The Corked Alibi

[SFX: Cork pop. Recorder click]

NARRATOR: Bea opened the bottle Tomas served during the murder. Inside its hollow cork was a tiny recorder playing cellar sounds. Tomas had used the loop to support an earlier claim that he was downstairs during prep.

TOMAS GREY: You cannot prove when it recorded.

BEA HOLT: The delivery elevator chimes in the background. It was serviced only at three sixteen. Your phantom reservation call was three seventeen.

ELLEN WARD: You killed Pike to protect the wine scheme.

TOMAS GREY: Our wine scheme.

NARRATOR: Tomas turned on Ellen, describing her accounts and Luca's promotional lies. Bea agreed they were guilty of fraud, then laid out the murder: Tomas created seat twelve, treated the napkin, tracked Pike's cut, staged the cyanide vial, and used Mina's sugar dowels to destroy bottles.

[SFX: Door lock click]

NARRATOR: Tomas locked the dining room and opened a jeroboam of counterfeit champagne.

TOMAS GREY: If the label matters more than the liquid, perhaps the room deserves the same lesson.

BEA HOLT: That metaphor is not improving with oxygen deprivation.

NARRATOR: Gas hissed from the bottle. Tomas had filled it with carbon dioxide to force evacuation and escape through the cellar.