Murder Ala Mode

by Constance Barker

  Smoke stood up from his seat behind me. “I can’t believe it was intentional, but the professor did trip on the kid’s foot.”

  “Thank you, chef,” Reggie said with a cocky grin. “And I certainly didn’t kill that tasty little hottie. She gave me a lot of…attention. It’s just a good thing for me that Randi wasn’t wearing her contact lenses, or it might have been me in that chair with a knife in my neck.”

  I think I need a barf bag.

  “Alright, alright, then,” Duggery said, “let’s whittle it down to the three or four most likely suspects, and then we will examine the physical evidence. We have the coroner and crime lab team here to help us sort through it.”

  A woman from the college staff brought in a stack of ballots and gave half to the first person on each side of the aisle.

  “I want you all to number the names on the list here from one through eight. The one most likely to be the killer, in your estimation, will get a ‘one’ and the least likely will get an ‘eight.’ Remember, this is a about real lives. Now, please – I don’t want all of you from the college to vote for the townspeople and vice versa. You must be diligent in weighing the evidence and select those you think had the motive and opportunity to commit the crime.”

  “You better give me an eight, Brody,” I whispered to him.

  “That sounds like jury tampering to me, Miss Howard,” he said. But he gave me an eight.

  “Now pass them all to the front when you’re done,” Duggery instructed. “We will tally up your rankings and select our finalists. But first, I think a 20-minute break would be in order.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Brody and I found a little cantina called The Black Hole in the basement of the student center, while the others all went to the coffee shop across the street. All of us “suspects” were escorted by a law enforcement officer. Mine was Brody.

  “One supermassive-galactic sized orange soda please,” Brody told the clerk, “and two straws.”

  Ooh. Just like high school.

  “And a bag of the puffy cheese balls,” I added. “As long as we’re going orange.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want the crunchy fried ones?” Brody asked with his puppy dog look.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, but you know the puffy ones are just cheese-flavored air. They don’t really satisfy a man’s appetite.”

  “Perfect! Because I don’t have a man’s appetite.”

  I could tell he wanted to call out that lie, but he wisely held his tongue, and we sat at a small table.

  “So, are you getting anything out of this, Brody?”

  He kind of shook his head and gathered his thoughts. “Not sure. Not really. I’ve got more suspects now that I had before we got here, so it’s kind of going in the wrong direction.”

  “Who do you want to see in the final group of three or four suspects?”

  “Well, the drama professor – Zorn – and the chef guy for sure. Then, I guess probably that scared kid that played the butler…”

  “Dirk Montague.”

  “Yeah, and maybe Zack.”

  “What! I’ve known Zack since he was a kid. There’s no way he was involved. Why him?”

  “It’s just that he was right there – I mean really in the perfect spot, close to the kitchen and to the green curtain – and because he controlled the lights.”

  “I don’t know, Brody.”

  “I’m not saying I think he did it. I’m just saying that we can’t really eliminate him at this point. I can’t really attribute a motive to him, though, so that’s good for him.”

  “Mmhm. I guess. What about the old professor?”

  “Duggery? Nah, I don’t see it.”

  “Can you eliminate him?”

  “Well, we eliminated Red based on old age.”

  “But Duggery is probably ten years younger and a lot more nimble. And he’s a crime guy. Maybe he wanted to see if he could commit the perfect crime.”

  “Sure, without casing the joint first or having any clue about the knife that would be in a duffel bag in the kitchen. He didn’t even know when the lights would be going out.”

  “We don’t know any of that for sure.”

  “It’s not him. Let’s get back.”

  We were the last ones to return to the auditorium.

  “I guess your officers kept everyone on a strict time clock, Brody.”

  “When a judge gives you a 20-minute recess, you don’t take 21; you take 18. I guess this is a little like a court proceeding.”

  “Take your seats everyone,” Duggery announced. “Sheriff, would you join me again to look over my list and see if there are any others you want included in the final group?”

  Brody went up and took the tally sheet from the professor. He nodded a couple of times and then shook his head, tapping his finger on the final list. Duggery consulted with him for a moment, and then Brody sat down next to me without saying a word.

  “I’m sure glad that part is over,” Ruby said. She was sitting on the other side of me now, in the front row. “I really didn’t like being up there with people looking at me like some kind of criminal – and knowing there was an actual killer, maybe right next me!”

  “You got that right,” I whispered.

  “Alright, then,” Duggery began, “the lower the score, the more likely the person is to be the killer, as they got the most ‘ones’ and ‘twos,’ you see. We are going to have five people seated initially, and we will excuse them as they are eliminated. The scores were very close for the top five, and the others all received quite a lot higher numeric values.”

  He took a monocle out of his breast pocket with his left hand and put it over his right eye.

  I whispered to Brody, “I’ve never actually seen one of those! I thought they were from, like, the 19th Century.”

  Brody shrugged. “So is Dig Duggery, I guess.”

  “The fourth runner-up, with the fifth lowest score is Dirk Montague. Please Take the first chair.”

  “No! I’m not going back up there!” he hollered out as the deputy pulled him to his feet. “You said three or four.”

