"Hey, aren't you supposed to be in class?" his secretary asked in lieu of a greeting. "What'd you do, get suspended on the first day?"

"Ha ha," Dennis mocked. "My suspects aren't in the first two classes, so there's no point in my being there either."

Suzanne joked with a grin, "You just didn't want to lose your day job, too."

He smiled easily. "Yeah, that too."

She followed Dennis into his office. "So what's the verdict on Tweedledee and Tweedledum?"

"Well, they're in the class. Beyond that…I don't know yet." Dennis sat down at his desk. "It's not easy to find very much when you're laying low in a college class that's only an hour and a half long each day."

"Well, don't lay too low, Sherlock, or you'll only get tripped on."

"Thank you, that really helps," he answered sarcastically.

"No problemo." Suzanne turned on her heel, then stuck her head back into his doorway. "Oh, I almost forgot…big boss man wants to see you."

He sighed. "Alright, thanks." He got back out of his chair to go meet with his boss.

The meeting with Chick Sterling was blessedly brief, just an insurance claim he was told to investigate before Teshima would dish out a single penny.

Dennis worked on that for most of the day with Suzanne's assistance, and the time flew by until he had to leave for his second day of in-plain-sight college stakeout.

"Go get 'em, Rambo," Suzanne gave him a cheerful send-off.

"I'm only watching them right now," Dennis reminded her.

"Sorry. Go get 'em…babysitter," she amended with a grin.

Dennis gave her a dryly tolerant look, grabbing his keys and jacket.

* * *

Dennis managed to finesse a few tidbits of info out of Gina Blackwell without prompting too many questions from her in return.

Jeff, it seemed, had made some unsavory remarks in class about the guys' new restaurant that they were already trying to keep in business.

"What kind of remarks?" Dennis asked with a casual air.

"Oh, you know…the usual. 'Food's crap, service sucks, all the advertising in the world couldn't help them'."

"That's pretty harsh."

"Yeah, well…Jeff seemed kind of serious in his hatred for it."

"Why's that?" Dennis pressed.

Gina shrugged. "I dunno. Why do you care? Writing an article on it?"

Dennis backed off a little. "I might," he bluffed with a grin. "Nah, I just like good gossip, that's all."

Gina looked at him doubtfully. "And a mechanic's ridicule of a restaurant is the best you can find?" She snickered in amusement. "Don't take up writing any gossip columns…you'd crash and burn."

"I'll keep that in mind."

At this point, it was all hearsay and speculation. But with a little digging, Booker was sure to come up with some hard evidence.

Dennis was itching to find out more, but he knew better than to press Gina further and blow his cover too soon.

Maybe it was a mistake to buddy-up to this girl. Gina was sharper than he'd expected, and unhesitatingly inquisitive enough herself to match him question-for-question.

He needed to get closer to Porter and Wills themselves and see what he could dig up.

Being back undercover like this, playing the role of student once again, made Dennis Booker think back to his days at Jump Street.

He missed working with those guys. Hoffs, Ioki, Penhall…hell, he even missed Hanson a little bit.

Maybe he was overdue for a visit.