Everybody Wanted Room 623

by Cecil Murphey

  “Blame? I’m long past blame. Try anger. Try—try feeling rejected and unloved and unwanted. That will give you a hint—a bare hint of the pain I felt. Nothing ever hurt me worse than my having to listen to our lawyer read the contents of the will. The amount of money meant nothing, because I was already successful and so was he. By the time he was eighteen, Stefan was already worth three or four million that he had built from a thousand-dollar birthday present from an uncle. So it had nothing to do with the amount. It was the percentage. Dear little brother Stefan never allowed me to forget that he was the favored one.”

  I felt sorry for Lucas and wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came to me. The expression on Burton’s face told me how sad he also felt. Neither of us seemed to know what to say.

  “Yeah, right, sad and painful,” Ollie said. The words would have sounded harsh except that his voice remained so quiet, I had to strain to hear him. “So wouldn’t that be reason enough for you to kill him?”

  “Possibly. I thought of it several times. At one point I seriously considered trying to hire someone to kill him for me. Too impractical. I don’t know anyone in the criminal element. But the hatred was that deep.”

  “So let’s fast-forward to the day of Stefan’s death,” Ollie said. “You saw him that day, didn’t you? We know for a fact that you did.”

  “If you know, why do you ask that question?” It was the most belligerent his voice had sounded. He dropped his head for a moment before he said, “I apologize for that rude remark. Right now I feel as if I’m walking around blindfolded in a maze of emotions.” He paused and took several deep breaths. “I have no idea how you found out, but, yes, I did see him.”

  “Do you want to tell us about it?” Ollie asked.

  I smiled. Ollie had learned something about how to proceed.

  “I don’t want to do so, but I will. Stefan called me twice on Monday and again on Tuesday. He begged me to talk with him face-to-face. He begged.” Lucas actually laughed then. “I never thought he’d ever beg me for anything. It was the first time in our lives together that he had ever done anything except demand.”

  “So you gave in?”

  “Yes, yes, but with great reluctance. We met for lunch at Anthony’s on Peachtree. He paid too.” Lucas smiled. “That sounds like a small thing, but it was the one action that convinced me my brother had changed. He had never paid for my lunch—not ever. He used to laugh at me and say the older brother was always supposed to take care of the younger. That had been his joke since I had my allowance as a child.”

  “What did you talk about?” Ollie stood in front of him and gazed down on the man.

  “Oh, mostly about God. That is, he talked about God. Mostly I listened.”

  “Did you believe him?” Burton asked.

  “Hmm, that’s an interesting question,” Lucas said. “As I sat and listened, I focused my attention on his face. I knew my brother rather well. He had been an excellent manipulator, but as he continued to talk—”

  “How did you react?” I asked. “Did you believe he had changed?”

  “That’s difficult to answer. The best I can say is that I believe he believed something powerful had happened to him.”

  “Was it powerful enough that you believed it was a genuine change?” Burton asked.

  For several seconds Lucas stared at Burton as if trying to frame an answer. His emotions betrayed him, and his lower lip trembled. He tried to cover it up with his hand, but that didn’t work. He started to cry. “Okay, I did believe him.”

  “And your feelings toward him?” I asked. “Did they change?”

  “Yes. Or maybe—maybe I admitted what I had always felt. This must sound unintelligible, but I truly loved him. I had always loved him. I also hated him—hated him enough to want him dead—back then.”

  “I think I understand,” I said. “I’ve had clients before with similar feelings.”

  Lucas made an attempt to smile at me. “I realized why I had refused to see him. I knew—I knew I would forgive him—the way I always did. Stefan had been unethical and—and done criminal things, but—”

  “But you loved him, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Although he made no sound, Lucas cried for another minute or so. He nodded, and when he could trust his voice, he said, “Love isn’t logical, is it?”

  “Not in the least,” Burton said. “Not in the least.”

  I turned my head, and my gaze met Burton’s. I don’t think he said those words for my benefit, but in that instant, something strange happened to me—something I wasn’t ready to admit. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what happened, but I knew one of life’s supercharged moments had taken place. I couldn’t have explained it if anyone had asked, but I knew it had happened. Later I would understand what it was.

  “I’m the skeptic here,” Ollie said. “Let me see if I understand what you’re saying. This younger brother had always been mean and manipulative—”

  “That’s true.”

  “And you hated him? At one point you hated him enough to kill him.”

  “I thought—at the time I thought I did.”

  “And he buys lunch and you get emotional with all that brotherly love business. I want to believe you,” Ollie said, “but—”

  “You may believe as you choose. My brother is dead, and I really don’t care what you think.” A tautness came into his voice, and his body stiffened.

  Ollie leaned down in front of Lucas until their noses were perhaps three inches apart. “If you loved your brother, why wouldn’t you see him in prison when he begged? I’m just not able to believe you held back because you were afraid that you’d forgive him.”

  “You don’t think he could have such conflicting emotions?” Burton asked.

  “Maybe I live too much in a good versus evil world, and that usually means it’s white or it’s black. I’m open, Lucas, but you have to make it clear.”

