Of course, even if she had nothing to do with Belle’s death, it might still be better to continue to do what she came here to do, help sell her new pattern.
So maybe deciding to remain on duty at Bewitching Stitches was perfectly innocent, and in fact a wise thing to do. Which still didn’t mean Belle’s death was an accident.
True, the cream of the law-abiding middle class was gathered here, businessmen and businesswomen engaged in buying and selling materials related to that most decorous of crafts—stitchery. Such people did not normally toss one another over ninth-story railings. When she was offered an eyewitness who said she saw the woman go over after standing by the railing alone, it would have been entirely understandable to think it was an accident. The possibility of error was like a feather weighed against the outsize bucket of wet sand that was a policeman’s normal workload.
Come to it, why did she wonder if it might be murder?
Because despite Betsy’s account, an accident seemed unlikely. The people who built this hotel were not stupid. They wouldn’t install such low railings that a slipping hand would let someone go over. Jill glanced toward the open door of the suite, at the railing. It appeared to be at least forty inches high, so unless one were seven feet tall, the top of the railing struck anybody who blundered into it well above the hips. And Belle Hammermill was about five feet four. And last seen standing at the railing, not running into it. As for that curious tendency in some humans to gaze down from heights until they fell, surely the flower boxes hanging on the outside of the rail prevented one from looking straight down and inducing that kind of hypnosis.
How about suicide then? People who committed suicide by jumping from a height in a public place tended to stand on the edge for a considerable while, some to gather the nerve, others to gather a crowd. While Belle had stood there long enough for at least two people to notice, apparently she hadn’t stood there very long, or there would have been more witnesses coming forward to say, “I saw her standing there,” or, “I saw her fall.”
Wait a minute. There might be more witnesses. Someone—Jill, perhaps—should go around and ask.
She reached for the name tag that gave her permission to wander the sales floors and set out for the lobby. No need to rush down the stairs this time, so she headed for the elevators.
There were four elevators, two each in the center of the long sides of the atrium. They were made of thick panes of beveled glass set in polished brass frames that came to pointed tops, which gave them a spurious Victorian style. While not made giddy by watching the floor rush up as the elevator went down, Jill nevertheless kept her eyes on the upper floors, and noted how quickly people vanished behind the flower boxes as the elevator descended.
She went out to the front desk. Marveen, looking very tired now, managed a faint smile as Jill came up to the counter. “Sergeant Larson,” she said with a nod.
“Ms. Harrison,” replied Jill. “No relief for you yet?” She looked out the big front windows and saw the snowfall had at least paused, though the sky remained overcast.
“Oh, no, the city’s still at a complete standstill.”
“That’s too bad.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” sighed Marveen.
Jill, feeling a little chill, cocked her head sideways in a show of sympathy. “Like what?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, no delivery trucks. We’re out of fresh produce for the kitchen, and our supplies of milk and meat are very low, because we’ve got a full house. In fact, more than full; we’ve had to double up in a few rooms because some guests who were supposed to leave Friday morning are still here and will still be here on Sunday if we don’t get a thaw started soon. And I even have some people bunking down in the conference rooms.”
Jill nearly smiled, because none of the problems were of a criminal nature. “That’s serious, but none of your troubles are visible to the guests, so you’re doing a good job of handling it. Of course, I hadn’t thought about food deliveries; that might start showing soon.”
Marveen nodded emphatically. “Like in the morning. No fresh bread for toast.”
“Is your chef good at improvising?”
Marveen laughed softly. “He says he is. I have a feeling we’re going to find out.”
Jill smiled back, then sobered. “I was wondering if you could give me some information about some of your guests.”
“Well, it depends on what you want to know. Or is this like police business?”
“It is. Of course, if I find out anything significant, all I can do is hand it along to the local investigator. But at least I can help carry the load right here.”
Marveen nodded; she would not have shared her troubles if she didn’t consider Jill an official rather than a guest. “Can you do this without aggravating our guests?”
“I’ll sure try.”
Marveen sighed at that weak promise. “What do you want to know?”
“Can you tell me what room Ms. Cherry Pye is in? I assume she shared a room with Belle Hammermill.”
“Well, she didn’t, actually,” said Marveen. “Ms. Pye needs a suite specially equipped for the handicapped. It has special features, like a no-threshold shower and extra-wide doorways. Ms. Hammermill failed to mention that when she made a reservation for herself and Ms. Pye, but fortunately we had a suite available suited to her special needs when Ms. Pye contacted us to confirm the reservation. She elected to have the handicapped suite to herself.”
Jill nodded at this hint of a rift between Cherry and Belle. “Is this the first time Ms. Hammermill and Ms. Pye have come to the Nashville Market?”
“I have no idea. I know there are generally several people in wheelchairs at these events, but I don’t know if we keep records of guests from year to year. Molly is our bookkeeper, but of course she’s not here today.”
“No, of course not.”
