Everyone's Dead But Us Read online

  I put a hand on the sleeve of Scott’s jacket and murmured, “We’d better take this slowly.” He nodded. The night lights plugged into the outlets along the wall were the same as those on the stairs and in the foyer. The overhead light was off.

  I eased into the room. I heard the wind howl against the windows as it whipped around the tower. I discerned no sound from the room itself. I reached to my right and found the switch. I flipped it on, illuminating the familiar wainscoting, the shelves of books.

  I took two cautious steps forward. In the center of the room was the owner of the resort, Henry Tudor. He was on the floor, and he had a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

  Henry Tudor had been a suave man with fishlike hands that tapered to a well-manicured set of points. He lived on the island year round. He spoke in soft mellifluous tones. The help jumped at his orders, but he was never officious, not that I saw anyway. But if he asked for something to be done, it was done, and done quickly.

  The island of Korkasi was not designed for the disco set or the circuit party crowd. No mobs of drug-ingesting dancing men crammed onto dance floors marred the stark beauty. It was known for its absence of rotating disco balls, lack of drag queens, and other ephemeral artifacts of the clichéd gay party scene. This resort catered to an old world elegance and class. You didn’t find the island listed in any brochure, and there was no Web site with flashing pop-ups advertising its delights. Friends might mention its existence to friends. A retired baseball player had revealed its secrets to Scott. The retired player had a sad life. Fearful of losing advertising endorsements, he had died never revealing his sexual orientation. His lover was never mentioned in the tidal wave of sentiment at the player’s death.

  A century ago when the closet was the rule, not the exception, a member of the British aristocracy had wished to have a safe, secret spot to take his working-class male lover. The Earl of Trent had purchased most of the island, which was twenty miles south and west of Santorini, the closest to Africa of the Chaldean Islands. The Earl had not evicted the inhabitants of the island. However, as each had died, he’d purchased their homes and land. He’d kept the pristine white-washed walls, but each interior had been redone. Most of the old homes were refurbished and were beautiful in their own right, but many now had rooms burrowed far back into the hills behind the port. The burrowing had revealed numerous ancient artifacts, all carefully preserved on the island in various rooms. After checkout, a discreet visit was made to each room to make sure some idle rich boob hadn’t made off with a Minoan vase.

  The man who owned it in the thirties had added a small airport on the far side of the island. It was more of a flat spot on a small plain than a useful landing field. An occasional helicopter did disgorge a pampered guest. The ancient castle had been transformed into a structure with real warmth and modern conveniences. In the fifties the island had been purchased by a gay American entrepreneur who completed turning the island into what it was today.

  The lover of the original owner was supposed to have committed suicide out of boredom on this island retreat. One rumor said he flung himself off the castle parapet into the sea. A traveler who’d been coming to the island for years, Wayne Craveté, told us this was not true. That the young man had indeed gotten bored, but simply fled on a passing fishing boat and gone back to England. There were a number of these old legends, all with wild variations, but the endings were monotonously similar. All of them had someone pitching themselves off the castle battlements. Depending on one’s luck, the state of the weather, or the movement of the tide, you either landed on jagged rocks, in swirling water, or both. I suppose one way to look at it is that with a battlement so convenient, why not begin pitching people, yourself included, off the tower?

  Before the current unpleasantness, in one of our more macabre moments, Scott and I had conjured up a scenario of herds of wealthy gay tourists paying young men to fling themselves over the parapet for sport or for money, to see if anyone survived the dive, with a crowd below sipping tea or gin slings while cheering the jumpers on. One hesitates to admit to the macabre things you can imagine. One hesitates even more when real macabre things begin to happen that you wish you couldn’t imagine.

  The current rumor, overheard by my butch, practical, masculine, gossip-monger lover, was that there was a private investigator on the island who was on the trail of the Crown Jewels of Fredonia. As far as I knew, such a place only existed in an old Marx Brothers’ movie. Then again, Scott had been chatting with Wayne Craveté who had made the claim. My all-butch, superstud baseball player was actually a real chatty kind of guy. You know the type. On tours and trips, he’s ready to exchange chitchat with people, especially those who don’t recognize he’s a baseball player. He’s especially good with elderly women. They think he’s a dear. And he is.

