A weird fact about crime is that the fingerprints of a Koala are nearly indistinguishable from human fingertips. In theory, a Koala could shoot somebody and remain unpunished, because who is going to believe that a Koala killed somebody when there are "clearly human" fingertips on the gun? All they do is eat eucalyptus and have chlamydia all day. But they can, and we should be wary of them. Even law enforcement in crime scenes in populations with Koala bears are advised to be suspicious and hugely prejudiced against them.
Now, I'm not saying that there was a Koala bear in the mansion, but I wouldn't rule them as innocent right away only because they were cute and cuddly, or have an inability to move a body from a room to another. If Koalas want to kill somebody, they will find a way to do it.
"But, Beatrix!" you might be saying, "aren't you being racist against Koalas?" And to that I say that you're not paying attention to my point. Yes, Koalas are ugly little gremlins that someone fed after midnight, but that doesn't make them guilty. That doesn't make them innocent, either. We only have to prove that the shit that hit the fan is not theirs. Mostly by checking said feces have chlamydia.
What we don't do is to let the Koala off the hook while we deal with the shit they threw at the fan. I'm starting to believe that this analogy is getting overly convoluted, but it will make sense right about...now.
"Ooof," said the wheelchair weirdo, "murder make Massimo itch like Koala, if Koala have the chlamydia. I mean, me, Byron Rockefeller The Third, Jr, Esquire, Md, which Massimo am! Maybe let out for air?"
"Sure, you and Mrs. Fat One can go out for a bit," said Athanasius. "As for the rest, nobody can leave this room!"
"Wait!" I said, throwing myself in front of the weirdo, "you can't let any suspects go!"
"Implying that a man in a wheelchair is a suspect is like implying that a Koala can be a murderer, Miss Cagliostro," said Athanasius while bobbing up and down like a cartoon mayor, "deeply disturbing and surprisingly specific."
"C'mon, the man's faking it!" I exclaimed. "Look at him! He looks like someone tried to make an avocado toast with a butternut squash, and didn't even bother to roast it!"
"Oh, burn!" yelled someone on the back.
"That's the opposite of what I said! Look at his shoes!" I said, pointing at the well worn Ugg boots that adorned his surprisingly petite feet. "They are used and dusty. Why would somebody wear shoes that are designed to maximize sole comfort and warmth when you can't even feel anything from the neck down?! And I'm, not, a, miss!"
Athanasius knelt beside the man, giving a couple of cursory pokes at his shoes. "This is clearly a superior boot worth somebody as famous and illustrious as Byron Rockefeller The Third, Jr. Esquire, Md."
"Massimo am Sir Byron," said the wheelchair weirdo.
"My fellow Sir!" said Athanasius, giving the man a military salute. "Forgive my assistant. She is not the sharpener tool in the place where one places said tools when not being used."
"Not a she," I stated. "And doesn't anybody realize this man is just some kind of chewed up troll doll in disguise?!"
A man with an impeccable black mustache that he kept twisting in a not-so-subtle way stepped forwards, putting his non-twirling hand on the shoulder of the wheelchair weirdo. He had a golden ring with a black skull on it. Interestingly enough, the eyes of the skull resembled the eyes of Mr. Fatone's tattoo. He was lanky, and smelled faintly of asparagus. "How dare you, you reject garden gnome, to come here and insult an upstanding member of society like that?! I should hang you for this, if you had a neck a noose could wrap around."
Athanasius tried to look up at the man, but he couldn't, since he has no neck. Instead, he tugged at my leg like a baby potato and said "upsies." For being such a rotund person, he was surprisingly lithe, enough for me to raise him to eye level. He also twirled and tucked at his mustache, trying to be more foreboding than asparagus man.
"I am Sir Athanasius Finch, the world's third-best detective! And it was my assistant, Miss Cagliostro-"
"Not a miss-"
"Who happens to make such remarks towards this fellow, which I must remark that you have just insulted by insinuating he could be up and standing, Mr...?"
"Traitoro," said the man, cracking his knuckles one by one while still twirling his mustache, but faster, a feat that was only upstaged by Athanasius twirling his own mustache with both hands like the world's dorkiest "Battle of the Bands," which oddly, wasn't even the most on-the-nose thing from that interaction. "Traitoro van Backstabber, head of the Backstabber holding group."
"Well, Mr. van Backstabber," said Athanasius, prodding my hand to twirl his mustache for a three-pronged approach, "I suggest you back up. As of now, by the power invested in me by Prince Michael Of Sealand, I commandeer this murder investigation! So I would suggest you step back, Mr. Traitoro."
