A/N: Okay, I really hate to do this, but please consider the following a warning; if anyone tells me what to do with this -- I don't mind suggestions, in fact, I LOVE suggestions, buit I'm talking all-out command -- I'm afraid I will have to kabob you. Which involves slicing you up into little pieces. Thanks for your time.
By the way, Curiosity Inc., I am not getting rid of Brewster. You're the only one who has a problem with him, and just because he hasn't done anything particularly important by chapter four is no reason to hate him.
This chapter is dedicated to luvlyGRLofLIFE, Aelimir, and WolviesLover, who literally made my day.
Detective Ackerly-Tate and his assistant did not consider further contemplating the wonders of Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow. Friday knew, as only a person's secretary could, the effects that conversation would have on the rest of the case. She could live with baby-talking, kitten-loving, yarn-knitting Brewster, but a mortified mass of neurotic twitching would wear more on her nerves. They did some minor sightseeing, including a stop for dinner at a place called Rob's Diner. They parted ways when they reached the hotel, Friday headed off to have a shower and read a paperback novel she had picked up at a grocery store. The only thing Brewster was able to plan on, however, was nothing.
He tried to watch television, but the remote control was large, and rather complicated. He tried staring out the window at all the people on the streets, and the women -- seemingly as bored as he was -- standing on street corners. He tried reading the Bible that the hotel had so thoughtfully provided, and although he found some of the Psalms particularly inspirational, his attention continued wandering.
He began thinking. This, of course, was very odd behavior for Brewster Ackerly-Tate, who thought as little as possible and never regretted it a day in his life. But... something was happening inside his head. A funny sort of whirring noise was heard in the background of his mind, and as the whirring continued, an idea popped into his head.
Miss Lawrence mentioned earlier that the Criminal and the Victim might have been... romantically involved, Brewster told himself as the gears in his brain turned, slowly but surely helping each thought process to happen. She said that... er, what was it? ...That they might be living together. Ew... BUT, she's... Right... His eyebrows lowered, falling out of distance from the rather shaggy curls that hid them when his hair wasn't combed. ...And - and if a couple was trying to hide, they'd want to be in the most diverse place possible...
He stood up and left the hotel room without a single consideration as to what his assistant might be doing. She was, of course, just next door, and he didn't see any harm in going to ask her a simple question about the most populated state in America. He had hired her, after all, because she was incredibly knowledgable in all things that he was not (which was very nearly everything, but he didn't want to think about that). He hadn't hired her so that he could have a source of information and never put it to good use.
He wondered, very briefly, why she hadn't been some sort of Professor or Doctor.
He knocked, and nothing happened. He knocked again, waiting very patiently for the answer to his question. He had to knock two more times before he got an answer.
"What do you want, Detective?"
Brewster paid no attention to her aggravated tone. He could only think of how intellegent she must be if she knew it was him.
"Miss Lawrence, dearest," Yes, butter her up before you ask the question... "I believe I've had a theory concerning the You-Know-Who's."
The girl on the other side of the door sighed deeply and let him in, setting her book down on the night table. Happiness, it seemed, was to be prolonged another few minutes.
Lizzie Sparrow was not at all happy. The webpage in front of her was not something she had ever wanted to see, and although she had never questioned the mountains of money Jack brought home every once in a while, she somehow felt horribly decieved. A piracy corporation? That explained the film reels and other things that had been delivered before they had left for the Caribbean. Hadn't he admitted piracy on top of Caesar's Palace? She couldn't remember. She had been dangling over the edge of a very tall building.
She knew, of course, that Jack wasn't the ethical sort. Or that any sort of morals he had stowed away inside of him would ever influence his financial wellbeing. This just seemed too... too Dastardly, when coupled with the fact that he never told her anything. Perhaps he had a woman in his "office" with him, too! Imagine the scandal...
She stood from the computer desk, anger very much overwhelming her tiny frame. Marching over to the door of the closet which housed his work space, she began pounding methodically on the door, hoping to splinter the wood.
Unfortunately, she had never been that strong.
"What do you want?" she heard Jack's voice say, sounding quite enveloped in whatever he was doing. This, of course, only provoked his dear wife to further anger.
"Jack, you come out of that closet this instant!"
"I don't think that'll please you very much, darling,"
Oooh, he's so infuriating! Lizzie thought venemously. So damnably putrid!
She shouted the first thing that came to her head. "Oh, you bloody Pirate!"
And with that, she grabbed a nearby nine-iron Jack had brought home from a pawn shop -- he had hoped to wire it into a lamp -- and began beating frantically at the door. Needless to say that the golf club, combined with her anger, increased Mrs. Sparrow's strength considerably.
Friday Lawrence couldn't believe her ears as she listened to her employer speak, innocently rattling off all the conclusions he had drawn in his time alone. She was surprised because it actually made sense. If one was trying to hide, he had reasoned, one would go to the biggest or most differing area one could find. For once in all the time she had been working for Brewster Ackerly-Tate, she did not want to smack him upside the head with a brick.
"...So, I was wondering," he finished, his voice getting softer, "Er... Do you know what the most populated state is?"
"California, I believe," she replied, not really needing to think about it. "But that is just a bit too close to Nevada,"
"Well, what about on the East Coast? That's very far away from here, if I remember correctly..." He looked at her hopefully. "Isn't New York over there?"