Killer On A Hot Tin Roof

by Livia J. Washburn

  “I am a mite tired,” he rumbled. He squinted at me. “Who’re you again, Red?”

  I ignored the nickname and said, “Delilah Dickinson. I’m in charge of the tour.”

  “Oh, yeah. I ‘member you now. How’s about helpin’ me up?”

  June and I got on either side of him and took hold of his arms. I don’t know how much he weighed–close to three hundred pounds, surely–but we had to struggle to get him on his feet. He was too drunk to give us much help, but after a minute we managed to get him standing. He took a few unsteady steps down the path with us helping him, then stopped short and said, “Oh, hell. I’m gonna be sick.”

  He jerked away from us. We couldn’t hold him. He lunged to the edge of the path and plowed into the shrubs, parting them with his thick arms. He fell to his knees and started throwing up.

  June looked mortified. She muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” I told her. “And not the first sick drunk I’ve had to deal with on a tour, either.”

  “I just hope he’s not throwing up blood.”

  “Yeah, you and me both.” I had visions of a 9-1-1 call and an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.

  When Dr. Powers was through being sick, June and I started to step off the path to help him up. Before we could reach him, though, he slumped onto his side and lay there motionless. With fear in her voice, June said, “Papa Larry?”

  He started snoring.

  “You … you old fart!” she said. “Now what are we going to do? He’s too big for us to lift his dead weight.”

  “Let’s see if we can wake him up enough to help us,” I said. I pushed some of the branches aside and moved into the garden, being careful to step around the place where he’d been sick. As I reached Papa Larry’s side, I knelt and took hold of his arm, giving it a good shake. “Dr. Powers! Dr. Powers, you need to wake up again for a little while.”

  Papa Larry kept snoring.

  I sighed and shook my head and, as I did, I looked past his bulky shape and saw a shoe sticking out from under a bush. Curious, I moved my head so I could see better and saw a skinny ankle in an argyle sock above the shoe. My heart started to pound harder. Above the shoe and the argyle sock was a trouser leg, and it looked like it went with an old brown suit.

  Without thinking too much about what I was doing, I clambered over Papa Larry without disturbing his drunken stupor. I jerked branches aside and saw the rest of the trousers and the suit coat and the bony shape of the man wearing them. I saw a hat lying upside down and then a bald head covered with blood, and then I dropped to my hands and knees next to the body and found myself staring in horror into the dead eyes of Howard Burleson.

  CHAPTER 9

  I was shocked beyond words and for a second I couldn’t think straight. Despite what had happened on some of my other tours, my first thought wasn’t that the old man had been murdered, but rather that he had wandered out here into the garden, gotten turned around and lost, and in his panic had run into a tree or fallen and hit his head. He had seemed so frail, I didn’t think it would have taken much of a blow to finish him off.

  But then I saw that there weren’t any trees around for him to bash his head against, no rocks or roots he could have landed on. That was when the suspicion started to well up in me. I shook my head and thought, “Not again, not again, not again …”

  “Ms. Dickinson!” That was June Powers’s urgent voice intruding on my thoughts. “Ms. Dickinson, what’s wrong? What are you saying?”

  I guess I wasn’t just thinking that shocked litany; I was saying it out loud. I started to back away from the body. To do that, I had to crawl over Papa Larry again. He was still snoring away.

  I pushed myself back to my feet and stumbled out of the bushes. “We … we’ve gotta get some help,” I told June.

  “He’s so drunk you can’t wake him up. I knew it.” She sighed in exasperation. “I’ll go get Edgar. He’s not much good for anything, but if you point at something and tell him to pick it up, he can usually manage that. I’d rather not involve the hotel staff unless we have to.”

  “Oh, they’ll have to be involved,” I said, “and the police, too.”

