Cork

References

• Cork
• Columbo
  • Murder Under Glass
• The Assassin’s Teapot Is Weird
• Knives Out

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
So, she has a motive.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
This is one of our red herrings.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So is her name Rose to really drive home that she’s a red herring?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Her name is Maeve, which sounds like mauve, which is a shade of red.

[Shep]
Rose is great as a name because it’s like, “Oh, it’s because it’s a red herring.” But also, roses are beautiful, but they also have thorns.

[Thomas]
Ah. Oh, yeah. Okay, you sold me.

[Shep]
Like, it works on multiple-

[Thomas]
You sold me. This is good.

[Shep]
I sold you? It was your name!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and ringing in the New Year with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
It’s New Year’s Eve, as this episode comes out. I don’t know how much champagne you guys drink, but thoughts on popping the bottle? Is that something that you’re okay with? Afraid of, never done before?

[Shep]
If you pop the cork and it goes flying off, you did it wrong.

[Thomas]
Agree.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
I mean, unless that’s what you were intending to do. But you shouldn’t do that. It’s dangerous, especially indoors.

[Shep]
Yeah. Control your cork pops.

[Emily]
I do hate it when I’m opening wine with a cheap cork and it just spills into the wine.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Emily]
And you gotta figure out, yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, like it all disintegrates into the wine. Yeah. Well, I’ll pitch first. I have one that’s kind of just an idea. I liked this idea, but I wasn’t sure what kind of a story I could build from it. So basically, it’s corks that hold memories and emotions of the people who consumed the wine that those corks came from, and somehow the characters in the film are able to relive those moments.

[Shep]
Are these the same characters that had those memories? Or are these different characters that are reliving other people’s memories?

[Thomas]
Could go either way. My other pitch: A psychic claims to be able to tell the future of your relationship if you bring her a cork from a bottle of wine you shared with your partner.

[Shep]
Where she sniffs it and relives the memories…

[Thomas]
Ah, there we go. We’ll just put them both together. When Megan visits the psychic with her cork, she’s dismayed to discover the relationship with her boyfriend isn’t going to last. At first, she dismisses the psychic’s claims, but looking at her relationship through new eyes, she starts to see little cracks. As time goes on, Megan and her boyfriend grow more distant, until she finally confronts him about it. He agrees that they’ve grown apart, but shocks Megan by revealing an engagement ring he had bought for her. He was planning to propose, but has been having second thoughts because of their recent issues. Ultimately, they decide to separate, and Megan obsesses over the cork. and the psychic’s reading. Had it been true or was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? She decides a wine cork doesn’t control her fate and she reaches out to her boyfriend. They go to couples therapy, move back in together, get engaged, and eventually marry. Megan returns to the psychic to tell her she was wrong, but the psychic explains to Megan that she saw all of this and simply told her what she needed to hear.

[Shep]
That is psychic bullshit.

[Emily]
100%. But she told her what she “needed” to hear, as in “wanted” to hear. So she would go and separate, find herself, really think about the relationship and what it means, and then come back to him.

[Shep]
That is some meddling on a level that should be illegal from this sort of professional.

[Thomas]
All right, those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
So I have a couple of long novels here. No, they’re not that long.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Carlo’s grandfather, Pasqual, invites him to spend the summer in southern Portugal at his farm to help harvest the cork.

[Shep]
So we don’t get to come up with any names is what I’m hearing. For Emily’s pitches, you don’t need us.

[Emily]
I remember there being a time where we were like, “We gotta name these people.” So I’m just, you know, I’m helping reduce the workload.

[Thomas]
Emily, remember, Shep is never happy about anything, so.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
How dare you.

[Emily]
So Carlo is turning 25, and his grandfather’s hoping he can convince Carlo to stay and learn the family business. When he arrives, Pasqual shows Carlo the tree he planted the day Carlo was born. It’s ready for harvest. Pasqual explains that you have to wait for the tree to mature enough to handle having the bark stripped away. That at the first harvest, that bark is not as strong as the older trees. But in time, it will become more useful and worthy of becoming something new. You know, I love intergenerational stories, and this one’s slightly different than what we normally do because no one dies. Maybe.

[Thomas]
Maybe.

[Emily]
Maybe. But Carlo grows and finds a path to discover who he’s meant to be.

[Thomas]
Emily, I like how, like me, you did research into cork.

[Emily]
I was really fascinated by it. I was like, “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, I totally went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

[Emily]
I thought a lot about that one. The next one, not so much. In Duluth or some other mid-sized city, I don’t care, men begin missing after special events. We’re talking weddings, galas, and even proms. They are found several days later, still in their suits or tuxedos, with corks shoved in their eye sockets.

[Thomas]
Oh, god.

[Shep]
Are they still alive?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
The corks come… I mean, we, they could be, I guess, but then that would… They would be able to identify their attacker and movie over very quickly. So I think it’s easier if they’re dead.

[Shep]
“I think it’s easier if they’re dead,” says Emily. Stop solving your problems with murder!

[Emily]
The corks come from whatever sparkling wine they’ve served at the events. Detective Cynthia Carreras is on the hunt for someone who’s connected to all of the events but cannot find a connection. Can she discover who the killer is during an undercover operation at a local art museum? Those are my pitches. Shep, what you got for us?

