Elijah staggered backwards, eyes widening in shock. "W-what? How, how could you…" He looked to Lewis. "Lewis, you gotta believe me, I just found him here. I could never…" He was going to be sick again.
"How do you figure he's guilty?" Robin demanded, stepping forward between Kent and Elijah, despite the tears still falling down her own face. The woman, for all her amiability, was quite tall and intimidating. Major growled in defense of his master, circling Eli's legs protectively.
"That isn't an accusation you can make lightly, Kent." Gus cautioned the father. "I know you're angry, you're grieving, but-"
"How many other people in the Valley have the kind of tools to, to do…." He screamed, motioning towards the corpse behind him. " ….THAT?! Robin's got her axes and saws, Doc Harvey might have some knives – but only Marnie and Elijah have the big tools to do something like that!"
Lewis let out a long breath. "Harvey?"
"Yeah?" The doctor turned around, trying to regain his composure.
"Do you think…it'd be possible to do an autopsy?"
Harvey blanched, taking off his glasses and touching his face again. "I don't know, Lewis. An autopsy…that takes lots of special training. I'm a doctor, not a…" He glanced at Kent. "…a coroner."
"Could you figure out what the…what the killer used?"
Harvey let out his own breath. "I…I suppose I could. But I'd really rather we wait for somebody certified."
"How long do you suppose the body's been out here, Doc?"
Harvey looked over at the caricature of a carcass once again, looking like he was about to vomit too. "No way to tell like this, Lewis."
"We should…" Lewis turned around, making to start the hike back out to the field. "…we should get the body out of here, preserve it. Harvey'll do an autopsy and I'll call…somebody. And we'll go from there."
Gus nodded after a moment. "Alright…Eli, do you have something we could use as a-"
"I don't want him anywhere near my boy!" Kent shouted.
"Kent, please-" Lewis pleaded.
"Is that your boy in the dirt, all cut up, Lewis?" The soldier roared.
The old man stepped back and looked to Eli. "Let's go, Eli."
Eli nodded nervously and began following Lewis's lead, calling for Major to do so as well. The dog took one last look at Kent before obeying.
"You believe me, right Mayor?" Eli asked once they were out of earshot.
Lewis refrained from looking at the young man. "I believe that you have a right to not have those kinds of awful accusations slung at you, just like anybody else."
"But you don't think I would actually-"
"I don't know what to think, Elijah." Lewis said, suddenly very stern. "We've never had a murder in Stardew Valley – never, as long as I've lived here, which is a very long time. Much less something…like this. It's obvious that somebody killed Vincent. There are maybe three dozen people we know of who could've possibly done it. Which means that one – or more – of my trusted, beloved neighbors and citizens is a…murderer. A child murderer."
Eli nodded and swallowed hard. "This entire situation is just…fucked." He breathed.
"Now listen to me, Elijah." Lewis stopped walking and put a hand – surprisingly strong, for his age – on Eli's shoulder. "Is there anything you want to tell me, anything at all, before we get out there and face the crowd?"
Elijah's face contorted into an expression somewhere between shock and indignance. "What? No! No, no, no! Of course not! Lewis, don't tell me you-"
"I'm not ruling anything out, Elijah. Kent is at least somewhat right – you're the main suspect right now. The body was on your property, you're one of the only people in the Valley known to own big blades like it looks like the boy was..." He took a deep breath. "…attacked with. This isn't personal, you understand? It's an insane situation, and I'm considering every possibility, no matter how ridiculous it sounds."
"Of course." Eli conceded after a pause, looking at the ground. "I understand."
"Kent's going to be raising Hell about you, I guarantee it. He might turn some of the folks against you – but I won't let them hurt you, understand? If you're innocent, you'll be able to prove it and you'll have nothing to hide or fear."
"Right." Eli wondered if he looked as pale as he felt cold.
"I'm going to tell them all that it looks like bear got Vincent." Lewis said. "Prevent a panic. You won't contradict me?"
"No sir."
"Let's go."
