Who Done It?

  Wait. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I mean bad, as in prejudicial to a jury? They’re just fantasies, after all. I’d never act on them. And even if I wanted to, I was shut in an isolation tank. Trust me, no one would voluntarily pass up the womb-like comfort of warm viscous liquid for anything as trivial as committing murder. That would be like getting out of bed to go to the bathroom on a cold morning when the furnace is on the fritz.

  Besides, you’ll have to subpoena Dr. Balthazar’s notebook to find any evidence against me. That’s protected under physician-patient privilege.

  Isn’t it?

  herman mildew ate

  the plums

  that were in

  the icebox

  and I was pissed

  perhaps even

  murderously so

  since i had been

  saving them

  for breakfast

  the rage I felt

  was exquisite

  but know this

  about poets:

  we don’t

  actually

  kill people

  it is so much finer

  to let your words

  stew in the rage;

  it gives them

  a poisonous flavor

  that the reader

  can taste

  and recognize

  if I’d killed

  herman mildew

  for eating my plums

  I would have

  only been able

  to kill him

  once

  but the poet

  has the advantage

  over the murderer;

  the poet can kill

  a thousand times

  in a thousand

  different ways

  in a thousand

  different poems

  without any weapon

  beyond a pen

  blood

  is not nearly

  as satisfying

  so why

  bother

  with blood

  when you

  can use

  ink?

  Did I have motive? Sure. I’ll admit I wanted nothing more than to see Herman Mildew pop his clogs. He deserved it, the cantankerous old carbuncle. Why, you might ask? Herman Mildew deserved to die because of his uncommon cruelty to cheese. It sickened me to see the hunks of the stuff he left lying around everywhere to mold and desiccate, all because he was too heartless and slothful to perform the proper rituals of cheese care.

  Cheese is something I take extremely seriously, having lived on a dairy farm in Dorset, England for ten years, where I was involved in the production of some of the UK’s finest farmhouse cheddar.

  Herman Mildew read an interview in which I’d joked that I was probably the only woman in Greenwich, Connecticut who could hold an intelligent conversation about the lactation yield curve of a dairy cow. Within the hour, he somehow managed to get hold of my unlisted phone number. So imagine this: a well-known editor calls and the first thing he says after “Hello, are you Sarah Darer Littman?” is, “Talk dairy products to me.” Can you spell C-R-E-E-P-Y?

  But hey, we authors do what we have to do to sell books, right? So despite my qualms, I launched into a discussion of pasteurization temperatures, microbial rennet, and the cheddaring process, while the dude was heavy breathing on the other end of the line. After half an hour, when I’d got to the “aging in temperature-controlled stores for up to eighteen months” part, and was wondering where this conversation was going next, he interrupted me with a brusque, “Who’s your agent?”

  I told him and suddenly there’s a dial tone in my ear. I figured that was the end of it. It’s the story of my life—another day, another wacko. But next thing I know, I’ve got a book contract and Mildew is my editor.

  Except I never actually get to meet him in person. He calls me once in a while; supposedly to talk about the book, but after about five minutes of editorial discussion he inevitably starts interrogating me about red Leicester, double Gloucester, and Wensleydale.

  It’s weird. So strange that I talk to my agent, but she tells me to go with the flow, that Mildew, like all editors, is wildly eccentric.

  So the other day I was in the City and I stopped in at the Herman Q. Mildew and Co. Publishers’ office, curious to meet the guy. But I didn’t get to see him. Apparently no one does. I did get to hear Mildew firing some poor intern over the PA system in language that would make milk curdle. Seriously, if it had been TV, most of it would have been bleeped out.

  And then I saw it: fine farmhouse cheddar lying abused and mistreated on a desk. Nearby, on the floor near the obligatory Ficus tree, lay some similarly maltreated Stilton. In fact, once I started looking around the office carefully, I realized there was moldy, mistreated cheese everywhere. It made me sick to my stomach. But more than that, it filled me with a rage more powerful than the smell of Pont L’Eveque.

