A couple of weeks after the divorce came through, the three of them were sitting down to pizza in Cody's kitchen. Nick was a little worried about Cody. Something was wrong, and he was concerned that the shadow of Janet had returned. Nick glanced over at Murray who was also studying Cody. They caught each other's gaze, mentally agreeing that something was definitely off.

Nick put down his crust and propped his chin on one fist, waiting patiently for Cody to come back to the conversation. Murray folded his arms and softly tapped his fingers. After a bit, Cody seemed to remember he was chewing and snapped back to reality. "Hey, how 'bout those Padres?"

Nick stared balefully, "How 'bout 'em?"

Cody glanced back and forth between him and Murray. "What? What's going on?"

Murray pushed his glasses back up his nose, "What's going on, Cody, is that you're on another planet tonight."

Cody started to object, but after another glance at them both, he looked apologetic. "You're right. Sorry."

Nick held his hands wide, "What is it? Are you thinking about your ex again?" He hated even saying her name for the bad memories it brought back to Cody.

Cody grinned, "No." Nick started to object, but Cody interrupted, "Really, that's not it. It's a case actually."

Nick peered hard at Cody's eyes which made his friend laugh. When Nick didn't see any deep melancholy, he decided Cody must be telling the truth. "What's the problem? Maybe me and Boz can help."

Cody pursed his lips briefly, "I could use some new perspective, I guess." He paused, "Okay, my client is an account manager who's been arrested for embezzlement. There was a large sum of money missing at the last audit, and the circumstantial evidence points to him. He swears he didn't do it and doesn't know who might be responsible. And I think I believe him."

Nick tilted his head to the side, thinking. "He's responsible for the day to day accounts? How come he didn't notice the money was missing?"

"He said when he checked the accounts on his computer every day, they never showed a deficit. They always matched up with his ledgers."

Murray immediately perked up, "The accounts are managed by computer? I could certainly take a look and see if there's anything amiss."

Cody looked at Murray like he'd never seen him before. "You can do that? Just look at a computer and see if there's anything wrong?"

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, Cody. If all the balances match up but there's still something wrong, then it could be a programming issue. I can analyze the code and see what it's actually telling the computer to do and what it's telling the computer to report—because doing and reporting aren't always the same thing."

Nick shrugged slightly, "Before you do all that, couldn't it be something as simple as whoever physically managed the money just slipped some in his pocket?"

Cody shrugged, "I wondered about that, too, but I can't prove it."

"What do your investigators say?"

"They've looked at the bank accounts of the people with access to the books, the records, and the money, but they said they couldn't find any evidence that anyone benefitted from the theft. Not even my client. We hired an independent accounting firm who basically said the same thing."

Nick looked skeptically at them both, "That's all they checked? Bank accounts?"

Another slight shrug, "That's all they mentioned."

Nick snorted, "They're not sneaky enough."

Murray shook his head quickly, "Not nearly sneaky enough."

Cody looked at them both speculatively. "Could you guys look at the file with me? See what you think?"

Nick glanced back doubtfully, "That's not like being a pretend lawyer, is it?"

"No…it's like being a pretend investigator."

Murray nodded thoughtfully, "Yes, it's very like being a pretend investigator."

Nick thought about it, turning it in his mind. "I'm not flying tomorrow. I could get the day off."

After dinner, the three of them spread out the case file in the living room, dissecting the possibilities. The next day started in Murray's office as he got cracking on the computer, and Cody and Nick took off to check the players involved. Occasional phone calls between them finally pinpointed the assistant of the company's deputy financial officer. The assistant's ex-wife used to work at the bank that managed the company's accounts which they all felt was an interesting coincidence. After deciding who to concentrate on, Cody went to his office, and Nick started following the ex-wife to find out about her friends and activities.

The following day, Cody called off at work so he and Nick could check out the ex-wife's acquaintances identified from the previous day's surveillance. Her manicurist, Minerva, seemed to find Cody quite dashing and finally blabbed that the ex-wife's new cosmetic business had just taken off, leaving her with cash to burn.

Nick was scribbling notes, but he seemed to find the interaction between Cody and Minerva pretty funny. "Did you say cosmetics?"

Cody had initially turned on the charm when the lady had been reluctant to discuss her customer's business, but now that she'd warmed up, he was beginning to panic at her suggestive glances. He telegraphed to Nick that he needed a rescue, but Nick was suddenly quite absorbed in taking notes.

"How long has she been selling cosmetics?"

