Lindsay was gently but rigorously questioned by Sheriff Biebe, silently cursing whoever – Leyton? or that incredible wild man Jim Presley?  – had written  “my wife screws other men...”

 

Had Jim really lured him to the roof and pitched him off?  The chilling possibility had her so rattled she could neither focus nor think.  Her speech came in shaky blurts between sobs.  At some point she was aware that her obvious distress looked like grief and maybe also the pain of conscience.  

 

“Was he in a suicidal frame of mind?”  John Biebe’s voice was deep and pleasant, and she wanted to study his face but instinctively avoided his gaze.  Her first look at him had convinced her that Ley’s death had totally unhinged her: he looked shockingly like Jim.  Jim whom she suspected was a murderer and Biebe the lawman on the case shared the same face.  Biebe’s with a light beard and fuzz above that sharply curved upper lip, and weather-worn, but...  She had to be hallucinating. 

 

“No.  I mean, he didn’t act that depressed.  He was doing stuff here, not sitting around moping.  Maybe something happened yesterday that made him feel old and washed up.  He was up late night-before-last so he slept late and I had breakfast without him yesterday, didn’t see him all day.  But he seemed normal last time we talked.”

 

“You didn’t see him last night?”

 

“No.”

 

“You two came here with another couple, is that right?  I’m told you’ve been guests here before.”

 

“Yes.”  Lindsay shivered.  She had to trust that Francie hadn’t told her husband about Jim.  “We came with our neighbors from home, Brett and Francine Dolens.  Leyton and Brett were out skating or skiing all day and I assume they were drinking together last night.”

 

John studied her posture, her nervous gestures, the apparent shocked pallor and tear tracks on her face.  She seemed genuinely freaked.  But he had to inquire, “Did he catch you with another man last night?”

 

“No.”  She knew she might fare better if she answered “yes” because someone else might tell this Sheriff that she’d had a guy in her suite.  But it was the truth.  If Leyton had stood listening at the door of their room, he’d reacted in a vastly uncharacteristic way.  The Leyton she’d known since college would have burst in and raised hell.  Not killed himself.  Ardour having waned years ago, and with his own list of adulteries, he would have suffered a wound only ego-deep if he had caught her with Jim.

 

“Did anything like that happen recently, back home?  You and another man?”

 

“No.  Actually it was my husband who cheated, six women that I know of.  I don’t know, maybe he’s been assuming I sleep around...since he does.  Did.”  Francie and her spouse would probably divulge that bit of scandal so why hide it?

 

Lindsay took some deep breaths and thought hard.  Either Ley jumped or he was pushed or he’d managed to fall off the roof drunk.  It seemed best to stress a lack of suicidal motive, and the presence of alcohol in this situation.  “The only thing I can tell you is he got stupid when he was drunk, like the rest of us.  To me it’s just way more probable that he went up there and stumbled and fell off.”   

 

“Have you been up there?  Seen what it’s like?”

 

“No.  Why would I?  Oh, God, I’ve got to make arrangements.  What happens to him now?”

 

“He’ll – his remains will be autopsied.  The note is compelling evidence of suicide, but seeing as you seem to doubt it was suicide...”

 

“Oh, hell, his ego would never let him...but...I don’t know.  Middle-age crazies, male menopause, they warn you about it but you don’t think your husband –  your partner – would leave you with no – ” Lindsay retrieved enough presence of mind to stop before the term “life insurance” was added to the evidence.  Suicide would cancel the millions in benefits she was due.  But a murder investigation would center on herself, and delay the payoff.  “If you ask me, he was drunk and fell.  Got some wild bug up his – maybe he was waiting for some babe up there.”  Yeah, that was the theory she had to go with.  She stared at the corpse, now covered by a plastic sheet.  Blood and bits of other tissue colored the stones around the head end of it.  “Oh, God,” she groaned.  “Please, I have to go sit down.  I’m gonna pass out.” 

 

John allowed her to escape indoors.  A woman who was apparently a friend met her in the doorway and threw a shawl and protective arms around her.

 

In the lobby Francie told her friend sotto voce, “Brett hasn’t heard about your friend Jim, don’t worry.  What happened?”

