Who killed Rosco?
Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Long ferry lines to the island and ever more expensive trip fares will fray tempers in the small village of Langley at any time. Add to the mix the foes of gambling aboard a “casino ferry” and protesters against the havoc the increased traffic would cause in the town, and there is murder in the making.
Rosco Boscow, one-quarter Geomuck Indian, thought he had the perfect solution to transportation problems around Puget Sound as well as a lucrative proposition for himself and the other members of a penurious and obscure Native American tribe.
Boscow has inherited a piece of Langley waterfront and has offered to sell the property to his relatives who have been looking for land to build a dock for their planned Casino Ferry, to run between Langley and SeaTac airport. The boat, the Spirit of Langley, would be built by Nichols Brothers in Freeland.
The Washington State ferry system also wants the land, to build a dock for an HOV ferry.
An anti-gambling group, the Moral Minority, is protesting the casino ferry proposal.
And a group of locals called “Save Our Parking and Streets” is against both ferry plans because of their potentially disastrous effects on parking and traffic in the town.
Then, as the Geomuck Tribe begins plans to operate the casino and the little town is overrun with unemployed Vegas acts, Rosco Boscow is found dead. In his hand he clutched a bunch of poker cards.
Yet another February tragedy has struck this usually quiet village. And there is no shortage of suspects.
“We always try to build on things that are familiar, things that are happening,” said Loretta Martin, director of the Langley South Whidbey Chamber of Commerce and one of the writers of the Mystery Weekend plot, together with Langley businessman Mike Hill and Saranell DeChambeau, well-known actress and personage around town.
“Increased ferry fares, the burgeoning of Indian casinos, even the boats the Nichols Brothers build — they all inspired us in this mystery.”
The delight of absurdities also sparks their creative imaginations.
“We just get as outlandish as we can. We balance each other well that way,” Martin said.
In this case, the absurdities include characters named Rex Mucker and Antoinette Beaverpelt (played by Ken Sasson and Annie Horton) as the Geomuck relatives; Josh Booker (Josh Hauser), who will operate the Belles and Beaus “escort” service aboard the casino ferry; Tel Yibson, a Swedish-Gallic actor who does dramatic readings from his famous role in “Faint Heart” (portrayed by perennial Mystery Weekend favorite John Ball); Sally Mustang (Connie Stumpf), the determined leader of the Save Our Parking And Streets group; Boyd Burman, Langley’s mayor, now in the running for governor (played by Langley’s real mayor Lloyd Furman); and Isabella Berth (I. B.) Fuzz, retired detective and once “the world’s shortest Texas Ranger,” returning in the person of Saranell DeChambeau for her third appearance in the character but her uncounted appearance in Mystery Weekend.
DeChambeau has been involved in the lighthearted Langley February event since its beginnings.
“I took a hiatus for five or six years, and then came back,” she said. “I got into the character of I.B. Fuzz and then starting meeting with the writers. We bounce these ideas off each other. This year I suggested the character of Hello Saylors as one of the Belles in the escort service. Loretta came up with ‘Heloise Saylors.'”
Their minds all working together, the team comes up with a basic idea (usually belonging to Hill) and then creates the characters. The most fun, they say, is actually writing the clues.
“There is a delicious interweaving,” Martin said.
“We also try to write characters that fit with the people who have been with us for a long time,” she said. “Sean McDougald, for instance, who plays Elvis Lesley, has been part of Mystery Weekend since he was in a stroller. John Ball and Josh Hauser have acted in it since the very beginning. And the mayor has always played himself.”
There are others — here at home and from farther away — who are just as enamored of the blithe drama that takes place on the streets of Langley each February.
Last year Marie Manush of Bellingham brought her two Dorcas (dogs disguised as orcas), and this year the canines will be “auto escort” dogs, the valets for a 10-story parking garage proposed by Bellingham heiress Marti Parker (Manush).
“Marie brings her dogs down each year from Bellingham to act in Mystery Weekend,” Martin said.
Sometimes there are very moving stories.
“A woman named Marylou Heard who had been to Mystery Weekend told her sister that her fondest wish was to be a character,” Martin said. “Marylou had terminal cancer. Her sister called us, and we wrote a place for her. It was Peach Fuzz, the daughter of I.B. Fuzz. She was really excited, even made up a scrapbook of pictures of herself as one of the clues.”
Heard won’t be at Mystery Weekend this year. She died sometime after last year’s event.
There are also people from Bellevue or Seattle who want to play parts in Mystery Weekend. And there are those who, without official standing, throw out their own red herrings. Mike Hill, now a writer, was one of those.
“After that we made him one of the writers,” Martin said.
Another group dropping red herrings in the past was the Seafair Pirates who, Martin said, sat in the Dog House Tavern and gave out false clues.
“We couldn’t catch up with them,” she said.
Martin said this 19th Mystery Weekend has been getting lots of attention — coverage in the AAA magazine and in Walt Disney’s Family Fun, along with a “great story” in the Portland Oregonian.
The Victoria Clipper is also returning with a run this year after an absence of a few years, and is sold out.
“Everybody just loves it,” she said.
