I've Got the Strangest Feeling This Isn't Our First Time Around

21

"Apparently Clark's bringing Whirl in for questioning." Spike tells Luigi as they stand over the yet to be built record player.

"Yep." Luigi says offhandedly, while Spike groans in frustration.

"Ugh! This thing's an old dinosaur! Why is this so hard?"

Then he takes a step back, rubbing his eyes.

"Forget it for a second. What did you and Mario see in Linda's dreams that made you so sure Whirl didn't kill her to hide an affair?"

"Not so much a sight as it was a feeling." Luigi replies.

"You said Whirl lied to her about forgetting his phone and then proceeded to call someone with it. Any running theories on that?"

"Not one." Now Luigi steps back from the record player too. "But something about it just doesn't add up. I want to talk to this guy when Clark brings him in."

"Why?"

"Because what Whirl did and what Linda felt about him don't add up. I need to be there, knowing and feeling Linda's feelings."

"Be there?" Spike asks, confused. "With him?"

"Get your brain out of the gutter." Luigi rolls his eyes. "I just meant when he's being questioned."

"Then take it from me before you do: people are complicated."

"That doesn't always lead to attacking someone you love."

"Tell that to the scar on my leg from my last girlfriend."

"What?" Luigi stares at him. "You said that was from a rusty fence! I paid for your tetanus shot!"

"Aha!" Spike says, not paying any attention to Luigi. "Cartridge is in, now we just gotta put the rest together around it."

Then he says, "Hey, what're your thoughts on Pauline?"

"Pauline?" Luigi swears he's gonna get whiplash one of these days. "She's wicked smart, and can prove it at a moment's notice."

Then he stops to ask, "Wait, why?", then looks at Spike head on. "Is this your way of telling me you wanna ask her out?"

Spike bursts out laughing, but there's a fakeness to it. "What? Don't be ridiculous. I..." but at Luigi's look, Spike says, "No, I do not.", then realizes, "Hang on. Why did neither of us spot the record still attached to this thing?"

Luigi pulls it off, and notices the label.

Sweet Dreams

" Here. " Molly hands him a record labeled, Sweet Dreams.

The flashback ends almost as soon as it starts, making Luigi look down at it as he flips it over.

"Well?" Clark asks as she comes out of the interrogation room, where Mario and Luigi are waiting. "Anything?"

"Well, now I know what my gut was trying to tell me: he didn't do it." Luigi says, turning away from the one way window.

"You sure?" Clark crosses her arms.

"If you'd known what to ask him, then you would be too." Luigi says, "You didn't say anything about the dress she found in their closet, or what they were fighting about at the bed and breakfast."

"Tell me you're joking." Clark says, turning to Mario. "Please tell me he's joking."

"He doesn't joke." Mario says flatly, looking like he wants to be just about anywhere but here.