“So these people I borrowed the money from sent me a warning to pay up, or else. I didn’t. I couldn’t! I guess they sent someone to carry out the threat, but they got Devane instead of me.”
Detective Jarvis and Randolph talked about what was said, how it was said, how much money—all kinds of stuff that Jarvis had to know, I guess, but it got pretty boring after a while. He finally said, “There’s a possibility that you’re right, but there’s a much greater possibility that Devane, himself, was the target. So far we’ve learned that as the former owner of a failed savings-and-loan institution he was involved in many financial ventures, some of which were not successful, some maybe not even legal, and along the way he’s probably made enemies. I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.”
“But is there a chance I’m right?”
Jarvis nodded. “I have to admit there’s a slight one.”
Randolph shook his head. “I can’t let Eileen down right in the middle of her mystery weekend,” he said, “but I haven’t got enough courage to go downstairs and face all those people. I keep thinking that the murderer will hear about who really got killed and come back for me.”
Suddenly, his face brightened and he sat upright. “None of the people playing the mystery game were told about the real murder, were they?”
“No,” Jarvis said. “We’re not hiding it from them. We’re just not talking about it. I think it’s better that the weekend continue as planned.”
“All right, then,” Randolph said, his voice rising in excitement. “Could you keep the murder from the press too? I mean, if the killer doesn’t find out about it …”
He looked so hopeful that I had to help him. “That’s a great idea, Detective Jarvis,” I said. “Total secrecy.”
Jarvis swiveled and glared at me. “You don’t belong here,” he said. “This is a private conversation, and Mr. Hamilton’s idea is not a great idea. It’s an impossibility.”
Randolph pressed the palms of his hands against his forehead. “Then what am I going to do?” he moaned.
“We’ll find out what we can,” Jarvis said, “and in the meantime I’ll ask for a plainclothes officer to be stationed among the mystery sleuths to keep an eye on you.”
“Terrific!” I said.
“Out!” Detective Jarvis pointed toward the door. He didn’t look too happy with me, so I left in a hurry.
Downstairs the crowd had thinned out quite a bit, but the excitement had heightened.
Mrs. Bandini, still going strong, made her way to me. “They arrested Mr. Walters,” she said. “Right out of his team! Two officers led him away!”
Mrs. Larabee puffed up behind her. “None of us are safe,” she said. “I didn’t know there would be this much audience participation.”
I leaned down to whisper. “You’re safe enough. Mr. Walters was … was one of the actors.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Bandini exclaimed, her eyes shining. “Was he the murderer?”
I only wanted to put them at ease, not lead them too far astray. “Shhh,” I said. “Just between you and me, Mr. Walters didn’t kill Edgar Albert Pitts. He’s only a red herring.”
Mrs. Larabee tugged at her friend’s sleeve. “Just how do herrings fit into a murder?”
“Red herrings are just things put into a plot in order to lead mystery fans astray,” I explained.
Mrs. Larabee shrugged, but she didn’t look pleased. “That’s not being very nice,” she said. “I didn’t come here to be led astray.”
I saw Eileen give a nod of her fedora to Crystal Crane, who yawned delicately, said she was exhausted, and excused herself to go to bed. There was no sign of Martin Jones or Arthur Butler, so they must have already left. Annabelle walked toward the elevators with Detective Pat Sharp, who mentioned something about further questioning, and they disappeared.
Fran popped up at my side and murmured into my ear, “The pool, the moonlight—remember? There’s no time like the present.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s already ten-thirty. We aren’t supposed to be in the health club after eleven.”
“But we can stay until eleven,” Fran said. His smile was so endearing, I put my hand into his, and we walked down the corridor to the Ridley health club, where two people bubbled away in the hot whirlpool tub, and a lone swimmer stroked back and forth in the enclosed section of the pool.
Deely Johnson, the health-club manager, looked up from the towels she was stacking as we strolled into the office. “Come to help?” she asked with a smile.
“No,” I said. “We’re just going to sit outside for a while.”
“Don’t forget. We close at eleven o’clock,” Deely said with a wink and went back to her work.
Outside, all alone with the moon and stars and sticky humidity and a couple of mosquitos, Fran pushed two lounge chairs together, and we lay back, holding hands.
“I feel like we’re on a vacation,” Fran said.
“Me, too, but it’s a short vacation. I’ve got to be available to answer questions when the health club opens tomorrow morning at eight.”
“Nobody told me where I’d have to hang out, so I’ll stick around the health club and watch you work.”
I laughed. “You just think you will. You’ll be busy answering questions from the mystery sleuths.”
“I’ve been answering,” he said, “and some of their questions are weird. One wanted to know if I’d ever seen the detective taking a bribe, somebody else asked if I was fluent in German, and a tall, skinny woman wanted to know if I knew how to ski.”
“What has that got to do with Edgar Albert Pitts?”
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “In fact—”
“Listen, Fran,” I said. “I’ve been thinking.” I rose on my left elbow to look at him more closely. “Nobody’s brought up something important. What was Frank Devane doing in the scene of the crime room? And why was he killed there, instead of in his own suite?”
