Midnight at the Barclay Hotel

by Fleur Bradley

  “Maybe this room is haunted,” Emma said.

  “Because that detector thing is bleeping?” Penny asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “It’s science, you know,” JJ muttered.

  “We need to focus on the murder investigation first,” Penny said. “No ghost hunting.”

  Emma smiled. “So let’s figure out who killed Mr. Barclay.”

  JJ put the EMF detector away and pulled out his logbook and pen; he looked at the crisp white paper. “I don’t know about you guys, but I have no idea how to catch a murderer.”

  “Let’s read more of The History of the Barclay Hotel,” Penny suggested. “There might be more in there about Mr. Barclay, and motives to kill him and stuff.”

  “No,” JJ said quickly. He was beginning to really hate that book.

  “Fine. How about we use the game?” Penny suggested. She pointed to a box in the corner of the room.

  “Mr. Barclay’s Catch a Criminal?” JJ thought about that for a second. “Isn’t that just made up?”

  “But it’s Mr. Barclay’s game.” Penny motioned around the room. “He set this whole thing up, and brought all the guests here to try to catch a murderer.”

  JJ said, “Okay, let’s use the game, then.” He blew off some dust and opened the box. It sounded like it was exhaling. “It looks brand-new!”

  “Mr. Barclay produced five thousand copies but sold very few. He has a whole bunch in storage somewhere,” Emma said.

  JJ put the box lid aside and pulled out the game pieces.

  There was a board, character cards, and clue cards.

  “It looks an awful lot like that Clue game,” Penny said.

  “I’ve played this game once before,” Emma said. She spread the game components out on the dusty wood floor. “It’s more like a murder mystery game. You have to take on parts as players, see? You’re each acting out a part.”

  There were disguises in the box: a mustache, silly glasses, a necktie. JJ thought about all those masks in the den, and Mr. Barclay’s love for the theater, and suddenly this game made total sense.

  Emma continued, “Everyone has to play a part, and one of you is the killer. You’re supposed to question each other to figure out who the murderer is.”

  Penny thought about the time that her parents hosted a murder mystery game at their house. She had so much fun, and this board game sounded the same.

  JJ put on the silly glasses. “Honestly, I don’t see how this helps us find Mr. Barclay’s killer.”

  Penny pulled out a notepad. “We create character sheets, like these. Then we add clues—secrets we find out about the others—which will tell us whodunit.”

  “Who-whatsit?” JJ asked.

  “Whodunit,” Emma said, like JJ should know. “That’s the killer, but you also call a mystery story that: a whodunit.”

  “All my favorite Agatha Christie novels are whodunits,” Penny added. All serious mystery readers who practically live at the library, like Penny, know Agatha Christie.

  JJ took off the silly glasses and put them back in the box.

  Penny put the game’s notepad back too. “I know what we need to do.”

  Emma and JJ looked at her.

  Penny said, “My grandpa is—was—a detective, so I learned a few things from him. We need to interview our suspects, and find out three things.”

  Her two new friends looked at her in suspense.

  “We need to find out who had motive, means, and opportunity.”

  PENNY FELT HERSELF getting nervous over being the center of attention, but she relaxed when she remembered that she really knew her stuff when it came to detective work. She’d watched her grandpa (when he was still a detective) because Penny secretly wanted to be a detective herself. Everyone just saw her as “Bookworm Penny,” but she wanted to be more. Penny wanted to prove that she could be brave too.

  This was a good start.

  “Every murder mystery game has you interview characters to find out if they had motive—that’s a reason to commit the crime,” Penny said, feeling confident. “Then you look for means—that’s if they had the tools to do it—and opportunity.” She took a breath. “Opportunity is sort of obvious.”

  Emma and JJ were quiet, both impressed by how much Penny knew about investigating a murder.

  “As a detective,” Penny said, “once you figure out who had all three of those pieces of the puzzle, you’ve solved the mystery. Theoretically anyway. So, motive, means, and opportunity are the building blocks of an investigation.” Penny knew she sounded like a grown-up, because her grandpa used to say the very same thing all the time.

