Hello, let's get started on a new fic! This one is a good old fashioned murder mystery, although it's different from the last murder mystery I wrote (The Rat King) because it's not a good old fashioned Whodunnit and more of a thriller. In any case, I hope you like mysteries as much as I do!
This story is rated M, primarily because there are some very family unfriendly murder scenes but also for minor sexual content. On that note, yes! This story is Fluri! Most of my fics are Brotp but by popular demand this one is explicitly a romance.
Enjoy!
Chapter One: Blood in the Morning
Flynn woke up slowly and put off opening his eyes right away. It was his day off, and thus the one day a week he didn't have to rush around getting ready for work. He just wanted to lie here in his cozy bed forever and never have to go to work again. Unfortunately, the sun had better ideas. He'd foolishly left his curtains open just enough to let a band of sunlight stream through his window and hit his pillow with pinpoint accuracy.
With a groan, he rolled over and buried his face into his pillow, determined to ignore the sun. Getting up to close the window would mean getting out of bed, and at that point he might as well just stay up. He squeezed his eyes tighter, but the beam of light warmed the back of his head. It was no use - he was going to have to close the window. With a heavy sigh that turned into a yawn, he opened his eyes and rolled out of bed.
He was just about to put his foot down when he noticed the carcass. Flynn jerked his foot back and his stomach turned. There were certain things he wasn't ready to see first thing in the morning, and a dead squirrel was one of them. With a frustrated groan, he hopped out of bed and yelled, "Kat!" Not surprisingly, she didn't come running. Sometimes Flynn missed Repede.
Flynn, barefoot and pyjama-clad, stumbled out of his bedroom and down the short hall to the stairs. He'd lived in the castle after first becoming commandant, but once he got his first paycheck and realized that for the first time in his life he had the means to live in his own home, he'd bought a small place on the upper edge of the public quarter. He'd lived here for about five months now, and though it did mean a fifteen minute walk to work, it was a small sacrifice for having his own place and not dealing with the castle's formality at all hours of the day.
"Kat," he called again, stomping downstairs. Still no sign of her. Grumbling something incoherent about mornings, days off, and things he didn't have time for, he arrived in the kitchen and finally found the subject of his displeasure.
A white and orange cat sat on his kitchen table, calmly grooming her paws. She glanced up when he emerged, and then immediately went back to licking herself.
Flynn glared at her. "Kat, what have I told you about bringing me 'presents'?"
She ignored him. Of course. Repede at least had the decency to bark in agreement to let you know he understood what you meant. Yawning again, Flynn shuffled to the table and slumped into a chair. "You're not supposed to be on the table, either," he grumbled.
Yuri still said it was a mistake taking in a cat. He'd found her napping on his front step a few months back and took pity on her. The plan was to take care of her until he could find a proper owner, but somehow that had never happened. At first he'd just called her 'cat' because he was terrible at naming things and wasn't planning on keeping her, but then the name kind of stuck. He'd quickly tried to stop Yuri from laughing by explaining that Katrina was a legitimate name, but he and Yuri both knew he had basically named her Cat because he was a supremely uncreative person.
"I have to go clean up a dead squirrel on my day off now." He rested his chin on his crossed arms. "I hope you're happy with yourself."
She meowed in such a way Flynn got the feeling she really was happy with herself for putting him through this chore. It was a good thing she was adorable, or else Flynn would have thrown her out on the street months ago.
He was about to get up and make breakfast, because this was a good excuse to put off cleaning up the squirrel, when someone knocked on his door. He glanced at the direction of his door with a frown. It couldn't be any of his friends, because he didn't have any in this city. His frowned deepened as he thought about that, because it sounded really sad. Actually, Lady Estellise had gone on a trip with Yuri and Brave Vesperia was off doing their thing, so it really was just a matter of all his friends being out of town for now.
It couldn't be someone from the Knights, either, because this was his day off. Sodia had been the one to adamantly insist he take at least one day off each week, and that he wasn't to be bothered with anything unless it was an emergency.
