Murder at the Lone Peak

by Kendall Scott

  "Let me go!" Gustavo screamed and thrashed. "Let me go! I'll kill you! I will kill you and anyone else that dares insult my cooking!" He pushed, he kicked and he stamped, but in the end there was nothing he could do. It was only after a few more moments that he finally calmed down.

  When he was calm, puffing and panting with his head held against the wall, Constance got up from her seat and casually strolled across the room and toward the two men. "Oh my," she said. "That was unexpected."

  "You're telling me," Sheriff Nevil agreed. "I knew he had a temper, but this was something else."

  "Lucky you're a police officer," Constance said. She could barely control her excitement, but what she was about to say was of the utmost importance and could not be rushed. "Just imagine if you were a civilian and insulted his cooking."

  Sheriff Nevil nodded along in agreement. "A civilian, or you even? I shudder to think what he might have done.”

  “Oh, you really don’t have to think too hard.” She was bobbing up and down on the soles of her feet, a delighted smile spread across her lips.

  “What do you mean…?” he looked at Constance with confusion. Clearly, he realized that there was a double meaning behind her words, only he had no idea what it could be.

  Constance chose not to respond. She couldn’t. The success of her plan working relied on Sheriff Nevil coming to the conclusion himself. So instead she raised an eyebrow at him, inclined her head to chef Gustavo – pinned against the wall after threatening violence – and waited.

  She didn’t have to wait too long.

  “Oh, surely you don’t mean...” Sheriff Nevil began with a disbelieving sigh. “There’s no way that...” he looked at Gustavo and frowned. “You’re not suggesting —”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting!” Constance exclaimed before putting her hand to her mouth. She had gotten ahead of herself. Luckily, Sheriff Nevil was quick to catch up.

  “You mean to tell me – and feel free to jump in to defend yourself at any time,” he said to Gustavo, “That this man here killed two people because they insulted his cooking?”

  “Almost.” Constance was buzzing with excitement. She so desperately wanted to explain everything to him but knew that if she did so he was less likely to believe her. She needed the invitation first.

  “She’s lying —” Gustavo said into the wall.

  “Quiet,” Sheriff Nevil commanded. Him doing that was a good sign. It meant he was starting to come around. “Okay, Constance. You have thirty seconds. I suggest you use them all.”

  A deep breath and Constance launched into the speech that she had spent all of the previous night, and some of the morning, working on.

  “It started at the Fair,” she begun, making sure to keep her words even and not talk too fast. She was that darn excited though that it was tough. “After seeing Gustavo go off over losing the Best in Town Contest —”

  “Rigged I tell you!” Gustavo cut in, yelling into the wall. “It was rigged!”

  “Anyway,” Constance said, pursing her lips in frustration at Gustavo for throwing off her rhythm. “I started thinking to myself if there had ever been a time that anyone else had insulted his cooking. And I could only think of one – Mr. Christie. I wasn’t there for it, but apparently the argument became quite heated. So that was my first clue. Then I thought to myself, even if Gustavo had killed him for such a silly reason, how did he do it? You claimed bleach?”

  “That’s right,” Sheriff Nevil nodded. He still didn’t look convinced, which was fine as Constance was only just getting started.

  “To be fair though, that wasn’t the interesting part. What got me thinking was how did he slip the bleach into his drink. That was when I remembered what Eustace said about Mr. Christie drinking sherry. And even more interesting was his surprise that he stocked the drink. I mean, who drinks sherry? I’ll tell you who. Mr. Christie does. I know he does, as does Gustavo, because he had a glass with his lunch on the same day he died. The sherry that he drank at The Loner was from my kitchen —”

  “It’s my kitchen! I made it what it is! None of this will stick —”

  “Quiet!” Sheriff Nevil shoved Gustavo’s face further into the wall. “Go on,” he said seriously. He was coming around.

