Murder Strikes at Midnight

by Thea Cambert

  “Yeah.”

  “If I were her, I’d probably move either to a place where I had family or a place where I could get another job,” said Alice.

  “I’d move to wherever home was,” said Franny. “Where is Sadie from, anyway?”

  “Huh?” Chad looked up and refocused. “Oh. New England. A little town on the coast.” He looked over at Sadie again, who was talking to Granny Maguire. “Man, I hope she doesn’t move back there.”

  With that, he took the coffees and went to join Sadie.

  “Ah-ha!” said Alice. “Did you hear that? New England coast!”

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” said Owen. “This place.”

  “This place?” said Franny, yawning.

  “Franny, you need to drink a cup of that coffee,” said Owen. “I’ve never felt more awake!”

  “As we were saying, this lodge is clearly influenced by the New England coast,” said Alice. “The widow’s walk. The style of the shingles. The steep-pitched roofline. The color choices. It’s like an ingenious blend of Tennessee and Connecticut. Or Nantucket. Someplace like that. That’s why the design is so unique.”

  “Sadie clearly said she had nothing to do with the design of this building,” said Owen. “But I have a feeling she was lying. And now, Roz is getting a prestigious award for this.” Owen waved his arms around.

  “Roz was getting an award,” said Alice.

  “I don’t know about Sadie, but if the senator over there announced that someone else was receiving an award for my work, I’d be pretty peeved,” said Owen.

  “Sadie is a grown woman—and a person who has studied architecture, and she’s clearly intelligent,” said Franny. “I still don’t understand why she would work for Roz if she was being mistreated.”

  “I can answer that.” Michael had materialized as if out of thin air and was standing just behind them.

  “Wow,” said Alice, catching her breath after being startled by his sudden appearance. “Where did you come from?”

  “That’s the thing about concierges,” said Michael. “We’re invisible until we’re needed.” He picked up a mug and Franny filled it with coffee. He took a swallow. “That’s just what I needed,” he said, savoring the hot liquid. “I feel better already.”

  “What were you saying about Sadie and why she stayed with Roz?” asked Franny.

  “That was one of the many ugly conversations I overheard between those two,” said Michael. “Sadie couldn’t leave Roz, because if she did, Roz had threatened to give her a bad reference. She said Sadie would never be a successful architect without her stamp of approval. She told Sadie she had to stay and work with her for at least another year, or her reputation would be flushed down the toilet. I believe those were her exact words.”

  “Thank you for telling us this, Michael,” said Alice.

  Michael gave a quick salute. “I’ve always been very grateful that Mr. Fender gave me my orders—not Roz.” He took his coffee and went back in the direction of the office.

  “I’d sure like to get a peek inside that notebook Sadie always carries around,” said Owen.

  “She said she keeps all of her ideas in there,” said Alice, nodding in agreement.

  The three of them looked to where Sadie was sitting next to Chad on the couch. The two of them were laughing and smiling a lot, and Sadie’s faithful little notebook was right by her side, as usual.

  “I have an idea,” said Owen. “I’ll create a distraction, and you take a peek in the notebook.”

  “What kind of distraction?” asked Alice.

  “Ye of little faith!” said Owen, in response to the obvious note of skepticism in Alice’s voice. “Just be prepared. And make it quick.”

  “Okay,” said Alice. “Ready, Franny?”

  “Ready,” said Franny.

  The two of them watched as Owen sauntered across the room. Just as he passed Chad and Sadie, he screeched loudly and fell onto the floor.

  “What—Owen! Are you okay?” Chad jumped up.

  “The pain!” Owen wailed. “Oh! The pain!”

  Everyone in the room turned around to look.

  “Don’t worry, folks,” Owen told the onlookers. “It’s my trick knee. Chad, if you and Sadie could help me up, and maybe help me walk upstairs to my room . . .”

  Sadie and Chad didn’t waste a moment in working together to lift Owen to his feet. When Sadie turned back toward the couch as if she would go back and pick up her notebook, Owen leaned more heavily on her and cried, “Oh, please, can we hurry? I need to get upstairs at once!”

