MURDERED: Can YOU Solve the Mystery? (Click Your Poison Book 2) Read online

  MURDERED

  A Click Your Poison book

  by

  James Schannep

  This is a work of fiction. The actions depicted are neither real nor based on real events. The actual locations and businesses in this book are all used in conjunction with fictional and fictionalized elements; their inclusion is for literary effect only and was done without permission or consent. Any similarity between characters in the book and actual persons is purely coincidental and unintentional. Nothing in the book is intended to convey or imply facts about any businesses, persons, elements or events.

  Certain details in this book that could be construed as negative impressions of Brazil and Brazilians are merely the intended plot and story elements germane to a murder mystery, in order to portray a “noir” feel. The same is true of US Foreign Service members herein depicted within.

  Author’s note: The factual elements of this book were garnered from many hours of research, including travel guides, documentaries, travel blogs, and my personal experiences abroad. You might find mistakes in the text; some are based on my taking creative liberties, while others are intentional misinformation given by the characters in the story. However, as I’m not a native Brazilian, you may find unintentional errors. If you do, please contact me at www.jamesschannep.com so I can revise the text for future editions.

  Copyright © 2013 by James Schannep

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Schannep, James, 1984—

  MURDERED: a Click Your Poison book / James Schannep

  COVER ART BY NIKKI JANSEN

  Click Your Poison Books

  INFECTED—Will YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

  MURDERED—Can YOU Solve the Mystery?

  SUPERPOWERED—Will YOU Be a Hero or a Villain?

  PATHOGENS—More Zombocalypse Survival Stories!

  MAROONED—Can YOU Endure Treachery and Survival on the High Seas?

  SPIED (coming in 2019)—Can YOU Save the World as a Secret Agent?

  * More titles coming soon! *

  Sign up for the new release mailing list

  Or visit the author’s blog at www.jamesschannep.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Click Your Poison Books

  Acknowledgments

  How It Works

  Start

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my friend Chris Boyes, and my wife Michaela, your notes were an invaluable addition. A big thanks to Special Agents “Carnahan” and “Hobbs” of the Diplomatic Security Service for the inspiration and technical base for the book. Thanks also to Mike Beeson and Richard Young for Beta testing, and to Damon Bosetti for your technical expertise. To Kelli Mears for letting me bounce ideas day after day.

  To my copyeditor: Linda Jay Geldens, cover artist: Nikki Jansen, and to Paul Salvette and the team at BB eBooks. Thank you all for your generosity and professionalism.

  And to my friends and family, for your unyielding encouragement, enthusiasm and support.

  Here’s how it works: You, Dear Reader, are the main character of this story. Solve the mysteries found within, or let the killer(s) get away with murder, based solely on the merit of your own choices. Simply click the links to progress through the story. Each link represents a choice, and there’s no going back, so choose wisely. Could YOU solve a murder?

  CLICK HERE to begin. Good luck.

  “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

  —Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  “Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.”

  —Herodotus, The Histories, Book 7

  MURDERED

  You’re in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the days before Carnaval. You’ve only just arrived, less than three hours ago, but any travel weariness is replaced by the rush of Rio nightlife. You’re here on vacation with friends, ready for The Biggest Party on Earth, but right now you’re alone.

  It might still be four days until the giant flotillas re-imagined as hummingbirds or jaguars parade down the street, covered in exotic, scantily-clad dancers like an infestation of glamorous fleas. It might be less than a week until the party really begins, but right now you can’t tell the difference. If this is merely part of the pre-festivities, this raucous, impromptu street party, you can scarcely imagine the pandemonium of full-blown Carnaval.

  In four days, the whole country will cut loose, but already the streets are packed with singing and dancing crowds, like a cultural flashmob unconcerned with cameras or irony. They’re here for the samba and for the caipirinha—sugarcane liquor with lime and more sugar. You’ve had some already, but thankfully, you’re far from drunk. Otherwise you might not be concerned that the crowd has swept you up in their current and dragged you away from your friends.

  There’s not a familiar face in sight.

  In fact, all you see are Brazilians. Either gaunt, hard-workers, temporarily enraptured by the glee of Carnaval; or those who live for the party and so tonight is simply another Monday. Black descendants of former slaves freed into lives of poverty and revelers with Portuguese heritage mixed with a flourish of native Amazonian tribesmen—their traditions now intermingled into one novel culture.

  You snap a picture—the scene is amazing. Still, you look around for your friends, scanning each face, and appearing very much like the hopelessly lost tourist that you are. Maybe for the rest of the week you should tie a rope around the lot of you; anchor yourself together as if you were summiting Mt. Everest.

