The Weekend Was Murder (4 page)

I changed the subject, because there’d be no convincing Fran. I knew what I’d heard, and I remembered only
too clearly how scared Tina and I had been. I never wanted to set foot in that haunted room again.

We parked in the employees’ section at the far end of the lot behind the hotel. I fully intended to emerge as gracefully as possible from the Yellow Belly, but tripped over the door frame and landed on my hands and knees. As Fran helped me up, I thought how glad I was that Tina wasn’t there, and uncomfortably, I wondered if she might be right. Maybe the way I felt about myself
did
have something to do with my short boyfriend and my clumsiness.

Fran and I walked toward the back door, arriving just behind a middle-aged woman who was in the clutches of a tall, uniformed policewoman on one side and Lamar Boudry on the other. The woman wasn’t dowdy, just sort of dumpy. Her dark-brown hair was pulled back tightly and fastened in a lump. Her eyes and face were pale, and the severe, navy-blue suit she wore did nothing for her.

Even though their pace was a brisk one, Lamar and the policewoman snapped their heads from one side to the other as they kept a sharp eye on the parking lot. Now and then the woman twisted to throw nervous glances over her shoulder, and when she saw Fran and me coming up behind them she stiffened and gave a little moan.

Lamar and the policewoman had such a firm grip on her upper arms that she didn’t cause them to miss a step, but they both turned to stare at us.

“Hotel employees,” I heard Lamar say as they continued on their way.

“Somebody’s under arrest,” Fran whispered to me.

“No,” I whispered back. I stopped, letting Lamar and the women with him enter the hotel, so I could fill Fran in. “Do you know about the stolen-securities–money-laundering trial that’s going to start in Houston on Monday?”

“Sure,” he said. “Doesn’t everybody?”

I didn’t bother to answer that one. I just repeated what Tina had told me about the sequestered witness who thought her life was in danger. “But don’t tell anybody,” I cautioned.

We cut through the back hallway, passing the service elevator, where Lamar was waiting with the policewoman and the witness. Just then a door to one of the small conference rooms opened, and Eileen Duffy and a group of people—probably her actors—filed out. I saw the witness nervously cling to the policewoman as she studied each face, then suddenly relax when none of them were recognizable to her. The actors went on their way, following Eileen, and I walked with Fran in the direction of the lobby and the registration desk. That witness was one scared woman, and I felt sorry for her. Maybe when she was sequestered in one of those beautiful suites on the nineteenth floor she’d be able to relax and feel more secure.

Although it was early afternoon the lobby was filled with people and there were lines at the registration desk, but some of the people in those lines didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen at the Ridley before. A tall man, who was wearing a deerstalker hat and had that Sherlock Holmes kind of curved pipe in his mouth, was
staring at the woman in front of him through a magnifying glass. A young woman swathed in a long, black cape swept past me, and two elderly women in red and black T-shirts from Houston’s mystery bookstore, Murder by the Book, swiveled in place, studying everyone in the room with deep suspicion.

When the glance of the shorter of the two fell upon me, her intense gaze was replaced by a pleased grin, and the woman shouted, “Yoo-hoo! Mary Elizabeth! Over here!”

I smiled back and went to greet Mrs. Sylvia Bandini and her best friend, Mrs. Opal Larabee, two of the health club’s regulars.

“We were the first to sign up,” Mrs. Bandini said.

“We’re naturals,” Mrs. Larabee chimed in, so excited that she reminded me of a fat little bird, hopping on a tree limb. “Look what a good job we did in finding out who killed Mr. Kamara.”

Mrs. Bandini had the grace to look embarrassed. “Opal,” she said, “Detective Jarvis told us we were the best eyewitnesses he had ever met, but
we
didn’t find out who killed Mr. Kamara. Mary Elizabeth did.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Larabee said. “Well, I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn’t bring that subject up around my house, since my grandchildren happen to have a different impression.”

“If you can’t be honest with your grandchildren, who can you be honest with?”

