Murder Mystery Weekend – Mayhem in Langley, Washington

Yellow caution tape fluttered wetly in the rain around the bright red Toyota Prius, the murder weapon used to kill Cy Lenzio. Dressed as a mime in black trousers and a striped shirt, he was riding his unicycle when the driverless car chased him down Third Street, a dead-end street in Langley, Washington.

The unicycle, crushed into pieces, lay beneath the Prius’ wheels. Black boxes sprouting wires, presumably the remote controls for the car, rested on the dash. A vinyl cutout of Cy in his mime outfit sprawled across the windshield and hood. My team of three — all of us mystery fans — peered into the car, looking for clues, the hoods of our raincoats raised against the drizzle. Who killed Cy?

Cy Doesn’t Exist

Cy and the 24 murder suspects are fictional characters created by Rachel McDougald and her co-writers for last year’s Langley Mystery Weekend. The two-day annual event on Whidbey Island takes place every February, drawing hundreds of people to the small town of Langley. In 2025, the town will host the 40th Mystery Weekend.

Our first stop that Saturday morning was Mystery Weekend Headquarters at the Chamber of Commerce. We’d bought our tickets online, which allowed us to bypass the ticket line. We grabbed the participant materials: a glossy 10-page booklet and faux newspaper with an obituary and stories that establish the background for the murder. The booklet included an introduction for those new to the event, photos of all 27 suspects, a map showing where to collect clues, and several starting clues. Thus armed, we began our sleuthing.

Following the Clues

Dozens of downtown businesses hold printed clues. Marked on a map, participating businesses display a Mystery Weekend poster in their store windows. Reading the clues as we collected them, we tried to understand what happened and how the suspects were connected to Cy. Each clue included an anecdote from a suspect about Cy or the other suspects.

Collecting the clues proved to be easy, but piecing together the relationships between suspects presented a challenge. Determining which bits of information actually help solve the case proved even more difficult. Gradually, the story of what happened began to take shape. The clues, though, left us with dozens of questions. Why was Cy upset after the DNA test? What were the notes to Tap about? Where were the killer car’s remote controls, and how many of them were there? Who was on the roof of the Porter Building? Who was dating whom? And why were some of them dressed as pirates?

Local Suspects and Detectives

Moving from shop to shop, we bumped into several of the suspects, played by locals. They were often wearing outlandish costumes and surrounded by a crowd of fellow sleuths. A fair portion of the amateur detectives wore costumes, too, but they could usually be identified by the notepads in their hands. Deerstalker caps, a favorite of Sherlock Holmes, enjoyed a resurgence among the sleuthing crowd.

We interviewed all the suspects we found — a total of five characters, plus the roofing crew. The majority of the suspects never crossed our path. We didn’t really understand the background story yet, so our questions were fairly generic. When we tried to interview the roofing crew, they played kazoos instead of answering questions. Eavesdropping on other sleuths’ interviews proved more enlightening. Participants could ask the suspects anything, but they may not tell the truth. After all, one of them was a killer.

By lunchtime, we’d gathered all but four of the 48 clues and were more confused than ever. Cy, the murdered mime, seemed to be well-liked. Money might be a motive, but most people would be worse off with him dead. The remote controls (we never did figure out how many there were) to the killer car were left randomly all over town, including outside the pizza place where we ate lunch. We decided to find a coffee shop to sort through the clues and try to make sense of it all.

Working Through the Clues

Reading through the clues one by one, my team and I jotted down details about possible motives, alibis, and relationships in a spiral notebook. That helped clear the clutter, but we still couldn’t distinguish between facts of importance and those designed to mislead us.  Some suspects were barely mentioned in the clues. Other suspects didn’t seem to have any real connection to Cy. Or were we missing something?

We split up to gather the remaining clues, then headed to Third Street to investigate the crime scene. Finally, making our way back to Mystery Headquarters, we joined clusters of weekend detectives gathered around tables, sipping coffee, spreading out the paper clues, and debating who did it.

The Murder Mystery Continued

I’d like to say that we cleverly deduced who murdered Cy, but the truth is, we still weren’t sure. As we read through our notes, one name kept popping up. Mary, the former nanny with a grudge, knew where Cy was going on his unicycle. She had motive and opportunity. We didn’t know how she’d gotten on the roof or even if that had been her on the roof with the remote control. But Mary was our best guess, so we wrote our explanation on the form in the back of the booklet, tore it out, and turned it in at Mystery Headquarters at the Chamber of Commerce. After that, all we could do was wait.

Sleuths have all day Saturday and until Sunday afternoon to solve the mystery and turn in their solution. Shortly thereafter, the suspects and any sleuths still in town gather at a “reveal” event to see the murderer exposed and the intricacies of the plot explained. If you correctly named the killer, your answer would be entered in a prize drawing.

We had to drive home on Sunday, but we watched the video of the reveal party on the Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page. Mary was indeed the murderer. The solution made sense of many (though not all) of the unconnected bits and pieces from the clues. Most of the suspects had alibis, a fact that completely eluded us. Watching the reveal event gave us ideas for our next investigation.

In February, another fictional resident of Langley will be murdered. We’ll be back in the dead of winter to solve the case on Mystery Weekend.

 

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