Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich. The characters from “Clue” belong to other people (Parker Brother’s maybe?). All are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
An Pleasant Evening Complete With Murder
By TT
Joyce Barnhart was dead.
That was an indisputable, undeniable fact.
The only question that remained was, who killed her and why?
The only problem was, the list of suspects was limited and it would be a while before anyone else could be by to help. That meant that we were on our own for now.
In celebration of twenty-five years in the business, Lucille, Vinnie’s wife, had decided to throw a party at the trendiest new Trenton club around. She invited everyone who worked at the office. Not everyone could come, but that was OK. Lula, Connie and I had planned to enjoy the evening in a club we wouldn’t normally be able to enter.
The private room she had reserved for us had an electronic lock on it. It was the only way in or out of the room.
That fact hadn’t been too disturbing until the power went out locking us in the room with no means of escape. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad, except for the really loud bang when the power went out and before the security lights began working. Having Joyce’s carcass lying in the middle of the floor wasn’t doing much for any of us either.
My stress levels were increased even more by the fact Joe had somehow managed to get into the room with us. So now, not only was there a dead body, but in addition to Lula, Connie and Vinnie freaking out, I was treated to the added tension of Joe and Ranger both being in the room with me. Unfortunately, despite the murder, they were both trying to stake their claim on me and I was getting tired of it.
“Shut up!” I screamed when I’d had enough. “Just shut up.” Taking a deep breath, I looked at everyone. Morelli and Ranger were both looking a little sheepish, but I just didn’t want to deal with them right now. “Connie, grab the tablecloth off the table. At least we can cover her. Lula, you go sit down at the table. It’s on the other side of the room so the death cooties won’t get you.” I looked at Vinnie and sneered. I couldn’t help it. He just brings it out of me. He headed over to the table as well.
By this time Connie was back with the tablecloth and Joe and Ranger had gotten their heads together again. They accepted the tablecloth and crouched down beside Joyce, beginning to discuss what they were seeing.
I tuned out, took one look at the table and headed toward the couch. It was nearer the body, but further from Vinnie. Right now that seemed to be the lesser of two evils.
When Joe and Ranger covered the body and pulled out their phones to call whoever they were going to call, I heard just enough to know that Joyce had been shot with what looked like a 9mm and that the gun had been far enough away that there were no powder burns.
It didn’t mean much to me, only what I knew from watching television, so I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes and must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up, I was in a study.
Of course, I’d never been in a study before in my life, but I knew that was exactly where I was.
Rubbing my eyes, I looked around. I was in a peacock blue evening dress. Lula was in a tight-fitting scarlet concoction. Connie was decked out in a black dress that accentuated all of her assets. Vinnie was looking his normal slimy self in a shiny, brown polyester suite with a dark purple shirt and tie. Glancing over, I wasn’t surprised to see Joe dressed in a non-descript dark suit, white shirt and dark green tie. Ranger in his army dress uniform, however, nearly took my breath away.
On the floor was a body-sized lump underneath a blanket that must have come from the back of the couch where I was resting.
“Decided to join the rest of us, Mrs. Peacock?” Ranger asked with a smile.
I blinked a few times. “Huh?” I asked.
Ranger’s comment seemed to have drawn everyone else’s attention to me as well.
“It’s not every woman who can fall asleep in the presence of a murder victim,” Joe said, looking at me suspiciously.
“What exactly are you saying, Mr. Green?” Connie inquired, her voice passive.
“Nothing at all, Mrs. White,” he assured, turning toward Connie.
“Best not be saying anything bad about women,” Lula insisted, nearing rhino mode. “Guns are a man’s game. Women are more subtle.”
“Says Miss Scarlet,” Vinnie sneered.
“You just keep your mouth shut, Professor Plum,” Lula responded. “Else I’ll have to teach you a lesson or two on respect.”
I shuddered at the look of excitement on Vinnie’s face.
