"Successful hills are here to stay.
Everything must be this way.
Gentle street where people play.
Welcome to the soft parade.
All our lives we sweat and save,
Building for a shallow grave.
Must be something else, we say,
Somehow to defend this place.
Everything must be this way.
Everything must be this way."
Into the farmhouse, condition bordering derelict, Kim and Ron drug by the arms Francis Lurman. His heels sledded across well-worn shiplap, jolting on the uneven floor. Kim swung around a kitchen chair to stand, and Ron struggled to drag Francis into the chair.
"Put these on him," Kim ordered, checking Francis' pockets while extending a single handcuff that she spun out to a set with a click. Ron secured Lurman's arms through the back of the wooden chair.
"What about his legs?"
"Right, check his boots and watch him, I'll look around."
"You're seriously dumping unconscious supervision on me?"
"Not unconscious supervision; supervision of the unconscious."
"I can help."
"Yeah, you can help waste time defending how you can help. Multitask, Ron," She said, putting a wall between them.
Ron scanned the alley kitchen. The sink sat stacked, a stained fridge buzzed, but no papers or artifacts were out. He saw a gasfitter's card magnet on the fridge. The microwave had nothing. The coffee maker had nothing. On top of the fridge had dust. Ron looked inside the fridge and recoiled it closed. He pulled off one of Lurman's boots and promptly put it at the window sill to air out. He poked a loaf of bread on the counter and removed his nose from the crook of his elbow.
"So he's guilty?" Ron called through the wall, opening and closing drawers, and then again.
"Of something, absolutely. It's no coincidence we're here." Her reply muffled, "Shooting at us only confirms my suspicions."
"We were trespassing."
"We weren't inside the house, Ron. This isn't the wild west where you shoot trespassers and hang them off the willow tree." She said from towards the back entrance to the kitchen., "He knows something or has something."
"Maybe," Ron said, head well under the sink, "Found anything?"
"You'll be the first to know."
"What if he doesn't have any evidence?" Ron said, bashing the crown of his head on the bottom of the cupboard and rolling out in silent pain holding his head.
"Then hopefully he has a story to tell," She said, strolling in with a confused look she rerouted into the Rolodex she held, "You do know the basic legal process, right?"
"Of course Kim, PI here," He said, checking his hand for blood and standing,
"I've heard," Kim said, grimacing.
"What adda?" Lurman slurred awake, blinking pain away and struggling in the chair, kicking his mismatched feet.
"You've sunk pretty low, Lurman," Kim said, putting the Rolodex on the counter, "Shooting at guests. We didn't see any 'No Trespassing' signs on the way in."
"No need, it goes without saying. What were you doing on my property?" He said, eyes narrowing, "Kim Possible."
"Oh, we just had to have a little chat. I heard you were in Middleton and didn't even visit us. We had to make sure everything was alright."
"I'm the same as I've ever been."
"That's not what we heard. We heard you were hanging around the school after hours. A little old for petty vandalism, aren't we?"
"I might be tied up but I don't have to listen to your conjecture."
"You got me, you never vandalized anything," Kim said, halting her pacing, "Unless you count the wall behind that poor janitor; you left a pretty big mark."
"What?"
"Or was it someone in your squad? Got a bit too trigger happy?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Nice boot Francis," Ron interjected, retrieving it from the sill and holding it up to the kitchen light, reading the inner tag aloud.
"Daner," He flipped to see the sole, "Size nine."
"Bippity boppity boo," Grinned Kim, "If the shoe fits..." Ron watched her nervously as he put the boot down.
"So what?" Francis said, his eyes narrow and the kitchen florescent reflecting off his polished dome.
"Where are the files?" Kim asked.
"Files? Even if I knew what you were talking about, I wouldn't tell you."
"It's always the same formula with you criminals," Kim said, crossing her arms, "I asked you a question."
"Look, you come here, accost me, tie me up, give me some lines, and it's nothing," He said, jerking at his bonds, "You have nothing."
"You don't tell me what I have, Lurman. You tell me what you have."
"Check the basement. Or the attic." He said, shrugging, "Or the out-buildings with my completely legal foliage. In fact, they might be buried in the field somewhere. There's shovels in the garden shed."
Kim darted a tongue across her lips, staring down the restrained man. Ron left the room.
"Ron, he's being a smartass."
"Oh, yeah," Ron said, back-stepping into the kitchen, "I knew that. Just thought I'd check anyway."
