Murder at Maple House

by Hugo James King

  I caught sight of people wandering and typing furiously on their phones.

  The band cut all music, ending with a dun of the drum. A police officer stood at the side of the stage, most probably to take their statements. But they’d been there all night, unless they witnessed something which might’ve been hard to do, especially with the stage lights on them and in their faces constantly.

  “Tomorrow’s headlines are going to be historic,” Ruth mumbled.

  “Why?”

  “In a room full of publishing people, they’re going to cover all angles of this thing.”

  And that’s when the thought struck me, watching as people tapped away on their phones; they knew exactly what was going on. This was all about the optics; this was all about what they were going to say. It was all about publishing, which magazines or newspapers were going to be taking on the article about the events.

  People with writers in their phones, calling them and giving them all the details of what was happening. The industry was going to have a field day in the Sunday papers, but only if they could get the articles out before printing deadlines; they’d have only two or three hours until the late-night deadline hit.

  In the corner of my eye, Suzanne and her plus one were scribbling down notes on a small ruled pad of paper. Her head popping up to peer out and around at everyone, observing everything descend.

  “Trust Suzanne to be all over this,” I said, scowling my brow, as if a fellow journalist wouldn’t be interested in taking on an article they also happened to be part of.

  “You start your new job on Monday,” Ruth said. “This could be your first piece.”

  I nodded. “But, how can I even begin to sift through all these people to find out who actually played a part in his murder.”

  “Better question,” she said, snapping her finger. “How can we find out who Paul suspects, and narrow our list down.”

  That was the question, and without outright stealing his notepad, which I’m sure was a crime with an arrestable offence, all I had to go on was that he somewhat trusted me to help him.

  SEVEN

  Focused on finding out what Paul knew, I watched closely from my table as Paul approached different people to question them. At first, I thought it was random chance he was zigzagging across the floor, and then I realised something.

  Everyone he came into contact with, had been an associate of Finley’s, and he was building a frame of people. From one table to the next, gathering information, taking a new name, and then quizzing the next person in question.

  “Diane told me about Finley’s ex-business partners,” I said lowly to Ruth. “It makes sense, they were each seated at different tables.” I didn’t know any by name, so I used visual cues and markers to jot down who they were.

  “Table eight, bald with red dinner jack,” she replied. “Looks like a Bond villain.”

  I chuckled. “All he needs is a set of metal plated teeth and a permanent grimace.”

  Paul had just spoken to him, he had neither, a grimace or plated teeth. He did, however, seem to suppress a smile, as if happy and elated by the news of Finley, assuming that’s what they’d been talking about.

  So far, the list had four additional people on it since watching Paul go back and forth from left to right, speaking to people. All of them men, which didn’t corroborate the theory it was a woman’s poisoning intent.

  “They’ve stopped serving drinks,” Ruth observed.

  My head spun to catch the glimpse of a server. “They must be having a group questioning,” I said. “If anyone saw anything, it would be the sober work staff. And they’re constantly walking around, they probably know names and faces better than we do.”

  I spotted two young women in deflated chef hats meander through the people in approach of the food table being set out along the side of the wall.

  “A buffet?” Ruth mumbled.

  “No, no, no,” Diane’s voice called out from behind me.

  “Stay here,” Patrick said.

  Her aim had been straight for the two women, of which Patrick was now charging towards instead of her.

  Diane’s eyes settled on me. She smiled.

  “Eve,” she said. “Come over.”

  She was alone, everyone else at their table was away, either at her orders or Patrick’s words.

  I looked to Ruth.

  “I should call Frank,” she said. “Maybe he knows something about those symptoms, and if it was poison.”

  I peered beneath the table to see Charlie, he was curled up, hiding from the noise. His frowning face looked back at me.

  “What’s up?” I asked down to him. “You tired?”

  He stood and shuffled around in a circle before laying back on the ground, facing away from me this time. Someone was in a bad mood.

  “Want me to take him with me?” Ruth asked.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said.

  Diane tapped at her table with her hand twice.

  She sat abnormally straight on her seat with both her hand laid palm down on the table. Her eyes closed ever-so-slightly.

  “You ok?” I asked, taking Patrick’s seat at her side.

  “No, no I’m not.”

  “Couldn’t have happened on a worse day,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  She peeked at me, giving me side eye. “It’s not your fault.”

  I knew that, but I wanted to know what made her so sure, considering I had put her name down on my list of people it could’ve been. “Have you spoken to Paul?”

  “Your brother-in-law, the inspector?” she moved to place her hands at her lap. “Yes, he told me he’s doing everything in his power to find out what happened, then we can go back to the event as planned.”

  “What do you think—”

  “He was murdered,” she said, offering me a smile as if letting me in on the secret she knew. “Plain as day, the man had no real friends, so whoever did it, I hardly doubt anyone will throw them to the wolves.”

  “Did Paul tell you—”

  “In not so many words,” she interrupted me again. “We’re on lockdown, I want a cigarette, I also want another drink, but they’ve called all the servers away, and Patrick has told me to drink the water.”