[Shep]
All right. My pitch is an exclusive wine-tasting event turns into a murder mystery, wherein the key piece of evidence is the cork. And then they put the evidence up on a corkboard.

[Thomas]
Hey! So I love this idea.

[Shep]
Unfortunately, I didn’t give anyone any name, so.

[Thomas]
Ah, we can’t do this one then.

[Emily]
I’m really good at names, apparently. Right?

[Thomas]
Do you have more thoughts on this story? Like what actually happens? Or-

[Emily]
What’s the evidence? Is there cyanide?

[Shep]
Yeah, it could have been poisoned.

[Thomas]
It’s because some jerk opened the champagne indoors and let the cork shoot out.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And it hit the person, jammed right in their eye.

[Shep]
That’s it for me.

[Thomas]
Okay, which one do we like? I like this murder mystery one. Sounds-

[Emily]
Murder mysteries are good.

[Shep]
I think murder mysteries are fun, but we would write it backwards, so I don’t know if it’s fun to listen to.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, I mean, the point of the show is about screenwriting and whatnot, so.

[Emily]
Yeah. The process for creating a story.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Ah. I didn’t think that we were actually going to pick this one because I have a list of ways that the cork could have been the clue on my other computer. Do you want me to go get it?

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
All right. Okay. So a poisoned cork or has traces of poison on it.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Although I think that is an episode of Columbo.

[Thomas]
There is one where somebody is poisoned by wine.

[Shep]
Thinking about it now, though, I think that they injected the poison through the cork.

[Thomas]
Through the cork. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. So anyway, poison cork seemed the obvious one. How about one with an engraved like an insignia of a secret society or something like that, which then connects to an underground group and… Ba, ba, ba. Or it’s the, the cork that’s found at the scene doesn’t match any of the bottles. They trace it back to a bottle that had been smuggled into the event and then was later used as the murder weapon. Or the cork has a fingerprint on it. Or they have a fancy cork removal gadget that, like, timestamps the cork when you take it off. And the time doesn’t match the alibi of one of the suspects. Or the cork has been hollowed out and in the center, there’s a rolled-up hidden message.

[Thomas]
I love the idea of the criminal murdering somebody, and then like, “Okay, what do I want to put on the note? Oh, I know.” And then like scrawling out a little note and rolling it up and sticking it in the cork. Like, man, hurry up.

[Emily]
How many people are murdered from the wine?

[Shep]
Just one was what I was thinking.

[Emily]
Just the one.

[Shep]
But it could be everybody that drinks the… Who knows? Or the sound of the cork popping.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Shep]
We talked about popping earlier, and it wasn’t actually the cork popping, but a modified silencer. Or the cork belongs to an extremely rare vintage bottle and it was part of a collection that was stolen. So it’s tying the killer to this black market wine trade or to motive for the murder. So those are some of the things that you could do with a cork.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I could definitely see, like a high-value bottle that was stolen being motive.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But I like the idea of the wine or the cork actually killing somebody.

[Shep]
So how do you poison just one person?

[Thomas]
Well, in that Columbo episode, they, you know, went through all the trouble of demonstrating the fancy CO2, not corkscrew, but cork needle thing that, like the gas presses out the cork. But you could also load poison into it and stab it through and squirt the poison into the bottle. And it was like, “Or you could just put some poison in the one glass that you’re gonna put in front of the other person.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So the cork could just give the detective direction of like, “Oh, right, that’s how this person was killed.” And actually, I like the idea of: there’s a cork, but there’s a missing bottle. Why is there not this match? Like, why, why would this bottle be gone? I could totally see somebody not thinking it through, who is committing this murder, and taking the bottle, thinking, “Oh, well, without the bottle, they won’t think to look for this wine or to look at the wine,” not realizing, like, “No, you idiot, you’ve directed them toward the wine.”

[Shep]
All I’m thinking of is how this would be presented on Columbo, where you would see a table of all the wine bottles and their matching corks, except for one that’s just a cork with no matching bottle. Like he had the tech crew meticulously-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Match which cork goes to which bottle.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think we need to nail down how this person died, because how this person died informs everything. So is the cork directly involved or is that just a clue that points our detective in a direction to look?

[Shep]
Yes. One of those.

[Thomas]
Okay, perfect.

[Shep]
Is it just one person that has died?

[Thomas]
That definitely makes it a little easier, storywise, maybe. Or not easier. It definitely makes it more interesting because if a group of people have died, then it’s like, “Oh, poisoned wine.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Whereas if it’s one person, it’s like, “But if it’s poisoned wine, how did only one person die?”

[Shep]
Right. See, that’s what I’m asking.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And that is, was my question before. How do you poison just one person if everybody drinks from the same bottle of wine?

[Thomas]
Ah. So it ends up sort of throwing them off. They’re like, “Well, it couldn’t have been the wine,” but the detective keeps being nagged. “But what’s with this extra cork?”

[Shep]
Right. That’s a very Columbo thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That would make most sense if it was a separate poisonous bottle.

[Shep]
Right. So if the bottle were important, let’s say it’s like the assassin’s teapot.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
If you know the assassin’s teapot, where you hold it in a certain way and you can release poison or not.

[Emily]
Could you have it to where there’s a chemical reaction with something in the wine glass?

