Detective Woolbridge looked at the stage in bewilderment, still stumped after hours of investigating. “This case has me baffled, Danders.”
“I don’t blame you. I was never very good at theater murders, myself.”
They stood in the aisle of the Upstage Theater, where the lifeless body of renowned stage octogenarian Alastair Cummerbund had just been removed from the premises.
Earlier the previous evening, the actors had arrived at the small playhouse for a late rehearsal only to be shocked to discover Cummerbund’s body collapsed on stage, dead of stab wounds to the heart. Also on the stage at the time was the décor for Act One of the current production, The Stunted Countess, depicting the sitting room of socialite Lola Mantiss. But along with the usual stage properties, the police found a dark, cryptic note, four empty vodka bottles and a bloody, dead opossum.
“You’re sure the opossum isn’t a prop?” Woolbridge asked the theater manager, Hartley Dunbath for the third time.
“Absolutely not!” huffed Dunbath. He stood near the stage, still shocked at a murder occurring in his establishment. “This is a traditional production. There’s no room in this play for bloody mammals!”
“And this note means nothing to you?” Woolbridge held out the note again, which read: ‘Like a tattered liver he dragged me on the rocks’.
“I told you, Detective. My liver’s in perfectly good order.”
“Damn it. We’ve come up empty again.”
“What can we do Sergeant?” asked Officer Danders.
“The only thing we can do. Call on that damned, smug Smirking Detective.”
Continued: https://bit.ly/3IDjIgA
I’m a writer specializing in humor and comedy.
Check out my books on Amazon:
SPACE COMMAND AND THE PLANETS OF DOOM http://amzn.to/atEZo9
HOUSE OF PRENSION http://amzn.to/i9Qpxb
HOUSE OF PRENSION relates the exploits of Aulic Prension, younger son of the Empress Landau, who must defend himself against the schemes of his pale and peevish older brother Bodin, a lover of the regulations laid out in the Brown Tomes. With the aid of Pinkface Elder, a sage graduate of the Academy of Robes , and Arvin Joekherr, a grog-loving buddy, Aulic reluctantly faces the ordeal of his Maturity Rituals, involving the capture of the elusive stickfish.
You can check out some short bits and pieces of my writing at
http://abstractplane.gather.com
Favorite Movies: The Royal Tennenbaums, Annie Hall, Apocalypse Now, I Heart Huckabees, The Big Lebowski, Love and Death, Into the Wild, Sideways, Napoleon Dynamite, Rushmore, Little Miss Sunshine, Fight Club, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mulholland Drive, What’s Up, Doc?, The Philadelphia Story, Brick, The Lookout, Mysterious Skin, Borat, Donnie Darko, Raising Arizona, Crimes and Misdemeanors, My Man Godfrey, The Palm Beach Story, Ed Wood, Husbands and Wives, The Dinner Game, Bringing Up Baby, Blue Velvet, Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Sullivan’s Travels, Young Frankenstein, Bad Education, Groundhog Day, Team America: World Police
Favorite Books: White Noise, The Ambassadors, Lolita, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, A Bend in the River, The Sot-Weed Factor, Pale Fire, The Wings of the Dove, Jude the Obscure, Underworld, Tom Jones, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, John Updike: The Coup, Roger’s Version; Wuthering Heights, Tristram Shandy, The Portrait of a Lady, The Good Soldier, Catch-22, V.,
Abstract Plane 
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