  We’d also been entertained with stories of wild pirate adventures in centuries past, cruelties of barbarian captains, counts, kings, rascals, and saints. There were rumors of secret rooms and vast riches: Venetian gold from centuries ago, Napoleon’s secret treasury prepared for his return, and mounds of loot grabbed during Europe’s hundreds of years of wars. I discounted the rumors. Mostly this was a genuine refuge for famous gay people who wished to be pampered in the style to which they had become accustomed. The boy-toy parade put on by some of them was very laughable. As if being able to afford the most attitude-ridden porn-star-of-the-month was a criterion for success. I guess some of them needed the ego boost of having someone attractive next to them. We just liked Korkasi for the peace and quiet.

  I knew Henry Tudor, the current owner and now corpse, mostly by reputation. I’d seen him a few times over the years. The first time, he’d been on a yacht on his way out of the harbor as we were disembarking from the boat from Santorini. He was supposed to be a discreet man dedicated to his guests having the most exceptional service on his island.

  We heard rain pelting against the windows. Lightning crashed. Thunder boomed. It couldn’t get any darker. If it got stormier, we might be involved in hurricane hassles. That dark and stormy I can live without. All thoughts of relaxation on this vacation disappeared.

  I said, “Don’t touch anything.”

  Scott made an “Ulp” noise in the back of his throat. “He’s dead,” he whispered. “My god.”

  We backed toward the door. Using my handkerchief, I picked up the phone to call the office. There was no answer. A dead body is a tragedy, but this was an anomaly that was almost more menacing. There was always an answer. There was always someone prepared to meet the needs of a guest.

  Scott said, “The killer could still be in here.”

  “Let’s go for help,” I said. I closed and locked the door. Not for me the madness of splitting up. I wanted Scott right where I could see him. Or of examining the body. A glance around had not revealed any murder weapon. We hadn’t brought any with us. Even if we owned any lethal hardware, international flights were not conducive to transporting them. The castle, as was the cavern, was west of the harbor. But only a low hill separated the castle from the rest of the inhabited portions. The fastest way to get to the other buildings of the resort from the castle was to hike along the beach rather than to scramble along the rock-strewn path over the hill. We pulled our jackets close around us as we dashed through thunder, lightning, and wind-driven rain around the hill to the harbor and the Port Atrium.

  The old castle/fort sat in a valley surrounded by a promontory that overlooked the sea on the western side of the harbor. The rocky outcroppings on the promontory at the eastern end of the harbor had prevented any possibility of construction. The east side of the castle hill consisted of a jagged escarpment that hid all but the top of the castle from the rest of the harbor.

  Rounding the hill one came upon the Port Atrium, which covered much of the old pier, and half a block of one-story homes once occupied by the island’s fishermen. These renovated huts sat across from two blocks of beautifully preserved and renovated former homes and s
hops, which were themselves at the base of a hundred-foot cliff. All this formed a semicircle around a few vessels in the rising swell.

  The Port Atrium was the most prominent structure on the island. This glass dome, a hundred feet high at its apex, covered a vast expanse of the pier and dock area, and much of the harbor east and west. The inland part, which covered the old fishermen’s homes, was mostly a nursery; a mix of formal English garden and backyard perennials. Paths wound through, around, and atop the old homes. The cooks used the roofs to grow herbs. If there was a vegetable grown on the island it would be under this vast dome. It also had small paths that wound among bright flowers. The Atrium ended in the middle of the only street in the harbor. In the street at this moment were the five blue electric cars, pedicars, about the size of golf carts. Two wonderful old cypress trees, planted when the Earl of Trent began the building of the Atrium in 1910, guarded the main exit that led to the rest of the island. Most of the island was barren rock interrupted by scattered patches of sparse natural grass. A supply of drinking water was kept on hand to supplement the island’s meager natural resources.

