Wicked and the Beast

by Lotta Smith

  The moment he disconnected the call, I grabbed his arm. “What was that all about? Who’s the alleged connoisseur who can’t even tell the difference between the real Beast and a replica?”

  Rick just flashed an enigmatic grin and took my hand.

  “Come on,” I protested. “When you have that smile on your face, you’re always thinking about sharing the juicy details in the most dramatic manner. Forget about the presentation. You can share the whodunit with me right here, right now.” The baby moved, so I added, “You know what? Our lovely daughter is itching to know the identity of the moronic connoisseur.”

  “If I were the Mysterious Art Connoisseur, I’d wish I were dead,” Claudia commented, shaking her head.

  “I know,” Jackie agreed. “Making a mistake is one thing, but being judged for that faux-pas is a whole new story. Sometimes Mandy can be pretty harsh without trying to be that way.”

  “Hello? Did you just call me harsh?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Oops, my bad.” Covering her mouth with both hands, Jackie giggled.

  “Did Jackie call you harsh?” Rick said playfully.

  “We had a little disagreement, but now she admits she made a mistake,” I explained, adding a little bit of my own interpretation.

  “I didn’t exactly say I was wrong.” Jackie bobbed her head to the side.

  “Anyway, who’s the connoisseur?” I asked, ready to learn the identity of the thief and how the wooden mask had disappeared from a room that was inaccessible from outside.

  Then his phone pinged. “Here it comes.” He opened the attachment and showed me the display. “This is our friend Patrick Harlan before he died.” Swiping the display with his fingertip, he went on, “And this here is Patrick after his death. Look familiar?”

  “What?” I gasped. “Why?” I was talking in monosyllables like I was channeling a Neanderthal.

  “It takes a little bit of time to explain the whole thing.” He patted my cheek and kissed the top of my head, and then his lips nuzzled the side of my neck, making my legs as wobbly as Jell-O. “Let’s go back to the salon.”

  * * *

  “What did you just say?” Shannon exclaimed as Rick announced that he’d figured out who stole Beast. “Have you really figured out the identity of the Mysterious Art Connoisseur?”

  “Yes, I believe so.” He nodded as he helped me sit on the chair.

  “Wow… that’s so amazing, isn’t it?” Heidi’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Sparks, your friend Mr. Rowling is like the modern-day Sherlock Holmes, isn’t he?”

  “You’re right, Heidi. He and Mandy have closed so many high-profile cases.” Nicole bobbed her head, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Oh really?” Seyfried crossed his arms. “I don’t care about the culprit or the MO. I’m more interested in retrieving the mask.”

  Completely ignoring the insurance guy, Rick went on. “So, how about starting with the part about how our thief took Beast from locked storage?”

  “Hey!” Detective Seagal gave him a hard stare. “Stop playing detective when you’re just a civilian. The NYPD backup will be coming soon, so stay put and don’t make things more complex.”

  “I don’t think so.” Rick shrugged. “In case you don’t understand, this is not a social call, and all of us are wasting time. Under such circumstances, what harm could a little chat do us? On top of all that, closing this case ASAP will benefit everyone, won’t it?”

  “I’d have developed a huge crush on him if I were still alive and younger by fifty years,” Claudia said longingly. In spite of her being a ghost with a pale and transparent complexion, she was blushing a little.

  “This is so splendid, isn’t it? When Rick acts like this, we can rest assured that the mysteries have been solved and the case has been closed.” Nicole applauded. “Detective Seagal, what harm would listening to his story do to the whole situation? Or do you have any specific reasons to keep him from talking?”

  As she looked at the detective playfully, he shook her head. “No. Of course not.”

  “As a journalist, I’d be more than happy to listen to his story,” Shannon chimed in. “Mr. Rowling, do you mind if I record your words?”

  “No. Help yourself.” Rick chuckled. “But I won’t accept your complaints even if you find it below your expectations.”

  “I’d like to hear about how you think the mask was stolen,” Radcliffe said jokingly. “Perhaps you know its whereabouts, right?”

