Not Another Crime?

The wind blew through the trees surrounding the house and caused the branches to clack against the window which shook free their leaves. Falling through the front door, two shadows collapsed and fell out onto the pavement in a crash of noise and splintered wood.

            “You whippersnappers!” called an elderly woman who stood in the door to the house. Her figure was silhouetted by a growing light coming from within. Soon en

ough, a small woman who was out of breath appeared next to the lady holding a tarnished candle holder.

            “Madame! Madame! Vous ‘ill get a chill!” The little woman spoke between huffed breaths as she threw a threadbare shawl over the shoulders of the elderly woman. Pushing the shawl off her, she marched down the stairs and, with a surprising strength, pulled the tussling men apart and held them by the ear. “This is ridiculous! Honestly what are we to do with young ones like you? My husband is dead for goodness sake!”

Five hours earlier, an elderly man was shuffling down the long corridor of the house. He carried a single red leather bound book in the confines of his own leathery hand which shook slightly with each step. As he passed the length of the hall, he snuffed out each candle one by one which lit the gothic portraits hanging on the walls. The ornately furnished grandfather clock began to strike twelve times as the pendulum within slowly counted the seconds into the new day. After the chiming of the clock had finished the man had reached the end of the hall and stared deeply into the clock face itself, appearing to admire the craftsmanship. All was silent save for the rasp of his lungs as he continued to look at the slowly moving hands. Suddenly the face opened like a flap and a single revolver appeared and blasted through the silence of the house. Chaos ensured.

Marching them back into the living room, the elderly lady stood with her hands across her chest.

“And you too Christina!” she said to the little French woman hovering in the doorway. “I am positively sick to death of my house being used as a murder mystery setting. I’ve lost three husbands so far to this city’s shenanigans!” As she said this, she glared at each person in turn, “and the so-called Police have never been of help!”

At this, a man in a cap sat up and glared at the elderly woman, “But I-“

“I want none of that Sir – I’m too old to be up this late and tomorrow I shall have to find another husband. Look what you all put me through.” The man sitting next to him in a balaclava sheepishly looked at his hands. At this, the doorbell rang to the house and with an exasperated point, Christina was sent to answer it. A glamorous woman soon entered the room with a notepad in hand. Her hair was pulled back through the use of a glimmering hair clasp and the peacock quill was held gracefully in her hand. “Oh and who are you supposed to be, the glamorous millionaire or yet another detective?”

“I’m sorry? I’m just an investigative reporter Miss,” she said as she began to scribble on her pad.

“An investigative reporter? Hmph! Well at least we haven’t had one of them before,” retorted the lady. Her hair curlers had slowly slipped from their places over the night and her hair was now floating in wisps about her head. At this, the glamorous woman moved over and sat next to the nervously fidgeting maid.

“My name is Natalie and I’m here to tell your story. I need to know exactly what happened. When, how and why,” the woman spoke in calming tones to the rest of the group. Suddenly the maid piped up and quickly said;

 “Zese people are crazy Madame!”

The man in the balaclava fell out from the clock the moment the body dropped to the floor. He had barely fit into the thing and now he lay on the ground gasping for air after near suffocation. Suddenly, as he lay on the floor, he inspected the man’s face. It was not who he was after. “Bugger! Got the wrong house!” he whispered hurriedly to himself. Somehow, the crime network kept mixing up the addresses of their targets; he’d heard the same thing had happened to a friend last year. He hurriedly started to pull the man down the hallway by his legs yet soon enough a small woman appeared at the end of the hall in a nightgown.

“ ’Vat is going on? Monsieur? Qui are you?” she mumbled as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Looking down the hall, she saw the body and gasped with shock. “Sacre bleu! It has happened again!” Tears began to roll down her face as her body trembled from top to toe. She turned and disappeared down the hall and out the front door. Dropping the body, the criminal turned to run after her just as a shriek came from the wooden stairs near the clock. Startled by the noise from the elderly woman behind him, he tripped and fell over a rut in the rug. Suddenly the little woman appeared once more at the front door with a burly man wearing a cap.