  “Of course!” said Sadie, abandoning the idea of turning back.

  As she and Chad fumbled Owen toward the stairs, Alice and Franny slipped right onto the sofa they had vacated. Once the guests had returned to their conversations and books and board games, Alice casually picked up the notebook.

  “Hmm, what’s this?” she said innocently, in case anyone was listening. “Looks like someone left a notebook here. I wonder whose it is.”

  Then, she and Franny quickly opened the notebook and began flipping through the pages.

  “Hurry!” whispered Franny, glancing up toward the second-floor railing.

  “Oh, wow. Check this out!” Alice had the notebook open to a page marked “Granddaddy.” Then she flipped further. Page after page detailed ideas and inspirations for the lodge, right down to the very room they were sitting in.

  “Look at that rendering of the fireplace!” said Franny.

  “And those windows, right there!” said Alice, pointing at the great bank of windows to their left.

  “Ooh. Put it away! They’re coming back!”

  They quickly stood and went over to the fireplace, where they warmed their hands. The door to the dining room where Luke and Ben were holed up was closed, and Officer Dewey was standing by.

  “Everything going okay in there?” Alice asked him.

  “Seems to be,” said Dewey. “But no big leads, as far as I know.”

  “Have they questioned Sadie Green yet?” Alice whispered.

  “Nope. But she’s up next.” He took a swig of coffee with a jittery hand.

  “Dewey, how many cups of coffee have you had?” Franny asked.

  “This is my third. I can’t seem to get enough of the stuff!”

  Alice looked around and saw that the energy in the room had definitely changed since the crowd had partaken of Franny’s coffee. People were buzzing. Suddenly, the usually quiet, mild-mannered Norman McKenzie stood up and said, “I know! Let’s have a sing-along!” Even more bizarre than that, the rest of the room—including Alice’s parents and Granny—cheered the idea.

  “Everyone, go get freshened up and meet back here at the piano in half an hour!” someone called out above the excited chatter.

  “Well, I’d say your coffee worked,” said Alice. “No one’s interested in going to bed.”

  “Chef Louis has a wonderful selection of dark roasted arabica beans,” said Franny with a little grin. “I skewed the water-to-bean ratio . . . a lot.”

  “I’m feeling ready to take on the world, and I only had one cup,” said Alice. “Well, we’d better go upstairs and check on our patient.”

  Franny nodded. “In light of what we just saw in that notebook, we may need to move Sadie up a few notches on the list of suspects.”

  Chapter 10

  “So, we were right!” Owen said with a satisfied flourish of his dry erase marker as he put a star next to Sadie’s name. “I had a feeling Sadie was the one who really deserved that award.”

  “Owen, you smell amazing,” said Franny, sniffing the air around him.

  “Bedtime ritual,” Owen said with a wink. “I only wish I had my comfy pajamas.”

  “Seriously? You took a bubble bath, a shower, and deep-conditioned your hair in the few minutes you’ve been up here?”

  “No. I only did the shower part. I’ll do the rest later.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you had to put your
clothes back on, because we’re going to a sing-along,” said Alice.

  “Sounds like fun,” said Owen. “I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. I just wanted to be clean. Murder scenes have that effect on me.”

  Alice walked over to the bed. “We have half an hour to freshen up, so—Hold on! When did these mints get here?”

  Owen and Franny both looked where Alice was looking. The beds had been neatly turned down and there were small chocolate mints on each pillow.

  “Turndown service! This place is the best!” said Owen, running into his own room and returning with several of the mints in his hand.

  “But this is horrible!” said Alice. “This means someone was in our room!”

  All eyes then shifted to the makeshift murder board on the mirror. There was a long pause.

  “Owen, how could you not have noticed this sooner?” asked Alice.

  “It must’ve been done while I was in the shower,” said Owen. “Anyway, it was probably Michael who did it. And he’s on our side.”

