Murder in the Maze

Newt

The whispers spread around the Glade like wildfire and by the time breakfast was finished everyone knew what had happened. Sometime last night Dave was killed and his body was dumped by the side of the Homestead. So far no one was to blame but most fingers were pointed at the Newbie.

Couldn't have been her. Newt thought. I was with her all bloody night.

Everyone knew who the Greenie was with last night but not a single person had confronted Newt yet. It bothered him.

Newt had decided to take the day off of running again. That was two days in a row and he knew Minho was going to hand his arse to him but Newt was too hungover to do much of anything. He had decided on just sorting through the old maps, he wasn't in the mood to deal with anybody else right then. Newt was halfway to the Maproom when he felt an arm sling around his shoulder. He repressed a sigh.

"What's up there friend?" Nick said. "Can Alby and I talk to you? With all this Dave business floating around we need to start an investigation of sorts."

Why is he so positive all the time? Dave just died for shucks sake. Newt thought angrily, but what he said was, "Sure Nick."

Nick took him to the Homestead and brought him to the room where Gatherings were usually held. Newt usually didn't get to come in here since he wasn't a leader or Keeper and it wasn't anything like he pictured. The room was sparse with twelve chairs in a semicircle around one single chair. Alby was sitting in the chair farthest to the right and he was holding a clipboard.

"Sit." Nick gestured to the one lone chair and Newt reluctantly sat. It made him feel as if he were the one who had done something wrong.

"So," Nick started, "what did you do last night?"

"Um, I went to the bonfire, had a few drinks. Taylor and I went to see the Deadheads at some point and later I took her to bed then went to bed myself." Newt crossed his arms over his chest while Alby wrote down notes. This is stupid, he thought, I know Taylor didn't do it.

"Why did you go to the Deadheads?" Nick asked.

Newt rubbed his head and tried to think. If he was being honest, most of that night was a blur. "The Newbie wanted to know something, about dead people? No. Oh! The Baggers, she wanted to know why we had Baggers so I just showed her the Deadheads."

Nick nodded and placed his fists under his chin as a prop. Alby scratched his head with the pencil.

"Taylor said that at one point you left to go get more drinks then came back. Is that true?" Nick asked.

"You already talked to Taylor?" Newt was shocked, it wasn't even eight in the morning.

"Yes, we did. Now did you leave the Greenie at one point to go get drinks?" Alby answered.

Newt was shocked at the tone in Alby's voice. Which actually made sense when he thought about it, Dave and Alby had been friends for a while.

"Er, yeah I did leave her. But it was only for like five minutes and she was asleep when I came back. No way she had time to murder someone." Newt didn't know why he was defending the girl he barely knew.

Nick cleared his throat. "Then later you took her to bed?"

"Yeah, I did."

"What time?"

Newt sighed. "I don't know, somewhere between eleven and one I guess."

"And you didn't see her for the rest of the night?"

"No, I didn't."

Alby wrote down a few more notes then nodded. "You can go."