So a short while later, we found ourselves back at the estate of Arizona Mat where Mongrel, Arizona Mat, and the police sat around the living room while I stood court in the center of the room. I pulled one officer to the side, whispered something in his ear, and sent him down the hall before beginning the denouement.
“In order to understand this case, we need to go back to the day of the first attack,” I said.
“Wait a moment,” said Arizona Mat. “You’ve done well, my friend, but I’ll take it from here. Obviously my colleague and I have come to the same conclusion. Since I’ve been the target, I feel it’s my privilege to bring this fiend to justice.”
I stared at Arizona Mat for a moment, then gestured for him to take the stage while I stood in a corner.
“Thank you. It has always been my philosophy that one truth prevails and that is certainly the case here. The person responsible for these heinous attacks is Tall Square, my former sidekick. He’s always been jealous of my intelligence, wit, good looks, and discoveries. My besting him in the handshake contest was clearly the straw that broke the camel’s back. Once he realized that he ended up in Nome, AK, he realized he had the perfect cover to launch a series of devastating attacks on me in secret.
First, he arranged to have an explosive “surprise” sent to me, sans return address, so I wouldn’t be able to trace the package back to Alaska. After arranging for the package, he chartered a flight back to Phoenix and has been following me around. He rented a car so he could chase me down at Paseo Vista. When my superior brain outfoxed him, he immediately drove to my home and set up the wasp farm, since he still had keys to my home. When that failed, he trailed us to Buffalo Wild Wings where he paid off a thug to beat me senseless. Unluckily for him, Chris spotted him waiting outside the scene of the crime.
He slipped into my house, hoping he could get at me while the others were asleep. Due to Chris’ propensity for deep sleep, he managed to get to me, but chose not to finish me off, as he would want it on a grand stage. He hoped that stage might have been the sushi restaurant, but we managed to escape the sinister swordsman he had hired. In case that attack failed, he set up a bomb in my pool. Unfortunately, Chris took the evening swim that night and was nearly blown to kingdom come. When he realized he failed, he followed Chris and I to Castles N Coasters where he used us like a real life shooting gallery.
By now, my former sidekick must have reached the limits of his patience and, any moment now, will kick in the door in an attempt to launch one final murderous assault upon my glorious personage.”
Everyone turned to look at the door.
Nothing happened.
I came out of the corner and patted Arizona Mat on the shoulder.
“That was actually a nimble piece of logical reasoning. But you made two crucial errors. One, Tall Square doesn’t strike me as the most subtle of people. He would have started with the murderous assault. Two, it’s a 10.5 hour flight from here to Nome and they are two hours behind us. It’s simply not feasible for him to have arranged any of this.”
“Oh,” said Arizona Mat, sitting back down, his face red as a beet.
“Not that he was completely wrong,” I said. “The assailant certainly wanted us to think Tall Square was behind this. Hence, the little surprise delivered to Arizona Mat as well as hiring someone with a similar physical build to Tall Square for us to witness on the scene for the BWW brawl. The attacker had to be someone with access to the house. He also had to have knowledge of where Arizona Mat would be in order to set up these traps and attacks. I realized that Arizona Mat’s need to broadcast his whereabouts to the world via Facebook was how the assaulter managed to set up his various death traps.
At that point I ordered Arizona Mat to stop broadcasting our whereabouts via FB and the combination of that plus our staying close to home closed off the avenues of attack for our villain. The day of the Castles N Coasters attack, I happened to glance at Arizona Mat’s cell phone which was open to his FB page and I learned the truth.
He only has one FB friend. Clearly that person must be the attacker. But to be certain of my theory, I posted that we were at Castles N Coasters in an attempt to provoke an assault. I had arranged for the police to be nearby, but the attacker managed to slip through the cordon. Of course, the attacker didn’t always need FB to set up an attack. On several occasions, he was right along our side. Isn’t that right, Mongrel?”
Mongrel had blanched when I made that accusation.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “I was there at Paseo Vista and BWW. I was also attacked by the wasps in the pool.”
“That was the brilliant and, dare I say, daring part of your plan. You made yourself look like a potential victim of collateral damage so you wouldn’t be suspected.”
“But there’s no motivation,” countered Mongrel.
“Oh, I disagree. You’ve had the run of the estate since Arizona Mat and Tall Square started their little handshake duel back in January. It would be such a shame to lose it all and be reduced to a lowly B level sidekick again. So at some point, you decided to eliminate Arizona Mat and frame Tall Square for the crime. Or maybe you planned to get rid of both of them and adapted your plan after you found out Tall Square was flown to Alaska.”
While I was speaking, the officer whom I had sent out of the room returned with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“And I believe this kind officer has provided me with the evidence I need to prove your guilt.”
An examination of the papers revealed Mongrel had been forging Arizona Mat’s name on various documents. He had given himself power of attorney over Arizona Mat’s assets as well as rewriting his will to name himself sole heir.
“Anything you care to say, Mongrel?” I asked.
“You don’t know what it was like,” said Mongrel in a sad voice. “I was kept so much in the background that you didn’t even know I existed. Why shouldn’t I have had the estate? I took care of it. Arizona Mat was never around. Occasionally he’d bed here, but normally he and Tall Square were out having misadventures. When you started publicizing his antics, it made him even more insufferable. This estate is mine. I earned it.”
Mongrel was cuffed by one of the officers, read his rights, and taken away.
Needless to say, Arizona Mat was ecstatic now that the threat to his life had ended. In celebration, we went out to the Brunswick Zone for a few hours of bowling. Arizona Mat was back to his arrogant, self-aggrandizing ways. As he bored me with tellings of his various “explorations”, he managed to have a red hot night of bowling, closing all, but 2 frames and bowling a 200+ point game for the first time in 20 years. I, myself, had a sharp night of bowling as my old form began to reassert itself as I averaged 120 points.
We returned to his home and slept the sleep of the peaceful, but this adventure wasn’t over just yet.
Chris' Corner 