How to Crash a Killer Bash (31 page)

So I was right—the murder weapon was the real dagger. When Mary Lee had been murdered, Sam must have removed it from its case, used it to stab Mary Lee, then replaced it. He’d no doubt done similar things to Jason and Ed Pike. He’d “borrowed” real artifacts from the exhibits—like the heavy statue he held in his hand?—used them as weapons, and returned them to their proper places, hidden in plain sight, right under our noses.

Sam Wo, the friendly, unassuming head of security at the museum, had murdered three people. Why? At the moment it didn’t matter, because it looked like I was next.

Still groggy from the bludgeoning, my head splitting, I tried to think of a way to keep him from finishing the job. Sam was a talker. If I could get him to share his reasoning, it might give me time to think of a way to escape.

I glanced at the cameras. No help there. Sam had obviously disabled them, making sure I wouldn’t be rescued by the other security guards. Unless they got suspicious and figured out the cameras had been turned off.

The museum was now closed to the public.

And no one—not even Brad—knew I was here.

Think fast, Presley. This is just like a party foul. Solve the problem.

“So what happened, Sam? Did Mary Lee plan to fire you? You talked about losing everything. Were you about to lose your job?”

“It wasn’t you in the beginning, Presley. It was Mary Lee. At least, I thought it was. See, I thought I was making an investment in a sure thing when I invested in Mary Lee’s financial plan. She promised my money back tenfold, guaranteed. And knowing Mary Lee’s ability to turn stone into gold, I bought into it. It would have been all I needed to retire, take a trip with my wife, pay for my kids’ college.”

So that was the significance of the names and numbers in that ledger. Mary Lee was keeping a secret account of the money in some kind of investment scheme.

Sam sighed before continuing. “Instead I lost everything. My nest egg. My home. My wife left me. My kids won’t speak to me. Hell, I’ve been sleeping here at the museum for the past few months and eating leftovers from the cafeteria, just to get by.” His eyes filled with tears.

“That’s awful,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic while stalling for time.

“Yeah, well, it gets worse,” Sam said, blinking back the tears. “When I found out there was no money coming to me, I confronted the Queen of the Museum. She claimed it wasn’t her idea—that her ex-husband had blackmailed her into doing it. I asked Jason about it, and he said she was lying, that she was the mastermind behind it all.”

“So you killed her?” I said gently, hoping I didn’t trigger an impulse to do the same to me.

He sniffed. “When I found out the investment was bogus and I wouldn’t be getting my money back, I wanted revenge, but I didn’t have any evidence. So I killed her while she was alone—after everyone had been in but Delicia—and made it look like Delicia’d done it. Made sense, after that fight they had and her wishing Mary Lee was dead. I figured with Mary Lee gone, the scam would be discovered, and then the museum would reimburse me. If not, maybe Corbin would when he inherited everything.”

“Why did you kill Jason, then, if Mary Lee was the one who duped you?”

“Because after she was dead, I went through her stuff, hoping to find some of the money. That’s when I found the ledger. Trouble was, it wasn’t her handwriting. That’s when I knew someone else was the real mastermind.”

“Jason,” I said, breathlessly.

“Jason,” he repeated. “He really had been blackmailing her—something having to do with their son is all I knew. When I figured it out from the handwriting, I went to Jason and told him I’d expose him to the cops if I didn’t get my money back—or worse, that I’d kill him like I did Mary Lee. But he threatened to tell the police that I’d murdered her—and that he could prove it.” Sam gave a short, barking laugh.

“How?” I asked.

“He was at that mystery party you gave the other night. Came dressed in a Sherlock Holmes costume and wore a mask so I wouldn’t recognize him. See, I’d made a few threatening calls to Mary Lee about getting my money back, so she told him to come to the party and keep an eye out.”

I glanced around surreptitiously as he told his story. I had to find some way to escape this maniac. My leg ached, and my head was throbbing. If I tried to run, I doubted I’d make it very far before he caught up and hit me again. The only thing I spotted that wasn’t tied down was my purse, which had gone flying when Sam slugged me. Its contents were strewn all over the floor—and just out of reach.

“But you managed to kill her anyway.”

He shrugged, as if killing someone was no big deal. “I had it all planned for that night. I knew about the play and her part in it from seeing the rehearsals. I’d tilted the camera up so it wouldn’t record what happened. Then I sneaked into the mural room through the side door, right before your friend Delicia entered.”

“With the dagger you’d stolen from its case . . .”

“Yeah, like I said, that one was planned. I disabled the cameras up there, unscrewed the case, removed the dagger, used it on Mary Lee, then replaced it—simple as that. I’d overheard Delicia arguing with Mary Lee and figured she’d be blamed for Mary Lee’s death.”

I tried to keep a clear head, in spite of my throbbing forehead and the still-trickling blood. Time, I knew, was running out. I had to keep him talking and figure out how to save myself.

“So when you realized you killed the wrong person, you bashed Jason over the head . . .”

Sam slapped the statue into his hand again. “I had to, since he was the one who really masterminded the scheme. I tried to get my money back from him, but he said he’d spent it all. Then he threatened to expose me to the cops. So I called him, told him I had the ledger with all his notations, and told him to meet me in the museum garden later that night—and bring cash. I came up behind him while he stood there, hit him with the Dogon statue, and dragged him to the pond. Once he’d been discovered, it was easy to replace the statue during all the commotion.”

“Then why did you give me that list from Mary Lee’s locker and let me search her office?”

