An Act Of Murder by Linda Rosencrance Read Free Book Online

for a weather report.
    â€œIt’s this thing with golf superintendents that whenever they leave the house, they have to know what the weather is, and Mike was so out of it that he turned the TV on looking for the weather,” Maureen explained. “I said, ‘What are you doing? You have to get down to Harbourtowne.’ He said, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m half-asleep.’ So he finished dressing and left.”
    Not knowing what was going on, Maureen started worrying about Kim. So she called Mike back into the house—he was outside scraping the ice off his windshield—and called the general manager of Harbourtowne to ask what was happening.
    â€œMaureen, I think he’s dead,” the general manager told her.
    Maureen put the telephone down and told Mike to hurry and go to Harbourtowne because Steve was probably dead. She asked Mike to call her as soon as he got there. Later, she realized she should have let Mike find out about Steve’s death when he got to Harbourtowne so he wouldn’t have to think about it while he was driving.
    Mike ran back outside, jumped in his truck, and flew down to Harbourtowne, getting there in half the time it would normally take him. All the while he kept thinking how weird it was that there was a fire in the Hrickos’ room.
    In shock Maureen got back on the line with the general manager and asked him what happened. Instead of answering her, the general manager started questioning her about Steve’s behaviors.
    â€œDid Steve smoke cigars?” he asked.
    Maureen said no, Steve would never smoke.
    â€œWell, apparently he was smoking tonight and fell asleep and lit the room on fire and he died in the fire,” the general manager said.
    Maureen told him Steve would never smoke, ever. The general manager explained that Kim said he’d also been drinking a lot that evening.
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like Steve, either,” Maureen said. “I’ve never known him to be drunk.”
    â€œSomething’s not right here, Maureen, and Mike needs to get here,” the general manager said.
    Maureen told him Mike was already on his way.
    Maybe Steve was drinking too much and maybe he was smoking cigars, Maureen thought. After all, the Millers hadn’t seem much of him lately and he was under a tremendous amount of pressure because of his marriage. But even though the Steve that Maureen knew would never have done that, she just put the general manager’s questions out of her mind.
    Around 2:30 A.M. or so, Maureen decided to call Mike’s parents in Pennsylvania to ask them to come down to Easton. She knew if Steve was dead, Mike was certainly going to need his parents. Mike’s parents left their home in State College about an hour after Maureen’s call. Maureen also called Mike’s friend Ken and asked him to go to Harbourtowne so Mike wouldn’t be alone.
    When Mike arrived at Harbourtowne, he parked his truck in front of the main lobby. As he got out of his truck, he saw people standing outside the hotel.
    â€œSomebody from Harbourtowne was there and said that there was a fire down in the room, that Steve was in the fire, and that Kim had come into the lobby to report the fire, and at that point she was up in one of the other rooms,” Mike said. “They told me Elaine Phillips and her cousin, Philip Parker, pulled Steve out. Philip’s family was at Harbourtowne for the weekend and they had a suite of rooms, and Elaine told me Kim was in her aunt’s room.”
    Immediately Mike ran up to the room and knocked on the door. Elaine Phillips’s aunt Bonnie Parker opened the door and Mike asked for Kim.
    â€œIt was all kind of surreal. I was trying to figure out what the hell went on and what was going on,” Mike recalled. “And I walked into this room and I didn’t recognize these people and this woman said Kim’s in there and pointed to an adjoining