279 - J'Accuse!

Howdy, Jeffrey Kraner here. You probably know that Welcome to Night Vale does live tours.
We've done seven of those tours, in fact.

If you never got to see these tours, or even if you did and you want to relive them, we have live recordings available to you right now over at nightvale.bandcamp.com.

You can find those seven different live show performances, including our most recent show, The Attic.

We've also got some one-off events like our Thrilling Adventure Hour crossover show, our first-ever live show, Condos, as well as The Debate. These albums are only $5 and they're so much fun.

So, while we're between tours, tide yourself over with our live albums. That's nightvale.bandcamp.com.

No sequence pedir estas navidadres, porque está tengo todo lo que de siaba. Que McDonald's trajera de regres el magri, y a que sono por voo por tiempo limitado.

Es el delicioso sandwich decerdo de zuesado, sa sonado cubierto unintensa salsa barbecue. Es suiciente para legarme me the fiestas.
And no one wants to achieve it because also

a refresh in cualquier maño miorden demagri por solo unos esenta nueve. Vara papa pa! Precious yi participación pueden barno no pede cominarque conguno troferto cómo mil.

Hi, this is Vin from the band Caged Animals.

You've heard our songs Radio Down and Wildflowers on the weather, and I wanted to let you know that we've got a new album called Make Strange Friends, which blends nine character-driven songs with a nightvale-inspired radio play.

If you're curious to hear it or pick up a copy on Ruby Red Vinyl, you can visit us at cagedanimals.bandcamp.com. Thanks a lot.

with the radio down.

Don't turn it up for me.

Hey, it's Jeffrey Kraner here to say happy December. It's almost 2026, which means it's almost time for Nightvale to hit the road.

Do you live out west and do you want to see our newest live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest?

Great, because we'll be in Seattle on January 16th, Portland on the 17th, Eugene on the 18th, then Sacramento on January 21st, San Francisco on the 22nd, and on the 23rd we're in LA, and then on to Tucson, Arizona on the 24th, Albuquerque on January 26th, and Boulder on the 27th.

And we're closing out with our final North American performance on January 28th 28th in Aspen, Colorado. Get tickets for all shows at welcometonightvale.com slash live.

That's welcometonightvale.com slash live. Also, this is your last chance to get holiday gifts for your friends and loved ones.

We've got night veil specific items like shirts, mugs, towels, backpacks, plushies, and even some cool things that aren't nightvale forward, like our brand new shirt that says librarians are creatures of unimaginable power.

This one's been really popular. We've got tarot decks designed by Jessica Hayworth, bandanas and leggings by Dev O'Reilly, and of course, shorts that say creepy on the butt.

Just go to welcometonightvale.com and click on store. Okay, finally, please check out the cool things we have at our Patreon: monthly hangouts, ad-free, and bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes looks.

We've got director's notes for every episode, a book club with me and Joseph, and much, much more. It's patreon.com/slash/welcome to nightvale.
Our Patreon supporters are what keep this show going.

Thanks to them, and thank you to you. And hey, thanks.

I just said that.

Dare to be different. Be the change you wish to see.
Fake it till you make it, but always

be yourself.

Welcome to Night Vale.

The Sheriff's Secret Police have formed an ad hoc committee to decide upon procedures for organizing a task force that will oversee a new interdepartmental team of investigators who can delegate collection of evidence that will enable the sheriff to name a person of interest in the murder case of Jalen Rutherford.

Jalen Rutherford, 21 of Old Town Nightvale, was found dead right here at our radio station two weeks ago.

Cause of death is unknown, but the Sheriff's Secret Police is not ruling out the 28 stab wounds Rutherford sustained in less than a minute.

Just let us wrap our heads around this for a day or two, you guys, a secret police spokesperson said.

We're still in the preliminary phases of scheduling a staff meeting to plan a hearing that will decide what we'll call our ad hoc committee.

The spokesperson was then asked by reporters if they thought the murder of Jalen Rutherford might be related to the murder of Marcus Vanston. The spokesperson got a little snippy and said,

I don't know, go ask God. The sheriff don't believe in angels, so they don't really consider the Vanston case to be a murder.

But then another secret police spokesperson whispered into the first spokesperson's ear.

After this, he said,

I'm being told Marcus Vanston was a billionaire, which the sheriff very much believes in, so yeah, I guess we'll look into that one.

More on this soon, but let's have a look now at the community calendar.

This Thursday night through Sunday afternoon, the Nightvale Rec Center will be hosting the annual Outsider Art Show, featuring work by untrained but talented artists who exist beyond the plane of human comprehension.

These outsiders will showcase oil paintings, watercolors, photography, glowing tesseracts containing trillions of universes, mixed media sculptures, pastels, and kaleidoscopic visions of a forgotten tomorrow.

