Murder at the Lone Peak Read online

  As frustrating as this turn of events was for Constance – and would be for any manager of a hotel that prided itself on customer service – what made it even more annoying was that by the time this was all done with, the sun had set, and Constance had missed it. Again, she found herself wishing for more hours in the day. If she had one extra today for example, she would have made the sunset with ease.

  But no matter, Constance thought to herself with a smile. There was always tomorrow. As such, she headed back to the entrance of the hotel, wondering to herself what Sydney was doing… and how much help she would need in doing it.

  It was just as she was about to open the door to The Lone Peak too that the door flew open and the shabby man with the old briefcase and worn shoes came hurrying out. He smiled briefly at Constance, avoiding her eyes as he strode around the front of the hotel and straight into the belly of The Loner next door. Constance considered for a moment warning him of what waited in there for him and indeed any person that was unfortunate enough to be breathe in the presence of the solo traveler in the yellow raincoat, but decided better of it.

  The beauty of owning a hotel was that come tomorrow a new slate of guests would arrive and the old ones, the problem ones, would be just a distant memory.

  ***

  The clock was nearing midnight and Constance was in the throes of doing what she almost always did at this time of night; talking to Sydney while the two waited out the clock. Final check-in was midnight, which meant that two had to literally sit in reception and kill time until they could close up shop and wait to do the whole thing again tomorrow.

  “So I said to him, Stanley, if you don’t answer that damn door I’m going to pour this soup all over your damn head,” Sydney explained as she literally acted out the process of pouring a pot of soup over someone’s head.

  “Is that right?” Constance responded apathetically as she glanced in the direction of the clock again.

  “It is!” Sydney confirmed, nodding her head enthusiastically. “And do you know what he did?”

  “I sure don’t.”

  “He jumped on up like a bunny with its tail on fire and answered the door.” She clapped her hands together and cackled her delight. “It just goes to show what a little violence can do to encourage someone. You know?”

  Constance rolled her eyes as she glanced at the clock again. Her apathy toward Sydney’s story wasn’t so much that she didn’t like the story per se, but it was more to the fact it just wasn’t true. Sydney claimed to have been married for ten years – really it was all she talked about – but in the five years that Constance had known her, never once had she met or even seen any evidence of this husband of hers. She was quite sure the man was as fake as Sydney’s glasses.

  “Say, Sydney,” Constance begun, suddenly remembering something she had been meaning to ask the airy-receptionist all night. “You haven’t happened to speak to Mr. Christie, have you? Well since this afternoon that is.”

  “Who?” Sydney asked dully. As she did she reached through the frame of her glasses to scratch her eye.

  “Mr. Christie...” Constance stifled an annoyed moan. “Mr. Christie… the man in the yellow raincoat...” Still nothing from Sydney. “You checked him in yourself...”

  “Oh!” Sydney suddenly beamed. “Mr. Christie!” She nodded her head enthusiastically. “Nope. Not since then. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” Constance sighed, leaning on reception as she glanced up at the clock. She didn’t know what she had expected, but more often than not, Sydney was known to get on very close terms with the guests. She possessed the very unique skill of getting others to open up to her.

  Mr. Christie was the name of the solo traveler in the yellow raincoat. As soon as Constance had come back in side, following the missed sunset, she had looked him up. Unfortunately, as she was a hotel owner and not a police officer, all she could find on him was his name and the room he was staying in. He didn’t even have a check-out date and her body literally shuddered at the thought of him staying long term.

  It was just as this most chilling of ideas settled into the fore of Constance's mind that the front door to the hotel was thrown open, slamming against the wall. The two ladies jumped at the noise, Constance sighing with annoyance at the sight of none other than Ant Christie stumbling into the foyer.

  And he was stumbling too, barely able to stand as he made his way deeper and deeper into the hotel.

  “Good evening, Mr. Christie!” Constance called out for reasons unknown. She knew he wouldn’t respond, and if he did it wouldn’t be pleasant. “How was your evening?”

  Mr. Christie continued forward, one foot in front of the other as one does when they walk. But with each step, Mr. Christie seemed to struggle more and more, as if his feet were sticking to the ground and he had to constantly free them from their confines.

  Constance watched with concern as Mr. Christie made his way to the staircase and grabbed for the handrail only to miss it and tumble forward instead. And rather than throwing his hands out to break his fall, his body went stiff as a board as his face slammed into the wooden steps with a crash.

  “Oh my!” Constance gasped. She hurried forward to help the drunkard back to his feet. “Mr. Christie, are you OK?” she called.

  He was still on his face when she reached him, lying completely still as if the fall had knocked him out cold. Constance, assuming this to be the case rolled him over, shaking her head to herself to see that his eyes were closed and that he had indeed passed out.

  “Mr. Christie,” she said softly, giving him a shake. “Sir,” she tried a little louder. “I’m going to need you awake if I’m to get you up the stairs.” She poked him now, first in the chest and then in the face. “Mr. Christie...”

