The Weekend Was Murder (9 page)

“Unless they were sensible enough to feel for a pulse,” Mrs. Larabee added. “Did that thought occur to you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I panicked.”

“Next time, remember,” she told me.

Fran shook his head sorrowfully. “Don’t count on it,” he said. “Liz sometimes gets flaky in moments of stress.”

Mrs. Bandini patted my arm. “Never mind. She’s a dear, sweet girl who would make a wonderful granddaughter, I should be so lucky. Opal and I think we’ve solved the crime anyway.”

“How could you solve it already?” I asked. “The game just started. Tomorrow the detective will give all of you the coroner’s report and the medical examiner’s report, and you’ll find out more about the suspects and what motives they might have. You haven’t even visited the scene of the crime.”

Mrs. Bandini shrugged. “We have our own way of detecting. The pretty girl didn’t murder him. Pretty girls are never the murderers. They always fall in love with somebody, or somebody falls in love with them. And the shy girl didn’t commit the murder. Shy people don’t commit murders. They quietly write ‘I wish he was dead’ in their diaries, and that’s as far as they go.”

“Randolph isn’t the murderer,” Mrs. Larabee chimed in “because someone hit him on the head. Why would someone hit him on the head if he’s the murderer? It makes no sense. Only the murderer would go around hitting people on the head.”

Mrs. Bandini took control of the conversation. “They want us to think Arthur Butler murdered Mr. Pitts, because it’s an old cliché that the butler did it, only some of us will say, ‘Ah ha! That’s in there just to trick us, so we’ll say he couldn’t have done it, only he really did do it.’ They’re not going to trap us that way.”

“I didn’t follow all that,” I told her. “If you want to go over it again—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The nephew is the murderer.”

Mrs. Larabee nodded enthusiastically. “It has to be. He’d inherit. Who else would inherit? Nobody.”

“I wouldn’t vote too soon,” I told them. “You’ve got
until midnight tomorrow to make up your minds, and Mrs. Duffy might have a few surprises for you. Mystery writers do that to keep you off balance, so solving the crime won’t be too easy.”

Mrs. Larabee made a little face of disgust. “This is supposed to be realistic. So if Mrs. Duffy wants to be realistic, then she’d have the murderer be the nephew. He’d inherit. Who else would inherit?”

I couldn’t argue with that, and I needed some verification from Mrs. Bandini. “Do you remember when I came screaming out of the elevator?”

“Which time?”

“Uh—the first time.”

“Of course. For your sake, dear, we’ll forget the second time.”

“Mrs. Bandini, did you get a good look at the man I ran into?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said.

I remembered the hit men who’d come into the health club, and the detailed descriptions of them that Mrs. Bandini had given Detective Jarvis when he was investigating Mr. Kamara’s murder. “Could you give me a description of him?” I asked.

She smiled. “The man eats well and takes his vitamins, or he would have gotten a broken bone or two out of that collision.”

“But did you—?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said. “He was wearing brown slacks and a cream-colored guayabera shirt, which was probably bought in Mexico, unless he got it at Walter Pye’s men’s store, which carries a nice quality
and sometimes has them on sale. He has light-brown hair, he’s about five feet ten and a half, and I’d guess that he’s around forty-five or forty-six.”

“Did you see what direction he’d been coming from?”

“From the elevator,” she answered. “He got off the elevator to the right of yours just a minute or two before yours landed.”

I glanced at Fran and must have looked as excited as I felt, because Fran cautioned, “That still doesn’t prove anything.”

“He’s over there with Team Number Ten,” Mrs. Bandini said.

“Why don’t we talk with him?” Fran asked. “Just chat with him?”

“Thanks, both of you,” I said, and began to turn away, but Mrs. Bandini grabbed my arm, and Mrs. Larabee grabbed Fran’s.

“Not so fast,” Mrs. Larabee said. “
We’re
supposed to question
you
.” She looked at Fran. “You first. Tell us what you know about the murder.”

“Murder?” Startled, Fran looked at me. “I didn’t think we were supposed to say anything about it.”

“Edgar Albert Pitts’s murder,” I prompted.

“Oh,” Fran said. “Okay, then,” and he recited, “I took a breakfast tray up to Annabelle Maloney’s room. When I got there, Crystal Crane was arguing with Annabelle, and I could see that Annabelle had been crying. Crystal was already dressed for going out. I think she said something about having an appointment, but I
heard her say to Annabelle, ‘You’ll be in trouble if they find out.’ ”

“Hmmm,” Mrs. Bandini said to Mrs. Larabee. “There was a movie I saw once in which a quiet, mousy woman got more grief than she could take, so she turned into a veritable tiger and committed the murder.”

