Author's note: Sorry about the delay! I had to give my muse a few kicks in the butt before she woke up again, but never fear! She is awake now and working madly!

There would be no handcuffing Mike Teavee. It was technically possible, of course, but about as useful as handcuffing an octopus. In fact, it quickly became clear that all normal police-issued restraints (and even most improvised restraints) would do little to keep Teavee from escaping if he wished. Fortunately he'd been stunned by the impact of rebounding the entire length of the squad room long enough for Nick to improvise a solution…

Brass entered the interrogation room where Teavee sat sulkily, his back bowed and his long arms vanishing beneath the tabletop. The police chief paused contemplatively, and then leaned over to peer under the table, where Teavee's wrists had been tied in a perfect square knot through the legs of the table. He straightened up, shaking his head in disbelief, and offered Teavee a fatherly smile.

"Comfy?" he asked.

"I'm sure there's a law against this somewhere," Teavee responded acidly. His vocal cords were apparently every bit as rubbery as the rest of him, and the timbre of his voice was slightly spasmodic.

"I doubt it," Brass replied, "Coffee?" He offered Teavee one of two paper cups he had with him. Teavee glared. "I'll just leave it here, then." He set the cup of coffee in front of Teavee. "I tell you, you made quite a mess in the squad room, Mr. Teavee. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. I've never seen anything like it. You have probably become the highlight in the careers of many police officers."

"Glad I could entertain you," Teavee growled.

"You know what would really entertain me?" Brass asked as he took a seat across from the rubber man, "See, we already have pretty convincing evidence against you for the candy store firebombing – not many people leave fingerprints like yours, kid. So, you can make things easy on yourself if you just tell us how, and why."

Teavee said nothing.

"That's okay. You're perfectly within your rights not to say anything. I'm sure your accomplice in the next room is getting ready to roll on you any minute."

Teavee remained silent, but Brass' trained eye caught the tiny signs – the slight stiffening of the back and shoulders, the microscopic widening of the eyes – that showed he'd hit a nerve.

"She wouldn't," Teavee finally said.

"Well, we'll just see about that, won't we?"

"What's this?" Veruca hissed at the cup of coffee Nick offered her. She was, to put it mildly, Not Happy to be there, and felt no qualms about making this fact known.

"This is called 'coffee,'" Nick explained with exaggerated patience, "Which I offered you and you accepted." He set the cup in front of her, but she puckered her mouth in distaste. "My humblest apologies about our lack of a latte machine. I'll bring it up at the next budget meeting. Until then, this is all you're getting."

"I'll have you know I'm filing a complaint against this department as soon as my lawyer catches up."

"You can go right ahead. I'm sure he'll ensure a Starbucks in every precinct. But for the time being, we have a few more important things on our plate than your coffee."

"You know," Veruca said, "Ever since I inherited Daddy's peanut empire, everybody's wanted to get a piece of the pie. My competitors are always digging up dirt on me to try to smear my reputation, the tabloids are interviewing old boyfriends for their next big scoop, and generally the media won't leave me alone. I'm really quite getting tired of all this harassment. All I want to do is go back to New York and attend to my business, so I certainly hope this won't take very long, Mr. Stokes."

Nick looked at her for a long moment. "I'll get right to it, then. Do you own any white mink coats?"

"I own five. Why?"

"Genuine article?"

"Of course. Are you one of those anti-fur activist who's going to spray-paint them?"

"Listen up, princess, right now I don't care how rich and successful you are, or how many mink coats you own. However, any fur coats you brought with you to Las Vegas are currently being confiscated and analyzed in our lab. And I just bet you wanna know why."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"Because if there is any chocolate on any of them, you will be arrested and charged with murder. I bet the tabloids will just eat that up, huh?"

"Murder?" Veruca blurted, "Murder of whom?"

Nick took out the morgue photo and set it in front of her. "Charlie Bucket. The guy who stood between you and the chocolate factory."

Veruca glanced down at the photo, and then recoiled as she recognized the face. She looked up at Nick, white-faced.

"See, what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas," Nick continued.

Veruca burst into tears.

Mike, meanwhile, was recovering from a spasm of uncontrollable laughter.

"You really think I'd work with Veruca!" he finally choked out, "I wouldn't share a bus seat with that spoiled brat, let alone plan a firebombing with her. She got on my nerves during the tour. I was happy to see her mobbed by squirrels and thrown down the garbage chute. She deserved every second of it. I wouldn't even cross the street to piss on her limo."

"So you deny any part in the firebombing?" Brass asked.

Mike scoffed. "The security on that place was so lax I could have robbed the place blind if I wanted to."

Brass frowned. "Okay, I'm confused. You admit to the bombing but you deny working with Miss Salt to do it?"

"Do I get a deal if I talk?"

"Only if you tell us who you were working with."

"What makes you think I was working with someone? You think I can't pull this off by myself?"

"Well, you don't exactly blend in with a crowd. Not many people around here are twelve feet tall and made out of rubber. And, quite frankly, I don't think you're smart enough to plan something like this by yourself."

"Trust me, building a bomb is easy," Mike retorted, "They have directions all over the internet… the Anarchist's Cookbook, that sort of thing. And I majored in chemistry in college – so I could improvise if I had to. Obviously I couldn't take anything with me because it wouldn't fit through the mail slot…"

"Hold on," Brass said, putting a hand up, "Before we go any further, this is starting to sound more and more like a confession. Did you understand your rights as they were read to you when you woke up?"