Turning to face Ranger, I was just about to ask why everyone was going by a different name when Lula interrupted again.
“You’re nothing but a sleaze,” she continued berating Vinnie. “Now, Colonel Mustard, over there…” she began, trailing off as her eyes raked over Ranger. “Mm–mm. I just love a man in uniform.”
Shaking my head, I tried to figure out what was happening. Finally, I gave up and asked, “What’s going on?”
“I would think that was quite obvious, Mrs. Peacock,” Joe answered, sounding as if he was speaking to a child.
Ranger glared at him. “The lights went out. A gunshot sounded, the lights came on and Mrs. Body was dead,” came the succinct explanation.
“Uh huh,” Stephanie replied. “So do we know who shot her?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Joe grumbled.
“Does anyone have the gun?” Stephanie asked.
“It was locked up with the rest of the weapons in the cupboard,” Connie informed.
“Yeah, but it was given to you,” Vinnie pointed out.
“What exactly are you saying, sleaze bag?” Connie demanded.
Vinnie sneered again. “Nothing at all.”
“Mrs. White, Professor Plum, if you’re quite through,” Ranger said calmly. “The first thing I think we need to do is figure out where everyone was at the time the lights went out.”
“Good idea, Mustard,” Joe said.
At this point, I stood up. As the silk of my evening gown glided down my bare legs, I shivered slightly at the sensation and glanced up to see both Ranger and Joe’s eyes locked on me. Both pairs of eyes were several shades darker than they normally were and I knew exactly what they were thinking.
A snort of disgust from Lula caused me to glance her way. She just shook her head and looked away.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Well, if we’re going to do this, we should do this.”
“I can think of quite a few things I’d like to do just about now,” Joe murmured.
I felt my jaw drop open slightly before shaking it off and looking around the room. “Ok, let’s get real here,” I said. “If we’re all locked in this room together, most likely one of us is the murderer. Maybe we should start by figuring out what we’re all doing here and who had a motive to killer her.”
“Your motive is plain as day,” Vinnie inserted. “You found her on the dining room table doing something other than eating. I’d say that gives you plenty of motive.”
“That was years ago,” I protested. “Besides, I’m better off without him.”
“Well,” Connie said, hesitantly. “She does interfere with your work a lot and tries to cause problems for you whenever she can.”
“Still not enough reason to want her dead,” Stephanie pointed out. “And what about you? You have to put up with her all the time, her comments and disgusting behavior.”
“Not that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but if I were going to take care of her, there’d be no one around,” Connie retorted.
“Can’t imagine Colonel Mustard there would get into such a jam either,” Vinnie added, leering at Ranger.
I felt a cold chill race down my spine at that look. The hard glare Ranger shot Vinnie’s way was enough to quell the duck lover.
“What about you?” Stephanie asked, looking at Lula.
“Skank put moves on my man,” she replied. “But I’d be getting a lot more personal than that if I was going after her.”
“And you?” she asked looking at Joe. Her spidey sense began to tingle as Joe shifted from foot to foot. Crossing her arms across her chest and tapping her foot, Stephanie demanded, “Out with it.”
Joe slammed his cop face into place and stared back.
Finally it was Lula who spoke up. “The skank had some compromising pictures of him with Mob Boss Barbie.” That statement earned her a glare from Joe.
I had a feeling I knew why they were compromising and made a point to speak seriously with him after this was all over. Turning to Ranger I looked at him and raised my eyebrows.
Ranger looked at me and sighed. “She sexually assaulted my men and myself. She was annoying.”
I couldn’t help the sympathy that filled me when I thought of all those attractive men suffer as Joyce threw herself at them. That would be annoying, but I couldn’t ever see Ranger going to this extreme to stop an annoyance.
“Of course, you forgot to mention the fact that she claimed to have evidence you lied to the ATF on your latest case,” Joe inserted.
My eyes flew back to Ranger’s face and widened, but his blank face was firmly in place and completely unreadable. I wanted to see his eyes directed at me so I could see if there was something more to this, but he was busy glaring at Joe who was looking way too smug.
