A Festival of Murder (9 page)

“I
served my time and once freed, I hightailed it out of Tampa and never looked
back.” The mere thought of Tampa made the acid roil in his stomach. His
aversion was so powerful he was positive he would never step foot in the state
of Florida again. Not even for Disneyworld.

“And
Ben?”

This
was Nicholas’s favorite part of the story. “A year later I received an unsigned
postcard from Lautoka, Fiji. Apparently, it’s a beautiful place.” He smiled,
but let it disappear when Phoebe winced at the sight of it. “Needless to say, I
burned it on the stove.”

“You
could’ve shown it to the police.”

“Unfortunately,
I remembered that only after I woke up the next morning next to two empty
bottles of Tanqueray.”

She
gazed at him with what he could only interpret as pity. “That explains why you
were so hostile toward Rocky. You were afraid he’d find out about Ben’s scam
and accuse you of trying to perpetrate another.” She thought for a moment. “I’m
surprised the other reporters who interviewed you didn’t learn about your past.”

“The
publications that wanted my abduction story were interested in the spectacle,
not the truth. Verifying my reliability wasn’t on their agenda. Unfortunately,
it was on Rocky’s. He
did
learn about Ben and the scam, and he was ready
to write about it. Detective Canberry will see it as my motive for killing him.
He’ll say I wanted to keep Rocky quiet.” Nicholas’s tea was cold and tasteless.
“It’s why I’m anxious to find the guilty party as soon as possible.”

“But
who could have done it? We don’t have psychopaths up here, Nicholas.”

“Don’t
we? These people moved to an isolated mountain community in the hopes of
meeting aliens. Those who didn’t come here for a close encounter of the third
kind are running from something.”
Just like I tried to do.

He
waited for Phoebe to comment. Her reasons for being in Hightop were a mystery
to him. She’d said only that she’d left big city life in Denver to get away
from the crowds and to work on some art, yet there were plenty of less strange
towns where she could have done that. Estes Park was a beautiful little town of
five thousand. Why drive past it up winding and ultimately unpaved roads to a
tiny neighborhood that for all intents and purposes had become an alien
commune?

“Phoebe,
where were you yesterday?” To soften the edges of a question that sounded like
it was part of an interrogation, he added, “Candy punished me. You know she
always forgets to include my extra mushrooms.”

She
stood. Nicholas immediately missed the temporary intimacy they’d shared.

“I
wasn’t feeling very well for most of the day,” she mumbled. She looked quickly
over the dining room again. “I’d better check on your food.”

Her
swift exit bothered him, but not as much as her answer. As far as alibis went,
hers was extremely thin.

He
shook himself. Why was he questioning Phoebe, of all people?

Angry
at himself for the momentary betrayal, he picked up his cup of tea and stood.
He felt the eyes of a few tourists on him as he wandered through the dining
room and out into the living room. There was a window seat at the back of the
Gingerbear where he occasionally took his meals when the need for privacy was
overwhelming. He knew Phoebe would be able to track him down when his food was
ready.

When
he stepped out of the dining room, he was nearly knocked over by Charles.

“Nicholas!
I’m so glad to see you’ve come for lunch.”

“I
always do.”

“Yes,
well, I was worried—erroneously I see—that last night’s goings-on might have
scared off some of the regulars.” Charles rubbed his palms together before
noticing what he was doing and tucked them into his armpits.

“It’s
not like we have a serial murderer in town who feels compelled to perpetrate
his crimes on your property, Charles.”

The
large man blanched.

“Hardly
anyone thinks that,” Nicholas clarified.

“About
a serial killer or—?”

“The
police don’t know anything yet. They don’t even have any persons of interest as
far as I know.” It was a big fat lie, of course, since he was currently king of
that particular hill of suspects, but the less Charles knew the better for them
both.

Charles
glanced around. “Even I can think of a few persons of interest.”

“Who?”

