Charcters from "Daria" belong to MTV.
Concepts and situations from this chapter are from "Hermanos & Detectives" which belongs to Telefé.

The Mystery Chick

Part 1: The Mystery Chick emerges

Jake Morgendorffer stood for a couple of minutes in front of the door to the local bookstore. He sighed as he decided that it was indeed a book the best gift he could give his eldest daughter. He forced a smile and opened the door.

One of the employees of the bookstore approached. "Officer, is there some kind of problem?" She was a woman in his late twenties.

He took his hat away and smiled at the woman. "None that I'm aware, I'm here on a personal matter, you know, bright daughter needs a book."

The woman's face suddenly grew and a grin replaced the concerned look. "Oh, how old is she?"

"Five, but I can already tell that she's smarter than me" he assured her with a smirk.

She took a book, handed it to him and said, "well, 'Black Beauty' is a good selection"

Jake looked at the book's cover and frowned. "I wanted a horse as a kid, but the old man said that horses were for girls! Stupid Mad Dog…" he seemed to realize that he was about to go into full rant mode and stopped himself. He shook his head. "I think Daria would find it a little bland, she likes when I talk about my work at dinner."

The woman frowned as he handed 'Black Beauty' back to her. "A mystery novel? You say she's smart… maybe she will like Nancy Drew."

He scowled at the name. "Nancy Drew? I was thinking something, like, Sherlock Holmes. He was a good cop."

The woman scowled at him. "Sherlock Holmes wasn't a cop, he was a detective. And I think that a five year old won't be able to appreciate that kind of literature."

He raised an eyebrow and said, "are you saying that my little girl is stupid or something? I will tell you that she's the smartest kid in her whole class, no! Her whole school!"

"Ok, ok… If that's what you want…" the woman didn't seem convinced but gave him 'A Study in Scarlet' despite what she thought.

Jake smiled as he read the title of the book. "Now we're talking about. She will love this!"

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And love it she did.

In fact, Daria enjoyed Sherlock Holmes' first story so much that in the next few months, she asked her father for more of the world's best detective's stories. In less than a year she had already read every single canon Sherlock Holmes story. So instead, Jake started bringing her some Agatha Christie's works, which she also loved.

By age ten, Daria was familiar with many fictional detectives such as Poirot, Miss Marple, Ellery Queen, Philip Marlowe, Auguste Dupin, Kogoro Akechi and many more. And by that age she dreamed of solving cases as the detectives in the novels her father gave her.

Helen was always concerned about Daria not having any friends, but Jake didn't mind as much. Daria considered her book benefactor to be her best friend, or maybe second only to the books themselves.

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And so, when she was only ten (almost eleven, actually) the world met her for the first time. The press dubbed her "The Mistery Chick".

It started one morning in a dark and solitary basement. A man was studying dates and testing small explosives. With a pair of gloves, he carefully took a gun and put it in a bag. He tested a magnet with some nails and after cleaning it, it too was put into the bag. He smiled as he looked at the computer screen in front of him.

The title 'In the name of the father' was written and a name bellow it mortified him. 'Paul Menard', a boy he had been teaching since he was small had written something better than he'd ever accomplish.

What little doubt was left in him, disappeared as he growled at the screen and punched it. There was no turning back. And so, he took his things and left his house.

It took him half an hour to get to the boy's house. He knocked the door a couple of times and smirked at the boy that greeted him.

"Professor Fountain! I wasn't expecting you" he said, a little surprised by the visit.

The man smiled and stepped inside. "I had to get here as soon as I could, I mean, that book you wrote… it's something else."

The boy was drinking a cup of coffee and frowned at him. "You're sure? I thought it needed to be improved, a lot."

The man nodded. "Maybe a little, but you will always find something to smooth, that's why we publish."

"Maybe you, but I'm just a kid, won't publish anything any time soon" The boy put the cup on the table and motioned to his teacher. "Would you like cup coffee?"

The teacher shook his head. "No, it's Turkish poison."

"Lemon pie? It's homemade!"

"No, thanks"

The boy smiled, took a piece of the lemon pie and started walking to his room on the first floor. "So you made corrections?"

"I made a few notes, yes." Answered the man as he looked around, making sure that no one was near to witness what was about to happen.

The boy entered his room, a small place with a bed to his right and an old PC next to it. The door was wooden but had an old lock, the kind that it's often found in a fence door.

The boy sat on a chair in front the computer and smiled weakly at the man. "So, tell me the awful truth, it sucks, right?"

The professor smiled. "No, it doesn't. The are a couple of…" he stopped talking as he heard a train, he snarled with expectation. "It has a little too many references to Kafka"

"That was intentional" commented the boy as he took a bite from the pie.

"Yes, anyway… everyobody talks about Kafka, but nobody actually reads it."

Just as the train passed and the noise from it silenced everything else, the man took the gun out and pointed it at the boy. When the gun was at mere inches from the boy's head, Fountain shot once, killing him instantly.