[Thomas]
Sure. Yeah. Or it could even be a two-part reaction. Like, the victim was given a special drink that had part one. And so then the poisons, the two chemicals mixed in their stomach and created a poisonous mixture. So everyone did drink the same one. But then why would you take the wine bottle away?

[Shep]
Because it’s got the other half of the poison.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure, sure, sure.

[Emily]
Oh yeah. Because it would still be detectable even though everyone ingested it. It would still be there. They just didn’t ingest the other part.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
He’s the only one who has fish at dinner. So he drinks white wine at dinner and everyone else drinks red wine. And then afterwards they’re having port or sherry and…

[Shep]
I mean, if he drinks a different bottle of wine at dinner, that would be an immediate clue. So he had the same wine as other people did, he had the same meal as other people did, but he died and only him.

[Thomas]
Right. How do you get him a second poison? And presumably, you would only want to have one killer. That makes the story a little tidier.

[Shep and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because it’s one person with one motive.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Revenge!

[Thomas]
So that one person has to specifically give this person two chemicals. I think it’ll be very easy to, if you’re in charge of the drinks, you know, maybe everybody has a special wine charm. So you would know whose glass is whose.

[Shep]
Oh, oh, no. That might be coincidental. Okay, here is my thought.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
The murder victim has quit smoking, but still sneaks cigarettes or goes out when the staff are out smoking and bums a cigarette.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s how they get poison half number one into the victim.

[Thomas]
Right. A tainted cigarette.

[Shep]
A tainted cigarette. They know he’s going to come out and ask for a cigarette because he keeps doing that. And also, it’s a thing he’s keeping secret from everyone else.

[Emily]
So nobody has seen it.

[Shep]
Right. It’s a thing that wouldn’t normally come up.

[Emily]
Well, you don’t talk about such things at dinner parties.

[Shep]
You don’t talk about such things. And also the staff knows, but maybe his friends don’t know.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So the killer is targeting this person for a while. Like, enough to observe their habits and come up with this plan. We’ll do half the poison in the tainted cigarette and half in the wine.

[Thomas]
And I think another way you could throw the detective off is after dinner they’re smoking cigars and the victim is like, “Oh, no, I don’t smoke anymore.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because he’s in front of his friends. He’s got to maintain that facade.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So they’re like, “Oh, no, it couldn’t have been something like that.” So he’s not even considering something along those lines.

[Emily]
Okay, but how does the cork come into play? So far it’s a cigarette and a bottle of wine.

[Shep]
Because the bottle is missing, the cork is still there.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s what gives it away that there was a 21st bottle and not 20 bottles.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I forgot that part.

[Thomas]
Do we want to name our victim and killer and come up with what their relationship is? Why is the killer seeking revenge?

[Emily]
Is the killer or victim a woman or are they both men or one a woman and one a man?

[Thomas]
I like the idea of: this is like a bunch of rich dudes getting together for a fancy meal and hanging out at the lodge or whatever. And so of course they’ve hired attractive young women to wait on them. And so the murderer could be a woman who has gotten on this staff somehow and the victim is some guy.

[Shep]
I talked about a stolen wine collection.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I figured that the murderer, their, murderer’s father, had his wine collection or his fortunes stolen by the murder victim.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so they’re getting revenge over their ruining their family.

[Emily]
Oh yeah. So his fortune was lost because of the victim somehow.

[Shep]
A scam. A Ponzi scheme.

[Emily]
Yeah. And so the, the murderer’s father… No, the victim bought the murderer’s father’s wine collection as sort of rubbing the salt in the wound of, you know, destroying him financially.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So is our victim an older guy then? Like when he was younger, he burgled the murderer’s father.

[Shep]
I don’t think he burgled.

[Emily]
I think he did a Ponzi scheme.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Contributed to the downfall, the financial ruin.

[Shep]
Right. This gentleman’s club, several of the people there had this scheme that they would pull on new members that come in. They see it as like a hazing thing, but sometimes these gullible saps invest their entire fortunes.

[Thomas]
It could even be a weeding out sort of thing. If you’re rich enough, you won’t be harmed by it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then when they reveal, “Oh, it all goes into the club coffers.” They’re like, “Ah ha ha.” And they throw a big party or something.

[Shep]
If it all goes into the club coffers, then the whole club is guilty.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a good point.

[Shep]
And everyone would be poisoned.

[Thomas]
Then I don’t think it should be a club hazing ritual. It should just be-

[Shep]
Oh, it’s not a club hazing ritual. It’s just a couple guys at the club.

[Thomas]
Ah, okay.

[Shep]
Taking advantage of nouveau riche.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I guess then it should have nothing to do with the club. Again, they shouldn’t be taking advantage of other members. It should just be people.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
But I like that idea of maybe they don’t like the nouveau riche. They don’t like people who are trying to be upwardly mobile. Like to them, there’s a falseness to it. You’re not one of us. You don’t belong here.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so they are intentionally trying to kick them out. Quite Permanently. And it literally enriches them in the process. So.

[Shep]
Right. Everybody wins.

[Thomas]
In their minds, yes.

[Shep]
So that’s why I thought it was people at the club, or maybe just this one guy at the club who sees it as his duty to kind of filter the members as they join.

[Thomas]
Sure. Oh, sure. He could be on the selection committee or the vetting committee or whatever.

