The burnt orange sunrise bam-4

by David Handler

  Mitch looked at her. “Are you okay, Des?”

  “Good. I’m good. But I can’t say a whole lot for our situation. We’ve got us two murders, and until this damned weather eases off I can’t dial up any backup. We’re strictly on our own here.”

  “Okay, I have to ask you to hit your rewind button.”

  “Why?”

  “You just said we have two murders.”

  “Well, yeah. A mother and daughter dying within hours of each other this way-you don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you? The very first thing I learned on the job, boyfriend, is that there’s no such as thing as coincidences. Someone wanted both Ada and Norma dead.”

  “But I thought Norma died of a heart attack.”

  “An apparent heart attack. That’s what it was meant to look like. But I guarantee you she was murdered.”

  “How?”

  “Can’t answer that yet. We may not know until we get the results of her autopsy. We know very little right now, I’m sorry to say. Except we do know this: We know that no one can get in or out of this place. And we know that one of the people who we’re trapped with up here is a murderer.”

  Mitch puffed out his cheeks, exhaling slowly. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’ve seen this movie before,” he said grimly. “Except it took place on a remote island instead of a mountaintop. And everyone, not just Norma, had a British accent.”

  “Mitch…?”

  “And there was no such thing as cell phones back then, which changes the dynamics rather dramatically, don’t you think? Because they couldn’t call out and you can. You can call out, can’t you?”

  “For as long as my charge lasts. So far, so good.”

  “Plus you have the two-way radio in your cruiser.”

  “True again,” she acknowledged patiently. “Only, Mitch…?”

  “Yes, Des?”

  “This is not a freakin’ movie!”

  “Hey, I’m totally aware of that.”

  “Good, because there’s no one else I can count on. There’s you and, well, there’s you.”

  “I’m all yours, Des. But you do realize that this sort of thing never happened to me before you came into my life, don’t you?”

  Right away Des Mitry stiffened and made with her Wary, Scary Look, those pale green almond-shaped eyes of hers searching his face, studying, probing. “Mitch, are you trying to tell me something?” she demanded.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re sorry that you met me.”

  “Not in a million years, slimbo. Where would you get a crazy idea like that?”

  “I just can’t imagine.”

  “So where do we start?”

  By Des grabbing Ada’s room key from the nightstand and heading briskly for the door. “I need to get witness statements from those people, one by one. You need to keep an eye on everyone else while I’m doing it, okay?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  They joined the others out in the corridor, Des locking Ada’s door behind her and pocketing the key. She glanced from one stricken face to the next, taking the measure of each of them. Mostly, there was a lot of fear. Aaron and Carly were holding hands so tightly that their knuckles were white. Jory and Jase were huddled together like a pair of wide-eyed schoolchildren. Spence and Hannah stood together, too, tight-lipped and tense. Teddy leaned against the wall next to them, looking overwhelmed. Les stood a bit apart from the rest of them with his hands in his pockets, watching Des expectantly. No one spoke. All eyes were fixed on Dorset’s resident trooper.

  It was Aaron who finally broke the silence. “I demand to know what you are intending to do about this.”

  “Everything I can. My very best.” Des turned to Hannah and said, “You’re the one who found her?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Hannah gulped, shuddering. “I… I was just in my room for a minute, putting on my face.”

  Which she indeed had, Mitch observed. Eye makeup, lipstick, rouge, even those retro round glasses of hers. Mitch had actually preferred how Hannah had looked without all of that on-more serious, less like somebody in costume. But he’d never cared much for makeup on women. Des rarely wore any. Maisie never had.

  “You were alone in your room?” Des asked her.

  “Well, yeah. Why would anyone be with me?”

  “Which one are you in?”

  “I’m right here in four,” Hannah said, gesturing to the door across the hall from Ada’s. Teddy was next door to Hannah in two, directly across from Les and Norma. “I was starting my way back downstairs and I noticed that her door was part open, so I stopped to ask if she was ready to head back down.”

  “How come you did that?”

