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A Locked Room Part 3.
Mystery
By
Akkano
**********
Chapter-Seven
We were assembled in the same card room as we were a week ago, in Heather's house. I
looked around and saw all the same faces were there, except Andrew (he, being out of town,
had refused to fly to Salt Lake City just to take part in Cheryl's little get together).
Heather had laid out coffee and pastries for us and Cheryl took a sip of her coffee and started.
"Well, this has been a most peculiar case. Any crime needs motive, means and opportunity.
As to motive, I will consider each person's motivation in detail later on. Means is obvious,
cyanide poisoning. Opportunity: that is where we hit a brick wall."
"Who had the opportunity, who could have done it? Well, apparently nobody had the
opportunity, nobody could have done it."
"Let us consider Heather. She certainly handled the whisky decanter. Could she had slipped
cyanide into the decanter before she took it to John's study?"
"She served drinks to George and Melody, both of whom are very much alive. While she was
pouring the drinks, myself, Jane, Melody and George, all four of us, were watching her. After
that, she immediately replaced the stopper, took the decanter to John's room and left it there. I
would say it is highly unlikely that she was able to slip something in there."
"Then there was Teresa, the maid. She went into John's study twice. So did Monica, Heather's
mother. Did Teresa have any particular reason to be mad at John? Had he perhaps given her
the sack or be about to do so?
Could either of them have slipped anything into the decanter while they were there?"
"Again, highly unlikely. The decanter was near John's bed, well away from the door. For
Teresa or Monica to put cyanide in the decanter, they would have to go past John, remove the
stopper of the decanter, put cyanide in it, replace the stopper, again come back past John and
exit the room. There just wasn't enough time to do that. And John would definitely have
noticed it."
"My God! - begging your pardon, Mrs. Longbottom - now I remember what was out of place
in Mr. Longbottom's study" Teresa burst out.
Cheryl looked at her with an amused expression. "Let me guess, Teresa. When you entered
Mr. Longbottom's study, you happened to glance at the occasional table beside the bed, saw
the decanter and saw that the stopper was not in the decanter."
"That was exactly it, Miss Holmes. I thought of asking Mr. Longbottom about it, but decided
it was none of my business. Besides, I thought that maybe a fine whisky like Blue Label, like
fine wine, needs to breathe for a while before it is drunk. But later when you were talking to
me, it totally slipped my mind."
"That is OK Teresa, I didn't need your clue. But that certainly confirms my suspicions."
"Now, where were we? Oh, yes. So it would have been virtually impossible for Monica or
Teresa to have slipped something into the whisky."
"Now we come to this mythical, mysterious phantom, Ms Marina. What a character! She had
John totally in her clutches. According to Monica, and confirmed by Dr. Peters, John was
about to tell her to take a hike and break off all contact with her."
Here Cheryl briefly described the relationship between Mistress Marina and John while
leaving out the more lurid details; though what she necessarily had to describe was lurid
enough for most tastes.
"Well, it is my belief that Ms Marina somehow got wind of what John was about to do and
killed him before he could break it off with her. If she could not have him, nobody would.
Such a course of action is consistent with her personality profile."
Having read the details of her treatment of the deceased I could only make mental agreement
with my partner.
"So, during the bridge night,” Cheryl continued, “Ms Marina put the cyanide in John's
whisky and also pissed into his whisky. And she did it so nobody noticed her doing it,
including myself."
"As well as also wiping John's computer clean," I reminded her.
"Quite so, Jane. Thanks. When Teresa went into John's room, she saw that the screen saver
was on the desktop screen. Yet when we all entered his room after he was murdered, there
was no screen saver, the screen displayed an error message. So in between Teresa's entry into
the room and John's death, Mistress Marina also wiped his computer clean."
"Are you seriously saying that this Ms Marina did this with all of us here and nobody noticed
it?" George asked.
"In essence, yes."
"If she did all this right in front of me without me noticing it, then I am mad. Personally, I
think you are mad for suggesting such an atrocious theory. I don't know why you are
continuing this charade. I thought you were going to unmask the murderer tonight."
"Patience, George. I am convinced that Ms Marina is the killer, that she put cyanide into the
whisky, pissed in it and also wiped out the desktop. Because you see, one of you is Ms
Marina."
There was a pause and nobody said anything for a while, all but one of them – and just as
Cheryl had intended – stunned by this bombshell.
It was Melody who found her voice first:
"I don't see how that gets us anywhere," she remarked. "Whether or not this Ms Marina is one
of us, others would have surely noticed somebody slipping cyanide into the whisky. The
whole thing does not become any more likely if one of us indeed is Ms Marina"
"Well, we will come to that later,” Cheryl told her with a tolerant smile. “For now, though, let
us look at motive."
When she was sure she had their complete attention, Cheryl began:
"Let us start with his wife, Heather. By her own admission – and confirmed by her mother -
they did not have the happiest of the marriages, their relationship was strained at best. At the
same time, clearly Heather loved her husband. She liked performing small services for him,
like bringing his decanter to his study, which she had been doing ever since they got
married."