  “Well, sort of.” Rick nodded and took a sip of tea that had turned cold.

  “Ooh… this is getting so exciting!” Claudia threw her arms in the air like she was ready to start dancing. “I’ve been living in this mansion for a long while, but nothing as entertaining has happened since more than thirty years ago.”

  “What happened back then?” Jackie asked.

  “A middle-aged couple with three adolescent kids used to live here, and the husband liked to put on his wife’s lipstick whenever the wife and the kids were out. One day, the wife came home earlier than he’d expected, and he was about to get caught. To make things worse, he had put on full makeup and was wearing his wife’s clothes, pairing them with a long blonde wig from his collection. He didn’t have enough time to clean himself up, so he locked himself in a spare bedroom, attempting to fake some kind of sickness.” Then Claudia lowered her voice. “But somehow, the wife misinterpreted the situation like he was being held hostage and called the cops.”

  “Oh… that doesn’t sound good.” Jackie put her palms on her cheeks.

  “No, it didn’t bode well.” Claudia shook her head. “The police stormed inside the locked room, finding the husband frantically trying to remove the makeup. He was really unlucky that he confined himself in a room with no bathroom.”

  As Claudia chuckled, Jackie muttered, “Talk about coming out of the closet.”

  “But they found their happily ever after, you know. After that incident, the husband stopped borrowing his wife’s garments and makeup and bought his own.” Claudia winked.

  I covered my mouth with my hand, attempting to suppress the explosive laughter that would’ve been so inappropriate for this occasion. Rick looked at me with apparent concern, but I waved the other hand to indicate I was fine.

  Turning back to the crowd, he was all business. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. What’s happened is simple. The culprit has been hiding among the four of you with no alibi—to be precise, Ms. Tate, Mr. Radcliffe, Detective Seagal, and Ms. Reinhart. And the culprit secretly went into the storage room and took Beast out, utilizing a certain method.”

  “Oh, so you’ve already figured out the tactics used for the heist?” Nicole leaned in, prompting Rick to give her a light nod.

  “Yup. Thanks to my wife’s comment,” he said, touching my arm.

  That wasn’t something I’d expected. “Really? What did I say?” I tilted my head.

  “Yes. You said that bags have height and thickness to hold all the stuff in a limited space, right?” he said.

  “Oh, I remember that,” Jackie agreed.

  “Yes, but that was nothing special, something everyone knows.” I knitted my eyebrows. “All I said is the total mass never changes by altering the layout of the stuff.”

  “Right.” He snapped his fingers. “Basically, the culprit divvied up the wooden mask into pieces. Just like picking each item out of a purse, the pieces of Beast must’ve easily slipped out of a narrow space that used to be impossible for the stolen item to go through when it was in one piece.”

  Radcliffe was biting his lips as Rick spoke, but he broke into a laughing fit. “Wow, you’ve got to be kidding!” he said between guffaws. “So, are you saying that the thief cut Beast into pieces and then took away all the fragments?”

  “Yes, I am. And that’s exactly what happened,” Rick agreed nonchalantly.

  “Oh.” Nicole’s jaw dropped, and others sucked in air, looking like they were truly shocked.

  “But… cutting Beast int
o pieces?” Shannon furrowed her eyebrows, toying with a strand of her long hair. “I have no idea how anyone would do that.”

  “Come on, we’re not talking about a huge chunk of diamond or a gigantic gold statue. It’s just a wooden mask, and it doesn’t take much strength or technique to cut it into small pieces.” Rick snorted.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Seyfried slammed both hands on the table. His face had turned red, and his eyes were bulging like they were ready to pop out. “Suppose you’re right. Then that means that the mask has already been destroyed!”

