Grand Ballroom
10:43
The reek of blood was prominent in the room, like an aura of foul-smelling murderous intent. Phantom couldn't help but gag at the repulsive atmosphere. On the floor in front of him was a body. It was Gordon Freeman of the Half Life series. He was soon revived, as fictional characters can't die, but he wasn't talking. There were no recorded witnesses, but that didn't mean they weren't out there. Someone would have to get them talking and see what was going on. Someone with a certain . . . dramatic instinct.
This was a mystery, and it was up to Phantom to solve it.
***TSPOTOFEW***
Kitchen
10:56
Phantom inspected a knife rack. The silver daggers gleamed under the halogen glow of the ceiling lights. He rubbed his chin and frowned in puzzlement.
"Well, none of the knives are missing. I guess we can rule these out."
The chef (who was a rather small blue rat) made high-pitched squeaking sounds.
"Translation?" Phantom muttered.
Elkay blinked.
"Oh, right. We haven't set his language to the default yet."
She waved her claws. The rat cleared his throat.
"No one visited the kitchen while I was here, but I left at nine to meet up with the Mugwump from Naked Lunch. He's delivering legumes, apparently. I was gone for five minutes, tops, and when I got back, nothing had changed."
Phantom wrote all of this down on his notepad.
"Uh-huh . . . Were you aware that the victim suffered brutal lacerations all over his body? Knives could have done that."
The rat shook his head.
"If the killer had used one of these knives, the handle would be stained with the victim's blood. Metal washes clean, but wood is a different story."
Phantom nodded.
"Thanks for your help."
In the corner of the room, Elkay shook a small, red bottle, splattering herself with crimson liquid.
"Check it out! Food coloring!"
Phantom rolled his eyes as she licked her scales clean.
***TSPOTOFEW***
Phantom's Quarters
11:00
"So, you're saying that the murder took place at 9:05?" Phantom asked.
"Yes," Mewtwo of the Pokémon anime replied, "I was bending spoons with my mind when I heard a loud cry. My clock was frozen because of psychic waves, but I estimate the time of death to be around 9:05."
Phantom nodded slowly.
"That would have put our dear friend Remy the rat outside of the kitchen. Could be a suspect."
Elkay shook her head.
"I don't think so. I saw him talking to Captain America in the hallway around the time the murder took place. This was right before I came to see you. For Remy to have committed the murder, he would have had to scamper from the hallway to the ballroom, which would be impossible. Besides, he's a rat. How could he stab a man fifty times his height?"
Phantom hummed.
"Good point. We'd better find more witnesses."
***TSPOTOFEW***
Courtyard
11:29
"It's-a me! Mario!"
Phantom rubbed his forehead.
"I know. That kind of goes without saying. Listen, you know Gordon Freeman well, right? Does he have any enemies?"
"Ah-no. It's-a hard to make-a the enemies when you're-a organizing the files all day."
"Files? . . ." Phantom echoed. Mario nodded.
"Gordon-a-Freeman was helping the Princess-a-Bride characters with the backstories. They were trying to-a highlight significant relatives of the Ficties."
Phantom nodded.
"Does anyone else have access to these files?"
"A-no. Just the archive staff and the a-leaders. You never bother to-a look a-there, no?"
Phantom shook his head.
"No. I have a lot of work to finish without getting into all of that."
"If you-a want more information, ask Mr. Magoo. He says he-a saw the killer."
***TSPOTOFEW***
"Sure, I seen the culprit!" Mr. Magoo crowed, "It was a giraffe with a hat!"
Phantom rolled his eyes.
"If only our eyewitness wasn't a half-blind geezer . . ."
***TSPOTOFEW***
Elkay turned to look at Phantom's notepad.
"You've stopped marking the time and location."
"This is harder than I thought," he sighed, "I don't think I'm cut out for detective work."
Elkay snorted.
"You may think you're not, but remember, I don't care."
Phantom groaned and flopped onto a couch.
"What am I supposed to do? We have no evidence."
Elkay shrugged.
"You could try asking Gordon Freeman again. He won't talk, of course, but at least you could say you tried."
Phantom twisted his mouth.
"You may be right. I'll get to it in a bit. What else is new?"
"Puss in Boots from Shrek had a fiesta earlier today. That's where I got my sombrero, though for the life of me, they're more of a mexican thing than spanish. I went to return it about the time of the murder."
"Was it you?"
"Was what me?"
"Are you the killer?"
Elkay shook her head quickly.
"No."
Phantom frowned.
"But the murder scene is between my office and Puss in Boots' flat. Did you not notice the dead body?"
Elkay snorted.
"The murder happened after I came back at 9:15, and besides, I never made it to the fiesta. I went down the hallway instead, because I heard a funny sound, which turned out to be the Mugwump having an allergic reaction to peanuts."
"He's allergic to nuts?"
"Peanuts aren't nuts, dumbass!"
