Lady Lynda’s First Lecture

Well, I have news to share. Lady Lynda shall not accompany me in the Primrose Detective agency in my criminal sleuthing. She will continue on the lecture circuit, teaching our young ladies decorum and manners. I consider it a meritorious undertaking. People need to know proper manners and morals in these hellacious times. Man was born a savage and needs the ameliorating effect of such instruction. A lady is to draw the line at her neck line and not topple over at the first utterance of an insincere or nefarious compliment. Ardor should be contained until the wedding night. Then Pop Goes the Weasel. A little witticism for you, dear. Ah the glorious, halcyon days of youth and innocence. But, I do digress.

Well my next case involved the shady, sorrowful, sumptuous death of the late pop singer, Tom Bones best known for the song, “What’s New Scaredy Cat”, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was a fine looking, rustic, bawdy looking Welch man, and had a way of moving that suggested amorous intent. He had a passionate voice so as the melt the heart of the most chill of women. Ah, those quivering hips, I deign to say. I am so outré, so naughty. I even shock myself.

I viewed the pictures of the crime scene, so gritty, and graffic like a Diane Arbus picture of the idiots standing on their little pin heads, (the poor dears). I asked, Moe Wheedle, the head detective, if I might view the murder scene to get some psychic vibes I might be able to gather there. I felt the evil presence of an unknown woman waft through the still air. People used to ask me for the happenings at the end of their lives and I used to tell the truth and got into a lot of contretemps and sometimes, fisticuffs, so now I tell all women their ex- husbands will be at their graves, pining for them and regretting the acquisition of their trophy wives. For men, I tell them I see them bedding Marilyn Monroe in a pile of thick, rose hued cumulus clouds after death.

Tom was found head down at the New York Park Hyatt, frothing at the mouth. To me, this indicated a poisoning of some kind. Mo Wheedle affirmed this theory, but said that the tox screen revealed no known poison. Mo, a large, fat frumpy man, in wrinkled suit and dirt on his collar, chewed his tobacco said, “I think he was headed for the ‘terlet’ when she done him in.” His second sergeant said, “Ah, boss, you always say that every time.”

“Cuz, it’s true most of the time, pilgrim. When people are emptying their bladders it’s an excellent opportunity to kill them because then they’re not alert! Ya see.”

I concurred though I did not exactly follow his line of reasoning. Always butter up the detectives and let them feel superior. A man’s ego is so fragile, my darlings. Well again I digress. The room looked like a Victoria Secret set with panties bras, bustiers, and silk stockings thrown about and Moe Wheedle surmised that Tom was a closet “fairy” to use his patois. I informed him that women threw their panties and room keys on the stage when Tom Bones performed and he just said “Oh,” and looked pensive, no mean task for him. In fact he looked kind of misty in mind like phone ringing nobody home. No wonder he needed a psychic!

Before leaving me to my musings, he paused at the door, and turned to say, “Oh yeah one thing is kinda preculiar. He had been drinking heavily and he had a pair of black lace panties in his mouth when he died. Watcha think of that, Madame Carol?”
I gueried him as to whether he tested the panties for poison and he pompously said that he had and not to try to second guess him as he was in charge of the investigation not me!

I apologized for my foolhardiness and expressed my amazement at his superior sleuthing and told him I was just a mere woman. He was much soothed and walked out like the cock of the walk.

I decided to study the women in his life for it was known he never had dalliances with his fans though he did collect and take their panties with him after the performances. I knew the mode of poisoning it had to be in the panties and was an unknown poison.

He was married to Helena Bonham Farter for ten years and I surmised she knew him best, so I researched her first. She was an astounding beauty, dark haired and porcelain skinned, like an E. A. Poe heroine. I liken her to the mistress of the “House of Usher”. She was for a delicate woman a ferocious lover, wild and wanton. What do the men say, “a lady in the board room and a whore in the bedroom.” When they divorced she went to “The Farm of Funny”. And she came out of that place distraught, morose and moody, and took to burning Tom in effigy every Sunday, chanting, “Die, die you rotten scum. I’ll burn your damn wandering cock”.

Afterward he dated a stripper a Miz Una Linear, a tempestuous Taurus. Though beautiful as Botticelli’s Venus on the Half Shell, she was terribly insecure. In fact, she took to her bed for three days after seeing crow’s feet forming under her vapid cerulean eyes. She was like a cavern that could never be filled, and her constant neediness drove Tom away. This is a lesson, for you, Dears, never be a tabula rosa for “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Then there was Meredith the Monolith, a dominatrix, he dated for a time. She was stern and masterful and liked to give Tom a good thrashing on occasion and she demanded he “worship” her feet by licking her toes. There were many others but I picked these for they seemed the most “unmanned”. A little bon mot for you, darlings. I decided to interview Helena as the other two had alibis at the time of his death. Besides in the old movies the wife is always the culprit. One can’t argue with that can one. There is one thing I must shamed facedly admit. When I went to the morgue to see his corpse I sneaked a peak at his ‘love instrument’ and I deign to say it was magnificent. I am no angel after all.
So, I interviewed Helena, the ex-wife, who was not without wit. The first thing she said was “I want you to know I’m not burning Tom in effigy anymore. That would be redundant!” Then she let fly raucous laughter like a hyena on the Serengeti Plains. I liked her: I love a good belly laugh.

“Why do you not ask the cause of death?” I inguired.

“Madame I read newspapers, you silly goose, after all I do live in this world. I loved Tom and would never actually harm him. I so state it,” she countered. They are not aware of which kind of poison killed him, a real pity. It’s like that Escher painting of a man climbing stairways that lead nowhere.” And came the outrageous laughter again.

“You know Tom was really the only man I ever loved, so giving, kind and sensual, and the voice of Gabriel, The Angel. I could not harm a hair on his head. Never. Ever.”

I saw a movement out of the corner of my eyes and asked her what it was. She replied that it was her two Gila Monsters, Mort Sahl and Sally. Did I tell you Tom had a fascination with women’s underwear, putting it in his mouth, and throwing back a shot of Stolichnaya, and then singing “I am marching to Pretoria.”
“You did it didn’t you? Gila Monsters are deadly poisonous. And you knew of his fetish.”

“Perhaps so, if memory serves. But on the other hand I am certifiable insane and gasp, don’t know right from wrong. So do you think I climbed the fire escape like a cat burglar and poisoned all the pants. Ha! Prove it! The evidence is circumstantial and don’t you think I’m smart enough to destroy the tainted pair of underwear. This is all hearsay evidence. Never would I poison them all. You can’t call this a confession either as I had no lawyer present and you did not read me my Miranda rights. Pet the lizards: they are fond of you.” Her laughter was so incongruous to her pale unearthly Degas like beauty.

Curiously Strange. But, I liked that evil women. Things down with panache and style are commendable. Of course I turned her in but knew she would be wild haired reciting snippets of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, running amok when they came for her. “Mad but north northwest” as they say.

Written by CAROL ANN bond author of POEMS OF THUNDER @ Amazon & BN.com

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