Eli nodded, and they continued walking. Emerging into the noon sun, they came face to face with virtually the entire town camped out in Elijah's field. Some lazed in the sun, others paced nervously; none spoke. Jodi and Sam sat together off to the side, nearest the tree-line. Thirty pairs of eyes snapped instantly to Eli and Lewis, desperate for information.
"Well?" Sam demanded. Every one of the boy's muscles was tense, as if he wanted to leap up and run to them, but he stayed by his mother's side.
Lewis cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Vincent is…" He stopped short, not wanting to finish the sentence, as if it would somehow make the reality less permanent. "Vincent is no longer with us. He was at the edge of Eli's farm." His voice waivered for a second. "It looks like…like a bear attacked him." Jodi stared blankly at Lewis, as if not comprehending what he was saying. "I'm so very sorry for your loss…"
Jodi stood shakily.
"Mom?" Sam asked.
"I'm going home." Jodi declared, staring straight ahead and stiffly walking away.
"Mom!" Sam looked back at Lewis and around at the crowd before hurrying to help her on her way. The woman looked like she was going to pass out at any moment.
Hearing crashing coming from the brush behind them, Lewis and Elijah turned around. Kent and Gus held Kent's camouflage jacket at the top and bottom respectively, pulled tight to imitate a stretcher. Robin's brown vest had been thrown over the top and tied in place, mercifully obscuring any view of the corpse beneath. The two men stoically walked forward, Robin and Harvey following close behind. The crowd let out something of a collective exclamation, parting to let the pallbearers pass unimpeded. Kent broke his stone façade to leer at Elijah as he walked past, though he said nothing.
Sensing the commotion – or lack thereof – Jodi turned around as well and fixed her gaze on the stretcher. A hand went to her mouth, and her eyes welled up with tears again. Sam grabbed her arm and stared at the stretcher as well, his eyes wide in terror. The woman fell to her knees and unleashed a cry of anguish unlike anything Lewis had ever heard, a long, low wail that shattered the heart and shook one to their core. Sam fell with her and buried his face in his mother's shoulder, hugging her tightly. Kent continued walking, expressionless, understanding his duty and intent on carrying it out to completion. Lewis could only imagine how torn up he was inside, carrying what was left of his baby boy in a makeshift body bag.
Nobody dared comfort Jodi or Sam. Much of the town simply followed Kent and Gus out in a long, silent funeral procession back into town, allowing Vincent's mother and brother to follow closest behind. The deputies ushered the body into the clinic, letting only Lewis and the family follow. Nobody came out for a long time – at least two hours, Elijah thought. The entire time, the entire town sat or stood in completely silence. Only the occasional bird or the distant crashing of waves on the beach reminded Eli that time was still moving. He sat with his back against a tree, knees drawn up to his chest; beside him, Emily sat in a similar pose; her sister Haley sat next to her as well. Eli was grateful that the blonde woman wasn't talking, for once in her life. He felt bad thinking such mean things at a time like this, but…he had just stopped caring. Occasionally, Emily would look over at him in concern, but say nothing. The community-enforced silence continued until Lewis emerged from the clinic again.
By now, it beginning to sprinkle slightly. Lewis addressed the town, unfazed by the rain. "Doc Harvey is going to preform an autopsy." The mayor declared. "There's nothing any of us can do for now. I've alerted the authorities, and they'll be here in a few days. We need to…we need to let the family grieve. We need to do our own grieving. Please, go home. Find strength in one another. We're a strong community, and we'll get through this together."
Elijah tried to finish his work, despite the rain, which had quickly turned into a downpour. He chopped wood, he broke up rocks, he searched for his scythe, he did anything he possibly could to keep his mind from everything. Kent thought that he killed Vincent – how did somebody even respond to something like that? Major whined from the relative dryness of the porch, watching his master work incessantly. Eli worked until he didn't think he could anymore, with the sun just beginning to dip beneath the horizon. Exhausted, he went back into the house and changed into dry clothes. Salvaging a meal from what little remained in his refrigerator, he sat down in from of his old CRT television and tried to watch something mind-numbing, but quickly found that he couldn't even focus on nothing. Major whined some more as Eli moved from the chair and laid down in bed.
