Cal, thank God, had decided against an encore and began to help Max clean up the mess.

"Jordan, do you have that Stephenson file with you?"

She still had the smile on her face from Cal's performance when she turned to look at me. Her mouth then formed a perfect O when she remembered the reason why I was there in the first place. "Ah, yes. It's outside in the Explorer. I was thinking maybe we could stop by the precinct and take a look at the police report."

"I'll call down to records tomorrow and request it."

I felt a fleeting sense of relief knowing I wouldn't have to deal with all this tonight with my brother looking over my shoulder. Futilely, I thought I would be able to put this whole thing off until Cal was leveling out at ten thousand feet. I took a long drag off of my beer as Jordan opened her mouth.

"I, ah, made a call this afternoon and requested the file. I used your name, I hope you don't mind. It should be on your desk by now. If we leave....."

I couldn't believe my ears. It was all I could do not to spray the mouth full of beer I had all over the table.

"WHAT!?" I choked out.

Jordan had the good sense to keep quiet.

"You did what Jordan? You know you could me fired for this!"

"Relax" she said scanning the room to see if anyone had noticed my outburst. "I told the clerk you were just doing a courtesy review of the case."

"Great! Just great! Now I'm going to look like an Internal Affairs snitch...Thanks a lot Jordan."

I hadn't noticed Calvin walking up until I heard his voice. "Woody, dude, I could hear you all the way over at the bar."

Jordan saw her chance to escape and took it. "I'll get my stuff and meet you outside."

She dashed away from the table faster then I could catch her. Cal sat down in the seat she had just vacated. "I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and say that Jordan didn't just invite you back to her place. So, where are we all heading now?"

"WE are not going anywhere. I have to go back to the precinct for awhile." I stood up. Cal sprung up next to me like a bobber tied to a fishing line.

"Come on bro...." I knew getting him to just to go back to my apartment and call it a night would have been out of the question by the expectant look that crossed over his face.

"Alright, I'll give it to you as plainly as I possibly can. Keep your mouth shut, your hands to yourself and remember that I have to work there. Don't do anything stupid."

Cal sighed deeply as if to say what's the fun it. "Whatever. Let's go, Jordan just left. "

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We followed Jordan's SUV through the late night downtown traffic and arrived at the precinct. Even at this hour the place was buzzing. The squad room was a bee's nest of activity.

Jordan stood between us as we waited at the desk sergeant's desk to sign Cal in and get him a visitor's pass. I looked around at the variety of people in the room. Blue uniforms and plain clothes alike were busy processing the array of handcuffed suspects. Others were milling about either waiting to be helped or just watching the late night floor show. Maybe it was the stifling heat of the room or maybe it was just the full moon, but something didn't feel right.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a kid that didn't look any more than fourteen or fifteen standing against the wall. His eyes were darting back and forth. He was wearing a jacket. The fact struck me as funny. It had to have been at least ninety degrees in there. Unconsciously, I put my hand on Jordan's elbow.

"Do you see that Wood?" I heard Cal's soft voice off to my side. I focused my eyes on the youth and noticed a knife handle in the waistband of his low- slung jeans.

I pulled Jordan's arm as Cal pushed her towards me. I was holding my breath as I pushed her in back of me.

I looked over at Cal. His body was as tight as un-sprung spring. "Calvin, don't...."

"I got a clean shot. Just by ready to bail my sorry ass out...."

Everything happened in a split second. The kid reached into his jacket for the knife. Cal knocked it out of his hand and tackled him against the wall. If I wasn't so pissed off I would have been impressed. It was pandemonium until the kid was taken away.

Cal ran a slightly shaky hand through his hair when he said "Well, that was fun. Did you plan that for my benefit or is it an everyday occurrence here."

I couldn't speak I was so angry. I stood there opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water.

Jordan pushed through the middle of us and grabbed Cal's visitor pass off the sergeant's desk. "If you two are done playing cops and robbers, I've got things to do." She slapped the credit card sized plastic ID badge in Cal's hand and strode down the hallway towards my office.

I gave Cal one last look that said we were far from done discussing this and followed Jordan down the hall. Cal hopped in step beside me. The look on his face said he apparently had already forgotten the commotion we had just left behind. Meanwhile, I was still trying to forget the picture that flashed in my mind of telling Mom how I got her baby boy stabbed by a wasted gang banger.

Once in my office I was not surprised to see the Stephenson police report lying in my 'In' basket. Jordan's hand shot out and grabbed the folder up like it was the last chicken wing at free buffet.

"Excuse me." Cal said to Jordan as he walked over to my desk and reached for the bottom left-hand drawer. He started unbuttoning his shirt. Jordan only nodded as she stepped aside. Her nose was buried deep inside the file.

"Cal, just what in the hell do you think you are doing?"

Cal turned to me fumbling with the last of his buttons. "What? You don't keep your clean shirts in there anymore?"

