A WhoDunIt GMW Mystery AU Story!

Here's how it'll work: you get the case, you get the suspects, you get their sides of the story, you get to guess the perpetrator after the next four chapters! The winner(s) will get a batch of my signature cyber honey walnut cookies fresh out of the cyber oven! Interested? Then read on for fun times!

Rated K+ for Kleptomania

Enjoy all of you lovely, lovely people of the GMW fandom!

Disclaimer: I don't own GMW but damn these characters are so much fun to play with! ^_^

Detective Lucas Friar of the FBI sighed tiredly as he swiped his ID card in the employee elevator before pushing his floor. He leaned back against the wall, checking the watch on his wrist for the near thirtieth time as he waited for the lift to bring him up to the fifth level. It was just about seven in the morning, and he was exhausted out of his mind.

Sure, it wasn't uncommon for him to have to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning for work related emergencies or cases, but he had just closed out a pretty intense case the night before, and he'd barely gotten any sleep. He'd been called into work by his agency captain, Harper Burgess, about a pressing case she wanted him on and so, after hopping into his bed and getting about fifteen minutes of shut eye, he'd had to hop right out, slip on some clothes, splash water on his face, and race back over to work. He hadn't had the chance to shave yet and was sporting his five o'clock shadow, and he was sure he would be binging coffee for the rest of the day.

The elevator opened up on his floor, and he stepped out, walking down the hallway towards the desks further in. As expected, there weren't that many people in yet. Captain Burgess was standing next to the coffee table in the break room, and Lucas made a beeline for the room, opting to figure out why she wanted him back in the office as soon as possible.

"Captain. You ordered me in?" he greeted, arms crossed in front of his chest and a frown etched on his face.

His short boss barely spared him a glance, continuing to pour some of the coffee from the finished pot into a mug.

"There was a robbery about a week ago. I need you on this case since you've put away a good number of jewel thieves."

Lucas' eyes narrowed in irritation. "And you couldn't find someone else to handle the case? You know, who hasn't been working forty-five days nonstop? Oh wait, make that forty-six."

Harper straightened with the mug in her hand, turning to face him with a sardonic look of amusement on her face.

"No." she said simply, before walking over to him and shoving the mug roughly in his hands, "Drink up. Go find Minkus with the case details. I want this solved today, and you're my best man for this job. And don't get a big head Friar; I'm just stating facts. You usually solve these pretty fast."

He let out an annoyed sigh, but took a sip anyway. It was scalding, black, and bitter and almost exactly what Lucas needed to kickstart his lethargic mind. Thank goodness his captain knew her agents inside out.

"Can you do that for me?" she questioned him with a raised brow, "Solve it in one day? We're on a time crunch for this one."

"I can try."

"Atta boy Friar." She snorted derisively before sauntering out of the break room back towards her office, nodding in greeting to another detective who had shown up. "I'm counting on you."

Lucas growled under his breath before leaving the break room and heading over to his friend's desk. Farkle was leaning over his desk, gathering up a handful of documents for a file.

"So what's going on Farkle?"

The brunet straightened and flipped through the handful of papers in his hand.

"Greenwich Village Museum of Historical Antiquities. Case of a missing rare Blue Diamond. The first day of the exhibit exactly one week ago, it was stolen. We've been working to find it since. Here's the case file."

Farkle handed him one of the five files he had in his hand. Lucas took it, flipping it open to skim the quick details as he sipped on his coffee.

The Blue Diamond, a rare and high profile diamond unearthed about three months ago in the ruins of an abandoned frontier mine in Arizona. The week prior, it was shipped to the Greenwich Village Museum for the opening of an exhibit.

The diamond arrived at the museum at 8:15 sharp in the morning. It was settled in its exhibit case by 8:30; the museum opened at 9:00 AM to several spectators interested in seeing the rare beauty. At the museum's closing at 7:30 in the evening, it was still in its case. Every visitor in the museum was gone by 7:45 on the dot. At final rounds by the museum director at 8 PM, the diamond was still in its case. At 8:55, the alarm was accidentally tripped. For five minutes, due to the old circuit system of the museum, the security cameras as well as alarms all temporarily cut off before resetting at 9:00. When the alarm was rebooted, rounds were continued. The director stated the real diamond was still in its case.

Around 9:05 PM, the rounds were officially finished up. The guard cop was changed out with another officer. At 9:24, seven specific cameras that all faced the diamond all experienced small glitches before the image settled. At 10:00, the officers were switched out once again. At 10:45, the new officer did his rounds to make sure everything was in order, walked by the exhibit, saw the open case and the diamond and called the director of the museum, Madeleine Porter. She arrived around 10:56 and observed the diamond before confirming the diamond was a fake and immediately calling authorities. The rest was history.

