Chapter 3

"Kono, do we know where Emma Frasier is staying?" Danny asked. His phone was on speaker as he and Steve got back into the car, so they both could hear.

"Give me a minute...looks like her credit card is charged at the Hyatt Inland, a couple blocks from you."

"Thanks Kono. Steve and I are on our way there. Have you found anything out about Frasier?"

Chin's voice joined Kono over the phone. "Frasier moved to Hawaii just under a year ago from California. We have employment history and financial records, everything lines up."

Steve was driving as Danny stared at the map on his phone "Take a left up here," he mumbled to Steve. "What did she do for work? Her boss said she had never been a florist before, and she couldn't afford that house on that salary."

"Her salary in California is from a software company, $86,000," Kono stated. "She had enough saved to get a mortgage on the house here."

Steve frowned as he turned the steering wheel. "Software to floral arrangements? What kind of mid-life crisis is that?"

Danny pointed to a high rise ahead of them, but was looking at the documents that Kono had sent to his phone. "Not even midlife, she's 29. That's a quarter-life crisis."

Chin's voice came on the line again. "Whatever you call it, it's strange."

"Anything else on the intruders?"

"Nothing. They have cleaner backgrounds than she does."

Steve pulled up in front of the hotel. "We're here, guys, I'll call back when we're done." Danny got out of the car, but bent over to look at Steve through the window.

"You getting out?"

Steve gestured to a sign. "It says no parking. And there's no way I'm letting a valet near this. Go find out where I can park."

"You're a cop, this is a cop car, you can park anywhere," Danny said, hand on hip.

"Look around. Do you see a parking spot? All I'm going to do is cause a traffic jam. Now go in and ask the nice people where I can park."

Putting his hands up in a sign of surrender, Danny turned around and walked into the hotel. While he was waiting, Steve looked at the documents on his own phone, trying to find something to quell his nagging gut. Danny came back out of the hotel and opened the car door. "Well, Steve, you're in luck," he said, sliding in. "She checked out after one night and went home."

"She went home? It's an active crime scene."

"Not to mention the smashed door and bloodstains" Danny added.

"Am I the only one that feels like we're chasing her?" Steve said, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

"She's not a criminal, Steve."

"Something's hinky." They swerved around a car, Danny bracing himself against the sliding momentum.

"Why, cuz she can shoot better than you?"

Steve looked over to the passenger seat, not amused. "She talks like a cop, you heard her."

"I heard her reason too, she had a friend who was a cop, so what?"

"So, something was off in her financials. I was looking at them when you went into the hotel. "

"What's wrong with them?"

"I don't know, I didn't have time to find it."

Danny rolled his eyes, not for the first time that day. "When we get there, just try to be nice, okay? Just try. For me. Can you do that?" Steve stared straight ahead at the road. "All I'm saying is, she had three people break into her house, and she watched one die in front of her. Have a little sympathy."

"You think I'm not sympathetic?" Steve asked pointedly.

"It's not that, it's just..."

The two men squabbled the rest of the way to the house, both easing away from the case and letting their brains take a break from the tragedy. Danny got the last word in as they pulled up to the house. "...and that's why you should get an iguana. They are the closest animal you can find with a hide as weathered as yours."

A wry grin on his face, Steve shut the car door behind him. "Finally," he muttered, seeing Emma Frasier outside the house. She was struggling to position a piece of plywood over the rectangular hole in her door where glass used to be. "Ms. Frasier!" Steve called out, jogging over. He caught the plywood as it awkwardly shifted in her grasp and began to fall.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, pushing a pair of safety glasses into her light brown hair. "Commander, I wasn't expecting you."

"We just have a couple of follow-up questions, if you don't mind." Danny strolled up next to him as he set the plywood down. "This is my partner, Detective Williams."

"I remember you both from yesterday. Um, please, come in."

Danny stepped forward, but Steve laid a hand on his forearm. "We can talk and work. Let me help you get this up." Steve picked up the plywood and Danny reluctantly stepped in and help it in place as Frasier picked up dirty, well-used nail gun. "That looks like it's had a good life," Steve said, nodding at the air gun.

"It was my Dad's. I got his whole toolbox." Frasier said, lettering the subject drop. The trio made quick work of the door, and Steve hefted the toolbox inside once they were done. He set it inside the entry hallway and met Frasier's eyes over the bloodstained floor. "Thanks!" she grinned, seemingly overlooking the gore. "I could have lifted that though. I'm strong enough."

"I have no doubt," Steve answered genuinely. Danny rolled his eyes. A few minutes earlier in the car, Steve had called this woman hinky, but the shared toolbox inheritance had evidently erased any suspicion.

Frasier smiled at him, "Let's go out back, there's room to sit down"

"Miss Frasier," Danny began, pulling out a notebook as he followed her outside. "Can you tell us more about your job?"