“Stop there!” the policeman commanded in deep tones that vibrated through the floorboards. In a panic, the criminal got up from the floor and ran like a bull towards the policeman. In a mad tussle both struggled with the other as the French woman locked the door behind her and ran past the men to help the elderly woman. The men’s fighting pressed them against the door so hard that the lock broke and they tumbled out into the street and landed on their backs.

“So this all happened very quickly,” Natalie said to the crowd in the lounge room in surprise.

“Well we’re so used to it Dear so naturally it does now. Humph!” retorted the elderly woman with a glare towards the rest of them.

“I don’t even know these people!” cried the criminal who sat squished next to the burly officer. Yet the large man turned and silenced him with a glare.

“But what I don’t understand is –where’s the body?” the reporter asked, “I didn’t see it coming in.”

At this all four of the others in the room went silent with looks of shock on their faces. Suddenly, a tentative knock on the doorframe made them all turn their faces towards it. There stood a man in a dressing robe carrying a red leather book with a single hole in it.

“Heh – always carry this with me everywhere ever since Effy told me about her previous husbands! Gives you a bit of a shock but does the trick,” the man softly said as he rubbed a bump on his head.

“Oh Winston!” cried the elderly lady, “What a relief!” Just as the maid fainted into the chair and the policeman and criminal began to scratch their heads.

“Well… case solved I guess,” said the reporter as she snapped her book shut.

A Dinner to Die For

The inspector stepped out onto the glistening cobbles as the flashing lights on the authorities’ cars around him lit up the street in pulsing colours of blue and red. Glancing at the decrepit mansion he took in a deep breath and sighed with conte

mpt at human crime. Here, he was… again. Stepping into who knows what foul crime had been committed by the riffraff of the city. To make matters worse, the delinquents had decided to do it in some sagging and abandoned building. Life isn’t a Christie novel for crying out loud.

            The floorboards creaked under his feet he stepped through into the decrepit mansion. The stark illumination from search lights created an eerie contrasting brilliance within the usually darkened house, causing termites and cobwebs alike to shine. Broken windows and rotted walls allowed beams from the outside lights to steal into the central hall and consume the confronting scene.

Stopping short before walking into the main hall, the inspector spied an old ornate wooden table spanning the room under a dust-ridden and broken chandelier. Cups, knives and baskets of swollen food lay spilled across the table as the guests around it slumped with lifeless eyes staring beyond the table into the afterlife. It certainly was a meal to die for.

            ‘ ‘Scuse me Inspector Black but it seems we have a murder on our hands,’ piped a stout man in uniform beside the inspector who awoke from his musings about the scene with a start.

            ‘Well of course we do! What else would we have?’ he angrily retorted.

            With a grin spreading across his face, the little officer replied, ‘We ‘aven’t found the corpses yet but I ‘ave my suspicions… very unusual circumstances it being ‘ere and all.’

            ‘What do you mean haven’t found the corpses? They’re slumped at the table for crying out loud!’

            ‘Oh no sir, I do believe you’re mistaken. No corpses ‘round ‘ere. No tables either.’ With a wink he strode off in the opposite direction.

            I swear that man is as blind as a post! thought Inspector Black as he watched the little officer waddle away. Shaking his head, he strode into the darkened room that had begun to smell of rot with a cover of sickly sweet cold meat. Each guest was finely dressed as if ready for a dinner party with pearls gleaming from the women’s ears and ties hanging from the men’s necks like nooses. It was obvious that they were all wealthy and had all gathered here by choice as each one of them were impeccably dressed. But the question was why? Why gather in a place like this? Leaning down to sniff the food, the inspector began to go through the motions of considering what had happened. It was then that he noticed a corpse sitting at the head of the table with its head firmly planted in the plate of food before him. Immediately Black knew that poison had been at work and that this very man was the host of the party for corpses.

            ‘Inspector, Inspector!’ cried the officer from the upper landing of the main hall, interrupting the thoughts of the inspector. ‘We’ve found the corpses. It’s all very peculiar. They’re seated around a table like some strange party.’

            Struggling to maintain a grip on his temper, the inspector turned to the officer and shouted up to him, ‘yes, I know! I’m bloody well standing in front of them!’