"This was clearly similar to the love hate relationship that Ms Marina had with John. So
Heather definitely had a motive."
"But you forget one thing, Cheryl." Heather pointed out. "Our relationship was about to get
much better, with John giving up drinking and as you just said, getting out of the clutches of
this horrible Ms Marina. Why would I want to kill him, when I finally had a chance of a
happy married life?"
"You are perfectly right, Heather. Perhaps that lets you out. Let us leave that aside for now"
Cheryl turned to Monica.
"Now we come to Monica, perhaps the most interesting character in the bunch."
From the older woman’s face I could tell she took my partner’s description as a compliment
and took no small pleasure from hearing it.
"By her own admission, Monica did not like John,” Cheryl began. “But since he was her son-in-
law, she loved him, for the sake of her daughter. Here again is the classic love/hate
relationship."
Being the lover of drama and the stage she was, Cheryl paused for effect before continuing.
"There was, however, one more factor added. Monica knew that John was going to break up
with Ms Marina and was aware of events. Not only the sanitized version explaining her son-in-
law’s behaviour she had told her daughter, that he was going to give up drinking, but the
full story. Though, perhaps not all the lurid details."
Monica’s expression was non-committal.
"Is she perhaps the mysterious Ms Marina?” Cheryl asked the room in general. “But, if she is,
we seem to hit a problem. If she is indeed Ms Marina, John couldn't possibly have told her
that he was going to break it off with her. So where did she learn it from? Did John reveal it
to someone else besides Monica and Monica got it from that someone else?"
"Or did Monica inadvertently reveal it to Ms Marina?"
Cheryl turned to Melody:
"Did your mother inadvertently reveal to you that John was going to break up with you yet
again, Melody? You told me that you broke up with John, but Teresa tells a totally different
story, that John broke up with you and that you were furious about it."
At once Melody launched herself at Cheryl.
"Why, you lying bitch. You promised that you won't reveal my affair with John to Heather."
At once I interposed myself between her and Cheryl. It is my job at these meetings to watch
Cheryl's back, to see to it that no harm comes to her. I do have a fourth degree black belt in
karate, after all.
The young lady was easily restrained.
"Take it easy now, Melody. There is no need for violence."
Easing her away from me, her mother took Melody in her arms and comforted her.
"It's all right, darling. Just take a deep breath and try to calm down."
"How can I calm down mom, look what the bitch did to sis."
We all looked at Heather. She had uttered a cry and fainted in her chair. George and Monica
laid her down on a couch, made her conformable and left a drink by her side as Cheryl
continued.
"Your mother is right, Melody. Calm down and think about it. Histrionics will change
nothing. For one thing, I never promised you not to tell Heather. If you remember, that
promise was made by Sergeant Bob and he is not here today."
"Perhaps,” Melody answered, eyes still blazing. “But you were present, and it was implied
that you and Jane would keep your silence as well."
"Well, that is not how I read the situation, so we must agree to disagree. For now though, let
us continue.”
She spoke to the rest of the group in general.
“So, is Melody our mysterious Ms Marina? It is certainly possible. In this respect, it is
significant that Ms Marina did not use any props, any equipment in her domination games.
Was that because she could not afford to purchase any? If so, it definitely points to Melody.
But there is also a problem. If she indeed is Ms Marina where would she conduct her
sessions? She shared an apartment with another girl, she couldn't very well conduct the
sessions in her apartment.
"If she rented a room in a hotel, how could she afford it? She is a student, I assume she is on
student loan. Where did she get money to rent a hotel room? It is also something that can
easily be checked out. If it turns out that she did indeed rent a hotel room several times in the
past few months here in Salt Lake City, we have nailed her. After all, what other reason could
there be for her to frequently rent hotel rooms when she already has a place to live?"
Cheryl paused to let them take it all in before continuing:
"So Melody is certainly a possibility, as is Monica. But let us now come to someone equally
likely."
I took a sip of Cheryl's coffee, it was stone cold. I emptied it and refilled her cup.
She turned to Linda.
"What about Linda, our dominatrix?” she asked. “After all, she knows the tricks of the trade
and is, supposedly, an expert in dominating men. It would be easiest for her to conduct these
sessions. More so than anybody else here."
Attention had turned from the still blazing Melody to Linda now, but if the dominatrix was
perturbed she hid it well.
"We have only her word that she is not Ms Marina and it would be easy for her to conduct
these sessions. She has the know-how, after all, and she does have the dungeon."
Gauging their reactions, Cheryl continued:
"She also knows enough about female domination of the male to carry out the sessions in
such a way as to make it appear the work of an amateur dominatrix."
Linda’s expression stayed non-committal and seemingly untroubled.
