A/N: Written for htbthomas based on a prompt from crossovering, but finished and posted for Yuletide as a thank you for all the help with "ninety-nine decision street." As always, comments, questions, concrit, and squee are all welcomed.
Locked Out
by LadySilver
"What we're looking at is a true locked room mystery," Becker stated. He leafed through a couple of the pages in the file in front of him, then nodded grimly at his team. Toby, Michelle, and Dev were stationed around the conference room table, cups of coffee steaming in front of them in deference to the early morning summons. "I'm afraid this one landed on us because no one else could find a crack in it."
"So what are we looking at?" Michelle asked, taking the lead as she usually did. "Lack of witnesses? Hacked security cameras? Air-tight alibis?"
"I assume we've already ruled out the orangutang?" Dev chimed in. As everyone shot him a look, he splayed his hands in disbelief. "Really, guys? Come on! Edgar Allen Poe. The Murders in the Rue Morgue?" His teammate's expressions soured as they caught on to the literary reference, and Dev's attempt at levity was dismissed.
Becker dropped the thin file to the table and leaned onto his fists. "Dr. Alyssa Rhodes is a scientist, one of the top names in her field of genetics research. Yesterday afternoon, her lab was found ransacked: computers destroyed, equipment smashed, all paper records shredded."
"That sounds like a case for Metro," Toby stated, leaning back in his chair. Cases concerning high ranking people or sensitive information often fell into the IIB's purview, but this sounded like simple vandalism. The work of a disgruntled research assistant, perhaps, or the doctor's attempt to cover up faulty work, or even a protestor who thought he was sending a message. Still, a chill prickled the back of Toby's neck; his time in the Institute had forever tainted his perception of this kind of research.
"Metro's been on it," Becker answered. "They're the ones who kicked it up the line. The lab was torn apart, but there was no sign of forced entry—or any entry for that matter, since Dr. Rhodes was at a conference in Ottawa—; the exterior cameras showed no one on the premises; and the only recoverable fingerprints belong to Dr. Rhodes and her partner, who was also at the conference."
"So, no one broke in," Michelle summarized. "And no one was seen leaving?"
Becker nodded in confirmation. "This one's going to be a tough nut to crack-" He closed the file, knocked the pages back into alignment on the conference room table, and handed the file folder to Michelle-"so let's see if we can bring a big enough hammer to the case."
With that dismissal, everyone stood up. Dev headed to his computer, Becker to his office, and Toby and Michelle to her car. Michelle leafed through the scant file again as they walked, her expression pensive. They made it down to the garage without so much as a comment about the early morning passing between them. Half an hour later, they were across town and Michelle still hadn't spoken a word. That wasn't like her at all.
"What are you thinking?" Toby asked, aware as always of the irony that he even had to ask that question.
Michelle gave her head a slight shake. "I don't know. Something about this case feels wrong. What do we know about Rhodes?"
Toby pulled out his mobile, called up the information that Dev had dug up for them, and read it to Michelle. Rhodes was a professor at the University of Toronto, as was her partner, Janet List. They had been together for nearly twenty years and had one son. Rhodes was the biological mother. The father was a former graduate student of Rhodes's who had since accepted a post in Vancouver. "Unusual family structure aside, they sound like a pretty typical academic couple. Regular publication record, lots of academic awards and honors. Their records are clean aside from some minor traffic violations which they paid the fines on promptly." He frowned because, in his experience, people who appeared to be this spotless always had a dark secret.
"That's it?" Michelle asked, when he was finished. "That's not a lot to work with." She pulled the car to a stop in front of a high rise apartment complex, and they both sat for a minute assessing the building, trying to guess from the outside which window looked in on the their victims. The empty windows disclosed no secrets.
"Maybe we'll get more when we talk to them," Toby suggested. Already, he doubted they would. As Michelle stepped from the car and looked around the street and the few people who passed down the sidewalk, he could tell that she had her own doubts.
Alyssa Rhodes was a white woman who was coming up easy on fifty. She had gold framed glasses and blonde hair styled in soft spikes, and a puffiness to her features that bespoke recent crying. "I don't understand why someone would do this to us," she said, calm now but still confused. "My research is in the genetic components of spatial recognition. It's a fascinating field with numerous applications if we can crack the code, but it's not one most people have heard of. It's hardly controversial, much less dangerous."
