The Perfect Crime Revisited by Terry Black

It started out as an open and shut case. Trouble was, it was entirely too open!

“I thought you said it was open and shut,” said Detective Sergeant Barton Rimble, combing his fingers through a shock of blue-black hair. “Now you say we’re dead in the water. What the hell’s the problem?”

Calvin Cupflutter winced. Cupflutter was new to Homicide; he was Rimble’s junior by fifteen years, and had soft, baby-bottom features on a sunburnt oval face. He was often asked for his ID in bars. “You’d better see for yourself, sir,” he said cautiously. “We have what you might call... a complication.”

“It better be good,” snapped Rimble.

Rimble and Cupflutter jaywalked across the street, in front of a guacamole-colored Buick with out-of-state plates and a decal that said SMILE, GOD LOVES YOU. Another twelve paces brought them to the sliding glass doors of the Rupert Muncie Convention Center, a domelike building with colorless walls and sloping, mirrored windows.

“Godzilla’s doghouse,” muttered Rimble.

Cupflutter led him inside, past a dense gaggle of people milling in the foyer. The scene of the crime was an immense auditorium, kidney-shaped, with long rows of folding chairs surrounding a raised platform. Refreshments were available on tables to the rear. Beside one of the tables was a portly, middle-aged man with a Sterling silver letter opener jutting from his back.

Spectators jostled for a view of the victim. Two harried patrolmen were shooing them off.

“Victim’s name is Floyd Burbank,” said Cupflutter, consulting his notebook. “Thirty minutes ago he went to the men’s room, started back, stopped for a sandwich and keeled over dead. They checked his body and found the letter opener between his shoulder blades. No one knows who did it or why.”

Rimble grunted. “What made you think it was open and shut?”

Cupflutter pointed. On the floor was a vital clue: a thin line of blood trailed from the dead man’s outstretched finger, forming a wavering — but quite clear — indictment of his killer. The message said simply, THE BUTLER DID IT.

“Well, what’s the problem?” asked Rimble. “Did you talk to the butler? Does he have an alibi?”

Cupflutter could only groan, and shake his head, and jerk his thumb at a brightly-painted banner stretched between stanchions over hundreds of smartly-dressed men wearing topcoats, vests and black shoestring bowties. The banner read 54th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL BUTLER’S CONVENTION — WELCOME, BUTLERS!

Rimble’s eyebrow twitched. “Good God,” he moaned. “There must be a thousand butlers in here!”

“Twelve hundred,” said Cupflutter.

“I’m getting a migraine,” said Rimble, rubbing his forehead.

“Let me bring you an aspirin, sir,” said eight crisp voices, all at once.