Death Is a Cabaret Read online

  They were right. Two people were dead, and he couldn’t rule out anyone as suspect.

  He knotted his dark red silk tie, then studied his handiwork in the mirror. A vision of Davenport swinging from the balcony came to him, and he wedged his index finger between the shirt’s top button and his neck and tugged slightly.

  The auctioneer’s suicide had something to do with Hamilton’s murder, Jeff knew it. Both were here for the antique festival, and both were dead. Davenport was to conduct an auction that would include the cabaret set. Hamilton, Jeff had learned from Trudy, had meant to procure it, probably at any cost.

  Maybe Hamilton and Davenport didn’t know each other. Jeff had assumed they did, but hundreds of people attended this event each year. It was just as likely that the two had never actually met. If Hamilton had known Davenport at all, it may have been in the same way Jeff did, by reading the auctioneer’s articles in the trade magazines. Jeff suspected that Hamilton himself had hidden the German document in the Raviro clock. At the same time, he had to admit that it might just be a coincidence, that the document might have nothing to do with the two dead men. The information Sheila had given him was interesting, but it didn’t prove anything.

  Hell, he thought, that document might have been stowed away in the little piano for years, its value—if it had any collectible value—deteriorating with exposure to metal and air and silverfish. It may very well have been inside the piano when the antique clock was acquired by the hotel. Jeff, who had always taken a certain pride in locating hidden passageways and secret compartments, had only stumbled upon the hinged piano lid after giving up his search of everything else.

  Jeff put on his black suit coat and slid his wallet into the breast pocket. From the nightstand he took two folded sheets of paper—the German document and his notes from the conversations with Sheila and Gordy—and slipped them behind the wallet.

  Many developments had transpired since he’d last spoken with the detective in charge of the case—or cases, now that two people were dead. Jeff needed to track Brookner down before joining the Hursts for dinner. He took one last look at himself in the mirror.

  “Not too shabby,” he said to his reflection, “as long as I don’t stand next to Ben Hurst.”

  Hurst. Jeff had almost forgotten the punch. He leaned in and examined his cheek.

  The flesh was chafed red, but the scratch was no more than an inch long. Since everyone would be dressed to the nines, his injury probably wouldn’t even be noticed.

  He grabbed his key and hurried out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  When no one answered Jeff’s knock on the interrogation room door, he tried the knob and found it was unlocked. He opened it a few inches and glanced inside. A strip of light from the hallway’s overhead fixture stretched diagonally across a bare desk. Jeff swung the door open. Now he could see that a telephone was on the desk’s far corner, but everything he’d seen there earlier—file folders, fax sheets, coffee mugs, half-eaten doughnuts, photos, maps—was gone. The room smelled of furniture polish and looked as if it had been vacant for years.

  An odd sensation washed over him, as if he’d dreamed the day’s bizarre chain of events during a disjointed sleep brought on by jet lag and stress.

  He pulled the door shut and had started back down the hall, trying to decide what to do next, when Mel Littlefield rounded the corner.

  She saw him and let out a whoop: fitting, considering her Indian ancestry. “Spacey has his work cut out for him tonight.”

  “Thanks, Officer.” His response was a little too exuberant. He laid the blame more on the reassurance that he wasn’t trapped in a nightmare than on the compliment.

  “What happened in there?” He nodded toward the office.

  “Never mind that. What happened to your eye?”

  Jeff missed a beat. “I had a run-in with a clothes hanger.”

  “Yeah? What was her name?”

  Jeff ignored the question. “Your interrogation room looks like my desk used to when I’d sewn up a case. I couldn’t wait to box it all up and be rid of it.”

  “Not the case here—sewing it up, I mean. The boss was talking about getting away from here for a while. Couldn’t just leave everything, so I took it all downtown to the chief’s office.”

  “You haven’t seen Brookner, have you?”

  “The boss? Just left him out front.”

  Jeff turned to go.

  “Watch out for those fancy hangers, Mr. Talbot. They’ll get you every time.”