"We don't have to," Kim said, turning to Ron, "Because he's going to tell-"
Bursting to his feet, chair tied around his back, Francis charged into Kim's sideways figure, knocking her into a counter cupboard face that cracked inward. Ron rushed forward and Lurman swung the chair legs into Ron with a triumphant 'Hah!'. Kim pulled herself up, hair tousled, and groped along the countertop to the first object, a pot from a coffee maker. Glancing at it, she flung it against the edge, shattering the glass carafe into a shard-laden handle, which she brandished forward. Lurman noticed the weapon and trod carefully backwards. The two circled in the small kitchen.
"Go ahead Red. John 19:34.'"
"Even if I knew what you were talking about, I wouldn't tell you." Kim said, mocking, before she jolted forward.
"Kim?" Ron said, scrambling to his feet and grabbed her collar, just as a shard scratched Lurman's arm. She struggled and shook, then hesitantly followed Ron's force, padding backwards out of the kitchen, carafe handle still aimed as she departed the scene. In the living room, Ron swung her around and shook her pouting, obstinate figure, careful of the sharp glass between them.
"What? Is violence your go-to now?"
"He was going to break, I could see it in his eyes."
"His eyes? You should see your pupils right now. You look crazy."
Kim slowly drug her glare from the kitchen doorway across to Ron.
"You realize I let you drag me out of there? It was an act. Good cop, bad cop." She said, placing the pot remains on a telephone table, "Now you go in there and be on his side."
"His side?"
"Yeah, offer him something."
"Like what?"
"Chocolate, love, I don't know, that's why I'm bad cop."
"You're bad something, that's for sure."
"Take initiative and improvise for once," She hissed. Ron headed back towards the kitchen, throwing daggers through his eye at her, and turning around to find Francis Lurman, still tied to a chair, on one boot and one sock, bent over a cellphone on the ground, in mid-conversation.
"Kim," Ron said, freezing.
"-That's right. They won't be here long though." Francis said into the phone, finishing with a stomping boot heel. The phone collapsed under the force. Kim rushed in, slapping past Ron with her hair and assessing the situation.
"Sorry folks, but I'm expecting company shortly." Lurman said, straightening to the uncomfortable bow the chair allowed, "So we're going to want to wrap this up,"
Kim bounded out quicker than she entered, finding the staircase and ascending four at a time. "Search the basement," She yelled back.
At the threshold of the kitchen, Ron bounced his gaze between Lurman and the ajar basement door. Stepping quickly toward the bounded man, Ron retrieved a paring knife from the kitchen block and jabbed it into and out of his side. Lurman cried out, squirming backwards and taking a knee before collapsing sideways.
"Weird," Ron said, examining the knife and then tossing it into the sink, "No water."
He raced out of the kitchen and down into the basement, ripping a drawstring cord on his way that lit the stairs. In murky shadow, rows of beige file cabinets stood like a small-scale terracotta army.
"I told her," Ron said, ripping open the first drawer that revealed itself empty, "Now where did you put everything?"
Squeezing through the maze, Ron bumped the light, empty cabinets on his way towards the back. One clanged, falling angled like a widow-maker. A wood stove in the corner sat inert, surrounded by stacks of manila tag folders. Ron drew a flashlight and scanned the tabs. Still alphabetical.
"Kim," He called, hammering his light rhythmically against the stove pipe, "Down here,"
Her footsteps pounded closer until she found Ron scanning the stacks on his hands and knees.
"Iym sorrwe Wawn," Ron said, with the flashlight in his mouth, "You werr rite, we should hab looked down here firdst,"
"Ron, we don't have time for this. We have to figure out why they took them before Lurman's backup get here. Are any missing?"
Ron spit out the flashlight with an audible 'patooey'.
"Seriously?" He said, motioning the towering stacks, "Look at how many-"
"What about ours? Are ours in there?"
"Oh yeah, that cuts the search down to," He said, miming counting then bursting his hand out, "All of them!"
"Shut up. Just shut up," Kim said, drawing her own light and scanning, "Dark brown is old, before our time. That cuts out half. Modern folders are thinner with plastic tabs. Ours are around the switch from classic manila to modern."
"What?"
"Here, here, take that pile, I'll take this one."
They scanned in silence, bent around the precarious stacks, aiming their flashlights along every name-tag. When they exhausted a stack, they shifted carefully to the next.
"Rockwaller," Ron said finally, "I found Bonnie."
"That's the happiest I've ever been to hear that name," Kim said, scootching beside Ron at the pile, "Stoppable and Possible can't be far. Look up, I'll look down."
They scanned carefully and found their handwritten labels poking out in alphabetical order. Ron pulled Kim's and vice versa.
"Great, so it's not about us." Ron said.
"More like 'great, we have nothing and we have to get out, now.'" Kim said, jamming the file into her drawstring sack and handing it to Ron before darting through the cabinets back upstairs, "Hurry and follow me."
Ron flipped the sack over his back and bumbled up the stairs in tow.