A Festival of Murder (3 page)

“I’ve never done anything like that
before. That wasn’t me, Phoebe.”

He felt her move closer. “Maybe,
just for that moment, you needed to be that man.”

Nicholas drank, considering the
comment. It was the most personal thing she’d said to him in the nine months he’d
known her. He wanted badly to ask her if she would be interested in leaving the
party with him and having rum toddies at his cabin. But the heat he could feel
in his cheeks assured him that he would blurt out the offer in such a way as to
make it sound as though the toddies were a euphemism for something else. He
wished, suddenly, that his mug was filled with plain water. He needed his wits around
Phoebe.

“You should let it go and move on,”
she said. “No use regretting what you can’t change. In the meantime, I’ll catch
you later, Nicholas. It’s time to make friends with the people who will
hopefully be tipping me this weekend.”

He watched her saunter away from
him and melt into the crowd, her passage followed by the curious gazes of the
male tourists. He’d have to do the same soon. Mingle, that is, and preferably
without being followed by the curious gazes of male tourists. Though he’d been
working diligently lately to shift attention away from him and onto their
mountain town, he was aware that most of the people who visited Hightop came in
the hopes of meeting him and picking what little there was left of his brain.

A gust of cold air raced through
the living room of the Gingerbear, shaking the UFO lanterns and inciting
murmurs of complaint from the partygoers.

“Someone should probably get out
here,” called a voice.

Nicholas recognized it as belonging
to his nearest neighbor, Kevin Lee.

“What’s goin’ on, Kevin?” one of
the residents called back.

“There’s a body floating out in the
lake. I think it’s Rocky Johnson. Yep, probably is.”

Every eye in the place turned to
fix on Nicholas.

He stiffened. “What?”

As looks met his then quickly
danced away, guiltily, the truth smacked him upside the head: Johnson had
better be doing a polar bear dip and not bellying up like everyone here thought.
Otherwise trouble was heading Nicholas’s way with the speed of a UFO.

“He couldn’t
possibly be deader.”

It was Kevin Lee’s
assessment and since the man was a non-practicing veterinarian (“I’m on a
personal break at the moment. My specialty is exotics.”), Nicholas was inclined
to give him the benefit of the doubt. Kevin, who was taller than Nicholas, thus
making him the tallest Chinese man Nicholas had ever known, straightened from
his inspection of the corpse of Rocky Johnson and shrugged. “Pretty weird
having a corpse up here. Probably the first. Anyone care to bet? I think I’ve
got a fifty in my wallet.”

Nicholas stamped
his boots in a futile effort to warm his toes. “I thought you were still
attending those Gamblers Anonymous meetings.”

“Twenty dollars
says I miss the next one.”

Phoebe huffed, “Any
idea how long ago he fell in? It’d be helpful if we knew the time of death.”

“You can determine
that from when rigor mortis sets in, which is dictated by the loss of body
heat.” Kevin followed up with, “But I can’t do that here. The freezing water
will have accelerated the process and affected everything. Just from the looks
of him, though, I’d say this happened sometime tonight. He’s only a partial
corpsicle.”

“‘Corpsicle’,”
Nicholas repeated. “Is that a medical term, or—”

Charles waved a
mittened hand. “Oh, but I’m sure with these dreadful conditions not even the
police will be able to tell when he drowned.”

“Did he drown?”
Nicholas asked, surprised that they’d determined cause of death already.

“What else could
have happened to him?” Phoebe asked.

At their feet on
the gravel shore of the lake laid the body of Rocky Johnson. The reporter wore
the same clothes Nicholas had seen him wearing earlier that day: fur boots, ski
pants, and a brand new, bright yellow North Face parka. The left sleeve of the
jacket was pushed up slightly, gathered around the elbow. His arm hair was
frozen stiff. Nicholas shivered at the sight. Johnson had been around Nicholas’s
age and in good health, but Nicholas doubted the reporter had lasted five
minutes out in the hypothermia-inducing water.

Teeth chattering,
Nicholas squatted beside the body. He didn’t want to be out here. Only stares
of accusation and curiosity had driven him out of the inn, forcing him to
accompany the others to investigate. With his shoulders hunched against the
blackness he could feel pressing down around him, he forced his eyes to skitter
over the corpse again.

“Kevin, hold the
light on the left side of his head.”

The glow settled
on a black smudge along the reporter’s left temple. Frozen blood was crusted
above and below the stain. Nicholas wanted to inspect the black mark, see if it
could be removed, but he wasn’t about to touch any part of a corpse, not even
with his gloved finger.

“That’s probably
where he hit his head on the edge of the boat,” Charles said. He shivered
violently. “We can only hope he didn’t regain consciousness before he drowned.”

Nicholas tilted
his head back to look up at him. “How do you know Johnson was in a boat?”

Charles pointed at
the dark lake. “Because it’s still there.” He suddenly paled. “Oh, my. Oh, my
goodness. That’s one of
my
boats. Does this make me a target for a
lawsuit?”

Sure enough, the
dark outline of one of the Gingerbear’s rowboats was barely visible through the
snowfall, out in the middle of the iced lake. It was caught in a small patch of
broken ice and spun around and around beneath the force of the wind like a
child’s bath toy caught above the drain. Behind the lake stood the thick
barrier of the dark forest. Nicholas thought he glimpsed steady red lights.

“What in the world
was he doing out here in this weather?” he asked as he rose to his feet. “Was
he going to do some ice fishing?”

Phoebe seized his
arm, nearly giving him a heart attack. “You don’t think . . . someone
did this to him, do you?”

It might have been
funny the way the four of them immediately looked suspiciously at one another
before quickly glancing away. But it wasn’t funny because Nicholas had a
feeling that mistrust was something he was going to be experiencing quite
frequently in the near future.

