Read All About It

(Incomplete short story)

No one can explain why episodes of the Ratatat television show change every time you watch them, or how two people can watch the same exact episode and come away with a completely different story.

Take Episode 1:  `Dead in the Water' for example.  When I watched it for the first time on the Afoot Network, Detective Ratatat proved that the victim had been drowned in a bathtub and later deposited into the mansion swimming pool to make it look like an accident.

Yesterday, when I watched `Dead in the Water', the criminal added an extra step to his scheme:  Pumping swimming pool water into the dead victim's lungs, to hide traces of soap, and add chlorine.  This time Ratatat caught the killer with the evidence of unusual bruising.  My buddy online said their `Dead in the Water' involved the killer injecting Mr. Cruz's system with sedatives to make the drowning easier.

(This section of text is missing, probably accidentally thrown away.  The narrator is the son of the show's producer, and he's just been to a reading of the Will).

"I don't understand this," my wife said as I unlocked the door to the mansion.  "How are you getting an inheritance if your dad keeps making these shows on his app?"

I could only shrug.  "He's been missing for over five years.  No communications.  The police abandoned the search."

Sharon massaged the head of the stone owl on the railing.  "Yeah, but the program..."

"They look like they were all made in 1972.  You ever seen pictures of Johnny Carson's film archive?  Some guy in South Africa probably has a vault full of old film reels he splices together in different ways to make it look new...You saw Rebel One, right?  They animated two dead people in that movie."

"Yeah, but they didn't look right.  You could tell it was CGI."

"Technology keeps improving."

I pushed the giant ornately carved doors inward, staring at a foyer with a marble staircase.  

Sharon flipped a light switch, and the chandelier came on...for a second before popping out.  She wiped her grimy hands on her jeans.  "Guess the maid quit."

I clicked the flashlight icon on my phone so we could see.

The taxidermy owl that served as the centerpiece on the foyer table appeared to be molting.  

A dog toy squeaked under Sharon's heel.  "You never told me what happened to the dog."

I wandered toward the den.  "Which one?  He's had at least ten Basset hounds.  Every time one gets too old or sick to appear on the show, it ends up in his house."

"Where are his pets now?"

"I dunno.  I think Aunt Julie took them.  I'm shocked as hell that I even got the mansion."

The sofas wore dust covers, but the moment I walked past them, the fireplace flared to life, a pair of candelabras sparking and lighting up around a framed painting of dad and his dogs.

"Motion sensors.  Your father had a flair for the dramatic."

I rolled my eyes.  "I know."

"This wasn't an accident, Mister Wardlaw, this was a cold blooded murder, and you did it!"  my dad's voice barked.  

I nearly jumped out of my skin before I noticed the flat panel TV glowing between the bookshelves.

My wife marched up to the TV, watching the preview clips.  "`Death On the Books'...That's...Episode Three, right?"

I rubbed my forehead, frowning at the long opening sequence.  Woman in an old timey negligee making a call on a rotary phone.  Man in a leisure suit pouring himself bourbon on the rocks, quarreling with her about publishing rights.  "Probably.  With Featherstone, though, the question, though, the question always is—"

"I know, I know," Sharon groaned.  "Which episode Three."  She clicked buttons on a `Decoding Featherstone' app.  "She's not wearing a bra in this version.  That means her husband is going to kill her with a glass jewelry box and try to make it look like she drowned in the bathtub."

I squinted at the screen for confirmation of a nipple sighting.  "You got all that from a missing bra?"

Sharon pointed at her phone.  "It's got a flowchart.  If the wife has a bra on, she also has a gun in her garter belt, and she ends up plugging him before he can raise a hand to her.  He also would have been drinking Scotch."

"I...seem to remember hearing about one where he floats facedown in a pool and she makes it look like a mob hit."

"Yeah..."

We both stared as the man opened a sleeping pill, pouring it into a glass of wine with a dramatic flourish.

"Is that in the flowchart?"

Sharon slowly shook her head.  "She's not supposed to be in a negligee when that happens...Featherstone's going to have a hard time proving this was a murder."

"They always make some trifling mistake."

"True..."

I turned the TV sideways, checking the ports.

"Whatcha looking for?"

"Afoot is a steaming video service.  Nobody told me anything about dad's internet provider.  I thought someone disconnected all that during the police search."

"No afoot, no Featherstone TV show."  Sharon agreed.  "You think it's piggybacking off of us?"

I found only an antenna cable on the TV.  "What the hell?"

Wire connected to a spaceship shaped antenna next to the ceiling.

I pulled the object down, but the picture didn't weaken any.

"What's that, a UFO?"

"It's jut a digital receiver from Walmart."

"Nothing inside?  Like a hotspot or something?"

I got a screwdriver out of my car and dismantled the whole thing, but only found the usual plastic shell.  Didn't affect the signal any either.

"Gotta be a strong hotspot around here somewhere.  Maybe it's broadcasting like a radio station."

"I'm surprised the FCC hasn't got wind of this."

"The property's too big.  I don't think the neighbors would pick up anything.  You didn't see any actual towers on the outside, did you?"

"No..."  She opened the wifi menu on her phone.  "Wow, Readallaboutit82 has solid bars all the way up.  There has got to be a router or something nearby."

The two of us split up, following the router signal in a large scale game of hot and cold.

"Freezing," I called from the upper floor landing.

"Warm...hot..."  I followed my wife into an industrial kitchen, past a mini bistro to a sliding patio door.

The signal led us outside, into a garden of disfigured topiary animals.  After playing the hot/cold game for another five minutes, we arrived at a low stone building.

"What do you think this is?"

"Maybe a maintenance shed, or maybe the groundskeeper stays here.  Guess it makes sense.  They'd have to stay somewhere."

I knocked on the door.

"I doubt anyone's going to open.  The place hasn't been dusted, and all these hedge animals have gone to seed."

"Someone's using the wifi.  Maybe they're just lazy."

I tried the knob, and the door swung inward, revealing a laboratory filled with scientific equipment.

Sharon leaned in, staring at the beakers and retorts and loaded bookshelves.  "Doctor Frankenstein, I presume?"

A panel on the wall slid open, and an oversized computer monitor with glowing cartoon eyes rolled out on a conveyor belt.  A robotic voice barked, "System activated.  Awaiting input."