  June stared at me. “The police?” she repeated. “Oh, no, please, Ms. Dickinson, I don’t want to have Papa Larry arrested. His health is too bad for that. I’m begging you–”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “I’m not talkin’ about your father-in-law,” I told her. “I’m talkin’ about the dead body that’s in there beside him.”

  June’s eyes bulged out even more. “D-d-dead body?” she stammered out. “There’s a body in there?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Howard Burleson.”

  I could tell she didn’t recognize the name right away. Then she thought about it for a couple of seconds and said, “That old man Michael Frasier brought with him? The one who claimed to be one of Tennessee Williams’s lovers?”

  “Heard about that, did you?”

  “I think everybody at the festival has heard about it. Dr. Frasier caused quite a sensation. Which is exactly what he wanted, of course.” June shook her head. “And you say he’s dead? Could you tell what happened? A heart attack or a stroke, something like that?”

  “The cops’ll have to figure that out,” I said. I didn’t want rumors to start spreading and, for all I knew, June might be such a big gossip that she’d go and alert everybody in the hotel to the fact that Burleson was dead. “Go to the front desk and tell them there’s an emergency, that we need the policeand an ambulance right away.” I was almost completely certain that Burleson was dead, but on the slim chance that he wasn’t, he needed medical help as soon as possible.

  “But … but what about Papa Larry?”

  A raucous snore came from behind the bushes, as if to answer her question.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” I promised. “I’m gonna stay right here until the authorities arrive. Somebody needs to watch the scene and make sure it’s not disturbed.”

  She frowned at me. “You sound like one of those TV cop shows.”

  I didn’t explain to her that I had more experience with homicide investigations than I’d ever wanted to. In fact, if you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said that my desire to be involved in such things was absolutely zero. But they seemed to keep cropping up anyway, whether I wanted them to or not.

  “Just go tell ‘em at the desk we need help, okay? I’m pretty sure Mr. Burleson’s dead, but he might not be.”

  Understanding dawned on June’s face. “Oh. Okay. But don’t let anything happen to Papa Larry.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  She turned and hurried off along the path, and the way it twisted through the garden, it was only a few seconds before she was out of sight. That left me standing there alone, except for the guy who was passed out drunk and the bloody corpse of an old man.

  That wasn’t a very pleasant situation.

  It got even more worrisome when I realized that I didn’t know how long Burleson had been dead. I had been too shocked to check for a pulse, so I hadn’t touched his body. He might have still been warm.

  If that was the case, then it was possible that whoever killed him was still close by.

  That thought made me glance around nervously, but of course I couldn’t see anything except the plants that surrounded me and the path that led through them. Larry Powers made a burbling noise and stopped snoring. That got me to worrying that he had stopped breathing as well, and even though I told myself I was sure he was all right, I really wasn’t. I had promised June I would look after him, and I sure as heck didn’t want to have two clients die on this tour.

  So I took a deep breath, then turned around and pushed my way into the bushes again. I only had to go a couple of steps before I could see Papa Larry again. I looked at him intently until I was sure that his chest was still rising and falling. I didn’t want to go any cl
oser because then I would have had an even better look at Burleson’s corpse.

  Once I was certain that Powers hadn’t died in his sleep, I felt a little better. I had started to back out of the bushes when I saw something move ahead of me. Curiosity made me stop and look closer. The gaps in the plant life lined up just right for me to be able to peer through the bushes to the path on the far side where Howard Burleson lay. All I could see was a narrow slice of it, but as I watched, I saw a figure moving away from me at an angle, then disappearing. Maybe it was the circumstances, but something about the person struck me as furtive, even as I recognized the blond hair.

  Callie Madison had good reason to be skulking around, I thought. She was cheating on her husband and didn’t want him to find out about it.

  But was she also a murderer?

  I couldn’t stop my thoughts from traveling along that trail. I didn’t know what room the Madisons were in, but I could find out. If it was on the same side of the hotel that my room wason, she could have taken one of the other elevators down from Dr. Jeffords’s room, then cut across the garden to take one of the main elevators back up to her room.