  As someone I assumed was very drunk, her words were spoken without the nearest utter of a slur. “Do you think you know who did it?” I asked her, assuming some part of her brain, with which inhibitions were lowered, she’d give me a name.

  “No,” she said. “But to take a guess, I’d say Mr Mortimer would be top of that list.”

  “Spencer Mortimer?”

  She nodded.

  “Diane,” Patrick said, approaching us. “Please don’t fuel this fire.”

  “Eve was asking if I had any thoughts about this whole thing,” she said. “And it just so happens, I do have thoughts, and I have names of people I think could quite well be capable of murder.”

  “Don’t say something you can’t take back,” Patrick reminded her.

  I took Diane’s hand, pulling her focus to me. “I know, you already told me about how Finley had his enemies,” I said. “But I think you should listen to your husband, let me look into it, you both have a business to run, accusing people like that could ruin those relationships. If I do it, I’m not ruining my own livelihood.” Although, if it meant I was fired, I suppose I could accept early retirement or find somewhere else, given the recent exposure of those national newspapers.

  Patrick smiled and nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “And if you do find anything, it will more than be perfectly timed for your first article at the paper.”

  It was an upside, I suppose.

  Diane turned to her husband and took his hands in hers. “Did you tell them not to set the food out until after all this had blown over?”

  “I did,” he said. “Although I have a feeling, once this is over, we’ll be heading to bed.”

  “You didn’t say there would be a buffet as well?”

  She shrugged,
turning back to me. “It’s not as common as that,” she said, her upper lip turning. “Some sushi platters, European cheeses, and a selection of hand-crafted, well-paired jams, I mean, this was supposed to be the sprinkling of success on a great night.”

  Patrick pulled out an empty chair, pushing it close to his wife as he sat down. “It will be,” he said. “And if the guests don’t get to taste what you had planned for them, they can be used again in the morning for brunch.”

  She nodded to him.

  I noticed Ruth retake her seat at the table. She puffed out her cheeks and glanced in my direction.

  “I’ll leave you both,” I said, wondering whether or not anything they had planned for tomorrow would go ahead, given the events currently underway. If it wasn’t solved soon, we could all be in for a hellish night and in my head, that meant sleeping bags on the hard floor.

  Ruth shook her head as I approached.

  “What did he say?” I asked her.

  She’d written notes on a napkin. “I told him everything we knew.”

  “And?” I sat beside her, lifting the tablecloth slightly to double check Charlie was still ignoring me; his tail faced in my direction.

  “Let’s get the obvious out of the way,” she started. “It’s not food poisoning, otherwise, there’d be more people.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That’s just it,” she sighed. “The descriptions were vague, there are too many poisons. He gave me his list of top five, not based on my descriptions, but on common usage for murder. Historically.” She placed the napkin in my view.

  “Arsenic, cyanide, atropine, stry—ch—nine.” and my eyes squinted to read.

  “Strychnine,” she corrected me. “Used in rat poisons, and the likes.”

  “Thallium,” I read the last point. “I’ve heard three of the five.”

  “He confirmed it sounds like poison,” she said. “Targeted attack. Someone wanted him dead.”

  “Diane didn’t say much, I didn’t even ask about anyone in the pharmaceutical business, but she did mention Spencer.”

  “If it was a recent business, then there’s no wonder why his name is attached to Finley’s like this.”

  Ruth recalled Spencer with more familiarity than I did. I’d barely recognised him earlier when he’d approached us, Ruth knew almost immediately.

  “What business did they have together?” I quizzed myself. “That’s what nobody has been talking about.”

  Ruth shrugged. “Investors invest.”

  Charlie yapped from beneath the table.

  “Come on,” I said, lifting the tablecloth once again.

  He zoomed out, as if attached at the hind legs with a rocket.

  “Charlie!” I called after him, pushing out from the chair.

  I kicked my shoes off and started to chase in his direction, weaving around people as I tried not to lose track of him. He was heading straight to the back of the room.

  “We found something,” a loud voice called from ahead.

  Pausing from the chase. I peered out to see a paramedic had a folded white paper note to a police officer.

  Nearby guests surrounded them, they weren’t paying attention to the body now, but to developments in the stories they were writing.

  “A letter,” their voices mumbled, but their fingers tapped harder.

  “What does it say?” a voice among them questioned.

  Paul was fast in his stretch to the officer with the note, handled by plastic gloved hands.

  EIGHT

  It slipped. And everyone knew. The note hadn’t been guarded while Paul unfolded it, not reading it aloud. Prying eyes covered every inch of it.

  You’re going to be sorry.

  People echoed the note in their speech, over and over.

  I turned to see Ruth steps behind me.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “There’s a note,” I said.

  I didn’t need to tell her anything else, she heard it in their voices ahead, repeating it aloud. Paul held no power over keeping this a secret from any of them, and I was now the least of his worries, he was surrounded by freelance writers who worked for the magazine, and they had no qualms or contracts with selling out for a story.

