Mile High Murder

by Marcia Talley

  ‘About Borys?’ I figured she didn’t give two hoots about Daniel.

  She nodded vigorously. ‘The cell phone was just an excuse, Hannah. Borys had no legitimate reason to be here then. I’m grateful that he was, but …’

  Suddenly, I knew what was worrying her. ‘You think Borys robbed the safe, don’t you?’

  She nodded miserably.

  ‘And that Daniel, had he lived, would have put two and two together the following day and ratted Borys out.’

  The tears began again. ‘Something like that,’ she sniffed.

  I got up from my chair, sat down on the bed next to Marilyn, put my arm around her and drew her close. ‘If I were Daniel, facing a charge of attempted rape, I would have kept my mouth shut about Borys.’

  ‘But that’s just it!’ Marilyn sobbed into my shoulder. ‘I’m afraid Borys decided to shut the professor up permanently!’

  TWENTY

  Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use … Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marijuana.

  Jimmy Carter, President of the US, 1977–1981. Drug Abuse Message to the Congress, August 2, 1977.

  On the way back to my room, I stopped outside the Grahams’ door to tuck the message from their daughter-in-law into a wicker basket marked ‘MAIL’ that hung from a decorative hook on the wall nearby. A note from Desiree was already in the basket, inviting the Grahams to join our party for dinner if they were available. I peeked at it, I admit. The note was unsealed.

  As I hung my freshly ironed tunic in the armoire, I could tell that Claire was awake, her spirits noticeably boosted. She was singing in the bath, in any case, in a strong, seductive alto along to the Beatles.

  I tapped on the bathroom door, cutting her off in mid-nah, nah, nah, nah-nah-nah, nah …

  ‘Yes?’ she said dreamily.

  ‘Are you decent, Claire?’

  ‘Not really, but you’re welcome to come in.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I played field hockey in college, Hannah. I’ve been in women’s locker rooms before. Nakedness doesn’t bother me.’

  I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  Claire lay in the tub, her disembodied head floating above a sea of bubbles. Damp tendrils framed her rosy-red face. ‘Golly! How much bubble bath did you use?’ I asked.

  The bubbles shrugged. ‘Rosemary, lavender, cedar wood and THC. My lady parts are in a happy place. Plenty more in the canister over there. You should try it.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ I said as ‘Hey Jude’ segued into ‘Penny Lane.’

  ‘Turn off my iPod, will you?’ Claire asked. ‘My hands are wet.’

  ‘If I can remember how, Miss Troglodyte,’ I teased, reaching for the device. ‘I haven’t seen an iPod for years.’

  I held down the play/pause button until the iPod went dark, then moved a terry cloth robe aside and sat down on a narrow wicker bench. I decided not to mention the balloon loan until I’d had an opportunity to talk to Austin about it. It was all speculation on my part. Starting an unsubstantiated rumor wouldn’t be fair.

  I moved on to explore the second surprise of my day. ‘Claire, do you remember where Hugh and Phyllis said they were going for their friend’s wedding?’

  Claire thought for a moment. ‘Brown Palace Hotel?’

  ‘Ah, right. The posh one.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Claire agreed.

  ‘I just took a call from their daughter-in-law. She doesn’t know anything about a wedding.’

  Another shrug from Claire. Bubbles slid down her wet shoulders. ‘Should be easy enough to find out. Call the hotel.’

  ‘Hold that thought,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ she said, and sank deeper into the tub.

  I found my cell phone on the bedside table where I’d left it charging, unplugged it and Googled the Brown Palace. When the website came up, I tapped the phone number and waited to be connected.

  ‘I’m trying to get a message to some friends who are attending a wedding at your hotel today,’ I explained to the hotel operator. ‘I don’t know the groom’s name, but the bride is named Marjorie Ann.’

  The operator put me through to the concierge. ‘Let me check for you, ma’am,’ the young man said after I had repeated my question. I listened to his keyboard click. ‘We have three weddings today. Tuckerman-Dutton, Chase-Fosher and Job-Purdy.’

  ‘Are any of the brides named Marjorie Ann?’