“Can I help it if they jumped to conclusions?”

“Maybe you’ll solve
this
mystery,” I told them, and hurried to join Fran at the end of the reception desk.
One of the clerks nodded to us and handed us our room keys.

Mrs. Duffy was standing close by, reading the list of people who had registered for the murder-mystery weekend, and I heard her saying to Laura Dale, who had a copy of the list, “It’s my fault. I told you to limit the number to one hundred and fifty, but there’s always a last-minute cancellation or two, and I should have given you the opportunity to compile a short waiting list.”

“I’m sure they’ll all be here,” Laura said. “We were sold out just a day or two after the ad appeared.”

“Come on,” Fran said to me. “I’m on the fourth floor. Where’s your room? I’ll go up with you first.”

I looked at the number on the key. “Fifth,” I said. I was kind of excited about this weekend, in spite of my earlier misgivings. I’d be playing a role, I’d be part of the fun, and I felt very sophisticated about having my own hotel room.

If I didn’t already know how low the Ridley manager, Mr. Lewis Parmegan, rated his employees, I would have figured it out when I stepped inside my room. Someone had thoughtfully decorated a broom closet in a flowered blue print. There was barely enough room for the bed and a small dresser. The bathroom was teeny-tiny, and the view from the window consisted of the trash bins and part of a brick wall.

As I tossed my suitcase on the bed Fran said, “Uh-oh. According to the number on my room key, I’m right below you. I bet I get the same spacious accommodations.”

“Oh, who cares?” I said. “We won’t be in our rooms very much anyway. Why don’t we go down to the coffee shop and get a soft drink?”

“Great idea!” Fran said. He waited until I’d tucked my key into one of the pockets in my shorts, and we went down to Fran’s room on the fourth floor. It was a duplicate of my room, only in green.

The visit to the coffee shop was a dismal failure too, because we’d no sooner seated ourselves in one of the booths than the waitress hissed at us, “What are you doing in here? You know employees aren’t allowed in the restaurants while they’re in uniform!”

I felt as though everyone was staring at us as we squeezed out of the booth, but Fran took my hand and guided me down the side hallway, which led to a number of meeting rooms. In some of them we could hear people talking into crackling microphones, and Fran passed those rooms by. He stopped at the doors of two rooms, looked inside, then went on. But when Fran poked his head into a small, wood-paneled conference room, he popped out again and smiled. “Here’s what I was looking for,” he said. “It’s empty, and no one’s picked up the leftovers. Hey, Liz! There’s a whole plate of cookies!”

The room held only a large, oval conference table and chairs, and—against the wall—a serving table with one of those pleated cloths that snaps on three sides and hangs to the floor. On the table were a coffee urn and cups, iced soft drinks, and a tray of assorted cookies. A few of the cups had been used and were still on
the conference table, along with some rumpled candy-bar wrappers.

“It’s all right to eat the cookies. They’ll just throw them out,” Fran said. But he had no sooner stuffed one into his mouth than we heard the door handle turn. With one mind we dove under the serving table.

I sat there shaking and clutching the can of cola I’d just opened, thankful that the pleated cloth went all the way down to the floor, hiding us from whoever had come into the room. What had we done? Surely we’d be fired if anyone found us under here.

A deep voice spoke as the door shut. “The meeting went very well,” he said. “We’ve got them where we want them.”

I was almost ready to crawl out and beg for mercy, when the other voice answered, “You’d better be right. It could be your last chance. I only hope you’ve got those papers in order—”

The first man interrupted. “We’ve discussed it enough, Al. Don’t bring it up again. We can’t risk being overheard.”

“Don’t worry,” Al said. “For the last few years I’ve worked closely with you on all your projects. You should know by this time that I’m not going to let anyone get in our way.”

“Including me?”

“What are you talking about?”

When the other man didn’t answer, Al said, “Frank, we’re partners. You have no reason not to trust me.”

There was another pause, and the man called Frank said, “There’s something else we need to talk about.
I’m a little concerned about Mr. Yamoto. He’s an intelligent man and very cautious.”

