Rémy

Alternate Universe

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 01:21:16 GMT

There were never any doubts Randy was quite good at finding incentives, but this one was especially good-

“Whoever kills, will be able to take someone else with them once they win”. Paraphrasing. Basil didn’t want to think about his exact wording, the motives always gave him a headache. It could have been worse, he guesses. It could have been something insane like hallucinatory creatures like those outside. He did see the danger the motive posed, though, almost everyone had at least one person they considered a friend. The thought of getting out with them may be rather appealing.

Before leaving his room, he sighed, preparing himself for what he’d find. Friday meant a dead body. It was hard to guess who’d be the unfortunate victim this time, and who’d be the culprit.

Oh well. They had succeeded in three trials so far, they’d succeed in a fourth one.

Basil opened the door of his bedroom with a lot of difficulty, just like he did every day, and was greeted immediately by the signs something was wrong. Hard to think everything was fine when there were several people gathered in middle of the hallway, surrounding something.

“He’s barely conscious!” Leia was kneeling beside someone. Inhaling sharply between his teeth, Basil approached to take a look. If whoever was dying was still alive, maybe there wouldn’t be a trial after all! Lekmet was there too, a golden glow had enveloped his hooves, he was trying to heal the person they were aiding, but it didn’t seem to be working. The smell of blood permeated the air.

Only once Basil got through the crowd he could see Gaston was almost dead.

Neku pushed Moana aside to get to Gaston. “If he’s still alive he should at least tell us who stabbed him!” he got lose to Gaston’s head, trying to get his attention. “Hey! Snap out of it, come on! Who’s the killer?” Gaston didn’t seem to have much strength to talk. “Gaston, who did this to you? You must have seen them!”

“He was stabbed in the back of the neck, he may not have seen—“ Jyn started to point out – rather reasonably, in Basil’s opinion – but Neku didn’t listen to her.

“Gaston, just say it! Who attacked you?!”

The word ‘attacked’ seemed to snap Gaston out of his stupor. Although he still was dying, he managed to lift his head up a bit, very pale.

“T…L-Lizard…”

“Lizard? What lizard?” Ariel whispered to Freddie. There were no lizards around, as far as she knew! Freddie did get a suspicion, though, she immediately glanced at the door right in front of Gaston’s dying body. As if that was his cue, the door opened. Louis looked at the dying person in front of his door, at everyone who was staring, screamed in surprise and slammed the door closed. Basil had a feeling he was leaning heavily against the door, as if he feared someone would try to force the door open.

With the last of his strength, Gaston pointed forward, at that door. Just for a second or two the hand held in the air before his arm dropped to the floor, he had run out of strength. It was unavoidable:

Gaston had died.

Right after Gaston died, Randy appeared among them, looking at Gaston with the same interest someone would look at an interestingly-shaped pebble. “Someone killed that guy, really? I had thought he’d kill the Beast before dying. You guys are full of surprises”

“I don’t think you’ll be welcome here” Kit said, trying to stay diplomatic. Getting the message before someone else got to glare at him, Randy just went away, leaving everyone to start their investigation. There was a tense silence for a moment. Another death, another investigation, and soon there’d be another trial. Who among them would get executed now? Was Louis the killer, as Gaston had indicated? That remained to be seen. Basil didn’t want to admit it, but what Gaston said was quite incriminating. He couldn’t avoid suspecting the alligator.

“…Gaston was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve this” Ariel murmured, breaking the silence. Most people watching agreed, others were mostly indifferent. Nobody considered Gaston a friend, but it didn’t matter, the investigation was necessary.

The crowd dispersed, everyone going in different directions to investigate. Basil, Allene and Freddie stayed in the hallway. It was too narrow for a bunch of people to gather and investigate, they were more than enough to work here. “Alright, let’s get this started” Basil said “Who’s going to check the body?”

“I will” Freddie said immediately.

“Someone had said he was stabbed” Basil noted, looking at Allene. She nodded, touching the back of her neck.

“I wasn’t the one who checked, but I heard he was bleeding a lot from over here. Most of the blood is underneath that ugly jacket of his, it’s not like he spilled it anywhere in here” She was right, the hallway was mostly clean, with very little blood. To confirm, Freddie moved the collar of Gaston’s jacket down, and gave a whistle of admiration.

“He really was stabbed. Whoever did it must have been really angry with him, the knife went deep into him!”

“What kind of knife?” Basil climbed on Gaston’s shoulder. He didn’t want to take that good of a look at the wound since Freddie was doing it, but maybe she could tell him more?

She didn’t seem to feel like it: “I dunno. It just was some sort of blade, it’s not like it’s still stuck in him”

“How does the wound look like?”

Freddie removed her hands from the collar, grimacing a little at the blood staining her fingers. “It’s thin and kind of large, and it goes like this” she made a downwards diagonal motion.

“From where does it start?”

“The top? Over here, I think” she pointed at the back of Gaston’s neck and downward “Like that”

“That means the killer is of around Gaston’s height or taller, most likely”

“Gaston was a tall guy, not many among us could reach his neck like this” Allene pointed out “I guess Louis could?”

“No, Louis wouldn’t do that” Freddie immediately said, crossing her arms “Do you really think he’d stab someone?”

While Fredde defended Louis, Basil continued the investigation. The hallway was the place where Gaston died, but did he get attacked here? Something was off, and it didn’t take long to see what it could be: Gaston’s clothes were stained with flour. White patches covered his jacket, his shirt, his pants, like he had passed through a cloud of flour or something like that. The kitchen. Where else would flour come from?

“Do you see flour around here?” Basil asked to his partners. Freddie looked around, noticing flour and narrowing her eyes when she saw where it was. For a moment she considered not saying anything and cleaning it without anyone noticing, but she judged it was unlikely they wouldn’t, so...

“There’s flour on Louis’ door”

She was right, the doorknob of Louis’ door had traces of flour, like someone had placed a hand on it. Louis? Gaston’s hands had some flour, but given how he was found agonizing on the floor, he may not have been the one to stain it with flour.

“Okay, this is a bit weird” Allene said from the other side of the hallway. “Look at his shoes, the soles have no flour. Why’s Gaston so covered in flour except for his shoes?”

“You think it could be important?”

Allene shrugged. “Beats me. You know what, I’ll go check stuff somewhere else” She left in direction to the kitchen. Freddie, intending to get the truth out of someone who clearly was involved in some way, knocked on Louis’ door, putting her ear against the door. “You hold the fort while I work on this, Basil”

He could. There had to be more clues, something that could indicate if Louis really had attacked Gaston or even killed him. It took him a while to find something else in the hallway, although it was nothing he hadn’t expected. A tooth? It wasn’t surprising it had been difficult to find – such a small object in the hallway would have been easily missed. Basil grabbed the tooth, examining it. There was some blood in the root, it seemed like it had been torn from someone’s mouth rather violently. At least it’s not an alligator tooth. It seemed to be human. If it wasn’t Gaston’s, then it hinted someone else had been here! Hoping this could hint the case wasn’t as clear cut as it had seemed at first, Basil hurried to return to Gaston’s body, taking the tooth with him.

Freddie hadn’t been successful in getting Louis’ help. She had knocked several times, and Louis had answered when she said she wanted to talk, but when she asked what he knew about Gaston’s murder he refused to talk about it. “I’m not leaving this spot until you say what you know” Freddie threatened, sitting against the door and making noise so Louis knew she was there “I know you didn’t do this, but you must know what happened!”

No answer.

“Freddie, can you check his mouth?” Basil requested, showing the tooth. Although Freddie made a face of disgust – she didn’t want to touch Gaston’s face more than strictly necessary– she complied, lifting Gaston’s lip. One of his front teeth was missing.

“Someone must have given him one good left hook” Freddie sentenced, wiping her fingertips against her skirt.

“Gaston did say Louis attacked him”

Freddie looked at Basil. “Can you really imagine Louis punching anyone? Why are you thinking Louis is some kind of badass gator?” She was right, it was hard to imagine, but if that was what the evidence showed then he had to believe it – if something more hinting that was found, that is.

Allene and Freddie hadn’t been the only ones investigating in the hallway. Another two people – Jyn and Kim – turned the corner, Kim had something in her hands. “You should look at this” Jyn pointed with her thumb to the direction they had come from. Freddie gestured Basil to go with them, so he followed Kim and Jyn, leaving Freddie in front of Louis’ door.

What they had found was so glaringly obvious Basil couldn’t avoid being surprised nobody had mentioned it before. There were several small round holes on the wall, very little space between each other. It reeked of gunpowder, from what Basil could smell. Sometimes having a sensitive nose really was useful. “I didn’t know there were usable weapons in this place” Jyn commented, inserting a finger into one of the holes. Inside there was a crushed round piece of ammo. “Must be from the slot machine”

“It has weapons too?” Kim wondered.

“There’s nowhere else where someone could have obtained whatever made this” Jyn must be right. Nobody would admit to having obtained a firearm. He wasn’t completely sure, but judging from what he could see, it was likely it had been a shotgun. The only one he had seen was made of wax, clearly that hadn’t been what had shot that wall.

Basil turned to Kim. “What do you have?”

Kim showed the object. It was a trumpet, one of the old ones from the music room. It was almost ruined, someone seemed to have crushed it with their foot. “It also has a bit of floor over here” Kim pointed at some blood on the bell of the trumpet. It was so little blood it was unlikely it had been anywhere close to Gaston’s mortal wound, but it had to be important in some manner.

“Louis is the only one who plays the trumpet” Jyn said “We also found the knife” she unwrapped what she had been carrying it on and put it in the floor so Basil could take a look.

