//------------------------------// // 7. Deposition and Discovery // Story: Bug in a Blizzard // by Paracompact //------------------------------// There we sat as eight—my partner and I, and the six youths. Or rather, beyond doubt as it was, five youths and the changeling impostor. Everyone sat in silence, on edge from the chaos of the last several minutes. Even those who hadn’t been there to witness the changeling in the flesh understood the heightened gravity of the situation. With my, Gloria’s, and Bluebird’s eyewitness testimony, there was no hiding from the truth—there was an intruder. This was no ruse or elaborate misunderstanding. And this fact, realized now in certainty, weighed heavily on everyone’s subconscious. Each in attendance had a unique reaction to that weight:: Zorn—seated in an armchair at a distance from the rest of the group, who spied on him at regular intervals—repeated a gesture familiar to me from my first meeting with him, that of wringing his hooves incessantly. He seemed determined to look anywhere but into the eyes of any of his friends… but curiously, caught my gaze from time to time, as though silently pleading. Blanche, for her part, peered at me and Bluebird with a greater frequency. With crossed hooves and a tilt to her chin, she sought to conceal any anxiety the situation would have on her—but her ramrod posture spoke to the truth. Girard was hunched over, his forehead in his claw, propped up by his elbow on the coffee table separating me and Bluebird from the six. With a nauseous look on his face, Girard pored over the exhibits of evidence I had arranged on the table: that of Blanche’s plastic bag with the wing fragment and parchment, as well as the lockpicking tools Bluebird had recovered from in front of Zorn’s door. On anyone else this would’ve been too guilty of body language even for the textbooks; on Girard, one couldn’t quite say. Gloria, as to be expected, sat next to her cousin. Presently, she devoted the majority of her attention to calming him down with a full-body preening. However, I did not miss the several suspicious glances she stole in Grid Iron’s direction, and his alone. Grid Iron carried the same posture as he had in our original meeting-of-seven, only more exaggerated—gripping his chair seat, chewing his cheek, tapping his back hoof. I saw it as impatience, perhaps even subdued anger at war with his better nature. Lastly, Bon’s idle behavior was strange to behold, as he swayed gently in place and blinked very sleepily. By this point I understood that he was simply intoxicated. For the moment, at least, he was nonetheless fully aware of his surroundings and the events that had just transpired. I was not alone in diligently examining the suspects’ expressions; my partner studied them as well while massaging his sore wing. A couple of his primary feathers were stained a ruddy crimson, but by now it appeared his bite mark had thankfully begun to clot. Noticing that everyone (Gloria excluded) seemed most leery of Zorn at the moment, Bluebird finally broke the silence: “Now I don’t want to appear impartial in ignoring the elephant in the room. Zorn, I’m sure you have a good explanation for why you were, where you were, when you were. Right?” “I do not,” Zorn admitted simply. “It’s as unlikely as I said: I only decided to go for a walk at exactly the wrong time.” “An awfully brisk walk,” Blanche said, gesturing toward the window and the blizzardous conditions outside. The sky was growing dark. “Y’know, in your condition, with your illness, after all,” Grid Iron added, in a tone that may not have been as pacifying as he would have liked. “Yes, a brisk but short walk,” Zorn said. “I understand your skepticism. I cannot call it anything more than a momentary desire acted upon without a second thought. My fever as it is, my decongestant wearing off, my back sore from resting in bed all day… I simply wanted some fresh air.” I took notice of his words; judging by his voice and his occasional sniffling, he wasn’t lying about his congestion. Grid Iron cleared his throat. “I believe you and all, Zorn. I-I think we all do, right?” Whether he was trying (and failing) to assuage the others or just himself, I could not say. “But it’s like, I mean, the timing of it all is kinda… suspicious?” “Personally, I don’t find it that suspicious,” Bon drawled, slurring his words slightly. “I think the changeling is taking us all for fools.” “What ever do you mean, Bon?” Girard asked. “Well what do you think, Detective?” was Bon’s nonresponse. “If I had to guess, Bon is thinking that Zorn would have zero reason to break into his own room,” I