“I’ll just go down the list alphabetically, so that bead Demetra is first.” Quincy had gotten grudging permission to search the rooms from the other guests which allowed him to access the doors.
The door to Demetra’s room slide open and the two of them entered. The room was well organized. Demetra had hung up a variety of dresses up in the closet. The bathroom contained a variety of makeups.
Marylou flipped through a large notebook on the bedside table and said, “It looks like notes about her stories. Tricks and tips for effective storytelling with specific examples about each one.”
Quincy was looking around the main room, “There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual here either.”
Marylou proceeded to check out the bathroom but came back empty handed, “Nothing there but some dirty clothing.”
“She didn’t really bring much with her did she?”
“Unless you can break into her computer there doesn’t seem to be anything else here.”
The next room was Isaac’s room. There were some photos setup near the bed showing a younger Isaac standing next to a pair of smiling women. One of which looked about his age and one quite young.
“Pictures of Isaac’s family. Not any different than the last time. He is consistent if anything.” Said Quincy as he picked up one of the picture frames.
“Wow… he had a lot of different hair product!” Said Marylou who had already snuck into the bathroom and was snooping around. “He had even more different products than me. Is this hair jell scented? Wow…”
“Get out of there. Aren’t you supposed to be more reserved?”
“Hardly, I came with you because I wanted a chance to do all the snooping.”
“I don’t really notice anything in his closet either. Although he has carefully folded all his clothes.”
“Oh, here is something of interest. It looks like Isaac has an old guidebook for this resort. It looks really old, I wonder where he got this.” Said Marylou as she took the book out of his bedroom and showed it off to Quincy.
Qunicy took a look at the book and flipped it open to the front cover, “The book is a few decades old. Who knows how many copies of this book still exist, I didn’t even know this existed before organizing this trip and I did look for something like this.”
“Evidence do you think?”
“Maybe, Isaac does work in advertising so finding something like this would be easier for him, but still…” Said Quincy hesitating.
Marylou placed down the book on the table. “At least it is something to keep in mine.”
“Next to my room, I can stay back and give color commentary.” Said Marylou as they entered her room.
The room was in fact not full of skulls. There were however a number of other strange things. She had a little display with a bunch of old flowers surrounding a stuffed animal.
“And what is this?”
“Oh, poor, Jurmine, he died of heartsickness because he was rejected.”
“… … …” Quincy just looked at the display. Eventually he just turned away from it and began to explore the rest of the room. Marylou make a pouting expression as he did that.
“Are these knives?” Said Quincy as he pulled out a case. There were five different knives of various sizes in it.
“All the better to eat you with.”
“… … You have just lucky that Nitzan did not die to knife wounds.” As he slide the knives back under the bed where they previously were. “Did you bring this stuff just to tease whoever eventually searched your room?”
Marylou turned her head upward and started whistling. Quincy sighed and continued to search the room. Those first two were not the only troll items that she had brought with her. She had also brought a vial labeled “Poison, do not drink” and Qunicy almost put his hand into a pocket full of pins and only managed to avoid that because Marylou couldn’t stop snickering.
Finally he stepped back and said, “Well, if you do have any clues that you are the murder then you have appropriately stopped me from discovering them. Not I think I will head out of this deathtrap.”
“What??” She sounded disappointed, “There are still a few more surprises left.”
“Such a pity.” And there was the sound of the door to her room closing.
Nitzan’s room was the next one. It was always good to check the room of the victim. The place seemed exceptionally somber and quiet even though Nitzan wasn’t truly dead. The room was also fairly messy with clothes strewn, a few bottles, and other things lying here and there.
“No… wait, this isn’t a dirty room. Somebody raided this room.”
“Raided, you mean it was searched by the criminal.”
Quincy nodded, “Yeah, I think that is it… or maybe…” Quincy paused and said, “Or maybe the murderer stole something from him and he turned out his room trying to find it.”
Marylou watched Quincy as he walked through the disturbed room. Nothing was broken but everything seemed to be placed completely at random. Then he stopped and knelt down to pick something up.
“I have taken your treasure. Meet me in deep sea diving and I will return it to you.” Said Quincy as he read the note.
“A clue at last. The murderer must have broken in at some point and left this note.” Said Marylou, “Although I wonder what was stolen. There doesn’t seem to be anything valuable here?”
“No, the murderer must still have it.”
“I wonder what it was that the murderer took? I can’t really imagine Nitzan having something extremely valuable like a jewel or something.”
“Hmm… we will bring it up with the others later.” He glanced around, “There doesn’t seem to be anything else here. Let’s go check out the next room.”
Severina’s room was next. When the door slide over Marylou shook her head in disappointment, “She is such a poser.”
