We came off the elevator to the third floor. There was a front desk and a waiting area. Rayne led us past it into an open area, and then finally to a door.

“This is Mr. Volk’s office,” Rayne said. “This… was where Violetta killed him...”

“You can’t say that it was Violetta,” I spoke up. “Violetta’s innocent until proven guilty. That means you can’t say for sure that it was her until after we look at all the evidence.”

“I… see.”

Seriously, how the hell did demon society function without law for so long anyway?

“Brad.” Yaika pointed at the blob of eyes. “Write.”

“Innocent… until… proven guilty.” Brad finished scribbling away in his notebook. “Got it.” He grew a finger out of one of his tentacles and gave me a thumbs up. Grand Slimes were weird.

“In any case, please come inside.” Rayne opened the door.

I looked around the room. It looked like any other office. A chair in near the middle, and another more comfortable one sitting behind a slightly cluttered desk. A small bookshelf off to the side. It didn’t exactly scream, ‘Demon World’.

Then I noticed the floor. There were puddles of water all over. I assumed it wasn’t a common demon decoration. “What happened?” I asked, motioning down at the ground.

“Oh, we haven’t had time to clean up yet,” Rayne said. “The fire alarm went off last night and it turned the sprinklers on. When I came to check on Mr. Volk… well… that’s when I found him.”

“The sprinklers came on?” I asked. “I didn’t see any water by the front desk.”

“The system is designed to only come where the fire is detected,” Rayne looked up at the sprinkler in the middle of the ceiling. “Although there was no fire here last night. It must have been a malfunction.

A malfunction? I would worry about that later. I wasn’t exactly an expert on fire sprinklers, after all.

I decided to ask the obvious question instead. “Where was the body?”

“Mr. Volk was sitting at his desk when I found him,” Rayne said. “He…”

I cut her off. “Were you alone when that happened?”

“I was…” Rayne looked around at us. “When the alarm went off, everyone came to my desk to see if I knew what was going on. We all split up to find out if the sprinklers had gone off somewhere.”

“Who do you mean by ‘everyone’?”

Rayne glanced down at the floor. “Myself and the… Succy Girls.”

“Pfft.” I just wanted an excuse to make her say it. Even if they were Succubus, there were so many problems with that name. You’re just asking for people to say that your music sucks, and that wasn’t even mentioning the other images it called to mind.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Of course, the Succy Girls.” I tried to keep myself from snickering. I was an adult. This wasn’t that funny. Alright, it was a little funny. I just had a job to do. A job I was being forced to do, but a job all the same. “Please go on.”

“I was the one that went to Mr. Volk’s office,” Rayne continued. “As soon as I realized he was dead, I screamed and the girls came running.”

“So what made you think Violetta was the one that killed him?”

“Well… Mr. Volk met with all the girls individually yesterday,” Rayne said. “Violetta was the last one he saw…”

It was basically what Violetta had already told me.

“About how many minutes passed between Violetta leaving Volk’s office and you finding his body?” I asked. I was really starting to get the hang of this. Being a detective was kind of badass.

“Around… five I think,” Rayne said, her eyes meeting with mine. “So around 7:05.”

“Hmm…” I crossed my arms. That didn’t sound good, but that didn’t mean she was the one that did it. “Can you tell me a little more about what happened before you discovered the body? Did you try knocking before coming into his office?”

“Yes,” Rayne said, clutching her arm. “I knocked a few times and called out his name.”

“Did he answer?”

“No, which is why I tried to open the door, but…” Rayne paused for a moment. “It was locked. I had to use my key to get inside.”

“Wait… Seriously?” I almost choked on my saliva.

“Oh!” Yaika grabbed me by the arm. “Ryley just reacted.” She looked over at Brad. “Did you see that?”

Brad stopped writing. “Yes, Princess.”

Yaika stared blankly for what seemed like forever. “Ryley reacted.”

“…Yes, Princess.”

Yaika’s weird little diversion gave me enough time to gather my thoughts. “How… many keys to this office are there?”

“Just two.” Rayne pulled a small key out of her pocket and held it out for me to see. “I have one and Mr. Volk… had the other.”

Fuck. She had to be kidding me. This was a locked room murder? Violetta totally did it.

“So that’s why I thought it had to be Violetta.” Rayne put the key away again. “I figured she must have locked the door from the inside on her way out…”

“O-Okay,” I said. “I’d like to take a look at the crime scene now. I’ll… need to talk to you and the other Succy Girls later though.”

“Please, go right ahead,” Rayne said. “I’ll be at my desk by the elevator on this floor. Call me if you need anything.” With that, she left me in the office with the eye-bag princess and the blob.

“Well Violetta isn’t making this easy for me,” I sighed. “Brad, do you have a picture of the victim?”

“Oh, yeah, totally, bro,” Brad said. He used a tentacle to hand me a laminated picture. If it wasn’t laminated, he probably would have ruined it with his slime.

The picture was a man in his thirties. His horns were just like Rayne’s, but his skin was red. By human standards, he was handsome. Almost like one of those models in those clothing stores. The kind that had the lights practically off, music blasting, and cologne sprayed on everything. Yeah, he looked kind of like a douche.

“What about photos of the body?” I asked.

“Huh?” All of Brad’s eyes narrowed.

“I need to see the state the body was in.”

“Gross, dude,” Brad said.

“Whoa,” Yaika coughed. “Ryley, I didn’t realize you were into that.”

“Into what?” I asked, raising my voice. “How the hell am I supposed to figure anything out about his death if I don’t see? Don’t tell me you didn’t take pictures.”

“We didn’t take pictures,” Yaika said.

“Don’t tell me… you don’t have the body anymore.”

Yaika looked at me with her big dark eyes and a big dumb smile on her face. “We don’t have the body anymore.”

“Why!?”

“We burned it.”

“WHY!?”

“Because!” Yaika puffed out her cheeks. “That’s what you do with dead bodies.”

“Oh my god...” I put my face in my hands. “Brad, write this down. You always, always take pictures of the body. Always!” I was close to exploding. “Got it?”

Brad gave me another thumbs up. “Got it.”

“Alright,” I sighed. “Can you at least tell me the cause of death?”

“Cause of death?” Brad asked.

“Yes.”

“It was murder, bro.”

As I listened to these two idiots do everything in their power to make my job harder, that guillotine started to seem more and more appealing.