Seated on the couch next to her partner, Janet List looked even more distraught. Her brown curls were constrained behind a patterned scarf and the creases around her mouth and eyes pressed deep with her fight not to give in to her upset. She and Alyssa held hands across their laps, fingers squeezed tight. "We've lost years of research," she said, as if by saying it out loud the research would find its way back to them.
Toby listened to both the women's thoughts while Michelle directed their memories with her questions. The images that flashed through his mind were routine: the white glare of the computer screen, sequences of letters and numbers that meant nothing to him, Alyssa standing at the lectern giving a speech. Then the laboratory in shambles, Janet falling against Alyssa in shock and Alyssa sinking to her knees with her.
"Is there anyone else who had access to the lab?" Michelle asked.
A bevy of faces flickered before him: colleagues, research assistants, prospective graduate students. Always they were accompanied by Alyssa, Janet, or both. Though many people visited the lab, no one had independent access to it except for the two women.
"What about your son?" Toby gestured around the living room of the condo where Alyssa and Janet lived. The style was minimalist, the color scheme on the brown spectrum; it looked like a stage set rather than a place where people lived—except for the pictures of the boy proudly hung on the walls, displayed on the coffee table and over the hearth.
"Jody?" Janet wagged her head, the distraught etched in her face deepening. "He hasn't been interested in our work for years. I imagine he got sick of hearing us talk about balance and spatial orientation all the time." She said the last with a deprecating laugh. "He's away at school now. We haven't even talked to him since we got home from the conference."
Michelle leaned closer. Though her tone was gentle, her posture exuded her authority. "Where does he go to school?""
"He's a sophomore at SUNY New York City." Alyssa dabbed her eyes with a tissue she clenched in her hand. "He couldn't wait to get as far away from us as he could and for some reason he really wanted to go to New York." Though Toby could barely remember his mother, he saw reflections of the distress in this mother's face that he remembered from that day when she'd sent him away.
Janet pressed her shoulder to Alyssa's in a well-worn gesture of comfort. "He only needed some time to figure out who he is. We all go through that phase."
Alyssa nodded and dabbed her eyes again.
"I don't think either of them did it," Toby said, after he and Michelle got back in the car. "I was reading them both and there was no sign of jealousy or anger." He shook his head, almost unable to believe that two people could be life partners and work partners for so long and yet have no discord between them. In this line of work, one person betraying another was so routine that he sometimes forgot that his limited sample size didn't apply to everyone.
Michelle nodded. "I agree. It had to have been someone else. Let's see what Dev has found out." It only took a second for the call to connect and Dev to answer; he had obviously been waiting for them. Michelle filled him in on the nothing she had Toby had found.
"It's not much better on my end," Dev responded, his voice static-y over the car's speakers. "The bad news is that the security tapes are genuine. If anyone tampered with them or switched them out, I'll eat my hat." The three lapsed into a moment of contemplation both at the idea of Dev having met his match and what it would cost him to sacrifice his beloved flat cap.
"So, what's the good news?" Michelle asked.
"There isn't any," Dev answered. "The tapes are real, the locks haven't been tampered with, no one was in or out of the facility the whole weekend. And, guys, have you been to the site yet? The damage isn't consistent with a baseball bat or crowbar. It looks more like a bomb exploded. Or imploded. Except there's no residue, bomb debris, anything. Yet equipment's been tossed around like it weighed nothing. If I didn't know better, I'd say we should be investigating a poltergeist."
"A ghost?" Toby asked. He squinted against the early morning sunlight streaming in through the windshield—the warmth on his face an uncomfortable contrast with the cold air blowing from the vents—and debated how seriously to take the suggestion. Any rational investigation team would dismiss it out of hand, but most rational investigation teams didn't employ a mind-reader. If Dev's analysis of the evidence was true, then it just might be worth considering a non-human cause.
"A noisy ghost, technically."
"Is this another book reference," Michelle asked.
"Movie."
Michelle shook her head in feigned exasperation at her teammate and friend. "What do we know about the son?"
The line went silent for a moment while Dev did his magic. While they waited, Michelle drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and Toby took the opportunity to finish the last dregs of his coffee. They were very nearly at the point of switching tasks when Dev let out a sigh that foretold only more bad news.
"Unless he has the ability to move really fast, he's off the suspect list," Dev told them. "Jody Rhodes-List is enrolled in school, lives on campus, and according to his cell phone records, hasn't left the city since the semester started."
