Note: Going over the transcript of Normal is the Watchword I notice that Veronica says that she and Duncan got back together, in the original timeline, on her eighteenth birthday.

This doesn't make sense to me. All but a handful of older students and one early entry of my freshman class at college were 18 when the year began. I'm assuming Veronica wasn't nearly a year older than everyone else – so I'm instead changing canon so that she was 17 when senior year began – and so were Duncan and Meg.

Justine London is also one of my characters, created for Death Becomes Him.

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"Listen up, people!" This from Weevil, in a back alley where most of the PCH'ers were gathered. "You all know Veronica here."

One of them said, "Decide to see what things are like on our side of town?"

Weevil opened his mouth, but I said, "I got this." Then, to the PCH'er in question, I said, "You must be new."

"Just joined a month ago. Wanna help me celebrate?"

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Joe."

"Okay, Joe. I could come up with a witty answer which slams your no doubt lack of manhood and makes everyone here laugh at you, but I honestly have better things to do than get into a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I'm here because Weevil asked me to figure out who killed Felix. You want to get in my way? Go right ahead." The "Go ahead and piss off Weevil" was implied.

Joe held up both his hands and grinned. "All you had to do was say no."

I made a mental note to verbally disembowel Joe the next time I had the chance, but right now I definitely had more important things to do.

Thumper said, "What you have to bring her in for? We know who did it. It was the Red Diamonds."

Shaking my head, I said, "No. They might have stabbed him in the first place, but I've talked to his doctor -"

"Ain't that against privilege?" Another one, who gloried in the unlikely nickname of Vole, said.

"I got Felix's mom's permission," I said. I wouldn't have without Weevil backing me up; but I had it. Felix's doctor had been the one I'd had when I'd been shot: Dr. London.

Anyway, Dr. London told me Felix's death had nothing to do with being stabbed." The stab wound that had brought Felix down had missed heart by under a millimeter. That, plus a couple of other stab wounds nearby, plus his other injuries – it had been a rough brawl – had kept him in a coma for over three weeks. "Nope. He was starting to regain consciousness, starting to talk, and then they came in and found him not breathing. The Neptune coroner didn't bother to perform on autopsy—" on a gangbanger like Felix, with no one giving a shit about him in a position to productively bitch about it? He was probably marked down as dead, thank God within seconds of getting to the morgue.

Dr. London, fortunately, had a conscience, and knew damn well that Felix hadn't died of a "myocardial infarction."

"I'm not a forensic specialist," she'd said. "But I'm a whole hell of a lot more competent than that idiot they have as coroner. Do you know what his medical training is?"

"No," I'd said.

"That's because he doesn't actually have any. Coroner's a political position around here; all you have to do is know someone in high places. Sure, Aaron Echolls got an honest-to-God medical examination, but this guy's nothing more than a hack political appointee who knows no more about forensics than he does about spelling. Look at this," she said, showing me an official document and pointing to the 'cause of death' line. "What does that say?"

I'd glanced at it and said, "Myocardial infarction."

"Try again."

I had respect for Dr. London, so I knew she wasn't jerking me around. I'd looked a little more closely and said, "Myocradal infraction."

"Yeah. It wasn't one of those, either. No risk factors for heart attack and, in my brief examination of him postmortem, he didn't have any of the signs."

"So what do you think happened?" I'd asked.

"I think someone smothered him with a pillow. You know, the one I found thrown on the floor."

"I assume you brought this up to Don Lamb?" Dr. London wasn't an '09er, but she wasn't a pariah, either. She could actually discuss suspicious things with our beloved Deputy and not get immediately blown off.

Though, to be fair, Donnie seemed to have bought half a clue since he 'd taken several public hits, recently. He still sucked up to '09ers like asskissing was the ticket to Heaven, but he was a lot more careful about making blanket public statements – and, according to Deputy Leo (yes, I still talked to the man occasionally) he was being a little more careful inside, too.

"He did. And while he didn't exactly tell me to get lost, he did pretty much say that, unless I had concrete proof, he was going to have to go with what the coroner said."

Which is what brought us to the scenario of me, in a back alley, talking to a biker gang most of whose members don't like me all that much, or have any reason to. I explained most of the above to the PCH'ers – I didn't stick up for Lamb all that much; even if the man's taking his job a point or two more seriously, this is still the man who essentially laughed in my face when I told him I was raped, so I'm never going to be in a mood to make him look good - and when I got to the end Vole said again, "Okay. I trust the Doc. But why'd you have to bring her in?" He was pointing to me, of course.

"You a detective?" Weevil said to Vole. To Thumper, "You?"

Thumper said, "No, but hell, Felix wouldn't have been IN the hospital if it wasn't for the Red Diamonds."

Slowly, Weevil said, "Yeah. You're right about that.'"

"So maybe it was one of them who killed him."

"Okay," I said, "Now it's time to expose my ignorance. When people in one gang kill another, is that the kind of thing that they usually keep quiet?"

Weevil snorted. "Sure as hell ain't. We'd've seen a sign or heard something through the vine. Any of you heard anything like that?"

Everyone answered no, Joe first, Thumper last. "Maybe they cleaned it up?" he asked. "Some orderly ain't gonna recognize the Red Diamond signs."

"Yeah, but they'd probably be talking about it," I said. "Still, I'll check with the hospital just in case." Dr. London would help me round up whoever cleaned up the room. I didn't think this was likely, but sometimes detective work was just a long, hard slough of dotting every I and crossing every T.

"Okay," I said. "Just to finish up here: Anyone know anyone not in a rival gang who might have had a reason to hate Felix?" Eight pairs of eyes looked at each other, nervously, but no one said anything. Based on this, I was pretty sure that someone here knew something, but didn't want to speak up, either because they didn't want to snitch, or because they didn't want to spill what they knew in front of everyone. I'd have to get Weevil to let me interrogate some of these people solo.

But that wouldn't be tonight. It was going on 9 and I had to get home. Weevil walked me back to my car and I brought this up; he said he'd arrange it for the weekend. "Thanks, V," he said.

"No problem. You've done enough for me I don't mind returning the favor."

XXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, at school, the only enthusiasm for the upcoming trip was from the "anything to get out of school" crowd, and Gia, new to the school but not to being an '09er – and that's because the owner of the team was her father. Gia struck me as a bit of a flake, but not malicious – and definitely interested in journalism, though only the "cool parts."

"What are the cool parts of journalism?" I asked Duncan.

"Nothing to do with proofreading, laying out pages, design, photography, or investigative work."

"Which leaves . . . "

"She wants to write a fashion column."

"Sometimes that takes investigative work." Okay, I was closer to Daria than Rachel in my fashion choices, but I wasn't completely ignorant on the subject.

"Not the way she wants to write it."

In the meantime, in case someone might know, I asked around to see if anyone at the school might have any idea who might have wanted Felix dead. Bit of a long shot, but it couldn't hurt.

Wasn't helping so far, either. Even Carrie Bishop didn't know anything, which probably meant there was nothing to learn.

And then there was Meg. After a summer spent away from learning investigative techniques, she was a little gun shy about plunging into the deep end of going after her parents without taking a few refresher lessons in the kiddie pool.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'd just rather make sure I'm not rusty. This is a big step."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"Not yet. Please?"

Even the 'Ronniekins' sounded forced. "Answer one question: Did they find out?"

No. I'm still here. But it's worrying, you know?"

"I get it. First case I run across, it's yours." First case that didn't involve murder, anyway.

Palpable relief crossed her face. "Thanks, Ronniekins."

I was Ronniekins again.

Good. Meg would be back.

I hoped, for her sake, soon.