Diablo Magazine

Murder, She Wrote

By Kevin Berger

They were gathered at a dinner party in Lafayette when they got the grisly news: Frank Fault, president of Fault Property Management, had fallen to his death on a site they were investigating for earthquake safety. They -- the employees of William Lettis & Associates, a Walnut Creek geotechnical consulting firm -- had left a deep trench uncovered. Fault's blood was on their hands.

Not so fast, said Lettis & Associates. That deadly trench was covered. Frank's death was not their fault. Besides, there were plenty of people who would profit from Fault's demise. And all of them were at the party that night. Give us an hour, they pleaded to Larry Lawman of the California Valley Police Department, and they could find the killer.

Such, anyway, was the scenario fabricated by Murder on the Menu, an Oakland-based theater company that customizes whodunits for company parties. As the anniversary party progressed at the home of William and Heidi Lettis, employees were given clues to solve the mystery of Fault's death. Murder on the Menu actors, in the guise of Fault's relatives and colleagues, appeared before a microphone and defended themselves.

There was Penelope the perky secretary, with whom Fault was having an affair, Blaze, Fault's jealous wife who put herself through college as a construction worker: Judy, Fault's sister who was a struggling fashion designer; and Richard Profit, Fault's son-in-law who was competing with his wife to step into her father's shoes. "I should be running the business," he said. "It's a man's job."

Murder on the Menu events are written by Janet Rudolph, whose professional life has been steeped in mystery. She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation (for the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley) on the religious currents in the novels of Harry Kemelman, Tony Hillerman and other mystery authors, is the editor of Mystery Readers Journal and a member of the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America.

She modeled Murder on the Menu on "murder" parties held by the rich in exclusive New England mansions in the 1920s. Her resume drips with rave reviews from large companies like Hewlett Packard to small ones like William Lettis & Associates.

Sitting in her Montclair home, Rudolph says Murder on the Menu events "diffuse the tensions that can build up in a company." Heidi Lettis agrees that the case of Frank Fault kept employees "enthralled throughout the evening. They loved working together to solve the mystery." Rudolph takes particular pride in customizing the mysteries for companies and allowing her own sympathies to creep into the stories. So who killed Frank Fault? Why, Richard Profit, of course, the "evil developer."

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