A Question of Murder (2 page)

As he left, a maid carrying a carpet sweeper entered the room through another door. She leaned the sweeper against the wall, pulled a cloth from her apron pocket, and proceeded to dust the furniture, moving from a table to the mantel to the desk. She ran her dustrag across the desk’s broad mahogany top, then paused and bit her lip. Her eyes darted from the French doors back toward the door through which she’d entered the room. Gingerly, so as not to make a sound, she drew open one drawer after another. Each time, she dipped down and twisted her body to see into the back, and rummaged inside with her free hand.

Victoria’s voice could be heard from another room. “Monroe, have you seen my handbag?”

The maid swiftly closed the drawers, ran to the other end of the room, and resumed her dusting. She was only a minute into her chores when the room’s stillness was assaulted by the sound of a weapon being discharged somewhere outside, followed by a woman’s piercing scream.

Cynthia burst through the doors. “Help!” she shouted. “Someone help me!”

Paul stumbled into the room behind her, his jacket open, his hand pressed against his chest. Cardinal red blood oozed through his fingers and ran down the front of his blue shirt. The maid gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Then, wailing, she rushed out the door and was replaced by Monroe and Victoria Whittaker coming in from opposite ends of the room. Paul fell to his knees at Cynthia’s feet. With a final, agonizing gasp, he pitched forward, his face coming to rest on her shoe.

“Daddy!” Cynthia shrieked and collapsed into her father’s arms, sobbing.

Victoria tiptoed toward the prone body and leaned in closer. “Is he dead?” she asked calmly.

Her husband scowled down at the body on the floor and looked over at his wife. “Yes, I’d say he’s dead. Very dead.”

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Savoy clapped his hands to gain everyone’s attention. “Okay, folks, that wasn’t bad. Let’s try it one more time. And Paul, try to avoid Cynthia’s shoe when you land on the floor. Makes it hard for her to fall into her daddy’s arms if her foot is stuck under your head.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Paul said, as he removed his shirt and handed it to the props girl. “What a mess! Laura, you put too much blood in the sponge.”

“It’ll wash out,” Savoy said. “At least we know the prop works. The blood came right through your fingers just the way we wanted it to. We’ll do it without the blood this time. Just be aware of Cynthia’s foot.” Savoy took a few steps away, stopped, turned, and added, “And Paul, project, please. This isn’t a scene from a movie. Your Brando mumble doesn’t work on the stage. It’s a play with a live audience. P-r-o-j-e-c-t!”

“Yeah, Larry, okay,” Paul said, shrugging on the fresh shirt Laura held out for him. He grabbed the towel she’d slung over her shoulder and wiped his hands.

“It’s Mr. Savoy,” the director chided, crossing the stage to where Paul stood. “My friends call me Larry, but you haven’t achieved that status. Just because you come from a theatrical family and were in some B movies doesn’t impress me.”

Paul smirked, tossed the towel back at the props girl, and sat next to Cynthia on the sofa.

“Victoria, my darling,” Savoy called from where he’d taken a seat in the fourth row of the auditorium. “You found just the right arrogance, my sweet, but I want to see a little more evasiveness when Monroe asks you about Paul’s father. And Monroe, please can that British accent. We’re supposed to be in Connecticut, not the Cotswolds.”

“I can’t help the way I speak, Lawrence,” Monroe said.

“Of course you can. You’re an actor. Just put on a Connecticut accent.”

“And what, precisely, is a Connecticut accent?”

Savoy closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. He looked up again and said, “Just tone it down. Okay?”

Cynthia put her hands against Paul’s chest and shoved him against the arm of the sofa. She popped up from her seat and stormed to the edge of the stage. “Mr. Savoy,” she said, her face suffused with anger, “will you please tell him to stop mauling me? If he can’t keep his hands to himself, I swear I’ll sock him, even if we’re in the middle of a scene.”

“Really, young man,” Monroe said, scowling at the young actor. “How unprofessional.”

“Hardly surprising,” Victoria added.

