Ben Tennyson, Detective

by csyphrett

Detectives Ben Tennyson and Kevin Levin have to solve a murder after Ben gets a mysterious watch in the mail

Ben Tennyson, Detective

1

Ben Tennyson looked at the box on his desk. He didn't see a return label on its top. He hadn't ordered anything. It did have his name on the top in magic marker.

Maybe the box was from his cousin. She worked as a lab technician in the Forensics department. She could have dropped it off on the way to her own shift.

The lack of a label supported that. Why label it when your cousin tended to see you when he had to look at results of tests and needed someone to tell him what it meant.

Ben admitted to himself that the box was spooking him, and he didn't like that. It was a plain brown box the shape of a small pizza box. There was nothing to be scared of as far as he could see.

He decided he couldn't be scared of a container all of his life. He needed to get on with his day. He still had things to do.

He pulled out a pocket knife and cut the tape holding the lid shut. He closed the knife and put it on his desk. He pulled the lid open. A green bracelet with an extravagant watch built into the metal strap gleamed under the office lights. An envelope lay under the watch.

He pulled the envelope out enough to see his name was on the outside of the paper. So the package was for him.

He doubted Gwen had left this thing for him. He frowned as he wondered what was going on.

He opened the envelope and pulled a piece of paper out. The note was written in a round old fashioned script in a precise hand. The initial P signed off the ending.

Dear Benjamin,

I sent this version of the Omni to help you get through the next two years. I am not sure that you will need it, but you are at the edge of a catastrophic event.

Good luck,

P

No one called him Benjamin. And what was this Omni supposed to do? Was it supposed to keep time for him?

He took off his Timex and put it on his desk. He took the Omni out of the box. He inspected the fancy cuff. The watch face didn't have any numbers on it. He frowned. This had all the makings of a joke. He slid the green machine on his forearm.

Pain shot up Ben's arm. He gritted his teeth. He tried to pull the gift off, but he couldn't get a grip. Small arcs of lightning danced around the Omni. He fell back in his chair as the pain receded.

"Tennyson!," called one of the other detectives in the squad room. "What are you doing?"

Ben took a moment to catch his breath. He nodded when things seemed normal, except for the Omni stuck on his arm.

"Someone sent me a practical joke," said Ben. He gathered the note and envelope up and put them in an evidence bag from his desk. He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair as he stood and put it on. "I have to go down to the lab. If something comes in, let me know."

"No problem," said the other detective.

Ben headed for the door. He needed to talk to Gwen, maybe run some tests on the paper. He pulled on the Omni under his jacket sleeve. He frowned as he realized that the shock he had taken had forced the thing into his skin.

If he wanted to take it off, he would lose the skin of his arm and wrist.

He needed to find out who this P was and how to find him.

The detective felt twinges as he walked through the crowd of police and civilian staff going about what they were doing. He wondered if that was a side effect of the shock he had taken.

He tried to pry the green watch off his arm. He couldn't get it to budge.

He wondered if he had put something on as part of a prank. He had seen a video of a man glued to a toilet being carried out of a store once. Could this be the same kind of thing? He hoped there was a better reason for the thing sticking to his arm than a prank being played on him.

He noticed that the watch face moved. He decided to leave it alone until Gwen could look at it. She might have something in her lab that could get the thing off his arm.

His mind went back to the two year warning. What was going to happen in two years? How bad was it supposed to be? What did this P think he could do fix things before the disaster happened?

He put that in a mental option file so he could think about it later. He still didn't know enough about what he had been stuck with to figure out what he was supposed to do to divert something happening in the future.

How did P know what was going to happen was a question he put with the disaster question.

It took a few minutes to get to the lab. A separate building housed it, evidence, records, and various other things the police force used to prove cases. A separate part of the building housed the city morgue.

He passed through the metal detectors and guards and made his way through the miles of corridors scanning the rooms through their glass windows. He found his cousin in a lab full of machines, peering into a microscope. She didn't seem to like what she saw.

He knocked on the frame of the door to get her attention.

"Hello, Ben," said Gwen, when she looked up from the microscope. She smiled. "What brings you down to the dungeon?"

"I need you to look at this thing on my arm," said Ben. He held up the watch for her to see. "I made a mistake and put it on without thinking about it. Also I need you to look at the note that came with it."

"Looks fancy," said Gwen. She made sure her sample was put away before turning her attention to the ornate machine her cousin was wearing. "Where did you get it?"

"Mail," said Ben.

Gwen pulled out a magnifying glass and went over the band around her cousin's wrist and forearm. She made him raise and lower his arm.

"This thing is inside your arm," said Gwen. She lowered the lens. "If we try to do anything to get it off, we'll take your arm off with it."

"How is that possible?," asked Ben. "I just put it on."

"I don't know," said Gwen. She put down the glass and grabbed her phone. She took pictures of the device. She held the phone so that her cousin could see the screen.

The watchband had pressed into his arm so that the flesh had bunched at the edges. Tiny cables were barely visible in the pictures. They had plugged themselves into his forearm.

The electrical shocks must have been when all of this was done.

If he went to the hospital and asked them to cut the watch off, the cables would have to be pulled out one by one. How much damage would that do to his arm?

"Does it hurt?," asked Gwen. She put the phone back in her pocket.

"No," said Ben. "Can you look at the note?"

He handed her the envelope and card and stepped back. She dusted it, ran over it with a scope, and finally tore a piece off to let her machines have a better look at it.

It took a few hours before she was ready to give him something. He could tell it was more bad news.

"The ink is nothing," said Gwen. "The writing was done with an old style nib like you would find in a calligraphy shop. The paper is thick and heavy, but there's no watermark, or way to trace it back to where it was sold."

"So we really don't know anything more than when I first came down here," said Ben.

"We know some things, but we don't know enough to track down who sent you the Omni, or why," said Gwen.

"We don't know anything about the Omni, or why it latched on to my arm," said Ben. "I don't want to lose my arm over this."

"We're going to have to experiment to see what it does," said Gwen. "It's obviously more than just a watch."

"So we just start pressing buttons and see what happens?," said Ben. "That doesn't seem too safe."

"It's that or wait for whatever is going to happen in two years and hope it isn't that bad," said Gwen. She shrugged. "The deadline was probably mentioned for a reason."

"So we try to figure some of the things out," said Ben. "I still have to close cases."

"When we know what the Omni can do, we can figure out how to use it to solve your caseload," said Gwen. "Maybe that's part of the reason it was sent to you."

"Maybe he knows me," said Ben. "But no one calls me Benjamin."

"I think you should try the watch face and see what happens," said Gwen. "That's the only thing left."

"All right," said Ben. "We don't have anything else to lose. But after this, I'll have to experiment after I get off my shift. It's a miracle no one has called about a job."

Gwen nodded. Usually she had a ton of things to do in the lab, but today, it was oddly quiet. They could use that time to do one test of the Omni to see what it did.

"So you turn the watch face so the arrow points to one of ten positions," said Ben. He clumsily twisted the circle so the arrow pointed at the one. "Why ten and not twelve? That's something we'll have to think about. Then you lock the face down until it clicks."

"How do you know that?," asked Gwen.

He showed her the watch face. His hand was on what looked like a lock mechanism.

"This keeps the dial from turning," said Ben. "It took me a second to figure it out after I looked at the watch for a while. When the arrow points at a position, you lock the dial. Then a button comes on. I guess you press the button and it tells you what time it is."

He pressed the button. Green light surrounded him.

2

Ben paused as information flooded his brain. He looked around, matching things from memory and a newfound knowledge of science and everything that went with it. He could turn the DNA sequencer into a portable laser with the right parts. The connection to the watch, the Omni, was obvious.

"This is a DNA injector," Ben said. He waved his Omni arm. "It just gives me enough DNA to boost me. A normal Omnitrix would transform me into other forms instead of just adding on to what I already have. The ten numbers are the ten boosters. The watch face selects the booster and the time of use. There are more boosters but the rest are locked until I get used to the ones I have."

"How do you know this?," asked Gwen. She felt his forehead with her hand. She shook her head.

"The Omni made me smarter, increased my science base, allowed me to access my memory better," said Ben. "Once it's over, I'll be back to normal."

"We need to test this somehow," said Gwen. "This could be life changing, depending on what the other boosters do."

"I only have two years," said Ben. "P, whomever he is, didn't lie about the Omni. I don't think he's lying about the catastrophe that might be coming our way. We might be able to avert it somehow just by using the Omni to fix whatever we can."

"We still need to know what the other boosters can do," said Gwen. "Then we can start worrying about saving the world."

"I'll have to test them after I get off shift," said Ben. "I don't want your lab rats knowing what I can do. They'll try to have me committed somewhere to try to cut the Omni open."

"I don't think we can," said Gwen. "I think the material would stop us. It's some kind of metal. I think a torch would cut your hand off before it cut this Omni off."

"That's all right with me," said Ben.

"I have to teach tonight," said Gwen. "Do you think you can meet me at the college?"

"Yes," said Ben. "Still teaching forensics?"

"That's right," said Gwen. "But the college has a place you can practice with the boosters without anyone seeing you."

"Sounds good," said Ben. He flinched as the charge wore off. "And I need to know what I can do with this thing if I want to stop whatever is going on."

"Two years doesn't seem like a lot of time," said Gwen. She ran her hand through her short hair.

"It's all I have," said Ben. His phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his jacket and answered it with "Tennyson."

He listened for a few minutes. He asked for the address again before saying he would be there.

"Got a murder," said Ben. He put his phone up. "Evidence will be here in the lab as soon as the techs can gather it up. I'll be at the school tonight, and back here in the morning to see what you found."

"All right," said Gwen. "Did they say what happened?"

"No," said Ben. "I'll have to find that out at the scene."

"You can tell me about it at the college," said Gwen. "Maybe a murder is what you need to get the testing out of the way."

"Maybe this new brain power will be a great help," said Ben. "I'll see you at your class."

He knocked on a counter as he left the lab. He had to get a car, then meet the murder team at the scene. He hoped this was something simple.

Ben made his way to the parking garage used for the motor pool and checked out his car. He shook his head at the time. The call had come in the last few hours of his shift. He would be still writing reports when he was supposed to be free.

It couldn't be helped. Murders didn't happen when you wanted them.

Ben drove through the city on automatic. He thought about the location of the crime scene at the edge of the city's north side. Suburbs with new housing lay out that way. Most of the people were in the middle class with a huge mortgage.

He had heard of some small robberies out that way, burglaries, and some vandalism. He couldn't remember any type of domestic attack.

There was a first time for everything.

He pulled his unmarked car behind a crowd of brown cars with police markings on them. He got out of the car and put his badge on the outside of his suit jacket. The uniforms let him through while keeping an eye on the street.

He walked up the front of the house, examining the outside of the brick structure as he went. Normal two story house with a garage on one side under the first floor. Big windows with curtains in the front. Upstairs bedrooms on the front of the house, but he couldn't tell from the ground. The door was open as the crowd of investigators went over things, taking pictures and notes.

He pulled on a pair of gloves from a bag in his jacket pocket as he paused at the front door. He looked around the scene from the door, thinking about the body in the middle of a pool of blood, splatter everywhere, and the outline of another body.

He decided to activate the booster to see what it could tell him in the first fifteen minutes of looking around.

Ben waited until no one was looking his way before pressing the button. He waited for the green flash to fade before stepping into the crime scene. His eyes roamed around, sorting details into probabilities. The additional brain power seemed to take pictures of the scene as he checked what he could see from inside the threshold.