“But Annabelle wouldn’t inherit,” Mrs. Larabee said.

“Nevertheless, we should rethink our position,” Mrs. Bandini told her. “Let’s see what information Liz has for us.”

I tried to remember every word that I was supposed to have learned as I said, “Arthur Butler came to the Ridley health club for a swim, and Martin Jones was already there, working out with the weights.”

“The nephew,” Mrs. Larabee said smugly.

“That’s right. Mr. Butler stopped to talk, and I thought it was a friendly chat, but when I was carrying an armful of towels through the room I passed them and overheard Mr. Jones laugh and say, ‘Call it blackmail if you like. You can call it anything you want. Just be sure you come up with the payment on time.’ Mr. Butler was really angry.”

Mrs. Larabee gave a shriek of delight, and both women began writing as fast as they could in their notebooks.

Fran and I excused ourselves and made our way through the crowd, stopping now and then to give our information to other sleuths who wanted to question us. Everyone’s attention was diverted for a moment by a
noisy man who was obviously drunk and who was being led out of the hotel’s crowded bar by Tina.

“I’m not drunk!” he was shouting. “I’ve only been there since seven o’clock!”

“I’ll escort you to your room, sir,” Tina said firmly, and steered him toward the elevators.

I’d never seen the man before, so I wondered why I felt there was something familiar about him, but I forgot him in a moment as I turned and found myself face-to-face with the man I’d knocked down. When he saw me his eyes shifted nervously to each side, and he tried to back up a step, only someone was behind him and he couldn’t.

I wasn’t sure what to do next or even what I should say, so I held out my right hand and said, “Hi. My name is Mary Elizabeth Rafferty, and this is Francis Liverpool the Third.”

Mr. Walters’s breathing was uneven, and his Adam’s apple bounced up and down. He glanced down at the big, printed letters on his name tag before he looked up and said, “I’m Jay Malters.”

“Malters? You mean Walters, don’t you?” I blurted out.

He squinted and twisted the name tag until it was turned so he could read it right side up, and his shirt was all scrunched up. “Of course,” he said with a sickly smile, and smoothed his shirt into place. “Walters. I guess I’m just thinking so hard about solving this mystery, I got confused.”

No one gets confused over his own name. It was obvious to me that this man had forgotten the name
that Andy had called him until he read it off his name tag. Upside down a
W
looks like an
M
. I was sure this was the man who had come from the scene of the crime room.

“Well, have fun,” I told him. “If you want to ask Fran or me any questions, go right ahead.”

He didn’t have a chance to ask questions. Someone at the other end of the lobby shrieked, “They’re taking Pitts’s body out the back door!” And everyone in the lobby turned and raced toward the back of the hotel.

Fran and I were swept toward the elevators, where we managed to squeeze out of the pack of sleuths, but it wasn’t until we were inside one of the elevators, headed for the nineteenth floor, that I said to Fran, “Mr. Walters may be the man who murdered Mr. Devane. We have to find Detective Jarvis.”

“I don’t get it,” Fran said. “If Walters is the murderer, why didn’t he just leave the hotel?”

“Think about it. Being part of the mystery-weekend group is a perfect cover for him. Who’d suspect any of the sleuths of committing a real murder? Especially when the victim has no connection at all with anybody at the mystery weekend?”

“You may be right,” Fran said. “We definitely have to talk to Detective Jarvis.”

We caught Jarvis just as he was leaving the scene of the crime. He was carrying Mrs. Duffy’s dressmaker’s dummy, and Mrs. Duffy was with him, her arms filled with odds and ends, which were undoubtedly her clues.

“Detective Jarvis,” I began.

Jarvis ignored me, he was so relieved at seeing Fran.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “You can be the dead body. Mrs. Duffy was insisting that
I
do it.”

“I don’t want to be a dead body,” Fran told him.

“Could I say something?” I asked.

“All you have to do is lie on the floor,” Mrs. Duffy told Fran. “I’ll draw your outline on the rug with narrow masking tape. You’ll be a stand-in for Edgar Albert Pitts.”

