The Weekend Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon

Author:Joan Lowery Nixon [Nixon, Joan Lowery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82348-9
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

I suppose I slept during the night. I must have slept, because the next morning the telephone woke me up.

I answered with a mumble, not awake enough to open either my eyes or my mouth, and heard Eileen say, “Liz? It’s already seven. I thought you’d be awake.”

“I’m awake,” I said, and for a moment tried to figure out where I was. Suddenly it came back to me and I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Something’s right. Mom fixed the script to account for Randolph’s hit on the head.”

“Good,” I said, my confidence in Mrs. Duffy’s talents returning.

“Listen carefully,” Eileen said, “because this concerns you.”

“I know,” I said, “I told everybody he was—”

“Listen,” she repeated. “This is what really happened. You went back to the nineteenth floor because you were curious about the murder. You thought that maybe 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.

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