The Murder of Misty Delacour
original fic \\ 3,000 words \\ PG-13
The crammed VFW hall smelled of garlic bread and mushroom spaghetti sauce. Linda and I were led to a long table on the left of the modest room; it looked as if we were the last to arrive before dinner. We were seated in the corner seats, ones close to the kitchen, next to an older couple most likely in their fifties. The Fredricks, they had introduced themselves as, with a firm handshake from him and a smile and a nod from her.
“Could be actors,” Linda whispered to me, placing her hand on my forearm. I was glad she seemed enthusiastic, since she had been so hesitant when I surprised her with the tickets the other day. We had decided to do something new once a month, to keep things interesting.
“I don’t think so,” I whispered back, after Fredricks and his wife turned their attention back to their neighbors to the left. “Yeah, they’re friendly, but see how there’s this distance between their seats? Distance that only comes after years and years of real marriage. You can’t act that, it’s impulsive.”
“So that’s us after a few decades?”
I cupped her chin. “It’s inevitable, love.”
Linda rolled her eyes and reached for the water cup that was placed in front of her. She had to know I was kidding. After five years, she should know when I was kidding. The cup left a tiny ring on the white disposable tablecloth. She placed her glass directly back in the water stain’s circumference.
Dinner began almost immediately and was short and uneventful, the room full of small chatter and clinging silverware. Linda said something about the soupy nature of the sauce, and when I said hers at home wasn’t much different, she didn’t say anything else to me.
The lights went out a few minutes after waiters cleared our pasta plates. A woman screamed, my wife grabbed my forearm again, the lights flickered on, and a young beautiful brunette was sprawled out in front of the tables, limbs askew, a knife jutting from her chest.
Immediately, a lead actor came forward and examined the scene. No one was told to remain in their seats, but we all did anyway. After some dramatic examination of the body, the man pronounced poor Misty Delacour as dead. He stood and addressed the audience. “You are all now free to search for clues. From this point on, everyone in this room is a suspect. Trust no one. We will meet in one hour with our theories.”
If I hadn’t had seen the goddamn butler creep past in the low-lighting from the kitchen, the raised knife from a short man in a blazer and cummerbund, perhaps it would have been more interesting. And then I heard a whisper from across the table, “did everyone else see the short guy with the knife?” and I knew there was a reason these tickets were only $39.95.
Five minutes after hovering around our own tables, a poor effort of sleuthing from the collective audience, we heard another shout. This time it was coming from behind us, from the hallway between the bathrooms and the kitchen. And then, it wasn’t about the thinly veiled masking of a murder anymore. Then, it was about Mr. Fredricks, finding his wife of twelve years necking with a waiter in that little alleyway by the kitchen.
“They’re necking,” I said the word to Linda as we watched Fredricks confront his wife.
She huffed and said, “Dear God, Sam, say they’re making out, or something.”
“Sorry, Linda. Kissing. Frenching. Getting to First Base. Right there, right by the bathrooms,” I whispered to her. The waiter had run back to the kitchen but Mrs. Fredricks stood there, smoothing out her dress, trying to look innocent. “Guess they weren’t actors, unless this is a really committed performance,” I said, and Linda elbowed me to stop talking. The moment was too uncomfortable, with all of us just standing there, watching Mr. Fredricks let the wife have it. It was hard not to look on, hard to pretend a murder had happened and we were supposed to be suspects when a real scandal was unfolding.
That poor woman that had to lie still with a fake knife in her chest for an hour.
There was one last harsh bitch thrown out before Mr. Fredricks headed towards the door, pulling a set of keys from his pants pocket. The same lead actor stopped him, pushing both his hands on Fredricks’ chest.
“Where are you going?” he asked in a rushed voice, sounding like someone desperately trying to not be upstaged. “No one can leave. This is a murder scene. You could be out there stashing evidence. How do we know we can trust you?”
“I’m not playing this game anymore. Get out of my damn way.” Fredricks brushed past the man and forced his way outside.
The actor looked around at the hesitant crowd, sweat forming on his brow. “Add Mr. Fredricks to the list of suspects, people. We only have fifty minutes left! Remember, the winner gets a gift certificate for two!”
Mrs. Fredricks was chuckling in her little corner, amused by the whole thing. “Well, I’m having a grand time,” she said, sliding her hands over her still-slender hips, walking to the cash bar for a drink. The bartender stood from the chair he was sitting on behind the counter, bright smiles and pretending he didn’t have a clue.
“What do we do now?” I asked Linda. I didn’t see how we could keep playing this game.
“We start questioning people. Let’s win those gift certificates.”
I didn’t want to tell her I saw the butler with the knife. I wondered if she saw it too, and convinced herself she saw otherwise. Like finding out the ending to a movie you’ve been looking forward to. But you can still hope things will turn out differently. Maybe we won’t be Mr. and Mrs. Fredricks after twenty years.
But it was a hard thing now, to keep this game up. No one was talking to Mrs. Fredricks, who was ordering pink colored drinks and laughing it up with the bartender.
Instead, everyone was gossiping in hushed tones:
“Can you believe she did that?”
“Where did that waiter go?”
“Is her husband still outside? Is he just going to leave her here?”
“Do you think it’s over?”
After ten minutes of listening on the outskirts of a dozen conversations, I decided to change my tactic. I started approaching small huddled groups and asking, “are you the killer?” They all laughed, furrowed their eyebrows and said no. And then I’d say seriously, “Well someone is lying here and I’m going to get to the bottom of this!” and raise my fist in injustice.
Then I saw the butler across the room, so I marched over and cornered him. He was holding his head high and readying the tables for dessert. I said in my best theatrical voice, “I know you’re the killer, butler!”
I could have hugged him when he started playing along. “I don’t know what you are talking about sir,” he said in this horrid British accent. I wondered about the audition process for dinner theatre. “I’ve been in the kitchen, arranging dessert plates. I am terribly sorry for what has happened here tonight to our young victim,” he gestured down to the dead brunette. Her knees had shifted in the opposite direction since her murder. “But you are gravely mistaken sir. Ask any of the cooks, I was with them!” And with that stellar performance, our butler stormed back off to the kitchen. I wanted to applaud.
The lead actor came up to me and clapped me on the back. “I like your approach, young man. What’s your name?” He stuck out his hand.
“Sam.” I shook his hand. “Samuel Evans,” I said again, getting louder. I could do dinner theatre on the weekends.
“And who is this lovely gem on your arm?” The man took my wife’s hand and kissed it.
“Linda Evans,” she said. “And my husband’s going to get to the bottom of this, you see.” She shook her finger at him. I grinned and put my arm around her.
“Mrs. Evans, what if I told you I have good proof that your husband may be the one who stabbed our poor, tragic victim?” He said this part in a loud, booming voice, getting the attention of the room. He locked eyes with my wife, waiting on her reaction.
It was a low blow, trying to shake up the game like that. I wondered what Linda would say. She narrowed her eyes, a playful look on her face.
“You have every right to accuse my husband, Mr. - what was your name again?”
“Er, Callahan. Bruce Callahan.” A stage name, undoubtedly. Now I wished I’d given one.
“Mr. Callahan, it’s true that my husband is a suspect, just like you are, just like Mr. Fredricks is, and the butler, and so on. What are any of us certain of in this room? Did anyone think Mrs. Fredricks would have cheated on her husband tonight? Can we ever really know another person, what they’re capable of?”
“Reel it in,” I turned and whispered to her, hiding the words in my shoulder.
“But no it’s not Sam,” she said shortly, turning from Callahan. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
“Getting carried away there?” I asked, unable to hide the tone of amusement in my voice.
“He’s not going to fake accuse you just to save his show,” she said, but I was glad to see a hint of a smile on her face.
Now even Mrs. Fredricks was watching from the bar. She was staring at Linda, her eyes squinted. Then she cocked an eyebrow and turned back to her half-empty cosmopolitan, looking like she was above the entire evening. I didn’t know why she just wouldn’t leave, find her husband, or call herself a cab. I wondered if she was waiting around for that waiter guy.
Thirty minutes left.
Now that I was a prime suspect, I told Linda we should split up, because I didn’t want her to get roped in with me. Linda was now approaching the women and asking them to empty their purses, because they could be hiding something. Only a few of them played along. One or two men actually went up and examined the body, but I think it was because when our brunette victim fell, her blouse had shifted lower considerably. I wanted someone to go up and fix it for her. Everyone else was hovering around their own tables, ignoring my vigilant clue searching and loud ramblings. Every now and then Mrs. Fredricks would release a high-pitched laugh from the bar and say, “Oh, Michael!” patting the bartender on the shoulder.
Linda came back up to me when we had fifteen minutes left. “That bitch,” Linda said, frowning.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Fredricks. I ran into her in the bathroom.”
I didn’t even see her leave the bar. When I looked over, her stool was empty. Michael was gone, too.
“What happened?”
“She asked if I was having a good time, and I said yeah, sure, we’re playing along. She tisked, or something like that, and told me to not look so desperate, it’s unbecoming. Then she offered me some lipstick, saying if I cared more about my appearance, I wouldn’t have to try so hard.”
I ignored the obvious insults from Mrs. Fredricks and said, “I like that you don’t wear makeup.”
“I know you do, that’s why I don’t bother with it.”
“Well where did she go, Mrs. Fredricks?”
“She’s still in there. I think she spilled a drink on her dress. She smelled like vodka and White Diamonds,” Linda said, wrinkling her nose. “Let’s just go, Sam. I don’t care about dessert or the gift certificates. I’m tired.”
“Come on, don’t let her get to you. Let’s stay and see this through.” I paused, thinking for a moment, and said, “what if we could convince the entire room she’s the killer?”
“But everyone knows it’s the butler.”
Ah, so she had seen. She’d just been playing, too.
“Then we’ll have to make a really convincing case.”
“There’s only fifteen minutes until ten.”
“Are you going to let her steal the night? We paid $39.95 for a dinner show, damn it, so let’s have a show.”
Linda looked at me for a long, questioning moment, then asked, “how are you going to do it?”
At two minutes to ten, I was starting to sweat more than Callahan, who was now standing at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back. We were all asked to take our seats. Mrs. Fredricks was at the bar again.
“Friends,” Callahan began, his voice filling the room. “It has been one hour since the murder of Misty Delacour. The hour has been filled with mystery, intrigue, and sleuthing as you all questioned your peers, trusting no one, for the killer must be one of us.” This was a rehearsed line, for sure, because there had been none of the above. “Who among us will be the first to place an accusation?”
I knew I would be the only person to stand. They should have waited until after the mystery was solved to put dessert in front of us. I wanted their complete attention. “Mr. Callahan, I know with absolute certainty that Mrs. Fredricks is the murderer.” Dessert or no dessert, there were still several murmurs and gasps. I didn’t look back at the bar. I was sure she was standing off her stool, ready to fend off the allegation.
There was a twitch at the corner of Callahan’s mouth, a hint of a smile. “Please present your case,” he said, gesturing that I had the floor.
“Tonight, at approximately nine o’ clock, Misty was stabbed in the chest with a knife. At 9:05, Mr. Fredricks found his wife making out with a waiter in hallway to the kitchen. This was merely a cover, because the waiter, in the end, was her accomplice. He had supplied her with the knife from the kitchen that killed Misty.”
I looked around the room. I now had complete attention. “She was motivated by jealously, of course,” I went on. “Mrs. Fredricks saw the way her husband looked at Misty, and she knew no man would like at her that way again. She needed to create a bigger scandal, something that would take the attention off Misty’s perfect bosom.” I gestured down to where Misty was on the ground. I would apologize to the actress after this thing was over. “So she convinced the waiter to slip the knife in her purse, promising to leave her husband and run away with him later tonight.” I remained standing, a confident smirk on my face, pleased with my performance.
“But, Mr. Evans, the waiter is gone. He left forty minutes ago, and Mrs. Fredricks is still here.” Callahan hand his hands folded across his chest.
“Well I found the waiter, hiding in the kitchen, and I confronted him.” I had not thought about this part, and I hoped I was still sounding convincing. “He was ashamed of helping Mrs. Fredricks, so I told him to make a run for it.”
Callahan’s mouth turned into a scowl. I could see this was not going the way he planned. I should’ve formulated a version where Callahan and Mrs. Fredricks worked together. “Since our waiter is now gone, the testimony holds no substance. I’m sorry Mr. Evans, but you’re wrong. You can take your seat.”
Then, in a move that surprised everyone, the bartender said across the room, “What he is saying is true, Bruce.”
I finally looked back at the bar. As predicted, Mrs. Fredricks was standing there fuming, her eyes little slits of anger. Now, she turned back to the bartender and said, “Michael!”
“She confessed everything to me. Came clean about the whole thing,” he said. I grinned at Michael. He met my eyes, but kept his face calm. “Mrs. Fredricks is the killer,” he said with resolute authority.
Now I looked back at Callahan, who had his head down and was rubbing his temples. “Damn it Michael, you’re not helping.” He lifted his head. “Any other theories?” The room was silent. “Anyone? Don’t be shy.”
A middle-aged man across the room raised his hand and said, “It was the butler?”
“Oh, thank God.” Callahan forked the gift certificates over to the man who answered. “Congratulations, sir. Everyone else, thank you for coming, we hope to see you at a future show.”
I sat back down. “Oh well,” I said to Linda.
“I believed you.” She offered a sympathetic smile, grabbing her purse in her free hand. “Ready to get out of here?”
I noticed a few lingering stares as Linda and I crossed the room. I looked over one more time at the bar, but Mrs. Fredricks was busy confronting Michael, slapping his arm with her purse. He looked unapologetic, not reacting to her swats.
As we went through the door, Linda asked, “Do you think Mr. and Mrs. Fredricks are through?”
“You kind of have to hope so.”
“That’s a terrible thing to hope for.”
“Not when two people are wrong for each other.”
“Like us in twenty years?” Her voice had this deprecating tone to it, but I could hear the sarcasm underneath.
I chuckled. I wanted to thank her for playing along tonight. I wanted to ask her if she agreed with Mrs. Fredricks, if she thought we were trying too hard. But then I thought it was okay to try, because we were still figuring this out. This was still the beginning for us. “No, dear. Nothing like us.”
The crammed VFW hall smelled of garlic bread and mushroom spaghetti sauce. Linda and I were led to a long table on the left of the modest room; it looked as if we were the last to arrive before dinner. We were seated in the corner seats, ones close to the kitchen, next to an older couple most likely in their fifties. The Fredricks, they had introduced themselves as, with a firm handshake from him and a smile and a nod from her.
“Could be actors,” Linda whispered to me, placing her hand on my forearm. I was glad she seemed enthusiastic, since she had been so hesitant when I surprised her with the tickets the other day. We had decided to do something new once a month, to keep things interesting.
“I don’t think so,” I whispered back, after Fredricks and his wife turned their attention back to their neighbors to the left. “Yeah, they’re friendly, but see how there’s this distance between their seats? Distance that only comes after years and years of real marriage. You can’t act that, it’s impulsive.”
“So that’s us after a few decades?”
I cupped her chin. “It’s inevitable, love.”
Linda rolled her eyes and reached for the water cup that was placed in front of her. She had to know I was kidding. After five years, she should know when I was kidding. The cup left a tiny ring on the white disposable tablecloth. She placed her glass directly back in the water stain’s circumference.
Dinner began almost immediately and was short and uneventful, the room full of small chatter and clinging silverware. Linda said something about the soupy nature of the sauce, and when I said hers at home wasn’t much different, she didn’t say anything else to me.
The lights went out a few minutes after waiters cleared our pasta plates. A woman screamed, my wife grabbed my forearm again, the lights flickered on, and a young beautiful brunette was sprawled out in front of the tables, limbs askew, a knife jutting from her chest.
Immediately, a lead actor came forward and examined the scene. No one was told to remain in their seats, but we all did anyway. After some dramatic examination of the body, the man pronounced poor Misty Delacour as dead. He stood and addressed the audience. “You are all now free to search for clues. From this point on, everyone in this room is a suspect. Trust no one. We will meet in one hour with our theories.”
If I hadn’t had seen the goddamn butler creep past in the low-lighting from the kitchen, the raised knife from a short man in a blazer and cummerbund, perhaps it would have been more interesting. And then I heard a whisper from across the table, “did everyone else see the short guy with the knife?” and I knew there was a reason these tickets were only $39.95.
Five minutes after hovering around our own tables, a poor effort of sleuthing from the collective audience, we heard another shout. This time it was coming from behind us, from the hallway between the bathrooms and the kitchen. And then, it wasn’t about the thinly veiled masking of a murder anymore. Then, it was about Mr. Fredricks, finding his wife of twelve years necking with a waiter in that little alleyway by the kitchen.
“They’re necking,” I said the word to Linda as we watched Fredricks confront his wife.
She huffed and said, “Dear God, Sam, say they’re making out, or something.”
“Sorry, Linda. Kissing. Frenching. Getting to First Base. Right there, right by the bathrooms,” I whispered to her. The waiter had run back to the kitchen but Mrs. Fredricks stood there, smoothing out her dress, trying to look innocent. “Guess they weren’t actors, unless this is a really committed performance,” I said, and Linda elbowed me to stop talking. The moment was too uncomfortable, with all of us just standing there, watching Mr. Fredricks let the wife have it. It was hard not to look on, hard to pretend a murder had happened and we were supposed to be suspects when a real scandal was unfolding.
That poor woman that had to lie still with a fake knife in her chest for an hour.
There was one last harsh bitch thrown out before Mr. Fredricks headed towards the door, pulling a set of keys from his pants pocket. The same lead actor stopped him, pushing both his hands on Fredricks’ chest.
“Where are you going?” he asked in a rushed voice, sounding like someone desperately trying to not be upstaged. “No one can leave. This is a murder scene. You could be out there stashing evidence. How do we know we can trust you?”
“I’m not playing this game anymore. Get out of my damn way.” Fredricks brushed past the man and forced his way outside.
The actor looked around at the hesitant crowd, sweat forming on his brow. “Add Mr. Fredricks to the list of suspects, people. We only have fifty minutes left! Remember, the winner gets a gift certificate for two!”
Mrs. Fredricks was chuckling in her little corner, amused by the whole thing. “Well, I’m having a grand time,” she said, sliding her hands over her still-slender hips, walking to the cash bar for a drink. The bartender stood from the chair he was sitting on behind the counter, bright smiles and pretending he didn’t have a clue.
“What do we do now?” I asked Linda. I didn’t see how we could keep playing this game.
“We start questioning people. Let’s win those gift certificates.”
I didn’t want to tell her I saw the butler with the knife. I wondered if she saw it too, and convinced herself she saw otherwise. Like finding out the ending to a movie you’ve been looking forward to. But you can still hope things will turn out differently. Maybe we won’t be Mr. and Mrs. Fredricks after twenty years.
But it was a hard thing now, to keep this game up. No one was talking to Mrs. Fredricks, who was ordering pink colored drinks and laughing it up with the bartender.
Instead, everyone was gossiping in hushed tones:
“Can you believe she did that?”
“Where did that waiter go?”
“Is her husband still outside? Is he just going to leave her here?”
“Do you think it’s over?”
After ten minutes of listening on the outskirts of a dozen conversations, I decided to change my tactic. I started approaching small huddled groups and asking, “are you the killer?” They all laughed, furrowed their eyebrows and said no. And then I’d say seriously, “Well someone is lying here and I’m going to get to the bottom of this!” and raise my fist in injustice.
Then I saw the butler across the room, so I marched over and cornered him. He was holding his head high and readying the tables for dessert. I said in my best theatrical voice, “I know you’re the killer, butler!”
I could have hugged him when he started playing along. “I don’t know what you are talking about sir,” he said in this horrid British accent. I wondered about the audition process for dinner theatre. “I’ve been in the kitchen, arranging dessert plates. I am terribly sorry for what has happened here tonight to our young victim,” he gestured down to the dead brunette. Her knees had shifted in the opposite direction since her murder. “But you are gravely mistaken sir. Ask any of the cooks, I was with them!” And with that stellar performance, our butler stormed back off to the kitchen. I wanted to applaud.
The lead actor came up to me and clapped me on the back. “I like your approach, young man. What’s your name?” He stuck out his hand.
“Sam.” I shook his hand. “Samuel Evans,” I said again, getting louder. I could do dinner theatre on the weekends.
“And who is this lovely gem on your arm?” The man took my wife’s hand and kissed it.
“Linda Evans,” she said. “And my husband’s going to get to the bottom of this, you see.” She shook her finger at him. I grinned and put my arm around her.
“Mrs. Evans, what if I told you I have good proof that your husband may be the one who stabbed our poor, tragic victim?” He said this part in a loud, booming voice, getting the attention of the room. He locked eyes with my wife, waiting on her reaction.
It was a low blow, trying to shake up the game like that. I wondered what Linda would say. She narrowed her eyes, a playful look on her face.
“You have every right to accuse my husband, Mr. - what was your name again?”
“Er, Callahan. Bruce Callahan.” A stage name, undoubtedly. Now I wished I’d given one.
“Mr. Callahan, it’s true that my husband is a suspect, just like you are, just like Mr. Fredricks is, and the butler, and so on. What are any of us certain of in this room? Did anyone think Mrs. Fredricks would have cheated on her husband tonight? Can we ever really know another person, what they’re capable of?”
“Reel it in,” I turned and whispered to her, hiding the words in my shoulder.
“But no it’s not Sam,” she said shortly, turning from Callahan. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
“Getting carried away there?” I asked, unable to hide the tone of amusement in my voice.
“He’s not going to fake accuse you just to save his show,” she said, but I was glad to see a hint of a smile on her face.
Now even Mrs. Fredricks was watching from the bar. She was staring at Linda, her eyes squinted. Then she cocked an eyebrow and turned back to her half-empty cosmopolitan, looking like she was above the entire evening. I didn’t know why she just wouldn’t leave, find her husband, or call herself a cab. I wondered if she was waiting around for that waiter guy.
Thirty minutes left.
Now that I was a prime suspect, I told Linda we should split up, because I didn’t want her to get roped in with me. Linda was now approaching the women and asking them to empty their purses, because they could be hiding something. Only a few of them played along. One or two men actually went up and examined the body, but I think it was because when our brunette victim fell, her blouse had shifted lower considerably. I wanted someone to go up and fix it for her. Everyone else was hovering around their own tables, ignoring my vigilant clue searching and loud ramblings. Every now and then Mrs. Fredricks would release a high-pitched laugh from the bar and say, “Oh, Michael!” patting the bartender on the shoulder.
Linda came back up to me when we had fifteen minutes left. “That bitch,” Linda said, frowning.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Fredricks. I ran into her in the bathroom.”
I didn’t even see her leave the bar. When I looked over, her stool was empty. Michael was gone, too.
“What happened?”
“She asked if I was having a good time, and I said yeah, sure, we’re playing along. She tisked, or something like that, and told me to not look so desperate, it’s unbecoming. Then she offered me some lipstick, saying if I cared more about my appearance, I wouldn’t have to try so hard.”
I ignored the obvious insults from Mrs. Fredricks and said, “I like that you don’t wear makeup.”
“I know you do, that’s why I don’t bother with it.”
“Well where did she go, Mrs. Fredricks?”
“She’s still in there. I think she spilled a drink on her dress. She smelled like vodka and White Diamonds,” Linda said, wrinkling her nose. “Let’s just go, Sam. I don’t care about dessert or the gift certificates. I’m tired.”
“Come on, don’t let her get to you. Let’s stay and see this through.” I paused, thinking for a moment, and said, “what if we could convince the entire room she’s the killer?”
“But everyone knows it’s the butler.”
Ah, so she had seen. She’d just been playing, too.
“Then we’ll have to make a really convincing case.”
“There’s only fifteen minutes until ten.”
“Are you going to let her steal the night? We paid $39.95 for a dinner show, damn it, so let’s have a show.”
Linda looked at me for a long, questioning moment, then asked, “how are you going to do it?”
At two minutes to ten, I was starting to sweat more than Callahan, who was now standing at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back. We were all asked to take our seats. Mrs. Fredricks was at the bar again.