  The Atrium contained the welcome center and the registration desk. People could gather here for meals if they chose not to dine in their rooms. The food matched that of the finest three-star restaurant on the continent. For most meals, the guests chose the restaurant. At the far end of the pier, the Atrium, under which an oceangoing yacht could dock, was open to the elements. Currently a sleek white vessel hugged the main pier. This yacht had three levels. I thought it might have been Henry Tudor’s, although I’d seen numerous other guests promenading on the deck earlier this evening.

  Interior glass walls and tall partitions covered with fanciful art—gray swirls and animals and humans all inset into the glass—shielded the back two-thirds of the Atrium from the ravages of nature. In the formal reception area all the furniture was clear Lucite. The chairs had woven, pale gray seat cushions. The slimmest of gray computers sat on top of the registration desk. All signing in was done on the computer. At the moment the lights were dim. Several members of the waitstaff were putting out silverware for the morning repast.

  Standing at the end of the pier, his face to the elements, just inside the far end of the dome, was Louis Deplonte, the son of the pretender to the French throne. We’d seen his guard, Virl Morgan, earlier. We’d been given to understand that Morgan only took his nightly run after his charge was safely asleep. Either our information was wrong, or the presumed king had risen after his security guard had left, or I had another oddity to add to my collection. Not as odd as a dead body on the hearth, but an anomaly nonetheless. The son of the pretender’s narrow hips were encased in tight jeans. He wore a heavy peacoat and running shoes. As we neared the registration desk, I saw him begin to head inland.

  At the desk was Arthur Sherebury the night clerk. He was in his thirties, a former surfer and workout guru. He doubled as a personal weight trainer to the island’s visitors. A number of the permanent staff prided themselves on serving numerous functions. Certainly Sherebury would be quite capable of physically defending himself or the island. He was standing with his hands in his pockets and gazing down at his computer screen.

  An older woman, perhaps in her midsixties, stood two feet in front of him. She was dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a bright orange life-vest open over a brown rain poncho. The two people who flanked her looked to be in their early twenties. Her face was three inches from Sherebury’s. She was gesticulating wildly and bellowing. “What do you mean, we can’t stay here? Of course we can stay here! Nobody’s going out in that storm. You’d need an aircraft carrier to navigate through that storm.”

  “I’m sorry madam, we have rules.”

  “Bullshit rules,” she said. “Okay, if we have to go, how are you going to put us off the island? You? You and what other fag boy?”

  That did it for any sympathy from me. As far as I was concerned he could put her and her buddies in a rowboat in the middle of a hurricaine—without a paddle and with a six-inch hole in the bottom.

  Sherebury’s face took on the taut lines of the excessively polite and overly well-trained, but truly pissed off staff person. In a tightly controlled voice, he said, “I’m sure I don’t know how we’re going to be able to be of any service to you.”

  “We’re archeologists. We’re not some kind of threat. Who would we be a threat to? There’s a big damn yacht sitting out there. Why can’t we sleep on that? We promise not to piss on the furniture.”

  I said, “If you would excuse me, something’s wrong.” I figured my news might be more important than their wrangle. At the same time, I wasn’t planning to make my announcement to the general world.

  Sherebury rounded on me and snapped, “You’ll have to wait.” I was taken aback. I didn’t blame him for snapping, but why pick me, not her? It was the first time an employee of the island had ever been anything but unfailingly polite in a response to me. He turned his back on us. He spoke to the woman. The fury in his voice was barely controlled. “This resort is no place for you.”

  I guess I could have said something to the effect that my news trumped any of the petty shit he was used to dealing with. Presumably he’d feel pretty chagrined when he found out he’d snapped at an announcement of murder. I was emotionally keyed up, but he was going to feel like a fool when I told him. I wondered if a tap on his shoulder would irritate him and make his embarrassment the greater when he found out. Then I figured I wasn’t going to play emotional blackmail. Awful things had happened. I didn’t need to add to the misery. The body wasn’t going anywhere, although finding the killer would require some very decisive action.