Tickets are $35 for a day pass or $75 for the premium weekend pass, which allows buyers into a Thursday night wine and cheese reception with the artists and a sneak peek of the afterlife.

Friday morning marks the opening day of the Winter Craft Market in Mission Grove Park.

The Winter Craft Market will run every day until December 25th, which is a holiday that we apparently cannot say the name of out loud anymore because...

Well, I lost my notes.

Oh, oh, here they are. Christmas.
Yeah. Oh, yes.
The winter craft market runs through Christmas.

Sunday afternoon at the high school gymnasium, there will be the first annual Night Vale Video Game Festival. There will be competitions in esports like NBA 2K and Madden.

But there will also be classic video games to play like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Weird Pac-Man, VR Gollum, Super OuijaBoard Deluxe, and Microsoft Word.

So whether you're a skilled gamer, a nostalgic weekender, or just kind of a low life, there's a video game for you.

Monday is trivia night at Giant Gym's Beer Garden and Discount Lube and Tube. So bring your knowledge of geography, history, and pop culture to Giant Gym.

and be ready to answer tough questions about world capitals, top 40 hits, and where you were last Monday night when you said you couldn't come because you were working late.

Your wife called your office and they said you left at 5 like normal. Let's see you answer that trivia question, Dennis.

Finally, Tuesday is feeling neglected. Always in the shadow of Monday.
Not as big as the hump of Wednesday, and sure, everyone loves saying taco Tuesday. But you can tell they don't really mean it.

Tuesday would just like a bit more acknowledgement about what it brings to the week.

Okay, so my friend Dana Cardinal finally got around to buying that composition notebook and studying up on how to solve murders.

Diving headfirst into the investigation of Marcus Vanston's murder was pretty overwhelming for her. But now that there's been another murder, Dana's starting to see things more clearly.

She's trying to tie the two killings together. Both had some kind of knot left at the scene, as well as dirty limericks with keywords circled.
That can't be coincidental.

But, Dana points out that since I reported publicly what the police found inside Marcus's library, next to his ethereal and angelic body, it's possible this second murder was a copycat.

And frankly, I didn't love her tone when she said that. Okay, apparently I was supposed to leave out key details.

How am I supposed to know this stuff? I'm just a journalist.

First, there was no noticeable wounds to Marcus's body, no clear cause of death. But the intern applicant at my radio station was stabbed.
That feels like a crime of passion.

Premeditated, to be sure, but sloppier, less refined than the locked room mystery of Marcus Vanston.

Dana said she wants to talk to the people who knew Jalen Rutherford and see if there are any connections between him and Marcus Vanston.

I told her I remember he had inquired about interning a few weeks back.

He was an archaeology student at Knightville Community College, which I only remember because it was an unusual academic track for a radio intern.

But the next thing I heard from Jalen was the thump of his already dead body hitting the linoleum floor of the station foyer.

Yes, Elise?

Sorry, my producer's yammering at me in my headphones.

Elise says Jalen didn't let out a yell or anything, so either he knew the person who killed him, or it happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, he couldn't react. Did I get that right, Elise?

Great.

Also, I asked Dana about Nightvale's town founder, Tabitha Littlefield, who re-emerged from a chrysalis after being dead for 150 years.

Well, Tabitha's been walking around town devouring people willy-nilly-like, and shouldn't we suspect her of murder?

But Dana snapped back, saying, first off, Cecil, she's our town founder. Be respectful.

Dana continued, secondly, even if you call a town founder devouring her citizens, quote, murder, it doesn't at all match the M.O. of these other two cases.

All right, fair enough.

Let's take a break for a word from our sponsors. For more on that, here's Deb, a sentient patch of haze, with a message from William Sonoma.
Oh wow, I love William Sonoma.

They have a lot of great artisanal products and creative consumer concepts for the domestic lifestyle. Tell us more, Deb.
Oh, why don't you go ahead and do it, Cecil? Sounds like you already started.

Oh, Deb. No, I didn't mean to.
Oh, I'm just jashing with you, Cecil. Oh,

that's a good josh there, Deb. You...

You

funny one, you.

Listeners, do you live in a home?

Do you have a place where you sleep and eat and share, perhaps, with other people.

Do you like to cook, to entertain? Do you love to socialize, maybe with family or friends? I bet you do.

I bet you like to hear people tell stories about their jobs and their vacations, their kids and spouses.

You are probably a very open person who loves to hand someone a glass of Nebbiolo in a vintage etched goblet, starting at $21.95, and ask them to share their deepest feelings with you.

You're probably the type of person to make a seven-layer dip in a two-quart La Cruset Heritage Stoneware casserole dish with cover. Sale price, $70 through the end of the year.

You hover over the snack table and whisper, tell me your secrets. And your guest does.

They spill everything.

They tell you about how they lied to their friends and their wife about working late. And instead of going to trivia night, they met her at a hotel bar.