            ‘So you are! What a strange coincidence. You know what? I bet they’re not even dead, they’re probably some strange red-herring to throw us off the scent of the real crime!’ And with that he strode off once more to investigate throughout the house.

            With shocking disbelief at the incredulity of his co-worker, the inspector once more began to walk around the table and study the faces of the dead. Each corpse had something peculiar about them. One man with hair oiled to perfection had two crushed plums that had been forcefully pressed into his face, one in each eye. The man next to him had a smear of greasy mustard all over his face covering the beginnings of a beard while a woman who sat opposite him had had her face vandalised with streaks of bright scarlet lipstick. As he attempted to connect the mysterious appearances of the people lying around him, the officer suddenly appeared next to him, brandishing a bright red letter.

            ‘I do believe I’ve found a clue inspector!’ Rolling his eyes, Black took the envelope and read the letter inside.

You are cordially invited to a Murder Mystery this Friday evening in the abandoned house at 6 Stumpin Street. Please arrive at 6:00pm sharp and be in your best attire that suits your character.

Your character is: Mr Boddy.

            ‘A murder mystery? What kind of sadistic joke is this killer trying to make?’ inquired Black with eyes raised in disapproval. Strangely as the Inspector glanced at his watch, he noticed it was only just six o’clock now.

            ‘Oh it’s a game, Inspector! Such a fun game, I’ve been to a few good ‘uns in my time,’ replied the rotund man.

            ‘Oh? And who is this Mr Boddy?’

            ‘Why sir, don’t you get it? It’s a game of Cluedo!’ cried the officer.

            With a jolt the Inspector looked over the corpses again in muted shock. Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, Cornel Mustard and all the rest stared back at him with gaping eyes. ‘But who on Earth is Mr Boddy?’ the Inspector mumbled to himself.

            ‘Why they were Red Herrings all along sir,’ the officer grinned happily and rubbed his belly.

            ‘I don’t understand – what are the red herrings?’

            ‘Oh you really are daft aren’t you Inspector Black? They’re the Red Herrings,’ he said as he waved to the guests sitting at the table, ‘and you sir, are Mr Boddy, the dead body in a great game of Cluedo!’

            With a triumphant cry the officer removed a gun from the front of his trousers and shot the rusted chord holding the chandelier upright. With an almighty crash the ringed metalwork fell down on top of Inspector Black crushing him through the rotted floor next to the table. All that was left was the gaping black shape of a figure of a man in the old and mouldy floorboards just like the shape of a dead body on a Cluedo board.

An Impossible Corpse

 

The snow silently drifted down from the sky in whispers of cold flurries. Softly kissing the wind with an icy touch, the flakes flew around the field before they settled on the ground. A nearby forest watched on as the blood of a girl lying at the centre of the whitened landscape slowly seeped away from her and tainted the snow with the colour of rust. Birds cawed and cried at the sight of her bruised lips and at the paling colour of her skin while a single ace of spades, which lay pinned to her thin blouse, fluttered in the breeze.

Regina Royton stepped out of the car and slammed the door closed before she pulled up her jacket’s collar against the wind. The chill had crept down her back and sent spiders of ice scrambling up and down her spine; nevertheless the adrenalin that came with a new case warmed her up as she crunched through the snow towards the fence.

‘Well, this is an unusual one,’ mumbled assistant officer Fellows through a woollen scarf as he took out a notepad and pen and began furiously scribbling away. His black cap hid the untidy shock of hair of a person who still needed a morning shot of coffee.

‘You could say that again,’ she replied as she pulled at her brown leather gloves, ‘the weirdest thing about it is that there are no footprints leading to the corpse.’

 ‘What?’ The officer looked up from his pad and stared across the field in front of him. He noticed that Royton was right as he saw that the innocent picture ahead of him was marred only by the shocking presence of the corpse. ‘Well how did she bloody well get there then?’ he said as he stared at the lifeless figure with a creased forehead.

‘We’ll just have to find out.’ With a determination Fellows was shocked to see from a new female boss, she vaulted over the fence and landed in the frosted meadow.

