MURDERED: Can YOU Solve the Mystery? (Click Your Poison Book 2)

by James Schannep

  • Keep going, this time try left—Apoio.

  • Duck in the empty conference room, then double back to Imprensa.

  • Wait until Danly’s gone, then try Auditório Principal.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Confused

  Agent Danly scowls. “Actually, that would be you who has me confused with a dumbass. Put your face against the wall!”

  You stare at him, dumbfounded. To make himself perfectly clear, he grabs you by the shoulder, slams you against the wall, and cuffs your hands behind your back.

  “I don’t know where the fuck you’ve been, but I don’t have time for this shit. You better hope to hell you’re not an accomplice on this thing or so help me God, I will see you rot.”

  Holding you prone against the wall, he removes a radio and calls for backup.

  Security soon arrives and Agent Danly instructs the cop to “keep an eye on” you. Later, when Viktor is killed “making an attempt on the Ambassador’s life” and Jane mysteriously disappears, Agent Danly will make good on his promise.

  You’ll be tried and found guilty of treason. The rest of your life will not be pleasant.

  THE END

  Consolation Pizza

  The restaurant’s red flag sails above the entry to hail your arrival. You find Viktor in a rear booth, waiting for you. The building’s exterior walls are all glass, giving a panorama of street life while saving you from the sounds of traffic and the smell of the street vendors’ food offerings.

  You sit down across from Viktor, feeling the smooth pleather/vinyl seat beneath you, its surface polished by a thousand rear ends. The waiter gives you a menu and a glass of water, then leaves.

  “How did it go on your end?” Viktor asks.

  You shake your head. “I was a little too late. A couple of guys showed up, looking like the Mafia in the movies, and… sorry, no laptop.”

  “Cleanup crew. You made it out okay?”

  You shrug. “How’d your side go?”

  He leans back. “‘Money talks’—isn’t that how the American saying goes? The note was deposited, I wasn’t seen, and the agents should be on their way up to the statue.”

  “So what’s next?” you ask.

  “Lunch. Take a look at the menu; everything’s good here. I recommend the Gino’s Combo if you’re torn.”

  The waiter returns and you order a pizza. After a moment, you ask the burning question in your mind. “So who do you think killed her, and why?”

  He looks around. “I’m sorry, Tourist, I can’t say just yet. The people we’re dealing with… Later, I’ll tell you later.”

  You nod but say nothing.

  Viktor continues, “I must confess—I had one of my students follow you today—because I wasn’t sure if you’d go through with your end. I thought maybe you’d get cold feet… I’m sorry I doubted you; I won’t again. Still, I cannot tell you any more here. If I had you followed, it’s possible we’re not alone.”

  “Okay… then, aside from eating pizza, what are we doing?”

  “Nothing,” he says, his brow raised. “Have to eat, don’t you? But after….”

  He clears his throat, then downs the rest of his beer. “Afterward, I think we might find something at Jane’s apartment, but we’re not going to get it with those agents prowling nearby. André will send me a text when they’ve arrived, far out of our way.”

  He holds up a disposable cell phone, showing it off just as the waiter arrives with your pizza. The crust is thick and doughy, the cheese perfectly melted and browned, and the aroma makes your mouth water. You dig in, enjoying the pizza with Viktor, but after you pick up your second slice his phone buzzes.

  After checking it, he looks up to you. “Finish up, it’s time.”

  • Follow Viktor to the evidence.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Cookies, Milk, and Storytime

  Over the hum of the engine, Viktor and Jane’s quiet conference lulls you to sleep. Guess you were pretty tired after all. You awaken just as the plane begins its descent. You’re back in Rio before sunset and presently look out the window towards Rio’s enormous crowds forming for Carnaval and the Energy Summit.

  Viktor turns to you and says, “This is it, Tourist. The grand finale. Thanks to André, the police are looking for him rather than myself, and they think Jane here is dead, so we should be able to sneak in undetected.”

  “What about me?” you ask.

  “You’re still anonymous. After tonight, win or lose, the world will know who you are.”

  “Unless…” Jane says.

  You look from Viktor to Jane and back again.

  “Unless you’re ready to retire,” Viktor says. “You’ve done so much for us. This—tonight—is our fight. You don’t need to risk your life any further.”

  “Look for us on the news,” Jane says. “There should be live coverage. I’m going to upload the evidence onto the Energy Summit computer system and project it on the main screen during the opening ceremonies. Then Viktor will arrive on stage, proclaim his innocence, and condemn these two evil Kings while everyone is there to see it.”

  • “Okay… Good luck. I’ll want to meet for champagne after you’re successful.”

  • “Seriously? So close to the finish line? No way you’re leaving me here!”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Covered

  “Don’t move. We’ll be there in five,” Agent Bertram said the moment you called.

  Now you’re walking down to the beach, the two agents carefully tailing you, trying not to make their presence known and thereby spoil the rendezvous. The neighborhood lights of Ipanema and Rio de Janeiro reflect off the surf down by the shoreline. Couples walk hand-in-hand, exploring the romance of the beach outside popular bars and hotels. Still, the crowd is nothing like it is in the daytime.

