Everyone's Dead But Us (10 page)

I wanted to use Thasos’s keys to examine his room in this complex of old homes. Obviously there was something there he thought was important for me to find. I wasn’t sure I trusted Rufus Seymour, and I knew I didn’t trust Oser. I thought I trusted Craveté, but I wasn’t about to repose unconditional faith in any of them. Alice Gavin and Martikovic were also present. To the assemblage, I said, “Scott and I need to check things out.”

Gavin said, “What about staying together?”

“We’ve got to look into some things. Scott and I will protect each other. I suggest the rest of you stay here together. I think Thasos knew something. He needs protecting.”

“What did he know?” Seymour asked.

“You should tell us everything so we can help,” Craveté said.

I was uneasy with the two of them asking for specifics. I knew I wanted to examine Thasos’s room. I supposed the rich on the island could get into any room they wanted. Frankly any of us could go merrily about looting anything we so wished. I said, “When we find out something substantive, we’ll let you know.”

Gavin snarled, “Bullshit. If you know something, we all need to know that same something.”

I was annoyed, fed up, and ready to bust a few people in the chops. I also couldn’t figure a sane reason to keep the secret. Those who knew about it already would now know we knew about it. And they would do what? Try to kill us? They could kill this many people? For that matter, how much should we trust Thasos? Perhaps his veracity and need to talk had been enhanced by his injuries, or twisted, or he was wrong. He said trust no one. Was I to include him? For now, no one meant everyone, but secrets at this point were stupid. I had no need to keep their secrets. I said, “Fine. Here’s the deal. Thasos is an investigator. From what I could tell from what he told me, a consortium of art museums and maybe collectors hired him. Supposedly there’s some hidden treasure on the island.”

Seymour said, “There are all kinds of silly rumors about this island. Pirates! Crusaders! Terrorists! Balderdash! None of them are true.”

“Wouldn’t it be fabulous,” Craveté said, “even if only a tiny part of it were true?”

I said, “He gave me the key to check out his room. I want to go there with only Scott.”

“We’ll follow you,” Oser said.

Scott said, “For now we’re going in alone. Brute force may not be the best way to enforce the rule of law, but there’s danger. Tom says there’s probably some information that might be important. We’ll share it with you when necessary.” Oser said, “Obviously, you don’t want me left alone with Thasos. I’ll leave. You can set a guard.”

Seymour, Oser, and Gavin didn’t look ready to fight us. Martikovic, her helper, was sitting next to Thasos who at intervals would babble in his semiconscious state.

Oser headed for the outer door. Where exactly his loyalties lay, I wasn’t sure. He was most likely on his way to tattle to Movado and company, but then why had he come to Apritzi House at this time? His worry about his job and not being accused of murder made sense. He was probably on his way to bring the whole lot of the rest of them down on us. I just knew we had to get to Thasos’s room.

Martikovic and Gavin agreed to stay with Thasos. Seymour seemed torn.

I said, “Let’s go.” None of them made to follow.

I was glad I’d pocketed a weapon from the arsenal in Tudor’s villa. Of course, security guards were probably always armed and the rest of them could pay a visit to Tudor’s villa and arm themselves. For that matter, so could the killer. We should probably have pitched all the other weapons and ammunition into the sea.

In the foyer Scott said, “I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“What?”

“Let him clutch my hand.” He shuddered, ducked his head, then took my hand, raised his head again, and kissed my hand. “I love you,” he said. I gave him a brief hug.

We hurried up the stairs to Thasos’s room. His suite was on the third floor. In this renovated block of old homes and businesses the top floors were reserved for the employees who lived on the island year round. The second floor was reserved for the more transient employees, a locker, a shower room, all pleasantly renovated. Nothing shoddy there. The help would enjoy amenities the envy of even the richest pro sports team in America.

I inserted the key into the lock. We entered Thasos’s room. It was late morning. Through his window that looked out on the harbor, I saw the rain still driven by the wind and falling in sheets. The thunder and lightning continued unabated.

His suite was neat and clean. He had a bedroom, bathroom, and a living room with an alcove off it, in which sat a computer and a two-drawer filing cabinet. It was locked, but I had the keys. It was a treasure trove. He was a meticulous file keeper. One section was labeled Suspicions, another Suspects, a third Rumors, a final one Provable. This last was very empty.

Scott said, “This means he wasn’t ready to go to court?”

“Or,” I said, “that there was nothing on the island except rich people, rumors, and old tales.” I paused. “Or that someone got here ahead of us.”

“Are we going to have a lot of time to go through all this?” Scott asked. “Oser must have gone to get the evil cabal.”

“We’ve got to get this crap out of here and hide somewhere with it.” I shoved a pile of files into his arms and grabbed the rest. I pulled my poncho around them as he did with his. We hurried out of the room. I left it locked. I heard angry voices in the foyer.

“The back way,” I said. I hurried in the opposite direction from the voices.

“Is there a back way?” Scott asked, rushing after me.

I had a vision of us leaping from a third-story window, papers flying in the wind and rain, as we landed unpleasantly hard on the mud-infested earth or puddle-strewn concrete.

