Nine Man's Murder (8 page)

The outdoor party returned from their fruitless hunt.

“No trace of anyone out there,” Carter declared. “And there’s nowhere to hide.”

“If anyone else is with us here on the mountain,” Reeve added, “he’s buried himself in the snow.”

“There’s no one hiding inside the inn, either,” said Hatter.

Gideon’s words mirrored the thoughts of the group. “That means that the person who wrote that note—”

“Is one of us,” Jill finished for him.

“On the positive side,” Amanda said, “the murderer is outnumbered.”

“That won’t stop him,” Hatter promised.

“This is dreadful,” Jill whimpered. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to keep our eyes on one another.” Was Carter trying to bolster Jill’s spirits, or his own? “Mandy is right. It’s seven against one—eight, including Aaron. And it’s only for three days. When Bill and Max return for us on Sunday, they’ll find the bridge out and send for help. If we all keep alert, nothing more can happen this weekend.”

It was not the last time that weekend someone would be wrong.

26

T
he first murder
—after Damien’s—took everyone by surprise.

“We’ll all think a lot better after we’ve eaten,” Carter suggested. “I’ve got dinner working in the kitchen. I’ll call you when it’s ready.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

What now? Carter wondered. What would Damien do, if he had not gone where you can’t follow, his death the ultimate abandonment?

“Have a moment?”

The words startled Carter. He turned to face Jonas standing in the kitchen doorway.

“This may not be the best time to bring this up,” Jonas said, “but I thought you should know. I don’t know what Bryan plans to do, now that Damien’s … gone. But there’s something about Damien you need to know.”

“You mean his business relations with Antonio Capaldi?”

Jonas’ jaw dropped. “You know?”

“I found out. A little over two months ago an FBI agent named Rodriguez approached me privately. Asking me questions. Trying to determine if I knew about Damien’s connection to Capaldi. When he was satisfied that I didn’t, he told me all about it. He wanted my cooperation in building a case against Damien.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What could I tell him? Damien’s my brother. There’s such a thing as family loyalty.” Carter looked away. “Not that Damien ever subscribed to it.” Carter moved from pot to pot. “What did I tell Rodriguez? I told him I’d think about it. Not that it matters now.”

A noise turned both of their heads toward the kitchen doorway in time to see Reeve retreating through the billiard room.

* * *

J
onas found Reeve
in the drawing room. How much of his conversation with Carter had Reeve overheard? Better to confront Reeve later, in private.

Bryan had drifted to a corner of the drawing room and was staring blankly out the window.

“I’ve seen that look before,” Jonas said. “Something’s wrong. And it’s not just Damien’s murder.”

With a dismissive sweep of the hand, Bryan drew the bolt across the door to his thoughts.

“Come on,” Jonas urged. “I know when something’s bothering you.”

Bryan’s resistance budged. “It’s that note. Something about it is familiar, but I can’t say why.”

“Go on.”

“It refers to the reunion as a game of ‘Nine Man’s Murder.’ I can’t help feeling that should mean something.”

“I was puzzled by that, too. For one thing, there are only eight of us.”

“Nine, counting Aaron.”

“But the note made a point of us being detectives. That would let Aaron out.”

“Actually,” Bryan corrected, “we were referred to as ‘would-be’ detectives. Which in itself is a strange term to use. Some of us are licensed investigators. The term might have been appropriate fifteen years ago, when we were apprenticing with Damien. But not today.”

Gideon, overhearing the conversation, wheeled himself into it. “Perhaps it’s a play on words.”

“How’s that?”

“The name of the game. ‘Nine Man’s Murder.’ Maybe it’s a play on ‘Nine Man Morris.’” This illumination left the shadows intact. “It’s some kind of game,” Gideon explained. “I don’t know how it’s played.”

“It’s a British board game, I believe,” interjected Jill as she entered the drawing room. “I’m not familiar with the rules.”

“I hate games,” muttered Reeve, sitting nearby.

Bryan shook his head. “Somehow I can’t see all this revolving around some English board game.”

Bryan lapsed into a contagious silence, which infected all of the guests. It was cured by Carter’s entrance into the parlor room, announcing that supper was ready.

In the dining room, all were greeted by platters of questionable-looking sirloin, green beans, and mashed potatoes basted in a lightly charred smell. Aaron helped his fellow mountaintop prisoners set the table, and, with the self-consciousness of a servant mingling with the guests, accepted an invitation to join them for dinner.

Not until halfway through the meal did a remark of Hatter’s charge the leaden atmosphere.

“We’re all going to die.”

Bryan glanced up from his plate. “The food’s not that bad.”

“Shut up, Cates,” Reeve ordered.

Carter’s patience had been fraying since the discovery of his brother’s body; now it began to unravel. “That’s enough. We already have plenty to worry about without bickering.”

But Hatter’s nerves were as brittle as dried brush waiting for a wildfire. And Carter had just provided the spark.

“And who put you in charge, Carter? Now that your brother is out of the way, you figure you’ll just hop into the helm, is that it?”

“That’s enough, Hatter,” Jonas snapped.

“For years you’ve waited to take his place,” Hatter persisted. “You were jealous of him. You’ve always been overshadowed by Damien, first when you apprenticed with us, and then afterwards when you went to work for him—not as a partner, but as a mere employee.”

Everyone expected Carter to launch a brutal counterattack. No one expected him to choose the weapon of placid tranquility.

“Let’s say you’re right,” he reasoned softly. “After all, it is true that Damien ran the show. He never gave me a chance to prove what I could do.” An introspective pause. “Jealous? That’s a bit strong. But I have wanted to show what I can do on my own.”

“So you came here early this morning to have it out with Damien,” Hatter theorized, “before any of us. Just the two of you. You both fought. And you killed him.”

