Who Done It?

by Jon Scieszka

  I couldn’t listen to his threats a second longer. After all, Herman knew better than anyone that my research was insanely accurate; he understood the huge risks that I take to capture every detail and nuance of the past. Stupidly, I had trusted him with my secret when he first became my editor. So, I left Herman and the Temple of Dendur behind, and walked into a connecting room that housed ancient Egyptian artifacts. And I’ve been “elsewhere” from that very moment until I entered this ridiculous pickle factory party. You see, I couldn’t have possibly killed him.

  Where did I go in the meantime? Where is my “elsewhere”? Ummmm…ancient Egypt.

  You’re laughing. I know it sounds crazy. But it’s absolutely 100 percent true. I don’t know how I do it, but I simply touch an artifact, close my eyes, and shift into another time. Today at the museum, I touched this colossal statue of Hatshepsut and stepped back into 1500 BC. You should have seen the scene! I walked right into a ceremony at the Djeser-Djeseru temple at Deir el-Bahri overseen by Hatshepsut herself. The temple was astonishing—the hieroglyphics so colorful, not that drab sandy shade you see today—but even better was the fight I witnessed between Hatshepsut and her nephew Thutmose III. Some historians have theorized that it was Thutmose who tried to destroy all evidence of Hatshepsut after her death.

  Today, Thutmose was screaming, “A woman should not rule as Pharaoh!”

  Hatshepsut didn’t dignify his outburst with a response, of course. She was way too regal for that. But she did shoot Thutmose a look, like she wanted to slip a little poisonous belladonna in his wine.

  Such juicy material for my book! And what a coup! Do you understand that it solves the long-standing mystery of who tried to wipe out all mention of Hatshepsut and why? Historians will be abuzz when they read my new book.

  You don’t believe me? I can see by the way you are rolling your eyes that you don’t. Truly, I’ve gone back in time before; it’s how I do my research. Have you heard of my first book, Elizabeth I, The Virgin Queen? Well, I touched that famous fifteenth century portrait of her that hangs in London’s National Gallery, and waltzed right into Westminster Abbey on Elizabeth’s coronation day. How else do you think I got all those amazing details about the coronation, including all that gossip about her affairs?

  What did you just say? You think that I can get the really juicy stuff in the library? No way. The real primary source is to go there yourself. That’s what I do, and Herman knew it. That’s why he wanted to keep me all to himself. But he should have been more careful about calling me crazy; it brought about my leaving him for another publisher. Still, that doesn’t mean I’d kill Herman. I’ve seen a lot of royal beheadings and hangings in my research, and it’s made me a pacifist.

  Can I prove my alibi? Is there some way that I may demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was in ancient Egypt at the time Herman Mildew was killed? Why, yes. Right here in my pocket, I have a thirteen-inch, marble statue of Hatshepsut that I brought back with me when I left the Djeser-Djeseru temple and re-entered modern times. One of Hatshepsut’s handmaids gave it to me as a gift—kind of like a party favor—as I left the ceremony. Here, take a look, but be careful. It’s from 1500 BC, and Herman almost dropped it when I let him hold it at the museum.

  What’s that you say? Did I get this at the museum store? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. A price tag on the bottom? Hand that back to me, please.

  That monster! Herman switched out my original statue for a cheap reproduction to undermine my evidence. That vindictive, inhuman creature planned this whole thing (even his own demise) just to destroy me. He knew that I’d have to tell you my secret to absolve myself, and that would be the end of me. What reader—or new publisher—would buy “historically accurate” books from a crazy lady?

  Herman Mildew, I didn’t kill you, but I wish I had.

  I’m a very lucky writer. All you have to do is read my bio, which that old buzzard Herman never bothered to do, to learn how I started out young and found great success, like Dickens but with fewer words. I even have a family! It’s sickening!

  But before you hate me too much, you should know that I have bad luck too; and sometimes, such as on the night of Herman’s murder, it can be tough to tell which is which.

