Chapter Text
Lieutenant Columbo arrived in Hometown on a Tuesday morning in a car that sounded as though it had objected to every mile of the journey. His old Peugeot coughed twice as it crossed the town line, shuddered beneath a wooden sign painted with cheerful flowers, and produced a brief metallic rasp when Columbo turned into the parking lot beside the police station. He sat behind the wheel for several seconds after killing the engine, looking through the windshield at the town beyond.
There wasn't much to see. A diner. A convenience store, with a hastily-added sign. A library (mis-spelled). A church. A hospital farther up the road. Trim houses with small lawns and broad windows. A school standing at the edge of everything as though Hometown had been built outward from it and then lost interest. It was the sort of place where a stranger could be identified before he had closed his car door. Columbo stepped out, tugged down the wrinkled hem of his raincoat, and looked at the sky. It was clear. Pale.
A blue monster in a police uniform stood in the station doorway, arms crossed. She growled, "You the lieutenant?”
Columbo glanced behind himself as if expecting to find another lieutenant getting out of the passenger side. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s me. Lieutenant Columbo. LAPD”
The officer came down the steps. She had blue, scaly skin, a broad, blunt face, yellow eyes, and a finned head that gave her an aquatic appearance. Tucked under her cap was a shock of bright red hair, tied into a ponytail. Her posture suggested that she had been standing at attention since birth. She hand out her hand. “Undyne. Chief Undyne.”
“Chief. Right.” Columbo extended his left hand. When she gripped it, he nearly dropped the cigar he was holding in his right . “Oh, that’s quite a handshake!”
Cheif Undyne frowned. “You were expected here an hour ago.”
“Yeah, I know, I apologize. There was a turn back there near the freeway, and I took the other road. I thought the other road was the road, you understand, because there was a sign, but the sign was pointing at a gas station. Then the attendant told me to follow the river, only there were two rivers.”
Her frown deepened into an unimpressed scowl. “What the hell are you talking about? There's one river. It runs paralell to the lake.”
Columbo frowned into the middle distance. “Then I got turned around worse than I thought.”
Undyne stared at him. Sighed. "Well, you made it. The Captain who referred you here..."
The lieutenant smiled apologetically and gestured to the station. “Oh, is Captain Graff here?”
“What? No. He's been on the phone, waiting for you to get here," she said. "He said you were the best.”
“Well, he’s very kind.”
“He said you’d say that. Follow me, Columbo.”
Columbo followed her inside. The Hometown police station consisted of a front desk, three smaller desks, a holding cell, and a bulletin board layered with public notices. A poster reminded residents to lock their doors, though somebody had drawn a smiling face beneath the warning. An officer... well this was a new one even for Columbo... this officer was a ghost monster.
The ghost looked up at Columbo and sort of bobbed up and down. They wore a police officer's cap and a badge clipped to the side of that hat. “Hello... sir...I’m Napstablook,” said the ghost in a voice that was both echoey and shy.
“Oh.” Columbo waited, uncertain whether there was more. “That’s a nice name.”
“...Thanks... sir,” replied Napstablook.
Undyne pointed toward her desk. “Captain’s on line two.”
Columbo shuffled past the desk, stopped, then backed up to look at the ghost officer’s uniform, such as it was. “That’s a very nice badge. Shiny.”
Napstablook hovered in place awkardly before finally responding. “It... came with the hat.”
“Yeah, mine too.”
Undyne made an impatient sound from the her desk.
Captain Graff was an old friend from Los Angeles who had retired years earlier and relocated to a city two counties from Hometown. He and Columbo had worked together on a political murder involving a councilman, a golf club, and a particularly unconvincing suicide note. Graff now consulted for smaller departments when they found themselves with difficult questions and insufficient resources. This time, however, there was no murder. At least, no recent one.
“Fred,” Columbo said into the telephone. “Yeah. I made it. Nice little town.” Graff spoke for several minutes. Columbo’s expression changed gradually. His forehead creased. His eyes drifted toward the wall, where a framed photograph showed a much younger police chief, a burly goat monster. He was standing beside several children at a summer festival. One child was a small reindeer monster with spotted cheeks and an enormous smile.
“No, no, I understand,” Columbo said. “But missing how long?” He listened. “Uh-huh.” He looked again at the photograph.
“And nobody asked to reopen it?” Another pause.
“But you asked me to, Fred. Yeah. Well, then why am I—” Graff interrupted him. Columbo scratched the side of his head. “I see.” He did NOT sound as though he saw. When the call ended, Undyne was still standing in the same spot. Columbo wasn't even sure she'd blinked.
Undyne gave him a nod and said, “He tell you?”
“Yeah.”
