LITMIR.BIZ

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I can put you through by phone. She can give you the room number herself. Sorry, it’s a policy.” She handed me the house phone.

      It rang and rang until I slammed it down. I gave Stephanie a dirty look and stalked over to a cluster of love seats.

      I sank into the turquoise and silver striped upholstery to wait for Robin. I hoped she wasn’t expecting me in whatever the suite was. But she wasn’t. I spotted her capturing an elevator.

      “Robin!” I bellowed, dashing for the elevator, but the door had already closed.

      I got to the eighth floor without looking at myself in the mirrored walls but not without asking myself if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could possibly have recorded their own version of “Satisfaction”.

      The eighth floor was done in shades of peach and gold. It would have been very relaxing if I hadn’t been so revved up. I fished out the message again. Suite 8 something something wasn’t going to get me to Mitzi, but I held the paper up to the light just in case.

      One door stood open, with a maid’s cart heaped with fresh towels and toilet paper and all those little bottles they put in bathrooms.

      “Hello,” I hollered into the room. “Halloooo.”

      A dark-haired woman in a uniform popped out of the bathroom and stared.

      “Hello,” I said. “Can you help me? I’m meeting my friend Mitzi Brochu here and I can’t remember which room she’s in.”

      “Sorree. Not speak mooch Engleesh.” She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Fine.

      The next step was to pound on the doors of every suite on the floor. Not so bad. The suites would be in the corners, four to a floor.

      No answer at the first door. The door of the suite across the hall stood open. This must be it, I thought, starting towards it.

      “May I help you?”

      I spun around. A man had appeared out of nowhere behind me. He was tall, thin and very good-looking, with a slash of grey at each temple. And he scared the bejesus out of me. Until I saw the little brass tag that said Richard Sandes, General Manager.

      I exhaled. In my line of work I deal with too many women who have come off second best in chance encounters with strange men.

      “I’m looking for Mitzi Brochu. I have an appointment with her. Can you help me find her suite?”

      He shook his head. “Sorry. We can’t give out the room numbers of our guests. I’m sure you appreciate that when you’re staying in a hotel. But we can connect you with her on the house phone.”

      “Tried that,” I said. “Wait a minute. What’s….”

      I heard Robin cry out from the suite and I started to step through the open door into a little antechamber.

      “You can’t just go in there!” Richard Sandes yelped as I elbowed him out of the way.

      We both recoiled as a long gagging shriek tore through the air and Robin stumbled out into the hallway, her eyes rolling back into her head. Her mouth opened and shut and opened again. All without a word. She clutched at my skirt with her bloody hands as she slid to the floor and passed out on the peach carpet.

Two

      Someone had hated Mitzi. Hated her enough to tie her arms to the curved ends of the brass bedpost, gag her, and stab her through the heart with a sharpened stake. Hated her enough to write a poem on the wall over her head. In blood.

       Here she dies Full of lies Hell will be her Well-earned prize

      My stomach lurched as the still-red letters dripped on the wall. Mitzi’s open, staring, dead eyes seemed to carry traces of the terror she must have felt as she died. Don’t be stupid, I told myself, she’s dead. She can’t feel anything.

      I concentrated on Robin, who was babbling and weeping. And throwing up.

      The police should be able to help, I thought. In this case, I was off the mark. The troops were led by Detective Connor McCracken, sizeable, cool, and, under normal circumstances, probably quite good natured.

      This time, he and his fellow detective kept asking all of us, but especially Robin, probing questions in that monotone they must learn in police college. If they’d had any training at all, they would have noticed Robin alternating between deep flush and dead white. Her hands shook during certain parts of her story. I knew what that meant, and I hoped the detectives didn’t.

      “You can’t be here, you’re also a witness,” he said.

      “Like hell,” I said, “I’m her lawyer. Race you to the Supreme Court.”

      Detective Conn McCracken shrugged, sat Robin down in a chair and walked her through the events in Mitzi’s suite. He was large, late forties, and looked like he might coach little league on the week-ends. He smiled at Robin and even patted her hand. The good cop. Soften up the suspect before you turn her over to the bad cop.

      The bad cop was called Mombourquette. He had a rodent’s face and mean little eyes to match. He was just waiting for a chance to take a bite out of Robin. I kept flicking my eyes from Robin to McCracken to Mombourquette to make sure everybody behaved.

      When McCracken asked for the third time what Mitzi had wanted and Robin started to shake all over again, I put my foot down.

      “Can’t you see she’s in shock?” I said. “She needs a doctor, maybe even a hospital. You guys push her around any more and I’ll file a complaint with the Police Commission and you can read your names in the newspaper. Look at her. You can see her again when her doctor says it’s all right.”

      “We need a bit more information,” said Mombourquette, showing his sharp little teeth.

      “I saw nothing,” Robin said. She looked at me when she said it.

      “What else do you need to know? She’s already told you Mitzi Brochu, a well-known writer in women’s magazines, invited her up to the suite. She didn’t know why she was invited and when she got there the victim was dead. She didn’t see it happen and she didn’t see anyone leaving the room. She touched the body to see if there was still a pulse, and that’s how she got blood all over her. And now, as you might expect, she’s in a state of shock. Tell me, boys, would your mothers or sisters have behaved any differently?”

      “Good enough,” said McCracken, disappointing Ratface.

      I decided that Robin would be better off with her parents than alone in her townhouse. I got up and called them, telling them to get the family doctor mondo quicko and suggest this would be a good time for a house call.

      Of course, I knew Robin was lying to the police. I just didn’t know why.

      They say everybody is capable of murder under the right circumstances. But it would have taken a lot more than Mitzi with her trendy vindictiveness to turn Robin into a killer. And she never would have been able to tie those knots. She couldn’t even manage that for her Brownie badges.

      Conn McCracken took me aside, just before I bundled Robin into a blanket.

      “You’re Donald MacPhee’s daughter, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      “Jeez, I remember him from St. Jim’s. And Alexa’s your sister, right? I used to date her a bit. You were just a little kid when I saw you last. So, um, how is she?”

      I found it hard to drop my antagonistic mood. “Alexa? So so. Her husband died last fall and she’s still getting over it.”

      “Sorry to hear that,” he said, not looking sorry in the least.

      “Well, tell her I said hi.”

      “Sure.”

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