  The girl with brown hair went over and embraced him. She whispered something in his ear and stroked his arm, and he calmed down. He nodded to her and took the chair on the stage.

  “Poor Dirk!” Ruby whispered to me.

  “Next is JP Lamour, followed by Zack Woods, and Professor Reggie Zorn.”

  The men all filed onto the stage and sat.

  “And the person with the lowest score, whom most of you believe to be the killer of Miss Randi Taylor, is Miss Ruby Owana.”

  “What!” Ruby shrieked in a high-pitched voice and then covered her mouth. “Why me?” she whispered to me and Brody.

  He reached over me and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, Ruby. You won’t be up there very long.”

  He gave her a wink and a reassuring smile. Then she took a deep breath and strutted onto the stage defiantly and took the final chair.

  The only ones from the previous group who were not on the stage now were Deloris and me. And Duggery had been eliminated too. Not sure why. Brody patted my knee and went up onto the stage.

  “This is still a law-enforcement procedure and not a class project,” he said in that Sheriff voice that I like so much. He turned to Ruby. “Miss Owana, you’re dismissed. Please go back to your seat in the gallery.”

  She wasted no time in going back to the seat next to me, as the crowd howled its objections. She clasped my arm tightly with both hands. Her face was flushed, beet red. She was close to tears, and I could tell her heart was racing.

  “That’s not fair!” said the girl who had presented her case against Ruby earlier. “She’s the most probable suspect. We voted!”

  “Miss…”

  “Abigail Evans,” she said with a smile and slight curtsy.

  “Miss Evans…”

  “You can call me Abigail,” she said flirtatiously, swaying from side to side with
her hands clasped behind her back.

  Ruby and I rolled our eyes at each other.

  “Miss Evans,” Brody continued, “I am leading this investigation. I was at the event when the murder took place. And I can tell you unequivocally that Ruby Owana could not have committed this murder.”

  Her eyes were rapt on Brody and she didn’t blink. I thought she might start drooling soon.

  “Were we ever googly-eyed girls like this when we were younger, Ruby?” I whispered to her.

  “We still are, a little,” she whispered back.

  “Ouch.”

  “The truth hurts.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me tell you why she could not have done it, Miss Evans. Okay?”

  Abigail nodded, still enthralled.

  “Miss Owana was seated at the counter during the play, two seats further from the stage and the murder than I was. She was not in the play, but she was in costume, because she sang for the crowd before the play began. She was wearing a long, full, flowing gown from the 1890s with all of the petticoats and bloomers and poofy things under it. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes, Sheriff Brody,” she said with a nod. “Like old-time queens and stuff.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. And she was wearing high stiletto heels. Do you think you could whizz past me in a very narrow aisle, grab a knife in the dark, stab a woman, and get back to your seat in a time period that we believe was about seven seconds – without me noticing?”

  “Maybe she took the dress and shoes off first.”

  “Okay, so now she’s a quick-change artist too? She was fully dressed in her costume when the lights came on.”

  “Okay, Sheriff Brody. She didn’t do it.”

  Abigail walked down to the front row and leaned over to Ruby. “You’re really pretty, Miss Owana. I’m glad you’re not the killer, but in my first mystery novel the killer is going to be a smokin’ hot chick just like you!”

  She didn’t wait for a response and went back to her seat.

  “Alright, people,” Duggery said. “Shall we continue? Dr. Chambers, will you please give your report to the group about the details of the murder and the evidence you have discovered?”

  Sylvia went to the podium and described the details of the crime.

  “And the large chef’s knife entered the back of the victim’s neck vertically and left-of-center, at a slight downward angle,” she said, “which means the knife was wielded in this manner.”

  She brought her fist downward from her shoulder in a stabbing motion.

  “Then the knife was twisted 180 degrees, so the sharp side of the blade ended up on top. The counter-clockwise motion of the blade would indicate that the killer was right-handed.”

  Many of us in the audience were twisting our fists.

  “Smart,” I said to Brody and Ruby. “The left hand would twist it clockwise.”

  Ruby had a confused look and shook her head. “I don’t know, Mercy. Look at this.”

  She put her elbow on the arm of her seat with her fist straight up. Then she cranked it as far as she could in a counterclockwise direction.

  “Sylvia said the blade turned 180 degrees, but I can only turn my wrist a quarter-turn. That’s 90 degrees.”

  “I see what you mean,” Brody said.

  “Sylvia,” Ruby said, getting to her feet, “since the knife entered on the left side of the victim’s neck, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the killer would be left handed?”

  “Well, I considered that at first, but it would depend on where the perpetrator was standing too.”

  “But if she was stabbed like this” Ruby said, using the same downward vertical thrust Sylvia had demonstrated, “the killer would only be able to twist the knife 90 degrees, not 180.”

  Everyone, including Sylvia, was doing the wrist twist now.

  “I see what you’re saying, Ruby, but perhaps they twisted it twice.”

  “Or maybe they stabbed her with the left hand, but underhanded instead of overhanded. No, because the blade went in at a downward angle. Hmm.”

