Pleasantly Dead (9 page)

“She came at six as always. She likes to have a cup of my excellent coffee before she starts the day. I did not see her after that. Usually, she cleans the common areas until near seven. Then she makes her rounds.”

“Starting at the cottages?”

“Yes, in spite of swilling liquor all night, the guests are lined up like pigs at the trough the minute the dining room opens at seven. I should just step out onto the veranda and shout sooey.”

“You’re a sarcastic man.”

Gregoire shrugged. “It’s behind-the-scenes humour. I assure you, I am a paragon of propriety in the presence of the guests.” He washed his hands, picked up a red pepper and a cleaver. “As for the others…Trudy Popkie and Melba Millotte come in at a quarter to seven. They check in with me when they arrive since, theoretically, I am master of my domain.”

“And they were on time?”

“Yes.”

“What about the guests?”

Gregoire halved the pepper with a blow. “You would have to check with the wait staff. I have not had my nose outside the kitchen since I arrived.”

The guests had left the dining room. Tim sat in the corner near the kitchen with Melba Millotte, an older woman, and Trudy Popkie, a dumpy high-school student. Mrs. Millotte was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. Brisbois pulled up a chair and sat down. Creighton leaned against the wall.

“I was wondering what you could tell me about the whereabouts of the guests this morning.”

“Most of them were milling around in the lobby a few minutes before the doors opened,” Tim said. “Except the Benson sisters in the Elm Pavilion.”

“The Benson sisters?” Brisbois flipped through his notebook.

“You’ve probably seen them sitting on their veranda. The youngest one is eighty-eight. They arrive here by limousine and never put a foot off the veranda until their chauffeur pries them off near the middle of October.”

“The Sawchucks had breakfast in their room this morning,” Mrs. Millotte said without looking up from her paper. “She has arthritis. When it’s acting up, she can’t get going until after nine. He has prostate trouble and likewise.”

“You seem to know them rather well.”

“They’ve been coming here since Trigger was a colt. Even before Rudley. They spent their honeymoon here.”

“Who took their breakfast up?”

Trudy put up her hand.

“And they were both there?”

“They were in bed. I had to help Mrs. Sawchuck get her legs over the side.”

“And everybody else?”

“Mr. Leslie wasn’t here,” Tim said.

“Obviously.”

“Mr. Thomas and Mr. Phipps-Walker were fishing,” Tim said. “Simpson wasn’t here. Miss Miller came looking for him. When we told her we hadn’t seen him, she went back upstairs.”

“What time was that?”

“About twenty after seven.”

“She’s got her cap set for him,” Mrs. Millotte said.

“So Miss Miller went to get Mr. Simpson.” Brisbois turned a page. “When did she come back?”

“She didn’t. Neither did he.”

“Pretty hot and heavy?”

“Since she set eyes on him.”

Brisbois turned to Creighton. “Go see where they are. Don’t tell them anything. Just say I want to see them.” He turned back. “Did anyone see Leslie this morning?”

Tim and Mrs. Millotte shook their heads. Trudy looked down.

“Trudy?”

“No.”

Brisbois was planning his next line of questioning when Creighton reappeared. He leaned over and whispered in Brisbois’ ear. “Message delivered. By the way things looked, it may be a while before we see them.”

“Okay.” Brisbois turned back in his chair. “Did Leslie have any problems with anyone here that you know of?”

The staff looked at one other.

“I don’t think Mr. Thomas liked him too much,” Tim said. “Nothing dramatic. He just didn’t seem to want to give him the time of day.”

“I didn’t like him,” Mrs. Millotte said. “He was a womanizer. I don’t like men like that.” She gave Brisbois a long stare and returned to her newspaper. “But I didn’t kill him.”

“This place works to a definite rhythm,” Brisbois said. “Everyone has a routine that might as well be engraved in stone. The maid starts in the lobby. She goes to the cottages, starting with the most distant and works her way back. She does the rooms in the main inn last.”

Brisbois was pacing. After interrogating the staff, he and Creighton had returned to Rudley’s office.

“You’d think she’d start at the nearest. Lighten up her load as she goes along.”

“She has to pick up the dirty linen so it probably doesn’t make much difference.”