"At the floral shop? What about it?"

"Have you always wanted to be a florist?"

Frasier blushed, "Florist's assistant. And no, it's not a lifelong passion or anything. Just happened on the first day I moved here. I wanted to get something to make the house look happy, so I stopped in that shop and there was a help wanted sign, and that's all it took." Steve was nodding as Danny took notes. "My boss' name is Lily, she's at the store today. You could talk to her. Do you think this has to do with the store? Is she in danger?"

Danny answered before Steve could get in a word. "She's not in danger. We don't think it has anything to do with the store, but we're checking all the possibilities."

Steve leaned forward in the wicker chair. "Actually, we wanted to know more about you."

"About me? Why? I'm...normal!" The last word raised Danny's eyebrows. Somehow, it looked like Emma Frasier didn't believe her own statement.

Steve looked sideways at Danny, trying to read his partner's mind. "What did you do before you moved to Hawaii?"

"I worked in software, implementation, for a company in the valley." The financial documents they looked at earlier supported her answer, but it was still too vague to be completely trustworthy.

"Why did you leave?"

"I needed a change of pace." They guys waited for a second, seeing if she would elaborate. "My parents passed away. they left me an inheritance and a house, but I couldn't stay there, so I sold it and moved here."

"Why Hawaii?" Steve asked.

She hesitated for a moment. "I always said it was the last place I would go. Too many hurricanes, too expensive, not enough taquerias."

Danny gave her a soft smile. "I know that feeling. I'm from Jersey, and the thing I miss most is the cheesesteaks."

Frasier smiled back. "Why did you come here?"

"My daughter moved here with her mom, and I followed. Never regretted it. Why did you come here, if you dislike it so much?"

"Change of pace, like I said."

Danny sat back, dissatisfied again at the vague answer. He had a feeling in his gut that this woman should be questioned in an interrogation room instead of her backyard. As he was about to ask another question, Steve stood up. "Thank you, Miss Frasier, I think we have what we need."

Danny grimaced, trying to hide it with a polite smile. "Actually, Steve, I had a few-" but he was cut off by his partner's sudden interest in a lean-to shed against the back of the house.

"Emma, do you mind if I look in here?" Neither Danny nor Emma Frasier missed Steve's use of her first name.

"Be my guest. There's a lawn mower and some garden stuff." Steve wheeled out the lawnmower and got on his knees to look at the house.

"Steve, what on earth are you doing?" Danny asked finally with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Siding's mismatched." Steve's muffled voice said. "Look at the joins between the boards. They're regular until they hit the shed, then they start being joined at inconsistent intervals."

"You're kidding me," Danny said. "You better not be taking off this poor women's siding-" Again, he was cut off, this time by a large piece of siding. Danny turned to Frasier to apologize, but she was giggling. He turned to her. "He's going to replace that."

A few more pieces of siding were tossed out, then a minute of some grunting and thumping from inside the shed. "Steve?" Danny finally asked.

A dirty Steve backed out of the tiny shed, holding a locked briefcase. "This is what they were after." He lifted the dusty case onto Emma's clean garden table without a word of apology, but she was too curious about the contents to notice. Using a hand spade he had found in the shed, Steve levered the locks off of the case. It looked as if it had been expensive at one point, but years in the wall had hardened and pulled the leather outer case away from its seams, and the brass buckles had tarnished. Throwing the spade aside, Steve opened the case. "Look what we have here."

Danny and Emma scooted closer. "Money?" Emma asked. She reached for it, but Danny grabbed her hand. There was one bundle of bills in the case, with circulation dates in the eighties.

"Let us." Danny snapped on a latex glove and lifted the bundle, shaking it slightly to clear out any dust.

"There's not much there," Steve said, taking pictures with his phone. "Honestly, I was expecting more."

"Maybe those kids were too," Emma said, glancing back at her house instinctually. "Do you think this is what they were after?"

"There's only one way to know for sure," Steve said. "Let's ask them."

Danny and Steve returned to Five O headquarters with the new evidence, and took some time to walk through Frasier's financials while they ate lunch. "What do you see?" Steve challenged.

Danny ran his hands over his face. "Nothing! Like you said, it looks normal. Taxes, 401k, savings…I don't know what you want me to see."

"Something's off…seems like on every other case there is something missing in the finances, it's never this…complete."

"So, she manages her finances well. Nothing weird about that."

Steve displayed some files on the big screens. "Look at these paycheck records. When I look up Fulton Tech Inc., there's only one record of Emma working there, an employee ID. It's not a huge company. Her paychecks came from this company, Utilimuse…Different company, and no ties to Fulton that I can see. In fact, it looks like a shell company."

Danny nodded. "Right. But Fulton is a legitimate company, why would they use a shell corporation to pay employees?"

Steve shook his head, without answer. "She's gotta be hiding something, Danno. There's something we're missing."