The Weekend Was Murder (5 page)

Eileen Duffy, her kelly-green dress floating behind her, sailed into the room and immediately took charge. She smiled at the members of the hotel staff who were playing witnesses—Phyllis, from the front desk; Earl from accounting, who was subbing for a doorman because the hotel couldn’t spare the real doorman; Judy, the concierge; Ella from housekeeping; Fran and me.

After introducing us to the actors, she invited us to sit
down, then called her actors together and explained their roles.

“We are members of a touring theatrical company, The Pitts Players, which is directed by Hollywood impresario Edgar Albert Pitts. Our motto is, ‘For Theater Hits, We’re the Pitts.’ ”

She waited until everyone had finished giggling, then introduced the actors. “I’m not going to tell you their real names at this time,” she said, “because they’re going to remain in character during the entire evening, and I want you to think of them only by their character names.”

She motioned to a beautiful blond woman, who was probably in her mid-twenties. “This is Crystal Crane,” she said. “Crystal has talent, so she’ll have a great opportunity in theater, if only she can get out of her contract with Edgar Pitts.”

Crystal stepped back, and a tall, bald, middle-aged man with a big grin stepped forward. “This is Randolph Hamilton,” Eileen began, but stopped. “Where’s your mustache and wig?” she asked him.

“I brought it,” he said. “Do I have to start wearing it now?”

“Of course. We want everyone to see you the way you’ll look throughout the mystery. Put it on, please, while I introduce Annabelle Maloney.”

Randolph went to a far chair and bent to rummage in a small case. We stopped watching him when a thin, mousy woman stepped up. She gazed at us shyly, blushed, and ducked her head.

“Oh, that’s great, Annabelle.” Eileen gave her a pat
on the shoulder and said to us, “As you can see, Annabelle is totally intimidated by Mr. Pitts. She not only plays bit parts, she also serves as his secretary and bookkeeper.” She turned toward the group of actors again, saying, “And now—”

But Randolph Hamilton stepped forward. “Okay now?” he asked.

I was amazed. He looked like a different person. His dark-brown hair was stylishly cut, and his mustache was trim and handsome. He had suddenly turned into a man who looked both successful and sophisticated. Randolph held his head a little higher, and even the way he moved his body was different.

Phyllis, the desk clerk who was seated next to me, murmured aloud to herself, “I’ve seen him before. Where have I seen him?”

Eileen beamed at Randolph. “Marvelous,” she said. “You’re very much the sophisticated actor.” She winked at us and said, “Randolph has the good looks, but not much talent, which is why his career lately is on the skids. It might help Randolph if he could only remember his lines!”

With a haughty toss of his shoulders, which made Annabelle giggle, Randolph stepped back, and a short man stumbled forward. He wrung his hands nervously as he stared at our small audience.

“This is Arthur Butler, one of the Pitts Players actors,” Eileen said.

“Butler? I know! The butler did it,” Fran said.

Eileen smiled. “Did he? It’s up to our participants to figure that one out.”

“I think he’s a red herring,” I said. I like to read mystery novels, so I know all about red herrings and things like that, which mystery authors use to confuse readers.

“Don’t be too sure,” Eileen said. “All I can tell you is that Arthur is a frustrated actor, because he would rather write plays than act in them.”

She held out a hand to a man who was probably in his late twenties. He leisurely strolled to join her, and his glance at the rest of us was both amused and slightly contemptuous.

“The last character I want you to meet is Martin Jones,” Eileen said. “He’s Edgar Pitts’s nephew. A little spoiled, a little sneaky, and a compulsive gambler.”

“He has to be the murderer,” Phyllis said.

“Who really is the murderer?” Earl asked Eileen.

“Look at their eyes,” Ella said. “The murderer may give himself away.”

Eileen smiled. “The actors don’t always know which one of them committed the murder until our rehearsal the night before the arrest scene takes place. Mom rearranges all her scripts so that the crucial clue changes, and that changes the identity of the murderer.”

She looked at each of the witnesses. “Are there any more questions?”

“Yes,” I said. “You haven’t introduced us to everybody. Where’s Edgar Albert Pitts?”