  Once Ruth heard what the note said, her face hunched into a giant squint. Now there was no doubt about it, and everyone was going to be trying to cover for themselves and crafting alibis. We were with the worst bunch, given how many writers among us took creative freedoms, it wasn’t beyond the scope to think alibis were handcrafted too.

  “Someone close to him,” I said. “Someone close enough to slip him the note.”

  “And perhaps that’s why he was drinking,” Ruth agreed with a nod, quickly turned to concerned raised brows. “Did you find Charlie?”

  “He can’t be far.” But he was far enough to be out of sight, and when he was out of sight, he could’ve been anywhere.

  “We should look for him,” she said.

  I took Ruth’s arm by the wrist and exhaled deeply. “He’ll find us,” I said. “There are too many places he could be, and I don’t want to have to traipse through everyone. He’s the only dog here, and they’re on lockdown.”

  “Or he’s sniffing out another body.”

  My eyes widened at the thought. “Please don’t.”

  “If he’s not back in thirty minutes, I think we should look for him.”

  Agreed.

  People flooded the back of the ballroom once again, this time in light of the recent discovery, and the questions they now had for the attending officers. They were fishing for statements, official, or not—someone should’ve warned them they were in a sea of reporters, and the bloodletting of a new story was precious.

  “Must’ve been someone close to him,” Ruth reiterated as we took seats at our table once again.

  I pulled my notes to the surface. “Like family?”

  “Don’t think he had family.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “So, we’re looking at business partners then.”

  Our eyes both glazed over at the names we’d already placed on the list. It could’ve been anyone. From Diane, huffing in her husband’s general direction, more likely, she’d heard the news and wasn’t pleased with the outcome either. To basically, anyone else.

  The slow descent of people made their way back to their tables. Looking out, this was likely an order handed down by Paul and the other officers. It would help keep everyone in check as he approached Diane.

  “Must be some woman,” a man snickered from the table behind.

  “Did you get a look at him?” another asked.

  I watched the two men from the corner of my eye, both of them carrying large gauntlet glasses of beer in hand, and both larger in appearance with red stuffy noses; signs of heavy drinkers. Perhaps they knew Finley more than the rest of us. The heavy drinking was the hunch.

  Standing as the men sat, chuckling to themselves about their comments.

  “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting as I stood between them.

  “Yes?” the man to my left said with a half-smile, as if overcome with gas.

  I turned my head to see Ruth glaring, possibly telling me it was a bad idea to engage with people on the verge of incapacitating themselves.

  “How well did you know Finley?” I asked them both.

  “Well, dear, you see, Finley, he’s a bit of an odd one,” the man to the left said.

  I wracked my brain for a moment, trying to remember the seating chart. Behind me, on table four. These were investors, or advertisers, or reps from the companies. “Did you work with him?”

  “He hired us,” the other man said.

  “Michaels Ad Agency.”

  “We’re brothers.”

  I saw it. The resemblance. “Oh. You didn’t know him personally?”

  They laughed again, raising their glasses to each other.

  “James and Jim,” one of them introduced.

 
; “We knew him,” Jim, I believed spoke. “We worked with him for years. He wasn’t easy to work for either.”

  James scoffed. “Understatement.”

  “What do you think happened to him?” I asked, puffing out as if completely overwhelmed by the entire situation.

  “He was murdered, obviously,” Jim said.

  “Poisoned,” James added with a nod and a second raised glass with his brother.

  It seemed poison was on everyone’s mind.

  “You think anyone will think you two did it?” I asked in a hesitant grumble. “I mean, you worked for him, clearly a little hostile. Maybe you just wanted to give him a bout of tummy ache, you know, didn’t mean for it to get too far.”

  They glanced to me for a moment, their gaze growing hotter as they stared.

  “Well,” Jim said. He tapped the base of his beer glass on the table and laughed. “Anyone who owns up to it will be a hero in my eyes.”

  His brother cheered his glass. “The absolute truth.”

  They were too inebriated to have taken part in any of it.

  He wasn’t married or had children, it had to have been someone with a professional grudge, someone who wanted to see him gone for their business gain.

  “Spencer?” Ruth said from the table.

  I turned to see Spencer, dressed in a white shirt, untucked completely from the waistband of his trousers, wobble in a walk up the steps to the stage.

  An echo from the microphone sounded throughout the room, screeching through everyone’s ears. He tapped the microphone with the back of his ringed finger. The metal on metal gave way for a huge clash.

  I approached Ruth, placing my hands on the back of her chair. “What’s he doing?”

  Pushing the metal to his mouth, directly on his lips. “I—I—I—”

  “Is he okay?” she asked, looking to me from her seat.

  “I have something—something I want—want to say.” Wobbling on unsteady footing, a throwing from side to side.

  “Come on, Spencer,” Patrick spoke from his spot beside Diane.

  All eyes shifted, and a quiet surrounded them, almost as if the stage lighting had changed and shifted, making way to spotlight Spencer.