out a window?”
“You said yourself she’s wiry.” Judith sat down at the
banquet table reserved for the conferees. “If you know how
to use a garrote—I gather there’s an art to it—you need surprise rather than strength. In fact, it would be easy if the
killer somehow first rendered the victim helpless. As for
pushing Ward out the window, that would depend on where
he was standing when it happened.”
“He was a fairly big guy,” Renie pointed out, sitting down
next to Judith.
“Tall, yes, but lean and lanky. A hundred and sixty pounds,
I’d guess. It could be done, even by someone like Nadia.
The real question is, who flunked the buddy system?”
Renie’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Unless it was Max
who was also alone in his room upstairs, somebody got
loose.”
“I’ve been trying to think back to when we returned to the
lobby after Max and Ward went upstairs to change. How
long were we gone collecting towels in the supply room?
Five, ten minutes at most?”
“About that,” Renie agreed. “But before we went there,
we’d been in the basement getting more liquor.”
“That’s right.” Judith drummed her nails on the bare table.
“Margo and Russell went with us. They took the bottles out
to the lobby. Where we finally got there?”
Renie’s face fell. “I don’t remember. Nadia and Ava were
coming out of the restroom, though.”
Judith nodded. “Have you ever noticed how long other
women take to use a stall at a public restroom?”
Renie chuckled. “I figure they must be completely dressing
and undressing. Maybe they put their clothes on backwards,
and then switch them around. It beats me, but I sure get tired
of standing in long lines at the theater or the opera or a ball
game.”
“That’s what I mean,” Judith said. “It’s conceivable that a
woman—let’s say Ava, just for the heck of it—could go into
a stall at the same time as another woman—like Nadia—and
come right out, leave the restroom, then return five, even ten
minutes later, without the other woman knowing she was
gone.”
“It’s a stretch,” Renie said with a frown.
“Try this—one of them says she forgot her purse. The
other one is already in the stall. She waits, because she feels
it’s safe, the other woman will be right back.”
“Okay, I’ll mark ‘slim’ by that one,” Renie conceded.
“What about the rest of them?”
Judith concentrated on her memory of the lobby as she
had seen it upon her return from the supply room. “Russell
and Gene were talking by the library. But we know they