Paul grinned, ran a hand through his dark hair, and retied the sleeves of the maroon sweater around his neck. He eyed his older colleagues and shrugged. “Some of us still have urges,” he said. “Besides, she’s just so beautiful, I can’t help myself.” He winked at Cynthia, who stamped her foot in frustration.

“Well, learn some control,” Savoy said, “or you’re out. There are dozens of actors in New York who would jump at an opportunity like this. I won’t have someone polarizing the cast.”

Paul raised his palms in mock submission. “ ‘Polarizing? ’ I’m as bad as that, huh? Okay, okay, I promise I’ll be good.”

“I’ll assume you mean that,” Savoy said, picking up a clipboard and making notes. “Now, places everyone. We’re in Act One, Scene Two.”

Cynthia flopped down next to Paul, struggling to keep her expression neutral. Monroe Whittaker took his place across from Victoria and the actors played the scene again.

“It looks like it’s going very well,” I whispered to Melinda Savoy, Lawrence’s wife. We were watching a rehearsal for the play that would form the center-piece of the murder mystery weekend taking place at Mohawk House, a rustic, sprawling lakeside lodge in the foothills of the Berkshires. I had been invited to be on a panel of mystery writers, an extra entertainment to complement the mystery performed by the Savoys’ theatrical troupe.

“Larry added the line about the fog and snow today to make it more realistic,” Melinda said. “He likes to do that so the audience feels like it’s actually happening.” She waved an arm toward the windows, the view from which was obscured by a heavy white mist. “Look at that. You can’t even see your hand in front of you.” She extended her arm and squinted at her fingers as if the fog were obscuring her view.

“That always happens when the weather warms up quickly before the snow has had a chance to melt,” I said. “I can’t believe the forecast for later today. A blizzard!”

“Maybe they’re wrong,” Melinda said.

“Let’s hope so.”

The weather in the Berkshires had been inordinately warm for early March, the “lamb” part of the month coming in before the “lion” had a chance to roar, although winter wasn’t finished yet. Typical of March, one minute it was sunny and mild, the next windy and cold. From the forecasts I’d seen on TV and read in the newspapers, a freak snowstorm was due to hit within hours and could dump as much as three feet of heavy, wet white stuff.

I had to smile at the contribution the fog coming off the lake was making to our interactive murder mystery weekend. Nothing like a pea-souper to enhance a sense of dread and foul things to come. In large-scale theatrical productions and high-budget motion pictures, they use expensive machines to create fog. Here we were enjoying it without it costing a cent, thanks to our special-effects director, Mother Nature.

The Savoys were adept at taking advantage of the built-in atmosphere. I was familiar with their methods, having made appearances at other events at which they had provided the entertainment. They took their shows all over the globe, performing at corporate gatherings and society fund-raisers, aboard luxury cruise ships, and, of course, at myriad weekends such as this one at Mohawk House. When Melinda Savoy had called to say she’d recommended me and the marketing department wanted me to join the authors’ panel, I’d been happy to accept.

“A character will get killed during the play, Jessica,” she said brightly. “Nothing you aren’t accustomed to.”

“Try not to make it during dinner,” I replied. “You don’t want to spoil the guests’ appetites.”

“Nor mine. The dining room is off-limits, I assure you. The only dead people at Mohawk House will be onstage. Speaking of off-limits: Don’t let anyone rope you into helping them solve the crime.” She laughed. “I have enough trouble coming up with these complicated scenarios without having to worry that an expert will expose my plot after the first act.”

“Of course,” I said, laughing along with her. “But your plays are wonderful. I’m sure I’ll be just as mystified as the rest of the audience. It sounds as though you’re in the midst of a busy season.”

“Insanely busy. The play we’re doing this weekend is a new one, which always has its share of problems until the kinks get ironed out. We’ve got two dozen appearances booked over the next three months. That’s good for our bottom line and for the actors, but it has us running in circles,” she said with a chuckle. “But that’s our problem, not yours. I’m so pleased you’ll join us. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

So there I was, in the rolling hills of Connecticut at a historic mansion that dated back almost two hundred years. It had been a resort for the past fifty. As the story went, its original owner—the third son of a British earl, well out of line to inherit his father’s lands and title—had built an elaborate log cabin as a kind of architectural tribute to his new country. Subsequent occupants, however, enamored with the building’s aristocratic lineage, had added on their visions of what a noble house ought to look like until the resulting hodgepodge was a frightening, albeit fascinating, mix of Tudor, Georgian, and Adirondack styles with a few medieval details thrown in.