 

“I don’t know.  Ley never came back to our room.  Listen, I’ve got to...call people, you know.  His family, the lawyer… We’ll talk later.”

 

“Sure, I know.  We’re here and ready to help in any way.  You know that.”

 

Lindsay returned to her room.  Snatching up the brandy glasses she took them into the hall and left them on the room-service tray outside another door.  Wondering where the missing one had gone, she searched, didn’t find it.  She checked the trash for any sign of Jim’s presence.  Had he taken that bizarre condom with him?  Apparently.  She hoped the maids would come before the cops in case the sheets were considered evidence.

 

Meanwhile Sheriff Biebe had joined Francine’s husband at breakfast.

 

A glum, stunned Brett, picking at his food told John that Leyton had endured “kind of a bad day yesterday, kept losing it, pissed off because he couldn’t get...coordinated.  Got banged up a little. He said he had a hellish hangover from the night before.  Not unlike my own.  Vacation boozing, you know how it is.”

 

John asked him if Leyton had hit on any women in the bar.

 

“Well, sure.”

 

“Any success?”

 

“Well, not that I noticed, but can’t say for sure.”

 

“Could he have made a date to meet a woman on the roof?”

 

Surprised by the question Brett reviewed what he recalled of the raucous hours in the bar. 

 

“Damned if I know,” he said finally. “A lot of last night is a blur, man.”

 

~*~

 

As soon as she felt unobserved Lindsay contacted Jim Presley using a public phone outside of the hotel’s row of shops.  She needed him to meet her and to keep his mouth shut about it.

 

Fifteen minutes later he met Lindsay on a deserted stretch of hiking trail beyond the hotel.

 

She asked Jim point-blank if he had done in Leyton.  Beaming, he nodded and spread his arms invitingly.  To his surprise she berated him for the killing and more sharply for the suicide note which effectively nullified four million in life insurance of which she would have been beneficiary.

 

“I never told you to do this!  Now here I am with his body to transport, a coffin to buy up here in snowman land, a funeral – and that god damned asinine suicide note cancels me out of four million fucking bucks I spent the last thirty-odd years earning!”

 

He was startled by her vehemence.  She shoved him, slapped him.  “I hope to hell nobody saw you anywhere near him!  Please tell me there are no witnesses!”

 

“Of course not.  Hey, Babe, you’re free now.  You can stay here with me as long as you want.  I have money.”

 

“Are you nuts?”  Lindsay’s hysterical rant continued, at first intriguing but soon irritating.  He grabbed her to him and planted his mouth on hers to stifle the shrill tirade.  One hand on her buttocks, he rolled his hips against hers.

 

His inner Elvis emerged.  “‘A little less conversation, a little more action, please.  All this aggravation ain’t satisfactionin’ me!’” one knee pumped fast, his free hand’s fingers snapped.  Lindsay’s resistance wavered at the energy of that thigh action.  ‘“...A little more bite, a little less bark; a little less light, a little more spark –’” 

 

Lindsay wrenched away pointing at his clicking fingers, from which actual sparks flew.  “How the fuck do you do that?  God, Jim, you’re just weird!”

 

“But you shake my snake, Honey Girl!  Come ride the snake.”

 

“Damn you, Jim, I’m furious at you and you want sex now?”  Her complaints resumed.  She had to put Leyton in a coffin, transport it home and schedule a  funeral, assuming police would release the remains and not arrest her on suspicion. 

 

He dismissed that fear: “Ain’t no man gonna believe a sweet flower like you lugged her dead-weight husband up there and heaved him off.  Can’t you just put him on ice, and finish your vacation?” 

 

“People don’t do that!  Where do you come from?  I’d  look like a heartless bitch.  And I have to go salvage his estate.  If they rule his death suicide I lose the life insurance; don’t you understand that?  If they rule it murder the investigation could delay the payoff for years.  And the logical suspect is me.  How do I convince them it was accident, when it wasn’t?  Hell!”

 

The profit motive behind so much human trauma was still strange to SID.  “Life insurance” was an unknown item of mortal economics.  He tried to sooth the fretting femme, petting her back and shoulders.  Relieved when finally her anger abated and she allowed herself to sag in to his arms, he shoved his hands under her coat and tried to kiss her again.  But the attempt evoked one last surge of indignation.