Something was off about the scene but he filed the notion and continued to take in everything as he started circling the edge of the room. Whatever was bothering him would jump out at him when he was thinking about something else.

It would be the one detail he couldn't pin down. That would give him the key to the rest of things.

"Glad you could come down, Ben," said Detective Levin. "What do you think about this?"

"I have no idea," said Tennyson. He continued his walk around the room. "Do we still need the body?"

"Not really," said Levin. He waved at two collectors from the M.E. to haul the corpse away. They came in and started loading the corpse on a gurney to roll him out to their van.

"Any other dead bodies?," Ben asked. He frowned at the amount of blood left by the removal of the body.

"No," said Levin. "Just him."

Ben started walking around the house, thinking about what he was seeing. He might have to use the booster again to finish his lookaround.

"We have a suspect," said Levin. He followed the other detective, hands in his pockets, sneer on his face. "I told two uniforms to take her downtown and put her in a interrogation room until we're finished here."

"The wife?," asked Ben. He continued his tour.

"Yeah," said Levin. "She was covered in his blood when the uniforms got here."

"Was it his blood?," asked Ben. "If we go to court, will we be able to say for sure that it was his with a DNA test?"

"We took pictures and the clothes and let her change into something clean," said Levin.

"Did she have a story?," said Ben. Everyone had a story. Some stories were more mundane than others. He had come across a number of unhappy spouses who had done away significant others in a moment of rage.

"I didn't ask for a statement," said Levin. "Everything seems cut and dried."

"All right," said Ben. "We'll ask for her statement when we get back to the station. This doesn't look like a fight."

"It looks like she got drunk and stabbed him by surprise," said Levin.

"I know, but something feels wrong," said Ben. He turned in the bedroom and frowned. "What was she wearing when the uniforms got here?"

"Pajamas and slippers," said Levin. "There wasn't any blood in the bedroom. We got her clothes out of the closet, and exchanged the evidence for real clothes in the bathroom."

"Did you check the bathroom before you let her in there?," asked Ben.

"Yes," said Levin. "It was clean before she went in. She washed the blood off after we got samples."

"All right," said Ben. "Have them take the glasses in and test them to make sure we can rule out the excessive drinking blackout defense. Did you get a blood sample from her?"

"No," said Levin. "Why?"

"We need to know if she really is drunk," said Ben. "We need to ask for one."

"She won't give us that," said Levin.

"Call and ask," said Ben. "We need to know how drunk she was."

"I'll call and ask the captain to try and get something," said Levin.

"All right," said Ben. "We need to take one more look around, and then go down to the station. The next step is to get a statement and see how much we can disprove."

"All right, Columbo," said Levin. "Where did this come from?"

"What do you mean?," asked Ben.

"I don't think I have ever seen you this careful about a case before," said Levin.

"I'm taking some new vitamins," Ben said.

3

Ben took the time to let Gwen know that he would be late to the school. He gave her the bare bones of the case so far. She told him to come anyway when he was done.

"If we can get the blood sample from the suspect, we can rule out a lot of things," said Ben to his partner, after hanging up. "If we can't, she can build a blackout defense."

"It'll have to be voluntary," said Levin. He kept his head on a swivel as he drove. "No way can we get a warrant to disprove something."

"We don't have a lot of time," said Ben. He felt down with the charge from the booster gone. He closed his eyes. "Most drugs will be flushed away in a few hours."

"It looks like she killed her old man in a drunken rage," said Levin.

"We still have to make sure," said Ben. "It only takes one wrong thing to screw everything else up."

"She still might go with a blackout defense," said Levin.

"Not our problem," said Tennyson. He closed his eyes. Obviously, the Omni ate into his body and wore him out. That was something he would have to watch out for in the future. "We have to make sure we did our best to provide an airtight case. We don't have that right now. Without a blood sample, we have to prove she was in her right mind to do the stabbing when all she has to say was she doesn't remember and stick to that."

"And we don't want her to do that," said Levin.

"Exactly," said Ben. "I still have to meet with Gwen after this interview."

"You're going to be late for that meeting," said Levin. He smiled at his barb.

"That's because you drive like Miss Daisy," said Ben. "I should have driven."

"Okay," said Levin. "We both know that isn't true."

"My grandpa drives faster than you," said Ben. "That's why he doesn't have a license any more."

"I thought he was blind," said Levin.

"Only in one eye," said Ben. "Finally, there's the station. Let's go in and see what we can find out in this initial interview."

"Why don't you think she did it?," asked Levin. He looked for a space to pull in his unmarked car.

"I just have some questions," said Ben. "This might be a slam dunk."

"The wife killed the husband in a fit of drunken rage," said Levin.

"That's my first thought," said Ben. "But then some of the crime scene looked wrong to me. That's when I decided we should make sure before we get the D.A. involved. I'm going to have to go over the crime scene photos again to see if I can find anything that stands out."

"What was wrong with the crime scene?," asked Levin.

"It looked staged," said Ben. "Let's see if we can get that blood sample before we lose our chance to prove anything else could have happened."

"The captain will not like this at all," said Levin.

"He won't like the department getting sued for wrongful arrest and conviction any better," said Ben. "I look at it as saving the city money."

"All right, but you're on your own when you have to explain this to the brass," said Levin.

"It's not like they can investigate a murder better than I can," said Ben.

The partners headed upstairs to the set of interrogation rooms kept to talk to suspects about the crime in question. Sergeant Dorman stood at one, sipping coffee from his Best Cop mug.

Dorman was close to his twenty with sunken eyes, lost hair, and a chipped tooth from a murder suspect trying to get away from him. Tattoos from his army days covered one arm.

"What do you have?," asked Dorman. "Her lawyer is inside with her. How did he know to come down here so fast?"

"She must have called when we allowed her to change clothes," said Levin. "It wasn't like I was going to allow her to wear evidence around."

"We don't have anything," said Ben. "We need a blood test to cut off any incapacitated defenses her lawyer might come up with for court. Do you think we can get that in the next few hours? We need something before she flushes it out."

"I can get a warrant maybe," said Dorman. "Probable cause?"

"Determining how drunk she was might prove premeditation on her part," said Ben. "A little left over might just be enough to try to be convincing. A solid bottle after she killed him might be a coverup."

"I'll get the warrant and an EMT to draw the blood," said Dorman. "Anything else I need to know?"

"We're not arresting her just yet," said Ben. "But we can't allow her to go home. She is going to have to get a hotel room, or go to any family she might have, while we hold her house."

"How long?," said Dorman. "Eventually we're going to have to give it back, or accept a court order."

"I don't know," said Ben. "I definitely am going to need to look around again. And I don't want her to grab anything we might need to prove she did it."

"Say a week," said Levin. "We still have all the pictures from the crime scene guys as evidence down the road."

"All right," said Dorman. He finished off his coffee. "One of you is going to have to go with her to make sure she doesn't take anything if we have to allow clothes for her extended leave. We won't be able to get away with not allowing her that much."

"I'll do it," said Levin. "Ben might be able to con her into confessing. I will always be the bad cop."

"Yeah," said Dorman. "I can see that. Let me get the warrant. Then we run a tox screen and see what we have."

"Thanks," said Ben. "Let me just talk to them for a minute. Then we can let them go after the blood thing. I'm sure they will both like that."

"Did she do it?," Dorman asked.

"I have no idea," said Ben. "But we don't gain anything by holding her, and tomorrow we're going to need warrants for her bank records, insurance, and anything else on paper we can think of to use as evidence. If she runs, that's just one more thing to add to the pile."

"All right," said Dorman. "Let's get started."

The sergeant walked away to call a magistrate to get the blood warrant. He already had the justification written in his head. All he needed to do was transfer that to paper to satisfy the legality.

"How do we interrogate her?," asked Levin.

"We don't," said Ben. "We don't ask anything other than basic politeness stuff and for a written statement about her movements. That's all. We're stalling for the warrant and the blood draw."

"And a statement gives us something to check with everything else," said Levin. "I like it, but I prefer the Mackey Telephone Book myself."

"We might need that later," said Ben. "Let's try being friendly first."

He opened the door and led the way into the interrogation room. He didn't like them because they were smaller than the conference rooms set aside for task forces. And in the middle were tables with chairs. A camera made sure that nothing happened to the suspect unless it was covered.

Ben had heard stories of dirty deeds done in rooms just like this one. It added to his dislike for them.

"Hello," said Ben. "I'm Detective Tennyson. You've already met Detective Levin. We're investigating what happened at your house."

"I'm Matt Ordman," said the other man in the room. "I'm Mrs. Carpenter's lawyer. Are you arresting her?"

"Not at this moment," said Ben. "We're waiting on an evidentiary warrant to come in. I would like for Mrs. Carpenter to write down everywhere she went, who she saw, anything she might have drank or eaten before her husband died. I think that will be the extent of what I need to know right now. Then Detective Levin is going to take her to get clothes from her home and she will be allowed to stay somewhere else other than her house for the next week or so."

"I don't understand," said Mrs. Carpenter. She looked more like a child than an adult woman. She had tied her hair back, and the clothes she had picked were casual enough for mall shopping. "You're not arresting me?"

"I would love to arrest you," said Ben. "But we're still trying to make sense of the scene, trying to line up what we have gathered, the autopsy will have to be done, everything gathered will have to be tested. All of that takes time. The main problem is once the media starts reporting on this, the brass is going to want us to wrap everything up and hand it over to the D.A. for prosecution as fast as possible. Mistakes will be made at that point."

"So all you want is a statement of my client's whereabouts?," said Ordman. He frowned at Ben.

"A written statement that can be checked," said Ben. "We're also waiting for someone to execute the warrant for Mrs. Carpenter's blood so it can be tested. We'll provide samples for the defense naturally."

"Naturally," said Ordman. "Can I have a few minutes to talk with my client?"

"Sure," said Ben. "After we draw the blood, Levin will get her something to drink and eat. That will help out some."

The detectives stepped outside. Ben made sure to close the door so they couldn't overhear anything.

"I'll get her something to eat and drink?," said Levin.

"A little kindness makes the world go around," said Ben. "Tomorrow, we have to check with Forensics, write up everything for Dorman, and go back to the house and take another look around. And answer the next case if we're up in the rotation."

"What do you know that I don't know?," said Levin.

"The circumference of the Earth," said Ben.

"You got me there," said Levin. "I just want to know why we're giving her all this time to come up with a story."

"It's my new strategy," said Ben. "I plan to sit back and do nothing and hope the suspect confesses as I sip tea and munch donuts."

"That sounds like something out of a book about a detective," said Levin. "Are you okay? You've been acting strange."

"I just have some things on my mind," said Ben. "It would be easy to file charges but something doesn't feel right. I don't want to make excuses if this turns into a nightmare for us later."

"You're thinking she got framed somehow," said Levin. "I can see that."

"I would like a better explanation than drunken rage," said Ben.

"Sometimes there isn't," said Levin.

"Sometimes the wrong people are convicted because the cops are incompetent," said Ben. "I'm not going to be one of those guys if I can help it. You shouldn't want to be one of those guys either."

"I'm better than that," Levin said.

"Okay," said Ben. The door opened. He turned to face Ordman. The lawyer didn't seem happy.

"Mrs. Carpenter agreed to write down a timeline for you," said Ordman. "Nothing else. We'll want a copy for ourselves."

"That's fine," said Ben. "We'll check all these out in the daytime."

"All right," said Ordman. "You said you were going to subject Mrs. Carpenter to a blood test?"

