by Susan Baker
“Lindsay, we are going to have to cut this short, I need to follow the happy couple, if they are together I need to know, that would give both of them a motive to kill Alex,” Maria said and stood up to leave.
“Good luck,” Lindsay said. Maria followed the couple, arm in arm to the elevator staying safely behind so they couldn’t see her. She tried to hear what they were saying, but was unsuccessful. They exchanged several kisses and seemed enraptured with each other. Maria couldn’t take the same elevator as they did as they would suspect her, but she could take the stairs and climb up to the bridal suite. But that would mean climbing fifteen flights of stairs. Maria was in good shape but decided climbing the stairs would slow her down too much. She decided to wait until the next elevator.
Maria watched the elevator reach the top floor and she was sure the happy couple were going to Maria’s bridal suite as the penthouse and the bridal suite were the only rooms up there. She waited until the elevator came back downstairs and once she hopped back in, she pressed the button for the top floor and nervously waited for the elevator to reach the top. She wasn’t sure what she would say if she found what she expected, but she hoped the right words would come. Once the elevator dinged, Maria darted out, slipped around the corner and saw Melinda and Thomas standing outside the bridal suite with the door half open kissing in an intimate way, like they were long-lost lovers. Maria waited around the corner so she could watch them. They were very easy with each other, and in-between embraces they were teasing each other. This behavior indicated to Maria that they had known each other for a while and had a familiarity common to couples that were very close. Melinda and Thomas finally went into the bridal suite and closed the door and Maria tried to figure out what to do. She knew she should confront them and find out if they were longtime lovers and if they had anything to do with Alex’s death, but wondered if her instincts were right. She stood on the outside of the bridal suite and decided to follow through with her plan.
Maria knocked on the door of the bridal suite and there was no answer, no one came to the door. She knocked again and gave her name. Finally, Melinda answered the door. Her face was flushed and she looked highly disturbed at the interruption. Thomas was on the bed looking disheveled. They both looked angry to see Maria.
“Melinda, I need to come in,” Maria said and pushed her way into the bridal suite. Thomas gave her a baleful glance and ran his fingers through his hair and tried to straighten his tie. Maria wasn’t fooled.
“The two of you are having an affair, aren’t you? How long has this been going on?” Maria asked.
“Thomas is a friend,” Melinda hesitated, embarrassed to have been discovered. “You can’t prove anything.”
“I saw you kissing and holding hands. Alex has only been dead for three days so I will ask again, how long has this been going on?” Maria asked.
“How long has what been going on? Like I said, we are just friends,” Melinda protested.
“ I think you and Thomas have been having an affair and are guilty of killing Alex, I think you planned it together and have a reason for wanting him dead,” Maria said. Maybe Alex found you together before the wedding and threatened you. “What do the think the police will think of this?”
“We might be having an affair, but there is no evidence that we did anything like murder; we are innocent, Melinda protested.
Maria took a minute and called Chief Appleby and he said he would be right over.
“I am staying here until the Chief Appleby arrives, he will be here in just a few minutes. I think the two of you should come clean with me,” Maria said. “If you tell me what you know it will go easier on you later.”
“There is nothing to tell, Thomas and I being together doesn’t mean anything. We loved Alex and planned to put the kibosh on our affair after the wedding, I planned to be faithful to Alex. We had nothing to do with his death,” Melinda said.
“So why are you together now?” Maria asked.
“She needed my help and it just kinda happened,” Thomas answered.
“What do you know about the poisonous piece of wedding cake?” Maria asked both of them.
“I only recently found out it was poison,” Melinda said, and you wouldn’t think I would ever poison my own husband?”
“You were having an affair behind his back and lying to him, how do I know what you would do?” Maria said.
“An affair is not murder,” Thomas asserted.
As promised, Chief Appleby joined Maria in the bridal suite and had questions for Melinda and Thomas.
“How long has this affair been going on?” Appleby asked.
“We have been seeing each other for about six months, off and on, but like I told Maria here, we planned to end our affair and I planned to be a good wife to Alex. The fact that we had an affair doesn’t prove anything, and it certainly doesn’t prove we had anything to do with his murder,” Melinda repeated what she had said to Maria. “We both loved Alex and I feel bad about having an affair behind his back, it was wrong and I feel horrible, I think we both feel that way.”
“I agree with Melinda, it was wrong,” Thomas chimed in, “but having a stupid affair doesn’t make us murderers, what proof do you have of either of us committing murder?”
“I am saying your actions point to motive, you didn’t want Alex to find out and before you were caught by me, you presumably wanted to be together. Why else are you together right now? I saw you kissing and like I said, Alex has only been dead a couple of days,” Maria said. Finally, she realized she was the only one asking the questions. Appleby asked Maria to meet with him outside the room and he spoke in a hushed voice after he closed the door.