 

She dug her nails in through his sweater and when he yanked her closer, she bit sharp incisors in to his left earlobe – and squealed.  “Hot!  It burns! What is that?  What’s –” she dabbed at the sticky  fluid congealing on her lips.  No salt, not blood.

 

Through a teary blur she stared at the substance dripping from his torn ear like turquoise paint.  Yelping, she tried to escape his arms and as his grip tightened, jabbed at his cheek and scratched clear through the faux skin.  When blue-green oozed out instead of blood she at last was stunned silent, gaping at him with wide-open frightened eyes.  SID released her.

 

She staggered backwards in to the brush, shoe heels jamming between rocks and roots.  “Jesus Christ!  What the fuck – what are you?” 

 

SID could see her chest fill with breath for a major scream. He didn’t try to answer.  Considering his options he quickly reduced them to one.  He finished her with merciful speed.  It only required a solid chop to her throat.  Breath exploded from her as her windpipe collapsed, the heartbeat ceased.  He watched her face freeze into an expression of...what?  Horror?  Shock?  So fragile, these creatures. 

 

The mystery of death intrigued SID.  From his files he drew poetic references:

 

John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale:  “Darkling I listen; and, for many a time   I have been half in love with easeful Death,  Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,  To take into the air my quiet breath;   Now more than ever seems it rich to die,  To cease upon the midnight with no pain...”

 

But where was the fun in that?

 

SID, though his experience of bird songs was scant, doubted any nightingale emitted sounds like Lindsay’s screeching.  SID tried some Shakespeare.  According to some cat called Hamlet,

 

“...To die, to sleep – No more, and by a sleep to say we end  The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation   Devoutly to be wished.   To die, to sleep,  To sleep, perchance to dream.  Ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come   When we have shuffled off this mortal coil   Must give us pause.  There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life...”

 

So these humans got tired of life?  And longed for death to end their troubles, but feared what dreams might come after death?  Perusing Lindsay’s still features, SID realized that dreams must happen outside the body.  But how?  Weren’t they like plans, memories, decisions: functions of their cerebral cortexes, just as his cogitations were functions of his CPU?

 

“...Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life,   But that the dread of something after death,   The undiscovered country from whose bourn  No traveler returns, puzzles the will,  And makes us rather bear those ills we have   Than fly to others that we know not of?   Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all...”

 

Was his own present displeasure, dissatisfaction at this outcome with Lindsay – and Chuya too – was that “conscience?”  SID wondered.  He preferred another Shakespeare bit from a down-beat deadly dude dubbed Macbeth.  As he read it aloud, around him the sheer dark rock walls responded with somber echoes.

 

“‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,  To the last syllable of recorded time.   And all our yesterdays have lighted fools   The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!   Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,   That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,  And then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.’”           

     

With a gusty sigh worthy of the best Elizabethan player SID lifted Lindsay’s limp corpse and left it lying farther from the path. 

 

Feeling his earlobe well under repair,  he leaned against a boulder and polished his rendition of Macbeth’s soliloquy.

 

Then he heard soft footfalls and a girl appeared, loping towards him in a blue track suit and thick-soled laced-up shoes.  People preferred this outfit when they ran around, SID had noticed.

 

He broad-jumped across the trail so she couldn’t see Lindsay behind him.  The girl stopped running and gaped at him, amazed.  “Wow!  Some white men can jump!”

 

This one was young and pink-cheeked with long hair the color of peanut butter.  Grinning, SID bowed.  “You say ‘jump,’ I’ll ask ‘how high, Honey.’”

 

“--And quote Shakespeare.  You gotta be an actor.” 

 

SID reckoned he could be a damned good actor.  “You guessed it.”

 

“I’m the movie-rental girl at the hotel.  They call me DVDarian...get it?  Modern morph of the Librarian...  I had to beg them to buy some Shakespeare plays.  Hardly anybody ever rents them, though.  Please come to my counter and check one out.”

 

“How can I refuse?  If you’ll promise to watch it with me.”

 

She smiled back.  “My shift starts at eleven and ends at six.”

