The Weekend Was Murder (10 page)

Fran let me in and pointed to the outline of his body on the floor. “Creepy, huh?” he said.

“I’ve called a bellman,” Mrs. Duffy said. “Eileen’s things and mine are packed, so he can move us now.” She stopped and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh. I forgot to check the bathroom. I’m sure I packed all of Eileen’s things. That is, I think I’m sure.”

“I’ll check it for you,” I told her, and trotted down the hallway to the bathroom.

I threw open the door and gasped as I looked into Randolph Hamilton’s mournful eyes. He was seated on
the floor against the mirrored wall. His back was hunched over his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked him.

“I wish I knew,” he answered.

“Are you hiding from someone?” I persisted.

“That man who was murdered.… He looked like me—me in this wig and mustache, that is.” Randolph let out a groan and said, “I know what happened. They got the wrong man.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “The murder victim was supposed to be me.”

“Mrs. Duffy’s ready to move out of this suite,” I told Randolph. “It’s the new scene of the crime.”

He looked up at me, surprised, and I held out a hand. “Hiding isn’t going to help, but talking with Detective Jarvis is,” I said. “Come on. I’ll take you to him.”

“Do you really think he can help me?”

“If you tell him what you told me—and why—I’m sure he’ll help you.”

I felt like Randolph’s mother as he trustingly put his hand in mine. Some mother! I gave him a tug to help him get up and banged his shoulder on the edge of the washbasin.

As we entered the living room of the suite, Mrs. Duffy said, “Oh my, we
were
leaving something behind. Randolph, I didn’t know you were here. Eileen called just a minute ago and asked that Mary Elizabeth and Francis come downstairs, because the guests are eager to interrogate them. She was trying to find you, Randolph.”

Randolph just nodded and rubbed his sore shoulder.

I looked around for Fran, and Mrs. Duffy said, “I sent Francis down immediately. When a director says ‘jump,’ you jump.”

“I’ll jump in a minute,” I told her. “First, Randolph and I are going to see Detective Jarvis. Murderers have priority over directors.”

“Good point,” she said. “And a good line. If you don’t mind, I’ll use it. I’m working on a novel in which the murder takes place in a theater.”

“Sure, use it,” I said, feeling vaguely famous. “It’s fine with me.”

Mrs. Duffy looked as though she’d suddenly remembered something. “Tomorrow, Mary Elizabeth, when you have some free time, you
must
tell me about the murder you were involved in at the beginning of the summer.”

“I will,” I told her. I wondered, if she decided to write the story and it got published, if they’d put my picture on the cover of the book. I began to get excited, but then I realized I’d have to do something about my hair. And my eye makeup. And the shape of my nose. It was too discouraging to think about.

Mrs. Duffy shut the door, tested it, and walked to the elevators. With Randolph right behind me, I knocked at the door of room nineteen twenty-seven. Detective Jarvis opened the door and let us in.

The room felt strange and icy cold. With the terrible thing that had happened and with all those people crowded into the suite, I’d forgotten about the ghost. But I remembered it with a start—as though it were thinking of me—and found myself glancing toward the
hall that led to the bedrooms, half expecting to see an ethereal figure in a long, white gown suddenly appear. Detective Jarvis’s strong and solid presence was tremendously comforting.

As we entered the living room, Mr. Walters—I mean, Mr. Burns—took one goggle-eyed look at Randolph, leaped to his feet, let out a horrible, strangling sound, and fell back on the sofa. “Devane!” he rasped.

“I’m not Frank Devane,” Randolph said in an aggrieved tone of voice. He turned to me. “You see, that’s what I mean. The killer thought Devane was me.”

Mr. Burns struggled to an upright position and asked, “If you’re not Devane, who are you?”

“My name is John Wallgood.” Randolph’s eyes narrowed. “For that matter, who are
you
?”

“He’s the man who murdered Frank Devane,” I said.

Randolph’s back slammed into the wall, and I could see the whites of his eyes spread all around his pupils.

“Don’t disseminate misinformation, Liz,” Detective Jarvis told me. “Mr. Burns has not been charged with murder.”

There was another knock at the door, and Jarvis opened it to two uniformed policemen. He then turned to face Steven Burns, and spoke so firmly that Mr. Burns’s head bobbled like one of those toy dogs with a spring in its neck that you sometimes see in the back of a pickup truck. “It’s in your own best interest to have these men accompany you downtown, where your attorney will meet you and remain with you while another detective from our homicide department takes your statement.”

Mr. Burns staggered to an upright position, still nodding, and left the room with the police officers.

“If you’ve caught your murderer, then the crime is solved,” I told Jarvis.

“It’s not that easy,” Jarvis answered. “There are too many loose ends, too many things that don’t add up.”

“That means you don’t think Mr. Burns committed the murder, doesn’t it?”

“Between you and me, I don’t think he did it, but we’ll have to make sure.” Jarvis looked from me to Randolph and back again. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You can help Randolph,” I told him. “He thinks the murderer killed Devane, thinking he was Randolph.”

“Mr. Hamilton, let’s sit down,” Detective Jarvis said. “Would you like to explain this?” He sat on one of the sofas, causing the cushions to collapse in the middle.

“When I’m wearing this stupid wig and mustache, Devane and I look—uh—looked nearly identical,” Randolph said. He dropped into a chair, his chin resting on his chest.

I leaned against the wall, out of Detective Jarvis’s line of vision, and quietly listened.

“Not identical, but close,” Jarvis said.

“Close enough, so the hit man got mixed up.”

“What hit man are we talking about?”

Randolph closed his eyes and groaned. “I’ve been gambling, and most of the time it’s win some, lose some. But for a while now I’ve had a run of bad luck, and I’ve had to borrow quite a bit of money.” He
opened his eyes and said, “You don’t get money to gamble with from banks, you know.”

“I know,” Jarvis said.

“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?”