[Shep]
No, because that would be work.

[Thomas]
Yeah, good point.

[Shep]
So he does his filtering after they’ve joined. When the selection committee is wrong and lets a nouveau riche join, then he steps in and drains their finances.

[Thomas]
So it’s not just that he’s keeping people in their proper class place. It’s all about the club. He views this as protecting the club from people who shouldn’t be there.

[Shep]
Possibly.

[Thomas]
He’s not doing that publicly.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s just in his own mind. Is this his club or like his family? His dad was one or his grandfather was one of the founding members. His great grandfather. It’s not like his family doesn’t own the club, but it’s part of his bloodline.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
His family is not one of the controlling families that runs the club, but his grandfather was one of the first members. So he sees it as like, “My grandfather founded this club.” But he didn’t. He didn’t really. He was just one of the founding members.

[Thomas]
Right. But yeah, so he feels the need to defend the club from the riff-raff or whatever.

[Shep]
Yes. And so he secretly tells them, “Welcome to the club.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“I have this money-making opportunity for you.”

[Thomas]
Sure. And because these are people who are not wealthy enough to know how to manage their money, especially if it’s new money. And maybe there’s a… There’s pressure to keep up with the Joneses sort of thing, so they feel the need to make more money quickly.

[Shep]
Right. So that gets the motive sorted. The victim doesn’t realize that it’s the son of the person that he ruined.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. I imagine this is a thing that happened like 20 years ago, and the murderer was like 7 years old at the time or something like that.

[Shep]
Right. Yep.

[Thomas]
Everything he’s done over the past 15 to 20 years has been leading up to this point. You know, he’s had to work at progressively fancier restaurants. Really building up those credentials, and every year applying to work on this waitstaff. And maybe he’s even been rejected a couple times. He’s gotten tested. Like there’s a whole thing you have to go through, but he keeps getting rejected, but he keeps working at more and more prestigious restaurants.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is he the sommelier?

[Thomas]
Ooh, that’s a good idea. Yeah, I like the idea that he started out trying to just be a waiter, and then he realized that wasn’t going to get him what he needed. So he studied to become a sommelier. Ah. And part of sommelier training is knowing about cigars and things.

[Shep]
What is the victim’s name?

[Thomas]
Charles. Steve?

[Shep]
Charles.

[Emily]
Stevens.

[Thomas]
Stevens.

[Emily]
Charles Stevens.

[Thomas]
I like it.

[Shep]
And what’s the murderer’s name?

[Emily]
Is the killer a man or a woman?

[Shep]
I think it’s a man. So that he could work with the wait staff.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay. And his name is Heath, by the way.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I like the idea that since Charles Stevens still smokes in secret that he can’t really taste the wine because his taste buds.

[Thomas]
Yeah. He doesn’t even appreciate it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. But he pretends.

[Emily]
Yeah. So who’s the detective? Is this a keep everybody in? Do they go and interview them individually out? Do we… Is it a one-set film?

[Shep]
Like a play.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s like Knives out where it just takes place in the one house.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, I think we do kind of need to keep it contained to, like, one evening, because I think the detective needs to find that cigarette butt and it’s going to be gone after that night.

[Shep]
I don’t think the detective finds that cigarette butt because you know how murder mysteries usually go. It’s the detective solves it and then the killer confesses.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So they don’t necessarily have all the evidence and if the killer would just keep their mouth shut and wait for their lawyer, they’d be fine.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Watch any Columbo episode.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So I don’t think it’s all in one evening because I think part of the point of doing it in two separate poisons that only work when they’re combined is it doesn’t happen until later. It takes time for the poison to be digested and meet the other poison that was inhaled. So maybe the victim dies in their sleep or something.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Or maybe they, late in the evening when there’s only a couple people left at the club.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure. That’s how the murderer has an alibi. “I wasn’t even there.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“I’d gone home.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So what makes this death suspicious? How does the detective get involved? If an old man dies in his sleep.

[Shep]
Right. So he must die when there’s still people at the club or they stayed up later than they normally would have. So instead of dying in bed, he dies playing pool very suddenly with his club fellows.

[Thomas]
Does he die just as he makes a shot, and then he ends up scratching and knocking the Eight ball in.

[Shep]
I think he wins the game. And everyone’s following the eight ball, and when they look back, he’s already collapsed.

[Thomas]
He’s still slumped over the table. But again, what makes it suspicious? Old man dies. Not particularly suspicious.

[Emily]
He just had a physical?

[Thomas]
Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if his doctor was a member of the club.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Which would also explain why he can’t smoke in front of the other members. Ah. So maybe the poison is designed to look like a certain ailment. But the doctor, like you said, just gave him a physical. He wasn’t suffering from that. He wasn’t at risk for that, so it’s weird. So they do an autopsy, toxicology, all that stuff, and they find out: Oh, yeah, actually, there is this poison in his system.

[Shep]
Or whatever the ailment is. Wouldn’t have killed him instantly like the poison did. And because the doctor is part of the club, they would know the details of the apparent ailment.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Shep]
And… And so the doctor calls the police. It’s like, “Hey, this is a suspicious death.”

[Thomas]
They would call it in anyway because it’s a death. But they would say “There’s also something suspicious about this.”

[Shep]
Right. All right, what is our detective’s name?

