“Explain, please.”
“Every single one of the people in your photos had been seen by someone or another behind the scenes at the Harmony.”
“Even Deb Goodhouse?”
“Even her.”
“Even Jo Quinlan?”
“Yup.”
“Even Brooke?”
“I said all of them, didn’t I? All of them. Even the dead guy, Sammy Dash.”
“Wendtz, too?”
“Right.”
“What about him?” I held up Denzil’s picture.
“Him, too.”
“Really?” I said, smiling for the first time in eighteen hours.
“That’s great.”
“It is?”
It was. My life was in ruins. I was not welcome back to my best friend’s bedside. My relationship with Richard was in the toilet. My business was dying of neglect. My sister had Conn McCracken on my back. I had five cats in my apartment and Alvin in my office. I was thrilled to have some people to take it out on.
“I can’t think of a single reason for a Member of Parliament to skulk around the back halls of a hotel, can you?”
Alvin shrugged, but I knew he was intrigued.
“Did you happen to note just which hotel employee saw which of our suspects when?”
“Yes, I did.” He extracted a semi-shredded notebook from one of his many pockets.
I smiled some more.
“I got their names, who they saw, where and when, as far as they can remember.”
“Did you give this information to the police?”
He shook his head. “They thought I was some kind of burglar. They didn’t believe I was investigating anything, so I didn’t tell them anything.”
“Well, that’ll show them, I guess.”
Alvin shot me a look.
“So, now we have witnesses.”
“I can’t go back there. They’ll call the cops in two seconds.
And I don’t think you’d better go there either.”
“We don’t have to go there. You have the names of your witnesses.”
“Right,” he said. “I knew that.”
“Okay,” I said, “let’s get on with it. So, what were they doing there?”
“Fighting mostly.”
I was going to enjoy this. “Let’s hear it.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Let’s start with Deb Goodhouse. I’m very curious about her.”
“Well,” said Alvin, “it was very strange. One of the bus boys was delivering room service to Mitzi Brochu’s suite. Just as he gets to the door this woman bursts out, practically knocks him over, bites his head off…”
“And?”
“The woman was Deb Goodhouse. He said he’d recognize her anywhere. He described her. Even her size, which you don’t get a sense of from this picture, although I guess you did your best.”
“All that from just a glimpse as she came out of the door?”
“Well, no. He saw her again. On the staircase. He, my source, was taking the staircase because he wanted to have a cigarette, and employees aren’t supposed to smoke around the Harmony. But he was in a bad mood because La Brochu didn’t give him one red cent for a tip. They all say she was too cheap to tip anybody for anything. So he felt like a smoke, and he thought the stairs would be safe. But Deb Goodhouse was there. Hanging on to the stair rail. And shaking. Of course, my source doesn’t want to be identified, because if they find out he was smoking on the stairs, maybe he could lose his job.”
“Shaking from what?” I asked. “Was she frightened?”
“No, she looked very angry. If looks could kill, he said he’d have keeled over on the spot.”
“Well, well.” I felt like one of Robin’s cats after a bowl of half-and-half. I may have even licked my lips. “Isn’t that interesting.”
It almost killed Alvin to ask, but he did anyway. “Why?”
“Because the Hon. Deb Goodhouse told me that she’d never met Mitzi Brochu. Now what do you think the chances are that she got into and out of Mitzi’s room without meeting her?”
“Not so hot. Mitzi was there, according to my source.”
“Good, very good. What else do you have?”
“Well, there’s more. Your friend Robin’s sister. She was in and out. Couple people saw her on different occasions.” He looked at me coyly.
“Go on.”
Usually I have to drag every little fact out of him, but in this case his desire to tell the story overcame his desire to string me along for a while.
“I guess Brooke’s problem is even worse than we thought. One of the cleaners saw her doing a line of coke in the washroom outside the big ballroom on the mezzanine. Cut it and snorted it right on the fancy counter where the ladies fix their make-up. This source was cleaning the cubicles and Brooke didn’t even bother to hide. Like cleaning people don’t count, and you could do anything in front of them.”
“Sounds like Brooke.”
Alvin was getting coy again. “That’s not all,” he said, looking at his watch.
“What else?”
“Well, she stayed in the ladies room for a while, and then when my source was coming back with replacement tissues and paper towels, she saw Brooke come out of the washroom, and he was waiting for her.”
“Who?”
“Rudy Wendtz.”
“Bingo.”
“And that’s not all. He belted her right in the chops.”
“What?”
“Slammed her back against the wall. My source pretended to be polishing the water fountain so she wouldn’t miss anything. You know what he said?”
I shook my head.
“He told her he didn’t want her anywhere near Mitzi, and she’d better get the message. Then he belted her again. My source said there was blood running down the side of Brooke’s mouth, and she was crying.”
Whoa.
“And then Brooke said, don’t mark my face, it’s my career. And he said, what do you think Mitzi will do to your career if she finds out about us. Don’t be a stupid bitch, Brooke. You’re going to ruin everything.”
“My, my.”
“And then there was the other one. The TV lady, Jo Quinlan.”
“What about her?”
“Everybody seems to have seen her. More than once too.
Trying to get some dirt on Mitzi. She talked to the chambermaids and the kitchen staff. I heard she even tried to get her hands on the garbage that got taken from Mitzi’s room. She tipped people so they didn’t mind telling her stuff. Mitzi didn’t tip anybody, and she treated everybody like dirt, so no one minded shafting her.”
“How did they shaft her?”
“Well,