by D R Lowrey
“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” asked the detective, holding a penlight to his temple while aiming its powerful beam into Nigel’s pupils.
“I don’t know that it’s a coincidence,” said a squinting Nigel. “My start date was scheduled weeks in advance. Bodies, as I understand it, don’t have a schedule. They show up when they show up. Am I right?”
“And how do you know about bodies?”
“I’ve had this one all my life. Fortunately, I’ve kept it functioning, not like our uninvited guest.”
“Why did you take the butler’s job, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings? May I call you Mr. Blandwater-Cummings?”
“Do you really want to?”
“It suits you.”
“As you please. I took this job because it was available. Between you and me, I had to get out of the house. The wife had this to-do list, you see. An absolute beast. Frightful. And the pay was practically nonexistent. This job was better than that job.”
The detective pulled down on his face. He had the kind of face that didn’t need pulling down. “I understand that before taking this butler’s job, you broke into this very house.”
“Well, that was a misunderstanding, really. I didn’t so much break in as was pulled in by a couple of your police buddies. I was actually on my way out.”
“On your way out?”
“Yes. I mean my intent at that point was to leave the premises, but the only way to do that was through the house—”
“So, you were in the house, trying to leave when they pulled you in? Makes no sense.”
“No? Let me clarify. I was on the premises, but not in the house. I wanted to leave the premises, but the only way for me to leave the premises, at that juncture, was through the house. I was in the process of entering the house in order to leave the premises when your mates arrived and pulled me through. You see, I’m embarrassed to say, I had gotten myself stuck. There. I hope that’s clear.”
The detective leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the desk. He looked like one of those lizards about to spear a bug with his tongue. “Are you being evasive?”
“Evasive? I’m sitting right in front of you,” whiplashed Nigel.
“So you became the butler on Monday. When was this breaking and exiting escapade?”
“About three months ago.”
“I see. So, why were you on the premises then?”
“To catch a dog thief.”
“Why would you be here to catch a dog thief?”
“Why?” said Nigel, finding it hard to believe the man was a detective. “Because the dog to be thieved was here.”
“What dog?”
“The one the thief was after. You are a police detective, right? Could I see your badge?”
“You may not see my badge.”
Nigel heard a grinding noise coming from the detective’s tightly closed mouth. Might this be a contributing factor to the overall rubberiness of the man’s face? That is, perhaps he’d ground down his teeth, resulting in an oversupply of facial skin around the jawline. Of course, that didn’t explain the flaccid folds higher up or the sad, drooping hide around the eyes and off the nose. Perhaps some combination of excess skin along with gravity’s unrelenting pull had resulted in a sort of landslide effect. A glacial dermal movement, to put it more precisely. Nigel wondered what kind of skin products this man had subjected himself to.
“What are you doing?” said the detective.
“Eh?” said Nigel, releasing a fold of his own cheek skin. “Just thinking.”
“Well, stop. Answer my question.”
“Which was?”
“Why were you looking for a dog thief on this property?”
“I was contracted.”
The detective once again assumed the lizard pose. “They contracted a butler to find a dog thief?”
“Utter nonsense. Of course they didn’t hire a butler to find a dog thief. They hired me.”
“But you are a butler,” said the detective, pointing an accusing finger.
“I am now. Now, I’m a butler. Not then.”
“What were you then?”
“A private investigator.”
The detective fell back in his reclining chair until he was looking at the ceiling. “You had a license?”
“An unlicensed private investigator.”
The detective, recognizing an opportunity, leaned forward again. “That is unlawful.”
“For a pet private investigator? I think not.”
He huffed. “So, how long had you been a pet private investigator?”
“Starting from when?”
“From the time you were contracted by the Sandovals.”
“A day, give or take.”
“So, this was your first case?”
“My first paying case. I’d done amateur work before.”
The detective began another round of face pulling. “For who?”
“For me. I had dogs. Sometimes they escaped. I found them, sometimes.”
“Mr. Blandwater-Cummings, may I be blunt?”
“If you’re asking for my opinion, I would say you are not just blunt but dull as well. Not that you should be too upset about it. My dad once said to me, ‘We can’t all be the sharpest knife in the drawer.’ I didn’t understand what he meant back then, but now I do. There was once this serial killer back home, went by the name of Henry the Head Smasher, and when they asked him why he preferred to use blunt instruments, he said, ‘With the blunt instrument, it may get messy, but there’s no mistaking whether you’ve completed the job.’ I’ve often taken comfort from that quote. I hope you don’t take me as some kind of bootlicker, but I believe the two of us—me and you—are a lot alike. We’re just a pair of hardworking blunt instruments, and when we finish a job, people know we’ve been there. That’s my observations so far.”
A distinct creaking resounded from within the detective’s mouth—tooth enamel undergoing pressurized deformation. “Mr. Blandwater-Cummings, in the few months since you’ve been in New Antigua, you’ve cultivated quite a relationship with this household. First, claiming some unknown privilege as a pet detective, you were found prowling on this property in the middle of the night—breaking and entering was how the police report put it. And then, not more than three days later, you were found in the company of two persons who were plotting a murder on this property—”
“Did you say, ‘found in the company of?’ They were trying to kill me! I foiled their plot and incapacitated the scoundrels, no thanks to you,” said Nigel, straightening his tie in the most intimidating way.