  The woman was saying to Sherebury “There’s a storm out there, you twit. Our engine died. We thought we were going to die. It was by happenstance that we stumbled onto this island.”

  “It’s on the maps.”

  “Maybe on the largest navigational charts, yes, but not even the largest ordinary maps. Is there some reason no one wanted this island to be noticed?”

  “We don’t want intruders,” Sherebury said.

  “Fuck your intruders,” the woman said. “Are you insane? No one is going out in that storm.”

  “You’ll have to sleep on your boat in the harbor.”

  She glanced out to the harbor. Inside the breakwater the swells caused the boats to rock and heave. It would be an unpleasant night aboard any of them. “Ours is too small,” she said. “It would be untenable. Whose yacht is that?”

  “I’m sorry, that’s all I can do for you.”

  She said, “You haven’t done anything, you officious twit. Go to hell.”

  Sherebury glared at her with icy equanimity.

  She shrugged her shoulders inside her brown poncho. But she and her minions started the trek back toward one of the piers at which one small boat was docked.

  Sherebury turned back to us. He drew a deep breath and said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I deeply apologize for snapping at you. Everything has gone wrong today, everything.”

  I said, “I’m afraid something even more wrong has happened.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “some of the electricity is out. I can’t tell which parts. The phones and the Internet don’t work. We’ve got the emergency generators working so most of the lights and appliances still function.” I’d never heard him rattle on so. Was he nervous about the storm, the ranting woman, or was my announcement going to be less news to him than I thought? He continued prattling. “How can I help you gentlemen? There’s probably not much I Sex and do. The evening shift left on the catamaran and the replacement shift never left Santorini. Someone on that side had the sense to know that the storm was going to be a killer.”

  As he talked he looked almost exclusively at Scott. At times I thought Sherebury looked at Scott with more interest than that of an employee willing to assist within the call of duty, more as if he’d be willing to help Scott out of his clothes, into a bed, and devour him fo
r a night. He was too well trained to completely ignore me, but I definitely felt I was an annoying part of the background for him while he dealt with my partner. I’d run into that a few times with people from almost every economic stratum. The rich added their own little twists, usually some combination of barely concealed condescension or sarcasm. How much money I didn’t have compared to the very rich, gay and straight, didn’t bother me, but it often made a difference to them. A few of the old money people we met on Korkasi even managed to convey the message to Scott that his cash wasn’t quite up to their standards.

  When Sherebury finally shut up with his explanations and excuses, I said, “Henry Tudor is dead. He’s in our room with a bullet hole in his head.”

  I got a no-holds-barred, wide open gape from him. This time he looked at me like I existed. “What?” he managed to mumble. He looked to Scott. I explained what we’d found.

  Sherebury said, “I’ve got to call the police.”

  “Who has jurisdiction here?” I asked. In all the time we’d been coming to the island there had been no sign of any kind of official. I’d always assumed the island was officially part of Greece. Nobody ever patrolled. I presumed the staff on the island handled any dust-ups among the clientele. Then again, I’d never seen any dust-ups among the clientele or among the staff. Then again, Korkasi was the kind of place where the rich were pampered and elegance, not dust-ups, was the lifestyle of choice.

  The archeologist was back. She stomped up to Sherebury and whapped him on the shoulder and said, “I demand to see the person in charge.”

  Sherebury said, “He’s dead.”

  She looked at Scott and me then back to Sherebury. She said, “Are you kidding?”

  “No,” Sherebury said.

  I said, “We’re just beginning to deal with the problem. He is dead.”

  She looked abashed and she and her minions began to retreat back toward the sea, whether to regroup for another assault or to surrender, I wasn’t sure. Sherebury picked up his phone. He listened for a moment. “It’s still not working.” He pulled a cell phone out of a Louis Vuitton valise. I knew most cell phones didn’t work on the island. It was far from any practicable service area. He attempted several numbers then gave up. “We’ve got to tell someone,” Sherebury said. “Maybe we can send someone in a boat to Santorini.”