Game On (An oc x DRV2 au)

Chapter Twenty

"Let's go back a bit," Stolas starts, his powerful voice bouncing off the walls of the courtroom. "Some time in the middle of the night, a few people heard an odd noise- a crash, I believe, is what Caim said this morning when we were trying to make sense of the situation."

Caim nods. "It was a crash.  Not the loudest from where my cottage is, but loud enough to wake someone who sleeps as lightly as I do."

"That makes sense, 'cause I sleep like a rock and am in the row closest to the pool," Will agrees. "I'm sure it was startling as hell for anyone close to it, though."

"So to Furfur and Marzy, whose cottages were in the row nearest the tree, would have heard it the loudest out of anyone," Stolas confirms, his arms crossed as his gaze moves from person to person.

"Yeah, I'm in the second-closest row to the tree.  I'm a pretty heavy sleeper and still heard it," I chime in. "There's no way the two of them wouldn't have woken up."

"And because they're both scientists and curiosity is kind of their thing, they both separately decided to check it out," Dana comments. "But they probably would've gone to investigate just seconds after each other, if not at the same time, right?"

"That's correct," Stolas says. "Our killer, who used the hatchet from the barn to cut the branch, was expecting someone to come check out the noise.  However, both Furfur and Marzy came to see, meaning the culprit had very little time to incapacitate both of them.  The likely event is that they took out one, likely Furfur, and then Marzy came and was knocked out as well."

"Do we know for a fact that Furfur was first?" Evangeline asks, bringing a finger to her lips in consideration.

A realization dawns on me. "She and Marzy were knocked out in different ways.  Furfur was strangled while Marzy was hit in the head.  In a way, it kind of feels like Furfur's method was a little more thought-out? So logically, she would've been first?"

Stolas considers this for a moment. "That seems very plausible to me.  On the topic of strangling, the markings on Furfur's neck indicated that the weapon used to choke her out was either a thick rope or a strap.  The light rope burn is also an indicator of this, for those who don't fully believe me.  Something smoother in texture, like a cable or cord, would not cause rope burn anywhere close to as easily."

"What could've knocked out Marzy, then?" Evangeline presses. "It was too small of a bump for him to have hit a wall, and something sharp surely would've bled a bit from the force."

"Maybe the tree branch itself?" I suggest.

"Perhaps it was," Stolas agrees. "Now, once Marzy and Furfur were knocked out, our culprit had to face the challenging task of bringing the bodies all the way to the music venue on the third island."

"Why not just kill them and then bring them to the island?" Will points out.

"Because the body discovery announcement would have played if anyone happened to discover the bodies," I reply instantly, before Stolas can say anything. "And it really could've happened if Furfur had been dead when Marzy came out of his cottage to investigate."

I look over towards Stolas, who almost looks impressed. 

"It seems that the killer, however, was unable to make it all the way to their destination before Furfur awoke," he continues, but I still feel the pride swell up in my chest. "So they killed her and then had to drag her bloody body the rest of the way there, hence the smear tracks on the floor of the music venue."

"What was the murder weapon, though?" Azrael interjects.

"A kitchen knife," I say. "It was hidden in the storage room."