Lemon House: Casino Citron Part I

Three years ago, a ubiquitous scrap of paper with a grammatically erroneous title (“New Year’s Rezolutions”) forced me to turn in my badge and detest the city I had sworn to protect. I found the anonymous note discarded on the stairwell leading to the roof of an affluent high-rise called Copper Condos, which was full of rich pricks. A resident had called to complain about kids setting off firecrackers on the roof. 

It turned out to be a gunshot.  

The so-called Rezolutions printed in block letters were outlined on one side of the roughly four-by-six-inch flower-patterned stationery. Perplexingly, someone had scrawled random grocery items on the other side (cranberry juice, tea, eggs, etc.), and the handwriting was noticeably different. I speculated if there was a paper shortage that would explain the dual use. 

No one knew. 

One officer suggested: “it looked like someone in a rush had dropped it.” But I was more than doubtful. The placement was no mistake—the author had to be the killer. And it wasn't long before I learned this snarky murderer with a peculiar paper recycling inclination was similarly inclined to play sick games. 

That was not a guess, by the way. The resolution list had a subtitle: Welcome To The Greatest Gambling Game, Detective Z. Instructions: RETIRE OR EXPIRE. 

My official title was Detective, and my last name was Zimmer. Only a few close friends called me Z. The context of the designation was alarming, and I thought twice about sharing the details of the list with anyone else. 

So far, I could deduce two things: 

(1) This creepy nut was no friend of mine. 

(2) Someone wanted me gone.

I unwillingly joined The Game on the ten-story rooftop around 12:15 am. It was January 1st, and I was very much alive and in no mood to retire. It had been sleeting for a few hours. The corpse was lying on his back, clutching a dozen yellow roses. I wasn't sure if the forensic team would find any prints or DNA besides Dead Danny's, nor did I care.

The real question was who was next? 

Rezolution #1: Kiss Danny certainly did not mean “go on a date.”  

Danny’s evening was far from romantic. He had a .38 caliber bullet lodged in the middle of his forehead. The mayor’s business card was in his back pocket, and a pair of dice were shoved into the sides of his mouth.   

“Maybe he was a gambler? Owed a bookie?” suggested the new officer shadowing me, Tony. 

I snorted. I told Tony I knew the victim liked to take risks, but not the poker kind. Danny was the type that dated and conned rich women and then moved on to the next one when they got savvy or were financially broke. He had made his rounds throughout the city, confident or arrogant enough to stay. Danny’s death was no shock, but I strongly felt this crime scene was a distraction. 

“Ok,” replied Tony, scribbling that down in his notebook. “How do you spell diversion?”

“Distraction,” I corrected. 

Tony glanced at me quizzically. “So, not a revenge date?”

“Correct.”

The subsequent resolution shed a little more light, and I read it out loud. Rezolution #2: Kiss The Captain.

I remember Tony asking: “Who the hell is The Captain?”

I already knew. Dead Danny’s best friend, Captain John Sinclair, was the owner of a small but profitable export company known as Sinclair’s Seven Seas Shipping. I told Tony we had to find The Captain before he got kissed. 

“Right,” he said, trying to follow my logic. “Because that means shot.”  

This kid was trying, but I doubted he would last long at this pace. “Sinclair’s been up to some shady business practices,” I explained quickly, “we investigated his firm last year, but the budget cuts stopped us, of course.”

Tony kept nodding and taking notes.

I leaned closer to Tony, shielding my mouth because the wind was picking up. “Get the sergeant and tell him he needs to get to the shipyard. Check out the office at Seven Seas immediately. That guy lives there when he’s not offshore.”

“How do you know he’s onshore?” 

I pointed at the sky. “The weather.”

Tony looked slightly embarrassed and ran off. The sergeant was headed back to the station. He had left, after interviewing the guy a floor below who called to complain about unruly kids on the roof.

I scanned the horizon until my eyes met City Hall, precisely when a burst of chilly air made me shudder. The sleet was mixing with the rain. As I listened to the few firecrackers popping here and there in the distance, I wondered how many more people would die tonight. If I had retired the previous year (the first I was eligible), I could have been home with my wife, snacking on pizza and watching TV. Undeterred by this puzzling case, unpleasant conditions, and an understaffed department, I moved down the list. 

Rezolution #3: Kiss Lemon Bitch.

This resolution sounded stranger than the other two, but the reference reminded me of a peculiar case from several years ago. The woman’s name was Anna, and they found her dead near a bridge close to a wealthy estate on the city's edge. She was a member of that iconic family they named many of our buildings after. Oddly, a video recorded on her phone but later deleted (that the tech guys couldn't recover) was entitled “Lemon Bitch.” 

We assumed it had something to do with Anna’s stepmom, Kris. Kris recently changed the mansion's front gate to feature a giant lemon and had painted most of the house that color, despite considerable criticism from the press. She ran things now that her husband had died. The gold-digger and yellow-obsessed heiress had made many enemies in just a few years. More recently, she was suing the city for blocking a proposed casino called Citron she was heavily invested in. The mayor was fighting it, and if I had one guess as to who the "Lemon Bitch" was, it was her.

I lit a cigarette and thought about all this for a while until my phone rang. It was the sergeant. 

I asked where he was. 

“Seven Seas,” he said before urging me to sit down.

I explained that I was still on the roof. The ground was wet, so I’d prefer not to. 

The sergeant apologized, out of breath. He had found the Captain, who was dead. 

“How?” I asked.

“Bullet to the head, likely .38 caliber.”

I wasn’t surprised. We were two steps behind. 

“But listen,” he said, “that's not all.” 

I was getting impatient. “Tell me, dammit!” I shouted, knowing we would likely miss saving the next victim. 