  “Yes, it has.” Rick nodded, without telling the insurance guy about the destroyed Beast being a replica. I looked at him, trying to convey my question, “When are you going to tell him that the stolen one was fake?” but his green eyes were unreadable. “Remember the ventilation window at the bottom of the storage wall? It had iron bars, but the space between the bars was large enough to let an adult’s wrist come through, so our thief used these spaces to stick in something like a small saw to cut the target into pieces. Once it was divvied up, retrieving its pieces must’ve been a piece of cake. Actually, I’ve found evidence to support my theory. When I was checking around the ventilation windows, I found some brownish powder in the carpet. In retrospect, it was particles of sawdust. I’m guessing the culprit tried to retrieve them as well with something sticky like duct tape, but it wouldn’t have been easy to clean up the mess in such a short time.”

  “Wait a minute.” Detective Seagal raised a hand. He’d been so quiet in the past few minutes, and somehow, his tone sounded like he was slightly intimidated. “If what you’re saying is true, then why would the Mysterious Art Connoisseur resort to such an outrageous measure? I’m not an expert in fine arts, but I can at least assume the mask will lose its market and artistic value if it’s been cut into pieces.”

  With a wave of a hand, Rick dismissed Seagal’s words. “Before going for that part, we have to disentangle the biggest mystery with this locked-room scenario.”

  Nicole touched her chin and tilted her head. “Well, Beast was sitting on the display table in the center of the storage room. In my opinion, reaching the mask from outside the storage should’ve been absolutely impossible unless we’re talking about a culprit with long arms like an orangutan.”

  “An orangutan as the culprit?” Shannon chuckled. “Just like Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Yes.” Nicole giggled. “Except, if our connoisseur happened to be an orangutan, it would’ve broken the bars protecting the ventilator windows.”

  “She would make a really good actress,” Jackie commented as she observed Nicole chatting and giggling.

  “You think so?” Claudia raised an eyebrow. “In my opinion, her lightheartedness is a dead giveaway for the fact that the stolen item wasn’t anything so valuable to her.”

  “Oh, you have a point.” Jackie tilted her head and looked at Seyfried holding his head in his shaking hands. “It’s more like him being terribly dense.”

  “I see. Men tend to have their brains locked when they’re focusing on something.” Jackie chuckled. “I should know, since I used to be a guy.”

  As the ghost duo chattered, the humans listening to Rick’s story were discussing something else.

  “So, the culprit must’ve used something like a stick to pull the mask toward the window,” Radcliffe suggested, smacking his lips, but then shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t have worked. I can’t think of any straight sticks that are long enough to reach the top of the table, because such sticks would’ve gotten stuck somewhere in between due to the angle between the table and the window.”

  “I agree with you, Mr. Radcliffe.” Rick chuckled. “How about having the mask come to the window by itself?”

  “Are you serious?” Radcliffe snorted. “Okay, so Beast was truly one of a kind. It looked as if it was a living creature, ready to breathe, howl, and maybe talk. But walking on its own? Come on, it was just a mask. It didn’t even have legs.”

  “Well, you’re thinking about something way more outrageous than I imagined.” Rick shrugged. “If the mask started walking on its own, I bet you’d want it for some other purposes instead of reselling it as art.”

  “Oh, yeah. If I could ever lay my hands on a monster mask that moves on its own, I’d make a huge fortune appearing on TV and doing one of those shows in Vegas.” Radcliffe grinned.

  “Like David Copperfield?” Shannon suggested.

  “Yeah, just like that.” Radcliffe nodded.

  “Let’s forget about the famed Vegas magician for a moment,” Rick interjected. “Remember the mask had two holes for the eyes? Many masks are created to be worn at rituals, festivals, and other special occasions, so Beast had eyeholes with removable fake eyes. Anyway, the culprit used something like a long nylon thread and tied one end to the eyeholes. And the rest was simple. Just by leaving the other end close to the ventilator window, the mask must’ve been easily pulled toward the vent’s opening. With Beast dangling on the floor and with the help of a little saw, the mask was broken into pieces.”

  Nicole sighed. “I had that cushy carpet installed to keep Beast from getting damaged in case it fell onto the floor, but if the culprit broke it into pieces to move it out of that room, all my efforts turned out to be a total waste. What a shame.”

  “At least Beast was intact when the Mysterious Art Connoisseur started cutting it.” Rick winked at her.

  I was having a hard time resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Seriously, it was about time someone started wondering why neither Nicole nor Rick was freaking out.

