Blabbermouth (A Brit Moran Mystery)

by Joel Travis

  “No!” Andrea said. “Brit says we still need a few more.”

  Cynthia smiled. “I’ll give you two brains ten more minutes. Did you bring the mail in, Andrea?”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “Okay, I’m going out to the mailbox. Remember, we eat in ten minutes.”

  It’s hard to think of homonyms under time pressure. I drew a blank until Cynthia came back into the kitchen and started separating the junk mail from the bills. Then it hit me.

  I thought of a homonym and simultaneously solved the case. I froze as I ran everything through my mind to make sure I was right. I thought about a brief phone call, the photos someone taped up in my apartment, a chance meeting, and a bag which belied its contents.

  And I knew. I knew who murdered the Codger.

  They say it’s bad manners for a guest to eat and run. I’m sure it’s even worse manners for the guest to sprint out of the house just as the food is being served, but that’s what I did. I was so nervous I could hardly drive. As I fumbled with the cell phone, the Pinto ran amuck, swerving off the driveway and over the same flowers I mowed down the last time I came to dinner. I steered back onto the road and dialed the number. Susan answered. I told her I was on my way back, and not to let anyone leave before I got there because I had a big announcement to make.

  “Everyone’s in the study,” she said. “Marty opened a bottle of that wine you like.”

  I had no idea which wine she meant. I like them all the same.

  #

  This may be my first murder case, but I’ve read my fair share of mystery novels. The detective’s moment of glory always comes at the end of the case, when he astounds everyone by announcing that he finally figured out who the murderer is. Then he baffles everyone by making a confusing speech, which he concludes by revealing the murderer’s identity. His audience is stunned, yet impressed. They shower him with praise for solving a case none of them could have solved in a million years. I was looking forward to it.

  Susan poured me a glass of wine. I drank another five glasses on an empty stomach while I composed a speech in my head. Then I asked if I could please have everyone’s attention. I hoisted my glass and proposed a toast. “Here’s to homonyms!”

  Sheila asked me what I was talking about.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.” I gulped from my glass, draining it dry. Surprised to see my glass empty again so soon, I staggered over to the table and poured myself a refill. “I’m talking about murder.”

  “What about it?”

  I burped. “What about it? Is that … (hiccup) … what you said?”

  “He’s drunk,” said the Stork.

  Sheila laughed and told me to slow down on the wine. Everyone resumed their conversations. Marty and Ace stood by the bookshelves. Sheila, Susan, and the Stork chatted in chairs. I muttered to myself.

  “May I have everyone’s attention?” I said. “I have an ouncement … an announcement to make. I know … (hiccup) … I know who—”

  Sheila said, “Why do you always have to drink like it’s a race? You drank that whole bottle by yourself. You’re ruining the party.”

  I steadied myself against a wall, denying all charges.

  Susan said she’d better brew a pot of coffee for everyone. I knew the whole pot was for me. Six cups of coffee later, I was back to my sober self. In fact, I felt like running a marathon. But that could wait. I had an important speech to deliver.

  I walked over to my brother’s desk and pulled out the bottom right-hand drawer. Lifting up a stack of papers, I reached down to the bottom of the pile and extracted the little black book. I waved it in the air for dramatic effect.

  “Anyone know what this is?” I said. “I’m sure you recognize it, Sheila. You’ve seen it many times. How about you, Marty? Maybe you can tell everyone what it is, since you were the one who stole it from my gym locker and hid it here in your desk.”

  Marty opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked across the room at his wife. Susan returned his glance with a wan smile. “You can’t protect me, dear,” she said. “He knows.”

  Susan sipped from her wine glass and set it down on the end table. “Brit, you were in the hospital recovering from the car accident. Marty came home from the gym with your betbook. He intended to return it to you, but I wouldn’t let him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought if you didn’t have the book with all your betting contacts, you might consider finding a legal job.”

  Sheila said, “I could have told you that you were wasting your time. He’s beyond rehabilitation. I begged him to find a normal, legal job when we got married. He sent out a few résumés and ran right back to the strip club he used as his headquarters. Of course, he had branch offices all over town. Some people never mature.”

  And some people are like a broken record. You can divorce those people, yet the record plays on.

  Sheila asked what the betbook had to do with Hedgeway’s murder.

  “Nothing,” I said. “But a diligent detective always ties up every loose end, and it was the one piece of evidence that didn’t fit. Besides, it’s been driving me crazy for weeks.”

  “You’ve been crazy for years,” she said.

  “Would you think I was crazy if I said that the killer is right here in this room?”

  “I’d know you couldn’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. You see, the killer had to be someone who knew the Codger was no longer a missing person, that he was back in town and hiding in Cynthia’s house. Cynthia and I were the only ones who knew, and she made me promise not to tell anyone. Unfortunately for the Codger, I told everyone in this room that he was alive, as well as the exact location of the room where he was hiding.”

  “You’re contradicting yourself,” Sheila said. “In the same breath that you claim the killer has to be one of us because of what we knew, you admit that Cynthia Moreno also knew. And she lives in the house where he was murdered. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she the one who discovered the body?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He died in her arms.”

