Sonic Cluedo

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Sonic Cluedo

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

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Harley: You’ve got it! Or maybe you haven’t. There’s more clues in this chapter. More suggestions of suckerage. Yeah. And I’m updating a day late, but I was far too busy A-Ranking Sonic Heroes yesterday.

Froggy: Cool it, Harley. Come on, let’s get the clues up.

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Chapter Two: Pairing Up

The three teams each split off to do their own, separate investigations of the murders. The way they were set up was smart; all of the combinations were highly unlikely to have worked together to pull off the murders, and thus, were not likely to run off together easily if they were the guilty party. Sonic took it upon himself to first check out the chambers of the new master of the house, Eggman, walking up the staircase with Amy practically hanging on his arm. Suppressing a sigh, the blue hedgehog asked, somewhat dreading the answer, "Why'd you choose to go with me, Amy?"

"Because I love you, Sonic!" Amy said, happily, "One day we're going to get married and live together forever!" she hesitated, "And I don't trust Eggman or Shadow or Rouge or Knuckles. I know Knuckles acts like he doesn't have a reason but you've seen how he gets about being insulted."

It was true that Knuckles was easily insulted and reacted badly to it, but Sonic couldn't see the echidna go as far as to murder someone, "Knuckles isn't the smartest guy, but he isn't this stupid,” Sonic pointed out, "Just tell me this: who benefits the most from Gerald and Maria's death?"

"Eggman, I guess," Amy said, "He'll inherit everything."

Amy wasn't the most subtle of them, especially when it came to pursuing him, but she caught on quickly. "Exactly,” Sonic told her, "And notice how he's ordering us all around, getting us to do what he wants? Yeah, I bet he thinks that we'll be convinced he's innocent. I'm not falling for it."

"And he stopped us from calling the police," Amy added, "That means he has time to clean up any evidence. Even if he can't clean it up he can certainly make sure we make a mess of the scene, maybe put a few fingerprints around. Well, I'm keeping my gloves on!"

Sonic tugged on his own gloves in response and smiled. The two hedgehog soon were walking along the second floor towards Eggman's room. Arriving at it, Sonic reached, turned the handle, and failed to open the door. It was locked. The hedgehog frowned briefly before reaching back and plucking a couple of quills from his back, using them to pick the lock. "Funny how he locked his door, isn't it Amy? Almost like he's hiding something,” he joked.

"Huh, yeah," Amy smiled as the door to Eggman's bedroom swung open, and the smile froze. The room was neat and clean. But over every surface was designs for intricate and huge and expensive machines, small models, and notes, "Oh dear gods..." she murmured, picking up a piece of paper, "Things to do: Inherit money, Build Doomsday Device, Take Over World?!"

Sonic chuckled, walking over to take a look at the resting note from over Amy's shoulders. "Looks like a joke to me,” he said to Amy, lips close to her ear and eyes focused on the little sheet, "I mean, what kind of person just lays that around?" Taking his eyes off the little slip, he examined the models and schematics... those, on the other hand, looked very real, and many of them looked designed for warfare. Maybe Eggman had signed a contract with the military? He was a well-known and brilliant expert in the field of robotics.

Amy picked up a gun that looked like some kind of hunting rifle. It turned out to have tranquilizer darts in it, "Why'd he work on it here?" she asked, then hesitated, "You know, Eggman's got a pretty good view of the garden from this window. If he leant right out...” she demonstrated, “he could get a shot at the pool."

"I guess so,” Sonic said, looking sceptical, "But I didn't notice any darts sticking out of Maria, and just leaving all this stuff out like this... Eggman's smarter than this."

"Maybe he and Shadow were working together?" Amy suggested, "Maybe when Shadow pulled Maria out of the water he pulled any darts out of her? He'd certainly have the time."

The blue hedgehog gave it some thought. The family servant would be in the best position to help Eggman out with the murders, but that left a new set of questions, "Shadow would certainly benefit from it, too, but I've seen him around Gerald and Maria. He loved this family."

Amy shrugged and put down the gun, "I've been working here for six months, Sonic," she said, "I didn't like to say it around him but..." she shuddered slightly, "He was always creeping around Maria and Gerald. He doesn't even get paid, he stays here because he wants to! Hellfire, he's an item in the will!"

