"I can't believe we have our first actual case," said Johnny, Asian, well-dressed, the J in "'A' AND 'J'".
"I can't believe we're not getting paid for it," replied Anderson, tall and white, and equally as well-dressed, the A in "'A' AND 'J'". They both sighed in discontent. Anderson continued, "All right, let's do this," and knocked on Brandon's door. The boy with the belt answers.
"Aren't you two…the two who bailed the Debate Team the day before the biggest debate of the year?" he asked.
Johnny's and Anderson's hands meet their faces.
"Yes, Tex, and while that may be true, kid, we are ALSO the detectives who just got hired to save you sorry lot," shot back Anderson.
"Did you just call me kid?" asked Tex. "I'm in your Calc class."
"Oh right, you sit in the back row," replied Anderson.
"Yeah, back left corner."
"Did you do the worksheet?"
"Eh, half of it."
"Damn, that was really hard. I mean, who puts that many problems on a worksheet that's done over spring bre—" started Anderson.
Johnny elbowed him.
"Oh, uh. Right. Well, let us in," said Anderson, regaining composure until he enters and sees Brandon's body on the floor.
"Damn," said Anderson.
"Someone's actually dead," said Johnny.
"Did you think I was joking?" asked Jamie, his arms folded, Sophie at his side. "So, 'detectives'," continued Jamie with egregious use of air quotes, "What are you gonna do?"
Johnny and Anderson stylishly put on rubber gloves from their back pockets and seemingly from nowhere pull out UV lights.
"We're gonna get to work, kiddo," said Anderson.
"CLEAR THE AREA!" called Johnny.
Johnny and Anderson conducted their search, picking up seemingly random items in the living room, poking and prodding Brandon's corpse pointlessly, and generally being useless.
"All right, so what do you have so far?" asked Jamie after a few minutes of silence as the detectives scrounged for answers in all the wrong places.
Anderson looked him deep in the eyes. "Jack s***," he replied dryly.
"Great, glad this is free," said Jamie, retreating to the hall with Sophie.
Sophie turned to him. "Is this even helping?" she asked.
"Yeah, it gives us a second opinion," he applied, reassuringly.
"A second opinion to what?" she asked, unconvinced like Adam.
Jamie took out a small notepad with a few bullet points jotted down and said, "Ours." He flashed a smile at her. She was unimpressed.

________________________________________

In the backyard, Johnny and Anderson were scouting around, looking for anything to poke at. They hunted the backyard, moving chairs and décor all about, and settled into a perch on the ground, looking with brows furrowed and hands to chins at some meaningless shrubbery. Suddenly, a voice behind them chimed in.
"Whatcha doin'?" asked someone, with a giggle.
Rapidly, the detectives whipped around to see that it was Ruby in her joie de vivre.
"Official unofficial business. Get inside, miss," called Anderson coolly.
"Can I help, pleeeease? I'm unofficially a detective too! I aced all of those Carmen Sandiego games!" pled Ruby.
"Even 'Carmen Sandiego: Lost in Time'?" inquired Johnny.
"Yeah, duh, that one was easy!" replied Ruby, as bubbly as ever.
"Can it," said Anderson to Johnny out of the side of his mouth, turning to Ruby. "So how can you help us…" he trailed off, not remembering her name.
"Ruby!" she offered enthusiastically, grabbing Anderson's hand and shaking it vigourously. "Ruby Tackman, at your service!" She releases her vice grip and curtsies.
Bewildered, Anderson sought to regain his composure. "All right, 'Ruby'," said Anderson with massive air quotes, "if that is your real name, how about you tell us what exactly happened here tonight?"
Ruby brightened up even more, if it were even possible to do so. "Oh! That's easy! There was a party!"
Employing more massive air quotes, Anderson inquired, "And what happened at this…'party'?"
Ruby thought for a moment and dramatically began, "Well, there I was, standing alone under these very lights—"
"Speed it up," said Anderson.
Surprised, Ruby took a deep breath and rattled, "There was a scream, I ran inside, and someone was dead. And then the lights turned off, and then on, and then apparently the killer was inside! And then someone gave me an axe! And then my nose bled! It was wild!"
Anderson, rushed to write down everything she said. After a moment, he responded, "And did anyone see this…'killer'?", again with massive air quotes.
Johnny smacked Anderson's hands. "Stop using air quotes, dude," he said.
Ruby replied, "No one saw him but Jamie! Apparently he was cloaked in black. Pretty spooooky!"
"Yes, spooky indeed," commented Anderson, writing. He stood and looked up, deep into space, his hand on his chin.
Ruby was confused at Anderson's behaviour. Johnny whispered to her, "He's having an inner monologue."
"Ooh! Wait, let me do one!" Ruby replied, and then attempted to mimic Anderson's picturesque posture.
Johnny, bemused, thought for a moment, and then joined them.

