Murder on The Skeld

Chapter 9: Vote

"Well?" Yuki says, stroking her long hair. "Don't keep us on needles."

"Tell us already," Charlet says with an annoyed stare.

"And you better not be wrong," Owen adds from my left.

I look at my three supposed crewmates sitting around the cafeteria table as I take a moment to double-check my conclusions. The more I think about it, the more it all makes sense. I never should have let her touch that computer...

"Owen," I say, "you said Pich accused you in our first discussion."

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what you said just before that?"

Owen looks up at the ceiling as he recalls. "I... was questioning Yuki's pathing."

"And Charlet," I say, satisfied with the answer, "do you know where you got the idea that Pich could escape the airlock?"

"I was just... upset she had killed Grady so I figured we..." Charlet trails off for a moment. "Wait. It was Yuki who brought it up. That's why we went to the airlock in the first place."

"Right, "I say. "So Yuki, why didn't you vote to throw Pich out?"

All eyes turn to Yuki, still running her fingers through her hair.

"I just... wasn't sure Grady was dead," she says. "That's why I suggested we check on him first."

"Which could have turned into a murder spree," I say. "Isn't that right, Owen?"

Owen takes a sip of his coffee, looking at me and then at Yuki. "Right," he says with a suspicious glare.

"I'll tell you why she didn't vote," I say. "Because Benny raised his hand at the last second. Without him, it would have been two against three and Pich would have stayed in there. After another kill, Yuki could have used the next victim's torn-off arm to get Pich back on board."

Charlet turns to me like an owl staring down an idiot.

"This is ridiculous," she says. "I've been telling you for an hour that it's Owen and now you're pointing fingers at Yuki?"

"Think back to when we'd just found out Walter's was gone," I say. "Yuki said she had been roaming around the front of the ship. But up until you found her in the back of electrical, no one but Pich could confirm any of that."

"So what if I didn't have an alibi?" Yuki says. "Neither did Lee, and she was clearly innocent."
"But isn't it an incredible coincidence," I continue, "that you just missed Owen walking to the back of the ship and then just missed Charlet who went to check the admin table? You must have been rather lucky to not run into anyone."

"So what if she got lucky?" Charlet says. "That doesn't prove anything."

"It's evidence pointing toward her," I say. "It just isn't conclusive."

"So do you have anything conclusive?" Owen asks.

I lean my elbows on the table. Once I've replaced the hypothetical role of the impostor with Yuki, it all starts to make sense.

"I believe I do," I say. "The first time that the lights went out, Rachel was killed and Lee was ejected. We can't definitively say which one of you left electrical to eject Lee but there's one more thing. Pich had to sabotage the communications system to cover for her story. But I don't think she had the time to, because the logs recorded the lights coming back on. That means someone sabotaged communications after the lights came back on. And you all walked back to medbay together, right?"