The Butler Didn't Do It

Not Asking For Murder

Brett woke with a start, as a pair of strong hands grabbed him. Startled he began to punch at the solid figure. “No!”

“Brett! Brett! It’s me!”

Max stopped shaking Brett and once a shocked Brett became less violent, Max looked at the bloody leg, further ripping open the pants to better assess the injury.

“Good. It’s not dire. It’s actually stopped bleeding, although we should still clean it and---“

Brett interrupted him. “How did you find me?”

Max was helping Brett up, “We need to get you to the house before everyone wakes up. You’re a mess. We don’t want to explain this to the police. They’ve been searching the house for a killer all night. They are not in a good mood.”

Remembering Max’s story to get the guard away, Brett understood. “But how did you find me.”

“I called you.”

Brett looked at the phone in his pocket. He’d missed three calls. All from Max.

“I knew you were out here and when I couldn’t find you I figured you must be in trouble. I was just coming out to pull you back into the manor so the police wouldn’t think YOU were the knife prankster but I saw blood on a tree….”

“You saved me.”

Shaking his head and dragging Brett along at a quick pace, luckily Brett’s leg wound was superficial although it ached as the flesh stretched around it tearing slightly. “I didn’t save you, you were sleeping in a hole and no one was around.”

“You don’t understand---“

“Not now. We need to get you cleaned up. Fill me in on everything once you don’t look like literal death.”

Later, after Brett was changed into fresh clothes and Max had heard all the events that transpired the night before, the boys were walking the upper floor on duty.

“I still can’t believe it.”

“There have been three murders.”

“But none of them were like my friend. “

Brett didn’t meet Max’s eyes. “So we’re good.”

Max stopped Brett and turned him around so he was forced to make eye contact. “ Dude. You’re dumb and bullheaded. But yes, we are friends. You just need to get comfortable with the idea that I’m not going to be a jerk to you.” And with that, he continued down the hall. Brett smiling walked by his side.

SMASH!

“You i***t!”

“Are you kidding?”

Max recognized the voice before Brett and took off toward the sounds of confrontation. It was coming from the guest quarters. Brett, without question, followed.

When he got to the source of the sounds of the fighting he found Max holding back an enraged Tanya who, left to her own devices, would have scratched Didi’s colored contacts out.

/

Tanya, you need to calm down.”

“I’ll calm down when she’s dead!” Tanya was almost snarling.

“Such violent words! I’ve never seen such aggressive behavior unfitting of a lady, even a maid.” Didi said with mock lady-like innocence.

This set Tanya off and she lurched again toward the conniving girl. “AGHH!”

Now Brett was helping Max. “Tanya, what happened?”

"She’s been doing this all week, and I’m not taking the blame for it anymore.”

Brett was going to ask what she was talking about. But then he noticed the shattered mug on the ground from which a brown liquid slowly stained the carpet.

And he knew right then. “You’re not clumsy…” Tanya looked at him. “Has she been blaming you for all the damages this whole time?”

Didi tried to look shocked. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Don’t you realize that Tanya’s had to pay for that dress, those books, that curtain, everything you said she clumsily broke, from her own hard-earned paycheck?”

Didi blushed. “I didn’t want her to lose her money. I just wanted another lady’s maid.”

“It’s 2017! Are you afraid of a---“ Max begin to speak, but Tanya interrupted him. “It’s not that.”

Tanya looked at the Didi with a scornful expression. “You were quite friendly with me the first day until you saw your father kiss me.”

“You kissed him!”

“If I kissed him, as you say you saw, what happened next?”

“I didn’t stay, I ran away,” Didi admitted.

“Well, I didn’t kiss him back. I punched him. I hit punched and told him if he ever took that kind of leeway with me again I’d have him arrested.”

The young heiress, mouth opening, and closing seemed to struggle for words. But Tanya had plenty. “While you had the privilege of crying in your room making up the world that suited you, I was fighting against a world that was unsuited to me. Your father is a cad, and I’m sorry you have to face that.”

