Everyone's Dead But Us

by Zubro, Mark Richard

  Scott said, “There’s all kinds of artifacts all over these islands. They could simply be archeological treasures.”

  “Which will stay here,” Crushton said.

  Scott said, “Wouldn’t a good archeologist want to study them? It’s not like there’s some government here to protect this stuff.”

  The door opened. If we stayed here long enough, we could open a train station. Although if they were all in on it, they could jump us as a group just about anywhere. The little foyer at the bottom of the staircase was beginning to get crowded.

  Oser, Alice Gavin, and Martikovic walked in. Oser said, “We’ve been hunting for you.”

  Scott said to Gavin and Martikovic, “Where’d you guys go?”

  Gavin said, “We needed to hunt for Bobby Feige. We didn’t need anyone’s permission for that.”

  “Did you find him?” I asked.

  “No,” Gavin replied. “He seemed very self-confident, self-reliant.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “He applied for the position and came highly recommended. He knew his business. He’s published in reputable journals. He seemed like a good kid. Quiet. Standoffish.”

  “And tough,” Martikovic said. “I’m not sure we’d have made it here last night if he hadn’t kept his head.”

  “I knew what I was doing,” Gavin snapped.

  He ignored her. “He wasn’t very friendly. I think he might have been armed.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” Gavin said.

  “I wasn’t sure. He didn’t seem afraid of anything.”

  I said, “I thought you were holing up with the rich who were planning to hide their heads in the sand.”

  “Movado has gone missing.”

  I asked, “What happened?”

  “He got suspicious about what you were doing. He was determined to keep the place safe from, as he put it, ‘the likes of you.’”

  “What was his plan?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. He thought there had to be some way to communicate with his minions, company, protectors. He thought all he had to do was order up a big enough boat and he could be rescued. I don’t know where he thought he was going to find something. Or how he was going to communicate with it. He didn’t say where he was going.”

  I asked, “There’s a way to communicate with the outside world somewhere on the island?”

  We looked to Crushton. His accent was still absent as he said, “There was an old ham radio set out at the airstrip. I’m sure the radio hasn’t been used in years. I can’t imagine it’s working.”

  Oser didn’t blink at Crushton’s lack of accent. I guess the help sort of stuck together.

  “Could there be any other place to communicate from?” Scott asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Crushton said. “I’ve been here a long time. There are rumors of private rooms where servants have never been allowed, but I’ve never been in them.”

  Oser said, “There’s always rumors about secret orgies and violent deaths in the past. Any kind of illegal thing. I never saw any of that.”

  “Who owns the island now?” I asked.

  Oser said, “I’m not sure. No one on the island has come forth and put in a claim.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Scott asked. “Why would they need to keep it a secret?”

  Oser said, “It’s kind of obvious.” His voice dripped with, “I can’t believe you’re this stupid.” “If the killer revealed himself as the one who inherits, he’d be a suspect. If he’s not the killer, he could be the next victim.”

  Scott said, “Whoever inherits the place, it has to be known eventually. What difference does it make if he reveals himself now or later? What does he gain by keeping the information secret?”

  “Maybe whoever inherits isn’t even on the island,” Oser said.

  “Maybe,” Scott said.

  I said, “If he kills all the rest of us in the meantime, then he’s the last one standing, and once again, he becomes the prime suspect.”

  “Unless he has a means of escape,” Oser said. “Which so far is impossible for any of us.”

  I said, “What good is any means of escape if it can’t be used?”

  Scott said, “He waits to kill all of us and then escapes before any kind of help arrives. Everybody is dead. We can’t communicate with anyone off the island. Nobody knows there’s a problem until someone comes here from off the island.”

  Crushton said, “The help would be scheduled to arrive. They’d come as soon as the storm let them.”

  “And the killer would leave as soon as the storm let him,” Scott replied. “They might meet on the way, but the killer must be at least somewhat familiar with what route the employees take. All he has to do is go the other way.”

