Armature case files of William Moriarty : The Case of the Empty Bottle

 

“You four bring disgrace to all students,” Professor Steven said, his face twisted in mild disgust, though his voice remained calm. “Drinking without sharing with your teacher.”

“Professor Steven, you’re late. We were just about to begin. Close the door,” Matt grinned holding up the bottle of expensive vodka one of his many lady admirers sent him

“Oh, come on. You know I hate vodka.” The professor sat down with a sigh.

“We might have some brandy left from yesterday,” I offered, looking at Alex.

Alex looked at me asking with his eyes why I can’t just keep my mouth shut. hesitated before pulling out a half-full bottle behind the bookshelf, clearly stashed away for himself. We passed it around, laughing under the dim lights of the island hut. We were here to assist Professor Steven's research into Maldives oceanic bio-life. The storm had knocked out the satellite phone and antenna. We were stranded with no outside contact for at least two days.

Tony took the last swig of brandy, giggling. “Feels sweeter than yesterday. Maybe a good day of hard work makes everything sweet.” He recapped the bottle and tossed it out of the window. As the bottle landed with a thud on the sand Alex retorted “but you didn’t do any work. You were sitting pretty with Loverboy here while we did all the work” he said poking Matt with his elbow chuckling, and we all laughed along.

 Soon the professor felt his young company was too rowdy for his taste and since the brandy was over, he had no reason to tolerate our foul mouth. professor Steven stood and left for the only other hut, grumbling about vodka and how Tony’s breath somehow smelled like fish despite him being vegetarian.

Next morning, we sailed to the reef, collected data, and returned before sunset. Tony and Alex took the notes to the professor, while I stayed to help Matt maintain the boat engine. He poured in coolant while I tied up the boat. We tinkered with it for a minute or two making sure all the expensive equipment was secure.

Then we heard Tony shout. Sharp, high-pitched, panicked. His usual deep merry sound was not what we expected inface we have only heard him speak seriously once or twice at most, mine and Matts heart nearly leapt out.

We ran. To the silhouettes of 2 men standing at the distance the white sand and the sun made them look like spectres from another world. What I thought was a big fish or a tangled ball of net was a person. The professor. He was lying face-first in the sand, just outside his hut. Foam at his mouth. Cold. Still.

“I thought he was passed out from drinking, but it’s been nearly 24 hours,” Tony said shakily, I don’t know if it’s the usual tony saying it or the shock I was In but I felt like someone hit my ear for a moment. Alex knelt beside the body; his fingers landed on the neck. After a cold moment he shook his head not looking up.

Dead.

“Murder,” I said without realizing but it was barely above a Wisper. “The storm boxed us in. No boats, no calls. No one else here. That means”

Matt nodded. “One of us.”

We sat apart that night. Suspicious, silent. The usually jovial Tony felt to me like he was someone else wearing his skin.

Matt our resident Romeo, always finding a dirty joke in everything sat silent.

Alex our most soulful friend. One who is conscientious to the core but willing to help one of us at the drop of a hat didn’t even look up. Cradling his head in his hand.

Silence wrapped us in a shroud of something uncomfortably warm.

Tony broke it. “Will, your dad's a cop. Say something.” Seeing my eyes planted in the distance he took a breath and looked at Matt. “Look, I don’t want to point fingers, but Steven didn’t credit you on that last paper.”

Matt straightened in his seat so fast I thought his spine would snap like a bow. “Then let’s talk about how you were next in line for a permanent job, if someone, say, retired or conveniently died. And you’re a joke in academia after your articles, so everyone knows no college worth anything will offer you a job even as a janitor.”

Alex shrugged. “Look not being credited in a paper is nothing to kill someone over. He screwed me on that same paper too. I didn’t care. I made more money fixing bikes last summer than I would have teaching. Matt also went on that seminar with that extra time so it worked out for him too and even though Tony has been known to write a few critical articles that doesn’t do any favors for some of the academic giants, but that also makes him reputable to many. Will as we all know could give two shits about anything the professor could have done or did. Look this isn’t the time to fight amongst us there are many things we don’t know yet so let’s save the theories and suspicions for later.” Alex was always the most mature one of us.

I stood looking out to the horizon where a few minutes ago the sun was setting. I went out took a small walk around the cabin and returned, Alex’s words did lift the spirits a bit but the silence still had its claws in us, so I went to the cabinet, and returned with a fresh bottle of brandy and four glasses.

“I hid this for our departure celebration. Figured we could use it now.”

We drank in silence.

“The professor was poisoned,” I said. “I know how. And who. The question is why.” After a breathy minute of silence, I continued “The brandy”

They looked at their empty glasses in unison.

“Wait. We just drank brandy,” Tony said, eyes widening. “You didn’t. Did you?”

“I found the bottle from yesterday,” I said flatly. “I poured it into one of these glasses. One of us drank the poison.”

Matt stood up and easily lifted me up by my collar off the floor. I barely could keep up with his speed, he roared. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“Relax. No one’s dying. The killer will help us.”

They exhaled. Confusion hung heavier than relief.

“How do you know who did it?” Alex asked.

“Because I realized something. Tony said the brandy was sweeter. The professor said Tony smelled like fish. And we were all drunk off just a few sips.”

Matt let me down and I smoothed down my collar and sat down.

“Coolant,” I said. “It has a sweet taste. And certain types, are toxic. The professor drank most of the brandy. We didn’t.”

Alex raised an eyebrow not fully committed to what he is about to say he said. “But Matt is the one who does all the maintenance for our boat and he has coolant for it”

“Boat coolant isn't as toxic as car coolant,” I said. “Eco-safe for the ocean. Barely lethal.”

Tony blinked as if trying to wake up from this. “But how are we still alive we also drank the brandy?”

“We also drank the antidote” I said.

“The cure was in the vodka?” Matt said putting the pieces together.

I nodded. “Vodka slows down coolant poisoning. It’s a known emergency remedy. The killer counted on Steven not touching it.”

We all sat silent and the truth stood between us like a ghost. Alex stared at the floor. Then reached into his bag, pulled out the vodka, took a long drink, and passed it silently.

“You figured it out. Yeah. He humiliated me, Infront of the interview panel. Blocked my job. Left me broke. Homeless. I have been suffering under that bastard for years. Do you know how many papers I’ve wrote for him all in the hopes that when he retired this year and nominate me. Not only did he not do that he, made sure no one would pick me. All to keep the secret that suckers like me did most of his work” Alex had a sort of uncanny calmness as he explained it.

The next morning, the backup crew arrived. Alex confessed before they even questioned him. He didn’t ask us to lie. I don’t know if we would have, but I know for a fact he would’ve done it for any of us.

But what he didn’t know. What no one knows is that I hadn’t poisoned the brandy at all. I bluffed. Lucky guess and I let the guilt within in him do the rest.

We went to see him a few times in the prison and many came forward to testify against the professor’s malpractices. Tony tried to make the research we were doing to be published as Alex as its head, but it didn’t work out. Days passed Alex wrote us letters asking us to stop visiting him so much. In his own ways he was punishing himself too. We obliged but wrote letters to him regularly even though we didn’t always get a reply

Months later, my father’s superior officer came to visit me. A mountain of a man. He shook my hand firmly introducing himself. “Mr. Will Moriarty, they tell me you’re the man to see.”

“For what?” I asked.

He handed me a case file.

“Murder,” he said. “Alex was found dead in his jail cell.”