"Steady, Dipper," Mabel said softly. "Just focus..."

"Mabel," her brother grunted. "It would be much easier to focus without you whispering in my ear like that."

"Oh. Sorry."

Mabel pulled away and let her brother get back to the game, the carnie who ran the booth watching through glazed eyes. It was a cool game, really. On top of a stand was set up what looked like some bizarre modern sculpture made of a single thick silver wire twisting this way and that. The goal was for the player to guide a metal ring through the whole wire without actually touching, like some 3-D version of Operation. And like Operation, it wasn't as easy as it looked. Mabel had lost mere seconds after tossing her ticket to the booth attendant, and now, Dipper was having a go.

The twins stood in absolute silence as Dipper guided the metal ring through the winding maze of wire, a line of sweat glistening beneath the bangs pressed into his forehead. He stuck out his tongue in concentration as he reached the last turn, when suddenly-

"Sup, dudes?"

Dipper let out a yelp and jumped a mile into the air. A buzzer sounded as the metal ring rammed into the wire. The booth attendant turned to Dipper, expression unchanged, and said in a drawling voice, "Sorry. No prize."

"Yeah, I guessed that," Dipper sighed. He turned to face the source of the voice that had interrupted him. "Really, Soos? You couldn't have waited until I was done with the game?"

"Dipper was going to win me the elephant!" Mabel whined, pointing to the stuff of overstuffed animals being offered as prizes.

Soos bit his lip uncomfortably. "Sorry, dude. Wasn't thinking. Just, I been looking all over the festival for you two."

"Why?" Dipper asked. "Stan need us home for something?"

"Nope." Soos shook his head. "I passed by the Tent of Telepathy on the way here. You said you wanted to know once the police cleared outta there."

Dipper perked up instantly. "So the Tent's cleared up?"

"Spotless, dude," Soos answered with a nod.

"Thanks," Dipper said. He pulled a length of orange paper out of his pocket. "You want the rest of my tickets, Soos? I think I'm heading out for the day."

"Me too," Mabel added eagerly. "You can have my-" She turned out her skirt pockets only to find that they were empty, save for a melted piece of chocolate in one. "Oh. Well, it's the thought that counts." She took her brother's hand and turned him toward the festival's exit. "See ya, Soos!" she called.

"By, dudes!" Soos replied. "Thanks for the tickets!"

Mabel and Dipper wove their way through the town square before they set off on an adjacent road that led to the Tent of Telepathy. "Okay," Dipper said. "We don't know for sure what is was that killed Gideon, so when we get their we need to keep our eyes out for just about anything." He pulled his book from his vest and idly flicked through the pages. "Ectoplasm, moving shadows, temperature shifts, sulfuric smells. Basically anything that the forensics guys would brush off or overlook."

"Anything at all?" Mabel asked increduously. "You seriously couldn't have even narrowed it down a little bit by this point?"

Dipper shook his head. "No. If we had gotten a little more detail besides 'he died', I'd probably have some idea. Like, say, if he was burned, then it might be a Hitodama, which is this ghost thing that takes the form of a fireball."

"Or a dragon," Mabel said.

Dipper rolled his eyes. "I kinda think a dragon would do a little more damage then just that, Mabel. Or, here." He turned the pages of the journal. "If it was bloodier, coulda been this thing. A Raven Mocker. An invisible monster that slashes the head to kill the person, then eats its heart."

"Ew!" Mabel made a face. "That's disgusting! There's not seriously one of those things in Gravity Falls, is there?"

"There could be," Dipper said. "It's in the journal."

Mabel shivered. "Thanks for the nightmares, Dipping Sauce. But come on, if it had been something like that, the news people would have-" She stop short and squinted ahead. "Uh, Dipper? I don't think we'll be able to do the investigation after all."

"What?" Dipper snapped. Mabel pointed ahead, and Dipper followed her and groaned as he realized what she meant. Apparently, when Soos said that the lot was spotless, he had meant it. The police and yellow tape were gone, but so was the tent.

"Great!" Dipper said. "Just great!"

Mabel frowned thoughtfully. "I forgot that tents aren't all that permanent."

"Yeah," Dipper muttered. "Now how are we going to find anything out about this whole thing?"

"Guess the best we can do is see if the police will let us know anything."

Dipper snorted. "Sure, Mabel. What are we going to do? Waltz right into the police station and demand Blubs and Durland to hand over the case files to a couple of twelve-year-olds?"

"Edwin, get in here!" Sheriff Blubs shouted through the door to the back room of the police station. "You gotta hear this!"

Deputy Durland poked his head into the front room, where Blubs sat behind a desk across from Dipper and Mabel. "What is it?" he asked.

Blubs turned back to the twins with an enormous grin on his face, a nice contrast to Dipper's red-faced scowl. "Hey, junior!" he said. "Tell the deputy here what you just told me! No, you know what, I'll tell him. These two just waltzed right into the police station and demanded that we handed over our case files to a couple of twelve-year-olds!" He burst into a peal of laughter.

"I didn't word it quite like that," Dipper growled.

Durland was laughing too, now. "Look at that, Blubs! City boy's growing up! Moving on from statues to actual people!" The two officers let out another round of howling laughs, and Dipper's grip tightened on the arms of his chair.

"Don't make fun of him like that!" Mabel said. "He solved a case that you two couldn't, didn't he?"

"I just think there's probably something in those reports that you missed, but I won't," Dipper added.

The sheriff settled back into his seat, still chuckling. "Look, kid, you're enthusiasm is cute and all, but you know what that thing with the wax head was? A fluke. You got lucky and think you're some full-blown detective because of it. But that doesn't qualify you to get to go snoopin' through police files, you know?"

