A Question of Murder (21 page)

The hallway ended abruptly, with no apparent exit, but when I looked down, I saw what appeared to be a trapdoor in the floor. I crouched and pushed on it. A hinge with a spring made moving the trapdoor difficult, but I managed to crack it open enough to see what was below. It was that same area Larry and I had discovered after going through the door in the wardrobe room, the place where my pushing on the bar of a door leading to a small terrace had summoned hotel security guards.

I now knew that the area of the third floor in which the three VIP suites were located was connected with the spot on which I currently stood, making it possible that whoever stabbed Paul Brody could have made his, or her, escape through the passageways I’d just traveled. Not that there was anything concrete to prove that it had happened that way. But at least I now knew it was physically possible.

I released the trapdoor, stood up again, and became aware of an odor I hadn’t detected before. It was the acrid smell of smoke, cigarette smoke. Had it been there before? Was I so absorbed in my investigation of the secret passages in the hotel that my other senses had ceased to be perceptive? My eyesight isn’t what it was in my youth but my sense of smell has always been acute. I’m often aware of an aroma before others become conscious of it.

Could someone backstage be smoking? It was unlikely. I’d heard Larry and Melinda warn the cast and crew about the hotel’s no-smoking policy. I inhaled three or four times, turning my head as I did to determine where the smoke originated. Since I was at a dead end, unless one went down through the trapdoor, whoever was smoking had to be behind me, and the only thing behind me was the room over the stage and auditorium. Although it was uncomfortably warm where I stood, I felt a sudden chill. It wasn’t caused by someone smoking a cigarette where he or she shouldn’t have been. It was caused by my suspicion that someone had followed me on my doubled-over journey through the passageways.

I turned around in the short hallway, searching the immediate vicinity for something to use in the event I needed protection, but came up empty-handed. I strained to hear better, but only an eerie silence reached my ears. I knew I couldn’t simply continue to stand there. Was the trapdoor an option? I thought not. Even if I could manage to hold it fully open and squeeze through at the same time, I didn’t relish falling to the floor underneath it.

Drawing a few deep breaths for fortitude, I began my return journey, ever alert for a sound or other sign of an unwanted presence. I reached the opening to the large room and paused there. The smell of a burning cigarette was more pronounced now. With one final deep breath, which I held, I stepped into the room, my eyes scanning the space in a wide arc. I exhaled noisily. I was alone. Whoever had been there was gone.

I contemplated seeing if I could catch up with my pursuer, but decided against it. By the time I reached the fourth door on the third floor, he or she would have had ample time to disappear from sight, either into one of the VIP suites or down a stairwell to another floor.

I stood silently, listening to the rehearsal in progress below. The actors were running through a scene in which Catarina, the maid, admitted that she’d had an affair with Paul in New York, and had come to the Whittaker home to sabotage his new romance with Cynthia—just as Larry said it was written in the script. But he’d also said the script mirrored reality; the actress had been dumped unceremoniously by Paul in real life. Had Larry passed that same information along to Detective Ladd? I made a mental note to ask.

Catarina had been speaking. Now, suddenly, I heard Larry’s loud voice: “Stop! Enough! Really, Catarina, can you please bring your voice down an octave?” He mimicked her high-pitched way of speaking, using a falsetto voice of his own. I had to smile. His impression of Catarina was excellent; he sounded just like her.

The actors began rehearsing the scene once more, and I prepared to retrace my steps back to the VIP suites. Looking down as I traversed the cluttered floor, I spotted a partially consumed cigarette on the dusty boards. I picked it up and examined it closely. It had been crushed out, but it didn’t look like this butt had been discarded years ago. The paper was still supple and the shreds of tobacco that clung to it were fresh. I turned it over. It was the same brand as one of the cigarettes I’d found in the vestibule where I’d first encountered Paul Brody, and the same brand that had been on my balcony the night I got locked out of the room. I wrapped it in a tissue and braced for the painful trip through the low-ceilinged passageways. But I hadn’t gone more than a few feet when something else caught my eye. I stared down at it. On the floor was a tool of some sort, with a wooden handle and a long, round, slender blade about five inches long. I took an even closer look. No doubt about it; that was blood on the blade.

