Have you tried unplugging it and then not plugging it back in? Welcome to Night Vale

We have some big developments in our townwide murder mystery.

A witness has been discovered in the killing of local angel and billionaire Marcus Vanston. The witness is a man named Ace of Base, no relation. Ace likes to sit in the corner booth at the Moonlite All-nite Diner, watching the world through the smudged windows. He likes old hardware stores, how they smell, how idiosyncratic their organization is. He likes to go to an old hardware store with a specific item in mind and then try to find it without asking anyone. It’s a pleasant way to pass an afternoon. And he likes to take drives at night, when the streets are empty, when the world is the same but feels different.

It was during one of these drives that he saw what he saw. He reached out anonymously to our station, and we promised we would be very discreet about the information. Which is why Dana Cardinal, in her role as unofficial investigator of this crime, went over to Ace’s house at 1717 Insectarium Lane to take his statement.

Dana reports that Ace of Base reluctantly let her into his kitchen, which she said smelled like orange peels and rat poison.

“What did you see?” Dana asked him.

“Not much,” he said, unhappily. “I saw Marcus through the window. He was having an argument with someone. I think he was crying.”

“Marcus Vanston, crying?” Dana said, frowning. Marcus was well-known to be an unfeeling guy, and so this was surprising.

“I didn’t see anything else,” Ace of Base said. “Only a glance through the window as I drove past. You don’t see much while driving, or I try not to anyway.”

“Do you have any idea who killed him?” Dana asked.

“God knows,” Ace of Base muttered and escorted her back out onto his lawn, wishing her well with the sound of a slamming door.

And now for a word from our sponsors

Far down the coastline from any place where anyone lives, is a village. Only a few people are left in this village. It is more a memory than a community now. In the village, there is a house. The house has seen generations of a family, but now there is only an old man. He is the last one who will live in this house, and once he dies, it will no longer be a house but a kind of echo of a house. A thing that looks like a house but will never again serve that function. Every morning, the old man walks down to the beach, and he looks around in the sand. He has never told anyone what he is looking for. Some mornings, even he can’t remember. But he knows it is there, and if only he could find it, then maybe this all could be different. But he can’t find it, and none of this can be different.

Samsung. We make phones.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

Dana has located another witness in the murder of Marcus Vanston. Lakshmi Mahalla had been shooting a student film on Marcus’s front lawn at the time of the murder. She’s enrolled at Night Vale Community College’s prestigious film program, after being raised with her parents running the VHS rental annex at the Ralph’s. She found that Marcus’s front lawn was an ideal place to film her work, as he often had armed security come and start chasing her actors, which elicited some really authentic and exciting emotional work out of them.

Dana met Lakshmi at Grove Park, where she was shooting the climactic confrontation of her latest short film. The two actors were directed to run at each other from a distance of about thirty feet. “Try to get up some speed,” Lakshmi told them. “And no matter what, don’t slow down or stop.” Then she called action and the actors dutifully followed her instructions.

As the actors were loaded into an ambulance, Dana interviewed Lakshmi.

“I remember seeing him pacing around his library,” Lakshmi said. “He seemed worried, like there was something really important that he had forgotten. Or like he had a job interview and thought he might screw it up.”

“Marcus Vanston was a billionaire, so never had a real job in his life,” Dana said.

“That’s true,” said Lakshmi, who had worked at her parent’s rental annex starting at age ten.

She continued: “The next time I looked up at the window, he was gone. I figured he had left to call security on us, and I was setting up my camera to get some good shots of them beating up my actors. But the security never came. The day was kind of a bust, honestly.”

Dana wished Lakshmi well on her movie. “Thank you,” said Lakshmi. “I endeavor to capture human pain.”

“Oh,” said Dana casually, as she got up to leave. “Long shot, but do you know who killed Marcus Vanston?”

Lakshmi shrugged. “God knows,” she said, and frowned as she examined a playback of the bodies colliding.