  ‘Checking. Please hold.’ After a moment, he told me, ‘We have an Elizabeth, a Carol and a Samantha. Is it one of those?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ I said.

  ‘Possibly you have the wrong hotel?’ he suggested. ‘The Ritz-Carlton is the most likely alternative. If that isn’t it, you could try the Grand Hyatt.’

  I thanked him and asked to be put through to the Ritz, but struck out there, too. Ditto the Grand Hyatt. I called the high-end Hilton Garden Inn and the Courtyard by Marriott, but met a blank wall. Based on what Phyllis had said about Marjorie Ann’s taste for luxury, I figured the Holiday Inn, Days Inn and Ramada were out of the running, but I tried them anyway, and a handful of bargain-rate hotels further out of the city center, with similar lack of success.

  Clearly, I was wasting my time. Marjorie Ann may have been real, but her wedding today in Denver was almost certainly a figment of somebody’s active imagination. What were Phyllis and Hugh Graham really doing in Denver?

  Back in the bathroom a few minutes later, I asked Claire the same question. Hot water was trickling noisily into the tub, so she turned off the tap with her foot.

  ‘You remember the movie, Dirty Dancing?’

  I patted my chest rapidly. ‘Patrick Swayze, oh em gee. Be still my heart.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Claire said. ‘The dancing in that movie is so sexy that I find it hard to breathe.’

  ‘Every girl dreams of losing her virginity to Johnny Castle,’ I said, enjoying the conversation but wondering what on earth it had to do with my question about the Grahams.

  ‘Remember that simply darling older couple, the Schumachers?’

  Now I knew exactly where Claire was going. Sidney and Sylvia Schumacher were the old dears who wandered around the periphery of the Kellerman Resort picking pockets, but they were so charming nobody suspected them until the end of the movie. ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘Mrs Schumacher stole Moe’s wallet and Johnny got blamed for it.’

  ‘Hard to picture Phyllis and Hugh as murderers, I admit,’ Claire said. ‘But they’re obviously not what they seem. Can we pin the robbery on them?’

  I thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘It’s possible, but I have a better suspect for the robbery, and maybe for Daniel’s murder, too.’ I confessed to Claire about how I’d discovered the combination to the safe, how Marilyn had caught me red-handed coming out of Austin’s office and about the heart-to-heart I’d had with her afterward.

  ‘Good lord,’ Claire said. ‘I understand how she might feel conflicted about reporting the attack, but she really must tell the police about it.’

  ‘I strongly encouraged her to do so,’ I said. ‘I reminded her that it was quite possible that Borys didn’t rob the safe or murder Daniel to cover it up, but if it turns out he did, and she knew about it, she could charged as an accessory after the fact.’

  ‘Could she?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but they say that all the time on TV.’

  ‘The robbery and the murder could well be connected,’ Claire pointed out reasonably.

  ‘True. Two unrelated crimes happening in the same house within hours of one another would be a stunning coincidence.’

  Claire nodded in agreement.

  �
��So, let’s take it one step at a time,’ I said. ‘Daniel. Who wants him dead, and why?’

  ‘We can eliminate me,’ she said. ‘It gives me the creeps to think that I was asleep in the room when it happened, but I didn’t do it, Hannah, and I have no idea who did.’

  ‘I was out cold, too,’ I said, ‘so let’s eliminate me.’

  In spite of the seriousness of the discussion, she grinned. ‘See? We’re making progress already.’

  ‘If we assume that Daniel was murdered because he knew who robbed the safe,’ I continued, ‘Borys Pawlowski jumps to the top of the list.’

  And maybe Austin wasn’t far off the top, too, I mused. If Daniel had wandered into Austin’s office and seen the same bank papers I had …

  ‘It could have been Marilyn,’ Claire said, interrupting my train of thought. ‘It wouldn’t have taken a great deal of strength to hold a pillow over someone’s face, especially if that someone were drunk or stoned. Marilyn might have done it to punish Daniel for what he tried to do to her.’

  ‘And don’t forget the mysterious Grahams,’ I added. ‘They came home last night in time to observe Colin and Daniel singing. She said as much at breakfast, you may recall.’