  I asked, “Wouldn’t there be some record of his presence on the island?”

  Oser said, “Sherebury’s computer had backups on it and there would probably be some kind of paper trail, but it wouldn’t be hard to destroy. The computer is a shambles. If it wasn’t crushed in the fall of the Atrium then the rain must have ruined it. The server hub was in the basement under the castle tower. Undoubtedly it was destroyed as well. A paper trail might be in his suite of rooms.”

  “We should check them,” I said.

  Scott turned to Gavin, “Is all the archeological stuff we see on the island valuable?”

  “Not all,” Gavin said. “Of the ones I’ve seen a few look like fakes, but the majority look real. This would be a dream to examine in detail.”

  Oser said, “Nobody is looking over anything. Not when the new owner takes over.”

  “Who is?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  I asked, “Who do you report to if Movado is missing?”

  “I wish I knew what was going on,” he said as a way of not answering my question.

  With the entourage trailing us, there didn’t seem to be much point in trying to hide. As a group we trekked through more pouring rain. If this kept up a bit more, I’d be tempted to swear off dark and stormy nights and days, mornings, evenings, afternoons, and twilights and dawns and anything else nature might be unhappy about, and I’d include in the swearing off a vow for the rest of my life.

  On the first floor of Apritzi House, we took off our outer gear and made our way to Thasos’s room. He slept. Tudor’s valet and Rufus Seymour were standing guard. I trusted them as much as anybody, which wasn’t much, but what choice was there? Before going to Sherebury’s room, we stopped in the gift shop where I replaced the shirt I’d used to put on Scott’s wound. I found a denim sweatshirt the correct size. Scott’s wound seemed to have stopped bleeding for now. He looked like he needed a week’s sleep. I was ready to nap until next New Year’s Eve. Sherebury’s room was on the opposite side of Apritzi House from where Thasos was. The anteroom of Sherebury’s suite had Impressionist floral paintings that looked like they might have been the originals done by Monet and Degas. I asked, “Are those originals?”

  Crushton said, “Yes. The owner before Mr. Tudor bequeathed them to this room. He liked the space.” We were still working mainly by flashlight. The day’s light was dimmed by the roiling storm, but with that and the flashlight we could see that someone had slashed each of the pictures. Their value as whole pieces was lost forever.

  Martikovic said, “My god, they destroyed these.” Dead bodies, wanton destruction. I feared things would get much worse.

  In Sherebury’s office we found a destructive mess. His safe was open and empty. Papers were strewn wildly about.

  Oser said, “It would take me hours to put all of this together and I have no idea if any of this would be complete records. Sometimes Mr. Tudor invited guests who never registered. There were formal reservations and there were those moments when the rich didn’t have to be bothered. I have no idea who had their names officially anywhere.”

  I said, “At least you can check those who we’ve seen after the explosion with those who these papers say are supp
osed to be here and see if there are any with dates on them that give information about the last few weeks.”

  “I could try.” We walked into Sherebury’s bedroom. The top half of his body was sitting up in his bed. The eyes were open and staring at the door. Everybody made some form of gasp. Martikovic rushed from the room. We heard him being noisily sick.

  We all retreated to the anteroom. Scott looked paler than ever.

  Scott said, “It takes a special kind of depraved to be moving corpses around. And only the top half.” He leaned against the wall. I hurried to him, propped him up with an arm.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Not especially.”

  Martikovic rejoined us. Nobody looked like they were ready to do a marathon. Everybody took deep breaths for quite a while.

  Scott spoke first. “Carrying him when he was a victim was sort of okay. You were doing the right thing. This is so sick.”

  I said, “And only the top half of the body. It has to be a message. There’s no other point in moving the top half of a corpse.”

  “What’s the message?” Martikovic asked.

  “That the killer is one vicious motherfucker,” Scott said. “That he will stop at nothing. And that we should be very, very afraid.”