“Miss Winfred, we have no evidence to book these two for murder. You have to understand how jurisprudence works, they might look guilty and maybe they are, but we have no nothing concrete to hold them on or even to bring them in. There is no direct link from either of them to the piece of cake, which here can serve as the murder weapon. Therefore, we can do nothing. They are innocent unless we can prove them guilty. I think you owe them both an apology,” Appleby said. Maria felt dressed down and embarrassed. How could she be so wrong? She knocked and immediately entered Melinda’s bridal suite again. It looked like Melinda and Thomas had been sitting on the bed talking. Both seemed serious and sorry.
“I owe both of you an apology, and on behalf of Atlantic Resorts I am truly sorry,” Maria said closed the door behind her, feeling terrible. She turned back to Appleby, who was waiting outside. She still had her doubts about both of them.
“What about fingerprints, have you found anything?” Maria insisted to Appleby.
“We received mixed prints on the plates and glasses, nothing definitive,” Chief Appleby said, “I must ask that you give up this investigation. You can’t go out and about, sneaking around corners and just accuse someone because you have a feeling, you have to have evidence, real evidence.” Maria had no intention of giving up the investigation, but she was beat for now. She needed some time to think, to try and reason how she had found herself so off track. Once she returned to her room, it didn’t help that a message was waiting for her from her boss, Mr. Howard Blume. She quickly called him back and he had a lot to say.
“I just received a call from Police chief Appleby, he said you have been butting in where you don’t belong, making false assumptions, making mistakes, that is not what I asked you to do.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Blume, I thought I had the murder figured out, I was wrong, but I promise I will still try and find the murderer,” Maria said, almost pleading.
“Stay out of Appleby’s way, and this time do it right. Remember who you are and the importance of the position you hold,” Blume said.
“I will Mr. Blume, I will discover something,” Maria said and hung up. Maria was truly depressed and decided to spend a couple days in her room. She called Rebecca Carl and made an appointment to see her in two days time, which she agreed to. She was wary of Appleby’s wa
rning that she give up the case and wondered if Rebecca would tell Chief Appleby about the fact that she had not given up the case. But right now, she didn’t care. She didn’t even care if Rebecca agreed to see her or not. She had lost her self-confidence and felt totally drained. She had to relax for a while and figure things out.
Chapter 9
For the next two days, Maria refused to see Lindsay, Ian, or any of her staff. She took all her meals in her room and didn’t call or interview any suspects. In addition, Chief Appleby did not call and she assumed he believed she was off the case and maybe she was. She felt wrong about everything and never, since she had started working through the ranks at Atlantic Resorts seven years ago, had she felt so lost. First there was her personal life, which was a disaster. She had not had a serious relationship since a thwarted two-year relationship at Smith College with an artist. He wascreative and imaginative, so different from her father, a CPA and her uncle, a high-powered attorney, who had taken advantage of her. She was afraid of men and afraid of relationships. And what about her career? What did she plan to do, be an events coordinator all her life? Would she be all about catering wedding receptions and corporate functions and solving the occasional mystery until she was eighty, working but not making any difference in the world? Would she always have bosses that threatened to fire her if something she had no control over went wrong? Was that the kind of supervisor she wanted? And what about her stability? She traveled from venue to venue, from city to city and lived primarily in motel rooms. What kind of life was that?
Her home back in Rhode Island, where she had grown up, was a place she didn’t recognize any more and she had kept in touch with no friends from high school to serve as a touchstone. She saw her father once or twice a year and the visits were full of silence and tension. He resented her for not visiting more often and she resented him for creating a space she didn’t want to come home to. Her father, who she loved dearly, had mostly raised her. But his hobby, flying vintage two-seater fighter planes kept him away from the house quite often, even when she was young. It was exactly this alone time that had allowed her father’s brother, Steve to move in. The ensuing abuse and confusion left marks she still lived with. But she was 30 years old already, time to shed the things of the past, and face the fact that she wasn’t a dependant, frightened young girl who lost her mother at too young of an age. But who was she? It took Maria a few room service roast beef, grilled cheese, and bacon club sandwiches to stop feeling sorry for herself.
During her two-day self-imposed exile, Lindsay had been by her room, knocking softly and slipping notes under the door asking her to call or meet her somewhere, anywhere. Lindsay had also called repeatedly. In addition, Ian had been by several times, knocking and calling her name. She didn’t answer the door for either Lindsay or Ian or let the housekeeping staff in. Instead she lay in her bed and watched mindless TV including crime dramas, reality shows, and too much news while she replayed her wrong moves in trying to find Alex Steeple’s killer. She had jumped to conclusions. She had not waited until she had hard facts before acting. In short, she had been so desperate to solve the crime; she hadn’t been thinking straight.
On the third day, Maria was sick of herself and her whining. She took a shower and carefully combed and dried her long hair. She brushed it until it shone. She massaged her tired face until she had some color. She stopped ordering junk food from room service and started ordering salads and an array of vegetables and fruits. After a day of healthy living, she decided to take stock. She grabbed a piece of hotel stationary and wrote the pros and cons of her life and she promised herself to be totally honest. After writing down everything she could think of, she realized she had three times as many pros than she had cons. Her pros were smarts, beauty, a good job, and good friends, her cons were lack of relationship status and a murder case she had been unable to solve. There were far more good things.