  Now the avalanche of humanity takes you further down the street, the relentless drumbeats threatening to set you dancing. You seek shelter in an alleyway, catching your breath, wiping sweat off your brow, and taking a moment to get your bearings. The ground in the alley is typical of these concrete passages, speckled with black tar-patches of gum and other residue, and cracks in the pavement sealed with collective detritus. A bird’s nest of telephone and electrical wires hangs overhead, nearly within reach. It’s much cooler here in the alley, away from the pulsing heat emitted from the dancers in the street proper. The alley walls are claustrophobically close, and stretch way down around the corner; they’re red brick, lacquered with teal green everywhere an arm could reach. Your camera rises as a reflex action; you take a picture.

  In the preview on the LCD screen, you notice there’s the beginning of a graffiti mural sticking out from the adjoining alley. You peek around the corner to see the full image. It’s an angel, larger than life and in stunning detail. His hair is long and his face is placid, much like a beardless Christ. Yet this is a dark angel; his wings, not feathered, are formed from two AK-47 machine guns divided in broad symmetry. Two snakes wrap around his legs, originating from behind his ankles and enveloping his lower half like the caduceus, their heads biting his wrists and spreading his arms. A nuclear mushroom cloud which serves as his halo bursts forth from behind his flowing mane. In stylized calligraphy, the caption above reads, “Vou testemunhar.”

  Just as the shutter clicks on your camera, a wooden slam from behind injects you with a shot of adrenaline. You turn and, seeing only a door flapping loosely in the cross-breeze, let out a sigh of relief. But as the door swings wide once more, you find your spine tingling.

  There’s someone lying there, recumbent on the floor. Another tourist, passed out from too much caipirinha, perhaps? The opening to the doorway glimmers crimson under the streetlights.r />
  As you step forward, your unease gives way to a newfound terror—there’s blood, and lots of it. You lean inside the porthole and snap a picture of the room, just to be certain.

  From your vantage point in the doorway, a woman’s shoe is illuminated, and a pale foot with painted toenails; that’s all you can see from this angle. Trembling, you step forward into the dark recesses of the room, careful not to tread in the blood. You want to call out, to ask if she’s okay, but right now concentrating on your breathing is the only thing fending off all-out panic.

  And so you move forward in silence, teeth gritted and heart pounding. She’s not okay, you soon discover, not okay at all. More blood is spattered on the wall behind her. She is lying on the floor, facing away from the door, her blood pooled in a greater quantity than you realized was inside a human body.

  When you come around in front of her, you see that her face has completely caved in under the force of some great trauma. You cover your mouth in horror at her injuries and quickly turn away.

  Atop a large crate opposite the woman rests a snub-nosed, blue-metal revolver and a note that reads:

  “PICK ME UP.”

  • Pick up the gun.

  • Leave it.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Action-oriented

  The battle rages on, gunshots pinging off the armored car as if lamenting their own inefficiency. At this point, it’s a stalemate. Elite Squad is pinned down, yet perfectly secure in their armored caveirão. The drug traffickers, although unable to harm the special police, remain in relative safety within the recesses of homes and atop buildings.

  It looks like the situation might be favoring the police, who can take their time, aim, and expertly engage their targets, whereas the traffickers aren’t able to do much more than blind-fire. One of the Elite Squad troops lands a shot on a gang member standing on the rooftop across from yours; he slumps before tumbling down onto the street in a limp heap. Is this how it works—Elite Squad goes in, like a stick jabbing into a termite mound, then waits for the drug lords to come crawling out one by one, outgunned and outmatched?

  A young drug trafficker steps out of a house and hurls something at the vehicle. It’s a quick movement, and he’s safely back inside again before the police can shoot him. What was that, a rock? You squint, trying to get a better look. Dear God, it’s a grenade. Okay, perhaps the traffickers aren’t outmatched.

  The grenade explodes, rocking the vehicle back and forth and scarring the pavement beneath. The Elite Squad members duck back inside their protective fortress. After the dust settles, it appears the caveirão is unharmed. Not even the tires are punctured; this thing is a beast.

  And now it’s angry.

  The tires screech as the thing darts forward under full acceleration. Since the front end is reinforced, covered with an extra-thick cattle guard, the vehicle doesn’t feel much when it smashes into the building head-on and punches a hole through the poorly constructed brick and mortar. Pulling back with equal force, the vehicle retreats away from the damaged home as the roof collapses.

  All right, maybe outgunned and outmatched is the right description after all. If we’re sticking with termites as the image, it looks like Elite Squad can stamp out the entire mound with those steel-toed work boots whenever they please.

  Then, as if to prove you wrong, movement on the rooftop across the way catches your eye. There’s another trafficker coming out, holding an RPG—the guy has a fucking rocket launcher! So…maybe they’re not outgunned either.

  He crouches down on one knee, takes aim, and prepares to fire. Irma stands up, hurriedly removing a pistol from her leg holster to take him out. But she’s not fast enough. Instead, the top of the armored car flips open, and an Elite Squad member bursts forth from the cylindrical hatch, firing his rifle as he emerges.

  No time to take aim, yet incredibly, he hits the RPG-wielding gang member. Only winged, the trafficker fires a wild shot; the rocket-propelled grenade flies off, spiraling straight toward you.