[Thomas]
Is our detective a man or a woman?

[Shep]
Do we want to have any women in this? Because this is an opportunity.

[Thomas]
Yeah, and a female, intruding into this male-only space would create additional story tension.

[Shep]
Right. Oh, I kind of want there to be one female member of the club.

[Thomas]
Who is this female member of the club, and why is she allowed?

[Shep]
Oh. Her grandfather was one of the founding members and also is of the family that controls the club.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So she gets literally grandfathered in.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s some charter about the direct descendants always being allowed in.

[Emily]
Oh yeah. And there were no other, there were no male heirs.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She is it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Not that the other members think that that’s okay.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And in fact, she gets harassed a lot by the victim, so she has a motive.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
This is one of our red herrings.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So is her name Rose to really drive home that she’s a red herring?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Her name is Maeve, which sounds like mauve, which is a shade of red.

[Shep]
Rose is great as a name because it’s like, “Oh, it’s because it’s a red herring.” But also, roses are beautiful, but they also have thorns.

[Thomas]
Ah. Oh, yeah. Okay, you sold me.

[Shep]
Like, it works on multiple-

[Thomas]
You sold me. This is good.

[Shep]
I sold you? It was your name!

[Thomas]
All right, well, we have a victim, we have a murderer, we have a cause of death, and we have a motive. So let’s take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll figure out all the rest of the details for this murder mystery involving a Cork.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. During the break, we came up with some names for some of our other characters. So our detective, we decided, is a woman named Frances Cunningham. We have a few club members here. The doctor is Kenneth Doyle. There’s a female club member, one solitary female club member named Rose. We also have some club members named George, Robert, Teddy, and Walter. They can show up as we need them. And there’d probably be some sort of head of staff for the club. We thought Joffrey would be a good name for that guy.

[Shep]
So Heath works for Joffrey.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
How do we get to Heath? Joffrey is dismissed early.

[Thomas]
Right. But he knows who was doing what that night because he would have handed out those assignments.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So was Heath in charge of pouring wine or waiting on the table, and that included pouring wine? So is this a separate bottle of wine that Heath has pre-poisoned and brought from home?

[Shep]
Yes. That’s why the cork doesn’t match.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
In fact, that could be one of the things that the detective quizzes Joffrey on.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You know, “We’ve matched up these corks with these bottles, and then there’s this one left,” and Joffrey can look at it and go, “Oh, this isn’t one of ours, because, you know, you’ll notice that ours are this and this is that.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“So I don’t know where this court came from, but it wasn’t from any of our wine.”

[Thomas]
So Heath needs to be pouring the wine.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So that no one else notices that.

[Shep]
Right. This is where Heath would be a suspect, though, because he poured the wine. “Where did you get that bottle?” How does he deflect that suspicion?

[Thomas]
What if it’s one of the bottles… Like, Heath has worked his ass off to save up enough money to buy a bottle that was the same vintage and everything as one of the ones that Charles got in the auction. So that if anyone asks, he can be like, “Charles brought this wine in himself. It’s from his collection, and he asked me to serve it. So I did.”

[Shep]
Ah. That’s good.

[Thomas]
“I don’t know where he got it.”

[Shep]
That’s great. Because it puts the suspicion on Charles, who is dead and can’t answer any questions and say, “No, I didn’t!”

[Thomas]
Yeah. And there would be a record because it was at an auction. So that he’d be like, “Yes, this bottle was part of that auction.”

[Shep]
Well, was that the unopened bottle from the collection, or was that a reused bottle that had been emptied?

[Thomas]
In order to have the right cork, it would probably have to be an unopened bottle.

[Shep]
Right, but it doesn’t have the right cork is what I’m saying. That’s one of the clues. It has to be an open bottle because he put half the poison in it.

[Emily]
And you would open the bottle at the table. You wouldn’t open it away from the table in a place like this.

[Shep]
Right. So he opens it, poisons it, reseals it and then opens it at the table.

[Thomas]
But see, the problem is that you’re not going to have the correct cork for that wine bottle if it’s already been opened.

[Emily]
Isn’t… I thought the wrong cork was sort of the point.

[Thomas]
It’s the wrong cork for the bottles that the club serves.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But it needs to be the right cork for that bottle of wine so that that can point the detective to that bottle of wine.

[Shep]
What do they do with the corks after they use them? After they have taken them off the wine? Who takes the corks away? Someone from the staff. The guy in charge of the wine does that. That’s Heath. He already had the cork. He just needed the matching bottle.

[Thomas]
How would he have gotten that cork?

[Shep]
He serves the wine.

[Thomas]
How would he have gotten the cork from the hyper rare bottle of wine that Charles supposedly brought in but didn’t actually?

[Shep]
Maybe Charles had him serve him that wine earlier at some point.

[Thomas]
But why would he have the… Yeah, see…

[Emily]
He pockets the cork. Because-

[Thomas]
But okay, okay. But why does he bring the cork back that night? Why does he pretend to serve from that bottle that night? Like, none of that makes any sense.

[Emily]
That’s the night he’s going to kill him.

[Thomas]
So why would he bring back that bottle, though?

[Emily]
Because it looks like a fancy bottle and the only thing he can afford to buy is the cheap two-buck Chuck.

[Thomas]
But why not just use one of the house bottles if they’re all going to drink that wine?

