A/n: remember how I said the MH characters might show up as background characters? Also (y/p) = your pronouns.

A knock on the club room door snapped you and L out of your focus, having sat in silence typing out this months articles all morning. When you looked up, you noticed a shadow behind the frosted glass window on the door. Not often someone comes by the club.

"Come in!" You called out.

The door opened and behind it was someone you'd seen in class before but never actually talked too. They had black and silver hair, were covered in stitches and had two mismatched eyes.

"Hey! I'm Frankie, pronouns they/them. I heard this is the place to come to about tips?"

You and L immediately perked up. Someone was actually coming into the club to talk to you in person? Rather than just sending stuff over the blog? This was new.

"Uh, yeah. Come sit, I'm (y/n). Pronouns (y/p)" you said, holding out a hand to shake.

They took it, shaking your hand as a greeting and then having a mini heart attack when their hand came right off.

"Oh! Sorry, it does that sometimes..." they snickered, letting you plug it back into their arm.

"I'm L, pronouns uh... whatever works I guess? I've never actually sat down and thought about that..." L trailed off.

"Your arm band tells me you're the leader"

"I am. So what brings you here?"

Frankie put their bag down, leaning back in their chair. The body language told you that you were in for a long story, so you sat back as well.

"Ok so, I was built out of a bunch of really smart dead people. And it makes my memory really good, almost photographic. So during lockdown I tried to go through every day I've had at school to see if I saw something out of the corner of my eye or overhead something. And I think I did" they began.

Oh wow, that memory must be very useful for tests. If only you could remember things that wall.

"I wasn't at the sport carnival, my friends and I were uh... maybe breaking some rules and hanging out at the graveyard. But the day after when everyone noticed Mr Jackal was missing, during lunch at exactly 12:57 I went to get some thread from my dorm because my stitches come loose, and I kinda tripped and my arm went flying. So I had to reach under a trophy cabinet to get it, right? I saw under the door to the side entrance when I was down there and there were two people jumping the fence into the woods. I couldn't make out who exactly it was. But one of them had red sneakers and the other black high tops" they explained.

That was a very detailed explanation, down to the exact time and everything. Damn, this kid had REALLY good memory.

"The side entrance? That's an emergency exit right?" You pondered.

"It is, if it opened then the alarm would have gone off. So the only way to that part of the fence would be-" L began.

"- to go out the back doors, around the side and through or over the gate to the trash area" Frankie jumped in, matter of factly.

That area was off limits to students, not to mention the door would have set off alarms. So these two people had to have jumped the fence into the trash area and then over the other fence into the woods. That side of the school was pretty much dead, no one went there so it'd be a perfect stop to sneak into the woods and not get caught.

"So two people were in an off limits area, jumped two fences and vanished into the woods? Right after a disappearance and right before a body was found... that's..." you began.

"Suspicious as hell... did you tell the headmistress?" L asked.

"I did, but since I can't tell who the people were there's not much that can be done. But I figured if this club is taking photos of the students all the time, maybe you can match the shoes up to someone's pictures?" Frankie said.

Shit, they WERE smart. All those smart dead people really have them the best parts of their brains.

"That a good idea, we have two years worth of photos of this current batch of students. There's going to be red sneakers and black high tops somewhere" L muttered.

"How about we look though the pictures, and collect all the ones with the possible shoes and then call you back to identity them? With your memory I'm sure you'd know exact which ones they were" you suggested.

"I can do that" Frankie replied.

"Oh, and thanks for letting me borrow your hand the other day, I would have introduced myself properly but we'd have gotten caught passing notes" L added.

Oh so it was Frankie's hand that passed you the note the other day? L was smart to ask the one with detachable limbs to sneak around notes during class.

"It was a smart idea, I'm definitely using my detachable limbs to pass notes now" Frankie said.

This was an interesting development, thanks to the photographic memory of one particular monster who was in the right place at the right time, you had a lead. Red sneakers and black high tops.

They gave you a few more details from their amazing memory, not much that could help but still interesting to know they could remember the exact temperature it was that day. And after thanking them for the tip, they went to go catch up with their friends.

Pretty cool monster too, if they ever wanted to join a club they'd be super useful to the newspaper club.

Immediately you and L started going through every photo you'd taken of the students looking for the shoes, and when Near finally showed up and you explained everything he was immediately on the hunt too. There were so many pictures it'd take forever to go though, but it was a start.

"Black high tops and red sneakers... keep an eye out for that in the halls too by the way" you said.

"Take a picture if you see anything that might be it. Although there is the change the culprits got rid of the shoes after the crime, just in case keep an eye out anyway" L replied.

"I'll text the M&Ms to do the same" Near added, picking up his phone to message them.

"They're on sport teams so they'd probably get a good look at everyone's sport shoes, maybe they'll spot something we don't, like in the locker rooms"

Near shuddered at the thought of the sport team locker rooms. Just physical education class was a wreck enough.

"Ugh I hate the locker rooms..." he said.

"Same, what is it with boys and whacking each other with wet towels? And bashing into lockers for fun?" L sighed.

"That's why I lock myself in a stall"

"Same"

Luckily for you, you were smart enough to change in the bathrooms and not the locker rooms. All you had to do was swap out a shirt for sport class anyway.

"Imagine being in the boys locker room, couldn't be me" you snickered.

"Be glad you're not in there" Near said.

"Just change in the bathrooms, sure boys bathrooms aren't much better but it'd be quieter and less crowded while everyone else is in the locker room"

They both looked over at you, dumbfounded they didn't think of that before.

"See this is why you're a prefect fit for the club, you're smart as hell" L complimented.

"Why thank you" you teased, pretending to flip your hair over your shoulder.

However you managed to get a hold of those shoes, it was your best bet at tracking down the culprit. All thanks to a tip from a helping detachable hand.