For lunch that afternoon, they were all treated to butter-poached lobster, lobster rolls, and citrus-infused lobster salad on a fresh-made rye crostini. It was served in the dining room because the dark clouds that had loomed in the distance that morning had finally reached them.
The wind howled, making the already creaky mansion sound alive, as if it were actually complaining about its creaking joints. It would have sounded even louder if the pouring torrents of rain slamming into the sides of the massive resort weren’t almost deafening themselves, not to mention the thunderclaps that practically vibrated the walls every few minutes.
But, all things considered, lunch felt relatively calm. Almost peaceful in a way, now that their exterior setting finally coalesced with the activities actually taking place on the island.
“Do not worry,” Giles assured them as lunch was winding down. “It may be storm season in the tropics, but they are often swept in and out rather quickly.”
Some of the guests looked relieved. Others looked as if they hardly heard a word he’d said. Jessica flagged down a passing server and ordered another Bloody Mary.
“Then again,” Giles continued, “every once in a while they tend to linger, and sometimes even get worse.”
A bone-rattling thunderclap and bright flash of lightning punctuated his words.
“Can’t we just get on with this?” Gary said.
“I have my instructions, as you all have yours,” Giles said with a kind, slight smile. “And I must follow mine, just as you must yours.”
Gary looked annoyed, but he let the matter go anyway.
“As you all know by now, I would hope,” Giles continued, “now is time for information sharing. You have just thirty minutes to talk among yourselves and share or don’t share the evidence you have collected. Feel free to move about the mansion and resort freely. The only areas that are off-limits are the three investigative areas and, of course, each other’s personal suite. By all means, even feel free to step outside if you desire a midafternoon rinse. Meet back here in the dining room in exactly thirty minutes for the challenge portion of this double murder.”
Within a matter of minutes most of the guests had scattered. Some left in groups, others alone. Giles returned to the kitchen to refer to his most recent batch of instructions, delivered to his room somehow while he’d been attending to other affairs that morning. He gathered up one porter and one maid and they went about setting up the challenge.
Giles was quite pleased to see that all seven of the remaining guests had returned to the dining room on time. He stood before them and motioned to the massive stockpot sitting on the table in front of him.
“As you can see our killer is not one to ever send you off empty-handed,” he said. “The contents of this pot may or may not prove useful to you during this challenge. But rest assured, the following riddle likely will if you’re clever enough:
“ ‘Two victims have perished amid the throes of empty passion. But they were not with their spouses, for that’s so out of fashion. A penultimate resting place offered more than one answer. Another would offer nothing from an ascending cancer. But should you decide to embark there on a search for more yourself, remember: what’s missing may be inside the companion itself.’ ”
Giles finished reading the riddle and then placed a stack of copies on the table. He lifted the lid off the giant steel stockpot.
“For this challenge, the crime scene and morgue are not off-limits,” Giles said. “However, I must warn you that much of the evidence will likely have been cleared away, so think carefully before using your precious time to look for more clues in those locations. Please, do come reach into the pot before you begin. Time is ticking!”
Gary was the first to step forward. He looked into the pot first. He seemed hesitant to put his hand inside, as if he were expecting it to be painful for some reason. The other guests watched with interest, glad they had not been so bold.
He plunged his hand into the pot and pulled out something small, red, and wet. Gary shocked everyone by laughing.
“It’s just room temperature,” he said to Giles.
“Really, sir, what would make you think we’d make you reach into a pot of boiling water?” Giles said. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
Gary shook his head and hurried out of the room, eager to get a head start on the other guests. In his haste, he’d completely forgotten that Giles had also laid down a stack of papers containing copies of the riddle.
The other contestants all rushed forward and grabbed a copy of the riddle and the object from inside the stockpot, which was a small plastic lobster-claw key chain on an otherwise empty key ring. Then they, too, scattered, each with his or her own lead in mind.