  Worried now, Constance literally grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and shook him. She then slapped him across the face. She then poked his eyes and his mouth. Finally, when he still didn’t wake, she did the only other thing that seemed reasonable; she checked his pulse.

  Nothing.

  “He’s dead.” Constance could feel the blood drain from her face as she stumbled backward in an attempt to get as far from the corpse as she could. “Sydney, did you hear me?” she asked of the receptionist who was standing a few feet back, lip curled up in confusion.

  “Do I mark that down as a check-out? Or do I keep charging his credit card until it cancels?”

  Constance chose not to answer this most ridiculous of questions. In fact, she barely even reacted to it. Rather she looked to the grandfather clock as it struck midnight, the bells chiming through the foyer. Something told Constance that she was in for a very long night.

  Chapter Three

  In all of Constance’s years working at and managing The Lone Peak Hotel, she struggled to remember a time that it had been as busy as it currently was. Oh, there were times that came close of course. Like that one winter four years earlier where the snows had blocked off the exit from the town, making it impossible to leave. This meant that all the arriving clientele were forced to remain at the hotel until the snows cleared, and that all those whom were already staying at the hotel were also forced to wait until the snow cleared.

  And there was also that year five years previously where Mrs. Habber had her entire family, and extended family, and their extended family, in town for a wedding. It was twenty-eight people all up, crammed into The Lone Peak; that wasn’t to mention the other guests that were already there too.

  So yes, there had been times where The Lone Peak was busy and near unmanageable. But for some reason all of times those seemed to pale in comparison when compared to the throng of bodies that currently populated the foyer, parking lot, kitchen, restaurant, reading rooms and guests rooms. It was a mad house that had driven Constance to her wits end.

  This mass of people should have thrilled Constance, as ‘the more the merrier,’ was one of her favorite expressions. But then again, as these new arrivals were all police officers and
curious busy-body townsfolk who had no intention of paying for a room, she struggled to find any joy in the situation.

  Two hours, thirty or more people, a lot of questions and still no answers as Constance was struggling to hide her very quickly rising temper.

  “And when did he arrive exactly,” the young officer asked Constance. She knew him to be Henry Pike, a new recruit who had joined the force less than six months previously. He had a boyish face, a weak posture and the look of a child playing dress-ups in his dad’s uniform.

  She was standing in the middle of the foyer, humoring Officer Pike to the best of her abilities while her eyes darted around the rest of the hotel, making sure that nothing else was amiss… well beside the dead body.

  “I already told Earnest this,” Constance responded with an annoyed sigh “And Seymour… and that red-headed officer whose name I can’t—”

  “Connor?” Office Pike asked excitedly, as if he had just solved the most complex of cases.

  “That’s the one,” Constance said dismissively. “Look, the point is that I’ve been asked the same questions a dozen times and not once have my questions been answered.”

  “Your questions?” Officer Pike frowned. He couldn’t have looked more confused by the concept.

  Constance kept her tone as even as she could, knowing that yelling at the young officer would probably do her no good. “Yes. I want to know what this means for my Hotel. There’s near thirty of you here right now and not one of you seems to be able to tell me.”

  “Oh… well I can’t really… Sheriff Nevil didn’t say I could… I can always...”

  “Come on, Henry,” Constance pouted, doing her best to look old and feeble. “Surely you can tell me something?” Although she didn’t consider herself old, Constance knew that she could use her slightly-heightened age on young men like Officer Pike to great effect.

  “I mean… I don’t know...” Officer Pike stuttered. “Maybe I could ask...”

  “Hey!” she suddenly yelled out. “What are you doing?!” It was over Officer Pike’s shoulder that Constance had just spied two other officers rummaging behind the reception desk. An annoyed grunt and she left Officer Pike in her wake as she hurried across the foyer toward them. “He didn’t go back there!”

  The two officers stopped what they were doing as she stampeded toward them. But it was only for a moment. Really just long enough to offer her a blank look – as if she were just a random woman yelling at them, and not the owner of the hotel – before both going back to what they were doing. Constance watched on in fury, face turning redder and redder by the second as they proceeded to fiddle with the draws, tap at the computer and essentially just make nuisances of themselves.

  Constance was wont to walk around the counter and physically stop them, but instead she bit her lip and shut her mouth as tight as she could, knowing full well that it would do neither her nor the hotel any good if she suddenly began to abuse the two officers.

  This whole thing was an absolute mess if Constance had ever seen one and a part of her was now wishing that she’d simply rolled the body of Mr. Christie out and onto the street before calling the police. Of course, she hadn’t done that though. As soon as she had managed to gather her thoughts, Constance had ordered Sydney to run and call the police as soon as she could while she remained behind to watch the body. It was the right thing to do.

  Within minutes of Sydney making the call, the entire Modest Peak Police Force had arrived at her doorstep. Evidently it was a slow night and a dead body at The Lone Peak was far more interesting than sitting around the station all night playing cards. Every officer and his dog wanted a piece of the action, and as such, every officer and his dog arrived at The Lone Peak for said piece.