Expecting a door-to-door salesman, Flynn patted Kat on the head and went to the door. To his surprise and dread, when he opened it he found Sodia. If finding him in his pyjamas bothered her, she didn't say so.
"What's the situation?" Flynn asked immediately, his face turning serious. If Sodia was here on his day off, there had to be something major.
"There's been a murder, sir," she said.
"Who?"
"We haven't identified the victim yet."
With one hand still on the door, Flynn said, "I'm sorry to hear about this, but honestly I don't think this is an issue I need to be involved with. Get the local squad to identify the victim and investigate the murder as they would any other."
"Sir, I know it's your day off, but I really think you're going to want to see this one."
Flynn's frown deepened at her clearly uncomfortable expression. Sodia was not a squeamish person. He'd seen her in enough battles to know that a simple murder victim wouldn't throw out of sorts like this. He had no idea what he was going to find at the crime scene, but he already dreaded it. He sighed. "Give me ten minutes. I need to get dressed and feed my cat and we can head out."
Sodia didn't talk on their way to the crime scene. This left Flynn the entirety of his imagination to try to figure out what kind of murder they could be dealing with that was so atrocious it demanded the commandant himself to get involved. By the time they neared the scene, he was half expected a flayed, drawn, quartered, and burned corpse and was starting to wonder if this was his cosmic punishment for making such a big deal about a simple squirrel carcass.
Sodia led him through the public quarter to Finch Street, a narrow road that curved along the edge of the lower quarter. Flynn had never been too fond of the people on Finch Street. He and Yuri used to come up here sometimes, but he still remembered the dirty looks they'd been given. More than once they'd been yelled at, told to leave, or even had buckets of water tossed at them. At least, Flynn hoped it had been water. The Finch Street residents looked down on the lower quarter even more than nobles did, simply because once you lived on Finch Street there was nobody else to look down. The lower quarter was the only place lower on the social ladder than them, so they clung to that dredge of superiority with all they had.
Even with his general dislike of Finch Street residents, he was still sickened when they finally reached the crime scene. This woman might look down on his home, but nobody deserved what had happened to her. Knights had already roped off the narrow alley where she'd been found and stood in a ring around it to keep people from getting close. They let Flynn through the moment the saw him, but he almost wished they'd hadn't.
The victim was a woman, probably in her mid-twenties. She lay on her back with her arms spread out, palms up. She wore a ripped and dirty skirt which was already red so it hid the bloodstains well. She was shirtless from the waist up, but there was little cause for titillation because her chest had been sliced open from her collarbone to her stomach. Internal organs lay around her, still attached, like they'd been carelessly dug out and tossed aside. A deep gash crossed her throat, and her pale face wore an expression of surprise. Flynn hoped this meant she'd been killed suddenly and hadn't been vivisected.
"I know murders aren't typically something the commandant involves himself with," Sodia said quietly, "but I thought you'd want to see this."
"Yes," Flynn said in a low voice. "I see what you mean." He was suddenly grateful she'd got to him before he had a chance to eat breakfast. "What's on her arms?" He approached and crouched next to her right arm. Thin bloody cuts had been scored into the pale flesh. Flynn squinted; it was hard to make out through the blood smeared around the wounds. "It looks like writing." He tried to make out what the letters were. M… J… F… he shook his head. There were five letters, but MJFWY didn't mean anything to him.
He stood and looked to the gathered knights. Everyone wore matching distasteful expressions and no one really wanted to look at the victim. As the biggest city in the world, murder was hardly something the knights who patrolled the local streets were unfamiliar with. Finding someone cut open with their intestines painting the road was in a league of its own, though. Flynn couldn't let his men see that the gruesome scene was getting to him, too, though. He kept his voice firm and asked, "When was she found?"
"Around dawn, sir," one of the knights said. "She was found by a Mrs. Sharon Clarke, who owns the cobbler's shop next door."
"She didn't hear anything last night?" He found it hard to believe this woman wouldn't have screamed.