“Edgar Albert Pitts will not be making an appearance, Liz,” Eileen said. “It’s his body you’re going to find.”

I blushed, and everyone laughed except Fran, who—without
a word—took my hand snugly into his. That was another neat thing about Fran. He understood when I needed someone to hang on to.

Eileen began to give instructions to each of the hotel employees who were going to be witnesses. “Don’t make up information or add anything,” she cautioned. “Keep remembering, we don’t want to lead the participants astray, so all the clues have to be honest. If one of the players asks you something you don’t know, just answer, ‘I don’t know.’ You each have something to tell them—an argument you’ve overheard, something you’ve seen.” She nodded to Phyllis. “You’ve got a list of exactly what times each of our characters checked into the hotel. Just give them that information when they ask.”

“There’s something else typed on my sheet,” Phyllis said. She looked down at the paper in her hand and back at Eileen. “Randolph Hamilton demanded a suite, but we couldn’t give it to him. Then he demanded a deluxe room, but I couldn’t help him there either.”

“I hope he didn’t end up with a room like ours,” I murmured to Fran, and he grinned back.

“Right,” Eileen said. She fished into an oversized handbag and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she gave to Fran. “Sorry you got your instructions a little late,” she said. “As you can see, you delivered breakfast to Annabelle Maloney and interrupted an argument between her and Crystal Crane, who was dressed to go out and who had just stopped by to talk to Annabelle.”

“About what?” Fran asked.

“What does it say on your sheet? Take it from the top.”

Fran read, “Miss Maloney had been crying, because her eyes were all red, and I heard Miss Crane say, ‘You’ll be in trouble if they find out.’ ” He raised his head and looked at Eileen. “Find out what?”

“That’s for the people at our mystery weekend to discover,” she said. “You can only tell them what you overheard, no more, no less. Got it?”

“Got it,” Fran answered.

I nudged him with my elbow. “So much for your wicked woman in black.”

A couple of the other employees had questions before Eileen dismissed us. “Stick around, Liz,” she said. “I want to trace the route you’ll take after you find the body.”

While Fran waited in the lobby, Eileen and I took an elevator up to the second floor and got off. As the elevator doors closed behind us I glanced down the empty hallway. This floor was creepy too. Was the whole hotel haunted?
Don’t be silly
, I told myself.
Any empty hotel hallway, with its double row of closed doors, is scary. Who’s behind the doors? Is someone suddenly going to burst out and
—

I was beginning to get goose bumps, so I was glad when Eileen broke into my thoughts. “This is the plan,” she said. “You’ll come up here just before eight-thirty. One of the people in security will make sure you have an elevator to yourself. Everyone who’s participating in the mystery should be at the party, but just in case someone’s wandering around we’ll try to take care of
that possibility. Press the
stop
and the
door open
buttons, which will keep the elevator out of service. At exactly eight-thirty take the elevator back down to the lobby.”

“There’s a problem,” I said. “Anyone who’s waiting for an elevator will be able to see from the directional lights over the elevator that I was only on the second floor. They’d also see when I went up and when I came down. There wouldn’t be enough time to go to the nineteenth floor, find the body, and come back.”

“I know,” Eileen said, “but you wanted to stay clear of the scene of the crime. I was trying to make it easy for you.”

“I’ll go up to the nineteenth floor,” I told her. What else could I say? “You and your mother have planned this so carefully. I don’t want to spoil it.” Also, I didn’t want to carry a big guilt trip with me in case anything went wrong.

Eileen smiled. “Thanks, Liz. You’re terrific,” she said. “Okay, here’s how we’ll change our plans. Take the elevator to the nineteenth floor and wait about five minutes. At eight-thirty take the elevator down.”

I nodded, and she punched the elevator button. “Start screaming at the top of your lungs as the elevator door opens on the lobby level. Run across the near end of the lobby and into the open doors of ballroom A, screaming all the way, and in between screams shout, ‘There’s a body upstairs! A dead body!’ Can you do that?”

“I guess so,” I answered. “Do you want me to practice screaming?”

