Strawberry Sprinkled Swirl Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 49

by Gillard, Susan

  They looked around at the guests who were half-heartedly attempting to mingle. Because they did not have the stimulating lecture that they would all have heard to discuss amongst themselves, they started speculating about what was preventing the talk from starting on time. Some were considering that Mr. Worthers was finishing an important deal that morning and that he would come to talk to them fresh from the fight – and with important insights to share. Others thought that Mr. Worthers didn’t consider them important and was purposely making them wait. The other idea that was being thrown around was less kind to the Hillside Humly Hotel. The last theory as that this had all been a ruse to get them to stay here instead of fancier places.

  “Norton Worthers wouldn’t stand us up,” a nondescript man in gray said. He was holding a notebook and looked poised to take notes from the man he admired. “When Worthers makes a deal, he stands by it. He’ll be here.”

  A man and woman with matching gold watches kept checking the time. Heather decided this was probably to show off both their impatience and their wealth.

  Amy had been passing the time by counting the number of sprinkles that were on each bite of her donut before eating it. She proclaimed it was the perfect amount, but also that she was bored by staring at the sugary squares.

  “How much longer?” Amy asked again.

  “You sound like the kid in a back seat of a car asking ‘Are we there yet?’,” Heather said.

  “I think it’s a valid question when the car isn’t moving,” her friend countered.

  “Maybe we can find Caroline Humly and see what’s going on,” Heather said, getting up from her seat.

  “I’ve got a feeling she’s not humming a happy tune right now,” Amy said, following.

  She was right that Caroline was not humming or happy. Instead, she was pacing in the lobby near the conference room, and looking nervous.

  “It’s all going wrong. Everyone is unhappy,” she said. “Humly Hotel is going to fail.”

  “Calm down,” Heather commanded when she saw her. “You’re not doomed yet. They’re still eating. We can figure this out. Now, where is Mr. Worthers?”

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said. “But he’s not here.”

  “Is he staying at the hotel?” Amy asked.

  Caroline nodded. “I called his room, and he didn’t pick up.”

  “But did you check his room?”

  “I was waiting for him here,” Caroline said.

  “Let’s go,” Heather said. “Show us to the room, and we’ll knock on the door. If there’s no answer, we’ll figure out what to do next.”

  Caroline accepted the idea and led them down the hall. She was so anxious that she just kept talking. It was half a tour of the hotel and half a worried march towards the room.

  “Norton Worthers is down this hall. All the other guests are down the second one there. We weren’t at full capacity, so when he asked for privacy, I let him have the whole hallway. I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I hope I didn’t offend him and he left.”

  Heather admired the rustic look of the hotel. It did have a certain amount of charm, despite retaining some older design styles instead of updating it to the modern mainstream. The walls were a mix of wood paneling and light wallpaper. The lighting was provided by small wall lamps, and the doors looked like they were locked with metal keys instead of electronic key cards. Heather would have appreciated the look more if she weren’t so focused on finding out what happened to Mr. Worthers.

  Caroline continued, “He used to own this hotel. A long time ago. He was several owners back. It was before he started making it big. That was why I asked him to speak when our other speaker backed out. I thought it might be an inspirational story and relate to the history of the hotel. But maybe he didn’t like what he saw. Maybe he ran out in the middle of the night.”

  She stopped her ramblings as they reached Mr. Worther’s hotel room door. She knocked politely, and they heard no response.

  “Do you mind?” Amy asked, wanting a turn herself. Caroline made no objection, so she pounded on the door. There was no way a person inside could not have heard that knock.

  “Norton Worthers,” Heather called. “We’re checking to make sure everything is all right. You weren’t at the Business Breakfast,”

  Still, there was no response.

  “Do you have a key?” Heather asked Caroline.

  Caroline Humly removed a ring of keys from her jacket pocket and found the one marked for room A10. She paused before entering the key into the lock.

  “He’s such an important man. I wouldn’t want to barge in on him.”

  “There might not be anyone inside,” Amy pointed out.

  “Or he might be in trouble,” Heather said.

  Still, Caroline faltered. She took out her cell phone.

  “Let me just try this again,” she said, making a call. “Dylan, can you connect me to A10 again? It’s Norton Worther’s room. Ten. One, zero.”

  They waited in the hallway as they heard the call go through. The phone in the room rang and rang. No one answered it.

  “Caroline, I think we need to check inside.”

  She nodded. She hung up the phone and unlocked the door. They all entered the silent room. Norton Worthers was still in his bed but made no movement as they approached.

  “He’s still asleep?” Caroline asked.

  Heather moved closer to the bed and examined the man.

