"He walked out the portal," Peggy narrated. "His grin as sinister as ever and his appearance as arborent as usual. He pulled out an orb and said to us, 'whenever this orb glows blue, write the name of the person next to you."
That was an unusual request from a criminal after years of separation from his 'goldmimes'. What was the deal with the orb and why would he give such a responsibility to a pair that he was very aware hated his guts? Then again, it was not a polite request.
"Mr Osas was one of the people present when the orb glowed blue huh?" Lemon asked.
"He was the only one the orb glowed for," Evory said. "It was the first time Edgan didn't want my powers."
"We don't say his name Evory," Peggy frowned, looking at her.
"So his name is Edgan," Lemon said, writing down the name.
We still stood in the forcefield soundproof box she has created for the Oppayeans' safety. We were almost done with their interrogations, afterall they had provided ample information that had pushed us a bit closer to the solution of this mystery. We knew now for a certain that Halo had nothing to do with this, so that was a relief. But a few pieces of the puzzle still stood out, and why would this Edgan guy need to use an orb to identify his victims? What were the conditions that made the orb glow? Why did he not use Evory to kill Osas? And what is up with the X mark?
"Is the orb with you right now?" I asked. I reckoned it could be a homing device and if we took it apart, we would be able to find something.
"No," Peggy replied. "The moment we have him the name, he took it from us and left. Six hours later, the human with the name keeled over and died. I…I understand that although we didn't do it, we helped in taking the life of Mr Osas, but please, take me and let my sister go. I take full responsibility of everything, she didn't know what she was doing."
Evory frowned, looking at her sister. Lemon dropped the force fields and we walked back to our seats.
"Are you insane?" Evory asked. "Do you think I would live peacefully of you were to go to jail on my behalf?"
"Evory, now's not the time to—"
"Time to what?!" She angrily interrupted, tears dripping from her eyes. "You're the only family I've got, whatever we do, we do together. Garu heres denes dolino et aulugino!"
In English, what she said could be rustily translated into, 'pack your life, love your family' or more precisely, 'family is blood, blood is life, life is love and love cannot be abandoned.' Yeah, we'll go for the latter, Lemon's Oppayean was very rusty and my ability to hear every language was what produced the latter.
"Hmm, I like that," Lemon smiled looking at me. "I'm going to steal that saying."
She wrote down the words in her jotter, then she looked at the Oppayeans.
"We're not arresting either of you," she said with a calm smile.
"You're not?" Peggy asked. She looked at her sister, surprised.
"No, you're the victims here," I replied. "Besides, I think both of you would do well as Troopers than as prisoners."
"Troopers?" Evory asked, a short grin flashing on her face. "You really think so?"
"Yeah," I nodded.
"We'd be willing to help get you in if you're interested," Lemon added with a smile. "Now, before you two go, we're going to need a full description of this guy with the orb."
What they described for us sounded like an angel. White bioluminescent hair that danced like fire on his head, blue eyes lack an iris or a pupil, a chiseled face like that of Hercules. But then the flaws started coming in. He had a robotic arm, and a scar on his face, there were also some scars on his other arm.
After that, we sent them away. It was over, we had our guy. But the lingering questions still stood unanswered, and I did not what to leave without interrogating Ratchina, and getting her to tell me what exactly she was doing here.
"We're not done yet," I said to Lemon.
She looked up at me, her brows up as though saying, 'what are you talking about, we just got our guy,' but I returned the look, raising an eyebrow.
"Ezra, it's past 2a.m in the morning, let these people go to their rooms and sleep like the other guests."
"We need to know how he did it Lemon," I said with a convincing tone. "How did he kill the man, crush his glasses and put them back, and then leave a mark on his palms without anyone noticing?"
"Poisoning probably," she shrugged.
I exhaled, face palming. She smiled, walking up to the door of the office.
She pulled it open and announced to the suspects not so far away. "Just a few more minutes and we'll be done. Zander, you're up."
The Zander had nothing reasonable to say, he was just rambling on and on about the receptionists and how endowed and appealing they looked, indeed, he was a filthy pig, with nothing but a thirst for debauchery. After him came the Garnite, who turned out to be a runaway baroness looking for adventure and pleasure, she was having an affair with the manager of the hotel, which was strange because, Garnites would never scoop so low as to even touch a person that wasn't their species. They were a very proud alien species, that was why a very few of them stayed on Earth while the others went to live on the moon.
The Garnite and the manager had very little to say about the matter. Sapphire, the Garnite, kept moving around in the office humming a tune while we interrogated her, it was very frustrating. The manager on the other hand, sat stiff on the chair, like a mannequin. He eventually told us that he had read about me in the Yolo Times online, and that was how he knew to send for me after the man died.
"Why didn't you call the local authorities, or the ambulance?" Lemon asked. "How did you know it was a murder and not a stroke?"
He looked at us, his eyes wandering around his office, trying to make sure there was no eye contact.
"Honestly," he replied. "I didn't care at first, I thought he had died of a heart attack. I just wanted to see the great detective Ezra work."
Lemon and I facepalmed. We sent the chubby man and his moustache away, and after the receptionists came in and talked endlessly like a group of high school cheerleaders with nothing tangible to give, we finally got what we were looking for, from the bartender.
"I saw him," he said in a low tone and a nervous demeanor. "I saw the person who did it, he was an Oppayean."