She clicked her teeth. “He tell you this is a waste of time?”
“No, he didn’t say that exactly.”
Undyne looked skeptical. “He told /me/ it was a waste of time.”
Columbo set the receiver down carefully. “What he said was, there have been several unusual incidents recently, and your department’s been stretched pretty thin.”
“We’re handling it.”
“I’m sure you are.”
She ticked off each point on a finger. “Property damage. Power outages. Reports of trespassing. Kids getting into places they shouldn’t. Nothing connected to the old case.”
Columbo gave a non-commital nod. “Probably not.”
Undyne narrowed her eyes. “You don’t believe me.”
“Oh, no, Chief, I believe you. I just got here. I don’t know enough not to believe you.” That answer seemed to irritate her more. Columbo pointed toward the photograph. “That the former chief?”
Undyne looked at it. “Yeah. Asgore Dreemurr.”
Columbo approched the framed photograph. He let out a low whistle. “Wow. Big fella.”
Undyne chuckled. “Yeah well. He was a good officer.”
Colombo turned back to her. “...'Was'?”
Napstablook coughed. “...was. He... left the force. A few years ago.”
Columbo took a small notebook from his pocket and flipped through several pages filled with grocery lists, phone numbers, and handwriting so cramped it appeared to have been written during an earthquake. He flipped to a blank page and asked “When was that?”
Undyne said, “After the Holiday girl disappeared.”
“Ah, right," said Columbo. "Dess?”
Undyne nodded. “Yeah. December. December Holiday.”
“And everybody called her Dess?” said Columbo.
“From what I understand, yeah.”
Columbo nodded and wrote nothing.
Undyne said, “You aren’t here to investigate Asgore, are you?”
Columbo shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
Undyne seemed to grow an inch or two taller as her scowl deepened. “It's 'Chief',” she growled and then added curtly, "Leiutenant."
“Right. Chief.”
She crossed her arms. “So. You’re here to look over our recent reports, tell Captain Graff there’s no serial criminal hiding in the woods, and leave.”
He nodded. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds straightforward.”
“It is.”
Columbo returned the notebook to his pocket. “So, uh... Where exactly can I find Mr. Dreemurr?”
Undyne’s jaw tightened.
“For background,” he added.
***
The flower shop stood at the southern end of town, beyond the diner but before the shore of the lake. Its painted sign read FLOWER KING, though the word KING had faded more than the rest, leaving it ghostly and pale. Inside, the air was warm and dense with earth, petals, and damp leaves. Asgore Dreemurr stood at a wooden counter arranging yellow flowers into a blue ceramic vase. He was enormous, even for a monster, with curved horns, heavy shoulders, and a mane of pale hair that fell around a face of such natural gentleness that Columbo understood immediately why children might once have trusted him. Asgore looked up and smiled at Columbo.
“Howdy! Welcome to Flower King." said Asgore. "Are you looking for something for a special occasion?”
Columbo stuck an unlit cigar,between his teeth, and looked like he was considering something. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe. These are very nice,” he said, pointing to a small boquet.
“They're goldenrod,” said Asgore.
“Goldenrod.” Columbo leaned closer. Squinted. “Funny. They don’t look gold.”
“No,” Asgore admitted. “Not especially.”
Columbo nodded as though this confirmed a private suspicion.
Asgore waited.
The lieutenant wandered toward a display of potted plants, examining each tag with great seriousness. “I’m Lieutenant Columbo. LAPD.”
Asgore's smile remained, but it faltered slightly. “Los Angeles,” Asgore said. "Gosh, that's a long way from here.”
Columbo turned back to face Asgore, shoving his hands into the pocket of his coat. "Ah, not a big deal. I’m just helping Chief Undyne with a few things. Y'know, she said you used to be chief of police here.”
Asgore set down the flower he was holding. He grew still. "Lieutenant, that was a long time ago.”
Columbo nodded. “I see, Mr. Dreemurr. How long?”
“Long enough,” said Asgore.
Columbo turned back to the plants. “You mind if I ask you a couple questions?”
There was a moment in which Asgore’s large hands flattened against the counter. Then the smile returned, soft and tired. He heaved a soft, weary sigh. “This is about Dess. Isn't it?”
The lieutenant turned back to face Asgore. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
Asgore gave a wry smile and said, “People don't come all the way from Los Angeles to ask about broken windows amd minors trespassing.”
“No. No sir, I suppose they don’t.”
Asgore gestured toward a pair of chairs near the back. One was ordinary. The other had been reinforced with extra slats. Columbo chose the ordinary chair, removed his cigar, and seemed uncertain where to put it. Asgore offered him an empty flowerpot. “That’ll do, Mr. Dreemur. Thank you.”
