Stubble: A Murder Mystery

Livi

The wailing widow screams through her sobs, “He couldn’t have done it, fools! Find my husband’s murderer!” Her shoulders shake beneath her cheap housedress, and her face is a fascinating blend of grief and rage. No actress ever portrayed emotion as well as this woman. I must admit, I feel rather grateful for her histrionic cries.

“Why couldn’t he have done it, ma’am?” one of the younger detectives finally asks, shielding himself from her wrath with a veil of politeness. The boy stood no chance.

“WHY?” she thunders, turning toward the brave unfortunate. “Why could this man not kill my husband, you ask?” She sneers at the young policeman, who flinches from the expression for a half-second, but manages to stand his ground.

“Yes, ma’am. I would like to know why you believe he couldn’t have killed your husband.” His quivery smile betrays the bravado of the firm nod he offers to accompany his statement.

“He couldn’t have killed my husband,” she tells him, tone arch and dripping with contempt for all of his profession, “because he has a beard.”

---

Only two days ago they arrested me. I only exceeded the speed limit by ten miles per hour, but suddenly the cuffs are on and I’m off to jail.

The police frown upon citizens possessing murder weapons.

---

The victim’s wife just might provide my way out of this cell. It must be admitted—there is excellent evidence against me, especially when there are no other suspects.

“I don’t know what dried blood looks like,” I protested to the officers during interrogation. “I collect bronze statuettes. When I saw such a lovely example simply left beside a dumpster, I couldn’t help but pick it up. The small stain might’ve been anything! How was I to know?”

My prints are the only ones on the heavy bust. A murdered man’s blood adorns the bottom. A man found murdered from a hard blow to the back of the head.

They cannot connect me to the victim, however, and it creates a gap in their scenario. The premises show no signs of breaking and entering, and the man died instantly, deep within the bowels of his house. The widow, that fierce and loud creature, might be suspect except for her absolute proof she attended a business meeting out of country at the time of her husband’s death. Who else would the man invite into his home?

The most plausible scenario they’ve given me, trying to elicit confession, starts with me pretending to be a stranded man, in desperate need of a phone call and a bathroom stop. That they must resort to cliché offers me a shred of hope, but that pesky murder weapon on my front seat causes visions of courtrooms to dance in my head.

Yet now, the person who should most like to convict me, protests that I cannot have killed her husband. I do not understand how my aversion to being clean-shaven proves my innocence.

---

“He has a beard?” the young detective inquires without the proper respect. His surprise has caused him to be careless of the angered woman before him.

“No, that stubble upon his face is an optical illusion!” she rails, the sarcasm lost beneath the fear encouraged by her crazed blue eyes and dramatic voice. “Yes, he has a beard! Therefore, my husband would never have let the man enter the house! He wouldn’t have opened the door to such a man!”

“You husband disliked beards, ma’am?”

“Disliked them? That doesn’t offer any glimpse whatsoever into my husband’s feelings about beards.”

“How did your husband feel about beards, ma’am?”

“Beards completely terrified the poor man. His own five o’ clock shadow would turn him into a quaking mass of fear. I took it upon myself to shave him in the morning, for otherwise it would never be done—he would simply grow more horrified by his own physiognomy.” She smiled at the assembled detectives as if she’d just proved the theory of relativity to all in the room. Then that smile twisted, turning the briefly pretty face into an unbecoming snarl. “Now find the real killer!”

The young policeman, no longer the focus of her intentions, scurried back to the safety of the crowd. Another spoke, asking, “Can you prove your husband possessed this unusual fear?”

She turned her gaze onto him, a cocked eyebrow accompanying her monstrous gaze. Standing in that pose she waited, until he satisfied her with a postponed “ma’am”. Once the widow received this proper address, she deigned to offer a reply. “If you wish, I shall give you the number of his psychiatrist. He can tell you he has been treating my dear departed husband for quite some time, ever since he was first diagnosed with pogonophobia.”

“Did the suspect wear a beard before the murder?” one of the detectives inquired of another, truly telling him to find the answer.

---

My beard, not much more than a light layer of stubble, shows on my driver’s license. Friends and family all confirm I’ve worn my facial hair in such a manner for as long as they can remember. They tell the police that when they point me out to someone, they describe me as “the one with the stubble”.

Unable to form a motive, or a plausible way for me to be on the premises, eventually the charges were dismissed.

---

The widow walked beside me as we left the courtroom, her face offering no expression until we reached her car, far from the eyes of the building. She smiled.

“It’s wonderful you keep your beard short. It grew back so quickly.”