  We sat in silence for a moment, mulling it all over. In the high humidity of the bathroom, sweat beaded on my brow. I grabbed a washcloth off the towel rack and dabbed it away. ‘I think it’s far more likely that whoever killed Daniel knew exactly who he really was.’

  ‘Josh and Lisa, obviously,’ Claire said.

  ‘I’d agree, except that Lisa was surprisingly straightforward about it. She actually volunteered the information when we were talking out on the patio. She didn’t need to do that.’

  ‘Deflection?’ Claire suggested.

  ‘I don’t think they’re that devious.’ I paused. ‘However, Lisa also told me she warned Desiree to watch out for Daniel, but according to Lisa, she didn’t tell Desiree the reason why.’

  Claire moaned. ‘Vaguebooking! It’s one of the many things that soured me on Facebook.’ Her hands emerged from the sea of bubbles long enough to draw quote marks in the air. ‘Well, there go my dreams!’ She turned her head to look directly at me. ‘Do I look like I give a damn about your dreams?’

  I laughed. ‘For me, it’s the humble brag, like, “Having big boobs makes shopping for bikinis sooo hard!”’

  Claire winced. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘So,’ I said, getting back to the subject at hand, ‘it’s possible that Desiree was curious enough about Lisa’s warning to investigate Daniel, but since he was using a fake name, I can’t imagine she’d have been successful. Even when we learned his real name, it was difficult to track the man down.’

  ‘Have you given any thought to who might have tried to erase the photographs from Daniel’s iPhone?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Josh would be my guess.’

  Or, I thought to myself, perhaps it was Colin McDaniel in his last act before fleeing the scene of the crime. I pictured him picking up the phone and pressing Daniel’s lifeless thumb to the home button. I shuddered.

  ‘I don’t get how the photo is linked to Daniel’s death,’ Claire said. ‘Austin took a group photograph, too, and he’s still among the living.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but I’m betting that Austin wasn’t threatening to send that photo to anybody. Lisa and Josh had a lot to lose if a photograph of them touring a Colorado weedery fell into the hands of the president of Stafford U.’

  The same would apply to Colin, I reminded myself. In spades. The Commandant of Midshipmen would ship Colin out of the academy with a rocket tied to his tail.

  Claire’s hand emerged again from the sea of bubbles. She examined it closely. ‘I’m getting prune-y. Hand me the towel, will you?’

  She stepped out of the bath. Bubbles slid off her body, puddling on the bathmat at her feet. A shiny, puckered scar marched horizontally across her chest, marking the place where her left breast used to be. She accepted the towel from my outstretched hand and began to rub herself briskly, starting with her hair. ‘I’m considering reconstructive surgery,’ she said, knowing that I could not have missed seeing her scar. ‘But I thought I’d wait until I’m done with chemo.’

  ‘I had mine after the fact, too, Claire. A TRAM flap.’

  ‘I considered that, but I’ll probably get an implant,’ she said. ‘Less recovery time, they say.’ She wrapped the towel, a generous-sized bath sheet, twice around her body and wandered into her room, indicating with a twitch of her head that I should follow.

  While Claire dressed, I sat in a chair by the fireplace staring at the blue flames that licked the ceramic logs. ‘How about Mark King?’ I suggested. ‘What you said about Mark’s anger management issues caught my attention, and he was far from cool-headed when I saw him on the patio. He could have lost his temper with Daniel, picked up a nearby pillow …’ I let the thought die. ‘Mark seemed genuinely surprised to learn that Daniel was visiting Denver under a false flag, but it’s possible he already knew all about Daniel’s connection to Churchill-Mills. Maybe his spontaneous temper tantrum was just an act.’

  Claire eased into her bra, hooked it in front and adjusted her prosthesis. ‘I wouldn’t count Cindy out, either,’ she said. ‘She’s super protective of her husband, although it’s hard for me to picture her killing for him.’

  I threw up my hands. ‘It’s like Murder on the Orient Express. Everybody killed Daniel.’

  ‘Maybe we need to gather all the guests together in the conservatory …’ she suggested, her voice muffled by speaking directly into the wardrobe.