[Emily]
I don’t know. I don’t have a good solution.

[Thomas]
See, that’s why I think-

[Emily]
Because people aren’t gonna think about this while they’re watching the movie.

[Shep]
No, no, hold on.

[Thomas]
This is why I think Heath needs to- Heath would know what bottles were purchased because he would know. like, Charles made a point of rubbing it in. Of, “I’m buying all of your fancy wine that you bought with your new money.” And so he knows this is a bottle that that guy bought that my dad previously had. So he tracks down a similar bottle or the same. It’s gotta be the same vintage and everything. Right? So that he can, at home, poison that bottle and then bring it to the club. He knows Charles will be very excited. Maybe they’ve talked about wine cause he’s a sommelier. Maybe Charles has even said, “Oh, I had this bottle of wine one time. It was really great.” And so he goes out and he finds another bottle, knowing Charles would be very excited to drink it. And in fact, maybe even show off to all of his friends, like, “Hey, I can get you this bottle, and you can pretend like you brought this bottle in.” So maybe that even further corroborates the story, because, of course, Charles wants to brag, so they all drink it, and then that helps to kind of deflect. “Oh, yeah, it couldn’t have been this wine we all had that.”

[Shep]
Right. And it was from Charles’s collection.

[Thomas]
Right, exactly. Charles is lying to everyone, saying it’s from his collection. And there’s a historical record of Charles having purchased this bottle of wine.

[Shep]
It’s the perfect murder!

[Emily]
But there’s also a historical record of Heath purchasing that bottle of wine.

[Shep]
Right. The detective can dig that up later when there’s reason to suspect Heath.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Because I think one of the things that we often see in these kinds of stories is: the criminal paints a picture. And their hope is no one looks too closely at this picture because it looks tidy enough. And everyone’s happy to accept that it was an accident or a suicide or whatever story they’re trying to tell. But the detective knows better because there’s that one little thing that doesn’t sit right with them. And so they scratch and scratch and scratch, and eventually they realize more and more things aren’t adding up. And that’s what the cork is. The cork is the one thing that-

[Shep]
Right. So Heath pours all the wine and leaves with the bottle, but can’t get the cork.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
For what? What do they do with the cork?

[Thomas]
Maybe Charles doesn’t really know that much about wine, so he wants to take the cork and smell it because he’s kind of an idiot and he’s trying to show off.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so it’s at the table, he can’t clear it, and somebody else grabs it and it ends up in the trash or, I don’t know, something.

[Shep]
Or Charles puts it in his pocket.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
To add to his collection of corks from rare bottles of wine.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Right. He’s got a wine dungeon and a cork wall or something.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe he gives it to someone else as, like a showing-off kind of thing. Maybe he gives it to Rose, somebody else at the party has it in their pocket.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I like the idea that it’s in someone’s possession so that Heath can’t get it.

[Shep]
Well, see, that’s why I was having it be Charles, because he dies at the scene. So it’s still there.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, right, right, right.

[Shep]
Where if it’s someone else, they could leave with it.

[Thomas]
I see what you’re saying. Yeah, okay.

[Shep]
What does he do with the bottle? It’s got the trace of the half-poison in it. So he can’t leave it at the scene.

[Thomas]
Right. He could just, I don’t know, toss it somewhere. It needs to be found again, doesn’t it, though?

[Shep]
Does it?

[Thomas]
Without the bottle, what else are we gonna… Because we’ve already said we’re not gonna use the cigarette. That’s gonna have to be conjecture on the detective’s part.

[Shep]
Well, there are cigarette butts out there, but not that cigarette butt.

[Thomas]
Right, but what I’m saying is we need some concrete evidence for the detective to be able to say, “Yes, he was definitely murdered.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
You know, we need that final scene of the detective laying out, “And here’s how it happened.” And then pointing at Heath.

[Shep]
Right. But I’m saying that it’s the 21st cork and the bottle is missing. And that’s suspicious. That’s suspicious enough.

[Emily]
I was thinking one of the ways he could get caught is because, you know, they’re always a little bit stupid, the criminals.

[Thomas]
Right. They got to make some mistakes.

[Emily]
Right. And his mistake could be with the cigarette because he could have gone out and he could have been on the balcony taking a smoke break.

[Emily]
When Charles comes out and he doesn’t have his because he swiped his cigarettes. You know, he’s also a good pickpocket or whatever, so that Charles doesn’t have a cigarette. So he offers one of his, which is the poison cigarette.

[Shep]
See-

[Emily]
Otherwise, how does he get the poison in the cigarette?

[Shep]
He has a pre-poisoned cigarette because Charles keeps coming out and bumming cigarettes off of him.

[Emily]
That’s what I’m saying.

[Shep]
He didn’t swipe his cigarettes. Charles doesn’t have any cigarettes because he “quit smoking”.

[Emily]
Oh. He doesn’t have any cigarettes. So he just bums off the staff normally.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
This is an established pattern.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
And Heath knows this, that he bums off the staff. So Heath is out there having a smoke break.

[Shep]
He bums off of Heath specifically because Heath is discreet.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right. Heath has ingratiated himself to Charles.

[Shep]
Right. Because this is- This was a long plan.