I said, “I sure as hell hope so.” We plummeted pell-mell down the next set of stairs. An emergency exit on the second floor led out to a set of stairs that climbed up to the roof.

We raced across the rooftop. Near the center, connecting the building to the cliff, was a steep set of stairs. We rushed toward them—dashed up. Halfway up I slipped and almost dropped all the papers. The wind and rain would have made a soggy mush of them in seconds. Scott grabbed me, steadied me. We hurried on.

The steps led to the parapet that stretched the length of the cliff above the harbor. Some of the villas connected to this Great-Wall-of-China-like walkway. We sloshed through puddles. Because we were burdened with the files, we weren’t able to make top speed but hurried along as fast as we could. From the highest point of the headland, I paused and looked back. I saw several people among the remnants of the Port Atrium. I thought I saw one of them point up at us. I leapt back from the edge.

As we reached the meeting of the parapet with the west road from the harbor, I said, “Let’s break into one of the villas. To find us, they’d have to search all of them. It will take a while.”

“I’m sure they’ve picked up weapons.”

“We’re armed.”

“And one of them has got to be a killer. Maybe more than one.”

“I’m open to suggestions.” We puffed along at moderate speed next to each other.

“The cavern?”

“They’d look there eventually.”

“Between now and eventually might or might not be enough time to look at all this.”

“We’ve got to assume someone is going to blab that we went to his room. A killer will assume we have the files. If the killer tried to murder Thasos, then, unless the killer was there before us, and cleaned out anything incriminating, we are now in more danger.”

“Then we’d better read the files as quickly as we can. Where to?”

“The castle library? Or if not that, then the Great Hall. Thasos used his keys to get me into the library once. We’ve got the keys. We can see people coming from up there while being pretty well concealed.”

We’d have to avoid the path from which we could be seen from numerous points. If the killer was sitting on top of the roof of Henry Tudor’s villa, he might see us anyway. Was it likely the killer was there? No. Was it possible there was more than one person in on the murder? Yes. Could they have numerous watchers? Possible. We had to conceal ourselves as best we could. We’d have to avoid the inland path that led to the castle. We would have to come on the castle from over the rough-hewn ground, which would offer more cover. I doubted if it would be a pleasant jog through bramble and gully. Was there another choice? I didn’t think so.

It turned out the brambles and gullies were not the worst thing about cutting across the island. The relentless rain was indeed a pain in the ass. The thunder and lightning were almost continuous. I’m from the Midwest where thunderstorms are part of life, but I’d never felt before as if I were inside one. Twice on our desperate ramble lightning struck within twenty feet of us. The second time I stumbled to the ground and wasn’t sure my ears would ever stop ringing.

But the actual corker was the mud. In fifteen minutes we were a mess from stumbling on the irregular ground, slipping in the clinging muck, and wading through the rivulets and tiny waterfalls that the storm had generated. Clinging to the files and trying to keep them mud-free hampered our efforts at dexterity. The rain would sluice off some of the mess on us, but then we’d slip down into puddles or on mounds of mud and we’d be a mess again. And the rain wasn’t as good as your Kenmore in the basement for cleaning in the first place.

When we arrived at the castle, we looked like little kids who’d found the perfect mud puddle with no parent to supervise or call them in. As we neared the castle, the smell of burning struck my nostrils. I had to try several of Thasos’s keys before I found the correct one. We eased inside the small portal at the base of the spiral staircase. We shook the rain off our ponchos. We scraped off as much mud as we could. We’d seen the valet, who’d been told to stay to watch for flare-ups, at Tudor’s villa.

We examined each other in the dim light. Mud people from the planet Zordan had nothing on us. Through the windows, we had seen that all the paintings in the Great Hall were gone. The staircase up to the library was on the far side of the Great Hall from the tower. You couldn’t actually get into the hall from the library. The staircase was encircled in brick to match its own shape. Another small door led from it to the Great Hall. Below the library was the kitchen. From the library windows you could see both the harbor and the landward approaches to the castle.

Behind the library doors the smell of wet and burning wasn’t as strong. The books were undisturbed. It looked like any other rich person’s library in a movie, built-in bookcases, everything stunningly neat. An enormous globe sat under a gorgeous stained-glass window. We moved the globe, then placed two mahogany desks together so we could take advantage of the gray lurking through the windows. We made sure every window shutter was almost completely closed. We left them open an inch or so to provide us a view of anyone approaching. We sat ourselves so we could observe the landscape through narrow openings. It was the best we could do for now. Shelves of books stacked to the ceiling concealed us east and west. We put several large volumes around the flashlight and huddled near a small opening we created.

I glanced at the books. Everything was impeccably dusted. I ran my hand over a few of them—a first edition of
Sex and
by Radcliffe Hall, a signed copy of
Sex and
I wished I had years to examine this treasure trove instead of seconds. We might be discovered at any moment.

If we were discovered, we’d certainly hear them opening the door below and have some time to hide the files. We found the bottom of a lectern with a silk cover draped over an out-of-date speaker system. I said, “If we need to, we can hide the papers here.”