“Foul play seems
unlikely,” Charles said, though his quivering voice was about authoritative as
a child’s.

“What if, you
know,
they
did this?” Nicholas asked, glancing around. He wondered why
no one else had brought up the possibility. He jerked his head urgently upward.
“The you-know-who-in-the-sky. They could have been following him, waiting for
their chance to get him alone. Stalking him and—”

Phoebe elbowed him
hard in the ribs.

“We need an
autopsy if you want to know anything for certain. Although my money’s with
Charles. This guy hit his head and drowned.” Kevin jabbed his flashlight at the
body again. His breath puffed in front of his face in stretched out clouds,
obscuring his expression. “We probably have to do something about this in the
meantime.”

Cold air swept in
to lick the backs of Nicholas’s knees. “You mean like call in the Air Force,
or—”

“Can Tom make it
up here with the roads being what they are?” Phoebe asked the others, cutting
him off.

Tom Little was the
Estes Park officer assigned to the zone of the valley which included Hightop.
The officer rarely checked up on them which suited Nicholas just fine. Cops and
aliens went together about as well as vampires and shrimp scampi.

“We don’t have a
choice, do we?” Charles wrung his hands. “Who should do it?”

Conscious of
Phoebe’s mounting disapproval, Nicholas forced himself to say, “Since I’m not
guilty, I’ll call.”

Charles jolted as
if stung by a Taser. “But-but, I’m not guilty either. I should call.”

“And hang the rest
of us out to dry?” Kevin asked. “Who says Phoebe or I did it?”

“Well, somebody
did it.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Someone—”

“We’ll make a
conference call,” Nicholas cut in, “and everyone will yell into the phone at
the same time. That way the police will know that although we’re crazy, we’re
not murderers.”

“Oh, Nicholas,”
Phoebe sighed. “
I’ll
make the call.”

He took her arm,
pleased that he’d gotten out of the task. “Come on. I’ll mix you a hot toddy.”

“You’re only
escorting me because you’re afraid of the dark,” she accused as they dragged
their feet through the thick snow.

“You’ve got that
straight.”

She tightened her
arm around his. “This is horrible, Nicholas. I’m scared.”

“You needn’t be.
This is an anomaly.”

“How can you
possibly know that?”

Nicholas grimaced.
Unfortunately, the only way he could know that was if he was the killer. And he
was fairly positive that that was exactly what everyone was thinking of him.

~~~~~

Considering the
weather and the state of the roads, Nicholas expected Officer Little to tell
them to throw a handful of reflectors on the body so someone from the police
department could come along and pick it up in the morning. Instead, they were
informed that officers did not operate on the trash collector’s schedule and
would, in fact, be there tonight. Everybody who was currently at the party
needed to remain so until given permission to leave.

The party inside
the Gingerbear continued as if nothing much had changed, although Nicholas
sensed an edge of excitement to the chatter, as if everyone expected at any
moment a SWAT team to kick in the front door and for the guilty party—most
likely him—to dive out the nearest window. Nicholas hoped they were prepared to
be disappointed. He planted himself in the plushest wingback in the living room,
crossed one ankle over a knee to ward off potential conversationalists, and
made sure his mug was filled to the brim with eggnog.

“You don’t look
guilty, I’ll give you that,” Phoebe said as she came to stand beside his chair.

Already buzzing
from several applications of rum, he said, “Careful. You’re fraternizing with
Suspect Number One.”

“Officer Little
didn’t come up alone. I watched through the windows. There are a couple of
officers, some CSI types, and someone who isn’t in uniform who looks to be in
charge of everyone.”

“Probably a
detective.” Nicholas recalled there being at least two in Estes Park. They must
have been the most bored detectives in Colorado, considering how infrequently
major crimes occurred in the quaint valley. “Don’t be concerned unless he’s
wearing a rumpled trench coat or a monocle.”

“This entire thing
bothers me.”

Nicholas’s smile
was bright, though the effort of it made his cheeks hurt. “Rocky probably
drowned, just like Charles said.” The innkeeper had been insisting on his theory
ever since returning to the party, as if afraid the guests would leave if they
heard a murder had been committed. He seemed to have forgotten that no one was
going anywhere anytime soon, thanks to the storm.

“Honestly,
Nicholas, why would Rocky be out there in a boat? He was murdered. You know it.
I know it.” She karate-chopped her hand through the air, ending the debate. “They’ve
been out there for nearly an hour. Do you think they’ve found clues in this
weather?”

“I’d be surprised
if they have, but I suppose they have to try their best.”

Freezing air
squirted inside the pant of his crossed leg as the front door shoved inward,
admitting Officer Little and a second man. Both men stomped inside and paused
to sniff their reddened noses and acclimatize to the warm air of the inn, while
their eyes surveyed the crowd staring back at them.

Little noticed
Nicholas and waved at him. The officer did so with a smile, which Nicholas took
as a good sign. Little’s companion, a man appearing to be a few years older
than Nicholas, was bundled up in a black pea coat and a knit skullcap. He
skipped the smile in favor of an assessing perusal of Nicholas. The
detective—if that was what he was—didn’t look especially intimidating with his
red nose and watery eyes, but Nicholas knew better than to underestimate the
man. An entire genre of media had been built on the backs of such unassuming
investigators.

“Gird your loins,”
he murmured to Phoebe as the men headed toward them.

“I’m going to get
myself that drink I’ve been promising myself.” She rushed away with as much
subtlety as an earthquake.

“Nicholas,”
Officer Little greeted him as he pulled off one damp glove.

Nicholas stood and
shook the other man’s hand. “Tom. Longtime no see, though considering the
circumstances I would have preferred not seeing you for even longer.” The last
time they’d spoken was when Nicholas had called the officer up to escort a
particularly passionate fan off his property.