Everybody Wanted Room 623

by Cecil Murphey

  They looked at each other and couldn’t decide if it had been ten minutes or fifteen. They decided no more than fifteen, but probably a little less. That would have made it around 6:20. That still would have given Lucas time to come into the room before the food gurney.

  “I don’t think he was aware he still had the gun in his hand,” she said. “Not until he saw my face.”

  “Then I was the stupid one. I turned to Mama and said, ‘See, I told you it was gunfire. I knew it!’ Just as I said those words, I knew I was in trouble.”

  “The man walked right up to us and put the gun to Mama’s head. I’d seen it done on TV, but this was real and it was a gun. He said, ‘I just killed one man. I can kill you two.’ ”

  “ ‘Please,’ Mama whimpered,” Duncan said. “I was scared, and my Mildred, she was even more scared.”

  She started to deny it and then said, “Yes, I was plenty scared.”

  “If you forget you saw me,” the man said, “I’ll forget I saw you. If you should remember, I’ll come after you. I can get your name at the desk, and I’ll come and shoot both of you and burn down your house.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Duncan told him.

  “I told the man the same thing,” Mildred said.

  “He told us to go back inside and count to fifty before we came back out, and that’s exactly what we did. He said if we should see him again, he would be a total stranger.”

  “Did you see him again?” I asked.

  They stared at each other. Duncan nodded.

  “He was with the other police,” Mildred said. “Except they were in uniforms. He wasn’t. He wore a suit.”

  “He stared at us, and when no one else was looking our way, he drew his index finger across his throat.”

  By then I had it figured out, but I needed to have them tell me. “What did he look like?”

  “Big, oh, he was so tall,” the man said. Duncan was barely over five feet, so I assumed even I looked tall to him.

  “His hair was not blond, but it was not dark,” she said.

  “Eyes?” I asked. “Did you notice his eyes?”

  “Green with tiny specks of brown,” she said. “Very tiny specks.”

  The eyes. I had looked into them too many times in the past not to recognize them. Sadness filled my heart. I knew Ollie was capable, but it was still a shock. I asked if there was anything else they could tell me.

  “After they came—the police—we went into the parking lot and discussed this,” Mildred said. “We have not been out of the room since then.”

  “Will you catch him?” the old man asked. “Have you collected the vital clues to solve this?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “There is something else I have to learn first, but I’m very close.”

  I don’t know why but I asked, “What about this man? The man with the gun? Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “He’s on drugs,” Mildred said. “Perhaps not the first time with the gun, but when he returned. Definitely on drugs.”

  “I doubt—”

  “For forty-three years I was in the business. During the last ten years, I fired many women who could not leave the drugs alone. I know what I know. He was on drugs.”

  “You’re sure?” I could hardly believe that.

  “Listen to Mama. She may not always be right, but when it comes to the hands, she is never wrong. Tremors. Look at the tremors. Then you know.”

  Burton shook his head and stared at me. “As she said those words, I realized that I had observed the tremors. I’d been so preoccupied with other things, that fact hadn’t registered.”

  Twenty-Five

  There isn’t much left to tell, and this isn’t an old TV script in which the hero explains everything. We had no trouble implicating Ollie. We also learned that he had come to the Cartledge Inn after he had called in sick.

  It was also common knowledge at DeKalb headquarters that he and Deedra Knight had once been involved. She and Ollie hadn’t been together for a couple of years. I suppose it was a case of thieves falling out with each other.

  As for Pam Harty, we learned she had once been Ollie’s housemate—the term used by one of his neighbors. After she was arrested, Pam didn’t want to testify against Ollie. She loved him, and as she said, “I don’t want to be the cause of his going to prison.” At first she insisted she was afraid to speak up and that he had threatened her.

  After she received a promise of immunity, was assured that Ollie wouldn’t hurt her and (even more important) was told that she was only one of his many girlfriends, she told us everything. She produced concrete evidence to convict Oliver Viktor. As they say in the old gangster films, “That canary sure could sing.” She told a lot about Ollie—much more than we had expected.

  When the police raided his house, they found evidence of other crimes. I also learned that he hadn’t lied to me about his so-called motor-system disorder. He had a disorder, all right, but it was because he was addicted to a drug called oxycodone. It’s an opiate and highly addictive. It created symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease, but it was caused by a lengthy use of oxycodone. That explained a lot of things about his behavior.

  When Burton and I were finally free late that night from all the official police questions of Ollie’s arrest, I was utterly worn out. And so was Burton. He went to his room, and I decided to book a room. Craig was on duty, and when I told him I wanted a room, I added, “Anything but 623.”

  “That’s still not open anyway,” he said, “so I can’t let you have it.”

  He hadn’t caught my humor, and I didn’t argue with him. I was mentally wiped out. I went to the room, number 509, and fell across the bed, and I don’t remember anything until the phone rang.

  “Hey, this is that guy who slept in the next room last night. I liked your snoring so much, I want to take you to dinner.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “You don’t know for sure, though, do you?” Burton said. “Hey, it’s almost 8:00. Can you wash your face and be ready in thirty minutes?”