  “In her arms, or by her hand? I think she was in on the scheme with her husband. Sergio handled the abduction arrangements. Cynthia’s job was to frame you.”

  “If you’d seen her crying at the funeral, you’d realize how silly you sound.”

  “Brit, she was working for Crump. She had access to both houses involved in the case, hers and ours.”

  “There are three.”

  “Three what?”

  “Three houses involved in the case. Actually, two houses and an apartment. Don’t forget, someone paid a visit to my apartment and plastered my bathroom wall with photos of the Codger. I suppose you think Cynthia did that as well.”

  “I don’t see why not. It would be easy for her to take photos of her uncle. Then she—”

  “She didn’t do it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know who did.”

  #

  As I said, the detective’s moment of glory comes at the end of the case when he exposes the killer. You have to do it just right. You must lay the proper groundwork. If you conclude your presentation by saying that it was Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick, you need to be sure that everyone knows what you’re talking about. If you hear people saying, “What candlestick? And who the hell is Colonel Mustard?” then you know you didn’t lay the proper groundwork. Your moment of glory is ruined.

  Of course, it’s hard to lay the proper groundwork when your presentation is being interrupted every five seconds. This time it was the Stork who broke in to cross-examine me.

  “If the killer is someone in this room, then all other suspects are innocent, correct?”

  “Naturally.”

  “And you believe that you have a logical explanation for any and all evidence which incriminates those suspects?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You said th
e betbook was the only piece of evidence that didn’t fit. Did you re-examine all of the evidence carefully to make sure you hadn’t overlooked anything?”

  “No,” I said. “I had to rush back here before the killer slipped through my fingers.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been wise to review all of the evidence before you eliminated the other suspects and started accusing your family and friends of murder?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “What evidence?”

  “For example, can you tell me why Julio Hernandez followed you to Vegas?”

  “I’m sure Cesar sent him to keep tabs on me.”

  “You told us that Cesar denied any knowledge about his brother’s trip to Vegas.”

  “He did, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “Can you account for Julio’s presence in your hospital room during your confession? How did he know you were there? Who informed him?”

  “Possibly an informant.”

  “Who?”

  “Hell if I know. Maybe Julio was tailing me the night of the wreck, under orders from Cesar. Julio could have followed the ambulance to the hospital and slipped into my room later with the rest of the well-wishers.”

  The Stork shook her head. “When I hear you say ‘hell if I know’ and ‘maybe’ and ‘could have’ it’s obvious to me that you’re guessing. I don’t call that proof.”

  “Nobody asked what you call it,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  But did I? I wondered if I was about to make a fool of myself by accusing an innocent person of murder. After all, the linchpin of my theory was nothing more than a flimsy homonym.

  The suspects insisted on a bathroom break. They’d been drinking for hours, so I had to let them leave the room for a few minutes. I guess the killer is the one who doesn’t come back.

  I took a precautionary measure. To make sure none of the suspects sneaked out of the house to a car, I sneaked out and hid in a bush near the driveway. Fifteen minutes later I saw a woman come out onto the porch. She walked toward the driveway, looking over her shoulder a couple of times. I watched her closely through the shrub.

  “Oh, there you are,” Sheila said. “Why are you hiding?”

  I emerged from the shrub and brushed some leaves off my shirt. “I wasn’t hiding. I was observing.”

  “Whatever. Everyone was wondering where you went.”

  “You came outside to find me? Rather curious that you’d think I’d be out here in this bush.”

  “Well, you weren’t anywhere in the house.”

  “Do you know why I came out here?”

  “The bathrooms were all taken and you couldn’t hold it another second.”

  “No. I was watching to make sure no one left the house and took off in a car.”

  “No one’s going to make a break for it, Brit. None of us killed Hedgeway.”

  She went back inside. I stayed out in the yard for a few minutes, looking at the moon. I’ve always enjoyed looking at the moon. Probably always will. I wasn’t just looking at the moon, though. I was thinking about Sheila’s last statement. None of us killed Hedgeway.

  Did she know something I didn’t?

  #

  I entered the study to find the suspects sitting in a row on the couch, like a police lineup.

  “Where was I?” I asked. “Before I was interrupted a thousand times.”

  “The photos,” Marty said. “You said you knew who—”

  “Yes, the Codger collection. Of course, I assumed the photos were plastered on the wall to frame me. It seemed to be the only logical explanation. Even if the Codger’s wallet was never dug up and turned over to the authorities, the photos were sure to be discovered when the police searched my apartment. The bathroom photo gallery would lead the cops to conclude that I was an obsessed stalker or a pervert. Either way, a suspect worthy of further investigation.”

  The Stork was the first to catch on. “The photos weren’t meant to frame you.”

  “No, the photos were not put there to be discovered by the police. They were for my eyes only. Whoever put those photos there wanted me to believe I was being framed so that I would be highly motivated to solve ‘The Case of the Missing Codger’ before the police arrested me.”

