Unless, of course, she was up to something, which was hardly inconceivable. As I passed the door of the Appletons' room, I heard voices-one low and surly, the other high and tremulous. One of the contestants (kontestants?) might be on the shaky side in the morning, I thought as I went right on by and headed for my room.

From behind the Vervains' door, I also heard sounds indicative of an argument. I slowed down long enough to hear Frannie say, "I am so ashamed of you. I will not allow you to behave like this, Catherine."

Deciding not to hang around and discover how Catherine felt about the matter, I pulled my key from my pocket, glanced at Durmond's door, and opened my own. I did so stealthily, not because I was too much of a ninny to face him, but because I was as sick and tired of the situation as Geri. Unlike her, I couldn't stomp out the door to take refuge in some other part of the city. I needed to take refuge in some other part of the country, say two thousand miles from the door of the Chadwick Hotel.

I undressed, then sat on the edge of my bed and called Eilene to find out if she knew anything more. Amidst a great deal of sniveling and sniffling, she admitted she had heard nothing new despite numerous calls to the Lebanon police. The newlyweds were still inside the café with their captor, condition unknown. The police were content to wait outside, and it seemed this Marvel person was equally willing to wait inside.

I made a few reassuring remarks, promised to call in the morning, and lay on my bed to stare at the mottled ceiling. The lights from the street flickered in a nebulous pattern of colors and images. I supposed they continued to do so long after I drifted into sleep.

The elevator awakened me several times, as did what sounded like a massive traffic jam a block from the hotel, a spirited rendition of a Bob Dylan dirge by a tone-deaf tenor, and an argument that peaked below my window. A car backfired, or so I told myself. The tenor retraced his steps, incoherent but still enthusiastic. Eventually everybody quieted down, and I was able to take the pillow off my head and breathe the musty air wheezing from the air conditioner.

I lapsed into a convoluted dream involving Kevin, Dahlia, and a faceless assailant in a baggy raincoat, all cowering in the shadow of a nuclear reactor while Raz Buchanon circled them in a horsedrawn buggy. He was snapping the reins so loudly that it took me a moment to realize someone was tapping on my door.

I banished the last of the bizarre dream, went across the room, unlocked the deadbolt, and opened the door as far as the chain would permit. "Who is it?" I whispered.

"Who do you think it is? " Estelle whispered right back. "It sure ain't the mayor wanting to give you a key to the city. Open the door right this minute."

"What time is it?"

"Time to open the door, Miss Third Degree. We are disinclined to be murdered in the hallway while you ask stupid questions."

I closed the door to disengage the chain, then opened it and waited irritably as Estelle and Ruby Bee slipped inside. They were wearing robes and slippers, which at least implied they hadn't been riding the subways or prowling the sex boutiques at Times Square.

I squinted at the clock. "Okay, what's the problem? It's nearly four in the morning. Back home, you may get up with the chickens, but in this neck of the woods, the only chickens are in the moo goo gai pan."

Estelle poked me in the chest. "Here's your poor mother, who's just gone through a terrible ordeal, and you're making smart-mouthed remarks. I'd like to think you can show her some compassion, instead of spouting off like a snotty teenager," She poked me again for good measure.

I bit back a retort and glanced at Ruby Bee. Even in the murky lights from the street, I could see she was upset. She stumbled to the bed and sat down with a muffled moan. "Terrible, terrible," she said, rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself. "I can't think when I've seen something that terrible."

"What?" I snapped, having become inured to her thespian skills well before the onset of my adolescence.

"A body in the kitchen," Estelle said.

I numbly switched on the light and sat down next to Ruby Bee. "Did you have a nightmare?"

She shook her head. "I wish I had, but what I saw was as real as it gets. And the blood! I ain't never seen so much blood in all my born days. There was blood on the floor, blood on the wall, blood on the counters, and blood all over him like he took a bath in it." She covered her face with her hands and slumped forward. "I get all woozy just thinking about it."

I was a little woozy myself. "And this was in the kitchen? You were in the kitchen and found a body? Whose body?"

"It was dark and I didn't stop to ask for identification," Ruby Bee said testily, apparently not as close to a swoon as she'd been two seconds ago. "Nobody would have. For all I knew, the murderer was hiding right there in the broom closet, a butcher knife in his hand. I skedaddled out of there like the hem of my robe was on fire, and I didn't look back."

Estelle sat down on the other side of her. "You did just what any one of us would have done." She gave me a dark look for hinting that Mother had not acted appropriately upon the discovery of a blood-drenched body. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

"About what?" I said more loudly than I'd intended. "I don't even know what we're talking about, for chrissake! For one thing, the kitchen is locked, so there's no way there could be a body down there-or that you could have stumbled over it and fled before you met the same fate. I realize you're anxious about the contest. You had a very vivid nightmare set in the kitchen." My theory was not well received, or so I suspected from the snorts and glares coming at me as if I were a hapless toreador. "The kitchen is locked," I repeated, enunciating slowly and carefully.

"No, it ain't," Ruby Bee said. She took an oldfashioned hairpin from her pocket and showed it to me. "I planned to use this to get the door open, but it wasn't even locked. I eased it open in case it squeaked, took a couple of steps inside, and saw the blood splattered on the wall. I didn't know right off it was blood. There was only a little bit of light from the hallway, so I thought it might have been shadows or even mildew."

I stared at her. "But why did you go to the kitchen in the first place?"

Estelle twitched disapprovingly. "Would you let her finish the story without this constant interrupting?"

"Sure," I said as I lay back on the bed. "I'll hold my breath to the very end."

"Then," the narrator said in a hushed voice, "I started to tiptoe around the island in the middle of the room, and I happened to put my hand down to steady myself. I felt something wet, and when I looked at my hand, it was smeared with brown stuff. I was pondering it as I took another step and caught sight of the feet sticking out from the far side. I liked to jump out of my skin, lemme tell you. I took a fast look at the rest of it, but there was a noise like someone was lurking in the darkness. I turned tail and ran out the door, along the hallway to the stairs, and right on up to the room without wasting one second."

"She pounded on the door," Estelle added, "and when I let her in, an icy hand seemed to grab my heart and I knew then and there that something terrible had happened. I haven't seen her shaking like this since that ornery escaped convict was on the verge of killing us up on Cotter's Ridge."

I waited for more breathless prose, but it seemed I'd heard the entire story and it was my turn to fabricate. A gentle tap on the door saved me the effort.

"It's the murderer!" Ruby Bee shrieked. "He followed me up here! You got to do something, Arly!"