"Of course I understood them. I hear them all the time on police dramas. I have the right to be silent, and I have the right to a lawyer."

"Do you want a lawyer? You realize that arson is a felony, right?"

"Once I file a lawsuit against this precinct for police brutality, you won't be able to make any charges stick. I know my rights. Throwing a man across the room and then tying him to a table cannot be construed as 'minimum necessary force' by any definition."

"I think once the judge sees the surveillance tape of you stretching to three times your body length, he might disagree."

"Whatever."

Brass frowned. Cocky bastard.

Nick wasn't sure if Veruca's tears were genuine or the crocodile variety. Still, he wouldn't get anywhere if he assumed wrongly, so he tried the opposite tack.

"You know," he said, "You might feel better if you get this off your chest. Confession being good for the soul and all."

Veruca blew her nose, and then looked up at Nick with red-rimmed eyes. "I couldn't have killed Charlie," she said, "I loved him."

"Whoa…" Nick held up his hands. "Back up. Say that again?"

"I don't think Wonka really understood that his apprentice was growing up," she said, "I mean, the man never left his factory. He'd send Charlie out on errands so he didn't have to face the world. I think he knew that was changing, and it may have scared him a bit."

"So, how did this start, then?" Nick couldn't believe, from the information he had about Veruca and Charlie, that such a relationship had a snowball's chance in hell of developing, but the more he got her talking the deeper the hole she would dig herself.

"We met at a snack foods conference last year, in Berlin. Daddy had just passed on, so it was up to me to represent Salt's Peanuts. I saw Charlie there, in a bright purple suit and holding a German phrasebook, fumbling his way through the simplest social interactions. Now, I know I was a horrible little girl ten years ago, but that was then. I decided to help him out… and we hit it off."

"I bet that pissed Wonka off, his apprentice dating the woman whose father tried to sue him into the ground."

She glanced away demurely. "He never knew. We were careful not to meet up in London. It was more of a long-distance affair than actually dating."

"So what was in it for you?" Nick probed.

She looked sharply at him. "You act like you've never had any forbidden affairs in your life. It was the thrill, mainly, of being able to escape the public eye and go somewhere nobody can find you, a place that you can share only with one other person…"

"So, tell me what happened on the fourth of July."

"Nothing happened."

"We have witnesses who saw the two of you arguing in the candy store."

She frowned. "But who… oh. The Oompa-Loompas were there. No wonder he was trying to hard to get me to leave. And here I thought he'd found somebody new in Vegas."

Nick smirked. "What, choose someone else over sweet little you?"

She scowled. "You should be talking to the woman he had an appointment with after me. She'll tell you I left him alive."

"Okay… do you know who she was?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Of course I do… even though she's New Money. Brenda Lee Teavee."

"Teavee? As in Mike Teavee?"

"You trust her?" Warrick asked Sara. The two of them were watching Veruca's interrogation from the adjoining observation room.

"About as far as I can throw her," Sara replied, "But if we don't follow up on potential leads…"

"Reasonable doubt." Warrick grimaced. "I have to tell you, I like her for this."

"Tell you what – I'll go check to see if Greg's found any chocolate on the poor little rich girl's fur coats. If he has, all the reasonable doubt in the world won't keep her spoiled butt out of prison."

"Right."

She left. Warrick went to the observation room overlooking Teavee's interrogation and knocked on the two-way glass. Brass glanced up, excused himself, and went to the door.

"What's up?" he asked once the door was closed between him and Teavee.

"What's Stretch Armstrong got to say?"

"I'm learning a lot about homemade explosives. We can nail him on the bomb charge, easily. He seems almost proud of it – but he still won't give up his accomplice."

"Ask him about Brenda Teavee."

"Who's that, his mom?"

"I guess so. Miss Salt said Mrs. Teavee came in as she was leaving the candy store."

"Might be interesting. How's Greg doing on the coats?"

"Sara's checking on that now."

"Good. Keep me posted." Brass went back into the interrogation room.

"Still don't believe I could have pulled this off?" Teavee snarled, "Really, with a little application of chemistry, a retard could have blown the place up."

"Oh, I believe you," Brass said, "Right now I'm just wondering where your mom is right about now."

"She's in Indiana," Teavee said guardedly, "She went to live with Gran and Pop after the divorce. You leave her alone – she's got nothing to do with this."

"Divorce, huh?" Brass frowned in thought. If Mrs Teavee was in Indiana, then she couldn't have anything to do with this. She probably wouldn't even know about the Emporium. Unless…

"Did your dad ever remarry?"

Teavee wrinkled his nose. "Two months later. I couldn't believe it. He'd always said he loved mom, but the second she was out of the picture, he hooked up with that peroxide-poisoned Barbie doll… and I just knew she wanted the money he made off of Wonka stock. It pisses me off."

"Really? What's Barbie's name, by the way?"

"Brenda Lee Beauregard." Teavee appeared to take great pleasure in not acknowledging her new married name.

"Beauregard? Any relation to…"

"Yeah. Violet's mom. She turned into a complete nutjob, too, always talking about how Wonka turned her beloved daughter into a purple circus freak."

"Any ideas where your stepmom is right now?"

Teavee sighed in exasperation at the collective foibles of everyone older than him. "Last I heard, she talked Dad into taking her on a tour of Europe. They're probably around Scotland right now. Why?"

"The Las Vegas Police Department appreciates your cooperation, son."

"I'm not your son," Teavee growled, but Brass was already gone.

End of Chapter 14.