The Case of the Snapped Strings: A Brieltas One-shot

When a Clue game turns deadly, the simple whodunnit boardgame becomes a crime scene… and it’s up to Monty to solve the case.

***

“Mustard, with the rope, in the ballroom.”

Ethan’s announcement was heeded only with silence. Monty scribbled down the suggestion in his notebook, glancing at his cards. He had rope, but Ethan already knew that. Jonah had Mustard, meaning…

“Abby.” Ethan laced his fingers together and grinned at his sister. “Got anything?”

Abby paged through her cards, then rolled her eyes. “Get over here.”

Monty smirked behind his notebook. Ah, Abby had ballroom.

He stared at his notebook in satisfaction. All of the clues were there. He knew who committed the crime, where, and the weapon. The only person in between him and Ethan was Dylan, and there was no way he had figured it out yet. He hadn’t even been tracking game moves in the notebook.

Monty had this game in the bag.

“You’re up, Dylan.” Ethan handed the dice over.

Dylan stared at the board, fiddling with the dice. Then he straightened. “I’d like to make an accusation.”

The blood drained from Monty’s face. Dylan couldn’t have figured it out yet… could he?

His heart sank as Dylan picked up Scarlet and poison, setting them on the fountain. “Scarlet with the poison in the fountain.”

Monty stifled a groan as he stared at his notebook.

Dylan pulled over the envelope and smirked as he laid out the cards. Scarlet, poison, fountain.

For the love of literature, the man was good.

“How did you–” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s only been twenty minutes!”

His uncle chuckled. “I solved it ten minutes ago. I was waiting to see how long it would be before you figured it out.”

He blinked. “How in the name of N.D. Wilson did you figure it out ten minutes into the game?”

“Power of observation,” Bay quipped from her place on the sidelines. “Just be glad I wasn’t playing. I would have crushed you all in seven minutes.”

“You were walking around the room looking at everyone’s cards,” Jackie remarked dryly, setting down her cards and notebook. “Of course you would have won.”

His aunt waved a hand. “Details.”

“Can we just move on to the next game?” Jason sighed. “What’s on the list?”

Ethan looked at the paper. “We’re doing Mafia next. Monty and Dylan have to sit on the sidelines because they are way too good at crime games.”

“You asked a former soldier to play.” Dylan stretched and laced his fingers behind his head. “What did you expect would happen?”

“We didn’t ask you to play. You volunteered and we accepted,” David pointed out, rubbing Maple.

“Tomato potato. Let’s just get to murdering people.” Ethan chuckled, rubbing his hands together.

“That sounds so wrong out of context,” Monty muttered, moving towards the bookshelf so Bay could take his spot.

Jason had only begun drawing pieces of paper when a shout of anguish came from the kitchen.

More specifically, Patrick’s shout of anguish.

“CYNTHIAAAAAA!!!!” He wailed, running out of the kitchen with a mangled brown object in hand. Peyton was close behind him.

“What are you wailing about now?” Ethan groaned.

“There has been a murder!” Patrick shouted, slamming down the brown thing in his hands.

It took Monty a second to realize that the brown thing was actually the smashed remains of Patrick’s ukulele. The neck of the instrument was snapped in two and the body was half crushed, splintery pieces rattling around inside.

Woah. The thing really was murdered.

“Good riddance.” Ethan muttered, shuffling the papers.

“Someone did this on purpose.” Patrick growled. “And I demand to know who did it.”

Everyone glanced at each other and shrugged.

“Patrick, I th-think you’re overreacting.” Jonah said. “Why would anyone want to destroy your ukulele?”

“Well it is Mystery Night,” Patrick said. “Maybe someone wanted to create a mystery.” He eyed Monty suspiciously.

Monty raised his hands in defense. “Hold on, I know I did that once with kidnapping Maple, but that was a long time ago and I would never touch your ukulele.”

“Well then, Sherlock Keller, solve the crime!” Patrick shouted. “We need to prosecute this criminal to the fullest extent of our laws.”

