1Steve checked his watch... again. "Where are you, dad?" he whispered. Not only was his back complaining from being in the same cramped space for so long, but Jesse was actually complaining into his ear!

"You are standing on my toes, Steve!" Steve looked down, and sure enough, the heel of his black shiny shoe was pressing down on Jesse's.

"Sorry, Jess, but I can't move. I've been stuck in this position for ten minutes now!" hissed Steve.

"Believe me, I know!" Steve smirked as Jesse tried to shift out from under him and only succeeded in trapping his toes further.

"Steve, I think he's here!" Amanda called softly from across the room, and sure enough, the dark outline of Mark Sloan could be seen standing in the doorway. As Mark stuck the key in the door, Steve looked with horror at Jesse's other leg, sticking out from behind the couch, in plain view of the door.

"Jesse! Pull your leg back behind the couch! It's sticking out!" Steve was frantic now. He had successfully kept his dad in the dark about his surprise party, and he was not about to have that gloating opportunity ruined.

"I can't! I'm leaning my full weight on it, and if I move, I'll fall!" One glance downward told Steve that Jesse was telling the truth. He had somehow twisted his leg underneath him, most likely to relieve the pain in his other foot, still under Steve's. There was no time to worry about that now, seeing as how Mark was half-way through the door. Steve gave a silent signal to the people who were hiding under the coffee table that it was almost time.

Mark closed the door and flipped on the light switch. A roar of sound greeted him, but he had been expecting it. He had found out about Steve's little surprise party a week ago, but had continued to feign naivety for the sake of his son. Well, he had a surprise of his own.

Steve unfolded himself rather painfully, and shouted "SURPRISE" with the rest of the party guests. When he got a good look at Mark, however, he knew he had been deceived. His dad was wearing a perfect Sherlock Holmes costume, complete with smoking pipe. That only left one question: who told Mark? He took several accusatory glances around the room, looking for a guilty face, and finally settled on Jesse's. A look of betrayal darkened Steve's features.

"You told him?" Jesse looked down at his spats. When he looked back up into the face of his best friend, he could barely suppress a grin.

"He found the murder mystery kit in the trash, and threatened me with extra shifts at the hospital if I didn't tell him everything."

Steve sighed. He should have known that it would be impossible to pull one over on his father.

"Well, what say we get this party started?" There was always next year, and obviously it would have to be a surprise for Jesse as well as Mark.

Mark looked around at the familiar faces in his living room, all of them dressed in 1930's style apparel, ready for a night of mystery and intrigue.

Detective Mark Sloan sat at the bar, unconsciously tapping his still-smoking pipe to the beat of an unrecognizable song. Someone had been murdered. And not just any someone: Frankie "the Frog" Fitzgerald, New York City's mob boss. The autopsy showed that he had been poisoned with arsenic.

Who would have access to the substance?

A better question, who would want Frankie dead?

Well, at least the weary detective could answer that question. All he had to do was look at the crowd gathered in the room; any one of them would have killed Frankie, and never lose a moment's sleep over it. Mark decided to start with the most obvious suspect first. The mob's new boss, Jesse Travis, or as he was known to his fellow mobsters, the Jester.

His name was well earned, and not for "clowning around" as it suggests. Witnesses say that right before he kills, he always asks the recipient of his violence a riddle. "A little something to take their mind off of the pain" is his way of justifying his sick M.O.

Mark stood up and stretched his back. He was definitely getting too old for this. As he made his way over to the Jester, he scanned the room, hoping that Jesse's annoying sidekick wouldn't be around. Over in the corner, however, he could see Steve lurking. "Great," he thought, "now I have deal with him, too. On the bright side, I will be able to get two suspects interviewed at once."

Jesse had not been a member of the gang for long, which meant that Steve was fairly new too. Unfortunately, it did not take much time for Steve to make a very negative impression on Detective Sloan. He was always imitating Jesse, and coupled with that high squeaky voice of his... it was going to be a long night.