intuited. “And as far as Zorn’s timing is concerned, the changeling could’ve specifically jumped on the opportunity if he saw Zorn leaving for a walk. In other words, the likelihood of his alibi being true is greater than that given by sheer coincidence.” “Yeah, all that, sure,” Bon said, waving his hoof. “But what I really mean is, well… lemme go get my tools to demonstrate!” “Wait a second, Bon,” Bluebird said, stopping the buck as he stood up to leave in the direction of his room. “No one should be leaving on their own in this situation. Especially not you, while you’re all, well you know… Anyway! I’ll come with you to get whatever you need.” “Three might be best,” I suggested. “Grid, could you accompany them?” “Yeah, no problem!” Grid said, raring to go. I continued, “There’s some things I want to check up on as well, before we begin discussing everyone’s stories.” I collected the evidence, then rose from my seat, signaling to the others to follow my lead. “We’ll meet back at the foyer in five minutes. We can continue this discussion then.” And so my group of Zorn, Blanche, Gloria, and Girard broke off from Bluebird’s. I guided them up the staircase, and we began down a familiar corridor—the one which would lead to the locations where I’d recovered Blanche and Girard. I intended to determine just how much suspicion I should cast on them, having found them when I did, where I did. A phantom’s whisper: “They still don’t trust me, Pesco.” I turned with a startle—it was Zorn, the pernicious enigma, inches from my ear. And now, inches from my eyes, which he held in his own as he matched my stride closely. Frank as he was, he was right: The other three followed at a noticeable distance behind, skewed to my lane of the hallway rather than that of their supposed friend Zorn. What do you want me to do about it? It was a genuine question I pondered. If Zorn had in mind something specific I could do or say in order to clear his name, it was lost on me. But before I could think on the matter further, or compel Zorn to spell it out for me, we had reached the first destination: Blanche’s room. I tried the knob, but it gave no entry. I turned to its owner. “You locked your room before leaving, Blanche?” “Force of habit, Detective. I’m a bit protective of my work,” she said. “I don’t like to leak or spoil my stories, even to my friends.” “That’s understandable,” I said. Internally, I reconsidered my earlier compliment about her priorities. “But under the circumstances, could you please unlock your door for us?” “I said, I don’t like to spoil my stories… even under the circumstances…” she insisted, uncomfortable. That’s right. Her book in progress Bluebird told me about, I recalled. Changeling Ringing. A fact of the case that she was still hesitant to share with the others, it seemed. Despite her projections, it was clear she wasn’t an overly self-confident type; she didn’t trust that others, even her friends, would view her in a manner she would deem reasonable, if ever she opened up to them. A therapist might attempt to confront such insecurities, once observed. A detective knew it was easier to work around them. “That’s fine. The three of them can wait outside,” I offered. This arrangement was acceptable to Blanche. She proceeded to take out her key, unlock her door, and show me inside her room. The artist-author’s living space was every bit as overwhelming as my partner had described it. Her handiwork poured out of every drawer and bookshelf like an explosion in slow motion. But, I didn’t have the time to dawdle. Stepping carefully about the cluttered scene, I made my way to my target—the bedroom’s sole window. Made of a single pane of glass and decorated with an ornate wooden lattice, it appeared capable of sliding open vertically. A window large enough to provide entry to an intruder, at full extension. Or equally, to a resident: If Blanche is the changeling who attacked us, she could’ve used this to return to her room from the outside. To test my hypothesis, I attempted to pull the window up and open. It didn’t budge. “That window doesn’t open, Detective; it’s been painted over at the seams,” Blanche said upon observing my efforts. “It’s purely to let light into the room, seeing as the climate in these latitudes doesn’t see it getting warm enough even in the summer to justify—” And yet, with a not-excessive amount of force, the window did finally yield. A chill wind blew into the doe’s bedroom. Blanche’s face writhed like an open can of worms. “It would appear your window has already been forced open,” I noted. In face of Blanche’s incredulity, I pointed with a hoof at the cracks in the