  “No,” Heather said. “You’ll have to call the police. Norton Worthers is dead.”

  Chapter 4

  The guests had started to find waiting for Mr. Worther’s speech boring but now found the fact that he had died anything-but-boring. They were almost happy to be told that they had to wait at the hotel until the police had questioned them all. They had all set aside the morning for the Business Breakfast, so they didn’t have anywhere to be, and now they would be able to tell their friends that they were at the same hotel where the well-known millionaire had breathed his last breath.

  There were also rumors circulating about what had caused the death. Some guests assumed the stress of his work had caused him ill health and he had probably suffered a heart attack. Others had already jumped to an assumption of murder. Norton Worthers had certainly angered some people in his business dealings, and one of them must have caught up with him.

  The man with the notebook looked devastated. He was fanning himself with the book he had intended for notes, and kept muttering about how “this couldn’t be possible.”

  The couple with the gold watches were talking with a tall man about the possibility of murder and how safe their rooms were if a killer could have struck during the night.

  Heather and Amy were forming their own theories, as they sat with the other guests in the conference room.

  “If Ryan is having all the guests stay for questioning, he must suspect foul play, right?” Amy asked, referring to Heather’s detective husband who had arrived on the scene.

  “I think so,” Heather said. “I didn’t want to disturb any evidence, so I didn’t touch anything, but what I could see of Mr. Worther’s face made me think he was murdered too.”

  “How did his face look? Did he look terrified? Or like he was walking towards a bright light?”

  “His eyes were bloodshot. That’s normally a sign of someone being suffocated.”

  Amy shivered. “Suffocated in his bed? That will make falling asleep hard tonight.”

  “You’re welcome to join the sleepover party at my house tonight,” Heather said. With her family, additional houseguests, dog Dave and kitten Cupcake every night was becoming a group gathering.

  “I might take you up on that,” Amy said. “But I guess we should focus on solving the crime before going to bed. Do you think someone here suffocated him?”

  “It’s definitely possible. I think that’s why Ryan asked us to wait with everyone while they removed the body and dusted for prints. Does anyone seem suspicious to you?”

 
“Everyone just seems gossipy,” Amy said. “Except notebook guy who looks depressed.”

  Heather nodded. They spent a little more time scanning the crowd and listening to tidbits of conversation. There was lots of speculation, but no definite clues that anyone in the room knew what had happened.

  Detective Hoskins came into the room to tell Heather and Amy that they could go look at the crime scene if they wanted. Heather wondered why Hoskins had come to tell them instead of Ryan until she saw Hoskins make a beeline for the leftover donuts. He must have offered to tell them so he could grab a snack.

  Heather shook her head. She always found Ryan’s partner to be a bit lazy and inept. She hoped he would wipe the icing off his fingers before he picked up any evidence.

  She and Amy returned to room A10 and found Ryan inside with his notepad out. They greeted each other and then got down to business.

  “What did you find out?” Heather asked.

  “There will be an official autopsy,” Ryan said. “But it looks like he was suffocated.”

  “You are good,” Amy complimented her friend.

  “It was most likely with one of the pillows from the room,” Ryan said.

  “Then the killer didn’t have to bring the murder weapon with them,” Heather said.

  Ryan nodded. “We’re trying to determine whether the killer staged the scene to look like Mr. Worthers was in bed when he was attacked. Or whether he actually was in bed he was killed.”

  “The sheets looked smooth when we came in before,” Heather commented. “Even if the attack started when Norton Worthers was asleep, he would have woken up and struggled some. The sheets would have to be straightened afterward.”

  “Did the killer really think that this would look like an accident?” Amy asked.

  “It’s possible,” Heather said. “Or it was just to add more confusion to the puzzle.”

  “I hate when they do that,” said Amy.

  “Did forensics find any fingerprints or DNA?” Heather asked, turning to Ryan.

  “The room was pretty clean, but not spotless. We’ll have to compare Mr. Worthers’s fingerprints to what we found though because most of the prints were in spots that the victim probably touched himself.”

  “So we’ll have to wait to see what the lab says.”

  “Right,” Ryan agreed. “But I’m not optimistic. There wasn’t much else found in the way of DNA. We’re going to analyze that pillow with everything we got. But I have a feeling the killer was careful.”

  “Not so careful that we can’t catch him,” Heather said.

  Ryan nodded.

  “We’ll have to see who had a reason to want Mr. Worthers dead,” Amy said.

  “Right,” Heather agreed. “And who had access to this room.”

  Chapter 5

  “I’m ruined,” Caroline said. “This is the worst thing that could have happened. I invite businesspeople to come and network over breakfast, and instead, one is murdered.”

