Tales of the Parodyverse

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champagne
Sun Jan 07, 2007 at 11:24:39 pm EST
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since you insisted - dont expect this to be a regular thing
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Charming Curt Cockaran was dead, a bullet hole in his forehead. After he’d died – in his locked cabin aboard the Bahrain Queen luxury cruise ship, the very night he’d won the World Poker Championship – someone had slit open his stomach and pushed a hand of cards into his belly.

“The same hand he won the final pot, the trophy, and the half million dollar prize money,” Champagne said. “So who had a good reason to kill him?”

There were plenty of suspects. Sixty-three players who hadn’t won the tournament for a start. “You claimed he cheated on that last hand,” Champagne said to Good Time Talbot, the runner up.

“The judges said different. I thought he must be getting signals from someone in the crowd. He kept looking there. He said he was just eyeing up that busty girlfriend of his.”

“Were you signalling to Charming Curt?” Champagne asked supermodel Carlotta De Vore. “Mr Talbot thinks you were.”

“As if I’d do anything to help that love rat! I walked in on him last night with a couple of floozies from the cabin staff. If I find out who killed him I’ll kiss them on the lips.”

“Where were you when Curt was killed? About 11pm?”

“Like I’d tell you. The tabloids are bad enough as it is. But I have an alibi if I need one.”

Mr Benson, the tournament organiser, was the last man to see Cockaran alive (except the murderer). “How did Charming Curt seem?” Champagne said. “Was he happy at winning the tournament? Was he alone? What did he plan to do next?”

“He was rich. Of course he was happy. He was drinking bubbly and boasting how he was the best card player in the world.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes. And he locked the door behind me when I left. It was still locked when the steward brought the new bottle of Dom Perignon he’d ordered twenty minutes later. He called through the door to leave it outside.”

“And it was never taken inside. But there were two glasses delivered.”

Champagne checked the door lock. It could be double locked from inside the cabin, and had been. They’d broken the lock when they’d forced their way in the next morning. There wasn’t any way out of the window either. The opening was too small.

“I hate locked room mysteries,” said Champagne. Another check of the room failed to find bullets – the murderer had used a small calibre weapon and could have retrieved the spent cartridge, powder stains showed a point blank shot. The phone was off the hook. The bedclothes were folded back but the bed hadn’t been used.

“Why would Curt open the door?” Champagne said. “Two glasses. Another date? But he’d split with Carlotta. Could have been lots of other girls. Maybe he answered the door but it was the killer with a gun. And a knife, to cut his body open and put in that hand of cards? But then how did the killer lock the door after him?

“I tried to use the master key when the steward told me Mr Cockaran wasn’t answering,” the Purser said. “The door was deadlocked. We had to break it down. That’s when we found him on the floor, covered in blood.”

“Did you search the room? Did you check the attached bathroom?”

“We called Mr Benson and he organised the search.”

Mr Benson had new news. “You don’t need to investigate any more. The police have arrested Talbot. They have absolute proof. Those playing cards in the dead man’s stomach had his fingerprints all over them.”

“All over them?” Champagne said. “Interesting.”

Champagne powered up her laptop and did a little hacking. Then she checked who’s ordered drinks in the luxury suites last night. Then she checked when housekeeping changed the sheets. Then she went to see the police.

“You have the wrong man,” she said.

“That’s what I’m telling them!” Talbot cried out. “I have an alibi! Last night I was with…”

“Ms De Vore denies that,” the detective said. “She states that she was elsewhere, with someone else who can give her an alibi if it becomes absolutely necessary.”

“She was with me!”

“I think she was,” Champagne said. “I checked and Good Time Talbot ordered two glasses with his drinks last night. Find the bottle or the glasses and I bet you’ll find he was drugged. That’s how Ms De Vore got hold of his practice cards with lots of his fingerprints on them, while he was asleep. Then she went to the reconciliation she’d arranged by phone with Charming Curt.”

“He also ordered two glasses,” the detective said. “But what about the locked door?”

“Here’s where it gets interesting. Force Ms De Vore to tell who she claims to have been with last night. I bet it’s Mr Benson, the contest organiser and ship owner. But actually it was Benson who searched the bathroom and deliberately didn’t check the towel hamper where Ms De Vore was hiding.”

Carlotta De Vore denied it all. “Why would I kill Curt? If I killed every man who dumped me I’d be a mass murderess by now!”

“You didn’t kill him,” Champagne said. “But you did receive a big bank transfer from Benson’s account to yours this morning. Very big considering that Benson is nearly bankrupt from betting against Curt in the tournament. I wonder how he would have been able to pay the prize money of the murder hadn’t happened?”

The detective caught up. “Cockaran opens the door to Carlotta, but Benson’s there with a gun. He’s being held at gunpoint in his cabin when the steward brings the extra drinks. After that Benson plugs him. He plants the cards that Carlotta stole to frame Talbot – no need to pay the runner up either – then leaves. Then…?”

“Carlotta stays in the room, deadlocks the door, and hides in the bathroom hamper. Benson searches so nobody else looks there and she slips out after all the fuss is over.”

“You bitch!” shouted Carlotta De Vore as she and Benson were led away.

“Thanks,” Talbot smiled at Champagne. “You know I can’t help thinking that I owe you dinner.”

“No thanks,” said Champagne. “I have to be on a flight to Athens at noon. Bye.”

After all, once the excitement of the murder had died down somebody was going to work out that the Bahrain Queen’s safe had been completely cleaned out of money and jewellery, and Champagne really wanted to have the stuff off her hands before somebody started asking questions.



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