Nickerblog’s Mystery Hotel

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It was awkward, the photographer’s entrance.

Father knew. I had told him just seconds before. Father knew I’d made the mistake again. He knew, although I promised it would never happen again, that I had broken the agreement. It happened on the very day our little town was going to become famous. We had just opened the front doors to the hotel. The night’s guests had not stirred for the morning and the mountain travelers and insurance men wouldn’t be coming through the doors for another hour or better.

No sooner had I said, “Father, it happened again,” did the man with the camera walk through the door. He asked for our time, for us to pose. “For posterity,” he said.

I know Father steeled his face for the picture. I know he wanted to cry. Every time it happened before, Father had taken on the job of fixing my mistake. No one would ever know, he promised me, as long as I never did it again. And yet. And yet, I had done it again.

The photographer took just three minutes to set his camera on a tripod and burn a hard flash into our eyes. For a moment, I was blind. I couldn’t see the calendars on the wall. I couldn’t see how my father was reacting. I couldn’t see if anyone else was walking in the doors. I only knew that when I could see again, I would have to look my father in the eye and tell him in which room he would find the body.

It was awkward, the photographer’s entrance. But it was the only moment all day that I was at peace.