“And if I knew that Damien was dead, why did I bother showing up for the reunion?”

“How would it look if you didn’t? You would be the only one not to show up, because you were the only one who knew there would be no reunion, with Damien dead. But how would you know he was dead, unless you were the one who killed him? Not showing up would be as good as a confession.”

“Cut it out, you two,” Gideon pleaded. “This is exactly what someone wants us to do: argue with one another. The murderer wants to divide us, to make us more vulnerable.”

But Reeve ignored Gideon’s plea. “Of course,” he said to Carter, “you could have been arguing with Damien about something else—”

“Reeve …” Jonas warned.

“You could have been fighting about his business dealings with Antonio Capaldi.”

Bryan dropped his fork on the plate. “How did you—”

“Damien was working for Capaldi?” Amanda gasped.

“And Carter here was going to help the FBI catch him,” Reeve explained.

“But why kill the rest of us?” Gideon asked.

“To protect the sting,” Reeve suggested. “Carter might have feared that some of us were getting close to discovering the truth and could reveal it to Damien, if we stumbled onto it.”

“So Carter brought us up here,” Jill said, “under the pretext of a reunion.”

“But with Damien dead,” Gideon pointed out, “there’s no need to silence us. Carter no longer has a reason to kill the rest of us.”

“Unless,” Amanda countered, “he’s not the one who murdered Damien. Despite any sibling rivalry issues, Carter loved his brother.” Amanda addressed Carter. “You weren’t counting on someone killing Damien. And you don’t know who it was. Which gives you the motive of—”

“Revenge,” Carter said.

It was not anger fueling the flames of Carter’s flushing cheeks; nor was it the hand leaping to his throat that choked the words in his mouth, leaving only a faint gurgle. The fire in his face ripened from crimson to maroon, fanning through his body as Carter fell stiffly from his chair to the floor.

Several of the men rushed to Carter’s side. Jonas, kneeling beside the prostrate body, touched two fingers lightly to the side of Carter’s neck. His fingers groped for a pulse.

“He’s dead,” Jonas declared.

27

A
manda, with her
reflexive skepticism, knelt beside the body to expose the hoax. But Carter’s prank was so convincing, it had fooled Death itself.

“He’s dead, all right,” Bryan confirmed after Amanda.

“Poisoned?” Jonas ventured.

Jill pushed her plate away.

Reeve stared at the corpse. “His lips are blue.”

“Cyanide?” Bryan asked Jonas.

“He prepared the meal,” Gideon observed. “So how did his food get tampered with?”

“He might have taken something while he was alone in the kitchen,” Reeve suggested.

“You mean, killed himself?”

“It must be. After all, we all ate the same food.”

“Unless someone poisoned Carter’s meal specifically.”

Bryan looked around. “Did anyone actually see someone touch Carter’s plate?”

No one had. The guests had set the table with preoccupied, and thus inattentive, minds. So, if Carter’s meal had indeed been poisoned, anyone could have been responsible.

Jill’s ear was caught by the sound she realized she should have been hearing, but wasn’t. One might have expected this turn of events to be fodder for Hatter’s obsessive harping on his favorite theme. While all eyes were on Carter’s lifeless body, Jill glanced behind.

“Are you all right, Lawrence?” she asked.

The others turned in time to see Hatter, pale and glazy-eyed, double over, as if bowing from his chair, while clutching his stomach. His head hit the table with a thud.

“Is he dead?” Gideon asked.

As if in answer, Hatter moaned.

“Let me see him.” Jonas pushed roughly toward Hatter. “Whatever he was given, I don’t think he’s had a fatal dose—or he’d be dead by now, like Carter. Here. Drink this.” Jonas encouraged Hatter to drink water from a glass.

“Shouldn’t we try to make him throw up?” Reeve asked.

“No!” Jill cried. “Not yet. It could damage his esophagus, or alimentary canal. Besides, he’s barely conscious. He could end up choking to death on his own—”

“What are you, a doctor?” Reeve asked.

“A home health care provider, actually.”

Jonas looked up at Jill. “See if you can find some milk in the kitchen.”

Jill disappeared through the doorway.

“In the meantime,” Jonas continued, “let’s get him into the drawing room. We can lay him down on the sofa.”

“What about him?” Reeve nodded at Carter.

“There’s nothing we can do for him now. All we can do is take him outside and bury him in the snow with his brother.”

Jonas and Amanda deposited Hatter on the drawing room sofa, while Gideon fetched a blanket from a linen closet to swaddle Hatter’s remaining warmth. Bryan, Reeve, and Aaron conducted Carter’s body outside to bury in the snow. It was the second corpse they had laid to rest in less than twenty-four hours.

It was not to be the last.

28

“H
e could have
killed us all,” Jonas was saying. “Simply by poisoning all the food.”

The guests were assembled in the drawing room, their conversation punctuated by an occasional low moan from Hatter.

“So that’s obviously not the killer’s plan,” Jonas continued, pacing before the fireplace. “Since he only tried to poison Carter and Hatter.”

“And failed, in Hatter’s case,” Reeve pointed out.

“Yes, that’s a significant point,” Gideon added. “It’s the first time the murderer has slipped up.”

But Bryan did not look convinced. “If it was a slip-up.”

All efforts to persuade Bryan to turn up whatever card he had in the hole were futile, and Jonas knew Bryan would not play that card until he was ready.

“Search everyone,” Gideon suggested. “There’s a chance we might find our man with the poison still on him.”

Bryan shook his head. “This killer is no fool. He’s had ample opportunity to get rid of the evidence. You won’t find poison on any of us.”

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Reeve said. “Just give me fifteen minutes with each of you, and I’ll get a confession from the culprit.”