  Of course, she could have just gone around the corridor that encircled the atrium and gotten back to her room that way, if it was on the same floor. But she would have been more likely to run into someone she knew that way, and by now it was after midnight. If some of the other professors saw her, it was possible that one of them might say something to Jake about it, and then he would want to know where she had been. I was guessing that he’d been asleep when she slipped out of their room.

  But by cutting through the garden to the main elevators, if Jake heard about it, she could make some plausible excuse about going down to the lobby. I supposed the front desk in the St. Emilion, like most hotels, had a supply of toothbrushes, razors, etc., the sort of things that people sometimes forget when they pack, or lose along the way during a trip. If she told Jake she had gone after something like that, he might wonder about it, but he probably wouldn’t be too suspicious.

  Of course, all that was just a theory, and maybe a farfetched one at that. One thing I had learned in recent years, though, was that life could be pretty farfetched at times, especially where murder was concerned.

  Did I really think that Callie Madison could have killed Howard Burleson? I couldn’t think of any reason in the world why she would have … but I never would have suspected her of playing around with Dr. Jeffords, either.

  It was more likely, though, that she might have seen something that would provide a clue to the real killer. The police would have to talk to her.

  Which meant she’d have to explain what she’d been doing down here in the garden at this time of night, and Jake was bound to find out about it, and more than likely her marriagewould be ruined. “Shoot,” I muttered to myself. Seeing Callie had put me in a bad position. I didn’t want to conceal the fact that I’d seen her from the cops. For one thing, the sooner this case was cleared up, the better, and Callie might have vital information.

  Of course, said a little voice in the back of my head, I could always talk to her first, before I told the cops anything about her being in the vicinity of the murder …

  “You’re crazy,” I told that little voice. I’d had plenty of trying to solve crimes. I wasn’t cut out for it, no matter what Will seemed to believe.

  But I couldn’t stop my thoughts from replaying everything that had happened tonight. I had seen Dr. Ian Keller down here, too, I remembered. That was earlier, but I didn’t have any idea how long Burleson had been dead. Keller was big enough and intimidating enough to cast in the role of a murderer a lot easier than Callie Madison was.

  Again, though, I couldn’t come up with any reason why Dr. Keller would have done such a thing. He didn’t have any stake in whether an old man lived or died.

  I could think of two people who did, though: Michael Frasier and Tamara Paige.

  Before I could ponder on that anymore, I heard hurried footsteps coming toward me. It sounded like several people, so I wasn’t surprised when Dale Gillette came around the corner in the path, followed by June Powers and a couple of security guards probably summoned from the hotel’s parking garage.

  “Oh, my God,” Gillette said. “Where is he? Where’s the body?”

  He still wore his suit and tie and looked as dapper as ever. I couldn’t help but ask, “Don’t you ever go home?”

  “I am home,” he snapped. “I live in the hotel. Now take us to the body.”

  “Right back here,” I said, pushing some branches aside.

  Gillette shouldered past me and stopped beside Larry Powers.

  “Not him,” I said. “He’s just drunk and passed out. The other one, right there on the other side of that bush.”

  “Oh.” Gillette leaned over and took a closer look, then said in a shaky voice, “Oh, Lord. He looks dead, all right.”

  One of the security guards said, “Let me check. I used to be a paramedic.”

  He stepped around Powers and dropped to one knee beside Burleson. It didn’t take him long to check for a pulse and not find one. As the guard looked up at us, he shook his head and said, “Sorry, Mr. Gillette. The old guy’s dead, all right. The police will still want an ambulance to transport him, though, so it’s good that you called for one.”

  “There’s nothing good about this,” Gillette said, sounding stricken. “This is terrible, just terrible. Roy, can you tell, did he fall and hit his head or something?”

  The security guard leaned over to take a better look at Burleson’s head without touching him, and when he looked up this time, his expression was grim. “Nah, he didn’t hit his head. Somebody hit it for him.”

