McJohn and Niples and Wildflower and Elian

<snip>
"Try stabbing you? Tempting though it may seem sometimes, why
would I want to do that now?" asked Wildflower, raising an eyebrow.
<end snip>
Niples' response was an awkward look.
Iris's response to the look was to ask "What? Why are you looking at
me like that?"
Niples' was saved the trouble of responding when Mark McJohn and
Elian Sandoval appeared behind Wildflower.
"Hey, Seymour, I need to talk to you." McJohn called out.
"Don't call me Seymour. I am a Royal Ambassador after all," Niples
replied.
McJohn thought it over a minute. "Hey, you," he said "I need to talk
to you."
Niples gave up. "What about?" he asked, "The Dioneian filet mignon
wasn't off, I hope?"
"Huh? No. It's about the murder. I found something--"
"Hey! Hey! Wait a minute!" Wildflower interjected forcefully, "What
murder?"
"You mean you didn't know?" McJohn said.
"Would I smeggin' ask?" Wildflower shot back.
"Exactly. Would she ask, Mr. McJohn?" Niples put in unnecessarily,
prompting Iris to tell him to shut up.
"We found Jasmine Starbolt dead in one of the cargo bays."
"Oh my God." Wildflower repeated this, and variations of it, for
about a minute before McJohn began speaking again.
"Yeah. I know. Nasty business. She was shot. Or stabbed, I don't
remember which."
At this point, Elian finally spoke up. "She was shot," he said
solemly. None of them were aware of what Keto had found earlier. Or,
if they were, they were keeping mum about it.
"That's right," McJohn resumed, "she was shot. Anyway, I'm
investigating it--"
"Ah, he means that *we're* investigating it. Both of us. Together.
Amigos." Sandoval corrected.
"Right, right," sputtered McJohn, whose train of thought was rapidly
losing steam. "We're inves--"
"So am I," said Niples. "That's me: Seymour Niples, Royal Ambassador
and Detective Extraordinare!"
Wildflower rolled her eyes. McJohn sputtered in the beginnings of
rage. Sandoval made a poker face. Niples' didn't notice any of this.
"Look," McJohn continued, "do you want to know what I found or not?"
"I don't understand," said Niples, "Are you suggesting we work
together on this? A partnership, in fact?"
"Well I don't really feel like telling Jack all this," McJohn said,
"Not after the cavity search, at least."
"Cavity search?" Iris asked hesitatingly.
"Yeah, he had one of his flunkies stick a --"
"FORGET IT! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!" she shouted frantically. Sandoval
and Niples nodded vigorously in agreement.
"OK then. Now listen. I found out where Jasmine was before they
killed her."
"They?" Wildflower and Niples said nearly similtaneously, "You mean
there was more than one killer?" Niples continued on his own.
"No. I meant 'they' generically."
"So you meant 'him'," Niples said.
"Or her," said Wildflower.
"Him, her, it, they -- WHO SMEGGIN' GIVES A RATS'..." he trailed off,
huffily. "CAN I JUST FINISH MY DAMN STORY NOW?! HUH?!"
"Nobody's stopping you." Niples remarked.
McJohn took a swing at him with his right fist, missed completely,
and smashed his hand against a bulkhead. The four of them heard his
fist make some rather painful sounds and McJohn quickly pulled back
his hand, screamed painful obscenities, then cradled the injured hand.
"So go on, then." Niples said after a time, "Just what did you find?"
"Well," said McJohn in between gasps of pain, "I found out that
Jasmine had been on the Medical Supplies deck, so I -- I mean we --
went to have a look."
"And?" said Iris and Niples, again almost in stereo.
"There was a bunch of broken bottles all over."
"There *were* a bunch of..." Niples began to correct him until he saw
the primal anger growing in McJohn's eyes. "Never mind. I'll shut up
now."
"Hooray!" cried Iris, quite involuntarily.
"Like I said. Broken glass, lots of it. Some sort of alcohol bottles."
"Are you sure it was alcohol?" Iris asked.
"Sure I'm sure," McJohn replied definitively, "It smelled exactly
like the basement of my cousin's frat house at Saturn Tech."
"Christ."
"Pretty much, yeah," McJohn said. "So Mr. Ambassador, any ideas?"
<Tag!>
OOC - I hope this doesn't step on anyone's toes.