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Murder Mystery Weekends: People Are Dying to Play Detective
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# : |
14898 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1988 |
2,246 Words |
| Author
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Judy Wade
Judy Wade reports on adventure travel for Shape, Braniff
Destinations, and Caribbean Travel and Life, and is the
touring editor of Cyclist magazine. She packs and unpacks in
Van Nuys, California. |
We were enjoying a slice of rich Danish cake when, suddenly, shots, rang out. A trench-coated woman with a slouch hat pulled over her eyes slumped to the ground near our table. Immediately a tall thin man, smoking gun in hand, dashed toward her.
"Don't anybody move! I'm Lt. Vince Marcotti of the Ventura Police Department." He bent over the woman's body and opened her coat to reveal a spreading bloodstain on her chest. "She's dead." He slowly stood up, holstered his gun, and surveyed the room. "I got her before she could kill one of you. Exactly which one of you was she after? And why?"
I was a willing participant in this event. After all, I had accepted a telephone invitation to help solve a mystery at a Murder Mystery Weekends event in North Hollywood, California.
Two hours earlier, I had checked into my room at the Danish County Inn and gone back to the lobby to meet Jason, our host. "I'm the only one you can 100 percent trust for the weekend," he cautioned. I exchanged smiles with the friendly couple who had come in with me. They introduced themselves as Eve and Michael Bell from Beverly Hills. We sat together for lunch.
Mr. Bell worked in marketing research, and his wife shopped. A noble pursuit, we agreed. And that's when the shots rang out.
There would be three murders that weekend, yet none of them made headlines. We had all just become characters in a drama, a sort of cross between Fantasy Island and Murder, She Wrote, during which we'd be questioned by the police, grasp at slippery red herrings, interrogate each other unmercifully, and even follow our fellow guests to the bathroom. No one was above suspicion.
The plot thickens
Back to the murder at hand: Lieutenant Marcotti explained that he shot the woman, now identified as Cheryl "The Buzzard" Moscowitz, because she was a notorious hit woman from Chicago. The lieutenant's department had gotten a tip that she'd be at the Danish Inn, looking for the person she'd been hired to kill. He'd arrived just in the nick of time to prevent her from carrying out her bloody assignment.
In the pocket of the dead woman's trench coat was scrawled note that said "Beware the builder."
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