  “Well, I did work for the woman, in theory. Although she wouldn’t let me do a darned thing no matter how hard I tried to…” Hannah broke off, wringing her hands. “All I did was find her. She was there on the floor. Really, I have no idea what happened. And I’m sorry I screamed like that. I just couldn’t help myself. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone like that before.”

  “That’s okay, Hannah,” Des assured her. “Not to worry. Did you hear any noises coming from her room before you found her?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, nothing.”

  “These walls are very thick,” Les spoke up, his voice strained.

  “How about out in the hallway?” Des asked her. “Do you remember hearing any doors open or close, footsteps, anything like that?”

  “Well, yeah,” Hannah replied, nodding her head convulsively. “All of those things. Everybody was coming and going before breakfast, getting dressed or cleaned up or whatever. Well, not everybody, but lots of people.”

  Des turned to Les now and said, “I need to seal off rooms one and three. No one goes in or out but me.”

  “Of course, whatever you say.” Les’s face dropped. “Wait, what are you saying?”

  “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Teddy said. “She’s saying Norma was murdered, too.”

  “Norma had a heart attack,” Les insisted. “Her heart gave out.”

  “Les, we don’t know what happened,” Des said evenly. “And under these circumstances, Norma’s death now has to be considered suspicious. That makes her room a crime scene just as Ada’s is. This is not me passing judgment. It’s just me following standard procedure. I need to lock down those rooms, and you need to provide me with every key you have for them. Also your master keys. And Jory, could you please open up-let’s see-four more rooms for me?”

  Jory had a big jangly key chain stuffed in the pocket of her down vest. She used her master key to unlock the two vacant rooms next to Mitch and Des’s, eight and ten. Aaron and Carly were across the hall in five, Spence in seven. Jory unlocked nine and eleven, then handed over her keys to Des. Jase forked over his own large key chain, although very reluctantly, as if he were giving up a piece of himself.

  “I’ve already put Norma’s keys in the top drawer of the reception desk,” Les said as he gave Des his own set. “There’s one more master key down there, plus all of the room keys, of course. If you’d like, I can go fetch them.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll take care of that myself in a minute. Right now, I want each of you to hold your hands out like this…” Des straightened her arms out before her, palms downward.

  “What on earth for?” Carly asked.

  Mitch knew what for. He’d seen the claw marks that Ada had made to her own neck when someone was choking the life out of her. It was very possible she’d left her mark on her killer’s hands, too.

  “Please, just do what I ask,” Des said in response.

  They all obliged.

  Slowly, she went from person to person, studying each pair of hands closely, her own clasped behind her rather like a stern headmistress. “Now palms up, please,” she requested, repeating the drill. Des studied their faces and necks as well, making sure she looked each and every one of them right in the eye. Carly seemed to shrink under her steady gaze. Aaron bris
tled, defiant and twitchy. Hannah shook with fear. Spence acted curious more than anything else. Les responded with placid acceptance. So did Jory. Jase, meanwhile, seemed to have withdrawn inside of himself. His eyes never left the floor. His rough, red hands revealed no fresh scratches, however. Nor did Teddy’s hands, which seemed so slim and delicate next to Jase’s. Teddy’s gaze was that of a man who was hurting more than he could bear.

  If Des had been hoping that Ada’s strangler would panic and blurt out a guilt-racked confession, well, that wasn’t about to happen. Whoever it was, this was not merely a ruthless murderer but a consummate actor. Someone who could stick to the script, play the part, bluff his or her way through.

  And Des found no visible scratches on any of them. The killer must have worn gloves and ditched them somewhere, Mitch figured.

  “Okay, I need you folks to go your rooms now,” Des informed them. “I’ll be taking witness statements from each of you. The way this works, it’s one person to a room. So Aaron and Carly, you’ll have to split up. One of you can have your regular room, the other can take room eight. Les, you’re in room ten.”

  “Des, do we have to split up, too?” Jory asked, meaning her and Jase.

  “I’m afraid so. You’ll be in nine, Jase in eleven.”