Two of the guests read the phrases “resting place” and “inside the companion itself” and immediately assumed that answers would lie in the morgue. When they eventually realized that they were both headed to the same place, Jessica and Charlene decided to team up and tackle it together. Alas, they would find nothing useful in the morgue, for both of the dead bodies were already stashed inside of a locked freezer.
Todd and Cathy once again teamed up, growing increasingly comfortable with each other’s divergent thought processes. Their differences seemingly made them a good team. Instead of making snap judgments, or wandering aimlessly looking for something that fit like they had the time before, they decided to stop in the hallway and really dissect the riddle. It was longer and less vague this time, which led Todd to believe that there were more visceral clues within it, if properly identified. After that, they would address the lobster-claw key chain.
“The first line is a throwaway, right?” he whispered. “It just recaps.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Cathy agreed. “Same with the second line, but they can’t be completely pointless. They must be setting up the riddle for some purpose.”
Todd nodded slowly and read the next two lines aloud.
“ ‘A penultimate resting place offered more than one answer. Another would offer nothing from an ascending cancer.’ ”
It was quiet as they both thought it over. It took several minutes, but they knew this challenge would be best approached calmly and clearly. Rushing would likely lead them in the wrong direction. The patience paid off as it all suddenly clicked for Todd. In hindsight, it seemed almost too obvious, which almost made him doubt his theory. Almost.
“I got it,” he whispered excitedly. “Follow me, I’ll explain on the way.”
He headed toward the main staircase, not even giving Cathy a chance to respond. Still, he seemed to be onto something and it was certainly more than she had at that point, so she followed him without question. Along the way, he explained his epiphany.
“ ‘Penultimate’ means second to last, right?” he said. “Well, his second-to-last resting place was where he was resting right before he died. Which was…”
“His room,” she finished for him. “Is that where we’re going?”
They’d managed to get some information out of a tipsy Jessica after lunch that afternoon and had learned what she’d found in Kyle’s suite.
“No, we’re going to her suite,” he said. “Tiffany’s.”
Charlene thought it over as they approached the door to Tiffany’s room. She looked down at the riddle and read the fourth line again silently: “Another would offer nothing from an ascending cancer.”
“Of course,” she said. “ ‘Another,’ meaning her penultimate resting place. We all saw her go back to her suite last night around midnight, after failing to get any of us to join her in the hot tub. And ‘ascending cancer’ must reference her supposed corporate whoring.”
“Exactly,” he said as he opened the unlocked door leading into Tiffany’s room.
Her room looked like one would expect. There was a suitcase in the corner, a few articles of clothes folded over the back of a chair. Toiletries were scattered across the brightly lit bathroom counter.
Rain continued to pound the outside of the mansion. The angle of the rain against Tiffany’s windows made it seem as if someone were hovering just outside, spraying the glass with a fire hose. It was almost louder than the occasional, fading thunderclaps, which were definitely thinning as the storm moved past them.
“Look at this,” Todd said, motioning to something on the wall.
It was an oil painting of a fishing boat. Men on the deck were pulling in a large fishing net. Large and small fish spilled out everywhere onto the boat. A lobster hung from one fisherman’s clothing, its claw clenched tightly on to the man’s sleeve. The other implied claw wasn’t there. It was a small detail in a large painting, smaller than the size of a dime. But Todd was sure it meant something.
“You think it’s connected?” Cathy said, looking down at her plastic lobster-claw key chain.
“Has to be,” he said, reaching out and grabbing the outer edges of the frame.
Todd pulled gently at either side. It didn’t wobble like he’d expected a normal, hanging painting to. It was almost as is if it were completely affixed to the exposed brick. He pulled harder on the right side. There was a soft click and suddenly the resistance gave way and the painting swung open on hinges attaching the left side to the brick wall.
A safe was built into the wall behind the painting.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Todd said.
