ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE

Let's get back to murder and also pick up with the adventures of the galaxy's favorite shoe fiend.

Alexsandr Kallus had enough going on in his life at the moment, thank you very much. Not only was he currently investigating a murder that had him tearing his hair out at the inconsistency of it all, but Thrawn was skulking about somewhere and to top it all off his wife was pregnant. So when he grabbed a second or two of free time to take his meals (read: inhale a ration bar while chugging some very strong caf and wishing it was of the North Onderon variety) he'd ideally do it in silence.

Therefore he was not prepared for the full-scale bash Ezra Bridger had thrown together in the common room. Streamers, food, and a giant bouquet of Mandalorian peace lilies on the table taking center stage.

"What's all this?" He sputtered, staring at the chaos that was his common room.

"Happy Resurrection Day!" Ezra beamed, mostly to Molly.

Kallus didn't care. "Wasn't Resurrection Day almost a week ago?"

"It's a lunar holiday," Lux explained tiredly. "It falls on the day of the first full moon in spring, whenever that is for a particular planet. You could celebrate Resurrection Day twenty times if you wanted."

Ezra got a sudden light in his eye and Kallus barely spoke fast enough: "If you get any ideas about planet-hopping Ezra, Hera had better be on board because you won't be doing so on this ship."

"Aww Kallus, you're no fun," the boy said with mock disappointment. "Guess we'll have to make the most of the day on this planet."

"Unfortunately that'll have to wait," Lux said. "Molly, Ezra, I need you to go through the comm records for Korkie and all of the suspects. Look for anything that could be a signal or conversation with Thrawn or Vanto."

Molly returned a thumbs up. She didn't really want to end the celebration but she didn't need her cousin Tav's Force intuition to read Uncle Lux's mood. "Any tips on what that would look like?"

"Thrawn wouldn't use any of the codes or callsigns I would recognize. What you need to look for is something just barely out of place."

"I'm sure we can handle it as long as Mol's on the case." Ezra said. "She's the best hacker in the galaxy."

They were … oh great. Kallus allowed himself one moment to squeeze his eyes shut and let frustration wash over him. If he'd had the time or brainspace to deal with such a thing he would have lamented the existence of one more complication. Young love always reared its head at the most inconvenient of times, turning its victims into unprofessional -

He's not unprofessional, another young girl's voice said from the depths of his memory. He's friendly, that's all.

Kallus shook his head. He couldn't think of that - of her. Not when he had to contend with Thrawn.

"You okay?" Lux asked, his brother-in-law looking him up and down with a skeptical expression.

No. "I'm fine. Let's get to the palace."

...

"You know this was not how I was planning to spend my Resurrection Day." Amis tossed another garbage bag out of the dumpster and it landed inches away from Lux's shoes. "Why are neither of you in here?"

Lux held up his datapad. "Someone needs to log everything."

"And I need to ensure nothing is missed," Kallus lied smoothly and shared a look with Lux. Was sticking Amis with dumpster diving petty? Absolutely. Did they regret it even a little? Absolutely not.

"What is it I'm looking for again?" Amis asked.

"A handwritten flimsi note, possibly with child's scribble on one side," Lux said. "It would be torn off and we'll be able to match it to the note fragment our associates already found."

"And a glass bottle," Kallus added.

Amis raised an eyebrow. "A bottle?"

"We found a cork under the Duke's desk, but no bottle and the Duchess insists he never drank during the workday." He didn't want to admit it but the tiny cork had been needling him almost nonstop.

"Probably a remnant the maid missed," Amis grunted but continued his search all the same. "What's on this note that makes it so important anyway?"

Lux explained the rescheduling issue. "If we knew who the meeting was rescheduled for, that could give us our killer."

"Monk, Goodman!" Det. Yularen announced his arrival at the nearest entrance to the palace, a girl wearing a kitchen staff uniform trailing behind him like a confused tooka. "We have a new lead."

She didn't get Lux and Kallus' attention nearly as much as the item Det. Yularen had in his hand: a half-burnt scrap of flimsi.

"Was it in the palace this whole time?"

"I don't think it's the other half of the one you're looking for, but it's intriguing all the same. Rav," he indicated the kitchen girl. "Tell them what you told me."