________________________________________

Meanwhile, in the house, Sophie and Jamie inspected Brandon's body for clues. Sophie spoke. "So what do you think you can find that they can't?"
Jamie replied, "Just about everything," showing Sophie his notepad has accumulated pages of notes. Looking at the blood staining Brandon's neck, Jamie remarked, "Did they even take a look at the axe?"
"Nope," replied Sophie disdainfully. "They were too busy looking at the fireplace."
Jamie thought hard, picking up the axe, and looking at Brandon. "Hmm…" he muttered.
"What's the matter?" asked Sophie.
"Two things. Where the hell did this axe come from, and if I saw a guy messing with the lights run in, then who was killing people inside?" asked Jamie.
Sophie sarcastically retorted, "Oh. I just assumed they had teleportation powers, seeing as no one but you saw them."
"Very funny," said Jamie. "But this means that we’re looking for two people—one who left an axe, and one who was messing with the lights."
Sophie was impressed. "I think you just did more detective work in 30 seconds than those two did in 30 minutes."
Jamie sighed. "Yeah, but I still have no idea who would do this."
"Yep, motivation lost," said Sophie, nonchalantly tossing the axe on top of Brandon's body as the two resigned to the couch.
Right as Jamie and Sophie sat down, Anderson, seemingly from nowhere, exclaimed, "HEY! FEET OFF THE CORPSE."
Not acknowledging Anderson's supposed authority, Jamie asked, "Find anything out?"
"I think we've got a couple leads," replied Anderson confidently. "You should’ve watched us more. Could’ve learned a thing or two."
Jamie shot back, "I think I’ve learned a thing or two all on my own."
Anderson chuckled skeptically. "And that would be?"
Jamie asserted, "It’s two killers. One was operating the lights, and the other," he paused, picking up the axe, "was using the blunt end of this to kill Brandon."
Johnny muttered to Anderson. "He’s right you know. That makes sense."
"Can it, Johnny," shot Anderson to Johnny before turning back to Jamie. "All right, James. We’ll take that into consideration."
Jamie was baffled. "Why? There’s literally no other explanation."
"I repeat. CON-SI-DER-A-TION," articulated Anderson.
"All right, all right," said Jamie, unenthused. "Did you get testimonies from everyone who’s here? I’m pretty sure we all want to leave now."
"Ooh! Ooh! They got my testimony!" piped Ruby, having entered with cookies from the party in hand.
"Yeah, testimonies…" trailed Anderson. "We got your…testimonies."
"All right, cool. So we can all go home?" asked Jamie. "And sleep?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," replied Anderson coolly. "Hold on there. I still have to sweep a couple more areas."
Jamie and Sophie groaned as Anderson and Johnny began collecting testimonies, followed closely by Ruby, nibbling on her cookies.
"They totally just stood out there talking about detective stuff didn’t they?" asked Sophie.
Jamie sighed. "Yep."