"I only-"

"No, no, listen. You ain't... you ain't... Durland!" He turned to his partner. "What was the name of that one kid detective? The one with all those little mystery books?"

"The Hardy Boys?" Durland suggested.

"Nah, the other one, the one who worked solo. Dad's a cop, solves all the mysteries over family dinner?"

"Encyclopedia Brown."

Blubs snapped his fingers. "That's the one." He swiveled back to face Dipper. "You ain't Encyclopedia Brown, kiddo, and this ain't a fifteen-cent detective book. So from now on, just leave the police business to the police, okay?" He didn't wait for a response before getting out of his chair and reaching for his jacket on the coat rack. "I'm going on a donut run, Edwin. Want anything?"

"Well, yeah," Durland said. "But you never get the donuts I like."

"The cinnamon swirl things, right?"

"Yeah, but a certain kind of the cinnamon swirls. See, it's gotta be-"

Blubs sighed. "Whatever. Just come along if you're going to be picky." Durland shot him a thumbs-up and grabbed his own coat, then followed the Sheriff out. Dipper and Mabel both remained seated, staring at the entrance as the door banged shut behind the officers. After a few seconds of silence, Mabel turned her head slowly toward her brother. "Did they seriously just leave us unsupervised in the police station?"

Dipper smiled. "Mabel, it seems that the good town of Gravity Falls has been blessed with the dumbest police force in the world. Come on."

They got out of their chairs and made their way into the back room. Unlike most police stations that had progressed to computers years ago, this one kept a trove of filing cabinets stacked tightly together. Most likely, the cops had never learned to use a keyboard. Dipper strode up to the cabinet labeled 'G-I' and, upon finding it locked, Mabel pulled a bobby pin from her hair and had the drawer open within seconds. Dipper quickly began flipping through the folder tabs. "What the heck?" he muttered. "It skips straight from 'Gilbert' to 'Glenn'. No file for Gleeful."

"Maybe it's misfiled," Mabel suggested. "We could check the other cabinets."

A search of the cabinet labeled 'A-C' yielded nothing, as did 'D-F'. Finally, Dipper let out an annoyed groan as he sifted through 'J-L'. "Found it," he said. "Filed under L for 'Li'l'."

Mabel giggled. "Creative. The report's in there?"

"Yep," Dipper said. He pulled out the top piece of paper containing the main report in Sheriff Blubs' looping handwriting, leaving the forensics report and inventory sheet, and set the page onto the only decent surface in the room, an old card table, so he and Mabel could both read it.

Gravity Falls Police Department Official Report; District 7, Report No. 31-400A.

Title of Offense/Incident: Possible breaking and entering; Class 8 Felony. Assault/battery; victim claimed to have been knocked unconscious by intruder; Class 6 Felony. Possibility of homicide (degree: undetermined); Class 1 Felony. Larceny; Class 1 Misdemeanor.

Location of Incident: 413 Wombat Road. 24 June 2012. Reported: 10:18 PM. Occured: approx. 10:00 PM. Target: Amusement facility. Point of entry: main entrance to tent; east backstage entrance. Point of exit: undetermined.

Complainant/Firm: Bud Gleeful, 49, C/W, M. Report Filed By: Sher. H. Blubs, Dep. Sher. E. Durland.

Victim: Bud Gleeful. Taken to: Northwest Memorial Hospital. Injuries: Victim had received blow to the occipital skull, causing unconsciousness for approx. 15 mins. Diagnosis of abrasion and mild concussion.

Victim: Gideon Gleeful. Taken to: Northwest Memorial Hospital. Injuries: Autopsy reveals death caused by asphyxiation. No external injuries or signs of physical damage within the lungs or trachea. Unconclusive diagnosis.

Narrative: See attached witness report. (Bud Gleeful)

Stolen Vehicle: N/A

Stolen Property: B Gleeful reports G Gleeful habitually keeps his journal in his dressing room during performances. Said journal was not found during investigation; presumed larceny. Monetary value: undetermined.

Dipper ignored the rest of the report, listing the address and phone numbers of the station and jabbed his finger toward the section labeled 'Stolen Property'. "Mabel?" he said slowly. "Does anything here strike you as odd?"

His sister reread the paragraph. "Yeah," she said. "Gideon never really seemed the type to keep a diary."

"Who said he was writing it himself?" Dipper gulped and pulled out his journal, the hand with the number 3 gleaming briefly under the dim ceiling light, and set it on top of the report. "You dont... you don't think..."

Mabel stared at the journal, mouth slightly opened. "No! No, I mean... although, that '3' does kinda suggest that there's more than one, huh? You think Gideon had one?"

"It would explain why he knows so much about all the supernatural stuff in this town. But where did he get it? How did I not realize it? Where did-?"

"More importantly," Mabel interrupted, "Who knew about it, and cared enough to kill Gideon in order to take it?"

Dipper froze and gazed at Mabel. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, it's the only thing listed as being missing. I mean, if it's even another journal like yours."

"Yeah," Dipper said. "If. That's a big 'if', though. We don't know for sure that it wasn't just Gideon's personal log."

"Sure," Mabel said, nodding hastily. "That could be it, too." They stood in silence for a moment, eyes drawn to the battered book lying innocently on the card table. Then Dipper cleared his throat. "Well, we saw the report. Guess now we just have to go home and mull it over, right? Come on." He tucked his book back into his vest as Mabel put the report and folder back into the filing cabinet, and they both walked silently out of the police station and toward home.

A/N: Who would have guessed that I would actually have less free time during winter break than I did during the school year? Although, I guess that's mostly due to getting Pokemon X for Christmas. Anyway, here's a new chapter! And if your New Year's resolution was to leave more reviews, here's a great place to do it!