And now for the community calendar

Monday is the Junior Scientist Fair at the Rec Center. Some of the exhibits from the children will include “Simple Machines”, “Constructing a Basic Circuit” and “Using mRNA to Cure Cancer.” It seems all other scientific organizations in the country have been defunded by people who like cancer, so it’s up to some plucky kids to continue the research. As someone who, unpopular opinion I know, doesn’t like cancer, I disagree with the political party that is pro-cancer and is trying to help cancer kill us.

Tuesday is, hold on, I just, can I just say again that there is a political party in this country that is fighting the war on cancer on the side of cancer. That is the position they’ve staked out. That’s what they want their neighbors and friends to know them for. And we do. We know who you really are now. Anyway, Tuesday there’s a shoe sale at Big Five Shoes.

Wednesday there will be road work on every single road simultaneously. We thought it would be more efficient this way. So plan for every single road to be closed. We don’t quite have enough workers to cover all of the roads, so expect these closures to last no more than 8 to 15 years.

Thursday is a fundraiser for the Mariam McDonald Memorial Fund. Fund president Leah Shapiro says to expect a raffle, a silent auction, and a ransom based kidnapping situation. Leah added “I wish I could raise the money with normal stuff, like bake sales and extortion. But it’s just not enough money to cover our costs, and so we will be kidnapping no more than eighty people, one hundred maximum, and holding them for ransom. Don’t worry,” Leah continued. “No one will be harmed. As long as you pay up. If you don’t pay up? Buddy, people are going to be harmed.”

Friday is an open house at the Diego & Diego & Diego & Diego & Diego Funeral Home, the one owned by those nice quintuplets. Their sales woman, Amber Akinyi, will be showing off some of the services of the Funeral Home, including the two chapels, the grief lounge, and a fun demonstration of what it’s like to be buried. Only the first fifteen customers can be buried, she said, so try to get there early.

Saturday and Sunday are taking the weekend off, so don’t bother them.

This has been the community Calendar.

A third witness has been discovered in the murder of Marcus Vanston, in what many are now calling “maybe the most witnessed locked room mystery of all time.”

This witness was Reggie, who lives in a tent under the Route 900 highway bridge. He used to live in a house in the Weary Chambermaid gated community, but one day he saw something while on one of his brisk morning hikes.

“I was hitting mile five and feeling strong,” he told Dana. “Almost beating my personal best, when I looked up and I saw the truth of the universe. There are dotted lines and arrows in the sky, you know.”

Dana told him that was interesting, but she was more interested in what he saw concerning the murder of Marcus Vanston.

“Oh right,” he said, “that.” His hands fiddled with some small device that’s purpose was obscure, but that he held close to him as though it might be taken at any moment by malevolent forces. “Yeah, I saw the murder.”

Dana leaned toward him. Now she was really getting somewhere. A witness that saw the moment when it happened.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Yeah, I saw while sitting right here,” he said.

“Here?” she said, indicating the underpass. “But we’re miles from where the murder took place.”

“Yes, it was in a dream,” he told her, as though explaining something to a small child.

“Ah,” said Dana, starting to pack up her things.

“I saw Marcus Vanston, and I saw the sky open up for him, and a great voice spoke and a thousand heads bowed.”

“Interesting,” Dana said, getting up and putting her bag on her shoulder.

“And then I looked down and realized I was naked in front of the thousand bowing people and I knew I was supposed to give a speech but I didn’t know what the speech was supposed to be about, and I hadn’t prepared anything. And then I woke up,” said Reggie. “Anyway, that’s what happened. Hopefully it’s helpful to you.

“Mmm hmm,” said Dana as she left. She did not ask him who killed Marcus Vanston because she didn’t care to hear his answer.

One final witness has come forward. Dana is on the way to speak to him now, though this is the one person in town who she is truly afraid to talk to. While we wait for her to nervously drive across town, let’s take a look at today’s weather.

[WEATHER]

Dana has arrived at the house of the final witness. It is her brother, Ethan Cardinal. They don’t talk much, Ethan and Dana. They live very different lives. She was always driven. The future was a constant horizon she was moving toward. In school, she followed the rules and did all the tricks you need to do to get the grades to get the college to get the jobs to get some version of success. It’s a game, and she was naturally good at playing it.