Turning away from them, I looked at Vinnie and narrowed my eyes. “You… what did she do, threaten to tell your wife? That would get you in deep trouble with her father.”
Vinnie just shrugged. “I had no reason to kill her,” he said, offering no more of a defense.
“Well, someone did,” I observed with a huff of disgust.
Stalking away from everyone, I wandered over to the bar at the far side of the room. Despite my extremely low tolerance for alcohol, I really needed something to drink right now.
Once behind the bar, I stepped back toward the wall to get a better look at what was under there. That’s when my heel hit the wall behind me and I noticed a hollow thump. Glancing up, no one else had noticed, they were too busy arguing amongst themselves.
In a moment, I was crouched down facing the wall behind me.
The dim light that was available was just enough for me to identify the outline of a three-foot square of wall that had been cut out and replaced.
Rising just enough to peer over the top of the bar, I realized that all of my actions were still unnoticed.
It only took me a few minutes to figure out how to remove the square of wood. When I had, something caught my eye on the floor inside. Picking it up, I easily identified it as a piece of black leather fringe.
I cast my mind back and quickly realized who I had seen wearing something with such a fringe.
Rising from my hidden position, I stood up and tried to get everyone’s attention.
When that failed, I put my fingers to my lips and let out a shrill whistle.
That certainly got everyone’s attention. As soon as I was satisfied they were all looking at me, I announced, “I know who it was. It was Jeanne Ellen, in the study, with a…”
A loud bang sounded and I immediately sat up, gasping.
Looking around, I was still in the special VIP room at the club, everyone who had been here before was still here and Joyce was still dead, covered by a tablecloth.
I scanned the room looking for the source of the banging. It didn’t take me long to identify it as the door to the room crashed onto the floor and several Rangemen stepped inside.
Blinking in confusion, I stood up and felt the tiny little blue dress I’d chosen for tonight shift and straighten from where it had twisted while I slept. Glancing over, both Ranger and Joe’s eyes were much darker than usual and every hormone in my body stood at attention at the sight.
With a shake of my head, I tried to focus on everything else around me, but it was complete chaos.
It was several hours later when the lights were on and Eddie stepped into the office where the six of us had been sequestered.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” he said.
“What’s the bad news,” I asked before anyone else could.
“We haven’t caught the murderer yet,” Eddie admitted with a grin. He knew I always wanted the bad news first. I liked happy endings.
“And the good news?” Joe asked.
“The security camera caught the murderer on-tape. We know who it is,” Eddie informed.
“Well, don’t keep it to yourself,” Vinnie demanded.
“It was Jeanne Ellen,” Eddie replied. “We’ve got an APB out on her.”
“Why in the world would Jeanne Ellen want to kill Joyce?” I asked, baffled.
Ranger sighed. “Yours wasn’t the only marriage Joyce broke up,” he informed quietly.
All motion stopped and everyone looked at him. “Huh?” I asked, eloquent as always.
He smiled at me and shook his head. “Jeanne’s little sister walked in on her husband and Joyce in bed. She was devastated by what she’d seen and took it much harder than anyone would have thought. After the divorce, she suffered from extreme depression and low self-esteem. She took her own life last week. Jeanne Ellen asked me to cover her skips while she was out of town for the funeral. My guess would be she found something while cleaning out her sister’s stuff that led her to believe Joyce was responsible for her sister’s death.”
Silence reigned for several seconds after this revelation.
Eddie broke it by saying, “You’re all free to go.”
Lula and Vinnie didn’t waste a second getting out of the room. Connie followed more slowly and Eddie followed her.
I was still lost in thought and feel bad about my lack of regret over Joyce’s death when I realized both Joe and Ranger were looking at me.
The truth was, I didn’t want to deal with either of them right now, so I just glared at them both, turned on my heel and walked out.
I’d had enough chaos for one night.
End