A Question of Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  He read off the first set of questions, and everyone around me began writing. Many, concerned that their answers might be copied, used their bodies, as well as other materials they’d brought into the room, to shield their cards from other eyes. A few minutes later, Melinda Savoy and some of the hotel staff circulated among the attendees and collected the cards.

  “All right,” Larry said into his handheld microphone, “it’s time for the fun to begin. As many of you know, an altercation took place less than an hour ago. One of the participants is being treated by the kindly physician who stepped forward in the best tradition of medicine. The gentleman who’d fallen ill claims he’s being blackmailed. I’ve placed a call to the local police, but either they’re all out to dinner, or have other crimes to investigate. I’ll let you know the minute they arrive—and, I must warn you, everyone in this room will be considered a suspect. One of you may be a blackmailer. Blackmail is a terrible crime, but there are some that are even worse. And before the night is over, you may witness another heinous crime.”

  He delivered that last line in an ominous tone, which elicited moans of foreboding from the audience.

  “So sit back, relax, and remember: You never know whether or not the person seated next to you is a blackmailer—or a cold-blooded killer. Beware! And good luck to all.”

  The curtain behind Larry slowly opened, revealing the drawing room set in which Monroe and Victoria Whittaker, their daughter, Cynthia, and her young suitor, Paul, were gathered.

  “Feel like taking a walk?” Paul asked Cynthia. He then whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What a grand idea,” she said. “It’s such a nice night to take a walk. I hear there’s a full moon.”

  “You won’t see any moon,” Monroe Whittaker declared. “Not with the fog out there. Besides, there’s still snow on the ground, and more in the forecast.”

  “That’s okay, Daddy,” Cynthia said. “It’s so warm in here with the fire going. I could really use some fresh air. I’m sure Paul could, too. Besides, you always say a walk after dinner is good for your digestion. Isn’t that how you put it?”

  Victoria Whittaker said to Paul, “We have a very busy day tomorrow with the attorneys coming. Cynthia will need a clear head. I want to be sure she gets enough rest. Make sure you don’t keep her out late again.”

  “He won’t,” Cynthia said, kissing her mother’s cheek. They put on outerwear. She grabbed Paul’s hand and led him through French doors to the outside. “Let’s look for that moon, anyway.”

  “Be careful, Cynthia,” a woman in the audience called out.

  Another audience member shushed her.

  “I don’t trust him,” said a man from the audience.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Monroe Whittaker said from the stage. “I don’t like him.”

  “That’s patently obvious,” said his wife, checking her hair in a mirror over the fireplace. “But the least you can do is be civil to him this weekend.”

  “Civil?” Monroe snorted. “How about if I pack his bag and send him away from here? Would that be civil enough?”

  “Monroe, you’re not thinking clearly. Cynthia is like all young women her age. She’s rebelling against us because it’s the thing to do. I share your opinion of Paul. He’s obviously not of Cynthia’s class. I’ll give him credit for trying to dress the part, although anyone can see the poor quality of his clothes.”

  “He looked pretty good to me,” a woman sitting in front of me murmured to her companions. “I don’t care if his sweater isn’t cashmere. Did you see those muscles? I like a man with a good build.”

  “Not a bad face either,” her friend replied.

  “Shhh, both of you,” said another woman. “Everything they say may be a clue. I don’t want to miss anything.” She scribbled furiously on her pad.

  “His father is a policeman in New York City. Good Lord, you know how crude policemen can be,” Victoria was saying.

  “A cop? How do you know that?”

  “I don’t recall exactly. Does it matter? He must have told me. But the point is that the more we challenge the young man, the more we’ll push Cynthia into the relationship. Trust me, darling, the best way to see the last of him is to shower him with kindness and expose him to our daughter’s lifestyle and breeding. He’ll become uncomfortable soon enough and seek his own kind. I think I’ll go up. Are you coming?”

  “Not yet,” he growled.

  With that, Victoria left Monroe alone on the stage.

  People throughout the room took copious notes, causing me to smile. From my past experience with productions mounted by Larry and Melinda Savoy, I knew how seriously those in attendance took their responsibility to solve the crime at the end of the weekend. Some would fill entire notebooks and spend half the night with fellow team members charting the scenes from the play on blackboards or on huge pads of presentation paper. Someone passing too close to one of these analytical sessions would cause all conversation to cease, and two or three team members would quickly step in front of the graphic representation to block it from view. Multiple pairs of eyes would follow the progress of the intruder, waiting until he or she was well out of earshot before resuming the arguments, piecing together the myriad clues dropped during the play and at offstage goings-on that permeated every aspect of the weekend stay at Mohawk House.

  “Damn fog,” Whittaker muttered, walking over to the desk. He slammed his fist on the desktop, reached into a desk drawer, withdrew a bulky envelope that he shoved into the pocket of his smoking jacket, and stormed out the French doors.

  As he left, a maid entered the room through another door and proceeded to dust furniture and rummage through the desk until the sound of Victoria’s voice in the next room sent her hastily back to dusting. She was only a minute into her chores when the snap of a weapon being discharged from somewhere outside shattered the stillness onstage. A woman’s piercing scream sounded from the wings.