Chapter 10
But first things first. She couldn’t resolve her relationship status right away, but she decided she would give Ian and chance and go out for drinks with him. She would start with coffee and if that went well, she would have a glass of wine with him and maybe see a movie or a concert. She would take things very slow. Next, she would solve this murder. She threw her pros and cons of her life situation away and wrote down the pros and cons of the murder case. After she finished her list she realized she had two concrete pieces of evidence, the wedding video and the note she had found in Melinda’s bag. She had to figure out something of value from the wedding video, even if she had to watch it 20 times, and she had to figure out who had written the note in Melinda’s bag. Once she was freshly dressed and had gone downstairs to the café for fruit salad, some grilled salmon and a salad, she was back in her room watching the video. The first time, she saw nothing new except the morose faces of Edward and Amy and to a lesser extent Rebecca Carl. She closely watched the dark-haired waiter and although his movements were furtive, she did not catch him doing anything nefarious. Finally on the third watch, she noticed Melinda switching her piece of cake with Alex’s. It was very subtle move and she supposed Alex wanted the bigger piece of cake with the added frosting. It took three times of watching but finally Maria was sure, the cake with the poison was meant for Melinda and not Alex.
Now that Maria was sure the poisoned cake was meant for Melinda, she compared the handwriting of Amy and Edward to the note found in Melinda’s bag and found neither of them matched. Maria knew instinctively that no matter how much animosity Amy might have for her sister, she wouldn’t have murdered her. The poem she read of her own creation was a token of love towards a sister she had never understood. Thomas was out because he was in love with Melinda and would never hurt her and of course she knew Melinda was not guilty. That left one person and Maria suddenly knew who she needed to talk to, Edward Scott and then Rebecca Carl.
Edward Scott was in his room and since his girlfriend was there, Maria asked her kindly if she and Edward could talk in confidence. The good natured woman, whose name was Margot, said of course and gave Edward a kiss on the forehead before she left to do some shopping. Maria got right to her concerns:
“Edward, I saw you talking with Rebecca Carl and the conversation looked intimate, it was a couple days ago in the hallway. She had her hand on your arm and you weren’t pushing her away,” Maria stated. “I want to know why.”
“To be honest I don’t know why, she has been coming on to me since we arrived six days ago, she has been up to my room and keeps calling me. She seems to want to get romantically involved, but I have told her I was not available. She keeps writing me love notes and they are very flowery and mysterious,” Edward said.
“Can I see the letters?” Maria asked.
“Of course,” Edward said and unzipped his garment bag and pulled two letters out. Maria opened them slowly and she was right! The handwriting matched the writing on the note in Melinda’s bag. She would double check to make sure, but she recognized the scrolls on the M’s and S’s. Rebecca Carl was the murderer! Maria hastily thanked Edward and went straight to Rebecca Carl’s room after a quick trip to her room to confirm the same handwriting. She didn’t waste time now and oddly she was not afraid of Rebecca Carl although she had called Chief Appleby for backup.
“I have a note I found in Melinda Scott’s bag and it matches the two notes you wrote to Edward Scott. I think you somehow managed to place a piece of poisoned cake in front of Melinda because you were in love with Alex and wanted Melinda dead! Rebecca looked towards the door and seemed to want to make a run for it. She had a desperate look on her face.
“You loved Alex, didn’t you?” Maria asked softly, pushing her, pressing her, repeating “you loved for Alex" over and over. Finally Rebecca burst into tears and confessed.
“She was evil, she wanted Alex all to herself. He had already broken up with her once, and I had him for a glorious year. I knew if she was just out of the way, he would come back to me. She was just an obsession for
him, he really loved me!” Rebecca said. And then I killed the only man I ever loved, it was just a horrible accident, the poison was meant for Melinda. Alex loved me!
A sharp knock on the door sounded like Chief Appleby. Maria handed Rebecca over to him and told him she had confessed to poisoning Alex Steeple. Appleby asked Rebecca if that was true and through heavy tears, again she admitted she had tried to kill Melinda Scott. Chief Appleby asked Maria how she had figured it out. She explained that upon watching the DVD multiple times, she had discovered the intended victim had been Melinda. She told him that it was just good detective work..
“How would you like to come and work for me?” Appleby smiled.
“I think I will stay where I am, but thanks, Maria replied and smiled back. Chief Appleby took Rebecca to the precinct to arrest her for premeditated murder. There were still questions regarding how the poisoned piece of wedding cake had been placed on the table in the first place, but they had the murderer, so that would have to wait. A day later, Harold Blume called Maria in her room and was full of glee.
“You solved the murder, I am so proud of you, are you ready for your next job? It is going to be a high powered corporate affair and your bonus will be sizable.” Blume preened and complimented her more until she finally told him she was ready for work. She had shared a congratulatory lunch with Lindsay and Ian and they would all have their bags packed in the morning for a new job, wherever it might take them. A new start this time.
The End
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