  It began with my trip to the Pickle Factory. I wasn’t keen on going but you have to attend parties as a writer; that’s where the stories are—and the food. So I put on my second-finest shoes and slipped into my 1982 BMW 633CSi, which my wife calls “The Shark.”

  The Shark is a two-door coupe with a hood that tapers to a point like a jet-black predator. I feel great when I drive it, but I pay for this feeling in cash, as the car currently has 157,000 miles and I’ve spent four times the money on repairs as I did buying the thing.

  I was making good time on the highway when the engine died. The change was sudden and refractory. No matter how I pushed on the accelerator, the needle dipped from 85—I mean, 55—to 45, 40, 35 … all while other cars humiliatingly and dangerously whizzed past me. One of the quirks of The Shark is that it has no hazard lights, so I could only put on my right turn signal as I pulled into the shoulder of an off ramp, hoping desperately that the engine would hold out long enough to get me to a gas station…and then I stopped. Well, I thought, it’s lucky that this off ramp has a shoulder!

  Although the car would start, it absolutely refused to move. If I brought it out of park, it began rolling backward toward the highway, which wasn’t good for anyone.

  I got out and walked to the bottom of the ramp, leaving the turn signal blinking, and there I met a homeless guy.

  “Engine trouble?” the homeless guy asked. He was standing with a sign that said “Hungry, Please Help,” so I assumed he was homeless, but really he could’ve just been exploring alternative income streams. “I can help,” he said.

  “I’m okay; I’m trying to find a gas station,” I said.

  “I heard you up there. That engine won’t take you anywhere. I’ll give you a push.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t have cash on me but I had my second-finest shoes, and could feel a pocket of bad luck opening up.

  “You don’t have to trust me if you don’t want to,” the guy said, “but you’re not going anywhere without help.”

  I assented. He told me his name, Ron, as we went back up the off ramp. He had clean sneakers and a new-ish leather jacket; he was lucid and polite and had none of the attitude of the tow truck driver I’d assumed I would have to call. He dropped down on the asphalt as we reached the car, shining a flashlight underneath.

  “Your transmission fluid line snapped!” Ron said. “That’s why you can’t switch gears. You don’t even need a push. I can fix this easy.”

  He pulled out a huge knife. The blade flashed in the glare of approaching headlights. “You should really have hazards,” Ron said before clenching the knife between his teeth. “Thith ithn’t safe.”

  In five minutes, he had squiggled under the car, cut the ruptured portion of the fluid line, and reattached it to the transmission. “Try it now,” he said, and I got in The Shark and found that it worked beautifully.

  “You’re a lifesaver!” I told Ron. “How can I repay you?”

  “Honestly, I need a job. Warehousing.”

  “I don’t do any warehousing. But let me get to an ATM and I’ll give you some cash.”

  “Sounds good!”

  We both got in. I knew a mechanic would charge hundreds of dollars to fix a line like that, so I got Ron one hundred dollars and considered it a bargain. He thanked me and gave me his cell phone number (never judge a person by their handmade sign) before going back to his spot by the off ramp.

  I marveled at my good fortune all the way to the party—until the cops spotted the knife that was kicking around in The Shark’s back seat! As they pulled me away for questioning, I tried to explain that it wasn’t mine, but they told me they’d heard that before (which they had, from me, but that’s a different story) and asked me, “What right do you hav
e carrying around a twelve-inch Bowie knife? Who are you, Crocodile Dundee? Don’t you know these things are illegal?”

  “It’s Ron’s!” I said frantically. “Ron’s!”

  “And where were you when Herman Q. Mildew was killed?” the cops pressed.

  “With Ron!” I promised. “The Shark was broken but now it works!”

  Well, those cops weren’t buying any of it. They took me to central booking and had me write a statement…and I hope they’re satisfied.

  I was not here, killing Mr. Mildew.

  In fact, it’s been years since I’ve even seen him. He no longer publishes my work. I did recently reach out to him about a new project, but received a grammatically disastrous rejection letter in response. I am guessing it was written by his horse-faced assistant and that Mr. Mildew did not take the time to read it himself.

