Christmas Cocoa Murder

by Carlene O'Connor

  My gaze traveled from his hooves and tail, all the way up to his head.

  And the antlers there.

  The story came back to me. Rudolph was young, his antlers mere stubs that would eventually grow out.

  The reindeer in front of me had a full rack sitting atop his head.

  I ran my hand along Rudolph’s antlers, looking for anything that stood out. Near the tip of the longest antler on the left side, I found a seam. Careful, as not to break anything, I wiggled it back and forth, until it clicked. The antler opened, revealing a hidden compartment within.

  “Got ya,” I said as I stuck a finger inside. I immediately regretted it, remembering the needle in the mug, but my finger didn’t get pricked. Instead, I felt the edge of a piece of paper tucked just inside the cavity. I worked it free, and then, with a triumphant grin, opened it.

  3.

  “Oh!” Rita exclaimed as I shoved the number into my pocket. “I think I have it.” She removed a glitter-covered ornament from the tree. When the light struck it, it seemed to glow like a star. She popped off the top and removed a number of her own. “Seven!”

  Others around the room began finding their numbers, calling them out excitedly as they did. For a brief few minutes, it appeared as if everyone had forgotten about the murder and were enjoying the escape room like they’d originally intended. There were smiles, brief chuckles.

  But then the humor dried up as we all turned back to face one another.

  “How do we know what to do with them?” June asked.

  “We input them into the code box,” Bob said. “Did everyone find theirs?”

  A round of affirmative answers followed.

  “Yeah, but what order do we put them in?” she asked. “There’s what? Eight of us? Think of how many combinations there are with eight numbers. It could take all day.”

  “But we’d get out of here,” Bob said.

  “The hot cocoa mugs,” Troy said. “We should empty them.”

  “Why?” Jerry asked, eyeing his mug with a healthy dose of distrust. I couldn’t say I blamed him after what had happened to Lewis.

  The number I’d seen in the bottom of Bob’s mug came back to me. There had to be a reason for the hot cocoa to be there. I mean, nearly everything else was part of the game, so why not the cocoa and mug? Once the mugs were emptied, the numbers would be revealed. Could that be our order? Or were the numbers tucked inside our clues our order?

  “What about the big gift in the center?” Carol asked as I tried to work it through. “Shouldn’t we be doing something about it too?”

  “It’s probably part of the story,” Bob said. “But I doubt we need it for getting out of here.” He pointed to where the gift was connected to the table by a chain. “There’s a lock that requires a key. So, unless our numbers open some other box around here, I don’t think we need to worry about it.”

  “I think we should check the mugs,” Troy insisted. “They’re there for a reason.” He strode forward and picked up his mug. At least half of us sucked in a sharp breath, as if afraid he’d suddenly collapse and fall dead like Lewis.

  Instead, he upended the cold cocoa on the floor. With hardly a glance, he flipped the mug around to show us all the number within.

  “See,” he said. “Our order.”

  “How in the world did you figure that out?” Bob muttered.

  “Who cares? I want out of here.” Jerry scurried forward and emptied his mug onto the floor like Troy.

  “What if that’s there for the gift?” June asked. “I think we should check it, just to be sure.”

  “Forget the gift,” Bob said. “We need to get out of here.” He looked at the empty spot where his mug had been, then at the popcorn tin in which it now sat. He paled. “Guess we can figure mine out once we have the rest.”

  I already knew the number, having seen it when I’d put the mug in the tin, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  Another thought had hit me, one that pushed all thoughts of escaping right out of my head.

  “I know,” I said, unable to believe I hadn’t figured it out before then. All the clues were there; I’d been too distracted with the escape room to notice them until now.

  “Know what, dear?” Rita asked. She had her mug in hand, but had yet to dump it.

  I took a deep breath, and then let it out between my teeth before looking at each and every face in the room. When I spoke, I did so slowly, clearly, so that everyone could understand me.

  “I know who killed Lewis Coates.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tension filled the room as everyone stopped to stare at me. My nerves were jumping as I ran it over in my head again and again. Each time I did, I came to the same conclusion; I knew who killed poor Lewis, though I didn’t know why as of yet.

  But I hoped to figure that out soon enough.

  There wasn’t much the killer could do to me with everyone watching, but that didn’t mean I was entirely safe. There were objects all over the room, things with sharp points, heavy blunt ends. If I wasn’t careful, I could join Lewis on the floor before anyone could step in and stop it.

  “What do you mean, you know who killed him?” Bob asked. “How long have you known?”

  “Not long,” I said. “In fact, the pieces just now fell into place.”

  Suspicious glances went around the room.

  I kept hold of my Rudolph, clutching it like it was the only thing keeping me safe. I glanced at Lewis’s covered body, wishing I would have somehow been able to save him, but it wasn’t to be. Even if I’d seen the out-of-place mug before he’d touched it, I wouldn’t have known what it meant until it was too late.

  “Who was it, dear?” Rita asked. “Don’t leave us all in suspense!”

  I could have pointed a finger and then hoped for the best, but I needed to talk through it first. Not only did I need to hear it out loud myself, but I hoped in doing so, I’d stumble my way to a motive. That would go a long way toward me not sounding like a lunatic.