  “Thank you,” Constance nodded. “Anyway, the sherry was from the kitchen. Gustavo poured the bleach in, ducked into The Loner – which he has perfect access to through the back door, and put the bottle onto the shelf. He knew that Mr. Christie would order it, drink it and then die. Simple and nearly perfect.” She crossed her arms and nodded again, looking about as smug as she ought.

  Sheriff Nevil scrunched his brow, clearly running over the chain of events in his head. “OK, say that all fits. There is still one glaring error to your story. How does Mr. Tibbs fit into all of this?”

  “It was the Flanders! I tell you it was —” Sheriff Nevil shoved Gustavo’s head back into the wall.

  “I’ll tell you how. Gustavo admitted to me a few days ago that he saw the two men arguing. This came after his run-in with Mr. Christie, when he was looking for a way to take the man out. Now this next part I’m not sure on… hopefully the good chef can fill us in when he is ready to cooperate, but I assume that he saw the two men fight, figured that Mr. Tibbs wouldn’t mind seeing Mr. Christie done away with and approached him with his idea. Whether he had planned a different way to kill Mr. Christie and needed Mr. Tibbs’ help, or if he wanted Mr. Tibbs to do it himself? I am not sure. Evidently once the murder was done, Gustavo got cold feet, worried that Mr. Tibbs was going to blab and killed him too – with his own knife, need I mention! And ah, yes… that is that.”

  Her point made, the facts lain out and the chef quivering where he stood, Constance took a literal step back, nodded her head again and waited. She could almost literally see the chips falling into place, all that was needed now was for Sheriff Nevil to see them too.

  Sheriff Nevil looked like a man caught at an impasse. On the one hand, he was a good cop and couldn’t ignore such glaring evidence when presented. But on the other, he was surely having a hard time believing that a man would commit a double homicide over a plate of pasta.

  “I don’t…” he scrunched his brow in confusion and bit his lip. What was he going to do? He then grabbed Gustavo by the back of the head and pulled his face off the wall. “Well,” he said. “If you want to defend yourself, now is the time.”

  “I didn’t do it!” Gustavo began. “It is a lie! I would never… I could not… I...” Constance caught his eye. She raised an eyebrow and looked at him as if to say ‘the jig is up.’ And that was when Gustavo broke. “OK!” he wailed, finally. “It’s true, it’s all true!”

  “It is?!” Sheriff Nevil asked in shock.

  “Yes!” Gustavo began to blubber. “I never meant… I didn’t think… I was just so mad! I wanted revenge. And then I heard Mr. Christie and Mr. Tibbs arguing about money. Mr. Tibbs was on the run with half a million dollars. I knew he would want Mr. Christie out of the picture. I approached him with the idea, he agreed and… and...” he threw his head back and wailed.

  “And?!” Sheriff Nevil pushed.

  “Everything Constance said is true. The sherry, the bleach. Mr. Tibbs was meant to give me a small fee, a thank you. He refused and then when he learned that Constance was getting close he told me he was going to turn me in! I couldn’t… not with the Best in Town coming up. So, I killed him and framed that nice Flanders couple.” And then he wailed some more.

  “They’re brother and sister,” Constance point out.

  “Constance I… I don’t believe it,” Sheriff Nevil stuttered. His blank expression matched his words perfectly. Constance could not think of a time that he had looked so caught by surprise – even when she had asked him for a date he managed to keep some sort of composure about it.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Constance waved him off as if there whole thing were no big deal. “You’ve been busy, what with the Fair and everything. Yo
u were bound to miss the odd clue, here and there.”

  And then she laughed. Soon Sydney was joining in, as was Eleanor and even Sheriff Nevil. The only person who wasn’t laughing was Alberto Gustavo. He was wailing; long and deep wails of pity and remorse. But that was to be expected. He was going to jail for murder after all.

  ***

  It was several hours after the confession of Alberto Gustavo that Constance finally found herself able to sit down and breathe again. Even with his on the spot confession, and the presence of Sheriff Nevil there to witness it, there was still so much to do before Constance was able to call it a day and say with total assurance that the case was wrapped up nice and tight.