  If you must know where I was at the time of the murder, pass over that pen and paper, and I will draw you a map. You will need to retrace my steps to find evidence of my whereabouts, as I am guessing my word will not do.

  This, right here, is the highway. You will follow it deep into the nothing until the exits are few and far between. You will take the exit that looks most like it leads into a haunted wood. You’ll know which one I mean when you get there. The off ramp will end in a T. Turn right and follow that road until you start to wonder if perhaps you’ve gone the wrong way.

  There will be a turnoff. It will look at first like a road, but it is a driveway. Follow it up, into the trees. Roll down your windows if you like. The air smells of pine and vindication. The forest will seem to open up after a long while, and the driveway will end in front of a house.

  The house is empty, and has been for some time.

  When you get out of the car and scan the area you will realize you are alone, except for the forest and its secrets. The feeling of emptiness all around you may be alarming. Not alarming in a pressing-in way, not like you’re a child stuck under a couch cushion while an older, stronger sibling sits on your head until your body voids from fear. It’s not like that at all. It’s a feeling that if you could stretch your arms so far into the darkness they thinned and sagged like pulled taffy, you would still never touch another person. Your fingers will tingle with the absence of other flesh.

  Unless you’ve brought someone with you. I did. You should let them out of the car at this point. If they’ve been lying down, give them a moment to find their balance, to stand. Watch as they feel the same emptiness you do. Watch for a flicker of hope. Of bravery. Assure them there is nothing for miles around. Make note of the low temperature. And their lack of footwear.

  Did I say something shocking? You’ve paled. I can see your pulse bumping against the skin of your neck. Yes, please, take a sip of water. I don’t mind if we share a cup. Let me know when you would like me to continue.

  Now then.

  It will be time to go inside. Be careful on the front steps, the wood is soft, especially if you are struggling with an uncooperative “plus one.”

  The door should be unlocked, as it was when I found it.

  You will not find proof of my visit downstairs. You will need to go upstairs. You can take a moment to explore the three bedrooms and small bathroom on the second floor. It will feel a bit like you are in one of those “living museums” after hours—the kind you visited as a child to see women churning butter. There is a nursery, but I don’t suggest you linger there. It is a sad room. I could feel it right off. Leave the room to its memories and move on.

  You will be going to the attic.

  In the hallway in front of the bathroom there is a rope hanging from the ceiling. Pull on it. The fold-down apparatus is rusty, and if you are trying to unfold the attic stairs with one hand while holding something wiggly with the other, be forewarned that it will take some strength.

  Also, being a pull-down, the staircase is steeper than most, and if you are dragging behind you a heavy bundle as you climb, it may take you a few tries to get up the stairs.

  The bundle may take a tumble.

  I suggest you hurry down the attic stairs after it. You will be amazed at how quickly a tied-up thing can move. If you end up giving chase, please remember that you are in charge here. I urge you to not panic and finish things in a flash of rage the moment you make contact. You will be left with a let-down feeling. Like you’ve had your first kiss but it was so fast that you are left with nothing to reflect on, no echo of feeling on your lips. You will feel empty.

  Back to the attic with you and your bundle.

  You’ll find the attic to be full of things. Boxes, sheet-covered furniture, trunks. Remember that you are not there for antiquing. It doesn’t matter how much Brooklynites at a flea market will pay for the ephemera of the aged. You have other business to attend to.

  Turn around and look behind you. There will be a narrow space under the eve, filled with small boxes. You may wonder how to get back there, since the space around the staircase is also filled with boxes, leaving no path.

  You have some work ahead of you. I made sure of that. Move the boxes to clear a path, and then move the boxes that are under the eve. See now that between the studs of the slanted roof, pink blankets of insulation have been pressed in. And see now how in the area from which you moved the boxes there is one panel of insulation that seems to be lying less than flat.

