Snippet #1146345

Demetri pulled his silver pocket watch to check the time. Inside of the top of the trinket was the word ‘Congratulations’ and the date ’09-13-03’ carved into it. A look of nostalgia crossed his face briefly, right before he shut it and shoved it back into his pocket.

“Sir…?” Kinta took notice of his boss’ dreamy look, the dread-locked detective only made a look like that on two occasions: either he was sick, or he simply had gas. Kinta prayed it was the former, and not the latter. “Should we not have stopped for burritos?” The boy wheeled around to the front of Demetri, poking his head up closer to the man.

“Dumbass,” He shoved the boy out of the way, frowning from the embarrassing question. “Nothin, the dust of this town’s just got my allergies acting up, all of this dust and grass ya know?” A boy sped past them on his bike, probably spooked from the crash—but shouldn’t southern hospitality have made him stop and check if they were all right? Weren’t small town folk supposed to be caring? Or something like that? Demetri shrugged and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

“So…where do we go?” Kinta asked him, still a bit curious as to the nature of Demetri’s previous look. “The contact said to meet them at sunset, but we’ve got at least six hours to kill until then right?” He was taking an interested look around the area, they had finally entered the town and it was…just as expected. Plain.

“I’m surprised the places aren’t made out of twigs…” Demetri wasn’t fond of the country at all, his opinions of the locale was extremely pessimistic, he was a city-slicker to the extreme. “Seeing how we’re stranded here, we better see if there’s a hotel—I mean, ‘inn’ we can stay at. But first…” He took a look at a sign posted on the side of the center town-path, “Park’s General store hm? Sounds homey. Let’s see if I can get a cup of coffee there. We’ll getcha a glass of milk Kinta.” The man’s mood immediately lightened, just the idea of coffee got him excited.

The town itself had an odd kind of vibe as they entered, the townspeople all had grave looks upon their face as they ran in and out of different houses, one woman in particular had a bigger mouth than them all.

“It’s Hick Van! They’ve got him! They’ve got him!” She wailed as she charged into another building. Seconds later she came back out with another adult by her side, who hollered back into the building to ‘watch the store’ or something. As he stepped towards the front of the said building, he saw the large sign up front that read ‘Store’ huh, very helpful.

"Holy crap, Sawyer, where did you come from?!"

"You nut! What're you trying to do, kill me?"

It was the boy who sped past their car wreck like a mad man, and a girl whom he never saw before (which wasn’t odd…he was new to the town anyway). The boy was laughing joyously, while the girl seemed less than amused.

"Apparently, someone did Old Man Hick in. They found his body in the field up by their house. We've got to go check it out!"

“Demetri-san.” Kinta whispered, Demetri only nodded. The two stood about ten meters away from the duo, listening in on the conversation. “How could they have only found the body today…if we got the letter about the murder a week ago?” Demetri was scratching at his chin hairs while Kinta speculated. “Do you think they’re have been multiple crimes?” The senior detective shook his head.

“Nah, if this was another one in a series of murders, the town wouldn’t be so electrified. Nah…” He shut his eyes for a moment, recollecting the words of the letter he had received about the ‘Twilel Town Murder’. Hick Van…that name was definitely in the letter.

“Should we—“ Kinta turned to address his boss, but he was already gone and mixing it up with the kids “He’s so impulsive…”

“Yo, I’m new in town…mind telling me what’s going on here?” Demetri grinned trying his best not to sound pushy—but he needed that information. “Who’s this Hick Van I’ve been hearing so much about?” He swatted the air with his hand in a calm fashion shifting his weight just a bit to the side to make his posture more relaxed, and a lot less formal.