Kasey Michaels: High Heels and Homicide

Maggie nodded her agreement. «Right. But let's get back to Sam because he's our first victim and the murders are more important than the jewelry.»

«Says you, missy,» Sir Rudy grumbled, looking crestfallen.

Maggie pushed on. «Instead of sending Sam looking around for places to shoot the movie, Joanne was really sending Sam off to look for the jewels. Except she already had a pretty good idea where they were, and I don't think we understand that part yet. Do we, Alex?»

«A detail that will fall into place in time,» Saint Just told her. «For the nonce, we'll concentrate on Sam, as you call him, and Joanne. Joanne sent Sam off, the hiding place for the jewels was discovered, and the jewels recovered, all via this room and the secret passage. At which point there may have been a general falling-out or a planned severing of an uneasy partnership.»

«She killed him and left him in the attic room, maybe even dragged him up there,» Maggie clarified for their very attentive audience. «Sam didn't hang himself or get himself hanged. We told you it was murder, but I don't think we told you how we knew. He was strangled with Joanne's stopwatch cord and not hung up until hours later. That can be proved by the marks on Sam's neck, but we won't go into the how of that right now, either. We found the stopwatch behind a bureau up in the attic room right above us. We're figuring he died maybe an hour after I last saw him.»

«But then there was a problem, as is often the case with impulsive acts,» Saint Just said, taking up the story, pleased as he could be at how he and Maggie seemed to so neatly dovetail each other. «It would seem that Tabby and you, Mr. Lloyd, had decided to adjourn to this room, with the first murder committed and Sam's body still in the attic above you. And, quite possibly, the jewels were still there as well. You had to be removed from the room. Thus the open doors to flood the generators.»

«Why not just climb the stairs to the attics, Saint Just?» Sterling asked.

«A good question, but I believe I have the answer. The dust. Once the murder was done, the murderer or murderers had time to think, to come up with a plan. Footprints in the considerable dust would leave a trail showing that more than one person had climbed those stairs and walked those attics, both coming and going—that one person being the supposedly suicidal Sam Undercuffler, who could not possibly have made two tracks of footprints if he was dead by his own hand.»

«They could have just swept the attic and gotten rid of the whole dust problem,» Maggie said.

«True, but we've had more time to consider alternative possibilities. The murderers did not. They were, as you would say, winging it. To continue, the lack of footprints in the dust also would delay anyone's curiosity in searching for the writer in this particular attic of this very large pile, at least long enough for the murderers to make good their escape.»

«Besides,» Maggie interrupted yet again, «Sam was only the writer. If Joanne didn't ask about him, nobody would probably even notice he was missing. Except they didn't count on us.»

«Thank you, Maggie. And once a serious search party was mounted, there would be so many footprints that the former lack of them would never be noticed. And not to offend the ladies, but the cold would also have served to keep Undercuffler's body undiscovered.»

«So they could just have left him in the attic room,» Evan Pottinger said, obviously not as drunk as he might appear. «Why'd they go back and hang him out the window? Oh, right, maybe they had to go back for the jewelry anyway. And the suicide angle. You're figuring they didn't decide to fake the suicide until after he was already dead. I forgot. And we're saying murderers now. Plural. There's more than one?»

Maggie jumped in to answer. «Joanne's stopwatch cord may have been used as the murder weapon, but the woman most certainly did not lift Sam's dead weight up and out the window while tying him to the scaffolding. Not alone.»

«She's right,» Arnaud said, shaking his head. «It took the two of us just to cut him down again. Joanne couldn't have done it alone. But she killed him?»

«I'm afraid we can't ask her that,» Saint Just said, stepping away from the fireplace. «But there you have it. Unbelievable as it may seem, it appears that Joanne Pertuccelli and Sam Undercuffler, and one as-yet-unnamed cohort in crime, heard about the missing jewels, discovered the hidden passage, found the jewels, and then had a falling out that ended in the murders of two of the three accomplices. It is only left to discover that third party, who is, sadly, one of us, unexpectedly trapped here with us at the moment. And the jewels, of course. When we discover the one, we will find the other.»

«I don't understand,» Troy said, frowning. «How did they know about the jewelry?»

Saint Just, who had previously been annoyed with Troy Barlow's thick skull, wished the man hadn't taken this moment to at last appear incisive.

«We don't know. We're working on that, just as I am still wondering why the miscreants didn't simply shut Sam's body in the secret passage and be done with it, allowing everyone to think he'd simply gone missing—at least until the heat of summer. Perhaps the faked hanging was a natural thought progression for someone in the very visual movie industry? Or perhaps the method of demise for Uncle Willis spurred their imaginations?»

«Stuff him behind that wall? And you said summer. Eeeeuuuwww , you mean he'd start to smell when it got hot.» Marylou put her hand to her mouth, then buried her head against Sir Rudy's chest. «That's just too gross.»

«Indeed,» agreed Saint Just. «Now, if there are no further questions, and if no one is prepared to confess, I suggest you all adjourn once more to the main saloon and the warmth of that quite delightful fire while we await the arrival of the constable.»

«That's it? That's all? Sam and Joanne were bad guys, and they're dead—and so what? And there's still a killer in the group? No way.» Evan Pottinger lifted the lead crystal stopper from the decanter he held and threw it in the general direction of the bed. «I say let's frisk everybody, find the jewels. I get to pat down Boffo girl.» Then he drank straight out of the decanter.

Saint Just was tempted to agree with at least the spirit of Evan's suggestion. It was time every guest's bedchamber was searched, as, judging by the size of the outline in the dusty stone niche, the amount of jewels was considerable, certainly more than could be concealed on anyone's person. «I think personal searches are unnecessary, Evan. However, as you all return to the main saloon, please, Maggie, Sterling, and I will conduct searches of each bedchamber until such time as the constable can ford the flood.»

«I don't want you poking around in my room. You're no cop,» Troy said, pouting. «I'm going with you.»

A chorus of «me, too's» followed. Naturally.

«Very well. But we'll all go together, room to room.»

«Like a group toidy,» Bernice said, and Maggie giggled.

«Please don't explain that, ladies,» Saint Just said. «Now off you go, two by two, as has already been suggested.»

«She's gone.» Byrd Stockwell turned in a full circle. «Nikki's gone! Son-of-a—»

«Nikki?» Maggie looked up at Saint Just, wide-eyed. «No. She's the third one?»

Saint Just was confused. Really, really confused. How could he have been watching the wrong suspect? «There was always the hope someone would, as you Americans say, make a break for it. But Miss Campion? Perhaps she, too, had need of the facilities?»

«Yeah? Well, let's go find out,» Maggie said, already heading for the doorway to the hall, hard on Byrd Stockwell's heels.