"The problem here is that I cannot see what would motivate Linda to do this. I don't see any
love here, in the love/hate relationship. But again, she cannot be ruled out."
If Lind was relieved it did not show.
"Now we come to somebody who is not present today.”
Again Cheryl allowed a few beats to pass for dramatic effect.
“Andrew,” she said finally, placing air between the end of the word and her next.
“According to Linda, Ms Marina is very likely a woman. But she certainly could not rule out
a man, a man who is very good at dressing like a woman."
"And here we have Linda's protégé, an expert in cross dressing. As to motive, perhaps
George is not the only businessman John swindled; perhaps he swindled Andrew as well."
Again she turned to Linda:
"Or perhaps he did it for his Mistress, his Goddess. Would a sub kill for his dominatrix?”
No answer was forthcoming.
“Highly unlikely, in Dr. Peters' opinion, but by no means impossible. So Andrew cannot be
ruled out."
Again she paused, then:
"Which brings us to our friend, George," she said, turning to the man himself.
I watched the man swallow, obviously uncomfortable to be under scrutiny.
"Now, I don't want to get into details here. But I will say that George had as much of a
motive as anybody else, even apart for the fact that he was swindled by John."
The man’s head shook, as if the simple non-verbal denial itself would be enough to clear any
suspicion from his door.
“And finally,” Cheryl went on, “what about the maid? Teresa.”
Eyes again fell on the person being spoken of.
“I asked her to sit in on this little meeting, because she is certainly not above suspicion.
Again, I won’t go into details, but Teresa does fit the profile of the murderer.”
“But what can Teresa possibly have to do with it?” Monica asked sharply.
“Well, she is a servant, an employee. She may well have had some grudge against John.
Particularly if John found out some secret about her.”
“I hope you believe me Miss Holmes, when I say that I had nothing to do with it.” Teresa
replied. “Mr Longbottom was nothing but kind towards me.”
At this point, I really had to admire Cheryl's discretion in not revealing the homosexuality of
George or transsexual nature of Teresa to the crowd; but then why, I asked myself, had she
dropped her habitual discretion to reveal Melody's affair?
By now Heather had regained consciousness enough to be able to hear what was going on
around her and was sipping the cola drink.
"I’m sorry you have had to hear this, Heather." Cheryl said, considerate and courteous as
ever.
"That is OK, Cheryl,” Heather told her as she maneuvered herself up from the couch into a
sitting position “I need to know and you are not at fault for speaking as you do."
Eyes full of recrimination turned at this point to her sister:
"How could you, Melody?" Heather accused, close to tears. "Does my life, my happiness
mean nothing to you?"
At this it was all too much for her and the sister burst into sobs.
"I am sorry, sis,” Melody cried, rushing to her sister’s side. “I was an utter fool, I didn't mean
to hurt you, honest. Please forgive your idiot little sister. Please?"
To my surprise, a forgiving Heather did just that and took her in her embrace for them both to
have a good cry.
I was not surprised that Cheryl had sense enough to pause in her discourse while they were
sorting themselves out.
Monica looked at Cheryl quizzically:
"Cheryl, you don't want to reveal George's indiscretions and I respect you for that. I am not
interested in knowing why you consider George or Teresa a suspect. But then was it really
necessary to reveal Melody's affair in such a crass and crude manner? I, you might be
interested to learn, was also shocked by the revelation."
Cheryl was unapologetic.
"I had my reasons, Monica. One was that there should be no secrets between sisters."
As she said this I was congratulating myself on the fact there were certainly no secrets
between me and Cheryl.
"I have a feeling,” she told Monica, “that as a result of this revelation the two sisters will
come closer together. Their bond, I suspect, will be stronger."
Cheryl's explanation sounded too pat to me. It did not sound… right. I wondered what she
was hiding.
"And finally, there is a small possibility that John did indeed commit suicide. While his
demeanor on his last day was far from that of a man about to commit suicide, the fact that
apparently nobody had the opportunity to slip the cyanide into the whisky points to suicide."
"He was deeply troubled; that is why he was seeking counseling from a psychiatrist. The
despicable Ms Marina was playing mind games with him and, according to Dr. Peters, he was
ready to crack. If the doctor is to be believed, and I see no reason why he should not, John
was about to become a willing slave of Ms Marina. He may have decided to end it all before
that happened.
"Anyway, so there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Almost everybody had some reason to
kill John."
Cheryl took a sip of her coffee.
"I am waiting for one last piece of evidence, which I will receive tomorrow. That evidence
will tell me beyond any doubt if John committed suicide or if he was murdered, and if so,
who killed him."
To say my partner had the room’s attention as they waited for her to continue would be
something in the way of an understatement.
"But I am a reasonable person, so I am giving the murderer a way out. If John’s murderer
comes forth and confesses, the law is bound to look at him or her leniently. I understand you
have the death penalty here in Utah. By coming forward voluntarily, the murderer may well
be able to escape such a final punishment."