  First, it was the actual arrest of Gustavo. Where Sheriff Nevil already had the murderer in hand-cuffs, he still needed to radio it in and have some officers send a squad car. As it was such a big deal too, the officers on duty decided to send five squad cars and what preceded this was a scene very similar to the night that Mr. Christie was murdered.

  Dozens of cops arrived on scene, swarming through the hotel like locusts. They conducted interview after interview – this was despite the fact that the original occupants of the hotel were all gone, and those now staying had not a clue what was going on. But that didn’t seem to bother the officers as they interviewed them anyway. As the hotel was full too, and each officer wanted his own turn, this took several hours to get through.

  After that it was Constance’s turn. Being the organized lady that she was, she held a press conference of sorts where she went through with extreme thoroughness not just her solve, but all the steps leading to the solve. Everything from her interrogation of Mr. Tibbs, to her break-in of the Winnebago was covered – she decided to leave out the first date with Sheriff Nevil of course, which he seemed grateful for. Once she was done with this, she answered questions and then some more questions… and a few more after that.

  All of this was followed by a complete excavation of the kitchen and restaurant, which she was forced to be present for and then finally, the putting of Gustavo in the back of the police vehicle and carting him off to jail.

  But once that was done, the officers slowly trickled out, leaving Constance alone for the first time in the evening. Well at least she thought she was alone. No sooner had she collapsed on the first stair of the stair case, did she realized that one other person had remained behind to speak to her.

  “Do you mind if I sit?” Sheriff Nevil asked. He was standing at the base of the stairs looking a little humbled, or so Constance thought.

  “Sure,” she said simply, shuffling over to give him space to sit.

  He took his time sitting, letting out a huge sigh of relief when he did. “So,” he began cautiously. “You did good, Constance. You really did.”

  “Thanks.” She frowned at the compliment. It was odd coming from his lips and she was almost certain it was the first one he had ever given her.

  “No, really,” he said with a little more resolve. “Because of you two innocent people won’t be going to prison, where one very guilty man will be. You trusted your gut, stuck it out and in the end, you won. I know many an officer that would have given up long before that. In fact you’re looking at him.”

  Constance felt herself blushing and looked down at her feet. “You know, I just… I don’t know. I got lucky I suppose.”

  Sheriff Nevil scoffed. “When did you become so modest. You have a bit of a knack for this kind of thing it seems. Have you considered maybe switching careers?”

  “What?” Constance almost laughed out loud but stopped herself at the last second. “Be a cop?”

  “Why not?”

  She indicated to the hotel. “Is that enough of a reason?”

  “Well...” he shrugged. “Maybe I can use you for some private consulting every now and then? How’s that?”

  Constance didn’t reply. She just looked at him instead, meeting his eyes and letting him see the smile in her own. When she had first gone to him with the idea of solving the case, he had laughed in her face. For him to commit to such a turn around, and admit that he was wrong, was almost as satisfying as solving the case in the first place… almost.

  “I’ve just got one question,” he began slowly.

  “Yes?” she asked, perking up a little.

  “Our ‘date’ tonight. That was all just a trick? You never wanted to go out with me, did you?”

  Constance grimaced. She had completely forgotten about the date and the way she had used him. At the time she had hoped he would forget too, or at least forgive her. It seemed she was just being hopeful.

  “Sorry,” she attempted. She was sorry and hoped that he heard it in her voice.

  “Pretty cold, Constance. Pretty damn cold.”

  It was that, and Constance would have continued to feel even more guilty were she not just struck by a sudden idea. “How about I make it up to you?”

  “Oh yeah? And how do you plan on doing that?” he raised a contemptuous eyebrow at her, as if to imply that he didn’t think she were capable of coming through on such a promise.