  He exited the hotel on the Parlor level and descended the red-carpeted steps. Clouds overhead had darkened since he was last outside. The wind whipped and snapped the row of flags along the front porch, like wash on a line. Brookner had his back to him and was leaning over the wrought-iron fence that separated the sidewalk from the Tea Garden below.

  “Brookner!” Jeff was glad to see the crusty detective, further proof that he wasn’t losing his mind. He pulled the two pieces of paper from his pocket and the wind tried to snatch them from his hand. He tightened his grip. “I’ll bet a bottle of whiskey against that steak you’re looking forward to that I’ve turned up more than you have today.”

  “Steak? Oh, right.” Brookner eked one more draw out of a cigarette, then squashed it on the sidewalk and kicked it into the flower bed. “No steak on my menu tonight. I’ll take that bet, though. I’ve learned a thing or—what the hell?” He examined Jeff’s cheek. “You’re the one needs a steak.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “What happened?”

  He hesitated. “I caught a stray buggy whip.”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what I would’ve guessed. Get five or six of those a week. Real common.” He stared at Jeff a minute. “Care to try again?”

  Jeff was debating his comeback when a kid plodded up the sidewalk grumbling to himself. He looked to be about fifteen and was dressed like a real working cowboy from the waist down: both jeans and boots were well-worn and as dusty as Oklahoma in ‘32. Waist up, he had on a Mackinac Island T-shirt that had also been a party to the Dust Bowl and listed the top ten lies a Mackinac Islander will tell you—the only one Jeff could make out under the dirt was You’ll Get Used to the Smell—and a cap with painted-on seagull droppings.

  “Shawn McGuire, is that you?” Brookner fought a grin as he spoke. “Damn me, but I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen you on foot. Somebody steal all your horses?”

  Shawn stopped. “Same as. Some damn fool we rented to didn’t pay attention to the sign telling amateurs to stay off the cliff road. Got spooked, naturally, and parked Dan and Pat and my best buggy in Haskell’s yard.” The boy looked toward the cliff beyond the Grand. “Storm’s coming, too, which will only make it worse. Pat’s so damn curious she might decide to take a gander at what’s over that ledge before I get there.” Shawn nodded to the men and started trotting up the hill.

  “Hang on there, Shawn.” Brookner looked at Jeff. “You been on a carriage ride yet?”

  Jeff shook his head.

  Brookner turned back to the boy. “I’ll get it for you if you can give me an hour or so before you need it back.”

  Shawn shrugged. “Sounds good to me. I gotta go tend to the others and check harness for tomorrow’s boatloads of greenhorns. Bring ‘em to the house when you’re through and I’ll put them to bed.” Shawn turned and went back down the hill.

  Brookner started walking. Jeff followed.

  It was a steep climb. Brookner didn’t talk, thank God. Jeff wasn’t sure if he could match the detective’s pace and carry on a conversation. A string of Victorian mansions faced the Straits. At the top, Brookner told him that most were summer homes.

  Jeff took in the view while Brookner expertly backed the team and carriage, then turned them onto the narrow road that led back down to the hotel.

  “You’ve done this before.” Jeff hoisted himself onto the seat next to Brookner. Suddenly he felt silly in his French cuffs and patent leather shoes. />
  Brookner held the reins tight while they made their way down the steep hill. “I worked summers up here when I was Shawn’s age, driving delivery wagons. Covered every square inch of this island.”

  After they’d made it down below the hotel’s property, Brookner reined the team into a right turn and took the same route Jeff had walked earlier along the boardwalk. “Being a guest of the Grand probably means you haven’t eaten at any of the downtown establishments.”

  Jeff wasn’t sure why, but he felt defensive. Although staying at the Grand gave a feeling of eliteness, he’d found it was interpreted as snobbishness by some. “Actually, I had lunch today at the fort.”

  “Doesn’t count. It’s run by the Grand.”

  “Come on. You’re telling me the fort’s run by the Grand Hotel?”

  “Not the fort. The restaurant.”

  “It’s called a tea room.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  Jeff laughed. “I didn’t realize I sounded like such a fussy ass.”

