Everybody Wanted Room 623

by Cecil Murphey

  At first I wondered why someone didn’t hear the noise, but perhaps there had been no one around. It was, after all, midday, and most guests were out of their rooms.

  “Who is she really?” Burton asked. “She lied to us once.”

  “Even then she didn’t tell us her name,” I said. “But when she registered, she did use a credit card—”

  “So who was she?” Burton asked the clerk.

  “I’m still so rattled, I don’t remember the name,” Craig said.

  “I know who she is.” I turned around. A tall woman said, “Her name is Deedra Knight. At least that’s the name I knew her by.”

  Five

  Before I had a chance to question the woman, she stepped into the doorway of room 623 and said, “I haven’t seen Deedra for years, but she hasn’t changed much. She still has those cheap-looking acrylic nails. Frankly, from the back side she looks better than she ever did from the front.”

  “And who are you?”

  “My name is Janet Lauber Grand, and before you ask, I didn’t like her. In fact, I detested her.”

  “Well, at least we know who she is,” I said. “I mean, who she was.”

  “And you’re with the police, is that correct?” She glared at me. I said nothing, and she quickly picked up on that. “You’re not, are you? So why are you here?”

  I stared at her, but I couldn’t see the faintest family resemblance. Instead of answering her question, I asked, “How did you know which room was Stefan’s?”

  “First, because he called me on the phone yesterday and said he was now staying at this inn. Second, I have no idea who you are and why you’re asking me these questions. You are not with the police, are you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Third, perhaps you ought to explain to me. Stefan was my brother. After I learned he had passed, I came . . . well, I came to see if there was anything, you know, anything I could do.”

  “Where did you come from?” Burton asked. “How did you know to come to this room?”

  “I walked toward the reception desk. I came in through the side parking lot. I heard this man,” she said, pointing to Craig, “shouting in a most unprofessional manner. Something about another murder in room 623.” She explained that by the time she reached the elevator, it had closed, so she watched the dial above the elevator, saw that it stopped on the sixth floor, and rang for the second elevator. “When I came off the elevator, I saw you three standing in front of this door. Now, who are you?”

  “I’m the desk clerk,” Craig said.

  “I don’t mean you.” The contempt was heavy in her voice. “With that blazer and your name on the jacket, that is patently obvious. I mean these two.”

  “I’m a therapist,” I said and told her that Stefan had asked me to come to see him.

  “A therapist? Stefan with a psychiatrist? You must be joking.”

  I’m a psychologist, but I didn’t correct her.

  “She isn’t joking,” Burton said and introduced himself.

  “And now you’re going to tell me that my brother decided to study for the priesthood.”

  “I never met your brother,” Burton said. “I’m a guest at the hotel.”

  “Then what right do you have to ask me anything?” she said. “I’m not going to tell you anything more.”

  “Then tell me.”

  I jumped and turned around. None of us had heard Ollie Viktor come into the room.

  He held up his badge and waved it in front of the woman.

  “In that case, I’m delighted to talk to someone who obviously has the authority to ask questions.” She gave me a half-second smile that wasn’t worth moving her facial muscles. She turned to Ollie, eyed him, and nodded in approval of either his general appearance or his good looks. “My name is Mrs. Janet Lauber Grand.” She accented Lauber again. “Stefan was my brother.” She tilted her chin. “My much older brother.”

  I wouldn’t have believed it, but she was flirting with Ollie, smiling and fawning, and she moved around so he could see her trim figure. Okay, she was beautiful—even I had to admit that much. She was also a woman who had been around—a lot. The hardness in her eyes and the tautness around her mouth were two things her expensive makeup couldn’t hide. Her face, which seemed tightened regularly by a plastic surgeon to retain its youth, was expertly made up, as if she were about to walk on stage or on a runway. Her iridescent blond hair curled softly and stopped just below her ears. I suppose that was to cover any signs of the surgeon’s knife. She wore off-white cashmere slacks and a silk blouse of the same color. She probably spent more on that outfit than I laid out for a full wardrobe. Around her neck and on her wrists and fingers she displayed a great many diamonds.

  Ollie stared at her jewelry.

  “You like this? It’s my daytime wear,” she said and rewarded him with a generous smile. “You are so very observant.”

  “How could he miss it?” I wanted to say but held my mouth shut.

  “And you came to this room because . . . ” Ollie asked.

  “Because—because I heard my brother’s name shouted—quite loudly, as a matter of fact—by the desk clerk.”

  “I did not mention his name!” Craig said.

  She waved him to silence and sighed deeply. From her purse she took a silk handkerchief that matched her blouse. It reeked of gardenias. She sniffed a few times and wiped her eyes as if tears had fallen. She wasn’t a great actress, but she was pretty good. Most men probably fell for her performance. I wondered if that was why she had so many jewels.

  “I’m sorry you have to go through this emotional ordeal,” Ollie said. That was the softest I had heard him speak. Maybe a real heart beat inside his chest after all. Or maybe he had just been overwhelmed by her obvious attention.