Charles
plucked at the front of his knitted sweater, which featured a UFO trailed by a
streak of red and purple yarn. The strands of yarn were fraying and coming
loose from the sweater, suggesting this wasn’t the first time he’d picked at
them. “Of course, you can’t share a peep of this with anyone.”

Nicholas
was bewildered by the implication. “Who would I willingly talk to?”

“I
have a mind to think it’s not the most obvious culprit. In fact, I think it’s
Horace.”

Nicholas
floundered. Horace owned the General Store and that was about as much as he’d
ever cared to know about the man. “Why him?”

“I
heard him get into a nasty argument with Rocky Johnson yesterday morning. Just
nasty!”

Nicholas’s
hands tightened around his mug. An alleged confrontation with someone else in
Hightop was good. He could only cross his fingers and hope, rather
uncharitably, that death threats had been flung around.

“Did
you happen to hear what they were arguing about?”

Charles
nodded emphatically. “I hadn’t intended to listen, but I was trying to clear some
of the snow down at the base of the walkway and the two of them were standing
right there in the open as if they didn’t care who heard them. So I kept my
head down and dug—the path needs to be clear, Nicholas—and I honestly couldn’t
help overhearing them yelling at each other. Just yelling as loud as you
please. Almost as if they
wanted
an audience. I wasn’t straining to
listen to them or anything like that!”

“It’s
all right, Charles.” Nicholas struggled to keep the impatience from his voice. “What
were they yelling about?”

Charles’s
chubby face puckered for a moment. “Horace was saying something about ‘lying
reporters’ and something about a ‘fire.’” His emphatic finger quotes made
Nicholas think of bobbing bunny ears. “I’m sure I’m mistaken, but I thought he
also mentioned something about having been arrested! Can you imagine? He
accused Rocky of coming to Hightop to, and I quote, ‘dig up dinosaurs long
buried.’” More bobbing bunny ears.

“I
had no idea Horace was a former criminal,” Nicholas said as casually as he
could, watching Charles for reaction. “I’m sure he’s cleaned up his act since
then.”

“Who
knows what he could have done!” By Charles’s excited manner he’d already put
some thought to it and come up with some appalling crimes. “He told Rocky
something along the lines of, ‘If you try to hang me, too, you’ll regret it.’”
Charles blinked slowly, like an owl. “Once a criminal, always a criminal. By
the Maker, I think he did it.”

Nicholas
felt vaguely ill. “That’s a big conclusion to jump to.”

“Even
if I hadn’t overheard him saying such things, you have to admit he’s the
perfect type for it.”

“Is
he?”

For
the first time since his mountain retreat began to be invaded by his
now-neighbors, Nicholas wished he knew more about them. All these months of
avoiding them and pretending he didn’t see them when he drove to the shop each
day was coming back to haunt him.

Charles’s
eyes were huge again. “He looks like a murderer and now we’ve learned he has a
bad past!”

“Everyone
has a history, Charles. Horace’s may not necessarily be bad enough to have
driven him to become a murderer. One doesn’t lead to the other.”

Charles
bit his lip. “But what if he
was
a murderer? Freed on parole? He’s the
most likely suspect. There’s no way around it!”

The
other man’s passionate rebuttals to everything Nicholas said were beginning to
make Nicholas feel like he was feeding lines to a stage actor.

Charles’s
shiny face tilted sideways. “This is just between us, right, Nicholas? I wouldn’t
want to implicate any of my neighbors.”

Like
you just did? Nicholas thought, but he obligingly said, “I hate gossip.”

“Good.
Good. Glad we feel the same about this. Well, er, I have bookkeeping to catch
up on. Have to work my magic on the numbers and all that.”

Charles’s
smile was pained, suggesting the magic was in short supply. It didn’t often
occur to Nicholas, since he rarely thought about his neighbors unless they were
annoying him, that their businesses were also floundering and had been for some
time now. How desperate were they to keep someone like Rocky Johnson from
burying their businesses for good? Could this be a recreation of
Murder on
the Orient Express
?