"Detective Sloan," the Jester called in greeting, "how nice of you to travel all of this way to check into my family's affairs." Jesse pulled on his shirt sleeves, in jerky, deliberate movements. It would not do for him to talk to the cop with his suit jacket wrinkled, after all.

"Yee-ah, yee-ah. Nice o' you to drop by, Dee-tective!" Steve's right eye twitched, and Mark took note of it. Obviously Steve was getting nervous: always a good sign in a suspect.

"Please, make yourself feel comfortable," the Jester invited. Mark rolled his eyes. Jesse was always playing polite in his presence, almost to the point of mocking him, even going so far as to pull out a chair at the nearest table. Mark sat down and turned to face the young man who was choosing the chair to his right. The light caught the side of Jesse's face as he moved to get comfortable in the club's hard wooden chairs. A cut ran from his eyebrow to his jaw bone, surrounded by brilliant purple bruising.

"What happened to your face, Travis? Did Frankie try to fight back? Or did he just not like the riddle you gave him?" Mark had had this man pegged as Frankie's murderer from the moment he had walked into the room.

"Now why would you make such a serious accusation, detective, when you know how dear to my heart Frankie was. He was, after all, family! I can not see any possible reason for me to have riddled him." The Jester leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head, a smug look in his eye all the while.

"Tell me then, where were you last night, between the hours of eleven and one? Hmm? Were you out for a midnight stroll, and got yourself lost? Somewhere in the vicinity of Fitzgerald's pad?

"Yee-up. Yes sir-ee, that was us. Just out for a turn about 5th Avenue. Fancied ourselves some new shee-ews, right Jess? Right? Right?" At this sudden out break from Steve, Jesse held up his hand.

"Look, Detective Sloan, I promise that I have already told you all that I know. I went to Frankie's apartment to talk," at this word Jesse cocked his head, "about a disagreement we were having, but when I got there, his place was empty. Steve was with me the whole time," he smirked, "you can ask him."

Mark slowly turned his head to Steve, wearily waiting for the statement.

"Yee-ah, like the Jester just said, we wanted to talk. Yee-ah, that's right, talk to him. Talk his brains out. But he was a no-show, a no-show. Yee-ah... talk." He let out a giggle, and settled back into his chair.

"So you see, detective, we do not have any idea as to what happened to poor Frankie. It is as big a mystery to us as it is to you. But if you want some advice, I would talk to his broad, Mandy. She seemed pretty sore at him yesterday morning." He pointed in the direction of the bar, and for the first time, Mark noticed a young woman standing there. She was wearing a red sequined dancing dress, with three red feathers stuck into the knot of dark hair at the base of her neck. He could not see her face, but he could tell she was trouble. Any woman with those curves had to be.

After approaching cautiously, Mark coughed to let her know he was there. She turned around, and her stunning features triggered something in his memory. She was one of the club singers. Jesse Travis had said her name was Mandy... Mandy... Bentley!

"Ms. Bentley?" Detective Sloan said the name tentatively. His mind was doing battle with the lump in his throat. He knew that he must appear calm and collected in front of this woman who could, potentially, be Frankie's murderer. But there was something about her heavy-eyelided expression that made it hard to talk. He shook his head.

"You looking for me," Mandy paused, looking Mark up and down, "Detective?"

"Where were you last night between the hours of eleven and one, Ms. Bentley?"

"Singing. I was here all night, and there are thirty people who saw me here." She swiveled on her heels, making the sequins on her dress sparkle in the dull light. Suddenly her pretty face contorted as tears welled in her eyes.

"I loved that man, Detective Sloan. I hated him yesterday, but I still loved him. You have no idea how hard it is to go on, knowing that he's not around any more. It's almost," her shoulders heaved, "unbearable."

The detective didn't know what to do with this new development. Men with guns, he could handle. Mortally wounded bodies, he could deal with. But a crying woman… this was beyond his capabilities.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, ma'am. If I may be so bold, can I enquire as to the nature of your argument with Mr. Fitzgerald?"

