Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри, Эллин Стенли
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Penny Publications
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016». Краткое содержание книги:
“Poor Avis,” she said, and tears glistened in her hazel eyes as Lieutenant Steinbock introduced himself. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Murdered! You must discover who did this horrid thing.”
Suzu Dunsel took her hand and led her to a chair. “How’s your head?”
“I still have the most dreadful lump,” Dodie Cantrell said, touching the back of her head. “But your aspirin helped a lot. Let me sleep.”
“Aspirin?” Suzu gave her a puzzled look. “I didn’t give you aspirin.”
“That was Morna, honey,” said Nanette. “We called her from the bar, remember?”
“Of course, of course,” Dodie said with an impatient wave of her hand. She straightened one of her silk scarves and smoothed it over her thin chest. “That bump must have addled my wits.”
“But then you never came,” said Morna.
“Please don’t say you waited up for me,” Dodie said, contrition on her face. “Nanette thought that you were already in bed and I remembered that little tin of aspirin Suzu gave me when we were in Madison, so I took two and went right to bed myself. I’m so dreadfully sorry.”
“Actually, I fell asleep watching the news,” Morna confessed. “One martini too many.”
As one, the four crime writers turned to Lieutenant Steinbock and pelted him with questions.
“Was the door unlocked?”
“Were there any clues?”
“Did Avis know her killer?”
“Was the killer right-handed?”
“Huh?” said Steinbock.
“The scarf around her neck,” Nanette said with exaggerated patience, as if explaining to a two-year-old. “The tension on the scarf would tell you which hand was dominant. Everyone knows that.”
“Unless the killer deliberately pulled with his left hand to throw the police off,” Morna said, trying to come to Steinbock’s aid.
“True,” Nanette conceded. “But if it was done in the heat of the moment—”
“If it was the heat of the moment,” objected Suzu, “surely the killer would just have grabbed up something heavy and smashed her over the head.”
“Grabbed up what?” asked Dodie. “What’s in a modern hotel room that can be used for a cosh these days? No thick glass ashtrays, no heavy telephones, no table lamps.”
“Ice bucket?” suggested Morna.
“On the bathroom counter,” Nanette reminded her with Midwestern logic. Steinbock was to learn that the hero of her series was a sexy cowboy who valued intellect over instinct. “She was killed in the bedroom.”
“A bottle of beer from the mini bar?”
“Ladies, please!” said Lieutenant Steinbock. “This isn’t a game of Clue. When did you four last see Ms. Arthur?”
Morna looked at her friends. “We had drinks in the bar after dinner, but Avis had a deadline looming, so she went back to her room to work. Around nine, wasn’t it?”
The others nodded.
“The bar closes at ten-thirty and that’s when I went up.”
“Really dumb for the bar to close that early,” Suzu Dunsel said, voicing what was clearly an old complaint. “Writers drink and we tip well too. They should stay open at least till midnight or—” She heard Steinbock’s weary sigh. “But I digress. Morna left at ten-thirty, Dodie wanted something for that bump on the back of her head so Nanette called Morna about ten forty-five. Right?”
Dodie nodded and Nanette said, “Right.” She brushed back a strand of russet hair. No gray hair for her. “Morna said she had some aspirin, so Dodie left then, but Suzu and I nursed our drinks and talked with some fans from the Midwest for a while.”
“Their names?” Steinbock asked, pen poised over his notepad.
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know. We meet so many people. There was a Mary. I do remember that.”
“And a man named Bob Witchger,” said Suzu. “I remember him because he’s from Wisconsin and always comes to my book signings out there.” She looked at Nanette. “And that woman on crutches with a broken leg. Wasn’t her name Elizabeth?”
Nanette shrugged. “Without my glasses, I’m too nearsighted to read a nametag unless it’s right in my face.”
“Lieutenant?”
They turned to see two plainclothes detectives herding three middle-aged women from New Jersey into the interrogation area from the second-floor hallway.
“We caught these three breaking into the murder room.”
“We weren’t breaking into it!” protested a sweet-faced woman in a flowing caftan. Her name tag IDed her as Dina Willner. “We stayed in Room 706 last year and we forgot that we’re two doors away from that this year.”
Steinbock raised a sceptical eyebrow. “All three of you forgot?”
“Her key card unlocked the door,” said one of the detectives.
“Does it unlock her own door?” asked Steinbock.
“We didn’t check,” the officer admitted and turned to go try it, but Ms. Willner turned bright red and Steinbock stopped him.
“You kept your keycard from last year?” he asked the embarrassed woman.
She nodded, shamefaced, and her two friends edged back a little.
“They don’t always change the code,” said Ms. Willner, “and it’s fun to check and see. This is only the second time an old card has worked. We would never go in and take anything, but we’re going to enter a short-story contest this fall and we thought this would make a good hook. It was research. Honest.”
“How long have you been coming to this convention?” asked Steinbock.
“Nine years.”
He held out his hand. “Give me the rest of the cards.”
The woman started to bluster, then opened her purse and handed him several plastic key cards, each with a room number written on the back in permanent ink. “Number 710 is our room.”
“Where were you between eleven and three last night?” he asked sternly.
“In our room. Asleep. We had to be up early for the Sisters in Crime breakfast at seven-thirty.”
The other two vigorously agreed and one of them said, “Are you finished with us? We want to go catch Parnell Hall’s humor panel.”
Steinbock nodded and handed back the keycard to 710. “But leave your contact information with this officer.”
As they started to go, Dina Willner paused. “You probably want to know if Avis Arthur had any enemies here.”
Steinbock frowned. “You know of an enemy?”
“Dexter Bumgartner,” said Ms. Willner. “He used to be a huge fan of her books. Last year, he was high bidder at the charity auction for a cameo in her new book.”
“Cameo?”
“Some writers let charities auction off the opportunity to be a character in their books. Dexter Bumgartner was so taken with Avis’s books and with Avis herself that he was almost like a stalker. He’d come over to her at the bar or hang around her signing table and try to monopolize her attention. She was so appalled when he bid twenty-three hundred dollars to be in her new book that instead of making him an innocuous secondary character, she made him a flasher with halitosis. He’s furious. Threatening to sue her. Telling everybody not to buy her book.”
As the three roommates headed off to their panel, Morna Brown said, “It was mean of Avis, but she could be pretty vindictive when someone rubbed her the wrong way and that Bumgartner man really was a big nuisance. He can’t sue, though. Anyone who wins that sort of bid has to sign a release or we’d never donate a cameo.”