The knight shook his head. "She didn't say she did."
Flynn turned back to the corpse, scanning for any other clue. He would need to examine all the evidence more closely once a proper report was written up, but they'd only have the fresh scene for a limited time.
"I don't think she was killed here," Sodia said. "All things considered, there's not enough blood."
Flynn was about to argue, because there was enough blood that it ran in streams between the cobbles, all the way to the round sewer grate a few feet from her head where it pooled in a ring. On second thought, he saw what she meant. Her entire chest and abdominal cavity had been ripped open, so if that had happened here, the entire ground would be slicked with blood. This was blood that had leaked from her throat and oozed off the scattered organs. "You're probably right. She was killed elsewhere and moved here. Whoever did this obviously wasn't interested in keeping the murder hidden, though, or she wouldn't be splayed out like this just off the street."
"I was thinking the same thing, sir," Sodia said.
Flynn tore his eyes away from the awful scene to speak to Sodia. "Thank you for showing me this. I'm going home now, but I want a full report delivered to my house as soon as it's available."
Sodia nodded once. "Of course, sir."
Flynn tried to enjoy his day off by relaxing on the couch and reading a book, but every time his mind drifted he thought about that horrible scene. He didn't think seeing a woman's lungs ripped out of her chest was something he would ever get used to. He had to keep himself busy, so he cleaned the house. Somehow, cat hair had managed to coat almost every surface so a thorough cleaning took several hours and gave him enough of a distraction.
"It's rather rude of you to just sit there, considering it's your fur I'm cleaning up," Flynn said while wiping down the coffee table. Kat perched on the back of the couch, watching him. Off to the side of the couch was the lonely cat tree he'd bought for her months ago. It was around this point that Yuri said he was getting obsessed, but once he'd decided to keep her, he wanted to do things properly. Kat had thanked him by checking it out once and then deciding the back of the sofa was much more comfortable and had ignored it ever since.
The door knocked, and he froze mid-wipe. That must be Sodia with the report. He wearily got to his feet; no more pushing aside the grim case with cleaning. It was time to get to work.
Sodia didn't come to his house when he was off work very often, because she respected the sacredness of his day off even more than he did, so now that she was over the shock of this morning she was able to be a bit surprised to find him wearing loose brown pants and a plain shirt, his feet bare and his hair still not properly combed (not that combing it usually made much of a difference). Flynn could count on one hand the number of times he'd met with her out of uniform.
"Here is the report you requested, sir." She handed him a manila folder with a carefully passive face.
"Thank you. Have you made any advancements?"
"We've identified the victim as Victoria Muller. Twenty-five years old, unemployed. We're interviewing friends and family now to see if she might have had any enemies."
Flynn flipped through the folder without really reading anything. "It would have to be a pretty serious enemy to do that to her."
"Indeed. Do you have anything else you need me to do today, sir?"
Flynn shook his head. "No. I'll look over this and hopefully we can make some headway tomorrow. Gather as much information as you can."
"Very good, sir. Enjoy your day off."
After she left, Flynn slumped onto his couch. "Not much of a day off," he muttered to Kat. "First I had to clean up a dead squirrel, and now this." With a sigh, he spread the contents of the folder across the coffee table. Someone had made detailed sketches of the victim from several angles, and Flynn admired the artist's nerve for getting close enough to draw in all those awful details.
"All right, here's what we know." Talking things over usually helped him think, and since Estelle and Yuri were out of town, Kat would have to do. Kat actually served that purpose quite frequently, and if she minded being a furry sounding board for him, she had yet to lodge a complaint. "Victoria Muller left her parents' home last night at eight to meet her boyfriend, James Kingston. She then spent four hours at his house before leaving around midnight, but she never made it home. Mr. Kingston was interviewed by the Knights. He is, naturally, our top suspect but other than being the last person to see her alive, there's nothing tying him to the crime. His landlady heard Victoria leave at midnight, and says she would have heard if he went out after her." Flynn looked up at Kat, who was watching as if listening. "What do you make of it? We don't really have much to go off."
