Crime and Condiments: The Mustard Murders

Detective Camembert

New Yolk, it's a hardboiled city, everybody scrambling to get a job. If you don't watch your back, one day you'll find yourself dead, sunny side up. It's a rotten neighborhood, but hey, it's home. This city's not what it used to be, merely a shell of its former glory. This town used to be a capitol of art and culture, chicks as far as the eye could see. Now it's just a breeding ground for crime. It's a seedy place to live, and I don't just mean the stuff they put on your plate, I mean the stuff that goes on in the shadows. Just don't go getting yourself into trouble out there. I know what you're thinking, who would ever want to live there, but to tell you the truth, underneath it all, New Yolk is a place to go when you don't fit in, the grease trap for all walks of life. That's how I ended up here, doing this. The name's Camembert, Benedict Camembert. I'm just your neighborhood private detective, but this job, it means so much more to me than that.

It was a murky Tuesday morning, the smog of city life hung heavy in the air. It was the usual sound of those rooster punks in the apartment next door that got me awake. The crackling sound of their old radio, blasting just high enough to hear it through the thin walls. I begin my day with the same precision I use in everything I do. I get dressed and cleaned up by 6:30 am on the dot. As I go to leave, I grab my coat, ironed to perfection, not a wrinkle in sight and I head downstairs. I'm not much of a morning person myself, so I always make a point of grabbing my revolver from the left hand drawer of my desk before I go to breakfast. Breakfast consists of a glass of barley from Sam & Ella's Diner. It's not a high class establishment by a long shot, but it has everything a man could need, diner in the front, strip club in the back. I must admit, I've found myself back there on a couple of occasions, it's quite a place, happy hour 24/7. As much as I enjoy life's little luxuries, I'm an honest man. I pour myself into my work, and more often than not, I'm off chasing leads halfway across the city. Nowadays, the diner's just a place to get a bite to eat when I'm feeling peckish.

I trudged outside to get more of a view of the city, but it's not much of a view at all. The low, drifting clouds of brown and gray sweep across the stony landscape. A fine day for a day at home, I caught myself thinking. If only that was an option.

The subway ride to Midtown was a long one. I must admit, I was in a bit of a mood that day, it's just one case that had me stumped. A mysterious figure, waltzes in, steals $40,000 worth of mustard tinted diamond jewelry, and waltzes back out. Trouble is, the employees claim they saw nothing, and the witnesses on the street can only describe him as winged. Sure, only a bird could fit that description, but here in the underbelly, any animal walking these streets would have to be a bird. That, or a very large bat.

I arrived at my destination, a gloomy, simple brick and mortar building surrounded by the bustling traffic and city lights of downtown. To most private detectives, it would be unheard of for one of us to seek help from one of them, but choices were limited, and desperate times called for even more desperate measures. Besides, the 'ol rafter owed me a favor. I knocked and was met by a friendly secretary who kindly led me to his office.

"Det. Philippe Asiago. NYDP"

I tapped out a little rhythm with my knuckles on the door and was greeted with smiles and thanks. Philippe Asiago and the rest of the New Yolk Department of Police, had run into some issues a few years earlier. Some petty criminal was taking photos and tapping phone lines, shady blackmail type business. So I tracked him down, turned out he had bigger fish to fry, and he led me straight to a major crime ring. Once all that was taken down, the police awarded me some made up medal of honour and told me to get lost. Philippe on the other hand, had a few sensitive documents that were threatened to be leaked, important passwords, security codes, and photos, among other things. He felt he owed me, and frankly we became close pals. Now I needed to call on that favor. I asked him to look in the files, off the books, and see what had been stolen in the past few years, escaped convicts, unsolved cases, names and numbers, the basics. A few promising documents surfaced. I took out my old leather bound notebook and scrawled down some important points.

The Mustard Thief. Possible suspects:

Barley Butler

- Turkey

- Known thief

-Why the jewelry? Money?

Honey Dijon

- Chicken

- Guilty of petty theft

- Has an eye for expensive jewels

Gordon Bleu

- Rooster

-Clever con artist

-Has been completely missing since 3 days after the robbery

It was certainly a start. At daybreak tomorrow, I would get cracking, but for now, I would go home and enjoy a cup of earl gray and a nice helping of smooth jazz.