Sorry, this is just a repost. I noticed some typos in my last post and I forgot that this thing doesn't display symbols...( I'm a perfectionist. Can you tell?) Will post next part pronto, as job interviews went well, caught up with old friends and still have some free time (Oh, happy day!)
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See part 1 for disclaimer.
Part 8
"So, you still haven't told me, Mac," Harm spoke up over dinner, "What exactly does the term 'fugly skank' mean? I'm guessing it isn't nice."
Mac just blushed, slightly.
"C'mon!" Harm laughed, "Surely it can't be that bad."
"Well," Mac noted, "I'd never use it myself, that's for sure!"
"And?" Harm questioned.
"Well, 'fugly' is just short for 'f-ing ugly' and 'skank' basically means the person is repulsive, no better than trash."
"Oo," Harm winced, "Harsh!"
"Yeah," Mac nodded, "Teenagers can be a mean breed."
"Not the teenager I know!" Harm exclaimed, "Mattie'd never say anything like that."
"She would hardly say it in front of you," Mac gave him a scornful look, "C'mon Harm, I'm sure she gets up to a lot of stuff you don't know about!"
"She does not!" Harm huffed indignantly, "She's a good kid."
"So was Cassandra Drake," Mac pointed out, "But don't make the mistake of thinking that you know about everything going on in her life…"
"I do," Harm maintained.
"Whatever…" Mac left the subject at that.
Harm shifted about in his seat.
"I do," he mumbled, not able to sit still.
He was silent for a minute, then asked, "I do, don't I?"
Mac couldn't help the soft smile that played across her face.
"Harm, you probably don't even know the half of it," she broke, softly, adding, "But I know she's a good, sensible kid, Harm. I'm sure that she doesn't get up to half the stuff I did…some of the stuff I used to get up to! Whew!"
Harm just groaned, "I don't want to know, Mac! Please, I'd like to remain in ignorant bliss."
"You have to face reality sometime," Mac told him, "Anyway, as I was saying, teenagers are teenagers. You never know what is going on in their lives. I can't help but think that we're missing something. Everyone says that she was a great kid, that she didn't have an enemy in the world. But somebody must have disliked her, because they murdered her."
"So you're thinking that she was involved in more than anyone will admit?" Harm surmised.
"Perhaps," Mac nodded, "But we've just got to find somebody who will tell us what it is."
"I'm surprised Gemma didn't," Harm noted, "She seemed to be telling us the truth. Cassandra was her best friend, surely she'd tell us if Cassie had been in some kind of trouble?"
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too," Mac nodded in agreement, "My gut instinct is that she didn't know if there was something going on. But if you don't tell your best friend, who do you tell?"
Harm just shook his head, clueless.
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Harm and Mac knew that the secret probably lay with somebody at the school, Cassie spent the majority of her time away from home there or with classmates. They interviewed endless numbers of students, but the school principal was getting impatient with them. He wanted their investigation wrapped up, the kids had important studies to get back to and disruption was something that they didn't need right now, on top of the turmoil of losing a classmate.
"With all due respect, sir, we're going to need more than a day…" they protested.
"I'm giving you two and no more," the strict man told them, "Please, understand that while I have no greater wish than for Cassie's killer to be caught, but I have the well-being of all these kids to think about."
"We understand that, Sir," Harm reasoned, "But we have every reason to think that the key to this case lies with somebody in this school. Cassie had to have told somebody what was going on in her life."
"She was a teenager, Sir," Mac added, "You know better than we do that her peers would have been the most important people in her life."
"Maybe," the man nodded, sharply, "But I'll allow you three more days then I want you to leave these kids alone. They've been through enough over the past few days. After that, it has to stop."
Harm and Mac let out a sigh as they nodded. It looked like three days were as good as they were going to get.
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The three days passed without incident. They got some more information about the other kids at the school who had involvement with Cassandra Drake. In the end, they had two suspects, one strong but the other quite weak.
"Jeremy Baker," Harm summarised the evidence, "Not very probable, seeing as he had to make it back to school in time for practice. His coach saw him at five past seven, just inside the school doors and without a mark on him. Also, he didn't really have much motive to harm Cassie Drake, he liked her and friends describe the sentiment as being mutual…"
Mac nodded and took over, "Lisa Baron, a more probable suspect. She's on the gymnastics team, a competitor of Cassie's. The team coach described the relationship between them as tense and strained, at least from Lisa Baron's point of view. He said Cassie didn't seem to have much of an opinion on the Baron girl. But Cassie was on the senior team, Lisa Baron was on the junior team. Not much separated them in terms of skill, but Cassie just had the edge. With Cassie out of the way, Lisa Baron would have no problem making the more elite team. With that came access to more senior competitions and titles. Also, I was thinking, when we passed the trophy cabinet in the school, where several of Cassie's title trophies are displayed, I think I saw a flicker of something on Lisa's face. And again when we walked past Jeremy. Do you think that there was some more tension there?"
"Could have been," Harm nodded, "If Lisa Baron saw Cassie as a competitor in more than just the gymnastics team then she could have just snapped. But where would a fifteen-year-old girl get a hand-gun? And would she have the strength to do all that damage?"
Mac just shrugged, "I don't know…gymnasts are strong, they have to be, it's a high-strain, high-impact sport."
Harm and Mac had already investigated into the possibility that one of the teenagers could have brought the handgun in from home, but neither the Baker nor the Baron family owned one. Neither did Colonel Drake.
All of this brought Harm and Mac back to the military base.
They set about securing permission to search the personal belongings of some of the officers on-base. They were about to start the search the next afternoon, but were not able to, as they received a call from Colonel Drake's carer, Timothy.