"What case?" said the man with the same onus a dominatrix pretending to be a school teacher would punish you for not making your pretend homework on time - with prejudice and knee-high socks. "The tiger ate him. Such an accident."
"Very accident!" said the wheelchair weirdo. "Now, am Massimo-eh, Sir Byron Rockefeller The Third, Jr, Esquire, Md has air of fresh type? Sir Byron Rockefeller The Third, Jr, Esquire, Md are allergic to not fresh of airs."
"I have stated that this tiger was framed!" said Athanasius, pointing at a picture of a tiger. Fro alk his skills, Athanasius was incredibly nearsighted. This will be important. "And yes, I have already exasperated that you are allowed to be removed from the premises of my face," said Athanasius, which prompted me to drop him to the floor like a bag of wet McGriddles. "Ah, my backbone!"
"So you do have one," I said, looking down on him like a seagull eyeing a piece of fried chicken, not understanding the implications of implied cannibalism. "Look, the wheelchair weirdo did it, okay?"
"Hey!" said the wheelchair weirdo, "Massimo's name am Sir Byron-"
"Yeah yeah, whatever, Professor X with a wig," I said, hoping I don't have a copyright strike from Disney.
"You should keep your assistance on a leash," said Traitoro. "You are leavening accusations towards a key member of society that I have personally known for one hour."
"One hour?" I asked. "One hour? You never met him before?"
Traitoro could only shrug while dastardly pulling at his mustache. "The Rockefellers are a very quiet bunch, like the Anxos, investors of the social anxiety, or the Kennedy. Most have such poor social skills that they faked their assassinations just to recuse themselves from the public eye."
"Has anybody met this man before tonight?" I asked to the public, and one would've thought I asked them to give to charity and not write it off as a tax-deductible, because the room became quiet once again. "No? I thought so."
"So?" said Traitoro, now switching hands to maybe feel like somebody else was jerking his mustaches, a technique known to dorm rooms all across the world, "nobody had ever seen you a lot before today, and nobody is pointing fingers at you."
"I have!" said Mrs. Fatone, in the only time I genuinely wanted to kiss her in the mouth. The other times were merely ironic.
"Me too," said Mr. Katz, who found himself back at the bar, nursing a bottle of Old N° 7. I wanted to kiss him as well, but for different reasons.
"Seems like we are two to one," I said, "so, if you please stop trying to derail the already late train of justice, that would be great."
For his reaction, one would think that I just insulted his great grandfather, which apparently I did, for everyone gasped at my words.
"How dare you pretend that I, Traitoro van Backstabber, is against justice?! I'll have you know that my great grandfather killed Hitler!"
Now, if you are a history buff, you might have found some interesting fault with that assessment, but as my upcoming book, "Why You Shouldn't Ask A German Why Their Grandfather Was From Argentina," you might not want to pry too much into it.
While we were discussing, however, Athanasius was still on the floor, flipped on his back like an obese tortoise, which, lucky for us, have us the first clue of this conundrum.
"Sir Byron Rockefeller The Third, Jr, Esquire, Md, I am sorry to pry," said Athanasius, "but from this vantage point of mine, I have spotted something of quite a peculiarity!"
His finger disappeared somewhere beneath the wheelchair weirdo's Ugg boots, and when he pulled it back, it was coated with a suspiciously viscous red liquid.
"Care to explain?" I asked him with my most feces-eating smirk.
It seems like he wasn't expecting that, since his face turned into a poem. In particular, this poem by Dawn Drickman:
"The koala is cute and cuddly
On leaves she likes to chew
She also has a tummy pouch
Like the possum and kangaroo."
"Maybe Massimo step on drink maybe of Mary with Blood? Rather mystery!"
"He is not even pretending to have a fake name anymore!" I exclaimed. "C'mon people! Wake up! How can he even step on something if he is supposed to be paralyzed from the waist down?"
It seems like confidence in the wheelchair weirdo was waning, as even Traitoro took a step back, menacingly.
"Miracle of Jesus?" said the weirdo.
"Okay, right, you know what? Let's settle this. Mr. Katz! Toss me a bottle!" I said.
"Wine, whiskey, a beer?"
"Whichever leaves a bigger contusion!"
"Champagne it is!" said Mr. Katz.
The wheelchair weirdo began to back up as I approached him with the bottle in hand. "Now, do not let the manlady make decisions of no rations," he said.
"Not a man, nor a lady," I said, "and I find this very reasonable. I'm going to smash this bottle over your head, and if you block it, you are proven a fraud. If you don't, you will only get a mild concussion."
"Massimo am given the death if bottle makes connection with Massimo head!"
"Well, that's a risk I'm willing to let you take," I said. I saw Slightly Cleaner Pit crack somebody's head with a wine bottle without even breaking the bottle, and that required skills I didn't have. How hard could it be?
