The rain was falling like orange paint in the Greendale library during our second school paintball game, but now there was no thrill of victory in the air, just the temporary relief of finishing another long day at the office. I reminded myself that I was supposed to be excited to be here, that an internship at the FBI was a rare opportunity—especially for graduates of nationally mocked community colleges. But eight weeks of filling out forms and bringing coffee to presumably important federal agents had taken its toll on my natural optimism. I wanted to go back to Apartment 303, to Troy and Abed's antics, a blanket fort in the living room, and the prospect of a day at Greendale, where any mundane situation could turn into an adventure. Since Abed was on the other side of the continent, Troy was somewhere out on the ocean, and I was a couple thousand miles from Greendale, my immediate goal was to get back to the little apartment I'd rented in Washington while staying as dry as possible.

My name's Annie Edison, but people call me "Psycho" because I had a nervous breakdown in high school. OK, mostly I call myself that when I want to seem tough. Not that I thought there was any need for it at the time. After all, I was just an intern, and I'd learned the hard way that detective work wasn't part of an intern's job description.

The upper floors of the J. Edgar Hoover Building overhung the sidewalk for a short stretch. That gave me a brief respite, but when I stepped out to cross the street I was drenched in seconds. I was hurrying towards the nearest subway station when I heard someone call my name. Turning around, I saw a young Asian man in a blue raincoat running after me. "Annie, wait up!" he yelled. "I need your help with something!"

"What is it, Brody?" I asked as he caught up, trying to sound cheerful enough to hide my exasperation. Brody Leitz was the last head of Greendale Community College's student government before the Dean abolished it. He'd continued his career in politics as a staffer for our congressman. I'd barely met him in my freshman year before he graduated, but since I'd come to Washington we'd met up a few times to reminisce about our alma mater. There weren't that many proud Greendale alumni to be found in the national capital. Still, that didn't account for why he'd be in such a hurry to get my help.

"I need a professional favor," he explained. "I'm worried about a friend. A fellow Greendale graduate. Christopher Weagle, he was the head of the Campus Republicans in my student government days, do you remember?"

The name sounded familiar. Weagle had been another student a few years ahead of me when I first arrived at Greendale. I wasn't sure I'd ever talked to him, but I'd seen him in class. He struck me as excessively straight-laced, and I designed crossword puzzles for fun. I nodded and continued along the busy sidewalk at a brisk pace, hoping Brody would finish his story by the time I got to the station.

"He's an intern like me now, works for one of the Colorado Republican representatives. We've been meeting for lunch every week or so to argue about politics for old times' sake. We'd made plans today, but he never showed up and didn't answer my texts."

"Maybe you argued too much?" I asked tentatively.

Brody shook his head skeptically. "He's an ideologue. He needs someone to yell at, or he wouldn't know what to do with himself. Besides, that's not the end of it. I tried calling his office and they said he'd missed work this morning and sent an email saying he was quitting."

"Look, wouldn't they know better than me? I didn't even know he was in D.C."

"They don't want to talk to me. They know I work for the other side, they probably think I'm looking for a scandal to damage their boss. But that was his dream job, he wouldn't just quit unless something was wrong."

"You said you needed a favor?" I pressed him.

"I don't know where he lives, couldn't find him in the phone book. I thought, with your job at the Bureau, maybe you could find out, just so I can check in…"

I sighed. He really seemed worried. FBI headquarters was still closer than the train station. I turned around abruptly. "I'll see what I can do. Just wait outside and try to get a taxi. If you pay for my ride home we'll call it even."

Returning to the FBI building, I swiped a card to get through the doors and took an elevator upstairs to the open, noisy room of cubicles where I worked. A few interns were still there, apparently preferring paperwork to the elements. No one paid me much attention as I logged on to one of the computers. Interns weren't given much information about cases, but basic research wasn't something the top agents wanted to do very often, so I had access to some of the less secure databases—enough for a slightly improper search to turn up the information I needed. Weagle's legal residence was in Aspen, Colorado, but I found a mailing address in the District. It wasn't far away.

When I went back outside, Brody was waiting on the street corner and a taxi was pulling up. "I found his place," I told him. "It's sort of on my way. Maybe I could come with you? This is as close to real detective work as I've come since I started working here." Little did I know.

A few minutes later, we left the taxi on a quiet street in one of the city's older, wealthier residential neighborhoods. It took a few wrong turns to find the place, but we couldn't get much wetter walking around than we already were. It turned out to be a small guesthouse on an alley behind a larger house. Both buildings looked deserted.

"How can he afford to live here?" I wondered.

"His family has money," Brody explained. "He said something about them losing a lot in a bad business venture, but I guess they could still pay for this. Our salaries sure wouldn't."

We walked up to the door, knocked repeatedly, yelled. There was no response, no lights or signs of activity inside. Increasingly anxious, Brody walked around to look in the windows. On a whim, I tried the door in case it was unlocked. The knob turned easily, but the door didn't budge even when I pushed on it. That seemed odd.

I took a good look at the door. It looked a lot newer than the house, but it was scratched up. Or, a spot under the doorknob was. In fact, the whole thing was dented inward so I could see the latch. It wasn't closed properly at all, just jammed. I pushed again, harder; it rattled but held. Then I stepped back and gave it a kick. My foot hurt, but the door swung open.

"Anybody here?" I called again, knowing it was superfluous. I felt the wall for a light switch and turned it on, finding myself in a small living room. The décor was sparse; that was to be expected if Weagle was only here short-term, as the Colorado residency suggested, but this was like a stage set that was only half-finished. The carpet, walls, and ceiling were all white and unadorned, making the room resemble a laboratory—the sterile high-tech kind in movies, not a real one with tools and half-finished experiments everywhere. There was a single empty chair and a couch, both facing a TV table that conspicuously had nothing on it. Along the wall, a little bookshelf stood half-empty, with gaps where a few books had been removed. I tiptoed nervously across the carpet, listening to the rain rattling against the windows. When I got to the couch I stopped abruptly. Brody had come back to the door to look inside.

"Call nine-one-one," I told him, my voice sounding calmer than I'd expected.

The couch looked brand-new and more expensive than comfortable. There were two throw pillows on it, meticulously placed at one end and exactly at the center. Frozen in place, I stood there trying to focus on those mundane details. It was all I could find to distract myself from looking at the other end of the couch. That was where the corpse was.