***TSPOTOFEW***
The last stop they made was to the archives. The characters from the Princess Bride had apparently been working with Gordon Freeman, so it was possible that they knew something. It was worth a shot, anyway.
"As a matter of fact, something is a little suspicious here," Buttercup declared, "We're missing one of our tablets-"
Phantom help up his finger.
"Tablets?"
"Yes, we had to print on cedar tablets because we ran out of paper."
Phantom snorted.
"That sounds like the logical choice to make."
Buttercup shrugged.
"We needed something. Our best papers were devoted to employment. We always make sure to assign each individual Fictie to the best job possible. If we think that something will interfere with their workflow, we don't let them-"
Phantom waved his hand.
"Yeah, yeah. The missing tablets?"
"It's suspicious, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. A whole bunch of towels went missing around the same time. These things happen."
Phantom sighed.
"Alright. Thanks for your help."
***TSPOTOFEW***
Phantom had given up entirely. He sat at his desk with his abandoned notebook lying between an empty picture frame and a drinking duck. He flipped through it every now and then, but always put it back. There was no use in trying. He had failed. There were very few clues, and none of them seemed to add up.
Unless . . .
Phantom leafed through the notepad again. He gave himself a mental slap for not figuring it out sooner. He was looking for the wrong kind of clue entirely. Evidence was only half of the mystery. What he needed to pinpoint were the things that didn't make sense. If he could catch someone lying, it might lead him to the murderer.
It just so happened that there were several inconsistencies in the evidence that he had recorded. The Mugwump, for instance, had been assigned the job of delivering legumes, yet he was apparently allergic to peanuts. It seemed odd that the employers would make such an obvious mistake, when they were known for being perfect. On top of that, Remy had been seen talking to Captain America, but that was impossible, because his speech had only been converted to the default language after the murder. And why was there no murder weapon? Was the culprit an animal who had used its teeth and claws to kill Gordon Freeman? Unlikely. Fur would stain like crazy, and the blood would have surely splattered all over the murderer.
Phantom stood up abruptly and marched down the hall. Gordon Freeman was sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper.
"Look, I'm getting real sick of your shit. I know you don't talk in your franchise, but we're in Fiction, motherfucker. Speak up. Who killed you?"
Gordon Freeman didn't reply. Phantom's frown deepened.
"Talk, or so help me god, I will bring up Half Life 3."
Freeman sighed.
"Alright, fine. The truth is, I don't know who killed me. The murderer pounced from behind. I was dead before I could identify the killer."
Phantom rubbed his forehead.
"What's the motive, though? Was it just a random attack? What could they possibly gain from your demise?"
"My files."
Phantom blinked.
"What? . . ."
"I was carrying a bunch of cedar-carved records up to where you were when I was attacked. I figured you'd want to look over the genetic lineages of certain characters from Broadway Musicals. Your file was one of the ones the murderer took, actually."
Phantom frowned in puzzlement.
"Is this linked to me? No, probably not. The other files went missing too, right?"
Freeman nodded.
"All except a few. They're on that table."
Phantom trotted over to where Freeman was pointing. The cedar tablets showed the lineages of Eponine Thénardier, Doctor Dillamond, and Kate Monster. There was no clear connection between the characters themselves, but the tablets were suspiciously clean. There was not a drop of blood on them. Perhaps the thief had taken the bloody tablets away to remove evidence. No, that was stupid. There was blood all over, so it wouldn't have mattered. Something must have been in those files . . . or in one file in particular.
"Mr. Freeman, where did you find these three files?"
He shrugged.
"Same place as usual. But I swear to god, I was carrying them. I remember reading those three names. Still, they just appeared back in the archives, like magic. I brought them with me to deliver them to you, but I got lazy."
Phantom paced back and forth.
"They were found where they belonged . . . As if someone wanted to cover their trail . . . But they couldn't put the bloody ones back without raising suspicion! Freeman, whatever was in those missing files must be important, or-"
"Phantom, look out!"
He turned as Elkay screamed, and was nearly knocked over by a large, blue tiger. The dragon pursued the ferocious feline, but he sprinted out the door, leaving a trail of bloody pawprints behind. Phantom's eyes went wide.
"Who did he kill?"
Elkay cocked her head.
"Gordon Freeman. Have you forgotten the victim already?"
Phantom blinked.
"But . . . That blood is wet. Freeman was killed several hours ago."
Elkay's eye twitched.
"Oh. Right. Maybe he was licking his paws? . . ."
Before Phantom could question her claim, she cleared her throat noisily.
"That was Zebil, the Lord of Darkness. He's my mortal enemy. We'd better watch out for him. He could bring the downfall of our empire."
Phantom rubbed his chin.
"So, this whole time, it was just an evil tiger?"
Elkay nodded rapidly.
"Yes. That's exactly what it was."
Phantom bit his lip.
"Okay . . . I guess that solves our mystery. Kind of."
Elkay smiled.
"I guess so. Come with me. We can start decorating for Kristmas."