AN: Here is my second story in my Penny Investigations series. As with the previous story, this one has been fully written and I will post a new chapter each week.

Again, a huge 'thank you' to my wonderful beta bfm10 for going over the story and pointing out where my rewrites caused information to go missing.

This story will not feature any interaction with the other BBT characters, but I promise that in the third story we will dive a little bit further into Lenny. I have a feeling that from the third story onward, Leonard will make an appearance in every story. And there's always a chance of other BBT characters turning up.

Once again, the story follows Penny's point of view as she works on solving the mystery.


Penny put on her latex gloves as she approached the taped-off crime scene. A new police officer, one she'd never seen, stopped her.

"Excuse me, miss, you can't enter a crime scene."

She nearly rolled her eyes, but managed to keep it at a mildly annoyed look. "I'm Penny, a consultant for the police. Detective Dale has asked for my assistance." She could see the doubt in his eyes, but luckily Kelvin approached and instructed the police officer to let her through.

"Morning, Penny," Kelvin greeted her. "The victim is Alicia Browning, thirty three years of age, married." He lead her to the body. "The husband called it in, claiming he found her like this after he returned from a short errand."

Penny was quite aware of Kelvin's rule of thumb in these kind of cases: nine out of ten times, the spouse was the killer. Penny knew that statistically, he was not necessarily wrong. The short errand the husband had been on was certainly a red flag. But she knew there was always a chance her husband's short absence had been a convenience for the real killer.

She slowly walked around the body, trying to find any small clue as to what had happened, that the police might have overlooked. Not that they were incompetent, but she knew she was often much better at picking up small details than almost anyone else she knew. "Why was the husband home?"

"He's retired as of two weeks ago," Kelvin replied.

Penny nodded. The husband was probably quite a bit older then. She glanced around briefly and spotted a man in his sixties, looking absolutely devastated. It was not an act, that much Penny was sure off. But was he devastated because he lost his wife, or because he realized what he had done? Penny wasn't really sure. "Which of the two is the rich one?" Considering the neighborhood, you didn't need to be a detective to realize these houses could only be afforded by the rich.

"He is," Kelvin replied, sounding a little disappointed as it took away money as a motive. "Not that she didn't have a dime, she made quite a bit more than I do, but no, I doubt her money would be a motive for Mr. Browning. That's why I called you, see if you could find something."

Penny nodded again, crouching down and carefully lifting the woman's left arm. "There's a little piece of paper between her fingers and the palm of her hand." Carefully she removed it from the woman's grasp and then laid the arm back down. "Damn it," she said. "It's just a corner, nothing on it."

Having completed her round, she looked at the body, specifically the bullet hole. From her frequent experimentation on dead pigs she determined the most likely trajectory. The bullet had been dead-center on the heart, but had a slight upward angle. Assuming Alicia and her killer had both been standing, the killer would have been shorter; how much depended on the distance between the two.

She retrieved her phone and opened one of her specialized apps, this one to determine bullet trajectory and likely point of origin. She had a lot of variables to enter, several things she had to measure, but a few minutes later it became clear the two had been standing only a few feet apart. The killer, assuming a regular shooting stance, would have been about three inches shorter. She shared her findings with Kelvin, who promised to have it looked into to collaborate her findings.


# # #


Penny had to consciously shut off her emotions as she sat across from Thomas, now a widower after the homicide earlier this morning. It was obvious he had loved his much younger wife; there was no act he was putting on, he really was devastated to have lost his wife. Penny felt sympathy for the man, but she had to focus on the actual interview, find any clues as to who had murdered Alicia, and why they might have done it.

"Mr. Browning," Kelvin began, "we realize these are difficult times, but we need you to give us as much information as you can."

Thomas nodded and visibly collected himself. "What do you need to know?"

Kelvin looked at the file. "You were married three years ago, correct?"

"Yes, April seventh, twenty fifteen."

Penny took a moment to calculate the day of the week. She recently learned that trick from a mathematician she sometimes asked for help on cases where math was somehow involved. As with anything, practice ensures you not only retain the information, it also helps in becoming better at it. Her calculations resulted in Friday, but she would check later if she was correct.

"There's quite a difference in age. So, I have to ask..."

"No," Thomas interrupted Kelvin's question. "I know exactly what you want to ask, but no. Alicia and I met when she was eighteen and started her internship at our company. I've always told myself, and anyone around me, I would never date someone much younger than myself. Whenever I saw couples with such difference in age, I would always think that younger one was just in it for the money, or that the older one was seeing their younger partner as a trophy."

Thomas paused, smiling wistfully. "And then Alicia started her internship and I found myself wanting to approach her and being disgusted with myself for wanting to pursue anything with such a young woman in the first place. We were friendly, but that was basically all that was going on. I had managed to make myself believe she wouldn't be interested in an old fart like me."

