Barking up the Wrong Tree - An Object "Fanfiction"

Chapter 4 - Party Time

As Tree was gulping down his blasphemous beverage, the people coming in went from "only a little late because being exactly on time is hard" to "unironically and actually late." The "fashionably late" crowd wouldn't arrive for another ten minutes, and the "completely forgot that it was today and got a text from a friend asking where they were" crowd for another thirty.

Pen was the first non-Tree-and-non-magenta-sphere-behind-the-chocolate-fountain person to enter the dining/banquet room/hall. He saw Tree immediately as he entered.

"Yo! Tree!" Pen yelled. "I didn't think you were the type to drink."

"I've just been hired to solve a murder with basically no information other than a single vague eyewitness account," Tree responded, turning toward Pen. "And I really don't feel like thinking about it now."

"A murder?" Pen asked.

Tree grunted and opened a second can.

"Well, this is a party, right? You have a whole bunch of people just being here and possibly getting drunk. It would be, like, the perfect place to get information," Pen said, picking up a slice of pizza.

"This is true," admitted Tree. "But I still don't want to think about it."

"Isn't it your job, though?"

"This is also true."

"So go talk to people."

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh." 

Tree stood up and went back into the living room. There were many more people there than before as a direct result of more people arriving. He glanced around, looking for anyone who was talking about how they had just killed Apple. Unfortunately, he was unable to find a single person who was doing this, and resorted to talking to people at random.

"You. Where were you at four thirty this afternoon?" Tree asked.

"Who the hell are you?" responded Bushy, who didn't appreciate the impromptu interrogation.

Tree flashed his super official private investigator badge. "Someone you don't want to mess with," he said evenly.

"Whatever," Bushy replied with a roll of his eyes. "I was at the arcade." With that, Bushy left Tree to go and participate in the party that was currently going on.

"This isn't working," grumbled Tree. He instead decided to ask some people who seemed to be relevant to the plot in some way. He walked over to Pink Marker.

"You. Where were you at four thirty this afternoon?" Tree repeated.

"I was getting stuff for the party that's happening, like, right now. Why do you care?" Pink Marker replied, slightly annoyed that she had been distracted from the very interesting conversation she was having with a bunch of other people who were currently screaming and yelling at a very high volume.

"No reason," lied Tree. The reason that Tree had lied was because he couldn't be bothered to not. If only someone who actually had information would walk up behind him, tap on his shoulder, and say "I think I have some information."

Suddenly, Cake walked up behind him, tapped on his shoulder, and said "I think I have some information."

This was very convenient for Tree.

"Cool," replied Tree. "What's the information?"

"Take this," Cake whispered, handing him a piece of paper. "Also, don't ask how I knew you were investigating a murder."

"How did you-"

"I said don't ask!" With that, Cake walked off to go do karaoke with Pie.

Tree looked at the piece of paper that Cake had given him. The top of the page read Knife's Legal Firearm Store. Whether this implied that the firearms were guaranteed to be legal, the firearms were not legal but were being lied about, or that Knife also had a shop that sold illegal firearms was ambiguous and completely irrelevant. What wasn't irrelevant was how Cake had managed to acquire this sheet of paper, but that didn't occur to Tree at this time. The sheet of paper specified people who had purchased a firearm from the store in the past week. There were three of them.

Olive, Black Hole, and Pink Marker.

Olive was a hunter who frequented the woods to the west of the city, so it made sense that she would need a gun. Black Hole was a soldier who had fought in the Host War, and worked as a police officer in Tree's district (the Dream District), so it made sense that he would need a gun. Pink Marker worked at a nearby ice cream parlor, and therefore didn't have any good reason to buy a gun. Of course, Tree wasn't about to jump to any conclusions. Yet.

Then Tree looked up and saw Remote standing in front of him.