And the two of them laughed and talked and touched lightly. Then they laughed and didn't talk and touched heavily.

And later on, they said, see you soon to each other, not knowing how long soon it would be.

And as your guest takes another canopé from the province hand-painted serving platter, $139.95, they begin to cry.

You whisk them away to the utility room so they won't make a scene, and you hug your friend until your breaths are in sync. A tearful gaze into each other's eyes.
and you are back at the party.

You know you are a good friend. You know you are a keeper of secrets.
You know you are a holder of power.

You know that this information will come in so very, very handy.

And as you bring out the homemade red velvet cake for your guests, which is perched atop your Mackenzie Child's cake pedestal with large Czech pattern, $149.95, you warmly offer a toast to loyalty,

the only true and important trait in life.

And you watch your cheating friends squirm and avert their eyes in shame. Good, you think? Good.

William Sonoma. We can keep a secret.
In style.

Thank you, Deb.

Oh, hey, I've been wanting the radio station staff to do some fun events outside of work. That Monday night trivia sure is getting getting a lot of buzz.

Oh, sorry, I got my poetry class on Monday night. Oh, like slam poetry? No.

I think poems have to have some kind of structure. They definitely need rhythm, like iambic meters, and a rhyme scheme, like AA, B, B, A, that sort of thing.
Everything else really isn't poetry.

It's just a jazzy diary. But what about the work of Ezra Pound, whose free verse was so musical in its form as to almost mimic classical structured pieces.

Deb?

I think she's gone. Now back to the unsolved murder cases.
All of Nightvale is in a panic over these killings.

The killer, or killers, are still at large, and everyone in town is pointing fingers and naming names. I always loved playing the game, who's that over there?

where someone points at another person and you then have to shout their name out loud. It's such a great way to relieve the tension of paranoia and angst.

Plus, that game goes on for a long time in a public place.

But, the friendly tones of, who's that over there?, have been replaced by the sinister tones of, jaccuse,

which is a similar game, but after you shout the name, you also shout Jacuse

and then you chase them until a mob forms forms and then decides on what to do with this obvious deviant.

Many innocent people are being blamed for these killings, and none of us are experts in murder investigations. We cannot rely on random people to bring the perpetrator to justice.

We have to rely on Dana Cardinal, one random person, to do this.

Sure, any Joe Blow could say, oh, I bet Josh Creighton, the shapeshifter boy, killed that angel because he could have turned himself into a tiny fly to get in and out of that locked room.

Or, Doop-Dee Doo must have been that sentient patch of haze Deb and her sister Caitlin, who contains very high carbon monoxide levels.

Deb could have easily distracted Marcus with her funny impressions of various animals in pain, and then Caitlin could have hovered over him invisibly until he succumbed to her CO.

Oh, I guess I got it all figured out, Doop-De-Dee.

I mean, come on, Nightvale. This isn't helping.
We need to allow untrained investigators like Dana to do research, talk to witnesses, and gather evidence.

Only then can we play the blame game, which is that game where someone dresses up as the scapegoat and other people project their own misdeeds onto them as they kick the beast repeatedly.

It's a really fun game, and it'd be a great way to celebrate once we capture the actual criminal here.

Speaking of investigators, the Sheriff's Secret Police's ad hoc committee has finally decided upon procedures for organizing a task force that is now overseeing a new interdepartmental team of investigators who have delegated collection of evidence that enables the sheriff to name a person of interest in the murder cases of Jalen Rutherford and the Angel Erica, aka Marcus Vanston.

And the Sheriff sheriff has announced that they do have a person of interest, and that person is not a person at all. It's...

Oh no.

It's Deb, the sentient patch of haze, and her sister Caitlin.

The sheriff's secret police said they were listening to my show, and they heard me lay out a compelling narrative for how Deb and her sister Caitlin could have killed Marcus Vanston in a locked room.

That's kind of sweet that they listened to my show, shout out Sheriff Sam. But no, wait! I was just riffing.
I was doing an impression of a stupid person and what they would think.

I wasn't trying to accuse Deb or her sister of.

Oh god, Deb, if you're still here or can hear me on the radio, I'm sorry I brought your name up at all. I didn't mean to get you involved in this.

The secret police are mobilizing their dehumidifier unit to Deb's residence, which is by the pond out back of Michael Dixon's farmhouse. Deb, if you can hear me, run.

Or float? Drift.

I don't know how you move, actually.

Dissipate, Deb, and become one with the weather.

Will we give in

or take in

our bodies don't lie

the fault light

in your eyes

turning

now

watching the coast

falling to a ghost ghost

of herself.

She's out there

in the lion wave,

and rising

stars.

It's a hundred degrees

in May.

It's a hundred degrees.

We can play pretend

but it won't

change

the end.

You can play pretend,

say it's not the end,

but it won't say.