  Caroline Humly alternated between pacing across her office and sitting down for a few fleeting moments while jiggling her feet.

  Heather, Ryan, and Amy exchanged looks. Interviewing her was going to be more difficult than they had thought. As the owner of the hotel, she would have a good deal of knowledge that could be helpful in their investigation. However, she could hardly keep still and could not focus on what she was being asked.

  “Ms. Humly, we need you to answer our questions,” Heather said.

  “I have my own questions,” she responded. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do! How could this happen?”

  “That’s what we’d like to determine,” Ryan said. “How many people could have entered that room?”

  Hoskins had volunteered to keep watch on the guests in the conference room. Heather suspected this was just another excuse to eat donuts on the job. However, it was a good idea to make sure the guests were keeping calm. If Caroline’s anxiousness were any indication, the guests might start a riot.

  “My beautiful hotel is going to become a sordid story in a tabloid. I can see the headline now: Millionaire Murdered!”

  “Maybe the headline could be: Killer Caught,” Heather suggested. She was beginning to lose her patience but was trying very hard to act in an understanding manner. She was a business owner herself and knew she would be devastated if something happened to ruin her donut shop. (She actually had thwarted some attempts to do so!) However, despite any stressful feelings one might have about their business, a man had been murdered that must take precedence. They needed to learn more about the hotel.

  “I saw you had a key. Who else has one?” Heather asked.

  “I can’t believe there was a murder. Humly Hotel is not more. I’m doomed,” Caroline continued, as she paced some more.

  Amy jumped into her path and stopped her. “Calm down,” she said. “It could be worse.”

  “How?” Caroline asked.

  “The breakfast could have been gross?” Amy suggested. “But seriously, this is a bad situation. But we can improve it.”

  “I don’t see how,” Caroline said. “No one will want to stay where a murder happened.”

  “They might,” Amy said. “People love ghost stories. It might actually be a draw for some people. You could market that.”

  Caroline considered it and allowed herself to be led to a chair. She actually stayed seated as she said, “That might work. I really liked my Business Breakfast idea though.”

  “You could still have the Business Breakfast,” Heather said soothingly. “If we can catch the killer quickly, you could convince people to come back. Everyone who is here was very excited by the idea. You could reschedule it, and try it again.”

  “That’s true,” Caroline said. “Most of the guests booked before I had confirmed my speaker. They were intrigued by the idea.”

  “What do you mean before you confirmed the speaker?” Ryan said. “The guests didn’t know that Norton Worthers would be here?”

  “Not at first,” Caroline said. “When I started advertising, I just said there would be a speaker, and then everyone could mingle. Then I thought it was going to be George Mapleton. It wasn’t until this week that I had to find a replacement.”

  “And then you started telling guests that Norton Worthers would be the speaker?” Heather asked.

  “Right,” Caroline confirmed.

  Heather understood why Ryan had asked for clarification about confirming the speaker. If the guests had booked their stay before Norton Worthers had been scheduled, then they couldn’t have come here planning to kill him.

  “Did anyone book after Mr. Worthers was announced?” Heather asked.

  Caroline seemed to realize this was important and checked her computer. “Yes. Three guests booked after that announcement. Gary Gray in B14. Rachel Wright in B5 and Mike Delon in the adjoining B7.”

  Ryan made a note of the names and rooms.

  “We’ll have to talk to them,” Ryan said. “And to the staff. Did they have access to the room?”

  “No,” Caroline said. “My staff wouldn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hire killers.”

  “Who did you hire?” Heather asked.

  “It’s a small staff right now,” Caroline said. “We’re hoping to grow. And we don’t have a kitchen. Right now it’s me. I have a concierge named Dylan, and a maid named Lisette. There’s also a handyman. George Copper. He’s been working at this building for a long time. New owners keep him on because he knows how to keep things running. That’s all I have for my permanent staff. I was hoping this event would lead to good word of mouth and bring us more business, and then I would hire more employees as they were needed.”

  “Which of them have keys?”

  “None of them.”

  “No one has keys?” Heather asked.

  “Maybe you don’t really trust them,” Amy commented.

  “No, that’s not it,” Caroline said. “They’re special keys. I know the hotel looks a little older. I thought metal
keys would keep with the look. But they’re actually special shapes. You need a special machine to make duplicates of these keys. I thought that would make things more secure.”

  “How many copies of the keys are there?” Ryan asked.

  “Just two. I hold one at all times. I can let people in and out of a room if necessary. Then there’s a second key for each room. It starts at the desk. Then it is signed out to guests. When a guest returns their key, Lisette can take it and clean the room.”

  “So all your employees have access to the keys when they’re at the desk?” He asked.