Tori (Patreon)

After Tori's final meeting with Daskatoma, I'm going to have her wander home, shaken. She'll come across Security Chief Tipohee who will be investigating Computer Chief Nija's death. I think she'll be bludgeoned to death instead of poisoned. She might have gotten a swipe in with her envelope knife, but it won't save her.

This is also where I plan to verify that Tipohee is no dummy and realizes full well the danger they are in, so Tori will be able to cross him off her list. I also plan to plant a clue here of who the real killer is.

So, why am I telling you this? Well, I don't feel like writing that scene right now, frankly, and I'm going to skip it and save it for the next revision of the story. Please don't give me any flack about how you won't be able to guess who the murderer is without it. The first draft of a murder mystery will always be too easy or too difficult to solve. That kind of thing will hopefully be ironed out in editing. That's the joy of seeing the first draft!

Anyhow, after that, Tori will head home for one final night of sleep with her mate, Druka.

——— 

Lying in bed, Tori watched her mate brush his fur, getting ready for work.

“You look stressed,” said Druka. Not that it should be a surprise. She was stressed out of her mind and he knew it. She figured he was probably freaking out just as badly but was just better at hiding it.

“I don’t have the list,” she sighed, but of course, he knew that too.

“No, but you presented an alternate plan to Daskatoma,” he said, taking a moment to peel some excess fur from his brush with his claws. “And frankly, I think it’s a far superior plan to his original one. The problem isn’t a murderer. Well, that is a problem, but the heart of the problem is that this ship is completely screwed up. A serial killer is only a symptom.”

He stretched his arm as far as he could, trying to brush his back. “If you had managed to find the killer, that would only have pushed the true problem back into remission. The tension in the crew would still be overheated and ready to boil over.”

Tori sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She held out a paw for the brush, and he gave it to her. Then he turned around so she could tidy up the spots he had missed. “I know, hon,” she whispered as she brushed his back.

It was a better plan—or it would have been, at least, if the captain had taken care of it weeks earlier—but now with the krakun enacting it, there would be executions instead of demotions, and innocent geroo would be killed along with the guilty because the company was too lazy to figure out who were the troublemakers and who weren’t.

Not to mention that the partial purge might well include herself. Daskatoma had pointedly avoided promising that she’d be spared.

Druka didn’t realize any of this, of course. She’d only told him her plan to demote those in charge, not how the commissioner had revised it. As much as she wanted to bare her soul to him, she was certain that he’d heal faster if her inclusion on the executions roster surprised them both—or appeared to at least.

She hoped that he’d be able to get back to the Harvest Reaper III someday. Then he could tell her family what had happened instead of leaving them wondering.

“You still gonna meet with the captain before the commissioner arrives?” he asked.

“Yeah, I have to. My appointment with him is in half an hour.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Even though Daskatoma said not to tell anyone?”

“And I kept my word … basically,” she said. “Commissioner Troykintrassa will be here in an hour, and the captain will find out then anyhow. I just feel like he should hear it from me.”

When she finished grooming him, she walked him to the door and touched his paw farewell. “I love you,” she whispered.

“And I love you too, always,” he said. “But you’ll see, it’ll go great. Send me a message when the commissioner leaves. Lemme know what he said.”

Tori nodded and watched as her mate hurried down the corridor, trying to beat the rush to the gravity wells.

She turned and was surprised to spot Security Chief Tipohee and Officer Sese approaching. She waved, but they ignored her. With grim ears, they knocked at the next-door neighbor’s.

“Biiz and Lusa work thirds,” she called as she approached. “I doubt they’re home yet.”

“We need to speak with Inea,” said Sese, apology in her voice.

“What?” Tori stopped in her tracks. “Without his parents present?”

Tipohee pointed a screwdriver at her face, his ears back. “Don’t. We received another anonymous tip. This one very specific.”

“Oh, for crying-out…” Tori put her fists on her hips. “You know it’s just one of his classmates, jerking you around, right?”

Inea peeked out from the apartment and Tipohee shoved the door open, making him yelp in surprise.

“Chief!” shouted Tori in outrage, but the security chief was already forcing his way inside. By the time she caught up with them, Tipohee was already in Inea’s bedroom, unscrewing an access panel from the wall.

“What’s going on?” Inea pleaded with Tori.

“It’s just another anonymous tip,” she reassured him. “Just like before, they have to check it out—”

Tipohee set the panel aside, exposing pipes and valves that crisscrossed the wall’s interior. Nestled between the pipes sat a blue plastic bag. The chief turned and fixed the cub with a stare. “So, what’s this?”