Nobody spoke for a while and I saw Cheryl nod to herself.
"All right," she said. 'Let us do it secretly. Jane dear, Reginald is waiting in the hall. If you
would bring him in?"
I got Reginald and he came in carrying a tray with slips of paper in it.
“All ready, Reginald?”
“Yes, ma’am. I have prepared the slips as per your instructions.”
“Then if you would please do the honors?”
Reginald handed each person two small, folded pieces of paper.
"Each of you has two pieces of paper with your name on them. One says 'guilty', the other
'not guilty'. I would like you to put the appropriate piece in the bowl that Reginald is about to
pass around. Like this."
Cheryl unfolded one of the pieces of paper given to her. On it was written 'Cheryl - not
guilty.' She folded it back and placed it in the bowl. She unfolded the other piece and showed
it to us 'Cheryl - guilty'.
"Pass the bowl around, Reginald. This way the murderer can confess to me in secret, and we
will take it from there."
The bowl was passed around and came back to Cheryl. She unfolded all the slips of paper and
looked at them.
"That does it, ladies and gentlemen. As I said before, the truth goes to Sergeant Bob
tomorrow. Thank you for coming for the little gathering."
"A colossal waste of time, if you ask me," George muttered to a murmur of agreement.
As everybody got up to leave, Cheryl motioned me by hand to wait. Pretty soon, everybody
had left, except the two of us and Heather, our hostess.
**********
Chapter-Eight
“Reginald, would you please wait outside in the hall, until I call you?”
“Certainly, ma’am,”
"Well, what did you think of it all?" Cheryl asked Heather when it was just the three of us.
"Oh, I don't know, Cheryl. Why don't both of you sit down. May I offer you a drink? How
about some Blue Label? There is only one bottle left, and with John gone, it will be wasted
anyway."
"Oh, why not? Thanks, Heather. Neat for me, please. No rocks. A fine whiskey like Blue label
should be savored on its own, without any dilution. "
"The same for me, please." I chimed in.
"Teresa, please bring two glasses of Blue Label for our guests. I really don't know what to
make of the meeting, Cheryl. Was it perhaps a trap for the murderer? If it was then the
murderer did not bite. Or did he confess in one of those slips that you passed around?"
"No, I am afraid he did not. I was hoping for a confession, though."
"So what now? I assume you will complete the case tomorrow?"
"Oh, I am hoping to conclude the case today, Heather. That bit about me being able to decide
tomorrow was just a ruse - though I am indeed getting a crucial piece of evidence tomorrow.
You see, I know who committed the murder and how it was committed."
"Oh? Would you care to share it with me?"
"Certainly. Let us consider this mysterious Ms Marina. Ms Marina is a person who loves
John, at the same time she hates John. She loves him, so she does not want him to come to
any physical harm - the last session John described was purely a figment of his imagination.
She does not want any money from him either - at least in his session there is no mention of
paying her anything. She clearly had some hold over him she could have used to extract
money from him. But she didn't."
"This really lets the men out and narrows it down to you, Monica and Melody - although at
one point I also considered Teresa to be a strong suspect. Now, Melody is financially not well
off and could certainly use some money. Yet we know Ms Marina did not ask John for any.
So Melody may be ruled out."
As may be expected, Heather was listening intently as Cheryl brought her up to speed with
her thoughts.
"Now, would Monica, your mother, love John with such a passion, if she cannot have him,
nobody else can? I somehow doubt it. Melody might, since she had had an affair with him,
but not Monica. That leaves only one person.”
I realized I was holding my breath as Cheryl concluded:
“You, Heather, are Mistress Marina"
Heather looked at Cheryl with a mixture of scorn and puzzlement:
"Really, Cheryl? It is a little late for such games. Finish your tale, so we can all retire for the
night."
"But hold on, Cheryl" I chimed in, unconvinced myself by my partner’s revelation. "I don't
think you can rule out Melody that easily. Sure she is poor, but she has excellent prospects, as
a doctor she has potential to earn huge amounts of money. She may have decided that she
does not need John's few hundreds or few thousands. Besides, she may not have wanted to
deprive Heather of the money. As we just saw, she truly loves her sister."
"True, Jane. But there are indications in John's narrative which would rule Melody out. At
one point, John refers to 'her thick tongue'. Melody is quite svelte; she probably does not have
a thick tongue. Also, at one point John refers to 'pendulous breasts'.'"
My thoughts went to the younger sister’s chest.
"Melody is young, I doubt if her breasts have started sagging. Heather here has started to
spread a bit, same as you or I. John's narrative indicates an older woman, someone older than
Melody. There is one point at which John mentions Ms Marina wearing the reading glasses.
That also lets Melody out ."
So much for my suspicions concerning the sister, I chided myself as Cheryl continued,
addressing her thought to me rather than Heather herself.