  “I didn’t know—I didn’t know he—what to do—Stefan was my brother—and I wanted to do something—anything during our time of deep grief.” She handled that line extremely well. She not only used the Southern expressions, but her drawl was so good I expected honeysuckle to drip from her fingers. “I didn’t know until I heard the desk clerk—”

  “I’m sorry,” Craig said with contriteness written across his face. “I was excited and—”

  Ollie waved him to silence. “Go on back to your desk,” he said and moved out of the way so Craig could get past him.

  Ollie turned to Burton. “I got your call just as I pulled into the parking lot. The team will be here in a few minutes.” He pushed past me as if I didn’t exist, walked the few feet into the room, and knelt beside the woman’s body. “So who is she?”

  “Deedra Knight,” I said. “Or so she says.” I nodded toward Janet.

  “Any of you know what she was doing in this room?”

  “Obviously searching for . . .” Janet paused and added, “For—for something. It must be something of immense value. Why, just look at this terrible chaos.” She put her hand to her face, and I thought she did that better than Vivien Leigh in the old film Streetcar Named Desire. Next I’d expect her to dim the lights in the room because they were too harsh on her face.

  “The room was in disorder from before,” Ollie said. He paused and looked around. “Maybe not quite this much of a mess when we arrived last night.” He turned to face me. “I was here last night just before the uniformed officers left.”

  I gave him my best dumb-little-me smile.

  “So you think people—someone—is looking for the diamonds?” Burton asked.

  “Maybe. My supervisor doesn’t think so—”

  “But you felt he had them—even before Jason said anything.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because—”

  “Professional intuition,” he said.

  “So did you look?” Burton asked. “I mean, last night, did you—”

  Ollie nodded. “They weren’t on his person, and the two officers who searched last night didn’t find anything of value inside this room. It was already a mess when they came, so they tried t
o be careful not to disturb any evidence.”

  “So the point is,” Janet said, leaning against the doorjamb as if posing for a photo shoot, “you did not find anything that belonged to my dear, dearly departed brother.”

  “What they searched for didn’t belong to your dear, dearly departed brother.” I think my accent was almost as good as hers. Burton’s slight shaking of his head begged me to stop poking fun at her. “They were stolen diamonds.”

  “And at least we’re fairly sure the first searchers didn’t find them or there would have been no second murder,” Ollie said. I’m not sure what a man looks like when he preens, but that’s how I’d describe the way he straightened his shoulders. “Yeah, this second murder and more destruction probably says the second search didn’t yield anything either.”

  “Or the person found it and stopped the search,” I added.

  “You may be correct,” Ollie said. “But for now we’ll go on the assumption they have not found the diamonds.”

  “And the diamonds the other gentleman mentioned?” Janet’s eyes widened as if she were portraying shock in a silent flick. “Surely you don’t mean the diamonds from that utterly terrible, terrible robbery that—”

  “That’s the one,” Ollie said.

  “You never found them?”

  “No, ma’am, we never did,” Ollie said. “They’re worth a lot of money, and we’d sure like to recover them. That’s not the reason for the investigation. This started purely as a murder—”

  “And you just happened to tie him in with the diamonds?” I asked.

  “Not until we ran his name through our computer.” He shrugged. “I returned to look over the scene, but there seemed no hard evidence to connect him to any diamonds—”

  “Until Jason Omore said something. Right?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Ollie said. “I thought I’d look this over one more time before I reported—”

  “I had no idea, absolutely no idea the diamonds were still missing.” Janet Grand really laid it on thick. As I watched her, I sensed she was lying about being Stefan’s sister. I kept trying to remember what Stefan had said about his family of origin. He had an ex-wife and admitted to having affairs with several women. Was she one of those women? The more I observed Janet Grand—if that was her name—the more she seemed to fit into that category.

  “Can you prove that you’re his sister?” I asked.

  She turned her back on me and faced Ollie. “I shall be delighted to answer any questions you have for me.” She sighed deeply again. “But please, only questions from you.”

  “This is a police matter,” Ollie said. “You don’t belong here—”

  “But we’re here,” Burton said. “I hope we can be of help. We’ll stay out of the way.” He looked at me. “Won’t we?”

  Instead of making a rude remark and getting another shake of the head from Burton, I interrupted, “Did you notice the connecting door?” I motioned toward the door that led to 625. “It’s all but closed.” I tiptoed past Miss Mint Julep and pointed to the bottom of the door. “See?” It was a fraction away from being closed.

  Ollie walked over to the door. He didn’t exactly push me out of the way. Or maybe he did, but I assumed he was focused on the door. He reached forward to pull it when he must have realized that it pushed inward toward 625. So he nudged it and the door swung open. Because I stood near him, I could see inside. It hadn’t been torn up like 623. It looked like any other upscale hotel room to me. I knew it was occupied because I spotted a small stack of books on the desk in the corner.

  Ollie turned back to all of us and held up his right hand. I was sure he’d seen that done on TV, because he was just too perfect at it. “Just stay where you are.” He walked around inside 625. I couldn’t see everything, but I heard him pick up the phone and punch a number. “This is Detective Viktor upstairs. Who is registered in room 625?”