  You jump out of the way and Irma hits the deck. In its corkscrew trajectory, the missile rises off the rooftop with just enough clearance not to destroy the building. Instead, it burrows deep into the next home in the favela, showering you with debris from the explosion.

  Emerging like a dulled protest from your ringing ears, you hear shouts and more gunfire from the street. Elite Squad, plus Agent Danly, pours out of the armored car. They chase several drug traffickers down an alley opposite your position. The man who held the RPG has been killed. It appears that the tide has now fully turned in the police’s favor, but they don’t want the criminals to escape.

  A lone figure runs out of one of the homes. Rather than wearing a tank top or going shirtless like the other drug traffickers, this man is well-dressed and has a backpack. Rather than sporting a homemade mask, this man has on glasses. And when he looks up over his shoulder, you can see his piercing blue eyes.

  It’s the man from the warehouse crime scene.

  Though you’re dazed and only see his face for an instant, you’re certain of it. The suspect sprints into a different alley, pursued by a lone Elite Squad member.

  • “Irma, it’s him, let’s go!”

  • “I’ve got to go find Danly!”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That

  Bertram silences the phone and you keep running through the sugarcane. Soon the sound of shuffling leaves and your huffing breaths are overpowered by a loud chugging. Setting his course for the unmistakable growl of a diesel engine, Agent Bertram dashes through the sugarcane and out to a dirt road.

  There, standing next to an idling jeep, a man holds a machete. He’s clothed head to toe in gray cloth, like a padded ninja, a turtleneck pulled up over his face and a boonie hat pulled so low that only his eyes are visible. They’re open wide, frightened at the sight of Agent Bertram’s assault rifle.

  The man in the driver’s seat considers fleeing, but Bertram’s persuasive Portuguese convinces him to stay.

  “Let’s move, Hotshot,” Bertram says, loading up into the jeep.

  He finds a shotgun resting in the back, hands it to you, and adds, “Keep an eye out for our friend, will ya?”

  Holding the weapon, you sit, appropriately, in the front passenger seat. Just like in the stagecoach days of the Wild West. The four of you jump in the vehicle and flee quickly from the Man in Black. Finally safe, Bertram makes his call.

  “Agent Bertram,” he says into the phone. “Negative, I’m still on scene.”

  You can’t hear the caller’s words over the roar of the engine, but you can hear the angry tone.

  “Sir, all due respect, that’s bullshit. I haven’t even—”

  He grits his teeth.

  “Yes, sir… yes, sir.” He hangs up and says, “We’ve got to go back.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The official investigation team landed this morning. We’re off the case.”

  “But we haven’t even—” you start to say. His glare silences you.

  “Do you still have that helicopter pilot’s card? We need to get back so I can debrief.”

  “I think so,” you mumble as you check your pockets.

  Agent Bertram speaks to the men in Portuguese, but they shake their heads. He tries to emphasize his point by chambering a round in his pistol. The click of the slide springing into action sends a chill into your bones, but the men continue shaking their heads.

  “Goddammit,” Bertram growls. “They’re taking us to the plantation. To see the Sugar King, the Big Man. Mateo Ferro is the Governor of this territory, and the largest sugarcane ethanol producer in the world.”

  Whoa, you think. That would make Ferro one of the richest people on the planet.

  “He’s here?” you ask.

  “Apparently. I told them—just bluffing, mind you—that I’d kill them if they took us there. Didn’t matter. I can only imagine what they’re afraid of. The standard crime lord threat s
eems to be ‘I’ll kill your family,’ but they might do something even worse than that.”

  “Can’t wait to meet him,” you say sarcastically.

  • Proceed to the plantation.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  The American

  You casually stroll up to the guard shack, smooth back your hair, straighten your shirt and stand tall. Cool…yet relaxed. With your winningest grin and your charm turned up to eleven, you look through the glass panel.

  It’s set up like a bank or a movie theater concession stand, with a six-inch slit at the bottom for passing documents and a circular grate in the center for communication.

  A local Brazilian hired as outer-layer security, the guard seated behind the glass has the same Kevlar body armor as those stationed outside the bullet-proof sentry station and even wears his “on-duty” hat. He’s maybe twenty years old and lowers his pop-culture magazine when he sees you standing there.

  “Good morning,” you say, leaning toward him. “How are you this fine day? Getting excited for Carnaval?”

  The guard eyes you with suspicion. “Can I help you?” he asks impatiently.

  • “This is a little awkward, but I left my ID badge in my car in the garage. Mind if I run in and grab it real quick?”

  • “So…I met somebody at a club last night, but didn’t get a phone number. All I have is the license plate. Can I give you $100 to leave a note on the car for me?”

  • “Hi! I’m a journalist late for an interview with the Consul. Is this where I sign in?”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Armed and Dangerous

  You pick up the revolver, the carbon steel glinting cold and black under the flickering fluorescent lights, to examine it closer. A compact weapon with a snub nose, it’s the same size as the open palm of your hand, but it’s heavy.