The Weekend Was Murder (6 page)

No one could have jabbed that
close door
button any faster than I did, and I kept my finger on it, not knowing what would happen next. Since the elevator was on stop, it didn’t move, and neither did I as I listened to footsteps approach and halt right outside my elevator door. Someone must have punched the elevator button, because I heard the elevator next to mine begin to ascend.

A deep voice muttered something, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t a ghost that had been in the room. Ghosts don’t take elevators or grumble at elevators that aren’t fast enough. Ghost or not, I had no desire to come face-to-face with whoever had been in that room.

I heard the next elevator arrive, the doors open, and the person in the hallway enter it. As it slid downward I looked at my watch. Yikes! This was supposed to be split-second timing, and it was now two minutes
after
eight-thirty. I released the elevator from
stop
, pressed the lobby button, and my elevator began to descend.

Eleventh floor … eighth … fifth … I opened my mouth and got ready. Third … second … My stage fright and nervousness got mixed up with all the scary feelings I had on the nineteenth floor, and I let out a whopper of a scream as the elevator door opened. I threw myself out, yelling, “There’s a body on the nineteenth floor!”

My next scream was interrupted as I smashed into a man who had stopped and whirled to stare at me. I didn’t just run into him, I ran over him. I was moving like an eighteen-wheeler, and the two of us went down together.

“Sorry!” I mumbled and helped pick him up. Remembering my job, I screamed again. This time he went down by himself.

In the doorway to ballroom A, Mrs. Bandini was watching me with a big, excited grin. “Yoo-hoo, Liz!” she called.

I had to ignore her. I was an actress, playing a part. Stumbling and staggering into the ballroom, where everyone had turned to see what was happening, I screamed again and yelled, “There’s a body upstairs! I found a body!”

From then on I could relax. Lamar took over and announced that he’d not only investigate but would make sure the hotel was sealed off, so no one could leave until after the police arrived.

Mrs. Duffy took the microphone and began telling everyone to remain calm. They all began giggling and pulling out little notebooks, and they didn’t need me
any longer, so I went back out in the hall to catch my breath.

I almost collided with the man I’d knocked down a few minutes ago. He jumped out of my way and stared at me suspiciously.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have looked where I was going.”

He glanced from me to the people inside the ballroom and back to me. “Who was that man who left here in such a hurry?” he asked.

“Lamar Boudry. He’s the hotel’s chief of security.”

“He said the hotel was going to be sealed off.”

I nodded.

“What’s with those people in there? I mean, what are they doing?”

I glanced back into the room. Crystal Crane was weeping into the microphone, while Annabelle Maloney was accusing her of wanting to get rid of Mr. Pitts. “All those people with notebooks are going to help solve the crime,” I said.

He looked as though he’d eaten something sickening. “They are? All of them?”

“Sure. They’re the sleuths in this murder-mystery weekend.”

He thought about it a moment. “A murder-mystery weekend,” he said. “Oh. Yeah!” His face brightened, and without another word he walked across the lobby.

I quickly forgot him, because Eileen, dressed in a trench coat and fedora, strode past me and into the ballroom. I followed to see what would happen, and saw her mount the stairs and take the microphone. “I’m
Detective Pat Sharp, with the Houston police department,” she said, with such authority I almost could have believed her. She went on to tell everyone that the crime lab and medical examiner would soon arrive, and until they had completed their investigations and given her their reports, the scene of the crime would be sealed off.

“The police department has a heavy caseload,” she said, “so I’m asking all of you to help me solve this crime. I’ll report to you periodically with information we’ve uncovered, and I hope you’ll help me question the suspects and some of the hotel employees who may have witnessed something suspicious. Tomorrow morning you’ll be able to visit the scene of the crime and look for clues.” She then began interrogating some of the suspects, who turned into real blabbermouths, revealing all sorts of damaging information about each other and themselves, while the sleuths in the audience took notes like crazy.

I grinned at all the corny fun, wondering what a real detective—Detective Mark Jarvis, for instance—would think of Pat Sharp.

Fran stepped up beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “You were great,” he said. “Have you considered a career as an actress?”