  “How about ten minutes?”

  Exactly eight minutes later he was waiting by the elevator.

  He hugged me.

  “That wasn’t the kind of hug you give a parishioner,” I said. “I know the difference.”

  “I’m glad you know the difference.” That smile again followed his words. If we hadn’t been in public, I would have kissed him.

  “I don’t know what happened to you,” he said, “but I know it happened. You believe, don’t you?”

  As we walked toward the dining room, I said, “It is so weird. I do believe. I can’t explain why or how or—”

  “That’s why we call it faith,” he said. “It isn’t anything we can tear apart and examine. Either we believe or we don’t.”

  Instead of going into the dining room, Burton took my arm and propelled me right out the front door. We walked toward the car park and were perhaps a hundred feet from the main entrance.

  “That’s far enough,” he said. He pulled me into a dark alcove and embraced me. “I love you, Julie West. You’re crazy, and you drive me nuts, and there are times I’d like to put a muzzle on your smart mouth, but I can’t think of any other woman in the world I’d rather fall in love with than you.”

  “I should hope you wouldn’t.” I kissed him, and then I said, “This is so special to me. When I came here yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to get you out of my heart.”

  “And I came to the Cartledge Inn to ask God’s help to get you out of my life.”

  “I’ll bet God is smiling at us right now.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but I’ll bet He likes to see us smile.”

  Burton wouldn’t let me answer. He kissed me again.

  “I still have questions. Millions of them.”

  He put out his hand and touched mine.

  In the alcove, we were two shadows that faced each other. The darkness blotted out our expr
essions and momentarily erased my questions.

  Excerpt from EVERYBODY CALLED HER A SAINT

  If it hadn’t been for Twila Belk, I wouldn’t have taken the Antarctic cruise, and I wouldn’t have seen Burton again. If I hadn’t gone on the cruise, I wouldn’t have been there when someone murdered Twila.

  Twila was a special friend—unquestionably my closest friend. Even now, tears fill my eyes whenever I think about her death. “It can’t be,” I tell myself. “It just can’t be.” If she had died of natural causes, I would have mourned, but grief and shock mingled together still overpower me at times.

  “Why would anyone murder Twila Belk?” I asked shortly after we learned of her death. So did the others on the cruise.

  In the year or so I had known Twila, not once had I ever heard anyone say a negative word about her. If anything, almost everybody called her a saint. And she was exactly that. Even now that it’s all over, she is as revered in death as she was in life.

  Burton and I had broken up. That’s the reason I almost didn’t go on the cruise—oh yes, Burton. You won’t understand all the things that happened unless I start with him. His name is James Burton the Third, but he likes everyone to call him just Burton. He’s the pastor of a church in Riverdale, a small town about twenty miles south of Atlanta and about a ten-minute drive from the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

  Our relationship was growing, and we began to talk about marriage. Almost a year earlier I had become a believer—largely through the influence of Burton, but God had also sent a few other surprises into my life. They were individuals who talked about God, as do a lot of people. But these folks lived the life they talked about. I had seen few others do that.

  I’ll say it straight. I loved Burton, even before I became a Christian. I had been married before, but my drug-user husband died in an accident. Burton knew about my past. I think I began to fall in love with him the evening we met on the Georgia coast when we solved the murder of Roger Harden. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself again. I’ll try to make this a linear story.

  I’m a half inch taller and three years older than he is. He’s never been married—lucky me. I have red hair that I call titian, and he has gorgeous black, curly hair; deep, deep blue eyes; and the kind of smile that melts me whenever I look at him.

  Six weeks before the murder of Twila, I was sure we would get married. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take on the role of a pastor’s wife, but, hey, I could fake that portion. I’m a professional—the head of Clayton County Special Services, so I worked past that part. Everything seemed so wonderful for about six weeks.

  That’s when I found out about his problem.

  It was his problem—or at least he was the cause of the problem.

  Weeks earlier we had one of those beautiful candlelight dinners. In one of those special places—you know, the kind of place where you don’t read the right side of the menu or care about prices. I sat as demurely as it’s possible for me to sit. He ordered the same meal for both of us: chicken in aspic and asparagus. The presentation on the plate was probably as good as the meal itself.

  I knew he would propose, and I thought of at least twelve ways to sound extremely surprised. In the end, I thought a simple yes would be enough.

  But I never said yes.

  I knew he had bought a ring for me. I learned that from his secretary, who thought I already knew.

  He didn’t have some kind of wacky presentation by the server, such as sticking the ring inside my Coeur de crème over wild strawberries. I hadn’t expected anything like that from Burton.

  After dinner we drove toward my apartment. He switched on the CD player and we listened to those old, old Tony Bennett songs like “Because of You” and “A Stranger in Paradise.” He had done that for atmosphere, and I didn’t want to spoil anything. He parked in front of my building, shut off the engine, but kept the music going. It was on the second playing of “Because of You.” We listened in silence until that song finished.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said.

