The Weekend Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon

thatmaybe one of the crime lab investigators would answer some of your questions.”
    “Like, what was the murder weapon?”
    “Right,” she said. “Very good. You’ve got the picture.”
    “Did they answer my questions?”
    “No. Instead they asked
you
questions. They wanted to know how you happened to find the body, if you saw anyone else on the nineteenth floor, and if you touched anything. Got it?”
    “Got it. But where does Randolph Hamilton come in?”
    “Randolph Hamilton had been curious too. But he was afraid to question the police, so he hung around the hallway, trying to listen in. When you got off the elevator, he quickly stepped into that nearby broom closet so that you wouldn’t see him. Do you remember where the closet is?”
    “Yes.”
    “Unfortunately for Randolph, he knew you’d been talking to the police on the scene, and he wanted to find out what you’d learned, so as you came by on your way to the elevators, he stepped out of the closet. You were edgy in the first place, so when Randolph suddenly appeared behind you, grabbing your shoulder and speaking your name, you instinctively turned around and slugged him, knocking him out. You thought you’d killed him, so you hurried downstairs.”
    I didn’t know what to say. “Your mother, the famous mystery writer, thought this up?”
    “Don’t worry. It will work.”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think I could have hit Randolph that hard.”
    “You were under stress. You were also a nervous wreck. The sleuths will buy that. They know that a burst of adrenaline causes people to have unusual strength.”
    She was probably right about the sleuths. Last night they were accepting anything and everything, and I suppose I did act kind of weird, with all that running around and screaming.
    But there was another problem. “With a room full of police at the crime scene, why did I go all the way down to the lobby to get Lamar Boudry?”
    “Mom already thought of that,” Eileen explained. “Remember, you thought Randolph was dead and that you had killed him, but you didn’t want anyone to know you had done it. If you went down to the lobby, it would buy you some time and confuse the issue. It could have been
anyone
in that hall who did it, not just you. That’s also why you told everyone at first that you’d just found Randolph. Understand?”
    I hesitated. “Could I have a new name?”
    “What do you mean? You’re playing yourself.”
    “That’s the point. Myself is coming across as pretty stupid.”
    “No, no, no,” Eileen reassured me. “Remember? You were terrified, and you panicked.”
    “I also must have confessed everything, or no one would have figured it out.”
    Now there was silence on her end. “I guess you did,” she said.
    Remembering what Mrs. Larabee had told me, I said,“I not only didn’t feel for a pulse, to make sure Randolph was dead, but I tried to trick everyone, and then I blabbed the whole thing. Put dishonest and idiotic in there along with stupid.”
    Eileen sighed. “Frankly, Liz,” she said, “I’d just as soon pack up my actors and go home. It’s awful knowing that a real murder took place here. John—uh—Randolph’s scared to death, Annabelle’s hung up on that story about the ghost in room nineteen twenty-seven and jumps at the slightest sound, and Mom kept me awake half the night trying to work her plot around what you said about Randolph being dead. But Detective Jarvis asked us to stay and keep the mystery weekend going, and actors aren’t kidding when they say ‘the show must go on.’ If they’ve got a job to do, no matter what happens, they do it.”
    “I guess I’m an actor, too, even if I am using my own name,” I told her.
    “I hope so,” she said.
    I felt kind of strange thinking about the way people would be looking at me after that story about what I had done came out, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell them