Fic: Suspect, Weapon, Room (13/15)
Title: Suspect, Weapon, Room
Author:a_glass_parade
Beta:idoltina
Artist:gwladus
Word Count: 43,000+
Rating: R - people die, it's a murder mystery!
Characters/Pairings: Blaine Anderson, Brittany Pierce, Finn Hudson, Quinn Fabray, Noah Puckerman, Rachel Berry, Kurt Hummel, Santana Lopez, with cameo appearances galore!
Warnings: People die. Repeat: people DIE. People you like die. This is an AU based off of the murder mystery movie 'Clue'. So...people die. Just...letting you know. Also warning for slapstick humor and terrible jokes.
Summary: Mysterious invitations have been sent to certain notorious citizens of the Chicago area, asking them to gather at creepy Dalton Manor for a dinner party with an unknown host. Blaine Anderson, masquerading as humble butler Wadsworth, must exert all his considerable efforts and charms to keep everything under control and solve a significant problem when guests, servants and unexpected visitors start to turn up dead by various means! A modern riff on the 1985 cult classic film 'Clue' finds our beloved McKinley misfits reluctantly banding together to try and escape dinner with their lives.
Chapter Thirteen - Brevity Is Overrated, Frankly Speaking
Santana was tired of carrying her shoes around. When they went back to the study for the fifty millionth time - seriously, she was so tired of this room, God - she dumped them on the sofa and watched as the butler went on and on and on and did this story have a point? She didn't even know anymore.
Poor Brittany...
“We put all the weapons in the cabinet,” Bilbo said, catching her attention. “And I locked it, and then we all ran out to the front door to throw it away!”
Why didn't someone tie him to a chair? Seriously they were all taller than him. Except for freakin' Peacock, but she could help immobilize him with the force of her ear-piercing scream. Hm. But that would probably affect all of them. Santana thought about it while she followed the group out to the hallway, at a normal pace. She was so done running.
“Now, I didn't get to throw the key away,” the butler informed them, motioning to the front door he'd just opened. “Because that's when the motorist showed up. So I stuck the key in my pocket, but someone had to have taken it out, since it came up missing later.”
“We were in a huddle,” Mr. Green said, seeming deep in thought. “Anyone could have done it.”
“Exactly.” Wadsworth slammed the door shut.
“Man, it sucks that the driver dude came then,” Professor Plum chimed in, evidently recovered from being dragged around, hit, and thrown into the toilet. Santana had to admit that as boring as this whole explanation was turning out to be, that was hilarious. “Bad timing.”
Wadsworth snorted in amazement. “No, he was on time. He was invited, too.”
“No,” Mrs. White gasped, placing a hand over her chest.
“Well, yeah!” Shaking his head, Wadsworth looked like he was pitying all of them for being too stupid to keep up. Well, if he'd just tell them what was going on... “I told you, everyone here tonight was involved in this whole thing somehow. Whether they were victims, informers, or otherwise being used in the scheme, everyone here was in on it! I invited everyone, the informers especially so they'd give evidence and make him confess.”
Santana rolled her eyes. “Fine. So, what, then? What did the driver guy have on anyone?”
To her surprise - and everyone else's - it was Colonel Mustard who had the answer to that one. “Dave was one of my war buddies,” he said, sitting heavily down on a nearby loveseat. “We hadn't seen each other since I left the Army. He was in town after he got discharged, decided to look me up, and we went out. He was with me when I picked up Yvette.” Looking up, his face was set in determination. “But that doesn't make me a murderer!”
“But people lost money because of you - like me!” Professor Plum's face went all red with anger. “Fucking jerk...what about the cop though?”
“Mine,” Santana sighed. Might as well own up to it, it was all going to come out anyway, even if it was in the most idiotic and convoluted way possible. “He was on my payroll. I bribed him once a week so I could carry on with business. And of course, Mr. Boddy found out...”
“Gross,” Ms. Peacock sniffed, stepping away like she smelled something bad.
“Whatever, a girl's gotta make a living and not all of us own stock in Hypocrisy,” Santana shot back, enjoying the slightly green tinge that took over the woman's features. She glanced back at Wadsworth. “So what about the singing telegram girl?”
Wadsworth opened the door, but it was Professor Plum who spoke now, kneeling back down beside the woman's body. “April,” he sighed wistfully, running his fingers through her hair again. “She was my cougar groupie. But she sold me out to Mr. Boddy. Her husband is super rich, like rich enough to have me killed. Or worse, ruin my career.”
“Ruining your career is worse than death?” Santana couldn't help but ask. It seemed so stupid.
But Plum shrugged. “If I'm dead, I can't sit around bitching about how I don't have a career, right?”
Okay, that did make a certain amount of incredibly stupid sense.
Wadsworth spoke first. “Well. Let's get her into the study with the others.”
“So.” Blaine waited for the men to lay the dirndled corpse of the singing telegram girl out on the floor next to Brittany before continuing his explanation. “Now you know why they all died. Whoever killed Mr. Boddy also wanted his helpers dead.”
“Yeah, but how'd the killer know about them all?” Professor Plum asked, lounging back on the couch and seemingly unable to take his eyes off of the body of his “cougar groupie”. “I mean, yeah, I worked out ages ago that April was ratting on me, but I didn't know about any of the rest of you till tonight.”
“Well. First, the murderer got his hands on the weapons. No problem there, he stole the key from my pocket.” Blaine patted at his pocket, still annoyed over that little theft. Well, he'd get his revenge for that. “Then we all followed Colonel Mustard's suggestion and split up to search the house.”
“Oh, God, that's right, it was Puffy Nips' idea,” Ms. Scarlet gasped, eyes big and shocked.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the Colonel began to protest, but Blaine shook his head and kept going.
“One of us got away from their partner and came to the study. There was an envelope on the desk.” He crossed the room to stand next to the desk, waving his hand at the now clean space of its top. “It had all the evidence of the blackmail, but it's gone now.”
“Where?” wondered Mr. Green, coming over to peer at the desk. Something in the fireplace seemed to catch his eye. “Oh. Looks like they burned it. Here's what's left of the USB stick you saved the recording on.” Bending down, he fished out the scorched and twisted electronic device and handed it to Blaine.
“Yes, that was mine,” Blaine confirmed, taking the lump of plastic and metal and shoving it into his pocket. “At any rate. Now the murderer knew the whole story, and they had the key. So they went to the cabinet, got out the wrench -”
“And that's when Ms. Scarlet and I found the motorist dead in the lounge!” exclaimed Mrs. White, pointing in the general direction of the room.
“That's right! And you were screaming, and we couldn't get in.” Ah, there was the second wind he'd been looking for. Blaine skipped off for the lounge, grabbing Mrs. White along the way. “That's when Yvette ran to the cabinet, grabbed the gun, scared the crap out of all of us, and shot the door open. Then the doorbell rang!”
When the doorbell actually rang right then, Blaine nearly jumped out of his skin, and he wasn't the only one. “Jesus fuck,” Professor Plum howled, knotting his fingers into his Mohawk. “Make them go away or they're just gonna end up dead!”
It was Ms. Peacock who inched timidly towards the door, her face pale as she stretched her hand out to the knob and placed her hand on it. “Should I open it?” she stage whispered, biting her lip in uncertainty.
“Yes,” came a gravelly female voice from outside. “Since I can hear you anyway. You have all the subtlety of a slice of aging Limburger.”
Ms. Peacock squealed and yanked the door open, hiding as much of herself as she could behind it while she faced the newcomer. “Go away,” she pleaded, waving her hand in a shooing motion. “Get out while you still can!”
The woman who had rung the bell raised one sardonic eyebrow at Ms. Peacock. “I don't think so,” she drawled, brushing one hand through her long, blonde, and very obvious wig. “I'm Noted Conservative Pundit Ann Coulter, and I've come to educate you all on the perils of American Liberalism.”
The pronouncement silenced the entire hall as everyone gaped at the woman. “What?” Ms. Peacock finally blurted out, breathless and confused. “What?”
“Repent!” the woman shouted, pulling a stack of cropped magazine columns from her oversized handbag. “Liberal Groupthink and the mob mentality will be the end of life as we know it!”
“Being at this house will be the end of life as you know it!” Professor Plum retorted, running up to join Ms. Peacock in trying to shove the woman out the door. “Dude, come on, save yourself and get lost, crazy!”
“I have a duty to cleanse you all of your -” But whatever she meant to cleanse, they never found out, because the Professor and Ms. Peacock got her out of the house, slamming the door shut and sending a sheaf of clippings flying around the hallway. They could hear her shouting, but thankfully the thick wooden doors muffled whatever she was yelling about.
“Right. So. The cop arrived next and we locked him in the library.” Blaine picked up where he left off, deciding to act like that hadn't just happened. “But we forgot the cabinet was open now, and we all split up to finish our search. Which is when the electricity was shut off.” He sprinted for the cellar breaker box and flipped all of the switches, plunging the house into full darkness and causing Ms. Peacock to let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Four,” Professor Plum stated, apropos of nothing. “Or is it five, now?”
“Turn the damn lights back on, Mighty Mouse,” came Ms. Scarlet's furious screech, and fearing for his life in earnest now, Blaine did.
“Sorry,” he apologized, feeling sheepish as he emerged from the cellar. “Didn't mean to scare you.”
“You're a little late for that,” snapped Colonel Mustard. He turned to a whimpering Ms. Peacock. “Man, I hate it when he does that.”
Mrs. White was the only one who seemed to be hanging on to any semblance of calm. “There were three murders after that,” she pointed out, pacing in a circle and counting on her fingers. “The cop, Yvette, and the cougar groupie. So which of us killed them?”
It was go time. “None of us killed Mr. Boddy or the cook,” Blaine announced, a twinge of sadness in his chest.
Mr. Green blinked, taken aback. “Well, who, then?”
“The one person who wasn't with us.” Blaine watched them carefully, but it was clear they weren't putting two and two together. “Yvette,” he sighed at last, feeling heavy with regret at having gotten her involved.
“Yvette!” “No!” “The maid?” “She stuck pâte up my nose.”
Everyone had something to say, most of it disbelieving. He couldn't really blame them. “Think about it,” he instructed, walking over to the billiard room doorway. “She was in here, listening to our conversation. She would have heard the gunshot, and thought Mr. Boddy was dead.”
“But he wasn't,” Colonel Mustard protested. “He was just faking it.”
“Dead or not, it distracted us enough for Bri-um, Yvette to sneak in behind us while we were checking the body out, pick up the dagger, and run to the kitchen to stab the cook.” Sweet Brittany. He would never have thought she'd had it in her, but desperate times, he guessed. “We didn't hear the cook scream because Ms. Peacock was screaming about the brandy. That gave Yvette time to get back to the billiard room and start screaming herself, bringing us all to her.”
Colonel Mustard was still working on comprehending. “Okay, so, like, when did she kill Mr. Boddy, then?”
“When I said.” Blaine jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “We ran to the kitchen to check on the cook. But Yvette stayed behind in the study to make sure Mr. Boddy was dead.”
“He wasn't, though,” the Colonel griped. “We established that.”
Patience was swiftly becoming a valuable and dwindling commodity in the world of Blaine Anderson. “Which is why, when he got up to follow us, she hit him over the head with the candlestick and dragged him into the half-bath.” Blaine paused for a moment to reflect on this with something he thought might be pride. “She could be very determined when she wanted to be.”
“Wait, but why would she go to all of the trouble?” The question was Mrs. White's. “I mean, that's a lot of work.”
“To create confusion and sow chaos.” Blaine shrugged. “Why not?”
“It worked,” muttered Colonel Mustard as he wandered by rubbing his temples with an expression of pain on his face.
“Seriously, though.” Professor Plum scratched his head. “She seemed nice but kinda, you know, blonde.” He inched away from Mrs. White as she turned an icy sharp glare on him. “I'm just sayin'. You think she would have done it just to make a mess?”
“No, I think she did it because she was told to,” Blaine replied. “By the person who later killed her.”
They gaped at him in astonishment. “Who?” Mrs. White finally asked. “Who would make her do that?”
Closing his eyes, Blaine took a deep breath and circled the group, coming to stop in front of one person.
“Her occasional lover and sometime employer - Ms. Scarlet.”
“It's a lie.” Santana felt her heart racing as she backed against the wall. “I wouldn't have.”
But Wadsworth advanced on her, anger burning in his eyes. “Wouldn't you?” he asked, the question a snarl. “You used her. Like you always did.”
“I loved her,” she protested, but her voice faltered and broke. “I did.”
“You killed the motorist when we split up to search the house,” Wadsworth went on, implacable and unforgiving. “You knew about the secret passage because Yvette told you.”
“No...” She hated how weak she sounded.
“Then we split up again. You, being on the ground floor, had easy access to the breaker box. Not to mention the weapons - you got the pipe and the rope. A poetic choice, that.” The butler's smile was grim and dark. “What with tying up loose ends and all. You strangled Yvette in order to ensure her silence, then ran to the library and killed Officer Figgins.” He spun around and walked over to the little end table by the door. “Yvette had left the gun here. You picked it up when the doorbell rang and answered the ring. Obviously you'd recognized the singing telegram girl from her photo in the envelope you burned, so you shot her, just to be sure you'd taken care of every peripheral figure involved.”
Santana crossed her arms over her chest. “You don't have a shred of proof.”
“The gun's still missing,” Wadsworth informed them all, smiling with what looked to be triumph on his face. “Gentlemen, empty your pockets. Ladies, open your purses. Whoever has the gun is the murderer.”
All right. Enough. Reaching down into her cleavage, Santana pulled out the revolver. “Fine. You got me. Great work, Pint-Size. Congratugoddamnlations.”
It was almost worth it to see the midget raise his hands and back slowly away. Grinning, she began to back into the other direction, towards the front door, not taking her eyes off of anyone. “I hated doing it, just so you know,” she called out to Wadsworth. “Killing Brittany. Yvette. That's going to hurt for the rest of my life.” That much at least was true. She swallowed hard. Don't cry.
“Then why?” The question came soft and sad, edged with anger.
“She was too much of a liability. And I never would have gotten her involved on purpose. Fucking dumb luck that she picked up Paul Bunyan over here.” Santana jerked her head to point at Colonel Mustard. “I loved her, but I couldn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. Not because she wanted to cause trouble, she just...she had no filter.” Don't cry. “I wish it had been anyone else.”
When Mr. Green stepped forward to touch her arm, his face was so sympathetic that she almost shot him just so it would stop. “Why the others, then? Half of Chicago knows what you do, you're a classier version of Heidi Fleiss. It wasn't you who was in danger if you were exposed, it was your clientele.”
She sniffled. “Classier than Heidi Fleiss? You're sweet.” But she kept the gun trained on him anyway. “No, Mr. Green. My real business isn't escorting, it's secrets. My squad of girls was trained well to extract the best gossip from their clients. All those blind items on Perez Hilton and TMZ - who did you think was the source?”
“Of course,” Wadsworth breathed, amazed. “The sex industry would be the best at gathering intelligence.”
“Damn straight.” Santana couldn't help her cocky grin. “We get all the best dirt in all the most fun ways. And now thanks to Mr. Boddy, I have all of your secrets, too.”
Mrs. White sucked in a hissing breath. “Are you going to blackmail us?”
“If Perez and Harvey can't give me what I want, you bet your sweet ass I am,” Santana gloated, resuming her careful backwards progress to the door.
Colonel Mustard barged up, hardly even flinching when she turned the gun on him. “What if we don't cooperate?” he demanded, all belligerence, testosterone, and misplaced sense.
“Uh...then I'll expose you?” She snorted. “Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.”
“Yeah, but we could tell the cops what you did. Six murders is a lot of time in prison, and you're too pretty for that.” The smug smile on his face was going to be a pleasure to wipe off.
“So...you think it'll do your career any good for me to tell the world that you not only gave your whole team mono before the Super Bowl, you caught it from an escort?” Santana threw back her head and cackled. “An escort who happened to die at a party you were attending?”
Sure enough, Colonel Mustard deflated and slumped back down into the love seat he'd occupied earlier. “But I don't have any more money.”
“Me neither,” chorused the other guests, each one looking more helpless than the last.
“Yeah, but you have access to more gossip.” Honestly. Was she going to have to spell out everything? “An NFL football star? A musician with access to 80's hair bands that have more groupies than sense? Even the Black Widow over there has the 'Real Housewives' hookup.” She nodded as comprehension began to dawn on all of them. “Every last one of you can keep the Chicago gossip machine oiled, running, and producing money. Except you.” Whirling, she trained the gun on Wadsworth, whose mouth dropped open. “You don't have secrets, you don't have influence, you're just a washed up Snoopy impersonator with a hair gel problem.”
“Actually,” Wadsworth replied, hands in the air and a nervous look in his eyes. “I do have one secret.”
Laughable. “Do tell.”
He pointed to the gun. “There aren't any more bullets in there.”
“Oh, come on, that's lame even for you.” Her eyes about rolled right back into her head. “You think I'm dumb enough to fall for that?”
“It's true,” the butler insisted, pointing around the foyer. “There was one shot at Mr. Boddy in the study. Two for the chandelier, two for the lounge doors, and one for the singing telegram.”
Santana thought about it and shook her head. “That's not six.”
“Sure it is.” He began to tick it off on his fingers. “One plus two plus two plus one.”
“No, though,” she countered, pointing up at the frayed chandelier cord. “Brit only got one shot off at the chandelier. That's one plus two plus one plus one.”
“No, no, seriously, private school education here. Even if you're right, it's one plus one plus two plus one.”
All this frowning was going to give her wrinkles early. “Fine,” she snapped, waving the gun. “One plus two plus one - hold on! Shut up!” She jabbed the gun into his chest. “The point is, there's one bullet left in this gun, and guess who's gonna get it?”
The abruptly ringing doorbell made her heart leap into her throat, and goddamn it, while she was distracted, Wadsworth grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, making her yelp and let go of the gun. He wrestled her down to the floor while Mr. Green ran for the door to let in - damn it!
“The police!” Ms. Peacock shrieked, running to hide behind Colonel Mustard.
“Where's the chief?” Wadsworth snapped at a passing officer, who jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the crazy Ann Coulter impersonator that was just coming through the door.
“Good work, Snack Pack, thanks for helping out,” congratulated the woman as she pulled off her wig. She glanced down and sneered. “I did warn you, Ms. Scarlet, that my duty is to cleanse. The Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse never fails.”
Gulping, Santana lurched to her feet. This was the end of the road, unless...“You don't totally hate me for trying to kill you, right, Wadsworth?” She batted her eyelashes, hoping that maybe he wasn't full-on gay, maybe he'd be a little susceptible to the Lopez charm and he'd help her get off light. Obviously he had some influence with the crazy Chief.
But no. “Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn,” he sniffed, turning away. “As I was trying to explain to you, there are no bullets left in this gun!” To prove his point, he pulled the trigger.
A loud report, the zing of a bullet, and another chandelier was set spinning. Wadsworth gaped at it in shock. “One plus two...”
“Plus one, plus one,” Santana finished, shaking her head.
Colonel Mustard squinted his eyes. “One plus two, plus...”
When the chandelier crashed to the floor, Santana laughed at the expression on his face until they hauled her away.
Chapter Fourteen - That Could Have Happened, But How About This?
Author:a_glass_parade
Beta:idoltina
Artist:gwladus
Word Count: 43,000+
Rating: R - people die, it's a murder mystery!
Characters/Pairings: Blaine Anderson, Brittany Pierce, Finn Hudson, Quinn Fabray, Noah Puckerman, Rachel Berry, Kurt Hummel, Santana Lopez, with cameo appearances galore!
Warnings: People die. Repeat: people DIE. People you like die. This is an AU based off of the murder mystery movie 'Clue'. So...people die. Just...letting you know. Also warning for slapstick humor and terrible jokes.
Summary: Mysterious invitations have been sent to certain notorious citizens of the Chicago area, asking them to gather at creepy Dalton Manor for a dinner party with an unknown host. Blaine Anderson, masquerading as humble butler Wadsworth, must exert all his considerable efforts and charms to keep everything under control and solve a significant problem when guests, servants and unexpected visitors start to turn up dead by various means! A modern riff on the 1985 cult classic film 'Clue' finds our beloved McKinley misfits reluctantly banding together to try and escape dinner with their lives.
Chapter Thirteen - Brevity Is Overrated, Frankly Speaking
Santana was tired of carrying her shoes around. When they went back to the study for the fifty millionth time - seriously, she was so tired of this room, God - she dumped them on the sofa and watched as the butler went on and on and on and did this story have a point? She didn't even know anymore.
Poor Brittany...
“We put all the weapons in the cabinet,” Bilbo said, catching her attention. “And I locked it, and then we all ran out to the front door to throw it away!”
Why didn't someone tie him to a chair? Seriously they were all taller than him. Except for freakin' Peacock, but she could help immobilize him with the force of her ear-piercing scream. Hm. But that would probably affect all of them. Santana thought about it while she followed the group out to the hallway, at a normal pace. She was so done running.
“Now, I didn't get to throw the key away,” the butler informed them, motioning to the front door he'd just opened. “Because that's when the motorist showed up. So I stuck the key in my pocket, but someone had to have taken it out, since it came up missing later.”
“We were in a huddle,” Mr. Green said, seeming deep in thought. “Anyone could have done it.”
“Exactly.” Wadsworth slammed the door shut.
“Man, it sucks that the driver dude came then,” Professor Plum chimed in, evidently recovered from being dragged around, hit, and thrown into the toilet. Santana had to admit that as boring as this whole explanation was turning out to be, that was hilarious. “Bad timing.”
Wadsworth snorted in amazement. “No, he was on time. He was invited, too.”
“No,” Mrs. White gasped, placing a hand over her chest.
“Well, yeah!” Shaking his head, Wadsworth looked like he was pitying all of them for being too stupid to keep up. Well, if he'd just tell them what was going on... “I told you, everyone here tonight was involved in this whole thing somehow. Whether they were victims, informers, or otherwise being used in the scheme, everyone here was in on it! I invited everyone, the informers especially so they'd give evidence and make him confess.”
Santana rolled her eyes. “Fine. So, what, then? What did the driver guy have on anyone?”
To her surprise - and everyone else's - it was Colonel Mustard who had the answer to that one. “Dave was one of my war buddies,” he said, sitting heavily down on a nearby loveseat. “We hadn't seen each other since I left the Army. He was in town after he got discharged, decided to look me up, and we went out. He was with me when I picked up Yvette.” Looking up, his face was set in determination. “But that doesn't make me a murderer!”
“But people lost money because of you - like me!” Professor Plum's face went all red with anger. “Fucking jerk...what about the cop though?”
“Mine,” Santana sighed. Might as well own up to it, it was all going to come out anyway, even if it was in the most idiotic and convoluted way possible. “He was on my payroll. I bribed him once a week so I could carry on with business. And of course, Mr. Boddy found out...”
“Gross,” Ms. Peacock sniffed, stepping away like she smelled something bad.
“Whatever, a girl's gotta make a living and not all of us own stock in Hypocrisy,” Santana shot back, enjoying the slightly green tinge that took over the woman's features. She glanced back at Wadsworth. “So what about the singing telegram girl?”
Wadsworth opened the door, but it was Professor Plum who spoke now, kneeling back down beside the woman's body. “April,” he sighed wistfully, running his fingers through her hair again. “She was my cougar groupie. But she sold me out to Mr. Boddy. Her husband is super rich, like rich enough to have me killed. Or worse, ruin my career.”
“Ruining your career is worse than death?” Santana couldn't help but ask. It seemed so stupid.
But Plum shrugged. “If I'm dead, I can't sit around bitching about how I don't have a career, right?”
Okay, that did make a certain amount of incredibly stupid sense.
Wadsworth spoke first. “Well. Let's get her into the study with the others.”
“So.” Blaine waited for the men to lay the dirndled corpse of the singing telegram girl out on the floor next to Brittany before continuing his explanation. “Now you know why they all died. Whoever killed Mr. Boddy also wanted his helpers dead.”
“Yeah, but how'd the killer know about them all?” Professor Plum asked, lounging back on the couch and seemingly unable to take his eyes off of the body of his “cougar groupie”. “I mean, yeah, I worked out ages ago that April was ratting on me, but I didn't know about any of the rest of you till tonight.”
“Well. First, the murderer got his hands on the weapons. No problem there, he stole the key from my pocket.” Blaine patted at his pocket, still annoyed over that little theft. Well, he'd get his revenge for that. “Then we all followed Colonel Mustard's suggestion and split up to search the house.”
“Oh, God, that's right, it was Puffy Nips' idea,” Ms. Scarlet gasped, eyes big and shocked.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the Colonel began to protest, but Blaine shook his head and kept going.
“One of us got away from their partner and came to the study. There was an envelope on the desk.” He crossed the room to stand next to the desk, waving his hand at the now clean space of its top. “It had all the evidence of the blackmail, but it's gone now.”
“Where?” wondered Mr. Green, coming over to peer at the desk. Something in the fireplace seemed to catch his eye. “Oh. Looks like they burned it. Here's what's left of the USB stick you saved the recording on.” Bending down, he fished out the scorched and twisted electronic device and handed it to Blaine.
“Yes, that was mine,” Blaine confirmed, taking the lump of plastic and metal and shoving it into his pocket. “At any rate. Now the murderer knew the whole story, and they had the key. So they went to the cabinet, got out the wrench -”
“And that's when Ms. Scarlet and I found the motorist dead in the lounge!” exclaimed Mrs. White, pointing in the general direction of the room.
“That's right! And you were screaming, and we couldn't get in.” Ah, there was the second wind he'd been looking for. Blaine skipped off for the lounge, grabbing Mrs. White along the way. “That's when Yvette ran to the cabinet, grabbed the gun, scared the crap out of all of us, and shot the door open. Then the doorbell rang!”
When the doorbell actually rang right then, Blaine nearly jumped out of his skin, and he wasn't the only one. “Jesus fuck,” Professor Plum howled, knotting his fingers into his Mohawk. “Make them go away or they're just gonna end up dead!”
It was Ms. Peacock who inched timidly towards the door, her face pale as she stretched her hand out to the knob and placed her hand on it. “Should I open it?” she stage whispered, biting her lip in uncertainty.
“Yes,” came a gravelly female voice from outside. “Since I can hear you anyway. You have all the subtlety of a slice of aging Limburger.”
Ms. Peacock squealed and yanked the door open, hiding as much of herself as she could behind it while she faced the newcomer. “Go away,” she pleaded, waving her hand in a shooing motion. “Get out while you still can!”
The woman who had rung the bell raised one sardonic eyebrow at Ms. Peacock. “I don't think so,” she drawled, brushing one hand through her long, blonde, and very obvious wig. “I'm Noted Conservative Pundit Ann Coulter, and I've come to educate you all on the perils of American Liberalism.”
The pronouncement silenced the entire hall as everyone gaped at the woman. “What?” Ms. Peacock finally blurted out, breathless and confused. “What?”
“Repent!” the woman shouted, pulling a stack of cropped magazine columns from her oversized handbag. “Liberal Groupthink and the mob mentality will be the end of life as we know it!”
“Being at this house will be the end of life as you know it!” Professor Plum retorted, running up to join Ms. Peacock in trying to shove the woman out the door. “Dude, come on, save yourself and get lost, crazy!”
“I have a duty to cleanse you all of your -” But whatever she meant to cleanse, they never found out, because the Professor and Ms. Peacock got her out of the house, slamming the door shut and sending a sheaf of clippings flying around the hallway. They could hear her shouting, but thankfully the thick wooden doors muffled whatever she was yelling about.
“Right. So. The cop arrived next and we locked him in the library.” Blaine picked up where he left off, deciding to act like that hadn't just happened. “But we forgot the cabinet was open now, and we all split up to finish our search. Which is when the electricity was shut off.” He sprinted for the cellar breaker box and flipped all of the switches, plunging the house into full darkness and causing Ms. Peacock to let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Four,” Professor Plum stated, apropos of nothing. “Or is it five, now?”
“Turn the damn lights back on, Mighty Mouse,” came Ms. Scarlet's furious screech, and fearing for his life in earnest now, Blaine did.
“Sorry,” he apologized, feeling sheepish as he emerged from the cellar. “Didn't mean to scare you.”
“You're a little late for that,” snapped Colonel Mustard. He turned to a whimpering Ms. Peacock. “Man, I hate it when he does that.”
Mrs. White was the only one who seemed to be hanging on to any semblance of calm. “There were three murders after that,” she pointed out, pacing in a circle and counting on her fingers. “The cop, Yvette, and the cougar groupie. So which of us killed them?”
It was go time. “None of us killed Mr. Boddy or the cook,” Blaine announced, a twinge of sadness in his chest.
Mr. Green blinked, taken aback. “Well, who, then?”
“The one person who wasn't with us.” Blaine watched them carefully, but it was clear they weren't putting two and two together. “Yvette,” he sighed at last, feeling heavy with regret at having gotten her involved.
“Yvette!” “No!” “The maid?” “She stuck pâte up my nose.”
Everyone had something to say, most of it disbelieving. He couldn't really blame them. “Think about it,” he instructed, walking over to the billiard room doorway. “She was in here, listening to our conversation. She would have heard the gunshot, and thought Mr. Boddy was dead.”
“But he wasn't,” Colonel Mustard protested. “He was just faking it.”
“Dead or not, it distracted us enough for Bri-um, Yvette to sneak in behind us while we were checking the body out, pick up the dagger, and run to the kitchen to stab the cook.” Sweet Brittany. He would never have thought she'd had it in her, but desperate times, he guessed. “We didn't hear the cook scream because Ms. Peacock was screaming about the brandy. That gave Yvette time to get back to the billiard room and start screaming herself, bringing us all to her.”
Colonel Mustard was still working on comprehending. “Okay, so, like, when did she kill Mr. Boddy, then?”
“When I said.” Blaine jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “We ran to the kitchen to check on the cook. But Yvette stayed behind in the study to make sure Mr. Boddy was dead.”
“He wasn't, though,” the Colonel griped. “We established that.”
Patience was swiftly becoming a valuable and dwindling commodity in the world of Blaine Anderson. “Which is why, when he got up to follow us, she hit him over the head with the candlestick and dragged him into the half-bath.” Blaine paused for a moment to reflect on this with something he thought might be pride. “She could be very determined when she wanted to be.”
“Wait, but why would she go to all of the trouble?” The question was Mrs. White's. “I mean, that's a lot of work.”
“To create confusion and sow chaos.” Blaine shrugged. “Why not?”
“It worked,” muttered Colonel Mustard as he wandered by rubbing his temples with an expression of pain on his face.
“Seriously, though.” Professor Plum scratched his head. “She seemed nice but kinda, you know, blonde.” He inched away from Mrs. White as she turned an icy sharp glare on him. “I'm just sayin'. You think she would have done it just to make a mess?”
“No, I think she did it because she was told to,” Blaine replied. “By the person who later killed her.”
They gaped at him in astonishment. “Who?” Mrs. White finally asked. “Who would make her do that?”
Closing his eyes, Blaine took a deep breath and circled the group, coming to stop in front of one person.
“Her occasional lover and sometime employer - Ms. Scarlet.”
“It's a lie.” Santana felt her heart racing as she backed against the wall. “I wouldn't have.”
But Wadsworth advanced on her, anger burning in his eyes. “Wouldn't you?” he asked, the question a snarl. “You used her. Like you always did.”
“I loved her,” she protested, but her voice faltered and broke. “I did.”
“You killed the motorist when we split up to search the house,” Wadsworth went on, implacable and unforgiving. “You knew about the secret passage because Yvette told you.”
“No...” She hated how weak she sounded.
“Then we split up again. You, being on the ground floor, had easy access to the breaker box. Not to mention the weapons - you got the pipe and the rope. A poetic choice, that.” The butler's smile was grim and dark. “What with tying up loose ends and all. You strangled Yvette in order to ensure her silence, then ran to the library and killed Officer Figgins.” He spun around and walked over to the little end table by the door. “Yvette had left the gun here. You picked it up when the doorbell rang and answered the ring. Obviously you'd recognized the singing telegram girl from her photo in the envelope you burned, so you shot her, just to be sure you'd taken care of every peripheral figure involved.”
Santana crossed her arms over her chest. “You don't have a shred of proof.”
“The gun's still missing,” Wadsworth informed them all, smiling with what looked to be triumph on his face. “Gentlemen, empty your pockets. Ladies, open your purses. Whoever has the gun is the murderer.”
All right. Enough. Reaching down into her cleavage, Santana pulled out the revolver. “Fine. You got me. Great work, Pint-Size. Congratugoddamnlations.”
It was almost worth it to see the midget raise his hands and back slowly away. Grinning, she began to back into the other direction, towards the front door, not taking her eyes off of anyone. “I hated doing it, just so you know,” she called out to Wadsworth. “Killing Brittany. Yvette. That's going to hurt for the rest of my life.” That much at least was true. She swallowed hard. Don't cry.
“Then why?” The question came soft and sad, edged with anger.
“She was too much of a liability. And I never would have gotten her involved on purpose. Fucking dumb luck that she picked up Paul Bunyan over here.” Santana jerked her head to point at Colonel Mustard. “I loved her, but I couldn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. Not because she wanted to cause trouble, she just...she had no filter.” Don't cry. “I wish it had been anyone else.”
When Mr. Green stepped forward to touch her arm, his face was so sympathetic that she almost shot him just so it would stop. “Why the others, then? Half of Chicago knows what you do, you're a classier version of Heidi Fleiss. It wasn't you who was in danger if you were exposed, it was your clientele.”
She sniffled. “Classier than Heidi Fleiss? You're sweet.” But she kept the gun trained on him anyway. “No, Mr. Green. My real business isn't escorting, it's secrets. My squad of girls was trained well to extract the best gossip from their clients. All those blind items on Perez Hilton and TMZ - who did you think was the source?”
“Of course,” Wadsworth breathed, amazed. “The sex industry would be the best at gathering intelligence.”
“Damn straight.” Santana couldn't help her cocky grin. “We get all the best dirt in all the most fun ways. And now thanks to Mr. Boddy, I have all of your secrets, too.”
Mrs. White sucked in a hissing breath. “Are you going to blackmail us?”
“If Perez and Harvey can't give me what I want, you bet your sweet ass I am,” Santana gloated, resuming her careful backwards progress to the door.
Colonel Mustard barged up, hardly even flinching when she turned the gun on him. “What if we don't cooperate?” he demanded, all belligerence, testosterone, and misplaced sense.
“Uh...then I'll expose you?” She snorted. “Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.”
“Yeah, but we could tell the cops what you did. Six murders is a lot of time in prison, and you're too pretty for that.” The smug smile on his face was going to be a pleasure to wipe off.
“So...you think it'll do your career any good for me to tell the world that you not only gave your whole team mono before the Super Bowl, you caught it from an escort?” Santana threw back her head and cackled. “An escort who happened to die at a party you were attending?”
Sure enough, Colonel Mustard deflated and slumped back down into the love seat he'd occupied earlier. “But I don't have any more money.”
“Me neither,” chorused the other guests, each one looking more helpless than the last.
“Yeah, but you have access to more gossip.” Honestly. Was she going to have to spell out everything? “An NFL football star? A musician with access to 80's hair bands that have more groupies than sense? Even the Black Widow over there has the 'Real Housewives' hookup.” She nodded as comprehension began to dawn on all of them. “Every last one of you can keep the Chicago gossip machine oiled, running, and producing money. Except you.” Whirling, she trained the gun on Wadsworth, whose mouth dropped open. “You don't have secrets, you don't have influence, you're just a washed up Snoopy impersonator with a hair gel problem.”
“Actually,” Wadsworth replied, hands in the air and a nervous look in his eyes. “I do have one secret.”
Laughable. “Do tell.”
He pointed to the gun. “There aren't any more bullets in there.”
“Oh, come on, that's lame even for you.” Her eyes about rolled right back into her head. “You think I'm dumb enough to fall for that?”
“It's true,” the butler insisted, pointing around the foyer. “There was one shot at Mr. Boddy in the study. Two for the chandelier, two for the lounge doors, and one for the singing telegram.”
Santana thought about it and shook her head. “That's not six.”
“Sure it is.” He began to tick it off on his fingers. “One plus two plus two plus one.”
“No, though,” she countered, pointing up at the frayed chandelier cord. “Brit only got one shot off at the chandelier. That's one plus two plus one plus one.”
“No, no, seriously, private school education here. Even if you're right, it's one plus one plus two plus one.”
All this frowning was going to give her wrinkles early. “Fine,” she snapped, waving the gun. “One plus two plus one - hold on! Shut up!” She jabbed the gun into his chest. “The point is, there's one bullet left in this gun, and guess who's gonna get it?”
The abruptly ringing doorbell made her heart leap into her throat, and goddamn it, while she was distracted, Wadsworth grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, making her yelp and let go of the gun. He wrestled her down to the floor while Mr. Green ran for the door to let in - damn it!
“The police!” Ms. Peacock shrieked, running to hide behind Colonel Mustard.
“Where's the chief?” Wadsworth snapped at a passing officer, who jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the crazy Ann Coulter impersonator that was just coming through the door.
“Good work, Snack Pack, thanks for helping out,” congratulated the woman as she pulled off her wig. She glanced down and sneered. “I did warn you, Ms. Scarlet, that my duty is to cleanse. The Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse never fails.”
Gulping, Santana lurched to her feet. This was the end of the road, unless...“You don't totally hate me for trying to kill you, right, Wadsworth?” She batted her eyelashes, hoping that maybe he wasn't full-on gay, maybe he'd be a little susceptible to the Lopez charm and he'd help her get off light. Obviously he had some influence with the crazy Chief.
But no. “Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn,” he sniffed, turning away. “As I was trying to explain to you, there are no bullets left in this gun!” To prove his point, he pulled the trigger.
A loud report, the zing of a bullet, and another chandelier was set spinning. Wadsworth gaped at it in shock. “One plus two...”
“Plus one, plus one,” Santana finished, shaking her head.
Colonel Mustard squinted his eyes. “One plus two, plus...”
When the chandelier crashed to the floor, Santana laughed at the expression on his face until they hauled her away.
Chapter Fourteen - That Could Have Happened, But How About This?