  Gillette frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “His head’s bashed in, Mr. Gillette. Somebody killed him.”

  Gillette staggered, literally staggered. “Killed him?” he repeated. “You mean … murdered him?”

  “Yeah. This is a homicide. I saw plenty of ‘em when I was an EMT.”

  Gillette started backing away as if he couldn’t stand to be that close to the body. He was about to trip over the still-sleeping Larry Powers when I took hold of his arm to keep him from falling.

  “Careful,” I told him.

  He turned to look at me, and the dapper, self-assured young man he’d been earlier transformed into a scared kid just a year or so out of Cornell.

  “This can’t be murder,” he said. “It just can’t be.”

  “You’re bound to have had guests die in the hotel before. It’s not that uncommon.”

  “Yeah, there have been a few in the time I’ve been here, but … but they were natural causes. And one drug overdose. Not … not murder. This is going to be terrible for the St. Emilion’s reputation.”

  It wasn’t going to do wonders for my agency, either, I thought, especially considering the things that had happened on some of my previous tours. But at the moment I couldn’t let myself think about that. An old man had been killed. The only thing that mattered right now was finding out who murdered him.

  Roy, the security guard who had been a paramedic, turned to Papa Larry. “What about this guy?” he asked. “What’s wrong with him?” Before anybody could answer, he leaned over, took a whiff, and said, “Never mind. I can smell the booze.”

  “He’s sick,” June put in. “He’s had stomach cancer. He’s supposed to be in remission, but he shouldn’t be drinking.”

  Roy frowned. “No, he shouldn’t. Is he the one who threw up over there?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t see any blood in it, that’s good. Maybe we’d better get him out of here. Doug, give me a hand.”

  The other security guard stepped forward, and they each took hold of one of Papa Larry’s arms. They hadn’t even started trying to lift him, though, when somebody said, “Hold it! What are you doing there?”

  I looked up and saw a couple of men in suits on the path. Several uniformed police
officers were behind them. The twomen looked like detectives, which surprised me. I’d figured that patrol officers would get here first.

  “Who’s in charge here?” asked the man who had just spoken. He was a rawboned white man with a shock of red hair. His partner was black, tall, and slender with glasses perched on his nose.

  “I … I guess I am,” Gillette replied. “I’m the assistant manager of the hotel. Dale Gillette.”

  “Has the manager been notified, Mr. Gillette?” the other detective asked.

  “Not yet. I wanted to be sure what the situation was first.”

  “We’ll take care of that, then. All communications will flow through us. I’m Detective Nesbit.” He inclined his head toward the redhead. “This is Detective Ramsey.”

  Ramsey gave us a curt, unfriendly nod. He was obviously in a bad mood, which didn’t bode well for things going smoothly. Detective Nesbit seemed to be okay, though … or maybe they were just already doing the old good cop, bad cop bit. It seemed sort of early for that to me, but maybe that was the way they played everything, right from the start.

  “Step away from the body,” Ramsey told the two security guards. “You’d better be glad we got here in time to stop you from disturbing our corpse.”

  “That’s not your corpse,” I said. “The dead man’s over there.” I pointed to where Burleson’s foot stuck out from behind the bush.

  Ramsey glared at me and jerked his chin toward Papa Larry. “Then what’s wrong with him?”

  “Passed out drunk,” Roy said.

  “He in any danger of choking or anything like that?”

  Roy shrugged. “Doesn’t appear to be. He’s breathing all right, at least as far as I can tell.”

  “All right, leave him right where he is for now. It’s bad enough all you people have been trampling around here for God knows how long, messing up our forensics. Nobody move until I tell you it’s all right, okay? You … Gillette … what’s the story here?”

  Gillette shook his head. “I really don’t know, Detective. It was that woman who summoned me out here.” He sounded like he was getting some of his aplomb back, but he still looked like a scared little boy as he pointed to June Powers.