Once Anderson and Johnny had left, Jamie and Sophie had thought for a long while about the clues they had and tried to separate the plausible from the implausible. The following morning, they saw to go to a library, though Sophie was much less pleased about it. She asked incredulously, "So why are we in a library?"
Jamie, leafing through a few thick books, replied simply, "Research."
"Oh," Sophie replied sarcastically. "I didn’t realize they made books about teen party killers' interests and lifestyles."
"Not yet," replied Jamie. "But they do have plenty of books on how to catch killers like this. I already did some work by calling every Home Depot and tool store in the area and ask who bought fire axes. And they refused to tell me anything. So I called costume stores asking for names of people who bought any dark cloaks. It took persuasion, but apparently they had someone come in and pick up a large size black hooded cloak and black leather gloves."
"So, ...nothing?" replied Sophie, again incredulous.
"Practically. I have a lead, though, of sorts."
"Shoot, Tex."
"No, we're not shooting Tex. We're going to stage a fake party."
"And how would that accomplish anything?"
"Well," Jamie began, "If what I’m reading about killers and their habits is right, then they tend to kill in similar places."
"Might as well give it a shot," sighed Sophie. "But if this ruins my sleep schedule, I'll kill you."
"Really? Death threats?" scoffed Jamie.

________________________________________

The stage was set. Loud pop punk music blared from every room. Assorted extras appeared, none looking suspicious whatsoever, and each looking like they enjoyed parties once, before it was cool.
"It seems to be going well," said Sophie.
"Is it?" asked Jamie sincerely. "I’ve never thrown a party before."
"I bet a lot of people were shocked to get an invite from you of all people."
"I bet a lot of people are shocked Kelly is here."
Kelly was on the couch talking loudly to a group of people just about as popular and preppy as her
Jamie continued. "But I’m shocked there’s no light flickering."
Sophie shrugged. "Eh, I could go without a seizure for a bit."
Jamie rolled his eyes. "Medical condition jokes. Not that great of a change."
Suddenly, lights off.
"It's go time," said Jamie.
Jamie and Sophie ran outside. The lights flickered. People seemed unfazed. Sophie remarked, "Do they not see the lights flickering around them?"
Jamie replied, "Maybe everyone's too wasted off this cheap fake liquor."
Sophie sighed. "Hipsters."
They squirmed through the crowd and went to the breaker box. The cloaked figure is there, wielding a baseball bat. They all stare at each other for a bit.
The figure then grabbed the base ball bat and swung at Jamie, who ducked. The figure then kicked Jamie over, pushing past Sophie, and ran.
They sprinted back to the backyard, which has filled a bit more. Pushing past more people, Jamie and Sophie enter the house behind the figure and jumped to tackle it. The three of them hit the ground, figure on bottom, the bat out of reach.
As with the other thuds, silence fell upon the party. One hipster cried, "This party is whack. I'm out." Upon saying this, there began a mass exodus outside the party. All who were left were the same eleven, accompanied this time by Anderson and Johnny, who weren't invited.
Anderson exclaimed, "Hah! I knew it! It was you all along!"
Jamie retorted, "We all know you have no idea who it is, Anderson." Anderson sat, and Jamie continued, "All right. This search has ended. I'm going to lift the mask. Brace yourselves."
Jamie lifted the mask slowly to reveal—Hannah.
Everyone gasped.
"It's Kelly's Hannah!" cried Ruby.
"Kelly's Hannah?" replied Hannah, speculatively.
"HANNAH?!" cried Kelly.
"Why'd you do it, Hannah? Why'd you kill Brandon?" asked Jamie.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" asked Hannah. The crowd shook their heads. "I did it because he was infringing on my turn ups!"
"Your what?" asked Jamie, unbelieving. Everyone gave Hannah a blank stare.
"My parties? He was trying to edge his way into the party game, and you can’t JUST do that, especially if you're a loser like him," clarified Hannah. The stares continued.
"BRANDON WAS A GOOD MAN!" cried a voice. Everyone turned to look at its owner, Anne.
"So what now, you call the cops? Get yourselves arrested for underage drinking? Maybe some assault too? Or you just let me go, and we forget all of this," reasoned Hannah.
"No, we have a better idea," said Jamie.
Anne wielded the axe and raised it well above Hannah's head.
Lights off.
Splat.
Silence.