Waiting for the murder

The murder mystery dinner was a lot of fun. Especially once we got to the murder part.

One by one the six of us gathered at the location at the appointed time--an inconvenient 6 p.m. that required everyone to come straight from work. Paul, Blaine and Eve were in the corridor outside the event room when I arrived. A few minutes later, Allison walked around the corner. Right after, Mica came from the other direction.

Originally, Kim and John were joining us but they had something come up and suggested that Allison and Ty go in their place. Ty wasn’t interested and stayed home with Eli. Blaine suggested Mica join the group. Had the invitation come from someone else, she would have declined since this sort of situation is an introvert’s idea of hell. Blaine, however, has made a very good impression.

The room was set up for dinner, with eight round tables arranged on one side of the space. After choosing a table, most went to the bar to get a drink. I had to pause to blow my nose. Mica hung back with me. “Blaine does look nice in a suit,” she said while idly looking toward where he was in line at the bar. “I still don’t see what you see.”

“In Blaine?” I was well on my way to despair via disbelief.

“No, that I get.”

I shrugged. “It’s just one of those things. Like you and guys in open Jeeps.”

“Except that makes sense to every normal woman.”

Another couple approached the table and asked if they could join us. They were probably in their thirties. He was tall, broad shouldered and lean in the way a brick wall is, and she was willowy with red hair and shy eyes, which put me on her side immediately. We introduced ourselves quickly, then Mica and I went toward the bar. Mica elbowed me and gestured with her head back toward the table. “Now that guy in a Jeep would be my thing.”

“That guy in a Jeep would be a traffic hazard,” I said. I made a few mental notes because if anyone had the characteristics of the lead (I can’t use “hero,” just can’t yet) in a romance, it was him. And his wife, too, would make an interesting love interest.

Eve came from the bar holding two drinks, one that she offered to Mica, explaining it was from Blaine.

I walked around them and met him at the bar as he was dropping bills into the tip jar. “Come over here for a second,” he said as he handed me a drink. He walked toward the back of the room opposite the bar, near a back entrance. It wasn’t hidden from view but was private in that we were significantly apart from everyone else. “How’s your cold?” he asked.

“Much better today. Thank you for asking.” I tried not to smile.

He took a very deliberate step toward me. I didn’t step back. “This is an improvement.” Slowly, he bent toward me, tipped his head down and kissed me, brief, innocent but not without feeling.

I exhaled after. “You’re killing me.”

Surprised, he chuckled, “How am I doing that?”

Where to begin?

Instead of answering I nodded toward the tables. “C’mon. Let’s go solve a murder.” Give time for the chinks in my defenses to refill.

Back at the table, we sat down, Blaine beside Allison and me next to Mica. “Nice moves, Dad,” Allison teased. She, Eve and Mica clapped in what was clearly an agreed upon response. Paul laughed.

We said nothing. Blaine leaned forward and turned toward Allison. I couldn’t see either of their faces, but her arm slid around his shoulders and she squeezed then rubbed his back. I did hear her say, “It’s OK. All of us knew this sort of thing has been going on.” She leaned back and said to me, “I’m sorry if we embarrassed you.”

I shook my head. “Aw, I don’t mind. I’m used to being teased by this group.” I looked at Eve, who corroborated that.

I glanced across the table. The red-haired woman was looking in my direction and gave me a small smile, then went bright red, as she would do every time she spoke to the whole table or someone turned attention on her. Later, I told Mica I thought that sort of blushing only happened in books. It’s totally real and it must suck. After that, I discreetly watched her and her husband because I had to find a plot for them. I liked how he paid attention to her, as if he was always aware of when she needed extra moral support.

Another couple joined our table, filling the last two seats. The woman was great, both at joining the group and working out the mystery. Her husband wasn’t into it, and after awhile I forgot he was at the table.

There was plenty of time for chitchat before things started. That’s when we found out the hard-bodied guy is a police officer. “That’s not going to help tonight,” he warned. I picked up a pen and wrote on the inside Mica’s “Suspect Notebook,” Good Lord. Cop, too. Need oxygen?” She nodded vigorously and busied herself scribbling over all the letters.

I glanced over at Blaine who had decided to remove his tie. The practiced way he loosened the knot, slipped the material through until it was free and slid it easily from around his neck was another one of those melting moments. Then he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt. There’s so much promise in that, there just is. I thought my expression was innocent enough, but I glanced up and saw Eve was smirking at me.

She picked up her spoon and tapped on the side of her glass, shooting Allison a look that egged her on to do the same thing. The rest of the table was confused until the cop said to Blaine and me. “I think they want you to kiss.”

Oh, they’re all so funny. Great guffaws all around the table.

I said, “Shouldn’t someone be getting killed soon? Please let someone die soon.”

It was a while longer before there was a scream, and the mystery portion of the evening started.

A man was killed while celebrating his birthday at the lake with some friends. His brother had organized the party and had invited five others. Those six came around to the tables one by one to speak to the detective teams. We could ask anything we wanted but only had a certain amount of time with each suspect.

The cop held back at first, letting everyone else ask questions. When he took his turn, though, it was fascinating (to me) to observe how practiced he was and how he developed a rapport but switched to showing a harder edge if the suspect avoided answering. He was right that his being a cop wasn’t much help in this situation. The actors would only answer yes/no questions, and those are useless in the real world, apparently. I paid more attention to the cop’s technique than to the information he gleaned.

From our group, Allison and the woman with the disinterested husband were the best at asking questions, mixing a fun approach with unexpected questions that seemed to appeal to the actors. I only asked a few questions directly, preferring to float them to Blaine to ask (an introvert dodge). Mica took copious notes and made sure everyone’s facts were straight. I only wrote down the information that was fed to us by the actors. Some of it, like that the victim’s brother lives in Canada now, meant nothing, but another bit -- that the victim had a girlfriend--ended up being the piece of information we needed for motive. After that it was a matter of finding a suspect we could connect to her.

Theories were wild for a little while. At one point most a the table were convinced twins were involved and the victim wasn’t actually the victim but the murderer. No one was more surprised than me when I tossed out a theory that pinned it on a suspect we hadn’t really considered. “When he wandered up to our table he was checking his Tinder account. If we can prove the girlfriend was on Tinder, we can connect them.”

The cop came unglued. “Yes. Yes!” Can’t say that wasn’t satisfying.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that, but we were given other information that connected that suspect to the girlfriend, so we proved our theory anyway.

And so did all but two other tables.

Overall, it wasn’t terribly challenging but it was a ton of fun.