Time for the last chapter of Small Beginnings!

AussieJo: Glad you like it! It's always been a long term goal of Tom's to set up his own company. And if you want to investigate that Mercedes-Benz Actros, go ahead! You might like what you find!

Today had started out like normal. Tom's first bit of income had come from delivering comic books to a book store in Waikiki.

And the irony was that now he was investigating the case of a guy dressed as a comic book superhero who had apparently jumped to his death.

As the first Five-0 on scene (and believe me, he'd even gone to the hotel straight after the delivery, no time to swap the truck for the car), Fortnell was wondering where the hell Steve and Danny were. Were they having a conversation about lunch? Were they meeting a CIA person or something? The bloody Pac-Man in cargo pants, and the ranting competition winner from New Jersey...

To his relief, the duo had finally arrived, and they were joining Max Bergman in examining the victim. Tom had only just met Bergman, and found him interesting and efficient, if a little quirky. He was a comic book fan too. Damn, should've brought the trailer and a few spare comic books to this one...

"Although Captain Fallout dons a cape, he's not capable of actual flight." Max spoke. Captain Fallout. Why did this guy fall out of the sky then? "Merely superhuman leaping abilities."

"Max, who's Captain Fallout?" The obviously-not-clued-up-on-comic-book-superheroes Steve asked.

"The fearless leader of the Wondrous Seven." Dammit, there were only five in Five-0. Dammit. After a short pause and silence, Max continued, "He acquired his powers when he was attacked by one of Hitler's radioactive German shepherds during the Battle of the Bulge." Tom was now seriously considering jumping in the pool.

"Really?"

"Wow, you guys need to brush up on your classics."

"We don't need to brush up on anything." Danny replied while Tom was kneeling down examining the body.

"Yeah, you need to bring us back to reality." Tom added.

"Yep, here on Earth, and answer the obvious question: Why this guy took a dive wearing tights."

"Well, Spectacucon is in town this weekend." Max said. "So I assume our victim was going to attend."

"OK, it's a comic book convention." Steve confirmed. "Do we have an ID on the vic yet?"

"Afraid not. But due to the nature of the injuries, I would estimate that he fell at least ten stories." With that in mind, Tom looked up at the building to study trajectories (basically, how this guy would fall if he jumped out of a particular room on a particular floor. Physics was indeed useful.)

"Maybe he's a jumper Max." Danny gave his idea.

"No. This was definitely a homicide." Oh, now this was getting interesting. "Facial lacerations imbedded with glass fragments indicates our victim was most likely thrown out of a window, perhaps a sliding glass door. The residues on both wrists are consistent with duct tape."

"He was bound?" Steve asked.

"Yes. And the definitive bruising also suggests..."

"That he struggled with his attacker. OK." Danny concluded. He reached inside one of the pockets on the vic's belt and extracted a phone. Even though the screen had sustained damage due to the impact, the New Jersey detective could still see that a message had been received. "A message from Psycho Kitty. 'Be careful, he's looking for you'."

"Too bad our vic didn't get this warning in time."

At the Hawaii Convention Center, Spectacucon was indeed in town, and it was spectacular too. Everyone seemed to be in a costume of some kind. Kono had managed to get an ID off the phone: Alex Baker, an insurance adjustor from Atlanta that had flown in two days ago for this event. Tom was with Chin and Kono checking out the hotel, leaving Danny and Steve to try to track down the Psycho Kitty.

Air conditioning on meat freezer setting, the two cousins entered Baker's hotel room. Forced entry? Nope, no signs. Nothing to suggest a struggle either. Chin looked out of the glass door while Kono investigated the comics on the table. Chin Ho made his way out onto the balcony and looked down at the flattened shelter, police investigators still around the remains. With the correct aiming, it was possible to make a leap of faith, and then to meet Hitler and his radioactive dogs in heaven upon landing on that shelter.

"Trajectory lines up. It's a clear shot to the pool below." Chin spoke. "You know, Max said Alex Baker had facial lacerations from broken glass. They're obviously not from these windows. I don't think this is our crime scene."

"Well, our vic had to have been thrown off the building from someplace." Kono said as she stepped onto the balcony. She noticed something on the floor, and Chin saw it as well. He knelt down to study it.