"Sergeant Dorman is getting a warrant for it," said Ben. "An EMT, or somebody from the lab, will draw the samples and then Detective Levin will let you pack some things so she can stay somewhere else."

"I have my car," said Ordman.

"I'll be right behind you," said Levin. "We're not worried about her DNA, or prints since she lives there. We just want to keep the scene closed until we don't need it any more."

"I'm going to say about a week or so," said Ben. "We still have to go over everything the lab collected, then we'll need to check with the people on Mrs. Carpenter's timeline, anything else that draws our attention. But a week should be enough for the lab to see if they need to get material for retesting."

"I will let Mrs. Carpenter know," Ordman said.

"I still have questions for her," said Ben. "Just not right now."

"Understood," said Ordman.

4

Ben hitched a ride out to the University with a patrolman. He thanked the uniform before looking for Gwen's building. He had to pick up his car after he checked in with her. He hoped Levin could keep things under control with Mrs. Carpenter and her lawyer. He didn't need another headache on top of the one he already had.

The other detective was right about charges being filed on something that looked so open and shut like what they had. He didn't trust it for some reason.

And he thought maybe his new brain boost was telling him something he wasn't quite grasping at the moment. He needed more information.

Once he was done with the testing, he would check the scene again without a crew going over everything. Maybe he would spot whatever was tugging at him if he was alone.

The Omni was responsible for this new approach. He didn't know if he liked it, or just wanted to take the easy way until he couldn't anymore.

He wouldn't be the first cop who took a ground ball and soaked it for overtime when he knew he could have closed it at any time.

"Over here, Ben," called Gwen. She smiled and waved. "Let's go over to the lab. I already set a place up."

"What do you want to find out?," said Ben. He slouched along, hands in his pockets.

"At the very least, we need to know what the boosters do," said Gwen. "Then I can use you to do my work faster so I can get out of the lab more."

"I'm not your mule," said Ben.

"Not yet," said Gwen.

They walked into a room set up with three cameras and a bank of computers behind a bulletproof wall of plastic. A square was marked on the floor with yellow paint. Thermometers and other sensors were ready to measure things when he pushed a button.

"Just stand over in the square and wait for me to say go," said Gwen. She pointed at the designated area. "I will record everything and we can go over it after we test everything."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," said Ben. He took off his jacket and pistol and put them on a spare chair. "We might want to keep this secret."

"We are, but I need to see how things work so I can tell you something," said Gwen. "If something happens, we might have to take you to the hospital."

"They'll have to cut the Omni off if we have to do that," said Ben. He walked to the center of the square and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

"I know," said Gwen. "I don't think the Omni is dangerous under normal conditions but we need to know what it can do if we have to do something about it."

"How do you want to do this?," asked Ben.

"I think we should start with minimum time and test the booster buttons," said Gwen. "Once we know what each booster can do, we can work on timing, and if we can do combinations."

"I don't think we can mix the boosters right now," said Ben. "I think they are separated for a reason."

"Let's put that down as a given," said Gwen. "You ready to get started?"

"Yep," said Ben. "Number one seems to be some kind of brain boost. I notice a lot of details, remember things I saw, and know how mechanical things work at a glance."

"Got it," said Gwen. "Have you been testing it?"

"I used it at a crime scene earlier," said Ben. "It marked out a lot of details for me to examine again."

"Let's do the rest," said Gwen. "I'll need commentary as you change. I would like to know what each boost does when you are using it."

Ben went through each of the ten boosters. The minimum time on the watch let him test each injection in a relatively short time. He noted there was a cooldown period between changes. The length of time seem to vary by whatever booster he used, and how long he moved about.

The ten boosters made him smarter, capable of commanding machines, fast, strong, harder to hurt with a blades he could grow from his skin, canine senses, walking through solid objects, some aquatic thing that he wasn't sure about, fire blasts, and something that allowed him to fly with wings and vomit gunk on targets. Gwen took a sample of that to see what it was made of with her machines at the lab.

"This is a lot of data, Ben," said Gwen. "How do you feel?"

"Tired," said Ben. "I think the Omni was meant to be used for specific jobs, not for the amount of tests we ran on it. I still have to double back to my crime scene and look around again."

"A lot of problems with it?," asked Gwen.

"The wife called nine one one after laying on her dead husband with knife in hand," said Ben. "He's stabbed five or six times. Glasses were on the table with an empty wine bottle. It looks like they were drinking and she stabbed him in a blackout."

"What's the problem?," asked Gwen.

"The scene looked fake to me," said Ben. "It was hard to tell with the forensics people and other police wandering around. I felt like something looked wrong but I can't think what it could be."

"So you think this is some kind of frame?," asked Gwen.

"I don't know," said Ben. "I asked for a blood test to see how much she still had in her system. I'm hoping there's something there. I have to go over her alibi list tomorrow to rule all that out."

"So until the blood test comes back, you have no way of knowing if she was really that drunk," said Gwen.

"Or if she had something else in her system other than alcohol," said Ben. "Kevin was supposed to be escorting her and her lawyer to get clothes and let her settle in a hotel until we give her back her house."

"If you rule out the wife, who do you have left as suspects?," asked Gwen.

"Everyone Carpenter talked to in the last year that kept an eye on him and hated him for whatever reason, as well as Mrs. Carpenter," said Ben. He made a gesture with his hand to indicate the rest of the city. "How hard do you think it will be to rule all of them out?"

"Depends on whether or not you can hack every phone in the city, plot every location, and then identify anyone who went to the crime scene," said Gwen.

"I can totally do that now," said Ben. He imagined he could with his new brain power. "I just need to hack the services of every phone to make it easier."

"I would like to see you do that," said Gwen. "No. Scratch that. Every government agency in the world will want to capture you and find out how you did it."

"I don't think a magic watch would be the acceptable answer," said Ben. "I still have to look the crime scene over and get my car back. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'm going to file these tests," said Gwen. "You said this isn't a full power Omni?"

"No," said Ben. He pulled on his jacket. "The note said it had been altered. My look from my brain boost said it was just doing enough to give me a basic set and not the transformations it usually did."

"What would a transformation look like?," asked Gwen. "Could we do one here in the lab?"

"I would be me with some kind of overlay with the full power of whatever the watch is matched," said Ben. "I wouldn't be human looking while the boost was running."

"You would look like a monster?," said Gwen.

"Whatever generated the power in the first place," said Ben. "Do me a favor. Pack all this up and hide it. Then look for anything that could be world ending in the next couple of years."

"There's so much stuff that could be world ending right now," said Gwen.

"Concentrate on anything in the city," said Ben. "I figure I got the Omni because I was on the scene. If it's out of town, we still have two years to try to solve it."

"These boosters are fantastic, but do you think they will do the job?," asked Gwen.

"If they can't, we're out of luck," said Ben. "I have to go to get this inspection done. Don't stay up all night trying to go over this stuff. You still have cases you have to hand back to your detectives."

"I'll be fine," said Gwen. "See you tomorrow."

"Not if I see you first," said Ben. He smiled as he headed for the lab door. He waved without looking as he left.

Knowing that two of his boosters could fly, and one of them was faster than a car gave him a set of options to get across town. He decided to see if he could get to the Carpenter house on a run before he ran out his time limit.

He set the watch and then pushed the button. The world slowed down, becoming a gray facade. He rushed off campus and streaked across the city. He cut a straight line where possible, hopping fences and outrunning watch dogs, sliding down alleys, running down the shoulder of the highway, then slowing as he neared the crime scene. He cut off the booster as he walked up to his car.

Kevin left him a note about already getting the clothes for Mrs. Carpenter under the windshield wiper of his unmarked. He put the note in his pocket. He still had to get in and look around.

That wouldn't be hard with the abilities the boosters gave him. He could just walk through a wall, and then turn his brain back on while he was looking around.

He had no idea if a second look would help him. If it did, it would give him a set of options other than no/go with building a case against Mrs. Carpenter.

He checked the front of the house for anyone who might be watching before he stepped through the closed door. He shut off the intangibility and listened. The lights were off, the air still. He didn't hear anyone sneaking around like he was.

He turned on the lights so he could see everything as clearly as possible. He turned on the big brain. He sat down on the couch and looked around, filing what he saw into his memory.

The more he looked around from his single position, the more everything looked wrong. He nodded at the absence of the glasses. He hoped Kevin had them tested with the rest of the evidence.

He walked around, noting the trail of blood where Mrs. Carpenter grabbed her phone and called Emergency Services, walked to the door to let the ambulance people in, sat in a chair in her bloody clothes.

He didn't like the absence of splash marks.

Mr. Carpenter had been stabbed multiple times, but there was no swing lines, or accelerated drops, hitting the walls around his body. That seemed a little unlikely.

He needed to see what the medical examiner thought about all this. There were too many things that were bothering him, no matter how much he sorted the pieces.

His memory coughed up a picture of Mrs. Carpenter's bloody pajamas. The parts he had seen in the evidence bag looked like she had lain on the body of her husband. He didn't see any splash marks there either.

He didn't like any of this. He decided there was nothing he could do about it. If Mrs. Carpenter fled, that would just seal the deal against her. Hopefully, her lawyer would let him work without too much interference.

He would have to set something up so he could keep notes on what he found, and what it meant. He only had his boost for minutes at a time. It worked great for breaking things down, but not for explaining things to other people.

And eventually he would have to explain what had let him to think Mrs. Carpenter had been framed by a third party, and how he had tracked that third party down with the help of the forensics lab and his partner.

5

Ben had taken over one of the conference rooms for his case. He had two whiteboards to write on and a cork board to post pictures. The whiteboards were covered with his notes to himself. Pictures of the crime scene hung from the corkboard.

Forensics were still going over the evidence, but he had a general take on everything already. He just needed the tox screen from Mrs. Carpenter. Something had been off at the scene. His notes pointed to a staging.

Why had the scene been staged? Motives had been listed. He wasn't happy with any of them because they pointed to an unknown person who hated the dead man at least.

Without a motive, he couldn't build the third leg of his case.

A knock sounded on the door. That caused Ben to frown. Most detectives didn't knock unless they were about to enter interrogation to say something to a witness.

"Come in," Ben called. He looked over his notes. He could make a case to his lieutenant that they couldn't win a prosecution based on what they had.

Would he want to go ahead anyway?

Kevin Levin stepped in the room, wearing casual dress. He looked the boards over and whistled.

"Did you take the time to sleep?," he asked. He ran his hand through his dark hair as he read the notes.

"Some," said Ben. "I have to check on the tox screen, then we're going to have to start checking Mrs. Carpenter's story so we can cross everything off."

"I have the report here," said Levin. He pulled a folded package of papers from his pants pocket. He handed it over. "She was definitely drugged."

Ben scanned the report with a moving finger to mark where he read. He sat down in a chair and put the report aside. His instinct had been right.

"So we have a frame," he said. He turned the chair to look at the boards. "Why go to the effort?"

"I don't have any idea," said Levin. "I do know if you hadn't insisted on the screen, we would have never seen it without hair clippings. Stuff is fast acting and clears the body fast."

"The pajamas were the real giveaway," said Ben. "The screen just confirms someone wanted Mrs. Carpenter charged so she would either take the fall and let the real murderer act, or framing her was the idea the whole time. This much tranq in her system could have killed her and made it look like a murder/suicide."

"So how do you want to handle this?," asked Levin.

"We need to figure out where they were when she took the drug," said Ben. "We need to call the morgue and have them screen for drugs in his system. We might get lucky with a camera shot."