A common kitchen knife, half of the blade stained in blood. Although he hadn’t taken a look at the wound for long, he thought the size of the knife fit the wound. “Where was this?” he inquired. It had been found near the trumpet. The handle had several deep gouges in it – claw marks? Most likely. Someone with claws had grabbed it. “Do alligators have claws?” Apparently they did, from what Kim had noticed. Each gouge was large enough for him to fit his own fingers in – well, all of them except one. There was a rather small mark, around half a centimeter long, much shallower than everything else. It didn’t fit the knife’s marks in any way. Perhaps it had always been on the knife?

As much as Basil hated to admit it, more and more evidence was pointing at the alligator.

-ooooo-

Just looking into the kitchen was enough for Neku to know it was an important place right now. Most of the floor, part of the counters, and the bottom of the fridge were all covered with flour. The flour container was lying around, discarded. “What happened here?”

“The only thing certain is that Gaston must have been here. He had flour on him” Leia said, Soos peeking into the kitchen from behind her “I don’t see any footprints. Do you, Neku?”

“Not really, but there’s this” he stood right where he was indicating. It was very difficult to miss the two patches of floor where someone had swept flour away. Whether it was intentionally or just from moving around was unclear, but there were streaks of flour in them, clearly something had happened in those exact spots.

One was large and round, a couple meters of radius, and directly in front of the fridge. The other one was much smaller, like someone had paced around almost in the same place, and it was on the other side of the kitchen, not too far away from the round one, right beside the place on the counter where there was a bowl. Other than that, nobody seemed to have been in the kitchen.

“If we can find why Gaston may have been here in the kitchen, we may be able to make some progress in solving this case” Leia suggested, carefully stepping into the smaller empty spot. Soos followed her, reaching the counter and finding something.

“Dudes, check this out” he picked up the bowl of mixture from the counter, showing it to Leia “Gaston must have been cooking or something”

“Gaston? Cooking something? When hell freezes over” Neku scoffed, it was very hard to think Gaston would take the initiative to do anything, much less cook for himself. He had been about to open the fridge when he noticed the glob of mixture on the door. It was dry, no larger than a fist, and there were bits of unidentified ingredients in it. Could it be...? “Soos, lemme take a look at that” Once he received the bowl, Neku looked inside. Just as he suspected, it seemed to be the same stuff.

There didn’t seem to be anything else in the kitchen worth checking. The flour proved nobody had stepped further inside – not even to the kitchen rack. No flour had been disturbed near it. “I think I understand what may have happened” Leia crouched to examine closely the empty spaces “Gaston and his attacker must have fought here. It ended with Gaston either dragging himself away, or being dragged by the killer” she traced with a finger between some marks that hinted something large had been dragged out of the kitchen. Gaston’s unconscious body?

Soos fidgeted, stacking and unstacking the pile of spice jars near the fridge. His mind started wandering, trying to find sense in that murder. Was he expected to believe that while Gaston cooked or something, Louis had approached and stabbed him? No, there had to be something else going on. Louis was such a nice guy; he wouldn’t attack someone so coldly. “Does Louis know to cook?”

Neither Neku nor Leia knew for sure.

-ooooo-

It was important to check every place you could think of, no matter how unlikely it was it’d be related to the murder. Who knew where you could find important evidence! Somehow, Moana had managed to find something important in a place she didn’t expect, given where the murder had happened.

With a triumphant grin, she got out of the pool, holding the shotgun that had been on the bottom of the pool and trying to shake the water out of the cannon.

-ooooo-

The only change in the trial room was that there was one voodoo doll more, this time representing Gaston.

“Our tour begins here in this gallery where you gaze upon the sweet innocence of youth. Ah, but things are not always as they seem. Can it be this room is actually stretching? And notice this: this chamber has no windows and no doors, which offers you this chilling challenge… to find a way out.

Of course, there’s always my way.”

Nobody was listening to Randall’s trial start speeches anymore. Basil had already spaced out, missing what Randy said afterwards. He was trying to organize in his mind the clues he had found, trying to find how they made sense, and how likely it was that someone other than Louis was the killer. There were two facts that weren’t up to debate.

One was that Louis really had been involved in the incident in some way. The other was that it wasn’t a suicide. He faintly heard others mentioning some of the evidence they found, Basil added all that to his thoughts. Now to connect everything--

“We don’t need a trial” a voice he hadn’t expected said “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry...and I don’t want to force you all to do this whole thing. I killed Gaston” Louis hadn’t been the one to say that.

It was Rémy. It hadn’t been not even three minutes since the trial started and Rémy had confessed to the murder.

Nobody was sure at first what to say. Until now, nobody had confessed to the murder so soon. Usually they had to find out almost everything about what happened before the person they accused decided to make a confession. How were they supposed to handle this? “Well that settles it” Freddie said, joining her hands together. “This trial went better than expected”

“Wait, we just started! This can’t be over yet”

“She’s right, we can’t start the vote now”

The rat slumped over, a bit frustrated at how nobody seemed to be taking his statement at face value. “Do we really have to do this? I confessed, that should be enough” If only things were so simple. Their lives were at stake; they couldn’t make a mistake in something as important as this. Soos tried to reason with Rémy. “Okay, um...why did you kill Gaston?”

Rémy opened his mouth to reply, but no word was uttered. Why had he done it? He tried to think, to answer with honesty, but his mind was blank. “I don’t know”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Mabel sounded afraid of finding out more. Rémy scratched the base of his ear, trying harder to think, but it still didn’t work well.

“I just don’t know! I can’t remember”

“Then you can tell us how you killed him!” Molly suggested. Rémy shook his head.

“I don’t remember that either. I don’t remember most of what happened last night”

“If he doesn’t remember then what he says about killing Gaston could be—“ Marco started to argue that maybe Rémy was deluded, wrongly thinking he was the killer, but he hadn’t finished before Rémy shouted, his voice almost squeaking.

“I know I killed Gaston, it was me!”

Allene didn’t seem convinced at all. “Try to tell us what you remember”

“...that’s the problem. I remember...nothing at all” the rat looked away. Basil couldn’t say for sure, but it felt like Rémy was hiding something. He was confessing the murder, what could he be hiding? If his intention had been to make the trial easier for everyone, then that had failed miserably!

Leia tried to find the right words to say what she thought. “I’m sorry, Rémy, but if you can’t prove you did it, we can’t believe you’re the killer”

“I don’t even have a reason to lie!”

“What was that motive Randy said? Something about two people getting out of here?” Freddie asked rhetorically. She knew word for word what the motive was – she had been tempted to do something to get it, for herself and Ariel’s sake, but she had convinced her not to do it. “It’d be easy for you to lie while the real culprit gets away with this, and gets you and them out of here”

Rémy stared at her in disbelief. “That’s not what’s going on!”

“Can you prove you’re the killer?” Moana gave him a last chance to argue against himself, but it was useless. Rémy simply had no arguments. If he was doing this to help someone win a trial, he was doing a terrible job.

Rocket had no patience for shenanigans right now. “I don’t know what you all found, but what I saw around pretty much says the rat can’t be the killer. It’s impossible”

Everyone ignored Rémy’s protests, listening to Rocket. “Impossible in what way?” Hiro asked. Rocket wasn’t the only one who had thought it was unlikely Rémy was the culprit, and there was a myriad of conclusions about that.

“Uh, wasn’t he stabbed up there in the neck? That’s a bit too tall for Rémy to reach” Soos said.

“He also can’t have dragged to the pool the shotgun I found” Moana said.

“Leia found out Gaston had been moved, it’s obvious Rémy can’t have done that either” Jyn pointed out.

“Can you all stop using logic for a moment and just listen to me?!” Rémy yelled.

Was Rémy lying, was he telling the truth? Basil couldn’t determine what was going on. The only thing they could do right now was rely on the evidence. Nobody seemed to want to just rely on Rémy’s confession, no matter how desperate the rat seemed to be. “I suppose if Gaston was lying down facedown on the floor Rémy could have stabbed him” Jyn guessed, although she was definitely not going to argue too hard about that.

“Then that’d mean Rémy was standing on the back of Gaston’s head when he stabbed him?” Minnie deduced. That sounded off. Why’d Rémy stand on the back of his head instead of the back? Rémy didn’t seem to be doing much better, despite having confessed, he seemed just as confused as everyone else.

This was getting nowhere. “Let’s try to work with what we have right now. When we found Gaston he said—“

“He said Louis had killed him” Beast completed, Louis cowered a bit under his stare. “Any comments, Louis?”

“It doesn’t matter what Gaston said, I killed him!” Rémy insisted, not achieving much. Allene sighed, a bit exasperated.

“Knock it off, just let us work, okay?” she said. Rémy begrudgingly complied, even though it was clear he’d have preferred to stop them. “Louis?”

“I-I know nothin’” he answered immediately. Not the best way to dissuade anyone from suspecting him, that was for sure.

“You said the same thing when I asked you before coming here!” Freddie put her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to lie then lie more convincingly!”

“R-Really, I don’t know anything!”

Soos grabbed the shotgun, noting how heavy it was. “So that shotgun is Gaston’s?” Since Louis wasn’t going to cooperate, they had to do this by themselves. “Gaston wasn’t the one who threw it into the pool?”

“Hardly. He couldn’t even be walking around, much less throw the shotgun anywhere” Neku said, playing with his hair.

“Louis could have thrown it in there, I guess” Allene said “That guy shot that thing last night and missed. If anyone had been shot they’d be very dead right now” Nobody seemed to be injured in the slightest, no ammo had hit anyone.