[Emily]
Long con.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right. So he’s been working there for a while and it’s only now that he has the opportunity because Charles has to establish this routine of coming out and bumming smokes off of him. And it’s like, “Okay, I can use this. I can do the two-part poison, put half in the cigarette that I’m going to give to Charles.” What are we missing? We have the club opening scene.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We establish the characters and the staff in the background and then Charles keels over dead.

[Thomas]
Yep. And then the doctor finds it suspicious and reports that. So Detective Cunningham is sent out and she starts to investigate.

[Shep]
Right. She interviews the witnesses, the other club members.

[Thomas]
Does that all happen that night? Like, when does the cork get found?

[Shep]
If Charles has it on his body or in his pocket.

[Thomas]
Ah, right, right.

[Emily]
It’s found that night.

[Shep]
The. Yeah, the coroner takes the body and they do an inventory of his possessions. So maybe it’s not obvious immediately that that cork is there.

[Thomas]
Right. So then they would- Cunningham would probably interview everybody, do like an initial interview with everybody there, and then everyone would be released. But then the tox report comes back and it turns out, no, he was definitely poisoned. So then they come back and they start doing a greater search of the club and…

[Shep]
Right. They find the other bottles and corks because the trash hasn’t been picked up yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Right.

[Shep]
They collect the bottles that were used that night because the poison’s got to be in one of them and it’s not in any of them.

[Thomas]
Right. And all of the bottles are there. 20 bottles, 20 corks. And the detective is like, “Wait, 21 corks.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“There should be. Where’s the 21st bottle?” Pulls out the evidence bag. “21 corks. This was in his pocket. Everybody said he shared this bottle of wine. Where is this bottle?” And that’s how the investigation, like, really kicks off. So then the detective goes back and starts re-interviewing people. Fingers start getting pointed. We go through some of those red herrings. We find out more about everybody’s backstories that all brought them there and why everybody hated Charles.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So how does the detective put it all together in the end? I think really that’s the big thing that we’re missing because a lot of the other details are things the writers could fill in.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But what we really need to know is how does the detective figure it all out?

[Shep]
Well, he has to realize that Charles was still a smoker, so there are physical signs that that is happening.

[Thomas]
I think that’s something that everybody knows. Like, oh, he thought he was keeping it a secret. But have you met smokers? They smell like smoke.

[Emily]
Someone in their interview process mentioned “So and then he went out for a cigarette after dinner,” and they were like, “Whoa, whoa. I thought he quit smoking.”

[Thomas]
Right. “He didn’t have cigars when we had cigars.” Like, it’s probably Rose. Rose would know.

[Emily]
Yeah. She knows everything because nobody pays attention to her.

[Thomas]
Because he gets all up in her face. She smells his breath. Yeah, he’s got that mint spray to try to cover it up. But-

[Emily]
If you smoke, that smell is on you. No matter what you spray yourself with, it’s everywhere. Even if you smoke outside, windows rolled down, it is on you.

[Thomas]
That’s why I think he thinks he’s hiding it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But everyone else knows.

[Shep]
Oh, he is hiding it from the other members who smoke because they can’t smell it.

[Thomas]
Oh, right.

[Shep]
They’re smokers.

[Emily]
They can’t smell anything.

[Shep]
But Rose doesn’t smoke.

[Thomas]
And he gets right up in her face.

[Shep]
Right. Rose knows that he is smoking.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they say, Rose says, “Oh, he was smoking with (a member of staff)” or something like that. Somebody somehow knows or maybe Joffrey even knows. Like, “Oh, he would sometimes go out and smoke with the staff.” Like, “Well, who on your staff smokes?” Like, “Everybody. That’s how they get breaks. Have you been in a commercial kitchen?” Does that lead to Heath?

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s got to lead to Heath somehow.

[Thomas]
I mean, I think the other thing that you often have in these is that, yes, all of the suspects, the red herring suspects, have means, motive, and opportunity. But they all also have some alibi. But this is a tricky one because it’s a two-part thing. Is there some way that the detective could know for sure that it’s a two-part poison and that one part of it was delivered through, you know, inhalation?

[Shep]
Right. If they do an autopsy, if they suspect that that’s a thing, maybe they can test for that.

[Thomas]
And that could even be something that comes later. The toxicology report comes back, he was poisoned. And then later in the story, when it’s convenient for the coroner to reveal it for the story purposes, it’s like, oh, it turns out-

[Emily]
He had this in his lungs and this in his blood, and that would create this thing.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because the tox report would be a blood test.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
But then the autopsy, which would take a little while to go through everything, turns up different results or more results.

[Emily]
Yeah. More results.

[Thomas]
More. More information. Yeah. And so everybody knows publicly he doesn’t smoke, so he couldn’t have gotten it from them. They test his mint spray, in case it was that.

[Shep]
Yeah, That’s a good one.

[Thomas]
No, that’s clean.

[Emily]
And they test all the cigarette butts in the butt keeper on the balcony.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
They all come back clean.

[Thomas]
Because he doesn’t put his butts in the ashtray. He flicks them off the balcony into the woods, and there’s a stream that goes back there. Because he’s a horrible person.

[Emily]
Maybe he’s made a habit of giving them back to Heath so Heath can dispose of them.

[Thomas]
I like that idea of giving it back. Like, part of the way he fools himself into thinking it’s okay is he never actually smokes a whole cigarette.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He only has a few puffs.

