Death by Tree Toad

A murder mystery in a near-future, post-COVID world

The corpse lay sprawled on the floor of the supply room of the Do It Digital Agency, his legs splayed out between a pile of FedEx envelopes and packages of toner. A limp, pale arm draped over the scanner. His co-workers crowded in the doorway in stunned silence.

Detective John Silver knelt beside the body and peered into the dead man’s face. Silver, 47, dark curly hair flecked with gray, was slim but solidly built. His 28-year-old partner, D.J. (short for Darwin Jarwin, his main cross to bear in life) guarded the door. D.J. was tall and wiry, with a slightly sensitive look more typical of a high-school art teacher than a cop. The dead man, Rory Corbett, was young — late 20s — and bland-looking, as if his features had been molded from a Ken doll from 1955, albeit one with bulging eyes and blue lips.

Silver bent close to get a look at Corbett’s mouth. “Who found him?” he asked.

Corbett’s co-workers looked at each other. A petite, pretty dark-haired woman said loudly, “I did.” Everyone turned to look at her.

Suddenly a deep, throaty sound emerged from the dead man’s mouth. “Rrrriiidddiiit.”

Silver jumped, and his audience gasped in stereo.

“Rrrriiidddiiit.”

“What the hell?” Silver felt for a pulse, pried open the man’s eyelids, noted the blue-tinged lips. He was definitely dead, all right. A corpse doing frog impersonations? Silver pulled the man’s jaw down and pressed his protruding tongue against his bottom teeth with a wooden stick.

“Rrrriiidddiiiit.” Something leaped out of the dead man’s throat and landed on the detective’s face.

“Aaaaaaaarrrggghhhhhh!” Silver sputtered, his hands wildly flailing at the croaking object, which flew across the room, hit the wall behind him with a “splat” and dropped onto a pile of post-its. Two of the women and three of the men huddled in the doorway shrieked.

It was a toad, all right. A tree toad, bright green and shiny, with a post-it stuck to one 5-toed foot. “Rrriiiddddiiiit.” The frog hopped around the room distractedly, apparently in shock. Silver tried to grab it, but it eluded him. D.J. joined him in pursuit. The dark-haired woman attempted to grab the creature as it leaped past her.

“No, it’s evidence! Don’t touch it without gloves!” Silver shouted at her. She burst into tears. “Sorry,” Silver said as he finally managed to capture it, holding it gingerly by a foot. “Anyone have a paper bag?” he asked.

The woman was still sobbing. “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she sniffed. Silver and D.J. both turned to look at her, then at each other.

Someone produced a bag that smelled vaguely of tartar sauce, and Silver tossed the creature inside. “Rrriiidddiiit.”

“Where are you taking it?” the crying woman asked.

“To the lab to dust it for fingerprints,” Silver said.

“Seriously?”

“You never know,” he said.

The coroner’s office arrived and carted away the body, taped the dead man’s silhouette to the rug and slapped police tape on the door. D.J. took everyone’s basic information, and then Silver said, “Everyone needs to stay until we’ve talked with you all in more detail.”

He turned to D.J. and motioned to a nearby conference room.

“You can all wait in there with Detective Jarwin.” Silver looked at a slightly-built man with a youthful face and graying hair. “Why don’t you come with me,” he said. He still carried the paper bag in his hand. “Who are you?”

“Sheldon La Beef,” the man said in a soft voice. D.J. herded the rest of them to the conference room and shut the door.

Silver led the man to a nearby office and motioned him to sit. He settled behind the spacious wooden desk and tossed the toad-bag onto it. It moved slightly. “Have a seat, Mr. La Beef.”

The man sat, his back unusually straight.

“Mr. La Beef, where were you when Mr. Corbett was found?”

“I was coming out of the elevator. I was working from home this morning. I had just gotten to our floor when I heard Camila scream.”

“And Camila is — ”

“The woman who was crying. Camila Martinez.”

“Was anyone else in the elevator with you?”

“No,” La Beef said.

“Anyone around when you stepped out of the elevator?”

“No, I don’t remember seeing anyone walk by at that moment.”

“Was the security guard at her post downstairs when you entered the building?”

“Yes, we said hi.”

“Any reason you know that anyone would want to kill Mr. Corbett?”

“None whatsoever, Detective. He was a great guy.” He cleared his throat. “Unless it was Mike.”

“Who’s Mike?”

“Mike Washington. He was just passed up for promotion; Rory got it instead.”

“Did he seem angry about that?”

“Kind of.”

“Anything else you can tell me, Mr. La Beef?”

“Don’t think so,” La Beef said.

“All right. You can go for now. And please send in Mr. Washington, if you would.”

A pudgy man in his thirties appeared.

“Mr. Washington, come in. Have a seat,” Silver said.

Washington sat. He appeared ill-at-ease.

“Nervous, Mr. Washington?” Silver said serenely.

Washington wiped his sweaty hands on the arms of the chair. “No, why do you say that?”

Silver looked at Washington’s hands, then back up at his face.

“Rrriiidddiiit.”

Washington jumped in the chair. He looked away for a moment, then back at Silver. “Look man, I know you’ll probably think I had a reason to be pissed off at him because he got the promotion I was up for, so let me just say right now that I didn’t kill him. I mean, do I think I should have gotten that promotion? Yeah, I do. Especially when he was banging Camila in the supply room on company time. But I wouldn’t kill someone for that. Or anything else. I’m not a person who would think of murder as an option.”