  After a lengthy pause, he asked, “Do you have a phone number for his office? A cell number?” He muttered something, and I heard the rumble of his voice for a full minute or so before he replaced the phone.

  After he returned to the room, he spread his arms out to usher us into the hallway. “What do you say we all go downstairs and find a quiet place so we can talk?”

  “Who’s in room 625?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Let’s go downstairs. All four of us.”

  Obviously he wasn’t going to tell us, so we let him direct us away from the room and down the hallway. No one said a word until we got back to the main floor. Ollie told us to wait while he left us and spoke to Craig. I had remained focused on Janet.

  “How long has it been since you last saw your brother?”

  “Awhile.”

  “How long is that?”

  “I prefer not to discuss this, especially with you. The pain is already so—so intense.” She pulled ahead of me and stood next to Ollie.

  “Follow me,” Ollie said and waved toward us. He led us to the end of the reception area, and we made a left turn and entered a small room. It had already been set up for a business meeting with a whiteboard and memo pads and pens in front of every chair. Every table had two pitchers of ice water and a stack of glasses. PowerPoint equipment was ready for whoever had booked the room. “Desk clerk says this room is free for about an hour.” He tried to smile, and maybe he actually did, but it looked forced. “Sit down.”

  “Let’s start with you,” he said and focused on Janet. He took out his little notebook, thumbed through several pages, and wrote on a new page. “Tell us about Deedra Knight.”

  She shrugged as if she felt confused. Again she touched her cheek with her right hand, and the large diamond on her ring finger sparkled. “She was . . . I think the word is . . . Stefan’s coliguillas.”

  “No, a coliguillas is a man,” I said gleefully, using the proper Spanish pronunciation. “You probably mean something old-fashioned such as courtesan. Doxy, maybe? Or perhaps—”

  “Enough of that, Doc,” Ollie said to me. “Just let the lady speak.

  If I had thought about it, I would have given him an Ollie-type shrug, but instead I nodded. I really wanted to hear her myself.

  “She was, uh, I suppose what I mean is that she was intimate with both my brother and Willie Petersen. She played them both. This is conjecture, of course, but from what I know of her and of Stefan’s past, it fits. She also had something to do with the robbery. In fact, Stefan once hinted that she was the one who set it up.” For a second her mask fell as she realized she’d told us more than she was supposed to have known. “By that I mean Stefan never said anything about a robbery, but he did mention a big business situation in which he was closely involved. And then, of course, he was arrested and sent to prison.”

  “And why do you think Deedra had anything to do with that?” I asked.

  Her contemptuous glare should have made me back down, but it only pushed me to pursue the question.

  “You seem to know a great deal for a person who supposedly knows nothing,” I said. I didn’t know what I meant, but it sounded good to my own ears.

  “I know little,” she said and faced Ollie. “In fact, I know almost nothing.” She paused as if embarrassed, but I figured she did that for dramatic effect. “You do understand that I am telling you only what I assume is true. Everything I have said or could add would be purely conjecture.”

  “I had understood your brother was the one who planned this,” I said. I wanted to push on about that matter.

  “I doubt that.” She still refused to look at me. “It was not the sort of ugly, evil thing he would have done.”

  “As his therapist, I can say with authority that he planned the robbery.” Again, I have no idea where that statement came from and hoped no one would push me. That woman was lying—probably about everything.

  “If you choose to think so, but I can assure that—that horrible woman—that Deedra Knight originated it. Stefan was so easily influenced by . . . uh, by women o
f sordid reputations.”

  “Oh, really?” I had to throw that one in.

  “Neither man—Stefan nor Willie—would have done such a thing without being goaded by her.” She leaned toward the detective. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Ollie nodded before he flipped a page in his notebook and jotted down a number of items. He kept his left hand over the page so I couldn’t see the script.

  “So why do you think Deedra came here?” he asked.

  “Wasn’t it obvious?”

  Six

  “Obvious? In what way?” Ollie Viktor asked.

  “To search for the diamonds. Didn’t you say as much?”

  He shrugged. So we were back to that gesture. “What else can you tell me?”

  “Nothing. I’m sure. I don’t know anything. I came to see my brother. That was the sole purpose for the visit.” She pulled out the off-white handkerchief again and held it to her dry eyes. She must have practiced that before a mirror, because she did it exactly the same way again.

  “I have some interesting news for you,” Ollie said. “Your other brother is also a guest in this place. What’s his name?”

  “Lucas? Lucas is here? In this hotel?”

  “He’s checked into room 625. He may have been one of the people who wanted 623 but couldn’t get it.”

  “Lucas and I haven’t spoken in years, and it has nothing to do with this matter. We stopped speaking more than twenty years ago.” She smiled and added, “I was willing to forgive him, but he refused to apologize for his—his bad behavior.”

  “Do you have any idea why he’s here?”

  She shook her head. “None.” She stood up. “I must go. I have an important appointment. If my brother is not alive, there is nothing here for me, is there?”

  “Don’t you want to see Lucas?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said.

  “Perhaps the mutual grief would unite you,” I said.

  “Perhaps you ought to stay out of things that do not concern you.”