“Into the bargain, we have also been assuming that Mistress Marina did not use any
equipment because she could not afford it. But what if it was inconvenient for her to buy it
herself? It is an inconvenience that would not apply to Monica, who lives alone and could
easily have done it; where Heather, on the other hand, has servants under her feet all the time
and would have found doing so incredibly difficult. If she builds a dungeon in her house,
servants, unsurprisingly, will begin to wonder. As for the reason she did not ask John for any
money? Well, that is simple. Heather is that she herself is independently wealthy, she did not
need his money.”
I waited, knowing Cheryl had yet to finish.
Sure enough:
“It was not money Heather wanted,” she told me, “but revenge."
I thought about it for a few seconds as Heather sat silently and Cheryl waited, not quite
convinced, for once, of my partner’s reasoning.
"But revenge for what?" I asked finally, triggering Heather herself.
"And exactly how did I administer the cyanide?” Heather queried.
"Yes, I will return to the motive in a minute. But first, how did indeed Heather introduce
cyanide into the whisky decanter? How did she piss into it?"
I, for one, did not have a clue.
"Well, she did it while all of us were looking. And she did it in such a way that none of us,
including the incomparable Cheryl Holmes, suspected a thing."
"You are talking gibberish, Cheryl," Heather said.
"Not at all. How does the magician fool the audience? He distracts their attention, he
introduces red herrings, he uses props, he employs many tricks so that the spectator notices anything but the
trickery."
"Same way a brilliant trick was played here on eight people. There is a story by
G.K.Chesterton. In it, everybody swears up and down that nobody entered the apartment and
nobody could possibly have killed the victim. Then it turns out that a postman entered the
apartment, he was the killer."
"But nobody notices a postman (or mailman, as they call him here). He flies below the radar, in
a manner of speaking."
"In the same way, Heather did indeed introduce the cyanide into the decanter, but it flew
under the radar."
"I still don't get it, dear." I said thoughtfully.
"We all would swear up and down that Heather or anybody else could not possibly have
introduced anything in the whisky decanter. Yet Heather did put something in the decanter in
front of everybody, and nobody noticed it."
"What could she have slipped in it that would escape everybody's attention?"
"Well, think. Heather did put something in the decanter right in front of everybody."
"No she didn't. The only thing… Oh my God!… The stopper!"
"Exactly. She introduced the stopper in the decanter, everybody noticed it, but nobody
thought anything of it. Like the postman in Chesterton's story, nobody would notice the
stopper. Well, the stopper was not the usual glass stopper, but it was made of cyanide
solution."
"You gave me the idea Jane, when you mentioned the drinks we had at Linda's. She had ice
cubes in the shape of a penis. At that time she told us that there is only one company in USA
which makes ice trays to order."
"So if an ice tray can be made to give cubes shaped like a penis, why not one shaped like a
decanter stopper? It would be easy to do."
"There is another way of looking at it. As my illustrious ancestor once remarked, once you have
eliminated the impossible, the remaining, however improbable, is the likely explanation."
"We have established that cyanide could not have been introduced into the whiskey before Heather
put the stopper in the decanter. We have also established that it could not have been introduced after
putting the stopper in the decanter. The only remaining explanation is that cyanide was introduced into
the whiskey with the stopper."
"And how did she piss into the whisky?"
"That was a stroke of genius, my dear. That really complicated the case many fold. You see,
the stopper was not made from cyanide solution in water, but from cyanide solution in
Heather's urine.
"Heather has already mentioned that she has a study exactly identical to that of John. She has
also said that she has a refrigerator in it. She probably prepared the ice cubes in her study -
away from the servants' inquisitive eyes - the previous day.
"In this respect, it is significant that Heather immediately went to the washroom after coming
out of John's study, if you remember. Why? Maybe she did want to urinate, but probably
because she wanted to wash her hands thoroughly, having touched cyanide. The simple act of
going to the washroom assumes enormous amount of significance.
"There was another significant fact. The way Heather offered drinks to the guests was
peculiar. Normally, the hostess would bring the bottle into the room and then ask if anybody
wanted a drink.
"But Heather did not do that. She wanted to minimize the contact with the cyanide stopper.
She first asked if anybody wanted a drink. Then she asked Teresa to get the glasses. Only
after that, she went to the kitchenette.
"There was the decanter full of whisky, with the glass stopper in it. Heather removed the
glass stopper, palmed it and removed the cyanide stopper from the freezer compartment of
the refrigerator where she had placed it beforehand.
"She came into the card room with the decanter open and the cyanide stopper in her palm.
She poured the two drinks - which took less than a minute - quickly replaced the stopper and
took the bottle to John's study.
"What did she do with the glass stopper? Remember, when we went to John's study after the
murder, we saw the stopper lying beside the decanter. Heather was the first to go in after the
door was broken down; she had a few seconds to herself. She probably placed the stopper on
the table besides the decanter before throwing herself onto John's dead body.