"So we don't ask her any questions?," asked Levin.

"I don't think she can tell us anything that her timeline won't," said Ben. He gestured at the sheet of handwritten notes. "We'll save her for last. Also we need to dig into her financials for the husband, and his business and so forth."

"Rivals?," asked Levin.

"I don't know," said Ben. He pulled out his work phone. "I need to make sure the morgue gets us that sample. Call down to the lab and ask them how long it would take to knock Mrs. Carpenter out with what we had left in her system."

"I got that," said Levin. He pulled out his phone. "Narrows down the field."

Ben put in a request for the screen. He knew the morgue people wouldn't ask for a test if there weren't any signs. Hopefully, Mr. Carpenter still had some in his system.

Dorman came into the room. He paused at the door. He closed the door to keep their case hidden from the outside until it went to court. He looked at the notes and pictures and scratched his almost bald head.

"Any progress?," he asked. He leaned on the table and looked at his detectives.

"Thanks, Tonya," said Levin. He smiled as he put his phone away. "Somewhere between midnight and two is the lab's best guess."

"The Carpenters were at some party," said Ben. "Anybody could have done anything there."

"So fill me in," said Dorman.

"It's not much," said Ben. He looked at his notes on the board. "We know that Mrs. Carpenter didn't stab Mr. Carpenter because of her night clothes. We know that she was drugged at midnight according to Kevin. We don't know if Mr. Carpenter was drugged, but we also don't know if he was a heavy drinker."

"How do we know that Mrs. Carpenter didn't stab Mr. Carpenter because of her clothes?," asked the senior detective.

"Her clothes didn't have splash marks," said Ben. The other two men didn't seem to follow his thinking. "Her clothes were drenched in blood, but none of it was thrown on her. It came from her lying on the body."

"I don't know how reasonable that is, but let's say that's true," said Dorman. "Go on with your summation."

"We have a tox screen ordered to the morgue," said Ben. "That will tell us if Mr. Carpenter was drugged also before he was killed. Kevin and I were about to go down to this party where they were and ask for a copy of any camera footage. We were going to review the tape, then start filing warrants looking for phone records, financials, anything to point us at the real suspect."

"I'll get the warrants together," said Dorman. "Have you taken another crack at the wife?"

"Not yet," said Ben. "I wanted to confirm her story and look around myself before I asked her any questions about where she was. The local grabbed screws the memory up and I don't think she will be reliable."

"But it looks like someone they both knew," said Dorman.

Ben shrugged. That's what it looked like to him too so he wasn't going to argue the point.

"The murderer might try another run at her," said Dorman.

"There's nothing we can do about that," said Ben. "As soon as she left the station, she was on her own. The murderer might leave her alone depending on what the motive is."

"Or he might take another shot while we're trying to figure things out," said the sergeant. "She might need protection since she could be a witness."

"If you want to give her a detail while we look around, maybe it will keep our murderer from going after her again," said Ben. He shrugged. "She could still be in on it somehow."

"We can't rule anything out," said Dorman. He waved at the boards. "And we don't know what is involved. Go hit the place, get something. I'll put the warrants together and have them served. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"I don't think so," said Ben. "If Mr. Carpenter was drugged, it might have happened at the same time as the wife. Otherwise, he carried her home, got stabbed, and was used for a puppet to convict his wife."

"Find something," said Dorman. "We have to clear her, or start thinking about her having an accomplice."

"I don't think she has an accomplice," said Ben. "But you're right. It's something that we have to cut out before we go to court and try to prove she did it."

"I'll have your warrants ready to go when you are," said Dorman. "Then we can start looking at the money."

"Thanks," said Ben. He looked at the list of places from the timeline. "Come on, Kevin. We have a long pub crawl ahead of us."

"I can get behind that," said Levin. "Daydrinking is the best kind of drinking."

"Do that when you know what happened," said Dorman.

Ben added a copy of the timeline to his work notes, ushering the other two out of the room before him. He closed the door as Levin headed for the elevator and Dorman headed back to the squadroom.

Ben thought about his talents. He didn't really need to do anything but load the information somewhere for future review. Then they could try to pick out the murderer from whatever he and Levin could dig up.

He had no thought that the murderer wouldn't be there. The Carpenters had been rendered helpless. The murderer had to be somewhere on their pub crawl. Otherwise, how would he know to strike unless it was a crime of emotion?

And Ben had rarely seen a crime of emotion where the perpetrator tried to cover his tracks by framing someone else.

He rode in the elevator with Levin silently. He considered what he could do with his Omni. Could he steal video footage and send it somewhere? He thought he could. He just needed a target.

His workstation could maybe hold anything he stole as long as he could connect to it.

"What's the play?," asked Levin.

"You canvas any of the employees who are on the scene," said Ben. "I take the footage. We're looking for anyone who might be interested in the Carpenters."

"That might be harder than we think," said Levin. He drove through the streets, eased back from the wheel. "There might not be anyone there who saw anything, or no footage."

"We're just crossing tees and dotting eyes until we get to the last place Mrs. Carpenter remembered being," said Ben. "The date rape stuff might have wiped any other place they went out of her memory."

Neither had worked sex crimes, but had worked narcotics. They had come across date rape drug manufacturing often enough to be familiar with after effects. And part of the effects was memory loss.

Mrs. Carpenter could have gone numerous other places before she wound up home with her dead husband and not remembered it. She might have seen the attack and not know it now. Why was she still alive?

Ben wrote that down in his notepad. If they knew that, maybe they would know the thinking behind the murder.

And knowing the motive would make it easier to prove in court.

"Motive, means, opportunity," he said to himself.

"We have two of the three," said Levin. "Jealousy might be the motive but we haven't asked anybody about how the Carpenters got along, or if there was someone else."

"There's only three real motives in this world," said Ben. "I don't think Mrs. Carpenter hated her husband enough to commit the crime. I don't think she cared about the money. I don't think she is stupid."

"I would love to prove you wrong," said Levin.

"I think before we're done, we'll find out everything," said Ben. "This has a crime committed in the spur of the moment feel despite the rest of it."

"The guy had a beef with the husband and took his shot?," said Levin.

"Almost certainly," said Ben. "Right now, it's the only thing that makes sense given what we know."

"I like it," said Levin. "How do we prove it?"

"We can't until we narrow things down," said Ben. He pulled out his phone. "I think we should call Ordman and ask him for a list of known enemies."

"I like it," said Levin. He smiled for the first time. "If we crack this, the squad will think we can do anything. We might be able to get promoted a grade."

Ben wondered how a promotion would look two years from then, and they were looking at a potential disaster.

Hopefully, he would figure out what was going on and stave off any destruction that might be coming his way. P thought he should be doing what he was doing, and that it was important enough on its own. And protecting the city, and the world in general, was something he had signed on to do when he went to the Academy and earned his badge.

He looked out the window of the car and decided he wasn't going to quit no matter what.

6

The detectives worked their way through the list of places Mrs. Carpenter had given them. Levin filled out field interviews and handed out cards. No one had seen anything, no one had noticed anything with the Carpenters.

Ben used his mechanical booster to load whatever camera footage he could get through his phone to his desktop back at the station. He wasn't quite sure how that worked but his phone just punched through whatever surveillance system he pointed it at and did the job.

He had an idea how to handle things when he was done with the sifting of information he was doing. If that worked, he might be able to push things forward.

If it didn't, he had lost nothing but time in his opinion.

Dorman had called to advise him that the list of enemies was on the table in the conference room. The morgue had called to let him know Mr. Carpenter had been grabbed like his wife, but the dose was smaller. Gwen had called and said she could look the footage over in his desktop and see if she could spot the Carpenters going about their business.

Ben told her that he needed facial recognition loaded on his computer, and bigger storage if she could get it.

When the detectives were done, Ben asked to stop for food before they headed back to the station. He was convinced the Omni was not meant for the constant use he was doing to crack his case.

He decided that if he had to eat a few more calories to clear cases, he was good with that.

The two detectives settled for a styrofoam platter of tacos in a box from an all night eatery close to the Carpenters' last stop for their final night together. Ben slowly worked his way through his small meal while Levin wolfed his down.

"What did you think about your interviews?," asked Ben. He sipped on a beer as he snagged the last taco in the box.

"Everyone remembered the victims, no one saw anything out of the ordinary," said Levin. "Maybe someone's memory will be jogged, but we have more hope that something will be on the footage you looked at tonight."

"I sent the video stuff back to the station to look at tomorrow," said Ben. "I didn't see anything on them that will help us, but I didn't take the time to comb through them either."

"So we go through that stuff tomorrow?," asked Levin.

"Gwen is going to help me with some facial recognition software," said Ben. "Would you mind sorting out the financials?"

"Rival killed Carpenter for the money?," asked Levin.

"I trust that more than some jealous lover," said Ben. "But we have seen enough of those and stupid payback cowboys who should let things slide rather than shoot up the neighborhoods they're not supposed to be roaming."

"Amen on that," said Levin. He sipped at his bottle of Coke. "Anything else while I'm knee deep in paperwork?"

"Dorman said the list of enemies is waiting at the station," said Ben. "Once you've looked at the Carpenters' money, see if you can get identifying pictures we can run through the facial program. Maybe we will get a lucky strike."

"See if we can catch them on the scene?," said Levin. He smiled as he nodded. "If we can link one of them to any alibi scene, we can start asking questions about their business with the victim. I like it."

"If one of them asks why we haven't arrested Mrs. Carpenter, that would be a big incriminating clue we can use to point what we want to do," said Ben. He eased back from the car's hood with his bottle of Sprite in hand.

"Especially since no one actually knows what happened," said Levin. "The D.A. will be glad we took the time to nail everything down."

"There are just too many reasons for doubt," said Ben. "A case would fail if her defense team can show we did nothing to look at anyone but her. If she had enough money to hire a good forensic investigator, one look at the pajamas would tell him that nothing splashed where she was. That would be enough to break any case we might bring to bear."

"The drugs in their systems would not look good for us either," said Levin. "The news would have a field day with that."

"You would be famous," said Ben. He finished his drink.

"But not in a good way," said Levin. He finished his own drink, bought another one, and got behind the wheel.

Ben threw their trash in a nearby streetcan. He got in the passenger seat and settled in so he could doze while Levin drove him around.

Maybe he would dream up a solution to the crime on the way to the station. He could make a note and head home to get some sleep.

He closed his eyes, and two seconds later, Levin pushed him against the door. He snapped up and looked around. Their car sat in the motor pool lot behind the station.

"Time to head home, sleepy head," said Levin.

"All right," said Ben. "Give me a minute to get myself back together."

The detective took a few minutes to mentally orientate himself before he got out of the car. Levin got out the other side. The other detective leaned on the roof of the car.

"Are you sure you're okay?," asked Levin.

"I just need to get a nap and get back to work," said Ben. "I'll go over the footage tomorrow, and then we can see where we are regarding the murder."

"Take some time off," said Levin. "We don't have to solve this today."

"If we can get someone we can focus on, we are that much closer to closing this," said Ben. "I have five more cases sitting on my desk that I have to close after this. Those are waiting on some kind of tip to come in, a witness to step up and say he did it. This one can be closed just on the basis of comparing if someone was caught on video, or not. That's all we need to zero in on the guy. Then we can squeeze him until he gives us something we can use."

"I got a few cases on my desk just like that," said Levin. "That's why I have to go around and look for one of my suspects if I can. Someone called in to say he's back in the neighborhood."