It turned out Cherry’s suite was on nine, a few doors down from Belle Hammermill’s. Jill wrote that down and found that Lenore King was also on nine and there was no Eve Saddle. There was an Eve, but her name was Suttle—“That must be it, Betsy wasn’t sure of the name,” said Jill—and her suite was on seven. She wrote down the room numbers and thanked Marveen.
Jill turned away from the desk toward the clusters of upholstered chairs and comfortable sofas, where several groups of women sat stitching. She went to each group and then to the INRG committee members behind the long tables, asking casual questions about what they were working on or how the event was going, and then mentioning as if in passing that she wondered if anyone had actually seen Belle Hammermill fall. Or if they knew of anyone else who might have seen something.
When anyone asked why—and someone always did—she said she was a police officer from a different jurisdiction assisting the locals, who were tied up with weather-related emergencies.
“This was probably an accident,” said Jill, but she was collecting any details while everyone’s memories were still fresh. “This will help them clear their records,” Jill said, her casual tone making it not important.
She went back to Betsy’s suite and dialed Betsy’s cell phone. “Can you talk?” Jill asked.
“Wait a minute.” It only took a few seconds before Betsy said, “What’s up?”
“I want to find out how many people here might have had a reason to murder Belle.”
There was a surprised silence. Then, “You still think this was murder?”
“I’m curious about her death. Where are you right now?”
“I’m outside Rainbow Gallery, in one of the side hallways next to the stairs.”
“Walk back up to the atrium, right up to the railing.”
“All right.” There was another pause, which gradually filled with the sound of people talking in a great empty space. “Okay,” said Betsy. “Now what?”
“How high is the railing on you?”
“Oh, it’s . . .” Yet another pause. “It’s up past the bottom of my rib cage. Alm
ost to the bra line, actually. I didn’t realize that. But hey, I’m short, Jill.”
“Belle was about your height. Stretch your hand out over the railing, like you’re waving to someone.”
There was a suppressed giggle. “Is this another one of your stupid pranks?” On rare occasions Jill displayed a penchant for practical jokes.
“No.”
“Well, okay then. Hi, there!”
“Now, reach farther, put your shoulder out there, reaching for a helium balloon that’s escaped.”
“Uff. Okay, I’m out there. Durn, I missed it. Jill, people are looking.”
“Smile at them.”
“Okay, smiling.”
“Now, try to lean out, follow your shoulder out over the railing.”
“Can’t—uff—can’t do it. Why—? Oh. . .”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Well, all right. But I saw her, Jill. She didn’t, you know, throw a leg over. Not that it would be easy for someone as short as me to do that. Funny how this railing doesn’t look all that high, until you’re right up against it.”
“So if she didn’t slip, and she didn’t climb up to jump,” prompted Jill.
“No,” said Betsy. “I don’t believe it, I won’t believe it.”
“I take it that means you don’t want to come along while I talk to people.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay.”
“But Jill?” That came just in time to stop Jill signing off.
“Yes?”
“Let me know what they say, all right?”
“Sure.”
Thirteen
Saturday, December 15, 3:20 P.M.
Through the door to the lobby came a tall man, about forty-five, dark haired, and slope shouldered, with a big, hard belly and bad feet that distorted his unshined black oxfords. His shoes made squishing sounds—Marveen heard the noise and that’s what drew her attention around—and the bottoms of his trousers were wet, the left leg up to the knee in front, indicating a half-fall. He was unbuttoning his raincoat, which was damp about the shoulders from the snow melting on it. He needed a shave and his small, dark eyes were red-rimmed. But there was a dogged air about him, as if he was a man used to being exhausted.
He paused a few moments just inside the door to the lobby, perhaps to listen to trombones crooning “White Christmas,” more likely to simply breathe air that was not clogged with snow, and stand secure on a level surface not coated with ice.
Marveen wondered how he had managed to climb the hill—he hadn’t come up in a vehicle, the portico outside the doors was empty. And why had he come alone? Didn’t the police generally travel in pairs? This man was, she knew, a policeman. For one thing he looked like one; for another, no one else would make the effort it must have taken to get here. He came to the desk and, reaching into an inside pocket, said, “I’m Paul Birdsong, Nashville PD. Someone here called about a fatal accident?”
“That would be me,” said Marveen. “I’m Marveen Harrison, acting hotel manager.” She was very good at reading people’s needs, and he needed his questions answered briefly and directly. They both spoke quietly, because the chairs and couches in the lobby held nine women who had been talking and stitching until he came in, when a nosy silence had fallen.
“Have you moved the body?” he asked, replacing the wallet that held his badge and ID card.
“No, we thought we should leave her just as she is.”
“That’s good. Where is she?”
“Out here in the atrium, behind those screens. Do you want to look right away?”
He did. He went heavily down the steps and pulled one screen open like a door. It moved easily, if noisily, on the tile floor. He stood completely still for nearly a minute, just looking.
Marveen wondered what conclusions he was drawing as she struggled against the urge to look, too, to try to see it through his eyes. But what he was looking at was something no longer fresh, something settled into death, a horrible thing that used to be a living guest of the hotel, and now something no one wants to look at. Marveen looked instead at the dark-haired woman in a green pantsuit seated on a folding chair on the other side of the screens. Marveen didn’t know who she was; she was younger than the woman in red who had first sat there, and the woman in black who had replaced her. Marveen nodded at her to let her know that the man who had opened the screen had the authority to do so. The woman had already concluded that—Birdsong did not look merely curious—and she just nodded back.