  “I don’t think I could make you understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “For many years I railed against him and against the way he treated me. He was so—so condescending. In small, understated ways he reminded me that I didn’t belong to the family . . . that they had found me in an orphanage and no one else wanted me.”

  “So you had a motive to get rid of him?” Ollie spoke so quietly it took several seconds for his words to penetrate Lucas’s thinking.

  “Oh no!” The shock on Lucas’s face made me wonder if Ollie was right.

  “Sounds like it to me,” Ollie said. He stared into Lauber’s eyes. “It sounds like the perfect reason to kill him.”

  “I didn’t know how I felt. Intense anger filled my heart. And pain. Rejection, I suppose.” He leaned forward, and Ollie pulled back. “Do you have any idea how it feels to love someone who constantly rejects you? To hate someone with deep intensity and yet feel loving and protective at the same time?”

  Ollie had the good sense to say nothing. Burton nodded.

  “That’s the best way I can explain it. You see, I never knew I loved my brother. Or maybe I didn’t want to admit I loved him. I think . . . I think that if I had seen him before—before we met across the table at the restaurant—I would have broken down. I had visited him once in prison, but we had a glass wall between us. I stayed as emotionally cold and removed as I could.”

  “Okay, maybe I understand,” Ollie said. “I’m not sure I do, but please go on.”

  “I didn’t want to love my brother. I wanted to erase any positive feelings toward him. I wanted to hate him.”

  Ollie straightened up and walked in a small circle around Lucas’s chair twice before he said, “So if you loved him so much, why did you shoot him?”

  Sixteen

  “How dare you?” Lucas said. “I didn’t kill Stefan. Whether you choose to believe it or not is of little consequence to me. I know I am innocent.” He buried his face in his hands.

  I wanted to kick both of Ollie’s shins the way I’d kicked bullies when
I was a kid in elementary school. That was a mean thing for him to say. I felt confused. Minutes ago he had been calm and perhaps even compassionate. I didn’t understand how he could change so abruptly. Was he playing both roles of the good cop-bad cop the way they do on TV?

  Ollie pointed to him and said, “But you were registered in the next room—in room 625.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “You registered in room 625 so you could be next door and kill your brother.”

  “That’s insane and irresponsible,” he said.

  “But we know you used that door to go into his room and back out. Right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What else can we believe except that you went into his room? You shot him and—”

  “That’s totally untrue,” Lucas said. “I’ll try this again and hope you can follow me. Or maybe I haven’t said it well. After we met for lunch, he talked and—well, I knew he was different. I still held back, but I knew Stefan had changed. I didn’t understand what was different, but I knew he wasn’t the same. He was warmer. Softer.” Perhaps he sensed that Ollie was ready to interrupt him, because he held up his hand and said, “Please. Just listen. Let me try to explain.”

  “Oh, far be it from me to stop anyone from implicating himself in a crime.”

  “Stop it!” I yelled at Ollie. “Let him talk.”

  “I’m a detective,” Ollie said. “I’m willing for you to convince me.”

  “I was—I am registered in room 625. And if you check at the desk, you’ll see that the payment for the room is on Stefan’s credit card.” He smiled at me. “That’s what I meant about his change. The old Stefan never, ever would have done that. This may sound quite strange, but it was the second thing that convinced me he was not the same Stefan.”

  “Just because he paid for the room?” Ollie asked.

  “Yes, just because of that. You see—”

  “Hold it,” Ollie said. He picked up the phone in the corner and called the front desk. He asked about the room payment. Then he said, “Thanks, Craig.”

  “Your brother paid for the room, all right.”

  I knew Ollie was disappointed to learn that Lucas had told the truth. I wanted to smile and dance around the detective, but I sat motionless.

  “Now do you believe me?” Lucas asked.

  Ollie did his characteristic shrug again. “I believe that part. I’d like to believe it all.”

  “As I said, my brother wanted me to have that room, and he paid for it. Before that, he begged me to come here to the Cartledge Inn. He wanted me in a connecting room so that we could talk all night if we wanted to and we wouldn’t disturb anyone. That’s something else. My brother never would have been concerned what anyone else thought. If we made noise, he wouldn’t have cared. You see what I mean? Not just his story about his changed life, but he—he had developed a lifestyle that was different from the old Stefan.” Lucas stopped, and his eyes pleaded with me to believe him.

  I moved to the edge of the couch, reached over, and touched his hand. “I believe you.”

  “So do I,” Burton said.

  “Stefan said he wanted to get everything straightened out. And that he wanted my help.”

  “And did he straighten things out?” Ollie asked.

  “Somewhat. If you check the hotel’s records, you’ll see that I was in room 625 Tuesday evening, the night before he was killed. We spoke from eight o’clock that night until six in the morning.”

  “How can you be sure about the time?” Ollie fired back.

  “Check room service. We both ate our evening meal in his room. We ordered as soon as I got there. We had breakfast a few minutes before six Wednesday morning. Both of us were too exhausted to talk anymore. Besides, I needed to process what I had heard. So I left him and went into my room.”

  “Through the connecting door?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course,” he said in a peevish voice, as if he couldn’t understand the reason for the question. “That’s why he chose connecting rooms. I shut my door when I slept, because my brother snored.”