Hiro had been scribbling something, once he was done he showed it to everyone. It was a map of the bedroom area, he had marked where Gaston had died and where the wall had been shot. “So Gaston shot here, and then he crawled all the way to Louis’ door” he explained, holding the map up. “Gaston was a hunter, of course he’d try to shoot a gator”

“We’d have known immediately he had done it” Minnie said.

“He wasn’t too bright” Stan said dismissively “Louis, where were you last night?”

“My room?” Louis meekly answered “I was in my room the entire night”

“Bullshit! You must have left your room last night!” Rocket was in no mood for such simple lies.

“Why’d I leave my room, that’d put me in danger, right? And I don’ like that, so—“

“I found your trumpet, Louis” Kim said, trying to sound as assertive as possible and showing the musical instrument. “We all have seen you with this trumpet”

“I must have left it somewhere!”

Negaduck shrugged, not particularly worried about how the trial was going. “He’s right, you know. What does that trumpet have to do with anything?” Even though they’d have preferred not to listen to Negaduck, they did have to decide how that trumpet was related to anything.

In that moment Louis took a good look at the trumpet, gasping with horror. “My trumpet! It’s ruined!” he grabbed it like he was touching something that’d disappear in any moment. “What happened to my trumpet?!”

“Good question. It looks like someone stepped on it” Minnie guessed.

“Gaston must have done it before--!” Oops. He had been so distraught about the loss of his trumpet he had accidentally blurted out something he shouldn’t have. “Uuuh...nevermind”

Lekmet showed the notebook he wrote in during trials “Gaston must have done it before what? What happened with Gaston and that trumpet?”

“...I...I think I’ll shut up now” Louis slowly hid behind his podium, as if that was going to be enough to get them to ignore him.

“Does that mean Gaston stepped on the trumpet?” Mabel wasn’t sure how that’d fit into anything. “Why’d he do that? Right, he was a jerk, but why’d he break a perfectly good trumpet for no reason? Was he angry at it?”

“More like he was angry at Louis” Kim decided it was time to bring up something else about the trumpet. “It even had a bit of blood on it”

“Gaston had already been stabbed when he stepped on it?” Marco wondered.

“I suppose so, he didn’t have any other bleeding injuries” Ariel said. Basil immediately intervened, he could refute that.

“Actually, he got a tooth knocked out. My guess is that someone hit him in the mouth with the trumpet” Hiro approached so Basil could show him where the tooth had been found.

“Someone as in Louis!” Hiro accused while Basil marked the spot on the map.

“Most likely. I’m sure we all know Louis and Gaston had some sort of...encounter where Gaston tried to shoot him, so Louis defended himself with the trumpet and hit him in the face”

Marco scratched his head. “Then what, he ran away?”

“That sounds correct. What about it, are we getting closer to what happened?” Beast kept pressing Louis, who peeked from behind the podium. There was no point in staying silent about that if everyone knew he had fought Gaston last night.

“Okay, I surrender” Louis stood up. “I did talk with Gaston last night. He said he wanted, uh...he wanted me to change his bedsheets again”

“...again? You have done it before?” Negaduck was bemused. Where was your dignity, Louis?

“L-Look, it’s hard to argue with someone who’s aiming a shotgun at you, okay? Besides last night that was a trap! I noticed he was—he was going to kill me, so I just hit him with what I had in my hands and ran away!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere” Jyn dared to feel some accomplishment. Finally, they were starting to put the pieces together!

“Did you run to the kitchen, Louis?” Moana asked.

“No-No, I ran to the pool!” he clamped his snout shut with both hands, shaking his head. Was he refusing to say more?

“Is that when you took the shotgun with you?” Basil inquired. Louis blinked. If he didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t incriminate himself any further.

“That doesn’t make any sense” Freddie said, unamused. “That doesn’t explain how the knife got anywhere. It was a kitchen knife; they must have gone to the kitchen”

“I didn’t go to the kitchen!” Louis couldn’t stop himself from digging a deeper hole from himself, he clamped his snout again. He really needed to keep himself shut!

“If Louis didn’t go to the kitchen, then Gaston must have done it. Did he go to pick up a knife?” Ariel hypothesized.

“If he had a shotgun I doubt he’d need a knife too” Minnie said. Lekmet scribbled on his notebook.

“Gaston had flour on him and the kitchen was covered in flour he must have been there”

“He wanted to kill Louis with a knife because the shotgun didn’t work. The only knives around are from the kitchen, so he went in there and picked one up...” Soos started “Then when he was looking for Louis again, someone else stabbed him”

Hiro wasn’t so sure about that. “With that same knife?”

“Yeah? It was the only knife around”

“He can’t have taken the knife because everything was covered with flour. There were no footprints anywhere near the knives, remember?” Leia indicated.

“Gaston must have taken the knife before everything was covered with flour” Kim said.

“But his clothes had flour! He must have gone to the kitchen after someone spilled flour everywhere!” Ariel argued. When had Gaston taken the knife, then?

There was a third option, and Allene noticed it: “What if Gaston was in the kitchen when the flour got spilled?”

“Do you think he’s the one who spilled the flour?” Kit wondered.

“Yeah, that’d make sense”

Rémy again took the chance to argue he was the culprit. “I could have spilled the flour. I don’t remember it well, but I think I was in the kitchen last night”

“Really?” Beast looked at Rémy carefully. “You don’t seem to have any flour on you”

“Is that really so strange?” Was it really so unusual to take a bath in the morning? Of course he wouldn’t have flour on him right now.

“You guys are really stupid. Come on, this isn’t so difficult” Negaduck rolled his eyes. “The idiot stopped being an idiot for a second, took the knife and then spilled the flour so nobody would think he had taken one. We done discussing that?”

“...Gaston? Doing something halfway clever?” Hiro sounded skeptical. “Yeah right”

Jyn murmured: “Something’s off. We know Gaston must have been in the kitchen because of the flour, but why is there no flour on the soles of his shoes? Did he just...stand there without going anywhere? If he had moved there’d be some flour on the bottom of his shoes”

“He simply was in one of the places where there wasn’t any flour” Freddie said.

Allene hurried to agree with Jyn. “Yeah, but Leia said even those looked like flour had been wiped from there. He really should have flour on his soles”

“Guys” Molly had been mulling all that for a moment. If the flour on Gaston’s clothes showed Gaston had been in the kitchen, and Rémy having no flour on him supposedly showed he hadn’t been there, then they could use that to find something out: “Are we sure Louis didn’t run to the kitchen instead of the pool?”

“He says he went to the pool” Lekmet wrote, he was willing to trust Louis on that.

“I know he said that, but maybe someone should check if there’s any flour on him”

The goat tapped the pen against the pages of his notebook. It was a good suggestion, and they didn’t really lose anything by finding out. Having no flour didn’t prove anything, but if there was any then... “I’ll do it” he offered, leaving his podium and approaching Louis’ podium. The alligator stepped back. “Don’t worry, this’ll be quick” Lekmet said, appeasing him down. Louis begrudgingly let Lekmet check his scales, looking for any flour.

“...really...?” he said in disbelief. It wasn’t much, but there was some flour stuck between Louis’ scales in some places. His tail, his back, his legs, it all had bits of flour Louis hadn’t been able to remove. “Louis, you were in the kitchen?”

There was again no point in lying, much less to Lekmet’s face. Louis nodded, not liking how the trial was going. “I swear I didn’t kill Gaston, I didn’t” he whispered to Lekmet. Lekmet nodded, believing that. He wanted to think Louis wouldn’t kill someone, he wanted to believe that to the end, no matter what he was finding. He couldn’t just keep to himself the proof he had just found, though. Everyone’s lives were in danger here.

“There’s flour on Louis” he wrote.

“What? Why did he lie again?” Soos wasn’t keen on accusing Louis, either.

“There were scratches on the handle of the knife, Louis could have done those” Jyn said. The knife, Louis’ lies trying to make him look like he had nothing to do with the murder, the flour, it all was pointing at Louis. It didn’t matter that Rémy was once again trying to say Louis was innocent and that he was the killer, there were loads of evidence against Louis and none towards Rémy – it still was impossible Rémy was the killer.

There was a chance Rémy and Louis had some sort of arrangement, she thought. It could be that Louis had committed the murder and Rémy would try to make everyone think he had done it, so they’d both escape once everyone voted incorrectly. That was how everything looked like right now, at least.

“Let’s see what we have found out so far” Marco proposed. “Louis and Gaston fought in the hallway. Louis hit Gaston in the face with the trumpet and ran to the kitchen, and Gaston most likely followed him there. Something happened that ended with flour being spilled, Louis took the knife and then they ran back to the hallway, where...someone – let’s not say Louis – stabbed Gaston with the knife Louis took?”

“But Gaston didn’t move at all after the flour was spilled, I thought we had decided that already” Allene argued.

“He could have taken off his shoes” Leia supposed.

“Then we wouldn’t have found his shoes on the body unless someone put them on him again” Lekmet pointed out.

Minnie sighed. “I think we’re missing something here. I don’t think Louis is the killer, but—“

“Do you think Rémy did it?” Hiro challenged

“Not really, I just think we could be misinterpreting something”

“If Gaston didn’t move at all once he was in the kitchen, then what if Gaston was stabbed in the kitchen instead of in the dormitory hallway?” Leia proposed.

“You said there was no blood anywhere in the kitchen” Rocket said.

“Most of the blood was inside his jacket, there wasn’t much blood in the hallway either” Molly said “He could have been stabbed in the kitchen”

“Why, that sounds about right!” Negaduck snidely said. “In fact, the idiot must have dragged himself from the kitchen to the dorms to accuse the overgrown lizard. Makes perfect sense” something about the way Negaduck said that hit a nerve in some of them, but nobody tried to argue with the duck. That seemed like a waste of time.