“What was that about Camila?”

“It’s common knowledge,” Washington said.

Silver narrowed his eyes at him. “Of course, you’ll probably get the promotion, now that he’s dead,” he mused.

“Damn, I didn’t even think of that,” Washington said.

“Really?”

“Really. Anyway, it’s not the best way to get promoted, is it?”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Silver said.

“Can I go now?”

“Not yet. Where were you when he was found?”

“I was in the men’s room.”

“Was anyone in there with you?” Silver asked.

“I’m not in the habit of pissing in a pack,” Washington said.

“So you were alone in there?”

“Yep.”

“Anyone see you go in or come out?”

“No, a lot of people are still working remotely. Not too many around.”

“All right,” Silver said.

Washington stood up and turned to leave.

“Mr. Washington.”

Washington sighed. “I know, don’t leave town,” he said.

“I was going to ask if you can think of anyone who might have wanted Corbett dead.”

“Not offhand, no.” He moved toward the door, then stopped. “Unless it was Sheldon La Beef.”

“Why is that?”

“He was doing a presentation to a client a couple of weeks ago, and he screwed it up when Rory made some kind of noise or something. He didn’t do it on purpose, but Sheldon lost the client. He seemed pretty pissed off. He’s been really nice to Rory since then, though, and he’s generally a pretty easygoing guy.”

“Well, stick around, I may want to talk with you again. In the meantime, send in Ms. Martinez, if you would.”

“Sure thing.”

A few minutes later, Camila appeared.

“Hello, Ms. Martinez,” Silver said. “Have a seat.”

She sat.

“So, how well did you know Mr. Corbett?”

“Rrrriiidddiiit.” The bag leaped into the air and hopped around on the desk.

Camila burst into tears again. “I’m sorry,” she said. She calmed herself somewhat. “We were screwing. I mean, it was mostly sex, but I’m still sorry he’s dead.” She pulled some Kleenex out of her handbag. “It was really good sex,” she sniffed. “And so great not to have to wear masks any more. Kissing with masks on is like wearing two condoms on your face.”

“Okay,” Silver said. “Uh, what were you doing before you found him?”

“I was eating,” she replied. Silver raised an eyebrow. “A salad,” she said.

“Why were you going to the supply room?” he asked.

“I needed some paper clips,” she said.

He looked at her silently.

Camila gazed out the window for a moment. “All right,” she said, turning back to face Silver. “We sometimes did it in there. I was going to meet him.”

“Rrrriiiidddiiit.” The bag continued to hop around on the desk.

Silver ignored it. “Did anyone see you going in there?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “We did our best to be discreet.”

“Yeah, not sure you did too well with that,” he said. “What about it, Camila? Did you stuff the frog down his throat? Was it a sex-asphyxiation thing?”

Camila’s eyes widened. “What? No!” she shouted.

“You know what I’m talking about, though, don’t you? Have you done something like that with him before? Maybe, trying to make things more exciting, go to the edge?”

“We did it in the supply room in the middle of the workday, when anyone could have come in to refill their tape dispenser. That was on the edge enough, don’t you think?”

“For some people,” he said.

“I didn’t kill Rory, Detective,” she said decisively. “Maybe it was Mike Washington. He was just passed up for the promotion Rory got last week.”

“Rrriiidddiiit.” The bag leaped in front of her face. She blinked.

Silver sat and tried to stare her down. She stared back unflinchingly. Finally, he sighed.

“All right, you can go now,” he said. “But we may want to talk with you again, so don’t go anywhere.”

She rose and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Silver talked with the rest of Rory’s co-workers, but no one had anything else particularly revealing to say. He walked down to the conference room and motioned to D.J. They walked into the office and closed the door. Silver briefed him on the interviews.

“So, it could easily be one of those three,” D.J. said. “Unless it was someone else and we missed something. Or someone who came in off the street and did it, but that’s unlikely, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, the building’s pretty secure, and someone would have noticed a stranger in the office,” Silver said. “Plus he couldn’t have been lying there for too long with a live frog in his throat.”

“So, Camila. She could have been pissed at him for something. Maybe he was cheating on her, or maybe like you said, it was a sex thing.”

“But a frog?”

D.J. shrugged. “People do some pretty weird shit, man,” he said.

“What about La Beef? He was pissed off at Rory for causing him to mess up, at least at the time. Made some kind of noise, was it? He said he wasn’t mad, but who knows. And even assuming the security guard verifies that he came into the building around the time of death, we only have his word that he heard Camila scream when he was stepping out of the elevator.”

“Could be Washington,” D.J. said. “Pretty clear motive, for what that’s worth. Passed up for promotion, then his competitor dies, he maybe gets his job. What do you think?”

Silver stared at him. “Oh my God,” he said.

“What?”

“Made some kind of noise. Corbett. Messed up La Beef’s presentation because he made some kind of noise. What kind of noise? Cleared his throat, maybe? Coughed? Why do you clear your throat?”

“Phlegm?”

“And what is another way of saying that?”

D.J. stared at him. The light dawned. “He had a frog in his throat,” they said in unison.

“I’m so smart I can’t stand myself sometimes,” Silver said.

“Me neither.”

The bag bounced over their heads. “Rrrriiiidddiiit.”