you crazy? I’ve been looking for the murderer all weekend!”
“Have you?” Bhanushali said. “We’ve all been cooperating with the police. We all had extensive interviews with Detective Amato, who was on site since Panossian’s body was discovered, and yet you always conveniently seemed to be out when he sought to interview you. The uniformed police have also noted that your absences from the hotel have been very well-timed.”
Bhanushali blew out her cheeks and continued. “This is what we have, Ms. Danzig. You were the last person to see Panossian alive. You were the last person to see Cudmore alive. You have no alibis, nobody was with you when these young men were killed. You attacked Chloe in the washroom of the hotel. There has never been so much as a sexual harassment complaint at the Summer Tentacular until you showed up.
“All I am interested in doing now is finding the proverbial smoking gun. We want the face, Colleen. Panossian’s face.”
Colleen opened her mouth to say something, but only croaking came out. Barry shifted his weight again, and she inhaled sharply, blew out the air, and gasped twice more before she was able to speak. Blinking away tears, Colleen said, “This is madness. What’s going on? Hiram!”
Hiram stared straight ahead, motionless. He was barely breathing. At least he had stopped weeping.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Colleen said. “What’s my motive? Why would I kill Panossian? You’re the ones who hated him.”
The murmur arose in the room. Bhanushali held a palm up to her chest. “No, no, we liked Panossian. He was a member of our community. We all got along with him.” The muttering shifted tonally, toward a generalized assent.
“You know what,” Norman said, standing up. He wrung his hands as he spoke. “I loved Panossian. I loved his book, I loved his attitude. Sure, sometimes talking to him was like pouring an ice bucket over your own head, but I appreciated it. I read his blog all the time, I followed him on Twitter. I’m so jealous of the people who were on his mailing list and got those long print letters from him.” He licked his lips and blinked back a tear. His fingers combed through, then tugged at, his wiry beard.
“There was a little game we liked to play,” he said. “I’d write him these anonymous trolling notes and he’d respond in really humorous ways. It was a thing we had.” Norman waved over at Ginger J. “Remember when you sent him that Christmas present and I called him a fag?”
“Oh, that was you! ‘Stalkerlicious’? Panossian was totally terrified of you,” Ginger J said.
“Really?” Norman said. “I thought he was into it. He even sent me a copy of his JD arrest record to—”
“He didn’t even know it was you,” David Cob said, his baritone filling the room.
“Panossian had the potential to be an excellent writer, I always thought.” Ranger spoke into the mic, leaning over Bhanushali’s shoulder. “I tried to encourage him to develop a skill to match his ambition in my own critical writing.”
“I admired his work as well. He shook up the Mythos,” Bhanushali said.
Barry looked up at the stage, giving Colleen a moment of respite from his breath in her ear. “Everyone knows how I felt about him.”
“Absolutely,” Raul said.
“What I liked about Panossian was his guts.” Armbruster paced as he spoke, his boots very close to Colleen’s head. Everything smelled like dirt and sweat and leather to Colleen now. When she could get a breath, she virtually spit it out her nose from the stench. “Not too many men these days share their opinions so openly, not without first determining which way the wind is blowing. I often thought that if I had a son, and he grew up in Lovecraftian fandom, that I would want him to turn out much like Panossian.”
Colleen laughed despite herself, despite the weight on her ribs, the thick baseball mitt of a hand wrapped around the back of her neck. It came out like a clicking, tek-tek.
“Let...me up,” she finally said.
“I think it’ll be all right,” Hiram said. “What can she do now that we’re all here? That we all know.” A few people near the back of the room moved to the doors and stood before them.
“Colleen, I don’t think you really understood how much people in fandom liked Panossian,” R.G. said. She tapped Barry on the shoulder, and the man lumbered to his feet. Colleen rolled over onto her back and gulped in air. Barry sat back down and pinned her legs under him, but she had space to breathe now, and she was able to shift onto her elbows and lift her head.
“Oh God, oh God...”
It was quiet for a long moment. She was surrounded, a dozen eyes on her, in the middle of a huddle.
“You...liars,” she said. “He was always...making fun of you.” A few people smiled.
“He did,” Armbruster said. “He kept us from getting too complacent.”
“You didn’t even...eulogize him. Just Cudmore,” Colleen said.
“This is his eulogy,” Armbruster said. “We’re not speaking extemporaneously. We want you to know what you have done, Ms. Danzig.”
“I was a huge Panossian fan,” Ginger J offered. “I mean, you knew that, Colleen. We talked at the party. I thought we had made a connection. I wanted a sequel to Catcher. You took that chance away from all of us.”
“It wasn’t me!” Colleen said. “It’s obviously one of you!”
“Shut up!” Bhanushali snapped. “We all have alibis. Unlike you, we spend time with one another, we chat and have a few drinks, and don’t attack others. You, on the other hand, flitted in out of nowhere, quickly insinuated yourself into our ranks, and…” She stopped speaking.