"It;s broken glass. It's gotta be from the suite directly above."

"Correct." Tom called from the balcony above Chin and Kono's, which was covered in broken glass and missing the glass from the sliding door. "I think THIS is our crime scene."

"Room 1703 is registered to Jonathan Demille from Port Allen, Lousisiana." Kono reported as she and Chin Ho marched towards the room in question. "Manager says it has the exact same layout as room 1603, Alex Baker's room just directly one floor above." They stopped at the door. "Look, there's a card still in the lock. That's weird." She tried the card. It didn't work. "Way weird."

"Try the one the hotel manager gave you." Chin suggested. Kono complied, and fished her card out of her pocket. This one worked, and soon, they were inside.

"Welcome to my room." Tom greeted them as they stepped inside. "Excuse the mess."

"How's you even get in?" Chin wondered.

Tom held up his smartphone. "Hacker app. Got given this when I was in the Task Force 141. I can hack into almost anything. I could unlock your SUV, start it up and be off with it within 30 seconds. Of course, I use it responsibly, and for the task at hand, like in this case. Gotta love the modern smartphone."

Joining Kono on the balcony, the two men studied the glass on the floor. Chin Ho simply stated, "This is our crime scene."

At Spectacucon, Danny and Steve had learned that Psycho Kitty was in fact, Gail Woodson. Her and Baker had met on an online message board, had discovered they liked the same stuff, and had met that day. Then Gail's ex-husband Trevor showed up, got angry, caused a scene and declared Woodson couldn't see Baker anymore, or he'd kill Alex.

At the Palace, Steve and Danny had learned about Trevor Wright, Psycho Kitty's ex, and that he had a rap sheet about as long as Tom's truck with a trailer. They'd attempted to make contact with Trevor at Kailua Beach, which lead to a foot pursuit, which led to Steve tackling Trevor after Danny had diverted him with an ATV. Afterwards, Trevor had said he didn't know who Alex Baker was, and asked about the fact that "Super Dork" was dead. He'd just wanted to scare Baker, but Gail had made it clear she and Trevor were never going to be together again. He said after the convention that he'd gone to the beach on one of those dolphin watching cruises. Danny wasn't convinced, but Steve found a piece of paper inside Trevor's shirt pocket. Dolphin excursions, 11:00am, and there were at least a dozen people who could put him on that boat. Dead end.

Back at the hotel room, things were just getting hotter. "Jonathan Demille," Kono said, "the name this room is booked under, dead for nearly a year. But a credit card was opened up with his name and social a few months ago."

"No way he's risen from the dead. This had to be identity theft." Tom thought aloud.

"It's called ghosting." Chin informed. "You take the identity of someone recently deceased and then you rack up charges until the credit card company wises up."

"And here I am paying 18.5% interest?" Kono asked.

"Well here's a $30,000 watch." Chin replied while holding up a gold watch. "Maybe you can use this to pay off your debts." This was too much for Tom and he began laughing.

"Ripe for the taking, which means this wasn't a robbery." At the end of Kono's sentence, Tom stiffened up, stood up straight and stopped laughing. Back to being serious. "Someone tossed this room looking for something specific."

"Right." Tom confirmed. "It still doesn't explain how our vic ended up in this room."

"Not everyone has your hacker app." Chin pointed out.

"Never gonna let that one go, are you?"

"Nope."

"I had the manager run this key card we found in the lock this morning." Kono continued. "It was programmed for room 1603."

"OK, so then why would our friend Alex Baker use his room key to try to get in here?"

"16 and 1703 have the same layout." Tom deduced. "Baker could've got off on the wrong floor, went to what he thought was his room and tried to open it."

"Hotel records show he signed for drinks at the bar this morning." Kono added. "I had Max run his blood alcohol. It was three times the legal limit."

"That explains it."

"The guy was blasted."

"So he leaves the convention and hits the bar to drown his sorrows." Chin pieced together the puzzle.

"He rides the elevator and gets off on the wrong floor."

"Right. And in these hotels all the corridors look exactly the same." Chin looked at Tom.

"And he's too wasted to notice his mistake." Tom added.

