“It should have been the nephew,” Mrs. Larabee muttered under her breath. “He’s the only one of them who’ll inherit, and now he’ll get all Mr. Pitts’s money, and I don’t even like him—the nephew, that is.”
All the actors were introduced, and I have to admit that I loved being the center of attention for even those few seconds. Remembering what Eileen had told me, I thought good, positive thoughts about myself and stood up as gracefully as I could, my head held high. Even though my chair fell over, no one seemed to notice or care.
When it was all over, Fran had to report for work, but I was free to go home. Well, not exactly free, because Mrs. Duffy latched on to me and said, “Mary Elizabeth, let’s find a quiet place to talk. I want to hear all about the murder you solved when you began work at the Ridley in June.”
We settled into a couple of chairs in one corner of the lobby, and she pulled out a small tape recorder, which surprised me.
“You’re going to record what I say?”
“It will make it easier for me, if I decide to use your story in a mystery novel.”
Tina had been right. If Mrs. Duffy wanted to write my story, then I’d be in a book! I’d be famous!
“Just tell me everything, in your own words, right from the beginning,” Mrs. Duffy said, and turned on the recorder.
I closed my eyes, envisioning a drawing of myself on the book jacket. I’d be wearing my pink Ridley health-club T-shirt, and I’d be standing in front of the Ridley Hotel swimming pool, my long, red hair streaming around my shoulders. “How about this for a title,” I said: “The Dark and Deadly Pool?”
JOAN LOWERY NIXON has been called the grande dame of young adult mysteries. She is the author of more than 130 books for young readers and is the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Is Murder, and The Other Side of Dark, which also won the California Young Reader Medal.
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