Chapter 2
Shego briefly closed her eyes in pleasure at the sensation of free falling. The rush of wind, the sense of danger. It was a high she had to admit to loving.
Finally opening her eyes she glanced over at Ron who was free falling four or five feet away from her and slightly above. Ron had his eyes nervously glued to a altimeter strapped to his wrist.
"Poor Ron doesn't seem to like parachuting. I would think he would get enough of it being Kim's sidekick." Shego frowned at her thoughts. "I mean partner. He should be used to it by now."
Shego felt a whoosh of wind on the side away from Ron and glanced over to see Kim rocketing past. While Ron and Shego had their arms and legs spread out to slow their descents, Kim had her arms glued to her sides and to Shego's eyes was doing her best to imitate a lawn dart. Shego barely caught a almost manic gleam of a smile on Kim's face. It was obvious that Kim was definitely getting off on the thrill of free falling, maybe even more so than Shego herself was.
Ron finally pulled his eyes off of his altimeter to call out to Kim. "You are at the chute level Kim! Pull the ripcord now!" He frantically screamed. Kim however ignored him. Her eyes shut in bliss and a large smile on her face she continued to plummet towards the ground.
"Aww Kim! Don't do this to me again." Ron whined once before pulling his arms and legs tightly against his body to increase his own descent. Shego watched as now Ron plummeted past her and with minute alterations in his body began to angle towards where Kim was falling. Ron being heavier than Kim was slowly gaining on her.
Suddenly it became clear to Shego what was going on. In parachuting there is a point in the fall where even if you do open your chute, the speed at which you are traveling becomes so great that the landing can break your legs. In cartoons, characters may be able to open a chute two feet off the ground and land light as a feather but in real life you can slam into the ground with a open chute and still be just as dead as if you never opened it.
Kim was a adrenalin junkie. Anything dangerous turned her on to such a degree that she sometimes lost contact with reality and when it came to free falling she did. Ron's constant checking of his altimeter wasn't worried about himself, he was worried about Kim. Shego pulled her arms and legs together to decrease the air drag on herself and tried to join Ron to help him pull Kim out of her adrenalin induced haze before it was too late.
As Shego drew near, Ron glanced over at her. "Pull your ripcord now Shego! I can take care of Kim." He shouted and then turned his attention to Kim yelling at her to pull her chute.
Shego drawing even closer shouted at Kim from the other side. "Kimmie if you don't pull your ripcord right this second…. I will make sure there is no more fun times with you, me and Ron for at least a month!"
Kim suddenly opened her eyes and blinked a few times and reaching out grasped the ripcord on her chute and tugged on it. Her chute blossomed above her and Shego and Ron immediately shot past her as the chute dragged Kim's descent to a almost abrupt standstill before she started to gently float downward.
Shego couldn't resist a smirk. She had just found a way to draw Kimmie out of a adrenalin rush. Threaten to cut off sex. Shego was mentally patting herself on the back for her discovery when she noticed that Ron was wildly waving his arms in her direction and shouting at her. Turning her attention to him she listened to what he had to say.
"Pull your ripcord Shego!" Ron yelled again.
Ron was treated to a sight he had never seen before. Shego not only blushing but with a sheepish look on her face at the same time. "Oh yeah, right." Shego stated as she pulled her own ripcord to release her chute. Shego rocketed upwards as her chute caught the air and slowed her descent.
Ron continued to plummet for a half a dozen or so feet while he looked up at the two gently floating women above him. They could almost be angels he thought to himself. Suddenly he felt a frantic tugging at his pants' pocket and glancing down saw Rufus waving at him. Ron could barely hear past the rushing wind as his naked mole rat buddy shouted up at him. "Chute! Chute!"
"Ack!" Ron shouted as he grabbed for his ripcord and quickly tugged it.
Lt. Thompson angrily stormed out of the police station where he was in charge. One of his deputies following at his heels. He had just suffered from a week from Hell with teenagers killing other teenagers and then committing suicide and general strangeness and now the mayor of the city had brought in some kind of teenage super hero to do his job for him because as the mayor put it, "it's obvious you can't handle it yourself!"
All in all, the stress, frustration and worry was putting Thompson on edge. With all that was going on he should really have put himself off the case and let someone else handle it but there was no way he was going to do that.
Sgt. Parker stood beside him watching him closely. He better than most knew what the Lt. was going through and was worried that any little thing might be the thing to cause him to snap. Finally though he couldn't contain himself any longer.
