WHODUNNIT

NIGHT ONE

It was raining heavily, and the ting of the gutters resonated inside the massive house. It slept ten, but no one had been living in this house for a few years now. But it was soon to be a full house.
The last guest was chauffeured to the front entrance, and had a moment of terror when he saw the driver pulling away before the doors had even been opened.
But not long after, a tall and well dressed man finally opened the large french double doors. He was quite handsome. His black hair slicked back with pomade. It was obvious he was the butler.
"Welcome. Do come in," he said, ushering the man inside. They were met with a crowd of seven, making nine total including the butler.
     "Hello," the man said nervously, "Everybody. Wasn't expecting this many people."
     "Us either," said an older woman, clearly hanging on to the last leg of her beauty. Her face, botox ridden, was incapable of emoting. She wore a white mink and a dazzling baby-blue sequin dress. "We've all trickled in over the past half hour or so."
     Another woman spoke. The pitch of her voice was gnawing, deafening even. A voice you'd kill to shut up. "Well, are you all being blackmailed too or am I the only one?"
     "I don't think it's just you," he responded, then turned to the butler. "Are you who's behind this?"
      Everyone looked at the butler, who shrugged defensively, "I don't know anything about that! I was hired yesterday by a private patron. Paid in cash. Told I would be hosting a number of guests for dinner. No one said anything about blackmail."
     "Well, what the hell is going on!" Colette cried out. She dramatically spun to sit down in the armchair, and her mink fell down a few inches off her shoulder.
     "Okay, why don't we take this time to introduce ourselves." Said the last man to arrive. "I'm Walter Gray. I'm actually an attorney from Seattle. To speak on the blackmail––well, I have been blackmailed for the past four or five months. And suddenly I'm asked to sort this out in person and come to this address and meet the man who seems to be none of you."
      "Care to share what you're being blackmailed for?" This was the shrill woman. "It's Erika, by the way."
     "Well, Erika, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
     She blushed. And Colette scoffed. A woman in the back smirked. She stood up from her chair and walked towards Walter.
     "I think we've all paid way too much to just spill our little secrets. I was actually excited to meet the man who's been threatening me. I was looking forward to knocking in his teeth. Unfortunately, the little prick was too coward to show up. I guess he wanted to play games instead."
     "What's your name, hon?"
     "I'm Casimir. And that's about all I plan on sharing with this lot."
     "That's fair," Walter said. He gestured to the others who were sitting apart from the group. "What about y'all?"
     There was a stout asian woman, a sun-kissed beau with a great physique, a skinny girl who dressed rather plain and had an aversion to makeup, and a stunning black woman with tied braids. Their names were later to be discovered: Justice Quan, Augustus, Acacia and Zuri, respectively.
     "I know you guys don't want your business being laid out. However, I have special instructions to read this," the butler said.
     "What! You're gonna rattle off our secrets? You can't!"
     The guests all began to shout at the butler but he yelled over them, "Quiet! Keep in mind I'm just doing my job. And I think the sooner we get through with all of this, the sooner you guys can figure out what's going on. It's not like any one here has any room to judge."
     "Can't you save us the humiliation!" Acacia cried out.
     "Why don't I start with you and get it over with. Acacia, it says here that you were the former caregiver of an Adela Patterson. Is that so?"
     "Please. Don't do this," she begged.
     "I'm afraid I must."
     "Read the damned paper," Walter demanded.
     "Acacia you cared for Adela for just over two years. She grew quite fond of you, I assume. Enough to leave you in her will. It says here that she died of congestive heart failure. That was the result of withholding her medicine. How much did you collect? I'm curious."
     "Adela died of natural causes. I didn't withhold her medicine. What an egregious lie!"
      "Let's say it's not true," the butler continued. "Why would you pay the blackmail? I mean, by definition that is an admission of guilt, wouldn't you say?"
     Acacia scowled at the butler and he turned away from her. "I guess we can move on. Colette, dear, let's move on to you."
     Colette perked up at him, visibly shaken.
     "Your husband was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime. A terrible accident. It says here that the car had careened off the road, plummeting to the bottom of a rock quarry. The detectives could piece the story together rather quickly when they found the empty beer bottles."
     "What'd she do, mess with the breaks?" Augustus asked with a brazen smirk on his face. Colette glared at him.
     "No, nothing like that," the butler said, "The car trauma was staged though. It seems her husband was bludgeoned to death way before the car drove off the road. It says here she hired a man to kill him. Not a very discreet hitman."
     "You have no idea the man my husband was. Do you know how many years I put up with his drunken abuse? That man was a monster and deserved exactly what he had coming for him. I'm not ashamed of it. I just don't want to end up in prison for it. I'm finally happy. For once in my life," her voice frail but carried weight. "I am truly happy."
     "I'm happy," the butler said to her, smiling. He walked around and stopped at Walter.      "Walter Gray, it says here you have been defrauding hardworking Americans for years now. Some art scheme you concocted to pay for law school, I'm sure."
