The Name of the Game Was Murder (7 page)

“Not a bit,” he said, then quickly added, “but you were kind to prepare it for me.”

Thea smiled at him. “It’s fortunate that we were both restless at the same time.”

“So you were downstairs too,” Laura said. She smiled and tossed a sharp glance in Alex’s direction. “Thea, did you, by any chance, run into Alex? Around midnight?”

Thea shook her head. “It was after two when I decided I’d never get to sleep and I wandered down to the kitchen.”

Now it was Alex’s turn to stare smugly at Laura.

So … Senator Maggio had been wandering around the house last night too. But then, so had Aunt Thea. I still couldn’t figure out who had been at my door.

Julia let out a long, aggrieved sigh. “That’s neither here nor there,” she said. “We’re all waiting for Augustus to make his next move. Where is he?”

“He’s usually down by this time,” Thea said, and looked at her watch. She pressed a little button by her chair, and in less than a minute Walter appeared.

“Will you please see what’s keeping Mr. Trevor?” she asked, and with a nod Walter left.

We could hear voices in the entry hall, and we all listened, thinking Walter had met up with Augustus, but one voice was a woman’s, and it sounded sharp and agitated. It must have been Lucy’s.

“You seem to have a devoted staff,” Julia said. “I can’t imagine how you’d find anyone willing to live out here away from civilization.”

“I suppose we’re very fortunate,” Thea answered. “Lucy and Tomás, our cook, have been with us just a short while, and Walter only a year or two longer; but Frances Engstrom has been in our employ for over thirty years, and has become a dear and close friend.”

“Only you, Thea, would make friends of the household
help,” Julia said, and rolled her eyes, but I thought it was nice that Thea and Mrs. Engstrom were good friends.

The senator pointedly looked at his watch and grunted with exasperation, while Buck said, “Take it easy, Arthur. We aren’t going anywhere.”

“I’d like to get this so-called game over with,” Senator Maggio said.

Alex began to answer him, but again we heard voices in the hall, and there was no mistaking that somebody was
very
upset.

We were all staring toward the open doorway when Mrs. Engstrom, Lucy, and Walter appeared. Mrs. Engstrom was pale and she fought to regain her balance as a tearful Lucy clung to her. “Mrs. Trevor,” Mrs. Engstrom said, but her voice wobbled and she couldn’t continue.

Walter made an effort to collect himself. He stood a little taller, took a deep breath, and said, “Mrs. Trevor, Lucy discovered that Mr. Trevor’s bed had not been slept in, so I went to his office to see if he had spent the night there on the couch.”

He gulped, and I could see his Adam’s apple wobble up and down before he continued. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trevor. Mr. Trevor is dead.”

Thea gasped and half rose to her feet, but Lucy shrieked, “He’s not just dead, Mrs. Trevor! There’s blood on his head, and there’s blood splattered on his desk! Mr. Trevor was murdered!”

L
ucy had been right about the blood. There was a lot of it. We all rushed to the door of Augustus’s office and tried to push and elbow our way inside—but not too far inside. It was as though we really couldn’t believe what had happened to Augustus unless we actually saw it for ourselves.

Augustus Trevor was seated in his chair, his head on the desk next to the computer keyboard. One bent arm covered his face.

This was not a TV cop show in which the problem would be over in half an hour. Augustus Trevor had been a real person whose life had been taken away. I suddenly felt sick. For a moment it was hard to breathe, and I found that I was shaking. I held on to the door frame for support and took a couple of long, shuddering breaths to steady myself. The horrible feeling gradually slid away, and I knew I’d be able to handle the situation.

However, Laura moaned softly and gracefully sank to the floor, sitting with her back against the wall, her hands
clasped in her lap while silent tears spilled from her closed eyelids. I would have offered to help her—at least bring her a glass of water—except that I’d seen her do exactly the same thing when she was playing the part of a woman whose husband went off to battle in that Revolutionary War movie she starred in a few years ago.

Alex gagged, turned white, and ran from the room, shoving Buck aside with more strength than I’d thought he had.

“Ouch!” Buck muttered as he staggered into the pointed open drawer of a nearby file cabinet.