“I… I… I’ve never seen that before,” said Inea, furiously shaking his head. “I’ve never even unscrewed that panel before! I had no idea anything was inside it.”

Sese rested a paw on Inea’s shoulder. Tori doubted the teen would have tried to run if given the chance, but he’d never get around the big female.

Tipohee pulled the bag from the wall, reached in and pulled out a stuffed animal—a toy krakun wearing silver boots on his hind claws. Was it the one used as a model for the underground video? Tori had no idea. She gasped but Inea was already wailing, “That’s not mine!”

Tipohee dropped the toy on the deck and reached back into the bag. This item was much smaller. He held it to his ear and gave it a shake. “Empty,” he said.

Tori leaned closer and Tipohee read the label on the pill bottle, “Quinalbarbitone.”

The rusty red geroo covered her muzzle with both paws. “Big orange pills,” she whispered.

“Inea,” said Officer Sese, “you’re under arrest for the murder of eight of the ship’s officers and crew.”

He didn’t resist as she zip-tied his wrists behind his back, but the teen stared only at Tori. “I didn’t do it! I swear!”

“This has to be some sort of mistake,” said Tori, but Tipohee held the pill bottle up before her eyes.

“So, where do you suppose he found these?” he asked. “Swiped a bottle of suicide pills from his parents’ medicine cabinet?”

“I didn’t do it!” howled Inea as Tipohee shoved the evidence back in the bag and led the youth away. “I don’t know how those got in there!”

Tori found herself alone with Sese. Both shared the same shocked expression in the bedroom’s sudden silence.

“Sese, please, this doesn’t make any sense. I know this cub. He’s not a murderer.”

Sese raised her paws, showing her helplessness. “There’s nothing I can do, Tori. A judge is going to have to sort this out.”

“But he’s being framed!” said Tori. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Sese shrugged. “Security doesn’t figure out who is guilty or innocent. We just apprehend suspects and bring them to court. You’ll need to talk to the judge.”

Tori gasped. “I can’t! I have to meet with the captain in a few minutes, and then the commissioner is arriving!” Tori grabbed Sese’s paws. “Just, just stall him, okay?” she begged. “Tell the judge that I have compelling evidence that will indisputably prove Inea’s innocence, but I’m tied up in meetings, okay?”

Sese’s ears raised high. “What evidence?” she asked.

“Just tell them that, please Sese?” Tori begged. “Just stall them as long as you can. Just give me a chance to fix this somehow.”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

Tori was already paging through the access logs to the apartment door. Just like for Stoli’s apartment, there weren’t any suspicious entries for the past several days. “Please?” begged Tori. “Just promise me you’ll stall them. I’ll break free just as soon as I’m able.”

# # #

Tori found the captain pacing nervously outside the shuttle bay. He glanced up at her as she approached. “So?” he asked. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

Tori took a seat on the dressing bench but was unable to meet his eyes. How in the hells was she supposed to do this?

Tori took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I first met with the deputy commissioner two weeks ago,” she finally said, “he told me that he was planning was to purge the ship.”

When the captain didn’t reply, she looked up. His ears were up, and his eyes opened so wide that she could see white all the way around his irises. “What?” he finally gasped.

She frowned and lowered her eyes. “He said that the Boots video had pushed the crew close to a state of revolt, and that he was afraid if he didn’t purge the crew, that the ship could be scuttled in a mutiny. He was worried the company would lose the ship. He figured it’d be safer to sacrifice all of us rather than risk the ship.”

Another pause. The captain stepped closer, his voice low and dangerous, “And you didn’t tell me about that until now?”

She looked up, feeling just as miserable as she possibly could. “He ordered me not to, sir.”

“That’s not the sort of order you obey!” he blurted.

She gestured wildly with her paws. “I wasn’t even supposed to tell you now, but the commissioner is going to be here at any minute, and I wanted to clear my conscience first. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

Captain Gutassi collapsed onto the bench beside her and stared out at the glass window to the bay itself. “And when,” he finally managed, “was he planning on doing this?”

“Weeks ago,” she admitted. “From the way he was talking, it sounded like his plan was in the final stages during his previous inspection.”

The captain turned and stared at her wordlessly. “But…?”

“I kinda talked Daskatoma into stalling his uncle,” she explained. “The deputy commissioner wanted me to find and execute both the murderer and whoever was making the video, but I told him there was no way I could solve two mysteries in two weeks.”