“What does she do if someone has a
DND
sign on?”

“She goes back later. According to Rudley, that doesn’t happen very often. The guests like to get up early, have breakfast, get out on the lake, whatever.”

“Except for our two lovebirds.”

Brisbois turned his chair to face the wall, swung back, oscillated. “Leslie’s murder has to be an inside job. The killer would have to know the routine.”

Creighton tapped his notebook. “Could be a local, someone who comes here to do work, make deliveries.” He shrugged. “What I don’t understand is why didn’t Leslie have a
DND
sign on his door. If he was going to have a bath, you’d think he’d put out his sign. Otherwise the maid would walk in on him.”

“Maybe he didn’t care if she caught him in the buff.”

“Yeah. Mrs. Millotte said he was a womanizer.”

“Maybe he did put up the
DND
sign,” Brisbois said. “Maybe the murderer took it off to make sure the maid would unlock the door. Or” — he paused — “maybe he didn’t put the sign up because he was expecting someone and that someone murdered him.”

“An inside job.”

Brisbois nodded. “Who do you think did it, Creighton? Who would you pick?”

Creighton laughed. “I think they’re the biggest bunch of fruitcakes I’ve met in one place. But it’s hard to see any of them as a killer.”

“Motive?”

“It wasn’t robbery. Must be revenge, or love gone wrong, which is the same, I guess.”

“One murderer? Two murderers?”

Creighton shrugged. “There doesn’t seem to be any connection between the two. Unless whoever killed John Doe in the wine cellar thought Leslie knew something.”

“Leslie wasn’t here when John Doe bought the farm.”

“Maybe he picked something up in conversation. Maybe he knew something he didn’t even know he knew. The murderer got nervous and killed him.”

“Interesting angle, Creighton. Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to jog his memory.”

“Maybe they all know something they don’t know they know. You said yourself the place thrives on routine. Damn near worships it. They know so much about what each other’s doing at any one time — maybe they can’t get beyond that. They assume something happened a particular way because that’s the way it always happens. Now, Lloyd — ”

“What about him?”

“He’s everywhere. He sees everything. He’s kind of a chameleon. You don’t see him, but when someone yells, he’s there as if he’s been there all the time. Sort of blends into the wallpaper.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Brisbois said. “But he seems kind of dense.”

“I think he’s one of those people who assumes everybody’s smarter than he is. He wouldn’t necessarily say what he knows because he assumes smarter folks would have thought of it.”

Brisbois gave him a surprised look. “I think you’re on to something, Creighton.”

Lloyd was in the garden when he spotted Brisbois and Creighton moving down the flagstone path toward him. He watched them for a moment, then returned to his work.

The garden was no idle indulgence. His greens provided salad for the Pleasant all summer. His corn was a hit at the mid-summer hoedown along with his new potatoes, carrots, and summer squash.

Lloyd liked working at the Pleasant. He had been working in the feed store before Rudley hired him. The feed store was all right, but he liked working in the fresh air, so it wasn’t hard to leave. He liked to wake up early and listen to the birds before rolling out of his cot in the tool shed. He had a room in the bunkhouse, but he found it too noisy. In the winter, Mrs. Rudley made him sleep inside. Mr. Rudley said if he wanted to freeze his ass, it was his business, but Mrs. Rudley won the argument, so he guessed it was her business. She didn’t say that, of course. She said the shed was drafty and unheated and he would get pneumonia and die. He missed being close to the air, but it was hard to say no to Mrs. Rudley.

The tool shed had a big transom-like window. He could push it up and it would be just like being outdoors. The bugs got in, but he didn’t worry about that. Bugs never bothered him; mosquitoes never bit him. Mrs. Phipps-Walker said it was because he had the wrong blood type. Tim said it was because he never bathed except in the lake, therefore he smelled like a fish and the bugs wanted no part of him. He knew Tim was joking, but he thought he might be right.

He thought it was funny the way the police did things. He wasn’t sure if they were that smart. They were like most people, he guessed, looking for things in strange places when what they wanted was right under their noses. Rudley was like that too. He thought if he couldn’t find something, it must be lost. He couldn’t get it through his head that he just wasn’t looking where it was.