paint that ran all along the window’s edges. “I-I had no idea!” she stuttered. “Are you sure you didn’t do that just now, Detective? Ripped it open of your own force, unknowingly? The paint must be very old by now, after all…” I hadn’t. Of this, I was certain. In lieu of responding immediately, I took a moment to reach out the window, and slowly slide my hoof across the far underside of the rail. About halfway across I felt a sharp, splintering point in the wood. I looked down at the corresponding spot on the windowsill—and indeed, there was a subtle but sure indent. “You can see the toolmarks for yourself, Blanche,” I said neutrally. “My guess would be a prybar.” Blanche walked up closely to inspect the markings, blinked a few times, and finally resealed the worms. “Well, I had no idea. That’s all I can honestly say.” I closed the window and walked away. She stood watching as I then paced over to a desk nearer the door. By Bluebird’s description, this was the scene of the crime. I pulled the evidence bag out of my trench coat, and placed its contents—the wing fragment, and the piece of parchment—on the desk’s surface, at a spot where it appeared nearby papers had been shoved aside to make room. Or perhaps not “shoved” so much as “tenderly relocated”; with no tears or crinkles in the neighboring papers, and no inkpots overturned, I saw none of the reckless carnage that an intruder typically inflicted on their victim’s belongings. The only signs of violence in the room came from the doe’s sense of interior decoration. “You said you left this scene exactly as you found it?” I asked. “The changeling wing was right here, right like this, resting on top of this blank piece of parchment, at ten-thirty this morning?” Blanche considered her words carefully. Very carefully. Finally, she nodded her head. “Yes, as best I can recollect.” I stared at this arrangement, trying to get a read on what it could’ve possibly meant, how it could’ve come to be. An intruder broke in through the window, wrenching their way in by force… Disturbed nothing, stole nothing, was very tender with all her possessions… Left behind only a piece of paper… and a piece of themself. Why? A few moments passed before I spotted something concrete—a certain discrepancy with the parchment. I took a moment to scan the nearby papers on the desk, and then the rest of the papers in the room. More confident in my observation, I asked Blanche directly: “This parchment didn’t come from your room, did it?” “Didn’t it?” “Take a look. I imagine an artist knows their parchments very intimately, no?” Now for the second time, Blanche walked up to my side to examine a finding of mine. And for the second time, she agreed with my conclusion. “You’re certainly right. This texture isn’t anything I’m familiar with, at least among my personal stock. And the color of the thing is rather distinct, too.” She cleared her throat. After a pause, she added, “Detective, if I had noticed this fact myself, I surely would’ve told you or your partner. I must’ve only been too focused on, well, the damned changeling wing to concern myself with the parchment.” “It’s understandable, Blanche. The burden of investigation is ours, after all, not yours. I only wanted your confirmation of this minor point.” My inspection here was finished. I packed up the evidence and headed for the door. Before I could exit, however, Blanche had one more comment to make: “But I understand how suspicious this might seem, the window and now this detail with the parchment I’ve ostensibly withheld. I can only imagine, this must be part of a set-up? You know changelings are hideous, devious creatures at heart…” Somehow, I didn’t get the impression that this was a set-up. Yet at the same time, I was not terribly suspicious of Blanche for these findings. At least, I wouldn’t have been, if it weren’t for her terribly insecure responses at every turn. “Anything is possible,” I conceded vaguely. And now, Blanche and I exited the bedroom to return to Zorn and the griffon cousins, who were patiently awaiting us in the hallway. In the moment before they noticed us, I caught a telling glimpse of body language: that of Gloria, a submissive look on her face, eyes resting tenderly on Zorn, her claws held upward and outward in an entreating gesture; and that of Zorn, passive but frowning, averting her gaze as blatantly as he could. Girard wilted off to the side as if he was witnessing his parents mid-argument. Whatever Gloria had been lying about in my interview with her, a grudge from Zorn was not one of them. With only the love of friends like these, I thought, the changeling ought to be