Marveen continued to avoid seeing the body by next checking to see that the two white cockatoos in their cage had been tended to, and noting that the bottom of the little pool of water beside them was strewn with far fewer coins than usual. Possibly the hardheaded shop-owners and wholesalers weren’t the kind to throw money away. Or, more likely, they didn’t want to approach the screens.
“Terrible.” Marveen looked up. Birdsong was shaking his head as he stepped back and slid the screen back into place. “I hate looking at jumpers,” he remarked.
“I understand,” she said.
“You’ve identified her,” he said, and it was not quite a question.
“Yes, she’s Ms. Belle Hammermill, here for the needlework market. She’s from Milwaukee where she owned a store called Belle’s Samplers and More. She had a partner in the business, a woman named Cherry Pye—” Birdsong snorted faintly. “Yes, I know, but that’s her real name. Ms. Pye identified the body.”
Birdsong had pulled a fat little notebook from a pocket. “When did Ms. Hammermill die?” he asked.
“About ten-twenty this morning. I was behind the counter in the lobby and heard her scream as she fell.”
“Do you know what floor she fell from?”
“Yes, the ninth floor directly over us.” Birdsong looked up, and so did Marveen. With their flower boxes and trailing ivy, the railings made a soft, attractive, repeating pattern up to a skylit roof far overhead. There were perhaps a dozen curious faces peering down at them from various floors. Most of them hastily withdrew on seeing their looks returned.
“She went over the top railing?” he asked, squinting a little and moving back a few steps for a better look.
“Yes.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“Yes, it was an accident. We have an eyewitness.”
Birdsong’s head came down quickly as hope dawned in his eyes. “An actual eyewitness?”
“Yes, she saw Ms. Hammermill standing by the railing and then go over. She says she was all alone up there.”
“What’s her name, this eyewitness?”
“Samantha Wills. She’s also a guest at the hotel, here for the Market.”
“Market?”
“Virtually all our guests here right now are either buying or selling needlework patterns and materials. It’s an annual event, this is its fourteenth year.” She frowned. “Well, actually, it’s still the thirteenth. Usually it’s held in February, but we had to move it back two months. A booking problem.”
“How do I get to talk to Samantha Wills?”
“She has a cell phone and I have the number.”
“Will you call her for me?”
“Certainly. Would you like to wait in the office? It’s quiet and private. And you can sit down.”
“Thank you.”
Marveen started back for the lobby. “It will probably take a few minutes for her to get down here. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes. Yes, I would.” Birdsong ran a thick hand over his face, his fingers making a sound on his unshaven jowls.
“Would it be presumptuous of me to offer you something to eat? I think we have sweet rolls left from breakfast. Or I could order a sandwich.”
Another hope-filled smile formed, sweeter even than the response to the news that this was a witnessed accident. “A sandwich, yes. Would you mind?”
“I don’t know what kind it will be; we haven’t had any deliveries since yesterday noon.”
/> “Whatever you can scrounge up, and I thank you. No onion or lettuce or tomato, okay? And I like my coffee black.”
“I’ll have it brought on a tray to the office.”
“Thank you.”
Marveen showed him the entrance through the counter and into the back office, which was large and decidedly chilly. Snow was again whirling thickly past the two tall windows. There were two desks in the room, and six filing cabinets. The larger desk was clear of everything but a big blotter and a phone. The chair behind it was black leather. Birdsong sank into it with a sound that was more a groan than a sigh.
“Oh, by the way,” said Marveen, and his eyes closed in pain before he looked at her, braced for bad news. “There’s a police officer from Minnesota who had already talked to Ms. Wills. Would you like to talk to her, as well?”
“Oh, yes, by all means.”
Marveen couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, so she only nodded and withdrew to make her phone calls.
Samantha Wills came trotting into the lobby sixteen minutes later, still in her stretch pants. “Sorry I took so long, I was loaded down with things and thought, egh-hem, I should take them to my room first.” The anxious look was back, and she cleared her throat again as she waited for Marveen to let Lieutenant Birdsong know she was here. Marveen opened the door and noted that the plate on which a roast beef sandwich, a generous fistful of potato chips, and a long pickle slice had rested nine minutes earlier had not even any crumbs left on it as a reminder of the meal. Birdsong was bent over his coffee cup as if drawing warmth from it up his nose. His eyes were closed.
“Uh,” Marveen said, and he started and looked around at her. “Ms. Wills is here.”
“Fine, send her in.” He stood slowly, and Marveen stepped back to wave in the obese woman. She was still clearing her throat and her fingers were touching her neck as she went. Marveen closed the door and went to call Sergeant Larson.
The Minnesota police officer came into the lobby a few minutes later. Marveen invited her to sit behind the counter, out of the way of the stitchers.
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