Michelle pressed her lips together, considering this new information. The finger tapping grew slower and more pronounced with each passing second. "I think we need to talk to him anyway. His mothers said that he wasn't interested in their work. Maybe his lack of interest has turned into a desire to see it destroyed."
"That's a stretch," Toby pointed out. "A real stretch."
"I know." Michelle offered a sigh of her own. "It's not much to go on-"
"You can say that again," Dev interjected.
"-but it's more than we have. Dev, can you set up a video conference with him?"
"It'll be ready to go by the time you get back here," Dev said. The call ended with a beep that, for once, felt absolutely final.
"A video chat?" Toby asked.
Michelle navigated the car through the busy downtown traffic with a curtness to every pedal press and wheel turn that belied her anxiety over a case that refused to open up for them. The team's solve rate was so high that their rare encounters with a truly unsolvable case always hit them hard, and this one was already knocking them down. Toby could feel their morale dropping. "He's in the States. We can't extradite him without a charge and I doubt he'd be willing to drive all the way in from New York City just for a meet-and-greet."
"You know I won't be able to read him," Toby pointed out.
Michelle nodded. "I know. For once, we're going to have to do an interrogation the old fashioned way."
The face that greeted them across Dev's video link had bloodshot eyes and puffy skin, like that of someone who'd been pulling all-nighters—though whether he'd been studying or drinking remained to be seen. Jody was sitting, slouched, in a chair, wearing a white undershirt, a can of Coke in one hand. His long blonde hair had the unkempt look of a person starting the process of growing dreds, but who hadn't gotten far enough for the style to be obvious; Toby recognized the look from a few of his foster siblings.
Michelle introduced herself and Toby and explained that they were looking for information about his moms.
"You mean my moms who couldn't be bothered to show up for parents' weekend?" He sat up straight so quickly that his head disappeared out of the video frame. He adjusted the angle of his computer screen to bring himself back into view. "Wait! What happened to them? Are they hurt?"
"They're fine," Michelle assured him. She started to explain about the break-in. Toby, meanwhile, studied Jody's body language. Though he only told people he could read micro-expressions as a cover story for his real gifts, he still knew a little about judging from a person's face what thoughts they were trying to hide—and, from what he could discern, Jody was afraid.
The Coke can dented in Jody's grip; he started to stand up, then dropped right back into his seat. "I have to go," he said, at last. He stared wide-eyed at the camera for a second, then shut down the connection.
Michelle and Toby took another moment to process that they'd just been hung up on.
"Was that suspicious?" Toby asked.
"That was suspicious," Michelle confirmed. "Let's go fill Becker in."
Unfortunately, it wasn't suspicious enough. Without any criminal history or substantiating evidence, Jody's behavior wasn't enough to justify an official visit. By this time, though, Becker trusted his team's instincts enough to arrange for Toby to fly down to New York to meet the teen in person: just an informal meeting so that Toby could get close enough to find out if there was more to know.
The person who opened the dorm room door was a skinny middle eastern man with a strongly receded chin and the turban of a Sikh. He looked at Toby's badge, peered out into the hallway as if to check for more cops waiting to burst in on him, and sighed. "Jody? He's not here anymore. I'm his roommate. Was his roommate, I guess." He spoke with an English accent.
"Where did he go?" Toby's body tensed as if preparing to chase after Jody. Not there that was any point, given the lead the teen had on him.
He saw the roommate walk in on Jody stuffing clothes into his backpack, furtive glances out the window accompanying each movement. "Where are you going?"
"I have to get away. I-I did something, I don't know how. I thought it was a nightmare, but it wasn't. It's-I'm dangerous. I can't stay."
"Jody," the roommate started, reaching to still the packing, to try to offer the reassurance his friend clearly needed. "Can I help?"
Jody shook his head; his proto-dreds swung wildly. "I can't drag you into this. You've been a great roommate, Mo. Just—tell them I'm gone. Tell them you don't know where I went."
"I don't know," Mo said, unsure whether he could take on the risk of lying to official authorities.
"I don't know," Mo repeated. "I can't begin to guess. He was an unusual guy. Good roommate, but … strange."
"Strange how?"
Mo shook his head. "He always seemed to know more than he should." It's like he could read my mind.
"What do you mean?" Toby asked, careful not to sound like he already had an answer to that question.