  “And after that?” Ollie asked.

  “I slept until maybe 11:00—I’m a bit vague on the time. I got up, knocked on his door, and peered inside. He was gone. So I shaved, showered, dressed, and drove to the office.”

  “And you never came back?” Ollie asked.

  “No, I did come back,” he said to the detective. “And you probably have all this recorded someplace.” Lucas explained that he had planned to stay at his office only a couple of hours and have lunch with Stefan, but an emergency came up and he canceled. “The nature of the emergency isn’t important to you, but you may call my personal assistant and my associate. Both of them were with me until I left.”

  “What time did you leave your office?” Ollie asked. I realized he had been writing notes. He held his pen poised as he stood directly in front of Lucas.

  “I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was about 5:30. I thought I’d get back here in about half an hour, but there was a bad accident at the junction between I-285 and the Stone Mountain Freeway. It tied up traffic and blocked two lanes.”

  “I can check that, you know,” Ollie said.

  “I don’t care if you do.” Lucas got up, walked into the bathroom, pulled a box of tissues out of its container, and closed the door behind him. He must have stayed inside a full five minutes. When he came back, his face was flushed, and it seemed obvious to me that he had been crying. Lucas returned to the chair and dropped the tissue box beside his feet.

  “And you arrived here at what time?”

  “I think it was about 6:20, maybe 6:25.”

  “Please be as exact as possible,” Ollie said.

  “That’s as exact as I can remember, but that’s not what you want to know, is it?”

  “What do I want to know?” Ollie said.

  “I’ll tell you. I went into my room. At noon I had sent out an assistant to buy a large box of peppermints—it’s something called Nevada Parade. It’s made only in Las Vegas, and only a few shops in Atlanta carry it—”

  “Forget the candy,” Ollie said. “Just tell us.”

  “But I think the candy shows we had reconciled. It was the first time I had bought it for him since—since he was maybe twelve or thirteen. It was my way of expressing—”

  His voice cracked, and I said, “Ollie, leave him alone. I know you’re in charge, but just back off, okay?”

  “Okay, so tell us at your own pace,” Ollie said. He actually smiled at me as if to thank me for the interruption.

  “I went into my room, took off my jacket, and with the box of peppermints in my hand, I knocked on his door.”

  “And? What did Stefan say?” Ollie asked.

  He shook his head. “There was no answer. I thought that was odd, because he had called me on his cell earlier and told me that he ordered dinner for 7:00.”

  “And so what did you do?” Ollie asked.

  “I pushed open the door, and then I saw—” He burst into tears, grabbed a tissue, and wiped his eyes. “He was lying there on the floor. Blood all over the place. The room had been torn apart.”

  “You’re sure the room was torn up?”

  Lucas waved away Ollie’s question and said, “He clasped something in his hand—a paper. I bent down to pick it up, and then I heard a noise in the corridor. It was the food cart, and it stopped in front of his door. I didn’t know what to do. I think I must have dropped the box of peppermints—I really don’t know what I did with them—”

  “We found them in the room, not far from his body,” Ollie said.

  “Then you believe me?”

  “I believe you dropped the candy on the floor. Go on.”

  “So I—I reached for the paper in his hands. Purely instinctive, I suppose. I’m not sure why, but I did.”

  “And what kind of paper was it?”

  “Just plain white. When I pulled, it tore. I got most of it—”


  “Why didn’t you get the rest of it?”

  “The waiter. I didn’t know if he’d try to come into the room. So I panicked and ran into my room.”

  “And?”

  “I grabbed my jacket, put it on, and hurried out of the inn.”

  “Did you see anyone? Talk to anyone?”

  Lucas shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Oh yes, yes, there was one person. I’ve forgotten his name, but we had met once while Stefan was in prison. I had gone there to get his signature. We never talked then except in the most formal tones.”

  “Jason Omore,” I said.

  “Yes, yes, that’s the man.”

  “What about the paper?” Ollie asked. “That paper you grabbed from his hand?”

  “I stuffed it into my jacket pocket.”

  “When? When did you do that?” Burton asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe in the room.” Lucas closed his eyes as if he could relive the scene. “No, perhaps not. I remember. In the hallway—near the reception desk when I met the African. He stared at the paper in my hand, and I was hardly aware that I still held it. That’s when I stuffed it inside my jacket pocket.”

  “May I have the paper?” Ollie asked in a remarkably calm voice.

  “I don’t have it. I tore it into tiny pieces and threw it out the window of my car as I drove away.”

  “Why did you do that?” I asked.

  “Because I didn’t want anyone else to know what—what he had written.”

  Burton and I exchanged glances.

  Both of us knew he had lied. It was the first time I had felt that way.

  “Why do you want to lie to us now?” Burton asked. “I believe everything you’ve said. So does Julie. But you lied just now.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Seventeen

  Lucas stared at us as if unsure what he should say.

  “Yeah, don’t start getting evasive with us now,” Ollie said. “You’ve been very helpful—”

  “What would you have done with the paper?” Lucas asked. “I mean, if I had kept it, what could you have done with it?”

  “Does it still exist?” I asked.