"Oh, it was stupid. Now that I look back on it, I don't really even know what started it. Frankie," she hiccupped lightly, "Frankie had bought me a new dress—a blue one, with tassels at the bottom—but he got it in the wrong size. I'm a four, you see, and he bought it in a six. I asked him if he thought that I was fat, and he took his time answering. The nerve of that man!" She ran her hands over her hips, "I am not fat, Detective. But," the waterworks, much to Mark's chagrin, had started again, "I forgive him now. I only wish that he was around so I could tell him."

Her next words were incoherent through all of her tears. Paired with her seemingly heart-felt remorse, her alibi crossed her off of the suspect list. Thankful that he didn't have to interrogate the crying woman anymore, Mark politely excused himself, and made his way to speak with the other suspects in the room.

The room buzzed with excitement. Detective Mark Sloan had just announced that he had solved the crime. Mandy, the singer, was leaning on the bar, her makeup running down her cheeks due to her earlier outburst. The Jester and his ever present side-kick Steve were sitting at a table wearing identical smirks, except Steve's was interrupted by an involuntary twitch every now and then. The other guests were strewn around the room all waiting to find out who killed the infamous mob boss. Mark stood pacing in the middle of the group. He turned on his heels endlessly, until the whole room waited with baited breath.

"I know who killed Frankie," he said again. He glanced around the room to see if anyone showed a reaction to this statement. Jesse cocked his head for the second time that night.

"Please, enlighten us detective. We would all like to catch the one who committed so heinous a crime against my dear predecessor, The Frog."

"Yee-ah, Dee-tective! Shed some light, shed some light!" At this outburst from Steve, Mark rolled his eyes.

"First, I had to consider who would have a motive to kill Fitzgerald. The most obvious suspects are Mr. Travis here, and Ms. Bentley." Amanda straightened up and sniffled slightly.

"Then, I had to ask who had the time to kill him. That shrinks the list down to Travis, because Ms. Bentley was here singing during the window of opportunity."

"What are you trying to imply, Detective Sloan? That I had something to do with the untimely death of my dear cousin? That is the very epitome of absurd." Jesse smirked.

"Let me finish please, Mr. Travis. I next had to consider who had access to the arsenic that killed Frankie. This took some serious thinking on my part. Where is the only place to get arsenic? In a chemical lab." The smirk was wiped off of Jesse's face, Mark was pleased to notice.

"What possible connection would "The Jester" here have to a chemical laboratory? But then I remembered that Mr. Travis ran the mob's lab before he became the head of the organization. What is your comment on that, Travis?" Jesse stood up to his full height, and stared Mark directly in the eyes.

"Before you take me down town detective, I have a question. The man who invented me doesn't want me. The man who bought me doesn't need me. The man who needs me doesn't know it. What am I?"

"Jesse, where did you come up with that riddle?"
"When I found out that I got to play the main role, I did some research on the internet!" Jesse's face glowed at the thought of impressing Mark. He had always looked up to this man as a mentor, a father figure even. Mark had always been there to get him out of trouble. The particular incident that came to mind was the time when he was being poisoned and thought that aliens were trying to talk to him; Mark had stuck with him, going so far as to personally catch the men responsible.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good job, Jesse. It was only the luck of the draw that you got to be the mob boss." So, Steve was still pouting about the part he had to play. Jesse threw his hands up in the air.
"It's not my fault that you drew the short stick, Steve! Besides, didn't you have fun playing the goofy side-kick?"
"Yee-ah, Steve-o, didn't ya have fun? Loads and loads of fun?" Mark gave a stunningly accurate impression of Steve's twitch, and his son's face turned red.
"Please tell me I didn't look like that, Dad!"

Giving Jesse the biggest wink he could muster, Mark turned to Steve.

"No, son. You didn't look like that at all. In fact, you can see just how unlike that you looked when we get the pictures developed!" At this, Steve buried his face in his hands.

"I knew this party was a bad idea!"