  “It wasn’t easy to figure out,” I said, meeting everyone’s eyes one at a time. No one, not even Lewis’s killer, reacted. “There was so much going on, it distracted me from the truth.”

  I moved to stand so I could see everyone. It put me farther away from the door, but it wasn’t like I’d be able to escape that way. It also had the benefit of putting me farther away from the killer, so I’d take it.

  “There needed to be an opportunity,” I said. “Carol coming into the room early must have felt like a blessing. She didn’t know it, but her curiosity caused her to play right into the killer’s hands. How easy would it be to pin the murder on someone who was somewhere they shouldn’t be, someone who was snooping where the murder would soon take place?”

  “I was just looking,” Carol muttered, looking down at the folded piece of paper in her hands.

  “Then she was the first to escape her room, which meant it would be even easier to accuse her of being the killer.” I paused, then looked to Jerry. “But she wasn’t the first to get her door open, was she?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Jerry said, eyes widening. He looked wildly from me, to Bob, and then back again. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I said. “But you were the first of us to escape legitimately. You didn’t leave your room, but it did allow you to see that no one else was messing with the mugs. You might not have seen Lewis’s body, but because you saw Carol escape, it made it harder to blame her for murder.”

  Jerry sagged against the wall. Bob, however, wasn’t convinced.

  “The mug was mine,” he said. “If Carol didn’t sneak in here earlier to swap it, wouldn’t it be more likely that J. did it to get back at me for getting that promotion over him?”

  “That was another convenience that played right into the killer’s hands,” I said. “You two knew one another, so it made sense to replace one of your mugs so we would suspect one of you of going after the other. I don’t know if he knew about y
our promotion over Jerry, or if that was just a happy coincidence, but he knew that if it came down to accusations, Jerry would be the first person you’d look at.”

  “You said he,” June said.

  “That’s right.” All eyes turned toward the last two remaining men in the room. “Rita didn’t do it. She babbled so much while searching her room, I would have noticed if she’d snuck out.”

  “I don’t babble!” Rita said. She sounded genuinely offended by the comment.

  “And June?” Yuri asked. “Why does she get a free pass?”

  “She doesn’t,” I said. “And while I can’t prove that she didn’t do it, I know she’s innocent. Like I said, I know who killed Lewis, and June isn’t our murderer.”

  It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but it was the best I could do. She relaxed visibly, so it appeared it was good enough for her.

  “Yuri, then,” Bob said, turning to the man in question. “We all saw you go up to Lewis before this thing started. You knew the guy. I think that makes you the most likely killer.”

  “I agree,” Troy said.

  “We knew each other.” Yuri scowled. His hands balled into fists, his posture ready for a confrontation. “I explained all of this to her.” The look he shot me could melt steel.

  “True,” I said. “You did explain it. And while it would be easy to dismiss your words, claim that you were lying to protect yourself, I find I believe you. You knew Lewis before this, had interactions with him outside of the escape room. Yet, why kill him? What would be your motive?”

  “Does anyone here have a motive?” Jerry asked. “I mean, we’re all strangers, right?”

  “Not quite,” I said, eyes moving to the last man in the room.

  Troy stood across from me, arms crossed over his chest. Everything in his posture screamed intimidation. “What are you trying to say?” he asked. “That I did it?”

  “I am.” I kept my back straight, my gaze steady, though I was a jumble of nerves inside. What if I was wrong? What if he had a weapon hidden on him somewhere? This could go wrong in so many ways, yet I couldn’t keep it to myself, not with Lewis lying dead at my feet.

  “Troy?” June said with a shake of her head. “He couldn’t have done it. Why would he?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Why would I? I didn’t know the guy. I don’t know any of you.”

  “Don’t you?” I asked. “I have a feeling that isn’t entirely true.”

  Troy snorted and moved to put his arm around June. She took a quick step away from him, eyes wide, uncertain. He scowled at her a moment, before turning his attention back to me.

  “Fine,” he said. “Lay it on me.” There was a confidence to his posture that had me briefly questioning my conclusions. If I was wrong, I was accusing an innocent man of murder. It could ruin his life. The killer had planned so much, worked things so that we’d think others guilty. What made me think he didn’t plan this too?

  I refused to let my doubts sway me, however. Lewis was dead. I might not be able to bring him back, but I could help provide him with some sort of justice.

  “Let’s start from the moment you arrived,” I said. “You played it off like you were here for a little fun with your girlfriend. And then when Lewis joined us, he immediately saw someone he didn’t like.”

  “Yeah, Yuri,” Bob said. “We all saw the way he reacted to him.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but that wasn’t the case, was it?”

  Troy didn’t respond. The muscles in his arms bunched, and the corners of his mouth twitched. He was barely suppressing his anger, which made me want to goad him all the more. If he broke and screamed something like, “He deserved it!” then I wouldn’t need to prove anything. Instead, he’d do it for me.

  “Lewis did scowl,” I said. “And he did have a confrontation with Yuri. But I bet if Yuri had stayed where he was, Lewis would have looked right past him. That scowl wasn’t meant for Yuri—it was meant for you.”

