Sheriff Blubbs wasn't happy to see the Man in Black again. Last time they'd met face-to-face, he and Durland been at the receiving end of an electrocution, and if he never had to see the bastard again it would be all the same to him. Still, in this job he sometimes had to do things he hated - like throw an innocent man in prison to cover for a well-connected heel.

"Should have recognized you from the shine off your scalp," the Sheriff greeted, not bothering to hide his contempt. Durland leaned against the wall, shrinking away from the criminal.

"Well, I'd know that gut anywhere, Blubbs," the Man growled. "Did you get everything from Toby's office?"

"We cleaned out everything we could find," Blubbs said, unveiling it before him. There were Toby's handwritten notes, a few file folders with information on them, a small tape recording he'd made.

"Excellent," the Man said, examining them before putting them in a small satchel. Then a pause.

"Microfilm?"

The Sheriff bristled.

"Where's the microfilm?" the Man asked calmly. "I was under the impression that Mr. Determined possessed a certain roll microfilm from the Museum."

"We took everything we could find," Blubbs said, his voice mustering defiance. Behind him, Durland moved over towards a cabinet, visibly shaking.

"I thought you'd taken the microfilm when you broke in that night," the Deputy murmured.

"It wasn't what I was looking for," he said dismissively, without looking at Durland. He maintained a calm voice, but his eyes shot menace at Blubbs.

"If you don't know, would you mind my having a word with your prisoner?" He started to turn towards the cells.

"I absolutely would mind," Blubbs snapped, stepping in front of him. "I'm not going to have you murder an innocent man to cover your tracks."

The Man nodded. "Fair enough. I'm not keen on killing when I don't have to, Sheriff. Especially not for a client like this. A murder would make things too messy, too complicated even for me to deal with." He reached into his pocket, causing the officers to bristle in fear, then pulled out a manilla envelope.

"Here's your payment, as promised," the Man said, throwing it down on the desk. Neither Blubbs nor Durland moved, nor changed their stare from the Man's hostile gaze.

"May I ask what's worth this much money and this much trouble?" Blubbs asked. "Seems you're doing an awful lot to steal some artifacts and files that you could photocopy for free."

"I'd rather you not ask," the Man said, shaking his head. He tapped the envelope with his finger. "This should be all the answer you'll need."

Blubbs stepped forward. "Now listen here!"

"I don't need to listen to anything," the Man said curtly. "You've already shown that you could be bought, that's all I need to know."

"I think we would have bought the right to know what we're covering up here," Blubbs said defiantly.

The Man grabbed a pencil off the desk and rolled it around in his hand. "Now, I said I don't like to kill, but I'm perfectly capable of it if I have to," he said, musing over the writing instrument. Blubbs puffed his chest out defiantly; Durland practically shrank into the floor, realizing that he'd left his gun in the other room.

"You know, I don't carry a firearm," he continued, not looking at Blubbs. "Once in the past, I learned how to kill someone with a pencil. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. You just need to sharpen it to the finest point, then jab it right into the Adam's apple-" he demonstrated on Blubbs - "like so."

He threw the pencil to the desk beside the envelope, his point made.

"Threatening a police officer is an offense, you know," Blubbs said.

The Man smiled. "So is assaulting one," he replied, "and yet here we are." He grabbed his satchel, did a mock bow and walked out of the office.

Before leaving, he looked down the hallway - only two small jail cells. He could hear Toby's heavy, nasal breathing emanating from one of them. It wouldn't be hard, if he had to, to overwhelm or rush past the cops. He decided to case the jail cell as he left, just in case he needed to find a window or alternate means of entry...

Back inside, Blubbs opened up the envelope and sighed, counting the money. "Twelve hundred dollars," he said, showing the bills to Durland. "The things we do for a little extra cash."

"What profit a Man if he gives his soul for the whole world?" Durland quoted with unusual eloquence.

"Well, we have a mortgage on our house, bills, and God knows I could use a vacation," Blubbs said, plopping down in his chair. It creaked as he rocked back and forth, thoughtfully.

"You've always wanted to visit San Francisco, right?" He said, looking up at his partner with a forced smile. "I'd say we earned it."

Durland just nodded, quivering and turned away. Blubbs stood up and went after him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, sometimes we have to do things like this," Blubbs assured him. "It's all part of being a small-town cop. You think we were trained for that Northwest stuff because it was the right thing to do?"

Durland looked at Blubbs, his usual vacant affection giving way to contempt.

"That don't make me feel better, Blubbs," he drawled before storming out of the room.


Mabel and Dipper made it to Greasy's Diner just before it closed. Lazy Susan was about to close it for the night, but seeing two of her favorite customers (one of them wearing a makeshift pig costume) she let them in. Now they were munching on complementary chili fries as they held their Emergency Twin Meeting.

"Where's Wendy?" Mabel asked before digging into her fries.

"Oh, she left," Dipper said, looking awkwardly down at the floor. "She had other things to do."