The fact that he was not paid was news to Sonic, but still... "Yeah, Shadow has always been creepy, but if he cared so much, why kill them?" Sonic asked, "I mean, if Shadow snapped, I guess he could do it, but he wouldn't be working with Eggman in that case. Maybe Eggman had no part in this and just got lucky."

Amy shrugged, "One thing's for sure - Maria would never take Shadow up on his offers. Let's check out his room. It's in the servant's quarters, next to mine."

"You're not just trying to get me in your room, are you?" Sonic asked half-joking with a little smirk.

"No, Sonic," Amy smiled, "Unless you want to go there..." she giggled.

The blue hedgehog winked at her and stepped towards the door. "Eh, murder investigation isn't the best time,” he pointed out, although still acting lightly about it, "Let's go see what a bad boy Shadow has been, eh?"

The servant's quarters were downstairs, and contained not only the servant's bathroom, but also the kitchen, pantry, and several bedrooms. When Sonic was lead into Shadow's bedroom, he could not believe that he had ever seen such an unlived in room. There was a bed, and a wardrobe, and a bedside table. And that, it seemed, was all.

Amy walked over to the wardrobe and opened the doors. She had to fight to keep herself from fainting, because the big blue eyes and blonde hair of a girl she had seen dead only minutes ago stared at her from every corner.

Sonic let loose a long whistle, glancing around at the thousands of photos of Maria pasted to the inside of Shadow's wardrobe and scattered on the floor of it. This took stalking to a whole new, disturbing level. The effect was only enhanced by the fact that there was hardly anything else in the room to distinguish it as Shadow's. That made a very loud statement about the black hedgehog's character: Maria was the only important thing in his world, "You know, I'm no psychiatrist,” Sonic spoke, "But... I'd say that Shadow is a total nutcase."

Amy looked in one corner of the wardrobe, and produced a letter, "My darling angel Maria," she read, "You don't need that old man to make you happy. I know you care for me the same way I care for you. Gerald would never let our love blossom but he can't stop us if he's dead..." she stopped reading, scanning down, "And it goes on like that. It reads like he was rehearsing some kind of speech."

Sonic's jaw hung open, listening to that little snippit, and taking another glance into the closet, he saw dozens of other such letters. "Well... we sure know now that he was thinking about it,” he stated the obvious, "It's likely that he played a part in this. So... you think that he killed Gerald, Maria rejected him, and he drowned her for it?"

"It's certainly possible that her rejection would push him over the edge," said Amy, "It's a good thing we found all this stuff now, otherwise he probably would have tried to get rid of it." She moved over to Shadow's bedside table and began to poke about in that, "It's not as if blunt objects are hard to find, and he can get pretty angry when things don't go his way," she added as she poked about.

Sonic blinked. He always figured Shadow to be the temperamental sort, although he hadn't seen it. Mostly, he had just seen Shadow's egotistical and creepy sides. Facing Amy, he asked, concerned, "You know that from experience?"

"Like I said, I've seen him following Maria about," Amy replied, "I didn't realise he was so click happy though..." she pulled something out of the drawer - an extremely ornate, extremely sharp letter-opener.

Spotting the sharp object, Sonic felt uneasy in the practically empty room. He almost expected Shadow to walk in at any instant wielding a hatchet or something. They had no concrete, damning evidence for Shadow's involvement, but Sonic was convinced he played some part in this. "Amy, do me a favour and stay close to me throughout this. This guy might freak out when we pin this all on him, and I don't want you getting hurt."

Amy nodded, "The knife doesn't look used," she said, "But Shadow sure isn't looking like a good prospect for a roommate right now..." She replaced the knife in the drawer again carefully, "What kind of guy would have a huge knife in his bedside drawer?" she asked out loud.

Sonic chuckled nervously, finding the answer to that question rather obvious in this situation. "A total loony like Shadow,” he replied, stepping over to the closet and leaning down to scoop some of the pictures and letters up carefully with his gloved hands, "Hey, help me carry some of this stuff. We'll want to show it to the others."

Amy took out the knife again and put it somewhere safe, then picked up a few photographs. Some of them had Gerald in them - or they had, before he had been cut out. Others had pictures of Shadow pasted in as well. It was horribly creepy.

