Bird On A Wire

Downstairs the party had been uneventful, but upstairs didn't want for anything, My partner radioed that Hannah was missing. No, not Hannah. Isabelle. They were the twin daughters of the homeowner throwing the party. It was an easy enough mistake to make, confusing the two. Hell, I'd done it myself. It was an easy mistake, but a critical one. I'll have a nice little chat with him later.

Isabelle and Hannah did not share a room. They didn't have to. The place was huge. It was a literal mansion if there ever was one. Their rooms were on the second floor and to the end of the hall. There was a large picture window overlooking the courtyard outside their bedroom doors. There was a lone tree in the courtyard, a medium sized pear. I thought I saw the shadow of a man looking directly at me, but it was dark and I was getting tired. My eyes could have been playing tricks on me.

I pulled a handkerchief from my breast pocket and tried the knob to Hannah's room. It was locked. She was staying the weekend at a friend's house. Isabelle's door was ajar.

The large picture window that overlooked the courtyard had been broken. This seemed to indicate that this was where our perpetrator had gained entry to the residence, but my instinct and experience ruled this theory out. I noticed that nearly all of the glass had fallen to the outside. Had the intruder entered from the outside the majority of the glass would have fallen into the hallway and thus would have been on the inside.

I made a mental note of this and slowly pushed open Isabelle's bedroom door. From the time of his call to now was maybe five minutes, but in that time the moron had managed to destroy pretty much any and all trace evidence. Whether or not this was on purpose was impossible to say. I was salty and on the warpath to find the dumb bastard and kill him. He was a New York City detective for Christ sakes and he had made a lot of stupid and silly mistakes tonight. Too many if you ask me.

I instead decided it best to cool off for a minute and as I did so I decided to take another look around the room. In the bathroom, the shower curtain had been pulled shut. There was no water running. There was no water anywhere actually. I took a pen from my pocket and used it to peel back the shower curtain. I had found the moron. He was dead and slumped over in a pool of his own piss and blood. Someone beat me to him.

The hallway, bedroom, and bathroom were all dry and the glass had fallen outside not in. It was raining cats and dogs outside and people, especially guilty ones, tend to break out, not in. The clues and evidence were beginning to add up and they pointed in a direction I was sure I didn't like. There were by my last count sixty-seven guests attending the party downstairs. That's sixty-seven witnesses and sixty-seven suspects. Someone down there committed these crimes. I had to find them before they did it again.

At nine, just as they were supposed to, the clocks struck. I had forgotten until then that nine was the time the obligatory rich person party game was to begin: The fucking murder mystery. The tired, boring, and predictable whodunnit where everyone dresses up and uses terrible fake accents to find their make believe murderer. Fanfuckingtastic.

To recap: His daughter is likely missing and could be dead already. I've got a dead moron cop stewing in his own juices upstairs and these idiots are gallivanting around playing Holmes and Marple. I was about to blow the whistle and shut the party down, but I suddenly had a moment to think clearly. It occurred to me that this might all be more than coincidence.

Come on Tanner do the math. I was talking to myself now. Great. Someone set this party up, or knew about it. That's four suspects right there at a minimum. Who has a motive and what is it? This is going to be a long night. The facts were coming together, but the who, what and why were still very much unknown. The game was afoot.

I left Isabelle’s room and began down the hall towards the staircase. I was closer to the party now, but still pretty damn far away from any answers. As I passed each door, I used my pen to push each door. This was a habit. All of the doors so far had been pulled shut and were presumably locked. All except for two.

The only two open and unlocked doors happened to be on opposite ends of the hall. Could be a coincidence. Maybe not. I unbuttoned my suit coat. The gun was there. I left it in its holster. This was not a habit. This was playing my role in their game.

The room was dark. Musty. It was also packed to the gills. Shit here and shit there. You could barely move and then the stench hit you. What is that anyway? Rotting fish? Christ in a Cadillac. There were cobwebs older than me in here. Huge cobwebs. I was about to turn and get the hell out before I met who made them. That's when the light from the bathroom caught my eye.

The room was messy and stank. The windows were covered in dust, grime, and dirt. They hadn’t been opened in decades. There wasn’t a reason I could think of for a light to be on in this room. It was definitely not a coincidence. The other stuff maybe, but not this. I opened my coat a little more and unbuttoned the holster. The light bounced under the door, but betrayed no movement. The rooms were quiet.

