Lavender Peas

"Eww, that sounds disgusting."

That's what you said. I heard you. I'm in the room with you right now. No, don't turn around. That will ruin the surprise.

Transcript

(Serious, sophisticated voice) The following audio recording has been released to the public under the Access of Historical Records Act, Chapter 12, Subparagraph B. Listener discretion is advised.

(Voice change) My name? Owen Laskin. The crime I’ve been brought in for? I dunno. The official title is long, I can’t remember it. Mass murder, I think. If we’re being straight. 

I plead not guilty. Of course I didn’t do it. I mean, who would I be if…

No, no, no, that’s not what I meant to say. I mean, I’d have to be really stupid to intentionally poison everyone on the estate and then stay on the scene of the crime, but… but also, what kind of monster do you take me for?! I’ve never even killed a chicken, I swear to God, Christ, and all their holy angels. I had to get my brother David to do it for me every time dad told me to. It worked for both of us, because he was a real nasty guy, that David. He would’ve done it. He would’ve done the poisoning, if he was still around. But not me. Not me, I swear!

ALright, so, technically, I did poison them. But, technically… I was trying to think of something witty to say, like technically the sun is one of the leading killers in the world, but I’m realizing now that doesn’t make any sense…

Slow down? Yes. Yes, yes. I’ll slow down. It’s gotten to me too, you know. It seeped through my skin, even though I’d been wearing gloves. I spent the whole night afterwards on the toilet. You ask the guards, I swear that’s where they’ll say they found. It was right embarrasing, too, but…

Sorry, sorry. Yes. Technically, I did poison everyone. But I didn’t… it wasn’t my decision! Obviously! I was told by lady Esmerelda herself, that was what I was going to do. Yes, she, the lady herself, walked into the kitchen! I’d been in her employ for thirteen years, and I’d never even seen so much as her shadow pass over the kitchen threshold. But it was just so important to her that…

I would have tried to lie harder if I didn’t think I was going to be found out, anyway. I did it. But! But! She told me, to! I even told her that the dye smelled funny when she had Jerry wheel the substance in, but of course she didn’t listen!

What? Yes, I’m blaming her! I don’t care, stars above, I don’t care whether or not she was my landlord. Why should I? I’m not taking some dead magg… pardon me. I wouldn’t take a dead person’s honor over me preserving my own life! 

It was just another one of her fads. That’s what it was. YOu have to know about these. Maybe your local’s not as bad as Esmerelda… well, I can’t imagine they are, as they haven’t gotten everyone killed, but the red-eyes, you know, they develop this obsession, this thing that latches onto their mind like a tick and can’t be pried off, no matter how much you try talking sense into them, right? Well, they flit from one to the next, and you always have to wonder what will be the one that will do them in, right? Oh, don’t tell me you don’t think about stuff like that! One day they’ve slashed the staff’s budget so that I can’t even get linens for my daughter’s bed so that they can spend hundreds of Feathers on little lead dolls, and then the next… lavender. 

You just have to wonder, as they dance between these madnesses, just how close they are to becoming Icarus, you know? Because maybe, just maybe, something will do it. Not a blade, not a regular poison, not the turning of time, but just…

Just the right thing, at the right time. That’s what you wonder. That’s what I wondered. The entire estate is painted lavender, too. Doubtless that’s in the reports. She had drafted lots of people from in town to help with the endeavor, and they were terrible at it. She had them cover the ceiling, too, and they lavished it with so much paint that it dripped on our heads. As we were working, too! I mean, I still haven’t been able to scrub this splotch out of my scalp. See that? That’ll last so long it’ll probably have stained all the way to my skull. At least it’ll be easy to identify my bones, eh?

