“But that’s not what he wanted?” Hannah asked, already knowing the answer.
“No! Not at all! I should have guessed that it wasn’t the real reason. Allen never was interested in anyone except himself. But I guess I’m gullible. I always tend to think the best of people. I take what they say at face value until they prove otherwise.”
“And he proved otherwise?” Hannah prompted her.
“He certainly did! He thought I’d come up to his room with him because I was interested in him as a man.”
“He tried to hit on you?” Michelle asked.
Aunt Nancy’s face turned pink. “Yes. It was terribly embarrassing. I told him that I wasn’t interested in anything like that, grabbed my coat and scarf, and got out of there as quickly as I could. And the more I thought about it, the madder I got that he’d assumed I’d be willing to do something like that!” She stopped speaking, took a deep shaky breath, and looked up at Hannah and Michelle again. “How did you find out about it?”
“Rita, the housekeeper you saw in the hall that night, told Sally about it. Sally’s her boss. And Sally told us this morning.”
“You won’t tell anyone else, will you?”
“No, we won’t,” Michelle promised for both of them. “It’s nobody’s business but yours.”
“How about you?” Hannah asked her. “Have you told anyone else about it?”
“No one except Heiti. And I know he won’t tell anyone.”
Hannah and Michelle exchanged glances. “Heiti is the man who built your bookshelves?” Hannah asked.
“Yes. He could see that I was upset when I came home.”
“You’re . . . living with Heiti?”
Aunt Nancy gave a little laugh. “No, nothing like that. Heiti has an apartment out near the highway. He was at my house, painting the decorative border under the living room ceiling. I asked him if he wanted to go to the competition with me, but he said he wanted to finish the stencils on the border.”
“Stencils?” Michelle looked interested.
“Yes. Heiti does tole painting. He learned it as a hobby. He does a wonderful job and he’s quite an artist. You can buy traditional border stencils at art stores, or you can make your own stencils. Heiti cuts his own stencils and they’re just beautiful! He finished the border around my kitchen ceiling, all sorts of decorative kitchen utensils, and I liked it so much that I asked him to paint one in my living room, too.”
“And he was still there when you got home?” Hannah led her back to the subject at hand.
“Yes. He’d just finished working and he was cleaning his brushes. Heiti saw right away that I was upset so he poured me a glass of sherry and asked me to sit down with him on the couch and tell him all about it.”
“And you did?” Michelle asked.
“Yes. I was so upset, I had two glasses of sherry. And I never have more than one.”
“Did Heiti have sherry, too?” Hannah asked.
“No, Heiti doesn’t drink much. If we go out to dinner, he occasionally has a glass of beer, though.”
“How about wine?” Michelle asked, and Hannah knew that she was also remembering the two wineglasses in Sally’s kitchen.
“He doesn’t care for it. As a matter of fact, he told me that he used to like red wine, but when he got older, it gave him a terrible headache right between his eyes. Don’t they say that the tannins in red wine give some people headaches?”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.” Hannah made a mental note to ask Mike if the police lab had found any fingerprints on the wineglasses. “This is really important, Aunt Nancy. Did you see anyone in the halls or the elevator when you left the inn?”
Aunt Nancy shook her head. “No one except that housekeeper. I was hoping she wouldn’t stop me and ask any questions so I rushed to the elevator as fast as I could.”
“You took the elevator straight down to the ground floor?”
“Yes, and I didn’t see another soul on the way out! In fact, even the bar was closed when I passed by. I guess there might have been someone in there cleaning up, but I wasn’t really looking. I just wanted to get out of there and go home as fast as I could.”
“Where did you park?” Michelle asked her.
“In their parking lot. I was so angry with Allen, I hurried to my car and drove off.”
“Were there any other cars in the lot?”
“Yes, but they’d been there for a while. There was a layer of snow on everyone’s windshield. I know because I had to use my brush to clear mine off.”
“Let’s talk about when you got home,” Hannah said. “You said Heiti could tell you were upset, so he poured you a glass of sherry and you talked about what had happened in Chef Duquesne’s room. Is that right?”