starving by now. The three turned to face me, interrupting whatever conversation they might have been having in the meantime. With no time to waste, I walked past them and motioned to them to follow. “So, what did you find?” Gloria inquired, as I guided them further down the hall. “Or rather, what were you looking for?” Her tone was innocent and curious, but I knew not to trust her at a surface level. Indeed, when the time was right, I fully intended to grill her on her scheme with the book. “I simply wanted to determine if it was possible for Blanche to have gotten into her room from the outside, assuming she was the changeling,” I said. “Without saying anything else: It was.” “Frightful.” “I’m going now to check on the same matter, but regarding your cousin’s location.” Only to identify and not to intimidate, I nodded in Girard’s direction—he cowered under my gaze regardless. We soon made it to the bathroom where I had recovered Girard. This not being anyone’s personal living space, I simply stepped in without ceremony. The four behind me watched as I began my examination. It didn’t take the eye of an expert. The only possible means of entry would’ve been the small frosted glass window above the toilet. And yet I was doubtful that an intruder could fit through, even if the pane were fully removed. Just to be sure, I tested it: Unlike Blanche’s, it opened easily by design, but only by retracting inward and upward along a short arc about six inches long. Clearly, its function was but to provide a meager amount of light and ventilation into the room. As I closed the window and began to walk out, Blanche must’ve read the lack of suspicion on my face. “Detective,” she needled, “I would hope you’re not discounting that window as a means of entry for a changeling, of all creatures.” She made a good point, I realized. Certain assumptions could be made on autopilot, if ever I forgot the unique creature we were dealing with. “Do you think a changeling could transform into a creature small enough to fit through?” “Certainly. Not for very long, and not without a concentrated effort, but it’s very plausible. So we simply can’t cross Girard off the list of suspects.” I had to assume her judgment was trustworthy, grounded in her literary research on changelings. It was clear to me, however, that the accusatory tone of her assertion was borne of selfish anxiety over my own discoveries in her bedroom. No one contradicted her expert testimony, but an uncomfortable silence lingered among her and her friends as we made our way back to the foyer. Blanche’s pursed lips evinced a certain amount of remorse for her words, but the means for an apology weren’t forthcoming. “Blanche, it’s okay…” Girard comforted feebly, after a time. No further words were exchanged. By the time we made it back to the spiral staircase, I spied from over the banister that my partner had already returned with Bon and Grid. We descended the stairs and quickly took to the same seats as we had before, ready to resume our conversation as it had left off. “You find what you needed, Pesco?” my partner asked. “Yes. I’ll bring the facts up if they become relevant,” I said. “But first, I would like to hear what Bon was so eager to show us.” Bon’s eyes were trained on his sister as she sat down and cracked her neck. “So then, Bon,” Bluebird prompted, “would you care to demonstrate these ‘tools’ we fetched from your room?” He snapped out of it. “Ah yes, just a little bit of show-and-tell, montrer-et-dire, you’ll see,” he beamed. His pride made a decent stand-in for his sobriety. He then brought to sight a small zipper-bound leather pouch, and with a glow from his antlers, opened it and floated its contents for all to marvel at. It appeared to be an extensive collection of small, delicate, and finely crafted lockpicking tools—an arrangement of metal hooks and bars in enough shapes and sizes as to put any dentist’s tool tray to shame. “Now, I don’t consider myself the crème de la crème necessarily, but for the time I’ve put into it, I consider myself a rather deft hoof in the art of picking locks…” Art, huh? I had in mind to roll my eyes, but then I remembered my own youthful indiscretions. The reasons I’d had for bypassing locks were a far cry from an artistic calling. I preferred the bolt cutters, anyway. “… and I would consider it a prodigious, if not entirely unprecedented ability to be able to pick the high-sec mortises we have installed on the doors here in the villa—including the bedrooms—while using such rudimentary equipment as that which you found the changeling with!” I retrieved the relevant evidence from my pocket, the