"Are you going to look for the guy yourself?," asked Ben.

"Patrol and Fugitive Warrants are doing that," said Levin. "They're supposed to call me when they find him."

"If you need a hand, I'll clear your cases for you," said Ben. "How hard can they be?"

"All right, Columbo," said Levin. "We crack this, we'll go over my cases to see what you can do with your new vitamins."

"Piece of cake," said Ben. "Matter of fact, bring all of your cases to the conference room and I will run a setup for you to see if you missed anything."

"That would totally put my mind at ease," said Levin. "Are you sure you can get home?"

"Yes," said Ben. "I'll be in to get the rest of the sorting done tomorrow, and then we can see if any of the people who hated the Carpenters were on the scene at their drugging."

"We're leaning on the money for a motive," said Levin.

"It's the only thing we have that makes sense," said Ben. "I will see you in the morning. I think we have done everything we could to crack this tonight. Maybe tomorrow will show us our next step."

"I'll be there," said Levin. "Then I'm off."

"I'll have the case solved by the time you come back on," said Ben.

"All right," said Levin. "We'll see how you do without me doing all the scut work."

"Probably twice as fast and better going," said Ben. "I have to go up and look at things."

"I'll file my notes tomorrow while I am looking at the Carpenters' money," said Levin.

"All right," said Ben. "I'll put down no one saw anything on the board so we know we can go back to them if we need to jog memories."

"Tell me about it," said Levin.

The two detectives split up with Levin moving to check out and Ben heading up to the squad area. He went to his desk and sat down. He triggered his mechanical booster and touched his computer.

All the footage was there in a compressed format. He smiled as he examined the machine. Touching it with the Internet had allowed him to alter it to hold everything for the moment. He needed something else to move it into so he could take it down to a computer in the conference room and reset it there.

He could then run the facial recognition from Gwen and use that to spot anyone in the crowd.

Maybe that would be the gamechanger he needed to solve everything.

If there was nothing on the video, he could move on to something else. He didn't have a problem with that. In the back of his mind, he knew that he would have to have some kind of confession. Without a smoking gun, that was the only way he could see to shut things down.

He didn't have anything that looked close to a smoking gun as far as he could see at the moment.

If he could get something solid, then he had a way to ease things together so the prosecutors could slam dunk the case on his bad guy. He would be happy just to get a deal with how this was going.

Drugging the wife and letting her take the blame was something out of a book. Most detectives wouldn't believe that, especially if her system had flushed the grabbed out before she could be tested. She would be the prime suspect, and not even close to being out and about.

His other cases depended too much on the human element. Witnesses and informants needed to come forward to settle things. The places where those murders took place were full of people who didn't want to talk to him.

Snitches get more than stitches in those neighborhoods.

Ben closed his eyes and sorted each of the pieces of film into separate files to review later. He saw the facial recognition software sitting in one corner of the drive. Should he tell it to run across the footage while he tried to get some sleep. He needed to create a file for single pictures, but that should be a snap.

He told the recognition to run and file any hits of people at the various scenes into the picture file. He could look at everything tomorrow with his bigger brain to help him sort things into useful packets of information.

7

Ben got to work and settled in his conference room. If the brass showed, he was going to have clear out. But he liked having the room to think without other people being around.

He checked his computer timer. He had time before Levin showed up to go over whatever the computer had dug out of the video he had streamed over. If he could find something, the rest would be zeroing in and tying their suspect to a story.

He thought about helping Levin with his open cases. He could do something if there were resources available. He couldn't do anything with his own until someone came forward.

He wondered if his new talents could help him in that regard. He might need to unleash his big brain on the scenes and see if his memory was jogged.

Wasn't that how the Cold Case squad worked? A detective got something new on an inactive case, or went over the file until something came to them. Then the case was active again.

He had thought about transferring to that unit, but preferred chasing more active menaces than trying to find someone who might have only committed one crime and stopped. The boosters might help him close those old cases just like it was helping him close this new one.

He wondered if his canine boost could help him at crime scenes. Could he track down a murderer just by smell? He was relying on the brain and the computer options. The others seemed limited in what they could do as far as trying to figure things out.

You had to find the perpetrator before you could set him on fire.

He wondered if Levin would go along with him setting a bad guy on fire. He covered his face with hand. Levin would love to set someone on fire.

It was a good thing that he had the Omni and not Levin. Someone would be put down in the first second Levin had the watch.

He turned on his machine option and looked at the picture file curated by the computer. He frowned at the three hits that immediately arrived together.

He pulled the three pictures to the screen and thought about where they were shown. One was at the first bar the Carpenters had hit at five. The second was at nine halfway down the list they had been given. The third was the dinner party they had attended with their friends.

Why did the same man appear at the edge of the pictures? He didn't seem to be with the Carpenters. Their friends had also been in multiple groups of shots, but the machine had discounted them because they were moving when the Carpenters moved.

It looked like facial recognition had marked this one man down as a person of interest since he showed up, but didn't mingle.

Ben cleaned the most promising picture as well as he could and sent it over to the DMV. He asked their machines there to make a match for him.

He picked up the list of people the Carpenters had problems with from the file Dorman had left on the table. He read the list of names. He commanded the machine to get DMV pictures of them as soon as it could.

All right. All he could do now was wait for the machine to do its work while he waited for an identification of his lone gunman.

He needed a drink, and maybe a candy bar. The booster timed out, but the rest was on automatic. He didn't need the control again until he needed to find out things about the people he was targeting. The potential enemies could have hired his first person of interest to get the job done and disappear before the police tracked him down.

Ben got a soda and bag of crackers out of the vending machines down the hall. The real culprit could be in the crowd pictures with the single man being a minion and ready to kill the couple while they partied.

He doubted he could crack the man to get him to turn on his employer. He might not be able to bring the man in. A simple murder and flight while the police were still looking would hamper any investigation. And he couldn't get an arrest warrant just on a face in the crowd when he had no way to connect his quarry with the victim.

What could he do if he couldn't chase the other man down?

He decided that he needed to identify his suspect. Everything would flow from that.

"How is it going, Ben?," asked Levin as he stepped off the elevator.

"I have a suspect I'm trying to identify through his public identification," said Ben. "We don't have enough for a warrant yet, but it will come."

"You're kidding me," said Levin. He walked to his desk.

"I'm waiting for the recognition to tell me who he is so we can dig into him," said Ben. "I might be wrong, but he seems to have run into our victims at three different places without actually talking to them."

"But you think he is involved?," said Levin. He hung his jacket on his chair, placing his holster in the top desk drawer until he needed it. "Let's take a look at this goon."

Ben carried his snack back to the conference room. He showed Kevin the three pictures of his suspect. The other detective frowned at the stoic man in his suit jacket, shirt, and jeans.

"What do you think happened?," asked Levin.

"We might be totally wrong, but this looks like a hitter," said Ben. "He followed them around and then took advantage. We need to know if that part is true, which means we have options where one of the Carpenters played this guy and he got his revenge, or someone hired him to get rid of his victim."

"And we don't know if this guy is involved in anything," said Levin. "How do we keep him from brushing us off?"

"I don't have a clue," said Ben. He sat down at the table and worked on the crackers and soda. "I guess we'll have to follow Dorman's piece of advice."

"I don't see how a golf club will help us here," said Levin.

"I was thinking more like follow the money," said Ben. "But first we have to figure out who he is."

The computer notified the detectives that it had a match for their new suspect and displayed his current license and address.

"Bob Curling," said Levin. "I don't recognize the name."

Ben put in a search for background and warrants. He frowned when his effort gave him nothing.

"He seems to be clean," said Ben. He printed the DMV photo, went and pulled it off the printer, and pinned it on his corkboard. "Do you think anyone else knows him?"

"We can expect a visit from the Federales with your search," said Levin. "He's not on the enemy list."

"So do we have a false lead, or something worth chasing?," asked Ben.

"We don't have enough to get his reports," said Levin. "We need to get some kind of probable cause to do that."

"We can approach him as a witness," said Ben. "See what he does."

"If he runs, we have no way to stop him," said Levin.

"If he runs, we can move on to the next case, and move this to the inactive files," said Ben.

"Are you really going to do that?," asked Levin.

"I was seriously thinking about stealing his identity and seeing if we could use that for probable cause," said Ben. "But I am open to ideas."

"That is an example of illegal moves that could get us sued," said Levin. "I like it as long as we can get someone else to do the scutwork."

"Let's call Mrs. Carpenter and see if she knows this guy," said Ben. "Then we can start trying to tie him in to the murder. The way the crime scene looked, we're definitely going to have to see if he has experience killing people. We might have to run him through the Federal databases until we get something."

"We might have to ask her friends who were on the crawl with her if they knew him," said Levin. "He might be the plus one."

"We'll look into all that," said Ben. "I also have people that traveled with the Carpenters along each stop. I am waiting on identification before we try to find them and go over identification."

"You've been exceptionally busy," said Levin. "I don't really know what to think about that."

"This thing is going to double back on us, so I'm trying to catch the easy stuff before we go in and explain why we never considered someone's childhood sweetheart," said Ben.

"Got it," said Levin. "I'll let you know if I need anything with these search warrants."

The detectives started making phone calls and serving warrants. By the end of the day, they had several money motives among the party goers, some jealousy and spite, and an almost universal denial of knowing Bob Curling.

Everything was added to the boards as Ben went. He looked at the papers and pictures and cracked his back by the end of the day. Levin and Dorman stood at the table sipping coffee and bottled soda frowning at the amassed paperwork.

"So what do we have?," Dorman asked.

"I don't know," said Levin.

"We have a guy who was at the party that we can't find," said Ben. He stretched one more time to make sure his spine wasn't going to make noises as he looked at the boards.

"Hit me," said Dorman. "The captain wants to know what the holdup is."

"This is Mrs. Carpenter," said Ben. He waved a hand at the section of board set aside for his primary suspect. "She gets all the money. Their acquaintances think both of them were sleeping around. She was on the scene, and the knife was from their kitchen. If we hadn't found the drugs, she would look like the number one lone gun with a bullet."

"Except with the drugs, we don't think there was any way she could dress herself, much less stab someone six times with a knife," said Levin. He demonstrated the angle of attack the medical examiner gave them. "No chance."

"The same motives apply to the rest of the people we picked out from the party footage that we could link with the Carpenters," said Ben. "They either got money, or they were rumored to be doing things with the Carpenters. With one of them out of the way, the flow of either would shift."

"Except for this guy," said Levin. He pointed at the picture of Bob Curling. "We're not sure how he fits in, and no one knows him."

"So we're saying this is our real murderer," said Dorman, seeing the chain of effect immediately.

"There are a lot of questions we need him to answer," said Ben. "The first being why the fake address on his license. The next is what he was doing at the three places he was spotted. And if he had the will to stab someone that apparently didn't know him."

"What are we doing about it?," asked Dorman. He gestured with his cup of coffee.

"I'm running his face through every database I can reach," said Ben.

"And then we plan to pick him up and ask him why he was following the Carpenters around," said Levin.

"I'll get a John Doe warrant ready for questioning so we have that covered," said Dorman. "You guys have got me interested in this guy too."

"If we can crack him, we might be able to put this one in the vault and move on," said Ben. "I think I need to call Gwen and have her go back over the crime scene again. Maybe we can get some DNA to prove he was there. It's our only shot to hook him to the murder right now."

"Do it," said Dorman. "We need whatever we can get other than some pictures to show he was approximate to the victim."