"Also remember what Teresa said. When she entered John's study to ask him if he wanted a
drink, she noticed that the decanter stopper was not in the decanter. That is because the
stopper that Heather placed in the decanter was melted by then and was part of the whisky."
"No, I don't like it." I burst out. "Sorry darling, but I think you are on the wrong track here.
Let us assume that Heather did make a stopper out of her piss. Such a stopper wouldn’t just
slowly melt into the decanter. After it has melted a bit, it will be too loose to stay in the neck
of the decanter. It will fall into the whisky with a plop. If you remember, two drinks had
been poured from the decanter and the stopper would have to fall at least a few centimeters to
reach the whisky.”
Cheryl waited for me to finish.
“It would have made a splash, certainly big enough to attract John's attention. He would have
got up to investigate. When he saw that the stopper had fallen into the whisky, he would have
got suspicious. No way would he have drunk the whisky under that condition."
"Bravo, Jane." Heather applauded.
"Yes, very good, dear," Cheryl said, echoing the sentiments of the hostess. "We will make a
detective out of you yet."
It is safe to say that I felt very proud of myself at that point.
"No doubt that is what normally would happen, Jane. But you forget the peculiar relationship
between Ms Marina or, and more accurately, Heather and John."
She turned to Heather.
"You did this as a regular ritual, didn't you? Every time John's decanter needed to be refilled,
you made a stopper out of your piss and placed it in the decanter. That was your way of
emphasizing your dominance over him, making sure that he would never forget."
"Even when he was drinking his favorite whisky, he would remember that he was your
unwilling slave, he would be drinking a bit of your urine. Each sip of Blue Label he took
would remind him of his submissive status to you."
"So on this occasion, when he saw that the stopper had fallen into the decanter, he didn't think
anything of it as it happened every time. Only he didn't know that this time it wasn't only
Heather's piss - 'golden nectar', as they call it in the femdom jargon - but it also had cyanide
in it. It was an extremely cruel, callous and calculated act."
By this point, I was swiftly rethinking my position.
"But you are right Jane,” Cheryl threw me a bone; “the solution becomes implausible outside
the femdom field. If Heather and John did not have a mistress/slave relationship, such a
murder does not become possible."
"And how did she manage to wipe John's desktop clean?"
With a short laugh Cheryl replied:
"Darling, when we know that she did it, the rest follows logically. It is like looking up the
answer at the end of a book. It probably was a virus. My guess is that she paid a computer
nerd to write a virus program for her, which she installed on John's computer a while ago.
The virus was programmed to click on at a predetermined time, or perhaps she had to press a
combination of keys to trigger it.
“If you remember, she was in the room before anybody else, after the murder. It would be
easy for her to punch in a sequence of two or three keys to trigger the virus. No doubt she
wanted to destroy all the correspondence between her and John."
"An interesting fable, Cheryl. And the motive?" Heather asked.
"Yes, the motive. This was not a murder, this was torture on a systematic scale. Marina wanted
John to suffer, and suffer horribly, to go on suffering for a long time. This was not the fun and games that go
on between a dominatrix and her client, which both enjoy hugely. There was a real hatred in Marina's heart
towards John. This was serious business.'
"That was also the reason why I ruled out men. Financial motive alone would not motivate somebody
to resort to torture on such a grand scale. A man would simply have murdered him and moved on."
"It clearly indicated a touch of a woman, a woman so horribly and shamefully scorned, that she thinks her
life was ruined by John, who wanted John to be as miserable as she was. So she took care to ensure that
John did not get any pleasure out of the sessions, and I doubt she got any pleasure either,
except perhaps revenge."
"Once I knew that you were the killer, such a motive was not hard to find. Your
sister had an affair with your husband four years ago. You suffered a miscarriage three years
ago. I don't think the timing is a coincidence."
For the first time since Cheryl had accused her, Heather seemed unsure of herself.
"My guess is that while you were pregnant, you discovered their affair. The shock probably
caused the miscarriage. Maybe you even fainted when you heard the news. Since then you
have blamed John for your miscarriage, perhaps justifiably. I don't think you ever forgave
him for it and considered him responsible. You wanted him to suffer and killing would have
been too good for him. So you decided to humiliate him as much as possible, without
compromising your position in the society."
At this point Heather burst into tears.
Both Cheryl and I waited until she had recovered enough to speak.
"The bastard,” she began. “I wanted him to suffer. It was a few months into my pregnancy
and my computer had crashed for some reason, so I went into my husband’s study to use his.
He was careless; his E Mail account was open. I was able to read all the disgusting,
humiliating E Mails between Melody and him."
Heather’s eyes were gazing far into the distances as she continued, almost in a monotone:
"I got up to run out of the study, but collapsed in a heap and fainted. I had to be hospitalized.
That resulted in the miscarriage.”
After a pause, her eyes came back to earth and she seemed to notice our presence for the first
time.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I wanted him to suffer, I am glad he suffered. I did not kill him
though."