tension wrench and the lockpick; on close inspection, they were indeed very primitive tools compared to Bon’s precision instruments. If I had to guess, these were made of mere sheet metal, hastily cut and then sanded down to an approximation of the desired forms. We craned our necks to follow Bon as he stood up and sashayed to a nearby door with his kit. He saw fit to give us a demonstration—I’m not sure to what end it really served to validate his testimony, but he did so anyway. “Yep, there’s really just no place for substandard tools when approaching a real beaut of a lock like this one—a magic-resistant plug housing six concentrically nested dimple pins, you see, not accounting for the reverse sidebar secondary locking mechanism. Oh, but who am I kidding, one has to account for the reverse sidebar…” Forgoing his magic and instead opting to use his forehooves and teeth for finer motor control, Bon proceeded to insert and remove a variety of instruments in sequence as he confidently manipulated the lock’s internals. The picture was simply too bizarre; it wasn’t often I had difficulty stifling my laughter. “… leshee, ‘lick outta four, five… wait, dropp’t two… there’sh my falsh set, onto the shidebar… aaaand… open sheshame!” As if on command, the lock’s core yielded to the young master. Girard and Grid Iron gave him a round of applause as Bon in turn gave a theatrical bow. If nothing else, he seemed to have at least lightened the mood of the room. “And so I conclude,” Bon announced, packing up his tools and returning to his seat, “that the changeling had no true intentions of breaking into Zorn’s room—there is no way this is how the changeling originally got into my sister’s room, for example. It was all for show, you see. And if it was all for show, it only stands to reason that Zorn was being framed for it. Q.E.D., Zorn is innocent.” Girard and Grid smiled and nodded acceptantly, but not everyone was so convinced. The greatest among the skeptics, as it turned out, was Zorn himself: “Your argument is erroneous, Bon.” The young master balked. “But how is that?” “Because the changeling could not have picked the lock on my bedroom door, you contend that this is a frame job. I am doubtful this is the only possible goal we could imagine. But even granting the ‘frame job’ hypothesis for the moment,” Zorn explained, taking a moment to cough and sniffle, “you allege that the target of a frame job cannot be the perpetrator—an assumption without evidence. If I were the changeling, I could have relied on such a bizarre maneuver precisely in an attempt to clear myself.” Zorn’s self-incriminating rebuttal perplexed Bon. I couldn’t say I didn’t feel the same. “But Zorn,” the young buck countered, “you admit this would be a bizarre maneuver. As in, unlikely and dangerous, especially if I hadn’t jumped to your defense. In the presence of a literal shapeshifter, we have no guarantees, only suspicions and probabilities. And all I mean to say is that I think this whole development reduces your probability greatly!” “I am afraid your trust is not shared by the majority.” Zorn gave no indication who exactly he had in mind among us eight. It was clear, at the least, that Blanche and Gloria shared his skepticism; but I got the impression Zorn was overestimating the others’ distrust. “Nonetheless,” Zorn continued, “I only criticize because I have a better solution in mind. A solution at my expense, it must be said, but my actions have caused this whole issue, so I think it is only fair.” He turned to me with a familiar pair of pleading eyes as he rolled up a sleeve on his bathrobe. “Pesco, do you still have what I gave you?” So that’s his idea. The room looked to me in anticipation. “I do,” I said flatly. “Then please, I have to ask that you use it on me, now.” Injecting him, in other words, right here in front of all of his friends. It was an extreme measure, to be sure, and not one without its drawbacks. Most everyone in the room was in the dark about Zorn’s serum, and their faces showed it. As for Bluebird, he looked to me for my word, as he was seemingly on the fence about Zorn’s proposition. Myself, I was simply opposed to it. “If what you gave me is what you said you gave me,” I started, my headache returning, “then it’s too valuable to use up in this situation. I’m sorry.” “So, you doubt that it is not part of some further ploy of mine. That is a reasonable concern,” Zorn granted. “What are you guys talking about!?” Grid interjected. The item being what it was, I didn’t even wish to declare its existence—it would’ve been best kept as an ace in the hole. Unfortunately, my arm was twisted; I