The snow chilled the feet bones of the inspector and officer as they trudged across the land towards the corpse. Arriving at the girl, they noticed that barely any ice had settled on her and that the snow beneath her was the same depth as the snow surrounding her lifeless body.

‘Well there’s no way the culprit’s tracks could be covered by the storm,’ observed Inspector Royton, ‘and what do we have here?’ Leaning down she plucked the card from the girl and turned it over before handing it to her junior. A single sentence was written in a slanted script above the spade picture;

Your time is up. Was this your card?

Frowning at the wording with shock, Fellows looked up to see the disinterested eyes of Royton looking at him.

‘Y-y-yes…’ he stammered as he bluntly looked at the card in front of his eyes.

‘What are you talking about?’ she angrily muttered as she began to get out her forensic equipment and set about fingerprinting the card and corpse.

‘This… this is my card.’

Five months ago, Jonathon Fellows was walking through the streets of New York, trailing behind his group of friends when suddenly he heard the screams of a girl. Startled by the sound, he stepped through the steam billowing from the vent in the road and came face to face with a man in coattails. Jonathon noticed that he was firmly gripping the hand of a struggling girl while he held a pair of leather gloves in his free hand. Looking into the face of the man beneath a silken top hat he saw blue eyes staring back at him above the thin line of a hard mouth.

‘What do you want boy?’ the man spat at him.

‘Let go of her!’ Jonathon demanded before grabbing his cell phone and punching in the number of the police, ‘I’ve got a man here on 34^th Avenue who’s abusing a woman. I need back up stat.’

‘You’ll regret this one day mate,’ the man said as he realised he was officially now on government records. Twisting the arm of the woman he held captive, he said, ‘but it’s lucky I am what I am. Pick a card, any card.’ As he did this, the girl’s screams turned into a flurry of cards which appeared to come out of her mouth. One of them, the ace of spades, flew at Jonathon’s chest and stuck there mysteriously before the man cackled and cried; ‘it seems like you’ve picked your card,’ before he vanished before Fellows eyes.

 Looking down, foul smells curled up from the underworld of the city as an open man-hole lay in

front of him. After checking the alley one last time for the girl, he walked back out into the open streets and ended the call before flicking the playing card into the nearest bin.

Now, he stood with his eyes widened at the copse below his feet. Her grey eyes were an exact match for the girl who struggled to get away from the man months ago. Kneeling down, he touched her cold skin and saw the scaring on her left hand.

‘You’re pathetic,’ the woman above him sneered down to his level. Suddenly a leather glove slapped him in the head and caused him to look up into her face. As he did so, Regina’s face moved as the mask was peeled free from its place and instead a hardened glare stared down at him from above, with the same blue eyes as the man in the alley. ‘Remember me boy? You should never trust a soul as soon as you cause an illusionist trouble.’ As he said these words, the man pulled a gun from his belt and aimed it towards Fellow’s forehead.

The world hung suspended in time as a slight pulse began to beat against Fellow’s fingertips that still rested on the girl. Just before the bullet was sent rocketing into his brain, he noticed the man’s assistant on the ground weakly turn her face towards his. The last thing he heard was the small whimper of ‘Sorry’ and the silent pitter-patter of snow.

A Murderous Talent

The water sounded almost as if it was whispering to itself. The way it gushed around the bloated body and encouraged crimson swirls of blood to spiral out from the figure was almost calming. Tendrils of the mixture snaked around nearby rocks and stained the overhanging grass from a pure green to a sickly red. Bruising on the temples with a leaching wound reaching from a stubbled left cheek down the neck and under the collar. It was evident that the shoes were missing as a single blue and white striped sock bobbed its way downstream at a pace a snail could beat. No murder weapon was to be seen nearby...yet. This just made things more like a game of Cluedo. Was it Professor Green in the garden with a candlestick? Or perhaps Madam Peacock in the neighbor's hedge with a revolver? It was my job to sort things out - it was always my job to sort things out.

 Detectives, policeman, dogs; they were always useless, always bumbling around and tripping over the evidence from one another and constantly jibing with the Judge over the most fickle details while skipping the most important part of an investigation. Finding the culprit and the history of the victim. That's what I did, no matter how many times I've been told to "keep my bloody nose out of it". I've always hunted, sniffed, tracked and traced the culprit down to the very last nose hair found at the scene of the crime AND I've always come out with results. Let's just say some love me and some hate me - it all depends upon your perspective.

