Mr. Mystery

Ironically Mathew Mystery was a lot of things, among them a good teacher, a pleasant husband, a caring son and a very extravagant murderer, but never a mystery to anyone. Everyone knew him well and had a high opinion of him, with all the volunteer work and all the charity given. Above all things, people would have never expected Mathew to become such a mystery and to end up as he did.

But as every mystery story, it all started with a completely normal sunny morning around the street. Mathew was leaving for work, and taking out the trash, as he always did every morning, and then I started noticing the rare events. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not the kind of person who just sits at the porch staring at the neighbors waiting for them to do something interesting, I observe them even when they're not interesting, which is far less obnoxious.

Well, the weird events started when he took out two black bags, when normally he took just one out, unless he had a party or family came over, but none of that had happened, of that I'm sure. So, how could a young couple without any kids could produce more than one bag of trash? Many people started murmuring I was wacko and that I had lost it, but I knew young Mr. Mystery was up to something.

The next day I was ready to see him take out two black bags, but instead it was just one that day, how could this be? Was it some extra trash they were producing that day? Or did they decided to make house cleaning and filled the second bag the day before? No, I was pretty sure they had made their spring clean last week, they even asked me to help, and I obviously didn't.

But then what was it? Was Mathew now throwing the corpses in his own trash can? Had he became lazy and started putting them in his own trash instead of taking them to the old dock and bury them next to the great eucalyptus? But he had always been so clean and neat when it came to getting rid of the death bodies, so that possibility was clearly dismissed. The day Mathew Mystery started being untidy about something in his life, mystery or not, that day birds would fry themselves.

So I kept watching him, I stopped by their house many times in the following weeks, but as always they were both gone or just too busy in their bedroom, as they often were, at least I guessed so, given all the noise. So I started watching carefully Monica, probably she was different too, but as I observed her for weeks, it was quiet clear she wasn't. Good old Monica, probably she didn't even know her husband was up to something, perhaps she was too busy with that mistress of hers. And I don't say this to flame anyone, it is well known that Monica has an affair with other lady friend, even Mathew is fine about it.

Then it happened, three weeks and two days later Mathew was out again, with not one, or two black bags, but three! And he was very cynical about it, he just took them out, without any precautions, without even looking sideways in case someone besides me was watching. So I decided to stand up for once and went straight forward to ask him about it. I wasn't planing to wait for other three weeks for him to decide to be interesting again.

And as I approached he looked at me, perfectly knowing what was I up to, and the villain didn't even bothered to hurry inside his house! This was out of politically correct, even worse than that time when Gregor Sullivan actually answered the phone in one of my stalking phone calls.

"So, you making more trash huh?" I said, very determined to know the truth

"Hello to you too David" said cynically

"Don't play fool on me, you know I've been watching you" I stated, firm

"David, you've been watching me ever since I moved in, how is today any different?" asked arrogantly, and a very sad attempt to sound polite.

"I know you're up to something Mystery, and I will find out what that is" I said

"Well, you kind of stalk the entire neighborhood, why am I of your interest now?" he asked, mocking me, as everyone else

"I'll get you Mathew"

"Not if i get you first" he said, while laughing in that sweetly annoying laugh of his

"Are you threatening to murder me?" I almost yelled

"Well, you know I try to keep a policy of no one near the area, but I can always make an exception David, I sure wouldn't mind making one for you" he said, in what i couldn't identify as sarcasm or an offer


I didn't answered, I just looked at him ruefully and crossed the street, back at my usual observing chair. This was outrageous, not did he only avoided my questions, but he as well threatened to kill me. But despite of it all he was just as polite as he always was, probably he really wanted to hide this whatever-it-was he was hiding. Which made it far more interesting.

In the following weeks Mr. Mystery tried to keep a low profile, that or he just was following his silly routine, what ever it was, it was not fooling me. Then, the day the delivery guy brought me the new binoculars I ordered, I decided to go to school and see if he was being anymore different there. Probably he was, 9th graders are so thick they wouldn't notice if the man turned up being now a woman (which had happened to Mr. Simmons, now Miss Sunshine). So I went in the bike, almost tripping with all the nuts in the streets, they are becoming a problem nowadays.

But when i looked by the window, to listen to his impossibly-more-boring class on black wholes and time travel, as always kids were just taking note and listening, without paying any attention. And asI followed him through the first five periods, he didn't do anything that could be considered out of the regular. I knew this because I had spied on him before, back when he had moved in, just to check if he wasn't some ill minded republican. So all was very normal, but I knew something would happen, which is why i spied every of his classes, until, in what I'm sure was a moment of weakness he threw an apple to the kid in front. Now, I know what you might think, it is very regular for any teacher to do this, but the weird part was that then he picked the apple form the floor and ate it, instead of moving on with the class, or throw more things to the dull students.

After I spilled this to some of the neighbors, they finally agreed that there was something weird with that, and that Mathew was actually acting weird lately, Sierra (the fat lady two houses down mine) said she had seen him at her dinner, just actually eating, instead of his habitual hunting for a next victim. But to my rage, they were worried about him, and they were even planning to throw him a surprise party. It was overwhelming that they couldn't notice Mathew Mystery was onto something very fishy.

The weeks after the apple incident were very good, I actually saw him take out three black bags one morning, and then driving his car slower than 40, which is forbidden in this part of town, and we all know how Mathew Mystery never breaks the law. But non of these events were of any help into finding what was he up to, it was actually distressing that I could just find prove that he was acting weird, but not the cause of it all. It was at least until the day I found him at the comic store three days ago.

I had never encountered anyone I knew before in the shop, but that wasn't odd because I just went there five to six times a week, anyone would be able to go on Sundays without me ever knowing about it. But this was really helpful because he was talking over the phone, and obviously I heard the conversation, at first I didn't got a thing, because they were only talking about shippings and sending packages. But then after a while of overhearing next to a shelf, I heard what I had been waiting to know all this time.

They were talking about dealing and transporting, and that his whole time, Mathew had been fabricating it in his kitchen without poor Monica ever knowing. Then he just left them in the trashcans, waited for someone to picked them up, and so the whole crime went on unnoticed, until my vigilant eye noticed it all. And since he was also consuming, he hadn't even noticed when he threw the apple to that kid, and he was too tired at nights to go on with his hobby. The mystery was solved!

So then I called you, and then I called the police, they quickly arrested him, and now he'll be locked in jail for over three days! that, or they'll just let him out in exchange for "special services", but the thing is that I caught him. Which just means no one can go just like that, committing a crime and expecting no one to notice!

Thanks Mister Knotgood, now, could you tell us how exactly did the police arrested Mr. Mystery?

Sure, well, after I called, they showed up in matter of seconds and there was already a patrol over his house, then they read him his rights and said he was being arrested for illegally fabricating and dealing candy in his own house, and that was about it.