produced from my trench coat the brass syringe in question for all to see. “With reason, Pesco, you are suspicious whether this serum is what I claim it to be. It would have been prudent of me to provide proof of this earlier.” Zorn looked back to the young master. “Bon, could you levitate this for a moment?” Still not fully understanding the syringe or the meaning of Zorn’s instruction, Bon nonetheless complied… or rather, he tried. “I, I can’t!” the young buck exclaimed while straining. His antlers glowed yet brighter as he struggled to lift the syringe out of my hoof. I felt it lighten by a few grams, but it clearly wasn’t going anywhere. It was a convincing demonstration. It would appear that Zorn’s concoction was no mere placebo. Then again, magic-resistant materials were very much a thing—just ask Bon about his locks. This only proved some uncertain part of the device or its payload had the desired properties. It could benefit from a second opinion, as well. “Blanche,” I beckoned, hanging the syringe upside down. “Catch this droplet as it falls.” I ejected a single droplet of the serum from the syringe’s needle. Like her brother’s, Blanche’s antlers lit up in attempting to execute my command, but the droplet fell unimpeded onto the carpet—it had passed the test. Zorn nodded approvingly at my independent experiment. “This is a concentrated magic-suppressant,” he explained to the rest. “I gave it to Pesco in case he might need to defend himself. However, I fear we will have to use it simply to clear my name…” Bluebird stepped in to mediate. “All right, all right, Zorn. I still can’t quite tell why you’re so skeptical of, well, yourself, but I think I understand where you’re coming from. This was yours before you gave it to Pesco, after all, so maybe you have a right to it. But we don’t want it to go to waste… so, what if we gave you, say, a half dose? Surely that would still mess with a changeling’s transformation?” “It’s likely but not guaranteed,” Zorn said, stubbornly honest. “My confidence intervals are large, owing to the lack of precise data on changelings. According to my calculations, I can only be sure that a 160 milliliter injection or greater would be effective.” I looked at the measuring lines on Zorn’s syringe. “This is 200 milliliters,” I read. “So no half measures,” Gloria clarified. It seemed she had been keeping up with the conversation quite keenly. “Precisely,” Zorn said. “Then I’m afraid that settles it,” I declared. “Executive order: Zorn will just have to trust his friends.” Zorn was disappointed in my answer. But, he was also simply confused; this was a rare look on him, and a sign I was getting somewhere. “You mean,” he started, “they will have to trust me—” “No, I mean you will have to trust your friends,” I said. “You’ve told me as much yourself, Zorn: You don’t understand why your friends keep you around. You don’t understand what value your company is worth to them. And in the present situation, you don’t understand why they would trust you even an inch when you feel this was your mistake. But that’s fine: We don’t have to understand something to believe in it.” I walked around the coffee table. “Would anyone who holds it against Zorn enough to jab him with a needle over it, please raise their hoof or claw?” With this appeal, I was trusting my ability to read the room correctly. Even if Zorn discounted me and Bluebird from the vote, I could still count on the majority opinion being in my favor so long as Blanche and Gloria were the only dissenters. And indeed, I actually met a unanimous decision: Everybody kept their hooves and claws where they lay. “So you see, Zorn,” I summarized, “as long as you trust your friends, you don’t have anything to worry about. Just wait patiently on the suspect list with the rest, until we figure out the real changeling.” “I… I see. You are right, Pesco,” Zorn admitted. “I thought I was being selfless, but in the end, it was an entirely selfish plan. I can only apologize.” “All’s good, man!” Grid assured him. “We can’t fall apart as friends over the smallest little thing. The changeling will have to try harder than that if he wants us at each other’s throats!” “And I understand your desire simply to be trusted,” Blanche empathized, twirling a lock of her mane with her magic. “I imagine it takes a lot of courage, as well, to be so honest with yourself and others, and yet so critical… Don’t change, Zorn.” “Well said as always, sister,” Bon agreed. Girard looked to have a hard time choosing his words. He gave up, and just nodded warmly. And so finally, Zorn was pacified by his friends’ kindness—I even thought I