The Story of Oleander
Chapter 1
He was handsome, and he was dead. Steve McGarrett and Jayna Berringer stared down at the body of the young man lying on the mortuary slab. The mortuary assistant gave a somber look, and the pristine, gray-white surroundings only added to the drab, dire feelings the three of them felt. Wavy locks of chestnut hair covered the boy's head, his baby face belying the thirty short years he spent on this earth. The eyes that are now closed forever once looked out at the world through olive pupils, and his impish laughter will never be heard by human ears again. Jayna heard that laughter many times over the years, transfixed at the same time by those jade-colored eyes. Steve remembered the boy's charm and gentility. It made it all the more baffling as to why Alexander Gordon died.
"I want you to find who did this to him," Alexander's father, Felix Gordon, said.
"But he killed himself, Felix," Jayna reminded him gently. "Doc Bergman found them in Alex's system. He overdosed on barbiturates and alcohol. They're doing toxicology tests and the results won't be in a for a few weeks."
Felix shook his head. "He took those pills, but he didn't choose to. Someone made him do it. Someone did something to him … made him so upset that he thought he needed to take those pills to forget … " the distraught father was lost in thought and grief, trying to convey his message, but not finding the words. He wanted Steve and Jayna to listen to him, to believe him. "He couldn't have been upset enough to so that. Someone made him take those pills!"
"What could have happened?" Steve asked. He knew Felix Gordon too long to think that he was speaking irrationally.
"I know who killed him," Felix said. "I need you to help me prove it."
"Let's talk about this at Headquarters," Steve said. He nodded to the attendant, who slid Alex's body back inside the numbered compartment in the morgue wall. They thanked him and walked out.