"Indeed. After you suffered the miscarriage, you decided to take revenge upon him. You
bided your time, you plotted. You waited until you were able to catch John in some shady
transaction, with his hand in the cookie jar. Judging from his dealings with George, John was
not a scrupulous person, and I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to get some dirt on him."
Heather was unable to prevent herself nodding.
"Possibly you assisted him, gave him enough rope so he could hang himself. Anyway, the
details of what you had on him are not important. Suffice it to say that eventually you were
able to get enough dirt on him to blackmail him into becoming your submissive."
Cheryl went on:
"Your plan to humiliate him in every possible way was working out perfectly. At each
session you came up with new and innovative ways to humiliate him, insisting he see you as
his dominatrix and not his wife, even - if what we read from Dr Peters’ session notes are
correct - going so far as to make him wear a pair of that wife’s soiled panties to your
sessions."
Heather’s shoulders slumped and she eyed the carpet.
"But then John decided to stand up to you,” Cheryl continued. “Your mother told you that he
was going to give up drinking."
"Now a non Mormon may give up drinking for many possible reasons. But for Mormons,
drinking is forbidden in their religion. If a Mormon gives up drinking, it probably means he
had strayed from his religion and now is rediscovering it once again."
Heather gave a tired shrug.
“Monica said that you broke down and cried in her arms.”
The shrug turned to a nod.
“Sure you did. But those tears were not tears of joy and relief as Monica thought. They were
tears of rage, tears of anger that your prey was about to slip away from your grasp.”
"You realized that the jig was up, that John was going to escape your clutches. He was going
to tell you to go to Hell and dare you to expose him."
"But there was a problem. You really could not expose him without also exposing yourself. If
you did publish the recordings of the sessions, John would have told everybody that you are
indeed this Ms Marina Your position as a wealthy socialite in Salt Lake City would have
been compromised."
"But how did she know that John was going to work late on that particular night, so that she
could murder him in front of everybody and thereby escape detection?" I asked.
"That was the clever part of it,” Jane. ”If she had quietly killed him, suspicion almost
certainly would have turned on her from the very beginning. But killing him in front of so
many people naturally raised the question, how was the cyanide administered? She had a
much better chance to escape detection in that case."
Suddenly, Heather sprang back to life, shoulders erect and full of fight, her momentary loss
of vigor a memory.
"I think you are bluffing, Cheryl,” she sneered. “You don't have a shred of evidence and are
simply trying to trap me. Well, it won't work."
"No, it won't. You are not the tender, soft, sentimental, submissive wallflower that you
project to others. In fact you are a cold, calculating, murderous, sadistic bitch. You are also
an over-confident bitch. That is why you asked myself and Jane to investigate. Not only did
you reason that the mere fact of your asking would deflect suspicion from yourself but you
were totally convinced that your plan was beyond the ken of mere mortals such as a simple
detective and her partner."
Heather gazed back, impassive.
"But once I tell the police what I think, there will be plenty of evidence. For instance, I have
asked my detective friend to inquire with the company which makes the ice trays. He will
have his findings by tomorrow. If you approached any company in Europe or North America
to have such an ice tray made, he will find it."
From the suspect there came not a flicker.
"Then there is the company,” Cheryl persisted. “‘Internal System Devices’. That company
asked that the audit be finished in a hurry, causing John to work late in his study that night.
Inquiries will probably find that you have controlling interest in the company and you twisted
a few arms there, so that they would demand a speedy audit."
"I seriously doubt that you wrote the computer virus by yourself. You very likely got a
computer geek to do it for you, and probably paid him a substantial amount for the illegal
activity. It should be easy enough to establish that by looking at your bank accounts, as police
would be able to do."
Cheryl paused before finishing:
"No, once the police start digging, there will be plenty of evidence."
Heather actually yawned.
"So what do you want, Cheryl? Why are you bothering me with your fantasies, why don't
you go to the police?"
"As I said before, the truth goes to Sergeant Bob tomorrow. Wheels of justice will start
revolving at that time and, once they start, it will be impossible to stop them. You are looking
at a possible death penalty or perhaps a life sentence without prospect of parole. Utah is a
very conservative society; the jury here won't be sympathetic to a sadistic and out of control
dominatrix."
Again Cheryl paused.
"I gave you a chance to confess, admit your guilt, throw yourself at the mercy of the law and
thereby perhaps lessen your sentence. But you did not confess. Instead you voted ‘not guilty’
along with everybody else. In fact, that is why I revealed Melody’s affair with John publicly,
while I said nothing about the secrets of John or Teresa, I wanted to rattle you into a
confession. Well, it didn’t work.”
“Obviously not,” Heather’s expression seemed to say.
“Now, for the sake of your sister and your saintly mother, I am giving you an alternative. No doubt
you have some cyanide left over. You may decide to put it to good use during the night.
Otherwise expect to be arrested tomorrow morning."
