Crime and Condiments: The Mustard Murders

The Crystal Clue

The sun seemed to rise early the next morning, but nothing rose earlier than me. I had a mission. Flying may be a fantasy for most chickens, but I tell you, I flew down those stairs. I had a lead. One of the suspects, Honey, was only a couple floors out of my reach, and I had questions. Turns out, she worked at Sam & Ella's. Not the diner though. I had my barley shake early today, and made my way behind the door that linked to the club. At the pay station I requested a word with Honey, turns out she was booked by Gordon Bleu. It was just my luck, two suspects in the same place, mere doors away from my own humble apartment. I asked the chick where they were, and she told me Gordon hadn't shown up for his reservation yet. I asked when it was paid, she answered four days ago. Perhaps my missing suspect could be a clue after all. She told me her name was Rosemary, I thanked her politely and waited my turn. Honey was stunning, a fresh cut of meat. I have to admit I'm a sucker for chicken breast. But I had to stay focused. I asked her where she was the night of the robbery. She was disgusted by my accusations. I thanked her for her time and left, tipping generously. Though I still had my suspicions, I went to meet Barley at his place of work.

Barley Butler worked at a dirty tattoo shop that was not up to health code regulations. Despite my deep distaste, Barely seemed a nice enough guy. When I asked what he was doing the night of the robbery, he simply stated a perfectly well balanced alabi that I could not ignore. He had an appointment with his doctor. He didn't plan to have the papers presented, so it seemed truthful enough, and when I requested to see said papers, he fished in his pockets and produced them. Besides, this guy didn't seem quite the AAA pack of meat required for these kinds of heists, the fact that he had got away with robbery before, seemed in itself unimaginable. I went home, goal unfulfilled, and slumped down on my couch. There must have been some other suspect in the files. This was too perfect a crime for a first time offender, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe... I decided to pour all attention fully into a game of solitaire. That's when a knock came at my door.

I opened the door and recognized her immediately, it was the chick from the club, Rosemary. She came in right away and sat herself down shakily into my chair. The poor thing looked as though she had seen a ghost.

"It's terrible,'' she said.

"I got a call, on my personal phone. It was right after you left, I was cleaning up at the end of my shift, and I got this call." She broke down.

"What was on the call?"

"It was a man, he said he worked for the New Yolk Museum of Art, security guard of some kind. They found Gordon's body, on one of his art installations."

"And?"

"I don't know, they said he was stabbed."

"I'll go check it out for you darling. Do you have a number I could call?"

"Yes right here," she said, passing a business card. "Rosemary Tenderloin, but you can call me Rose."

"And you can call me Ben," I said, guiding her to the door. This case just got a lot more interesting.

I took the subway to the New Yolk Museum of Art. The carved marble archway that towered above, cast a looming shadow on the intricate doorway, giving the whole ordeal a touch of appropriate mystery. I arrived at the scene, and what a scene it was. The carcass was draped in the arms of a carved stone sculpture of a woman collecting eggs. The image was eerie. It was as if the woman in stone was staring right at him, as though he was meant to complete the sculpture. I shuddered.

As it turns out, the title of this piece was Life And Death, and was one of the very expensive pieces that Gordon Bleu had curated in his own art show scheduled for the following night.

Gordon was a very wealthy con man, and though how he got his dough may be questionable, there was never an accusation his lawyers couldn't get him out of. In fact, as morally wrong as his crimes were, they never seemed to break any laws entirely, so he continued business as usual. For this reason, it was clear that someone like him would have enemies, making his death not come as too much of a surprise.

As I examined the body I did notice some peculiar details. Though it was clear that stabbing was the cause of death, with multiple stab wounds scattered around his breast, he would have been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, and bleeding out onto the floor. As far as I could tell, there was no blood anywhere at the scene of the crime, save for the tiny soaked through splotches on his ruffled white shirt. Something else about the shirt striked me as odd, and that was the fact that there were no holes in the shirt. How strange for someone to go through the effort of stabbing somebody and changing their attire. What would the murderer have to gain from their victim wearing their Sunday best? I quickly jotted down some chicken scratch notes, barely legible through my excited shakes, and returned to my observations.

The victim's face lay frozen as freezer burned fish sticks, stuck in a stubborn and defiant grimace. His hands were clenched shut, with such force the dormant veins stretching from his knuckles to his elbow had turned a bulging blue gray, a tone his skin would soon match. I shifted my focus back to his resting place before doing a double take. A slight shimmer in the palm of his hand had caught my eyes through the space between his feathery finger and thumb. I pried his hand open and felt my breath leave my body. There in his cold, dead palm, lay a single, mustard tinted diamond.

I was staring at the beautiful gem for much longer than necessary, debating in my mind, whether or not I should pocket the evidence. Illegal as it may be, me and the NYDP have had our differences over the years, and a loss for them is a win for me. On the other hand, Phillippe and I had grown to be close pals, a win for his precinct could mean a raise for him. But on the other, other hand, a win for me could mean I get paid for catching both the mustard thief and this murderer. On the other, other, other hand... my train of thought was cut short by a little tap on the shoulder.

I spun around and found myself face to face with a chick in a tailored, light pink pantsuit. She was wearing a pair of horn rimmed, turtle shell glasses, a pencil behind her ear and was clutching a clipboard. I took mental note of all of this and I deducted that she was an assistant of some kind, either for the museum or for Gordon. She asked me what I was doing, so I carefully explained how the robbery had led me to this most interesting case, omitting certain details, such as the priceless diamond currently separated from its $40,000 necklace and earring set. Why keep secrets? Because just seconds before, when she had tapped my shoulder, I had slipped the yellow gem into the breast pocket of my coat.