The Weekend Was Murder Read online

  Praise for

  The Weekend Was Murder!

  “A masterfully constructed, engaging read that will delight mystery fans.… Ingeniously plotted, fast-paced and lighthearted.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Nixon’s many fans will love wading through the myriad details and placing bets on the outcome.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Books by Joan Lowery Nixon

  FICTION

  A Candidate for Murder

  The Dark and Deadly Pool

  Don’t Scream

  The Ghosts of Now

  Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories

  The Haunting

  In the Face of Danger

  The Island of Dangerous Dreams

  The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore

  Laugh Till You Cry

  Murdered, My Sweet

  The Name of the Game Was Murder

  Nightmare

  Nobody’s There

  The Other Side of Dark

  Playing for Keeps

  Search for the Shadowman

  Secret, Silent Screams

  Shadowmaker

  The Specter

  Spirit Seeker

  The Stalker

  The Trap

  The Weekend Was Murder!

  Whispers from the Dead

  Who Are You?

  NONFICTION

  The Making of a Writer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1992 by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Cover photographs copyright © Comstock Images (top); © Nick Koudis/PhotoDisc/PictureQuest (bottom)

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press, New York, in 1992.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-385-30531-0 (trade) — eISBN: 978-0-307-82348-9 (ebook)

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To the dedicated middle school and junior high teachers and librarians, Betty Carter, Barbara Edwards, Pam Boyd, and Ken Kowen, who asked, “Will you write our kids a mystery they can act out and solve?” and to Dr. Richard Abrahamson, who so generously offered his good advice.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  A chilling silence filled the nineteenth floor of the Ridley Hotel as Tina Martinez and I stepped from the elevator into the hallway. Mutely lighted, the dark-paneled walls seemed to breathe inward, as though someone had suddenly stopped talking to listen intently. Tina nervously glanced to the right and the left and gave a little shiver.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Tina whispered, and the whisper sounded so scary, the hair on my arms rose and began to tickle. I stared down the long, dim hallway behind us, wondering what she’d seen that I couldn’t see.

  Tina, who works in hotel security, tiptoed down the hall to the second door on the right. She raised a hand to knock, but stopped, turned, and stared at me with the same terrified expression on her face that I’d seen the week before when we went to a horror movie together.

  “Tina, what’s the matter with you?” I asked. Chills wiggled up and down my backbone.

  “Never mind,” she mumbled.

  Never mind? What kind of an answer was that? And what was the matter with me that I’d let my imagination lead me from the beautiful Ridley Hotel into a make-believe house of horrors? I took a deep breath, threw back my shoulders, and stood as straight as I could, which is enough for most people to take notice of, since I’m five feet, ten inches tall.

  Mary Elizabeth Rafferty, I told myself, don’t be a nincompoop. Even though Tina is behaving like a refugee from a Godzilla commercial, there is nothing to be afraid of here. Nothing.

  “Tina,” I said in a normal voice, which seemed to boom and echo down the empty hallway, making me shudder, “this is weird. It’s ten o’clock at night, I’m going off duty in the health club, and you rush in and practically beg me to come up to the nineteenth floor with you. So I do, and now you act like Frankenstein’s monster is on the other side of that door. What are we doing up here, anyway?”

  She struggled to get a grip on herself before she answered. “Security got another complaint about noise and loud music in room nineteen twenty-seven,” she said. “Any time we get a complaint we have to check it out, and this time it was my turn.”

  What noise and loud music? I listened intently to the silence and looked at the number on the door to make sure we were on the right floor.

  “I know,” Tina said before I had a chance to ask another question. “You don’t hear anything. We never do.”

  “Maybe whoever’s staying in nineteen twenty-seven heard us coming and turned down the television.”

  Tina shook her head. “Nobody’s staying there. The desk rarely assigns this room to a hotel guest—only when the Ridley’s overbooked and someone with a reservation gets angry and starts making threats.” She paused and looked nervously at the door of nineteen twenty-seven before she added, “And then we get a different kind of complaint.”

  “I don’t get it. Complaint about what?”

  “About the ghost,” she said. “The Ridley tries to keep it quiet, but room nineteen twenty-seven is haunted. The maids won’t set foot inside to clean unless they’ve got company, and the one who does bed turn-downs and leaves chocolate mints on pillows around nine o’clock each night wouldn’t be caught dead inside nineteen twenty-seven when it’s occupied.”

  I flattened myself against the wall—the opposite wall—and tried to make myself believe it wasn’t holding me up. “Aw, come on,” I said.

  Tina, who is nineteen—three years older than I am—plans on becoming a psychiatrist someday. She’s usually very levelheaded, even though she likes to point out our psychological hang-ups and offer a lot more advice than anyone wants, and this suddenly trembling excuse for a security guard didn’t fit. “It’s a gag, right?” I asked. “You’re trying to scare me with some crazy story about ghosts.”

