The Weekend Was Murder (8 page)

“Do you have to stay with her every second?” I asked. “I mean, like, do you have to sit by her bed when she’s sleeping? Or what if you have to leave to go to the bathroom?”

Estavez answered me patiently, although she didn’t look very patient. “I’m not right at her side every minute. I just stay in the suite with her. I make sure the doors are locked and don’t allow anyone inside unless I know who they are.”

“Do you have to do that until the trial is over?”

“There are three of us assigned to Stephanie,” she said. “We’ll each work an eight-hour shift, although I’m doing a little overtime on this first one. Another policewoman will take my place tomorrow morning.”

One of the policemen came out of the bedroom and walked to the glass door where Stephanie was standing. She apologized and moved aside as he checked the lock, and he said to Jarvis, “Both of the sliding glass doors
onto the balcony are locked. Looks like entry had to come from the door to the hallway.”

Jarvis began to talk to him about something else, and Officer Estavez turned to survey the living room and dining room of the suite. “This is a lot like our suite,” she said, “except for a couple of strange items. What’s that dressmaker’s dummy in a tuxedo doing in the dining room?”

“It’s a clue,” Mrs. Duffy told her.

“A clue to what?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s something the people who are trying to solve the murder of Edgar Albert Pitts have to figure out.”

“How’d you learn this guy is named Edgar Albert Pitts?”

“He’s not. Pitts is just a character.”

Officer Estavez’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to Detective Jarvis. “Nobody told me about Pitts. When did that happen?”

Mrs. Duffy answered for him. “It didn’t really. Remember, I told you about our mystery weekend? It’s all make-believe for people who want to try to solve a crime.”

Estavez rolled her eyes. “We haven’t got enough crime on the streets? You have to make one up?” Her glance moved to Eileen, and she added, “Who are you supposed to be?”

This time Jarvis beat Eileen to an answer. “She’s a homicide detective.”

“Yeah, well, sure,” Estavez said. “And I’m a Ninja Turtle.”

Stephanie Harmon came to Jarvis and clutched his arm. Her fingers were bleached white, and I could see them tremble. “Could I please go back to my room now?” she asked.

“Of course,” Detective Jarvis told her.

Harmon and Estavez left, and Jarvis talked for a minute with the other officers. When he came back to where the rest of us were waiting he said, “It looks like the weapon was the bronze paperweight on the desk. The lab will run tests on the blood smears and check for fingerprints.”

Something puzzled me, so I said to Jarvis, “You asked Miss Harmon if she knew that man’s name. Wasn’t his name in his wallet? Didn’t he have a driver’s license or credit cards with his name on them?”

“Of course he did,” Jarvis answered, “but I wasn’t informing Miss Harmon. I was asking her. And now I’m going to ask you something. The victim’s name was Frank Devane. Does that mean anything to any of you?”

Frank? Fran and I looked at each other. “Did he have a friend named Al?” I asked.

“Would you like to explain that?” Jarvis asked.

“All right,” I said. This was murder, so whether I liked it or not—and I didn’t—I had to be honest about what Fran and I had been doing. “You see, earlier this afternoon Fran and I were under a table and we overheard—”

“You were
under
a table?”

“We dropped into an empty conference room to snack from the leftovers and heard someone coming and hid under the serving table.” The disapproval in
Lamar Boudry’s face was punishment enough. “Anyhow,” I said, determined to go on, “two men came into the room. They called each other Frank and Al.”

“Can you describe either of them?”

“Frank had a deep voice. Al had a kind of so-so voice. Nothing special. One of them had sticky shoes.”

“Can you clarify that?”

“Just the toes.”

“I mean, what made you think his shoes were sticky? Did they stick to the carpet?”

“No, no. I told you, just the toes were sticky, where I poured cola on them.”

Fran spoke up. “Ask the busboys, and you’ll find out which one was there. One of them came into the room to clean up and the men told him they were just leaving. The busboy saw the spilled cola and left to get some wet towels to clean it up, and we got out of there before he came back.”