"The day Duke Korkie … died, something caught fire in a wastebasket. I fished it out so it wouldn't light anything else, threw it on the counter and didn't think of it twice," she explained, fiddling with her hands. "It wasn't until Detective Yularen came by asking about garbage that I remembered it."

"What does it say?" Amis jumped out of the dumpster, peeling off his gloves and stuffing them in a pocket.

Detective Yularen held up the note. "Your Mr. Gerrera says the Duke and Duchess were having problems, but it was routine marital issues?"

"He did." Lux shared a look with Kallus.

"Well, nothing about this note is routine."

...

"I think we need to start at the beginning."

The entire investigative team agreed that it was time to bring the wife of the victim back in to be questioned.

Detective Yularen started off the questioning. "You graduated top of your class from the royal academy of government and all your friends went off to illustrious careers, but not you."

"Korkie needed me," she complied. "I did his research, wrote his speeches. We were married and then we had Melaana. She was precocious from the start, bored with reading and writing Arubesh and Mando'a by the time she was five and wanting me to teach her Onderonian so that she could read her grandmother's journal. Well I didn't think that was entirely appropriate so I had to find other things that were on her level and I was just learning the language myself and then I had Pascal and he's a completely different set of challenges he's not reading at all yet but I know if Korkie could have sat down with him to explain…"

Kallus cut her off before she could really get going. "Your life would have gone much differently if you had pursued your own career instead of putting everything on hold to be a wife and mother."

Soniee shook her head. "I have never regretted that decision."

"Not even when your husband turned to another woman?" He held up the note.

She recognized it on sight, without him having to explain. "I burned it because I knew it was a lie," Soniee wiped away tears. "Korkie never would have done that. He was loyal. I knew going into our marriage that there would always be three of us. Him and me and Mandalore."

Kallus wasn't convinced. "So you burned a note that could have either provided you with a motive for killing your own husband or given us a clue to lead to the person who wanted to ruin him and may have even been the murderer themselves?"

Defensively, Soniee sat up a little straighter. "He wasn't dead when I burned the note. I had just spoken to him on the comm and decided that I didn't need to keep it any longer."

"But you had kept it on your person for ...?" Lux trailed off, scrolling through the datapads.

"A week. I kept it in my pocket for a week. I knew when I received the note that it couldn't have been true. Korkie hardly had time for one family; it would have been impossible for him to fit a mistress into his schedule. He loved us. I know he did. He would never have run into the arms of another woman."

"Then why did you keep it?" He knew he would never hold onto something accusing Ahsoka of infidelity.

"I thought that if I had received something like this, meaning to turn us against each other, that perhaps he had received something similar accusing me. I thought that if he brought it up that I could show him my letter and prove that it wasn't true, that we were both being manipulated." Soniee cleared her throat. "But he never showed me any letter and I realized on that day, the day he was murdered, that if he had received such a thing he never would have believed it. He would have burned it like the osik it was immediately and he never would have considered shaming me by bringing it up. He knew I was loyal to him. I made that promise to him just like he promised me. Even before we said our marriage vows, I chose him."

Kallus took up the line again. "You say you chose him but there was someone else." It wasn't a question.

Amis sat up straighter. It didn't surprise any of the other detectives that he had missed the subtext of Saw's presence in the palace.

Soniee looked nervously to Det. Yularen. "There was someone I had feelings for before I made my promise to Korkie, yes."

"And he was the first person you thought to comm when you found your husband dead on the floor of his office?"

Amis looked back and forth between them. "There was a comm?"

Soniee paid the incompetent captain no attention. "I had no idea he would be the one to answer that comm. I had no idea that he would be the one who would come to me in my hour of greatest need. And I had no idea that I would be so hurt and lonely that night that I would ask him to come to my bed. I trusted him and I knew that he was fond of Melaana and Pascal and that he would take care of them as well."

Osik! Lux thought. If she keeps monologuing she'll spill something in front of Det. Yularen. "You know we now have him in custody?"

She nodded and bit her lip.

"You slept with Saw Gerrera?" Amis gaped.

Even Det. Yularen couldn't suppress an eye roll. "Thank you for speaking with us duchess. I'll have the guards bring you back to your cell."