  “No, Liz. Honest, it’s true,” Tina insisted.

  “There’s really a ghost in that room? How many people have seen it?”

  “No one’s ever really seen it. They’ve just felt it, and things … well, peculiar things have happened.”

  Tina looked sincere, but I couldn’t go along with this ghost thing too easily. Trying not to show how frightened I was, I asked, “Whoever heard of a psychiatrist who believes in ghosts?”

  Tina didn’t react the way I thought she would. Her fa
ce grew red and she got a little huffy. “Obviously, you’ve never heard of parapsychology and the many recorded instances of officially observed ectoplasm,” she told me. “And then there’s the theory of the electrically charged photographic imprint brought on by a violent death, and—”

  I interrupted her. “Okay, okay. I really don’t want to hear all that, so I’ll just accept it. But you have to tell me, what’s the story about this room?”

  Tina shot a quick glance toward the door, as though she thought someone inside might be eavesdropping, and lowered her voice. “A few years ago a husband and wife stayed in this room for a week. There were some terrible arguments, and they turned up the volume on the TV and radio to try to cover them. Just ask housekeeping and room service how bad it was. Finally guests on this floor called in complaints, and Lamar himself came up to take care of things.”

  I could just picture the Ridley’s impressive, supercool chief of security, Lamar Boudry, giving that couple his down-the-nose stare. “So that took care of that,” I said. “One of Lamar’s stern looks would be enough to shut anyone up in a hurry.”

  “It probably did, but the next day they were at it again. The police said they must have struggled, a gun went off, and—” Tina interrupted herself. “See? It’s that electrically charged photographic imprint I told you about. A violent death, and the ghost goes through it again like a cassette tape.”

  I envisioned a see-through woman in a filmy white nightgown who carried a lighted candle as she floated through the room. The picture may have been influenced by the last late-night movie I saw on television, but it was probably close enough.

  I turned toward the elevators, eager to get as far away from that room as possible. “The ghost has turned off the noise and loud music, so let’s go.”

  Tina grabbed my arm. “Not yet. We can’t. I have to check out the room first.”

  Icy prickles ran up and down my back. Or were they somebody’s icy fingers? “You mean go inside?” I squeaked.

  Tina nodded. “That’s why I brought you with me,” she said. As I hung back, she pleaded, “Please, Liz. I need you. I can’t do it alone.”

  Ever since I began my summer job in the Ridley health club, Tina had been my friend. We may not have seen eye-to-eye on everything, especially on Fran—Francis Liverpool III—because Tina thought I should hold out for a handsome boyfriend who was a lot taller than I was; and I thought Fran was the neatest, most-fun-to-be-with guy I’d ever met, and I didn’t mind that he was four inches shorter than I am. That is, I didn’t mind much, and I liked the way Fran kissed.

  Tina also kept telling me, every time I dropped something or tripped over something, that my clumsiness stemmed from a lack of self-worth. Somehow she managed to tie a short boyfriend into it. I told her that I grew a lot last year, and I still wasn’t used to my head being so far from my feet, but that didn’t fit her pop-psychology theories. However, I liked Tina; she’d been a big help to me, and I decided I owed her a couple of favors.

  “All right,” I agreed, in a voice so small, it seemed to come out of my toes.

  Tina nodded, raised her hand again, and knocked on the door.

  I could only stare. “You knocked for a ghost? Do you expect it to open the door?”

  She gave me one of those looks and said, “We have to knock before entering any of the rooms. It’s a hotel rule.” She pulled out her passkey and opened the door.

  Reluctantly, I followed her inside, but stopped in amazement as Tina quickly flipped on a master switch. This wasn’t just a room, it was a large, elegant suite. From where I stood I could see a living room with deep sofas, glass tables, and a carved desk with gleaming bronze bookends, pencil holder, and paperweight. Beyond was a dining area, with a glass wall opening onto a balcony, and between the living room and dining room was a short hallway that probably led to a bedroom and bath. Everything was white and gold, soft and plush, mirrored and sparkly, with just a few accents of pale blue. A small crystal chandelier hung in the entryway over our heads, and a large one graced the dining room.

  It didn’t look like the kind of creepy, cobwebby place where a ghost would hang out, and there were no cold chills or floating, staring eyes. I was so fascinated with the suite, I didn’t even think about ghosts.

  And I couldn’t resist looking into the nearest mirror, which framed the room behind me. “Wow!” I said. “This place was designed for a redhead. All I’d need is the right designer gown to go with it.”

  “And a ton of money to pay the bill,” Tina said. “Don’t touch anything. You know how you are,” she admonished, and began to walk through the living room.