"Um chief? What are we doing out here?"
Thompson shot him a glare before visibly forcing himself to relax. "The mayor has called in Kim Possible to find our killer for us. I've been instructed she should be arriving any moment and to wait for her here." He growled at his deputy.
Parker reached up and removing his hat and idly scratched his head. "The Kim Possible? Wow. I would be impressed if it wasn't a slap in our face. Why here in the parking lot and not in the station or somewhere else?"
Thompson once again glared at his deputy. "Look. I don't know! I was just ordered to stand here and wait…" He broke off his growling when he heard a noise in the sky above them.
Glancing up, both of them spotted a scrawny looking blond guy coming down hard with a parachute. A sudden gust of wind caught the chute and caused it to wrap around the top of a light pole in the police station parking lot. The falling guy had such moment the sudden tangling of his chute caused him to flip in mid air and ended up tying himself up in the chute's cords. There the guy with an embarrassed look on his face dangled about four feet above the officers' heads.
Sgt. Parker was just about to ask his chief what he thought about the strange guy's entrance and who he might be when they both spotted two more chutes slowly drifting down. The closer chute had a woman wearing black cargo pants and a dark green shirt. She had long flowing black hair. As she neared a landing she shucked her way out of the chute's harness and landed lightly on her feet in front of them. As the two police officers stared at the strange woman they both noticed that her skin was a light green tone.
Sgt. Parker's hand shot down to his holstered gun as he prepared to draw it.
"Whoa! I'm with them!" Shego shouted.
Thompson rested a hand on his deputy's shoulder. Telling him without words to stand down. They both glanced up at the last chute in the air in time to see a redhead slip out of her harness as well. With a gymnastic like flip she landed protectively in front of Shego.
"Shego is with me." Kim stated.
"I knew I was right!" Parker muttered. "She is the notorious criminal known as Shego."
"What gave me away? The fact my skin is green or just my stunning good looks in general?" Shego quipped.
Kim glanced over her shoulder at her. "Not helpful Shego." Kim said as she raised her hands to the officers hoping they wouldn't overreact before she could explain everything to them.
"Um, yeah. About being helpful? Can I get a little help over here! Please?" Ron's voice called out from where he was hanging from the cords of his chute.
Kim looked over at Ron and started to move in his direction but was stopped by Shego's hand on her shoulder. "You explain the sitch to the guys in blue Princess. I'll go get our guy." And in so saying Shego stepped cautiously around Kim and keeping a wary eye on the cops and moved over to stand underneath Ron's tangled form.
Flaring up her green plasma fire she took careful aim and fired over a nervous Stoppable's head into the cords connecting him to his chute, severing them. Ron fell the 10-12 feet towards the ground but before he could hit the unforgiving concrete Shego placed a hand on his back as he fell and flipped him to his feet.
"Wow thanks Shego!" Ron said happy he was no longer a human pinata. "And my pants didn't even come down this time!"
"We'll save that for when the mission is over with Ronnie." Shego said with a smirk.
Together they walked back over to where Kim was finishing up her explanations to the Springwood police officers. Lt. Thompson shot one more glare at the paper Kim had given to him from Global Justice. It in effect instructed any police or military officials not to hamper, delay or in anyway harass the individual known as Shego. That she was now under the care of Global Justice and as a agent she was cleared of all previous misdeeds. Well at least those committed in the United States. Other countries warrants would have to be cleared with them on a one on one basis.
"Not only a teen super hero but a ex-notorious criminal? Just what my town needs." He muttered as he handed the paper back to Possible.
Kim angered more by the slight to Shego than to herself frowned. "I will remind you that I was asked to come here and help."
"Not by me. By the mayor of this town. Let's get that straight right now! I don't need nor want your help but I am under orders to assist you in your investigations in any way I can but I don't have to like it!" Thompson growled as he turned to reenter the police station. "Well come on. I expect you will want to see the reports before we go to check out the locations."
"Nice guy." Shego said to Kim as they followed him and his deputy to the entrance to the building. "Wonder what crawled up his ass and died?"
"Shego. Let's try and not antagonize the police in this town. We are just here to find the killer and stop them from harming anyone else." Kim admonished her.
As they entered the main lobby area of the police station, Ron violently shuddered. A action that was not lost on Shego.
"What's wrong Ron?" She asked as she glanced around herself. The police station was nothing special, Shego had seen far more of her share than other people of the inside of police stations and they all pretty much looked and smelled the same.
