Day 4.5 - Pringles

Original article written by Andy Gol posted 11 years 2 weeks ago

So if you haven’t read Part One of my version of Year 33’s Daybreak, you should stop reading now and go back and read it. And then come back. We’ll wait. Don’t worry. Or just keep reading. I don’t care what you do. You think you’re so cool and you can just do what you want. That’s fine.

I decided to just put Part 2 here...the Friday previews will come separately.

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Justin decided his initial game-plan would be to survey the scene. He immediately went to the coat room. As he as his partners walked up the stairs, he noticed the bannister along the wall had been knocked off the screws slightly.

“Has this always been like this?” Justin asked Eric.

“No...that’s new.” Eric replied.

As Justin got to the third floor, he surveyed the room layout. The room that Andy was in was really a bedroom, but it was being used as a coat room for the party. Further down that hall, there was another bedroom that looked untouched and a bathroom that was locked. To the right of the coat room was the small office. The light was on and the computer was on but sleeping. Past the office were two more bedrooms.

Justin slowly turned the doorknob for the coatroom and entered.

“Wow.” Justin said “They were not lying about how attractive he was.”

No, they weren’t.

The team set about to examine the scene and Justin called for the people who were first to find the body.

Emily, Steph, and Jon came to the third floor.

“Can you tell me if anything was touched here?” Justin asked.

“I....I....” Steph promptly burst into tears. “I just wish I could get to tell him ‘Welcome Back’ again!” she said while sobbing.

“I don’t think anything was touched other than the light.” Emily piped in. “We turned it off when we left the room”

“Alright...the guys are going to scope out the scene, I’m going to search the rest of the house.”

Justin searched the bedrooms on the third floor and found nothing of interest. Well, there were items of interest, but that’ll be for next year’s Daybreak article “Fifty Shades of the SIM.” It’s not worth getting into now, is what I’m saying. Justin then went into the office. Like Lauren earlier, he moved the mouse to bring the computer to life.

Instead of checking the history on the computer, Justin immediate typed a search into google. He saw the results and quickly stood up and ran outside. Then he ran back inside and demanded to smell the hands of each guest.

“Justin, you’re a pervert!” said Ashley G

“Hey, this will be the most action I’ve gotten in months” said Brianna M.

Bob G. shifted uncomfortably on a large couch in the living room.

“Is this really necessary??” he said. “Maybe Andy just offed himself!”

Justin, however, was adamant. He went from guest to guest, smelling each of their hands.

It was a bit awkward. It got *really* awkward when Justin eventually discovered he was holding Peihe S.’s hands in his. Justin looked into her sparkling eyes and began to sweat profusely.

“I...ummm....heehee....JUSTIN T!” he said.

Justin took a whiff of her hands and was overcome by the sweet scent of vanilla body splash. Justin giggled again and sat down.

“Justin!” Larry B. said “You’re a complete moron.”

“Just...ummm...give me a minute” said Justin.

After a suitable period of time, Justin went back to the task at hand. (hahahahah...that was a pun)

Finally, Justin got to Bob. Bob looked around nervously and presented his hands outward. Justin hesitated and leaned in.

“THE CULPRIT!” Justin yelled. “You’re hands have the foul odor of the notorious DEATH CAP mushroom!” I noticed a spate of them out front before I came in. You clearly have been handling them. ADMIT IT!”

“ALRIGHT, FINE!!” Bob screamed. “Andy was going to win the Turf Mile tomorrow. I DESERVE to win that race!”

“Well, Bob...it seems there was a....FLAW TO YOUR PLAN. Get it? Get it? Your horse is named ‘Flaws in the Plan!’ Anyway, you didn’t anticipate a detective of my skill to show up on the scene! I noticed when I did a google search for Death Cap mushrooms that the wikipedia link had already been clicked recently! It had to be the murder weapon.”

The crowd groaned at Justin’s pun which was obviously not nearly as funny as my pun from before. That aside, Justin was in for some more bad news. One of the other officers came down and whispered into Justin’s ear.

“I see.” said Justin “So it seems Bob, you WEREN’T the killer. While Death Cap mushrooms *can* kill a person, it usually takes at least a day or so. Someone ELSE is the true killer here!”

Justin went back up the stairs, but stopped at the second floor this time.

The second floor had five bedrooms, two of which had attached bathrooms. It also had a standalone bathroom. Justin noticed one of the bedrooms had an unmade bed. He flipped on the light and carefully searched around. He leaned over and picked up a white flower petal and a small red berry.

“Who was sleeping in here?!” Justin called out.

“Ummm, I was” said Ara. “But I was...ummm...preoccupied. Alan Rickman is gorgeous!”

“It wasn’t Ara” LaDonna said in a resigned tone. “It was me.”