  ‘We should all be at dinner tonight,’ I said. ‘And unless the Grahams are there, too, I’ll be the only tee-totally-straight person in the bunch. I can ask questions. Maybe everyone will be so blissed out they’ll let something slip.’

  Claire stepped into her slacks. ‘Aren’t you forgetting somebody, Hannah?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The out-of-sight but not so out-of-mind Colin McDaniel? For all we know, he murdered Daniel, cleaned out the safe and is sunning himself on a beach in Playa del Carmen, surrounded by swimsuit models.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ I said truthfully. ‘But once he hears about Daniel’s murder, I’m hoping he’ll do the honorable thing and come back to face the music.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  The musician who uses ‘reefers’ finds that the musical beat seemingly comes to him quite slowly, thus allowing him to interpolate any number of improvised notes with comparative ease. While under the influence of marijuana, he does not realize that he is tapping the keys, with a furious speed impossible for one in a normal state of mind; marijuana has stretched out the time of the music until a dozen notes may be crowded into the space normally occupied by one.

  Harry J. Anslinger, ‘Marijuana, Assassin of Youth,’ in Marijuana Decriminalization: Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary, US Senate, May 14, 1975, p.622.

  Dinner at Bell House. A Cannabis Tasting Experience. 7:30 for 8:00 p.m., the invitation read, in a distinctly British way. Even the font – something swirly and Edwardian – screamed formal: In the Garden.

  At seven twenty-two, dressed as formally as possible considering the contents of my suitcase, I presented myself to Claire for inspection. ‘Sadly, I seem to have left my tiara at home.’

  Claire grinned and held out a necklace made of Venetian glass beads. ‘Help me with this, will you?’

  I fastened the necklace around her neck from behind. ‘This is beautiful,’ I said.

  ‘A gift from me to me,’ Claire said, patting the beads. ‘A souvenir from Murano. Hugely expensive but what the hell. I’m worth it.’

  I had to agree.

  Five minutes later, at seven-thirty on the dot, Claire and I were passing through the solarium, stepping out into a warm, summer evening without a hint of chill. A bar had been set up at the far end of the patio, strategically positioned to draw guests into
the formal garden, beyond where they could carry their drinks and wander along stone paths bordered with lavender phlox and blue sage, stroll among the raised beds of bleeding heart and columbine, or sit on Chippendale-style benches surrounded by roses – floribundas and hybrid teas.

  ‘They’ve added staff for the party,’ I commented to Claire as we closed in on the bar that was being tended by a Nordic blonde with a buzz cut, a guy I guessed to be in his mid-thirties. A plastic nametag read: Kai. Another guy, dark-haired and roughly the same age as Kai, circulated among the guests, carrying a silver tray loaded with hors d’oeuvres. The young men were dressed identically in black chinos, crisp white shirts and black shoes so shiny a girl could use them as a mirror.

  ‘What’s your pleasure?’ Kai asked. ‘We have wine – both kinds,’ he added with an exaggerated wink, ‘and the drink of the day is an Arnold Palmer.’ The bartender indicated a tray of tall, frosty glasses sitting at the end of the bar, each glass filled with ice cubes and an amber liquid. ‘Half iced tea, half lemonade,’ he explained, in case we didn’t know. ‘Infused or plain.’

  ‘Arnold Palmer for me,’ I said, sidling down the bar. Six glasses were arranged on the tray, each with a thin wedge of lemon straddling the rim. Green straws were stuck in four of them, clear straws in the other two. As my hand hovered over the tray, the bartender said, ‘The ones with the green straws have five miligrams of THC.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, selecting a glass with a clear straw. I took a refreshing sip.

  Claire, meanwhile, had decided on wine – a Cabernet Sauvignon rosé. ‘An excellent choice,’ the bartender commented as he poured her a glass. ‘Aromas of orange and cherry with a blackcurrant finish. And may I suggest,’ he added, reaching under the bar and pulling out a tray of perfectly rolled joints, ‘a pairing with Bubba Kush.’ He indicated a joint in the top row. ‘Fruity and earthy, a most attractive combo.’

  Apparently Kai did double duty as budtender, too.

  ‘Thanks,’ Claire said, accepting the joint.