  You carry your shoes, trying to play casual, looking for the man so ingrained in your memory. You scan every face for those terrible blue eyes, but he never shows.

  Eventually, the two agents approach you on the beach.

  “Looks like he got cold feet,” Danly says, running his tired hand over a day’s stubble.

  “All right, you’re staying with us. No ifs ands or buts this time,” Bertram says with a firm hand on your shoulder, leading you back away from the sea.

  • Continue to the Embassy’s Hotel.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Cowboy, Baby

  You spin around, already squeezing the trigger as you turn. The hammer falls back and the chamber rotates in time—you shoot the man behind you before you even see him. His gun is already drawn, but you catch him off-guard. The shot is a wild one, though you’re close enough to make accuracy irrelevant. He grabs his gut, drops his handgun, and coughs up a spurt of blood.

  Then the woman next to him shoots you.

  You didn’t even know he had a partner, her gun drawn as well, ready to back the man you just killed. That’s two men dead at your hand, and the woman on the floor will most likely be blamed on your tourist-gone-mad rampage. As your life seeps away, you realize this is how you’ll be remembered—as a murderer.

  Mom would be proud.

  THE END *

  * Hold the phone. This book is called, “MURDERED” not “MURDERER.” Solving mysteries is a thinking game; if you want brash action, maybe go read “INFECTED.” Still, congrats on finding this book’s only Easter egg—now go try again!

  Crossroads

  The next morning the boat is slick with rain. There was a downpour all night, though you wouldn’t have known it from your private cabin. You slept fitfully on the small, hard mattress, but after the rain-drenched glares from the other passengers on the barge, you feel lucky to have had a room to call your own.

  Viktor finds coffee and sweetbreads for breakfast, which you share and finish just as the barge pulls into port. The two of you slip off the boat without much fuss or fanfare and disappear into the surrounding market.

  Mostly the vendors are just
selling fish; some of the traveling merchants offer their wares at the port market before ferrying them further into the interior. At the fringe, you see a three-toed sloth for sale; sad and manacled to a post, its hair is matted and dirty.

  Viktor slips into a taxicab just outside of the fish market and you join him. The cabbie drives fast over the hard-packed dirt road, the car bobbing up and down over the inlaid grooves. There are expansive, muddy fields as far as the eye can see.

  “So… where are we going?” you ask Viktor after he tells the driver in Portuguese.

  Viktor smiles through pensive eyes. “We’re going to ‘the source.’ The place that inspired my life’s work. You see all of this around you? Only ten years ago this was dense jungle. There wasn’t even a port here. Now we drive along the Sugarcane Highway, an illegally made road through illegally cleared rainforest. This is all farmland now, Tourist. The jungle has been slaughtered for the sake of sugarcane plantations, to harvest enough crop for the ever-rising ethanol demand. I wanted to change that. With your help, maybe I still can…”

  He looks out the window and you ride in silence. After some time, the cab pulls up to a field just outside a small village. Viktor pays the driver and exits the car. When you get out of the cab, you stare at the muddy embankment, surprised at what lies ahead.

  An ocean of wooden crosses, each one handmade and individually painted white or red, cover the field before you. Nearly a thousand crosses, each one about four feet high and two feet across. The variation in the rise and swell of the land makes the crosses off-kilter and inconsistently tilted, a rather jarring effect.

  “A cemetery?” you ask.

  “A memorial,” he says. “The red ones represent those living under death threats from land-thieving criminals. Grileiros. The white ones are for those who were killed because they stood in the way of the grileiros.”

  Almost all the crosses are white.

  He continues, “There was a nun here who stood up to the land thieves, and in broad daylight they murdered her in cold blood. This memorial was started for her. Jane and I saw this when we were traveling, vacationing and exploring the country. It was a shock just how uninvolved we were. Laughing and loving amidst such pain and chaos. We couldn’t go back to our normal lives.

  “That’s when I knew I could use my background, my education and the work I’d done to create a new kind of fuel. An ethanol that could use waste, and not food. We could feed our people and our industry with the same technology—if only I could succeed where so many others had failed.”

  “All these people died protecting the land?” you ask, looking over the sea of crosses.

  He nods. “They weren’t all environmental activists, not hardly. Most were simple farmers who cleared small patches and lived in harmony with the jungle. They were descendants of the natives who lived off the land for thousands of years.”

  Viktor sighs, then adds, “You know, I had hoped my Jane would be here. That she’d be waiting and would just throw her arms around me as soon as I’d stepped out of that cab. It was her idea, you know. To change the world; to do some good. She wanted to get the Embassy to help—to usher in a new era of cooperation between our nations, but she didn’t count on the King. The Governor here has his own sugarcane empire and wasn’t ready to abdicate the crown. Pity what rich men will do for more money….”

  You turn, suddenly aware you’re being watched. Three naked boys approach, a tattered note held by their leader. He offers it to you, then opens his palm. Paying the boy a real, Viktor accepts the letter. On the envelope is written,

  “To be given to the outsider.”

  Viktor unfolds the paper and reads it aloud: “I know it is you, my love. No other outsiders come to this field. No tourists visit to see pain and suffering. Can you come a little further? There is a tribe nearby that no outsiders visit either. Your treasure is safe there.”