  See, if it were one of the French varietals, I could understand, because those cheeses smell like a teenage boy’s athletic supporter. But treating fine English farmhouse cheeses that way…well, chaps, it’s just not cricket.*

  “Who did this?” I demanded of the nearest hapless employee of Herman Q. Mildew and Co. Publishers.

  “T-t-t-that would be M-m-m-mr. M-m-m-m-ildew,” the Hapless One stuttered. “D-d-d-does it all the t-t-t-time.”

  That’s when I knew that Herman Q. Mildew deserved to die.

  Motive. Yeah, I had it.

  But how to do it? I knew, from a well-placed bribe to Hapless—and as it turns out, underpaid—Employee, that Mildew drank a large glass of pickle juice every morning at precisely 11:07 on the dot. No doubt this contributed to his less-than-charming disposition.

  What I lacked was opportunity. I couldn’t figure out how to get the poisoned pickle juice to the guy. Plotting has never been my strong point. Just read any of my books.

  Which brings me to the final point of my defense. Herman Q. Mildew was publishing my book. I’m an author, trying to make a living. Let’s face it, if it comes down to a moral choice between justice for cheese and selling books, what do you think I’m gonna do?

  *By cricket, I refer to the bizarre game played with bats and wickets that one must be a native of the United Kingdom or one of its former colonies to comprehend, rather than the insect known as Gryllus assimilus.

  What’s that? You’ll have to speak up. I’m partially deaf in one ear and my hearing aid is on the blink.

  Oh. Mildew. Right, right, yes, of course. Herman Mildew. Herman Q. Mildew, if we’re being accurate, and God knows we want to be accurate, right? If you wrote a book with something—anything—off-kilter for that son-of-a—

  Ahem. You were saying?

  Oh. Oh, no, I didn’t kill him. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Those books on my shelves, the ones about police forensics, body disposal, and crime scene analysis—they’re research. I’m a writer, for God’s sake. I need to read these things. And I’ve never even touched that samurai sword hanging over my mantle. It’s research, too.

  What’s that? Speak up. Oh, yes, right, I see. How could it be research if I’ve never touched it? Quite simple: my character doesn’t use a samurai sword; he just owns one. So I need to own one, too. To see what that’s like. That’s also why I own those guns. And that big ax. And that bottle with the skull and crossbones on it. (Whatever you do, do not add that to your drink!)

  I take my research very seriously.

  Pardon me a moment. I need to take some pills. I suffer from a number of maladies, in addition to my deafness. There is no pill for deafness, of course. The only cure for that is inserting a small bit of plastic and electronics into my aural canal. If someone would make a pill for deafness, I would take it.

  Fortunately, my other defects are treatable with a glass of water and a collection of tiny pills, gel caps, tablets, capsules, caplets, and two different liquid suspensions. These are for such ailments as my upside-down heart, my off-center middle toe
(right foot), too-centered middle toe (left foot, natch), my inverted gallbladder, my suspiciously too-normal blood pressure, my debilitating ESS (Empty Sinus Syndrome), the chalky discharge from my fingernails, and what doctors refer to as a “diffident frontal lobe.”

  As you can see, I am a weak, infirm man, ancient at forty and could not possibly have—

  Oh, all right! All right, damn you! I can’t abide your penetrating, accusatory glare! And that light you’re shining in my eyes is wreaking havoc on my near-terminal case of dry eye.

  (Pardon me while I apply some medicated eyedrops.…)

  Look, I’m not saying that I killed Mildew. God knows he deserved it—the man made me rewrite a sentence once, which took a whole six minutes and caused my carpal tunnel syndrome to flare up—but that doesn’t mean I did it.

  I just can’t say for sure that I didn’t do it.

  You see, as I may have mentioned, I take a number of medications. And medications have side effects. One side effect common to all my medications is this one: “May cause or increase thoughts of suicide.”