  Cynthia burst through the doors. “Help!” she shouted. “Someone help me!”

  Paul then stumbled into the room, one hand pressed against his chest, blood oozing through his fingers. He had a wild look on his face, as though desperately seeking help from someone, anyone. His other hand reached out in a pleading gesture, palm up, arm trembling uncontrollably, going from person to person.

  It struck me as a bit of overacting, but others in the audience responded differently.

  The women in front of me gasped. “It looks so realistic,” one of them said.

  “Nuts! I was hoping he wouldn’t be the one. I was going to interview him first. Now we’ll never see him again till the last day when he takes a bow.”

  “Maybe they’ll let him join the reception in the bar anyway. We could ask him why he died.”

  “They don’t do that. Only the living cast members are allowed to join the guests.”

  The maid had rushed from the room, replaced by the Whittakers. Paul fell to his knees at Cynthia’s feet. With a final, agonizing rale, he pitched forward, his face coming to rest on the floor, neatly avoiding her shoe.

  “Daddy,” Cynthia shrieked, and collapsed into her father’s arms, sobbing.

  “Is he dead?” Victoria asked calmly.

  Monroe scowled down at the body on the floor and looked over to his wife. “Yes, I’d say he’s dead. Very dead.”

  The groans and general murmur from the audience were quieted when the doors to the auditorium were flung open and two men boldly stepped into the room. One wore a tan trench coat, and a fedora was perched on his head at a rakish angle. The second man wore a policeman’s blue uniform.

  “Don’t nobody move!” the plainclothes cop shouted.

  “Don’t nobody move!” the uniformed cop said.

  “I already said that,” the cop wearing the trench coat admonished his colleague.

  As they swaggered up to the stage, the uniformed cop waved a handgun back and forth, causing some audience members to duck.

  The p
lainclothes officer faced the crowd. “All right,” he said. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “This is my home,” Monroe Whittaker said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Monroe Whittaker. And who are you, sir?”

  “Detective first-class Nick Carboroni, and this moron with me is Officer no-class Clarence Dolt.”

  A wave of laughter greeted the comical pair, easing the tension that had been established by the murder.

  Carboroni scowled at the crowd. “You think this is funny? You spend the day with this dimwit and you’ll see how funny it ain’t. His elevator don’t go all the way to the top. Know what I mean?” He pointed at his temple and rolled his eyes.

  Clarence Dolt pulled on the detective’s sleeve. “Detective? Why are we here?”

  “Why are we here? I got a call that somebody was waving around a gun here tonight. That’s why we’re here.”

  “I got a gun,” Dolt said, waving his pistol and pointing it at the detective.

  Carboroni swatted his hand. “Cut it out.”

  Lawrence Savoy stepped from the wings. “A man was being threatened with a pistol earlier this evening. He’s being treated for chest pains as we speak.”

  “He ain’t dead?” Dolt asked disappointedly, still waving the pistol.

  “Put that thing away,” Carboroni said, “before you kill somebody.” To Savoy: “Who’s the perperpertruder?”

  “The what?” Savoy said. “Oh, you mean who threatened him with the gun? We don’t know.”

  Carboroni approached onlookers in the first row and started to question them about what they’d seen that night. When one elderly gentleman seemed at a loss for words, Officer Dolt stuck his gun in the man’s face, prompting Carboroni to yell at him to holster his weapon. The mock questioning of audience members continued, the detectives’ ad-libs causing lots of laughter in the room.

  All attention, of course, was on the comic scene playing out at the front of the room. While the questioning continued, Officer Dolt wandered up onto the stage, saw Paul still prone on the floor, turned, and said, “Hey, Detective, maybe you better take a look-see here.”

  Carboroni spun around and said, “How many times do I have to tell you not to interrupt me when I’m interrogarating people?” Then he saw Paul’s body on the stage, excused himself from the audience, and joined Dolt.

  “Who’s this?” Carboroni asked Whittaker.

  “My daughter’s former suitor,” Whittaker replied, sounding pleased.

  “That you?” the detective said to Cynthia.

  She responded by letting out a bloodcurdling wail and running from the stage. Her mother, Victoria, had collapsed on the couch, where she fanned herself with a magazine.

  Carboroni nudged his toe into Paul’s side. “Hey, where’d you get shot?”

  There was no response from the fallen actor.

  Carboroni asked Larry Savoy, “Is this the man who was threatened earlier in the evening?”

  “No, Detective,” Larry said.

  It all sounded like scripted banter, but I sensed something was wrong. From my vantage point, I could tell that Paul hadn’t moved a muscle since stumbling into the scene and falling at Cynthia’s feet. The pool of fake blood had been widening. I saw a stricken look come over Larry Savoy’s face as he looked down at Paul. He motioned to Melinda in the wings, and the curtain began to close. Victoria, sensing something was wrong, rose from the couch and bent down to peer at Paul. She straightened, wailed, “Oh, my God!” and fell into Larry’s arms.

  “What’s goin’ on here?” Carboroni asked.

  The actor playing Monroe Whittaker came to Paul, crouched, and placed his fingers against Paul’s neck. He slowly stood and raised two bloodstained fingers.