  “Wait a minute, Rick.” Having tired of just sitting by his side like some kind of a trophy wife, I decided to join the discussion. “When we left the storage, there was nothing tied to the mask.”

  “You’re right. Back then, the mask was free of manipulating factors. That’s because the culprit worked on that part after we’d left the room.” He nodded. “Remember? Nicole showed you and me around the storage area and briefed the two of us about Beast, didn’t she? But unfortunately, something happened after that.”

  “But—” I opened my mouth and then shut it, recalling the sequence of events. “That means the culprit is….” Slowly, I turned my head to one of the people at the table. It was so unbelievable. Surrealistic, even. But—

  “I know what you’re thinking, Mandy.” He patted my hand. “Meet the guy who has the legendary wooden mask called Beast. Yes, it’s you, Detective Seagal. You ushered out not just Mandy and me but Nicole as well, shutting the door and doing the final checkup of the security detail. And conveniently, you had some alone time. It was less than a minute, but long enough to do the manipulation I’ve described.”

  “No kidding!” Heidi and Shannon exclaimed in unison, and Seyfried jumped up from his seat, his jaw dropping to the floor.

  Radcliffe muttered, “Seriously?”

  As for Nicole, she threw her arms up in the air. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”

  Detective Seagal said nothing, but his eyes were wide and his lips were trembling, as if he was overdosing on something or having the mother of all seizures.

  Without moving his gaze from the detective, Rick went on. “In retrospect, you didn’t have to close the door even if you were doing the final checkup. Then again, after tying a clear thread to the mask in a short time, you reopened the door and let us all see inside, and I must say that was a smart move. The lights were switched off and the inside was relatively dark, so without risking the thread being found by us, we confirmed the mask still safely sitting on the display table. I have a hunch that you’ll make a decent magician. Do the trick, dupe the crowd into believing everything is exactly what it seems to be, and let one of the crowd—Nicole, for this special occasion—lock the door. Just like that, right?”

  “No,” Seagal muttered in a low voice. His tone was weak, and he sounded hoarse.

  “Still, having me keep the key wasn’t a good move. In terms of risk hedging, it would’ve looked more
natural if you, the detective, had the key. Perhaps you wanted to look as innocent as possible. Am I correct?”

  “No,” Seagal growled.

  Completely ignoring the detective’s gaze, which was full of anger, Rick continued. “By the way, you didn’t pack the cutting tool to break the mask, and I have mixed feelings about this part. Instead of bringing your own, you borrowed the Sparkses’ saw out of the toolbox in the little depository right next to the bathroom. The door wasn’t shut properly.”

  Seagal opened his thin lips. “Shut… up!” With a bang on the table, he stood up.

  “Oh!” Heidi gasped and took a step back, creating more distance from the table.

  “Shut up, idiot!” he yelled. “Don’t you have a brain? How can you accuse me of being the Mysterious Art Connoisseur? I’m a detective in charge of solving that nasty thief’s heist cases! In case your memory’s shaky, I was witnessed chasing after the thief on his sixth job! Isn’t that right, Ms. Tate?”

  “Um… I guess so.” Shannon nodded awkwardly, looking like she madly wished she could leave.

  “I agree with her.” Rick shrugged. “But just because she saw you running after the Mysterious Art Connoisseur doesn’t prove your innocence over the theft of Beast.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” Knitting his eyebrows, Radcliffe crossed his arms.

  “I’ll tell you about that.” Rick rolled his shoulders. “The culprit made Beast disappear, but what does he gain from this? Nothing, except for the risk of adding burglary to his rap sheet. So why bother committing such a fruitless crime?”

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” Jackie said, narrowing her eyes at Seagal. “Don’t start with your temper tantrum again to interrupt his explanation, okay?”

  “Good thing he doesn’t seem to hear you,” Claudia pointed out. “Otherwise, he’d be shouting like a banshee, pissed off by your comments.”

  “Oh, Claudia!” Jackie’s eyes widened. “I didn’t see the P-word coming from you.”