Page 189 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Slow Burn

“Stay where you are,” she commanded. “We are here to make an
arrest for the murder of Alberto Carbone.”
“Baloney,” said the quint on the chair. “We were miles away when
Uncle Al turned himself into a Roman candle.”
“Yeah. You’ve got nothing on us,” chimed in another.
“Only four of you were miles away, and I definitely have
something on all five of you.” That shut them up.
“As the most obvious suspects, you had to devise a plan which
would throw the police off the trail. You tried to manipulate us with
your history as quintuplets, leading us to look for fives and Q’s
everywhere. And we did, wasting a lot of time on false leads. The
answer had to be an ensemble performance, like the old Galactomalt
commercials. But you had split up after your parents died, pursuing
minor criminal careers in other cities. You came back when you were
indigent ex-convicts, unable to get back in the mainstream of society
even if you had the character to do so.”
They sat there, trying to be nonchalant. It was an act.
“One thing alone brought you back to this city, the need to kill
Alberto Carbone and get your inheritance. Quentin was the first,
therefore the mastermind. As the rest of you returned, every move
you made was part of a careful orchestration: where you lived, the
shops you patronized, even your wardrobes. Each of you followed
your earlier deviant proclivities in some respect, giving yourselves
credible cover. The effect was to create the illusion that your
continuance of quintuplet-compulsive behavior was an individual
quirk; therefore, any time we discovered similarities among you we
could ascribe them to that personality characteristic, yet miss the
essential—or should I say, quintessential—activity taken in concert.”
Old Muldover was transfixed by the avenging amazon presence of
Labelle Gramercy. He just sat there with his jaw hanging open, and
made no move to stop her when she grabbed the blotter pad on his
desk and stood it up on a cabinet like a chart on an easel.
“The salient quintuplet similarities in this case are the identity of
haircut, vehicle and light gray tracksuit. None of these would appear
odd to anyone familiar with your history. Multiple-birth siblings not
in contact with each other have displayed resemblances far more
uncanny than those. Your clothing was an open book, owing to your
poverty. Searching for the attention-getting outfit worn by the

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