“A
slow week or two isn’t anything to worry about,” Nicholas said. He had no idea
what he was talking about, but he felt pressured to say something optimistic in
the face of Charles’s obvious distress.

“It’s
been a bit tight,” Charles said. “Doesn’t help that deliveries haven’t made it
up since Tuesday.” His eyes flicked once toward the back of the inn where the
stock was kept.

“Hopefully,
you were able to load up for this weekend’s festivities?”

Charles’s
nod was tentative, as though he were testing whether Nicholas would believe it.
Feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic for his neighbor, Nicholas decided not
to press the issue.

“It’s
not as if these people came up here for the food anyway,” he said breezily. “I’m
sure none of them would mind starving if it meant more of them could fit inside
a flying saucer.”

Charles
chuckled. “Indeed. And on that note—I’ll see you tonight, won’t I?” He gave an
awkward, bashful smile. “At the movie viewing party?”

“With
any luck I’ll be arrested beforehand,” Nicholas replied, only partly joking.

Charles
chuckled again and patted him on the shoulder before continuing toward the
dining room. Nicholas went the opposite way, passing through the wallpapered
hallway and emerging into a sunroom that served as a space for private
functions. Nicholas recalled it had been rented out twice: once by a group of
amateur paranormal investigators who had tried and failed to recruit him to
help prove their hypothesis that abductions were actually demon possessions,
and the second time for a small alien-themed wedding for a pair of teenagers
who hadn’t looked old enough to drive.

The
sunroom was a magnet for bad things, in Nicholas’s opinion, but it served as an
adequate hiding place when he could no longer deal with attention. It was empty
now and the glass ceilings were opaque with snow, casting the space into a
semigloom.

He
paused in the doorway, reconsidering his original decision to have lunch here.
The room wasn’t half as warm as the rest of the inn. Condensation obscured the
view outside like a smear of Vaseline. It would feel like sitting inside his
car to eat lunch, he decided, and he turned to retrace his steps.

He
froze in midturn, his attention snagging on movement through the fogged
windows. His heart jumped into his throat, but unless the aliens had begun
shopping at the military surplus store he was safe for the moment. He could
make out a figure dressed in a camouflage parka moving beneath the trees. Forty
or so yards to the right sat the mostly frozen disc of the lake where Rocky
Johnson’s body had been found.

Nicholas
stepped down into the sunken sunroom and moved closer to the window. He was
tempted to wipe the glass clean with the cuff of his sleeve, but he was afraid
the motion would draw attention to him. He watched Captain Sam, trying to
figure out what the man was doing as he kicked at the snow outside the inn. Was
he having some kind of episode? Was he looking for something? Hiding something?
Setting a trap for Nicholas?

The
latter possibility sent a dart of terror zinging through him. Captain Sam could
be the killer, and here Nicholas was witnessing the preparation for his own
murder. Then again, Nicholas knew he could easily be labeled paranoid these
days and could be jumping to conclusions. Captain Sam was undeniably strange,
but did he possess the mental faculties to plan a murder?

There
was only one thing Nicholas believed he should do. He set his mug of tea on a
nearby table and hurried out of the sunroom.

He
knew Charles’s place as well as his own cabin; Charles had strong-armed him
into several tours of the inn, hoping to entice Nicholas into becoming a
permanent boarder and make the Gingerbear a touristic focus point. Nicholas
didn’t hesitate to cut through a back hallway and into the pantry attached to
the kitchen.

Inside
the pantry, he was shocked by the many barren shelves and mostly empty flour
and sugar canisters. Then he recalled Charles’s comment about delivery problems
due to the storm. The Gingerbear must be more than a week overdue for a
shipment of product. Nicholas experienced another twinge of sympathy for
Charles. The man was stressed enough as it was. Now he had to worry about
running out of basic food products during the festival when for him, more than
any other business owner in Hightop, a successful weekend was essential.