They sat with the yellow flowers between them. Asgore smiled and said, "Please, call me Asgore."
Columbo opened his notebook and said “So I read the file on the way up.” This was NOT true. He had tried to read ihis copy at a roadside diner, spilled coffee on the first page, and then been distracted by a disagreement between two truckers over whether a jukebox was taking quarters. He'd read enough.
"So," Columbo said, taking out his notebook, “Your report says December Holiday was last seen in the woods west of town.”
Asgore nodded. “That was where we believed she had gone.”
“You didn’t see her there?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Asgore looked at the floor. “The children were not clear.”
Columbo paused, pencil hovering over his notebook. “Which children?”
“Her sister," said Asgore quietly, "and their friends.”
Columbo nodded, then scribbled something. “Okay Asgore, that'd be, ah, Kris Dreemurr?”
“My child, yes.”
Columbo glanced down at the notebook. “And Asriel, their older brother.”
Asgore nodded.
Columbo scribbled something else. “Oh and... What about Noelle Holiday, the younger sister. She was there?”
Asgore hesitated, before finally responding, “She had been with them earlier.”
“But not when Dess disappeared.”
Asgore frowned. “We never established exactly when Dess disappeared.”
Columbo studied him. Asgore folded his hands together. They were powerful hands, broad enough to encircle Columbo’s neck, but they trembled faintly at the fingertips. “That bothered you,” Columbo said.
Asgore sighed. “/Everything/ bothered me.”
“No, I mean that particular thing. The timing.”
Asgore rubbed his temples. When he spoke, he sounded weary. “Lieutenant, there was no point at which anyone could say, ‘Here. This was the last moment.’ There were only stories. Fragments. They had been playing. Exploring. Arguing, perhaps. One remembered a path. Another remembered a clearing. Noelle remembered snow, though there was no snow that day.”
Columbo looked up. “She remembered snow?”
“For a time,” said Asgore.
“What do you mean, for a time?”
Asgore shook his head and said, “Later, she said she had been mistaken.”
“Ah. Yeah, kids do that,” said Columbo as he scribbled something in his notebook. Then he looked back up to Asgore. “But it stuck with you, didn't it.”
Asgore’s eyes moved toward the flowers. “Children remember feelings before they remember facts,” he said. “Noelle was frightened of something. Not merely frightened that her sister was gone. Frightened of what had happened before. I just wish we knew exactly /what/ had happened before."
Columbo let the silence rest. Outside, somebody pedaled past the window on a bicycle, ringing the bell twice. “Your search covered the whole area?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Asgore.
“Caves? Wells, storm drains, abandoned buildings? Tree houses?”
Asgore looked puzzled. “Tree houses?”
“Kids build ’em.”
Asgore nodded. “I swear to you. We checked everything.”
“Of course.” Columbo shut the notebook.
Asgore narrowed his eyes and said, “You think I failed.”
The lieutenant seemed genuinely surprised. “Oh, no. No, no sir, I didn’t say that!”
Asgore shook his head. “You don't have to. I can tell”
Columbo tucked his notebook back into his coat pocket. Gave Asgore a long, honest look. “Mr. Dreemurr, every policeman I ever met has one case that keeps him awake. Sometimes it’s because he missed something. Sometimes it’s because there was nothing there to find. The trouble is, after enough years, you can’t tell which one it was.”
Asgore’s gaze lowered. “I left the force because I could no longer tell the difference.”
Columbo nodded slowly. Then he rose. “Well, Mr. Dreemurr, I appreciate your time.”
Asgore said, “That's all? Well, have a nice day.”
Columbo retrieved his cigar from the flowerpot and walked toward the door. His hand was already on the latch when he stopped. He cleared his throat and said, “Oh, there is one thing.”
Asgore closed his eyes.
Columbo turned around. “The gate across the way, at the south of town. What’s back there?”
Asgore shook his head. “Nothing. Just an old unsed bit of property.”
Columbo nodded. “Oh, alright. See, that's what I figured. But I couldn't help but notice... the chain’s new.” Columbo scratched his eyebrow with a finger. “The gate’s old, rust all over it. But the chain, that’s recent. Maybe a year, maybe less. Funny thing is, if there’s nothing back there, why replace the chain?”
Asgore opened his eyes. The he slowly shrugged, which sort of looked like a mountain in the middle of the jungle deciding to bunch upbefore it slowly settled back down again. “Golly, I wish I knew.”
Columbo smiled and said, "Ah well. Just a thought. Thanks foir your time, Mr. Dreemurr. I'll get outta your hair." and a moment later, he left. The bell above the door jingled. Asgore remained seated beside the goldenrod until the sound of the Peugeot had faded from the street.