When Darrel entered Guadalupe’s suite, he noticed right away that the bathroom door was closed. Giles stood in the bedroom doorway, where he would stay for the duration of Darrel’s investigation to make sure he didn’t try to sneak any peeks into the crime scene area.
Sometimes during this game, the evidence had been somewhat difficult to find. It had taken some real searching and digging to uncover. But this time, it hit Darrel in the face as soon as he entered the room. Of course, the real challenge was going to be to figure out what it meant.
It was hard to miss, really, the mess on the desk and walls. The desk next to Guadalupe’s king-sized bed was completely splattered with some kind of dark substance. At first, Darrel thought he was looking at blood splatters, as if she’d been bludgeoned to death while hunched over the desk, writing a letter. But when he got closer, he realized the substance was way too dark to be blood, dried or otherwise.
The real culprit as to the source of the substance became apparent when Darrel looked at the desk itself. There was an antique fountain pen resting atop some estate stationery. The pen itself was covered in ink. The liquid had also pooled under it and onto the desk itself. There was also a clear trajectory of ink spraying up from the desk and onto the walls. It wasn’t merely a pen that had broken. Broken pens don’t eject their ink into spraying jets like that. It was definitely a trick exploding pen of some kind.
Darrel looked down at what Guadalupe had been writing. It was her last letter home that the killer had instructed her and Bryce to write that morning. Sadly, it looked as though hers would never get finished, or sent. Not that she’d gotten very far before her pen had exploded, anyway.
Estimado Sr. Machado,
Escribo para decir adiós. Y también para
obtener mi asunto en orden. Soy j
That was as far as she’d gotten. Darrel didn’t speak Spanish, so he had no idea what the letter said. But he did think that a letter home to loved ones wouldn’t be addressed to Sr. Machado. If he were writing his last letter home to his wife, he wouldn’t call her Mrs. Gleason. He wondered briefly to whom Guadalupe was actually writing her last letter, but then quickly dismissed the question. It didn’t matter, really, in terms of solving this murder. He knew that.
Darrel continued looking around Guadalupe’s suite. It was somewhat uncomfortable to have an audience while amateur sleuthing. He kept glancing up at Giles, who watched him intently and did not try to hide it.
Guadalupe’s suitcase had been unpacked and her clothes put away inside the massive armoire in the corner of the room. Every article of clothing was folded impossibly neatly or hung with almost clinical care and precision. Where did she even keep her dirty clothes? Darrel wondered. He wasn’t surprised at the tidy state of her room. She’d seemed like an overly uptight anal-retentive bitch, if he was going to be honest. It was almost as if she had never even heard of the words “fun” and “relax,” let alone how to practice them.
But fortunately, the neat nature of her room made finding the next piece of evidence rather easy. Because that item, other than the ink-splattered desk, was the only thing in any sort of disarray inside the victim’s suite.
In between the desk and bathroom door, there was a heap of clothes.
Darrel picked at the pile. It comprised a sweatshirt with a faded UCSD logo on the front, a pair of jeans, white panties, a red blouse, and thick red socks. The front of both the sweatshirt and pants were covered in ink; there were even blotches of black ink on the blouse collar. So the pen had exploded all over the desk, wall, and Guadalupe herself.
He picked around the room for a few more minutes, even taking time to look underneath the various furniture pieces. But the clean nature of her room made it an easy finish. In fact, Darrel still had a good ten minutes left by the time he’d finished searching every corner of her room.
So he sat at the chair by her desk and turned to face Giles. The middle-aged butler looked back at him evenly, showing absolutely no hint of what he was thinking. Darrel had grown to like the butler, even in spite of his sometimes cold and cheeky remarks.
For a time, Darrel had suspected that some of the others in the mansion thought that the butler himself might be the killer. But he knew now that that was impossible. As they likely all did.
“So you really don’t know who the killer is?” Darrel finally asked, breaking a long twenty-two-minute silence.
“Of course not, sir,” Giles answered smoothly.
And it was true. Giles really had no idea which of the four remaining guests was the killer. He had his suspicions, of course. But every time he thought he was figuring things out, something would happen that completely derailed his newest theory.
“So how can you all just go along with this?” Darrel said. “I mean, you guys, the staff, are all getting secret instructions from the killer, right? I’m sure there’s a way you could trace them back and find out who it is. It couldn’t be that hard to do, could it?”
“We are doing our part, just as you are, and for the same reasons,” Giles said.
Of course, although Giles would never admit it in front of any of the guests, what Darrel had just suggested had already occurred to the staff. Just the other night, Giles had overheard two maids, a chef, and a male server talking in the commons area of the staff quarters. They were speculating aloud about who they thought was the killer.
Then one of the maids, Pam, suggested that they all just kill the remaining five guests, and thus the killer as well. Then they’d all be free to escape, she’d reasoned. Better them than us, the other maid had agreed.
Giles had burst into the room then and put an end to their silly conversation. For one, if they all did their jobs, they should all survive. They had no reason to not believe the killer on that; he or she had yet to be caught in a lie. If anything, the killer had always been completely up front and honest with the staff since the game began. Not to mention that killing four innocent people just to put an end to the killer as well was just plain wrong. The end didn’t justify the means. And lastly, he’d merely pointed to several hidden cameras that he knew were inside every room in the mansion.
“The killer is watching and listening right now, you fools,” he’d said. “You may have just gotten yourselves killed!”
That had shut them up quickly. As it should have. Their plan was complete nonsense. Even aside from all the other reasons, where was their sense of duty and honor as a personal residential service worker? But, in the end, he realized he needed to cut them a little slack. This was a bizarre situation, after all. And despite how poor a suggestion that had been, Giles had to admit, if only to himself at least, that he had very briefly considered doing the same thing: killing the guests so the service staff could escape. But he’d known better than to seriously consider that as a real option.
“So how did you get dragged into this mess again?” Darrel asked, bringing Giles back to the present.
“That should be none of your concern, sir,” Giles said.
“Yeah, but I’m just curious.”
“I already said on your first night here, remember? When Mr. Ponder accused me of the atrocities associated with our game. As I said then, I was simply hired for the butler position here. I did not know the nature of the job at the time, the same as all of you. We were, all of us, hoodwinked.”
“ ‘Hoodwinked’?” Darrel said, and laughed. “You damned Brits…”
Giles did not respond to this.
“You guys don’t like football over there, do you?” Darrel said.
“Soccer is a very popular sport in England, as it is worldwide,” Giles said, knowing very well that the man had meant American football.
“Soccer, what a pussy sport,” Darrel said. “The flopping is a travesty. Just a disgrace to real athletes. I’d love to see a soccer player take an NFL hit and try to get back up again.”
“As would I, sir,” Giles said calmly, relieved to finally hear the estate bell chime. He wasn’t sure he had the patience to be in the same room with this man much longer.
“Guess that means time is up, huh?” Darrel said.
“Indeed,” Giles said, opening the bedroom door.
As they left, Darrel slapped Giles on the shoulder.
“Hey, no hard feelings, eh? I wasn’t trying to offend you or anything. I just really love football, and I get worked up sometimes thinking about it,” he said.
“It’s quite all right,” Giles said. “Your passion for what you do is admirable.”
“Cool,” Darrel said.
Because Darrel had been walking behind him, he hadn’t seen Giles rolling his eyes and smirking as he’d answered.