The reported time of theft was believed to be between 9:00 and 10:38 PM.

Lucas groaned under his breath, handing Farkle the file. That was too large a margin of time for the crime. One hour and thirty-eight minutes of possible theft? He had his work cut out for him.

"What did the footage from the cameras show?" Lucas asked, taking a large gulp of his coffee to try to wake himself up a bit more.

"Absolutely nothing. There was no change in any of the seven screens that panned the Blue Diamond." Farkle said with a shrug, "Well, except for the small glitch at 9:24 that froze the screens. They didn't pick up any new footage until around 10:30. Other than that, the cameras are unreliable. They're suspected to have been bugged, although when checked by tech specialists, there was no residue of a lingering program. No system overrides, no fraying of the circuitry. Nothing."

"So it really could have been a glitch in the system?"

"It is a little bit strange that only the seven cameras facing the Blue Diamond exhibit glitched, but honestly, no one knows as of now. So our only sources for this case were Director Porter and all the cops." Farkle continued, "Porter let us know that she kept one cop, a trusted family friend, to keep an eye on the diamond all throughout the exhibit. And after she had left at 9:00 with her personnel and after his shift was completed, all cops were to be switched out every hour or so."

"Every hour?" Lucas' brows furrowed. "That's a little excessive."

"This was in order to not give any one cop on the floor of the Blue Diamond exhibit enough time alone with it." Farkle shrugged, "Porter's a pretty paranoid person. She didn't want it stolen no matter what."

Lucas nodded, taking another sip of his coffee. "Okay. So who was the officer who discovered the open case?"

"Officer Finley North. Shift from ten to eleven."

"Has he been questioned?"

Farkle nodded, skimming through another page of the file. "His alibi checks out. No problems whatsoever. Came to do his duty, switched with the previous officer, checked the cameras in the security room, later did rounds. All footage supports his alibi."

Farkle flipped to another page. "So we questioned Officer Dana Ferry who was listed to have had the nine to ten shift. But she told us she wasn't due to work that day because she was on vacation in Tahiti. She notified the director a month ago. That's been confirmed by Porter, her cop station, her family, the airport, the resort in Tahiti. Everything checks out. Dana Ferry wasn't in New York at the time of the robbery."

"If Ferry wasn't in that night, why was she suspected?"

"Because the trusted guard cop of Director Porter, Officer Nikolas McMillan, said he saw her and spoke to her. Officer North as well. They both claimed to have spoken to her."

Lucas finished off his coffee and rubbed his temples. This was starting to sound like one big headache.

"Okay." Lucas said, "So what about McMillan? Was he questioned?"

"He was. His alibi checks out too. Once Dana took over, he went back to the station to finish out his evening shift before he headed back home to his wife at midnight. It's been confirmed by many of his colleagues and his captain at the station. He was at the station at the time of the crime."

"So we've got no leads, two officers claiming a fellow officer who wasn't there was there, and a missing diamond." Lucas grumbled, setting the mug on his own desk across from Farkle's. "Great case."

"Actually, we do have a lead." Farkle said with a smile, cocking his head towards the direction of the hallway that led to the interrogation rooms. Lucas followed him as he walked there. "Officer McMillan has an incredible memory, which is why Porter kept him as the main guard for the entire exhibit during the day. He says he remembers every face that walked by the diamond and everyone who had particularly suspicious behaviours regarding it."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Lucas said, a small smirk on his face.

Farkle brought them around the corner before they stopped in front of a television screen attached to the upper corner of the ceiling. The television was broadcasting the interior of four interrogation rooms.

"Four women in particular struck McMillan as suspect in association with the jewel." He pointed to the screen where four different women were sitting in different interrogation rooms, waiting to be addressed. "And there they are. Ready for your interrogation."

Lucas stared at the four people on the screen. There was a long haired brunette fidgeting uncomfortably, looking very nervous and very scared. A girl with a brown bob looking bored out of her mind and picking at her fingernails. A blonde with her feet on the table flipping off the camera with both hands. A girl wearing glasses sitting ramrod straight, her chin held high.

"Guess I'll get to work then." Lucas said, cracking his neck.

The interrogation was his favourite part of the job and definitely a great payoff for difficult cases. Rarely was anyone able to slip past his fingers or baffle him. He would figure this out easy enough.

"Who first?" Farkle asked.

Lucas narrowed his eyes as he looked at the screen.

The blonde had a smirk on her face and probably would be hella annoying to work with this early in the morning. The nervous girl was an easy choice; she looked like she would squeal any second. The one with the glasses looked furious and probably would kill his ears.

He'd go with the aloof one.

"Brunette. Short bob."

Farkle handed him a file after checking it quickly, a small smile on his face.

"Good luck."