caught sight of a blush. Heartwarming as it was, I was most happy simply to have navigated the obstacle he had presented without having to part with his serum. But now, one couldn’t miss that there was one friend among the six who wasn’t indulging in flattery with Zorn. And that is because, this one friend was too busy staring sidelong at Grid Iron. “Next item on the docket,” I announced, turning toward Gloria, “you need to tell me, Gloria, where you really found Grid Iron after the attack.” My call-out soured the newly cheery atmosphere. Naturally, the ones most taken aback were the two I had named. “Wait, huh? Where’d that come from?” Grid Iron sputtered. “I was in the kitchen, wasn’t I?” Gloria held a claw up to her beak. “Yes, what ever do you mean to imply, Detective?” I signaled to my partner for support. He might not always have agreed with my direct methods, but he always backed me up. “Well, you see, Gloria and Grid, there was just a little bit of a timing thing that surprised us. I had already fetched Bon from, ahah, the wine cellar again, and Pesco had just fetched Blanche and Girard from upstairs. We regrouped in the foyer, and then headed off in your direction, Gloria… and somehow, I guess, we all reached the kitchen at almost the same time?” Grid Iron tried his best to follow along, clearly struggling under the pressure. Gloria, on the other hoof, already understood that which couldn’t be swept under the rug: “I see. I didn’t wish to bring it up and cause an incident, because I feel it truly is something minor. Before I say, I believe I ought to ask: Grid, you were in the process of cooking something when I found you in the kitchen, yes?” “Y-yeah, just some quinoa on the stove.” “And I wouldn’t suppose you were in there cooking for several minutes, at the least, prior to my arrival?” “Yup, I was just about done with it, and… uh-oh, I hope I didn’t leave the burner on!” “Don’t worry, I remember you turned it off,” Gloria soothed. “It’s just… how to put this diplomatically… hm, Grid, I did not see you in the kitchen when I first checked.” “… First checked?” Gloria turned to me and Bluebird and explained, “You see, the first place I checked was the kitchen, as it was the closest. But, not seeing him in there, I went on ahead to the gym. I still could not find him, and I began to worry. I doubled back, and only by chance did I happen to spot him in the kitchen after all! Spooked me like a ghost, quite truly.” Grid was stunned into silence; the pendulum of suspicion had swung full-force in his direction. He was unable to mount a coherent defense for himself. Happily for him, he found an advocate in whom I suspected to be his secret admirer: “Did you actually check the kitchen thoroughly on your first visit, Gloria?” Bon inquired. “Or did you continue down the hall when you didn’t immediately see Grid in there? I mean to say, is it possible he was momentarily hidden behind something?” “Hm.” Gloria tried to recall. “Given the rush we were in, I didn’t think it judicious to search for him in the pantry or the fridge, no. I gave the kitchen a thorough once-over from the threshold, however. The only thing that could have obscured him from me at that angle would have been the island countertop.” Bon jumped on the theory. “It’s possible! Grid, do you think you might’ve been bending down to reach for something in the cupboards, while you were cooking?” “Hmm, yeah, that has to be it, maybe! Mystery solved, I guess!” Clearly, Grid was as eager to be out of the hot seat as Zorn had been eager to be in it. But to be fair, Zorn was an outlier by any metric, while Grid’s reaction was unfortunately quite common among both the guilty and the innocently accused, in my experience. In the cadet days of my career, I’d been burned more than once by my overconfidence in telling apart deceptive cues from mere stress responses. But maybe, I just had to admit, the biggest point in Grid’s favor was that we only had Gloria’s testimony to go off of. Changeling or not, she was not a trustworthy witness in my eyes. Bluebird flipped through the pages of his notepad. “Hm, Grid, if I remember correctly, you had just finished eating something when I talked to you and Girard in the foyer, right? And then you told me you were heading straight for the gym? Did you go back into the kitchen for another meal after your workout?” “I have the metabolism of a hummingbird!” Grid cried. “I mean, I’m an athlete, I eat 3,000 calories a day. And believe me, you gotta capitalize on nutrition during the pre- and post-workout periods if you want the best gains!” “I see. I figured that was the reason. Just wanted