  “I’m confused,” Sheila said. “Why would they want you to solve the case?”

  “Because they wanted me to find Melvin Hedgeway before the police did.”

  Marty stood up. “I need to call my answering service. I’ll be right back.”

  “What was in the bowling ball bag, Marty?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The other day you came into this room and asked me how the Pinto was running. You were carrying a bowling ball bag. I asked you what was in it and you said, ‘Oh, nothing.’”

  “You want to know what was in the bag?”

  “It wasn’t a bowling ball.”

  “No, it wasn’t. If you must know, it was a six pack of Heineken.”

  “If that’s all it was, why didn’t you tell me when I asked you?”

  “Because I knew you’d drink it. Frankly, I’ve had a hard time keeping beer in stock ever since you moved in. I thought I could sneak the beer from the car to the fridge in the bowling ball bag.”

  I nodded. “I knew it was something like that.”

  Sheila sighed. “Well, if you knew it wasn’t important, why did you make an issue of it?”

  “I was laying the groundwork,” I said. “I was using the bowling ball bag to illustrate a point about the suggestive nature of bags. For example, if Marty had brought the beer into the house in a grocery bag, I would have assumed that there were groceries in the bag and I would have followed him into the kitchen to see if beer was included. He anticipated I would do that, so he—”

  “I understand that,” Sheila said. “But one minute you’re talking about the photos, the next minute you’re off on bowling ball bags. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the connection.”

  “You soon will. Let me take you back to the night I saw the photos on the bathroom wall. I might never have seen them if I hadn’t needed to go back to my apartment to pick up some winter clothes and a few other things. Of course, I needed a ride because Marty’s Pinto was—”

  “Parked at some stripper’s apartment,” Marty said.

  “Anyway, I didn’t have transportation. I asked Ace if he could give me a ride. He said he didn’t have time because he had a date later that evening and he had to get back to his apartment to shower and change clothes. I told him he could do all that at my apartment while I gathered up my things. We stopped off at Ace’s place so he could get the clothes he wanted to wear, then we drove across town to my apartment. I had to use my key to enter, because the door was locked. Ace can confirm that. Right, Ace?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay,” Sheila said, “the door was locked. Why is that important?”

  “You can’t have a locked room mystery without a locked door.”

  “A locked room mystery?”

  “Or at least a locked apartment mystery. While I was gathering up my things, Ace took his shower and changed clothes. When he came out of the bathroom, he commented on the photos on the wall. I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I went into the bathroom to have a look. I was shocked to see an entire wall plastered with photos of the Codger. I naturally assumed that whoever had been trying to frame me was back at it.”

  “You told us the photos weren’t put there to frame you.”

  “They weren’t. But at the time I didn’t know that. I was baffled. I couldn’t understand why someone would risk breaking into my apartment when they’d already framed me by burying the Codger’s wallet, watch, and keys under the garden. I was even more baffled when I checked the sliding glass door and every window in the apartment and found that they were locked. The front door had also been locked, so it seemed impossible for anyone to have broken into the apartment and gotten out again, leaving all the doors and windows locked from the inside.”

&nb
sp; “A locked room mystery,” the Stork said. “Of course, there’s always a logical solution. The most logical explanation would be that the perpetrator had a key.”

  “Yes, that would be the logical explanation. But the perpetrator would have had to steal the key without getting caught, then enter and exit the apartment, again without being detected. Risky business.”

  Sheila said, “So you ruled it out.”

  “On the contrary. Ace and I sat down and put our heads together. We decided that the key could only have been stolen one of two ways. The first possibility was that it was stolen from the apartment leasing office. That seemed unlikely. The thief would have had to steal the key from the office, put the photos up on my wall, and then replace the key in the office before the staff noticed it was missing.”

  “And the other possibility?”

  “The key was stolen from me. But how? I carry it with me everywhere I go. Of course, there was a time when I didn’t go anywhere, when I was laid up in the hospital after the car accident. I was heavily medicated, so it would have been possible for a frequent visitor to go through my things, steal my key, plant the photos in my apartment, and replace the key on their next visit. Since visiting privileges were restricted to friends and family, it wasn’t hard to narrow down the list of suspects. Especially since I only had one frequent visitor.”

  “Hey!” Marty said. “This is the thanks I get for visiting my brother in the hospital?”

  “You were the only person who came to see me more than once.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re not more popular,” he said. “I didn’t steal your key.”

  “No, you didn’t. Nor did anyone else. While Ace and I were discussing possibilities of how the key could have been stolen, I noticed a yellow slip of paper on my dining room table. It was a note from the maintenance man, Hector, informing me that he’d entered my apartment to change the air conditioning filter. I realized then why the front door had been locked. Hector would have locked it when he left the apartment, even if it had been unlocked when he arrived. The way I figured it, someone jimmied the sliding glass door or one of the windows to gain entry. After redecorating my bathroom with the photos, they simply walked out the front door, leaving it unlocked. It remained unlocked until Hector locked it after changing the filter.”