Lucky for me and a possible felony assault charge, I was proven right, for as soon as I swung the bottle down it was caught by the man, much to everyone's surprise.
"Am paralyzed from neck down," said the man as the stillness of the room became palpable. "Massimo caught it from neck up?"
This time, nobody bought his bull.
To the surprise of anyone but me, the man took off his wig, straightened his tie, and stood up. He was at least double the size of most of the people in the room, which tells you nothing, since as far as you know, everyone besides us were leprechauns. But he was indeed huge.
I honestly thought he could snap my neck if he wanted to by the sheer power that exuded from the man. Instead, he jumped out of the nearest window while yelling "Jesus take the wheel."
The butler went running after him amidst the commotion, leaving the whole thing in quite a disarray. Mrs. Fatone continued to cry on top of her husband like someone who just lost his sugar daddy, and we have found the killer. All was well.
Except all wasn't well. Who was the killer? Why did they killed Mr. Fatone and tried to pin it on the tiger? And what is this party, anyway? Some kind of cult? And why did Mr. Fatone had no blood? I had more questions than answers, and it wasn't even the last question I had for the night. The least of it was why Athanasius was living the bloody finger.
"Ew, stop!" I said, slapping his hand away from his mouth. "You don't know where the blood has been."
But Athanasius didn't flinch. Instead, he stood up like a zombie and ran towards Mr. Fatone like a puppy on feeding time. This is important because, just like a puppy, he began to lick his wounds, going so far as to slurp his exposed veins.
"Stop licking my dead husband!" said Mrs. Fatone as she pushed Athanasius away like a flashy beach ball.
"Miss Cagliostro!" he yelled, "will you hand me the hair straightener you found inside the lion's mouth?"
It was somewhere near the tiger's cage. Sure, he can lick a corpse, but tigers are a no-no. I handed it and walked away, mostly because he kept licking it. I didn't even have time to correct him.
"Now," he said, clacking the hair straightener a few times like one would do to a pair of barbecue clamp thingies, "why is a hair straightener doing on the living room?"
A surprisingly good question, one I didn't have an answer to.
"Moreover!" he exclaimed, pacing back and forth while twirling the thing like a cheerleader, "why is there no blood here?"
"That's what I said!"
"Not now, Miss Cagliostro! I'm working here!"
"...not a miss."
I must admit, I had never seen Athanasius so focused on something that wasn't a bottle of pickled garlic. It was almost awe-inspiring. Almost.
"If there is no blood here, one could assume he was not killed here, but elsewhere," he stated, doing cartwheels and ribbon dances with the chord. "But why kill someone and feed him to the tiger to make it look like an accident? And where was he killed? That last one," he said, making a bow to sigma the end of his choreography that would've easily landed him a perfect score in an Olympic game, "I can answer. Let's go to the main bathroom, if you please."
And so, we found the missing blood. It was on the floor of the bathroom. And in the sink. And the ceiling. And even inside the closed toilet. It was a true modernist work of art made out of pure blood.
And yet, there was something odd. Blood has a very distinct smell of new pennies, like useless copper. This one almost smelled like a cocktail bar.
It didn't help that Athanasius began to lap the blood off the floor like an alcoholic Scooby-Doo, as opposed to the normal, cannabis-friendly Scooby-Doo.
"Just as I thought," said Athanasius. "This is not blood. In fact, there wasn't a drop of blood in the veins of Mr. Fat One. What was on his veins, and all over the room, is no other than Clamato!"
One would believe that this revelation was something people would be outraged by, but nobody batted an eye. Almost as if they knew. Precisely as if they knew.
"But why?" I asked. "Why would a man swap all of his blood for Clamato?"
Athanasius looked pensive, almost taciturn. Some would call him pauciloquous - which contrary to popular belief does not mean being a fan of Boxer Manny Pacquiao - but to me, he was just being a dillhole. "Because he was planning to kill himself. This is the signature style of the Association of Suicide Workers."
For those who are not aware, the Association of Suicide Workers is the biggest suicidal union in America. They fight for a worker's right to contemplate their existence as a mere cog in the ever-growing capitalist machinery, and act on it by jumping headfirst into said machinery, hopefully while turning on. They usually take the blood of their soon-to-be-dead clients, mostly to sell to vampires, or Satanists, or the DMV, and replacing it with Clamato.
As for why Clamato is used, well, that's for another book to rant about.
"But...why kill a man who was going to kill himself, and pass it as an accident?" I asked.
"Miss Cagliostro, I think I found the title for this new case: The Callous Case of the Curiously Clamato Corpse."