The architecture wasn’t the only fascinating thing about Mohawk House, however. It came replete with its own ghost story to tickle the imaginations of its guests. According to legend, this same third son of a British earl was brutally murdered one night as he slept in the master bedroom suite. His head was severed and left on the pillow but his body was nowhere to be found, nor was the murder weapon. It was assumed that the murderer had weighted down the earl’s decapitated body and taken it out into the middle of the glacial lake, hundreds of feet deep, and dumped it there to be entombed in the frigid black water for eternity.

According to what I’d read in Mohawk House’s promotional literature, there were a number of suspects, none of whom ever confessed to the crime, nor were any of them charged. The mystery gave rise to some tall tales. It was said in the days and weeks following the murder that by severing the head from the body, the killer had enabled the earl’s soul to escape and live on in the house. There had been countless reports of “sightings” of the murder victim at odd hours of the night, dressed in a crimson satin robe and red satin slippers with turned-up toes, and carrying a large curved axe with a bloody blade, presumably the weapon used to slay him. Scary stuff if you believed in such tales, all good fun if you didn’t.

“I think I’m due for a good walk before the others arrive,” I said.

“Your author colleagues?” said Melinda. “They’re already here. Mark Egmon from the hotel arrived with them in tow and introduced them to us. They left just minutes before you walked in.”

“I’m sorry I missed them,” I said. “I’ll just have to wait for dinner to meet them. Actually, I know John Chasseur.”

Melinda’s eyebrows went up. “Quite the Romeo, isn’t he? Or aspires to be.”

“I don’t know him that well, Melinda. We’ve been on a few author panels together in the past, nothing more than that. I’m looking forward to meeting GSB Wick. I really admire her books.”

“Nice lady. She’s so tiny, like a little bird. I love her Southern drawl.” Melinda giggled.

“What’s funny?”

“Paul, the actor who plays Cynthia’s suitor, started flirting with Ms. Wick. He’s always flirting with someone. I think she was annoyed. She was with a friend, an elderly British gentleman, she brought for the weekend.” She leaned close. “Larry’s upset that I hired Paul to play the part of the suitor. Larry says he’s nothing but trouble, but he’s good. He plays the part beautifully.”

I was about to leave to go on my walk when Lawrence Savoy suddenly got up and asked, “Who are those people up on the stage?”

A dozen men and women, presumably paying guests, had wandered onto the set through a side door leading to the stage.

“Excuse me,” Savoy said.

A young woman carrying a clipboard came to the stage apron. “I told them we were in rehearsal, but they just—”

“It’s okay,” said Savoy. To the guests he said, “I’m sorry, folks, but this is a closed rehearsal.”

“We just wanted to see what was going on,” said an older woman who was with a man I assumed was her husband. They wore matching argyle sweaters, his a vest, hers a cardigan.

The husband spoke: “We were told guests are encouraged to make themselves at home and explore the hotel.”

“Okay,” Savoy said, “but I’m afraid that doesn’t include rehearsals. Besides, you don’t want to ruin the surprise before you see the play.”

“We’re looking for clues,” her husband said with a mischievous smile.

Savoy laughed. “You’ll have to look for them somewhere else.”

The woman smiled sweetly and said, “Of course.” To her husband, “Come, dear.” She led him away, with the others falling in behind.

“Always something,” Melinda said.

“All right,” Savoy said to the cast. “Places!”

He’d no sooner returned to his seat when a loud crash came from somewhere offstage.

“What was that?” he bellowed.

A strapping young man wearing a T-shirt and jeans and carrying a hammer joined the cast. He peered out into the house, spotted Savoy, and said, “I can’t fit the set through the door.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Savoy said, “just great.” He returned to the stage. “Can’t you take it apart and put it back together once you’ve got it in place?” he asked the young man.

“Not easily,” came the response.