“He’s just angry at my mother. She won’t let him have partial custody of me.”

“You don’t find it strange that he’s been so aggressive about that this week? Didn’t you say he never saw you much when they were together anyway.”

“Well, he had to work.”

“Is that what you call philandering? Does it pay well?”

“Shut up!”

“No, you listen. We’ve seen you sneak out of here at night, you like the idea that you are breaking the rules and that your dad loves you so much that he wants you to destroy your mom’s credibility so you can live sometimes with him.”

Max nodded. “We heard them talking. He wants her shares for this place.”

Didi shook her head wildly. “He loves me.”

“He loves money.”

“And younger women,” Brett added. Then he realized something. “So the killer didn’t attack you?”

“No…that was a lie.”

“Were you alone?”

Didi nodded.

“How did you get rid of the knife?”

I threw it in the lake.

“Well, say what you want about endless wealth, but I don’t mind cleaning these folk’s shoes when I know that I have a Nana who wouldn’t want me to frame my mom for murder.”

“Oh. Max”

“That explains how the couldn’t find the culprit,” Brett said, “She redoubled everyone’s belief that Gregory did it. He probably has had to hide even longer than he should have.”

“But it still doesn’t explain where Gregory is.”

We know he left jail.

“According to Rodgers he came back to the property and has been wreaking havoc.”

“Could Rogers be lying?”

“Rodgers has been Gregory’s champion since the beginning. I’m sure he’s just worried about his guests and business.” Max said. “ “Maybe Didi’s suggestion made him doubt his own faith in Gregory.”

“Then we have to tell him,” Tanya decided.

“What’s he going to do?”

“Tell the cops! Something! I don’t know! But we have to figure out---“

“Why is there so much screaming over here?”

The three turned to encounter a sour looking Lars. “Isn’t there a chamber pot for you to go and clean somewhere?”

“You work here. You know the bathrooms are modern.”

“It was a figure of speech. We’re short-staffed. Go find something to clean.”

“Why don’t you do any cleaning?”

“I’m a senior butler.”

Tanya couldn’t help but add, “Until Gregory gets back.”

“Murders don’t get to be butlers.”

“You are full of absolutes lately.” Tanya was ready for a fight.

“Is this why you don’t have any friends?” Brett was also done letting Lars s**t on his friend.

Lars had enough. “Perhaps you don’t take this job seriously.” Lars straightened his posture and did his best to look down at the three though Max was the same height. “But it’s an honor to work one’s self up in an organization like this. When there aren’t any murders or missing person investigations it’s like living in a fantasy.”

“Dude, do fantasize about being a real butler?”

“I fantasize about order, I fantasize about acting. This is a chance to get to be completely in character. Not cleaning or fetching little things, I am a trusted confidant for a gentleman, a part of the experience for guests. The fact that this job is salaried is just a bonus.”

“Did you know Lynn?” Brett had been struck by a sudden urge to ask the question.

This question threw Lars. “I did. She was a maid and, like you, troublesome.”

“And all the s****l harassment claims?”

“Oh for god's sake! These are college girls who sometimes get swept up in the role-play. We have strict rules here and had any guest broken them flat out they would have been ejected. “

“Flat out is an interesting quantifier.”

“There’s always a gray area. Lynn was proof of that. You should have seen her. She was always overly familiar with the guests, giving the men that little extra smile when she fetched them a drink. Bending over to constantly clean and show off her butt. She knew what she was doing. She was just unhappy when the result didn’t end as she hoped it would.”

Brett hazarded a guess, “With marriage?”

“With money! Are you all really this dumb? You didn’t’ know her. I heard about those letters. She was obsessed with her lover. And when he didn’t reciprocate she had a meltdown and ran off.”

“Then why call the police and say she had been harassed?”

“To cause trouble, that’s what women do.”