Armbruster said, “We’re after the book, Ms. Danzig.”
“I’ve never even seen the book. Maybe there isn’t one?”
Bhanushali snorted. “That sounds like you’ve already found a buyer.”
“Detective Amato suggested to me that maybe there never was a book. Maybe Panossian made it up.”
“Arkham is real,” Ranger said.
“Oh, you have a copy?” Colleen sa
id. Ranger stayed silent. “C’mon, this is ridiculous! This is kidnapping, battery…what if a cop walks in?”
“The police are gone. Your frame-up of Phantasia and Chloe made sure of that,” Bhanushali said.
“Maybe Arkham is real, but Panossian never had a copy. Maybe the cops, who investigated the crime, know something you don’t know, ever think of that?”
“Of course we have,” Bhanushali said. “We spent hours comparing notes. Amato mostly asked about you, as you were Panossian’s closest associate. He was very curious about Arkham, and even let slip something very interesting—Cudmore was the bookbinder and the skin was his own.”
“That just goes to show how esteemed Panossian was,” Ranger said. “Forget giving him the shirt off his back, Cudmore gave him the skin off his back.”
“Hiram…” Colleen said. She spoke quietly, as though there wasn’t a man straddling her and grinding her cheek into the ground, as if the room wasn’t full of belligerent writers and readers who had trapped her in a hotel mere moments after the police left, satisfied with their weekend of detective work. “Tell them.”
“I told them everything,” Hiram said. “I told them that there was a moment when we ran off in separate directions and I couldn’t guarantee that you didn’t kill Charles Cudmore with a rock.”
“We spent our time comparing notes,” Bhanushali said. “I suppose there were too many people of interest to keep us all from speaking with one another. Amato questioned me primarily about other people; he was highly interested in you as Panossian’s roommate.”
“Not so interested that he spoke to me about it. A uniformed officer did, in the morgue, while we were standing right before Panossian’s body. If that was good enough for them, it should be good enough for you,” Colleen said.
“It’s not,” Armbruster said.
“Why did you follow Cudmore into the woods?” Ranger had nudged Bhanushali out of the way and spoke quietly into the mic. Colleen almost felt a twinge of sympathy for him. “That’s what happened, yes?”
“No, I just saw him in the woods—we left because of the cops.” Colleen tried to put some pressure on her own knees, to force an inch of space between herself and the floor, but Barry wasn’t budging. Was he getting a charge from this? “He saw someone and waved at them—”
“Someone? Them? Which is it?” Bhanushali said. Colleen made a confused-sounding noise. So did Barry.
“Ever the prescriptivist,” Cob said. He was still in his seat, looking at the wall by the stage. Only he had stayed seated after Colleen had been tackled. “Bhanushali is objecting to the use of the singular ‘they,’ though examples of such usage can be found in Chaucer. And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up . . .”
“Who was it?” Bhanushali said. “It was a single individual, yes?”
Colleen couldn’t shrug. “Probably Chloe!”
“How would she get out there?”
“Uber.” There were confused looks. “It’s a ride-sharing app. C’mon, you have to know what it is. It’s like calling a cab, except it’s a privately owned car. Plus, think about it—usually, when a grown man throws a rock at the back of someone’s head, especially someone with a soft skull, they die before they hit the ground. It makes sense that they would, anyway. But Aspara—Cudmore, he was alive until he hit that second rock. That’s a weak throw. That’s someone with spindly little arms who probably throws like a girl. Chloe.”
“We know what Uber is,” Armbruster said. “I do anyway. And let me assure you that many of the young men assembled here throw like girls, as you put it. I’m more interested in Panossian. Why did you do it, Ms. Danzig? Fame? Did he try to interfere with you?”
“I think I’m cramping up,” Barry said. “Can I let her go?”
Armbruster looked over at Bhanushali, who flicked her wrist. Armbruster turned back and nodded to Barry, who slowly clambered up and off Colleen. She sat up but stayed on the floor, inhaling and exhaling deeply, testing her ribs for hairline fractures with her palms.
“I didn’t…kill him,” she said. “Had to be someone else.”
“Who?”
What did Colleen know? Ms. Phantasia was in the vicinity. Cob was the connection to the seller. Cudmore was the person who created Arkham. Norman was obviously some sort of Panossian stalker—and he’d do anything for attention. Even Barry and Raul and R.G. were suspect; they seemed to like Panossian fine, but it would take a group to hold a man down and remove the face, wouldn’t it? Ginger J could probably be convinced to do anything. Armbruster was some kind of musclebound freak, and hadn’t Panossian insulted his wife or something? Wasn’t Bhanushali weary of Panossian’s constant sniping, his attempt to show her up at the cemetery? Then there were the people she didn’t really meet that weekend, the ones she didn’t really know.
And Hiram.