Ethan was not naturally good at playing the game. He was smart, but had trouble funneling his wits into the exact container his teachers wished him to. He too easily floated away onto other interests that drew him more. By 15, he was making little remote control cars from scratch. The combination of electric work and the physics of making a car that not only could drive but that was fun to drive, he could spend hours at that. And he did, sometimes when he was supposed to be in class. He got in trouble a lot. Dana never got into trouble. Until she did, and as a result many years later a grim visitor came from another universe to get her revenge on Dana, and mutilated their mother in front of Ethan.

This terrifying visitor had the same face as Dana, and now Ethan can’t look at his sister without seeing it. The pain on his mother’s face. The blood. Their mother is fine now. She has fully forgiven Dana. But Ethan hasn’t forgiven Dana. For that matter, Dana hasn’t forgiven Dana. They both resent her for the disaster she brought on her family. So… the siblings have that in common.

Ethan lives in a small apartment complex on Quicksand Way, out near the airport. When a plane lands, the bones of the building shake, but fortunately very few planes land in Night Vale. It is not a nice apartment, but it is an apartment that Ethan can afford.

He works at the power plant. Despite his poor grades, he had a good understanding of electrical work and so was able to get a job there, first as a low level operator and now as a safety supervisor. He’s proud of that. He’s proud of what he managed to do despite his difficulties with the world.

His apartment still looks like he recently moved in. There is a placeholder nature to the furniture, and the few decorations on the wall. A sense of “oh, this is only until my real possessions arrive”. He has lived in this apartment for five years.

“Come in,” he tells his sister, and she does.

She sits in a chair at the kitchen table. It does not match any of the other chairs.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“You saw what happened to Marcus Vanston,” she says.

“I don’t know what I saw,” he mutters. But he did. They both know that he did.

“I need you to set aside any bad feelings you have about me,” Dana says, and Ethan shouts “I don’t have any bad feelings about you.” Then they are both silent for a few moments.

“I was taking a run,” he says.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were running,” says Dana, “that’s great.”

“Why is it great?” he asks. “Was I lazy before?”

“No, that’s not what I…” Dana starts, then waves the words away. “Never mind. Go ahead.”

“I was taking a run, and I passed Marcus Vanston’s house. Despite how nice it is, it’s surprisingly near the airport. When a plane lands, it must be pretty loud there too.”

“Do planes ever actually land here?” Dana asks and Ethan shrugs.

He continues: “I saw Marcus Vanston. He looked angry. He was shouting. And then he looked scared. I saw a shadow move toward him. I saw his mouth open. I saw his mouth close. I saw him fall.”

Dana leans forward. “Did you see who murdered him? And please don’t tell me ‘who can say?’ or ‘god knows’ or anything like that. Just yes or no, did you see?”

Ethan looks her in the eye for the first time since she arrived. “Yes,” he says.

“Ok!” Dana is excited now. The case is about to be closed. “Who was it?”

“I can’t say.”

“I am trying to catch a dangerous killer, and you need to tell me who it is,” Dana says, standing from her chair.

Ethan shakes his head sadly. “No, I can’t say. My mouth will not form the words. I can’t even describe them. But Dana,” Ethan stands too. They face each other across the table, “but Dana, I do love you. You are my sister and I love you and I need you to be careful. Because this is not a mystery you should solve. I don’t want you to be hurt. Maybe you don’t believe me, but I truly don’t want that.”

He touches her hand. The first physical contact they’ve had in years. “Please Dana, give this case up.”

Dana feels a thousand things at once. She steps around the table and pulls him into a hug and he reluctantly allows it. As they hug, she whispers in his ear “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The building shakes, as a plane comes in to land at the airport.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

Proverb: Today is talk like a pirate day. I’ll go first: I was a fisherman and then the collapse of local government made my work economically untenable and so I had to resort to other means of supporting my family. Matey.