by D R Lowrey
“So, you were alone for two years in the jungle,” said the detective. “How did you survive?”
“Let me set you straight. I don’t really know how long I was in the jungle. I didn’t have a calendar. And I wasn’t always alone. There were tribes around. I tried to steer clear of them, but sometimes I couldn’t. One tribe captured me and kept me as a pet, and let me tell you, those people treated pets like dirt. I escaped pretty quick, but there was this other tribe that tried to turn me into wood.”
“Turn you into wood?”
“Yeah, like into a human tree. They fed me some concoction until my muscles stiffened up and my skin became like bark.” The ladies gasped as if a man turning into wood was an alien concept. “Then they tied me to a log and left me as food for the termites.”
“I guess we can surmise that the termites weren’t interested.”
“They ate my heel.”
“Your heel? On your foot?”
The man scratched his dented head while considering the question. “That’s where I kept it. I used to have two, now I have but one.”
“But you escaped.”
“Eventually, I became thin enough to slip out of the ropes. I don’t think the natives thought I’d last that long, but I was given a stay of execution by an anteater.”
“An anteater, you say?”
“I did say. An anteater wandered by from time to time and slurped up a bunch of the termites. Kept them from going at me wholesale. After a few days, I made my escape.”
Since moving to New Antigua, Nigel had concluded that his past lives in London and Houston had been abnormally subdued. Hearing this man’s tale was yet another reminder. In fact, had Nigel received news of such exploits while living in a giant metropolis, he might well have dismissed them as bloated exaggeration. However, here in New Antigua, in the comfy confines of the Sandoval mansion where people came in two varieties, fruit or nut, the man’s anecdotes made all the sense in the world.
What might Annie make of all this? She could tell stories from her marine and cop days that would burn your neck hairs off. She’d seen some things. Nigel spotted her on the sidelines wearing the kind of “uh-uh” face exhibited by policemen hearing about broken speedometers. By contrast, her head-swathed mother was winding the cuckoo clock with her tongue sticking out.
“So, you walked all the way here with no heel?” asked the detective.
“Not exactly. In Colombia, I met a woodcarver who was kind enough to carve me a replacement heel in exchange for a gold piece,” said the man.
“A gold piece? Where did you get a gold piece?”
“Found it along the way. Found a bunch of them, matter of fact. So I carried a few. Most got stolen—bribes and such, corrupt police.”
“There were many gold pieces, but you took only a few?”
“I had no pockets or bags to carry them in. I was pretty much naked at that point and walking on one heel. There was no way to carry a bunch of gold coins. Gold is heavy, you know. Wasn’t my priority.”
“That gold coin probably could have paid your way home.”
“Yeah, well, even if it could have, I still had to walk someplace, and without a heel, that’d be difficult. First things first, I’ve learned.”
The detective sat up and, in one of his finer moments, appeared speechless. He peered down his nose at the man for an awkward thirty seconds before resuming the conversation. “That is an incredible story. Are you going to write a book?”
“A book? I ain’t thought about a book. I mean, maybe it sounds exciting in the Reader’s Digest condensed version, but it was pretty much a grind, let me tell you. I don’t know that it would make much of a book. Edgar Rice Burroughs has written better ones.”
“As entertaining as your story is, let me turn to the business at hand,” said the detective. “As I arrived, I saw an elderly gentleman sprinting away from the house. Who was that?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about him,” said Nigel.
“He was on the premises. Of course I need to worry about him. Who was he?”
The detective must have seen Jack Watt sprinting the half-mile to the highway. Too bad it hadn’t been timed, as it might have set a record for the age group. By now, Jack was probably in the back of some pickup truck, heading out in whatever direction that pickup truck happened to be heading. After seeing what had become of his voluptuous fiancée, his flight was hardly a surprise.
“Was he carrying a suitcase?” asked Nigel.
“He was not.”
Wise decision, thought Nigel. It will have to be shipped.
“You must be talking about Jack Watt, Abuelita’s fiancé,” said Mrs. Sandoval to the detective.
“Really?” said the detective. “The current fiancé stepped out while the ex-husband fondled his bride-to-be’s leg? What am I to make of that?”
“I don’t know that you need to make something of it,” said Nigel. “Jack’s only just arrived. The ex knows his way around that leg far better than he does. Jack’s probably one of these chaps who prefers to ease into things.”
“Interesting,” said the detective, “The ex-husband and this fiancé and a mysterious murder all converging on this property at the same time. I will need to speak to this Jack Watt. Does this Jack Watt know about Abuelita’s previous fiancé?”
“What about Abuelita’s previous fiancé?” asked Mrs. Sandoval.
“I mean, his little legal trouble,” said the detective. “That slight case of conspiracy to commit murder, among other things.”
“Nobody says nothing about that,” said Abuelita. “You hear me, flatfoot?”
“I do not intend to intrude on your affairs,” said the detective, “no matter how sordid. At any rate, I believe you are safe until the wedding.”
“I agree,” said Nigel. “Murder is far more likely after they get to know each other, especially if Jack’s the patient type.”
