AWKWARD ZOMBIE

"I never stole Punchy's medicine," Whitney snapped. "And I didn't leave tracks because I was never at Cranston's house last night!"

"I'm not sure what you're getting at about the medicine, doroing, but if she bothered to clean up her tracks, why wouldn't she have noticed her keys and ID card?"

Punchy suddenly breaks down into a panic attack.
"S-stop! Stooppp! This is all to much for me!"


Jeez, for a rockstar he's unusually tender.

"That's exactly my point! I have yet to see evidence that she didn't steal the medicine, but if she killed Cranston, she had to have noticed her keys and ID if she cleaned the room. What if she stole the medicine for a reason unrelated to the case?

Joe flies up into the air, somersaults three times and dive kicks Punchy in the face.
"Punchy, you need to calm down a bit," said Joe as he dusted himself off a bit.
He turned towards Whitney. "Whitney, where exactly did Isabelle wake you up this morning?"

"Inside my stupid house, in front of my stupid door," Whitney growled. "Which, as I said before, I lock when I leave. If I had left my keys behind anywhere, I would have been locked out of my house."

"Yes, but if a struggle was enough to knock loose some feathers..."

"Wouldn't it also be enough for at least a few stray hairs to fall?"

"I mean, in my experience, it doesn't take much to knock loose some hair... I lose it even when I scratch my head a little. How hard would it be for you to lose some feathers, Pierce?"

"Also, I was wrong earlier, it wasn't just one thing that Nook said that was interesting, it was two things."

"..."

Tom crosses his arms.

"First, he said that the murderer seemed to cover their tracks, but that's odd considering Whitney didn't clean up the crime scene, and we haven't really found any hidden evidence. In fact, everything seems out in the open."

"Second, he mentioned putting an enigma in the case by presenting the possibility of more medicine being in Punchy's hands than we were previously led to believe, without giving a hard number. But I don't think that's the only enigma..."

"I think Whitney is innocent! It seems likely she's being framed by someone who left things the way they were and manipulated the events of this case to leave an enigma behind that would point to Whitney while leaving a lot of conclusions to be drawn due to lack of proof."

"An interesting tale to be sure, but it's hardly concrete, now is it? If Whitney didn't kill Cranston, then who? Punchy? But then you'd claim Punchy would have left fur behind too, right? And Octavian would leave slime behind, and there'd be excuses for the whole lot of these bastards, wouldn't there?"

"You're unwilling to admit to yourself that someone you trust could be a murderer, isn't that right? Even in the last trial, even when you knew Diana was the murderer, you couldn't even utter her name, could you?"

"This is different Tom..." Isabelle says quietly as she fights back tears.

"Then who else could be the murderer? There's no proof, upupu~"

"Shut up, Nook," Whitney barked. "Isabelle found that stupid feather on me when she woke me up, but you didn't want her to show the others! I didn't even get a chance to see it!"

"Right, having her shovel still lying at the crime scene seems counter intuitive to her getting away with murdering someone, so it would seem that it's highly unlikely for our wolf to be a wolf in wolf's clothing."

"So we've eliminated one suspect....and still don't have any leads."

"This case is giving me a headache....."

"I'm sure it is," Whitney said. She seemed to have calmed down a bit. Now she looked solemn. "After all, you were the only other person who knew about the map that Cranston had. You knew that I knew he had it. You've also been spending a lot of time with me lately. In private. And you walked me home last night before I passed out, so you knew where I was."

Pierce crosses his arms and glares at Whitney.

"If you've got something to say, hawkeye, then say it."

"Fine." Whitney folded her arms and glared back.
"You had plenty of opportunities to throw me a mickey, since we've been spending most of our time together. You also had time to filch my keys and ID when you were seeing me to my house last night. You're the only villager who knew that map suggested that I had been at Cranston's house, so you planted it in my house. How else would it have gotten there? I had no use for it."

"So this is it, then, Whitney? Have we fallen into a petty game of revenge now? I accuse you, so you accuse me, with baseless accusations?"

Pierce leans forward on his podium, glaring at the wolf.

"Let me make one thing abundantly clear to you, hawkeye. I.....DID NOT....drug you! And I certainly didn't murder Cranston!"

The eagle straightens his back.

"I'll even prove it. You, Cranston, and I all spent the day together, yes? At what point could I have taken the medicine from Punchy? He hadn't even bought it before we all started investigating together, I couldn't possibly have taken it while the three of us were together, and I believe it was proven earlier in the trial that I had no means by which to drug you when we were alone."