  Constance just smiled.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Modest Affair was about as lovely as Constance remembered it being the last time she was there. The waiters that were dressed in matching tuxedos buzzed around the room with an elegance that Sydney could never hope to match. The lit candles – three to a table – shimmered and glowed, giving a romantic feel to the establishment. And the violinist was playing a song that Constance didn’t recognize, but wished she knew. It was hauntingly beautiful and really tied the whole experience together. As the soft notes drifted across the large space and toward her, she made a mental note to hire a similar performer for her restaurant.

  Getting anxious now, yet refraining from checking her watch, she shifted in her chair and looked around the restaurant. It was busy, but not overly so. As her restaurant was without a chef, she had no doubt that a handful of the current diners had been forced to come here, as options were limited. But then she glanced the ‘Best in Town’ plaque hung on the wall and grimaced to herself. No doubt that helped get butts in the seats too.

  She glanced around the restaurant again, taking mental notes as she did. With no more Gustavo to run her kitchen, Constance was forced to close it down until she was able to hire someone to fill his place. But rather than being perturbed by this inconvenience, she chose to see an upside to it. It was a chance remodel the entire restaurant and bring something new to the town of Modest Peak. What that was going to be, she wasn’t so sure of. But she knew it was going to be something spectacular.

  A Modest Affair was her primary competition and it didn’t hurt to mentally squiggle a few things down for later. The idea of having someone play music was a must. And she liked how fancy the waiters all looked. The bathrooms too were something new, with a man in them to hand you lotions and fragrances. It really upped the game and made Constance realize that she had been lagging.

  She had told herself too that tonight wasn’t about checking out the competition. And really it wasn’t. She was at A Modest Affair for reasons that were completely innocent, but as she strained to keep her eyes from her watch, she found her innocence flagging.

  Finally, her patience coming to its tethers end, she snapped and checked the time. She groaned her annoyance when she saw it to be 8:30PM. It was exactly half an hour after she had arrived, and exactly half an hour after the date was meant to have started. He was late.

  The chair across from her was empty, as it had been since she sat down, and she wondered how much longer it was going to stay empty for. Or a better question, how much longer until she snapped and walked out? She hadn’t quite decided yet, but as she glanced to the restaurants entrance and then back at her watch, she figured it was going to be sooner rather than later.

  In all honesty, the only reason that she had stuck around for as long as she had was shock. Never would she have dreamed that it would be she getting stood up – if that
was what was happening. She had almost offered this date as a favor of sorts and now that it wasn’t going the way she had planned…. well it was somewhat infuriating.

  The date was with Sheriff Nevil of course. She had felt so guilty over having used him to catch Albert Gustavo that she offered him another date, a real one. He jumped at the chance and the date was set for three days later. In that time, she managed to avoid seeing the Sheriff, and didn’t even call him to double check the date was still on. She just assumed that he would turn up with bells on.

  Maybe he got held up? Although if he had then he should have called to let her know. Or maybe he had forgotten that it was tonight? Although surely he wouldn’t forget something that he was so eager to see take place. Or maybe he was just being petty? As unlikely as it was, there was every chance that he saw it as a way to get revenge and couldn’t let the chance slid.

  At 8:35PM Constance snapped. She let go a tremendous sigh of annoyance, pushed her chair back and stood abruptly. From there she stormed across the restaurant floor and toward the exit. A part of her hoped that he was just held up and that he came running in a minute after she had left. Another part hoped that he was being petty and that he was perhaps done with asking her out for good.

  But then again, as this thought came to mind, Constance laughed. She was sure that he wasn’t done asking her out, not by a long shot. No, no. There was no doubt in her mind that come the next day, or the day after that, her phone would be ringing with apologies and attempts to set a new date.

  She could not wait to deny him.

  It was as Constance reached the front door and threw it open that a blood curdling scream ripped across the restaurant floor and froze her in her tracks. This scream was followed by a very loud crash and that sounded like the entire kitchen had fallen in on itself.

  Constance hesitated. She watched as the waiters and staff ran into the back of the restaurant toward the kitchen. She listened as another scream rang out, this one in distress rather than fear.