Cody struggled to maintain his smile as Minerva studied his lips. "Huh? Oh, maybe a year. I don't remember exactly."

Cody wished his throat wasn't so parched, "Have you ever bought anything from her?"

Minerva pouted, "Do I look like I need beauty products?"

Cody tried not to stare at the very noticeable line of concealer, the oh-so-bronze cheeks, the metallic baby blue eye shadow that went all the way to a miniscule line of highly plucked eyebrows, and the fuchsia lips that were painted almost halfway to her nose. "Oh, no, of course not—"

Nick interrupted with a glance around, "Certainly not any nail polish, but I've heard every girl keeps a lipstick handy in case Mr. Right walks in."

Minerva finally looked at Nick, and Cody felt like he could suddenly breathe again. "Well, aren't you sweet, handsome. And for your information, no, I've never bought a lipstick from Jan."

Nick quirked a curious brow, "Why not?"

"She never asked."

After a few more minutes of Cody trying to extricate himself from Minerva as Nick waited patiently by the door, they walked down the street toward Cody's Volvo.

"Thanks for the help, buddy."

Nick shrugged innocently, "Hey, you start shining them on, it's all I can do to keep from being blinded by the glare. Remind me to put on sunglasses before you get going next time."

Cody's heavily placed elbow shoved Nick off stride, and they both started laughing. Nick dug a coin from his pocket as they walked up to a pay phone. "Let's see how Murray's doing with Jan Deihl's bank accounts and the program dissection." He paused before dropping in the quarter, "Don't you think it's kind of odd that her business took off even though she never asked Minerva if she wanted to buy anything? Not much of a saleslady to be doing so well."

The following day, Cody went back to the law office and reported to his supervising partner that he was exploring another possibility. Morrison pressed for details, but Cody didn't want to spill too much before they had more evidence. He then spent the rest of the day with the company's CFO and his people, taking his time to finally get in to see P. Jefferson Deihl. After all, he didn't want to spook the man into doing anything to cover his tracks.

Now that he was looking for it, he could see little tells in Deihl's manner. The man couldn't maintain eye contact. He flinched slightly before answering any question. He kept picking up small knick-knacks, then putting them back down…up, then down, over and over. The picture Cody got was of a nervous man who wanted the interview to be over.

Cody picked up Chinese before meeting Nick and Murray at Murray's office. "I'm sure of it, guys."

"Me, too."

"Me, three."

Cody looked at his friends as his smile widened. "Really?"

Murray's excited face bounced a couple of times, completely satisfied in his conclusion, and Nick folded his arms and nodded once.

As the food got passed, they each shared their stories of the day. Murray had taken apart each line of the company's program and finally found the command that took pennies from each transaction, side-lining it into another account. Next, he found the commands that 'corrected' both the original account and the account in the company's books so the plus and negative would not be noticed. Then he'd traced the side-line account to Diehl Beauty, Inc. Jan Diehl had set up the account (and likely the criminal programming) just before she quit her job.

At the end of the day, Cody had followed P. Jefferson Deihl as he left the office and drove to a branch bank where he withdrew the money from the side account. Then he'd watched as Deihl met his ex-wife and then the two of them drove to a rental house.

Nick laughed and said he'd photographed the same exchange from a different angle as he'd been following the former Mrs. Deihl all day as she shopped and paid for every single item from a seeming endless supply of cash. After the couple left the rental, he'd found an 'open' window and searched the house, finally finding stacks of cash in a disconnected freezer in the basement.

"I wonder if she's blackmailing him, or if they're still a couple. Just pretending to be estranged so that no one will suspect them of being in on this together."

Cody couldn't imagine going through anything as painful as a divorce just for money, but he'd learned a long time ago that lots of people saw the world differently than he did.

"So now what?" Murray was possibly even more excited. He'd clearly enjoyed himself.

"Now, I present all our evidence to the investigating office and make sure that my client is cleared. What the police will do with the information… Well, I hope they'll be arresting the Diehls."

Nick finished up the Kung pao chicken. "I'm glad we figured this out today. I've got a flight tomorrow, and I doubt Jerry would let me off anyway. That Huey is giving him trouble again. I need to work on it."

"Thanks, guys, for helping me out. I appreciate all your work. And…it was kinda fun."

Murray nodded vigorously, "I found it very stimulating to be working on a problem with immediate consequences. Very real-life, you know? Most of the time, I just work around loops and issues that only play out on screen. I found this extremely engaging."

Cody smiled, but he felt a little sad. He'd be going back to his office tomorrow, too.