“Screaming in horror movies?”

“There are enough to make it a steady living.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I told him.

A cart rolled up into the hallway behind us, and a couple of hotel employees began setting up easels with large sheets of paper clipped to them. Detective Sharp
was instructing everyone to sign up outside—ten to a team—and they were all headed our way, so Fran and I got out of there in a hurry.

Mrs. Duffy joined us, complimented me on my scream, and said, “Why don’t the two of you come upstairs with me? We’ll have some soft drinks and munch on some peanuts, and Mary Elizabeth can tell me about the real body she found at the beginning of the summer.”

Fran and I didn’t have anything else to do, and I was kind of excited, hoping my story really would end up in a book, the way Tina had said, so we accepted. But in the elevator I remembered about someone being on the crime scene.

“There’s something I need to tell you about that room nineteen twenty-seven,” I said.

Mrs. Duffy didn’t let me finish. “You mustn’t let your imagination lure you into believing in ghosts,” she said. “Just keep telling yourself, there are no such things as ghosts. There are no such things as ghosts.”

“But—”

“I’m sure your friend, Tina, was playing a prank on you.”

“But—”

“Think about all the places ghosts are supposed to haunt. With an English castle or a southern mansion I’m sure a story about a ghost adds a touch of romance, but I can’t believe for a moment that any self-respecting ghost would be content to remain inside a well, or wander around in a barn, or haunt a toilet.”

I had been trying to tell her about someone having
been in the crime scene room, but what she’d said distracted me completely. “A haunted toilet?” I asked.

“Oh yes, somewhere in a German castle.”

“Where did you hear that?” Fran asked.

“I read it in one of those newspapers they sell at grocery checkout counters,” she said. “Now, to get back to Mary Elizabeth’s concerns …”

The elevator door opened on the nineteenth floor, and as we all marched out, Mrs. Duffy said, “Oh. There’s Randolph Hamilton. If he’s looking for me, he’s at the wrong door.”

Randolph, decked out in his fake wig and mustache, stood outside room nineteen twenty-nine, the other side of the scene of the crime, and as we watched he knocked at the door.

The door opened, and we heard the most gosh-awful scream coming from just inside. I had thought mine was good, but this one was even more terrified.

Randolph staggered back, as though he’d been socked. “Where’s Mrs. Duffy?” he cried.

From inside the room we could hear a woman loudly going bonkers, yelling, “Help! He’s after me!”

The policewoman we’d seen earlier said something to calm the other woman, then poked her head out the door and stared hard at Randolph. “I’d like some identification,” she demanded.

Mrs. Duffy hurried forward. “Randolph!” she said, “you had the wrong room.”

“You told us to take a good look at the scene of the crime, so we’d know where everything was,” Randolph
told Mrs. Duffy. “I was only trying to find you so I could get in.”

“You could have got in without me,” Mrs. Duffy said. “I put tape across the door lock, so all the actors could get in without a key.”

“What’s all this about a scene of the crime?” the policewoman demanded. “And where’s the I.D. I asked for?”

Mrs. Duffy put an arm around Randolph’s shoulders, as though she were protecting him, and said to the policewoman, “This is Randolph Hamilton, one of our actors in the murder-mystery weekend going on at the hotel.”

It took a while to convince the policewoman that everything was all right, especially since the name on Randolph’s driver’s license was his real name and not Randolph Hamilton, but she finally gave in and went back to taking care of the witness she was protecting. That witness was weird. She’d seen Randolph earlier today, when she passed all of Eileen Duffy’s actors, and she hadn’t reacted. What was the matter with her now?

The four of us, our nerves shot to pieces, went to Mrs. Duffy’s room to recuperate.

Once we were all seated, in a room just as elegant as the living room in nineteen twenty-seven, I took a long swallow of my cola and asked Randolph, “Why aren’t you with the others, in the ballroom being interrogated?”

“I’m not supposed to be,” he said. “Crystal and I had an argument, she insulted me, and I stormed off. That’s in the script.” He took off his shoes and wiggled his toes
so energetically, it looked as if something horrible had crawled into his black socks.