Sprawled out on the bed, he stared at the farmhouse's rickety old rafters for a time, listening to the rain drumming on the roof and tapping on the windows. Though it was early, he tried to sleep, trying to extract some comfort from Major's wagging tail at the foot of the bed and the warmth of the blankets.
Whenever he closed his eyes though, he found it even less bearable than keeping them open. It was just inky blackness at first – good enough, something he could contend with. Then, however, there was a noise that seemed like he started in the distance and gradually grew louder, until he could identify it as endless, shrill screaming. Colors began dancing in the void, taking various abstract forms before finally turning into a single violet eye staring blankly at him from the bottom of some impossible pit, filling him with despair and terror. After trying several times, with lengthy sessions of nervous pacing in-between, he determined that even sleep was impossible.
"Stay here, boy." He commanded Major, throwing on a raincoat and hat and storming outside into the deluge. Eli didn't want to be alone with his thoughts right now – he couldn't be.
He walked into town, finding it utterly deserted. All the businesses were, as expected, closed, and the curtains or blinds were drawn in nearly every window. Trudging through the practically flooded central plaza, he struggled to reach his destination, giving Kent's home as wide a berth as he could in the process.
He knocked weakly a few times on Emily's door. Haley answered and, seeing the state of the man, who more-so resembled a drowned rat, immediately welcomed him inside, calling for Emily to come out of her room.
"Yoba, why did you come all this way in the rain?" Haley asked incredulously, taking his dripping raincoat from him, and going to hang it up somewhere. He just stared dully back, looking between her and Emily as she emerged into the living room and made a similar exclamation. "I…uh…" He intelligently struggled to form a complete sentence, all his strength and volition sapped by a combination of the rain, exhaustion, and a peculiar sense of malaise. The two women stared quizzically at him, awaiting an answer. Finally, Eli just broke.
He slumped against the wall. Emily dove to grab him, afraid he might collapse entirely. "I just didn't want to be alone." He said quietly, sliding to the floor, voice quivering and body trembling. "Yoba, the fucking eye…"
Emily looked at him ruefully and sat down beside him, draping an arm over his shoulder. She glanced helplessly at her sister.
"I'll get you a towel." Haley said. "…and make some tea."
"I'm sorry…" Eli said through long, careful breaths.
"You know," Emily replied gently, "the world would be a much better place if people said 'thank you' in place of 'I'm sorry' more often."
He tried to hide the tears now beginning to roll down his face. "…thank you."
Harvey stared at the body, completely at a loss.
Lewis hadn't technically been lying when he had said it looked like a bear had attacked Vincent. The body had been torn to shreds and bent at obscene angles, barely recognizable as human unless you studied it closely.
A portion of the patient area of the clinic had been rearranged and turned into a makeshift operating room. Harvey's clinic wasn't equipped for this sort of thing, not by a longshot, so he was trying to make due with what he had.
Maru stood beside him, dressed in her scrubs, and looking as if she was about to be sick. The young woman wasn't even a nurse – an orderly, at best. Still, Robin's daughter insisted that she'd be here to help Harvey with whatever he needed, despite his assurances that this went far, far beyond what he paid her for. Her job was manning the front desk and delivering pills to patients, not…dissecting dead kids.
Gus and Robin were in the room as well, in makeshift scrubs themselves, prepared to help in whatever way they could. Lewis sat with the family on the other side of a curtain, trying his best to console them and distract them from what was happening on the other side. Kent had flown into one of his rages earlier already, wrecking the front waiting area in the process.
"So, what's first Doc?" Gus asked.
"Well…" Harvey wracked his brain. "I don't think we need to cut the boy up any more. We can all agree on the cause of death – it doesn't matter if it was before or after the cutting."
"It might matter to them." Robin stated lowly.
"We don't have the tools to determine most of that here. The best we can do is take pictures and preserve samples."
Robin offered only a curt nod in response.
"So, what do we do?" Gus asked.
"Step one is determining what kind of blade was used. That should give us some clue about…" Harvey trailed off.
"So how do we do that?" Gus demanded.
