Gray slices of light outlined the heavy drapes as the first signs of dawn touched Mackinac Island. Jeff had crawled wearily from bed an hour earlier, pulled a robe over his body, and brewed a pot of his personal coffee blend—a dark-roasted mix of Colombian, Kona, and Turkish beans—that Sheila had packed for him.
The rustle he’d heard at his door earlier turned out to be a pleasant surprise of the New York Times in an interesting, miniature form—a sampling of articles faxed straight from the Big Apple and into the hands of the hotel’s guests—via the efforts of no telling how many employees who copied and stapled and delivered it at four in the morning. It was accompanied by an impressively organized schedule of the day’s events at the hotel.
Jeff had had his first cup of coffee while going over current and future events, then had showered and dressed. Now that dawn was breaking, he poured a second cup and took it onto his balcony.
The furniture was coated with water—either from last night’s rain, or this morning’s dew, or both—so he stood at the railing, feeling as if he were trying to see the hotel’s gardens and Lake Huron through a scrim. He savored this time of morning, loved to study the changes in the landscape that took place like the click-shink, click-shink of a slide show.
The air smelled damp, and the rains had stirred the lake’s waters, bringing up a slight fishy smell like that he’d grown up with on the Pacific Coast.
The gray dawn grew lighter with each frame, the flowers and grass and water taking on increasing degrees of warmth. Their vivid colors sharpened, revealed more detail.
He heard hooves strike pavement in the distance. The clop, clop reverberated, carried farther in the fog.
He strained to see as far as the fountain, but it wasn’t yet visible. He drank his coffee and watched silently as the fog slowly burned off.
Specks of color began showing around the hazy perimeter as blooms of goldenrod, purple coneflower, asters, and roses came into view. The Tea Garden, nestled as it was in the concave disk below the hill where the hotel stood, would be the last to throw aside its misty blanket.
An outline of the fountain became visible, and shafts of sunlight cut through the outlying trees and burned at the fog, trying to reflect itself off the basin of water. Jeff wondered what else the water was reflecting. It had a red tinge to it, as if it were mimicking the hotel’s trademark geraniums that bloomed on everything from the carpeting to the stationery.
The misty veil lifted. Jeff saw something—a tarp?—draped over the low stone wall of the pool that surrounded the fountain. His first thought was of the kid who’d been reamed out the night before for leaving the hedge clippers out. He was really in for it when his superior discovered the tarp in the fountain.
The sun broke full then, sharpening everything in the garden as if a spotlight had been turned onto the scene.
Jeff’s grip went slack. He set down the cup of coffee to avoid dropping it. The tarp crumpled over the ledge wasn’t a tarp but a jacket. Two arms extended from its sleeves at unnatural angles. The red wasn’t a reflection; it was blood.
Jeff stumbled back into his room and dialed 911. Waiting, his heart thudding, he wondered whether the secluded island actually had 911. Then a dispatcher answered, and Jeff explained what he had seen. The woman assured him that she would send an ambulance, as well as the local police, to the hotel. Jeff hung up and flew out of the room.
Sirens whined in the distance as he reached the fountain. The slender body was dressed in a sport coat, jeans, and loafers without socks. Jeff spread his stance for support on the slick surface and propped one foot against the base of the fountain for leverage. He hooked his arms under those of the man and tried to lift.
The odd angle at which he had to stand, combined with the heavy, water-soaked clothing was more than Jeff expected. He strained against the efforts of the water, which seemed determined not to release its catch. Suddenly, with a loud sucking sound, body and water separated, and Jeff pulled the person over the fountain’s wall.
Loafers without socks. He wondered why that was important.
There is an ominous, pounding silence during the seconds before a bell sounds. When a competition is about to start or your race against the clock is almost over and the anticipation builds within that silence and the pressure threatens to burst your eardrums and pound your heart through your chest.
That silence deafened Jeff as he turned the man over.
He met the cold, dead stare of Frank Hamilton.