“...Gaston being dragged away or crawling out of the kitchen would fit with the lack of flour on his shoes” Rémy acknowledged. He still was sure he was the killer, even if he didn’t remember how it went. Since confessing and trying to argue about that didn’t work, he decided to cooperate and try to find better proof.

“Leia did say something had been dragged out of the kitchen” Allene agreed.

“I-I didn’t drag Gaston anywhere” Louis tried to defend himself “Okay, we were both in the kitchen, but I didn’t touch him at all”

“What was up with the flour?” Molly asked.

“I, um, he still had the shotgun when he found me in the kitchen. I got scared, so I again grabbed the first thing I found and threw it at him” Louis admitted. “The flour bag was open, so instead of hitting him flour was spilled everywhere”

“That’s all you did?” Basil pressed on. Louis hesitated, but continued.

“I also threw some dough at him. There was this bowl of mix right beside the flour, so I took some and tried to hit him with it. I think I missed”

“I’m not sure yet how this all went or how Louis managed to stab him in the back when Gaston was aiming at him with the shotgun, but it does look like Louis is the most likely suspect” Allene decided. That certainly hadn’t changed despite the change in location and circumstances.

“No, that can’t be all there’s to discuss. There must be a mistake somewhere” Lekmet hurriedly wrote, hoping to stall for time. They had to think of something else!

“I dunno, what happened with that shotgun?” Soos wondered “When did Gaston shoot at Louis and miss?”

“You mean the holes on the wall?” Molly remembered having hearing about them not too long during the trial. “That must have been before he followed Louis to the kitchen”

“Lizardman didn’t mention anything about the jackass shooting at him” Negaduck pointed out. Once again he was right. Why did the duck have to be leading the discussion places? Heck, he hadn’t done it like this before, what was he scheming?

Some of the people looked at Louis. The alligator shook his head, confused. “I didn’t hear him shoot at all”

“That shotgun looked like it’d be noisy” Freddie, thought “Are you sure he still had it when he reached you in the kitchen”

“He did, he was aiming at me again!”

“There’d be no flour on the shotgun because it was found in the pool, I guess, but something’s not right” Basil was finally starting to realize what was so odd. “Let’s suppose Louis dragged Gaston out of the kitchen. Why’d he take the shotgun and throw it into the pool?”

“To hide it, of course” Negaduck said.

“He’s very scared of the shotgun, I doubt he’d taken it anywhere. He’d be likely to just leave it around”

“If Gaston didn’t shoot that thing, and Louis didn’t move the shotgun, that’d mean...” Minnie’s eyes widened, the implications weren’t completely clear yet, but it was worth discussing:

“There’s a third person involved” Leia said. Rémy immediately raised his head, was that his chance?

Apparently not. Neku was still playing with his hair. “I think you’d die if you shot that thing. I have never shot one, but they have a lot of recoil”

“Rémy can’t have taken the shotgun to the pool, either”

“So what, now this all means there was another person involved?” Stan dragged a hand over his face. “I bet it’s because that motive, it gives a lot of reasons to cooperate in killing someone”

“There was an accomplice. Either Louis or this third person was the accomplice” Marco stated.

“I-I wouldn’t help anyone kill!” Louis sounded indignant even though his body language still showed a lot of hesitation.

“Right, but how are we going to know who was that third person? Is it someone Louis is friends with?” Freddie looked at Lekmet, the goat immediately wrote he had been sleeping the entire night.

“You think the accomplice has a bruise from shooting the gun or something?” Soos wondered.

“Maybe not a bruise, but I think they’d smell like gunpowder” Basil finally said. The smell of gunpowder in that area had been rather strong, someone who had shot the gun would have that smell on them. Basil hadn’t smelled Gaston’s corpse at all, but he was sure if Gaston had shot it, he’d have noticed the strange smell on him when he examined the body. “We could try smelling someone until we find somebody with gunpowder”

“Right. Rémy, will you please help us with this?” Leia requested, but Rémy shook his head.

“I think I won’t” Things weren’t going well. If someone else was found out to be involved, then that person would be accused instead of him. Cooperating on this specific instance would only make everything more troublesome for himself. Why did it have to be so difficult to get everyone to vote for him?

“Come on, you can’t refuse!” Marco pleaded.

“I’m not going to do it, okay?”

“I could grab him and shove him into all of your hands” Freddie said, earning a ‘what?!’ from Rémy “Look, if you’re not going to help then we have to make you do it somehow”

“You can’t force me to do that!”

“We’ll see about that” somewhat smug, Freddie started walking to Rémy’s podium, but was stopped by Basil:

“That won’t be necessary. I can do it too” he sighed. He’d prefer not to do something like smell people’s hands, but it was going to be necessary. “I don’t have as good of a nose as Rémy, but it’s still rather sensitive. I’ll do it”

“If you’re sure about that...” Lekmet conceded. Better Basil than anyone else, yeah.

One by one, everyone submitted to the test. Embarrassed but doing it consciously, Basil smelled all of their hands, internally screaming. It wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t fun, and he decided he wouldn’t do this again if he could avoid it.

Still, it gave results. There was gunpowder! Basil held back a sneeze and looked up at the person he had detected it on. Basil gave him the most deadpan and exasperated look he had. “Really? You again?”

Negaduck simply smirled.

There was a collective groan. Of course Negaduck was involved somehow. No wonder he had been meddling with the debate! Negaduck returned to his podium, not bothering to hide how satisfied he felt. “What?”

Marco shouted at him: “You shot the wall? Why’d you do that?”

“Is it a crime to shoot walls now? I just felt like it”

“You have to be kidding me” Jyn murmured into her hands, she was starting to have a headache. “Did you throw the shotgun into the pool?”

“Why, I did! I thought you lot weren’t going to find out”

“Tell us everything you did!” Moana demanded. With Negaduck having potentially tampered with the events of last night, they couldn’t simply accuse Louis or Rémy. First they had to find out just how much Negaduck had messed with everything.

At least Negaduck didn’t bother to lie about that. Now that he had been found out, he decided to simply let things continue, see where they’d go. “Not much, I just helped you guys”

“Helped?” Minnie seemed to want to go slap Negaduck.

“You’re not helping at all!” even Louis was angry, a low rumble escaped his throat.

“Look at yourselves, we have been here for a while. Not even with clear proof Louis killed that guy you have voted for him. I just made a few things so you’d find out the culprit a bit sooner. I was out there, minding my own business, when I see Louis leaving the kitchen, and there was a dead body inside!”

“What exactly did you do?” Rémy clenched his tiny fists.

“I dragged the brainless hunter out of the kitchen and put him in front of Louis’ door, for one. I also used the shotgun to damage the wall and then threw it to the pool, aaaaand...” Negaduck leaned on his podium, carefree. “I also carved into the handle of that knife”

“You did what?” Rocket was in disbelief. Couldn’t Negaduck stop messing with everything just for fun?

“I took the knife out of his neck and carved a few marks into the handle! Look at Louis’ claws, of course if he grabbed that knife he would have left marks on it. I just added them to make it easier for you lot”

Stan cracked his knuckles. “I call dibs! I’ll be the first to punch that duck’s bill off”

“Get in line, Stan!” Molly seemed to be about ready to go to Negaduck’s podium to knock him out, Negaduck simply watched her with amusement.

“So...everything we had that pointed at Louis was set up by Negaduck?” Kit tried to understand just how much they had been misled. Apparently they all had walked right into Negaduck’s plans, if it hadn’t been for Basil’s idea they’d have stayed there forever.

“I bet he’s the one who killed Gaston!” Molly accused, gritting her teeth.

“I wish he was, but I doubt it” Allene crossed her arms, shooting Negaduck a look of annoyance “That duck wouldn’t get his hands dirty if he can get someone else to kill in his place”

“I wouldn’t ever help him to do anything!” Louis protested.

“Nobody would” Rémy added.

“So Negaduck just tampered with everything? He didn’t have anything to do with the murder itself?” Marco tried to get everyone back to the discussion. Hiro, taking his map and glaring at Negaduck, approached him, extending the map on the duck’s podium.

“At least tell us where the body was before you dragged it out of the kitchen” he requested. Negaduck, pleased with himself, moved his hand in a circle over pretty much the entire floor shown in the map.

“It was somewhere around here”

“That’s the entire map!”

“Tough luck” he said, not caring at all how angry Hiro looked “I’ll tell you something: his head was pointing in this direction” he touched the side with the fridge. Figuring he wouldn’t get anything more helpful than that, Hiro decided to retreat, and marked on the map where he thought the body had been.

“Okay, if the head was towards the fridge, that means Gaston was in the smaller empty space” he drew a silhouette of a person and wrote ‘Gaston’ to the side, making sure the head was pointing at the fridge. Then, in the larger spot, he drew a circle and wrote Louis inside. “And this must be where Louis was”

Rocket examined the map and nodded, judging it correct. “I thought that was obvious. Look at the gator, he’s much wider than Gaston was”

“...ouch” Louis murmured.

“Anyway, in case you didn’t notice, this means most of the proof against Louis was fake. We’re back to square one”

“Not really, we know Gaston was about to kill Louis with the shotgun right there in the kitchen. That should help us in some way, right?” Kim said.

“But we don’t know who the killer is, unless...” Marco glanced at Rémy, who was holding his head. The kitchen, Gaston threatening Louis with the shotgun, he felt like he was remembering something.

