Synaptic Snaps, Crackles & Pops

Bad soup? [30 DBC entry]

With the site being down for a planned upgrade tomorrow, you are given until midnight 11/18 to submit an entry for this prompt. Both the 11/17 and 11/18 prompts will be due at the same time.

30DBC November 17 Prompt: You have been invited to a posh dinner party hosted by one of the wealthiest people in your small town. When you arrive, your host does not greet you, and the butler informs you they have been missing since last night. A quick search by all the party goers finds him/her dead. Their body is in a small clearing in the woods behind the mansion. Being a modern day Nancy Drew/Joe Hardy type of person, you begin your own investigation. What do you find that leads you to the murderer. Who is the murderer? How was the host killed?


Ronald Wellington had earned his fortune the new-fashioned way: he'd lucked out and hit the Lottery. The newfound wealth had pretty much stripped away his inhibitions, revealing what many had long suspected: Ronald was insensitive and mean and, given the chance, he would treat you like dirt. If you happened to work for him, like his chef, Kelly Maru, it was even worse.

Kelly had been classically and specially trained and had emigrated to the States, but his work visa had expired. Ronald had saved him from being deported, but then kept him a virtual prisoner in the huge house north of Denver. If some element of a meal didn't meet Ronald's expectations, Kelly suffered for it. After months of mistreatment bordering on torture, Kelly decided he'd had enough. He made his plan, then set it into motion.

He told his boss that he would like to help him celebrate the end of summer by preparing a very special meal for him and his friends next Friday, including a delicacy which they almost certainly had never experienced. Wellington was very excited at this chance to show off yet again and had Henry, his driver, take Kelly to a specialty fish shop in Denver the following Thursday.

* * *

"I strongly advise you not to eat the soup," I said to the other guests, who had all gathered in the kitchen. "The condition of Mr. Wellington's body, as well as the body of his unfortunate cat next to some fish bones, tell me there's poisonous fish involved; I suspect the soup is fugu chiri. How about it, Mr. Maru?"

Kelly sighed.

"You are correct about the nature of the fish, but the sashimi is fine," he said, "and the soup is just a traditional fish soup. I just had to get him to eat the fish's liver, and that was easy. He always wanted samples of any special dishes I made, before anyone else got to taste them, so I told him it was the tastiest part of the fish. I knew he wouldn't share it with anybody. I regret the death of the cat, though. I should have taken greater care with the remains of the pufferfish."