As the body fell, the man put the gun on the boy's hand and then with great caution, started the process of formatting the disk drive. He then took a couple of steps back and took the small bomb-like device he had constructed. He ran out of the room and carefully closed the door. With the magnet he moved the lock and with a small punch the door was closed.

Fountain smirked to himself and said, "THAT, was intentional"

He ran to the backyard just in time for the mother to arrive. He smirked with satisfaction as he left the house and got into his car (which was parked a couple of blocks from there), only to drive it to the front of the house.

He got out of the car and walked to the door, and again, he knocked the door. This time, the mother of the boy greeted him.

"Professor! It's good to see you!" She smiled sweetly.

He nodded and said, "is Paul here? He wanted to see me for some reason"

The woman nodded. "He must be at his room, would you like some coffee?"

The man smiled. "No, it's Turkish poison"

Paul's mother was about to say something else, but the man silently pushed a button in his pocket and the small bomb in Paul's room exploded.

The woman turned at the sound and frowned. "That came from Paul's room, I wonder…" she ran and tried to open the door, only to find it locked.

The teacher forced himself to stop smiling as he walked to the distressed mother. "Let me" he said as he tried to open it. After a few tries he decided to strike the door until the lock broke.

The woman's eyes widened at the sight of the corpse of her son. She threw herself at him and tried to revive him, not realizing that he had a hole in his head.

The man used this moment of distraction to take the remains of the bomb into his bag. He cautiously took all of the evidence and then proceeded to comfort the mother.

The police came a fifteen minutes later. The detective in charge of the investigation didn't think twice when he deemed it a suicide. But as he needed everything on the record, he put Jake Morgendorffer in charge instead. It's a boring case anyway, I bet the old loser will think that it's a murder of something, stupid man always ranting about his stupid father…

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And so, it was the "Take Our Daughters to Work" day when the Mistery Chick first proved her worth. Jake Morgendorffer's partner, one Japanese descendant named Bruce Hibiki was waiting in a local café while looking at some of the scene's photos. Jake came with Daria (Quinn, the younger sister, went to work with Helen) and ordered breakfast for the girl.

Bruce smiled at Daria and then handed Jake the photos he was watching moments before. He said, "you got the mother's statement, right?"

Jake nodded and replied, "yes, and also the boy's teacher, Professor Fountain, everything fits, it's a suicide."

Bruce grimaced. "Unless they both set it up, do any of them get anything out of the death of the kid?"

Jake growled at his partner and motioned to Daria, but anyway, he replied, "nothing, they're both clean."

Daria snatched the photos from her father's hand and her eyes widened. "A real murder!" She exclaimed.

Jake took the photos away from the girl before she said anything else. "No, it's a suicide, an awful thing you shouldn't have seen."

Daria blinked a couple of times. "Why not? It's not like I haven't seen dead people before."

Both officers looked confused, both replied at the same time with an "uh?"

Daria rolled her eyes. "TV corpses look like regular corpses, but that's definitely not a suicide." She said while pointing at the photos in Jake's hands.

Jake looked at the photos again, curious about what his daughter meant with a quick peek. "Why do you say that?"

He put the photos on the table and Daria pointed at one that showed the boy's desk. "The lemon pie" Daria explained, "it doesn't fit. If I'd ever kill myself, I wouldn't bother eating a lemon pie."

Bruce frowned. "It could have been something like, a last meal."

"He just took a bite" Daria countered.

Jake shook his head. "So, not a suicide you say?"

"Not a suicide" she repeated.

Jake grimaced at Bruce and said, "we should take another peek at the place, maybe we missed something."

Bruce nodded. "Maybe."

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The mother and the teacher were quite surprised when the two partners and the child visited them. Bruce explained that there were a couple of holes in the statements and needed more information, the mother complied and the teacher offered to guide Jake and Daria to Paul Menard's room.

The room, as expected, was quite a mess. Daria whistled at the sight of blood and started looking at all directions, quite excited to be in a room where someone had died the previous day.

The teacher frowned at Jake. "This isn't the place of a kid her age."

Jake nodded while sitting on a nearby chair. "Tell me, did you see anyone leave the house before you arrived?"

"No one" answered the man, eyeing Daria, who was examining the door's lock.

Jake nodded and took notes. "Just as I thought."

Fountain looked agitated. "Excuse me, but… Why are you here? This was a closed room murder, there's no way anyone could've left the room without Sarah or me knowing"

"The pie" explained Jake. "No one saw that detail, but Daria here noticed that the boy had only taken one bite from it. That seemed strange."

Fountain arched an eyebrow. "So you're here because of a kid playing detective?"

"Hey! This door could be locked from the outside!" Exclaimed Daria, who apparently wasn't paying attention to them.

"What?" asked Jake, raising his head.

"The lock, look, you could, from the outside, simply lock it, it's not difficult at all, I've read that you can do this."

"Sherlock Holmes?" Asked Jake.