“Be that as it may, it’s a little hard to comprehend how a hapless pet detective found himself among such a band of cutthroats. And, once those cutthroats were safely behind bars, you returned to these premises as a butler, taking the place of the previous cutthroat butler.”
“What of it? The head cutthroat was a lawyer, but you haven’t seen me practicing law. I have standards.”
“Do you? I’m not reassured that on your first day as a butler, a dead body turns up. And what do we find in the throat of that dead body?” asked the detective, unsheathing his index finger and waving it around like a magic wand. “A poison dart frog, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings. A poison dart frog. Do you know where poison dart frogs come from, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings?”
“Poison dart tadpoles?”
“South America, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings. South America. Do you know what else comes from South America?”
“Let me think… Parrots, Mr. Winjack. Parrots and capybara, Mr. Winjack. Capybara and caipirinha, Mr. Winjack. Caipirinha and—”
“Are you making light of this murder investigation, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings? I’m making a note,” said the detective, and he meant it. He dictated to himself while scribbling in his notebook, “Suspect exhibits signs…callous disregard…serious nature…the crime…displays contempt for law enforcement.”
“That’s overreaching, isn’t it?”
“It is my observa
tion.”
“A wrong observation. Contempt for law enforcement based on what? My interactions with you? Hardly a representative sample. Would I, for instance, proclaim that law enforcement officers have rubbery faces based on a single unfortunate incidence? No, that wouldn’t be fair. On the other hand, if I limited my statement to—”
“Enough! Where was I? South America—”
“You were in South America? I’d have sworn you were here the whole—”
The groan of straining enamel was punctuated at odd times by the crunch of rupturing dentine. “South America,” the detective growled. “Anacondas come from South America. Anacondas, like the one that you were found with, come from South America—the same region as poison dart frogs.”
“I see where you’re going with this.”
“Do you?”
“Evidently to South America. We may as well conclude this interview right now. I have never been to South America, have no connection to South America, and don’t know any South Americans. I am not your man!” To punctuate the statement, Nigel assumed the lizard pose and flicked his tongue, symbolizing how he’d just eaten this detective for lunch.
A grinding sound followed by a pop emanated from the detective. His eyes widened, and his hand slapped against his jaw. He spoke through a clenched mouth as if practicing to be a ventriloquist. “The common thread is not South America,” he grunted. “But you, Mr. Blandwater-Cummings. You have been present when each of these unexpected creatures appeared. Not only that, you have been the thread linking the unusual crimes tied to this address. Before you came to town, New Antigua was a sleepy community with scarcely a South American creature or a murder plot to its credit. Now we have both. How do you explain that?”
“You, my dear detective Winjack, must be mad. My dear mother always warned me about men in trench coats, and now I know why.”
After a knock at the door, Stefanie popped her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Nigel needs to take Abuelita and Jack to pick up their marriage licenses.”
“Okay,” said the detective through clenched jaw. “We’re finished here.”
Nigel exited the office into the home’s entire menagerie loitering just outside.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Nigel,” said Mrs. Sandoval. “We believe you’re innocent.”
“It’s good to know you have my back.”
“We took a vote,” said Mrs. Sandoval. “It was four votes for innocent, three for guilty, and one undecided.”
The detective, clenching his jaw, stormed into the crowd. “Don’t tell me you heard some of our conversation,” he said.
“Not some,” said Mrs. Sandoval. “All, I should think. How could we not?” She looked up at the home’s twelve-foot ceiling, which towered above the nine-foot walls of the office. “You two are loud talkers.”
“But why are you all here?” asked the detective.
“You wanted to talk to us. Where else would we be?” answered Mrs. Sandoval.
The police detective slapped his forehead, causing an uncontrolled shimmy to the lower part of his head.
“Mrs. Sandoval, I’ll take you next,” said the detective. “The rest of you cannot stay here. You must wait over there.” He indicated a place on the opposite side of the atrium out of earshot. “If I find anyone over here, I’ll book them for obstructing a police investigation. Now, away with you.”
CHAPTER NINE
Getting Implicated
Nigel was stunned to learn not only that Jack Watt was on the premises, but that he was up for a marriage license. What kind of a desperate man was this? Was he a fugitive looking for a place to lie low? An escapee from a mental institution? A sufferer of temporary bouts of blindness? As a butler, Nigel wasn’t allowed to ask such questions, but that wouldn’t stop his pondering in the privacy of his own brain. For the moment, however, he put the thinking on hold to do his job.