  “But what if it was Chad? Or even Sadie?” Alice let out a long groan and flopped down onto the bed face-first.

  “Try one of these delicious chocolate mints,” said Owen, setting a piece of candy next to Alice’s head. “You’ll feel better.”

  “Owen, this is a disaster!” said Alice. But she did acquiesce and eat the chocolate.

  There was a knock on the door. Franny hurried over and peered through the peephole, then flung open the door.

  “Granny!”

  “Thought I’d check in and see if you’re coming down for the sing-along,” Granny said with a smile.

  “Absolutely,” said Owen. “We were just talking about it.”

  Granny examined the mirror. “Looks like you were talking about more than that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I was hoping you three were on the job!” She took a step closer to the mirror. “Let’s see . . . Four suspects, huh?”

  “We’ve got plenty of motives,” said Alice. “But no proof of anything yet.”

  “We need evidence,” said Owen, sitting on the bed next to Alice.

  Granny nodded thoughtfully. “What have your photos and videos turned up?” she asked.

  “My—” Owen stopped and looked at Alice and Franny, then slapped himself on the forehead. “We haven’t even looked at them yet! I took tons of photos of the crime scene!”

  “Get out your camera and let’s have a look, then,” said Granny, making herself comfortable. “But I’m not interested in the photos of the crime scene. I’m more interested in the photos you took before the crime was committed. I’d bet that’s where the clues lie.”

  Owen took out the camera and everyone gathered around him.

  He scrolled through lots of photos of the cake, and people eating the cake, and people exclaiming over the cake. Then, he came to the group shot he’d taken by the fireplace.

  “I used my wide-angle lens for this one,” he said. “Let’s see . . . I took it at eleven fifteen. You can see the tree . . .” Owen panned across the photo. “There you all are, there’s the beautiful staircase . . .”

  “Hold it. Who’s that going up the stairs?” asked Granny.

  Owen zoomed in on the figure. “Oh, wow,” he said. “It’s Roz. That was when she went upstairs to her room. She said she’d had too much champagne.”

  “And, somehow, she ended up on the widow’s walk above the third floor. Not in her room. Does anyone know where the Fenders’ suite is?” asked Alice.

  “Second floor,” said Granny. “Down the hall, around the corner. That’s where your parents’ and my rooms are. There’s a separate section, through a glass door, that’s reserved for staff.”

  “What’s that in Roz’s hand?” asked Franny, leaning closer to the photo.

  “That I recognize,” said Owen, zooming in on the item in Roz’s hand. “That’s fine Irish tweed—Senator Matthews’ jacket.”

  “What would Roz be doing with the senator’s jacket?” asked Granny.

  “Good question,” said Alice. “Go to the next picture, Owen.”

  Owen flipped to the next picture—another shot of the group of friends. He scanned the room again and came to the staircase once more, where another person was ascending the steps.

  “That’s Chad!” said Alice. “Looks like he’s on his cell phone.”

  “Didn’t he tell us he was stuck in his office when Roz died?” asked Owen. “He was on the phone with his linen supplier.” He rolled his eyes. “I never did buy that story. And Michael said there was no shortage of sheets and towels.”

  “Chad’s office is on the first floor, by the entry,” said Alice.

  Granny looked back at the murder board. “So, we know Roz went upstairs a bit before midnight, carrying the senator’s jacket. We know her husband, Chad, followed shortly.”

  “We know he lied about that,” added Franny.

  “Any more pictures, Owen?” asked Granny.

  “The next thing I took was a video of Alice and Franny talking about their resolutions.”

  Owen found the video. “This was at eleven thirty-five.” He pressed the play arrow, and there were Alice and Franny, laughing, standing between the fireplace and the staircase, listing fun goals for the new year—things like learning to knit and jogging more often.

  “Stop!” said Alice. “That’s Senator Matthews! Going up the stairs. See?”

  Sure enough, there was the senator, looking left and right, then going upstairs. A few frames later, Nan went up. Then, there was a to-do about the countdown and Owen was panning around the room, looking for both the Fenders and the Matthews.