  Brookner waved him off. “All depends on the kind of company you keep, I suppose. Do you appreciate good barbecue?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  Brookner looked at his clothes. “Afraid you’ll mess up your fancy duds?”

  “We have dry cleaners in Seattle.”

  “Hang on, then. You’re in for a treat.” Brookner expertly worked the team and buggy around small knots of tourists and cabs picking up groups of people in garb similar to Jeff’s. The detective used several choice curse words, obviously irritated with pedestrians who seemed oblivious to traffic. “I wonder if they think they can’t get run over by horses? Damned fools.”

  “Maybe you can explain something. When I was driving the rental from Pellston Airport, I saw three different designs on Michigan’s license tags. What do you do, give your inmates multiple choice?”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it? Bottom line is revenue. The old secretary of state saw no reason to change the tags when a lot of other states were going with fancier ones. Said the blue and white was just fine.

  “Then we got a new secretary—a female. I don’t know where that car idea came from; you have to be standing over it with a magnifying glass to tell what the hell it is. About a dozen rear-end collisions got blamed on it—people getting too close tryin’ to make it out. Anyhow, then we got the one with the bridge at sunset. Now we got construction everywhere you take a mind to drive. Revenue.”

  “What about the two pronunciations of Mackinac? I know it’s the French spelling, but I keep hearing people say both ‘Mackinaw’ and ‘Mackinak.’”

  “That’s because they’re idiots. It’s all ‘Mackinaw.’ And before you ask, we’re Michiganians, not Michiganders. It was less of a problem before the state legislature officially announced that we’re Michiganians.”

  “It all sounds like a conspiracy theory to confuse out-of-staters.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I doubt much would surprise you.”

  “You got that right.”

  They followed the street along the harbor, and it wasn’t long till Jeff could smell the spicy sweet aroma of sauce and hickory. “What’s a barbecue joint doing down here?”

  “Not even a joint, actually. Guy by the name of Brian cooks it in front of his mother’s bed-and-breakfast. Usually just for lunch, but he’s cooking for a fund-raiser tonight.”

  “Fund-raiser?”

  “Yep. A gal in the city offices just had cancer surgery. The true islanders—the folks who stay here year round—are a close-knit group. Have to be when you live isolated like they do.”

  Brookner pulled the team to a stop. Jeff pulled a bill from his wallet and handed it to Brookner.

  “Shit, Talbot. Barbecue don’t cost fifty bucks, even on Mackinac Island.”

  “I like to help out when I can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Brookner returned, carrying a large brown paper bag with grease stains freckling the sides and a couple of cans of pop stacked end to end. He set the items in the buggy’s floor, then climbed to his seat and unpacked the goods. A sizeable wad of paper napkins went to Jeff, followed by a Styrofoam container with a plastic fork handle sticking through the lid. Next, he handed Jeff a can of pop. When he snapped the lid off a twin to Jeff’s Styrofoam bowl and started eating potato salad, Jeff followed suit.

  Brookner said something to the team, and the horses started down the street. Jeff wasn’t aware that you could put horses on autopilot. The two men ate and talked small talk while the horses pulled the buggy down the street. This area was very different from the bustle of downtown. Bed-and-breakfasts were to the left, with guests gathered in white wicker on front porches. On the right were places that reminded him of the fishing cabins along the lakes where he fished with Gordy.

  When they’d finished the potato salad, Brookner reached in the bag again and pulled out two enormous disks wrapped in white butcher paper. He handed one to Jeff, then unwrapped the other and aproned the white paper around the sandwich. When in Rome, Jeff thought, and once again mimicked the detective’s approach.

  Brookner took a bite, groaned something as near to orgasmic as Jeff cared to hear from any man, then continued eating in silence. Jeff wondered whether the detective was exercising a long-established habit of not talking business over meals or whether the barbecue was really that good. Either, Jeff decided, was acceptable.

  He took a bite. His eighty-dollar shirt didn’t matter anymore. He’d buy another one if he had to. This was the best barbecue, the most tender pulled beef he’d ever had. He felt like he was somehow cheating on his chef-wife.