The investigators followed suit, ignoring Captain Lok storming off and muttering about "can't believe she would betray her planet like that."

"I should update NRBI," Det. Yularen said and went down a separate corridor, leaving Lux and Kallus alone.

Kallus nodded to the interrogation room. "What do you think?

"I think I didn't need Ahsoka in there to sense that she was telling the truth." Soniee, for a politician, had been absolutely transparent.

"Sierra was right, she's not that good a grifter."

"Of course I'm right."

Both men stopped in their tracks and turned around slowly.

Standing behind them, polished as always in a pencil skirt and blazer, arms crossed over the baby bump that was now obvious beneath her shirt, was Sierra.

Lux exhaled. He didn't know why he hadn't seen this coming.

"What." Kallus deadpanned. He shook his head to clear what must have been a hallucination from his vision and when Sierra remained, repeated "What?"

"Hi honey."

"What are you doing here?"

"Hot lead from Dalla. Or more accurately from her lieutenant Selkie. They want to know sooner rather than later if they have to scrub a planet; apparently they haven't had to do that since Selkie got hired." Sierra made her way to them. "If anything's going down, Dalla wants to know."

"Really," Lux said dryly. "So you're not here to steal the prison, break out Saw, and have us all go running back to Onderon like you asked Alex to do?"

"What makes you think I would do that?"

"I've known you as long as you've been alive."

"Are you serious?" Kallus coughed. "I understand you miss your job, but this is - this is..."

"I'm sorry if I worried you," she said. "But we don't have much longer over here. Steela's getting ready to run another job on Thrawn and if it goes like things usually do, then we need to be there to back her up. Forget this murder, just let Captain Lok do his thing and we'll worry about it later."

"And in doing so send an innocent woman to prison?"

"We don't know she's innocent."

"We do now." Kallus looked to Lux, who nodded his agreement, before he took his wife by the hand. "Selling out Soniee is something Agent Kallus and Drunk Sierra would do, and we're not those people anymore. We help those in need."

"Well how close are you to getting the actual killer? If you need a fresh face in the interrogation -."

Lux cleared his throat. "Incoming!"

Det. Yularen saw the scene from a distance and slowed his pace. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Not at all," Kallus put on a neutral expression and turned to face the newcomer. "Det. Yularen, may I introduce my wife … Amanda."

It took everything Lux had not to wince. Need some ice for that burn, Sierra?

"Good to meet you," Det. Yularen shook Sierra's hand. "And congratulations. I wasn't aware you had a family, Goodman."

"We work as a family," Kallus said smoothly. "Although we thought Amanda would take a break with the baby on the way."

"Well I'd appreciate any help we can get. The last interview didn't answer many questions, not least the question of who the meeting was rescheduled for and where the second half of the note is."

"That piece of burned flimsi is something else?" Of course Sierra didn't know about the letter. Det. Yularen handed it over for her examination. "Oh. Well this is interesting."

"Interesting enough to call in the duchess for a second interrogation."

"That's not what I mean." She produced her half of the torn-off note. "They tried to disguise their handwriting but see the angle of the line, the shape of the aurek? These were written by the same person."

What? Kallus looked over her shoulder to see for himself. How had they missed that? "Well that all but confirms the letter is a lie."

"Yes, but is it a forgery?" Det. Yularen joined them in their examination of the notes. "What motive would this Mr. Vanto have to implicate the duke for infidelity? If only she knew, then it's too subtle to be a frame job."

While he was distracted the other three all looked to each other. They had a pretty good idea why Vanto had sent the letter, but they couldn't exactly tell the NRBI agent it had been an attempt to draw out the Onderon Con Men.

"It can't be." This came from the recently re-arrived Amis, who seemed momentarily baffled by Sierra's presence but not enough for it to stop him. "I couldn't believe it at first but after hearing how she betrayed Korkie … she has to be the killer. There's no other way. She had the second key!"

To all the con men's horror Graf nodded along. "As convoluted as this trail has gotten, that's the only explanation for how the killer managed to enter and leave a locked room."

Lux scrambled to rescue the situation. "Even in the face of this evidence, we need to do our duty and investigate all leads. The autopsy hasn't even been done yet; there could be other factors we don't know about."