I again used my pen to edge open the door. It went back about halfway and stopped. I had hit something, or rather, the door had and whatever it was began to swing. The shadow of the object began to undulate against the light. From the large mirror hanging opposite the door, I could now see it and no longer needed to enter to investigate.

There was a dog hanging by its neck. Its throat had been cut. I seriously doubt this is all a coincidence now. I have to get back downstairs and to the party. I'll check more into the dog and what it has to do with all of this later. I backed out of the room and was even more careful now not to touch anything. I didn't even flip the lights or close the doors. I headed for the staircase.

Downstairs, the party had become a crime scene. I mean another one. A fake one. It was a real life game of Clue. After playing literal detective all day, the last thing I wanted to do was watch a bunch of rich morons play Clue, but this is the job I signed up for. Kind of. Someone here other than me knew it was all too real and I was having serious doubts that their crime spree was finished.

I felt seriously out of place, which was a feeling I rarely ever felt. It was my job to be nosy and to pretend like I belonged somewhere, anywhere, and here I was. A real life detective working security at a murder mystery dinner party. If anyone actually belonged here, it was me, but still. I knew something that no one besides the killer knew and then there was the attire. They took this fantasy murder mystery shit serious here.

The guests were wearing masks and costumes that had been designed to make them appear to be the best versions of the characters they admired. Many were also carrying weapons and I suspected that not all of them were props. This was Clue alright, replete with hors d'oeuvres and Chianti.

This was going to be a long night.

I should have listened to the chief and took some time off.

The master of ceremonies was a man named Bruce. I'd tell you his last name, but I don't know it yet. I'm not sure it matters anyway. He’s too vain and too stupid for a crime like this. He can portray Sherlock at a dinner party, but he's no murderer. Bruce was Hannah and Isabelle's father and the owner of this fucked up party, as well as this labyrinthine palatial spread. He worked in finance and had been married and divorced three times. I know this, because Bruce knows this. Also, because all three of his ex-wives were also at the party. I wondered how he had any money left.

Stand up guy Bruce was, he provided me with a "cast of characters." I just called it a list of potential suspects. I was still acting under my authority as security and for now the actual mystery upstairs was still that.

His list and mine differed by one. His contained sixty-six names and mine sixty-seven. This indicated that either someone was here uninvited, or that I had miscounted. Either was a possibility and it would take some good old fashioned police work to determine if it was the former or the latter.

Myself and the idiot that got dead are off duty NYPD. Moonlighting has long been a pastime for off duty cops and we were not exceptions. I wasn't on the take and I'm pretty sure he wasn't either, so we could use all the extra dough we could get. Living in New York by itself is not cheap. It's even worse with alimony and child support, but that's another story for another day. These rich people circle jerks usually paid pretty well and were almost always uneventful. Just my fuckin' luck.

The wait staff was an additional 15 or so people that weren't on the list. Some were regulars and some had been hired just for the party. Myself and moron weren't on the list either. We were the only two that by process of elimination were not considered suspects.

For now.

So, here I am seeking an actual murder among actors and morons and I’m alone in the lions den. Goddammit. I had to call in outside help. There was something about this I just didn't like. It was almost too convenient. Too perfect. Too...easy. I needed help, but I wasn't ready to sound the alarm and call the chief. At least not yet. Instead I called a buddy of mine in major crimes. A guy by the name of Bruiser. Ah, sorry, Macdonald. James Macdonald.

James and I had known each other for about twenty years. We went through basic training together and been stationed together. First in San Diego and later Fallujah. You could say we came up together. We'd seen some shit. Another reason for my decision to call Mac was that I trusted him in a way I couldn't trust anyone here. Not even myself.

It was growing late and my call surprised him, but didn't really catch him off guard. He's a detective in major crimes in the city that never sleeps. You can be surprised, but not off your game. Just ask the bumbling moron how that turns out.

I felt bad calling him, as he was out to dinner with his wife. It was their first night out in months. The reservation alone took nearly six months. I felt like shit for bugging him, but he shook it off.

He said, "Look man, we were brothers in arms and now we're brothers in blue. Maureen, God love her, is used to it. To me." I began to say something but he cut me off. "I'll give her your best. You give me the address."