I looked over at Jordan who had stopped reading the file to look up at us. Without missing a beat she said, "Yeah he keeps them in there. Just don't screw up that filing system of his. He's already cranky enough as it is."

"What do you need one of my shirts for Cal?" My face must have showed my confusion because Jordan chuckled as she began to read the police report once more.

"Dude, after a night behind the bar I smell like frat boy in Cancun on spring break." Before I could stop him he slung his dirty shirt over in the corner of the room and pulled out one of mine from the desk.

He lifted another shirt out of the drawer and held it out to Jordan. I couldn't help but notice the slight pinking of her cheeks when she shook her head and said "No thank you, I'm fine."

Cal tossed it back in the drawer with a dramatic sigh. "Oh well, it was worth a try."

I realized that somewhere between having been woke up at three in the morning by a ringing phone and staring at gold military flight wings tattooed on my brother's chest; I had lost total control of my life.

"Look here." Jordan motioned me over to look at the police report in her hand. "Some one from the mayor's office called and put an end to this investigation before it could even get started. The police never brought in her business manager in for questioning, who by the way lived one floor down from her. Isn't that a little strange."

I watched Cal pull the half buttoned shirt over his head. It was only then that I noticed out of all my emergency shirts he had to pick the only one that was still brand new. "So what Jordan, I'm sure most eccentric multimillionaires have their accountants with in screaming distance. Just because he lived there is no reason to think he had anything to do with any of this. Amy Stephenson was known as fruitcake." I bit out.

She looked up at me and shook her head. "Woody, I can handle this myself. I'll just put to report back on your desk when I'm done. I really think you need to go home and take a nap."

"Yeah Wood," Cal said walking over to look over Jordan's shoulder at the police report. "You head on back. I'll stay here and help Jordan. She can give me a lift back to your place later. Ok, what are we looking at here."

For a moment I was tempted to just walk out and leave Jordan to this mess by herself. Cal had to go and stick his nose into it. As much as I would have loved to just go home and go to bed I had the makings of Hurricane Jordan and Tropical Storm Calvin merging to become the Perfect Storm.

Cal read over Jordan's shoulder for a moment and asked her to outright hand him the folder. "Help yourself." she said with a chuckle. I was too late to grab it out of his hands as Cal dodged his way back to my desk. He settled in and opened both reports.

I fought the urge to turn on the Weather Channel.

"Brodifacomn... nasty. Was she musophobic?"

He asked looking up at Jordan. She shrugged her shoulders. He had a point. Massive amounts of rat poison in a state of the art high raise would point to a phobia of rodents.

Cal thumbed through the M.E. report. "Termites too? Either she was living in a million dollar dump or she was having a few bad Haight-Ashbury flashbacks."

"Termites?" I had to ask.

"Chordane. It was used for termite control for years until they figured out it was causing some major birth defects. Frankly, I'm surprised to see it this far north."

"What do you mean 'this far north' Cal?" Jordan asked.

"You can buy it down in the warmer climates for the right price. When I was out in So Cal last year crop dusting the owner had a bunch of this crap in his 'special order' stash."

When Cal took the job in Oxnard a year ago I finally thought he had found a real job. Good pay, he could fly airplanes everyday and never have to worry about having to wear a tie. It was too good to be true. He called two months in to the job to say he dropped a dime to the health department on some of the owner's business practices. The guy would buy banned chemicals from areas they were not restricted and smuggle them into the Ventura County. I told him I was proud of him. Cal brushed it off saying he liked fresh strawberries for his daiquiris too much to worry about if they were from fields he sprayed.

"Would you know the stuff if you saw it?" Jordan asked looking expectantly at Cal.

I could feel the nervous tick starting in my forehead. What did she have in mind?

"Sure, dark yellow pool chlorine smelling stuff. Why what do you have in mind?"

"Chemical testing around and inside the building yielded no signs of Chordane."

"Chemical testing? I didn't see anything about chemical testing in there." I pointed to the reports on my desk and then it hit me. "You had them done yourself."

She brushed of my concerns like she usually did. She chose to ignore me. "Mrs. Stephenson was a hermit on top of the rest of her problems. She hasn't been outside her front door in twenty years. Nigel found documents that prove her business manager has a summer home in the Caribbean. He travels there frequently. The case was closed before the police could get a warrant to search his apartment and storage unit in the basement of the building."

"No Jordan, you are going to break into this man's home."

"Don't get your drawers tied in knots farm boy...I don't think he would be stupid enough to keep the stuff in his apartment. We're going to break into his storage unit." She reached into her pants pocket and produced a key. "And it's going to be easy. We have a key."

Cal held out his hand for the key. She dropped it in his hand. "Do you have a flashlight with you or do we need to stop and get one?"

The Perfect Storm had just formed. I just hoped I wouldn't end up on the bottom of the ocean floor like George Clooney.

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Stupid chapter I know...oh well. I'll try better next time. ;)