The Adventure of the Costume Ball: A Short Story

by Jonathan Brett

The Adventure of the Costume Ball

  An A+ For Murder Short Story by Jonathan Brett

  Copyright 2012 Jonathan Brett

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  I hoped that I managed to hide the sheer amount of contempt that I held in my heart for this kind of event, but I’m sure that my glasses failed to filter the frustration that I imagined radiated from my light blue eyes.

  Adults dressed up in costumes would really frighten people if they bothered to think about it. When half of those adults are teachers or other school administrators, one must worry about scarring the children they teach with images of a fifty-something principal in a Catwoman costume.

  Thankfully, my principal, who is probably fifty-something, chose to come dressed as Queen Victoria. She seemed rather amused, though, by a story being told by our mustachioed superintendent. He came dressed as Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I., probably because of his moustache.

  “I would have expected you to be dressed as Sherlock Holmes, Mike,” said a familiar voice at my elbow as I wandered around the munchies table.

  “Too obvious,” I said. “You didn’t dress like a cop, Jake.”

  “I dress like a cop every day,” Jake said. The light from the ceiling reflected off his shaved head. His tee-shirt was a little tight around the pecks and biceps, which Jake must have worked hard on maintaining. I’m in okay shape, but a little scrawny, so I hid that beneath a brown suit and a trench coat.

  “Isn’t ‘generic action hero’ a little lazy, though?” I asked.

  “I’m The Rock – see the tattoos? Had to get these online. Besides, it was one of the few costumes that would let me continue to wear my gun.”

  “You could have gone with a literary character, Mike,” a fellow teacher, Kate, said as she walked over with a glass of wine. She smiled behind a gray beard and her general’s hat was a little crooked on her head.

  “I didn’t know they made Civil War uniforms for women, too,” I said.

  “I wasn’t going to wear a corset,” Kate said. “Like her!”

  Kate pointed to someone in a gigantic hoop skirt. She walked by Pike and I thought, for a moment, that she looked familiar.

  Kate snorted, “Don’t look now, but I think Superintendent Pike is trying to convince Mrs. Winger to give the school a large donation.”

  “Her husband hasn’t been dead a year and he’s already after some of the money she inherited,” Jake said.

  I spied the woman in question. Mrs. Winger was the widow of one of the town’s wealthiest men. He came from an old family in town that had managed to maintain its upper-crust status from child to child until Mr. Winger, regrettably, didn’t have any children to pass it on to. Mrs. Winger was in her sixties and doted upon some nieces and nephews who still lived in town.

  Mrs. Winger was probably the most-theatrically-dressed person at the party. She wore a yellow ball gown, a white mask shaped like a butterfly, and a gigantic, sparkly necklace.

  “That necklace isn’t a costume piece,” Jake said. “It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t get out of this stupid party. As a member of this town’s laughably small police force, I have to keep an eye on Mrs. Winger’s family jewels.”

  Kate snickered and then brought her wine to her lips.

  “What?” Jake asked.

  I tried to hide behind the table. “Oh, no! He’s seen me!”

  “Mike!” Superintendent Pike called.

  “You’re up,” Kate said. She pushed me over to Pike, Mrs. Winger, and our principal, Sue.

  “Mike,” Pike continued as if I wasn’t being shoved over by a Civil War general and Mr. Clean on steroids, “I was just telling Mrs. Winger here about how you’re my mystery-solving teacher.”

  I looked at the floor and tried to wave the compliment off. “Well, it was just a hit-and-run and a couple of minor…”

  “Mike’s a big help to me in my work,” Jake said. “Sometimes, he gives that fresh perspective that helps me crack a case.”

  “Oh, really?” Mrs. Winger said. “Well, maybe we should have thrown a mystery party so you could solve a case for me.”

  “Who knows?” Pike asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe he’ll get the chance tonight. That necklace must be worth a fortune.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that, sir!” I said. “Next thing you know, the lights will go out and someone will steal…”

  I hadn’t finished my thought when the lights suddenly went out.