"Huh." Mabel said, staring at him. "That doesn't sound like her."

"Well, tonight it was," Dipper pouted. Mabel decided not to press it, but slipped out her phone, texting Wendy:

EVERYTHING ALRITE

"Anyway, did you really have to scream like that over the phone?" Dipper asked in annoyance. "My ears are still ringing!"

"Of course I did!" Mabel said. "It's not every day we have a super secret emergency meeting at midnight!"

"Well, it's not every day Toby Determined gets arrested in the middle of the night, either!" Dipper announced.

Mabel's mouth opened in shock, allowing some half-chewed chili to glob on the table. Dipper winced in disgust.

"What did Toby do?" Mabel asked.

"They're blaming him for the break-in," Dipper said. "At least that's what they said on the news."

Mabel cleaned up her chin. "But...that doesn't make any sense," she said. "I mean, Toby was the one who started the story. And he got zapped along with the police. Why would he do that to himself?"

"They're saying Toby just wanted attention," Dipper said, his voice evincing frustration and bitterness, a memory of Wendy's rejecting, then a half-believing thought that maybe the logical explanation was once.

Mabel's phone buzzed. She looked and saw a text from Wendy: FINE, JUST DIPPER BEING EXTRA DIPPER. :-P

She puzzled this over in her mind, feeling a bit disappointed that they wouldn't have a Corduroy along to kick butt. She didn't know what to think about Toby, but she wasn't going to second-guess her brother about something like this. How many times had he been right in the past about the craziest things?

"What do you say, Dip?" Mabel said, placing a hand on her twin's arm.

Dipper looked up with resolution, energized by her support.

"I say it's malarkey!" Dipper said. "Toby's weird, but he isn't a criminal. And there's too much weird evidence that disappeared, even before the break-in happened. Toby's the only one who cared and whoever's managing this threw him in jail to shut him up."

"We're going to have to investigate this on our own," Dipper averred. "But where do we even start?"


Wendy felt bad about what she'd said to Dipper. It's not that she didn't want to help Dipper, it's just that...there was so much weirdness going on in Gravity Falls on a given day, something centered around Toby Determined and things that happened a hundred years ago didn't interest her overmuch. And hey, maybe Occam's Razor applied for a change. Who could say?

Plus, she didn't much care for Dipper being a stubborn doofus. He was always stubborn, always assuming the wildest, most outlandish thing imaginable. And sure, he'd been right about Gideon and Bill Cipher and God knows what else over the years, but this seemed too mundane an incident for his weirdness to fit.

These thoughts wrestled in her mind as she drove home. Just as she came within sight of the Corduroy family homestead, her friendship won out. "Damn it," she said out loud, before turning around and heading back into town.

On a hunch, she drove over to Toby's place. There was police tape draped over the door, which Wendy naturally paid no heed to. To her surprise, she found the door still unlocked and stepped inside.

Toby's place was a complete mess - papers and books and DVDs, a chair on its side, drawers flung out of file cabinets. The cardboard Shaundra Jimenez lay face down in what appeared to be (what Wendy hoped was) a puddle of coffee in the corner of the room.

"Seriously, dude?" Wendy cringed. There was nothing about this guy she liked. Maybe he did belong in jail.

She swallowed her disgust and looked around. After a moment she saw, amidst the mess, something sticking out of a pillow on the floor. She reached over and saw an envelope. It was addressed from the State Library of Oregon in Salem, and had a large square-shaped bulge in it.

Looking around, she rearranged the chair and say down, opening the letter. She saw a roll of microfilm with a message amended:

"Dear Mr. Determined,

"As requested, here is a microfilm copy containing issues of the Gravity Hills Gazette from November 1918 through August 1921. Since these files were so difficult to locate, we may need to discuss a larger fee than we had previously agreed upon. Thank you for your time and I hope this finds you well.

"Regards,

Ariel Nguyen,

State Library of Oregon."

Wendy opened the box and saw a roll of microfilm, the tape slightly dented at the end. As she regarded it, she realized that Dipper might be right. She smirked, knowing that she should no better than to distrust her little dork.

She texted Mabel: WHERE R U GUYS? and went out to her car as she waited for an answer. She sighed and stared at the ceiling of her car, absently hitting at it, wondering when she would get some sleep. She really hoped that there was something here that justified her staying up past midnight on a weeknight.

As she waited, a dark car pulled up beside Toby's house. Wendy didn't notice until the Man got out. Wendy spotted him and somehow recognized him. Not consciously, perhaps, but a feeling of memory, a figure spotted in peripheral vision...

The library. That's where.

"Oh, shit!" Wendy said, ducking down in her seat. Everything came together - not only was something going on, but it was evidently something worth killing for.

She waited until the Man disappeared inside the house, then slowly put the car into gear. Then she rammed the gas pedal and sped off down the street.


Mabel texted Wendy their location under the table, listening to Dipper spin his elaborate theories.

