The Pride Trilogy: Kyle Callahan 1-3 (9 page)

Chapter 13

All the Jack-O-Lanterns

T
here were two
main events required for the success of the Halloween weekend at Pride Lodge. One was the costume party on Saturday night, when the lower level karaoke room and the adjacent piano bar were turned into one large dance floor with the busiest bar of the year, and the other was the annual pumpkin carving held in the Lodge’s great room. Tables, carvers and pumpkins would spill over onto the porch in good weather or into the restaurant if it was raining. And while some of the guests skipped the pumpkin carving, most showed up and picked out one of several pre-drawn pumpkin designs or, if they were really in the spirit, brought their own pattern.

The pumpkins were lined up on temporary tables set out in a U-shape jutting from the fireplace. There wasn’t any fire yet—that would come later in the year—so no one was in danger of running out of the door in flames. Next to each pumpkin was a small serrated metal stickpin used to saw along the lines of the Jack-O-Lantern pattern. There were also several X-Acto knives for the more experienced and determined. Dylan, who oversaw the carving (which was also a contest with first prize being a weekend for two at the Lodge), warned everyone to only use an X-Acto knife if they knew what they were doing and if they were prepared for the loss of blood—the Lodge assumed no liability.

Ricki had displayed the paper patterns along the top of the check-in desk and was offering them up with the occasional suggestion. “That’s not you, really, try the witch,” or, “This might be a little too complicated for someone of such simple tastes. Here’s a cat, it has your name on it.” Ricki loved Halloween more than any other time of year at Pride Lodge, so much that he’d temporarily forgotten about poor Teddy and the horrifying events of the morning. He had meant to call that detective and tell her about an argument he’d heard the night before between Sid and Teddy, but it surely meant nothing. Besides, he’d mentioned it to both Kyle and that strange woman, Bo, when each had stopped by the desk after lunch. He had the feeling they were pumping him for information, though he couldn’t imagine why, and all he really had to say was that Sid and Teddy had argued. That was nothing new; Sid didn’t really like Teddy and only kept him around because of Dylan and the fact Teddy had worked there so long. From things he’d overheard—you can’t work the front desk of a place like Pride Lodge and not hear things—Sid thought Teddy was a sloppy drunk and Teddy thought Sid was using Dylan, though he couldn’t say for what. In the end it was all just scuttlebutt and didn’t matter now anyway, in light of the circumstances.

“Linus!” Ricki said, pulling himself back from his thoughts. “How nice to see you!”

It wasn’t, really. Nobody who knew Linus Hern was happy to see him, unless they were being paid . . . which, frankly, Ricki was. He proceeded to glance at the pumpkin patterns, deciding which would be the best suggestion for Mr. Hern.

Back in the cabin, Kyle had finally been able to sleep for about twenty minutes before being startled from his nap by a call from Imogene, apologetic to be disturbing him on a vacation but not so bothered as to refrain from it. She swore yet again it was something she would only do in an emergency. Kyle and Danny both knew the definition of “emergency” when it came to Imogene had a significantly lower threshold than it did for most people. It might be anything from misplacing her iPhone to needing a sudden flight to Chicago, which she had shown herself incapable of arranging on her own. This afternoon it was for advice—something she relied heavily on Kyle for and as often as not ignored. She had been approached about a job in Seattle and couldn’t decide if she should consider it or dismiss it out of hand.

“You’ve been with Tokyo Pulse for what, nine months?” he said, waving at Danny to stop rolling his eyes. Kyle had started working for her when she was still with Channel 6 doing woman-on-the-street segments no one watched or cared about. Then came a year of freelancing while she burned through her savings, and finally the last-chance job with Tokyo Pulse.

“‘
We
,’” she told him. “
We
have been with Tokyo Pulse nine months. You’re not thinking of leaving me, are you?”

Her insecurities challenged Kyle more than anything else about her. “Fine, ‘we,’” he said. “It’s too early to make another move, that’s all I meant. And I will be leaving if you move to Seattle. That’s not an option for me, not anymore.”

“Since I shackled you,” Danny said, getting up from the table and heading to the bathroom.