"When do you expect your medical examiner will have a report for us?"

"She should be here tomorrow. Until then I suggest we all go home and come back to this with clear heads."

…

"So she left the dining room at what time?" They were going over the timeline of the murder again and Sierra wanted to make sure she had everything straight.

Kallus nodded. "The kitchen girl tells us around 11:15 and the comm records confirm that Korkie was still alive then."

She stopped what she was doing. "And then Soniee had to be back to host a formal luncheon at noon?"

"That's when the political meeting finished up and the lunch guests were supposed to gather in the dining room."

"You're right," Sierra said. "She's completely innocent."

"What? how do you know?"

"She'd been doing a craft project all morning and then she had to get dressed and do her hair and makeup before an official event? Getting all that done in less than forty-five minutes is a miracle!"

Kallus thought back to the time it took for Sierra to get ready and quick-changes aside, couldn't come up with a number under forty-five minutes. "I never thought of that."

"Most men don't." Sierra sat down beside him on the bed. "Lux is right, we need to take a break and let the information settle. Let's talk about something else."

"Like what?"

She shrugged. "Baby names?"

It was a comfort to have his wife by his side again, Kallus thought, even if he was worried sick about Thrawn getting to her. For a split second he could believe everything was normal, that they were just a regular couple preparing for a baby, discussing nursery decorations and names for said baby.

"I thought we decided on Philip or Phillipa," he said.

"And I still like Philip. I'm just not sold on Phillipa if it's a girl." Sierra protested. "I had an alias with that name, except she went by Pippa."

"Which names haven't you used as aliases?" He asked without really expecting an answer.

"Well if we named her after Angelica we would never have to pay for medical care again."

"If we do that then Angelica will move in with us." Kallus shuddered at the thought. "Next please."

"There's always Dalla. Though I'd rather not have to clarify which child I'm looking for in the sea of little girls named Dalla." Sierra thought a moment when she hit on another idea. "What do you think of Hannah?"

Kallus' mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. "Hannah?"

"After Hannah Swain, from Lothal? She's the reason we had our first kiss, remember?" She stifled laughter at the memory.

But Kallus wasn't in a laughing mood. "Not Hannah."

"What's wrong?" Her light mood evaporated.

"We can't use that name. It's taken."

"Clearly it's more than that. You look like you've seen a ghost." She took in his posture, the anguished look in his eyes, and pressed on. "Alex, did - I assumed Swain graduated or got transferred and that's why she wasn't around when you defected but did something happen to her?"

Kallus didn't answer. "We agreed to have veto power over any name and I'm vetoing Hannah. What about boy names?"

Pushing him wouldn't get them anywhere. They'd learned that when it came to talking about the past they would share when they were ready and not a moment before. "We do need a boy's middle name."

"John," he suggested. "I hope he looks just like you, so it would be fitting for him to have a Bonteri family name."

Most women's hearts would have melted hearing such a thing from their husband, but it only served to make Sierra worried. Clearly something had happened to Swain, and Kallus wasn't proud of it.

Six months into her and Alex's relationship they sat down together and talked about anything and everything that might cause problems in the long run: children, money, religion, and their very loaded pasts. It hadn't been easy to tell the man she loved about her slew of poor romantic decisions or regrettable grifts, but her confession had nothing on Alex's. If he was willing to talk to her about genocide but not this, then it was bound to be bad.

So when Alex got up to go to the 'fresher Sierra went through everything she could remember about Swain.

She'd first encountered the girl while coming up with potential complications for the Lothal job. Hannah Swain was a young officer training under Kallus to become an ISB agent; a good kid and one of the brightest prospects to come out of the Academy. Sierra prepared for tricky questions and a second set of observant eyes on her but it wasn't until she arrived at the Imperial Complex and saw the duo work together that she realized what she was really dealing with. For all his bluster, it was obvious Kallus adored Swain and she in return practically worshipped him.

Ahsoka confirmed her suspicions when she returned to the ship. "Sounds like me and Anakin when we first started out."

And everyone knew how well that had turned out. Sierra winced. Good gods, if that wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kallus' footsteps returned and she put it out of her mind. Whatever happened would still be there tomorrow. They didn't need to deal with this on top of Thrawn and a murderer on the loose.