Having alerted the future licensees of their appointment, Nigel waited for them in the atrium. Jack Watt arrived first, twinkling down the staircase like Fred Astaire late for a tryst with Lady Frankenstein. Abuelita’s tardiness gave Nigel the opportunity to spend a few cordial minutes with the condemned. Jack Watt was a surprisingly jolly old fellow given the circs. Face it, any bloke marching off for a marriage license with Abuelita could be forgiven a fluttery lip, or, for that matter, a fluttery bowel. Had Nigel been in Jack’s shoes, he would have downed a beaker of bleach, glass and all. But Jack Watt was not a glass-muncher, nor a bleach-guzzler. Not only did Jack Watt cheerfully absorb Nigel’s lectures on wheelchair avoidance, he contributed to the science with a few of his own tips garnered from a familiarity with bullfighting.
“Bullfighting is a cruel sport, is it not?” asked Nigel.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Jack. “Those toreadors have good working hours and a bountiful clothes allowance.”
“For the bull, I mean.”
“Not if it’s done properly,” said Jack, extending himself in a demonstration, “with the estocada technique—a sword plunged between the shoulder blades as the beast charges.”
“Sword between the shoulder blades,” murmured Nigel as a whir portended the arrival of the shin-shredding wheelchair.
Jack Watt handled his initial encounter with admirable grace—no bruises, and no sword. Nigel helped the pair into the backseat of the Town Car and confined himself to driving and listening for the remainder of the trip. Preferable, he thought, to having his cranium pummeled by a lady’s shoe. The backseat combatants sat notably stiff in the early rounds, but once Abuelita broke out a bottle of the social lubricant, a jab-and-parry game ensued.
“My goodness,” said Jack Watt after taking a swig. “What do we have here, aguardiente from Colombia?”
“Ouzo,” said Abuelita. “From Greece.”
“We do get around, don’t we?”
“You only think you been around. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The action became heavier as the bottle became lighter. Abuelita, the pursuer, landed a number of sly suggestions, coy propositions, and double entendres straight from her vault. Clearly, she would have preferred the action take place in a phone booth, liking nothing better than to corner her opponent for a close encounter. And the sooner the better.
Jack, in contrast, used all the available space to dodge, deflect, and maintain a distance. He may have racked up points with charming banter, but the head and body appeared to be a no-contact zone. Parry, backpedal, and keep moving. Tire, frustrate, and then control seemed to be his strategy. He played the waiting game, though what he might have been waiting for wasn’t altogether clear.
The trip to the courthouse came off as planned without the appearance of corpses, killer frogs, or flying satin tarts. After walking the two sloshed licensees to their respective quarters at the estate, Nigel headed to the kitchen. While preparing meals was not his responsibility, lording over the meal-preparer was. He found the chef torridly exercising her thumbs on one of those portable gaming devices.
“Well, Lynette, what’s for dinner?” asked Nigel, leaning against the island, which he might have expected to be populated with dishes in various states of preparation.
“It’s pizza night,” she said, grimacing while her machine emitted a sad deflating sound.
“Pizza night? Is that a specialty of yours?”
She looked up at Nigel as if he were her no-good husband, “No, it’s a specialty of Domino’s, and they deliver.”
“I see. I was under the impression that you, as the cook, actually cooked the meals. Was I wrong?”
“No, but if you hadn’t noticed, there’s a damned army around here today. If I’m supposed to cook for ten people instead of four, someone needs to tell me and, while they’re at it, pay me.”
“Understood,” said Nigel, remembering it was the butler’s responsibility to relay dining requirements to the chef. “I will try to come up with a head count for tomorrow’s meals.”
“And a dollar allowance. Don’t forg
et the allowance. That’s important.”
“Absolutely,” said Nigel, knowing he’d blown today’s assignment. “By the way, where have all the inmates gone? Have they escaped? The place looks deserted.”
“I believe they’re gathered in the game room.”
“The game room? Is there a ping-pong tournament? Why the game room?”
“Nobody tells me nothing, you understand, but I believe they may be listening in on that detective in the office.”
“From the game room? It’s nowhere near the office.”
“The phone system, dummy. Someone left the line open in the office. But don’t ask me about it, I’m just the cook. Nobody tells me nothing.”
Nigel walked to the game room at the far end of the seldom-used Sanderson wing, so called for a chap named Sanderson, presumably. He must have liked playing games. The Sandovals, Nigel was led to believe, didn’t, really.
In the game room, Nigel found assorted inhabitants huddled in the northeast corner around a desk phone. In his absence, someone had demonstrated the resourcefulness to liberate a bottle of bourbon along with the requisite accessories.
Nigel issued the butler’s greeting, “Ahem.”
“Shhhhh,” came the collective response.
Abuelita’s voice crackled from the speaker phone. “None of your beeswax!”
“It is my beeswax. I’m the law. I’m investigating a murder. Refusing to answer my questions does you no good,” said the detective. “How did you meet your fiancé?”
“None of your beeswax. Hic. Next question. Hic.”
“You’ve got the hiccups.”
“So, you’re a detective after all.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Damn right I been drinking, and so have you. I saw you throwin’ down the tequila. Hic. And you’re on duty. Hic. Ain’t that right? A drinking policeman. Hic. There ought to be a law.”
“My behavior is not your concern. Now, what can you tell me about the deceased?”
“Nothing. Never seen him before. Hic. I already said that.”
“Do you know any reason for someone to be on your property at such a time, say, a repairman or a gardener?”