“There’s something else typed on my sheet,” Phyllis said. She looked down at the paper in her hand and back at Eileen. “Randolph Hamilton demanded a suite, but we couldn’t give it to him. Then he demanded a deluxe room, but I couldn’t help him there either.”
“I hope he didn’t end up with a room like ours,” I murmured to Fran, and he grinned back.
“Right,” Eileen said. She fished into an oversized handbag and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she gave to Fran. “Sorry you got your instructions a little late,” she said. “As you can see, you delivered breakfast to Annabelle Maloney and interrupted an argument between her and Crystal Crane, who was dressed to go out and who had just stopped by to talk to Annabelle.”
“About what?” Fran asked.
“What does it say on your sheet? Take it from the top.”
Fran read, “Miss Maloney had been crying, because her eyes were all red, and I heard Miss Crane say, ‘You’ll be in trouble if they find out.’ ” He raised his head and looked at Eileen. “Find out what?”
“That’s for the people at our mystery weekend to discover,” she said. “You can only tell them what you overheard, no more, no less. Got it?”
“Got it,” Fran answered.
I nudged him with my elbow. “So much for your wicked woman in black.”
A couple of the other employees had questions before Eileen dismissed us. “Stick around, Liz,” she said. “I want to trace the route you’ll take after you find the body.”
While Fran waited in the lobby, Eileen and I took an elevator up to the second floor and got off. As the elevator doors closed behind us I glanced down the empty hallway. This floor was creepy too. Was the whole hotel haunted? Don’t be silly, I told myself. Any empty hotel hallway, with its double row of closed doors, is scary. Who’s behind the doors? Is someone suddenly going to burst out and—
I was beginning to get goose bumps, so I was glad when Eileen broke into my thoughts. “This is the plan,” she said. “You’ll come up here just before eight-thirty. One of the people in security will make sure you have an elevator to yourself. Everyone who’s participating in the mystery should be at the party, but just in case someone’s wandering around we’ll try to take care of that possibility. Press the stop and the door open buttons, which will keep the elevator out of service. At exactly eight-thirty take the elevator back down to the lobby.”
“There’s a problem,” I said. “Anyone who’s waiting for an elevator will be able to see from the directional lights over the elevator that I was only on the second floor. They’d also see when I went up and when I came down. There wouldn’t be enough time to go to the nineteenth floor, find the body, and come back.”
“I know,” Eileen said, “but you wanted to stay clear of the scene of the crime. I was trying to make it easy for you.”
“I’ll go up to the nineteenth floor,” I told her. What else could I say? “You and your mother have planned this so carefully. I don’t want to spoil it.” Also, I didn’t want to carry a big guilt trip with me in case anything went wrong.
Eileen smiled. “Thanks, Liz. You’re terrific,” she said. “Okay, here’s how we’ll change our plans. Take the elevator to the nineteenth floor and wait about five minutes. At eight-thirty take the elevator down.”
I nodded, and she punched the elevator button. “Start screaming at the top of your lungs as the elevator door opens on the lobby level. Run across the near end of the lobby and into the open doors of ballroom A, screaming all the way, and in between screams shout, ‘There’s a body upstairs! A dead body!’ Can you do that?”
“I guess so,” I answered. “Do you want me to practice screaming?”
She put a hand on my arm. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said. “Let me tell you why you went to room nineteen twenty-seven. You’ll need to know, because people will ask.”
I nodded, listening carefully, and she explained, “Edgar Albert Pitts was in the health club, soaking in the hot tub, and while he was there he was reading a play. He put it on a nearby table while he went to the dressing rooms to change, and when he left he forgot the script. You telephoned his room to tell him you’d found it, and he told you he was very busy preparing for tonight’s program and asked you to bring it to him. You did, found the door ajar, and discovered his body.”
The elevator arrived, and we rode it to the lobby level. Eileen walked me through the path I’d take, which was easy enough for a baby to follow—as long as it was a screaming baby—and said, “I’ll see you tonight. The right time, the right place. Remember, I’m counting on you.”
“I’ll be there,” I said. As we walked out of the ballroom I added, “Good luck.”
She winced and groaned. “Never wish an actor good luck. It’s an old superstition that wishing good luck almost guarantees something will go wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I can’t wish you good luck, what should I say?”
“Say, ‘Break a leg,’ ” she answered.
“That doesn’t seem very friendly.”
“It’s traditional, and it’s friendly.”
Eileen glanced toward her watch. “I’ve got to set up the scene of the crime and seal it off. I’ll see you at the party tonight.”
Fran stepped up to join me as soon as Eileen had left. “Actors are weird,” I told him, “even the nice ones.”
“Everybody around here is a little weird this weekend,” he said. “A woman just grabbed my jacket and hissed in my ear, ‘What do you know? Tell me everything you know!’ and the murder hasn’t even taken place yet.”
My stomach rumbled, and I said to Fran, “Let’s go down to the employees’ cafeteria and get some dinner. At least the people there will be normal.”
But we had no sooner got in line than Earl, the accountant from the business office, who was now dressed in a doorman’s uniform, sidled up to us. He muttered through one side of his mouth, “Crystal Crane asked me to call a cab for her at nine-thirty this morning. She acted very … very”—he stopped and pulled a tightly folded sheet of paper from his pocket, opened it, read it, and finished—“very suspicious.”
“Method acting,” I mumbled as the “doorman” wandered off with his tray to find a table.
“I think this is going to be fun,” Fran said. “That is, if nothing goes wrong.”
“Just don’t wish any of the actors good luck,” I told him, remembering what I’d said to Eileen. “They don’t like it.”
“Can I wish it to you?” he asked.
“No!” I spoke too loudly, and a couple of people turned to stare at me, but all of a sudden I thought about the screaming I’d have to do, and how it would need to be timed just right and acted just right, and a cold, hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach. Mary Elizabeth Rafferty, the klutz. What if I ruined everything?
I managed to eat a little soup, then went up to my room and brushed my hair and put on some pink lipstick to match my pink health-club T-shirt. Pink was not a great color for redheads, but it was for a health club, so I had no choice. I thought about Eileen dressed in that dramatic green flowing dress that set off her red hair. Why couldn’t I look like that?
I glanced at my watch a million times. Fran had said he’d stay with me, but I didn’t want him to. I had to try to relax and get into the part I was supposed to play. As eight-fifteen approached, I was both thankful that the waiting was over and scared to death because the big moment was at hand. As I walked to the elevator, my legs shook the way they had that time I’d tried riding the health club’s exercise bicycle a solid half hour, nonstop.
Tina was at the elevators in the lobby to make sure that no one else got on with me, but by the time the elevator arrived at the nineteenth floor, it wasn’t just my legs that were trembling. It was all of me.
I reminded myself that there were some businessmen staying on this floor, as well as the sequestered witness. I wasn’t alone, so what was I afraid of?
I pressed the stop and t
he door open buttons, and gingerly poked my head out. The hall was just as empty as it had been before, but it wasn’t as silent. As though I’d been hypnotized, my gaze was pulled to the door of the haunted room, nineteen twenty-seven. I wondered how the ghost liked having his private place used for a make-believe murder.
While I stared at the door, the knob suddenly turned, and the door slowly opened. Someone—or something—was coming out!
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 bon
kers, 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.
The Weekend Was Murder Page 4