  “Well, I am,” Gavin said. “I’ve never been so frightened. Bobby Feige is still missing. I’m very afraid of what might have happened to him.” She shuddered. “I’m afraid for me too. For all of us.”

  I’d gone over to the frightened side some time before. This was too grotesque, too awful. The horse’s head in the bed in the Sex and ghastly, yes. This was worse. I said, “How did it get here?”

  “Nobody was guarding the dead bodies,” Crushton said. “We put them in the cold storage locker in the basement here. Even without electricity it would stay the coldest the longest of anyplace on the island.”

  When everyone was sufficiently recovered, all of us inspected Sherebury’s suite. Nobody seemed eager to be left alone anywhere in the complex. We kept the door closed to the room with the top half of the grisly corpse. Nobody was eager to come upon the bottom half.

  In Sherebury’s study we uncovered documents about guests; all their preferences, everything from Cuban cigars, to preferred cloth for napkins at their tables, to the correct bottled water. It looked as if most of the bottled water was provided in recycled bottles. The bottle might say Evian on the container, but was actually cheap bottled water brought over from the mainland.

  Crushton said, “I never knew he did that.”

  “You know something about a cavern meeting room?” Scott asked. Crushton and I huddled around him. Scott said, “I keep finding references to it in this file. It sets up meetings at locations on the island.”

  Crushton read the document then looked up at us. “I recognize the conference room in the Atrium and several private places in villas, but it mentions orders for private meals in a private room that doesn’t have a name.”

  Alice Gavin came over. “You’ve discovered something secret?”

  “An anomaly.”

  “I don’t know anything about this,” Crushton said, “and I’ve worked here twenty-five years.”

  “Who would know?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “The only ones left of the permanent employees would be Dimitri and Oser. I can’t imagine any of the daily employees knowing a thing.”

  “I don’t know a thing,” Oser said.

  Lying or telling the truth? I wasn’t sure.

  I didn’t let on that Thasos had already mentioned this mysterious room.

  “I’m scared,” Martikovic said. He was shaking.

  Scott took his arm and said, “You don’t have to do this with us.”

  “There’s nowhere else to go,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you guys. I can’t hide anywhere. There’s nothing to be done. Bobby’s probably already dead. We’re all going to die.”

  Hysteria wasn’t my style, although if this kept up, I could be convinced that the world was very out of joint and our little portion of it was going to hell pretty damn fast. That was if I believed in hell.

  “I’m not willing to give in just yet,” I said. Scott murmured soothing words to him.

  We trekked downstairs. We would try and get definitive information out of Dimitri Thasos—if he wasn’t dead.

  The others walked down the hall ahead of us. I tapped Scott’s arm. We held back. The others disappeared deeper into the house.

  I said, “I need to pause. I am tired. I am fed up. I am frightened. I keep getting flashes of Sherebury.”

  “It’s like a video on continuous rewind. A horror video you can’t escape from. The slasher scene that won’t end. I’ve never been more frightened. Who are all these people? What is wrong with them?”

  I felt myself shaking and hung on to him. He put an arm around me. “I’m hungry.” Hours earlier we’d snacked on peanuts and orange juice from the concession in Apritzi House.

  “Those people are going to get to Dimitri Thasos before we are,” Scott pointed out.

  “We’ve got to talk to him by ourselves. We’ve got to find the killer or killers. We’ve got to find out who would have the nerve to move Sherebury’s corpse. We need more information about this secret treasure stash. Whoever knows about that must have some answers. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired. It’s a hell of a life when you’re exhausted on New Year’s Eve before the sun has even set.”

  “That can’t be much more than an hour away,” Scott said.

  Barney Crushton burst back into the room. “Movado won’t let anyone in to see Dimitri.”

  “He’s back?” I asked.

  “He says he was never gone.”

  “Oh, hell,” I said. A fight with a rude, officious person was just the kind of thing to get my adrenaline back at high speed.

