It was a small town, the type of place where everyone knew everyone.

Oscar owned a series of high-end American model cars. The type of car that if you seen it somewhere else in the world you would say “God damn, that’s an American car!”. He kept them all in his super-sized garage that had one of those remote controls he could use to open and shut the door as he entered and left, in slow motion I imagine. His two story five bedroom detached villa behind the white picket fence made you wanna wipe the tears from your eyes using that star spangled banner flapping in the warm dry breeze that blew past his property.

Well, this morning Oscar was found bludgeoned to death with a tire iron. Not least the one from his own garage. Unfortunately Miss Escarlata, who had arrived for an early morning clean of Oscar’s house, found his body and what remained of his head scattered throughout the study.

“So! Whadda we got?” In stepped the customary Irish ex-NYPD detective to blanket the area with his deductions. The recently out-of-retirement professor helping with the investigation swung his annoyed side glance away from the uniquely extrovert detective and begrudgingly responded through his sigh. “Single white male, mid to late 60s, former Marine Corps Colonel found in his home beaten to death with a tire iron. Mr. Mustard was found by his house maid not long after 7am this morning when she arrived as scheduled to clean the house…”

“Colonel Mustard eh?” The detective disrupted with his joke and a toothy grin.

“…Hilarious” sighed the professor.

“Professor; Detective! There’s a note here on the desk. Looks like a suicide note” said a nearby CSI.

“What!?” Exclaimed the professor, who rushed over with what seemed like one single step. The detective still grinning at his previous joke shuffled over with all the speed of an old arthritic dog.

The Professor stood up straight after studying the note for all of three minutes, even admiring it to some degree. “It is a suicide note!” The Professor turned his entire tall stretched frame to face the detective. Although he knew what the detective looked like it still astonished him to see this five foot five inch, slightly overweight and unshaven monkey of a man who still smelled slightly of scotch and cigarettes stood before him. The Professor rolled his eyes slightly.

“A suicide note? I mean I’m no detective but… Oh wait, yes I am!” And there was that yellow tinged toothy grin again. “My man did not do that to himself! He was killed last night at his birthday party, right?”

The Professor squinted his whole face at this theory. “Detective we’ve been here for an hour and a half before you bothered to turn up and we don’t have a solid idea yet, what makes you think-“

“Well, it’s fairly simple Professor. I spent the last thirty minutes looking at the rest of the house. No signs of forced entry, it’s a well secured house. There’s birthday cards above the fire place downstairs…”

“No mention of a birthday party in his diary, detective...” the Professor threw that out there almost in spite.

“Yeah well most people don’t need a reminder of their own birthday, Professor.”

At this the Professor frowned as if he’d regretted that last move.

The detective continued “the candles in the dining room were lit last night, the dishwasher is full and there’s a half empty bottle of wine in the fridge. No signs of struggle in here, he was taken by surprise and the killer was a guest at the party. I believe they may also have gotten away in one of the Colonel’s impressive collection of American blooded cars. I’ve seen a picture of every car in his collection and one is definitely missing from his garage.”

The Professor took a step forward and sized up this tiny half-cut man. He extended his hand with his strangely elongated fingers out-stretched. “I’m Professor Plumb. You can call me Richard. And you are?”

The detective smiles and also extended his hand and grasped Richard’s hand in a full motion hand shake. “My name’s Neil Peacock. Nice to meet you Dick!”

At this, Richard cringed so hard his whole body seemed to curl up. No one had called him Dick before. This was going to be a long investigation.