  He lowers the note, his fierce eyes glinting with emotion. He shakes his head, unable to speak.

  “Come on,” you say. “Let’s go find that evidence. When does the Energy Summit start?”

  He thinks for a moment, then laughs. “Tonight. You’re right, we must be quick!”

  You move into the nearby village, looking for transportation and a guide who knows what tribe Jane might be describing.

  “Without any money or anything to trade, how will we find help?” you ask.

  “God will provide,” Viktor says, absentmindedly. Then, holding up the jar of candied sugarcane, he says with a smile, “Here’s hoping the natives have a sweet tooth.”

  In the village, which consists of a main dirt road and half a dozen offshoots, you see merchants setting up their shops. It’s still very early, you realize. A coffee vendor pushes his rolling cart and gestures you to try his product. You wave him off.

  Viktor finds a man wearing a Che Guevara shirt and speaks to him in Portuguese.

  “You are the one!” the man exclaims in English. “I will take you and your friend to the Jamacão tribe. Your passage has been paid for. There was a woman—”

  “Jane!” Viktor cries. “Is she close?”

  The man nods. “I will take you by canoe. One hour, maybe less.”

  * * *

  In addition to your paid passage, you’re provided with a water pot—ingeniously designed to keep the water held within it cool, despite the jungle heat. Viktor rides in the first canoe with your guide while you paddle the second, with the water pot for company.

  The canoe is small, just barely wide enough to accommodate your hips, and every stroke of the paddle causes the vessel to shimmy back and forth, threatening to dump you into the river with whatever lurks beneath.

  The next time you look up, you see two naked men on the riverbank. They each have a bone spur on their chin like some kind of tusk. Your guide calls to them in greeting and brings his canoe to the embankment.

  When you follow and disembark, you see that the bone spur is actually sticking through their faces. One part of the tusk rests atop their bottom teeth and they have mutilated their skin so that the bone shoots through the lower lip and rests along the chin.

  They hug the guide. You hug the pot in defense. Viktor nods at the men, but stays close to you. They escort you deeper into the jungle, pushing aside leaves the size of curtains, and in less than five minutes you’re in so deep you’d never find your way back to the river alone.

  “Wow,” you say.

  “Wow,” echo twenty voices from above.

  You look up to see a flock of parrots. You’ve never seen so many in your life, and you say so.

  “These birds are social animals. They’re not meant to be pets….”

  You say nothing, just keep walking. The next sound is your own screaming as something bites you on the arm. Everyone looks back and you rub the source of the wound—it’s already flushed and swollen.

  “What was it?” Viktor asks with concern.

  “I have no idea,” you reply, “but it burns!”

  The pair of native men turn back and approach you, and one removes a knife. You back away, but he doesn’t cut at you. Instead, he slices across an ashen tree. Red liquid pours out of the tree’s cut as if it was bleeding.

  The second native man scoops the liquid onto the palm of his hand, smearing it against his skin with his thumb in a circular motion until the red turns pure white with froth. He then applies the white cream to your bite as the first man cleans his knife.

  You watch as he next applies a shrub leaf to the cut on the tree. The tree’s wound stops bleeding. Your bite stops burning.

  “Thank you,” you say, amazed.

  The man with the bone spur sticking out of his chin nods, then turns back to continue into the jungle.

  Soon you arrive at the village. The entire group of Jamacão Indians, maybe fifty or seventy-five people, are there to greet you. Every single villager is naked and has a tusk sticking through his or her face, with the exception of young children. Perhaps it’s a coming-of-age ritu
al.

  As you set down the water pot, the adults are suddenly all smiles. Viktor gives the children the jar of candied sugarcane and their faces light up too.

  “Where is she? Where is the woman?” he asks with fervor.

  “Right here,” a woman’s voice says.

  You turn to see a woman in khaki pants and a pocketed shirt, both light and airy, smiling at you. She’s in her mid-fifties; strands of white streak through her black hair, which is pulled back in a ponytail. It’s not Jane Nightingale.

  “You…paid our passage?” Viktor says. His voice cracks with emotion.

  “Susan Brandon. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Doctor. I’m a researcher myself. I’ve been staying with these people for nearly six months now.”

  “I see,” Viktor says. “You’ll have to forgive me. When I was told there was a woman here, I simply assumed…”

  “I think you misunderstand,” she says with a smile.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” another woman says.

  You turn to see Jane Nightingale, her eyes full of tears and her smile shining brilliantly. The leaves in the trees dance as if in response.

  “Jane told me much about you. When she said you’d be coming, I offered to pay your way.”

  Viktor rushes over to embrace his fiancée, grabbing her tightly and swinging her around. In-between kisses he says, “How? Why? When? Where?” and just about every other way to start a question.

  “I thought if I stayed dead, they might leave you alone.”

  He shakes his head, his eyes welling with tears. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Yet here you are. And I have everything we need, my love.”

  “Forgive me,” Viktor says, wiping the tears from his face and turning to you. “I forgot to introduce my companion.”

  “Thank you so much,” she says, giving you a warm smile.