“Friends,” Callahan began, his voice filling the room. “It has been one hour since the murder of Misty Delacour. The hour has been filled with mystery, intrigue, and sleuthing as you all questioned your peers, trusting no one, for the killer must be one of us.” This was a rehearsed line, for sure, because there had been none of the above. “Who among us will be the first to place an accusation?”
I knew I would be the only person to stand. They should have waited until after the mystery was solved to put dessert in front of us. I wanted their complete attention. “Mr. Callahan, I know with absolute certainty that Mrs. Fredricks is the murderer.” Dessert or no dessert, there were still several murmurs and gasps. I didn’t look back at the bar. I was sure she was standing off her stool, ready to fend off the allegation.
There was a twitch at the corner of Callahan’s mouth, a hint of a smile. “Please present your case,” he said, gesturing that I had the floor.
“Tonight, at approximately nine o’ clock, Misty was stabbed in the chest with a knife. At 9:05, Mr. Fredricks found his wife making out with a waiter in hallway to the kitchen. This was merely a cover, because the waiter, in the end, was her accomplice. He had supplied her with the knife from the kitchen that killed Misty.”
I looked around the room. I now had complete attention. “She was motivated by jealously, of course,” I went on. “Mrs. Fredricks saw the way her husband looked at Misty, and she knew no man would like at her that way again. She needed to create a bigger scandal, something that would take the attention off Misty’s perfect bosom.” I gestured down to where Misty was on the ground. I would apologize to the actress after this thing was over. “So she convinced the waiter to slip the knife in her purse, promising to leave her husband and run away with him later tonight.” I remained standing, a confident smirk on my face, pleased with my performance.
“But, Mr. Evans, the waiter is gone. He left forty minutes ago, and Mrs. Fredricks is still here.” Callahan hand his hands folded across his chest.
“Well I found the waiter, hiding in the kitchen, and I confronted him.” I had not thought about this part, and I hoped I was still sounding convincing. “He was ashamed of helping Mrs. Fredricks, so I told him to make a run for it.”
Callahan’s mouth turned into a scowl. I could see this was not going the way he planned. I should’ve formulated a version where Callahan and Mrs. Fredricks worked together. “Since our waiter is now gone, the testimony holds no substance. I’m sorry Mr. Evans, but you’re wrong. You can take your seat.”
Then, in a move that surprised everyone, the bartender said across the room, “What he is saying is true, Bruce.”
I finally looked back at the bar. As predicted, Mrs. Fredricks was standing there fuming, her eyes little slits of anger. Now, she turned back to the bartender and said, “Michael!”
“She confessed everything to me. Came clean about the whole thing,” he said. I grinned at Michael. He met my eyes, but kept his face calm. “Mrs. Fredricks is the killer,” he said with resolute authority.
Now I looked back at Callahan, who had his head down and was rubbing his temples. “Damn it Michael, you’re not helping.” He lifted his head. “Any other theories?” The room was silent. “Anyone? Don’t be shy.”
A middle-aged man across the room raised his hand and said, “It was the butler?”
“Oh, thank God.” Callahan forked the gift certificates over to the man who answered. “Congratulations, sir. Everyone else, thank you for coming, we hope to see you at a future show.”
I sat back down. “Oh well,” I said to Linda.
“I believed you.” She offered a sympathetic smile, grabbing her purse in her free hand. “Ready to get out of here?”
I noticed a few lingering stares as Linda and I crossed the room. I looked over one more time at the bar, but Mrs. Fredricks was busy confronting Michael, slapping his arm with her purse. He looked unapologetic, not reacting to her swats.
As we went through the door, Linda asked, “Do you think Mr. and Mrs. Fredricks are through?”
“You kind of have to hope so.”
“That’s a terrible thing to hope for.”
“Not when two people are wrong for each other.”
“Like us in twenty years?” Her voice had this deprecating tone to it, but I could hear the sarcasm underneath.
I chuckled. I wanted to thank her for playing along tonight. I wanted to ask her if she agreed with Mrs. Fredricks, if she thought we were trying too hard. But then I thought it was okay to try, because we were still figuring this out. This was still the beginning for us. “No, dear. Nothing like us.”