The North Pole Files

The head elf was dead. His body was splayed facedown in the snow adjacent from some trees. No blood. No sign of injury. He was just...dead. Yet, foul play had occurred here.

I knew because I had been assigned this case after my superiors were contacted by Mette who was an elf who lived all the way over in the North Pole, which was called the Noreski Isles by the locals. The Isles consisted of six islands plus the mainland where Santa Claus lived—the mainland where I currently stood in the Jolly Forest.

Quite the irony in the name there. A lot of irony was at play here since murder simply did not happen in the North Pole. Everyone got along. It was all full of lights and laughter and joyful songs, especially in the wintertime. Even in the villages on the other islands, people were friendly and considered it to be an honor to live so close to the ones who brought happiness all around the world.

Now here I was—an Otherwordly Creature Investigator—standing in the Noreski Isles' first morbid scene in probably centuries. I usually handled cases that involved corrupt mystical figures like Elven crime families or vampire drug dealers and even a kidnapping involving the Abominable Snowman. So when I was summoned over here, I expected to be asked to search for missing toys or cookies.

Instead I got a murdered elf.

I drew out my handy dandy notepad and my lucky pen and got to work. The first one I would question was Frosty the Snowman since he had been the one to discover the body.

"How do we know he was killed?" I crouched down to inspect closer.

"I sensed the poison as soon as he collapsed in my snow pile," the snowman answered. "I can feel any substance within a one-mile radius."

I peeked up at him. He wasn't really a snowman in the way that most people thought. He appeared humanoid in a red scarf, button-down trench coat, and a top hat that obscured most of his face in the moonlight. He held an unlit pipe in one hand and a carrot in the other. From what I gathered, he was the snow and could morph himself into it whether it was on the ground or in the air. I could tell with how his feet appeared to be covered in snow when in fact the snow just melded with his form.

"Somebody poisoned Edvar," he said. "He had just finished helping Sir Jul polish his sleigh."

I turned back to my notepad to scribble these details down. I already knew Sir Jul was what the ones on the mainland called Santa Claus.

"But if you ask me," Frosty continued, "I'd say Rudolph did this. He could feel some resentment over Edvar never allowing him to pull Santa's sleigh apart from that one time."

I considered Frosty's words and acknowledged them with a slow nod. Then I put on some gloves and set my notepad and pen aside to assess Edvar's body. When I slightly turned his head, I did notice severely darkened veins and a bloated face with skin turning green. Around his lips were cookie crumbs that seemed to have been vomited. Definitely looked like poison.

I moved my investigation to the cottage where Santa Claus and his wife Agnes lived. I sat in a cushion chair across from them and in front of a fireplace when I asked what they could tell me about Edvar, any possible conflicts with others he might have had, and details about the last time that they saw him.

Apparently the head elf was well-loved. Strict but fair; a pusher and a helper; and motivated while also inspiring.

"I can't understand why anyone would want to harm him," Agnes said, her eyes going to her husband briefly. She was not a woman in an apron with a grandmotherly bun. Instead, she had a crown atop a cascade of silvery tresses and a cloaked red and white dress.

Santa Claus—or Sir Jul—also had a crown, and his body build was more of a large warrior than a rotund man as many believed. His hair was platinum instead of white and tied in a long ponytail. He stroked his cropped beard. "He seemed fine when we were working on my sleigh. I didn't see him eat or drink anything."

I scribbled some notes while taking a look around the space. I noticed the tray of sugar cookies on the table between the Clauses and me. "He liked his sweets, I imagine."

"Oh, they all do, dear," Agnes stated in her softspoken kindly voice. "You can ask the elves. Some of them even bake their own sweets here. One is likely to have seen what our Edvar consumed today."

I headed straight for the brightly lit castle located about a quarter mile behind the cottage. It was where all the elves stayed; and unfortunately for me, I had forty-six to ask. It might have seemed like a small number to outsiders, but these beings had the ability to craft whatever items they wanted from pure magic. They were magicians who performed at supersonic speed with attention to detail that was borderline photographic memory. The thing about that was that they used these skills solely for their work and were rather spaced out or forgetful when they were off duty, which became quite the situation for me.