8

Ben looked at the three faces looking at him. They were of the same man, but had three different identities, and none of them seemed real.

He needed another way to find his quarry. He eased back in his chair and thought. There had to be something he missed.

Maybe he should be canvassing hotels and seeing if anyone had seen his phantom. He had to be staying somewhere.

He decided he needed to revisit the scenes of the pub crawl. And he would need a driver who knew about the Omni. An application of his power booster had occurred to him.

He grabbed his phone and threw his jacket over his shoulder. He had to move if he wanted to catch this guy. The only one who could help him was Gwen.

He wasn't ready to tell Kevin about his boosters. He would want to use the capability to grift from the city. Ben wasn't ready to have a bunch of talks about things they shouldn't be doing instead of protecting their people.

Solving murders was tough enough without trying to profit from them at the same time.

"Gwen?," said Ben as his phone made the connection. "Are you busy?"

"What's going on?," asked Gwen.

"I need some help," said Ben. He headed for the elevator. "Can you meet me in front of the station? I need a driver."

"I have a couple of tests I have to wait on," said Gwen. "I'll need a few minutes."

"Take your time," said Ben. "I should grab some snacks while I'm waiting."

"Right," said Gwen. "I'll meet you downstairs when I'm done."

Ben cut the line and sent a text to his partner that he was going out to try to find their suspect. He cut off his phone. He didn't want to deal with questions while he was trying to take care of things.

When he had a target, he would be ready to answer any questions his fellow detective had.

He doubted he would be ready to answer anything, but he would know something one way or the other.

Ben descended to the ground floor. He crossed the lobby with its memorial wall, and floor mosaic of the city seal, and stepped outside. He walked down the block to a drug store. He bought packages of junk food and bottles of Gatorade for the drive ahead.

He was going to be asking the Omni for a lot of help, and he knew that would eat his body up while it was working.

He walked back to the front of the station. He spotted Gwen coming down the street. He nodded as she pulled to a stop to let him get in her Ford. He pulled out one of the drink bottles and a pack of twinkies before putting the bags of junk food in the back of the car.

"What are we doing?," she asked.

"I need to track someone down," said Ben. He settled in the passenger seat. "He has four faces, and no home address. I need to get creative."

"You're going to use the Omni for this?," asked Gwen. She pulled away from the line of parked cars in front of the sidewalk and merged with traffic.

"It's the only thing I can think of to do," said Ben. "Our guy looks solid, but he's a ghost. It implies our victim was professionally hit."

"And how is this supposed to work?," asked Gwen.

"I'm going to see if we can follow this guy with neighborhood cameras," said Ben. "We're trying to find out where he lives."

"All right," said Gwen. "Where do we get started?"

"A bar called Mick's," said Ben. "It's up off Patterson. I'll need a few seconds to scan any wiring, or wi-fi, for what I need."

"And we just follow him back to where he was before he reached the bar?," said Gwen. "It sounds dicey."

"I know," said Ben. "There are a lot of cameras, but it doesn't mean anything if we can't figure out which way he was going. I'm also going to need you to take notes in case we lose him and need to circle back with whatever we do find."

"So you think this will actually work," said Gwen.

"If it doesn't, we haven't lost anything but some time," said Ben. He shrugged. "That's all I got."

"All right," said Gwen. "Let's see how this goes. I'm adding this to the test notes."

"That's fine," said Ben. "But no one can know. I still foresee problems with people who might not care about cutting my arm off."

"I would if you weren't my cousin," said Gwen.

"That's reassuring," said Ben. "Cousin cuts arm off of famous detective for fancy watch. Film at a eleven."

"Exactly," said Gwen. "What do you think is going on?"

"It looks like someone hired a professional hitter to take out our victim," said Ben. "I have no idea why."

"Sounds like a move on the money somewhere," said Gwen. She checked the map on her phone as she made a turn to get on the highway.

"If it is, it puts the wife back in the running," said Ben. "We cleared her based on the fact she was drugged at the scene. She could have drugged herself and let her killer do the job."

"Do you really think that?," asked Gwen.

"No," said Ben. "It's too convoluted for the woman I observed when she was waiting on us in the interrogation room. I would believe she did the murder if she had been awake at the time."

"So the only way to find anything out is to catch this one man?," said Gwen.

"We need a way to tie him to the contractee," said Ben. "I can do that with the mechanical booster, but not without a warrant."

"There's your bar," said Gwen. "What do you need me to do?"

"Circle around until I can grab any outside camera footage, and see which way our mystery man arrived," said Ben. "Then we try to follow him back to where he came from and lock him down for SWAT, or the Fugitive Warrant squad."

"All right," said Gwen. "Let me know when I have to turn."

"We're going to have to take it slow," said Ben. "I don't know how fast I can yank the footage out of the air."

"Right," said Gwen. "How are you going to yank the footage out of the air."

"I'm going to use my phone," said Ben. "It'll load the image on my screen. Hopefully that will show us which way to go."

"I'm ready," said Gwen.

"He came into the parking lot from over there," said Ben. "Go over and take a left."

They drove back toward the center of the city. Ben gave navigational commands as they went. A few times they had to stop to cast around for the trail. Then Gwen got them back on the road toward their ultimate goal.

"Do you think he has a room at the Hilton?," asked Gwen. She eyed the various hotels that formed their own blocks near the heart of the city.

"I have no idea, but he drove into the public parking lot over there," said Ben. "I can follow him on foot from here."

"So he could be in one of these hotels," said Gwen. "I don't think you can search for him alone. I'll go in with you."

"I'm not going to try to arrest him," said Ben. "I just need to see which hotel he goes in so I can search their records for the room number. Then I'll call for backup and let them do the heavy lifting. This guy is too dangerous for me to just rush him. And I'm not risking you. The whole family would ostracize me for the rest of my life. I don't think I could hang on to my badge with this clear violation of laws and procedures. Stay down here and call Kevin. Let him know that I'm trying to find the guy in the hotels and he might need to come down and watch the doors. If we can catch him in his room, that would be excellent. If we can't, we're fighting."

"I'll call Kevin and let him know you're down here looking for your suspect," said Gwen. "Do you want me to drive around?"

"No," said Ben. "Wait on Kevin. I'll text you if I find anything. Then we'll try to think of a way I can get a warrant without revealing what I can do."

"Good luck on that," said Gwen.

"Right now, I am settling on saying that you gave me a phone I can use to copy photos from cameras," said Ben. He grabbed the last bottle of drink out of the car as he got out. "You vicious hacker, you."

"Curse you and your inevitable betrayal," said Gwen.

"Stay out of the way, and keep an eye out," said Ben. "If I miss him, he might come back to get a car to drive off the lot. Just call me, and let him go."

"All right," said Gwen. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"As soon as I find him, I will call SWAT down to handle him," said Ben. "The rest will have to be flown through."

"I'll wait for Kevin to get here," said Gwen.

Ben nodded. He headed out of the lot, sipping on his drink as he let his phone do some of the work. The mental app he had created allowed his phone to locate the camera sources he needed. Anything with a wi-fi connection was hacked almost as easily as holding the phone up to the camera and taking a picture of its insides.

He picked his way along the sidewalk, checking the buildings around him. He didn't doubt some mugger had an eye on him and his phone. He kept his free hand on his belt as he kept walking.

He didn't know if he could draw and shoot someone while he was carrying the modified phone by the handle.

The phone led him to the Ridgemont. He frowned as he entered. His quarry had come in and crossed to the elevator. He didn't remember any victims being reported from the hotel.

He checked the hotel computers, but he didn't see any of the names he had for his quarry. He would have to do things the hard way and head up to each floor and track the man through the cameras until he found the right room. Then he could let Kevin know while he kept an eye on things. The next few hours would hopefully let him get to the end of this case.

He followed the cameras up to the top floor. He checked for the right room as he walked down the hall. He nodded when he found it. All he had to do now was call Kevin and raid the hotel computer for the name of whomever had rented the room.

He knew better than knocking on the guy's door. It was too dangerous to his way of thinking. He didn't know how skilled the guy was, but he had stabbed someone six times just to make sure someone else looked like the murderer.

Who knew if he knew how to use a gun, and had one in his room. It was better to have a group of SWAT guys blow the door and take the bullets.

Ben sent Gwen a text to let her know where he was. He headed back down to the lobby. He could meet Kevin and SWAT down there.

One arrest later and he could wrap this case up and hand it off to the prosecutors.

He needed to make sure Bob hadn't checked out. If he had, all this caution was for nothing.

Ben rifled the hotel computer system when he reached the lobby. Curling hadn't settled his bill yet. That was good. All he had to do was keep eyes on the hotel and make sure the suspect didn't leave without him noticing.

He settled in a chair so he could watch the elevator and front door without moving much and acted like he was watching something on his phone. Unless Bob went out the back, he should be in the perfect position.

It wouldn't be the first time in his career that he had to wait on something to close his case down. It wouldn't be the last.

He frowned as Bob came down with a bag in hand. The suspected hitman aimed right for the desk. He had to do something to keep the man in the lobby.

Ben stood. He put his phone away. How long did he have to stall before Kevin got there? He frowned as he started toward the desk. He decided just trying to be friendly might keep things calmer.

"Bob, is that you?," Ben asked as he kept toward the desk. "I haven't seen you in a while. How's it going?"

Curling took one look at Ben. He threw his bag at the detective and fled towards the front door. Some stranger calling his name was nothing but trouble.

Ben sprinted after him.

9

Ben told his phone to copy whatever it could from Curling's phone. They needed something if this wasn't the right man. He gave chase as his phone chirped along. He put it in his jacket pocket as he reached for his watch.

He needed speed if he wanted to catch his elusive quarry running along the tops of cars in traffic.

His finger twisted the watch face and pushed the button. He felt everything slow down as he sprinted after his fugitive. He pushed Curling over when he caught up but the man jumped to his feet after completing a roll. He turned to face the detective with hands raised.

"Police," announced Ben. "I have some questions for you, Bob."

Curling glanced around. People had scattered during the wild pursuit. Other policemen were not on the scene yet. He could still get away if he could handle this one man.

"Don't do it," warned Ben. "I just want you to come in and answer some questions. The D,A, will probably make a deal if you turn in whomever hired you to kill Carpenter."

Curling sneered at the thought of being a snitch. He would rather cut out his own tongue.

One of the assassin's hands dropped down to his pants pocket. Ben pulled his service pistol and aimed it with the superhuman speed he had been given. A cloud of smoke surrounded them.

Miniature smoke grenade? Who was this guy?

Ben swept his free hand in front of him. The wind pushed the smoke away. Curling had taken the chance to flee. He looked around the lobby, before heading for the front door.

He didn't see the assassin anywhere.

Ben paused long enough to look the street over. Somehow Curling had crossed the lobby and escaped his view before he had swept the smoke out of his way. That wasn't a whole lot of time to build a lead.

Ben decided he should try the dog booster he had been given. That was the only way he could think of other than flying to track his bad guy down. And flying had its own problems with the city being patrolled by the police and the news. His secret would be out before you could say news at eleven.

Ben hit the booster, checking the time he had left on it. He sniffed the air, catching the smell of burned chemicals and Dove moving to the exit. That had to be the scent he wanted. He charged outside and looked around.

Curling had vanished. He was faster than anyone Ben had chased. The detective sniffed the air and loped after the trail he smelled.

The fading fume headed into a nearby alley. He went after it, moving fast with the booster flowing through his veins. He had to catch up before the Omni timed out. He didn't know how long a scent hung in the air, but he didn't want to stop in the middle of the chase and reacquire his target.