"Meanwhile, someone's ransacking this room, then hear Baker at the door trying to get in with his key." Kono continued.

"They pull him inside and tie him up because, as far as they know, he's their man. Kono, we need to find whoever booked this room. They're our only lead to catching our killer."

As Chin left, Kono found Tom deep in thought.

"Anything wrong?" She asked.

"I dunno. I'm considering the possibility Baker was dead before he hit the ground."

When Chin did some digging, he found out that the watch was stolen three days prior from the Davis residence. That, and it was registered to a Mr Richard Davis, who was out on business, and who his wife was convinced had nothing to do with the murder. While waiting for Mrs Davis to return with the police report concerning the theft of the watch, Chin found a baseball bat on a shelf. When Mrs Davis returned, Chin pointed out the collection, and said that he didn't know if the robber could've killed somebody.

"I ID'd our missing thief, Jonathan Demille." Kono spoke with Danny and Tom back at the Palace. "And I pulled a statement from his credit card.

"All right, well, for the very least, he's stimulating the local economy." Danny's sense of humor. "He's got a $1,000 in the skate shop, another few hundred at a video game store."

"The last couple of weeks, he spent almost 20 grand at a strip club. A place called Femme Nu."

"You cannot spend that kind of money without attracting some attention. Someone's gotta be able to point us towards this guy."

"And maybe he can point us towards our killer."

"Well, good luck guys." Tom excused himself. "I'm going off to do some trucking. Call me when you get some more intel on this case."

"Will do." Kono said as she and Danny walked out, leaving Tom alone in the room. He got out his smartphone, went into the hacker app, pointed it at the wall next to the door, and remotely turned out the lights.

Tom spent the rest of the day driving, and the night inside the sleeper cab of his Freightliner in the parking lot. There was a bonus to being a trucker with a sleeper: No need to book a hotel room. That's how Captain Fallout fell out, right? Anyway, in the morning, he found out from Kono that Demille was known at the club as Johnny D (very imaginative alias...) and that Five-0 weren't the only ones looking for him. The big guy in a track suit could've dropped Baker off the balcony thinking he was Johnny D, but the guy at the club didn't tell him where Johnny D was. You couldn't find Johnny D, Johnny D found you.

So after they made it look like his girl Tiffany was sending him a text, they managed to get Johnny D to go to the club (in a Mustang no less). After officially the quickest car chase ever, they had Johnny D in custody. They learned that he liked to give back to the community, oh, and he liked to take from the community too. The people he stole from were insured, he said. Danny quickly dropped the bombshell that an innocent man was dead because of him, and Steve showed him the photo of Alex Baker. Johnny D showed concern at Baker's death, and revealed that a guy was asking around about him, and after an encounter, he was laying low at the hotel.

Steve and Danny then went to Johnny D's garage with the man in question, and saw the stuff he took. Lots of stuff in there. They narrowed it down to the stuff at the front of the garage, including some silverware, $100,000 worth of jewelry and season four of Cheers (!). Steve found a snowglobe that had something concealed inside the base. He opened it up to find a chip of some kind. Bingo.

"The memory card you found is password protected." Kono reported. "It looks like 64-bit encryption."

"OK, can you crack it?" Steve asked.

"Yeah. Give me a couple of minutes." She started her program, but had a brainwave, and looked at Tom. "Or we could pull it off in 60 seconds."

"OK. OK." Tom sighed, before getting out his smartphone. He clicked on the hacker app, verified his identity with the fingerprint, and then he pointed it at the memory card, started the hack and put it down on the tech desk.

"What is that?" Steve asked.

"Smartphone, issued when I was in the 141, so we could track our targets by hacking into any electronic device. Let's say we're in a car chase, I hack the traffic lights, cause a traffic jam, then we move in on the target while he can't move. Good thing it's easy to use, and it looks like an ordinary smart phone."

"Whack jobs." Danny muttered.

Chin walked in, and said, "Check this out." before swiping a sketch on the screen.

"It looks like Johnny D's stalker." Steve pointed out.

"I had a sketch artist work work up a composite based on his description. H.P.D showed it around the hotel. Three employees reported seeing him around the time Baker went over the balcony."

"It's our killer."

