The same things happen in it that happen in any other town; births, natural deaths, suicides, fires, divorces, clandestine love affairs, robberies, business failures, celebrations, funerals—and murder. Technically, the murder of the girl named Heidi had probably not taken place in the hotel. I say probably not because her body had been found a block away in an alley, and so far there was no indication that it had been carried there from somewhere else, like the hotel. But the dramatis personae were very much a part of the hotel. The police investigation would be centered there with Charmian Zetterstrom and her curious staff. The story would make a field day for the news media, and the Beaumont would come in for an unwanted chunk of lurid publicity. My job, I knew, as I hurried back to the hotel from Shelda’s, would be to soft-pedal that aspect of it as best I could. The lobby looked normally quiet for eight o’clock in the evening, but I’d noticed two police cars parked down the block from the entrance as I came in.