  I followed, chattering away. I picked up the paperweight, which was heavy enough to be real bronze, steadied the tall blown-glass vase that rocked a little as I gently brushed the table, and examined the delicate white-and-gold china demitasse cups on a sideboard in the dining area. I lifted one to examine it, but Tina froze, so I put it down again, managing to catch it before it rolled off the edge. I knew I was klutzy. I didn’t need Tina to remind me.

  “This is fantastic! I didn’t even dream the Ridley had a suite like this,” I said.

  “There are five of them on this floor—all of them on this north side,” Tina told me, “but only two are occupied right now—the one at the end of the hall and the one next to that.”

  “I don’t get it. The people way down there couldn’t hear noise coming from this suite,” I said.

  “The one at the end did,” Tina told me. Then, as though she suspected someone of hiding there, she carefully opened each of the cupboards under the built-in bar, which was in a waist-high divider that stood in front of the hallway entrance between the left side of the living room and the dining room. Tina went on to explain, “He’s a businessman from Japan, here for a meeting with some financial-investment group—that one Mr. Parmegan is in on. Rita, in housekeeping, says the man’s a candy-bar freak. The guy in the suite next to his is in that financial group too. I wonder if …”

  I wasn’t interested in a financial group, especially if it had any connection to the manager of the Ridley, who was a gracious host to hotel guests but about as friendly as Oscar the Grouch to his employees.

  “What about the other suites?” I asked. “The hotel’s giving me a room during the weekend because I’m one of the staff who’ll have to give out clues when they put on that murder-mystery weekend. Do you think there’s any chance that …”

  “None,” Tina said. She stopped and turned to look at me. I could see that she had something on her mind, and I wondered if she’d tell me about it. Tina loves good gossip. But she just said, “By tonight all the rest of the suites will be occupied.”

  “Has there ever been a murder-mystery weekend at the Ridley before?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “It’s something new here, which is probably why they sold out right away. There’s a limit. Only one hundred and fifty people can play the game.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like much of a game to me. I don’t know why people would want to pretend to solve a crime.”

  “Laura … You know Laura Dale, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know Laura. She’s head of the Ridley’s public relations. She’s the one who got the idea to put on this mystery thing.”

  “Okay, then,” Tina went on. “Laura told me it’s like being inside a mystery novel. People who love to read mysteries want to see if they can solve one, too, given the chance.”

  One hundred and fifty supersleuths running around the hotel? This was going to be something to see.

  Tina thought a moment, then seemed to make up her mind. She pulled out a chair from the dining table and sat down, motioning to me to do the same. Her eyes glittered and she lowered her voice as she said, “Liz, this is top secret, but I’ll trust you not to tell anyone. There’s something even more exciting than a mystery weekend going on at the Ridley. You know that big stolen-securities–money-laundering trial that’s going to begin on Monda
y?”

  “No,” I said.

  She was so surprised that for a moment she seemed to lose her train of thought. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Aren’t you interested in local crime news?”

  “I try to avoid it.”

  “Hmmm. Obviously an infantile return-to-the-womb response,” she said. “For your own welfare you should—”

  I interrupted. “What about the trial?”

  Tina remembered what she’d been talking about, and her enthusiasm returned. “Well! The district attorney’s key witness is a secretary who knows how the guy on trial managed it and can identify some of the syndicate people he dealt with. Lamar said her testimony’s so important, it could bring about the conviction. The only problem is that a prowler, who may or may not have anything to do with the syndicate, was chased away from the apartment complex where she lives, and now she’s terrified that her life is in danger, so she’s going to be sequestered with a policewoman here at the Ridley.”

  Tina proudly squared her shoulders, and her uniform of white shirt and maroon jacket and slacks looked even better filled out than usual. “Of course, Lamar and I and the rest of our security staff will be helping to protect her.”

  “Why did the desk put her up here in a suite?”

  “The suites have got two bedrooms,” she answered, “one for the witness and one for the policewoman.”

  I counted on my fingers. “There’s still one more suite. If it’s going to be empty …”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “The one on the other side of this suite will be occupied by that mystery writer and her daughter, the actress, who are putting on the mystery weekend.”

  “Yikes!” I said. “Do mystery writers make that much money?”

  “Not on your life,” she said. “For them it’s a comp.”

  “Which means?”

  “Complimentary. The hotel’s paying for it.”

  There was a loud buzz on Tina’s walkie-talkie, which made us both jump. It was Lamar, of course, and Tina convinced him she was simply doing a thorough checkup.

  She hooked the walkie-talkie back on her belt, said, “Come on,” to me, and walked into the first bedroom. I was right behind her, and when I saw that room I made a little strangling noise of total admiration and naked jealousy.