Kat meowed at him.
"Right. Sometime between midnight and five last night, this poor girl was ruthlessly murdered." He picked up the report on the actual crime scene again and skimmed over it. As he read, he stopped and creased his brow. "What the… her heart is missing." He glanced over at Kat. "What the hell? Why would they take her heart? What kind of sick bastard are we dealing with?"
Kat stood, hopped off the back of the cushion and landed on the seat next to him. She snuggled into a tight ball pressed against his thigh, but offered no suggestions. Flynn leaned back with a sigh and idly rubbed behind her ears. "There were words carved onto her arms, too. Nothing we can make out. On the right arm the letters…" he raised the paper to double-check, "MJFWY, and on the left, BMD. We're looking into any possible organizations that have those acronyms, but nothing has come up yet."
Kat wasn't very good at offering solutions, but she did do wonders to make him feel better. The awful scene in his memory was a lot less powerful when he could feel her snuggled against him. She purred so softly he could barely hear it and just felt the vibrations through his hand.
"You'd make a terrible knight, you know. You'd just sleep all day and ignore your duties."
The next day, Flynn put the murder to the back of his mind. It wasn't that he wasn't still interested, he just had a lot on his plate and no time to deal with it. When he arrived at the castle, he settled himself in his office and got to work. He was in a good mood despite the sorry beginning to yesterday, because this morning he'd found a letter in his mailbox from Lady Estellise. Her trip with Yuri was coming to a close soon, and Yuri would be dropping her off in Zaphias in about two weeks. Flynn hadn't seen her in over a month, so it would be nice to have her around again. It would also be nice to see Yuri again. Just the thought put a smile on his face that even the dullest provision request form couldn't dim.
He got a lot accomplished in the morning and was looking forward to a similarly productive afternoon when a knock came to his door and Ioder popped his head in.
"Sorry to interrupt, Flynn. Do you have a minute?"
Flynn dropped his pen. "Of course, Your Majesty. What can I do for you?"
Ioder slipped into the room and closed the door. "I'm afraid it's not a pleasant matter," he said as he reached the desk and sat down. "It's about the body found yesterday."
"Ah. You've been made aware of that, then?"
"I dare say everyone in the city is aware of it by now. It's been in all the papers. Have you seen them?"
Flynn shook his head. He generally got the paper in the evenings, because he didn't have time to read it in the morning. "No, but I had imagined it would be mentioned."
"Mentioned is putting it mild. There are already articles speculating if this was some kind of ritual human sacrifice."
"Sacrifice?" Flynn frowned. "Where in the world did they get that idea?"
Ioder shrugged. "Oh, you know how it is. Young girl, heart ripped out, cryptic messages on her arms? Journalists are jumping over each other to write the most sensational article. I saw an article in one of the more eccentric papers claiming an undead monster has crawled up from the catacombs to feed on the hearts of the living."
"Perfect, this is just what we need." Flynn crossed his arms and leaned back. "I suppose we can't fully discount the possibility of some kind of ritual killing, but for now I'd prefer the investigation stayed focused on human suspects."
"I agree," Ioder said. "I wanted to tell you, though, that the Council is asking what you're doing about this."
"What else would I be doing? I've got the local knights working on the case."
"The Council feels you should be getting involved personally."
"Pardon? Why? Your Majesty, I have every sympathy for the girl and believe me, I want to solve this one too, but in all honesty, this really isn't my division. I have the entire Knighthood to manage - I simply don't have the time to devote myself to a single murder case."
"I am aware of that. However, the graphic nature of the murder and the fact that she was found within the capital is making people uneasy. The media having a field day with it doesn't help."
"I'll do what I can, but I have other duties that need my attention. Tell the Council I have every confidence in Lieutenant Leblanc, who's at the head of this investigation. I'll have him write up a report about… I don't know, the lack of slaughtered animals and the cause of death being a slit throat eliminating the possibility of ritual sacrifice."