Lloyd told people his parents lived down east and he had come up here on the train, looking for a job because he had heard it was a good part of the country to find one. People then started asking why he never went home. So, after what he thought was a decent interval, he told them his parents had died. The truth was they were alive and well and living about twenty miles east of the inn, where his ancestors had lived for generations. He took Rudley’s truck to visit them often. He didn’t feel bad about being untruthful. And after he made his parents dead he couldn’t make them alive again. Besides, he’d learned that people liked to hear tragic stories. He’d once heard Mrs. Rudley tell Gregoire he was to give him all the pie he wanted: “Give Lloyd all the pie he wants, Gregoire. He’s an orphan.” That’s what she said.

He thought of his parents as he saw Brisbois and Creighton picking their way up the uneven path. His parents, who were aware of his tendency to change things to suit the situation, told him it was all right as long as he never lied to a minister or a policeman. He didn’t know which of the two it was worse to lie to so he decided it would be best to be accurate with the police. Ministers didn’t always seem to like the truth. He usually told Rudley that things were the way he thought most people would say they were because Rudley seemed a lot like the police — mad all the time and as suspicious as a hen with an egg.

The police were stopping periodically. He realized they were examining the plants along the path. Most of the plants were herbs, but he didn’t think the police would know that. Gregoire loved his herbs and for that reason allowed him into the kitchen to get the first of anything good. He’d found he could give most people something they liked: Gregoire liked his herbs. Tiffany liked the way he moved furniture for her on washing days. Mrs. Rudley liked him being sweet: “Lloyd is sweet” she liked to say. Tim liked him because he listened to his jokes. Rudley liked him because he had good ears and could hear him muttering almost as well as he could hear him yelling. He didn’t think Rudley realized he yelled because sometimes he kept his voice up when he was standing right in front of him. But maybe that went along with the business of not being able to see what was in front of you, and Rudley never did.

The police thought they saw what was in front of them and what was behind them too. He knew their eyes weren’t as good as they thought. There was something he knew they didn’t know and he hoped they wouldn’t ask. He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. He turned sideways to the path, hoping they might not see him.

“They make good use of the land here,” Brisbois said. “They’ve planted herbs all along the path.”

“Oh, I thought those were weeds.”

“No,” Brisbois said, pointing, “there’s basil and dill and rosemary. And there’s some summer savoury. I should try that.”

“I didn’t know you were a gardener.”

“You’ve never been at my place. I’ve got the best perennial garden in my neighbourhood.”

“There’s Lloyd,” said Creighton who had nothing to offer about horticulture. “He’d make a good scarecrow.”

“He’d make a good something.” Brisbois was still miffed about the wet socks. He tightened his tie and strode to the edge of the garden. “Lloyd.”

“You were wanting me?” Lloyd said without turning.

“You ran off before I had a chance to talk to you this morning.”

“I had to hoe the beans.”

“Come on over here.” Brisbois gestured toward a rough log bench parallel to the garden.

“Okay.” Lloyd put the hoe down. He ambled over to the bench, sat down, and gave Brisbois a grin.

“I have some questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“What time did you start work here?”

“Maybe five years.”

“I mean this morning.”

“Around nine.”

“I didn’t mean here in the garden. I meant what time did you start your day?”

“When I got up.”

“And what time was that?”

“After I woke up.”

Brisbois dug his hands into his thighs. “Are you giving me the runaround, Lloyd?”

“I’m trying to tell you like it is. I get up after I wake up. Then I work.”

“Any special time?”

“Usually as soon as the sun comes up.”

“What about this morning?”

“Early. But I didn’t get up right away. There was a chipmunk walking around. She comes to get the crumbs I put down. So I just lay there quiet for a long time. Maybe six-thirty on my watch.”

“So you were awake at six-thirty.”

“Yup.”

“What time did you leave the bunkhouse?”

“I weren’t in the bunkhouse.”

“Where were you?”

“In the tool shed.”

“The one behind the inn?”

“That one.”

“Did you happen to see Mr. Leslie this morning? While he was still alive, I mean.”

“Did.”

“And what time was that?”