A Murder in Opulence

The old, Victorian manor would have been the picture of beauty had it not been for the sin that lay within. With its tall doors, long corridors, and stained glass windows, the aching house was heavenly - even in the pitch of night, when shadows crept down the winding staircases and portraits on the walls seemed to stare with hollow, vacant eyes. Had it not been for the crimson blood, the manor would have remained elegant into its final days, but when such luxury was tainted with death, all that remained was opulence - cool and glimmering, sharp.

Like the whetted edge of a jewel-encrusted knife.

When the Detective stepped onto the scene, a long trench coat sweeping through a sea of gaudy disguises, a chill filled the night, death on its lips.

A masquerade for the ridiculously wealthy was the perfect cover for a murder; swaths of people were expected to be milling about the manor, all of them hidden behind masks, hundreds of people made tipsy, with fallible memory and hazy descriptions. Even the servants were loose and forgetful, alcohol on their tongues and all of their thoughts bottlenecked - unable to escape the cork. If the Detective were a lesser woman, the case would never be closed. There were too many variables, too many fraying ends. But when the victim's only missing possession was a small, black notebook, the question was not who was at the scene, but who would be, when they returned to dig up old bodies that were rotting and decaying beneath the floorboards - skeletons, but not quite.

Vladimir Ninomae died on the most influential night of his career, a glass of brandy shattered across his bedroom floor, next to his outstretched hand. He had two fatal wounds in his chest, one from behind and one in the heart.

The Detective spent a full 20 minutes looking at the weapon when she first arrived, turning the dagger over in her hand, feeling its odd weight and surprising durability. It was a part of a set; the Detective had seen the likes of them before in several cases through the years, all of them gilded and indulgent, forged to send a message.

The Detective wiped the weapon clean before setting it down. With a deep breath, she moved toward the Tiffany window. The striped and layered glass depicted the face of God, reverent and solemn, a witness to the evils of man. Outside, the rain had begun to patter on the roofs of automobiles, creating a cacophony of sound that would have covered the sound of gravel underfoot. A crow called, distant and low. The Detective checked the exits - locked.

Crossing the room, she poured a drink of brandy and held it out, watching the amber liquid swirl in a glass as clear as diamond.

For the next four days, the weather was a tempest, drowning the world in rain and lashing it with fierce winds. The Detective never left the manor; she sat in an armchair and allowed her thoughts to ferment, aging into the perfect hypothesis. On the fifth day, the storm stopped. The world stilled, and a funeral was held on a foggy hill. A woman in a long trench coat stood toward the back of the crowd, her collar popped, and hat bent forward. By all accounts, she was praying.

At the fading, Victorian manor, a door creaked open. Pale sunlight poured across the foyer, and a tall shadow made its way into the deserted entrance. The portraits watched through haughty, painted eyes as a figure wound its way up the staircase, across the large corridors, and turned a lock.

The murderer pulled a black, leather-bound book from within a coat pocket and turned to a dog-eared page. A gloved finger trailed over cursive writing. A drawer opened in the manor study.

A lockbox was picked. A file was opened. A paper was read.

Then again, the cycle repeated itself, like a spinning carousel never stopping for air. Papers were leafed through over and over. Nervous fingers nearly cut themselves in their haste. There was an answer here - there had to be.

There was an answer within this study, there was a resolution that would shatter this diamond-cut world; all of it was hidden, here, the black book told the murderer so. If they could find it, everything would splinter.

The murderer breathed raggedly, hands shaking as they poured over books, scanned countless files, and devoured paper after paper with hungry, greedy eyes.

A snowglobe trapping a frozen, Arabian horse fell to the floor, crashing against the hardwood, spilling all of its powered life onto the dark floorboards.

The murderer started to swear, but the words dissolved in their mouth.

The floorboards. Vladimir Ninomae always had a taste for Edgar Allan Poe.

With a fervor, they pried planks of mahogany from their foundations. Dust plumed from the movement, and when the air stilled, there it was.

Shaking hands picked up a manilla file, its yellowed sleeves filled with months of vile planning and a single receipt - the price of damnation.

The murderer seethed.

A gun clicked from behind, and the jagged shadow turned, showing its bristling face. The Detective, lacking her sweeping coat, narrowed her dark eyes.

Benjamin Ninomae, the son of Vladimir, stood over his father's stained legacy with a look in his eye that was just as cold as his father in the grave. He sneered, his voice an exquisite kind of anger, "There is no justice you could give me that I would deserve."

The Detective cocked her head, but her aim never wavered. "Must all executioners be righteous in their deeds?”

Benjamin took a step forward, his voice cold and sharp. “The real sinner is 6 feet under, and this—” he threw the manilla folder onto his father’s desk, pages and photos spilling from its sepia covers “—is his confession. Call me what you will, but all I did was serve justice - exactly like you."

“We are not at all similar.”

“Perhaps not, but do you know what my father did? Thirteen years ago, he had a daughter. She liked to race horses.” Benjamin kicked the fallen snowglobe, the chipped Arabian that once stood tall, a slim rider on its back. The Detective glanced at the ground only briefly, circling the murderer slowly, assessing her options. Men like the Ninomae’s were unpredictable, especially when cornered. Benjamin continued, spitting, “She was too smart, though. She knew too much. My father never had use for children - especially not meddling ones. So he dealt with her. My sister had a mysterious accident, and she was dead before the paramedics arrived. I saw it all, and my father thought twenty-thousand dollars could buy my silence. I admit that for a time, it did. Thirteen years ago, I was a little more than a boy, but my father and I both have known a haunting that's lasted thirteen long years, and now the world will, too.”

The air seemed to shift around them and the Detective bristled. It was as though there was a presence in the room - something like a cold hand closing over her neck. “Vladimir Ninomae was the wealthiest of men. I have no doubt his hands are bloodstained, but he’s been absolved by death,” the Detective said, and Benjamin scoffed. In his eyes, a fire ignited, red hot and full of ire. The Detective kept her tone level, something inquisitive in her cool. “But someone else needs to stand trial - you committed the crime with an accomplice. Who else was there, that night? Mr. Ninomae was handing a glass of brandy to someone when he was stabbed from behind. Who was he looking at when you made your first strike?”

“His daughter.”

“You said yourself she’s been dead for 13 years.”

The last Ninomae smiled cruelly. “The dead are more than just a corpse.”

In a flash, Benjamin reached into his pocket and stuck something in his chest.

“No!”

The Detective surged forward to grasp the glittering hilt of the knife, but it was too late. Already the weapon had cut a hole in his heart and was pulled outward, clattering on the dark floor. Benjamin choked, his throat full of a deep, dark red that (on any other night) might have been mistaken for wine. He fell backward onto the exposed floor, artificial snow from a shattered snow globe sticking in his hair.

The murderer looked up at the Detective, and there was a smile on his face, wicked and jewel-encrusted. “In death, I kill him completely.”

Slowly, he breathed his last.

The Detective bowed her head in an almost prayer, and after a moment, surveyed the scene. The manilla folder was spilling with evidence, but what interested the Detective was something else. In Benjamin Ninomae's pocket was a small, black notebook, the pages yellowed and aging. On a single, dog-eared page lay the truth that the son had been looking for - the sins of his father.

A sketched drawing of Vladimir's imposing desk, and the floorboards that lay to the right of it. Then, in the bottom corner, a date and the name of his daughter.

2 March 1943, Alexandra Ninomae.