  Victoria sniffled. “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’d say he’s dead,” her stage husband intoned.

  Chapter Seven

  What British mystery writer also writes

  psychological crime novels under the pseudonym

  Barbara Vine?

  Confusion reigned.

  Because a play had been in progress, the audience assumed what they’d just witnessed was part of the script, and considered Paul’s “demise” to be a theatrical event. Many team members busily took notes and engaged in intense discussions about who in the cast might have shot Paul. Monroe Whittaker was the obvious suspect, but these savvy murder mystery buffs knew that other possibilities would emerge as the weekend progressed.

  I didn’t share their illusions. Something tragic—something real—had just taken place before the curtain fell, and it had nothing to do with the script. I made my way to the stage, went up three short steps, and slipped backstage, where the scene was chaotic. The actor playing Paul lay where he’d fallen, his blood penetrating the wooden floor, creating a dark red aura about his lifeless body.

  Larry Savoy was trying to calm everyone down. “Please,” he said. “Hysteria isn’t going to help anyone, especially Paul. Come on, come on, everyone, there’s nothing to be gained by standing around. Go back to the dressing room, and for God’s sake, don’t say anything about this to the hotel guests if you want to get paid this weekend.”

  Mark Egmon, Mohawk House’s special-events manager, burst through the curtains. “What happened?” he asked no one in particular. “There’s a rumor he’s really dead. Is it true?”

  “We need an ambulance,” Larry answered, putting his arm around Egmon’s shoulder and moving him away from Paul’s inert form.

  “What you need is a coroner,” Monroe muttered.

  Larry shot him an angry look, but it was too late. Egmon had overheard Monroe. He wrung his hands and looked from person to person. “This is horrendous,” he said. “Nothing like this has happened at Mohawk House. The only deaths we ever experienced were from natural causes—a heart attack, a stroke. Who could have done such a thing? Why did it have to happen here?”

  “That will be up to the police to determine,” Savoy said.

  Egmon turned to the actor playing the uniformed officer in the mystery, who still held a revolver. “Are you—?”

  The actor raised his arm, inadvertently pointing the weapon at Egmon. The manager stepped backward, his hands extended in a defensive position.

  “Put that down,” Savoy said to the pretend cop. To Egmon he said, “You’d better get some real cops here as fast as possible.”

  “Nobody touch nothing,” the actor portraying Detective Carboroni ordered.

  “Oh, shut up,” Savoy said. “Monroe, give me your jacket.”

  Monroe stroked one hand down his lapel. “This is a genuine silk smoking jacket, Lawrence. Tell me you’re not going to do what I think you’re suggesting.”

  Larry held out his hand. “Whittaker—the jacket.”

  “If you get blood on it, I won’t wear it again. That I can promise you.”

  “Wardrobe will get you another one. Now hurry up.”

  Monroe slipped off the smoking jacket and hooked one finger in the collar to pass it to Savoy. The ascot at his neck looked strange against his sleeveless ribbed undershirt.

  Larry placed the jacket over Paul so that it covered his head. There was an audible sigh from several cast members. Despite the horror of murder, shielding the dead body from view made it less painful for those in attendance. “I’ll stay until the police arrive to make sure nothing is touched,” Larry said. “The rest of you get out of here. The audience should be at the reception in the bar by now. You know what you have to do.”

  Egmon said, “Oh, I’m not sure about this. I’ll have to check with others in management.”

  “You have to call the police, remember?”

  “Of course,” Egmon said, looking back over his shoulder at Paul’s body. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and rushed off the stage.

  “Lawrence,” Victoria said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “You can’t expect us to carry on as if nothing has happened. Look at my hands. They’re shaking. How can I hide
it? The audience may suspect the truth. They’ll ask us questions.”

  “That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Larry said, looking at each member of the cast, “and you’ll answer them in character. And if you shed a tear in talking about Paul, they will assume you’re the best actor they’ve ever met. Now, find Cynthia and tell her what I said. No one talks about this unless they’re in character, and keep Paul’s situation fictitious. Understood?”

  The actors nodded, and one by one shuffled off the stage.

  “Nicely done,” said a voice from the wings after Egmon and the cast had departed the stage. John Chasseur sauntered into the light. “Have you felt for a pulse? The victim may not be gone yet.”

  “Of course he’s ‘gone,’ ” said GSB Wick, who’d slipped through the slit in the curtains. “I could see that from the front row. If he didn’t die from the wound, he probably croaked from the loss of blood. He’s been lying there a while.”

  Obviously, Georgie had made a hasty recovery from the flu she’d felt coming on. Perhaps her momentary malaise had been an excuse to get away from her companion, Harold, the randy coroner. If so, I certainly understood her need to remove herself.

  “I’m disappointed,” Chasseur said haughtily. “You’ve started without me.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Larry mumbled to me.

  “Looks like you’d better,” I said.

  Chasseur came to where the body lay and picked up the sleeve of Monroe’s smoking jacket to get a better view. He lifted Paul’s shoulder to expose the wound, which was in the middle of the chest. “He was supposed to be killed as part of the play, wasn’t he?” he asked, letting the body fall back onto the floor.