  “We really shouldn’t be separated.” Jory glanced over at her brother, whose eyes were still fastened on the carpet. “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Why, what’s the problem?” Des asked her, frowning.

  “It’s not a problem so much as it is a…” Jory hesitated, then backed down. “Well, okay. If it’s just for a little while.”

  “Is it just me or does all of this seem a bit extreme?” Spence wondered aloud.

  “The word I’m thinking of is cruel,” Carly said.

  “Outrageous,” Aaron concurred, nodding his big meaty head.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Des said. “Murder is outrageous.”

  “Honestly, Des, we’re all cold and famished and terribly frightened,” Carly said. “And instead of offering us comfort you’re banishing us to solitary confinement. Why can’t we just gather together in the taproom? There’s a fire, food. We can console one another.”

  “Not just yet,” Des replied.

  “Well, why not?” Aaron demanded.

  “You’re witnesses, that’s why,” Des told him, refusing to be budged. “Look, I know these rooms are unheated. I know you’re all hungry and scared. But the simple truth is that two women are dead. My job is to figure out why, and your job is to cooperate with me. If you don’t, then you’re impeding an official state police investigation. I promise you this won’t take long. Besides, it’s for your own protection.”

  “She’s right about that part,” Hannah allowed. “At least we’ll be safe this way. Should we bolt our doors?”

  “You can if it will make you feel better. As long as you stay in your rooms, you should be fine. Oh, until we’re done, I’ll also need your cell phones.”

  “But I have calls to make,” Spence protested.

  “No calls. Please hand over your phones to Mitch right now.”

  Reluctantly, they did so. Although, when Mitch arrived at Aaron, he encountered major resistance.

  “Why doesn’t he have to sit in a cold room by himself?” Aaron groused, refusing to hand over his phone.

  “Because he’s the only person besides myself who I know for certain is innocent,” Des replied.

  “And just exactly how do you know that?”

  “He and I were together downstairs when Ada was killed, that’s how.”

  Aaron considered this for a moment before he grudgingly shoved his phone at Mitch, who was busy thinking that one other person had in fact been with them at the time of Ada’s death: Teddy had been in the dining room that whole time, watching the snow outside the windows. But Teddy was not exactly a bystander to these proceedings. He was a member of the family, and therefore could be a part of whatever, whoever was apparently trying to destroy it, one life at a time.

  “Please go to your rooms now,” Des said to them. “I’ll be in to take your statements soon.”

  There was some further grumbling, but not much. There was too much fear present. Several of them double-locked their doors behind them. Mitch wasn’t sure how many.

  Teddy lingered in the doorway of room two. “Des, I wonder if I might have a quick word with you,” he said to her in a soft voice.

  “What is it, Teddy?”

  “Do you remember how I told you I was awake last night, waiting for…?” Teddy glanced at Mitch, coloring slightly. “For Norma to come to me?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “At about two-thirty I heard Les and Norma’s door open and close, followed by footsteps. I was expecting my own door to open, but that didn’t happen… She went downstairs instead.”

  “How do you know this? Did you follow her?”

  “I never left my bed. But I could hear her. That old staircase creaks like crazy.”

  “I see,” Des said thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you mention this to me earlier?”

  “The specifics didn’t seem worth mentioning. But things are different now, aren’t they?”

  “They are.”

  “Teddy, how can you be sure it was Norma who you heard?” Mitch asked. “How do you know it wasn’t Les?”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Teddy admitted. “I don’t know that. I’m simply assuming it, since Norma often went downstairs in the night. Les seldom does. But wait, there’s more-I also heard another door open and close a few minutes later, followed by more footsteps heading downstairs.”

  “Whose?” Des asked.

  “Ada’s.”

  Des studied him intently. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Positive.” Teddy looked across at room three. “It was her door and her footsteps. The old girl had an unusually light tread. You may have noticed.”

  “Oh, I noticed,” Des said. “You believe Ada followed Norma downstairs, is that it?”

  “Yes, I do,” Teddy said.

  “Did you hear them come back up?”