Dylan raised an eyebrow at this. “Our laws?”

“It’s a long story,” Monty shook his head.

“An innocent ukulele was murdered, Monty.” Patrick growled. “A crime was committed. Justice must be served!”

He flashed a hopeful grin. “You can wear the deerstalker cap.”

Bay almost snorted her coffee through her nose. “You still own that? I thought you got rid of that because–“

“It’s really not that important!” Monty shouted. “Patrick, I’m sure you probably just left your ukulele somewhere and it got dropped. There’s no mystery in that.”

“Ukuleles are sturdy instruments,” Peyton said. “It takes a huge drop for it to shatter like that.”

That was true. The ukulele was in a pretty sorry shape for simple dropping.

Monty sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“With or without the deerstalker cap?” Jackie grinned.

He gave her a flat look. “Without.”

***

The case should be over within the hour. Most everyone had alibis for the destruction of Patrick’s ukulele, and Monty still wasn’t entirely convinced that a crime had really been committed.

Still, best to get this over with before it became a real problem.

“All right, is everyone here?” Monty looked around the room. “Jonah, Jason, Abby, Jackie, Peyton, David–“

“And Maple.” David interrupted.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Right. David and Maple. Dylan, Bay, Patrick, Ethan and me. Eleven suspects. Clearly nine of us have been playing boardgames for the last half hour so we can immediately eliminate–“

“Hold on,” Dylan raised a hand. “How do you know the crime was committed in those thirty minutes?”

Monty suppressed a groan as he caught the glitter in his uncle’s gaze. Oh, please no. Dylan wasn’t actually going to join in on this, was he?

“I assumed it was in those last thirty minutes since Patrick is practically glued to that ukulele,” he remarked.

“Assume nothing,” Dylan said. “That way you can’t be proven wrong. For all we know the ukulele was broken this morning.”

“By all means, if you want to take over this investigation, go ahead. I still don’t think any crime was committed.” Monty stepped back, hands in his hoodie pockets.

Patrick rushed forward. “Would it make any difference if I told you I hadn’t touched the ukulele since this morning?”

Monty blinked. “You didn’t?”

“That’s a new one,” Ethan snorted.

“Yeah I uh…” Patrick scratched the back of his neck, cheeks flushing. “Me and Peyton went out and I forgot I left it in the kitchen.”

“So you were with Peyton the whole time?” Dylan asked.

“Uh… that’s the idea of a date.”

“We don’t need to know the details!” Ethan shouted, waving his arms to stop Patrick from divulging more information.

“I set the ukulele in a box on the counter… and when I came back I found the box in the dumpster and Cynthia like this in the alley!” He sniffed. “Oh Cynthia… you were too young and beautiful to die like this.”

“It’s an instrument, Patrick. Get over it.” Abby snapped.

Before Patrick could argue about how much more Cynthia was than just an instrument, Monty stepped in. “So you’re saying that the ukulele was found outside?”

“Yep.”

Monty glanced at David. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I’ll grab my computer,” David said.

***

“So…” Peyton peered at the numbers on the screen. “How is this supposed to help us find Patrick’s ukulele?”

“David installed a pressure system that allows us to know when people went in and out of the door,” Monty explained. “So while we can’t see the faces of who went in and out, we have the time signatures of whenever people left.”

“We can eliminate all people playing Clue in this room from one forty-five to two twenty-four.” Dylan leaned on the edge of the couch, eyes narrowed as he analyzed the screen. “No one left in that timeframe.”

“You keep track of everyone who leaves and enters the room?” Jason asked. “That’s a little creepy.”

Dylan shrugged. “Old habits die hard.”

David tapped something into the computer. “Mmkay, Patrick, what time did you leave for your date?”

“Around ten-thirty?” He fiddled with his hoodie string. “Pey, what time do you think we came back?”

“Two-ish?” Peyton chewed her lip. “I know they were halfway through the game when we came in.”