Gathering up the material, Sonic focused on the pink hedgehog beside him. "So... what are you going to do after this, Amy?" When she returned his glance, he added, "I mean, surely you're not going to work here anymore."

"For Eggman?" Amy's face twisted up, and then she smiled sweetly, "I was kind of hoping that I could move in with you, Sonic."

Normally, Sonic found Amy's advances annoying or even stalker-esque, but after seeing a real, hard-core stalker, she didn't seem anywhere near as bad. The fact that she actually worked alongside that guy creeped him out. At any time, Shadow might have snapped, have done something horrible to her... Amy wasn't that bad, really. She just wasn't so good at hiding her enthusiasm. Looking at it that way, it wasn't too far off from Sonic's attitude. The blue hedgehog smiled back at her and fulfilled one of her greatest wishes. "That doesn't sound like a bad idea,” he said.

"Oh, Sonic!" Amy threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, just missing him with the knife.

Sonic almost jumped back, but was held in place by Amy's arms. Slowly, he wrapped his own arms around her, but not before first pinching the knife blade between his fingers and plucking it out of her hand. "Careful there. You don't want to go and ruin my looks,” he joked.

"Oh, sorry Sonic," Amy said, "Well, we've found plenty of circumstantial evidence on Shadow. Do you think he'd 'fess up if we confronted him? Or would he get even worse?"

Sonic pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, still holding onto her. "I'm not sure, but he'd probably get worse,” he answered quietly, "Maybe he'll show his guilt all on his own, but I wouldn't count on it. And we still might be able to dig up more on Eggman." It was becoming increasingly hard to think this close to Amy.

Amy sighed happily and rested her head on Sonic's chest, "Everything is going even more perfectly than I ever imagined it could do," she sighed.

Sonic shifted uneasily in her grasp, "Except for the blood and murders and such,” he reminded her with a soft chuckle.

"Yes, I almost forgot about that," Amy said softly, "Come on, we can take this stuff to the parlour and wait for the others there."

Smiling, Sonic reached down to run his thumb gently across Amy's cheek. "Hey, no rush,” he replied, "It'll take a while for everyone else to get done. We've got time to look around some more."

This close to her, Sonic could feel the softness and warmth of Amy's body, smell her pleasant scent. Looking into her eyes, their faces inching closer, he was sure that he'd never really looked at her before. That was when an idea hit him. Blinking and jerking back, Sonic asked, "Hey, where would Shadow have been around the time Maria died?"

"Well, he should have been in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner," Amy said, "Although he may have been upstairs, stoving Gerald's head in. Or out back, holding Maria under water."

Sonic's eyes ran over the bare walls of Shadow's chambers, thinking this over, "Can you take me there? The kitchen, I mean,” he asked.

"Sure thing," Amy said, and led Sonic out of Shadow's eerily bare room. The kitchen was just next door, but it was pretty big. Next to the sink there was a huge pile of washing up. It appeared to be everything Shadow had washed up after dinner. But the window in the kitchen faced east, and the pool was to the south.

"Ah!" Sonic exclaimed, looking almost giddy as he glanced around the kitchen. It was just as he thought. The hedgehog explained, "Look! You can't see the swimming pool from here, and with all the noise and such, I doubt you could hear anyone splashing, either! If Shadow was doing his job, there was no way he could have known Maria was drowning!"

"Yes, but everything's washed up like it should be," Amy said. She stopped, "Except he seems to have broken a glass," she said, "Maybe he was in a hurry? It would certainly be another reason to be wet." she produced the remains of a broken glass that had been thrown into the bin, and there were a few pieces of glass on the floor, too.

Sonic carefully took the glass from her and examined it. "Alright, so he did his job, but he did a rush job. He wanted to get it out of the way fast so he could do something. I could probably move fast enough, so he could too. We'll need to ask him about stuff leading up to finding Maria... before we show the creepy pictures and letters."

"If we tell him we've been in his room, he'll probably guess about the letters and photos," Amy replied, "After all, there's not much else to look at in there."

"Yeah, so we don't mention that, either. Not until we've got his answer,” Sonic told Amy. The blue hedgehog smirked. "I think we got him, Amy. You know, this is kinda fun."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Amy said, smiling.

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Harley: More clues! Yeah! Remember, none of this is designed to put you off. There are no false clues.