What I did manage to gather during my time with them was that they found Edvar to be a great leader. They looked up to him, and some even wanted to be like him someday. The older elves appeared humbled to have passed down their wisdom to him. It all seemed great to hear, but the irritating part was that there were different counts as to what he last ate before he stepped outside of the castle.

At least the ones who saw him all agreed that they last witnessed him heading over to Santa's cottage.

"I hope the information is getting you closer to your suspect," said Mette, the female elf who dialed in this case. She leaned in as I scribbled more notes on my now half-filled notepad. "Is it?"

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Not really."

A second elf, Perti, raised her hand. "Oh! You should talk to the reindeer. They can be sneaky fellows, and one of them is definitely bound to accidentally snitch on the other."

"Yes," Mette agreed. "It is sort of their fault that this place isn't as jolly as it's supposed to be any more."

"Sort of?" Perti crossed her arms. "It is their fault. Those boys have gotten too competitive and they take things far too seriously."

After hearing that, I did the only thing that made sense. I went outside to speak to the reindeer. They were also figures that the outside world didn't expect. They were shapeshifters. Unless they had their own reasons, they shifted into actual reindeer only when they pulled Santa's sleigh. When they weren't actually four-legged hoofed animals, they lounged about as bare-chested men with differently sized antlers growing from their temples.

Aaaand they were a herd of eye candy. Hey, I was only human.

But I kept it professional as I always did.

Donner appeared like the bad boy of the group—at least one of the bad boys with his metallic gauntleted hands and black pants and shoulder plates with arm and shoulder tattoos to match. He gave straightforward answers, saying he had never interacted with Edvar on his own and never would have.

Cupid must have been the heartthrob of them. He was a pretty boy with the luscious hair that dangled over his forehead and bright, deep eyes that focused on me and only me when I spoke or when he spoke to me. He mentioned that Edvar was wonderfully well-respected, but in over his head at times.

Then it was Blitzen who provided extra information to round it all up. He had a fighter's build with the broad shoulders, muscular arms, and (dare I say it) killer abs. He said that it was true that they didn't particularly listen to anything that Edvar told them to do. The head elf had not been fond of that, though he tried to brush it off in good nature.

"The truth is...we only listen to Sir Jul." Blitzen spoke these words in his gravelly tone while leaned back against a tree with one foot propped up against it.

The other seven seemed to agree with that. I wrote all of this down, feeling my hand and my head start to ache. No one completely jumped out at me yet, which I realized was for the weirdest reason. I actually believed that all of them could be culpable. Based on the testimonies I'd heard so far, any of them could have gotten rid of Edvar—even Santa Claus.

What I needed was a motive. Once I found that out, then I'd be able to narrow it all down.

"You haven't spoken to Rudolph yet, have you?" Donner asked in a raspy tone. He was lounged back against a stack of hay, an amber drink hand.

"No," I answered. "I thought he'd be here. Where is he?"

"Where he usually hides," Prancer answered from a tree branch above. He was casually eating an apple. "The large burrow by the wheelbarrow." He gestured eastward. "He disassociated himself after saying that apparently we are all big bullies."

Most of the others laughed at this before Blitzen added, "It's interesting because he's the one who caused trouble when he got here. He's the one who didn't want to be a part of us."

I did the only sensible thing that there was to do after that. I went to go find Rudolph, which took me about twenty minutes through the snow since none of the reindeer moved to assist me in finding his burrow. Not that I wanted help, but I thought the Noreski Isles were supposed to be filled with courtesy among other things.

When I arrived at the burrow, no one was there. I searched around for only a few moments before I heard a boyish voice behind me.

"You're the detective, aren't you?"

I turned around. "Operative," I corrected.

Everyone would expect to see an animal with a glowing red nose. What I saw was an adolescent-looking male with flames within his eyes and mouth. The sight startled me at first, but I tried my best not to display that fact on the outside.