"But I haven't been able to match the face to the name."

"Alright, looks like we got it." Kono suddenly said. "It looks like one file on the card and it's a video." She swiped the video onto the screen.

"Hold on." Danny commented.

"OK, it's time stamped, July 2008." Steve said. The video was showing a man and a woman on the couch.

"Wait a minute." Chin pointed out. "Go closer on that."

Kono zoomed in on the two faces. "I've seen her before."

"That's Lindsey Roberts. She's a local girl from Aiea. She disappeared in the summer of 2008. But there were no signs of foul play, so the case went cold, until they found her body at Mokuleia National Forest Reserve. This was ten weeks after they reported her missing. Killer was never found."

"OK, if this video was made right before Lindsey's disappearance then the mystery man in the video could be her killer." Steve joined the dots. "That's why Alex Baker was thrown off the balcony. That's why Johnny D's room was searched. This guy is trying to get back the evidence that could link him to Lindsey's murder."

Lindsey's parents were questioned, and managed to identify the man in the video: Richard Davis, her boss. Max reported that the cause of Lindsey's death was blunt force trauma to the head, but wasn't able to determine the murder weapon, but a wood fiber was imbedded in the skull. It could've been a piece of wood from the forest, but Max disagreed, even though he followed the ruling of his superior. It turned out Max had kept the wood fiber, identified as northern white ash of around 60 years of age, not native to Hawaii. Most likely, it was from a 1950's baseball bat. Now where had Chin seen a baseball bat before?

Mrs Davis had quite a shock when she opened the door to find Kono looking serious, Tom in full military gear and Chin shoving the search warrant in her face.

"Richard Davis." Kono called to the man sitting on the couch.

"What's going on?" He asked as he stood up.

"Hands behind your back please." Kono read him his rights. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

Meanwhile, Tom followed Chin to a shelf, containing the baseball bat.

"This bat must've cost a fortune." Chin said aloud. "It was made to kill pitches, not pretty young women." Chin was with Richard and Steve in the interrogation room.

"What are you talking about?"

"Lindsey Roberts died from a blow to the head with a blunt object. There was a wood fragment embedded in her skull. I'm betting the tests are gonna prove that the fragment came from this bat." He held the bat in front of Richard.

"This is absurd." Richard declared. "Lindsey Roberts was an intern at my firm for maybe a couple months before she disappeared. Now, what happened to her is tragic, but I had nothing to do with it."

"You weren't having an affair with her?"

"No."

Steve reached inside his file, and walked over to Richard. "This is you and Lindsey." Steve held the photograph. "How do you explain this?" No answer. "Why don't you explain this?" He said a little louder.

"I didn't kill her."

"Are you really still trying to deny this?" Chin asked with a smile on his face.

"I swear, I didn't kill her. I couldn't have. I loved her." There was a tense silence inside the interrogation room. "We were in a relationship. Yeah, I admit it. The bat is in my trophy case. The photo, where did you get that photo?"

"They're stills from the little home video you made. Let me ask you something. Did Lindsey even know that you were recording her?"

"No. No. I didn't. That's me, yes. It's my office. But I never made a video. I wouldn't do that to her."

Danny interrupted the silence by opening the door.

"Something you guys gotta see."

"One week after Lindsey disappears, five calls from Davis' direct line at work to her cell phone." Danny informed the two as they walked in on Tom and Kono working with the hackphone.

"Why would he be calling her if he knew she was dead?" Chin asked.

"Exactly." Tom answered.

"So we did a little more digging." Kono said. "Davis' wife Anne used to be a public school teacher, which means she had to undergo a background check. I ran her fingerprints against the ones we lifted off the SD card. It's a match."

"Did a little digging in Anne Davis' financials." Danny picked up, "She writes a check to her personal trainer for $500 every single month. A couple of days ago he gets a bonus check, $10,000."

"Reward for the hit?" Tom rhetorically asked.

"That's right?" Danny continued. "So we did background on this guy."

"Paulo Bell, 37." Kono spoke as she swiped a mugshot onto the screen. "He's got a record. Aggravated robbery and multiple weapons charges, battery."

"That's a familiar face." Chin pointed out.

"That's because he matches the sketch that you had mocked up of our suspect based on Johnny D's description."