“Two dice,” explained the sergeant slowly, “two—fucking—dice are shoved into the Captain’s mouth.” 

I realized at this point that we were dealing with a professional who was moving fast and who was not done fulfilling these lethal New Year’s resolutions. Someone who thought inserting Z in place of S was clever. Someone who wanted to brag, belittle, and force me to watch like a helpless fool. Someone with deep pockets who gambled and liked to dish out threats. Someone sick or powerful. Or both. 

The sergeant suggested their sense of humor was psychotic. 

I wasn't laughing; he was probably right. I told the sergeant to check out Kris's estate. I had a hunch she could be next. After considerable pacing during that phone conversation, I walked over to the roof's perimeter, leaned on the waist-high edge, and tried to piece the puzzle together. I glanced at the last misspelled resolution while the list fluttered in the breeze. 

Rezolution #4: Kiss Carlo. 

Only one person came to mind, and I suddenly worried for the mayor. He was probably in trouble. I just knew it. I was about to call the sergeant back and tell him to head to the mayor’s house since Carlo was more important than the lemony prude, but my phone rang. 

It was my wife. She asked me if I was coming home.

I said maybe, but not right now. 

She asked if I had seen her shopping list. It was missing.

I said no. I was trying to solve a very important case in real time. 

She didn't seem to care. And while she notified me of all the places she was looking for it, I had a strange thought. The absurd kind you entertain, though you know it is impossible. For the hell of it, I turned the Rezolution list around and studied it more closely, and it was only then that I realized why cranberry juice, tea, and eggs sounded so familiar. My wife began rattling off from memory what she remembered when I cut her off halfway through cranberry.

“Fuck!” I gasped. “Fucking blackmail.” 

“Excuse me!” my wife cried. “What was that?”

I apologized and said I’d get back to her. 

She asked if I wanted her to check the mail. It had been a few days. Is that what I had said?

NO!!! I yelled back. I told her to stay in the house and lock the doors; the mail could go straight to hell. 

She hung up. It was late, and she had to get some sleep, anyway. 

What a brazen move, I thought, slipping the cell phone into my pocket. They were—at some point—inside my house!

Tony had just returned to the roof, and when he saw me, I turned around, hands behind my back. 

“The sergeant is headed toward the Lemon place,” he declared. 

“Yeah, I know. I told him to.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I thought about it for a little longer than I expected. “Home.” 

Tony looked puzzled or amused and informed me the sergeant was requesting backup. A suspicious van was parked outside the front gate, and he suspected a possible shootout. 

“Did he call them?” I asked even though I knew the answer. 

Yes, but no one was answering. The mansion was dark save for one antique gas-style lamp they kept lit when home; all indications suggested Kris was inside. No alarms had been tripped. 

Good job, I said. We might have a chance of saving Kris, though I now doubted she was a target. More likely a suspect, I remember brooding. 

Tony asked me if there were any other names. 

I took a deep breath and lied. “No. Just the three. Three misspelled resolutions.” 

“Great. Then I guess we don't need to go anywhere else.”

“Yes. It looks like that's where our man is.”

“Could it be a woman?” Tony asked.

“Probably not,” I replied. 

Tony wished me a good night. 

I thanked him while opening my clenched fist still hidden behind my back, discreetly letting the crumbled list fall ten stories into the slushy wintery abyss. 

Tony turned up his radio, and we heard an update—they had the Lemon estate surrounded. 

“I’d say you should be there. With the sergeant,'' I said, clearing my throat because I hated myself for destroying evidence. 

Tony nodded and marched away but turned to me at the last second, one hand on the door. “Oh, should I call the chief and tell him to inform the mayor?”

I nearly choked. “What?”

“I thought you mentioned that earlier?”

“No, I did not.”

“Huh,” said Tony, with an unduly histrionic frown, “sorry, must've heard you wrong.” 

I agreed. He should get his ears checked, even. Don’t bother the mayor over this, I told him. It’s a holiday. And he has nothing to do with it. Nothing.

Tony smiled. He suddenly seemed a little more confident or perhaps mischievous; I couldn't tell. Perhaps I was paranoid. He waved and wished me a Happy New Year. 

I said the same, though I was miserable. It was at that moment I knew I couldn’t trust anyone anymore. The entire department was corrupt. 

Twenty seconds after Tony exited, I bolted for the stairs. I kept repeating under my breath that threat. Retire or Expire. Retire or Expire. By the time I got to my car, I realized the city didn't matter anymore; the game was rigged.

And I had only one job left. I had to check on my wife and keep my family safe.  

When I got home fifteen minutes later, she was asleep. Relieved, I plopped down in front of the TV and nodded off. 

***

The local news was on when I woke up the following morning. The mayor was dead. I shook my head, disgusted. I opened the fridge and poured a glass of cranberry juice.

GLOOP!

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I raised the glass to the light, shocked to see two dice float to the top. I was equally livid and stunned. 

My wife came down the stairs, commenting on the rattling. “Didn't know you put ice in your drink.”

Neither did I. 

By the end of the week, I had retired. We moved to a nearby town. 

But I could never move on; stifled guilt slowly took its toll.

And this New Year’s Eve, when the UPS driver joked, “Who follows through with resolutions, anyway?” I tried to laugh. But I could not. I knew precisely who did, and at that moment—exactly three years after the cringe-worthy newspapers dubbed the unsolved murder spree The Dicey Deaths—I decided it was time to set things right.

I handed my wife the parcel and grabbed my coat and gun. She asked where I was going. 

I lied and said golf. 

Have fun, she said. 

I told her I would. And then I got in the car and headed toward the city, straight for Casino Citron.