An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
Candice walks up closer to everyone near the coffee station and says, quietly, “Are any of you aware of who Matthew Hutchinson is?” The rest of them look at her in surprise. “No? He’s from one of the most prominent and wealthy families in New England.”
Beverly had no idea, and looking around at the others, it seems that nobody else had any idea either. At that moment Bradley brings out plates of rolls, croissants, and muffins from the kitchen. He sets them down on the long side table where the buffet had been laid out the night before. “Please, help yourselves,” he says.
Bradley seems quite different this morning, Beverly thinks. He has a distracted air, and he’s missing his charming smile. Well, no wonder.
He glances around the room and says, “I’m really sorry about the power. There’s not much we can do about it but wait for them to fix the lines. I’m sure they’re working on it. We’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible in the meantime.”
Beverly is relieved that Matthew isn’t there. He must have returned to his room. She imagines the others must feel as relieved as she does. No one would know how to act around him. A handsome young man in the prime of life, evidently the heir to a great fortune, engaged to such a lovely young woman—his happiness destroyed in an instant by this terrible, tragic accident. How sad and difficult the weekend will be, tiptoeing around his grief.
She wishes now, her own marriage hanging in tatters, that she’d never heard of this place. If only they could leave. She wants nothing more than to go home. She wants to go home with Henry and patch things up and carry on as normal.
The guests mill about awkwardly. Some step up and reach uneasily for croissants and muffins. Bradley soon returns carrying a big platter of eggs. “Fortunately, we have a gas stove,” he says. He places the platter on the table and invites everyone to dig in. But many of them seem to have lost their appetite.
Finally James appears from the kitchen and says, with appropriate solemnity, “This is such an awful thing to have happened. I am so sorry. And”—he hesitates—“I apologize—but unfortunately, I have been advised that we must leave the body where it is for the time being.”
The guests shift uneasily where they stand.
“Advised by whom?” Henry asks.
“By me,” David answers.
“Are you sure you can’t . . . move her?” Beverly asks, dismayed. It seems awful just to leave her there. Disrespectful, somehow.
“And no, we can’t.”
“Why not? Surely it was an accident,” Lauren says.
“Better to wait for the coroner to determine that,” David says.
“You’re not suggesting it wasn’t an accident!” Gwen says.
“I’m saying it’s for the coroner to decide.”
Suddenly Beverly wonders if the attorney suspects Matthew of pushing his fiancée down the stairs. She studies the others; she’s pretty sure one or two of them just had the same thought. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she wonders if any of them heard what she heard, the argument between Matthew and Dana late last night. Should she say anything? Surely it was just a lovers’ quarrel. Matthew wouldn’t harm Dana. They seemed so in love.
There’s an awkward silence, and then Riley says abruptly, “I thought I heard a scream last night.”
“When?” David asks.
“I don’t know. I thought I’d imagined it.”
“Did anyone else hear anything?” David asks, looking around the room.
Beverly feels her whole body tighten. She doesn’t want to get the young man into trouble if he hasn’t done anything wrong. Perhaps someone else heard them arguing. She doesn’t want to be the one to tell. But no one else offers anything. She looks down, uncertain, and lets the moment pass.
“What about the police?” Henry asks now.
James speaks up. “As you know, the power’s out and the phones are dead. We haven’t been able to reach the police.”
“I know, but what about snowmobiles?” Henry asks.
James shakes his head. “We don’t have them here. They’re noisy. We like to focus on nature—hiking, skiing, snowshoeing. We’re old-fashioned.”
Henry rolls his eyes in disgust. “I can’t believe you don’t have a generator,” he mutters.
“The police will get here eventually,” James says, ignoring him. “Once the power’s restored and we can use the phone. Or they clear and sand the roads and we can get out.”
“How long does it usually take,” Riley asks uneasily, “to restore power up here when there’s a storm?”
Bradley says, “It all depends. But I imagine it’s a pretty widespread outage. Ice is much worse than snow. It brings down the wires.”
“Until the police do get here,” the attorney says, “we have to treat it as a possible crime scene.”
“But—” Beverly begins and stops, as all eyes turn her way and she flushes. She says, pointing out the obvious, “We’ll have to step past her body every time we go up or down the stairs. We’ll see her lying there whenever we sit in the lobby.”
And then she thinks of that poor young man up in his room, waiting for the police. And whether she ought to say something about what she heard.
TEN
Saturday, 7:45 a.m.
Candice lingers in the dining room with the others after breakfast. It seems like nobody knows what to do; they are all at loose ends now—with the exception of the lawyer, who leaves the dining room after breakfast with a subdued but purposeful air. Candice notices the dark-haired woman, whose name she’s learned is Gwen, watching him go.
She can’t have any idea who he is.
Candice would love to follow the notorious David Paley up the stairs. She’d bet dollars to donuts he’s on his way to see Matthew Hutchinson, and she wishes more than anything that she could be there to hear what is said. Then she reminds herself not to be despicable, that the man has just lost the woman he was to marry.
