Read Online The Weekend Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon - Free Book Online Page A

glance moved to Eileen, and she added, “Who are you supposed to be?”
    This time Jarvis beat Eileen to an answer. “She’s a homicide detective.”
    “Yeah, well, sure,” Estavez said. “And I’m a Ninja Turtle.”
    Stephanie Harmon came to Jarvis and clutched his arm. Her fingers were bleached white, and I could see them tremble. “Could I please go back to my room now?” she asked.
    “Of course,” Detective Jarvis told her.
    Harmon and Estavez left, and Jarvis talked for a minute with the other officers. When he came back to where the rest of us were waiting he said, “It looks like the weapon was the bronze paperweight on the desk. The lab will run tests on the blood smears and check for fingerprints.”
    Something puzzled me, so I said to Jarvis, “You asked Miss Harmon if she knew that man’s name. Wasn’t his name in his wallet? Didn’t he have a driver’s license or credit cards with his name on them?”
    “Of course he did,” Jarvis answered, “but I wasn’t informing Miss Harmon. I was asking her. And now I’m going to ask you something. The victim’s name was Frank Devane. Does that mean anything to any of you?”
    Frank? Fran and I looked at each other. “Did he have a friend named Al?” I asked.
    “Would you like to explain that?” Jarvis asked.
    “All right,” I said. This was murder, so whether I liked it or not—and I didn’t—I had to be honest about what Fran and I had been doing. “You see, earlier this afternoon Fran and I were under a table and we overheard—”
    “You were
under
a table?”
    “We dropped into an empty conference room to snack from the leftovers and heard someone coming and hid under the serving table.” The disapproval inLamar Boudry’s face was punishment enough. “Anyhow,” I said, determined to go on, “two men came into the room. They called each other Frank and Al.”
    “Can you describe either of them?”
    “Frank had a deep voice. Al had a kind of so-so voice. Nothing special. One of them had sticky shoes.”
    “Can you clarify that?”
    “Just the toes.”
    “I mean, what made you think his shoes were sticky? Did they stick to the carpet?”
    “No, no. I told you, just the toes were sticky, where I poured cola on them.”
    Fran spoke up. “Ask the busboys, and you’ll find out which one was there. One of them came into the room to clean up and the men told him they were just leaving. The busboy saw the spilled cola and left to get some wet towels to clean it up, and we got out of there before he came back.”
    Detective Jarvis asked, “Did you overhear any of their conversation?”
    “A little,” I said. “They were talking about doing something which didn’t sound very honest. They didn’t say what it was.”
    “Did they mention any names?”
    “Yes,” I answered. “A Mr. Yamoto and a Mr. Logan.” I gave a worried look to Lamar, which wasn’t any help. “And Mr. Parmegan, who’s the manager of the Ridley Hotel.”
    “Do you think Mr. Parmegan would know this man?”
    Fran and I both nodded, so Jarvis asked Lamar if hecould find Mr. Parmegan and bring him up here before they took the body away.
    A medical examiner from the coroner’s office arrived, along with some other official-looking people, two of whom were wheeling a stretcher. The suite, large as it was, was getting crowded, so—to my relief—Mrs. Duffy asked if we could all be excused.
    Detective Jarvis granted his permission. “I think we may have covered all we need for now,” he said.
    “Not all we need,” I told him, and I related what had happened when I took the elevator up to the nineteenth floor at eight-thirty. There was something else that was beginning to tickle the back of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp it.
    “It could have been the murderer leaving the scene,” Jarvis said. “Did you see anything that could give us a clue to his identity?”
    I started to say that I hadn’t, but then I remembered how he mumbled to himself because he