  “Okay, Talbot.” Brookner sucked barbecue sauce from his fingers, then wadded the white butcher paper and deposited it in the brown bag between his feet. “Tell me what you got.”

  Jeff hadn’t finished his sandwich, but he was on the detective’s turf. He did as he was told. He reported the background information Gordy Easthope had gathered on the Hursts, Hamilton, Davenport, and the three old ladies. He told about the surprise run-in with Trudy Blessing, and how he’d learned that she was Hamilton’s sister. He added the news about Jennifer Hurst’s engagement to Hamilton. He finished up with the document he’d found in Hamilton’s suite, and what Sheila had learned about it over the Internet.

  Brookner was visibly surprised. “I’d like to know how in the hell you got the feds to cooperate so easily. God knows I never seem to have much luck with them.”

  “I’m helping you, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess you do still fit the slot. At least you’re not belligerent like some of the other G-men I’ve dealt with. Antiques must’ve softened you some.” Brookner chewed at some sauce near the corner of his mustache. “Either that, or you miss sitting in an office making phone calls till your ass goes numb.”

  Jeff remembered how he’d felt earlier, being stuck in his room making calls. The same fate awaited him again tonight. “No, I don’t miss that part of it. But it does feel good to look for the missing pieces. Of course, the document might not have anything to do with the cases. It may have been in that clock for years.”

  “Damned coincidences. Do nothin’ but muddy up an investigation. I’ll have to talk to the Hurst woman again and hunt down the sister.” Brookner lit a cigarette. “Ever have barbecue that good?”

  Personally, Jeff wouldn’t have covered the taste with nicotine. But he said, “I have to hand it to you, Detective. Definitely worth missing a meal at the Grand for.”

  Brookner nodded, apparently satisfied.

  “Report came back from Nic.” He replaced the reins through his fingers and popped them against the horses’ rumps. One whinnied its disagreement, but stepped lively nonetheless, and the team quickly settled into a trot. “Like you figured, Hamilton died shortly after midnight. Had been in the rain—and the fountain—for several hours. Which, as we both know, plays hell with evidence. Still yet, the lab up in Marquette is testing the lug wrench, although I do
ubt they’ll find anything after that much time in the water. But you never know. It could still have some hair samples and matter stuck to it. Enough was missing from the victim, that’s for sure.”

  “Anything on Davenport?”

  “Death by strangulation. Surprise, surprise,” he said. “Nothing that shows any foul play,” he added, replacing the sarcasm with weariness.

  “Have you been able to learn whether he has any family?”

  “No family. At least, according to his housekeeper there isn’t anyone. I called his residence in New York. I was leaving a message on his answering machine. Housekeeper picked up as soon as I said I was a detective. Told me she comes in a couple days a week to clean and cook up a few meals. Also told me that Davenport didn’t have a wife or any relatives. Said the only things he gets in the mail besides bills are antique magazines and official-looking stuff—number ten envelopes with business logos printed on them. When I told her he was dead, she said, ‘Guess I’ll be takin’ these casseroles home with me. He sure won’t be a-needin’ them.’“ Brookner laughed one of those laughs that tells you he’s heard it all and appreciates a practical mind.

  The wind stopped suddenly. Jeff was about to comment on what that meant in Seattle when Brookner looked at the sky, then turned the team down a side street and circled the block. “With any luck,” he said, heading west down Main, “we’ll get back to the Grand before the cloudburst.”

  “Have you turned up anything else?”

  “The housekeeper—the one at the hotel who found Davenport—is pretty shook up, but she seems to recall somebody standing in the hallway when she ran for help. She says she ran for help,” Brookner added. “I say she just plain ran. Superstitious or something. I’ve never seen anyone more afraid to talk about something.”

  “Did she remember anything about who she saw?”

  “Said it was a white person. Really narrows it down, doesn’t it? Anyway, I interviewed the grounds crew, too. Everybody showed up for work like they were supposed to today. Same crew as yesterday. Nobody quit or called in sick.