Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503090024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The owner of the Count Pulaski Bed & Breakfast is developing murder mystery weekends to bring more visitors to the inn, which opened a year and a half ago in a historic 80-year-old home at 821 N. Jefferson St.
A number of people, usually eight, assume roles as suspects in the mystery, which starts on a Friday night and ends Sunday. The visitors get together four times during the weekend to progress toward a solution as to who killed Sir Roger, the murder victim who is never seen, only described.
``You get into your roles so deeply that people get angry,'' said Nelson Boan, a Pulaski businessman recruited by bed and breakfast owner Flo Stevenson to get the mystery weekend games under way.
He was introduced to the game by Dr. Carole Pratt, a local dentist, who had guests playing it in her home. Boan found himself increasingly perturbed at being cross-examined by one of the other players: ``I was truly incensed.''
Stevenson has had two sets of guests for the murder mystery weekend so far, and both groups are interested in doing it again. ``So there is something that is just really fascinating about this type of thing,'' she said. ``I didn't realize what I was tapping into.''
Most of the first participants were middle-aged and well-grounded in the Agatha Christie (or Jessica Fletcher) school of mystery-solving. They even brought along appropriate clothing for their roles. The most recent group consisted of younger people not up on Hercule Poroit's use of ``little gray cells'' in cerebral detection, but they caught on quickly.
``It's so different. I don't know what we'll get next time,'' Stevenson said.
Angie Adebahr, who works in a software business in Greensboro, N.C., became the most aggressive questioner in the most recent group and she was the one who finally pinpointed the killer. She had also assumed the role of a man in the game - Dr. Mal Praktiss - since this group had five women and three men and the game calls for four of each gender.
``What were you doing outside the door?'' she demanded of her friend, Gina Kaufman, who had come with her from Greensboro. ``I want to know and I want to know now!''
Kaufman heaved an elaborate sigh, as though her patience was nearing an end. ``I was taking a walk,'' she said slowly and deliberately.
A recent weekend started with a Friday evening dinner at Judy Osborne's Le Cafe, upstairs at 27 W. Main St. The cuisine was English, including Yorkshire pudding and trifles for dessert, and the setting was atmospheric, with candles and a fireplace.
Furnishings at the bed and breakfast continued the appropriate English atmosphere as the weekend guests received their murder clues and instructions on the characters they would play and their alibis.
Under the rules of the game, a character cannot lie when asked a direct question, but can try to change the subject.
Until the last gathering, even the murderer does not know that he or she is the one who did it.
``You don't have to know what to do. You just jump into it,'' Boan said.
``They say it's addictive,'' said Kaufman, who was trying it for the first time. ``When you do it once, you want to do it all the time.''
That would suit Stevenson, who has more mysteries to solve this weekend, March 17-19 and April 7-9.
``I've had so many people call and want to do it,'' she said, but not always for the same weekend. She still has openings for those dates, and will also fill in with local residents who would stay at home, rather than at the bed and breakfast, and come in just for the four mystery gatherings.
For further information, call 980-1163.
by CNB