“As you can see, we’re juggling rooms,” Jarvis said. “The new scene of the crime room is going to be located in the Duffys’ room, and Mr. Parmegan is moving the Duffys to a room on the eighteenth floor.”

“I am going to miss that lovely suite,” Mrs. Duffy said.

“I hate to interrupt,” I began, then said, “No. I want to interrupt. It’s important to interrupt. Detective Jarvis, I think I know who murdered Mr. Devane.”

As I explained my reasoning, Jarvis shoved the dummy into Fran’s hands, grabbed my elbow, and steered me toward the elevators. “You can I.D. him for me,” he said.

I guess I expected a big commotion as Detective Jarvis confronted Mr. Walters—or whoever he was—but it didn’t work that way. As soon as I had pointed out Mr. Walters, Detective Jarvis slipped through the crowd, spoke to Mr. Walters quietly, and the two of them moved toward me.

It wasn’t until we were back inside the elevator that Mr. Walters slumped against the back wall for support and said, “You want to talk to me about Frank Devane, don’t you! Well, I didn’t kill him!”

I gasped, and Jarvis said, “You know him, and you know he’s been murdered.”

“All right. I admit that much,” Mr. Walters said. He was sweating so much, his shirt was getting damp. “When this girl ran out of the elevator yelling that she found a body, I thought she meant Devane. I couldn’t believe it happened so fast.” He threw me an angry look and said, “I was just going to walk quietly away from the hotel, and no one would have known the difference, but when she ran into me, making all that racket, it caught everyone’s attention. Somebody would have remembered me.”

“Mrs. Bandini did,” I offered, but got nothing more than another sharp glance for my trouble.

Mr. Walters wasn’t through. “I nearly panicked,” he said, “but when I found out those people were playing a mystery game, I decided to join them. That would be my reason for being in the hotel, and no one would connect me with Devane.”

“Would you like to call an attorney and have him present while I question you?” Jarvis asked.

Mr. Walters groaned and wiped an arm across his forehead. “You have to believe me. Devane was dead when I got there.”

“What were you doing on the nineteenth floor?”

The elevator’s door suddenly opened, and we stepped out into the hallway. Mr. Walters shrunk back, cringing as he looked at the door of room nineteen twenty-seven.

“I came up here to speak to Devane.”

“Business?”

“Yes, business. The savings and loan he owned went under, you know, and so did all my savings.”

I spoke without thinking. “I thought the money in accounts was insured.”

What I’d said seemed to make Mr. Walters even more upset. “Devane had asked me to do him a favor. He had a bank customer—a developer who was overextended and unable to borrow any more from the bank—so, the way Devane explained it, I would borrow money from the bank, putting up my store as collateral, and lend it to the developer at a high interest rate through Devane. Then, after the first of the year, the developer would pay me back and I’d make a good-sized profit. Only, Devane’s S and L went under, and the federal government took over the collateral—my store. I’m bankrupt. I’ve lost everything, and it’s all Devane’s fault!”

“So you came up here to get even?” Jarvis asked.

“No! Just to talk to him. I hoped we could work something out. I was headed for his room when I noticed the doorway to this … this room was standing open.”

“The doors close automatically,” I said.

“No. This was propped open with a wedge of cardboard.” He reached into the side pocket of his slacks and pulled out a small rectangle of dark cardboard, which had been folded in thirds.

“Just out of curiosity, I looked inside the room and saw someone on the floor. I ran inside to see if I could help, but I saw that it was Devane, and he was dead, so I quickly shut the door.”

“Why?” Detective Jarvis asked.

“I don’t know. It was instinctive. I had to think. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know what else to do, so I got out of there and went downstairs.”

“Do you think whoever killed Mr. Devane left the door open so the body would be found?” I asked. “The maid wouldn’t come by for a bed turn-down, because the room was unoccupied and because of the—”

Jarvis interrupted. “There are some questions I want to ask you, Mr. Walters,” he said. “We can talk in here.”

Mr. Walters’s shoulders slumped, and he looked totally defeated. “Forget this ‘Mr. Walters’ stuff. My name’s Steven Burns.”

Detective Jarvis pulled a key from his pocket, opened the door, and waited for Mr. Burns to enter.

I stepped forward, but Jarvis said, “You’re excused, Liz. This is going to be a private conversation.”

The door closed behind the two men, and I ambled down to Mrs. Duffy’s room, feeling somewhat left out. I was the one who’d told Jarvis about Mr. Walters, wasn’t I?