"Ch-Christopher Thomson," Chris told Megatons sheriff, faking to the best of his abilitys' a stutter. When accused of murder, one is supposed to be scared of course.
"Why'd you do it?" Simms questioned, a fair question at that.
Sherfiff Lucas Simms' home was small, but livable. The man named Stockholm had taken Christopher Thomson to the place with a firm grip on his arm. Chris hadn't resisted, that would have showed guilt. Once inside Stockholm had demanded that the small boy sitting at the table reading a book with a picture of a pistol on the cover leave immediately, saying something about Maggie and Billy. The boy had looked up at him as if to question why, but the look in Stockholms eye silenced him immediately. As the boy left, his father, the one and only sheriff Lucas Simms. He entered with such authority in his walk and disgust on his face that Chris had to stop himself from applauding. Simms had said one word without even looking at his suspect. "Name?" And that is how Chris found himself in his current situation.
"I didn't do it. I just needed to get out of the wastes for a while, I didn't stick my nose anywhere it didn't belong," Chris replyed, trying his hardest to twist his face into shock at being accused of something so vile as cold blooded murder.
"Uh huh, sure you didn't. Stockholm, check his bag."
Without a word Stockhom moved forward, but slowly, as if afraid that Chris would leap up and dismember him as he had old Manya. In order to show he had nothing to hide, Chris shrugged his satchel off his shoulder and offered it to Stockholm with an expresionless face, which was really quite a bit harder than someone would expect, but pretending to have emotions was something he had to practice and all the time and effort had payed off.
"Uh… we got some stimpaks, a bottle of rad-x, bottled water, and here's a pistol," Stockholm counted off as he emptied bag. A grin spread across Christophers face as a memory flashed before him. Quite a happy memory too.
Manya was dead, her blood drained into several containers, and gift wrapped for the nice people of Megaton. Chris was releaved, as he always was after his ritual. But the ritual always left some rather questionable material in its wake. "Blood covered tarp, a sticky red knife, a rag that was pecularly scentless… Can't keep these!" Chris thought.
He was intending to disapear early the next morning, so the disposal didn't need to be too thorough. Simply dump them in the old battered trash can next to the saloons back door. Perfect.
"No knife?"
"No"
"How 'bout a saw?"
"Nu uh."
"God damnit!" Simms roared.
"I told you, I'm innocent. Why would I be carrying around a murder weapon?" Chris asked, putting a hurt expression on his face.
"Who else would've done it then? There's footprints, a window, and you," the sheriff responded, putting extra emphasis on the 'you' as if he knew what Chris was. "What local here would be dumb enough to murder someone and expect to get away with it?"
"Maybe one who had ways to easily frame a non-local?" Chris offered helpfully.
"How do I know you didn't get rid of the evidence? You burn it? Bury it?" Simms asked returning to his previous authoritive detective mode.
"Were than any ashes or dug up land around the area? I'm telling you sheriff, I'm innocent. I just wanna leave." Chris told him trying to sound as if he was becoming desperate, but a tiny little voice in his head was already whispering dark words of deceit and manipulation. "Pin it on someone else, Christopher. Two for one buddy. Come on, you know you can do it."
"You're not leaving until all this is cleared up… But you can have your stuff back," Simms said with a nod at Stockholm who began to repack the items into the bag. "But not the pistol," which stopped Stockholm in midmovement, who put the pistol bag on the table, the opposite end from Chris, and zipped the bag up and tossed it back to him.
"Haha, look! He's afraid of you Chris. He won't come neir you even when it's beginning to look like you didn't do it after all." The voices whispered. "He'll go along with anything you say, so long as it gets you far away from him. Just do it. More blood, more murder, and all you got to do is talk a little faster than usual. You know you want to."
"Well then what do you want me to do? I can't stay in your house forever?"
"You're coming with me, we're gonna go find your knife." Simms said, sounding a bit upset, Chris thought.
"It looks pretty ash free to me, sheriff." Chris said happily to the man behind him. Simms had stayed behind him the whole time. This way he saw every move Chris made while Chris was completely blind to anything the sheriff did.
"Open that trashcan." Simms demanded.
This set off two noises in Chris's brain. One adamntly repeated one word, "Fuck!" while the other, more soothing voice told him "Who else uses that trash can, Chris? The whore, the ghoul, and best of all, that angry irishman. Come on you silver tounged devil, just do it!"
"Uh…" Chris mumbled appearing to be stunned, as he hoped would be a very normal reaction.
"What is it?" Simms said pushing past Chris, leaving his tactic of staring at the back of Chris's head behind him. "Son of a bitch." That one was more to himself than to anyone else around, most importantly, his prime suspect.
"If I was gonna kill her, why would I leave the evidence in such a public spot?" Chris asked hoping that the combination of shock and being asked to come up with a proper answer so soon after the fact would stop the man from remembering that Chris was doing all but making a mad dash for the exit when the two had first met.
"You're right… God, it had to be a local. We all take care of our own waste here, no one has ever had any need to go through someone else's trash before."
"So it was that ghoul? The girl?" Chris asked, cleverly leaving out the most important of the threesome.
"No…no… Gob doesn't have the strength to cut that forcefully and Nova's got a gently heart. It had to be the bastard!" Simms decided, to murmurs of pleasure in the back of Chris's head.
"You talking about that irish guy? Manny or something like that?"
"Collin Moriarty. Fuckin' Moriarty!" Simms yelled banging on the back door, deciding that testosterone would solve the murder faster than logic, which was good.
"What, what!" came the heavily accented answer as the door opened. "Ah, the wonderful sheriff. How can I help ye today?"
"I need to read your tabs on the locals, Collin."
"Ah, but that'd be such an invasion of privacy, wouldn't it now? And doesn't that just go against all these spectacular ideals you hold up so rightously friend?" Moriarty answered smugly.
"Damnit, Collin!" Simms said drawing a pistol from his waist, Chris's pistol, as a matter of fact, and pressing it against the now freightened irshman's chest. "Get on that terminal there and show me your file on Manya, now!"
"Oh…okay, ya, no problem," Moriarty answered quickly, turning slightly to type on his terminal, which promptly brought up an article titled "Manya Vargas."
Simms pushed Collin aside and began to skim the article, and so Chris decided he was going to play sheriff for the time being and began to read of his shoulder. A list of tabs, mostly non-alchoholic up until about 6 months ago, but reading further down it got progressively more interesting. Some accusations of jet addiction commentated on with a judgemental tone that suggested Moriarty was the only true and honest person on earth. It was all very convincing up until the final paragraph, with the date from two days ago.
"That bitch isn't gonna pay her tabs anytime soon. I swear I have half a mind to go down there meself and take it from her. Ever since that patriotic husband of hers disappeared all shes done is set around that trailer of hers and stare. Acording to our joke-of-a-sheriff Simms, I have to let her keep a tab here, but if I were to make her disapear she wouldn't be able to anymore. I might not be able to get all my money back, but that'd be one less leach to worry about."
Without a word Simms rose and turned to Mr. Moriarty.
"Collin Moriarty, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Manya Vargas. Come with me."