  “If I’d been watching what I was filming more carefully, I’d have known none of them were around,” he said. “But they all slipped up the stairs so quietly.”

  “We’re not done yet. There goes Sadie,” said Alice, pointing to the camera, where the tiny figure of Sadie was going upstairs. “That must’ve been when she went up to look for someone to lead the countdown.”

  “Did she ever come back downstairs?” asked Granny.

  “I don’t remember,” said Alice. “Mayor Abercrombie did the countdown, and then . . .”

  “Then, we saw Roz fall past the windows,” Granny finished for her.

  Owen scrolled past the video to the snapshots he’d taken outside when everyone ran out to see what had happened. “These didn’t turn out very well,” he said, expanding the view of the people gathered outside. “But here’s Sadie. She did come outside.”

  “I remember now!” said Alice. “She looked upset—like she’d been crying.”

  “That’s right!” said Franny.

  “And, I think . . . yes, here’s Chad,” said Owen. “And here’s the senator and his wife.” He looked closer. “How about that? She’s wearing his jacket.”

  “The jacket Roz carried upstairs . . . just before she died.” Alice let out a long sigh, got up, and circled Nan’s name on the murder board. “If she had that jacket, she must’ve gotten it from Roz, right?”

  “It certainly seems probable,” said Granny.

  “I have so many questions,” said Owen, laying his camera aside. “Like, why did Chad lie about where he was when Roz was killed?”

  “And why did Sadie lie about designing the lodge?” asked Franny.

  “And what was the nature of the senator’s relationship with Roz?” asked Alice.

  “And how did Nan feel about that relationship?” asked Granny with a knowing nod. When the others looked at her, she said, “Yes, I noticed it, too. For all Roz and the senator’s acting like they were just friends, anyone could see there was something else going on between them.”

  “We know that, basically, any of these people could’ve killed Roz,” said Owen, getting up and pacing back and forth in front of the mirror. “All of them had motive, and none of them were in the room when she was pushed.”

  Granny’s cell phone rang. “There’s Chester,” she said, smiling. “He says everyone’s d
ownstairs. We’d better go!” She hopped up and headed out the door. “See you downstairs!” she called back.

  “Man, I hope it was Michael who turned down the beds,” said Owen as they locked up and walked down the hall. “Ooh, look!” He stopped and pointed toward the windows that looked out onto the grand second-floor balcony, where a couple could be seen in what appeared to be a steamy embrace. “There’s someone who seriously needs to get a room!”

  “Who is that?” whispered Alice.

  “Alice, they’re outside,” said Owen. “They can’t hear us. You don’t have to whisper.”

  Franny grabbed Alice’s arm. “It’s Sadie! Sadie and Chad!” she whispered.

  “You’re kidding!” Owen also whispered. “So, they’re a couple?”

  “Oh, man,” said Alice. “Maybe we’re not hunting for a single murderer. Maybe we’re hunting for two!”

  Chapter 11

  From the railing of the second-floor overlook, Alice, Franny, and Owen watched the group in the great room. Everyone had gathered around the upright piano that was angled into the corner across from the fireplace.

  “This is like our rooftop garden at home,” said Franny, patting the railing. “We can see everyone from here.”

  “Let’s spot our suspects,” said Owen in a low voice. “Although, we already know where Chad and Sadie are.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “I didn’t know Pearl Ann could play the piano,” said Franny.

  The whole group, joined by the members of the Gothic Trolls—who were stuck at the lodge just like everyone else—had just launched into a rousing round of what sounded like “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely.”

  “That’s from My Fair Lady!” Owen gave a little gleeful yelp.

  “Focus, Owen!” said Alice, who found her own feet starting to tap as well. “We can’t let the show tunes get to us. Look. There’s Nan, sitting on the couch.” She nodded in the direction of Nan, who sat alone.

  “I wonder where the senator is,” said Franny.

  “She looks pretty glum,” said Alice. “Let’s take her a piece of cake and see what we can find out.”