Monday Mystery- Whodunit Fun

Here is a fun exercise to see how well you can deduct and how well I can form a mystery.

Extreme Fall

Characters:

Brice Montgomery, victim, extreme rock climber, reality TV star and heir to a whiskey distillery

Hans Steiner – Producer of the show Extreme Climbing

Kyle Temple– Rock Climber, Brice’s friend

Sadie Temple- Kyle’s sister, Brice’s on again off again romance

Riley Gardner- camera woman 

Maxine Montgomery – Brice’s sister

Reality show Extreme Rock Climbing star Brice Montgomery falls during a taping for the show at the world renown Smith Rock Park in Central Oregon.

    “You can’t tell me this was an accident.” Kyle Temple poked his pointer finger at the State Trooper overseeing the removal of his best friend’s body from the bottom of the Dihedrals. Brice’s muscled body had limbs at odd angles and his helmeted head listed making Kyle’s stomach sour.

    “We won’t know anything conclusive until we’ve run tests.” The detective motioned for the paramedics and stretcher to move into the area.

    A crowd had gathered. Kyle peered up the cliff he and Brice were climbing for a segment of Brice’s show Extreme Rock climbing.  The rope Brice used to rappel down the cliff had snapped like a thin string.  As the moment replayed in his mind he noticed someone on the top of the cliff pulling the rope up.

    “Hey!” He grabbed the officer’s shirt sleeve. “Someone’s trying to take the faulty rope.” He pointed up to the cliff top as the body disappeared from sight as well as the end of the rope.  Kyle picked up the other half of the rope still attached to his friend. “Don’t let anyone get this. It’s evidence.”

    Kyle peered at the gathering crowd.  Where were Hans and Riley?  They should have both been at the bottom. They’d been here filming as he rappelled down. He couldn’t do anything for Brice, but he could find his killer.

    The officer put the rope in a clear bag and wrote on the bag. He nodded to Kyle to follow him.  They stepped away from the crowd.

    “Tell me everything that happened.” The officer pulled out a tablet and pen.

Kyle thought back to this morning when he stepped out of Brice’s fancy motor home and inhaled the pungent scent of juniper and felt the heat of the sunshine on his face.

    “We rose at six. Wanted to scale the cliff before it was too hot and Riley Gardner the photographer said she wanted the morning light on the cliff as she photographed.”  That flashed a picture of the hurt look on Riley’s face the night before when his sister, Sadie, stepped out of Brice’s car and clung to his arm as the two enter the motor home.  Sadie and Brice had an on again off again relationship for five years. He stayed out of it so he could remain a loyal friend to Brice and not argue with his sister.

    Brice had left Sadie in the bed in the back of the motor home and joined him to check over their climbing equipment.  Where was Sadie right now?  “I need to tell my sister what happened.” 

    “Not until you’ve told me everything.” The officer leveled his gaze on Kyle.

    “We, Brice and I, checked the gear. Everything was fine. Hans, the producer, pulled up on a Gator and we loaded the equipment in the back. We grabbed energy bars and water and hopped in with him. He hauled us down to the base of the Dihedrals and we unloaded the gear. Hans remembered something they needed for filming and left, with some of the gear in the back of the gator.” Kyle stared hard at the officer. Was the gear still in the gator the rope that snapped?

    “Was this Montgomery’s first climb?”

     Kyle stared at the officer as if his head just dropped to the ground. “Don’t you know who Brice Montgomery is? He is the star of the reality show Extreme Climbing. He’s climbed every cliff that he’s come across. There is no way his fall was an accident.”

    The officer scribbled in his pad. “Had the equipment you used been used before?”

    “Only our personal harnesses. Brice purchases new rope every climb. That’s how careful he is.”  

    “What happened when he fell?”

    “We both climbed up the Sunshine.  Sat at the top, drank water, and ate an energy bar. Watched a bald eagle and talked for about thirty minutes waiting for Riley and Hans to get set up below for the rappel.”

    “What did you talk about?”

    Kyle sighed.  “Family, or more precisely the fact his family was pressuring him to give up the rock climbing show and put his interest in the family business.”  Brice had complained his father wanted him to join the board at the family business and his sister wanted to take that position. He wanted to let her have it but his father was of the old school that a male heir should run the business and not a female.

    The officer’s eyebrow rose.  “He didn’t get along with his family? Do they live around here?”

    “He got along fine as long as they didn’t talk about the family business. No, they live back east.”

    “What happened when you rappelled down?”

    “Brice told me to go first, he wanted a few minutes alone to clear his head.” He still wasn’t sure what that was about but he was pretty sure it had to do with his sister’s call yesterday asking Brice to pick her up at the airport. When they’d pulled in she was bubbling and Brice had appeared to be brooding.

    “Was that the normal procedure?”

    He’d been on several shows with Brice and he always had the guest go first. “Yes.”

   “Go on.”

    “I rappelled down, unhooked, shouted up ‘off rappel’ and said something to Hans.” Kyle’s body flinched remembering the next sounds. “A heard a snap sound and Brice shout, looked up, and his body was falling rapidly. There was nothing any of us could do to stop his fall.” The feeling he’d failed his friend lodged in Kyle’s chest digging and prodding like bronc rider’s spurs.

    “What was the snap sound?”

    “I assume the rope breaking.”

    “Does this happen often?”

    “No. Especially with a new rope.”

     The officer stared at him. “Tell me about the snap sound?”

    “Kyle! Is it true?” Sadie ran up to him, flinging her arms around him.

    “Shh… yes. Brice fell—”

    “Will he be..”

    He shook his head and Sadie started wailing.

    “Miss?” The officer touched his sister’s shoulder.

    “This is Sadie Temple my sister.  Brice’s friend.”  He knew his friend slept with is sister but they didn’t introduce themselves as a couple when they met new people. He’ d picked up on that oddity over the years and did the same.

    “Miss Temple, where have you been?” The officer asked.

    “I was back at the motor home waiting for Brice and my brother to finish taping so we could go for a drive.” She wiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks and turned to him. “What happened?”

    “The rope broke.”

    Her eyes widened and she shook her head slowly.  “Then he’s…”

    “I couldn’t do anything, He just…” Kyle bit the inside of his cheek and wished like hell it had been him and not Brice.

    “Where’s Hans and Riley?” Sadie demanded.

    “I wish I knew.” Kyle scanned the area. The paramedics were making their way up the other side of the Crooked River Gorge. The spectators had left the only people milling about the spot where Brice landed were police officers taking measurements and bagging the equipment.

    “They should know the police would want to talk with them.” Sadie blew her nose in a tissue.

    “Yeah.”

    The officer talked into his radio. “Put a road block up at the entrance to the park. We have two missing  witnesses.”

    Sadie turned to Kyle. “What am I going to do?”

    He stared at his sister. “Continue life as you always do when you and Brice were “seeing other people”.”

    She slugged him in the chest. “That’s not funny.  I’m pregnant.”

    That made sense of all Brice’s actions since picking up Sadie. “Sis, I’m… Is it Brice’s?”

    “Now you sound just like him and his sister.”

    “You’ve talked to Maxine?”

    “Yes, she flew out with me yesterday. She stayed in town, something about trying to set up a west coast distillery.”

    “Did Brice see her?”

    “We had dinner together.”

    Why hadn’t Brice told him this bit of information when he was lamenting about the family? Had he decided a family man should take over the family business?

Who do you think killed Brice and how?

 Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about rock climbing and did only a bit of research for this story so if the rock climbing info is off, I apologize.