Arc II, Chapter 28: Not the Worst Ending

That was the first night in a while that I was able to use my instant sleeping trope all to myself. That was fortunate, as every noise in the suite jolted me awake with thoughts of ghouls and ghosts. I woke up early and sat around in one of the chairs in the living room, planning what I thought was going to be a very important meeting.

I needed to rally everyone toward figuring out what we were supposed to do next. It was clear that we needed to find the weapon used to murder Jedediah Geist. It was unclear at that time how we were meant to go about it. The continuity loop that we were stuck in revolved around the town square and the Centennial. Trying to solve a murder in the middle of that felt very busy.

Somehow, Bobby had beaten me to consciousness and was already in the kitchen, making multiple loaves of toast to be eaten with jam that he had taken from the kitchens. They were individual serving packets, but they hit the spot.

Bobby had a nervous energy as he worked. He muttered to himself as he wiped up crumbs. He was distant.

Everyone got up one by one. The last up was Isaac, and when he did finally scrape himself off his mattress, he was clearly hungover. I remembered back at the Lodge, whenever people would get hungover, they would find their way to Reggie or one of the other owners of the Hair Of The Dog trope, which could cure their hangover or at least undo most of its harmful effects by serving them a splash of peach tea.

Before people got off on tangents, I decided to say, “We need to find Chief Willis. The only way we’re moving forward is if we find that fireplace poker and my money says we need him. We can’t focus on anything else until we find him, okay?”

“I’ll have to check my calendar,” Isaac said.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Kimberly assured me. “We all know what’s at stake.”

I didn’t think they were acting like it, but luckily I didn’t speak my mind before there was a knock at the door.

Whatever he was doing before, Antoine jumped to his feet and ran to the door. First, he looked out the peephole. There was a look of shock on his face, and then relief. He opened the door to reveal Police Chief Willis standing outside.

He was a tall man in his fifties or sixties by demeanor, but with an athletic build that made him look younger than he was. He wore a ballcap that said, “CPD” and mirrored sunglasses.

“Productive day,” Isaac said. “What else did we have to do today?”

What was it Constance had said? Information was power. Maybe knowing the next step was enough to manifest it. Maybe I was just stressing myself out. Chief Willis was the exact person we needed to see at that moment. He might have answers. I had hoped that when I looked at him on the red wallpaper, I would see that he was acting as a player. But he was still an NPC. We were going to have to play our roles.

As soon as the door was opened, Antoine said “Hello,” and asked “How we could help you?”

“We got some reports of some screaming happening here last night. We’re always getting reports of screaming coming from this place, but I thought I’d come check it out anyway,” Chief Willis said.

“Is that normally the kind of thing that the police chief investigates?” Antoine asked.

“Well, as a matter of fact, it isn’t,” Police Chief Willis said, “But with the Centennial coming up, I thought I’d come check on it myself.”

“Fair enough,” Antoine said.

Willis stuck his head inside the door and took a look around. “So, what was the deal with the screaming?” he asked.

“We were playing a game,” Antoine answered matter-of-factly.

“A game?” Willis asked. “Is there any chance it’s the type of game that could be used to contact the dead?” He put on a wide grin. He knew exactly why people came to this particular hotel room.

“We might have,” Antoine answered.

I could see where the conversation was going. Discovering the photograph of a young Kurt Willis working at the crime scene of Jedediah Geist’s murder must have triggered the next part of the Throughline.

“I don’t know why kids in this town are so obsessed with the death of Jedediah Geist. If you were to list out his family members, he would be the least interesting. In many ways, he died one of the least interesting deaths too.”

“Least interesting?” Kimberly asked, approaching the door. “Does that mean they know who did it?”

“That means that a person did it and not some sort of thing that goes bump in the night,” Willis answered. “For those guys, that is pretty boring. So, have you kids had any luck?”

“Not so much,” I answered.

“Well, shoot,” he said, backing out the door. “So, if the screams last night weren’t anything major, I’m gonna go ahead and head out.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Did you have any involvement with the original investigation?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. It’s part of the reason that I am bewildered at people’s fascination with it. Even back then, people made a bid deal out of it. The mayor at that time brought in a special team to investigate. Of course, they found nothing, and when they found nothing, the mayor helped this story disappear. Disappearing isn’t the right word; he helped to turn it into a legend. That’s how everything goes around here. First it’s an emergency, then its taboo, then it kids talk about it at summer camp.”

He turned to leave, but then Kimberly asked, “He was killed with a fireplace poker, right?”

Chief Willis looked at her with a side-eye. “Now, how did you know about that? Most people think he was stabbed with a kitchen knife. That’s the tall tale at least.”

I grabbed the newspaper leaflet that we had found and showed it to him. It depicted a younger Officer Willis holding a fireplace poker with an evidence tag tied around it.

“Well, ain’t that a handsome son of a gun?” Willis said as he looked at the picture. “I imagine that particular piece of evidence is currently locked away in a storage room under City Hall…”

At first, he waited for a response, but then seemed to decide to deliver the rest of his exposition all at once as if he felt he was wasting his time.

“Now, if you really wanted to take a look at it, I might suggest you go apply for a permit because the mayor turned the cold case storage into a sort of museum called the Cold Case Museum. It goes with the aesthetic of Carousel being this creepy place that everyone wants to make it out to be. If I were you, I would hurry; it is the day before the Centennial, after all, and City Hall closes at noon. You might get a glimpse of some of the evidence. Maybe not the stuff you like, but the stuff that they set up for display. Not that I’m suggesting you do any of that.”

Only in Carousel would cold case file storage be turned into a museum.

“We might just do that,” Antoine said.

“You know, I’m heading back that way if you’re interested in a ride. I remember them saying that you all didn’t have a car,” Willis said.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Unlike our previous run-ins with Paragons, I felt no pull to comply with what Willis had just told me to do. Still, I didn’t need it. It was all starting to form a picture for me. Find the murder weapon. Talk to Jedediah Geist. Figure out what it was we were supposed to be doing here. A hundred steps later, we’d get to go home.

~-~

The moment we got inside his SUV, his demeanor changed. His information on the red wallpaper changed too. Now he was a player.

“Sorry to rush through that,” he said. “I have to say it like that. It’s in the script. I just didn’t see the point of drawing out the conversation with experienced players.”

I looked at his poster.

Kurt Willis is the GI.

The poster depicted a tense scene: both Willis and the axe murderer were positioned back-to-back, each on opposite sides of a doorway. They were hidden from each other’s view, pressed against the walls in a strategic stand-off. Willis, armed with a gun, was poised and ready, mirroring the axe murderer’s silent menace.

He was a soldier Paragon.

“I figured you for the Sheriff Paragon,” I said.

He nodded. “Understandable. Can’t put one of the advanced Paragons in a Throughline story unless you want the plot scrambled.”

That made sense. Advanced Archetypes like Detective, Monster Hunter, or Sheriff changed the story around considerably.

Kimberly was talking with the newbies outside, trying to convince them to go along. There are only so many times you can tell someone to just go along with things, things will be fine, before they realize that you don’t know what you are talking about.

Still, Cassie seemed to be amenable to our predicament. Isaac wanted to debate. I only hoped Antoine didn’t join in the argument. He’d try to put his foot down. Kimberly’s approach was to be empathetic but unyielding, much like Adeline. I thought that was a good route.

Kurt Willis sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for everyone to get in so we could go.