  I held back from saying, “At last.” To enhance the softness of the moment, I said nothing but clasped his hand.

  “I love you, Julie. I don’t know if it’s your smart mouth or your quick thinking, but I love you. I love everything about you.”

  I kissed his cheek. I wasn’t going to say yes until he asked. But I had practiced the word a thousand times.

  “I want to marry you—”

  Something wasn’t right about the way he said that. Was there a but at the end of that sentence?

  “I—I have a secret. It’s something I’ve never told anyone else—”

  “Funny. That’s what all my clients say.”

  “But this is different.”

  “Would you believe I hear that statement about once a week in my practice?”

  “This is—this is something—something important—”

  I had three or four smart-mouthed answers fighting to pop out of my mouth, but once again, I shut up.

  For a long time, Burton said nothing. I reached over and turned off the CD. It didn’t seem right to hear that soft, romantic music right now.

  I don’t think it was my flip remarks; I think he was quiet because it was so difficult for him to speak about his dark past. I couldn’t see his features clearly in the semidarkness, and after a few more seconds of silence, I wondered if I had said the wrong thing. He said he loved my smart mouth, didn’t he? Yet I knew it was better to keep quiet and let him work through whatever conflict he had.

  After two or three more minutes of silence, he said, “You remember when we met at Palm Island?”

  “Do you think I have amnesia?” was what I wanted to say. Instead, I nodded. “Every person there had a secret—”

  “Which was the reason we were there.”

  “Roger Harden knew all the secrets, and—”

  Burton held up a hand. “Everybody’s secret came out.”

  “I remember.”

  “Everybody’s secret except mine.”

  “That’s right!” I had forgotten. From across the room in Roger’s house, I had formed the question, “You too?” with my lips and he’d nodded. “You never told me what it was.”

  “I was too ashamed.”

  “All of us on that island were ashamed. That’s why we all had secrets.” I realized that he hadn’t been as self-revealing as I had assumed. That hurt, and I’m sure he caught the sadness in my voice.

  “I want to tell you now.”

  He melted me again. And I did love him, so I took his hand and whispered, “I love you. I doubt that anything—”

  “You haven’t heard yet.”

  I decided to listen to him bare his soul. I loved him and was sure nothing would change my attitude toward him.

  “I did tell one person—Roger Harden. But you must have assumed that. Roger’s dead, so no one else in the world knows.”

  I rubbed his cheek softly. I didn’t want to spoil the intimacy of the moment with any words, no matter how tender they sounded.

  That night Burton told me his long-held secret. His words horrified me. I couldn’t believe I loved a man who would commit such a harsh, cruel, and selfish act. He admitted that it had been sinful and self-centered, and he had never been able to tell the truth about it.

  “You have to make this right,” I said. “You’re a Christian and a preacher. You’re supposed to tell me to do things like that.”

  “I can’t. Don’t you see I can’t do this to them?”

  “I hate what you did!” My words surprised me. Part of it was the shock, but more than that, the confession came from a man I loved—the man I planned to marry. Okay, the confession came from a man I thought was only two short steps away from perfection.

  “Besides—besides, it’s too late!”

  “It is never too late to right a wrong. I’ve even heard you say that. I can’t believe—” I broke off, and tears filled my eyes. How could he have done such a horrible thing? Worse
, how could he have lived with himself since then?

  “You don’t understand,” he said, but without much force in his words. I think he knew he had lost not only my respect but my love.

  “You’re right, I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand.” I reached for the door handle. “Don’t call me again,” I said.

  “Please—”

  “Maybe you can salve your conscience by confessing to me, but that’s—that’s not good enough! I can’t marry you. I feel—” I was so angry and so horrified I couldn’t finish my sentence. I slammed the door and ran to my apartment. I was such an emotional mess that it took me four tries before I could get my key into the lock.

  I didn’t stop loving him, but I tried. I decided that the only way to get past my feelings was to get away from him.

  That was the last time I saw Burton until the cruise.

  The Inspired Living Devotional Series

  Devotions for Couples

  In Devotions for Couples the author uses his own marriage of over five decades to demonstrate how keeping love alive is possible, maintainable and so enriching—with God’s help. In this six-week devotional you’ll discover how to emulate Christ’s example of unconditional love in your own relationship.

  Excerpt

  Week 1, Day 1

  When Shirley and I were dating, her mother made a statement that went something like this: “Some married people are kinder to their friends than they are to each other.” Over the years I’ve thought about those words often and determined it wouldn’t apply to us.

  Sometimes because we love each other, we tend to take the other for granted. We become more considerate of new relationships because we want to establish them. We already have a loving relationship with our lover and therefore do not show concern.

  I’ve noticed that when many couples are in the dating stage, they’re courteous and helpful. I’ve seen the dashing young fellow carefully open doors for the light of his life. I’ve often seen those same couples a year after their marriage. He gets out of the car and lets her get out by herself.