…

"We're clear on what to expect then?" Amis finished submitting Soniee's fingerprints to the database and looked at her over the top of the datapad.

She swallowed hard. "We are."

The police captain packed up the 'pad. "In that case we're done here. More than likely we'll be back in the morning."

"Excuse me?" The guard had opened the interrogation room door and beside him stood a teenage girl with curly brown hair. "I have the consulting detectives' secretary here. She wants to talk with the duchess alone."

"Of course." Amis stood up and left the room without another look or word.

The girl entered, datapad in hand. "Duchess Kryze, my name is Molly. I have a few things to clarify for D.I. Goodman and D.S. Monk's report."

"Molly?" Soniee blinked. She was too distraught to ask why Hutch and Hero's daughter was here, now. "Of course. Ask away."

"Well the first question is how long you've known Saw Gerrera." Molly tapped away at the 'pad. "We couldn't help but notice it seemed a little odd that you went to him so soon after your husband died."

At least this was an easy question. What else did Soniee have to lose at this point? "We're old friends. In fact I first had an inkling he might have had feelings for me when we worked with his crew years ago."

Steela grabbed Soniee's arm and pulled her into the cabin that she usually shared with Sierra. She rummaged through a dresser and pulled out a pair of khaki pants and a black shirt and tossed them to Soniee. "Here, these should fit." then she dove back into the drawer to find something similar for herself.

"Oh but I'm not…" Soniee started to protest.

"Of course you're going with us." Completely without shame, Steela began to strip off her own clothing and change into the outfit that would make her look more like a caf shop employee.

Soniee averted her eyes. It's not like she hadn't shared a dorm room with Lagos for the last eight years but they had always taken advantage of the fresher to dress privately. "But I only made three IDs. I thought I would stay with Hutch while the rest of you… "

"We need you, Soniee." Steela poked her head out of the top of the shirt. "Barriss will know Ahsoka on sight and Hero will probably murder her if we're not there to hold her back. You look inconspicuous so if she sees you behind the counter she won't suspect a thing."

"I… guess you're right." She started to change as modestly as she could into the borrowed clothing.

She could feel Steela watching her curiously. "So how is it, working with Hutch? He can come on pretty strong but I think you're as good as he is."

"He's working so hard to get his daughter back. It's not at all what I expected."

Steela was silent for a few seconds which made Soniee look up from the buttons on which she had been focusing. She seemed to be deciding if it was too personal to ask. "Your parents were from Onderon, weren't they? I thought I heard Korkie telling Lux and Rex…"

Soniee nodded. "I know my mother was." She shrugged. "It's pretty much all I know about her. That and she flew away, nine months pregnant, and crashed on Concord Dawn after going into labor in hyperspace." Might as well tell her the whole story. "I survived the crash but I have no idea… about my dad. I wondered maybe…"

"What?" Steela was hanging on her every word.

"Well, I wondered if maybe he didn't want me, if that was the reason she flew off." Soniee buttoned the last couple of buttons and began to tuck in her shirt. She didn't know why she was telling all this to a relative stranger.

"Same here," Steela said softly and when Soniee looked up she saw that the other girl was almost smiling. "Well, not exactly the same. It was my dad who ran off when I was a baby. Everybody always said how happy they'd been, Mom and Dad and Saw, before I was born. Dad wasn't around a lot even when Saw was little but when he was, Mom was so carefree. That's what they say anyway. Saw remembers. I certainly don't. And then Mom died when I was ten in a fire and we were separated…"

Soniee tried to think of something to say. "I was ten when my buir sent me away to the academy. It wasn't her idea. The clan said she had to."

Steela's smile actually widened but she asked, "Your buir?"

"My Momma, the woman who pulled me out of the crash and adopted me."

"I was sent away, too, first to one foster family, I ran away and then they'd catch me and send me to another. It wasn't till the war that Saw and I found each other again. I didn't even know he had been looking for me."

A blush rose in Soniee's cheeks when Steela mentioned her brother's name. She attempted to hide it but Steela grinned, "Now that you're here I'm sure Saw wouldn't mind helping you to look up your family…"

"I'm here with my boyfriend," Soniee stated. "Bo took me in when my clan didn't want to have anything to do with me. She and Korkie are like the only family I have."

