With great difficulty, Mitch tried to formulate a coherent sentence out of the words that were tumbling around in the cotton batting inside of his head. He wanted to ask the man a simple, straightforward question: “Why in the hell did you hit me, Les?” But he couldn’t seem to get the words out. His vocal chords were too far away. And yet his brain was beginning to clear. And it was starting to dawn upon him that Les was lying on the dirt floor, too, one ear pressed to the ground as if he were listening for the thundering onrush of Choo-Choo Cholly. And not so much studying Mitch as he was staring at him. Not even blinking. Just staring and staring and…
Les is dead.
This realization came to Mitch like a splash of ice water in the face. When it did, he immediately let out a strangled yelp of shock and scrambled away from the man, the back of his head throbbing. He put a hand to it and he came way with blood. Someone had definitely hit him. But not Les. It wasn’t Les.
Les is dead.
The innkeeper lay on his stomach with a hatchet embedded deep in the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter were splattered everywhere. It was a truly horrible sight to gaze upon. Mitch willed himself to dab a finger in the puddle of blood on the ground next to the man’s head. Still warm despite the freezing cold of the woodshed. Les had been dead only a few moments.
No one has corne looking for us yet. No one knows.
As he knelt there, the wind and snow swirling outside the open barn doors, it suddenly dawned on Mitch that Les’s killer could still be there in the woodshed with him. Drawing his breath in, he flicked his eyes around at the clutter of tools, searching every dimly lit recess. But no one else was there. Just he and Les. The killer had fled.
A hickory log the approximate thickness of a Louisville Slugger lay on the floor at Les’s feet. It had blood on it. Mitch guessed that it was his own, that this was the weapon that had knocked him out. Whoever killed Les had wanted him out of the way. And yet, apparently, not dead. Because I’m not. Which seemed like a highly selective form of mental processing for someone who had to be a psychopathic crazy. Not that Mitch was complaining. He just didn’t get it.
Why am I still alive?
He realized he didn’t know. And, as he climbed slowly to his feet, he realized he had spatters of Les’s blood and brains all over his Eddie Bauer goose-down jacket. His stomach did an immediate flip-flop and he lost his skillfully reheated breakfast onto the ground. Dizzy and sick, he staggered over to the tool bench, found a rag and swiped at his jacket with it, knowing that he truly did not belong here. He belonged in the Film Forum watching a nice, harmless Martin and Lewis double bill, maybe The Caddy and Jumping jacks. With maybe a jumbo-sized box of hot buttered… Okay, forget the hot buttered popcorn, he commanded himself as his stomach flip-flopped again. But do what you have to do. Go after Less killer. He can’t have gone far. Les is still warm, remember? Go on, get your plump heinie out of here…
Mitch’s legs felt like a pair of wobbly broomsticks. And he was still as dizzy as hell. But he also felt a focused alertness coming over him. He had a job to do. He made it over to the open doorway, swaying there like a young sapling, and squinted out at the snow, his eyes searching for movement of any kind, a dab of color from someone’s jacket. He saw no movement, nothing. Now he turned his faltering attention to the snow. There were no footprints leading from the woodshed off toward the woods or the parking lot. Only the footprints he and Les had made on their way out here from the kitchen, still deep and fresh. But as Mitch studied their prints more closely, he realized that there were in fact three sets of prints heading out here-and another set that originated in the shed doorway and led back toward the castle’s kitchen door. Translation: Whoever killed Les had come and gone from the castle. And was probably back in there right now with Des and the others.
“Des!” Mitch called out, his voice straining against the howling wind. “Desss…!”
No use. The looming castle was too far away, its walls made of solid stone. She would never be able to hear him in there.
Flashbulbs suddenly started popping right before his eyes. He felt as if he might pass out again. He dropped to one knee in the shed doorway, breathed deeply in and out. He grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed his face with it, feeling its wet, stinging cold.
Slowly, he got back up and started his way back across the courtyard, making sure to avoid the killer’s footprints, his own feet clumsy blocks of wood beneath him in the crunchy ice and snow. With each gust of wind he could feel himself start to pitch over. Twice in the first ten steps he took, Mitch did go down. But he got back up both times, spitting snow out of his mouth. He had to get back up. If he stayed down, he would end up like Les. So he kept walking, one foot in front of the other, left foot, right foot… He was going to make it. Mitch knew this. He knew it because he had prepared for it-marched his way across the frozen tundra of Big Sister each and every morning. He could do this. He would do this. Even if he did keep falling over. Even if this was starting to remind him less of his morning rounds than of Omar Sharif’s epic trek across Siberia in Dr. Zhivago… Left foot, right foot… Zhivago trying to get back from the front lines to his beloved Lara, to Julie Christie… Left foot, right foot… Once again, Mitch pitched over into the snow. This time, he really, really wanted to stay down. The snow felt so soft, like a pillow. He could sleep. He wanted to sleep. It was so hard to stay awake. But no, he had to get up. He must get up. Chest heaving, he climbed back onto his feet and resumed… Left foot, right foot… Left foot, right foot…
Now he was closing in on the kitchen porch. He’d nearly made it. It was slushy there under the overhang. Many wet shoe prints, none leading off anywhere else. Les’s killer had come this way.
Mitch threw open the door, immediately hearing Teddy and that damned piano. An old Ellington song. The kitchen floor was dry. The killer had taken off his boots before he came in. And done what, hidden them somewhere? Where was the killer now? And how on earth had he gotten in and out when Des was watching the hallway? Was everyone upstairs dead, too? Was Des dead?
He called out her name. Once, twice, three times. Heard the piano stop, heard footsteps.
And then Teddy came rushing across the kitchen toward him, looking pale and frightened. “My God, Mitch, what’s happened?”
“Des,” he groaned. “Have to see Des.”
And now he was staggering past Teddy out into the entry hall, groping his way blindly up the stairs, blinking from all of those flashbulbs that kept popping, popping… “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille…” Teddy was calling after him, panic in his voice. But he was doing okay. He was making the climb on his legs of Silly Putty, getting there, getting there, almost there…
Only it wasn’t Des whom he encountered at the top of the stairs. It was Carly. She let out a horrified gasp at the sight of him, and Mitch could feel himself starting to pass out. His head was a balloon on a very long string, bouncing up, up, up against the ceiling. One of the people way, way down below was Des. Alive, thank God. He saw her jump to her feet.
Heard her cry out, “What happened to your head?”
And, whoosh, there went the air right out of Mitch’s balloon. As he came zoom-zooming all the way back down from the ceiling, he croaked, “Les… the woodshed…” And then the hallway floor suddenly tilted to a forty-five-degree angle and headed right for him and he was gone again.
When he came to this time, Mitch was lying on the hallway floor with everyone standing over him looking terrified. All except for Des, who wasn’t around. And Hannah, who was kneeling on the carpet beside him, waving something stinky under his nose. Ammonia. It was ammonia.
“What’s your name?” she barked as she shone a flashlight into his eyes.
“I’m Mitch,” he replied hoarsely. “We’ve already met, haven’t we?”