The Weekend Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon Page B

like Randolph’s mother as he trustingly put his hand in mine. Some mother! I gave him a tug to help him get up and banged his shoulder on the edge of the washbasin.
    As we entered the living room of the suite, Mrs. Duffy said, “Oh my, we
were
leaving something behind. Randolph, I didn’t know you were here. Eileen called just a minute ago and asked that Mary Elizabeth and Francis come downstairs, because the guests are eager to interrogate them. She was trying to find you, Randolph.”
    Randolph just nodded and rubbed his sore shoulder.
    I looked around for Fran, and Mrs. Duffy said, “I sent Francis down immediately. When a director says ‘jump,’ you jump.”
    “I’ll jump in a minute,” I told her. “First, Randolph and I are going to see Detective Jarvis. Murderers have priority over directors.”
    “Good point,” she said. “And a good line. If you don’t mind, I’ll use it. I’m working on a novel in which the murder takes place in a theater.”
    “Sure, use it,” I said, feeling vaguely famous. “It’s fine with me.”
    Mrs. Duffy looked as though she’d suddenly remembered something. “Tomorrow, Mary Elizabeth, when you have some free time, you
must
tell me about the murder you were involved in at the beginning of the summer.”
    “I will,” I told her. I wondered, if she decided to write the story and it got published, if they’d put my picture on the cover of the book. I began to get excited, but then I realized I’d have to do something about my hair. And my eye makeup. And the shape of my nose. It was too discouraging to think about.
    Mrs. Duffy shut the door, tested it, and walked to the elevators. With Randolph right behind me, I knocked at the door of room nineteen twenty-seven. Detective Jarvis opened the door and let us in.
    The room felt strange and icy cold. With the terrible thing that had happened and with all those people crowded into the suite, I’d forgotten about the ghost. But I remembered it with a start—as though it were thinking of me—and found myself glancing toward thehall that led to the bedrooms, half expecting to see an ethereal figure in a long, white gown suddenly appear. Detective Jarvis’s strong and solid presence was tremendously comforting.
    As we entered the living room, Mr. Walters—I mean, Mr. Burns—took one goggle-eyed look at Randolph, leaped to his feet, let out a horrible, strangling sound, and fell back on the sofa. “Devane!” he rasped.
    “I’m not Frank Devane,” Randolph said in an aggrieved tone of voice. He turned to me. “You see, that’s what I mean. The killer thought Devane was me.”
    Mr. Burns struggled to an upright position and asked, “If you’re not Devane, who are you?”
    “My name is John Wallgood.” Randolph’s eyes narrowed. “For that matter, who are
you
?”
    “He’s the man who murdered Frank Devane,” I said.
    Randolph’s back slammed into the wall, and I could see the whites of his eyes spread all around his pupils.
    “Don’t disseminate misinformation, Liz,” Detective Jarvis told me. “Mr. Burns has not been charged with murder.”
    There was another knock at the door, and Jarvis opened it to two uniformed policemen. He then turned to face Steven Burns, and spoke so firmly that Mr. Burns’s head bobbled like one of those toy dogs with a spring in its neck that you sometimes see in the back of a pickup truck. “It’s in your own best interest to have these men accompany you downtown, where your attorney will meet you and remain with you while another detective from our homicide department takes your statement.”
    Mr. Burns staggered to an upright position, still nodding, and left the room with the police officers.
    “If you’ve caught your murderer, then the crime is solved,” I told Jarvis.
    “It’s not that easy,” Jarvis answered. “There are too many loose ends, too many things that don’t add up.”
    “That means you don’t think Mr. Burns committed the murder, doesn’t