  Follow me on this: at around the time Mildew was…disposed of, I was, in fact, feeling quite suicidal. I actually had dinner with Mildew that night, if you want to know the truth. (I didn’t particularly like him, but, like most editors, he was usually good for a free meal.) I was heavily medicated, per usual, and feeling quite suicidal. And here’s the thing: another side effect of multiples of my medications is, “May induce hallucinations.”

  I think you see where I’m going with this.

  Is it possible that, addled as I was, I hallucinated that Mildew was, in fact, me? That, in the throes of suicidal despondence, I attempted to kill myself, killing—instead—Mildew? Is it possible that I then dragged the body into a filthy alley, hacked it to pieces with a hatchet, and fed the remains to the cats and rats and occasional stray dog?

  Um, or, some other series of events, of course. Not that it has to be that specific.…

  Is it possible that Mildew’s death resulted from a misfiring suicidal impulse? I’ll tell you this: the night is a blur to me (other than Mildew’s constant belching of cheese-smelling gas in my direction in the cab after dinner). The only certainty remaining in my mind is a desire to kill myself. And in the morning, I woke up just as certain that I had, in fact, killed myself! (I was so certain that I was dead, in fact, that I did not venture near the Internet all day, since, as Shakespeare wrote, “The dead do not tweet.”)

  As the day wore on, though, I eventually came to realize that I was not, in fact, dead, that I had not killed myself.

  But what if …?

  No, no, you’re right. It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. I couldn’t have killed Mildew, even under the misapprehension that he was me. I’m innocent.

  Totally innocent.

  Pretty sure I did kill Libba Bray, Dan Ehrenhaft, and Jon Scieszka, but they don’t count, right?

  No way you can pin this on Cortés and Mansbach

  We got ten thousand fans that will tell you a jam-packed

  crowd watched us ransack the track and make hands clap.

  After that? Canopies. Stoags the size of manatees.

  The one-armed man? He stole the show single-handedly.

  But candidly? We were sleeping by ten—how dull is that?

  You better turn the hell around like a cul-de-sac

  And find the right dude—I had a whole entourage with me!

  And Rico? Lost in the trees. Camouflage frisbee.

  Next morning, woke up on a yacht. Did the breaststroke.

  Water was warm, anchor tied to Glenn Beck’s throat.

  But I digress—go find the killer, be that man’s jailer

  take some drastic measures like a fat man’s tailor.

  You’re wasting your time here, and ours. I oughta laugh.

  Keep it moving, Huckleberry. We got books to autograph.

  This is not an ice pick in my pocket. It’s a pointer. Yes, it needs to be that sharp. I often point to miniscule things wedged in tiny places or stuck next to other miniscule things.

  No, this is not a knife. Okay, fine I lied. It’s a knife. But it’s meant to cut cheese. I always bring my own cheese knife when Mr. Mildew throws a party. The ones he offers are usually covered in cat hair and I am rarely in the mood for Brie or sharp cheddar and the hair of a cat. Separately they are fine, or cat hair bundled on the side of a cheese plate like a sprig of parsley is lovely. It’s the combination of cat hair and cheese that I find unsavory. Call me crazy. You wouldn’t be the first.

  Please strike that last sentence from the record. No one calls me crazy because I am not crazy.

  Why are you looking at me like that?

  No, I did not plan on using this knife or this ice pick on Mr. Mildew or, as I call him, Hermando, Herm, the Hermerator, Hermattack, Herm and cheese sandwich, or Hermorrhoid.

  Please strike that last word. I have never called Herman Hermorrhoid, at least not to his face.

  Know what? While you’re at it why don’t you strike that entire last paragraph?

  What rope? Oh, this is the rope I use to tie knots, a wonderfully rewarding hobby. I can do the bow’s hitch and the butterfly and a clove hitch and a cow hitch and a sheep shank. Yes, those knots are all real—look ‘em up! And here’s a new one I invented. I call it the, “Not Tight Enough for Herman.”