Steela reached out and took her hand. "But if you found your REAL family…"

Soniee knew that Steela and Sierra were close, like sisters, and she knew that Steela had to be missing, worrying about her dearest friend. That was why she had latched on to the new girl. Soniee tried to think of something to say but before she could form the words there was a knock on the door.

"Everybody decent in there?" It was Saw.

Steela grinned at her and whispered, "can I at least tell him he's got a chance?"

"What? No! Don't tell him that!" she whispered back frantically.

"It's open!" Steela called with an evil smirk and a wink.

Saw opened the door slowly and hardly noticed his sister. He smiled when he set eyes on Soniee. "You'll be needing these." He tossed a bit of fabric at Steela and then held out the other to her. "Hutch went ahead and made you an alias."

"Thank you," she said, taking what she now realized was an apron with an employee nametag already affixed to the front. "Mel? Is that short for Melody or something?"

Was he hoping that the name would mean something to her? "Yeah, something like that."

"Well, tell him… tell him I said thank you. I'll have a look at the file before we go over."

"And uh," he didn't seem in any hurry to end the conversation. "They've paired me up with Korkie to scope out the old temple. I'll watch out for him, for you."

"Thank you." She said again and they stared at each other for a moment before Steela cleared her throat.

Saw took a step backward. "Well, I'll just… let you two finish getting ready for the job."

"Elek," Soniee watched him go until Steela slammed the door shut behind him.

"I don't think I have to tell him anything. You seem to be doing just fine on your own," Steela gloated.

"Oh stop!" Soniee giggled and threw the apron at her.

Steela threw it back and drew the straps of her own over her hair. "You know what these things remind me of?"

Soniee laughed. She knew exactly. "That holo about the music store?"

"Yes!" Steela squealed. She finished tying the strings and placed a finger on Soniee's lips, "Say no more, mon amor."

Steela burst out into the corridor dramatically, "Oh Rexy you're so sexy!"

Soniee followed her out quoting, "Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior."

"And they said no revealing clothing, didn't they?" Steela continued to strut down the hallway toward Saw and Rex who were watching the two of them with some interest.

"I don't feel I have to explain my art to you…" Soniee began and she and Steela looked at each other and both finished the line together, "Warren!" and then they both nearly collapsed into giggles.

Rex couldn't take his eyes off Steela. "Damn the man. Save the Republic."

Saw finally took notice of the look his friend was giving his baby sister and punched him none too gently on the shoulder.

Later Soniee found herself clearing tables next to Ahsoka at the StarChucks. "You and Steela seem to be getting along well," the Togruta observed.

Soniee nodded, smiling while she wiped the table and checked to make sure that the dispenser was full of flimsy napkins. "We got a chance to talk about our similar backgrounds."

"Oh?"

"How her dad left and her mom died in a fire when she was ten," Soniee assumed Ahsoka had heard the story but she looked surprised.

"That's what she told you?"

"Why? Was she lying?" She could have been and Soniee would have never known the difference.

"No. She told you the truth."

"Is that a bad thing?" Soniee asked.

"I've heard her tell her story a hundred times, never the same way twice, but from what Mina says..." Ahsoka laid a hand on her shoulder. "Steela must really trust you. I don't even know if she's opened up like that to Sierra."

"Oh." Soniee didn't know what to think. She had just taken it for granted that Steela was confiding in her but now she wasn't sure what to believe. How much of what any of them said might be just part of the con?

Back in the present Soniee shook her head at the memory. "When he came back into my life and I knew he was sincere … well, I thought Korkie and I had years ahead of us."

"You wanted to seize what time you had with the people you loved."

"Yes, exactly." Soniee didn't catch the sparkle in Molly's eye. "And I'm glad I did, considering I doubt I have much time left."

…

At some unholy hour of the night, Kallus woke up from a dead sleep to a text from his sister: I'm not going to make it to Sundari tomorrow.

What? They'd ironed out all the details of transportation and she'd been more than willing to go just a few hours ago. Why not?

Nothing prepared him for Angelica's reply.

There's been another murder.