Authors: Ed Gorman

Tags: #Mystery

Several Deaths Later (17 page)

BOOK: Several Deaths Later

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All he could do now, unfortunately, was wait. The large dusty closet was lit only by corridor light spilling into the louvered door.

***

Ten minutes later he had to risk going to the bathroom. He just couldn't hold it anymore.

He ran in and did the deed and ran back.

He'd just gotten the closet door closed when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.

***

Tobin had made it easy for whoever might want to claim the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson.

He'd put everything right in the middle of the bed.

All the thief had to do was rummage through it, take what he or she wanted, and then Tobin would spring from the closet and trap the person.

It sure
sounded
simple enough…

The cabin doorknob rattled as it was turned first rightward and then leftward.

Tobin's heart began pounding so loudly he wondered if the intruder could hear it. Sweat started collecting under his arms and down his back and in his shoes. Flop sweat.

The door creaked open.

Either the intruder possessed burglary tools or knew how to use a credit card. The door creaked shut.

A dark form stood in the center of the cabin, looking around, as if he suspected that he was indeed being spied upon.

No problem identifying the person. There'd been only one cowboy at the costume party tonight. Jere Farris.

The cowboy outfit had included a pair of spurs, which did not exactly lend themselves to stealth. As Farris crossed the room to the bed, thumbing on a flashlight whose beam was yellow and lurid in the gloom, his spurs began to jangle.

Farris set to work.

He went through the box belonging to Sanderson first. He picked up a variety of items, examined each, and then put them back.

Next he went through Iris Graves's material and it was here that he paused at great length, especially when he came to the notebook Tobin had so thoughtfully set out.

He thumbed through the pages to the middle section where she'd done most of her writing on the "Celebrity Circle" show. Then he said, "Sonofabitch."

Obviously Farris knew that Iris Graves had known something about the "Circle" crew.

The next set of footsteps were lighter than Farris's had been.

Both Tobin and Farris froze and stared at the cabin door, the knob of which was being shaken in a hopeless attempt to rattle it open.

Tobin watched Farris panic-whip his head around, his white Stetson nearly falling off, searching desperately for a place to hide.

Where else in a cabin like this
could
you hide?

The person at the cabin door now applied a credit card, just as Farris himself had done.

Farris stuffed the book inside his vest and started for the closet.

Wanting to see who else was coming to steal something from his cabin, Tobin obligingly opened the closet door and then put a finger to his lips and made a big
sssshing!
sound.

Farris, startled, almost yelled out something in surprise but Tobin gave him a double
sssh!
and that took care of him.

Tobin grabbed Farris by the wrist, yanked him inside, and then waited to see who came in next.

She had some kind of lantern, one of those bulky jobs you take camping to Montana. It looked all wrong with her Bo Peep getup. You would have thought that Cassie McDowell would have elected something more graceful and feminine.

Like Farris, she stood in the dark, orienting herself first. But it didn't take long for her to find the things piled on the bed. Tobin had put everything but a STEAL ME QUICK sign on the stuff.

Several times Farris in his goofy cowboy clothes leaned toward Tobin as if he wanted to whisper something but Tobin pointed a finger at him, implying that he'd punch Farris for making any sound at all.

Cassie went through the material in much the same order Farris had. Something seemed to interest her in Sanderson's belongings, though from the angle of the closet, Tobin could not see what. Then she began to work through Iris Graves's things.

Or started to, anyway.

She'd no more than lifted Iris's reporter's pad when somebody could be heard moving down the corridor.

Cassie stopped, killed the lantern.

In the shadows Tobin could hear all three of them breathing. They sounded as if they'd been running up and down stairs.

A hand wrenched the cabin doorknob.

"Oh, shit," Cassie said, though not loudly enough to be heard in the corridor.

Her eyes searched frantically about the cabin and came to rest, of course, on the louvered closet door.

Tobin opened it up, stuck out his head, grabbed her elbow, and jerked her in, clamping a hand over her mouth for good measure.

He got the closet door closed and then the three of them-Tobin, Cassie, and Farris (who'd moved down one, the way used-up guests did on the Carson show)-watched as Tarzan came into the room.

Kevin Anderson, macho guy that he was, had not brought a light along. Presumably this was because of his X-ray vision.

He went without pause to the bed and the material. He was, of course, neither as gentle nor as neat as Farris and Cassie had been. He made a quick mess of things, in fact, scattering items all over the bed. He reminded Tobin of a dog rooting for something buried.

The less he found that interested him, the more furious Anderson's search became.

Until the next set of footsteps came along.

Where Farris and Cassie had gotten scared, Anderson got angry.

He stood in the center of the cabin looking big and fit but vaguely silly in his fake leopard skin loincloth, making a large club from his fist.

Obviously he was simply going to deck whoever came through the door.

But, not wanting the next person to be scared off- he'd learned nothing so far but the person now trying the doorknob might just be the one-Tobin once again eased open the closet door and went, "Pssst!"

Anderson spun around as if somebody had struck him in the back of the head with a rock.

"Get in here!" Tobin whispered.

As the cabin door was starting to open, Anderson apparently got caught up in the moment and complied without any hassle.

Cassie moved down one inside the closet and Anderson took her place. Now there were Tobin, Anderson, Cassie, and Farris. Everything smelled cramped and sweaty. Only Cassie's perfume kept the closet from reeking like a locker room.

A beautiful hooker came in next. She'd brought one of those dinky pencil flashlights doctors use when they make you say "Ahhhh."