  Go to that panel. You seem to be about my height. Poke your finger into the insulation a bit below eye-level. You will have to wiggle it a bit. Press your finger in until it touches a rubbery something that is firm at first and then gives way. Use your fingertip to feel around until you detect a horizontal seam. Press your finger into the seam until it is forced to part. You will feel two rows of polished stone. Use your finger to pry between them and push farther in. Ignore the thing that feels like a slab of bumpy ham. Instead, hook your finger to grab the dry-feeling thing, the hunk of something that feels as if it doesn’t belong. That’s what you’ve come for.

  Pull it out.

  What you have found will need to be separated into pieces and dried before it can be reconstructed. You will see it is a letter. You will see it is grammatically disastrous.

  I was not here, killing Mr. Mildew.

  I was elsewhere, doing other things.

  Okay, I know it doesn’t look good that my cache shows several visits to alibinetwork.com, but my membership on that site has nothing to do with the night in question. The Alibi Network Excuse Specialists are under my employ strictly for personal matters—nothing professional, meaning nothing related to my very formal relationship with Herman Mildew.

  It’s no secret that Mr. Mildew and I did not see eye to eye on very many things. He frowned upon violence; I adore Liam Neeson in the best action movie of all time, Taken. He liked full-sized pickles; I am strictly a cornichons girl. He always wanted a happy ending; I prefer the open-ended fade-away. He grows fungus on his body; I won’t let a mushroom touch my plate. But all that is neither here nor there.

  Am I suspicious because I don’t look sad enough upon hearing of his passing? Well, I’d only been working with him for a few years, after all. I never even got to the point where I felt comfortable calling him Herman.

  The truth is this: he didn’t know me. He was like one of those people you hang out with five times and yet they still greet you with, “Nice to meet you.” It’s vaguely offensive, how wrong he was about me. When my last book came out, he sent me a bouquet of those neon-dyed daisies to celebrate. Who likes a neon-dyed daisy?!

  I guess maybe people have heard me gossiping about him. It’s no secret that my high school yearbook senior quote was, “If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me…” but that in itself is evidence that my gossiping was a nasty habit long before Mr. Mildew and I were acquainted. Yes, my rumormongering is widespread and far-flung, undiscerning and willy-nilly. It targets everyone and no one in particular. Not even this man with whom I had a professional relationship where I poured my heart out for him while he
barely noticed he’d met me. (And why would he? He thought I was a neon-daisy type.)

  But is that a reason to commit murder? Certainly not! Besides, anyone who knows me at all (and it’s good that Mr. Mildew is not here to misjudge me again!) knows that on the night in question there was both a new reality show debuting on Bravo and a Carolina Tar Heels basketball game. I like to live tweet both of those things, so I’m obviously quite innocent.

  I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken me for a moron. I am no moron.

  You think I don’t watch TV? Oh, trust me, I watch TV. Though not an unhealthy amount, as a certain Mr. Herman Q. Mildew had been known to suggest every time he barged into my house and planted himself directly in front of the biggest of my six screens, his hideous mountain of flesh inevitably blocking my view of the final, crucial key moment of whatever episode he’d elected to interrupt. But even Mildew’s monstrous torso and foghorn voice couldn’t prevent me from deriving a few fundamental facts of life from the school of television, first and foremost of which is, never speak to the cops without a lawyer.

  Now, I know what you’re going to say, because it’s what they always say on TV. You’re going to say that asking for a lawyer makes me look guilty. And then I’m going to say what I always promised myself I’d say when the cops came calling—

  What’s that?

  No, of course I don’t mean that I’ve been rehearsing what I would say when I had to talk to the cops. It’s not like I’ve stationed myself in front of my mirror on a nightly basis preparing my story until it sounded authentic, because first, if I had wanted to kill Mr. Mildew for, oh, let’s say, spoiling the series finale of my all-time favorite show that I had to record and watch later because Mr. Mildew just had to meet me in his office that night right away—except that he never showed up, and you know when he did show up? At my house, the next day, precisely when I was about to watch the episode, at which point he proceeded to step in front of the television, flap his flabby mouth, and tell me, before I could stick my fingers in my ears and scream, exactly whodunit—