"Someone recently died here." Ron said in a shaky voice.
Lt. Thompson glanced over at the spiky blond haired teen with a raised eyebrow. "Not only a teen wannabe hero and a ex-criminal but a wannabe psychic too?"
"I'm not a psychic. I just sense things at times." Ron replied as he wandered over to the door leading to the holding cells. "Besides, I am right aren't I?"
Thompson briefly wondered to himself what the difference was between a psychic and someone who occasionally 'sensed things' but before he could respond his sergeant replied.
"The first murder was committed by a girl's boyfriend. He later hung himself from the cell we had him in."
Ron glanced through the small window in the door at the holding cells. He didn't reply verbally but he shook his head no all the same. There was a very palpable sense of evil hanging around the jail cells and not the kind of evil of someone who killed someone and then hung themselves out of guilt or fear. There was a deep sick kind of malevolent evil lingering around the cells. One that scared Ron and reminded him most unpleasantly of Jason Voorhees that he, Kim and Shego had so recently fought.
Lt. Thompson ushered them into his private office. Kim quickly and without thinking about it commandeered one of the chairs in front of his desk and pulled it closer to his desk. She was used to people being happy about receiving her help. The raw annoyance she was getting from the police chief was rubbing her the wrong way and she just wanted to get this over and done with.
Ron politely pulled the second chair out and gestured for Shego to sit down. Shego wasn't used to men being chivalrous and doing things like pulling chairs out for her or holding open doors, most of the time men were either gawking at her or running in fear so she hesitated for a moment but eventually sat down. Ron continued to stand between the two women in his life while the deputy they had met outside continued to stand at the door to the room and keep an eye on all of them. Although Ron felt he was keeping more of an eye on Shego than anything else. Ron felt a surge of jealousy until he realized the man wasn't ogling Shego but keeping a suspicious eye on her. It was sometimes hard for Ron to remember that until very recently Shego was a wanted criminal and therefore of course watched with suspicion where ever she went.
Thompson sat down heavily in his office chair behind his desk and glared at Kim Possible but when she in no way flinched or broke his gaze he finally sighed and opening the top drawer of his desk he pulled a folder out and slid it across his desk towards her.
"Here's the coroner's report on the murder." He paused and raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure you can handle it? It's not pretty and its damn strange."
Kim felt her anger start to rise. "I'm sure I've seen uglier and stranger things!" She flipped open the folder and began to read. Over her shoulder she could feel Ron and Shego's presence and knew they were looking at the documents too.
As she read the Coroner's report Kim's face paled till her freckles were clearly visible. She swallowed several times as she tried to keep from getting sick.
Decedent:Glen Lantz
Residence Address:1431 Elm Street
Weight:165
Hair:Brown
Eyes:Blue
Circumstances of Death
Decedent appears to have been sucked into a giant hole within his bed. A Human body only contains 9 pints of blood, but 50 to 60 pints of blood were found at death scene. Most of blood appears to have shot from giant hole in victim's bed (see photos) directly onto ceiling. Investigations continue on how hole was created and by what in mattress.
Kim's eyes widened in horror as she flipped the typewritten sheet over and found herself staring at the referenced crime scene photos. The boy's bedroom as literally painted in blood. There wasn't even any way to tell what the color of the carpet in the boy's room had originally been. It was now a lurid dark red from the blood.
Taking a deep swallow she managed to ask with hardly a waver in her voice. "Do you have any theories on what happened or how?"
Lt. Thompson sat back in his chair and stared back at her. "What happened is obvious. A young teen boy was sitting on his bed late at night watching TV and listening to his stereo when something pulled him down into his mattress and then pureed him into a blood smoothie and then spat him out. As for the how? Well that is what you are here for. To miraculously hand us a solution."
Ron stepped forward between Shego's and Kim's chairs till he was nearly leaning over the desk towards the police chief. "What is your damage dude! The mayor went over your head and brought Kim into this case and you don't like that? Fine. I can understand that but you are being down right hostile towards us! Is your ego so large that you can't stand that Kim might be able to help and bring a killer to justice before you can?"
Thompson leapt to his feet and leaned over his desk in Ron's direction as well. "Listen kid! I was solving crimes when she was still in a crib! I don't need any help protecting my town!"
"And we were saving the entire world while you were out writing parking tickets too!" Ron shouted back. "But if someone had offered us help, we would have gladly taken it! Especially if it meant someone was saved and kept from being hurt!"