A handprint briefly stood out on the wall next to a dumpster. Ben looked up. There was a ladder heading to the roof of the building. Up there, he could go three directions, maybe cross part of the area without coming back to the street.

Ben wished he had his radio with him. He had to call Kevin and get him moving. That was the only way to get backup on the scene. He grabbed his phone. Voice activation chimed for him.

"Call Kevin Levin," Ben commanded it.

The phone chirped before connecting him to his partner.

"Levin," said the other man.

"Kevin, in foot pursuit, across from the Hilton on Vapor," said Ben. "Need backup."

"On my way," said Levin. "Will put a call out. Who you chasing?"

"Bob Curling," said Ben. "He's fast."

Ben put the phone in his pocket without hanging up. He jumped on the dumpster. He jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the ladder. He started up as fast as he could.

He reached the roof and looked around. Curling had already moved to another roof alongside. The suspect ran toward a third roof beyond that. The detective chased after him, glad they weren't exchanging shots as they ran.

Bob was probably the better marksman.

"We're headed along the roofs on Fifth," said Ben, holding his phone. "I think he's trying to reach the lower places so he can get back to the ground and leave me in the dust."

Kevin didn't bother replying. He just needed to know where he was, and where Ben was. Ben didn't need to know where he was, and how he was wrapping around the block to try to get in front of their hitter.

If he cut the man off, then they could make their arrest. After that, they could sit back and question the man at their leisure and fill out the paperwork required.

"Give it up, Bob," shouted Ben as he jumped down on the second roof. He crossed the gravel at a run as Curling ran across the next roof. "I can do this all day."

He almost howled as he jumped across the narrow space to the third roof. The dog booster made him faster and more enduring, just not as fast as the speed boost.

Curling dropped over the edge of the third roof, heading for the ground.

Ben galloped to the edge. The last thing he needed was a dead suspect that had made it look like he had thrown the man to his death. And he needed the name of the contract giver, and a witness, if he could get it.

Flipping the guy might be the only way to clear Mrs. Carpenter for the murder.

He looked over the edge of the roof. Curling ran down the narrow space to the street. The killer didn't look back.

How had he done that?

"Kevin," said Ben. "Curling dismounted the roof and is on the street. He is on Fifth, heading west toward Downtown. He might be looking for a car to boost."

"I see him," said Levin.

"Don't try to take him alone," said Ben. "This guy will kick your butt."

"I got him as long as he stays on the street," said Levin. "If he takes a train, I'll have to chase him through the station."

"Right," said Ben. "I'm going to try to catch up."

"Uniforms will be moving in as soon as we can get into position," said Kevin. "Did you see a gun?"

"No," said Ben. "Don't take any chances. He might be able to take you guys on with his hands."

"I got this," said Levin. "Just ease back."

"All right," said Ben. "I'm going back to get his bag. There might be something in it we can use."

"Right," said Levin. "I'll call when we nail this guy down."

Ben frowned at the thought he was leaving things with Kevin without being able to make sure everything went right. He turned, checking his watch. He still had a few minutes on it. He could fly back to the hotel and get Curling's bag. Once they had that checked in, he could search it for anything he thought was relevant to the case.

He switched boosters and dropped off the roof. He circled back to the hotel, cutting the booster function off. He might need the Omni later, and it would be better if it was at full charge.

And a fully charged speed boost could get him back to where Kevin said he was in a matter of seconds. That was something he already knew from his earlier run across the city.

He needed to call Gwen and get a ride to catch up with the pursuit. He hated that, but he needed to explain things as much as possible to keep his secret.

He wasn't ready to tell the world he had super powers. That would cause too much trouble for his personal life, and the two year deadline would get closer while he was tied down with people wanting to do research on the Omni, or use him to do unacceptable things.

He needed to be a free agent to find out what was coming and fight it if he was able.

And he needed to think about what he could do to keep Gwen safe in case of the trouble wrecking the city.

He walked back into the hotel. Curling's bag was on the desk. He looked around. A crowd stood in the lobby, talking about what had happened.

Ben walked up to the desk and showed his badge. He leaned in to whisper to the clerk to keep things quiet. He didn't need the crowd to go up to Curling's room and look around before he could get Forensics down to look things over themselves.

He moved the bag to the end of the counter. He needed to get things rolling in case Kevin missed.

He pulled out his phone. He looked at it. He had changed it into a supercomputer without thinking about it. He shook his head. He still had work to do.

"Call Forensic lab," he told the phone. He waited for a technician to pick up the phone. "This is Detective Ben Tennyson. I need to have a room gone over for fingerprints and DNA at the Hilton on Vapor Street. I might need the room sealed until the tests are done."

The technician had to ask what room. Ben got the number from the clerk and relayed it. He also told the technician that he had the personal belongings of the suspect in question and he needed them gone over too.

If Curling got away from Kevin, he wanted another way to track the man down and scoop him up.

He hung up when the man assured him someone would be on the way in ten minutes.

"Call Gwen Tennyson," said Ben. He needed his ride when he gave the evidence over to the investigator coming to the scene. He couldn't leave until he handed the bag over.

He wanted to root through the thing himself, but knew he had to start with the information he had looted from the phone first.

And he was going to need some kind of warrant for that.

"Hello," said Gwen. "What's going on, Ben?"

"Kevin is following Curling down Fifth, waiting for backup to take him," said Ben. "I have a call for Forensics to search his hotel room, and I have his bag of belongings. I need a pickup so I can help Kevin and the uniforms if things go bad."

"I'm on my way," said Gwen. "I should be there in a few minutes."

"I can't go anywhere until I hand everything over to the crime scene guys," said Ben. "I would love to have a uniform watch everything for me, but if Kevin takes the guy, this part might be moot."

"I got it," said Gwen. "I'm turning on Vapor right now. I'm in sight of the hotel."

"Thanks, Gwen," said Ben. He hung up. He started thinking about opening the suspect phone warrant. How did he finangle that to keep what he found useful for a prosecution? Maybe Dorman knew of a way.

The information might be the key to the whole thing.

10

Ben secured the bag with the Forensics bunch before heading upstairs to the squad room. He met Levin outside of an interrogation room. The other detective had a bruised face and rips in his suit. He grimaced when he saw Tennyson coming down the hall.

"What happened to you?," Ben asked.

"Bob Curling knows kung fu," said Levin. "When we tried to arrest him, he started kicking our butts."

"That's good to know," said Ben. "I'm glad he ran from me."

"Shockley ran him over and we put the cuffs on," said Levin. He gestured at the closed door. "We got him locked down to the table so he doesn't strangle us and escape."

"That's a good idea," said Ben. "I recovered his bag from the hotel and brought it in as evidence. Forensics is going over it. Crime scene guys are going over his hotel room. Maybe we can get a DNA match and finally get his real identity. Then we're going to have to ask about the Carpenters."

"Do you think he did it?," asked Levin.

"I would be surprised if he didn't," said Ben. "I am going to talk to him. Get cleaned up and take the rest of the night off."

"I'll get cleaned up and come back with my phone book," said Levin. "I have some spare clothes in my locker. I'll be right back."

Ben watched him go. He shook his head. He still had to talk to his murder suspect. He doubted things would go easier with the Vic Mackey Technique being used. He opened the door and stepped inside the interrogation room.

"Hello, Bob," said Ben. He sat down at the other side of the table. "Detective Levin said you attacked him when he asked you to come along quietly."

"I would like to talk to my lawyer," said Curling. He stared straight ahead.

"So you're not going to tell me why you have four different identities?," asked Ben. "I'm curious about that."

"I have nothing to say to you," said Curling.

"I'll have a phone brought in here for you to call a lawyer," said Ben. "There's no way I'm going to allow you to be unmanacled outside of a cell. You've shown yourself too dangerous for that."

"You can't do that," said Curling.

"I'm going to read your rights, then go get the phone," said Ben. "I was interested in who hired you to kill Mr. Carpenter. I can dig it up some other way."

"Doesn't matter to me," said Curling. "I can't talk about a client, or cut a deal. You don't have anything to tie me to anything. I'll be out of here as soon as my lawyer posts my bail."

"Attacking an officer is still on the docket," said Ben. "I'm going to need to know why."

"I thought you were someone else," said Curling. He smiled slightly.

"Okay," said Ben. He pulled out his Miranda card and read the rights from it before putting it away. "I don't know what is going on, but I will. You're not getting away with murder."

"You can't stop me," said Curling.

Ben stood and left the room. He frowned outside the door. He had a minor charge that he could hold Curling on for a bit, but a good lawyer would get him bail as soon as he stepped in front of a judge. He wondered if Curling could get the money for assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.

Could he raid the man's funds with his machine override? That would put a damper on things until some other source of money was revealed.

He still had the phone information he had hacked, but it would kill his case if he used it without a warrant of some kind.

He didn't want Curling to walk without giving him a shot at the mastermind behind everything.

There had to be a way for him to use what he knew to figure the rest of the puzzle out.

"Lawyered up?," asked Kevin. He had changed into business casual with a polo shirt with Police on the back, and khakis. He had a makeshift bag of ice pressed to the bruises on his face.

"How did you know?," asked Ben.

"That's the first thing he demanded when Shockley rolled his car back," said Kevin.

"Do you know what happened to his phone?," asked Ben.

"He broke it into pieces before we could stop him," said Kevin. "I put everything in a bag after the arrest was over. It should be down at Forensics, but I don't know if we can strip mine it for information."

"I want you to call the D.A. and ask for a warrant for the phone's information," said Ben. "Make sure you tell him that the phone was destroyed by the suspect and scraped off the road."

"What good does that do us?," asked Levin.

"He broke it to get rid of any evidence, which could mean he discarded it," said Ben. "If the D.A. can get a warrant for a pile of trash, I can get the information off of it to find the guy who hired him. Then all we'll need is warrants for financials."

"Which means we're back to following Dorman's maxim," said Levin. He smiled before wincing. "I'm down."

"Exactly." said Ben. "Get the warrant. Let him sit. And don't try to take him anywhere without a squad to move him. I'll get a burner he can call his lawyer on. Until then, he can sit in there until we break his phone open."

"On it," said Levin. "Everyone saw us bring him in, so they know how dangerous he is."

"Good," said Ben. He headed back down to the Forensics area while Kevin went the opposite way.

All he had to do was fake fixing the suspect's phone so he could strip it of information that he already had on his phone. How hard could that be?

He definitely needed a warrant of some kind in case the defense tried to say that the phone was not trash, and the police department had no right to look at it. He was not prepared to lose this case over some technical aspect.

It had been brighter than usual for Kevin to scoop up the pieces in the middle of getting his butt kicked.

Ben jogged through the Forensics area to the evidence lockers. If Kevin had bagged the phone pieces, all he had to do was work on them with the Omni. Then he could try to figure out the rest from what he could take and prove to a court.

He signed the broken pieces of phone out with the sergeant in charge of the lockers. He took the bag to an electronics lab. He needed to at least pretend that he could get a signal when Kevin arrived with the warrant.

Gwen and two of her colleagues had the bag from the hotel in front of them. He spotted them as he passed. He waved at her before he let the door close on the lab he was taking over.

"What's going on?," asked Gwen as she stepped into the lab.

"Kevin said Bob broke his phone so we couldn't have it," said Ben. "These are the pieces. I need to be able to access the memory without using my booster."

"We have some guys," said Gwen. She looked at the pieces. "I don't know if they could fix this."