  Oh wait. Never mind. That I did make up. Just now. Did I say Herman? I meant Hermione.

  No, not the Harry Potter half-breed Hermione; I mean the other Hermione. The one who gave me a “negative five star” review on Amazon. You didn’t know it was possible to give negative stars? It’s usually not but Hermione got special permission. She also trashed my latest book on Goodreads and wrote nasty comments on my very own blog on my very own website.

  But I didn’t try and kill her. Or Herman. Not even when I found out that Hermione is Herman’s doppelganger. Especially when I found that out because it’s bad enough having one evil editor out to get me. Two I cannot deal with.

  You can quote me on that.

  On second thought, don’t quote me on that or on any of this. I need to go. In fact, I’m not even here.

  I’ll admit it, the gun in my purse does seem like damning evidence. I had considered killing him of course. But I doubt you’ll find anyone here who hasn’t. The man gave me my big break and then, poof! Like that! He took it away. No call, no note, not even the courtesy of “This is not what we expected when we signed you.” As though he hadn’t been the one to approach me. As though all I were…as though I were filler, and they had found something better to take up the space I was allotted.

  I had spent years working on that haiku. Decades reworking just the right word arrangement. Two years before I noticed that the first line had six syllables and then months to figure out how to fix it. I lived and breathed five-seven-five. And I finally run into him in a restaurant and confront him and do you know what he says? “Sometimes, all the work is for naught. Just goes to show our plans mean nothing.” Don’t you see? He killed my haiku with a haiku of his own:

  Sometimes all the work

  Is for naught. Just goes to show:

  Our plans mean nothing.

  A bad haiku of his own at that! Believe me, I know a good haiku. That was not it. And do you know what they did with the space I was allotted? They printed a photo of a panda. Cute, cuddly, and adorable? Yes! Artistically equivalent to what I had created? Absolutely not!

  So yes, I thought about it. I planned it. I was going to walk up to him, gun in hand and say:

  You believed you could

  Replace me with a panda?

  YOUR plans mean nothing.

  But I was only going to scare him; it was a tactical move. I was never going to shoot him, then my haiku would never have been printed. Well, honestly, maybe, who knows, maybe I would have done it if I had the chance. Only after he signed an agreement stating that no matter what, my haiku would appear in the next printing of course. But I hav
en’t seen him. All I did was eat appetizers and chat with other authors who have been jilted in the same way. Let me tell you, there are an awful lot of talented folks in the same position I’m in.

  But all that is neither here nor there. You asked for my alibi, didn’t you? Well fine, all I have to say is this:

  Could not have been me

  I was eating mushroom puffs

  The whole entire time.

  Dear Accusers of Captain Barnabas Miller,

  In circles of undercover intelligence, I am called “Oswaldo,” but you cannot know me by face. I do not think I said this correctly, but my language buttress is the least of our concerns right now. El Gato has smelled my scent, so I must be brief and to the target if I am to save Captain Miller’s life and clear his name.

  I have stolen the attached document from sub-level 23 of a military bunker deep beneath one of the CIA’s many American Apparel cover locations in downtown Manhattan. It was there, in the cold bowels of the city, that I witnessed this cruel interrogation of Captain Miller by Agents Samuel L. Jaxton and Alan Rixtman. It was there that I first learned of Project Kill-Dew.

  Unfortunately, this transcript has already been redacted by a crack team of crate-trained rhesus monkeys, but I still believe this document will prove once and for all that Captain Barnabas Miller, aka “Asset 7” could not possibly have carried out his hypnotically implanted assassination mission. You see, his psyche has already been reduced to rubble. I only hope you can taste the grisly truth of the matter before the fat lady hums and Captain Miller is “decommissioned.” Miller is innocent, I tell you. It is we, the brainwashing, assassin-training divisions of rogue intelligence operations, who are guilty. Please read on while I run away.…