“Where a demented troll after a brief search would find them.”

“Any better ideas?”

“Well, no. We can lock the door behind us. Although at least some of the rest of them must have keys.”

“Most likely.”

As we spread out the piles of paper we’d ripped off from Dimitri Thasos’s rooms, I said, “You know what’s odd. I don’t remember a lot of tears for Henry Tudor. A bit of shock and the edge of hysteria, but no sadness, no regret, no ‘We’ll miss him.’”

Scott said, “The rich are trained to hide their emotions better, or nobody liked him, or they’re all in on it.”

We turned to the papers. Thasos had dossiers on all the current inhabitants of the island. One of his first notes was that the same seven men had spent New Year’s and the week after on the island for the past ten years. One was Tudor, the owner, which made sense; it’s where he lived. The other six were Movado, O’Quinn, Seymour, Fitzgerald, Klimpton, and Deplonte.

Thasos had written notes.

They’re the old guard and not to be trusted. Whenever any two of them are here, trips are made to the castle. I can get into the library at times. I love to read, but I am always watched.

Henry Tudor is not to be trusted. He suspects me. I have no idea how he came to suspect me. I think he’s playing me to see how much of a threat I represent. To keep anyone from getting suspicious, I try very hard to do my staff job here very well. Maybe I’m just feeling guilt. He would need to know who is backing me in this expedition. I think he’s done murder before. He’s been on this island a long time. The timing of disappearances before he owned the island always coincided with his presence on the island. A requirement for inheriting the island— murder, or a ritual, part of which required you to do something to protect the gay heritage? Ritual murders? Or were they trying to protect their asses from being robbed blind of what they have robbed others blind to get? I don’t avoid him. The slightest out-of-character action is grounds for suspicion. The place is too small. Tudor knows everything that happens on this island. You’d think he had hidden cameras in each of the villas. He doesn’t. I checked. At least I think he doesn’t. There are areas in his villa and in the castle to which I have not been able to gain access during my three years here. He is a frightening man. When he’s away from the guests, he is a monster to the staff. And if what I suspect is true, do I want to reveal an evil cabal of gay thieves stretching back for centuries?

Wayne Craveté is a joke. They make fun of him ceaselessly.

Tom Mason and Scott Carpenter get laughed at somewhat although they are considered to be studs and very hot. Being that studly with decent money although not old money makes some difference. Funny how they rent the cheapest place on the island. I like them. I believe they are really in love. They spend enough time in their room for any six guests. And they are always holding hands or doing something endearing.

There were lists of people we didn’t know.

I have not found any treasure yet. Certainly there is a great deal displayed out in the open. Real Picassos purchased at real auctions and Impressionist paintings up the wazoo. Nothing provably illegal. Nothing definite. If there’s a treasure room of stolen goods, it has to be connected to the castle. I’ve watched and I’ve spied as surreptitiously as possible. It must be the castle. None of the villas hold the same secretive aura as the castle. I’ve even tried digging around that entrance to the old gold mine on the island. It’s a nice little place for trysting, but it’s all solid rock.

I hate Oser. He is suspicious of everyone and everything. He’s a perfect totalitarian prig and has been around longer than dirt. If it was the ‘30s or ‘40s Conrad Veidt would play his character, who would be having an extremely Nazi day. He is totally dedicated to Henry Tudor.

Movado is nasty and tricky. Sometimes he’s the most affable of all the guests, but his dictatorial instincts match Oser’s. I keep getting the rumor that Movado does snuff films. I have not found any truth to this although the help avoids him as carefully as they dare. I’ve seen him turn in an instant from warm, fuzzy to bitchy, brutal. Woe to any of the help who crosses him in the slightest. I’ve seen him beat the hell out of one of the locals from Santorini.

For whatever reason, only certain guests are allowed in the Great Hall of the castle. I’ve tried to document who or what the criterion is for allowing someone in. I believe there is one day a year when new guests are admitted or perhaps there is some kind of initiation, a ritual. None of the servants ever goes there. The rich rarely eat there and if they do, one of them brings the food over from Santorini, and no one is asked to help. I’ve tried sneaking looks through the stained glass windows late at night. I never see all the guests who I saw go into the Great Hall in the Great Hall at the same time. They could be in the bathroom or in the kitchen, but who would be cooking? Nobody ever brings that much food. I have suspicions. It could be a secret gay society with passwords and complex handshakes. It could be friends drinking brandy and smoking cigars. I’ve snuck into the Great Hall several times. Each time around four in the morning long after everyone is gone. I have found nothing suspicious. I took my pencil flashlight. It was difficult to show it in the Great Hall. I tried on moonlit nights. The Great Hall is beautiful at those times. Moonlight streaming through stained glass is wondrous to behold and the stained glass windows are marvels of color. It’s a shame so few get to see the interior at any time. I’m sure there are no secret rooms or passages off the Great Hall. The walls are solid rock. The kitchen revealed nothing. It is just off the Great Hall. The door between them does not creak as it would if it was in an old horror movie. The kitchen looks stunningly unused. I spent even more time there. I could find no secret passages leading from it.