Just inside the room was a small pink stuffed rabbit. Quincy felt uncomfortable as they stepped inside. There wasn’t just one cute stuffed animal, there were a bunch of different ones.
It contrasted strangely with the closet of black clothing.
Marylou find a stack of videos and picked one us, “I’m not even certain if she should try as hard as she does.” She showed some unusual pink movie which said something about the power of friendship. “I’m really not feeling the gap, what about you Quincy?”
“Hmm, I already knew about her hobbies, you didn’t?”
“I think she must have worked hardener to keep it a secret from me. Really, she would probably look extremely cute if she dressed in pink and wore her hair up. Instead she keeps doing that dark and gloomy look.”
“You shouldn’t just other people. After all your room wasn’t the pentacle of normal.”
“Fair point. I’ll go check the bathroom then. You see if there is anything else out here.”
A few minutes later they meet back up again and Marylou said, “Nothing, well, she did have some disgustingly cute bottle of bubble bath solution but I don’t think she committed a murder with that.”
“Nothing here either.”
Somarliðr’s room was next. Even compared to the other rooms this one was almost completely barren. He had some clothes and some toiletries but beyond that there was practically nothing.
“Is he trying to be zen or something?” asked Marylou.
“He has mentioned that food and mysteries are the few things he actually cares about. Maybe zen is the right word for that.”
“There is really nothing here, or at least nothing that would point to him as the murderer.”
“He has some extra midnight snacks stashed away in the mini-fridge but that is all that I have too.”
“Maybe I should leave him a gift to help spice up his room.”
“Don’t”
The next room was Quincy’s room.
“You have more than one copy of this game?” Asked Marylou as they entered the room. Several copies of the board game had been setup all across the room each with a different set of positions on each one.
She walked through them examining each of them, “What, studying opening sequences or something? Are you upside that I managed to beat you a couple of times?”
He shrugged and said, “I sometimes have trouble sleeping and this helps me relax. However once I have a problem I don’t want to mess with it so instead I setup a new board. Then I’m out of boards. I considered bringing a few more but didn’t want to carry any more than I did.”
Marylou made a move on one of the boards which caused Quincy to flinch. “Well at least your improvements makes sense now. I played a few practice games to get in the mood but this is really something else.”
“And my boards aren’t covered with needles so you can feel free to touch them.”
“I sense some hostile resentment.”
“Try not to injure investigators next time. That is all I really ask.”
Marylou wandered around the room for a couple of minutes looking at things before finally shrugging and said, “I don’t see anything strange here.”
Zosi’s room was next. It was practically lively compared to Somarliðr’s room. He had all kinds of kick-nacks stacked around.
“Wow,” said Quincy, “The collection has really grown since the last time I have seen it. He really puts a lot of effort into it.”
“What are these?” asked Marylou.
“His souvenir collection. He likes trying everything and also collecting things from all the different places that he went. I think he deliberately brings them to show off to whoever searches his room, a little like you in that way.”
“There are quite a lot of them. I imagine it would be a pain to carry all of them.”
Marylou was walking around the room examining all of the different little items. Some of them were small statues, or a plate, sometimes something else as well. It was an odd collection of items.
“See,” she said holding an old knife up, “I’m not the only one who brought a knife.”
“You sharpened yours.”
“What good is a dull knife?”
Quincy ignored her and returned to searching the room. Zosi’s bed was extremely rumpled but he had been woken up to go see the body so that was to be expected.
The last room to search was one they had forgotten to check until the end. They heading to Clemen’s room.
“Ohoh, it looks like our special guest has a thing for this fish lady who must be Sarita.” Said Marylou after having burst into his room.
She had discovered his small collection of drawings that still lay on the table.
“He has a good talent.” Said Quincy he also approached and picked up a picture showing all eight of his group arriving at the resort. “A good memory for details too.”
Marylou was instead staring at the several different pictures of Sarita that Clemens had carefully put away in the nearby drawer. “I think I could give him some good tips.”
“Nobody wants tips about how to stalk people.”
Marylou glared at him but did not deny it.
Beyond the drawings there wasn’t much else in the room.
They had finally finished the searching of all the different rooms and were taking a break in the chairs on the first floor just under all the rooms.
“Well, we went through all the rooms.” Said Quincy, “We managed to get a hit from Nitzan’s room about some potential events that happened but nothing about who could be the second victim.”
“Really? I think I figured it out pretty well.”
Quincy shot his eyes over to look at Marylou, “Oh, really? I didn’t see anything. Who do you think it is?”
“Really it was pretty obvious. You need to practice more at hiding information. Your reactions in Nitzan’s room make everything very easily understandable.”
“You think I am going to be the second victim?”
Add new comment