“Hiram. He wasn’t with me any more than I was with him when it came to the night Cudmore was killed. He also has a fascination with flesh-bound books,” she said. She wanted to add I’m not saying he did it. I’m saying it’s a possibility; reasonable doubt. I didn’t do it. But Hiram spoke before she could finish.
Hiram paled. “No, no, you don’t understand…how could you say that, Colleen? I was trying to—” He was cut off by Armbruster laughing.
“Nice try, Ms. Danzig, but there’s something you don’t know.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a penknife, and walked over to Hiram.
“Please don’t…” Hiram said.
Armbruster held open his palm and with a grunt, sliced his hand open. Hiram spun his head and pursed his lips shut. Armbruster slid the knife back into his pocket as he kneeled, and with his free hand grabbed Hiram by the jaw, thumb and fingers deep in the flesh of Hiram’s froggy jowls, and turned him back around to look at the blood freely flowing from his hand. Hiram turned white and gasped, then forced a swallow, before falling into a swoon.
“Can’t stand the sight of blood,” Armbruster said. He let Hiram down gently. Without another word he headed to the back of the conference room, where the hotel staff had laid out some pitchers of water, to rinse his wound and make an impromptu bandage from the table runner.
“Fuck yeah,” said Norman.
“It strikes me that Colleen needs a defender,” Ginger J said. “If she says she didn’t do it, what evidence do we have that she did? All we can show is that none of the people in this room committed the crimes. Neither Phantasia nor Chloe are in the room, and there were plenty of people on day passes who could have killed Panossian, or even just a random person who came to the hotel to eat in the restaurant.”
“Maybe it was suicide,” Norman said. He guffawed at his own joke, three sharp barks.
“Except,” Bhanushali said, “that Phantasia was on his way to speak with me about a project when Colleen saw him. He often took…a selfie with me. It’s on his, what do you call it?”
“Instagram,” Ginger J said. He whipped out his phone and thumbed the screen for a few seconds. “Yup. So Phantasia didn’t kill Panossian. He was with you. The timestamp checks out, and I remember the make-up Phantasia wore that night. It was a Whatever Happened to Baby Jane tribute, he told me.” Ginger J shrugged. “I don’t even know what, or who, that is.”
“So, Chloe killed Panossian, and Phantasia killed Cudmore,” Colleen said from her spot on the floor. “Wait…why is Phantasia in jail if you have the picture?”
“An excellent question, Colleen,” Bhanushali said. “Not everyone is as adept as being ‘taken downtown’ as it were, and then being let out a few hours later. Amato believes that timestamps can be faked, or that perhaps when they complete their reconstruction of the crime, that there would be enough time for a man to kill Panossian, mutilate him, and then appear upstairs without a speck of blood on him to meet with me and pose for a picture.
“Maybe for an Olympian, it’s possible, but Phantasia isn’t what anyone would call fleet of foot.”
“Is that what Amato told you?” Colleen as
ked. “Because there’s another possibility, isn’t there? Phantasia killed Panossian, left the scene, and then someone else came by to take the face.”
“And obviously, that would be Chloe, right? She’d do whatever Phantasia told her to.”
“Except that I was hanging out with Chloe that night,” R.G. said. “She was very nervous about moderating the women’s panel, and we talked about it over drinks.”
“Any selfies?” Ginger J asked.
“I was there too,” Raul said. “We all,” he said, gesturing to R.G. and Barry, “were shocked to think Colleen did it, but nothing else fits. We’ve been over it and over it.”
“Unless someone here is lying. Two people, or even more, claiming to have been with one another, via social media footprint or otherwise, and instead they killed Panossian and later Cudmore,” Colleen said.
Hiram groaned and brought himself up to his knees, his face a blank except for heavy open-mouthed breathing. “Oh dear,” he said to himself.
“Or it still could have been some rando!” Ginger J said.
“‘Randos’ don’t behave this way,” Ranger said.
“He’s right,” said Goddard. “Trophy-taking makes sense for a serial killer, but this sort of bizarre semi-public attack on a male stranger, and then a more primitive, almost cowardly attack so soon after. It doesn’t fit the profile of a traditional serial killer.”
“Not every serial killer is a traditional serial killer though,” Ginger J said. “You can’t argue that just because something is sociologically unlikely that it cannot have happened.”
“I suppose it could be a serial killer who killed Panossian as part of a trophy-hunting fetish,” Hiram said. He took another deep breath. “But then this same person also killed Cudmore not out of some fetishistic impulse, but for practical reasons.” Another deep inhalation, and then he concluded, “Perhaps Cudmore knew something that would harm the killer…such as his identity.”
Colleen, still flat on her back, looked up at Bhanushali. There’s something about looking at a person from a fresh angle, even a literal one, that inspires. A frown was forming on her face as the conversation took on a life of its own—members of the Summer Tentacular had some passionate opinions about the behavior of serial killers, but it was all just an abstraction, and a diversion from what Bhanushali wanted. Everyone was distracted. Colleen reached into her pocket and put her hand on her phone. She hoped she was hitting the right buttons.
