In the dark alley between Smart Heart's bookstore and Grams' diner, Secret Bear had been opened up and spread out for all the world to see.

He had been found in the early morning, slumped next to the dumpster outside of Grams'. Tangerine fur stained deep red with rapidly darkening blood clumped down the alley. The body lay quietly, almost peacefully, as though Secret had decided to stop on a walk and take a nap in an alley in the middle of the night, and then around that time someone had apparently walked by and decided to completely disembowel the guy.

Ripped his Belly Badge right off.

Closer to the bookstore side of the alley, a basket of apples lay toppled on one side, marking the spot where the first witness, Smart Heart Bear, had noticed the body. Bears swarmed around the area, marking each apple with tape, taking pictures of each one, as though that mattered. 

Detective Grumpy Bear, Homicide, Care-A-Lot P.D., stood over the cold body of his fellow care bear with a grim expression on his stormy blue face. 

“Looks like Secret's not going to be keeping any of those anymore,” he said among the flashes of the cameras. He didn't know which camera was a reporter or who was part of the crime scene. It didn't matter. He hated them all. So he scowled at them, a few of the younger crime scene technicians yelped and retreated, hiding behind a green bear with a shamrock Belly Badge, taking notes on blood splatter a few feet away. 

“Come'on, Grumpy,” Det. Good Luck Bear, his friend and partner, said with a wheedling edge. “Have some respect for the guy. He was an institution.”

“If you could call it that.” Grumpy Bear could barely hide his disdain for the victim. 

Care-A-Lot used to be a bustling metropolis filled with positive emotions, clouds, and rainbows, but that had been a long time ago. Sure, the clouds remained, they were part of the structural integrity of the damn place, but they had taken on a grimy, diseased edge back in the early Oughts. Light pollution had gotten rid of any rainbows ages ago, and the Forest of Feelings had been razed to build the slums on the other side of the “Rainbow Bridge”, a dark, metal and concrete expanse that connected the two halves of the city now. Grumpy Bear could still remember when it was built. They had painted it all the colors of the rainbow back then in some sad attempt to remain cheery. That hadn't lasted once the vandals had gotten to it. 

With the new look came new ways of being, and at first it had seemed fun. Business sprang up, simple at first, but it grew complicated quick. Grumpy Bear himself had been excited to play cops and robbers when the need for law enforcement became increasingly clear. He hadn't known what it meant back then. He thought it was all play.

They all had. But don't all kids, when faced with those adult decisions for the first time, think they are still playing?

Secret Bear had always loved secrets, so when it had become his turn to decide what he was going to be, he could have chosen to become a therapist, or maybe even one of those Fraiser Crane radio-types. 

Instead, Secret had become a gossipmonger. Singlehandedly running his tabloid, he had become a force to be reckoned with in a relatively short period of time. It was a lesson the Bears had all learned together: they loved telling their Secrets and knowing that those secrets were kept, of course. 

But boy, did they freaking love hearing the secrets of others. 

It had been lucrative for Secret, no question. Now, it was deadly. 

Grumpy didn't feel bad for the asshole one bit. 

He turned away to walk over to the witness, the weeping Smart Heart Bear.

With tears soaking into her fur, she looked up at him as he approached. She clearly looked a little wary, her wide eyes already a little nervous. His reputation for being a bit of a hardass preceded him, but no matter, he was there to get the truth, nothing more, nothing less. Let the D.A., Tenderheart Bear, worry about “justice”. 

“Tell me the last time you saw Secret Bear before this morning, Ms. Smart Heart," Grumpy Bear said sternly. 

Smart Heart, ever the ingénue with her big innocent eyes, tried to beseech Grumpy in a way that already annoyed him.

“Well, I would never spend my personal time with Secret Bear, I want to make that clear,” Smart Heart said, her prim and proper voice still wavering from shock. “But yesterday afternoon he came in to look for a book.”

“A book?” Grumpy took out his notebook and held it at the ready. “Do you remember which one?”

Dismayed, Smart Heart shook her head. “No, I'm so sorry. The shock.”

Bullshit. She knew.  He tried to keep his eyes from rolling, but he was Grumpy Bear, old habits die hard. Smart Heart, true to her name, obviously noticed. 

“Do you not believe me?”

“You're the smartest bear in Care-A-Lot,” Grumpy said. “Sorry if I don't believe it when you act stupid.”

Smart Heart looked at him in bewildered shock that was swiftly starting to mix into anger, but that was fine. Making bears angry made them weak, and that was when they actually showed Grumpy something worth working with. 

“Grumpy!" Good Luck Bear's voice, tinged with slight alarm, probably should have raised a flag with him, but he was too busy moving in for the kill with Smart Heart to give a damn about whatever clue Good Luck had found rifling around in Secret's torso. 

“Were you meeting with him? Did you have a plan?" Grumpy felt like a hunting dog right at the edge of the kill. “Who were you going to sell out, Smart Heart?”

“That's enough, Grumpy." Cutting through the crowd, Grumpy saw the familiar flash of carnation pink fur that required no introduction. She walked with a confidence that infuriated him.

Cheer Bear. Defense Attorney at Law. 

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't badger my client,” she said smoothly as she cut through the crowd to arrive at Smart Heart's side. The witness looked up at Cheer with an expression of utter gratitude. Cheer Bear looked back at her with the beatific expression of a saint.

Grumpy Bear glared at his ex-wife. 

“Sure you're not really Swift Heart under all that fur, Cheer?” he asked. “You beat the ambulance this time.”

It was a cheap shot. Grumpy knew her office was across the street. He had been dreading this moment, but also made a note. 

Cheer was anything but cheerful as she turned a steely gaze to Grumpy. “I'm not going to talk about what a huge conflict of interest it is that you are even on this case,” she said. 

“We're short staffed,” he replied. 

“You took this case yourself,” she shot back. 

“Hey guys!” Good Luck Bear shoved himself in between the two former spouses, forcing a smile for the reporter's cameras.

“Let's take this somewhere more private, okay?" His eyes danced between the two of them and the reporters.

“No, we don't need to tonight. Just…bring your client in tomorrow morning, Cheer.”

Grumpy turned his back on her before he could register the nod, looking back at the opened purse that used to be Secret Bear's body. This wasn't the first murder he had come across, it probably wouldn't be the last, but there was something about this one. Something dark. 

Something that might bring the whole of Care-A-Lot down.