“Just as I suspected.” said Justin “This is clearly from a Lily of the Valley plant! You tricked Andy into ingesting this, which killed him! But why?!”

“I haven’t had a male win a turf mile race since 2007! Do you know how hard I have tried!? And now, just when it looks undeniable with a horse whose name I can’t even pronounce, this sniffling nobody has to come along with the horse that will surely win?! I couldn’t let him deny me!” LaDonna said.

Justin smugly pulled out his cuffs. Once again, his partner leaned over and whispered something into his ear.

“So...it seems as though Lily of the Valley also has something of a delayed effect. Deadly? Sure. But, sadly, not the source of the crime here.”

Justin was getting frustrated.

“Did anyone notice Andy drinking anything in particular??” he asked.

“I didn’t want to say anything” Stormy P. said “But I noticed Eric put something into Andy’s drink”

“Was it everclear?” Justin asked “Because I think he’d be okay with that.”

“No...it was a powder of some kind. I thought it was sugar or something.” Stormy said.

Justin ran over to the bar. He knocked all the bottles of liquor off the shelves. And there, in a small ziplock baggie, a white powder was labeled “Ric”.

“AHA!” Justin said. “R-I-C. Eric is our killer.”

“Who’s Rick? Rick Flair?” asked Scott E.

“No! R-I-C. It’s short for ‘ricin’. It’s a deadly poison derived from the common castor bean! Eric must have put some in his drink while working the bar! GO LEAFS GO!” said Justin.

Eric didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he got out his checkbook.

“500,000. 400,000. 1,500,000. I spent it all. Every last dime. Just to get a turf miler to win THIS race. And Andy is going to win it?? Do you even know how much power I have? I could just tell Emily to kick him out if I wanted to! I have more power than ANYONE!!!” said Eric with increasing hysteria.

“I beat Eric in races 49% of the time.” Ronnie said.

“You know what, I’m just going to assume ricin doesn’t work all that quickly either.” said Justin, which saved us from having to go the whole ‘partner telling him the facts’ routine, which is really a nice time saver when you think about it. It’s a shame Justin can’t just be smarter like this all of the time.

“Oh come on!” said Paul H. “Maybe Andy just had it coming to him? I have a new Yo Yo Ma album I want to listen to. Can we hurry this up? How about this...anyone that poisoned Andy, just come forward now.”

Peter, Danny, and John all looked at each other and stepped forward.

“Really?! All three of you?? What did you guys use??” asked Nini I.

“Oleander” said Peter “It’s growing outside the kitchen window.”

“Antifreeze” said John

“Mercury” said Danny “I may have spilled some in the bathroom”

“Jesus.” said Dan G. “Is there anything that idiot wouldn’t eat?”

“And let me guess, you all have turf milers running on Friday?” asked Justin

All three nodded. But all knew the truth that their respective poisons wouldn’t have taken effect this quickly. No, none of them could be the ultimate triggerman. Justin knew this as well, so he went into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Justin flicked the faucet on and held the cup underneath. The force of the water created many tiny bubbles that ran up the inside of the vessel. Justin pressed the cool glass against his lips and tipped his head back. It was at this point that he noticed the syringe in the trash can.

Justin set the glass on the black soapstone counter, which caused a loud clank to echo off the subway tiled white backsplash. He picked up the syringe and examined it.

“Our cat...we had to administer medication with it.” Lauren said quietly.

Justin disassembled the device and managed to get a drop of the remaining liquid onto his finger. He sniffed it and smelled nothing. He then bravely set about to taste the mysterious elixir. Just as it touched his tongue, Justin recoiled.

“Salty” he said to himself. “This is no cat medication. This is the murder weapon. Potassium Chloride, to be exact. Harmless to consume in small doses. Deadly if injected!”

Every guest had done the math in their head. There was one remaining in the room who had the same motive as every other potential suspect but hadn’t been ummm....suspected as of yet.

“It was Brandon” said Marzy D. “He’s got Headlines.”

Justin went over to Brandon and asked him to empty his pockets. Sure enough, a vial labeled “KCl” was among the belongings.

“All this for some horse race?!” asked Justin

“What?” asked Brandon “No, I don’t care about some Steward’s Cup race. I just didn’t like that jerk.”

“I don’t know much about American law” said Justin “But I’m pretty sure that if seven people attempt to murder someone, none of them can actually be arrested for it. ‘Double Jeopardy’ or something. I guess...’Septuple Jeopardy’ in this case. Yeah, that’s it.”

While Justin’s legal knowledge was completely inaccurate, no one bothered to correct him. After all, the Steward’s Cup was about to start. It’s the best time of the year! There’s no reason to screw that up with a messy trial or seven.

And the whole SIM lived happily ever after. Well, except for Andy, of course. But Brandon was right...he was kind of a jerk anyway.

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