Shego and Kim blinked and looked at each other. It was unusual for Ron who was always somewhat laid back to become so annoyed so quickly or to argue with a authority figure. Kim fancied that she spotted a glow starting to come from Ron's eyes. She had to calm the situation quickly or the only thing Ron would be investigating in this town would be the jail cells.
"Where are the other reports?" She asked in a normal voice.
This was enough to distract Thompson and Ron for a moment as they both glanced in her direction.
"What other reports?" Thompson asked. "This is the only unsolved murder we have at the moment."
"You stated earlier that a murder was committed by some girl's boyfriend and that he later hung himself in the jail cell. I would like to see that report as well." Kim replied evenly.
"Why? That is a open and shut case. The boy was with the girl in a locked room after having sex with her. He killed her. There are no other explanations." The deputy in the back of the room spoke up.
Thompson sat back down in his office chair and raised a hand in the deputy's direction. "That's okay. If the wonder Possible wants to waste valuable time looking at old reports who are we to argue with her?"
Opening the top drawer of his desk he reached in and pulled another folder lying on top and tossed it across the desk to Kim's side.
As Kim opened the file and began to peruse it, Shego's eyes widened slightly. If the case had been so open and shut then that file would have been in a filing cabinet, not in the police chief's desk drawer with the other file. The fact it was showed that the cop didn't believe the 'official' record. Shego glanced over at Ron who was still standing in front of the officer's desk, just not leaning over it so aggressively any more and she suddenly realized what Ron had already picked up on. Lt. Thompson knew more about what was going on than he was telling.
Shego leaned forward in her chair to read the file along with Kim.
Decedent: Tina Grey
Residence Address:842 Elm Street
Weight:111
Hair:Blond
Eyes: Blue
Circumstances of Death
Victim appears to have been sliced through the stomach and chest. Sternum is cracked from excessive force, 9 ribs are cracked or shattered. Forensic reports suggest that victim was dragged across bedroom ceiling during and after slaying.
"Did you find the weapon the kid used on the girl or how he managed to drag her body up a wall and across a ceiling?" Shego asked.
Lt. Thompson shared a look with his deputy that wasn't lost on Shego but then replied. "No we didn't identify the weapon or how he managed to drag her body along the ceiling."
"Can we see the coroner's report on his 'suicide'" Ron asked with a heavy skeptic emphasis on the word suicide.
The police chief shot Ron a annoyed look but once again reaching into his top desk drawer he pulled out another file and slid this one over to Ron.
Ron took the file and squatting down between Shego and Kim's chairs so they could read it along with him he opened the folder.
Decedent:Rod Lane
Residence Address:3490 19th St
Weight:220
Hair:Brown
Eyes:Brown
Circumstances of Death
Apparent suicide. Decedent appears to have hung himself with a bed sheet in jail cell. Early reports have not discerned how body was raised for hanging. Investigation continuing. Decedent was suspect in murder case of girlfriend.
"Was there anything else unusual about his death?" Ron asked as he handed the folder over to Kim.
"Well the chief's daughter showed up right around the time he killed himself and said something strange was going on and we needed to check on the boy." The deputy at the doorway replied.
Lt. Thompson slammed his hand down on his desk causing everyone in the room to jump slightly. "My daughter has nothing to do with that case." He growled. Getting up from his desk he came around the front and grabbed the folders out of Kim and Shego's hands. "I assume you will want to check out the scene of the attack? I mean of course the one murder you are supposedly here to solve." He replied in barely concealed sarcasm as he tossed the folders back on to his desk.
As Ron, Shego and Kim were lead to a patrol car to take them to the Lantz's family home, or what used to be the Lantz's family home as the parents had abandoned the home the night of their son's death, Ron suddenly yawned.
"Tired Ronnie?" Shego said with a faint smirk. She knew he had very little sleep the night before because neither had her or Kimmie.
Ron gave into Shego's gentle teasing, grateful for anything to take his mind off the strange crawling sensations this town was giving him.
"Yeah. For some reason, I didn't seem to sleep too well last night." He replied.
Kim fully in 'game mode' only blushed slightly at the reference to her, Ron and Shego's marathon makeout session of the night before but she wondered at Lt. Thompson's reaction when she noticed him stiffen and tense up at Ron's apparent innocent comment about not sleeping.
Coroner's reports come from the website http/