“Which is probably why he got to be as rich as he did.”

“I get the feeling he’s going to double-check everything I tell him.”

“You mean with a private investigator? Let him. We’re covered.” Al chuckled and said, “Frank, you can see it. Yamoto is as eager to get in on a good thing as anyone else. The idea of getting something for nothing—he won’t be able to resist it. Logan too. He’s hooked, thanks to Parmegan.”

Fran and I stared at each other. Were they talking about Lewis Parmegan, the manager of the Ridley?

“You catch big fish if you’ve got the right bait,” Frank said. “I had a hunch Parmegan would make good bait.”

There was some moving about, and Al asked, “How about another cup of coffee?”

I could hear them approaching, and one of them stood so close to the table I could see the tips of his shoes under the cloth. I tried to shrink back and not breathe so they wouldn’t discover us, but I dropped my soft drink can, and it gushed out, all over the toes of the man’s shoes, as it spread from under the table and across the carpet.

We heard the door open, and the shoes whipped around in that direction. Someone said, “Oh, sorry, sir. I thought this room had been vacated.”

“It’s all right. You can pick up the dishes. We were just leaving,” Al answered.

There was the sound of coffee cups being put down over our heads, footsteps moving away from our direction, and the door shutting. But a voice so close that it made me jump grumbled, “What a mess! Some nerd spilled his drink, but I’m the one who has to clean it up.”

I was a nerd, all right, to be so clumsy. How could I have done that?

He muttered some opinions that weren’t very nice, and I squeezed my eyes shut and stopped breathing as I waited to be discovered. To my surprise I heard the muttering trickle toward the door.

“He’s going to get some wet towels to mop it up,” Fran whispered.

As the door shut again Fran and I scrambled out from under that table. Fran snatched up a few more cookies, and we made a dash from the conference room into the hall.

It wasn’t until we were out of danger of being caught that I dared to ask Fran, “What was all that about Mr. Parmegan?”

Fran looked uncomfortable. “It sounded like some kind of a con game, with Mr. Parmegan involved in it.”

“Sometimes Mr. Parmegan can be a real hard nose,” I said.

“A mean machine.”

“A jerk head. But I don’t think he’d willingly try to cheat anyone, do you?”

“No,” Fran said. “I don’t.”

“Should we tell Mr. Parmegan what we heard?”

“How can we?” Fran asked. “We don’t know who was talking. We don’t even know what the men look like.”

I saw Mr. Parmegan just up ahead, and I tugged at Fran’s arm. “There he is,” I said. “We can at least tell him what the men said about him.”

Fran’s eyes grew big. “You want to tell Mr. Parmegan that somebody thinks he makes good bait?”

I stood very still. “Uh … why don’t
you
tell him?”

“First of all, why don’t we find out more about all this?” Fran suggested. “When we’ve got some real information, we can lay it all out and maybe skip the part about the bait.”

“You’re wonderful,” I said. “I like the way you think.”

“I have many other good qualities too,” Fran said with a grin.

“I know,” I murmured and moved a little closer.

But Mr. Parmegan—who looked like a successful hotel manager in his expensive dark-blue suit and color-coordinated tie—had spotted us. He stepped up beside us and said, “I believe you both are employee-witnesses for this mystery program, are you not?”

“Yes,” I said, and Fran nodded agreement.

Mr. Parmegan looked at his watch. “Very well, then. You have approximately two minutes and twenty-three seconds to reach the rehearsal meeting Miss Duffy has scheduled in conference room C. It is important to be on time.”

“Yes, sir,” Fran said. We picked up the pace and hurried back toward the conference rooms. We were no sooner out of Mr. Parmegan’s earshot than Fran muttered, “Shows how much he knows. We had two minutes and
forty-eight
seconds.” We entered room C, which had been set up with chairs in an oval around the small room, and took places near the door. A few other employees had arrived, some of them chatting with the actors, but the meeting hadn’t been called to order yet.