Shocked at what my partner was proposing I looked on with open mouth.
"Your mother is a devoutly religious woman, a simple soul and she has a high opinion of you, Heather.
She is proud of the fact that you have stayed true to your religion, while her other daughter has
strayed away from it. This will devastate her. She will be heartbroken and it may even lead to
an early grave for her."
Now something that approached emotion flickered upon Heather’s face.
“Do you really want that, Heather?”
Again the shoulders of our hostess went into a slump as Cheryl pushed on:
"If you decide, on the other hand, that you have had enough of the life events have forced you
to lead, nobody needs to know that you are Ms Marina.”
My partner was instructing this woman to, for all intents and purposes, to commit suicide and
I was finding it – as much as I trusted my partner’s motives and judgments in such situations
-hard to accept.
“If you decide to take this route,” Cheryl went on, “I will close my investigation, tell
Sergeant Bob that John committed suicide and that will end the matter. Your mother will
continue to think highly of you up until her dying days."
Cheryl drained her drink, rose from her chair preparatory to leaving and I did likewise.
"I do believe there is nothing more to say on the matter, though I should caution you about
one thing. My paid detectives are watching your house. If you try to leave the house and
attempt to escape, they have instructions to apprehend you and make a citizen's arrest. They
will then take you to the police station and call me and Sergeant Bob to start the legal
proceedings.”
From our hostess came no reply.
"Well, goodnight Heather. And goodbye. Think carefully about what I said."
With that, we left Heather where she was to contemplate her next move and went out to find
Reginald.
“Come on, Reginald,” Cheryl urged. “Let us go.”
“All concluded satisfactorily I trust, ma’am?”
“Yes, very satisfactory, thank you. Let us get going now, it is getting late.”
I was quiet during our drive to our hotel, I was still thinking about what happened and trying
to reconcile myself with my partner’s out-of-character behaviour.
"Why did you try to persuade her to commit suicide, Cheryl?” I asked finally when we were
ensconced in our room and unable to bear my doubts regarding her actions longer. “That is so
unlike you. I know how much you detest violence of any kind."
Before she answered, Cheryl took my hand and looked into my eyes lovingly.
"You are quire right, dear. I do consider all life to be precious. That is why I am totally
opposed to the death penalty, and I am proud of the fact that Canada abolished it a long time
ago."
“Why then?”
"Because if people like Heather decide to kill themselves, I am OK with that. I didn't want
her to hang though. I find the notion of the government killing one of its own citizens totally
abhorrent, no matter how valid the reason or how evil the person to be executed. As well, in this
case, there are the feelings of innocents such as Monica to protect."
Suddenly, her actions began to make sense again and the world seemed right again.
"Do you think she will do it?" I asked.
"We will see.”
She gave it some thought.
“My feeling is that she probably will."
"Well, whatever the outcome,” I told her, “it was certainly a brilliant piece of deduction on
your part. A great example of lateral thinking. Right at the moment when I mentioned
the drinks, you immediately deduced that ice cubes could be made in the shape of decanter
stopper."
"Lateral thinking, my foot,” she scoffed, as suspicious of compliments as ever. “I have been a
fool and was blind all along. There was a huge big clue staring me right in the face, and I
missed it."
“And what clue was that?"
"What name did Heather assume?"
"Ms Marina, of course."
"Does that convey anything to you?"
"No, I am afraid it doesn't."
"It didn't to me either and should have. I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie. Marina was a
character in one of her books, 'The Mirror Cracked'. Do you remember the plot?"
"I am afraid I don't, I am not such a big fan of her."
"Well, I am and, it would appear, Heather Longbottom was familiar with her work too. There
is a character in that novel called, Marina Gregg. She loses her baby due to miscarriage because
of the actions of another person and commits murder to get even. They even made a movie
based upon this novel, starring Elizabeth Taylor."
The movie rang a bell with me, even if the novel didn’t.
"Whether Heather consciously adopted this name or unwittingly did that, I don't know. I
recall seeing a few Agatha Christie novels in her living room, so it may well have been
deliberate on her part. But it may be that in the end she really wanted to be found out."
I nodded at this last, though I can’t say I thought it likely.
"Anyway, I consider myself a big fan of Christie; I should have been able to figure it out right
away. I am afraid I can't take much credit for this one. Come on, darling. I am feeling horny."
**********
Epilogue
A news item in the Salt Lake Chronicle:
The well known socialite, Mrs. Heather Longbottom died last night by committing suicide.
Reliable sources say that she never quite recovered from her husband's own suicide. She had
been despondent and depressed ever since his death.
She said in her suicide note that she is following her husband into Heaven, since marriage
between husband and wife is not only for life, but for all of eternity (according to Mormon
belief).
We are all going to miss her charity work as well as her love and compassion towards the
poor and the disadvantaged of the society.
The police have officially declared the death of Mr. John Longbottom to be suicide and the
case is now closed.
THE END
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