“...I’m sure that’s when I killed him!” he insisted “Look at that map, the counter is right behind Gaston. I could have jumped up with the knife and stabbed him!”

The argument wasn’t the most convincing one he could have thought, though. Although technically it was possible, there were a lot of problems with it. “Do you think you were there on the counter?” Kim asked. As soon as Rémy nodded, Hiro marked a small circle on the counter, right behind Gaston’s mark, writing ‘Rémy’ above it.

“I must have been over there. I was trying to cook something last night, the bowl you found was mine” he sounded more certain the more he talked. He still didn’t remember how exactly he supposedly killed Gaston, but he was remembering more, right after the rest of the group deduced something new.

Negaduck seemed to enjoy leading everyone on, even if it meant “helping”. You all know it’s impossible that creature wouldn’t have seen him approach with a knife, right?”

“I hate when he’s right...” Minnie murmured, and asked to Louis: “Did you see Rémy at all?”

“N-No, why would I?” Louis looked away. If he could sweat, he’d be sweating bullets now.

“Say it already! Did you see the rat or not?” Rocket pressed more. Feeling everyone’s eyes on him, Louis swallowed, trying to gather his courage, and nodded.

“...yes. Rémy was there”

They were making progress already! “You saw him with the knife?”

“I didn’t pay attention to him! I was busy looking at the shotgun!”

“Guess it was possible, then” Negaduck said “Can we start the vote already?”

Allene scowled. “I don’t like this...if Negaduck says it makes sense, then there must be something we’re not getting right yet” she started counting with her fingers “Let’s see... supposedly Rémy was on the counter when those guys entered. He saw Gaston threatening Louis, so he went for a knife. That possible?”

“I don’t see why not, nobody said anything about there being flour on the counter around the knives” Molly said.

“Where’s the knife rack?” Marco asked. Leia indicated Hiro where to mark the position of the knife rack – on the other side of the kitchen, it was near the fridge.

“Right. Rémy went all the way to the other side of the kitchen by running on the counter, grabbed a knife, and returned the same way he came from” Allene crossed her arms “I dunno what you guys think, but that sounds like it’d take too long. Gaston would have made mincemeat with Louis before Rémy even got to the knife rack”

“D-Don’t say that!” Louis looked nauseous, imagining how close he was to death.

“Wasn’t the stab wound indicating someone taller than Gaston killed him?” Freddie reminded them, as if she hadn’t been the one to find that out in the first place. “Do you guys really think Rémy would manage to climb Gaston’s back enough to get up there and stab him, all while holding a knife? Look at the rat, the knife is bigger than him”

“When you put it like that, it does sound impossible” Kit conceded.

“But it’s the only thing that makes sense!” Rémy insisted “I must have been able to do it”

“I agree with him. Let’s start the vote” Negaduck said. Allene punched her podium, wanting nothing more than to wring Negaduck’s neck, but managed to stop herself from even trying.

“You shut up!”

“I saw Rémy cook, he can move with that knife pretty easily. I think...I think he could have done that” Mabel said, looking like admitting it was something she’d have liked not to do. While others had seen Rémy lift knives, the doubt they had was that Rémy would not only hold onto Gaston’s back while he climbed up to the neck, but also in a way that Louis wouldn’t see him. Mabel, Marco, Lekmet and Hiro seemed to be the only ones who believed Rémy’s confession so far, the rest preferring to continue the trial.

“Louis, tell us what happened in the kitchen” Jyn requested.

“Everything? I don’t know if I can, it all happened very fast—“

“Please tell us what you saw” Rémy agreed “Did you see me kill Gaston?”

“I...hey, how about I start from the beginning? That good? Yes, that good” Louis tried to stall for time. He clearly was hiding something – Rémy committing the murder, perhaps?

“Start from the moment you and Gaston got into the kitchen” Basil clarified. Louis swallowed again, prepared himself to give his testimony. Recalling the fear he felt last night was awful, but he had to do it, for the sake of the trial. Nervous, Louis started.

“So I ran into the kitchen, but Gaston arrived shortly after me. He was very angry, when he saw me he told me to stay still and aimed with the shotgun. I thought I was going to die!”

“I’m sure that was what was going to happen, yes” Basil nodded “Continue”

“S-So I got back to the counter until I bumped into it...I kept looking at the shotgun in front of me, but I heard something clatter behind me, so I extended my hand and blindly grabbed the very first thing I found” he shuddered a bit “It was the flour, I threw the bag and it just—the flour spilled all over the floor. Gaston didn’t care even if he was covered with flour, so I grabbed the next thing I found and threw some of that mix to Gaston’s face”

“Not the bowl? You’re really useless” Negaduck commented.

“My hand slipped into the bowl, okay?”

“Did you hit Gaston with the bowl stuff?” Basil asked.

“No, I missed. It just splatted behind Gaston. I can’t believe I missed even when he was in front of me! Then he...h-h-h-he...”

“Did he try to shoot you?” Kit inquired.

“If he had, he wouldn’t be alive right now” Hiro said “What happened, Louis?”

“G-Gaston...h-he died. He just—he fell forward, and he wasn’t moving anymore!” Louis was noticeably trembling now, having a shotgun aiming at him and seeing a man dying right in front of you hadn’t been a pleasant experience at all “He just slumped over like—I don’t even know what happened!”

“Calm down, it’s okay” Soos tried to soothe the alligator “You did well, you’re being brave”

“Th-Thank you” Louis managed to weakly smile “I just don’t want to think about it, it was...” his smile vanished “I shouldn’t have gone out that night. I was so stupid...!”

“...something’s off here...” Ariel muttered. Basil heard it, so he looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, it just feels like something’s not right, but I don’t know what it is”

“It must be the part about Gaston just keeling over, because that doesn’t just happen!” Rocket glared at Louis “You must have seen what happened!”

“I-I didn’t see anything!” Louis shook his head. “I mean it, I didn’t—I was too scared to see anything!”

Allene crossed her arms. “No, it’s not that, Ariel is right. Something’s not right. I think it’s...you sure you missed, Louis?”

“I’m sure I did. Gaston didn’t have gruel on him, right?”

That’s when Basil realized what was off. He wished he had his pipe, he was about to contradict how they thought everything had gone. “So you say you threw some mix at Gaston and it hit behind him. Did I understand that right?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. Did I say something bad?”

Basil grinned. He was finally starting to understand what had happened last night! It was so simple once you defined it had all happened in the kitchen! “I heard something about batter splattered on the fridge door. That’s correct, isn’t it?” he looked at Leia, who nodded.

“If she says she saw that than she’s right. What about it?” Stan told him to continue. Basil pointed at Hiro.

“Show us the map again! I think we’ll all understand once we see it again!” obeying, Hiro displayed the map again “Look where Louis and Gaston were standing. Do you see now?”

It didn’t take long for them to understand. “Louis was nowhere close to the bowl!” Jyn exclaimed.

“There it says Gaston was the one close to the bowl” Ariel confirmed “And there was batter on the fridge, right behind Louis. Does that mean Gaston threw batter at Louis?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that! What’s going on here...” Basil clasped his hands behind his back, very confident about what he was saying “...is that the map is wrong! We have Louis and Gaston’s positions reversed. Gaston was the one in front of the fridge, and Louis was on the side with the bowl”

“...wait, that’s right!” Hiro immediately started fixing the map, scribbling over his marks and drawing Gaston’s mark in front of the fridge, head pointing at the fridge, and the big circle representing Louis now beside the bowl “There, this should be right”

“...wait, then Gaston had his back towards Louis?” Kim frowned “Why’d Gaston be aiming somewhere else?”

“He could have been aiming at Rémy” Lekmet suggested.

“No, there’s a bigger problem than that. Look at the positions” Leia traced the map “If Gaston was looking towards the fridge, then his back was turned towards Louis. That’d mean Louis is the only one who had the chance to kill Gaston”

“W-What? No, that isn’t right!” Louis shouted “He was aiming at me the whole time, he never turned around!”

“But you said he had fallen forward” Negaduck drawled, enjoying the show “Have you been lying, future leather purse?”

“Lying? W-Why’d I lie?”

“You did lie” Basil said “You have been lying...maybe because you didn’t want to admit what you saw?”

“Where are you driving at?” Soos asked. Basil got ready, he said what he had wanted to say since a few minutes ago:

“I’ll say this first: Rémy is the culprit”

“I knew I had done it!” Rémy groaned.

“Yes, it turns out you were right. I’d apologize for not believing you, but we had very good reasons not to believe you. Anyway, I think Louis saw Gaston die, and he doesn’t want to admit it was Rémy”

“Why’d he do that? We’d all die if he didn’t admit it” Freddie had clenched her fists “Louis, you idiot, what were you thinking?”

“I-I-I just—“ Louis stammered, thankfully Basil intervened. He wanted to spare Louis the pain of explaining.

“Do you think someone like Louis would throw a friend under the bus just like that? Of course not” he said “Sure, he would cooperate with the trial, but he’d try to keep suspicions off himself even if he had to lie, and I really doubt he’d point at Rémy and say he had killed Gaston right in front of him...especially if this went like I think it did”

“Fine, stop bragging for a second and just say it straight” Rocket urged “I get it, Louis lied, but what did he lie about?”

Basil didn’t answer directly, instead he asked to Louis: “What did you tamper with, exactly?”

“Louis tampered with the scene too?” Rémy sounded genuinely surprised, turning towards Louis. The alligator nodded, ashamed.