  We stomped through Apritzi House to the door outside the room Thasos was in. Movado was planted firmly in front of a crowd of folks all guarding the portal. Behind him stood Chester Rechetel, Klimpton, Oser, Fitzgerald, and Seymour. Craveté, Deplonte, Virl Morgan, Bobby Feige, and a few others were nowhere to be seen. Crushton, Gavin, and Martikovic stood off to one side.

  Brawling to see who could question a dying man? I didn’t see this as turning out good for anyone.

  Movado said, “You are not going to question Dimitri.”

  I said, “I thought you were missing.”

  Movado said, “I was lost, now I’m found.”

  “Worse luck,” I muttered.

  Scott asked, “Do you know anything about secret treasure?”

  Klimpton et al. looked at Movado. “No,” the bar owner said.

  Lying sack of shit, I thought to myself, with the further logical conclusion; they’re all in on it. I examined the faces turned to us. If I was a good face reader, I’d say the rich among them were looking defiant and the staff were looking confused. None of them gave the slightest hint of helpfulness.

  Scott said, “Why won’t you let us talk to him?”

  Movado said, “You can ask as many questions as you like. You’ve gotten as many answers as you’re going to get.”

  Scott said, “This is not making logical sense.”

  I said, “It does if they are in it with the killer or one of them is the killer.”

  Movado said, “Don’t think of trying to force your way in. You have guns. We have guns. I don’t think you’re willing to shoot. We won’t. If we don’t have to.”

  A standoff. I wasn’t ready to kill to maybe get a clue to find a killer.

  Alice Gavin said, “What is wrong with you people?”

  Her question got ignored. That didn’t stop her.

  “You people are out of your minds. You’ve got a killer on the loose. Why don’t you use your heads?” She marched up to Movado.

  Chester Rechetel, Movado’s bodyguard, got in her face. She began screaming at him.

  Movado said, “Why are you screaming at him? I’m the one telling him how to act.�
��

  Louis Deplonte tore into the room. I wondered where Virl Morgan was. “There’s a body,” he gasped. He hiccupped. He was crying. He pointed toward the harbor. “Oh, God. It’s awful. Oh, God.” He rushed to the picture windows that stretched for a hundred feet across the front of the room. “Look.”

  They all rushed to look. Scott began to follow. I plucked at his sleeve. “This way,” I said. We eased into the room with Dimitri Thasos in it. It had a dead bolt and a security chain as in most hotel rooms. I locked us in. No doubt they’d figure we were in here, and they could probably break down the door.

  Thasos’s eyes followed us across the room. He looked awful.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Danger,” he said. “Be careful. Files?”

  “We read them. Where is this secret room?”

  “Not sure. Castle. Cavern. Maybe both.”

  “Your notes didn’t have any clues to finding it.”

  “Writing on the wall.”

  Banging began on the door.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  He repeated, “Writing on the wall. Word of God.” He seemed to shrug. “No clue. Key. Great Hall. Key. You…”

  Thasos passed out. Not a lot of information.

  It sounded like numerous someones were bashing at the door. It was not going to do us much good to stare at Thasos’s passed-out body. Scott and I walked to the door. I opened it. We caught Movado in midbash.

  “How dare you?” he snarled.

  “How dare I?” I said. “It’s pretty simple. I think one, some, or all of you are a threat to the rest of us. If we drew guns on each other, nobody could kill everybody else before nearly everybody else got killed. Lots of dead bodies. Whatever you’re covering up might or might not come out, but it would be a mess.” I pointed out the windows. “Who died?”

  Alice Gavin had her arms around Louis Deplonte as he sat on a sofa that was large enough to land a small airplane on.

  Crushton said, “Derek Harris.”

  Scott and I walked over to the window. Crushton pointed. Through the pouring rain we could see the yacht that was more than two-thirds submerged. A body dangled on the side. It swayed in the wind and rain, bumping against the hull. I peered closely. “You’re sure it’s Derek?”