I suddenly remembered Thea and turned to look for her. She was standing just outside the door, Mrs. Engstrom’s arms around her.

“She’ll be all right,” Mrs. Engstrom said as her glance met mine. “It’s a terrible shock, but don’t worry. She’ll be all right.”

I nodded. Thea’s face hadn’t lost its color, and she seemed to be in good hands.

I went back to the door of the office as Senator Maggio ordered everyone, “Stay away from the crime scene. There’s evidence here that should be protected.”

“If you’re looking for the murder weapon, it’s probably that fireplace thing,” Julia said, and pointed at the sharp-ended brass poker that lay on the floor.

There were dark stains near the point, so she might have been right; but something else had caught my attention. The mesh screen across the fireplace that would normally have been closed was open, and lying among the ashes were some curled and cracked metal and plastic pieces.

“Look at the fireplace,” I told the others. “Someone has burned some computer disks.”

In one bound Buck fell to his knees before the fireplace and groped among the ashes, jerking out the disks and making a terrible mess. “There’s scraps of paper too,” Buck said. “Looks like typing paper.”

He got to his feet, one hand holding aloft the disks and a couple of scorched corners from typing paper—one with the page number 395 printed on it—while he tried to wipe the ashes from his other hand on the seat of his jeans.

“Do you think those are the backup disks containing the manuscript Augustus was telling us about?” Julia asked.

“I hope so,” Laura answered, and I saw that she was back on her feet.

“Turn on the computer,” Julia said. “There must be a file.…”

Senator Maggio flipped the Off switch and said, “I’ve already tried it. There’s no file. Everything has been wiped out.”

“If someone destroyed the file, the manuscript, and the disks, he’s put an end to the threat,” Alex said from behind me. Apparently he’d made a quick recovery.

Julia’s mouth twisted as she added, “And put an end to Augustus, as well.”

“Who did it?” Laura whispered.

A long moment of silence followed as we all realized that one person in this room was a murderer. I could feel tickly drops of sweat skitter down my backbone, and I shivered. “The murderer has to be someone who’s familiar with computers,” I said, “someone who’d know how to delete the file.”

Julia was the first to respond. “I don’t use a computer. I write in longhand, and Jake types up the finished manuscript for me.”

“I don’t use a computer,” the senator said.

“Me either,” Buck answered.

Alex shook his head.

“Well, don’t everybody look at me, for goodness’ sakes,” Laura complained. “I’ve never had a reason even to touch one of those things.”

I didn’t look at her. I glanced from Julia to Alex to Senator Maggio. No matter what they’d just said, a few minutes ago each of them had proved that they knew enough about computers to understand files and disks. Each of them was lying.

“We must notify the police,” Senator Maggio said.

“We can’t,” I told him. “The phone lines are out. Remember?”

This called for another moment of silence. Each of us sneaked appraising looks at the others while trying not to be seen doing it.

Finally, Julia said, “Let’s face some plain facts and look at the positive side. Whatever Augustus had in mind for us is over now.”

I heard Thea’s sharp intake of breath, and I wasn’t the only one who was disgusted with Julia for being so insensitive. Senator Maggio scowled at her and asked in a low voice, “Are you forgetting that Trevor’s wife is present?”

Julia looked embarrassed, but she said, “All I meant was that the manuscript has been destroyed.”

“No, it hasn’t,” I said.

Everyone turned to look at me. “Everything on the hard disk in the computer was deleted, and the backup disks
were burned, along with what looks like a printed copy of the manuscript,” I told them, “but Aug-Augustus was a professional writer. He wouldn’t print just one copy of his manuscript. He’d have made one to send to his agent—which he said hadn’t been sent yet—and one for himself. Even though the manuscript would be on his computer’s hard disk and on backup disks, writers always make at least two printed copies of everything they write.”

“How do you know all this?” Laura asked me.

“I read the writers’ magazines.” I turned to Julia for support. “You’re a writer. You do the same thing with your manuscripts, don’t you?”

Julia’s mouth opened and closed and opened again. “Well, sure,” she said. “My—um—secretary does.”

Mrs. Engstrom asked Aunt Thea, “Is it true what your niece said?”