She quickly corrected, "Ellery Queen." And continued talking, "But I think there were a couple of movies where the killer used this method to fake a closed room murder. A rookie could've done it."

The teacher's face darkened at the word 'rookie'. Hi smiled evilly at Daria. "So you like to read Ellery Queen?"

Daria nodded, somewhat annoyed at the tone of the voice from the teacher. "I read all of it"

"But I think that doesn't work on real life" said the teacher.

"It does!"

Jake frowned. "Daria, the mother and the teacher were here seconds after the shooting, even if the killer used a trick like that, there's no way to escape."

Daria thought of an answer to that, and found none. "Maybe… maybe the killer never left the room."

Fountain smiled. "You mean, he's still here?"

Daria raised her head. "I never said it was a he, did I?"

He grimaced a little. "Just assuming it was a he, then"

She nodded and looked up. "Well, in some movies the killer hides in the ceiling, but I doubt that'd work on real life, right?"

Both adults nodded.

Jake motioned to the space next to the door. "The killer could've hidden himself, or herself, next to the door. And escaped after the body was discovered."

Daria examined the section of wall next to the door and shook her head. "There's a mark from the doorknob."

The professor looked confused. "What does that mean?"

Jake shook his head. "That when you opened the door, it made a mark in the wall. So no one could possibly be hiding there."

Fountain nodded, and stated "so this wasn't a murder."

Daria looked around. "But the pie…"

"Is circumstantial evidence, nothing more!" exclaimed the man, getting more annoyed by the minute.

Jake frowned, not wanting to punch the man. "Still, what could possibly make someone kill the boy?"

Daria's head perked up. "A girlfriend looking for revenge?"

"No, they broke up three months ago, good terms, they're still friends." Explained her father.

Daria closed her eyes for a moment, then opened and exclaimed. "You were his Creative Writing professor in college, right?"

Fountain took a step back. "Right"

"So he wrote, was he any good?"

The man took a deep breath before answering, "he was very good, yes. My best student by far."

Daria started walking in circles. "So… someone could've killed him for a book."

Jake looked around. "A book?"

The teacher frowned. "But I don't recall him having any expensive first edition book of any kind."

Daria looked at him for a moment and then shook her head. "I don't mean that, I mean something he wrote."

Jake nodded, understanding and taking his notes he read. "The hard disk was formatted so there's that possibility, someone might have wanted to hide that evidence."

The teacher growled at the kid. "But he never wrote anything long, he only wrote essays and short stories, and he usually only showed them to me."

Daria smirked. "So, you're saying that you are our sole suspect."

The man's eyes widened at that. "What? I did not say such a thing!"

"So, he wasn't working on any book."

"Not to my knowledge."

"And you taught him Creative Writing."

"True."

"And he was your best student, by far."

"Also true" the man's patience was growing thin.

"And tell me, what was the title of the manuscript that he gave you?"

He answered instantly, "In the name of the father." Then he yelped and put his hands covering his mouth.

"Really?" mused the girl, looking at the blood in the floor.

"It was… an essay, yes, an essay."

The girl smirked, still looking at the blood. "What was this essay about?"

The teacher turned to look at Jake. "This is enough, I will not tolerate being accused and questioned like this! Control your daughter!"

But Daria didn't stop talking, "and tell me, if we followed you to your house, would we find in your computer an essay with the title 'In the name of the father' or maybe… a novel?"

The professor's face turned white. "Wha- What did you just say?"

Jake scowled. "I think you heard her."

Fountain looked at Jake, who was walking towards him and then he turned towards Daria. He howled and launched himself at her. He put his hands around her tiny neck and tried to strangulate her.

Daria 'eeped' and kicked in vain, she was rapidly losing conscience.

Jake acted as fast as he could and punched Fountain in the back of his head, knocking him out. The teacher's body fell and his shirt got dirty with the boy's blood.

Daria hugged her father and started crying in silence.

"You OK, Kiddo?"

"I, I… I think so."

At that very moment, Bruce entered the room, completely confused. "What in the world did you do, Morgendorffer?"

Jake looked up and smiled weakly. "My girl discovered the culprit."

Bruce looked at the unconscious body of the professor. "You mean, he did it?"

"He practically confessed, I think if we search his place we will find some pretty incriminating evidence."

Bruce handcuffed Fountain. "That was quick."

Daria nodded and took a step back from her father, she then put her hand under her baggy jacket and showed a walkman-like device. "And it was all recorded."

Jake blinked for a couple of seconds. "You… you knew?"

Daria smiled a little. "I suspected, after reading your notes, of course."

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The police found the manuscript of the novel in Fountain's computer, along with bullets for the same type of gun that had killed Paul, some small bombs that produced a sound loud enough to be confused with a shooting and a magnet.

Jake was given a promotion to detective and an important raise, but he acknowledged the arrest fully to Daria, and so the press was ecstatic about the concept of a ten year old solving a case like that. The Highland Herald dubbed her 'The Mistery Chick' and since then, every time she solves a case, the pet-name appears.