"Hello," I said as calmly as I could. "I'm Operative Nina Cenizas. I'm here to—"

"I know why you're here." He stepped from behind a tree, appearing like the rest of the reindeer with a bare torso and antlers protruding from his temples. The difference was not only in the fire in his eyes and mouth, but also because of his slimmer frame and smaller antlers. "They told you that I'm a freak just because I'm part dragon, didn't they?"

"No." Half dragon and reindeer? I silently admitted that I had never heard of such a hybrid, and I was curious to see what he looked like when shifted into his bestial form. "I asked them the same things I'm about to ask you. How was your relationship with Edvar the head elf and when did you last see him?"

Rudolph sighed softly and lowered his eyes. "I didn't kill him."

"I didn't say that you did." I clicked my pen and prepared to take some notes. "I just want to know those two things for now."

"The elves are making it seem like I did. Some of them approached me this morning and gave me the idea to bake cookies for him with Lady Agnes. Edvar and I had a strained relationship, which led to many disagreements, the last one being two nights ago. I didn't like how he never allowed me to go on Sir Jul's travels, but I wouldn't kill him over that! Somebody's setting me up."

The plot kept growing thicker. "Which elves approached you about the baking idea?"

"Mette and Perti. They're the ones who always tried to calm the relationship between the reindeer and the elves. It could get pretty hectic when Sir Jul or Lady Agnes aren't around."

Rudolph had actually given me the most useful information so far. That could have possibly been because he wanted all of the suspicion off him, but I was giving everybody the benefit of the doubt for now.

Frosty found the body, and could have been a suspect in the beginning. The poison and the cookies threw me off though. Apart from him hardly being indoors, the oven would have been too hot for him. That was all based on my research and information provided to me by the occupants here. Besides, I couldn't find a motive.

Santa and Agnes could have very easily offed Edvar, but for what? They were the rulers of this area. They could have just relinquished the head elf from his position and have been done with it if they had an issue with him.

That left me with the elves and the reindeer, including Rudolph. Any of them had reason to get rid of Edvar, which was a fact that made me rub at my temples as I sat in the small cabin provided for me during my stay here. Forty-six elves and nine reindeer. Fifty-five possible suspects.

And strangely enough, I knew who I would start with.

I returned to the castle and found Mette again. She seemed about ready to head out somewhere with a bag slung over her shoulder. "Sorry to intrude again," I started. "I just needed to clear up a few more things. What sort of cookies were baked this morning? Elves like to keep track of that, right?"

Mette appeared confused for a moment before releasing an awkward yet musical giggle. "Rudolph wanted to make those. Perti was only--"

"I didn't mention Rudolph...or Perti. I just wanted to know what sort of cookies had been baked this morning."

Mette paused, mouth parted as she stared at me. She almost appeared as though a myriad of thoughts zoomed through her head. Silence passed. Then her lip quivered and she unexpectedly burst out crying.

"I didn't want to do it," she said, trying to keep her voice low. "It was Perti's idea. She said she could help me make head elf. We were supposed to make Edvar sick and blame Rudolph since he's already outcasted himself. The poison wasn't supposed to kill Edvar. We accidentally spilled a little too much when Lady Agnes walked in and almost caught us. I didn't think it'd be strong enough to...to..." She sobbed some more.

I didn't know if it was an elf trait to break down when attempting to lie, but Perti ended up doing the same thing when I questioned her about Mette's revelation. Maybe with all of their brainpower mostly focused on work, elves didn't have enough to process story fabrication. I did hear somewhere that they got overwhelmed rather easily outside of the workshop.

Either way, I reported it all back to my superiors. I did not particularly believe that I solved this case. I more or less thought that I got lucky with overtalkative elves. Santa Claus—or Sir Jul—felt differently though. He said that the atmosphere had been stirring in the North Pole, and that the unfortunate situation with his elves was only the beginning of a darker turn of events.

So he asked my superiors and me if I could stick around to prod about a little more. They said yes and strangely...

...so did I.

I was not done with the North Pole and its unique citizens just yet.