“Yes,” Thea answered. “Augustus always made a second copy of every completed manuscript.”

“Where did he keep the copies?” the senator asked.

“He always kept his notes and materials for whatever manuscript he was working on currently in the top drawer of that file cabinet.” She pointed, and we all turned to look. It was the drawer that had been standing open. “Since he said the manuscript had been completed, there should have been two copies of the manuscript in that drawer, as well.”

Buck peered inside and shook his head. “It’s empty.”

“Maybe both copies were burned.” Laura’s voice was high-pitched and excited with hope.

The senator bent to study the contents of the fireplace. “I doubt it,” he said. “Considering that we know there were at least three hundred and ninety-five typewritten
pages in that manuscript, if not more, there isn’t enough ash here to account for two manuscripts.”

“If there’s another copy, then we should look for it,” Alex said.

“Do we really want it found?” Laura asked.

“I think we do,” the senator answered. “It will show up sooner or later, and if it got into the wrong hands, it might pose a future threat.”

“Are you talking about blackmail?” Buck asked.

No one needed to give the obvious answer, so Julia said, “We’ll find the manuscript, then destroy it without reading it. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” everyone said.

I was glad that none of them asked
me
to agree, because the real reason for finding the manuscript, as far as I was concerned, would be to read it in order to discover which of the guests had a reason for murdering Augustus.

Buck said, “If Augustus hid it, then it’s probably somewhere in this room.”

“We could divide the room into sections,” Julia suggested. “Two of us could take the bookcase, two the file cabinets, one the desk …”

“Ohhh,” Laura murmured. “While … uh … Augustus is still here?”

I couldn’t stand it any longer and shouted, “You can’t decide to search this room! It isn’t your house! It’s Aunt Thea’s house!”

Thea moved closer and took my hand. Even though I was upset, I noticed that Mrs. Engstrom moved too, positioning herself in such a way that she blocked Augustus’s body from Thea’s view. She
was
a good friend. I knew that
in the same situation, I would have done anything to help Darlene, and she would have done the same for me.

“Samantha dear,” Thea said, “what happened to Augustus is horrible beyond belief.” Her fingers trembled, and I could feel shivers vibrate throughout her body. “But I’ve been heartsick at this terrible game—as Augustus called it. I can’t believe that he could have threatened and frightened our guests as he did. It was unforgivable of him. I agree with them that the manuscript should be found.”

“Before the police get here?”

There was a slight, silent pause, as though everyone in the room had stopped breathing until Aunt Thea said, “I think, under the circumstances, that finding the manuscript
before
the police arrive would be preferable.”

That was laying it on the line. I reminded myself that Aunt Thea was one of the game-players, too, and she’d want that manuscript found and all evidence of
her
secret destroyed. I didn’t think that finding and destroying the manuscript was such a good idea, but it wasn’t my house, my secret past, or my husband who’d been murdered. About the only thing I could do would be to stay out of the way.

“Let’s get busy,” Julia said.

Senator Maggio took charge by immediately making up a list of rules and assigning everyone places. They went to their particular sections and began removing books, papers, anything in sight—only neatly, putting them back the way they had been, so everything would be in order when the police arrived.

As I watched them work—no one had thought about giving me a job—I had a chance to go over things that had
been said, and I began to wonder about Julia. She was a writer. She should know about the importance of manuscript copies. Yet she was the first one to tell us that the manuscript had been destroyed. And at breakfast she hadn’t remembered her own stories and characters. I knew, from reading what writers had to say about writing, that after living with her characters for months—maybe even years while she was plotting and writing about them—they’d be like real people. How could she forget them?

Buck had worked gingerly through each side of the desk, opening drawers with a handkerchief, and taking care not to touch Augustus; but he’d finished, finding nothing, and had joined Julia, who was meticulously removing books from the large bookcase and peering behind them.

I had seen something protruding from under the sleeve of Augustus’s velvet jacket, near his right elbow. It seemed to be a small stack of envelopes, and they looked very much like those that held the clues Augustus had given to his guests the night before. I quietly walked over and slid out the stack, turned them over, and on the top, printed in bright blue ink, was the name
Alex Chambers, Game Clue
#2.