For a while we rested and Mrs. Duffy talked more about ghosts and why there weren’t any such things. I could tell that she wanted to be sure she’d convinced me before she gave up, but I wished she’d get interested in something else.

Randolph finished his soft drink, glanced at his watch, and put his shoes on again. “I’m going down to my room and go over my script. I had two commercials to make last week, and missed some of Eileen’s rehearsals. I want to make sure I’ve got my lines down for tomorrow’s scenes.”

He was a nice guy, so I told him to break both his legs. He looked at me a little oddly, but thanked me anyway.

As soon as Randolph had left, Mrs. Duffy brought out a huge handbag and began rummaging through it. “Wait until I find my notebook,” she said, “then Mary Elizabeth can tell me more about that murder in the Ridley at the beginning of the summer.”

“More?” I asked.

“That nice Lamar, your hotel’s chief of security, told me a little about it, but I want to hear your version,” she said.

She suddenly looked up. “Oh, dear. I remember now. I left the notebook next door, in the crime scene. I set up the dressmaker’s dummy in the dining room, and I put the notebook on the table.”

“Why did you put the dummy in the dining room?” I asked.

Mrs. Duffy smiled and winked. “It’s a clue,” she said.
Her smile became even broader as she added, “Mary Elizabeth, be a dear and get my notebook for me, will you? I think I left it on the dining-room table.” She held out one of the hotel’s room keys and smiled. “And if the tape is still on the door lock, will you please remove it? Here’s the key in case you accidentally lock yourself out.”

I didn’t smile back. Mrs. Duffy may not have believed there was a ghost in that room, but I did.

Fran—wonderful Fran—stood up and reached for the key. “I’ll get your notebook,” he said.

“Let Mary Elizabeth do it,” she said. “By now, she’s lost her fear of ghosts because she knows they’re simply imaginary. This will give her a chance to prove to herself that she’s Mary Elizabeth the Brave.”

“Frankly,” I said, “I’m Liz the Lily-livered. It was hard enough to go into that haunted room in the daylight. I really don’t want to go by myself at night.”

Mrs. Duffy looked disappointed. “Very well, I’ll take care of things myself.”

“You don’t need to,” I said as I stood up. “Fran and I can go together. Okay?”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Duffy said, and began to look hopeful. “I suppose that might be a step in the right direction.”

I took the key to nineteen twenty-seven, clutching it tightly, and we walked—a little more slowly than usual—the short distance to the door.

The tape was gone, so as I unlocked the door I said, “I didn’t get a chance to tell Mrs. Duffy that when I’d
come up here on the elevator I saw someone leaving this room.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I was so scared, I closed my elevator door.”

“It was probably one of the actors,” he said.

“It couldn’t have been. They were all downstairs.”

By this time I’d opened the door wide, and we’d stepped inside. Fran was on the side with the light switch, and I said, “The master switch is there. You can turn on all the lights in the suite.”

“There are a lot of switches here,” Fran said and kept flicking them on and off, trying to find the right one.

I stepped past him into the living room, ready to run for the notebook and get out of there in a hurry, the minute he found the master switch and turned on all the lights. But the bedroom light flashed and went out, the dining-room chandelier burst into light, then disappeared, and all the while Fran mumbled to himself.

However, I had seen, in those brief moments of light, something puzzling on the floor in the living room. “I thought Eileen Duffy told us they had only a tape marking the body,” I said to Fran.

“That’s right,” Fran said. He managed to find the right switch, and the entire suite became bright with light.

I could feel a sour taste come up in my throat, and my stomach began to hurt. “Then what’s that body doing on the floor?” I whispered.

Fran gave a loud gulp and moved forward. Since I was between him and the body, I moved forward too. A
man was lying crumpled on his face, his head turned to one side, but as we got close enough we could see the thick, dark hair and tidy mustache … and the blood matted at the back of his head.

I clutched Fran around the neck, so dizzy with fear I thought I might faint. “It can’t be!” I screeched. “Oh, no! It can’t be!”

“It is,” Fran answered, his voice cracking. “It’s that actor we were just talking to—Randolph Hamilton!”