This is something she has had to work on, not letting her curiosity trump her compassion. That’s why she got out of journalism, after all, and started writing books instead. Long-form nonfiction had saved her from that at least. When she writes a book, she finds she can still feel for her subject, still find her sense of decency. Journalism can ruin you.
She glances at Riley, whom she recognized the night before as a war correspondent for the New York Times. She’s got the look. Not the look of the hardened journalist who has necessarily grown a thick, protective skin. She’s at the other end of the scale—she’s broken wide open, raw. She wonders if Riley will ever be put back together again. She can recognize PTSD when she sees it; she’s seen it before.
She’s glad she’s no longer a journalist. Still, there’s a body lying at the foot of the stairs, and no one knows how it got there. She can read people pretty well, and she’s not stupid—the attorney looks as if he suspects it was more than an accident. She’s tempted to slip upstairs and listen outside Matthew’s door. But she restrains herself.
“We can’t go out in this,” Henry says gloomily, interrupting her thoughts. He’s scowling outside at the ice.
The dining-room windows give on to the forest on the east side of the hotel. Everything is covered in sparkling ice. It’s beautiful, as if the world is coated in diamonds. Long, pointy icicles hang from the eaves in front of the windows. They look rather deadly. If you were walking under one of those and it fell on you, it might kill you, Candice thinks.
The storm has made it too dangerous for walking, or skiing, or snowshoeing, or anything but taking your life in your hands. The best place to be during a major ice storm is safely inside where you can’t get hit by falling branches or pierced through with icicles, or electrocuted by fallen power lines. Not to mention the risk of slipping and cracking your head open on the ice.
No, thank you, Candice thinks. She’s going to stay inside li
* * *
• • •
David knocks on the door of Matthew’s room. When there’s no answer, he tries again, more loudly this time. Finally, with nervous hands he fumbles for the key he obtained from James and opens the door himself, afraid that Matthew might have done something drastic. He’s seen it before. He pushes the door open quickly and spies Matthew sitting immobile in a chair in front of the fireplace. David’s immediate relief shifts to uneasiness. Even though James had started a fire earlier, the room is chilly. David steps farther into the room. No wonder; Matthew has let the fire almost go out.
David approaches and studies Matthew carefully. He’s obviously been weeping. His eyes and face are puffy. He looks almost catatonic. “Matthew,” David says. The other man does not respond. It’s hard to tell if he’s swamped with grief or guilt, or quite possibly, both at once.
Quietly, David moves over to the fireplace and sets the fire screen aside. He chooses another log and carefully adds it to the fire, poking and prodding to make it catch. It’s good to have something like this to do while he thinks about what to say. He wishes he could just keep poking and prodding the fire forever, staring into the flames, and not have to do what he’s about to do. But he’s worried about this young man. He feels a responsibility. He would like to help if he can. Even though there is not much to be done; you can’t go back in time and change things. He’s just cleanup crew, really.
Finally, he sets the poker aside, replaces the fire screen, and takes the other chair beside Matthew. He pauses while he decides how to begin.
“The police will get here eventually,” he says at last in a low voice. “If not today, then tomorrow. They will investigate. There will be an inquest into the cause of death.” He pauses. He knows to speak slowly; the mind in shock has trouble taking things in. “It is my belief that they will not find the cause of death to be an accidental fall.” He waits. Matthew doesn’t stir, doesn’t even show surprise. Which is troubling. “It appears to me that the injury to the head, which was most likely the cause of death, is not one that would naturally occur in a fall. It looks like it was caused by being pushed into the edge of the stair from the front and above.” He can’t help himself; the cynicism takes over. “If you’re trying to make a murder look like an accident in a fall down the stairs, far better to push the head into the newel post in the direction of the fall.” That gets his attention.
“What did you say?” Matthew asks, lifting his head and looking at him for the first time.
David looks into his eyes. “I said it doesn’t look like an accident. It looks like your fiancée was murdered.”
“What?”
“I believe Dana was murdered.”
Matthew looks back at him as if it’s finally dawning on him. “Oh, God. No.”
“I believe so, yes.”
A long moment passes, and then Matthew says, “You think I did it.”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know. But I am a criminal defense attorney and I am here to offer you some free advice until you can retain an attorney of your own.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“Okay.”
“I was asleep, I swear! I didn’t even know she’d left the room! Why would she do that? She’s never left our hotel room before. The bathroom is right here. She’s not a sleepwalker.”
And that’s just it. Why would she leave the room, David thinks—unless she’d argued with her fiancé? And then perhaps he followed her, in a rage. Lost control for a fatal moment. He doesn’t want to ask—he doesn’t want to get involved—but he does. “Did you two have an argument last night?”
“What? No! Of course not. I love her! I could never hurt her!” His voice has risen and he lowers it again. “There must be some reason she left. Maybe she heard something out in the hall. I don’t know. All I know is that I slept through all of it.”
“You had no disagreements about anything, about . . . money? A prenup, perhaps?”
