Chapter 1: A Priest, a Rabbi, and a Synth Walk into a Bar
Chapter 2: Roses Are Red, Blood Is Too
October 2289
A Hubflower for Magnolia: The Case of the Jilted Lovers
Chapter 3: Trouble at the Third Rail
My first thoughts about “The Kid” in this investigation was that either he was a synth like me and has been around long enough to be into all sorts of shenanigans, or he was just a coincidence in the case of the murdered man.
Before we arrived in Goodneighbor, I got a sense that there was going to be more to this case than a simple stalker murdering another with the use of hubflowers as garnish. The blooms were amiss, and just like any case that involves a lovely dame, something else was amiss.
“I forgot to mention that I didn’t tell anyone I was seeking you,” Magnolia said. “I suddenly felt like I didn’t know who to trust.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me,” I said. “By the by, why is Nate a no go in this case? He’s usually my righthand man in cases like these.”
“It’s . . . complicated. He’s . . . complicated. I feel like a few more people will get blasted away with a gatling laser if he’s involved.”
I understood. In my police career and time as a synth investigator, I never met a person as successful with solving a case with violence as Nate Howard. In my entire career, I had probably put five down, total. Of course, Eddie Winter was the one that gave me the most satisfaction, but that is a different tale for a different day.
“We’re here,” Magnolia said.
The downtown streets were already feeling safer since Nate’s eradication of mutants, ghouls, and fools mucking up the city’s streets. Still, the flashing neon signs of “Goodneighbor” with a matching neon arrow pointing to a rusty iron door did not lend itself to a place of luxury. The exclusivity of the town with a fledgling city surrounding it gave people a feeling of insecurity going through that door, and I expected the townsfolk wanted it that way. Visitors were allowed, but they had better be polite. Or else.
The door was unlocked, so I held it open for the flower accompanying me. She stepped through with a smirk and a nod, and then I was able to look in on the outdoor lobby of sorts, a mash of painted signs and woven banners promising all sorts of pleasures of the flesh. Some may have appealed to me if I had any flesh to speak of. Instead, this bucket of bolts looked upon the slimeball settlement with more of something like contempt. Except, it wasn’t quite contempt. No, cases like this make my electronic heartbeat a few paces faster, and a rundown graveyard of a city like this in the new, free Boston meant that I had a purpose for the first time since the case “Close to Home” with the Nakanos. But that, too, is a different story for a different time.
This was Scollay Square of Old Boston, a vibrant area filled with lush hotels, elite clubs, and theaters for some of the less wholesome residents and visitors. As the 20th Century changed to the 21st Century and modernization of Boston began to take hold, the Square remained as its antique self. People with more money than they knew what to do with were also looking to culture themselves, and Scollay Square became the place for rich gents and dames to spend a dollar or two. When the bombs fell, many of those
nouveau riches of the Commonwealth fell right here, hats in hand.
It wasn’t until after post-War John Hancock among others made it a settlement of their own that the place got the name Goodneighbor. Long before the war, Goodneighbor was no place at all, but a woman. Locked away under tight security untouched by the remnants of war and radiation, Hancock found a shrine to Mary Goodneighbor. Her photos were lit up in black and white and nude all over. Hancock liked her name, and that is how Goodneighbor became the place it is today, dedicated to its founder, a girl nicknamed “The Body.”
Once we were Inside the gates, a youngster spotted Magnolia and dashed off. He was probably looking for the reward we saw posted on a flyer right when we walked through: “Missing: Magnolia. 250 caps for any info. Contact Hancock directly.”
We walked towards the one place where people would be happiest to see Magnolia, the Third Rail, the jazziest jazz club in any subway station in the Commonwealth. As far as I knew, it was the only jazz club in the Commonwealth. The Third Rail was the club where Magnolia crooned her tunes live, the same ones recorded on holotapes and played over the DCR and WRVR radio waves throughout the Commonwealth. Many men came as far as the signals blew to get a live glimpse of the sultry dame behind those seductive lyrics. Many men also hoped they might be the man who’s man enough. Most didn’t but they still tried until they got booted. For the few who did, they had problems afterwards. Most of them, it was because of lovesickness.
We descended the stairs into the Third Rail and saw the youngster excited and gesturing about Magnolia until we popped our heads in down those steep stale stairs.
“As I live and beep, Magnolia you’re alive!” Whitechapel Charlie, the nannybot bartender with a bowtie, a bowler hat, and an out-of-place Cockney accent, called out.
The others stopped and gawked as we descended the stairs, not sure if they were happy to see Magnolia alive or shocked to know she was. The young man held out his hand awaiting an award. Hancock gave him a kick and a sneer instead.
“Well, Magnolia,” Hancock began. “You are a sight for sore eyes. And you, Nick, I should have known you would be a part of this. Where’s Nate?”
Hancock was the mayor of Goodneighbor and proprietor of the Third Rail. His ghoulish features popped in his American colonial outfit, another of his treasures of Goodneighbor. Next to him stood the main bouncer and fellow ghoul Ham, Hancock’s personal security chief Fahrenheit, and a second bouncer I never met introduced as Clockspring Davis, a young man with a full face scar and an eye patch where his left eye had been.
I wanted to talk to The Kid, but all they knew of were his whereabouts from one night ago.
“Him?” Ham said. “He came back in last night, crying, ‘Where’s Magnolia? Let me speak to Magnolia!’ I dragged him out and tossed him on the street.”
I was wondering who they suspected of taking Magnolia away if the Kid had a lullaby. No one seemed to know what his name was or where he was from, not even Magnolia. He was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and I needed to find him to get some grasp on what I was looking for in this case. As Magnolia revealed to me on our journey from Diamond City, the dead man turned out to be one of her one-time lovers. A random dead man means something, but a dead lover means another. That dead man was a clue I had to pursue. And so was The Kid.
“The Neighborhood Watch escorted him away towards the gates,” Ham said. “I don’t know who it was. The club was busy and we had people waiting to get in the club.”
I made a note to myself to interview the Neighborhood Watch supervisor. The Watch was a group of paid, armed guards in Goodneighbor itching for someone to pull a weapon or cause a disturbance. Dressed like mafia from my time, these well-dressed gents had a lot of firepower and knew how to use it. They got violent when violence was necessary, but someone like The Kid would just be escorted or dragged to the front door and asked not to return to Goodneighbor. So, I also had to look outside the gates to find where The Kid was. As it turned out, I didn’t have to look very long.
Young Tiffany Slavin ran into the Third Rail. Her father was in charge of security at the Hotel Rexford. “We found him! We found Magnolia’s kidnapper!” Tiffany looked at Magnolia, confused. “H-he’s dead.”
I chimed in. “Let me guess. Cut to hell? Stuffed with hubflowers?”
“Y-Yes,” Tiffany stammered “How’d you know?”
“Call it a hunch. And a problem,” I said.