Detective Jarvis asked, “Did you overhear any of their conversation?”

“A little,” I said. “They were talking about doing something which didn’t sound very honest. They didn’t say what it was.”

“Did they mention any names?”

“Yes,” I answered. “A Mr. Yamoto and a Mr. Logan.” I gave a worried look to Lamar, which wasn’t any help. “And Mr. Parmegan, who’s the manager of the Ridley Hotel.”

“Do you think Mr. Parmegan would know this man?”

Fran and I both nodded, so Jarvis asked Lamar if he
could find Mr. Parmegan and bring him up here before they took the body away.

A medical examiner from the coroner’s office arrived, along with some other official-looking people, two of whom were wheeling a stretcher. The suite, large as it was, was getting crowded, so—to my relief—Mrs. Duffy asked if we could all be excused.

Detective Jarvis granted his permission. “I think we may have covered all we need for now,” he said.

“Not all we need,” I told him, and I related what had happened when I took the elevator up to the nineteenth floor at eight-thirty. There was something else that was beginning to tickle the back of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp it.

“It could have been the murderer leaving the scene,” Jarvis said. “Did you see anything that could give us a clue to his identity?”

I started to say that I hadn’t, but then I remembered how he mumbled to himself because he was impatient for the elevator to arrive. “It was a deep voice, so we definitely know the murderer wasn’t a woman,” I said, feeling proud of myself for reaching that conclusion.

“A deep voice,” he said. “As deep as Cher’s?”

“Okay,” I said, my bubble popping. “It could have been Cher.”

Eileen stepped forward and asked Jarvis, “Do you want us to cancel the mystery weekend?”

“The people who have signed up for it stay here all weekend, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Will they be upset by the real murder?”

“They probably won’t know about it. They’re kept so busy they don’t have time to read newspapers or watch TV.”

“Then, if Mr. Parmegan has no objections, why don’t you keep it going? I’d prefer having your actors and the people playing the game close at hand. Some of them may have seen or heard something that might help with this case.”

Someone like me
, I thought.
What was it that was nagging at me, wanting me to remember
?

“Mr. Parmegan won’t have any objections,” Fran offered. “He’d hate having to give refunds to one hundred and fifty guests who paid in advance.”

Eileen turned to her mother. “What are we going to do about Liz telling everyone that there were
two
bodies and that Randolph was murdered?”

“Oh, that is a problem,” Mrs. Duffy said. She thought a moment and looked up, smiling. “I have it. Randolph went to the scene of the crime to see if he’d left any incriminating evidence, and someone hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious. That’s when Mary Elizabeth came along, and saw him, and assumed he’d been murdered. Fortunately, Randolph has already recovered.”

I was amazed that she could come up with an answer just like that. Of course, Mrs. Duffy was a mystery writer, and mystery writers have to be especially clever.

“Who hit Randolph?” Eileen asked. “Our other suspects were all in plain sight in the lobby.”

Mrs. Duffy frowned as she thought, and I expected her to come up with another perfect solution, but finally
she said, “Oh, never mind for now. I’ll work that out later.”

“I’ll get back to the party,” Eileen said to her mother, “and I’d appreciate it if you’d telephone John—uh—Randolph and tell him what happened and how we’re going to cover it.”

“Fine,” Mrs. Duffy said.

“I’ll walk to the elevator with you,” Detective Jarvis said to Eileen. “There are a few things I’d like to ask you.”

Like her telephone number
, I thought.

After they’d left I said to Mrs. Duffy, “You told us that Randolph had left some incriminating evidence. Does that mean he’s the one who murdered Edgar Albert Pitts?”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “Every one of the suspects was at the scene of the crime and left something incriminating. One of them left a business card; one a threatening note, which is crumpled up under the desk; one left a—”

The men from the crime lab straightened, and one of them said, “Ma’am? You put those things in this room?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re our clues.”