  “After maybe a half hour,” he replied, nodding. “Ada came back up first. I could hear her door open and close. I figured Norma would wait awhile downstairs for her to go back to sleep. Then she would, you know, come to me. But that didn’t happen. She returned to her own room a moment or two after Ada did and never came back out again. I fell asleep shortly thereafter,” Teddy said dejectedly. “May I go down and play now?”

  Des frowned at him. “Play?”

  “The piano. I get terribly uneasy if I’m away from the keys for long.”

  “I’m afraid not, Teddy. I need you in your room. But I would like to borrow your desk chair, if you don’t mind.”

  Teddy didn’t mind. She took the wooden chair and carried it out into the hall, then closed Teddy in his room. She and Mitch were all alone in the hall now.

  “This is for you.” She positioned the chair at the top of the stairs, facing the corridor. “I have to go downstairs real quick and radio this in. Can you make sure no one leaves their rooms while I’m gone?”

  “Not a problem. If you need it, there’s an ice pick under the tarp in the back of my truck. Also a scraper. And, hey, you’d better take this,” he offered, fishing his battery-powered lock de-icer from his pocket.

  “I’m all set,” she said, patting her coat pocket. “What I wish you had on you was a weapon.”

  “Des, that’s just not me.”

  “There’s a couple of hunting rifles in the kitchen.”

  “No way. I don’t believe in guns.”

  “Mitch, this isn’t about guns. It’s about protection.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, suit yourself.” She lingered there at the top of the stairs for a moment, furrowing her brow. Mitch knew why. She needed to spitball. When she’d worked Major Crimes she’d had her partner, Soave, to bounce her ideas off. Right now, she had only the lead
film critic for the most prestigious of New York City’s three daily newspapers. “I’m thinking that more than one person may be behind this,” she said to him slowly.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because Ada said they to me,” she replied. “Last night in the ladies’ lounge. We were talking about my work, or so I thought, when out of nowhere she said, ‘They will never, ever get it.’ Meaning this castle, I think. She was so cryptic about it, I wasn’t positive. I even wondered if maybe she wasn’t completely together in the head. But now I’m thinking that she knew something. Maybe something Norma told her. Something that got both of them killed. Ada wanted to have more words with me this morning. She was quite insistent about it. And whatever those words were, she didn’t want to say them in front of Les.”

  “I wonder how come.”

  “I wish I knew. I wish I’d managed to get her alone for a few minutes. But I didn’t. And that one’s on me.”

  “Don’t go blaming yourself for this, girlfriend.”

  “Mitch, I can’t help how I feel.”

  “If Ada didn’t want to speak to you in front of Les, then we have to take a good hard look at him, don’t we?”

  “For sure. Only, what’s his motive?”

  “You said it yourself. This place-it’s worth millions.”

  “Not to Les it’s not. Aaron gets it all. Les knew that. He’s the executor of Norma ’s estate.”

  “Then that makes Aaron the prime candidate, no?”

  “Aaron has the most to gain from Norma ’s death,” Des acknowledged. “Plus he has a girlfriend and a way pissed-off wife. Hell yeah, he’s our early front-runner.”

  “Do we know exactly where he was when Ada got strangled?”

  “He went upstairs looking for Carly is all we know right now.” Des started for the stairs, then stopped. “We do know something else-we know that the first murder was planned and the second one wasn’t.”

  “And how do we know that?”

  “Because whoever killed Norma would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t gone and killed Ada, too. Most likely, there’d have been no autopsy of Norma. Now there will definitely be one. And it will definitely turn something up. Count on it. The only way something this stupid goes down is if the play is blown. I’m talking total desperation, as in Ada accidentally seeing something, maybe. Something so heavy that the risk of her spilling it outweighed the risk of exposing Norma’s death to scrutiny. Real world, that is my idea of beyond desperation. That is plain, pure loco. Because, damn, we are snowed the hell in up here. No way Ada’s murder doesn’t fall on somebody.” Des shook her head disgustedly. “All right, enough of this. I’d better go do what I’ve got to do. Watch my back, okay?”