Fran rose on his right elbow, and our noses were practically touching. “Let’s not talk about murder,” he said, and kissed me.
He was very good at changing the subject, but at that moment the pool lights went off, and Deely called from the doorway, “Come on in. I’m locking up.”
As soon as we joined her she said, “Mr. Parmegan wants to talk to you, Liz. He called down and left a message for you.”
“He wants to talk to me now?” I looked at my watch. One minute to eleven.
“Tomorrow morning at ten,” she said. “I’ll be at the club, too, on account of you’ve got to be a witness at the mystery weekend, so there’s nothing to stop you from meeting with him.”
I gulped. “He heard about my being under the table and pouring cola on Al’s shoes. I bet that’s it. I’m going to get fired.”
“He didn’t sound like he was going to fire you,” Deely said, but she stared at me oddly. “What were you doing under a table pouring cola on somebody?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t care how long it is,” she answered.
“Some other time,” I said, and walked toward the door with Fran.
Suddenly a woman leaped into my path from the shadows behind a potted ficus tree. As I stumbled back, her teammates scrambled after her. “Here she is!” the woman shouted and grabbed my arm. “They said you’re a witness! They said you overheard an argument! Tell us, quick! We have to catch up with the other teams!”
“I’ll tell you,” I said, “but out in the hallway. The manager of the health club has to lock up.”
“But we want to see the club. We want to see where you were and where they were and if there were any weapons around.”
“Weapons?”
A man in the group nodded vigorously. “Detective Sharp told us that Edgar Albert Pitts was hit on the head with a blunt object.”
Just like the real murder, I thought. How much was fiction and how much was fact? Did Mrs. Duffy have ESP when she wrote the script? Surely, there couldn’t have been any
way she’d know what would happen.
“Come tomorrow morning, any time after eight,” I told them. “I’ll show you all around the club.”
It was eleven-thirty before they had finished questioning me, and Fran and I could head upstairs. “I don’t get it,” I told him. “What difference does it make if Pitts’s nephew ordered his lunch from room service, or if he’d ever traveled to Colombia?”
“The man with the FBI sunglasses was kind of mad at you because you said you didn’t know.”
“I had to say I didn’t know. Eileen told us we couldn’t make up anything.” As we got into the elevator I looked at Fran suspiciously. “Have you been making things up?”
For a moment he grinned wickedly, but then he said, “No, Liz. I promise. I’m sticking to the script.”
Outside my door, as I fished into the pocket of my shorts for the key, I felt two keys, and as I pulled them out I realized I’d forgotten to give back the key to room nineteen twenty-seven. I palmed it, opened my door with my own key, bent my knees just a little, and kissed Fran good night.
But once inside my tiny room my mind whirled with questions. Was it just coincidence that both the make-believe victim and the real victim were murdered in the same way? Did Devane and his murderer get into the scene of the crime room while the lock was taped open? Or was it later, after the tape had been removed? In that case they’d have to use a key. Who had keys to the room besides Mrs. Duffy and Eileen? Did the ghost have anything to do with the murder? Did Mrs. Duffy? Was Fran ever going to grow taller, so I wouldn’t have to bend my knees when we kissed?
First things first, I told myself. Who had a key?
As I looked at the pair of keys in the palm of my hand, I got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Who had a key? I had.
I suppose I slept during the night. I must have slept, because the next morning the telephone woke me up.
I answered with a mumble, not awake enough to open either my eyes or my mouth, and heard Eileen say, “Liz? It’s already seven. I thought you’d be awake.”
“I’m awake,” I said, and for a moment tried to figure out where I was. Suddenly it came back to me and I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Something’s right. Mom fixed the script to account for Randolph’s hit on the head.”
“Good,” I said, my confidence in Mrs. Duffy’s talents returning.
“Listen carefully,” Eileen said, “because this concerns you.”
“I know,” I said, “I told everybody he was—”
“Listen,” she repeated. “This is what really happened. You went back to the nineteenth floor because you were curious about the murder. You thought that maybe one of the crime lab investigators would answer some of your questions.”
“Like, what was the murder weapon?”
“Right,” she said. “Very good. You’ve got the picture.”
“Did they answer my questions?”
“No. Instead they asked you questions. They wanted to know how you happened to find the body, if you saw anyone else on the nineteenth floor, and if you touched anything. Got it?”
“Got it. But where does Randolph Hamilton come in?”
“Randolph Hamilton had been curious too. But he was afraid to question the police, so he hung around the hallway, trying to listen in. When you got off the elevator, he quickly stepped into that nearby broom closet so that you wouldn’t see him. Do you remember where the closet is?”
“Yes.”
“Unfortunately for Randolph, he knew you’d been talking to the police on the scene, and he wanted to find out what you’d learned, so as you came by on your way to the elevators, he stepped out of the closet. You were edgy in the first place, so when Randolph suddenly appeared behind you, grabbing your shoulder and speaking your name, you instinctively turned around and slugged him, knocking him out. You thought you’d killed him, so you hurried downstairs.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Your mother, the famous mystery writer, thought this up?”
“Don’t worry. It will work.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think I could have hit Randolph that hard.”