Matthew shakes his head dismissively. “No. Neither of us wanted, or needed, a prenup. We were in love—that’s the truth.” He asks desperately, “Do you really think someone killed her?”
“It looks that way to me,” David says.
Matthew turns back to stare at the fire, fresh tears spilling from his eyes. “Dear God.” He covers his face with his hands for a moment until he regains control. Then he removes them and turns to David. “If someone deliberately killed her, then I want to know who, and I want to know why.” He looks back at David. “It wasn’t me, I swear.” He is clearly tormented.
David observes Matthew shrewdly. He’s almost convinced the man is innocent. “Okay. But here’s my advice, anyway. Don’t say anything to anybody about this. Just—say nothing. It may not be a bad idea to stay up here in your room until the police get here. And when they do get here, if they caution you, and arrest you—and even if they don’t—say nothing. Get yourself a good attorney.”
Matthew has turned even paler. “What about you?”
“I don’t think so. But I can recommend someone, if you like.” David gets up to leave. He knows that with no phone service, there’s no one that Matthew can call, no one he can talk to. He’s isolated here. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m here if you need me,” he says. He means it. “I’ll check in on you again in a bit.”
Matthew nods and turns back to the fire.
David lets himself out.
* * *
• • •
Matthew hears the door click closed and turns to look. He’s alone again.
He stands up suddenly and begins to pace. He’s overcome with grief for Dana, but he’s also frightened and agitated by what David Paley has said. Dana is dead! And the attorney thinks he did it. If he thinks so, the police will think so too.
He suppresses a sob as he paces the room. He told the attorney that he and Dana hadn’t argued, and now he thinks he’s made a mistake. He and Dana had argued, tension about the impending wedding erupting out of nowhere. They’ve both been under a lot of stress.
Dana had brought up his mother again—complaining that his mother has never approved of her, never thought she was good enough. Dana got like that sometimes—more often, recently—emotionally overwrought, a little insecure. Looking at her, you would never be able to tell that sometimes she lacked confidence, but occasionally she revealed it to him. It didn’t bother him. He was used to people—friends and girlfriends—being intimidated by his wealthy, powerful family.
He’d denied it, of course. Said that she was being oversensitive, that of course his mother approved of her. But he was tired of having to say the same thing over and over. Especially because it wasn’t exactly true. His mother did think he could do better, and she’d had the audacity to tell him so, on more than one occasion. She’d tried to get him to wait, thinking he would tire of Dana, thinking that he was simply taken in by Dana’s beauty and that his feelings for her would change. He’d made it clear to his strong-willed, wealthy matriarch of a mother that he loved Dana and that he was going to marry her. But it was wearying to be constantly caught between the two women, unable to entirely please—or appease—either one of them. Last night, his exasperation had gotten the better of him.
He wonders suddenly if anyone heard them arguing.
ELEVEN
Saturday, 8:00 a.m.
The guests filter slowly from the dining room into the lobby, subdued, avoiding the staircase, some of them still holding coffee cups.
Henry is cursing his luck. If only the snow had not turned to driving ice in the night this would have been a rather fabulous winter wonderland. He could have gone cross-country skiing all day, worked off some of this godawful tension. Now he stands close to the front windows of the lobby and looks gloomily out at the ice—coating everything like g
He feels so restless. He leans forward and practically presses his nose against the cool glass of the window. He sees that a massive branch has broken off the enormous old tree on the front lawn and lies shattered in pieces, dark wood against sparkling white. He feels his wife come up behind him. Hears her say, “You aren’t thinking of going out in that.”
He hadn’t been, but now she’s decided it. “Yes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, as if scolding one of the kids for some harebrained idea.
He moves over to the coat stand near the door where most of them had left their coats the night before, their boots below them on the mat. He finds and pulls on his winter jacket, bends over and slips off his running shoes, and pulls on the winter boots that he arrived in.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ian says, but without the overlay of hysteria and the need for control Henry detects so frequently in his wife’s voice.
“I won’t go far,” he tells Ian, pulling on his hat. “I just want to get some fresh air.”
“Make sure you stay away from any power lines,” Ian advises him.
They’re all standing watching him, as if he’s some kind of canary, testing the conditions.
Henry turns around and opens the front door. He feels the cold air hit his face, and everyone’s eyes on his back. He steps out onto the porch and pulls the door closed behind him. It’s now that he notices the wind—how wild and loud it is. From inside the hotel it sounds like a constant, dull roar with the occasional shriek, something far away, but out here it’s alive, it’s a monster, and it’s much closer. He looks toward the forest at the edge of the lawn and sees how the wind is whipping the tops of the trees back and forth. And the noise—it’s like a keening. Worst of all is the creaking, sawing sound as the wind brings its force to bear on the ice-laden branches of the tree in front of him. He closes his eyes for a moment and listens; he imagines that this is what an old wooden sailing ship might have sounded like at sea, in a storm. Then he opens his eyes and lifts them up to the tree, wondering if any more branches are about to come down.