 

He sauntered closer, eyes like lasers on her green ones.  “Just in time for dinner in my room, with the Bard for...” swiftly he searched for the term, “...chaperone.  I’ll pick you up at your counter and rent ‘Macbeth.’  I’m Jim Presley, by the way, Darlin’.” His green eyes burned into her amber ones like little heat lamps.  “‘Nymph, in thy orisons, Be all my sins remembered,’” he murmured.

 

“Ah, ‘Hamlet.’  Okay, it’s a date, Master Thespian.  I have three of them, three casts. Well. I have to finish my run.  So feel free to return to your rehearsal.  I’m Amy, by the way.  Toodoloo, now.” She bounded off.  Never glanced left to where Lindsay lay in the piney brush.  

 

SID heard Lindsay’s cell phone rang.  Curious, SID went back to her and took the phone from its pocket on her bag.  He poked buttons until Francie Dolens’ “text message” appeared.  “Where are you?  We’re making the interment arrangements for Ley.  Need some info when you’re up to it.  Brett talked to Sheriff.  Noticed he looks like your friend.”

 

“Don’t know what friend.  I’m going to get a coffin,” SID typed.  “Back soon.”   SID didn’t relish more hysterics, even on text message.  Let Francie and the rest learn Lindsay’s grim fate later.

 

As SID entered the lobby and its resident aromas flooded his olfactory sensors he wondered where Francie was.  And if that Sheriff had left the premises.

 

By coincidence Francie had decided to look him up.  She asked the concierge for Jim Presley’s room number.  She harbored no particular suspicion but needed to know if Leyton had met Jim.  And she was avoiding the Sheriff.  She encountered Jim near the lobby elevators.  His hair was perfectly brushed, attire neat; he looked fresh, not like he’d writhed through a night of sweaty lust. Almost too groomed.  He was like a mannequin brought to life in some corny flick. 

 

She blinked up at him.  “Have you had breakfast?”

 

“Yeah; I’m an early bird,” he said, “but I’d be happy to escort you to breakfast.”

 

“There’s coffee and pastries in the observation lounge, fourth floor.  We can talk there.”    

 

He went to the coffee bar and loaded a mug and plate for her as she settled at a small table at the far end of the broad glassed-in deck.

 

“You heard what happened to Lindsay’s husband?”  She broached the subject directly.

 

“Yeah, everybody’s talking about it -- he died, cryin’ shame.  No details but they say he...took a bad fall.”

 

“Or jumped.”

 

“Now why would he do that?  With such a fine wife and comfortable life?”

 

She groaned.  “We may never know.  Maybe he was drunk and restless and it was just an accident.”

 

“Wouldn’t that be better for Lindsay?”

 

Francie shot him a sharp look.

 

“Insurance,” he murmured vaguely.

 

She shrugged.  “You’re right.  But the cops might believe he was pushed, you know.”

 

“Who’d do a thing like that?”

 

“Did you meet Leyton?”

 

“No, I didn’t.”

 

“Might have been awkward if you had, right?”

 

“I get you.  I flirted with his wife.  Don’t think he’d care for that.”

 

“But how much did he know?  Did he see you two together?”

 

“No.  I don’t believe he knew I exist.”

 

“Well, excuse my nosiness, but if anyone else saw you two, it’ll be asked: what happened last night?  Did you go to her room or did she go to yours?”

 

Apparently Francie didn’t know.  Her expression was anxious.  Jim Presley continued to lie, as easily as he told the truth.  To him there was no moral distinction between lies and honesty.  “Neither.  She held off.  Guess I came on too fast, so she...slowed it down a little.”  He smiled sweetly.

 

It had seemed to Francie that the acceleration had been on Lindsay’s track.  But she was relieved to hear they had called off the tryst. 

 

“She couldn’t take that risk,” Francie said.  “Even for you.”  Pensively she munched a pecan-strewn pastry.  Then decided to change the subject.  “Have you seen the local Sheriff?  Reason I ask is, he looks so much like you.  I swear, you two have to be related.  Are you?” 

 

SID was interested, recalling his remote view of Biebe.  He decided to wing it:  “Actually, I believe we are, but I’m a bastard of a bastard, so he doesn’t know about me.”

 

“No kidding!  Wow.  You’ll be a wild revelation, let me tell you.  When are you going to...show up on his doorstep?”

 

“You think that’s a good idea?”