  “You make it sound so easy,” Emma said.

  Penny paused. “Don’t be fooled. It’s very hard.”

  Emma smiled. “Wow, Penny! You’re a true detective. We’re lucky to have you here.”

  Penny was a little shy when it came to receiving praise, but she smiled brightly. “I learned from my grandpa.”

  “Impressive,” JJ muttered. He felt uneasy, given that his mom was one of the suspects. But that just meant he had to prove she didn’t have the motive, means, and opportunity.

  “So now what?” Emma was itching to move. You could tell she was excited to play this murder mystery game. She’d been bored as the only kid in this hotel for far too long.

  “Well . . .” Penny looked at the Catch a Criminal game. “Now we play the game, just like Mr. Barclay intended. First thing we do is interview the four suspects.”

  JJ said, “I’ll go talk to my mom.”

  He wasn’t exactly impartial, and Penny tried to tell him that someone else should be doing that interview, but he was already headed toward the door.

  “I’ll question Fiona,” Emma said.

  Penny nodded. “I’ll go find Ms. Chelsea, the librarian. Let’s meet back here this evening, at nine,” she added. “And that cowboy—what’s his name?”

  “Buck Jones.” Emma had a great memory. “He seemed kinda shifty . . .” she said.

  “I’ll see if I can track him down too,” Penny said. “We should start with motive. Who wanted Mr. Barclay dead, and why?”

  * * *

  PENNY WENT TO look for the librarian and the cowboy, and figured that the den might be the place to start. That seemed to be where people liked to hang out when they weren’t in their rooms. As she came down the stairs, she heard someone talking and froze. She dashed behind a giant plant for cover.

  “No, that’s not at all what we agreed on.” It was Mr. Clark, only he sounded different. He was less snooty, and his voice was deeper. Also, Mr. Clark, who had a very fancy English butler accent, now sounded more like a regular American person.

  There was silence. Mr. Clark was on the phone.

  “I need to know the specific time. Without it, we won’t be able to determine time of death, or find the killer.”

  Penny felt a sense of discomfort.

  Mr. Clark is only pretending to be British. But why?

  Penny stayed in her hiding spot until she heard footsteps that indicated that Mr. Clark was walking away. Thank goodness. She didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping.

  Once she was sure Mr. Clark was gone, Penny entered the den and found it empty. No librarian, no cowboy, no guests at all. But while she was looking, Penny kept thinking of Mr. Clark, and how odd it was that he sounded like a different man when he was on the phone.

  She couldn’t help but wonder who Mr. Clark really was. And what was he hiding?

  JJ PUT HIS key in the lock and entered his hotel room. He thought about what motive his mom might have to kill Mr. Barclay. Certainly, she didn’t have any motive, JJ thought. She made PB&Js for a living, for goodness’ sake! Murderers weren’t sandwich artists, right?

  JJ wanted to ask her, but his mom wasn’t in their room. And it wasn’t like he could send her a
text, given that there was no cell phone reception and all. Anyway, what would he say? “Hey, Mom, did you kill Mr. Barclay?” Investigating your own mom for murder was complicated.

  There were three sticky notes on the mirror, written in his mom’s handwriting:

  MOM

  JAM

  BATH

  For most people, these three notes wouldn’t mean anything. But JJ and his mom had their own language. Those three sticky notes were the clues JJ needed to find his mom.

  Mrs. Jacobson’s suitcase was open on the big bed, and her clothes had been moved around. Like she’d been searching for something.

  Still, JJ didn’t get it. The bathroom door was open, so she wasn’t in the bathtub. He stopped to think for another moment.

  Mom, jam, bath . . . Jam could be like jamming, as in music, but that made no sense . . . Maybe his mom was in a jam. Like being a murder suspect!

  BATH wasn’t an actual bath.

  Those three words were part of his sight word list—somewhere in third grade, JJ thought.