It didn’t take long for them to realize that it still might not mean much. Because they didn’t know how to get inside the safe itself. It had a standard wheel combination lock and also a fail-safe key slot. But they had neither a combination nor key. Or so it seemed. They inspected their plastic lobster claws but found no tiny numbers etched into the side or anything that looked like it could provide help with the combination.
“Let’s look at that last line of the riddle again,” Cathy suggested, growing increasingly worried. It had been nearly a half an hour since the challenge began; they had to be running out of time soon.
“Good idea,” Todd agreed, referring back to the card Giles had given them. He read the passage aloud. “ ‘But should you decide to embark there on a search for more yourself, remember: what’s missing may be inside the companion itself.’ ”
“You think ‘what’s missing’ is the fact that there’s no key on the key ring?” she asked.
“If it is, then the lobster claw must be the ‘companion.’ ”
“So the key or combination is inside the claw?”
Todd shrugged and then squeezed the lobster claw perpendicular to its cheap plastic seam. It didn’t seem like anything would happen at first, but then it suddenly split apart, startling both of them slightly.
Inside the lobster claw was a silver key with a rounded, cylindrical barrel and squared teeth. It looked expensive, like the kind of key that would be made especially for a secure safe. Todd folded back half of the lobster claw so that it now made up the key handle.
“Here we go,” he said, and put the key into the safe lock.
It turned easily. Todd pulled the lever and released the latch. The safe door swung open. They both peered inside, the rain from outside somehow echoing in the thick metal box like a tin can covering a sprinkler.
The safe contained another key, this one more normal looking. An attached small, circular key chain had the words “Pool Maintenance” printed on it. Underneath the key was a ream of paper: a pamphlet or manual of some kind.
“Come on, we’ll read this as we head to the pool maintenance shed,” Cathy said, grabbing the manual.
“How do you know where it is?”
“I’m sure it’s somewhere by the pool,” she said.
Todd nodded and they rushed out of the room, not bothering to waste time closing the safe or covering it. They did their best to scan the manual as they walked. By the time they reached the door leading out to the pool area, it was pretty clear what it was.
The manual was a schematic blueprint for a hot tub with a secondary heating element underneath it, like some sort of giant single-burner stove. Had the two of them known more about electrical mechanics and the makeup of kitchen appliances, they would have known that that’s technically exactly what it was. The whole hot tub was rigged to function exactly like a pot of water on a stove burner, with the only breaking point being a rapid boil vigorous enough to melt flesh from bones.
They both looked outside toward the pool. The storm had let up a little, but the rain was still pretty heavy. That said, a little bit of water seemed fairly innocuous to the two individuals embroiled in the middle of a sick murder mystery game with their very lives on the line.
Neither hesitated much more than a few seconds as they dashed out into the rain.
Cathy had been right: the pool maintenance shed was near the pool. They hadn’t noticed it before because it was pretty well disguised by palm trees and dense tropical foliage. But when looking for it specifically, it wasn’t exactly invisible. It was the size of a large storage shed and was painted a smooth creamy green color that blended well with the surroundings.
The key they’d found in the safe easily unlocked the maintenance building’s door. Inside, they found a variety of water heater–looking devices connected to a series of pipes and other metal equipment with dials and gauges and everything you’d expect. But then, in the far corner of the building, in a spot nearest to the hot tubs, they saw a large wooden box that didn’t quite match the rest of the equipment.
They opened the lid and saw several large canisters that looked like scuba tanks. But these tanks were labeled ANHYDROUS AMMONIA. There was a switchboard rigged to the tanks and tubes leading down into the floor. There were two toggles on the control panel labeled with a handwritten message on a white sticker.
Jets Gas Release Hot Tub #1
Jets Gas Release Hot Tub #2
Cathy and Todd looked at each other in the relatively dark maintenance shed and grinned. Then they did something neither of them expected or thought they’d ever initiate. They moved in close until their lips touched, brushing against each other softly. And they didn’t stop there.