  Several things happened at once. Someone dropped a glass and someone grabbed my arm, wrapping themselves around me in a not-unpleasant way. I’m sure it wasn’t Jake. Pike swore. There was a rustle of fabric and the clunk of a heavy shoe. Mrs. Winger screamed. Someone shouted and there was a crash at the munchies table. I heard something that sounded like a wind chime. The not-unpleasant wrapping vanished just before the lights came on.

  Kate crouched beside Mrs. Winger, who writhed on the floor, clutching her neck. As expected, she said, “My jewels!”

  My red sneakers crunched glass and I saw Kate’s wine on the floor.

  Jake ran to the door and threw it open. After a quick look-around he closed the door and grabbed the party hostess, a woman named Felicity who, I guess, was aptly named for someone who organized and threw parties for a living. He pointed at the door and said, “No one gets out. Got it?”

  “What about the other doors?” Kate asked as she helped Mrs. Winger to her feet.

  “They have alarms on them,” I said. “The game’s afoot, I suppose.”

  “I really hope you’re not trying to turn that into a catchphrase or something, Mike,” Kate said.

  My response was interrupted by Jake wading into the fight by the munchies table.

  “Break it up!” Jake said as he threw Frankenstein away from a monk that he had been pummeling by the overturned munchies table.

  Frankenstein towered over Jake, but our intrepid cop just squared his shoulders and said, “What was that about?”

  “He barreled into me!” the monk said.

  “He didn’t have to punch me when I did!” Frankenstein said.

  “You, Scarlett O’Hara, stop right there,” Jake said. A woman in an elaborate hoop dress turned around. “I’ll take a look at that necklace.”

  “It’s not the same one,” I said.

  “Look, Jake, you can’t hold us all here indefinitely,” said a rather nasally voice that I recognized as one of my ex-wife’s unpleasant friends. Mary Simms pulled off her huge headdress.

  “I can search every person here until I find the jewels,” Jake said. “The rest of the police force is on the way…”

  “All three of them,” Simms muttered.

  “…and we’ll be doing a thorough search of each of you!”

  I was roughly spun around and stared into the red and mustachioed face of my boss (who still looked menacing in a Hawaiian shirt). He practically barked: “Unless you can solve it first!”

  “I’m just a…I’m sure Jake…I think…” I stammered and then went limp in his grip. He shook me for a moment and yelled, “Get it together, man! I need you to do this! Your very job depends on it!”

  If I had a backbone somewhere in my body, I’m sure I would have flopped less, not ended up in a heap on the floor, and managed to point out that since solving mysteries wasn’t in my contract, the union would
probably manage to protect me on that front.

  “Come on, soldier,” Kate said. She had abandoned her beard and hat and let her hair down. She put out a hand and helped me to my feet.

  “Which way did he go, then?” Sue asked.

  “Not right past me,” I said. Kate held me up for a moment as I thought. “Would have crunched the glass like I did when I stepped on it. Probably went for the door, though.”

  “Like Frankenstein, here,” the monk said. He removed his hood and I saw Paul Doyle, our most-successful real estate agent.

  “Looks like I’m going to have to search you, sir,” Jake said.

  Frankenstein’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. I got nothing to hide.”

  “You have nothing to hide,” I said.

  “What?” Jake asked.

  “Just correcting his…never mind,” I said. I turned around and fiddled with the screwdriver in my coat pocket. “Well, let’s think. The glass was your glass, Kate. The crash by the table was Paul and Frank…”

  “Harry Grayson,” Frankenstein said. “You got my kid in class.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, waving him off and walking around Mrs. Winger. “What was the wind-chime sound I heard?”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Kate said.

  “I heard a heavy boot,” I looked down at the platform boots Grayson wore, “and fabric.”

  “That could be anybody’s costume,” Sue said. “Mrs. Winger’s in a lot of fabric.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked around.