[Emily]
Oh. And gives it back charitably to Heath for his later consumption.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Because you don’t want to waste a cigarette.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He hands it back, “You could finish that.”

[Thomas]
And Heath could safely smoke the rest of that cigarette because it’s only half the thing.

[Shep]
Right. He’s not going to drink the wine.

[Thomas]
And he’s not going to drink the wine.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Ooh. And so Heath would know to take that butt with him.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
In the flashback scene, you can see him finishing the cigarette with satisfaction of destroying the murder weapon.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. But how does Cunningham get Heath and not some other staff member? How does she know?

[Emily]
Someone has to rat out that they had a rep, a repertoire between the two.

[Thomas]
A rapport.

[Emily]
There you go. That’s the word. No, they have a repertoire. They go out.

[Thomas]
They sing, they dance. It’s a whole show. An evening of smooth jazz with Heath and Charles.

[Shep]
Right. Heath can’t be the murderer. He’s Charles’s friend.

[Emily]
Does Charles know who he is? Like, does he know?

[Shep]
No, no, no, no.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
No, I don’t think he ever knows.

[Shep]
It’s something that the detective’s forensic accountants discover. So once they’re looking at Heath, the forensic accountants can go, “Oh, he has this motive because of what happened to his family. And also he has the opportunity because here’s a record of him buying that bottle of wine.”

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t think it’s necessarily a record of him buying the bottle of wine. It’s two days before that bottle of wine was purchased, Heath took $2,500 out of his bank account.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And that bottle of wine sold two days later for $2,500.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And Heath can’t account for where that money went. Not in any provable way.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So they established that Heath shares cigarettes with Charles and Heath bought the wine. And those are the two parts of the poison. And this is where Heath confesses.

[Thomas]
So Cunningham takes a shot. Speculatively. It’s an educated guess.

[Shep]
Yeah. It’s not speculative. It’s like, here’s all the evidence.

[Thomas]
But it’s not provable.

[Shep]
Well, it’s-

[Thomas]
Not in court.

[Shep]
It’s circumstantial, but it’s highly persuasive circumstantial.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
To the point where you could probably convince Heath that this is an ironclad case.

[Thomas]
Oh, for sure.

[Shep]
And so Frances gives Heath a chance to tell his side of things and he can talk about how. Well, we already established that Charles screwed over Heath’s family.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s Frances who’s delivering that backstory.

[Thomas]
These are all the things we know.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
We know all of this.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Is this something that happens in a Poirot-style, everyone is in the room type of thing? Or is this just Heath and Cunningham, like, at Heath’s apartment? And Cunningham being like, “Look, you’re hosed, man. We got you.”

[Shep]
Well, if we do it at the club, we don’t need a second location.

[Emily]
Yeah. Do it Colombo-style. “I’ve invited you all here today.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Doesn’t make a lot of sense for Heath to go back to the club after the murder.

[Thomas]
Except that that’s where he works.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He needs to make it look like everything’s fine.

[Emily]
It would be more suspicious if he didn’t.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I think it would be great if Heath isn’t a suspect the entire time and he’s just in the background and Cunningham is investigating the other club members and invites everyone back to the club and then starts to lay out the evidence and then turns to the wait staff and it’s Heath who’s, like, shocked.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, “What? What do you. Huh? Moi?”

[Thomas]
He’s there, like, serving drinks and doing whatever.

[Shep]
Right. Doing his job.

[Thomas]
Because she’s already arranged with Joffrey ahead of time. “Like, I want you to bring these people in to the room.” So there’s a couple other wait staff, so it looks all normal and simple. And…

[Shep]
Or you could just have Cunningham telling Joffrey, “Please bring these people.” And it’s not saying who. And you, the audience goes, “Oh, it’s the club members. Joffrey works there.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
“He’s going to contact the club members.” You don’t realize it’s also Heath.

[Thomas]
Yeah. She has a list. “Can you bring these people to the parlor?” Or whatever.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And on that list is, yes, the club members, but also three members of staff or something like that.

[Shep]
Right. One who witnessed, he’s sharing cigarettes with Charles.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
You know they give their evidence during the big reveal.

[Thomas]
Right. That person would be out there sometimes on their phone, and Charles would come out and bum a smoke off a Heath all the time.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, basically every day.

[Shep]
Like clockwork.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that. Do we have it all now? I think we’ve got everything we need for the story.

[Shep]
We have the bones, we don’t have the remaining red herrings.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s one of those things that requires more detail than we have time for.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, in that case, we would love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Cork. Were we popping bottles or did we bung it up? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. One of our resolutions for 2025 is to continue to grow the show, and you can actually help us out with that. It’s really easy. All you have to do is tell a few people about the podcast. In fact, people will probably ask you what your resolutions are, and you can tell them something like, “Oh, I want to listen to more episodes of the podcast Almost Plausible.” Will that work? I mean, it can’t hurt.

[Shep]
That’s a totally normal thing to say about your resolution.

[Thomas]
It is if you’re talking to me. Well, if it does work, then all those new listeners will be able to join Emily, Shep, and I, and you, on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Thomas, Shep, and Emily]
5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Happy New Year!

[Thomas]
Are you guys looking forward to 2025?

[Emily]
(Reluctantly) Sure~