“That’s my answer then,” she said. “No Kyle, no Imogene.”

The comment both touched and alarmed Kyle. The thought of her making decisions based on his ability to stay with her was more responsibility than he wanted.

“Be sure to thank them anyway,” he said. “Just to keep that door open, you never know. Forward the email to me so I can add them to your contacts, for when you’re ready to part ways with me.”

He ended the call with her knowing it had been completely unnecessary, and knowing it was one of the things than endeared her to him. He allowed himself an image of the two of them in twenty years’ time, Imogene tamed by age but still rebellious, and himself listening to her demands through a hearing aid.

Bo wasn’t very good in crowds and intended to avoid them at the Lodge as much as possible. She fidgeted behind her neck with a small gold crucifix her mother had given her for her sixth birthday. It was among the very few things she had kept throughout her life. She had always believed we leave everything behind anyway for someone else to sort and dispose of; the fewer things we hold onto, the less we’ll have to fear losing when the time comes. And the time comes for everyone.

After the murders of her parents everything had moved so quickly. Her aunt had come to Los Angeles to identify the bodies, something young Emily thought was ridiculous. Who else would be dead in her parents’ bed? Many things were mysterious to her then, including the complete disregard for what a girl of ten may or may not want. She did not want to live with her aunt and the uncle who made her skin crawl. She did not want to be the live-in orphan, which is how she felt and how her new step-sisters treated her. Her mother and aunt had never gotten along, and Emily knew her mother would be upset to know her only child had been shuttled off to Santa Barbara to live with her sister and
him
. That’s how her mother referred to her brother-in-law, simply as “him.” Never Joseph, never with anything that could be confused for affection or even respect. Her mother always had suspicions about the man, about how he made his money and his dictatorial way of being a husband and father. Unfortunately, Barbara and Carl Lapinksy thought they had all the time in the world and had neglected to make legal arrangements should something happened to them, which it did. Now they were gone and one of the few things that remained of their ever having been on the earth was the small gold cross Bo fastened around her neck.

She had been wearing the necklace the night they were killed. Even as a child she only took it off to bathe, and her father jokingly said he was concerned she would become a nun. He mistook her attachment to the crucifix for a devotion to the cross. Emily did not understand the whole Jesus thing and never considered the two to be connected, even though she knew many people wore crucifixes as professions of their faith. She had no faith, and she was not a nun. She was a killing machine that had been oiled and ready for three decades. Her surrender to the cross was her surrender to the memory of her parents, in this case her mother, and her complete acceptance of the commitment she had made as she watched the men flee from their home: I will kill you. As odd a thought as that seems for a ten year old cowering in a closet, it was the thought she had and the promise she made. I will kill you. I will find you. I will hunt you down.

Here she was at last, having never known for sure it could come to pass. She had believed it would. She had kept things in place, ready to act. But until she saw the watch for sale she could not have sworn in a court of justice—for that is where she now found herself—that the opportunity would present itself and all her preparation would have been for good. What she was doing was good. What she was doing was right. No innocence would be violated; they had forfeited any claim to innocence when they left two people dead in a bedroom. She had carried out the Court’s decree with the men Frank and Sam, and now, once she was finished here, she would return to anonymity. She would replace the smile on her face, so familiar to her friends in St. Paul. She would tell them what a lovely time she’d had in Hawaii, her first trip in years but definitely not her last, so wonderful and relaxing and tropical. And she would close the lid at last—the lid to her past, to her parents’ coffins, to the hatred that had fueled her nearly her entire life.

She slipped into her comfortable black loafers, adjusted her expression to be as soft, welcoming and unremarkable as possible, and headed downstairs.

Dylan wasn’t able to have a seating arrangement at the tables, that would have been too formal, too deliberate, but he could steer people in the general direction of where he wanted them to be. The real challenge with a group like this was knowing who to keep apart, not who to seat together. Diane Haley, for instance, had been in a Cold War state with Marti Martin for years, ever since Marti stole Diane’s girlfriend so long ago neither of them remembered her name. Bad blood tended to stay bad, and no infusion of good will or forced togetherness would change that. The same might be said for Linus and Danny, although Danny wasn’t really the grudge holding sort. His dislike for the stuffy restaurateur didn’t cross the line into open warfare, but it would still be best not to have them next to each other. Linus enjoyed provocation and could be counted on to throw a flame or two regardless of the best intentions or efforts to ignore him.