The detective spun himself around on his butt to look for more inhabitants. “And who are these two ladies? It seems I’ve seen you before,” he said, pointing at Annie.
Nigel shuffled over to the two to make the introduction. “This is Detective Annie Novak. You may recall she was instrumental in revealing Abuelita’s previous murder-prone fiancé.”
“Right. And why are you here today? Not for that case, surely.”
“In light of the recently discovered corpse, I’m providing extra security for the house,” said Annie. “And my name’s not Shirley.”
“Well, if there should be another body, you will be the first person I come to see, Miss Not-Shirley,” said the detective with a smug smile.
“And this young lady,” said Nigel, “is her mother, Kayda. Kayda means dragon in Korean.”
Nigel noticed her nostrils flare and took a step back.
“And why the sunglasses and turban?” asked the detective. “Are you concealing your identity?”
“I was in an accident leaving me somewhat less than my normal beautiful self.”
“Can you remove your sunglasses so that I might be able to identify you, if needed?”
“I could,” she said between exposed, clenched teeth. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
The sitting detective chuckled. “Very humorous,” he said.
“She’s not joking,” whispered Nigel, waving a finger at the detective. “That dragon don’t joke.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Frog in the Works
The detective, in an uncomfortably vulnerable position, pulled himself up and straightened his jacket. At no one’s request, he addressed the assembly. “It is most fortunate that I have you all together. I have an announcement concerning the body found on these premises last Monday.” He stood with legs apart and hands behind his back, rocking up and down on the balls of his feet as if the upcoming announcement pulsated inside him like a gas bubble searching for an exit. “As most of you know, toad poisoning was suggested as a likely cause of death.”
“How did you come to th
at conclusion?” asked Annie. As a former detective herself, she approached these county mounties with more than a hint of skepticism, especially this dough-face. Based upon previous encounters, she’d rated him as strictly crossing-guard material.
“The dead man had a toad in his mouth. This fact, along with the knowledge that some toads are poisonous, led the investigator on the scene to surmise toad poisoning as a probable cause, a straightforward and logical hypothesis.”
“Who was the investigator on the scene?” asked Annie.
“A police Detective Winjack,” he said, consulting his notebook.
“That’s you,” said Annie.
“Why is that relevant, missy?” asked Detective Winjack.
“Because, before I issue an assessment, I want to know how deeply I should cut. If it’s your hypothesis, I’ll go easy to spare you the embarrassment. If it’s from some boob down at HQ, I’ll feel free to let myself rip.”
“My notes indicate it was me.”
“Okay, here’s what’s wrong—”
The detective held up a hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt your berating, but it won’t be necessary. The coroner has beat you to it. The man in question did not die of toad poisoning. The toad was not a poisonous variety. However, when the coroner removed the toad, he found this in the man’s throat.”
The detective reached inside his trench coat and pulled out a baggie, holding it high for the crowd to see. “Who can guess what is in this bag?”
The spectators were in no mood for guessing. A wrong guess would only incite ridicule, figured the bystanders. All but one.
“A greasy yellow spot?” said Nigel, describing with reasonable accuracy what everyone saw. “Is it mango?”
“No.”
“Is it peach?”
“No.”
“Is it ripe banana?”
“No, it is not ripe banana. Does anyone besides this imp of a butler wish to hazard a guess?”
An awkward silent pause suggested they were quite content to let the imp of a butler do the talking.
“What I have in this baggie,” said the detective, waving the thing around at arm’s length, “is a poison dart frog.”
“He did have a frog in his throat,” said Nigel. “I said he had a frog in his throat, didn’t I, Mrs. Sandoval? I must be prescient. May I take a look?”
The detective handed the baggie to Nigel, who examined it from various angles before running his fingers across the yellow splotch. “It’s a frog, all right,” proclaimed a satisfied Nigel. He then pulled open the bag, stuck his face in for a closer look, and staggered backward. Coughing, he bent forward and held the bag at arm’s length for the detective to take. “That is the worst smelling frog ever,” he said between retches.
“You fool. It’s preserved in formaldehyde.”
“Well, that’s the worst smelling formaldehyde ever.”
The detective held the bag aloft. “We are awaiting toxicology reports, but we believe this poison dart frog was the cause of death, a likely murder.”
The crowd gasped.
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Nigel.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s a relief’?” asked the detective.
“As shocking as it is to have a murder committed in our midst, it’s reassuring that the culprit’s been identified and the threat neutralized,” said Nigel, gesturing to the baggie. “Bad frog!”
“You nincompoop! The frog is not the murderer,” declared the detective, who appeared to approach life, or at least his murder investigations, devoid of a sense of humor. “The frog is the murder weapon. The murderer has yet to be identified. We are awaiting the toxicology report to confirm the manner of death, but the frog, according to Google, is a poisonous variety native to South America.”
“So, both a toad and a frog were found in the mouth of the deceased,” said Annie. “What does that tell you about the supposed killer?”
“It tells me this man, or woman, is comfortable working with amphibians. I hate to sound the alarm, but we should all be alarmed. I mean, this time a frog and a toad. What next? Newts and salamanders? Who knows what this fiend is capable of? If he were to expand into reptiles, whoa, Nellie! What then?”
