The splinters were a paradox.
Sarah had been staring at them last night, as she had been for the last several days, set aside in a small corner of her bedroom desk where she could glance over at them while doing homework. They barely cast a shadow from the light of her desk lamp, and at the right angle, they almost blended in with the wood her papers rested on.
They were the only lead she had, the only clue in the investigation, but they were also the most damning part of their efforts so far. Whatever story was concocted, whoever the culprit seemed the be, the story had to include the splinters. There were other pieces of evidence that had to be factored in, but the splinters were the odd one out, a fragment of a bullet without casing and only a hint of the impact.
They had vexed her, the only true clue that kept running the investigation into walls. The guiding light that led to a pit. Any possible consideration of the weapon had to include the ability to be wooden, or to be broken somehow. If the weapon wasn’t wooden, then something else was, raising the bizarre question of wooden armor or some sort of structural damage to the basement that nobody had noticed. Sarah was hoping that Occam’s Razor applied there.
Rather, she had been.
She felt the splinters in her pocket as she rushed out of the school, eyes set on the sidewalk winding a long way towards the park. The school library was far from anything that one could call impressive, but it had a handful of viable reference books that, while dusty and certainly only having been used by those looking to learn better ways to hide a shallow grave in the woods, had just the information she needed. It had taken the better part of an hour, but factoring in the sleepless night beforehand, it was likely far longer.
It had been a cold night, Michael’s news of a total dead end forcing her to consider other options. She disliked being in charge of this investigation like this. It felt too much like a weapon in her hands. Even if Jane would ultimately be the one to decide if somebody lived or died, Sarah was putting their fate in her hands, and she knew what Jane would choose. She was her friend, but she was too scared of the rules, and too fearful of everything about Ravenville to go against it. If Sarah offered somebody up, it would be for execution, not sentencing.
But there might be a connection. She might be able to find answers. And that consequence just might be worth it if she got those answers.
The park at the end of the street was small, a grove of trees surrounding a circular path with a large clearing, some picnic tables, and a playground. There wasn’t much to it, and most of the time, the largest population it saw at once was a small friend group needing somewhere to hang out. Right then, there were three people in the park, two sitting in the shade of a tree and one at a picnic table, but she didn’t care about the people in the shade. She just ran for the picnic table, reaching into her pocket to grab the splinters and slamming her fist down on the wood as Michael crunched down a cracker he had just shoved into his mouth.
He looked up at her as he chewed, taking in eyes that she knew looked bruised and hair that she hadn’t bothered to properly brush today, and she could tell that he thought she had been attacked again, or was depressed.
“I’ve had a revelation,” she said, opening her hand to show the splinters.
He swallowed. “Expand on that.”
“I was doing a bunch of research last night, and I’ve found a key to these goddamn things. I tried to find some reading about the woodworking shop, but all I did was find some old survival textbooks and a little thing on whittling. But that helped a lot.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“What if we were wrong about the handle. If that was the wrong thing to focus on. What if the reason they stopped attacking was because the entire weapon was wooden?”
Michael immediately jumped on the opposition point. “By that logic, the entire weapon would have shattered on the lacrosse stick. There wouldn’t have been an extra attack at the last moment.”
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“Okay, sure, but it could totally have just only partially broken. It could have broken in half but there could have absolutely still been enough to cut her with. You know, just a little bit of a sharp point.”
“Counterpoint. The amount of damage that would be required to shatter an entirely wooden knife would deal enough damage that whoever was holding it would be visibly injured, and we haven’t seen anybody with the injuries that would be needed for damage of that level.”
“Exactly.” She let a smile overtake her face, the euphoria of revelation setting in for the first time since she’d begun putting this theory together. “It would require some sort of hand injury. That’s why they ran. Their weapon was still in fighting shape, but they weren’t.”
“A conclusion based on no evidence, and a loose string of conjecture.”
“Until you think about how it just might give us something to focus our efforts on.”
He tilted his head in confusion. “Explain.”
“We were thinking about the damage to the weapon. But if the weapon was damaged, then that would have absolutely hurt the person holding it. So we should be looking for suspects, and only then see if the weapon suspicion pans out.”
Michael’s hand froze halfway to his mouth, cracker still held, and he made a face of concentration like he was counting names in his head before nodding and taking a bite of the cracker. “Solid proposal. Working backwards from suspects will generally give more information than attempting to pin down something related to individual pieces of evidence. You’re not convincing a court, just somebody else in the school.”
“Yeah, exactly.” She paused. “Wait, then why didn’t you correct me?”
“Lessons are paused while we’re in an investigation. Given enough time, you would have figured out the way around this.”
Her eyes narrowed, but Michael’s flat expression didn’t change. She let out a huff of air and sat down on the bench, the wood feeling cold even through her nice khakis. The outfit was the only thing she had managed to get in order about herself that morning, keeping herself somewhat presentable for school. A good outfit and an unkept face indicated a bad day, but a good face and unkept outfit indicated misplaced vanity. She cared about her appearance, in a way that didn’t seem to be reflected by other people here. She had always been the only person that listened to the lessons about dressing for what you wanted to be in the entire class.
The splinters still sat in her hand, open to the wind, and she pulled them back into her pocket. “So, for the actual course of the investigation. I think we should look for the people that are injured, or are staying away from school for some reason. After that, we see if they’ve bought something from the woodworking place, or if they work there. Just try to put together the evidence somehow to see if they fit.”
“Good–” Michael coughed, a few crumbs of cracker coming out from his last bite, and he thumped his chest once before continuing. “Good idea. Are there any specific suspects you had in mind?”
“Nope.”
“Unfortunate.” He paused. “Then I assume you want me to find some suspects as well.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I was hoping for.”
“And our criteria are what, exactly?”
Sarah tried to smooth down her hair as she spoke. “Somebody missing from school or activities, with an injury to their wrist or hand. They’re missing an alibi for that night, and have some way to get their hands on a wooden weapon. They bought it, worked at the shop, just know how to whittle, but the important part is the injury.”
“Injured, woodworking connection, lack of alibi.” Michael hmmed. “I do not know anybody that fits those criteria perfectly, or anybody that even is unconfirmed…”
The stop of his sentence was uneven, the world trailing off into a gust of wind that sent dead leaves crackling through the air. Sarah knew where that uncertainty was coming from, and waited for him to finish, sitting still at the table as the grass and air whipped around them.
“But,” Michael said after a moment, “I think I may know some possibilities.”