Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

There were six players this year, and each had a role. Ollie was a professor and seemed to believe that giving long orations on tedious topics was a requirement for his part. Oliver Powers was paid to talk, and he appeared very adept at his job. He continued to batter the young woman in the tiny scarlet dress with facts pertaining to everything from the Civil War to the legitimacy of NASCAR as a sport. One man was staring at Ollie, amazed that anyone would listen to more than two words out of the overflowing mouth. He sat in his yellow jacket, as bright as a fresh daffodil, staring at Oliver Powers and seesawing from doubt to outright disbelief.

Detective Adam Jericho wasn’t buying Oliver Powers’s tall tales. He’d seen enough bull in his life to know the beef from the bouillon. He had effectively tuned out Ollie’s rants and he concentrated on the game. He solved real-life murders for a living, surely he could puzzle out this silly little game. He looked over his clues, and as with most games that mimic real life, nothing quite jelled for him. A manufactured mystery left no room for the quality that Jericho most depended on in his occupation: instinct. Logic was anathema to him. Like poker or Yahtzee, detecting was, he thought, two-thirds luck and one-third chance. Brains were extra baggage.

The corpse was missing a foot. What kind of murderer takes the foot? And why? A lunatic podiatrist? A maniac with a foot fetish? A diminutive psychopath who will do anything for an extra foot? This was Jericho’s first year at this little soiree. He’d earned his place here as a result of a high-publicity bust that had made him something of a celebrity in New England the past few weeks. He had personally tracked down serial killer Shane Richards and put the maniac behind bars. When the invitation came, he thought it might be fun. He had spent the better part of the last three decades tracking down serial murderers. It was his specialty. He was as good as they got. Surely, a little game like this would be nothing. But Adam Jericho had never gone up against someone with a predilection for severed feet.

Another player was an old woman with a hat that looked like a dead peacock. Her hair was an awful shade of blue. She swore up and down that she had solved the mystery, but the rules of the silly game stated that the solution would be revealed at dinner that night. That was three hours away yet. Three... very... long... hours... away.

There was a young girl in the group, the daughter of a rich oil magnate from down South. He sent his daughter to Massachusetts as his emissary, much as Kent Powers had sent his son in his place. The girl looked no older than sixteen and was unnaturally pale. One would imagine that a tanning booth was within the family budget? Or even a weekend on the beaches of Jamaica? Hair streaked red and held by little neon hair-ties stuck up in clumps all over her head. Her T-shirt had the charming epithet Drop Dead across the chest. She had been here when Jericho arrived, along with the woman in the small red dress.

Miss White stared blankly at the walls much of the time. She had set aside the material for the game moments after receiving the stacks of facts. She had either solved it instantly or had no interest in doing so.

An actress by the name of Kelly Greene was whisking around the room in a dress cut nearly to her navel, trying to be the center of attention. Someone ought to have informed her that she was about ten years and two tummy-tucks past being the center of anyone’s attention. She was being talked about for an Oscar this year for her work in All in Good Time. Her publicist insisted that she put on a show here at the mystery mansion, for there were powerful people about tonight. Word had it that the woman in the tiny scarlet dress that Ollie was drooling over had influence in Hollywood publishing. She would be a good person to have on your side in Tinseltown, especially around Oscar time.

Not one of these people seemed like the type to amputate feet. Not even Ms. Greene, who was overacting her part as a lustful maid. She added some character touches of her own, making the maid Southern, though the accent sounded more like an Irish nanny mimicking a German with a lisp. She also declared that the maid was an alcoholic; such was her excuse to down Southern Comfort as if it were water. She wasn’t the type who could hurt a fly. Detective Jericho was starting to seriously suspect himself, though he couldn’t find a spare limb anywhere amongst his belongings. The game was so contrived and generic that he’d have declared the butler did it, but no one was playing a butler.

What kind of murder mystery didn’t have a butler, anyway?

Supper drew nearer with such excruciating slowness that instead of the murder er, Jericho wondered if he would end up being the murder ee for lack of sustenance. Finally the cook announced that the meal would be served in thirty minutes. Although Jericho’s belly rumbled in anticipation, all thoughts of food and solutions to silly made-up murders would be far from his mind when the thirty-minute mark arrived. He decided to follow the annoying Oliver Powers around after his lovely consort went upstairs to “wash up” for the meal. Ollie meandered through room after room, looking at the detailed architecture that had been designed by the suicidal Charlemagne well over a century ago as if he had never seen it before. Perhaps he had not. It must be a rough life if one has never laid eyes on one of one’s father’s mansions.

Aside from a short and rather confrontational conversation between Ollie and the old lady with blue hair, the next few minutes were uneventful. The old woman argued that late-night talk shows are subversive outlets for extremists who believe that all drugs should be legalized. Oliver countered that Letterman didn’t have a subversive bone in his body. As the old woman went on to assert that Letterman’s Top Ten List was a subliminal instrument for getting teens to smoke pot, Jericho made his way away from the nonsense.

Thinking that the dinner bell ought to be ringing any second, Jericho went out to the main ballroom with the others. Oliver and the old woman followed him, neither talking, both fuming. Everyone was gathered again but for the woman in the tiny red getup, the powerful publishing exec. Dinner was waiting on her. The ageing actress volunteered to get her. “Maybe she fell in the toilet,” she quipped as she bounced up the stairs, and everyone got to staring longingly at the table set with lavish china and expensive silverware. Jericho’s name was embroidered on a napkin at the foot of the table. That got him to thinking again about the foot... the mystery they were here to solve... And then he solved it. He knew the answer, without a doubt. He was fairly sure he was the only one who had puzzled out the correct solution. Detective Adam Jericho was once again going to dazzle the common folk with his breathtaking deductions.

Then there was a scream upstairs and all thoughts of dinner and missing feet left Jericho’s head. Here was something else to engage the sleuthing mind, something more than just a game. The over-the-hill actress appeared at the top of the staircase. She was sobbing theatrically. This was a scene that Adam Jericho had seen a hundred times before. It wasn’t the type of moment that could be acted, not even by De Niro or Streep. Certainly not by a woman who starred in such trash as Petty Cash and The Arkadelphia Conspiracy . This was a genuine moment. If the Academy were passing out trophies right now, Ms. Greene would be walking away with some gold.

“She’s dead,” she bawled. “She’s been murdered.”

The cops were immediately called, but this being an old mansion, and there being a murder and all, the night decided to erupt into a fantastic storm. The rains would prevent the police from coming for some while. Adam Jericho took charge of the crime scene, sifting through the evidence with a fine-tooth comb. A comb that revealed hairs that were definitely not the property of a woman in her twenties. The hairs were blue. Jericho bagged them with a suspicious glance at the old woman, who peeked through the doorway with the others. They were like vultures to carrion. Luckily the corpse was in the bathroom, away from prying eyes.