Tobin got a vicious elbow in the rib from Anderson. Cassie, who'd had more than her share to drink, had tottered into Anderson and so Tobin wound up getting the elbow. He wanted to curse and very loudly but he knew better. In here all he could say was,
"Ssshhh!"

All of them leaned up to the louvers so they could watch as Susan Richards sorted through the debris Kevin Anderson had strewn all over the bed.

The problem was, Tobin realized, you couldn't see whose stuff-Sanderson's or Iris's-she was going through because now it was all mixed up together.

Something caught her attention, though, because she leaned way over and started to examine it.

Tobin couldn't be sure if she picked it up and took it because about the time she would have been doing so, the cabin door opened up and there stood somebody else with a flashlight.

Todd Ames must have crept along the corridor on tiptoes because none of them had heard him at all.

Now Ames and Susan stood a few feet apart in the gloom, shining their lights on each other.

"Susan, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same question, Todd."

"I'm sick of this bullshit!" Anderson said and ripped open the closet door.

Susan screamed.

Ames threw on the lights and held up a.45 he'd concealed in his thick sueded Robin Hood belt.

Susan, seeing everybody come out of the closet, said, "What were you all doing in there?"

"Watching you," Tobin said. He nodded to Ames. "You'd better either use that or put it away."

Ames touched one side of his perfect gray hair and said, "Seems as if I should be the one giving the orders."

Anderson moved so quickly even Tobin was forced to admit he was impressed.

Anderson slapped Ames across the face and then simply took the gun from him.

Anderson said, "Now, Tobin, you little bastard, I want you to tell me what's going on here."

11:45 P.M.

"So why don't we just get it over with?" Tobin said, once they'd all found various places to sit.

"Get what over with?" Cassie McDowell asked, reverting to TV. She was the naive schoolteacher of "McKinley High, USA." Her Bo Peep garb had never seemed more appropriate.

"Gosh, I can't imagine," Tobin said. Then, "What the hell do you
think
I'm talking about? I told Jere and you that I had the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson in my room-and then each of you proceeded to break in. What the hell were you looking for?"

Kevin Anderson and Todd Ames had helped themselves to the quart of Wild Turkey Tobin had sitting on his bureau. They guzzled it without ice from transparent plastic glasses.

Ames said, "We don't have to answer a damn thing."

Susan Richards, lighting a cigarette, said, "I came here because I heard there was a party."

"Right," Tobin said, "so you jimmied the lock with a credit card and came in."

Tobin, as always when he was angry, paced. Being small and compact, he gave the impression of great energy as he did so. With his Burglar mask still on, he looked both greatly earnest and greatly comic.

He paused at Kevin Anderson and said, "I'm surprised you'd be afraid of him."

"Afraid of who?"

"Of Ken Norris."

Anderson's masculinity had been challenged. "Who said I was afraid of him?"

"If you hadn't been then you wouldn't have resorted to killing him."

Anderson set down his drink. He made his biceps bulky and his hands into fists. "You accuse me of killing him again, I'll punch your face in."

"Jesus, Kevin," Cassie said, "what we don't need is more violence."

Tobin turned to Jere Farris. "Why don't you share that notebook with us?"

"What notebook?" But he was flushing.

Tobin held out his hand.

Farris shook his head miserably-maybe he wouldn't have looked so miserable if he'd taken off his Stetson- and reached inside his leather vest. "Here."

Tobin tapped the notebook dramatically, the way a prosecuting attorney who'd trained at Warner Brothers would have.

"In this notebook," he said and thumped it again, rather enjoying himself now. "In this notebook is evidence that will convict one of you of Ken Norris's death-and the deaths of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson."

"If you've got the evidence," said Todd Ames, smiling with capped teeth at Cassie, "then why don't you make a formal accusation?"

"Because as yet I haven't broken the code."

"Code?" Ames said.

"She wrote in her own shorthand. Not even her boss at
Snoop
can translate it."

He felt a genuine sense of relief pass through the five people packed into his tiny cabin.

He took to pacing again. He took to notebook-thumping again. He said, "You know what I think?"

Kevin Anderson said, "I don't know what you think but I also don't give a damn what you think."

"I think," said Tobin, undeterred, "that one of you killed him and that the rest of you are protecting that person." He thumped again. "But here's the trick. I also suspect that you're not sure which of you did it. You"-and he pointed to Cassie-"you may think it's Kevin and Kevin may think it's Todd and Todd may think-"

Todd Ames said, "You don't have a damn thing on any of us. You've got some queer notebook with some scrawlings in it, and that's all."

Jere Farris said, "And we've still got the show."

Tobin saw it then. Mention of the show made each of them smile. He saw how "Celebrity Circle" bound them up tight as blood. He said, "And that's why you're afraid that one of you is a killer. Because if that's the case, the show may well die. And your livelihoods will be all over." He turned to Farris. "What did you say about directing local TV news?"

Kevin Anderson threw back the last of the Wild Turkey and said, "I don't know about anybody else, but I'm leaving."

"Me too," Cassie said.

"One of you is a killer," Tobin said.

"You wave that goddamn notebook at us one more time," Anderson said, "and I'll put it someplace you won't like at all."

His anger served as a rallying point for the rest of them. Soon Tarzan was joined by a cowboy, a hooker, Robin Hood, and Florence Nightingale at the door.

"We're going back to the party," Jere Farris said, "and have a damn good time. You coming, Tobin?"

With that, they all laughed and left, slamming the door with undue finality.

The first thing Tobin did was go to the bathroom again.

Then he came out and lit up a cigarillo and took to pacing once more. His plan hadn't worked. He hadn't learned a damn thing.

BOOK: Several Deaths Later

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