I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and used it to gingerly pick up the blade. I remembered the stagehand, Jeremy, asking whether anyone had seen his pick. Was this the pick to which he was referring? “Pick” seemed an appropriate word to describe it.

Holding the pick in one hand, I bent over and eventually made my way back to door leading to the third-floor VIP suites. As I reached for the knob, I realized the door was now fully closed. I’d left it ajar.
Not again!
I thought as I turned the knob. Much to my relief, the door opened and I was alone in the hallway.

The door to the Pomerantz suite was closed, as were the others. I stepped close to the suite occupied by Ms. Carlisle and pressed my ear against its door. There was no sound on the other side. I impetuously wrapped my free hand around the knob and turned. It opened.

“Hello,” I said softly. I wrinkled my nose. The heavy, unpleasant odor of cigarette smoke assaulted my nostrils. Evidently, Ms. Carlisle wasn’t someone who followed no-smoking rules. It smelled as though she’d smoked heavily, the smoke permeating everything in the room, couches and chairs, drapes and carpeting.

The noise of the elevator doors opening came from down the hall. I quickly closed the door and assumed a nonchalant posture. Coming toward me was Ms. Carlisle. “Good afternoon,” I said pleasantly, holding my handkerchief containing the pick behind my thigh.

“Good afternoon to you, dearie,” she said, passing me. I watched her reach the door to her suite, open it, and disappear inside, the door slamming behind her.

I was about to leave the area when the door to the third suite opened, the one not occupied by Ms. Carlisle or Mr. and Mrs. Pomerantz. Jeremy, the lead stagehand, stepped into the hall.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi,” he muttered, and walked quickly away, overtly uneasy for some reason. As he moved down the hall almost at a trot, it occurred to me that he could easily be mistaken for the deceased Paul Brody, particularly in a low-light, fleeting situation. Jeremy was about the same height as Paul, although he was more muscular. Was he staying in that third suite? It seemed unlikely that a stagehand would be given one of the best rooms in the hotel while the Savoys were in a lesser room. Had Georgie Wick and Harold Boynton seen Jeremy and thought he was Paul? It certainly was a possibility. I looked at the bloody weapon secured in my handkerchief. I could have asked Jeremy whether it was what he’d been looking for, but was glad I hadn’t. I would turn it over directly to Detective Ladd.

I came downstairs to where the older gentleman at the desk was reading a magazine. He looked up and greeted me.

“What’s new with the storm?” I asked.

He mentioned the downed trees.

“Yes,” I said, “Mark Egmon told me about it.”

I went to the main entrance and took a look outside. The snow had stopped, but the huge drifts that had been blown against the building were still there. Two cops in uniform leaned against the wall, appearing to be on the verge of falling asleep standing up.

“Shouldn’t be long,” I said.

“Better not be,” one replied.

I found Ladd in the room Mark Egmon had provided him for his investigation and handed him the pick.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked.

I explained.

“Has to be the murder weapon,” he said.

“I’d say that’s a safe assumption.”

“Let’s keep this between us,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

I went to my room, added my most recent cigarette butt to the others I’d amassed, pulled out Paul Brody’s bio, and started to read. His list of acting credits was long, segregated into parts he’d played in theater, on television, and in feature films. I remembered what Larry had said, that actors sometimes embellish their résumés. Was that the case here? Nothing on the page made me sit up and take notice, so I tossed the bio on the desk, went to the French doors, and looked outside. The sky had lightened a bit, although some lingering flakes still fell.

I grabbed my room key from where I’d laid it on the desk and left. But I’d taken only a few steps toward the staircase when it hit me. I returned to the room and looked at Paul Brody’s bio again. One of the films he’d listed as having appeared in was
Murder by Special Delivery,
the film Claudette Chasseur said she’d acted in, the one coproduced by her husband, John.