  Unfortunately, as this was such a small town, and the police force was literally on the other side of town, and as the police officers felt a need to blare their sirens as they ripped and roared down Modest-View Street on the way to the scene of the crime, then it wasn’t long before the entire town knew something was amiss.

  In less than fifteen minutes of the call being made, the hotel was swamped. As the police swarmed the inside and outside of the hotel, dusting for clues, interviewing witness’ and really just standing around trying to look busy, the townsfolk that had come out to see what in the heck was going on, were kept outside on the doorstep; most doing all they could to try and poke their heads in through the door and windows.

  The four living guests of the hotel were shuffled upstairs into their rooms for interviews and to await further instructions and Constance was left to deal with the masses as they tore her hotel limb from limb. It was a vexing experience to say the least and with each passing second, Constance could feel her temper being tested.

  And really none of this would have bothered Constance one little bit – she did want the case solved after all – if it wasn’t for the fact that she was being treated like a second-class citizen in her own hotel! One officer even had the audacity to ask who she was and if she could wait outside! If this went on for much longer, Constance was quite sure that tonight the police would be investigating a double homicide.

  “Hey, you can’t do that!” A deep voice suddenly bellowed from across the foyer. “You can’t take photos!” Constance, who had been staring daggers at the two officers as they continued their search behind her reception, spun on her heel to see what had caused the sudden outburst. It didn’t take long to see either.

  Although the dead body of Mr. Christie had been taped off, his corpse was still exposed. As such, Sheila the Australian backpacker had seen fit to escape from her room and to start taking photos of her own. And not just of the body either, but everything that surrounded him. She was in the process of climbing on a chair to better her angle when the officer yelled out to her to stop.

  It was as Constance watched five officers calmly escort Sheila back up to her room, that she felt herself ready to break. There was just no need for so many bodies in the vicinity and she was sure that with these many men present, the crime scene risked being contaminated long before there was a chance of the crime being solved.

  She had to say something. She just had to. But she knew there was no use in speaking to any of the officers that ran back and forth across the foyer with total lack of purpose. They were boys playing at being men. There was only one man that could do – and if Constance had anything to say about it – would do something about this mess.

  It was just then that one of the bedroom doors on the upstairs landing opened. It was the room she knew to be holding the young married couple – currently being interviewed – and she couldn’t have been more delighted in who it was exiting the room.

  Without hesitation, Constance made haste across the foyer, dodging around the officers, as she hurried up the stairs and onto the second-floor landing. She made eye contact with the man who had exited the room, delighted in the way his face dropped when he spotted her. He came to a standstill, looked over his shoulder as if for an exit and sagged when he saw that there wasn’t one. The only way off the landing was down the stairs, and the only way down the stairs was through Constance.

  She had him trapped.

  “Sheriff Nevil,” Constance said pleasantly as she made straight for the Modest Peak Police Chief, careful to keep her hand planted firmly on the railing so that he couldn’t slip on by. “A word?”

  Sheriff Roger Nevil, head of the local police force, was as much a part of Modest Peak as Constance was. Indeed, the two had known each other their entire lives, having gone through both middle school and high school together; in the same year to boot!

  Like most small-town police chiefs, Nevil traded on his kindness and approachable manner, rather than his deft hand at solving crimes. Tall in frame and once-upon-a-time wide in the shoulders, he now had a round face, a round belly and big, overly-friendly eyes. He was the kind of police chief that knew the name of everyone in town and hadn’t had to make a serious arrest in as long as he could remember
.

  Modest Peak was a small town. Modest Peak was a slow town. Modest Peak was a safe town, and that was the way he liked it.

  Oh, he also had a little crush on Constance, but that’s neither here nor there.

  “Oh, hey, Constance,” Sheriff Nevil frowned in a guilty manner as the two met in the middle of the walkway. He looked over her shoulder, as if for a way around her. “Not right now… I’m a little —”

  “Rog!” she snapped. She positioned herself right in front of the Sheriff, determined to not let him pass until she got what she was after.

  Sheriff Nevil sighed to himself as he looked Constance up and down; her firm poise, her serious, nonsense face. He knew full well that he wasn’t going anywhere until Constance had what she was after. “Fine,” he relented. “But just a word.”

  Constance’s demeanor changed instantly as she relaxed and offered Sheriff Nevil her warmest, most gracious smile. Oh, she was only too aware of how the police chief felt about her as well, and she intended to use it to her advantage. “It’s these officers,” she began, gesturing to the throng of uniforms. “Are they really necessary?”

  Sheriff Nevil frowned, looking like he didn’t understand the question. “Someone is dead, Constance. You don’t expect us to ignore —”

  “I just meant that there’s so damn many of you. Surely you don’t need these many men on one little case?”

  “I’m sorry,” Sheriff Nevil smirked, his eyes twinkling in delight. “I forgot you were such a fan of those mystery novels. I mean, five of those are equivalent to what? Five years at the academy?”

  Constance crossed her arms and let go an annoyed ‘humph.’ “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these many men will contaminate a site quicker than a sandstorm. Surely you can see that?”