David blacked out another time on the list. “Okay, that leaves four possible times. Now if two people went through the doorway at the same time, it would only register as one on the list. I’d say… this narrows it down to two to three people who were in these areas during that time.”

“Why not Ethan as a suspect?” Patrick glared at him. “You’re always complaining about my ukulele. Maybe this would be the perfect chance for you to get revenge.”

“Hey, hold on.” Ethan smirked, sprawling out across the couch. “As much as I despise your instrument, I can guarantee that I was not the genius individual who finally did away with it.”

Abby elbowed him in the stomach, forcing him to recoil to his side of the couch. Ethan choked, doubling over.

“Hey, let’s be civil here,” Dylan warned.

“Oh that had nothing to do with his comment.” Abby flicked her braid behind her shoulder. “House rules. Punishment for manspreading is whatever physical abuse is deemed fit by squished victim.”

Bay snorted. “I’m sorry, what?!”

“You literally just made that up!” Ethan wheezed, still quite out of breath.

Abby gave him a pointed look. “It’s about time it was instated.”

“Can we please just get back to the case?!” Monty sputtered. He looked toward his uncle. “You’re the adult here! Help me out.”

“Right. After I make sure your aunt remembers how to breathe.” Dylan said, staring at Bay who was totally losing it and almost falling over from laughing so hard.

Monty sighed and turned back to David. “What times are the last four entries?”

David scrolled through. “Uh, one at two-o-five, one at two-fifteen, and another from one-twenty to one forty-five.”

“That second one was me.” Bay composed herself enough to stay standing and talk clearly. “Babysitter called, had to step outside to take it.”

Dylan raised an eyebrow, questions written across his face, but Bay gave him one of those silent looks that said she would explain later.

Monty shook his head and stared at the number on the screen. “So we have a time of the crime. Now we just need to check into everyone’s alibis.”

“You heard Dylan.” Jackie said. “Everyone was playing Clue in the room at the time.”

“No,” Dylan straightened, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “I said everyone playing Clue didn’t leave the room during that time. There were three people not playing Clue at all. Bay, Patrick and–“

“Peyton!” Monty gasped.

All eyes turned toward her. Patrick wrapped a protective arm around his girlfriend. “Peyton would never do something like this! How dare you accuse her!”

Peyton shrunk a little into her jacket. “Actually Patrick…”

He froze.

Patrick stared at her. “Pey… you didn’t…”

“It was me.” She sniffled. “I broke the ukulele.”

He stepped back from her, jaw agape. A stunned silence settled in the room.

So, his suspicions had been right.

But… Monty thought. Why would Peyton do it?

“It was an accident!” She insisted. “You had just gone over to see what the others were doing, and I knocked the ukulele off the counter while trying to get something out of the cupboard. The neck cracked. I thought I could run it over next door and get it fixed really quick before you found out. Instead the box fell off my motorcycle in the alley and I ran over it. You came looking for me before I could figure out what to do.”

“You could have just told me,” Patrick muttered.

“I was hoping I could fix it before you could find out.” She crossed her arms and stared at the rboken ukulele. “I’ll buy you a new one, I promise. I’m so sorry, Patrick.”

He sighed and pulled her close. “I forgive you, Pey.”

The two lingered in the embrace a little longer than what was comfortable for Monty. Ethan, on cue, gagged.

“All right love birds, take your PDAs elsewhere.” He dry-heaved. “You’re poisoning the room.”

Dylan chuckled. “Well at least you learned a lesson that is good to remember in any relationship– communication is better than lies.”

“Oh don’t turn this into a teachable moment!” Ethan protested. “It’s already a lame mystery as it is. To think we wasted all of this time on a stupid accident.”

Monty silently agreed with him, but didn’t feel like encouraging Ethan’s snark. Instead he stood up, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders. “With that out of the way then… mafia, anyone?”

He was met with a chorus of hearty agreement.

Jason began dealing out paper, and Jackie ran to get pens. Monty chuckled, shaking his head

Just another normal game night.