"Listen, I only know that he took off and left all his stuff here." Mo backed away from the door far enough for Toby to get a glimpse into the room, where he could plainly see the unmade piles of sheets on both beds, the clothes strewn across the floor, and the posters pinned to the walls. Only a careful inventory of his belongings by someone who knew him well would reveal what Jody'd taken, and Toby suspected that that information wouldn't reveal anything more than the teen's taste in t-shirts. Without more to go on, even Becker couldn't wrangle the warrant for a search.
Sensing that he'd learned everything from Mo that he would, Toby handed over one of his cards. "If you see Jody or hear from him, give me a call."
"Is he in trouble?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out."
No sooner had Mo closed the door than Toby pulled out his phone and called Becker to let him know that their one-and-only suspect was on the move.
When Dev answered, his voice echoed over the conference connection he'd established. "Did you get anything?"
"Dev, is it possible for a person to travel from New York to Toronto instantly?" It was a question he'd never thought he'd find himself asking seriously. All those debates with Oz about how quickly Superman could fly suddenly felt a lot less hypothetical.
"It doesn't matter," Becker answered, his voice tense as he came on the line. "We no longer have a case."
"What do you mean?"
"Dr. Rhodes has decided not to press charges. Without charges, there's no case, and therefore nothing for us to investigate. I know, I know," he said, waving off Toby's unformed protest, "but we can't make them press charges if they don't want to. However this Jody character did what he did, he's gotten away with it. All we can do at this point is keep an eye out in case in happens again."
"I could-" Toby started. A glance up and down the residence hallway showed a number of opened doors, behind which there could be any number of eavesdroppers. Toby lowered his voice. "I could keep asking around." He was already on site, so a few more minutes of probing might yet reveal useful information.
Becker's response was clipped. "Logan, did you find anything that can be explained without science fiction mumbo-jumbo?"
"No," Toby admitted. That it was the hint of more science-fiction mumbo jumbo he wanted to pursue, he held back. Becker wouldn't understand.
"Then the case is closed. Get your ass back here so we can work on catching a real criminal."
"So, that's it?" Oz asked. "You walk away from a crime and leave it unsolved, just like that?" Leaning back on Toby's couch, he kicked his feet up on the coffee table. The jeans and button-down shirt he'd changed into after his shift were crisp from laundering and fancier than Oz normally chose; either Oz had a date later, or he planned on hitting the town with Toby as his wingman.
Toby shrugged and picked up the beer that his friend had set before him. The cool bottle felt good in his hand, familiar. Though he didn't know if he wanted to go out, he appreciated having someone to talk to at the end of a long day. "That's it. We just move on to the next case as if this one never existed."
"Here I thought doctors were supposed to be smart. Makes you wonder what they were thinking." Oz arched an exaggerated eyebrow at Toby in silent indication that he knew that Toby already had an answer to his seemingly rhetorical question.
"That's the funny thing. I stopped by their place to ask. No one answered the door, but they were inside. I could hear them thinking about a note they'd found on the kitchen table. Like, strong thoughts."
"Yeah?"
"It was from Jody." Toby took a swig of his beer, both to wet his throat and to give Oz a chance to process what he'd just said. For Jody to have left a note in his mothers' house without raising any red flags at the border made Toby suspect that he had been on the right track. "It said: I'm sorry. I'll explain everything someday."
"So?"
"I don't know," Toby answered. "He hasn't returned to school; his parents have no idea where he is."
Oz set his bottle down on the table. "Look, Toby, I get that you're a caring guy and all, but why do you care so much about this kid? You've had cases even your powers couldn't solve before."
Toby had only suspicions, which made him reluctant to speak them out loud. Though, this was Oz, and unlike Becker, Oz would understand. "Alright, OK," he started. "I think he's like me...only more. I think I might be the only one who can help him."
"So keep an eye out and go talk to him when he gets back. He'll turn up sooner or later."
Toby nodded, then pushed his beer aside and stood up. He was suddenly tired of being cooped up in his house. Grabbing his coat, he started for the door, knowing that Oz would be hot on his heels. All-in-all, the team had done their best that day, so why did he feel like Jody had given him a glimpse of the world he might never see again?
END
A/N: Jody is a recurring background character in The Tomorrow People. He first appears in the first episode, then several times throughout the season, culminating in the episode "Kill Switch," where he is both given a name, a line, and a death.