“I was scared about what’d happen, so I just...I turned the body around” he confessed “Then I realized I was making it harder for you guys, so I stopped and went away”

“That must have been when Negaduck saw him” Jyn said “So that means Gaston’s head was actually pointing at Louis, not at the fridge”

“Well, yeah, that must be it. He had his back against the fridge, when he died he fell forward” Molly said “And then when Louis turned the body around, he made that big circle in the flour”

“Fine, that’s what happened. So what? How does that make Rémy the killer?” Stan wondered “He still was in the side with the bowl, how’d Gaston not see him?”

“And how would Rémy run all the way to the other side in time?” Kit added. Neku thought for a moment, examining the map.

“Maybe we have Rémy’s position wrong too. He could have been on the side with the fridge, near the knives”

“That’d explain why Gaston didn’t see him, and how Rémy killed Gaston in time” Lekmet approved.

“Wait, there’s one last problem left! The direction of the wound!” Hiro reminded them “It was downwards, so someone taller than Gaston must have killed him, and Rémy can’t have climbed Gaston while holding the knife!”

“That’s elementary. It’s not so difficult as long as you look at the map again” Basil proudly gestured at the map. “Look where Gaston is, and look what’s directly behind him. Do you see now?”

They did. “The fridge...” Allene murmured

“Anyone would be able to stab Gaston downwards if they were on the fridge” Ariel said, surprised.

“Rémy must have jumped from the top of the fridge with the knife!” Marco realized “That’s why Louis really didn’t see how Gaston was stabbed until it had actually happened!”

“So it was true, Rémy really was the killer” Hiro exclaimed “And if it hadn’t been for Negaduck, we’d have known much earlier instead of suspecting Louis!”

“You almost got all of us killed!” Jyn shouted at him. Negaduck simply shrugged, as if saying ‘oh well. Maybe next time’ “This is the second time he almost gets us killed!”

“He should get tied up again” Ariel suggested. Deciding the trial had gone for long enough, Freddie decided to move to start the voting.

“Okay, we got everything now. The rat is the killer, so how about we start the vote now?”

“Right...there’s nothing left to discuss”

Randy was about to start the vote when Kim stopped them. “Wait!”

“What? What happened?” Moana demanded to know. Kim wasn’t sure how to say it, but he had to:

“It’s just that...it looks like Rémy is the killer, yes, but we don’t have any proof of it yet”

“Proof?” Rémy wasn’t sure how to feel about Kim stopping before voting time happened. “But I already confessed, and I remember now what happened. It’s just like they all have said”

“I know, but I...I’d feel safer about this if there was something proving you’re the killer” she couldn’t look at him.

“Everything so far kind of proves it” Soos said, even though he wasn’t happy about it.

“Yes, but we don’t have tangible evidence. Can we at least try getting some?” she insisted. Basil wanted to proceed with the vote, but...he decided to indulge Kim on this. If she wanted to stall for a little longer before killing her friend, then who was he to tell her not to? It wasn’t like it’d hurt anyone.’

“Okay. Let’s see...what could prove without a shadow of doubt Rémy is the killer?” he mulled everything they had heard so far, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“How about a way to get on the fridge? Rémy may have made a way to get to the counter to the top of the fridge, like placed something there”

“Wait, that’s right! There were a few jars of spices beside the fridge, he must have piled those!” Soos agreed, but Rémy shook his head.

“Those were already there last night. Someone else must have put them there”

“You did use them to get on the fridge, right?” Jyn tried to confirm. Rémy nodded, a bit uncertain if that was of any help.

“Yes, I did, but it doesn’t really prove anything”

“Then the cans aren’t any good for this. Anything else?” Kim tried to think of something, but she wasn’t sure what could be definite proof. “Maybe something Rémy directly handled during the murder? That could have something showing he’s the killer”

“But the only object Rémy interacted with was the knife” Kit said “That didn’t have anything like fur or anything like that”

“If the knife is the only option, then it must be the knife. Someone has it, right? Check that knife!” Hiro looked around. Minnie had the knife, having taken it earlier, and was now turning it around in her hands.

“It’s all full of scratches...the ones Negaduck made. Rémy’s claws wouldn’t do these”

“Let me take a look” Basil requested. Minnie nodded and left the knife on Basil’s podium, letting hi take a good look. Indeed, all the scratches were too large to have been made by Rémy. A bit uneasy at the thought he may find nothing, Basil turned the knife over, checking the other side of the handle.

And there it was. One single incision, much shorter and shallower than the rest. What’s this...? Basil passed a hand over the incision. He felt like he should know what that was, like only he would find out how that mark had happened. Basil tried to picture the scene. Gaston aiming at Louis with the shotgun, Rémy taking the knife, Rémy running with the knife, Rémy climbing the cans to the top of the fridge—

“I got it!”

Everyone stopped talking when Basil exclaimed that. That single incision was the proof they needed! “Really? You found something?” Rocket approached, examining what Basil had seen. “What’s so amazing about that mark?”

“Rémy took the knife and jumped up to the fridge. We know that, but we didn’t wonder how exactly Rémy managed to carry the knife up there”

“I thought he had just thrown the knife up and then climbed the cans” Hiro said.

Allene scratched her cheek. “No, that could have made some noise and Gaston could have heard him. He had to be careful not to make any noise. If he needed his hands to climb, then...” her eyes widened “...I got it too!”

“What? What did you two get?” Rocket was looking between Basil and Allene, annoyed at them for beating around the bush. “Just say it already!”

“Animals carry stuff with their mouths” Stan clarified. A look of realization fell on almost everyone, Rémy included. He covered his mouth, understanding what they meant.

“Of course. Rémy bit into the handle of the knife and carried it up. That means...” Basil showed the mark to everyone “This here was made with his front teeth”

“Didn’t Rémy chew through a wooden spoon the other day?” Soos asked. If Rémy had been capable of doing that to a whole wooden spoon, then leaving a mark on a knife handle would be pretty easy!

“How do you know I didn’t make that one too?” Negaduck tried to stop their realization, but nobody paid attention to him. The case was solved, they had evidence that linked Rémy to the weapon, and they had the confession. It now was voting time.

The needles were distributed; the pieces of paper were given to everyone. The votes didn’t take long. Lekmet pushed Negaduck aside and casted a vote incorrectly. Still, there was something Allene didn’t understand.

“What was up with your memory loss? You didn’t hit your head, right?” she asked. Rémy rubbed the top of his head, he remembered everything – or so he thought.

“No, I’m sure I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t remember everything until now”

“That’d be because of me” Randy smiled and raised a hand, as if he hadn’t just admitted to messing with someone’s memory. Several people demanded an explanation. “I did it to get the trial going, of course”

Rémy was in disbelief. “What?!” of course it had to be magic. Why else would it have happened?

“What kind of culprit confesses right at the start of the trial? So last night I modified your memory, so you wouldn’t be able to explain what you did. I’ll say, it worked quite well”

“Wow. That’s almost impressive” Freddie seemed genuinely admiring of that.

“Don’t blame me, I’m not the one who blurted out his plans about confessing. If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything” Randy made a whimsical gesture towards Rémy “Aaaaand done. You were still missing a little bit of memory. Now you have it”

It was like getting a bucketful of cold water poured on him. He remembered everything very clearly now. How he had been cooking in the kitchen, how Louis burst in, how Gaston entered afterwards and prepared to shoot Louis...

...how he grabbed the knife, how he climbed the jars with the knife in his mouth...how he jumped from the top of the fridge, knife first...

...how the knife buried into Gaston’s neck.

Rémy felt like he could cry. He couldn’t and he knew it -- rats can’t cry -- but he felt like he wanted to cry.

“I really did do it...” he murmured, writing his name with his blood. “I’m sorry, everyone. I...I was trying to stop Gaston from hurting Louis”

“You jumped at him with a knife. What did you expect?” Kim chided, although her voice sounded anything but stern. Rémy chuckled without humor.

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I saw that man, the shotgun, and someone about to die right in front of me. I just...I couldn’t think of anything. I’m sorry, I’m very sorry”

“I’m not going to say it wasn’t your fault, but...at least you tried to confess at the start of the trial” Allene said “That has to count for something”

“It doesn’t. I killed him, and that’s it. I don’t want to talk about that” he ignored the platitudes some people said. It hurt to listen.

He couldn’t ignore what Louis said, though. “Y-You saved my life. I...I wanted to thank you”

“Don’t mention it”

“No, seriously, thank you. For everything”

That was enough for him.

-ooooo-

He had never imagined he’d ever stab someone, yet there he had just done that. Gaston fell forward, Rémy held onto the knife for dear life. When the unconscious Gaston fell to the floor, Rémy took deep breaths, trying to ignore the blood pooling in the clothing under his feet. “I...I killed him? I killed him...” this wasn’t what he was supposed to go!

Then again, how stupid did he have to be to do this as the very first measure? No, he knew exactly why: the shotgun. He still could remember that old woman shooting at him and the rest of the rats. He had been so close to being pulverized by a shotgun. If he got Gaston’s attention, he’d risk that again, and this man was a hunter. He wouldn’t miss, would he?

Incapacitating him was necessary, he had thought. But he hadn’t incapacitated Gaston. He had killed him. “Oh no...” the immensity of his actions started to dawn on him.

“Rémy...?”

Louis’ voice snapped him out of his shock. Louis was sitting there, eyes wide open and staring at him. “Y-You killed him!” he exclaimed.

“Yes...I think I did”

“Why did you—you killed Gaston!”

“I know I did!”

“Why?”

“I wanted to stop him! I didn’t think I would...” he leaned against the bloody knife, suddenly feeling weak “I didn’t think it’d end with him dead...”

There was a tense silence for a moment. Louis wasn’t sure what to do. Should he run outside? Should he fear Rémy was going to attack him now? “Y-You know I’ll have to tell them about what you did? I’m a witness...” he said. Rémy nodded, not looking at him.