  “Says you,” Troy said. “I didn’t know the guy.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked him. “Because people don’t usually react so negatively toward people they don’t know.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then, let’s move on to the mug,” I said. “It was swapped out, that we can all agree upon.”

  Everyone but Troy nodded.

  “The real mug, the one that was supposed to be sitting on the table with the others, was found in Rita’s room.”

  “Yuri found it,” June said. Her voice trembled, and worry filled her eyes. She wanted to believe Troy innocent, yet a part of her seemed to realize that he wasn’t telling the truth. My heart broke for her, but I didn’t stop.

  “He did,” I agreed. “Once again, the killer planted evidence that pointed to someone else. This time, both Rita and Yuri would look guilty. Rita, since the mug was found in her room, and Yuri, because he was the one who’d found it there. Since he searched the room alone, he could have easily planted it.”

  “Are you saying he didn’t?” Troy asked. “I never went into her room.”

  “That’s not true,” Jerry said, pushing away from the wall.

  I was glad I wasn’t the only one who’d remembered. Jerry’s added support gave me the courage to keep pressing. “When we wanted to cover Lewis, Rita said there was a blanket in her room. You must have realized we’d search for the mug, so you took the opportunity to hide it in her room while you were in there, grabbing the blanket for us.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Troy said. “I was doing a good thing. I was helping.”

  “You were,” I said. “Helping yourself.”

  A vein started to pulse in the middle of Troy’s forehead.

  “While a lot of what happened was convenience, you had much of it planned out. Everything you did, every step you made, in turn, made someone else look guilty.”

  “Everyone but us,” June whispered.

  “June, I . . .”

  “You didn’t want me to come,” she said, taking a step away from him. “You didn’t even want to tell me where you were going. If I wouldn’t have found out, wouldn’t have insisted, you would have left me at home.”

  Troy floundered for something to say to June, before turning to me. “Why would I kill him?” he asked. “I had no reason to do it.”

  “That, I’m not sure about,” I said. “We’re all pretty much strangers here. Maybe that’s why you chose this place to kill him. You thought that perhaps we’d turn on one another.” Which, admittedly, we almost had. “You hoped that one of your many plants would keep the police from looking too deep into your connections with Lewis Coates.”

  “I have no connections!” Troy shouted, spreading his arms wide. His composure was cracking. I could see the fear behind his eyes, the guilt.

  “Their jobs,” Yuri said with a snap of his fingers.

  The lightbulb went on in my head.

  “Lewis worked in security,” I said, piecing it together. “You work at a bank, don’t you?”

  Troy showed no reaction, but June nodded. “Investments.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “If the police were to check, would they learn that Lewis handled computer security at your bank?” I asked. “Did he catch you doing something you shouldn’t? Did he try to blackmail you? Or did you merely suspect he knew something and decided to put an end to him before he could tell anyone?”

  Troy went completely still, other than his eyes. They moved around the room, seeking an escape, an excuse. He knew he was caught, knew that while I didn’t have the exact why, or even the how, the police would eventually figure it out.

  “Did you come here before?” I asked. “Run the room?” I nodded, noting the way he sucked in a breath. “You did, didn’t you? You learned Lewis was running this thing, showed up, and had a look around. Maybe you only talked to him then, begged him not to turn you in.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Troy said, without conviction.

  “Whatever hap
pened, it made you unhappy. After that first visit, you decided to kill him and registered again, but this time, under an old nickname you no longer use. Then you hid the mug in the room, quickly figured out your escape, and snuck out to make the swap.”

  I wasn’t sure how he’d escaped so fast, but assumed he’d learned the code ahead of time. Lewis probably kept the codes tucked away somewhere, just in case he needed to help people along, so perhaps Troy found it and used it. It was likely I’d never know for sure how he’d managed it, but, honestly, that was none of my concern.

  “You were so quiet at the start,” June said. “I thought you were busy searching your room.”

  “I . . .” Troy glanced at her, looked back to me.

  “Then, once Lewis’s body was discovered, you went straight for the door. Without hesitation, you input a code. Maybe you would have played it off like a lucky guess, and with a man dead, we might have believed you.”

  “But he changed it,” Bob said, taking a step toward Troy, his own fists bunching.

  Troy eased away from the other man. His eyes were wild now as they scoured the room for a way out of this.

  “Why’d you do it?” I asked him, keeping my voice calm. “Why kill Lewis Coates?”

  Troy shook his head. It looked like an involuntary motion. His eyes fell on June, softened. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  And then he made his move.

  Quick as lightning, he flung himself at Rita. She yelped and tried to jump out of the way, but he was far younger, and far quicker. He got behind her and whipped the string of Christmas lights he’d been holding this entire time around her neck.

  “Stay back,” he said, giving a sharp tug on the strand, causing Rita’s eyes to widen. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  Everyone in the room froze.

  “You can’t get out,” Bob said. “The door’s locked.”

  “But we have the codes, don’t we?” Troy said. “Everyone simply needs to input their numbers in the correct order, and then we’ll all walk out of here nice and easy.”