However no matter how many past investigations I've solved or uncovered, as I look down upon the body floating in front of me, having little to no long-term memory - I know that this time things will be different. To say this case is a near impossibility is an understatement. For you see, this time - I am the victim; the body is mine.

Here to There and In Between - PART 4

The months ticked by as we stayed in our boat and wandered further downstream. Anya told me that we had passed through Thailand as aqua coloured water swirled around us and brilliant lanterns filled the night sky every night. We had cut across a channel of tumultuous sea and were now passing through eastern Malaysia with its thick forest jungles with mysterious animals and plants. Large foul-smelling flowers wandered past throwing their wide red faces out towards the rest of the jungle around them as big orange monkeys swung above us between the trees over the river. On occasion we got the rare sight or two of strange looking people wandering amongst the leaves in large groups some with large sticks and poles sticking out their noses.

Ever since Ashmi had left we had to fend on our own; bartering within market places was especially tough as we were only a group of girls. So we now relied on the forest and river around us for our own food and water. We were now an inseparable foursome as our lives followed the same course as the rivers we glided upon. Anya told us stories of a great land that her father had told her about in the south. It was supposed to be the largest island in the world which was filled with accommodating people. He said it was nothing like our old homes as it had lots of those boxes and buildings that touched the clouds. Anya said that he told her once that if she ever wanted to get there, she would need to fly. We all pondered this incredible feat of flight over the water and how it could be possible, filling our days with bizarre imaginings of people with wings and claws much like a bird.

****

It wasn’t until several months later that us four had found ourselves within Jakarta, Indonesia. We had long ago abandoned our little canoe as a rip formed in the bottom of it when we crossed the Indian Ocean between the islands. We had adapted ourselves to the life of the bustling city of Jakarta and were living in an abandoned block of huts towards the centre of the city. At first we assumed this was the great southern land that Anya had told us about until we set our eyes on the great metal machines within a large fenced off area; they looked like metal birds.

This was when we came to the conclusion that these were how Anya’s father explained the strange feat of people flying into the mysterious land. We fed ourselves with stolen bowls of Nasi Goreng (fried rice) and drank from dirty rainwater pipes. Every night we huddled together and created a plan of reaching that amazing land. We had so far worked out that if we sneaked onto one of the smaller metal birds, we could get ourselves out of here and into the great southern country.

We implemented that plan the next night. Finding a pair of what they call wire cutters in an abandoned workshop; we made our way to the place of metal birds. Ema and Alina were terrified and so Anya and I had to calm them down every fifteen minutes or so.

When we reached the very back fence of the area we cut open a hole wide enough for us to fit through and ran onto the wide expanse of hardened ground. Dirty and filthy as we were from living in such dirty surroundings, we blended into the black backdrop of night well.

There it is again, that darkness which is always haunting me, always following me.

Whispering together, we planned to jump on the smallest machine closest to us which was a little red metal bird with four wings arranged in pairs, one on top of the other. Creeping closer there were moments of sheer terror of being caught by the giant spotlights. Once, a spotlight passed so close to where we had frozen that the outer edge of the circle had illuminated the tip of my foot for a short amount of time.

Pulling my toes back into darkness, we once again evaded detection. Creeping faster along, we came to the side of the red bird and pried open one of the doors with our wire cutters. We all crept inside and closed that same door behind us while hoping that none would suspect the dent in it that we had made. Inside, the bird had two seats in front of various lights and buttons and then two benches behind those that faced in towards the centre of the area. Down the back of it was a small opening into a compartment filled with crates and other such oddities. Slipping into the darkness of the storage area behind, we made ourselves comfortable but undetectable amongst a large pile of crates waiting for our chance to get out of the country.

After hours of hushed whispering and whimpering in the dark someone else got into the same red bird with us and walked towards the front of it.

