Trucs Bout à Bout Incident
Trucs Bout à Bout (ancient human for "Butt Stuff") is a brothel found in The Eye of Absalom station operated by Vivian Carpenter. Mrs. Mary Smalls, a rich old cat lady, moved into this establishment and was murdered.
Visiting the Scene
Mrs. Mary Smalls asked Theo to come to the retirement home she was living in. Theo had previously done work on Mrs. Smalls' Last Will and Testament, mainly to establish pet trust funds for her 38+ cats. The Spinach Inquisition quickly discovered that the "retirement home" was actually a brothel owned by her granddaughter.
When the Inquisition arrived, they were introduced to Vivian Carpenter by the secretary, Melinda. Vivian offered the Inquisition a 25% discount, and brought us to Mrs. Smalls' suite. Vivian's master keycard was unable to open the door, which concerned all parties. H4NZ was able to hack the door. Cats flooded out of the room, revealing a gruesome crime scene within.
Mrs. Mary Smalls had died from choking on a poisoned hotdog, and a large number of seemingly-identical cat corpses were strewn around the room. Bloody paw prints were everywhere. A single living cat remained, and it was eating a hotdog. It dies. Volkas is able to locate another identical cat under Mary's bed.
There are a number of food bowls for the cats, but one sticks out: a gigantic bowl labelled "Biscuit". Mrs. Smalls had mentioned this in her email to Theo; Biscuit had a ravenous appetite and had allegedly attempted to eat some of the other cats. The Spinach Inquisition immediately suspects Biscuit is somehow involved.
Junk decides to keep some of the dead cats as evidence and stores ten in his cheek pouches.
Investigation
Vivian Carpenter summons her security chief, Bombardier Quentin Watson. Quentin takes the hotdog as evidence, and together they observe that the cat corpses are all identical. There is speculation that the cats were manufactured and/or stillborn.
The Spinach Inquisitors found an email from Mrs. Small's boyfriend on her computer:
To my dearest,
Hello tall, dark and handsome. When are you going to come visit me and my precious kitties again? Do you remember when Bogart tried to crawl up your backside? I can't blame him. Also, I thought about what you said about adopting those beautiful little ginger kitties and I've decided to accept. I might have to move after the adoption though, this space is tight enough as is! (That's what he said.)
winky face,
Mary
Quentin Watson takes the remaining living cat with him and asks the Spinach Inquisition to solve this mystery. To facilitate our investigation, Vivian gives the Inquisition an all-access keycard. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Junk promptly stole the card.
Back aboard the ship, H4NZ performs further analysis on the poisoned hotdog that Mary Smalls choked to death on. He establishes that the rhino-meat hotdog was laced with Reaper, a deadly poison used for quick and dirty assassinations. This poison is known to be sold on the black market by Absalom's many gangs.
The Inquisition returns to the brothel to question its staff, hoping somebody may have seen unusual activity. A guard is grabbed and Junk clears the restaurant out with some of the dead cats he has been keeping in his cheek pouches, granting some privacy to the interrogation. As luck would have it, the guard was assigned to clean Mrs. Smalls' room and *did* know some unusual things: Biscuit the "cat" is actually an intelligent (and cute) alien, and that Quentin was alerted to the murder before the Spinach Inquisitors had arrived!
conspiracy - guard & quientin briefcase of holding club, jrad, etc callback to trex dong ship
outcomes: junk has dead cats for months, bronzed dong, discount, later visit