He paused again. "After her internship ended, I figured I would forget about her, but we kept bumping in to each other every now and then. Each time I ended up at home confused and sad. My feelings didn't really seem to go away. I never talked about it, to anyone, but it turned out my daughters had figured it out. One day they set me up on a blind date, telling me to not think too much, just enjoy the evening and see if there was a spark."

He chuckled. "Of course they'd set me up on a date with Alicia. You can imagine my surprise at finding out she was my date for the evening. I found out that evening that she had feelings for me, almost since the first time we met, but she didn't want to be seen as a gold digger. A year later I proposed and we were married only six months later."

"Sounds like your daughters approved of her," Kelvin said. "Was there anyone who didn't approve of you two getting together?"

Thomas was thinking. "No, not to my knowledge."

Penny leaned forward. "Mr. Browning, did you notice any change in demeanor in your wife? Was she nervous or extra careful about locking the house?"

Thomas started to shake his head, but halted. "I can't say she seemed nervous, but recently something had upset her. When I asked her about it, she said she hadn't much to share, just that she learned something that really upset her, but that she didn't have all the details yet."


# # #


Penny sat in the chair in the waiting area of the company Alicia had worked for, a high profile legal office. As usual, she took the time to observe the new surroundings. Even with as little of the company to be seen from here, there's always things to learn. Contrary to other legal service providing companies, there wasn't an abundance of costly art hanging on the walls, most of the art being rather small decorative pieces.

She also spotted three camera's just overlooking the waiting area; with the two pointing at the main entrance, that was quite a bit of security, considering the attorney office primarily handled wealthy businesses and their owners. She'd already noticed the bullet resisting glass before even entering the building. This was clearly a front for some government alphabet agency.

A blond, attractive woman approached them then, her eyes obviously scanning the both of them, assessing if they were threat. Definitely a former field agent, perhaps CIA. A slight limp in her left leg told Penny the woman had sustained an injury, probably forced her into a desk job. Penny stood up along with Kelvin.

"Hello, my name is Sarah Walker, general manager," the tall blond said, introducing herself, a bright smile intended to dazzle and distract. Penny's suspicions about this being a CIA cover office only grew. "How can we help the Pasadena police department?"

"Miss Walker," Kelvin started, "I'd prefer to discuss this privately, if at all possible? Anyone could pass by and overhear us."

Sarah nodded once. "Of course. Please, follow me."

Kelvin and Penny followed her, Penny taking quick glances left and right as they moved through the long corridor, not stopping until they reached the very last door to, as it turned out, a conference room. Penny hadn't missed the fact that various people they'd passed were carrying a weapon.

Once they were seated, declining the offer of coffee or tea, Kelvin sat up straight. "Miss Walker, we're here because of the murder of your employee Alicia Browning, earlier this today."

Penny could tell Sarah was genuinely surprised; clearly they hadn't heard yet, though that was to be expected, as Alicia had taken a personal day today. What was odd was the brief moment of worry Sarah exhibited, but expertly managed to hide almost instantly. If Penny hadn't been paying close attention to Sarah's reaction to the news, she would have completely missed it.

"Oh my God. What happened?"

Kelvin shrugged a little. "We are not certain. We were hoping to learn more about miss Browning's work, her colleagues. If there was anything going on that might have made her a target of some sort."

Penny narrowed her eyes slightly; it was clear Sarah was receiving a message, possibly being instructed by her boss.

"We don't handle criminal cases," Sarah began. "And Alicia was a junior paralegal, though she was up for promotion to the senior paralegal ranks."

"Were there any colleagues who might feel they were being passed over?"

"I doubt it," Sarah replied. "Her colleagues all liked her, and of all our current junior paralegals, she's been with us the longest."

"Would it be possible for us to talk to a few of them," Kelvin asked.

Again Sarah glanced at what Penny assumed to be a small display of some kind. "I'm sorry, but we can't do that. As you may know, the job of a paralegal is one with tight deadlines and a lot of stress. Pulling them from their work for anything longer than a minute could endanger any of our current legal cases."

Penny had enough. "We all know this company is a front for the CIA. Alicia was probably investigating someone, or something."

It took Sarah a little more effort to hide her worry this time, and then she laughed. "You believe we're..." She shook her head, but glanced down briefly to, Penny assumed, read another message. "You have quite the imagination." She looked at Kelvin. "I'm surprised the police department works with a private investigator on a murder investigation."

Penny smiled. "I'm surprised you know that I am a private investigator. Considering I haven't even introduced myself." She lifted her head and nodded toward the camera she'd spotted upon entry to the room, positioned right behind and above Sarah. "Maybe you should ask your boss to join us, so he doesn't have to keep sending you messages after every question we have."


AN2: If you have a perfectly good name for a CIA agent, you might as well re-use it, right? Sarah Walker is the CIA agent in the TV show Chuck. I used her name and general appearance, but the character is not intended to be that Sarah Walker.