  “If I really hated somebody,” Professor Duggery said, “I would thrust the knife in overhand to make use of all of my strength. Then I would re-grip the handle with my thumb on the side toward the neck and the blade, and twist it. A forward roll of the wrist would provide the most strength in that case, which means that a counterclockwise rotation would be made by the left hand. And it also seems one could more easily get a full half-circle turn with the hand in that position.”

  “That does make sense,” I said, still twisting and rolling my wrist.

  “And the person who threw the fire bomb into the diner yesterday threw it with their left hand, come to think of it,” Brody said. “We can take a look at that video in a while.”

  “Professor Duggery,” I said, “I noticed that when you were sitting next to me at the counter the night of the murder, we were bumping elbows when we drank our beverages. So…”

  “Yes, Quite so, Mercy. I’m left-handed.”

  A loud murmur rolled through the crowd now, and I gave Brody a “See, I told you so!” look.

  Brody whispered to me, “Do you really think this old coot was the one in the black hoodie in the video? No.”

  “The bomber doesn’t have to be the killer,” I said.

  Sylvia finally continued and told us about the other evidence. JP’s knife was the murder weapon, and his chef coat has the victim’s blood on it.

  “But the blood was on the back of the jacket,” I said, “so JP didn’t change after he killed her. It would have been on the front.”

  “Correct, Mercy,” Sylvia said, “which is why the theory the investigators are working with is that the killer took the coat and knife from the bag and used the coat as a spatter-shield when he stabbed her. He probably examined the contents of the bag before he moved it from the kitchen to the curtain behind the stage, and had the knife and coat ready for the murder, maybe even before the blackout. He left the knife in her neck to minimize the splatter and potential gushing.”

  I nodded. “So, then JP’s story that he changed into the other chef coat before the play is true.”

  “Yes, of course it’s true.” JP said passionately. “Everything I told you and the Sheriff’s people is true. Someone used my knife and coat to implicate me. But I didn’t do it!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lamour,” Duggery said.

  “And he was still in custody yesterday when the Molotov cocktail was thrown into the diner,” the Sheriff said. “He passed the lie detector tests with flying colors too. I think we can excuse this man. Does anyone have a reason we should keep him up here as a suspect?”

  There was silence as everyone in the auditorium looked at each other.

  “It looks like there are no objections, Sheriff,” the old professor said. “Mr. Lamour, you may step down, but please remain here in the auditorium.”

  I heard Deloris’s caustic voice way in the back.

  “Then you better give me a pickle jar or go get a mop, because one way or another this bladder is going to get emptied.”

  Brody waved to the deputy at the door to let her go out, which she did.

  “You got five minutes, lady, and then you’re a fugitive,” the guard said.

  “Yessir, Lieutenant Gerard. I’ll let you know if I see the one-armed man.”

  Deloris’s comment went over the heads of the young students, but it got a chuckle from the older law enforcement and investigative crew.

  Sylvia had Babs’ video on the bombing on her laptop and plugged it into the projection system, but it was Brody who spoke.

  “Now, there’s no guarantee that this act of arson is directly connected with the murder the night before. But, in a quiet town like Paint Creek, it seems unlikely that these two heinous acts in the course of two days are a coincidence. You can see by this person’s actions and demeanor that the diner was specifically targeted. And even if it is related to the murder, that doesn’t mean that th
e person here is the killer. He could have been hired, or there could have been more than one person involved. You can see clearly that the flaming bottle was thrown with the left hand.”

  “Yes, let’s pursue that point,” Duggery said, moving back to the podium. “Who else in this group of suspects, or the others who were present that night, are left-handed?”

  Jake raised his hand, and a moment later, Del – JP’s brother who drove away after the murder – also raised his hand. None of the suspects seated up front raised theirs.

  Duggery went over and put his hand on Brody’s shoulder to get his attention. Then they whispered back and forth several times. Maybe they had an idea.

  The remaining three suspects in front were still sitting there, and I didn’t have any confidence at all that one of them was the killer. Reggie Zorn was getting impatient, while Dirk, as always, seemed nervous and sweaty. Zack was actually asleep.

  “Professor Duggery,” Dirk said, raising his hand slightly, “I need to use the restroom too. Is it okay if I go out for a minute?”

  Duggery deferred to Brody, who whispered something to Duggery again. “Can you hold on for two minutes, kid? I just want to finish up this part of the inquiry.”

  Dirk nodded and brushed his hair back with his left hand. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, and I could see blue stains that looked like ink on the cuff of his left sleeve. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what.

  “Professor Zorn,” Brody said, “you said something earlier that we glossed over, but I think it might be important.”

  “Okay. What’s that?” Zorn asked, looking at his watch. “And are you guys buying lunch?”

  “You said that if Randi had worn her contact lenses, you might be the one with a knife in your throat. Can you explain that?”

  Brody was holding his phone and seemed to be texting someone as he spoke.

  “That’s right. I was supposed to sit in that red armchair when the lights went out, and she was supposed to sit in the wooden chair next to me. She made the same mistake during a couple of the early rehearsals, but she had gotten it right for the last several practice runs.”