And it wasn’t just her, Esmerlda, you know? It was a thing she had with a few of the other local ladies. Barones Roswell and Sader, I think. They’d come by and visit in what would normally be these gorgeous lavender toned dresses, but, given the circumstances, they looked as perverse as a goat wearing a t-shirt. Or less. Still, it just… 

They would often gossip with each other about the color. So and so hadn’t changed out her garden yet, or was wearing a red hat, you know, stuff like that. It seemed ridiculous to me out of the gate. But, you know, of course it did. It was a social contagion thing that I hadn’t caught. Don’t get me wrong. Lavender’s a nice color. Real nice. At least, I used to like it, now…

Now, not so much. I’d even go for baby blue over lavender. Anyways, I don’t think lady Esmerelda was the one who started it. She was never one for new ideas. But she respected lady Sader, I know that. And then…

And then it just got worse and worse. Because obviously it was going to do that. If the entire house had to be painted lavender, then the servants had to wear lavender clothes, too. The air had to smell like the plant, bushes of the thing had to be planted in the garden, and then…

And then she had us start dying the food. The first few goes around, we used some expensive draught she brought in straight from New Houston. And by expensive, I mean expensive. Each bottle, a tiny little thing like this (suspect demonstrative motions were visual, and thus not recorded on tape), that would last about five meals. Eighty feathers. Eighty. Leander down in bookkeeping was furious when he first saw it. Instead of going ot the lady, which, I mean, he was legally obligated to, but let’s not kid ourselves, that was suicide… instead of going to the lady, he just starting mouthing off around the servant quarters. He was pissed. We all were. A full year’s salary, tossed onto nothing more than a bottle of food dye.

Of course, our grumbling didn’t matter. None of us were brave enough to make it more than grumbling. Thing is, however, that the estate didn’t actually have the balances to buy more than a couple of these bottles a month, but she was going through about eight, right? So, of course, the du… the lady’s estate went bankrupt. But that wasn’t something that could get out, of course. She was forced to sell the sawmill down the river to cover her debt, but if the other lords and ladies found out about her plight, why, they’d be swarming around her with debt collectors in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

So, in order to make a smokescreen for her plight, our lady decided to hold a feast. Obviously, if she was holding a feast, she couldn’t possibly be low on money, right? Well, if anyone saw the books or talked to one of us backstage people, they’d know the truth, but otherwise…

Otherwise she was having the lavender party to end all lavender parties. Officials from all across the midlands were invited. But what would color their food? It had to be lavender, of course. Of course. That’s how deep the mania goes, you know? Even when you’re trying to cover your tracks, make yourself seem respectable…

‘Course, the estate couldn’t afford more of the quality dye. Our lady had even sent round the local embers to beat the change out of the estate’s independent artisans, and that had only been enough to wrangle up thrity-three feathers. Not nearly enough for one bottle. So, she improvised. She brought in this viscous, scented dye from some supplier in the east. Yes, east. Across the border type east. And that’s what it was. That’s what we used. Every single bit by her direction, under her discretion, with her money, her commands. Not one single one of us ever meant to… 

Listen. You know how to cut off the tape recording at a certain point, right? Come on. I want to have an honest conversation.

Okay. So no, then. That’s what I expected, but I’m still disappointed. Has your detective found anything, and I mean, anything at all that contradicts my account? You spoken to a single other servant of the estate who saw differently? 

Whelp, gotta admit, you’re good at your job. I could never be as stone faced as you. I dyed the food. I admit that. I knew it was a bad idea, because, I mean… cheap, strange food dye, that hadn’t been tested on anyone? Come on. Absolutely come on. You guys really want to wrack up a killer so your higher ups can stop stressing out, I guess I’m your guy. I don’t want to…

I really don’t want to go to prison. If you have to, execute me. I had my will written up and left in my quarters underneath that bucket in the corner. Basically, I just want everyhting that the state won’t take to be entrusted to my sister. She’s the one with all the kids, anyways. I was so busy working on the estate that I never…

But… no. If you actually want a killer in this case, a killer who isn’t our lady. EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS OBVIOUSLY THE KILLER… dead by her own stupid hand… if you want someone responsible, then you’d best find whoever actually hooked up the estate with the shabby food coloring to begin with. I’d have my guesses. Like Jamesson. He has the heaviest Bluecapper accent I’ve ever heard on a person, and I was born east of the Mississippi. 

So, just…

Jail cell 8? Really? How long are you holding me there?

All this because somebody else was obsessed with the color lavender…

You’ve gotta be kidding me.