“You should do that. Tell everyone about what I did”

“You’re not going to try to get away with this?”

“...I don’t want anyone else to die” Rémy stood from the knife, taking a decision. “I’m going to confess once the trial starts. We won’t need a trial; it’ll be over in no time. I’m counting on you to back me up, as my friend. We’ll tell them what happened”

“Then you’re going to die” Louis couldn’t avoid admiring a bit Rémy’s determination, even if it meant the rat was going to get executed in some gruesome way “Aren’t you scared about that?”

“I’m terrified, but there’s nothing to be done” indeed, he was trembling, so much he had to hold onto the knife again. He didn’t feel strong not even to walk.

-ooooo-

“I’m terrified...” he murmured, barely hearing how Randy was telling them they had gotten it right. He had curled in a ball, out of sight of everyone else, so terrified it felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. He had his eyes tightly shut, refusing to open them no matter what.

He was going to die and he knew it.

He had brought this onto himself.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t able to keep his eyes closed. Suddenly he found himself hoisted into the air. Before he realized what was going on, he was thrown into what seemed to be an oven grill. Rémy clung to one of the rods, looking down to the base of the oven. All around him was silent. It felt like he had been isolated from the world, he couldn’t see outside.

Was that Randy’s plan? To bake him? It was...kind of uncreative. It would be far from pleasant, but at least it wasn’t too bad.

A stream of fire erupted from a corner of the oven. Slowly, with clanks of cogs moving, the stream of fire started moving, its base was being carried around. Rémy yelped, jumping to a different rod, and held for dear life. The floor of the oven glowed bright red, falling down would mean a sure death. Another two, three streams formed in the corners. The streams moved, ascending up the walls, going across the ceiling, zigzagging on the floor. His tail was singed, he felt the streams coming closer every time. The fire was so intense, so bright Rémy wasn’t sure what was what, all he could do was cling to the already burning hot metal and hope it was over quicker.

Randy was playing, he was sure of it. The fire only got closer to almost burn him, even when Rémy stayed completely still. A bit delirious, he almost didn’t hear when a strange hiss filled the oven. The smell of propane filled the air. “Oh, come on--!”

Outside, everyone saw the oven explode. The fire and smoke formed a comically large mushroom cloud, reaching the ceiling. Bits of steel fell all over the scenario, the backdrop of a kitchen was torn in half. Nobody said anything, just watching the explosion, until as fast as it started, it stopped. The mushroom diminished, until it disappeared with a squeak. There was nothing left on the scenario other than ashes and pieces of smoldering metal.

Rémy was dead.

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Broadcast

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:21:33 GMT

Only when it was dinnertime they noticed Rémy was gone.

The rat had been allowed to live in the bistro. It wasn’t uncommon for him to have some sort of flash of inspiration, making some sort of new dish Colette and Linguini would approve, having it ready right at the start of the night. When they found nothing, they didn’t think much of it, they simply thought he hadn’t prepared anything new. It actually was a bit unusual Rémy hadn’t been seen at all during the afternoon, while they prepared the bistro to be opened, but neither Linguini nor Colette were too concerned about that. It was possible Rémy was up there in the crawlspace above, entertaining the other rats that came from time to time.

The humans didn’t like to think about that. Sure, it was like a small bistro up there, only Rémy lived up there, and it all was surprisingly clean, but despite everything they had gone through neither Linguini nor Colette had gotten over the fact that...well... sometimes there was a dozen or two dozen rats near the kitchen. That was understandable. The health department had been rather difficult to convince Rémy was very hygienic, there was no way they’d approve the other rats without a very in-depth examination of the place -- again.

Out of sight, out of mind. They had decided to trust Rémy’s judgment. They owed that to him, after all.

“It’s almost dinnertime and he hasn’t come here yet. You should go get him” Colette said to Linguini, glancing up with some apprehension. Linguini sighed, dreading a bit having to intrude in the crawlspace, but they needed Rémy. Linguini peered into the small bistro in the crawlspace. All the tables were empty, there was no dust, and not even a single rat was in sight.

“He’s not up here” Linguini said once he returned down. Colette crossed her arms, not liking the sound of that. Now it was time to worry, it had become obvious to her he took very seriously his job so he being nowhere in the bistro was reason to be alarmed now.

“Do you think something happened to him?”

Linguini immediately shook his head, not wanting to think something like that. “N-No! Colette, he’s a very smart rat, surely he’s okay. He wouldn’t go around carelessly or anything like that, he is—“

“I know, it’s just that this is very unusual. I can’t avoid worrying”

“Let’s start working. He’ll come during the night, you’ll see” he reassured her, going to prepare for another night as the bistro’s waiter.

Rémy was nowhere to be seen during the entire night.

-ooooo-

It was troublesome to work while worrying about Rémy, but they had managed to do it. Still, when Linguini noticed the rat hadn’t appeared at all, he decided to come the next morning. He told to Colette he had to make sure there were enough vegetables for the week. She didn’t believe the excuse at all, she gave him a look of sympathy and said: “Don’t lose hope. Surely there’s a reasonable explanation for this, we simply don’t know what it is yet” she was worried too, but if Linguini was trying to pretend everything was okay, she wasn’t going to be the one to dispel the illusion.

Staying in the bistro kitchen, pacing around and unable to do any work, was nerve-wracking. It was the silence, it made Linguini fret and imagine the worst-case scenarios. Rats were largely defenseless; it really was possible something had happened to Rémy! Cats, cars, other varied threats. For all he knew Rémy was caught and taken to do something ludicrous like make a line of frozen food or something! “I can’t keep going like this!” he shouted, taking out the portable TV they had stashed in a corner of the kitchen. Some noise to fill the air would be nice. Linguini turned the old TV on and returned to work on the other side of the kitchen, washing the dishes almost mechanically.

It took him a while to realize he didn’t know what was he was hearing was all about. Usually the TV would broadcast news or some sort of boring event he wouldn’t pay much attention to, but the broadcast this time sounded...strange. There was some static, sometimes it sounded like whoever was talking was far away, yet he understood every single word of it. Linguini looked up, starting to be conscious of what he was hearing.

The TV showed a place he didn’t know. Whatever place that was looked very old, like it was almost falling apart. A bunch of people he didn’t know appeared on screen, talking with each other. Was that an alligator? He was sure that was an alligator. Linguini groaned softly, walking towards the TV and intending to turn it off. “What’s going on now?” he mumbled, extending a hand.

That’s when he saw the rat he had been so worried about.

At first he didn’t recognize the rat, but just seeing him made him stop. The rat was talking with the alligator; Linguini could hear their voices. Out of curiosity, he listened, until the camera focused on the bios. What he read sent chills down his spine.

In a second, Linguini ran to the phone, fumbling with the receiver and almost dropping it to the floor. His hands were shaking. “Come on come on come on...!” he breathed, waiting for Colette to pick up. She had barely answered the phone when he urged her to get going. “Colette, you have to be here. This is bad, you have to see this now! There’s no time to explain!”

Once Colette saw what was going on she was glad she didn’t demand an explanation through the phone. It’d have been difficult to explain, and Linguini was too upset to chain a long explanation. She furrowed her brow, watching the TV broadcast attentively. “It’s strange, I was watching this channel at home and there was something completely different”

“Are you saying this is only for us? Like a—a hostage situation?”

“That could be it. If that’s the rat chef, then this could be their way of making us know they have him”

“What about the rest?” Linguini waved a hand in front of the TV screen, gesturing at everyone else who was being shown in the broadcast. “Did they get kidnapped too?”

“Perhaps, yes...”

“This is insane! They kidnapped a big group of people and for what? Just to have them around?”

“Let’s watch a bit longer”

It took around an hour for them to find out exactly what was going on. A zombie was telling everyone they had to kill each other. The situation had gone beyond insane; it was outright surreal now. Linguini didn’t even know what to say, the one moment he tried he just sputtered, at a loss for words. Colette was pale, with an expression of fear, but she managed to stay calm while she listened. “They have to kill each other...that’s monstrous!”

“Little Chef can’t kill anyone! Look at him, he’s a rat! What’s he going to do, bite someone to death?” Linguini buried his face in his hands. “He’s going to die, Colette...what do you think is more likely, that they’ll kill another person or that they’ll kill an animal?”

He was right and she knew it. If anyone was going to target someone, it was likely they’d aim for the animals, especially the smaller ones. “Let’s not think the worst case scenario” she suggested, the color returning to her face somewhat.

-ooooo-

Maybe it was a bit cruel of Linguini to hope the rat was some random rat instead of Little Chef. He really wanted to think that wasn’t his friend. The content of the bio proved those hopes were misplaced, though.

A couple days had passed. Linguini had said he wanted to watch as much of the broadcast as possible. The bistro’s nighttime food service never stopped, he knew there was no excuse to stop. Colette and he were maintaining an illusion everything was okay despite the rat’s absence. Sure, some people noticed the food tasted somewhat different, but since Colette was a very talented chef, there were no complaints.

By now Linguini had calmed down, somewhat. Colette said she was going to look for a way to way to help everyone who was trapped, but she didn’t seem to have any hope she’d be able to find out where the hostages were at. They didn’t even know what the outside of that place looked like.

Watching the broadcast was interesting.

“I didn’t know he could talk” Linguini commented one afternoon, watching Rémy cooking for people.

“Maybe we as humans simply couldn’t hear him” Colette said.