     Walter coughed to hide his nervousness. "Okay, guilty. I sold these Chinese knockoffs. They were copies printed in bulk, easily no more than twenty, thirty dollars. I would go      door to door trying to sell these pieces, claiming they were my own, and racked up several thousand dollars. I know it's illegal. And I know I can go to prison for it. I was hoping to come here and settle out some terms where I could pay him off until the statute of limitations passes."
     The butler nodded. "Next we have Augustus. A lifeguard. He was on duty the day a little boy drowned. Little Benjamin Riley."
     Augustus bolted up, mad as hell, "Don't you dare. I'm not listening to this!" He began to storm off but stopped when the butler continued.
     "Augustus was dating the boy's mother, Patricia. She wanted a life with Augustus that didn't include her son. The son of the man she despised, her previous husband. The two were in cahoots and Augustus let this boy drown. His mother swam him out to sea and you, Augustus, let him drown."
     Augustus broke down, clasping his face with both hands. None of them had ever seen a man sob so hard and were taken aback.
     "Patricia hung herself out of guilt. Left a note confessing everything."
     Thats when Augustus looked up. He had always wondered how they were caught, how the blackmailer learned of his secret. When Patricia was found there was never any note present.
     "I think I should move on to the next. Zuri, it says here that you perjured yourself. Your father was the prime suspect in the death of his colleague. But he was exonerated by the testimony of his daughter, claiming her father was at home the night of his murder but—"
Augustus pushed away a chair and headed for the doors.
     "I'm afraid you can't leave."
     "Oh, can't I?" He retorted. But when he tried the doors, they were locked. This set him off and he rattled the doors hard. The other guests ran towards the doors to try and open them theirselves.
     "You've locked us in here?!" Someone shouted.
     "Before you get mad at me, listen to my instructions. I was asked to read these transgressions and bar the doors so no one could leave in the night. Besides, there is nowhere to go on this island. And the ferry won't come until tomorrow morning, depending on if the weather eases up."
     "I want to leave now!" Casimir yelled.
The butler revealed a gun and the guests stopped yelling. He looked at them cautiously. "I have been instructed to read these and I would like to finish. I haven't been as upfront with you as you might think. I too am being blackmailed. I was told if I follow these orders and do as I am asked, then it will all be over. So please, sit down, and I will continue reading these."
     The guests sat down. They were dead silent. All you could hear was the rain beating on the windows, tinging on the gutters, and rushing into the sewer drains. The silence was broken as the butler spoke up once more: "Justice Quan. You have been paid off by too many criminals to count. Almost every bench trial you have proceeded on has been a fraud. You have failed the system."
     She did not seemed the least bit phased, her face unchanging.
     "And Casimir. You're not used to being on this side of blackmail. No, you usually are the one collecting the checks."
     It was at this point that everyone stared her down. They all had an increasingly strong dislike for blackmailers of any kind.
     "You would seduce wealthy and powerful men, sleep with them, secretly record it, and then blackmail them for all they had."
     Erika faced the butler. "Is she being blackmailed for blackmailing people? That doesn't make any sense at all!"
     "Her blackmail is a little different. After collecting their hush money, Casimir would leak the videos anyways. She has pissed off a lot of powerful men. Men who want her to pay for what she has done. The man who has been blackmailing all of you, has threatened to reveal Casimir's true identity."
     "I––," she began.
     "And finally," he cut her off. "We have Erika. A nurse. She has stollen quite a bit of narcotics from the several hospitals that she has worked at for the past twenty years. That's a lot of hydros. And not one person has had any suspicion of her. Now, to be caught would mean jail time and losing her nursing license."
     The guests all looked at each other. Among them were murderers, liars, and thieves. But they were all connected by the same thing. The same guilt. The same desire to keep their secrets buried.

     The butler tossed the paper into the fire and watched as it burned. His name was written on the list too, along with his crimes. But now the words were smoldering swiftly into brown ash.
      "My instructions were to next direct you to your bedrooms. Tomorrow we shall meet the man who we have all been making rich."
The guests collectively walked upstairs and dismissed themselves to their rooms. They were all confused by the evening. It didn't go as any of them expected.

•••

Come daybreak, they slowly crowded the dining room. The pantry was stocked with food and a few of them had started to set out stuff for everyone to eat. It was getting close to noon and all but one guest had awoken. Colette White still had yet to leave her room. The group went up to get her, knocking on her door to no answer.
     The butler finally opened her door and someone screamed. There, sprawled out on the floor in her silk nightgown, the white mink wrapped twice around her throat. Her eyes looked stuffed out. Her face frozen, no different than when she was alive.
     A note was sat carefully beside Colette. The butler grabbed it, trying not to disturb anything else in the room. After opening it, he read the letter to himself, paused, and then read it aloud:

"He drove her mad.
Then drove off the road.
She's finally happy.
Or so we've been told."