“We just collected them,” he said. He held up a small plastic envelope with a couple of colored cigarette butts in it.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Duffy said. “Well, the cigarettes don’t matter, but you’ll have to give back our business card and letter, because I don’t have duplicates, and don’t touch our dummy.”

The officers looked at each other. I knew what they wanted to say. But one of them asked, “Why don’t you come over here, ma’am, and we’ll go through these things together?”

“Come to think of it,” Mrs. Duffy said, “you’ll have to give back our scene of the crime. One hundred and fifty people are going to go through this room tomorrow.”

“Over somebody’s dead body,” the officer muttered.

“Of course. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Something clicked in my mind, and I said to Fran, “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ve got something to think about.”

“Moonlight over the swimming pool?” he asked and took my hand.

I hesitated at the doorway. It was a tempting idea. “Not yet,” I told him reluctantly. “I have to talk to Mrs. Bandini first.”

“Why Mrs. Bandini?”

“Because,” I said, “the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the two of us might have seen the murderer.”

The moment we arrived in the lobby I headed for the registration desk, passing some people with television cameras and notebooks who were on their way to the elevators.

“Isn’t this all too, too authentic!” I heard someone squeal.

Since Fran had spotted Mrs. Bandini and was moving in the opposite direction, I almost pulled him off his feet.

“I thought you wanted to talk to Mrs. Bandini,” he complained as he staggered into me.

“I do, but I need to find out something first,” I said.

At this hour the desk wasn’t busy, so I motioned to Phyllis and asked, “Wasn’t there a special registration line for the people coming to the murder-mystery weekend?”

“Yes,” she said. “Ask me if any of the suspects were particularly demanding when they registered. I’ve got my answer down pat.”

“No, thanks,” I told her. “I’d rather ask if there were any add-ons to the list.”

Phyllis shrugged. “I can check it. The list is right over here somewhere.” She quickly found it and came back with it in her hand. “No add-ons,” she said. “All one hundred and fifty in place. Make that one forty-nine. A man’s wife couldn’t come at the last minute.”

That ruined the theory I was working on. “Thanks,” I said and began to turn away. But I had another thought. “Who was handling this special registration?”

“Andy,” she said. “He’s still here. Do you want to talk to him?”

“Oh, yes!” I answered.

Phyllis brought Andy over, and I asked him, “Did any of the mystery-weekend sleuths register late, like after the party began?”

Andy nodded. He took the list and went over the names. “Mr. And Mrs. Gruin,” he said. “They flew in from Dallas, and their flight was late. They came just as everybody was going into the ballroom.” He ran a finger down the list and looked up. “Mr. Walters arrived even later. He was the last on the list.”

“He told you his name and said he was on the list?”

“Sure.” Andy looked puzzled. “Well, it wasn’t exactly like that. He came up to the desk and said he was here for the mystery weekend. Since there was only one name not checked off, I said, ‘Then you must be Mr. Jay Walters, but you canceled for you and your wife this morning.’ And he said, ‘Somebody made a mistake. I canceled for my wife but not for myself.’ So I made a
name tag for him and told him where he could join the mystery-weekend party.”

I was beginning to get excited. “Do you remember, Andy, was this before or after I screamed?”

“After,” he said. “What a racket!”

Now I was sure. I was practically jumping up and down. “Tell me, Andy. What does Mr. Walters look like?”

Andy frowned as he thought, then he shrugged. “I dunno. He’s sort of average height. Kind of light hair. Had on a white sport shirt, I think.”

“Thanks,” I told Andy. “I know the guy you mean.”

Fran and I had no sooner turned away from the desk than Mrs. Bandini jogged up to us, her friend, Mrs. Larabee, trailing in her wake.

“Liz!” Mrs. Bandini cried. “We heard about how you jumped to conclusions and thought Randolph Hamilton had been murdered. Don’t let it bother you. Anyone could have made the same mistake.”