to clarify that much… Ahah.” “What’s so funny about it!?” Bluebird recoiled at Grid’s outburst, as did most of the room. Grid startled even himself. Morbidly amused, I recalled Grid’s earlier words: “The changeling will have to try harder than that if he wants us at each other’s throats!” “Sorry, I know it’s not funny Grid, it’s just a tic of—” “No, I’m sorry. I… I think I just up and murdered the vibe in here…” Bon was still in rescue mode. “You mentioned the quinoa, Grid? Well, what if we go and check on the pot right now, and find it fully cooked? That could prove you had to have been in there for as long as you said you—” For Bon’s and Grid’s own sakes, before they got their hopes up, I preempted, “That wouldn’t necessarily mean much. Nothing more than that it was placed on the stove some time prior—he could’ve been doing anything in the meantime.” “Do you think he would’ve planned that far, been that meticulous?” Bon bristled. My headache was back again. “If we’re flying under your ‘frame job’ hypothesis, Bon, then yes, there clearly was planning on the part of the changeling. It would be a natural way to try to secure an alibi.” Bon raised a hoof and opened his mouth, but he didn’t find the words for further protest. Everyone could only stew in the awkward silence that followed. “It’s fine, everyone, the situation just has us all on edge,” Bluebird mediated. “Gloria was just answering a question we had, telling us about something suspicious she saw. But we already have one fine explanation for why it could be nothing at all—the island countertop—so I say we just drop it.” My partner turned to me. “Now, Pesco, is there anything else we should bring up, while we’re all here?” There was plenty I could bring up. The question was whether there would be profit in any of it. I looked around the room, at each of the six friends in turn. I only noticed anything of note in Blanche: Hooves pressed together, back arched forward, head tilted to one side, the young doe was certainly eying me with uneasy anticipation. I could only imagine she was expecting me to put her on trial over the evidence I’d found in her room. In reality, I had little desire, and at this point I was ready to end the meeting. I took account of her and her friends’ reactions very carefully as I announced, “I don’t believe there’s anything left to discuss. We’ll come to you privately with any further questions.” Blanche winced, and looked down at the ground. Bon accepted the adjournment contentedly, with an eye toward Grid Iron. Zorn, too, looked at the earth pony with some sympathy. Grid Iron sighed, disappointed with himself. Girard exhaled with relief. Gloria merely nodded in approval. And at this, everyone in attendance gradually rose to resume their normal activities—or at least, their preferred means of distraction from a very abnormal situation. The air was certainly tenser than it had been at the end of our meeting earlier today. “We might want to be a little more careful, everyone!” Bluebird advised them on their way, like a school teacher after the bell had rung. Eyeing his injured wing, he added, “And, y’know, come to us if you have any suspicions. Don’t try to be a hero, ahah…” Everyone else had already vacated the foyer, and only the griffon pair still remained. Not for lack of trying on Gloria’s part: Girard was slow to follow his cousin’s lead, and he looked back repeatedly at me and my partner. Finally, he gave in to his most obvious desire, and left Gloria’s side and bounced toward us. “Bluebird and Pesco… hey,” he hailed meekly. “I was just wondering, um, when you were planning to c-come interview—” By now, Gloria had noticed her cousin’s absence, and came rushing back. “Oh Girard, we oughtn’t bother them,” she said pleasantly. “They’ve their work to attend to, I’m sure.” Girard sped up. “Okay well, I don’t have anything real important to say, it’s just, I’ve heard you’re talking with everyone, and it’s made me nervous, waiting all day for my own interview. I know I shouldn’t be, but—” “Girard. I know you’re not deaf. I said let’s go.” Gloria’s latest words hissed like bullets—and they had been fired from a beak that smiled all the while. The juxtaposition made even my blood run cold. A glimpse at my partner told me I wasn’t alone. I expected to see just as much of a shock from Girard. But instead, the very subject of this abuse met Gloria’s words softly, even familiarly. Silently, he submitted. Before I could even come to my wits about the situation, the two griffons had climbed the stairs and fled the scene. Darkly, I mused: The line between protector and abuser is a very fine one, it seems.