She put a hand on my arm. “I don’t think that will be
necessary,” she said. “Let me tell you why you went to room nineteen twenty-seven. You’ll need to know, because people will ask.”

I nodded, listening carefully, and she explained, “Edgar Albert Pitts was in the health club, soaking in the hot tub, and while he was there he was reading a play. He put it on a nearby table while he went to the dressing rooms to change, and when he left he forgot the script. You telephoned his room to tell him you’d found it, and he told you he was very busy preparing for tonight’s program and asked you to bring it to him. You did, found the door ajar, and discovered his body.”

The elevator arrived, and we rode it to the lobby level. Eileen walked me through the path I’d take, which was easy enough for a baby to follow—as long as it was a screaming baby—and said, “I’ll see you tonight. The right time, the right place. Remember, I’m counting on you.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. As we walked out of the ballroom I added, “Good luck.”

She winced and groaned. “Never wish an actor good luck. It’s an old superstition that wishing good luck almost guarantees something will go wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I can’t wish you good luck, what
should
I say?”

“Say, ‘Break a leg,’ ” she answered.

“That doesn’t seem very friendly.”

“It’s traditional, and it’s friendly.”

Eileen glanced toward her watch. “I’ve got to set up the scene of the crime and seal it off. I’ll see you at the party tonight.”

Fran stepped up to join me as soon as Eileen had left. “Actors are weird,” I told him, “even the nice ones.”

“Everybody around here is a little weird this weekend,” he said. “A woman just grabbed my jacket and hissed in my ear, ‘What do you know? Tell me everything you know!’ and the murder hasn’t even taken place yet.”

My stomach rumbled, and I said to Fran, “Let’s go down to the employees’ cafeteria and get some dinner. At least the people there will be normal.”

But we had no sooner got in line than Earl, the accountant from the business office, who was now dressed in a doorman’s uniform, sidled up to us. He muttered through one side of his mouth, “Crystal Crane asked me to call a cab for her at nine-thirty this morning. She acted very … very”—he stopped and pulled a tightly folded sheet of paper from his pocket, opened it, read it, and finished—“very suspicious.”

“Method acting,” I mumbled as the “doorman” wandered off with his tray to find a table.

“I think this is going to be fun,” Fran said. “That is, if nothing goes wrong.”

“Just don’t wish any of the actors good luck,” I told him, remembering what I’d said to Eileen. “They don’t like it.”

“Can I wish it to you?” he asked.

“No!” I spoke too loudly, and a couple of people turned to stare at me, but all of a sudden I thought about the screaming I’d have to do, and how it would need to be timed just right and acted just right, and a cold, hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach. Mary
Elizabeth Rafferty, the klutz. What if I ruined everything?

I managed to eat a little soup, then went up to my room and brushed my hair and put on some pink lipstick to match my pink health-club T-shirt. Pink was not a great color for redheads, but it was for a health club, so I had no choice. I thought about Eileen dressed in that dramatic green flowing dress that set off her red hair. Why couldn’t I look like that?

I glanced at my watch a million times. Fran had said he’d stay with me, but I didn’t want him to. I had to try to relax and get into the part I was supposed to play. As eight-fifteen approached, I was both thankful that the waiting was over and scared to death because the big moment was at hand. As I walked to the elevator, my legs shook the way they had that time I’d tried riding the health club’s exercise bicycle a solid half hour, nonstop.

Tina was at the elevators in the lobby to make sure that no one else got on with me, but by the time the elevator arrived at the nineteenth floor, it wasn’t just my legs that were trembling. It was all of me.

I reminded myself that there were some businessmen staying on this floor, as well as the sequestered witness. I wasn’t alone, so what was I afraid of?

I pressed the
stop
and the
door open
buttons, and gingerly poked my head out. The hall was just as empty as it had been before, but it wasn’t as silent. As though I’d been hypnotized, my gaze was pulled to the door of the haunted room, nineteen twenty-seven. I wondered how
the ghost liked having his private place used for a make-believe murder.

While I stared at the door, the knob suddenly turned, and the door slowly opened. Someone—or something—was coming out!