  His mom was in the hot tub. Hot tubs are like catnip to adults, JJ knew. Especially adults who were stressed out, like his mom. Adults who were in a JAM.

  He smiled, folded the sticky notes, and put them in his backpack. Of course, JJ was a smidge optimistic in his belief in his mom’s innocence. Mr. Barclay clearly thought she was a suspect. That was why JJ’s mom had been invited, just like the other suspects.

  But JJ was biased. This was his mom, after all. She helped him with his homework, and often brought new PB&JJ sandwiches for him to try. She was nice to his friends, and always let anyone stay for dinner (even when it was the whole Book Club). A mom like that couldn’t be a murderer.

  JJ closed the door to their room and then locked up. He walked down the hall and stopped right past room 217.

  What if he could get some ghost hunting in? Maybe just a little bit? He had that bet with Penny, and his plan was to do as much ghost hunting as possible—and what better place to start than the most haunted room in the hotel, right? Maybe Detective Walker would let him in.

  JJ knocked, and waited. He even tried to use his key to pick the lock on the door, but it didn’t work. Bummer. Maybe he could get Penny to let him in later, but then he’d have to listen to her try to disprove the existence of ghosts.

  JJ decided this last option might be his only one. And Penny was a really good investigator—that could come in handy when ghost hunting.

  When he got to the other end of the hall, he hit the call button for the elevator. He waited a full minute before the doors opened. Once he had gotten in, just as the doors began to close, a hand stuck inside.

  “Hold up!” Penny called. She got on the elevator and gave JJ a quick smile.

  “Where are you going?” JJ asked her as the doors closed.

  “I’m looking for Ms. Chelsea. I think she might be bowling,” Penny said.

  JJ said, “I’m trying to find my mom. She’s in the hot tub.”

  He pressed the button for the basement, knowing that was where the bowling alley was too. The elevator buttons were antique looking, faded with copper trim and dim light inside. There were mirrors lining the elevator walls.

  Strange retro disco music was playing in the elevator, probably Mr. Barclay’s favorite.

  When the elevator was almost at the basement level, there was a giant CLANK! sound. The elevator and the disco music stopped. The lights flickered, then went off.

  Penny made a squeaking noise, like a mouse. JJ sucked in his breath.

  The elevator went pitch-dark.

  WHILE JJ AND Penny were getting stuck in an elevator, Emma was off to look for actress Fiona Fleming, to find out why she might have wanted to kill Mr. Barclay.

  Emma was the determined type—or at least that’s what her dad used to say to her all the time. And look at her now! She was about to interview her first suspect—how exciting . . .

  It didn’t occur to Emma that she might be in mortal danger. Ms. Fleming was a murder suspect, after all.

  Emma knew Fiona Fleming had to be in the theater—it was the logical place for an actress to be, right? Sure enough, the double doors to the theater were cracked open.

  Emma slipped inside and could already hear Fiona Fleming talking. She was in the center of the stage, sitting on the floor. She was laying out cards, and there was a candle lit across from her. The space was dark, but Emma could see the colors on the cards. They were tarot cards.

  Was Fiona summoning spirits? Maybe Mr. Barclay’s spirit?

  The irony of this was that Mr. Barclay’s ghost could easily point the finger at the killer.

  Emma walked toward the stage, and Fiona squinted in the near dark to see. “Who is there?”

  “I’m Emma. I’m the chef’s niece.”

  The actress blinked, glanced down at her tarot cards, and then looked up at Emma like she’d just realized something. “Ah, yes. Welcome.”

  Emma stopped at the stage. “What are you doing?”

  Fiona looked at the cards again. “I am summoning the spirits. In addition to my acting pursuits, I’m also a spiritual advisor.”

  Emma decided to get straight to the point. She said, “I was wondering why Mr. Clark said you were a suspect.”

  Fiona looked away. “Oh, he is sadly mistaken. Mr. Barclay and I got along swimmingly—we’re kindred spirits, lovers of all things theater,” she mused.