"Well, what kind of blades are there in the Valley?" Harvey looked around. "We've got axes, saws, knives, and on. The way I see it, each kind has a distinct way you use and…and cut with it. If we can figure out how the…body…. was cut, it'll tell us what kind of blade was used."
Harvey manipulated a ribbon of flesh for a moment, as if trying to return it to its original shape. The cadaver had been significantly altered since being relocated from the farm – an unavoidable result of physically moving it.
"See the way it's a clean cut for most of the way, then it suddenly gets messy?" Harvey asked nobody in particularly, tracing the path of a cut with a gloved finger.
"Like it got stuck and had to be pulled out." Robin said. "Plenty of blades get stuck in stuff."
"It's the sheer cleanliness of the initial cuts that's getting me – like a hot knife through butter." Harvey mused. Maru blanched and shifted uncomfortably. As if noticing her again for the first time, Harvey motioned with his other hand towards a smartphone sitting on a nearby table, futilely "sterilized" by having a clean white cloth draped over it. "Take pictures, Maru. We need to preserve as much evidence as we can."
With an uncertain glance at her mother, Maru began taking pictures with the phone to the best of her ability, dealing with the poor lighting and awkward angles, wherever Harvey pointed, trying to piece together the doctor's reasoning as she went and holding back the bile slowly churning at the back of her throat.
Eventually, his desire for photographs was sated, and Harvey began gingerly removing bits of tissue, hair, and fluids from the cadaver and placing them in whatever appropriate, sterile containers they had on hand. It was no longer "Vincent", but a body to be preserved and investigated.
"He was out there for a day at least…" Harvey mused. "It's impossible to tell if this discoloration is from trauma or decomposition."
"You think there might have been a struggle?" Robin asked.
"It's definitely possible, but like I said…no way of knowing for us. I feel like a lot of our questions will be answered when the actual authorities get here. We just need to be sure to preserve the cadaver well enough for them."
Harvey's hand hovered over an orifice that took a moment to identify. "It doesn't look like he went through any…" He took a moment, trying in vain to find a polite way to say it. "…sexual trauma."
"You can tell just be looking?" Gus asked, disgusted yet at the same time curious.
"There'd be signs." Harvey assured him.
"Great, so at least it's just a child murderer, and not a rapist too…" Gus mumbled under his breath.
Harvey stopped moving at the utterance of the word 'murderer', the reality of the situation suddenly crashing over him. "Yoba, this is really happening, isn't it?" He asked, looking up at Gus and Robin.
"It is." Robin heaved a sigh and stared down at the little boy.
"There is no armor against fate." Harvey said suddenly. "Death lays his icy hand on kings. Scepter and crown must tumble down, and, in the dust, be equal made…" He backed away from the table. "With the poor crooked scythe and spade…"
"What the hell was that?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow.
"James Shirley." Maru stated, before Harvey could speak. "A poem: Death the Leveller."
"Right." Harvey confirmed. "Doesn't matter if you're a serf, a king, a doctor, or a little kid."
"Death comes for you anyway." Robin finished the thought, disgust in her voice. Gus mouthed something under his breath. "What was that?" Robin asked.
"Crooked scythe and spade…" Gus repeated, just loud enough now to be audible. "A scythe – the killer used a scythe."
Harvey looked around at the two women, as if seeking a second opinion on the theory. "What makes you say that?"
"A clean swing and a messy yank out. A person isn't like grass." Gus's knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the table. "They have all sorts of messy shit inside, of all different consistencies."
"Sure." Robin concurred, suddenly animated. "If the kid was knocked down, the, the killer could've just kept swinging – goes in easy, hits a bone or loses momentum or something and needs to be yanked out." Robin's hand suddenly went to her mouth, as if she couldn't believe she had said something like that so casually. "An axe or saw would be much messier going in." She spoke through her fingers.
"And knife wounds wouldn't be so straight." Maru jumped aboard. "They'd either be stabs in one place, or jagged."
The quartet all looked back and forth at one another.
"Lewis?" Gus called out beyond the curtain.
"Yes?" The old man responded uncertainly.
"Who do we know that owns a scythe?"