“You were under stress. You were also a nervous wreck. The sleuths will buy that. They know that a burst of adrenaline causes people to have unusual strength.”
She was probably right about the sleuths. Last night they were accepting anything and everything, and I suppose I did act kind of weird, with all that running around and screaming.
But there was another problem. “With a room full of police at the crime scene, why did I go all the way down to the lobby to get Lamar Boudry?”
“Mom already thought of that,” Eileen explained. “Remember, you thought Randolph was dead and that you had killed him, but you didn’t want anyone to know you had done it. If you went down to the lobby, it would buy you some time and confuse the issue. It could have been anyone in that hall who did it, not just you. That’s also why you told everyone at first that you’d just found Randolph. Understand?”
I hesitated. “Could I have a new name?”
“What do you mean? You’re playing yourself.”
“That’s the point. Myself is coming across as pretty stupid.”
“No, no, no,” Eileen reassured me. “Remember? You were terrified, and you panicked.”
“I also must have confessed everything, or no one would have figured it out.”
Now there was silence on her end. “I guess you did,” she said.
Remembering what Mrs. Larabee had told me, I said, “I not only didn’t feel for a pulse, to make sure Randolph was dead, but I tried to trick everyone, and then I blabbed the whole thing. Put dishonest and idiotic in there along with stupid.”
Eileen sighed. “Frankly, Liz,” she said, “I’d just as soon pack up my actors and go home. It’s awful knowing that a real murder took place here. John—uh—Randolph’s scared to death, Annabelle’s hung up on that story about the ghost in room nineteen twenty-seven and jumps at the slightest sound, and Mom kept me awake half the night trying to work her plot around what you said about Randolph being dead. But Detective Jarvis asked us to stay and keep the mystery weekend going, and actors aren’t kidding when they say ‘the show must go on.’ If they’ve got a job to do, no matter what happens, they do it.”
“I guess I’m an actor, too, even if I am using my own name,” I told her.
“I hope so,” she said.
I felt kind of strange thinking about the way people would be looking at me after that story about what I had done came out, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell them everything you told me.”
“Oh, thank you, Liz!” Eileen said. “I just can’t thank you enough!”
I could hear someone in Eileen’s room speaking to her, but she came back to me and said, “I’ve got to hurry, Liz. Martin and Randolph are scheduled to have a fistfight during the breakfast buffet in the ballroom, and I’ve got to make sure they’re ready and it comes off on schedule. I’ll tell the sleuths about you when we meet for the detective’s report at nine.”
“Okay,” I said, but as I hung up the phone I wondered how I’d let myself get into this mess.
I was supposed to show up at the health club at eight, and I wanted a big breakfast, so I quickly showered and dressed in my shorts and T-shirt uniform and hurried down to the employees’ cafeteria in the basement.
Fran already had a table and a head start on scrambled eggs, bacon, and everything that went with it, but he put down his fork as I joined him and said, “How come the eggs and bacon we’re eating probably came from the same hen and pig as the eggs and bacon that’s being served in the hotel’s dining room, only theirs tastes so good, and ours doesn’t?”
“They’re paying for theirs,” I said.
“Good reason,” Fran said, and began to eat again.
I told him about Eileen’s phone call as I spread
strawberry jelly on my toast and thumb.
“Wow,” he said and stuffed his mouth with limp hash browns. “You are a sneaky one.”
“The show must go on,” I mumbled.
“So must the health club,” Deely said over my shoulder. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast. I’ll open up.”
There were a couple of media people and a TV cameraman in the lobby as I walked through on my way to the health club. I assumed they’d come about Devane’s murder, but a few of the mystery sleuths preened and giggled at the cameraman, and I heard one of them say, “This is all so realistic! Isn’t it fun!”
There was a meeting with Detective Pat Sharp scheduled for eight-thirty, so none of the hotel guests who were playing the mystery game came into the health club, which gave me time to scrub the tiles and fish leaves out of the outdoor side of the pool. I expected all the sleuths to rush in after the detective’s talk, point their fingers at me, and ask a million questions, but around nine o’clock only Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee hurried in, both of them a little out of breath.
They cornered me in the office, and Mrs. Bandini said, “Detective Smart isn’t finished with her report yet, but we asked our teammates to take notes for us. We feel it’s our duty to talk to you, Mary Elizabeth.”
“About my slugging Randolph Hamilton?” I asked.
“We’ll get to that later,” Mrs. Larabee said. “What we have to say is more important.”
The two of them looked at each other, and Mrs. Bandini spoke up. “The first time we met you, I said, ‘Isn’t that a lovely, sweet girl?’ Didn’t I say that, Opal?”
“Your very words,” Mrs. Larabee said.
“And the way you helped solve the murder at the hotel in June—well, you were any mother’s pride and joy.”
“But last night …” Mrs. Larabee said. “Well, frankly, we’re concerned about your behavior.”
“It’s just a part I’m playing,” I told them, but they weren’t listening.
“We’re afraid this change in your formerly perfect behavior comes from bad companions,” Mrs. Bandini said.
I knew who she meant. She had wanted me to date her gorgeous grandson, Eric, and wasn’t too happy that I chose Fran instead.
The Weekend Was Murder Page 8