"Really?" Ioder seemed impressed. "You can tell that much?"
Flynn shrugged. "No, but it will sound good to the papers. They want a sensation, so we need something more solid than telling them not to be stupid to get them off this tangent."
Ioder chuckled. "Yes, I see. Is there anything you have found out for sure?"
"Frustratingly little. I glanced over the updates this morning. The victim's boyfriend has been cleared - his alibi held up - she doesn't seem to have any other enemies, and she demonstrated no unusual behaviour in the past few days. Until she left her boyfriend's house that night, she was a perfectly ordinary girl who wasn't involved in anything suspicious. It's certainly strange. I don't know where we're going to go from here, but don't tell the Council that."
Ioder nodded in understanding. "Well, good luck to you. I'll tell the Council you're doing everything you can."
"Thank you." Ioder left, and Flynn got back to work.
The media was satisfied with Leblanc's completely bullshit report on all the specific evidence that indicated this wasn't a ritual sacrifice and the 'proof' that the perpetrator was indeed human and not some eldritch evil from the land of the dead. In fact, once the fun speculation period died about three days after the body was found, Victoria stopped dominating the headlines entirely.
Flynn was glad about that, because for the first few days some private detective had thrown interviews around about how the Knights were incompetent and that if the Council turned all the case information over to him he'd solve it in days. These interviews frequently carried rather disparaging comments about Flynn, who found these newspapers perfect for lining Kat's litter box.
After a few days, the Knights had no new information to excite the readers, so Victoria slipped from the pages and faded from the public consciousness as easily as she'd burst onto the scene. She hadn't been forgotten within the Knights, of course. Flynn didn't have time to personally investigate the case, but he checked in with Leblanc daily to see if they had any leads. So far, every course of investigation had turned up dead. They had no suspects and since they'd determined she had been killed elsewhere and then moved to Finch Street, they didn't even have a primary crime scene. Victoria had been fairly poor and nothing from her house was missing, so robbing her had clearly not been the incentive. As far as they could see, there was no motive.
The case was going as cold as the weather. Flynn hated to admit it, but when a week had passed since her body showed up and they knew nothing except that she'd been murdered some time between midnight and five, it was beginning to look like this was going to be a tragic mystery without a satisfying ending. That is, until the second body showed up.
Tomas Platt was a thirty-two year old silversmith from the upper end of the public quarter. Exactly one week after Victoria's body was found, his corpse was found on Lord's Lane. There was no question that it was the same killer. He had equally baffling letters carved into his arms, his chest was ripped open and bloody organs lay strewn around the smoothly paved street. The only difference was that this time his heart was in place but his lungs were missing.
On that dreary morning, Flynn turned away from the scene and rubbed his chilled hands together. The grey sky appreciated the solemnity of the moment, and the freezing late fall air tried to drive everyone inside so they wouldn't have to look. "Is there anything you can find that connects Platt to Muller?" he asked Sodia.
She shook her head. "Not yet. The witness who found him recognized him because he does a lot of work in this area, but he lives several blocks away. Leblanc sent someone to talk to his neighbour, who said he went out last night to make a delivery but she went to bed before he came back."
"Who is this person he was making a delivery to?"
"We don't know yet. We still need to go through his records at his shop."
"All right, look into that. Perhaps the person he was meeting knows something, if they aren't the killer themselves." That wouldn't explain how they were connected to Victoria, though. There was the chance this was the work of a copycat, but the handwriting on the arms looked too similar. Perhaps a deeper investigation would find a link, but for now it looked like two totally unrelated people had been gruesomely murdered by the same psycho. This didn't bode well for a traditional investigation into motive and known enemies.
Sodia saw his face. Quietly, so the other knights and civilians trying to get a better look wouldn't overhear, she asked, "Sir… do you think there's going to be a third body?"
Flynn sighed heavily, his breath turning to a puff of fog in the cold air. "I think we should be prepared for this to get worse before it gets better."