  “You seem far too nice to be a killer,” Emma said, to get Fiona to like her. She sat down in one of the front-row seats. Like most kids, she knew that flattery could get you anywhere. “I think I’ve been to one of your plays once.”

  “Really?” Fiona perked up. “Which one?”

  “The one in town, at the theater,” Emma fibbed. “I can’t remember the title . . .”

  Fiona nodded, filling in where Emma couldn’t. “Maybe The Mousetrap? It’s such a great play, written by Agatha Christie herself, a brilliant mystery. But obviously not as good as my script.” Fiona sure had a high opinion of herself.

  Emma smiled. “You and Mr. Barclay both loved the theater. I can’t see how you could have the motive to kill Mr. Barclay.”

  “Oh, and I don’t,” Fiona said. She moved toward the edge of the stage, in front of Emma. “Well, I guess technically I have a motive.”

  Emma was dumbstruck. Was Fiona about to confess? Would it really be that easy?

  “But I didn’t do it!” Fiona added quickly.

  Bummer, Emma thought. “What is your motive, then?”

  Fiona hesitated, and rubbed her hands. “Mr. Barclay loves a good murder mystery. He invented the game Catch a Criminal—and that’s basically just a murder mystery game in a box.”

  That’s exactly what I said, Emma thought.

  Fiona sighed. “I wrote the script for a murder mystery game, to be played right here in the Barclay Hotel. It was going to be a grand attraction, something that would make people come to the hotel, book a room, and stay. It was great! I based it on that Catch a Criminal game and everything.”

  Emma did think that sounded pretty fun.

  “What went wrong?”

  “I worked hard on it, and he seemed excited to bring it to the Barclay Hotel,” Fiona said. “Then suddenly he changed his mind and said he’d have to think about it.”

  Emma saw where this was going. “Mr. Barclay said no.”

  Fiona nodded but hesitated before she kept going. “Without this deal with Mr. Barclay, I would go bankrupt and have to shut my theater down. It really was vital to me that Mr. Barclay buy my script, and that I would get to perform here at the Barclay Hotel.”

  “When did he tell you all this?” Emma asked.

  “I was here Friday, for a meeting. Around ten o’clock in the morning.”

  Emma nodded, computing what she’d just heard. No
t only did Fiona Fleming have a motive, she had opportunity too—she was here on Friday.

  Fiona’s eyes were tearful. “I swear, I didn’t kill Mr. Barclay!”

  But would anyone believe her? All suspects say that.

  BACK IN THE elevator, JJ and Penny were falling to their death . . .

  Okay, maybe that’s a little overdramatic since the elevator had stopped. Both kids were still very much alive, thank goodness.

  The elevator was quiet. Some kind of red emergency light had come on, so at least it wasn’t pitch-black anymore. But the red glow made the whole thing extra scary.

  JJ tried his flashlight, but the batteries were dead.

  Penny felt her heart race—she hated small spaces—and had to focus on her breathing, to force herself to calm down. It was just a broken elevator. Someone had to find them eventually, right? Surely her grandpa or JJ’s mom would miss them. How long could the grown-ups really sit in a hot tub before they started pruning?

  “Is there an emergency button?” Penny asked.

  JJ looked at the panel. There was one button, giant and red, and he pushed it. Nothing happened. And like anyone who’s looking at a red button, JJ decided to push it a few more times, for good measure.

  Penny hit the button too. “Shouldn’t it light up or something like that?”

  “Hello!” JJ called. But the elevator stayed completely silent.

  Dead silent.

  “What if it’s the killer, trapping us here?” Penny asked JJ, like he knew.

  “It’s just an old elevator,” JJ tried to say with confidence. He was worried too, but didn’t want to admit it. It sure seemed like someone was determined to stop them from investigating the murder of Mr. Barclay.

  But why?

  “Helloooooo!” Penny called, her voice panicked. “Is it getting stuffy in here?”

  “It’s probably better if we don’t freak out,” JJ said. But it was getting warmer. Could they run out of air? He hit the red button a few more times, for no other reason than that it was the only thing to do.