A cold voice joined the fray, “Is it?” Lucy stepped out from behind a corner.

I came to see what all the yelling was about She slowly sauntered toward Lars, her eyes hard. Lars was about to say something but Lucy said, in a mock-Lars voice. “Shouldn’t you Be doing dishes, making a sandwich, giving someone a blowjob?” She switched back to her normal tone, “There I’ll say all the things you wanted to say.”

Lars was slipping over his words, “I never…I said…I wouldn’t…”

“Because that’s all we are to you isn’t it? Horney little s*x-obsessed harpies only after big d***s or money, and since you have not enough of either you think we are all the worse.”

Lars tried to say look composed but he’d been literally backed against a wall didn’t aid much in his attempt to show strength. Lucy closed in. “Let me be clear. Lynn wasn’t asking for it, but you are. You’re asking for me to stick a broomstick up your ass although I’m not sure it would fit up there with your stupid head.”

She stepped to the side so he could get by. “Now go. You may have no interest in the truth but we do. And, “ she leaned in close; “if you tell anyone about this conversation or try to get us in trouble I promise you that all that hate you think you feel downstairs, you find out it’s not in your imagination.”

Lars ran.

“Lucy, thank you.” Brett was impressed with how she’d chased off potential trouble.

“He’s a creep. He’s not the only one, but he’s the only one who’s easy to scare away here.” She looked each of them in the eye. “Now, I need your help.”

Being quiet to avoid attention Brett whispered to Lucy as they snuck down a hall, “How are we going to get into the professor’s room?”

Lucy smiled. She held up a key that was in her apron pocket. Brett recognized it.

“That’s Gregg’s master key! How did you get it? Have you seen him since----?”

Lucy shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him. He gave it to me when he was released the first time, in case something happened to him. We were both trying to figure out the truth. We knew Lynn wouldn’t just disappear.”

“But the letters…”

“That’s what I want to see. The police say that all the handwriting checks out. She wrote them, but don’t you remember what the professor said?”

“He said something like, they didn’t know what they really are?”

“He said, ‘there’s more in the letters than the police knew how to find’.”

Realization donned on Tanya. “She wrote in code!

“Exactly. And I found them in the professor’s room. But I’m no cryptographer. If there was any code it is beyond me.”

Finally, they reached the door. There were no remnants of the police tape. Lucy slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened slowly and she flicked the lights on.

The inside of the room was sparse but the professor's slippers still sat on the ground. His books were on the desk. His overcoat still sat across a chair. All of it looked as if he’d just left and would be back for them after a stroll. But the books were showing a faint lair of fine dust, probably brought in by the detectives. It was sad to think of the books unread, the slippers unworn, the jacket never hung. Who would eventually be tasked with emptying this room?

And then he saw the picture. It was a man, obviously the professor, and a young woman, no more than 22 years old. She had a beaming smile, and the same dark hair of her father but her face was heart-shaped, with large eyes and a button nose. She could easily have been cast as a Disneyland princess. This must have been Lynn. Although he had never asked what she looked like, he knew that this had to be her. A daughter, so beloved by her father, that he couldn’t accept the idea that she would just run off, no matter how badly she had messed up.

Brett looked closer. There was something else familiar about that face. He felt like he’d seen it before…

“Here they are! Lucy reached under the mattress and brought out some letters. “He hid them, there’s a hole he cut in the mattress. I’m not going to be the one to tell Davidson. Besides I don’t want these letters to just vanish like she did….”

“Can we see?”

They shuffled through the letters. Max picked up one of the shortest.

September 5th

Hey!

Even though I said I’d write I got so busy.

Lately, I haven’t had time to write!

Please forgive me!

“It’ she only letter she didn’t sign,” Max noted.

Tanya gasped and indicated 4 words with her finger. “Hey. Even. Lately. Please.”

“Um…” Max was not sure what she meant.

Brett saw it next. “Oh no…”

The first letters of each word spelled another word. HELP.