"We just found Anne's hired muscle." Steve summed up.

Ramming down the door, the team swiftly made entry into the room, guns drawn. Steve kicked a table, tripping Paulo, and sending him to the floor.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Alex Baker." Tom said while keeping his M4 trained on him.

Later, at the Palace, Bell revealed that Mrs Davis had paid him $10,000 to retrieve some stolen property, a snow globe with "great sentimental value." Yep, Alex Baker, completely innocent, was thrown off a balcony for a snow globe. Anne soon said that she needed to know the truth when she suspected Richard was having an affair. So she set up a hidden camera in his office, which recorded the video that the hackphone had retrieved off the memory card. That night she'd e-mailed Lindsey from his computer, asking her to come over. When Lindsey admitted she was in love with Richard, and said he'd leave Anne so that they could be together, it all became a bit too much. Anne didn't mean to kill her with the bat. After the confession, it ended in the only way it could have.

"Book her Danno."

"We now take you to the conference already in progress at the home of Lindsey Roberts' parents."

"On behalf of Lindsey and her entire family, we'd just like to thank the Five-0 task force and the Honolulu Police Department. Because of their hard work, we can now move forward knowing justice will be served."

It was 7:00pm and Tom was alone inside the room. He was doing a little digging on his hackphone, reading up on Analu Lakona, when Steve entered.

"What are you doing?" He asked as he sat down beside Fortnell.

"I'm reading up on this guy, Analu Lakona. Trucker and bounty hunter."

"I remember him, couple of months ago he stole evidence. Took us ten days to retrieve that evidence, and let me tell you it was vital to the case."

"I know I want to throw him in a shark tank as well."

"Get in line."

"I'm already in line."

Steve had a thought. "Tom?"

"Yeah?" Tom looked up.

"You're the only person I can trust with this, so I'll say it to you and only you. Ready?"

"Almost." Tom used the hackphone to turn off the security camera. "Clear."

"At 8:00pm tonight, I will go to a place in Honolulu to meet a CIA analyst called Jenna Kaye. She's got intel on a man named Wo Fat."

"Wo Fat huh? Tell me about him."

"He was an officer in Chinese Intelligence before he disappeared at the rank of colonel. He resurfaced several years later as a high-up in the criminal underworld with ties to the yakuza and twenty three bodies. Now, one of the men who works for him is Victor Hesse, he's the one who killed my father. There's a possibility that he ordered my father's murder."

"What did you say his name was?"

"Wo Fat."

"Goddamn." Tom suddenly had a flashback.

Later on in the day, Tom was sat in a diner, looking at the trucks parked outside while sipping a Fanta fizzy drink. There was an episode of Mad Men playing on a TV near the bar, and Tom suspected that was why it was strangely quiet. Someone walked in, but Tom only heared as his attention was still on the trucks outside. The person marched over to Tom's table, and sat down on a seat opposite Tom's.

"Hello." The man greeted.

"Hi." Tom answered, still not looking away from the window.

"I would just like to know what your involvement is with Steve McGarrett."

"Can't say I know the guy too well. I'm just a truck driver." Tom finally looked at the guest. He had dark skin and black hair, as well as a hint of evil about him.

"So, tell me, what is your job right now?"

"Truck driver. I just deliver cargos where they're needed. Nothing special."

"Oh." The man got up to leave. "And do you know anything about Shelburne?

"Never even heard that word. Who are you anyway?"

"Wo Fat." With that, the man turned and walked out of the diner. Tom thought the name was a little suspicious and turned his head to look at the man's retreating form.

"I've got something to tell you. A while back, I was sitting in a diner when this guy comes in. He said his name was Wo Fat and he was asking about you and about Shelburne, whoever or whatever that is. I had never even heard of Shelburne."

Steve had a look of amazement and realization. "OK. Thank you." He turned to leave. "And thank you for your help in Five-0."

"No thanks needed."

Steve walked out the door, leaving Tom all on his own in the dark room. A few months ago, Tom Fortnell was just another outsider who had arrived on the Hawaiian Islands. Now he was a respected trucker and a high-up within the most elite law enforcement task force in Hawaii. Small beginnings.