A piercing shriek echoed off the walls of New Castle Koopa, chasing itself around corners and echoing in every corridor. Seven doors slammed open, with the occupant of each room dashing to the source of the scream. Wendy Koopa lay on the floor of her room, dying.

***

Smash strode down the corridors of New Castle Koopa, led by a Koopaling on a ball.  Lemmy had asked Smash to come and solve Wendy’s murder. He really didn’t want to do this, but he owed Lemmy a favor. He walked behind Lemmy to the Koopaling’s room.

Lemmy locked the door behind him. Turning, he motioned Smash to a chair. Smash sat.  “So, what’s happened? All I’ve gathered was that Wendy died and no one knows if she was murdered or not.”

“Well, at about three o’clock in the morning, I was awoken by a shriek from Wendy’s room. I got there first. Every one of my brothers, and Susan, my cousin, ran in after me. As she was dying, she gasped out one final phrase. She said, ‘It’s the black blood!’”

Smash pondered for a second. “The black blood? Did that phrase bring anything to mind? Anything she might mistake for blood?”

“Nothing I can think of. But when I felt her body, it was covered with some kind of thick liquid. I thought it was her blood. It was dark in her room.  But when she was taken to the medics, there was nothing on her.”

“The murderer covering his or her tracks,” Smash mused.

“I would guess so.”

Smash went next to Ludwig’s room. The door was locked, but Smash kicked it open. Ludwig, as usual, was working on another of his inventions. He turned with a start when Smash entered the room. Smash very calmly sat on a nearby stool, and gave Ludwig a patented glare. This glare was quite effective to get anyone to tell him what he wanted. Ludwig was quite resilient, but Smash was more determined. He finally broke down.

“All right, what do you want?”

Smash smiled, just a bit so Ludwig wouldn’t see. “You know that Wendy was murdered last night?”

“Yes, so what?”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing. And I couldn’t care less.”

Smash could easily see that Ludwig knew more than he was letting on. He lapsed into silence, looking around and waiting until the environment became too oppressive and Ludwig broke down.  In the meantime, he looked around. Across the room from him was something covered with a sheet. Oil periodically dripped from a stained portion of the sheet. There were many spare parts around it and a toolbox. It seemed that Ludwig had been working on this for a while.

After about twenty minutes, Smash gave up. Whatever Ludwig was hiding, he couldn’t figure it out. He next went to Roy’s room.

“Yeah, what?”

“Do you know that Wendy was murdered last night?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“No. I don’t. I was up late.”

“Don’t lie,” Smash accused, “You know more than you’re letting on.”

At that point, Roy sealed his lips and refused to speak again. Smash took this opportunity to look around. The only things that caught his eye were three torches. Two were lit and were blazing on either side of the fireplace. The third was sitting on the hearth, and was unlit. The dark resin on it was about to be set to blaze. An idea forming, Smash left Roy’s room for the infirmary.

Wendy’s corpse was lying on a table. Smash noted the Wand clenched in her death’s grip, as if she had died fighting. Smash called a doctor over.  “I’m trying to solve Wendy’s death.”

“What do you need? I don’t know much.”

“All I need to know is the cause of death.”

“The cause? We’re not sure; the body was mangled quite a bit after death. She has some very harsh burns and knife wounds, and a very heavy object cracked her shell. That’s all I know.”

Smash considered for a bit. He noted with a professional eye that the knife wounds were not bleeding as much as they were supposed to, but nothing was stanching the blood. He also noted that the cracked shell had severed a blood vessel, but blood was not splattered all around, like it would if the blood has spurted, but all pooled, like it had oozed. Finding nothing more, he left.

Questioning the other Koopalings, he found out nothing of interest. Many of them tried to be helpful, but no information was relevant. Beginning to get resigned, Smash retired to the kitchen, where Clawdia was cooking dinner. He disinterestedly watched as she placed some bacon on the griddle. While watching the grease sizzle, his mind started percolating again. Within minutes, he was sure of the murderer.