“I wanted you to think one of the names in the ledger was the murderer—like Tannacito. My name was on the last page, which I removed. And when you wanted to go back to Mary Lee’s office, I brought along the ledger and stuck it under the desk while you were searching the filing cabinet. I wanted you to find it. I just didn’t figure you’d trace the indentations written on the inside cover. And when you did, well. . . .”

The deserted museum suddenly felt like a mausoleum, slowly entombing me. Ghostly shadows from the nearby artifacts and exhibits sent home the message that I was alone with a calculating murderer. I glanced at a nearby camera, praying it would magically turn on, but the unlit sensor spoke volumes.

Nobody was watching.

I spotted my cell phone a few inches away and tried to reach it with my foot while he rambled on.

Sam caught me looking and kicked the phone away. “Oh no, you don’t,” he said. “It’s time to end this, before you do something really stupid.” He raised the statue.

Still lying sideways on the floor, I began to push myself backward and bumped into the base of another exhibit.

Trapped.

Sweat broke out on my forehead.

Reaching down, I pulled off one of my Doc Martens Mary Janes and threw it at him. Those suckers weight a ton.

The shoe bounced off his chin.

Unhurt but startled, Sam blinked. In that split second, ignoring the pain, I scrambled up and made a run for it. Before I could get more than a couple of feet away, he lunged and tackled me. Hard. I slammed back onto the floor, knocking the breath out of me.

Sam lay on top of my back. I lifted my head, gasping like a fish out of water, and spotted a few more items from my purse within reach. I grunted, trying to get my breath and get Sam off of me, but his weight kept my lungs from expanding. Finally he pushed himself up, and I sucked in a big breath of air.

I rolled to the side, moaning. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sam searching around the floor. The statue he’d been holding lay a couple of feet away. He must have dropped it when he tackled me.

As he reached for it, I grabbed the closest thing I could.

My “Killer Parties” promo pen.

Sam reared above me. He held the solid statue in both hands, high above his head. His face was a mask of determination, his eyes wide with anticipation, his mouth a grimace. I knew instantly that if he landed the projected blow, it would kill me.

As he began to bring the heavy artifact down, I rolled up to a sitting position, gripped the ballpoint pen in both hands, and clicked the button. With all the strength I had left in me, plus a little adrenaline, I jammed the sharp end into his thigh.

Sam screamed, his howl of pain echoing through the empty room. Doubled over in pain, he released the statue from his grip. I rolled over, just missing being clobbered.

Pushing myself up, the gash in my head thundering and my leg pounding, I stood, using a display case as a crutch. I glanced back to see Sam in a crumpled heap on the floor, gripping his wounded leg. Blood had feathered out on his khaki pant leg around the embedded pen.

My cell phone. In no shape to run, I had to find it and call for help. There was no telling what a desperate, hurting Sam might try next—even with a pen sticking out of his leg. Scanning the floor, I spotted the phone a few feet away and limped over to get it. I pushed the phone icon to reach Brad—his was the last number I’d called—but before I could tap the screen, two uniformed guards appeared out of nowhere.

“Thank God!” I whispered, too exhausted to speak any louder. Feeling dizzy, achy and near collapse, I stuffed my cell phone in my pocket and slumped down on the floor, waiting for the guards to take action.

“What’s going on in here?” the tall black woman said, looking back and forth between the two of us.

The other guard, short, Asian, rushed to Sam’s side. He gasped when he saw the protruding pen.

Before I could get a word out, Sam yelled, “She stabbed me! The bitch is crazy! She was trying to steal that statue over there!” He pointed to the dropped Dogon he’d used to nearly kill me.

The woman ran over to me. But instead of helping me up, she pulled out a plastic strip that looked like a garbage bag fastener, jerked my hands behind my back, and secured them together with the fastener.

“He’s lying!” I croaked in a weak, hoarse voice. “He tried to—”

“Don’t listen to her!” Sam screamed. “I caught her breaking into the exhibit. She took that statue and tried to get away.” He pointed, then winced in pain.

“No, I wasn’t—”

He cut me off. “When I tried to stop her, she stabbed me in the leg. If you two hadn’t come when you did, I’d probably be dead. Murdered. Like she murdered Ms. Miller and Ed.” He was gasping between words.

“That’s not true!” I cried out, as the puzzled guards looked back and forth between us. “He killed Mary Lee. And Jason. And the security guard. If you don’t believe me, call Detective Melvin at SFPD. He’ll vouch for me.” At least, I hoped he would.

“She’ll say anything to save herself,” Sam said, giving me a sly glance. “Susan, she may have an accomplice. Check the other floors. Then call the police. Mike, help me get this thing out of my leg.”

After checking my wrist restraints to be sure they were secure, Susan left the room. I watched helplessly as Mike knelt down to assist Sam. As he leaned over Sam’s leg to examine the wound, Sam grabbed the Dogon statue he’d dropped.

“Watch out!” I screamed as Sam swung it at the side of Mike’s head.

The guard sagged to the floor. He never knew what hit him.

“Look what you’ve done,” Sam said, puffing. “You’ve killed another one of my guards. Even tied up like that, you’re a murdering menace. You have to be stopped . . .”

Sitting on the floor, my hands tied behind me, I scooted backward.

“Sam, it’s too late. They’ll never believe I killed him. You’re just getting yourself in deeper and deeper.”

He inched forward, dragging his wounded leg. His breathing was labored. “Oh, no, Presley. You’re the one in too deep. I warned you to stop with my phone calls and messages. I even tried to scare you off through your mother. But instead of planning your next party, you had to snoop around. You planned your own death.”

I struggled with the bonds; they cut into my wrists. I knew I didn’t have a lot of options, even with an essentially one-legged Sam. With his hands free, he could still kill me before I could get away.