We held our breaths as a feminine voice jumped into the machine as well. They were both speaking in tongues that I had not heard before although Anya whispered to me that her father had told her a few words that were English and that she thought this was the language they were now speaking. My nerves did an entire 360 degree flip when I heard the female voice mention the name Nepal and began to panic that this plane would drop us off on Everest.

Yes it would be closer to home but we would not survive on Everest!

Anya and I gave quick glances between each other as the floor beneath us began to wobble and tremble and our stomachs lurched within our bodies. We were about to fly and we had no idea what to do. Suddenly flashbacks of the trapped girls that were with me in that terrible box came back to me as the darkness closed in once more around us.

“We’ll be alright,” mouthed Anya to me as she grabbed and squeezed my hand. I held onto that hand as tight as I could for the majority of that flight until we all became dizzy from the rocking of the machine and fell asleep.

(To Be Continued...)

Deserved Fate

Rosanne Lemick unfortunately passed away on the night of a full moon. Copper poisoning was to blame as the large mansion she lived in was old enough to be filled with enough legal breaches to startle the most esteemed high court official. She was an old woman who kept to herself and barely left the house. Many people just assumed she spent her whole day dusting the skeletons of the visitors she never seemed to have. So when she passed on, her Last Will and Testament stated that the morbid mansion was to be passed on to a distant family member of a sister’s daughter’s cousin, Thomas Hamlington. 

Thomas was a man of 25 who was obsessed with riches. He wanted to be big famous and rolling in the green, purple and yellows of money. He and his girlfriend, Penelope Tate, were the picture of health. Young, free, careless and striving for their lives, they received the summons with shock to learn that they had inherited a massive mansion from a distant deceased relative. So setting out some days later, they made the long winded journey to the house.

The door creaked open with a moan that sent shudders through the rotting floorboards. Shuffling through the layer of dust as thick as thirteen sheets of thawing ice the house pressed against them on all sides. A musty smell of mildew made its meandering march through the noses of both Thomas and Penelope as they stepped further into the house. The large room to their right contained cobwebs and creepy carcasses of spiders long dead while the room to their left provided more interesting objects.

Penelope was the first to set foot into the room, a room which moaned and creaked along with the rest of the old timbers of the house. As Thomas moved in beside her, the entire world froze. A chill that seeped to their bones began to bore into them. A soft silky whispering began to slide through the silvery webs between the furniture to meet the ears of both Thomas and Penelope. As a slight breeze wafted the musty smell of the house into the room, Penelope suddenly screamed and became paralysed with one finger pointing towards the wall on the opposite of side of the room. Her eyes crazed like a mad-man, she began to tremble with fear.

Dumbstruck with the reaction of Penelope, Thomas turned his terrified gaze with trepidations towards the object she was pointing at. A shiny silver frame around a softly glowing slate of glass illuminated what looked like a gilded mirror. Within the mirror was the horror. A woman of about 84 years was glaring out from behind the looking glass at the two intruders into the house. The whites of her eyes were glazed with absolute hatred as wrinkles around her mouth were pulled into a snarl that accompanied her vicious dentures.

“AAAARGH, HOW DARE YOU COME HERE? AFTER WHAT YOU DID, HOW DARE YOU,” the apparition cried, “SO THEY THOUGHT IT WAS COPPER POISONING? WELL NO BODY BELIEVED ME. THEY SAID I WAS CRAZY. THEY SAID I WAS MAD. THEN THEY LOCKED ME IN THIS HOUSE BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU! YOU!”

Thomas trembled as a violent wind began to roar through the room to whip the cobwebs in the house into a frenzy. 

“YOU THOUGHT YOU’D GET AWAY WITH IT!” she screeched at the top of her lungs as the dirty, dusty dungeon they were now in erupted into a pandemonium. The mirror on the wall shook violently as it crashed to floor sending shard of glass around the room. Two sharp shards pierced the hearts of both Penelope and Thomas before they could run for their lives. As their lifeless bodies began to descend to the floor to join the surrounding morbidity of the house, several sharp knives fell out of their pockets coated in the old woman’s blood. Forged signatures and Will paper came out alongside the knives as they spiralled together through the air. When they landed, the knives pierced both the names of Penelope Tate and Thomas Hamlington.  As they did, two drops of blood leaked from the pages.