“So, what happened?” he demanded. “He hasn’t purged us, so you must—”

“Well,” she whispered, “his new plan was for me to narrow down the list of suspects. He said he’d stall his uncle until the next inspection—until today—but then he’d need a list.” She wiped at her eyes, but it didn’t help much. She was crying so hard that everything was a blurry mess. “He figured if he could execute just a couple hundred geroo or fewer and be certain that both the killer and filmmaker were dead, then that would be good enough to prevent the purge.”

Captain Gutassi leaned back against the wall, covering his mouth with a paw for many long seconds while he absorbed the news. Finally, he asked, “Do I even want to know who’s on the list?”

She didn’t answer. How could she?

He turned back to her, panic in his voice, demanding, “Who’s on the list?”

“I…” she whispered. “I don’t have a list.”

“What?” he shouted, leaping to his paws. “But without a list…”

Tori nodded.

“Oh, ancestors, help us,” he whispered. He took a few wandering steps as if dazed. “How could you not—”

“It’s not my fault! I don’t know who they are, and I haven’t found a decent way to eliminate suspects,” she explained, “but then, this morning, Tipohee arrested my neighbor’s cub. They found evidence in his room connecting him to both the video and the murders—”

“That’s great!”

“But sir! I guarantee you that evidence was planted,” she said, pressing her palms together, pleading with him. “There’s no way he did it. I can’t prove that, but I’m telling you the truth. It wasn’t Inea.”

“So, what are you suggesting?” the captain shouted. “That I don’t give him up? That I let the commissioner purge the ship? You do realize that this cub dies either way, right?”

“I know!” she sobbed. But what could she say? Could she tell him about her new plan—her plan that was all-but-guaranteed to get both of them killed?

The captain paced furiously back and forth across the deck. He stopped suddenly. “The deputy commissioner was here last night. You talked to him.”

Tori nodded silently.

“You … told him that you don’t have a list yet.”

She looked down. Nodded again.

Gutassi peeled the strand from his shoulder and stabbed at it with a finger. Tipohee answered on the third ring. “You arrested some cub this morning, name of Inea?”

Tori couldn’t see the chief’s face, but she heard his voice. “Yes, sir! We got him. Looks like we’ve solved both crimes.”

“Sit on him.”

“What?” gasped the geroo on the far side of the call.

“Take away his strand. Lock him in a closet or something,” barked the captain. “I don’t want him talking to a judge or his parents or his friends. No one. No documentation at all. You sit on him until I tell you otherwise. Do you hear me?”

“Um, yes sir.”

“Next, I need a list. How many troublemakers have we got on this ship?”

Tipohee paused. “A couple dozen or so depending who you count,” he said. “Thieves, drug pushers, black market.”

“Domestic abuse? Drunks? Anyone you’ve had to peel from a fistfight more than once?”

The chief yarped. “Yeah, we’ve got those. How many you want?”

“Like forty, fifty, sixty total?” said the captain. “Those you’d like to get rid of most. Open a new file titled ‘suspects’ and put their names—their names only—in it.”

“Okay…” The chief dragged out the sound like he was growing uncomfortable with whatever the captain was up to. “You want this Inea cub on that list too?”

“No, not him,” said Gutassi. “Then get me that list. Send it directly to my strand. I want it yesterday.”

“Yes sir!” said the chief before breaking the connection.

Tori stared at him. “So, you’re not throwing Inea to the krakun. Instead … dozens of geroo that are also probably innocent.”

“Maybe they didn’t kill the officers or make a video,” he said, “but no one on that list will be innocent. If I have to make a sacrifice to save everyone else, then at least I can make the best of it.”

“Why not just throw them the cub?”

Gutassi shook his head. “They won’t buy it. I wouldn’t buy it if I were the commissioner. We don’t have a list yesterday, but today the case is solved?” He shrugged. “He’ll think I caught the cub sleeping with my daughter.”

Tori just stared, her head spinning. “Yikes. And so, what about Inea?”

“None of your concern,” he said.

“Not my concern?” Tori shouted, getting to her paws. “Not only is this my case, but he’s my friends’ son! What are you going to do with him?”

Gutassi frowned. “I’m ordering you to keep this to yourself, understood?”

Tori frowned. “Yes, sir.”

“If we’re lucky to get through this inspection alive—and I have my doubts at this point—then I plan to interrogate him … personally,” said the captain. “If he truly has been set up to take the fall for this, then fine, but if he did it—if there’s any chance he did it—then he needs to disappear without a trace.”

A junior officer, the commissioner’s liaison, approached so the captain lowered his voice. “If that happens, then the commissioner needs to believe that the list we give him definitely included the right geroo.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19uQh5BuUplNzQm3PkhULy-RCWIZdDDMLd25R8AJsujo/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?