"I mean, it must be something really awful if they're willing to steal it and jail people to cover it up," he said. "Maybe it's a hidden treasure! Or proof of extraterrestrials! Maybe proof that the Northwests have been pals with Bill Cipher since the very beginning!"

"I think we know everything about the Northwests that we could know," she assured him. "Besides, Pacifica..."

"I mean, think about it, Mabel. Preston is running for Senate, and all the clues we have point us towards the Northwests. They have a history with the Corduroys and we need to figure it out."

They heard the screech of car breaks in the parking lot, watched as Wendy bolted out of her van and ran into the restaurant.

"Hi Wendy!" Lazy Susan greeted. "A bit late for your usual, but I can get you something..."

"Wendy!" Mabel waved frantically. She nodded at Susan and ran down the aisle to the Pines Twins, struggling to catch her breath.

"Dudes," she panted. "I just had the most intense thing happen to me. I went over to Toby's place and..." She reached into her jacket and pulled out the microfilm. Dipper regarded it with open awe.

"Holy Moses," he muttered.

"I've never been so interested in junk like this before," Mabel said half-seriously. "What is it?"

"Microfilm, Mabes," Wendy said. "You know, the junk the use to save old timey newspapers and documents on. Found it hidden inside a pillow at Toby's place."

"Wow, this is really great," Dipper said, impressed.

"Yeah," Wendy agreed. Then, after a pause. "I'm sorry I doubted you, man."

Dipper smiled. "No big deal. If anyone's going to be a creep, it's Toby."

Wendy shook her head, laughing. "Dude, no kidding. Trust me, you do not want to see the inside of his house!"

"What can we do with it?" Mabel asked, examining the film. "It's so widdle."

Lazy Susan put down a glass of water. Wendy grabbed it and downed the whole thing in one gulp.

"Magnifying glass?" Dipper suggested.

"Maybe," Mabel said. "I'm sure Grunkle Stan..."

"Whoa, whoa!" Wendy said, her composure regained. "There was a bald dude with a mustache casing out the place when I left. Like, he was a really scary, intense guy, looked like one of those gangsters you'd see on TV or, you know, a video game."

"Did he see you?" Mabel asked, suddenly concerned.

"I don't know," Wendy said. "But I'd seen him before. He was with us at the Museum the first day we were there. I know I saw him there."

Dipper tried to put two and two together. "Didn't Toby say something, in the article, about a bald guy attacking him?"

Wendy's heart skipped a beat. "Wow man, this is serious business." Then she finally registered Mabel's costume and broke out into a long, tension-relieving laugh.

"And just what is so funny?" Mabel asked, offended.

"Nothing, Mabes!" Wendy said, struggling to contain herself. "It's just - wow, it's so you! I mean, who else would be wearing a pig costume at midnight in a diner!"

"A BBQ restaurant's mascot coming home from a mascot convention?" Mabel shrugged. Which only made Wendy laugh harder.

"Guys, focus," Dipper interjected. "We need to tell Grunkle Stan."

"Dude, I don't think Stan should know," Wendy said. "At least, not for now. I know he's a tough old codger, but I don't want to get anyone else in trouble with this guy. Besides, you want"

"Anyway, we're perfectly capable of dealing with him ourselves!" Mabel declared, slamming her grappling hook down on the table.

Wendy stared in stunned silence; her little friend never ceased to amaze her. "Dude, where do you even keep-?" she began.

"Don't ask questions!" Mabel beamed.

"Well, if a magnifying glass is out...maybe there's a phone app somewhere?" Dipper asked.

"Wait! Maybe there's something at the museum we can use," Mabel said. "I mean, you said they keep stuff like that on file there, papers and things like that, right?"

"Yeah, but the museum is closed," Dipper reminded her.

"Oh, boo!" Mabel said, giving a thumbs-down. "Guess we'll have to wait until morning."

"I don't think this can wait until morning!" Dipper insisted. "We need to take a look at this stuff, now."

"Well, what can we do?" Mabel asked. "I mean, I'm all for investigate-y caper-y kinda stuff, but at midnight everything's going to be closed." Her eyes widened. "Unless you brought the President's Key with you!"

Dipper stared at her uncomprehendingly for a minute...then face-palmed. "God, stupid! I left it back at the Shack!"

"You know, a key that unlocks any door in the country would come in handy when you need to break into things," Mabel chided.

"I guess we'll have to go get it." He stood up, and...

"Hey man, we could always go down to the Museum and pick the lock," Wendy suggested. "I mean, I'm a little rusty at it, but..."

"Wait, guys!" Mabel interrupted. "I have another idea. An easier one! One that won't land us in jail with Toby." She fumbled for her phone and dialed a number she'd just added a few days ago.

"Hi, Charlie, it's Mabel." She chuckled, listening to what Dipper and Wendy could tell was an agitated response. "Yeah, it's late. Sorry. Hey, I have a teeny, tiny favor to ask of you..."