"That print must have been warped by the explosion," Sara reasoned, "You saw the door."

"You've been collecting evidence longer than I have, Sara," Greg replied, "What does your gut tell you?" His fingers were dancing across the keyboard of a computer terminal in the lab as he searched the newspaper archive. "Time to set the Wayback Machine to January and February 1995… Mike Teavee… Search." He clicked on the appropriate button on the screen. While the program searched, he turned to Sara. "Well?"

She thought about the elongated print they'd found on the mail flap. There was anatomically no way that a finger could be that long, barring an episode of Ripley's or the X-Files. And yet, the print didn't look distorted or smudged at all…

The computer chirped at them. On the screen were a handful of hits.

DETROIT BOY FINDS FOURTH GOLDEN TICKET, the first one read, quantifying it with the subtitle, "'It Was a Piece of Cake,' says young Mike Teavee."

CHOCOLATE FACTORY OPENS DOORS FOR TOUR, proclaimed the second one, "Five lucky children offered historical opportunity to see inside fabled factory."

CHARLIE BUCKET WINS GRAND PRIZE, screamed the third one, "… but what of the other children?" This one came with a link to a jpeg. Greg clicked on it, and the computer obediently showed them a copy of the picture that had accompanied the article in the London Times.

Sara frowned at the photo. "Something must have gone weird when they scanned it," she said, "Those two kids on the end are all messed up, see?"

"I don't think they are," Greg said carefully.

"Well, look – she looks all blue and he's all stretched out."

"But look at their parents. They're fine."

"You mean that isn't a scanning error?"

"'Witnesses were puzzled by the state of the four children who exited the front door of Willy Wonka's legendary chocolate factory in the early afternoon hours of February second,'" Greg read, "'Especially the curious condition in which Violet Beauregard and Mike Teavee had emerged. Miss Beauregard was the most peculiar shade of blue, and Master Teavee was over ten feet tall, having apparently been stretched like taffy by some apparatus. Their respective parents had no comments to offer, and they declined requests for interviews.'"

Greg looked up at Sara. "Now do you believe me?"

"But that's… impossible!" she protested, "There is no way to stretch a human being to twice his normal height without killing him!"

"And there's no way to make a Gobstopper that lasts forever," Greg returned, "And there's no such thing as little gnomes running a chocolate factory. And there's no way candy could make the mass spectrometer go haywire all over the lab. And—"

"Okay! I get it already! What do you want me do say to you, Greg?"

"Just tell me you're willing to believe in magic just long enough to help track down a twelve-foot-tall man."

Sara rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then raked her fingers through her shoulder-length hair. "This is going to come back and bite us during the Crime Lab's next audit, you know," she said.

"Not if we can get pictures to prove it," Greg grinned.

"I only have one last problem," Sara said, "A twelve-foot tall man doesn't fit with what we have so far. Our witnesses didn't see anybody like that – and they seem reliable enough that they would have remembered it."

"I know," he said, gloomily, "And I can't see anyone like that wearing a mink coat in July for the hell of it. He might have come into the picture later."

"Or the print might be a coincidence."

"We'll know once we ask him – and I'd like to find out what Veruca Salt was doing last night, too."

"Hello, my name is Dr. Grissom, with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Is this Doris?"

"Only half an hour on hold," Pierce remarked, "She must be in a good mood today."

"No, I'm not a medical doctor… I'm a forensic scientist, since you asked."

"What sort of background do you have on Charlie Bucket?" Catherine asked.

"Good kid, basically," Pierce said,"Never got in anybody's way. Poorer than dirt, though. But by all accounts he was an angel. Good heart, that sort of thing."

"Any brothers or sisters?"

"Only child. Raised by his mum and dad. All four grandparents lived with them, all in a house you couldn't swing a cat in. The grandparents have since passed, but I think both his parents are still alive."

"Is Mr. Wonka available today?" Grissom asked. He was on a desk phone rather than his cell.

"I'd like a chance to speak with them, to let them know what's happened," Catherine said.

"That'll be a problem," Pierce said.

"Why's that?"

"Same reason it's so deucedly hard to talk to Wonka. See, once Charlie came on as his assistant, Wonka had the whole family moved into the factory – house and all. I mean, they go out once in a while, to get groceries and the like…"

"No talkee Wonka, no talkee the Buckets."

"Pretty much."

"No, I'm afraid six years from next Tuesday is not okay for me," Grissom deadpanned with deceptive calm, "This is rather an important matter, Doris. Yes, more important than coming up with a new flavor of taffy that doesn't explode in the mouth – but I certainly appreciate his efforts in that matter, and I do appreciate his need for solitude while he irons out the wrinkles."

Catherine exchanged a glance with Pierce, who shrugged. "Lord knows what goes on in there these days," he said.

"Well, I know how hard it is to make progress in difficult projects," Grissom said to Doris, "So if you would just take down a message for him to call me as soon as he has a free moment?" He gave the number at Scotland Yard, then added, as if by way of an afterthought, "And be sure to let him know that the new Wonka Emporium in Las Vegas was firebombed sometime last night." He jerked the receiver away from his ear as Doris shrieked loud enough for both Catherine and Pierce to hear her. It was a brief exclamation, probably something in the "WHAT!" category, and presently Grissom put the receiver back to his ear. "Sorry, what? No. No, he wasn't. I'm sure. Yes, I'll hold."

He glanced at Catherine and Pierce with his brows raised in a look of quiet satisfaction, like a cat who has just drunk a saucer of fresh milk.

"That man could talk a bomb out of exploding," Pierce remarked quietly.

"Not always," Catherine conceded.

"Tomorrow afternoon at two?" Grissom glanced at his watch, which was the sort that automatically reset itself to the local time zone. "That should be fine. Thank you very much for your help, Doris. The Las Vegas Police Department appreciates it." He hung up the phone.

"Dr. Grissom, I quite think I have finally seen everything," Pierce said, "Just how the hell did you manage to do what my entire department, five factory inspection departments, 300 representatives from various religious groups, and two Scout troops failed to do?"

"I play chess," Grissom replied, "And now, if you don't mind, Miss Willows and I have had a long flight and would like to get some sleep before meeting with Mr. Wonka tomorrow.

Pierce could only shake his head, chuckling in disbelief, as the two Americans left.