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The Sheriff's Secret Police raided Deb's home. No Deb? No Caitlin.

They then went to the home of her poetry teacher, Mickey Gerard, and asked if Deb had been writing any dirty limericks in class. That's all she writes, Gerard said.
She's very good at it.

In fact, here's a really funny one where she manages to rhyme a truck in front with... That's great, the secret police interrupted.
We have all the evidence we need. This patch of haze is going down.

But Deb had already turned turned herself in. She was at the police station giving a deposition.
Oh, me and my sis, we got nothing to hide, do we now?

Deb said to the detectives in her chummiest, folksiest accent.

Deb spent 30 minutes in the interrogation room charming the cops with hilarious jokes and wild stories from her many years reading ad copy.

Including that one time, she had to do a make-good because she started laughing in the middle of her spot for Red Lobster.

The copy said, endless shrimp, and she was so tickled imagining just one long shrimp into infinity. Oh, they were steaming mad, I tell you, Deb said as the cops howled with laughter.

She told the police that she understood why she was a suspect, but she was out of town on both nights those murders took place. She and Caitlin had been visiting their family in Los Angeles.

Don't know why they all moved to LA, Deb joked. That whole place is just a patch of haze.
Am I right?

And the cops laughed and one of them said, oh, Deb, you're so right. Though none of them had ever been more than 10 miles outside of Nightvale.

Deb apologized to the cops for the confusion and offered them all discount codes for Williams Sonoma.

And, as she was leaving, she turned back and said, If you're really serious about who killed Marcus Vanston, you ought to look into that faceless old woman.

She's pretty vengeful, and she can get in and out of locked rooms like Zip-Zap-Zop.

And then she said, as far as that Jalen kid goes, the murder happened during the weather segment of the radio show. You couldn't hear what Cecil and his producer were doing during that time.

Worth a look, don't you think? Deb concluded, even though I don't think Cecil did it. He's got a weak constitution and all.
Hey, my IBS is well managed. That's unfair of Deb to say any of that.

Plus, the police already interviewed me and Elise the night of Jalen's murder. She even called in the crime.

Yes, Elise, and I was hiding under my desk.

Well, thankfully, the police are friendly and understanding people. and were easily swayed from investigating further by simple charm and some discount codes.
I'm glad Deb's free.

But the killer is still at large. Be afraid, Nightvale, but don't let the fear control you.
Panicking will not help.

Honestly, I don't think the police will either, but at least Dana has promised me that she has some new leads just tonight.

She's following Marcus's money, and only days before his death, he wrote a will, which left everything to Nightvale Community College to establish a new business school.

That's weird that an angel, who should be immortal, would have a will at all, Dana said.

There are answers to be found, Nightvale, but justice works slowly.

Really slowly, when it comes to our town founder. who ate three more people in the Barista district tonight, but that's old news, I suppose.

Don't worry, Nightvale. Dana will catch this killer yet.
Stay tuned next for a creaking floorboard late at night in your darkened home.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Kraner, and Bree Williams.
Sound design and production by Disparition.

The voice of Deb was Meg Bashwiner. The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin.
Original music by Disparition. All of it can be found at disparition.net.

This episode's weather was Fault Lines by Emerson Island and Low Jam. Find out more at the link in our show notes.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvale.com or follow us on Blue Sky at Nightvale Radio or on Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok at Nightvale Official.

Or become a doctor like your cousin. What are you doing with your life?

But mainly, check out welcometonightvale.com, where we have a twice-monthly mailing list that is the best way to keep up to date directly from us to you.

We only ever send you two emails a month, and that's our promise. Today's proverb: take the road less traveled.

Yes.

Come up the darkened forest path off the paved city street. Yes, that's it.
Keep coming.

Hey y'all, it is Jeffrey Kraner. And if you're like me and you love horror, check out the podcast, The Gentleman from Hell.
An entire town gone. No signs, no warnings, just silence.

This is Cold Sparrow. 24 years ago, every resident of Cold Sparrow vanished overnight, including the eccentric billionaire, Benjamin Veers.
No bodies, no clues, only questions.

For decades, investigators have chased every theory, cults, kidnappings, mass disappearances, but nothing has brought them closer to the truth until now.

Three renowned private investigators, famous for taking down one of the most dangerous cults in history, have been called in to uncover what really happened.

But the deeper they dig, the stranger the whispers become. Whispers of something far darker than anyone imagined.
Something that might not be human at all. Cold Sparrow didn't just disappear.

Something took it. Some mysteries should stay buried.
The investigation begins now. Check out The Gentleman from Hell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, we're Meg Bashwiner. And Joseph Fink.
Of Welcome to Night Vale. And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the golden age of television.

To do that, we're watching the IMDb viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows. The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost.

The episode of the X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat, and also the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television?

Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women? The best, worst, available wherever you get your podcasts.