“I meant,” asked Annie, “what is the psychological profile of a person who would kill a man by placing a poisonous frog in his mouth?”
“The psychological profile? You’re asking about the psychological profile? Is that what you’re asking about? The psychological profile?”
“Now that you mentioned it, what about the psychological profile?”
The detective paced rapidly in one direction, then another. He was a pacer, this detective. And, while pacing, he pondered. And, while pondering, he patted his temple with a finger—one of his own. For several minutes he paced, pondered, and patted before a perspiring but persevering crowd. Suddenly, he stopped pacing, patting, and, presumably, pondering, long enough to pop a thumb into his piehole. There it stayed until a person publicly pooh-poohed the practice, prompting the pea-brained primitive to pull it out and park it under an armpit. For a moment, he had forgotten where he was.
“An interesting question, you ask,” said the detective. “What was your question?”
“The psychological profile,” said Annie.
“Ah, the profile. What is the psychology of a man who would do such a thing? This is no average man on the street who kills using guns or knives or hatchets. If that were only the case, we could rest easy. No, we have here an evil ogre, or perhaps an evil genius, who would sacrifice a cute little frog just to kill a man—”
“Or,” added Nigel, “sacrifice a man just to kill a cute little frog! Have you considered that possibility?”
The detective’s eyebrows did the wave in one direction, then the other, while he considered it. “This killer,” he continued, “exhibits the traits of a thorough, cold-blooded professional. He takes no chances, thus the use of a toad as a backstop for the frog. I am no psychologist, thank God, but if I were, I’d say this man has a complex.”
“Really?” said Nigel. “What kind of complex?”
“A…um…complicated complex,” said the detective, inspecting the thumb he’d just found in his armpit. “Does that answer your question?” he asked Annie.
“Hardly.”
“Very well, then, for this investigation, I will be interrogating each of you. Fear not, this is completely normal. Unless you’ve recently committed a fiendish act, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Do you really need to interrogate everyone? Isn’t there a way to shorten the process?” asked Mrs. Sandoval.
“Shorten the process? You mean cut to the chase, eh? Get to the heart of the matter? Is that it?” asked the detective.
“If you could.”
“I’m glad you suggested that,” said the detective. “That is a superb idea that had not occurred to me. So much better to wrap this up in ten or fifteen minutes rather than drag it out for days or weeks. Of course we can try a shortened process.”
“I would be so grateful,” said Mrs. Sandoval.
“Sure, no problem,” said the detective. “Listen up, everyone. I’m looking for the fiend who killed a man by putting a poisonous frog down his throat. Did anyone here do it?”
Silence.
“No? Does anyone know who did?”
Silence.
“Well, I’m sorry,” said the detective. “I tried, but no results. Back to the old-fashioned way.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Annie. “Since no one here is fessing up, do you know what you’re looking for?”
“What I’m looking for?” asked the detective. “What would you suppose I’m looking for? Clues, interactions, locations, preceding events, relevant data, information that may aid in solving the crime. You of all people should understand this.”
“What I mean is, do you have specific physical data from the crime scene along with various case conjectures that you hope to validate or invalidate with the information
provided in these interviews?”
“Yes, absolutely. Physical data: dead man with frog in throat and toad in mouth. Conjecture: he was murdered. Valid or invalid. Let’s move on. I request from the owner of this house the temporary use of a private room for the interrogations. Can this be accommodated?”
“Yes,” said Nigel. “We can provide you with a room.”
The old grandfather clock to one side of the atrium began to gong. With each strike, Mrs, Sandoval held up a corresponding number of fingers, encouraging those in the room to count along. Coinciding with the twelfth dong, she shouted, “Tequila!”
Knowing Mrs. Sandoval’s fondness for this noontime ritual, Nigel had set up a device to start playing the song “Tequila” coincident with the last gong strike. Even without the titular beverage, the reverb-drenched opening chords had the effect of a powerful tension reliever. By the time the saxophone kicked in, a conga line was snaking its way through the atrium and sitting area.
“My God, it’s been a long day,” shouted Mrs. Sandoval. “Nigel, do your duty.”
“Yes, ma’am,” yelled Nigel, breaking away from the line and leaving the detective as the caboose.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Inquiring Minds
“Here it is,” said Nigel, flipping on the lights to Mrs. Sandoval’s office. “I trust it befits your inquisitions.” He hoped a couple of tequila squirts had oiled up the detective and de-starched that index finger he so enjoyed waggling at everyone.
“Not as spartan as I would have hoped,” said the detective, pushing his thumb into the back cushion of an office chair while shaking his head. “I’d have liked something less hospitable, harder, more stuffy, less oxygen.”
“Should I exchange the furniture for a footstool, replace the light fixtures with a dangling bulb, and pump in some carbon monoxide?”
“Could you?” asked the detective.
“No,” said Nigel.
“This will have to do then. I’ll start with you. Have a seat.”
“With me?” asked Nigel. “I’m just the butler, and only since Monday morning, the same day the body showed up.”