"Call them," said Ben. "We need something we can use, and this phone might be the only thing."

"All right," said Gwen. "We have the bag, and are eliminating trace from my car and you. We think we can tie the bag to the suspect, but we just got started."

"Have you searched it yet?," asked Ben.

"No," said Gwen. "Why?"

"It might be trapped," said Ben. "Tell your guys to call the bomb squad."

"Are you serious?," asked Gwen.

"Yes," said Ben. "Then I need those experts."

Gwen hurried out of the room. Her cousin could hear telling the other technicians to stop until they x-rayed the bag. Then she told them why.

Ben dumped the pieces of phone out on the work table. He turned on his brain booster and really looked at the pieces. He could do something with this, but it had to look more natural than what had burst into his mind.

He could certainly make any information public to anyone who wanted to look at it. He needed to hurry if he wanted to get done before his deadline turned the booster off. The last thing he needed was to get caught in the middle while he was working and lose his brain power.

Ben found the chips and sim card that went with the phone. They were intact which was a big help to him. He grabbed a police laptop from a cabinet and some wires that he could use to connect the chips and card to the laptop. He could feel his intelligence starting to slip away as he finished the last connection. The Omni timed out as the laptop started to read the phone.

That had gone better than what he had thought it would.

Now he needed the technicians to be able to duplicate what he had done so he could take everything to court. Once they had proven the information could be gotten without hacking the phone, he could look for anything that could seal the case.

Gwen came back into the room and walked around the construction of wires and computer parts. She whistled slowly.

"I just need a warrant to look at what's on the chips," said Ben. "Once I have that, I can try to tie Curling with someone the Carpenters knew."

"Kevin called and said he had an electronic warrant," said Gwen. "He's ready for whatever you can find."

"The bag?," asked Ben.

"There was a secret compartment in the bottom, but no traps," said Gwen. "It's getting processed as we speak."

Levin and Dorman walked into the lab as Gwen and her colleagues finished with the bag. She nodded at the notes taken, and she assured her colleagues she would write the report for them in the morning. The bag had to go back into the lockers.

Curling's fingerprints were all over the bag, and the contraband in the secret compartment. A gun charge could be added to the ones they already had.

The electronics people had already looked at Ben's layout. They assured him they couldn't have done a better job, but they could have done it.

"I think all we need is phone numbers," said Dorman.

"That's good because that's all that's on this phone," said Ben. "He doesn't have any kind of Internet contact except for maps where he picked up the Carpenters and went to his hotel from the airport."

"There's nothing better than a professional," said Dorman.

Ben shook his head as he pulled the small list of numbers from the phone and put them on the laptop. Levin wrote the numbers down and put them in his own phone one by one.

A delivery place, a car rental place, a ticket seller from the airport didn't interest them. The last number was answered by a familiar voice. Levin covered his mouth and said wrong number before hanging up.

"What do you think?," he said.

"We need to dig into his money and see if we can link him to Curling before our suspect flies the coop," said Dorman.

"Easy peasy," said Ben. "It's going to be hard to prove a conspiracy unless Curling flips."

"We have to do what we can," said Dorman. "That's why we get the big bucks."

11

Ben and Kevin sat in the conference room with their new information and hoped this would be enough to break their suspect down in a way Curling never would. A confession would be great, but they had enough to tie their mastermind to Curling, Curling to the Carpenters, and a demonstration that he could use violence to clear obstacles.

Either they learned what they needed to know out of this meeting, or it sank and they would have to go ahead without their suspect incriminating himself.

The D.A. would have to do the best he could with what they had discovered. But once an arrest was made, the case was closed, and the detectives could go back to their open cases.

That didn't mean that Ben wouldn't be watching the results of the case. He had put a large amount of work into things. Putting someone that deserved it in prison always made him smile inside.

"Mrs. Carpenter, and Mr. Ordman," said Ben as a uniform ushered the two into the conference room. "Thanks for coming down. We just wanted to clear the air and let you know what we found. A summation of the case that's going to court over your husband's murder."

Ben stood. He gestured for them to sit across from Kevin so he could talk and they could see him moving without worrying what the other detective was doing. He would be more worried if they had shown the same amount of skill as Curling.

"Let's start at the beginning and then I'll tell you what our conclusions are," said Ben.

He walked to the boards and took a minute. He had rearranged things in a more linear fashion he could hand off to the prosecution team when they wanted it. It would make their case easier to present in his opinion.

"All right," said Ben. He tapped the photo of Mr. Carpenter."The victim, Joseph Carpenter, found dead by his wife. He was stabbed six times. The medical examiner thinks the first stab was enough to kill him. The rest was just for show.

"Mr. Carpenter was drunk and drugged. It's doubtful he would have been able to put up much of a fight against his killer."

Ben moved to a section covered by photos of the room, and Mrs. Carpenter's pajamas and slippers.

"As you can see from the photos here, there were no swipe marks," said Ben. He pointed at where the body laid on the floor. "There are no marks on the floor around the body either."

"What does that mean?," asked Mrs. Carpenter. Her lawyer looked like he knew what it meant and he wasn't as happy as he should be.

"If this had been a murder committed in a drunken rage like it looked like," said Ben. "There would be spatter from the weapon as it went in and out of the body. The walls and furniture would have been covered with drops moving away from the weapon.

He pointed at the pictures again.

"Instead there is no spatter at all," said Ben. He indicated the pajamas. "Some of the places on your clothes and on your arms would have the same drop markers. But they don't. Luckily, Detective Levin, or someone else at the scene took pictures before you washed your arms and hands in your bathroom."

"The only spatter we could find was drop down from when you woke up and got your phone to call for help," said Levin.

"And you were drugged too," said Ben. "It's a miracle that you are alive. The murderer could have killed you instead of trying to frame you, the drugs could have mixed with the alcohol in your system, anything could have gone wrong."

Mrs. Carpenter sat back in her plastic and metal chair. She glanced at Ordman. He concentrated on the boards.

"So all of this is our disproving of Mrs. Carpenter killing her husband with forensics and spatter experts, and toxicologists," said Ben. He tapped the relevant section. "So we had to move beyond that to the partying you and your husband were doing."

"We went through whatever footage we could grab at the places you had been, and talked to whomever was there," said Ben. He tapped the picture of Ben Curling at the last party the Carpenters had been attending.

"This guy was at three of the places you were at, but he wasn't with any of your friends, and he tried to remain in the background," said Ben. "His name is Bob. We're trying to physically tie him to your house. It's been a slog so far."

"You think he killed Joe?," asked Mrs. Carpenter.

"When confronted, he attacked a group of policemen and nearly got away," said Ben.

"One of our guys hit him with a car," said Levin. "He's down in a holding cell waiting for trial. Apparently his lawyer couldn't get him bail."

"He had a brand new phone," said Ben. He tapped a picture of a complete phone of the same model as the one he had raided. "It only had four numbers in it when we took him."

Levin dialed the four numbers one by one. He thanked the people who answered before hanging up on them. The fourth number set off a buzzing in the conference room.

"You can answer that if you want," said Ben. "This is the part where we lay everything else out for Mrs. Carpenter."

Ordman pulled out his phone and denied the call. He put the phone on the table.

"So we got warrants for the relevant paperwork and turned some accountants loose on things," said Levin. "Guess what they found."

Ordman glared at him.

"They found that you have been stealing from your clients for years," said Ben. "They also found several notes to your firm asking about the money from Joe Carpenter. Payment to Bob Curling popped up as soon as we looked at your bank accounts, and traced it to him."

"How much did you steal, Matt?," asked Mrs. Carpenter. "Why did you steal it? You made tons of dollars just on commission from us."

"Let me, Mr. Ordman," said Ben. "Mrs. Carpenter, your lawyer has been living beyond his means for a long time according to his records. He needed a fortune to cover that and the only way to get it was to write a fake will and file it so he got everything your husband left you. That would cover his expenses, but you would be out on the street."

"How do you know this?," asked Mrs. Carpenter. She shifted her chair to move away from her lawyer.

"The bank kept records of everything for the IRS," said Ben. "That's the one agency nobody likes to tangle with more than any other. We found the fake will at the Clerk of the Court. Forensics took it apart as soon as we could get a copy of it. The reason we discovered all this is Bob had Mr. Ordman's number on his phone. Once we had that, the rest fell into place."

"Do you have anything to say, Mr. Ordman?," asked Levin. "I would love some kind of confession to the conspiracy to murder charges, and embezzlement."

"I would love for you to cut a deal and implicate your hitman so we have a more solid case against him," said Ben. "On the other hand, the prosecutors might want to cut a better deal with him so they can land you."

"I would like to make a deal," said Ordman. "Otherwise, I would like to see you prove any of this."

"What makes you think we can't," said Ben. "Don't worry. We'll have the D.A.'s people come over and talk to you. They'll want some kind of written statement about your involvement."

"I will be glad to give it to them if they will give me a deal," said Ordman.

"Mrs. Carpenter," said Levin. "Let me arrange for a ride home for you. You're going to have to do a lot of work to recover from this."

"It looks like the first thing I am going to have to do is get a new lawyer," said Mrs. Carpenter.

Levin stood. He ushered the widow out of the conference room. He glanced at his partner before he stepped outside.

"I'm going to take you down to the interrogation room and hand you paper for your statement," said Ben. "I'll request a prosecutor to come down and talk to you about a deal. After that, it's up to the court."

"Sixty Six?," asked Ordman.

"Excuse me," said Ben.

"The guy you called Bob," said Ordman. "I don't want to be in the same cell as him. He'll kill me for making a deal."

"I can see where that might be a problem," said Ben. "I'll let the court know to put you in different prisons."

"That would be a great relief," said Ordman.

Ben ushered him out of the conference room and took him down the hall to the interrogation rooms. He put the lawyer in one. He got a piece of paper for the man to explain himself on and handed it over. He shut the man in and called the D.A.

The boosters had worked better than he had thought. He nodded to himself as he pulled out his phone. He needed to get someone down to the station before his culprit changed his mind and tried to put the blame for his crimes on his hired killer.

Bob, Sixty Six, would kill his former employer if they were left alone. He needed to make sure that Ordman went into solitary until his trial or he made bail. They couldn't lose their soon to be star witness before the trial even started.

Ben put his phone away when he was assured someone was coming down to take Ordman away. He leaned against the wall. How many more cases would he be able to crack before his two years were up.

He decided he would do whatever he could to forestall problems. Gwen would help with his searches. Kevin would help him take murderers off the street. He didn't know what was going to happen, but he would push against that deadline and see if he could buy extra time.

The Carpenters and their money might have been the first link in the chain he had to take apart.

He didn't know why he had been picked but he was going to do his best. There was always going to be someone who needed to be arrested for doing something horrible.

Dorman and a prosecutor arrived minutes later. Ben told them he had asked for Ordman to fill out a statement confessing everything for a deal and lighter sentencing. He was inside waiting on someone to give him that deal.

They opened the door to go inside. Ordman sat in his chair, staring at them. His hands were on the table. His statement said he was never going to court. Froth escaped his mouth.

"This is not good," said Dorman. "We need a medic. What did he take?"

"All of his heart medication," said Ben. He pointed at an empty bottle on the floor. "I doubt the pills were actually heart medication."

"We need to treat this like a crime scene," said Dorman. "Call Forensics, and get the footage from the camera. Internal affairs will have kittens over this."

Ben shook his head at his mistake. He should have emptied the man's pockets. He had lost his one chance to tie Sixty Six to the murder.

He had lost despite solving everything.