 

 

 

 

 

I ran the ring of keys back to Mark Egmon’s office—I was told by a secretary that he was at another meeting—and returned to my room.

I’m an inveterate note-maker, sometimes to the amusement of my friends back home. I always justify it by pointing to airline pilots as an example. No matter how many thousands of flying hours a commercial pilot might have, he or she wouldn’t dream of taking off without first going through an elaborate checklist. My friends usually retort that I’m not an airline pilot. But that isn’t the point. It’s too easy to forget important things in a busy life, and my notes make that less of a possibility.

But there’s more behind my penchant for making notes than not wanting to miss an appointment or forget an item in the supermarket. Writing things down helps organize thoughts. I’ve always been a firm believer in that, and stressed it back when I was an English teacher. Ideas, questions, conceptions, and answers float around in our brains, sometimes colliding, too often becoming lost. By committing them to paper, we can create a structure that helps prevent this from happening. Maybe I need written notes because I’m internally disorganized. Maybe others are internally organized to the extent that they don’t need written reminders of what they’re thinking. No matter. I’m a note-maker.

It was evident to me that Paul Brody’s murderer came from one of three groups at Mohawk House that weekend.

The most likely source was the cast and crew of the Savoys’ theatrical troupe. The problem was that I hadn’t had the opportunity to interact with them very much. I made a note to try to correct that.

The second group was the hundred or so paying guests; they could not be summarily ruled out. Detective Ladd had been systematically questioning them, but I had no knowledge as to what information his questions had elicited. Had one of them attended the weekend at Mohawk House with the specific intention of stabbing Paul Brody to death? If the murderer came from that contingent, it was up to Detective Ladd to ferret out the culprit. I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with the guests beyond just passing pleasantries. Sydney Pomerantz was intriguing, of course, based upon what Detective Ladd had told me about him, but I wasn’t interested at that juncture with his past. The here and now was of much greater concern.

Group number three comprised my fellow writers and those accompanying them. While I wouldn’t initially have considered them likely suspects, my perception had changed once I’d gotten to know them.

Another gap in my knowledge had to do with the deceased, Paul Brody. According to others, he was a difficult person whose attitude problems had caused him considerable trouble in Hollywood and possibly had derailed his aspirations to become a film star.
Question:
Why hadn’t John Chasseur or his wife, Claudette, mentioned that Brody had been in a film produced by Chasseur, in which Claudette had a role? Surely they hadn’t forgotten him. I thought back to what Chasseur had said—that Brody’s murderer was undoubtedly a woman who’d been burned by him. Was he dropping a hint about his own wife? I couldn’t come up with a reason at that moment why he might do such a thing, unless . . . unless it was to deflect suspicion from
him
. From what I knew of Chasseur, his ethical and moral compasses weren’t especially steady, and his allegiance to his wife was, from what I’d observed, nonexistent.

When Brody and his brother were young, they had accompanied their mother and father to Mohawk House and had explored the hidden recesses of the historic mansion. Did that play a part in Paul’s demise? My explorations had established only that it was possible for the killer to have made use of those hidden areas as a means of escape, and as a place in which to discard the murder weapon. Their father had been a producer, primarily for the stage but with some Hollywood involvement. Were the parents still alive? What was their relationship with the adult Paul? I made another note to see what I could learn in that regard.

Larry Savoy had told me that Brody would have been fired from the troupe once the Mohawk House weekend was over. Did Brody know that? Larry had also indicated that Brody was causing trouble for him with the actors union. Motive to have killed the actor? Shaky, but murders have been committed for lesser reasons than that.

Melinda Savoy, according to Larry, had lobbied for Brody to be part of the cast. Had she been involved with the dead actor in some sort of romantic relationship? I heard Larry and Melinda arguing. Was it about Brody?

According to Larry, Catarina had had an affair with Brody in New York City and had been unceremoniously discarded by him. In the script, she’d come to work for the Whittakers in order to be near him, and to interfere in his new relationship with Cynthia Whittaker. Had she auditioned for the cast in order to be near him in real life and perhaps exact her revenge for the way he’d treated her?