“I know, but a lot of things would have been easier for all of us if we could have talked to each other. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think”

“I guess so” Colette put a hand on his shoulder, leaning towards him “Once he’s back you could try talking to him. Who knows, maybe now that you know he can talk you can hold a conversation with him”

“I didn’t even know he had a name” he turned his head towards Colette “You think all the rats have names? Like, do rat parents give their rat children names?”

“I don’t know. That’s something you’ll have to talk with him, not with me” Rémy was a nice name. She liked it much more than ‘Little Chef’, at least.

-ooooo-

The first death was quite a shock. Neither Linguini nor Colette had ever seen a dead body before, and this was an experience they didn’t want to repeat.

Neither of them said they were glad Rémy wasn’t the victim. It seemed callous to even think it. Not even daring to look at each other as if fearing they’d read each other’s minds, they both kept watching the screen.

“…th-they’re taking it so well…” Linguini commented, trying hard not to think about what the people in the broadcast were investigating for.

Colette was just as scared, but she decided they couldn’t dance around the topic. “They are, but that’s not surprising. It must be hard to know one of them killed that old woman”

“Even Rémy is investigating”

Both of them had faith Rémy wouldn’t ever do something like commit murder, and that was reinforced once during the trial it was revealed a culprit would have to sacrifice everyone else. Rémy wouldn’t be so coldhearted as to let everyone die just so he survived! Not even when his cooking ability was taken away he tried to attack anyone. If that didn’t get him to kill, then surely he never would!

-ooooo-

Two weeks passed.

Kids died. It was largely depressing to watch. By the time Jane was caught as the second culprit, both Colette and Linguini had agreed to never watch the trials ever again.

It was too painful to watch.

-ooooo-

Linguini considered Rémy a good friend, someone he liked a lot and supported wholeheartedly, yet now he was starting to realize he knew almost nothing about Rémy besides ‘he’s a rat’ and ‘he’s a superb chef’.

True, it was impossible to truly know someone when you can’t talk with them, but he still felt a bit guilty about calling someone a friend while knowing nothing about him. Linguini was learning more through four weeks of broadcast than through eight months being near Rémy.

Rémy used to live in the countryside. He had a brother named Émile. He disliked sweet stuff. He knew how to swim. He didn’t know how technology worked. He was a terrible gymnast. He kind of knew how to play billiards and card games. The more Linguini found out, the more he started to wonder if Rémy would still be able to talk once he returned. Linguini certainly hoped so.

Colette agreed with Linguini that Rémy was much more...complicated than she thought he was. Sure, she respected Rémy, but that was mostly because of his talent in the kitchen. Other than that, she didn’t have much reason to respect him because she didn’t know him.

Now they had seen Rémy was charismatic and rather friendly. He loved cooking for people, and strived to use his talent to help the rest to endure better the situation. He tried to support others. He wasn’t immune to the stress and trauma, too, they saw how he got depressed after Jane’s trial, and how he was so furious with Negaduck he convinced Gaston to tie up the duck. The rat was full of emotions, that much they could see now.

Both Linguini and Colette were starting to see Rémy as a person instead of just as a rat who was good at cooking.

It was hard not to feel they had been unfair towards Rémy, even if it hadn’t been intentionally. “I hope we’ll be able to talk to him once he’s back” Colette said, smiling wistfully. “It’s about time we have a long talk with Rémy”

“I’d like that” Linguini agreed.

-ooooo-

After a while he kept wondering if all rats were like Rémy. True, they seemed rather intelligent, but now that Rémy was showing a personality and traits Linguini hadn’t ever imagined he’d have, he wondered if maybe the other rats were like that too, more than what met the eye. True, the ones Rémy had been training were okay, but they didn’t seem to trust the humans that much yet, so it wasn’t like he spent much time with them. He couldn’t know for sure.

One morning, while leaving the TV on to listen to the broadcast, his curiosity got the best of him. He peeked into the crawlspace.

Empty, for the most part. Ever since Rémy went missing, no rat had been around– as far as the humans knew, at least. This time there was someone sitting to one of the makeshift tables, though – a plump brown rat. He was gnawing on something that seemed to be some sort of wrapper. All that good food just a short distance away and this rat here was eating trash? That was either monumental restraint, or a lot of desperation. “Hey” Linguini greeted, uncertain. The rat looked up, freezing, and slowly started backing down. “N-No, it’s okay, I just wanted to talk”

That seemed to be enough to calm down the rat. At a loss of words, Linguini looked around. “Nice place, this...this place” he commented. The rat and him looked at each other for a few seconds before the rat resumed chewing on the wrapper, clearly trying to fill the silence with anything. “This is so awkward...” Linguini murmured. There he was, trying to talk with a rat for no reason at all. Apparently speaking to Rémy hadn’t made it easier to do that.

...Rémy. Now that he thought about it, he remembered seeing a similar rat with Rémy. Perhaps... “Do you know Rémy?” that got the rat’s attention, he stopped chewing again. Encouraged, Linguini aimed a shot in the dark: “Are you Émile?” judging by how the rat’s ears stood on end and he dropped the wrapper in shock, he really was Émile. The moment of elation Linguini felt vanished almost immediately, remembering what he was here for.

“You...you know what happened to Rémy, right?”

Émile looked down and nodded. Right, the TV was there in the kitchen. It was possible Émile or any other rat had heard that Rémy was trapped somewhere and was in danger of dying. “Uh, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be okay. Rémy is a clever rat, and he’s getting along with people! Nothing will happen to him, you’ll see”

Something about the way Émile looked at him resonated in him. Even though Émile didn’t say a word, the way he stared at Linguini seemed to be begging for reassurance. ‘Do you really think that?’ he seemed to be thinking. Linguini tried to look like he wasn’t hesitating. “Let’s believe in him” Émile seemed to shrink a little, Linguini’s reassurance didn’t seem to do much.

No, this couldn’t continue like this. Both Émile and Linguini needed emotional support, and neither of them could give it to each other. After a few seconds, Linguini extended a hand. “Do you...want to be down here for a while? There’s this TV and Rémy appears sometimes, you could...you could see him” and as a bonus, to sweeten the deal: “I can also give you some food if you want”

Émile stepped forward, hesitant at first, but after a moment he pretty much rushed to Linguini. Whether it was out of concern for Rémy or because he wanted food wasn’t clear. It was most likely both. Holding onto Linguini’s thumb, Émile let himself be taken to the kitchen and put on the counter, in front of the TV. Just as promised, Linguini brought some fruit, giving it to Émile. “Let’s keep this a secret between the two of us, okay? I think Colette wouldn’t like this” Linguini smiled sheepishly “Just try not to make much of a mess”

Somehow, having Émile around made Linguini feel a little better.

-ooooo-

It was Friday again, and Linguini’s feeling of dread was as strong as usual. It had been like that during the last two Fridays, it meant it was time to find out who was dead. Still, something about the feeling of dread seemed to be stronger than usual, like he knew something horrible had happened. He asked for Colette to be with him for the body reveal.

When people started milling around, Linguini kept his eyes glued on the screen. He barely noticed how he grabbed Colette’s hand and squeezed it. He was waiting to see Rémy. Last time he had stayed in the first floor, but the camera didn’t stay long there, it went to the second floor with some of the captured. It didn’t take long to see a dead body up in the second floor.

“That is the raccoon” Colette said. So that was the dead body this week...alright then.

“I was having such a bad feeling” Linguini felt bad for the raccoon, but he was more relieved than saddened over the raccoon’s death. That meant Rémy was safe for another week.

And then it continued. The person who had approached the body leaned forward, the camera moved as well. It focused on a small corpse right beside Rocket.

And Rémy said the person finding the bodies.

Linguini stared at the screen, not believing what he had just heard, what he was seeing. That was unmistakably Rémy. Colette’s eyes were wide open; she was covering her mouth with both hands in horror. He didn’t hear anything else said in the broadcast. He knew someone was saying something, he saw everyone moving, but he didn’t process anything else. He just couldn’t believe he was dead.

And Rémy.

Moving slowly and clearly holding back tears, Colette turned off the TV, there was no more than silence in the kitchen now. For what seemed like an eternity neither of them said anything, they didn’t move, Linguini stared at the black TV screen and Colette stood beside the TV, hugging her sides.

He didn’t know how much time passed before he finally moved, he stood up and went to the office. He felt numb, like he couldn’t believe what he had just seen. Once he got to the office, he sat behind the desk and buried his face in his hands, taking deep breaths.

Neither Colette nor him had been so foolish as to think Rémy would be around for a long time. They knew he’d have three, maybe four years of life if he was lucky. They had made arrangements about the future of the bistro, they had even told Rémy about it and the rat had given his approval. Rémy had even been looking for successors, teaching other rats – less talented than him, but they were improving at an outstanding rate.

But there was a big difference between a natural death at the end of one’s lifespan, and a murder. They hadn’t been prepared for a murder. Although the possibility Rémy would be killed wherever he was now had crossed their minds, they had refused to consider it for longer than necessary.

And now it had happened. What was he going to say to Émile later? What was he supposed to say to the people who enjoyed Rémy’s food?

He barely felt Colette putting her hands on his shoulders, he heard her crying softly behind him. His fingers curled, he finally started crying into his hands. Even though there was nothing he could have done, he felt he should have done more. He felt like he had left Rémy to his fate, simply hoping he’d survive.

Watching the trial sounded like an unthinkable thing to do. Linguini just couldn’t bear the thought of having to watch it, even if it was the chance to find out who had done that to their friend. He just couldn’t do it.

Linguini had never felt as powerless as he felt that day.

-ooooo-

For the first time since the bistro’s grand opening, it didn’t open that night, neither the next one, or the next after that.

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