As the guests filtered in, Dylan accomplished his manipulation by carrying their Jack-O-Lantern patterns to the tables for them, chatting as he led them to where he thought they should be. He had planned it out ahead of time, knowing, for instance, that Linus would insist on the largest pumpkin in the room while Kyle would want something front-lit for the photographs he was always taking.

Drinks were served to ease the social interaction. Austin, Dallas and Elzbetta saw to that, working on a single pumpkin for the three of them while taking turns filling drink orders. More than one person had said to Dylan that alcohol and knives were probably not a good combination.

By the time Kyle and Danny arrived, Kyle with his ever-present Nikon slung around his neck, everyone was in place and already starting to carve. Diane and Marti were separated by an elderly gentleman from Long Island, a regular customer named Jeremy Johnston who took a bus to the Lodge twice a year for a week’s stay. Jeremy was the last person to retire at night, given special privilege to watch the great room’s wall-mounted television set well past midnight to accommodate his insomnia. He also had the odd habit of pushing a walker with him everywhere, which would seem natural for a man of 82 if he actually needed it to walk. For Jeremy it was a prop, like a cane might be for a man of an earlier era.

“How you doing, Jerry?” Marti asked when he first approached the table. Marti Martin ran a travel agency that was barely hanging on. Her hair was gray and cropped short, almost military style, and she wore incongruously large, red plastic eyeglasses that made her head look more like a baby’s than a grown woman’s.

“It’s Jeremy,” he replied. “You know that, Marti Martin.”

“Yes, I do. I’m just checking to make sure you’re paying attention.”

The old man was indeed paying close attention. That’s what he did: he watched everyone. He enjoyed the ruse of the walker. He needed it, to be truthful, since he sometimes lost his balance, but mostly it served as a form of misdirection. People would be paying attention to the walker while he was paying attention to them.

Linus and his man-child were at the end of one table, near the fireplace. Next to them were the two sycophants. Danny recognized one of them and had in fact fired the man from Margaret’s Passion just that past June. He had been a new nighttime maitre d’, and even though Danny was the day manager, Margaret relied on him for the unpleasant tasks as well as the pleasant ones. The man’s name . . . what was it? . . . Fidel? Filio? Filo? . . . Filo had given it his best try but it wasn’t good enough. He had been short tempered with some of the diners and had an unwelcome air of superiority the other staff didn’t like, even leaving one waitress in tears. He had to go, so off Danny went to the restaurant late one night to tell Filo he wished him well in his future endeavors.

“You remember Phineus!” Linus shouted at Danny as he and Kyle took their seats. “You fired him!”

Phineus was clearly embarrassed and simply smiled in Danny’s direction.

Kyle took a few quick photos of the tables with all the guests seated. He saw Maggie and Eileen, the twins, Elzbetta, Ricki at the desk, Dylan hurrying around making sure everyone was in place. There were some other guests on the porch, a few Kyle recognized and some he did not. There were also several empty spaces: the pumpkin carving took place on Friday afternoon when people were still arriving. It was a tradition; it had always been on Friday. It also allowed for the judging that night and the Jack-O-Lanterns to be displayed for the rest of the weekend.

Just as Kyle was about to take a picture of the pumpkins on the table in front of them, the woman he’d seen eating alone at lunch took the empty place to his left. She had short, curly brown hair that reminded him of the late Phoebe Snow. Unlike most of the others at the Lodge she was not wearing blue jeans, instead having on rather elegant black pants, a cream blouse and a gray sweater. He glanced at her and saw she was wearing a crucifix around her neck.

“Hello,” she said, seeming to enjoy the sizing up. She extended her hand. “My name’s Bo. Bo Sweetzer. You must be Kyle.”

He shook her hand and she could tell he was puzzled that she knew his name.