"Hello? Colonel MacKenzie speaking…" Mac answered Harm's cellphone, as he had disappeared for a bathroom break.
"We need to get going," Mac informed Harm, when he came back, a few minutes later, "We've been called back to Brookfield Drive."
They quickly secured a ride out to the Colonel's home.
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"Thank you for coming so promptly," Timothy opened the door to them, ten minutes later, "things have been getting much worse since you were last here. I think that this might be the last chance for you to get something concrete out of Colonel Drake."
"Has he said anything that may help us, yet?" Harm questioned.
"I got a list of Miss Cassie's friends from him, last night," Timothy handed them a long list of names on notepaper. Each one was labelled with how Cassandra knew the individual, whether they were a close friend, an acquaintance through classes or a friend of a friend.
"This is very helpful, thank-you, Sir," Mac told him, "There seems to be a lot of detail here…"
"The Colonel's decline started early this morning," Timothy hastily added, "I called for emergency assistance at eight o'clock."
Harm and Mac saw just how grave the Colonel's condition was when they entered his room. They ailing old man had an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and his breathing was severely laboured. Timothy led them over to his bed and introduced them and Harm and Mac then set about asking the man about some of the individuals named on the notepaper. He shook or nodded his head to some of the questions, but was unable to give them any more detail than that. In the end, it was obvious that the man was tiring.
"Thank you for all of your help, Colonel," they both thanked him, promising, "We'll get the person responsible for this."
The man just nodded, tiredly and lay his head back against the pillows. Before they left, Mac looked back and saw a lone tear roll down the poor man's cheek. They met Timothy on the staircase, where he was mechanically dusting the family photographs.
"Thank you, Sir," Harm and Mac thanked him too, "That should be all…we were able to get some helpful information about Cassie's acquaintances. Colonel Drake seems to be very tired, so we thought it best that we leave him to get some rest."
Timothy just nodded.
"Yes, he's tiring very easily, lately. But it's only getting worse, as time goes on."
"How long ago was Colonel Drake diagnosed?" Mac asked him.
"Not long after Cassandra was born," he told them, "He'd been feeling a little bit shaky, but didn't think that it was anything serious. This was just before Mrs. Drake's cancer was diagnosed as terminal, so it was a very bad time for them, after the happy time when Miss Cassandra was born. I was employed soon after; they were worried about how it would all affect the child. They thought that, when something eventually happened to them, it would be better if Miss Cassandra was cared for by somebody she'd had time to grow close to. Mrs. Drake struggled on for just under two years, and it was the fifteenth anniversary of Colonel's Drake's diagnosis last September."
"And Miss Drake would have come under your care, in the event of her Father's death?" Mac questioned, gently.
"Yes," Timothy answered, sombrely, "the Colonel and the late Mrs. Drake set up a trust fund for her and this house would have passed to her, also."
"And now?" Harm asked.
"I really have no idea," Timothy told them, "Colonel Drake never told me. I don't handle his legal affairs. That task belongs to Admiral Basingstoke, at JAG headquarters."
That was Harm and Mac's next port of call.
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"Sir," Harm and Mac came to attention in his office, "we were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions concerning Colonel Drake's legal affairs?"
They learned from the admiral that nothing had been settled concerning the colonel's legal belongings, in the event of Cassandra's death.
"It just never seemed to be a possibility," he told them, "It was a given that when the colonel died, his only daughter and sole heir would inherit the lot. But if Cassie died? I don't know, we never considered it. Why would a fifteen-year-old girl die before her terminally ill father? I don't even know where the colonel's legal will is. It was in his possession, the last time I saw."
"And Timothy, the carer?" Harm asked.
"I'm sure that he'd have been provided for. He was to look after Cassie, when anything happened to the commander. He's been an trusted friend of the colonel's since the colonel met him during active duty."
"Timothy is military, too?" Mac exclaimed, surprised.
"He was," the admiral nodded, "He retired in his twenties, after his wife and children were killed in a car accident. But he and the colonel kept in touch. When the colonel and his wife were both diagnosed with terminal illness, Timothy came to help out for some time, as he was in the business of caring for the terminally ill. At first just meant to be while the family came to terms with the news and got back onto their feet. But then Colonel and Mrs. Drake asked him to stay, seeing as he got on so well with Cassandra. Timothy said that she reminded him of his own daughters. At the time, Cassie was the same age as his youngest child had been, when the accident took her life."
"So you know Timothy very well, Sir?" Harm asked.
"I'd say so, yes," the admiral nodded, "He is very dedicated to his job, to the family, to his old friend and employer. He once told me that taking care of Cassandra and her father gave him a reason to live again."
Harm and Mac nodded with sympathy. The man seemed to be handling his young charge's death well, but then again, he still had a responsibility to his old friend and employer.
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The next day, Harm and Mac completed their searches of the officer's belongings and came up with many interesting leads. Almost every officer they checked out owned a leather jacket, some of them a pair of leather gloves, too. It was standard in most wardrobes really, but it would take them a while to check whether any of it was faux-leather and more time still to check if any was identical to the item used to gag Cassandra Drake. It was as they opened the last locker on the row, belonging to Private John Kruger, that they did come across something even more interesting. It was a newspaper article, stuck to the inside of the door, detailing the arrest and trial of a teenage boy, who had drunkenly stolen a military officer's car and had driven it into the front window of a flower shop on main-street. Harm and Mac noticed straight away who the young offender was; 'Johnny Kruger,' at the time seventeen years old. What was more interesting was who the officer prosecuting on behalf of the military officer was; 'Colonel James Drake.'
I think we need to get Private Kruger in to talk to us again," Harm and Mac said at the same time, smiling at each other.
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