Major Crimes

Rusty's High School

Rusty couldn't wait to get out of class. Chess got cancelled, so he had some time to kill before Sharon came to take him home. As he walked out the doors of the school, he saw a group of kids with signs across the street. "God Loves Everyone." "No Glove No Love" They wore all kinds of colors and had buckets. When he got closer, he saw that they were giving out condoms to students as they walked by.

Some kids stopped for condoms and left. Others took flyers as well. The parents were not amused.

Rusty saw their ringleader. He was pretty damn hot, about 5'9, dark black hair, big brown eyes, black rectangular glasses, an athletic build, pale skin and a very toothy grin.

Kyle knew when he was being checked out. He liked what he saw. "Hey there." He handed Rusty a bag . Their eyes met.

"Hey yourself. It's a pretty brave move, right across the street from Stalag 13."

Kyle laughed. "We're on a public sidewalk. I know my Constitutional rights."

"I'm sure you know a lot of things. I'm Rusty."

"Kyle. This is Becky, Tamika, Sue, our faculty advisor, and Akio."

Rusty had forgotten Kyle's friends. They all looked different from each other, kind of like the United Nations.. It's not so often that you see a short little white girl, with a big black girl, a goth chick, a teacher, an tall asian man and a beautiful gay white guy all in a group.

"What brings you all here?"

"A lot of teens don't have the proper education and resources to make competent choices about their sex lives. To make matters worse, there are institutions determined to keep them in the dark with dogma and abstinence only education. We bring information to teens, so if and when they choose to have sex, they know what they're getting into." Becky gave their normal spiel.

"Did you have that memorized?" Rusty laughed

"Pretty much."

Tamika handed the a girl passing by a pink bag.

"How come I got blue?" Rusty asked. He always thought gender roles were dumb.

"The pink ones have the morning after pill. If you think you might get pregnant..."

"You don't know me."

Everyone laughed at that.

Rusty looked though his bag, condoms, lube, a pamphlet, an equality cookie in plastic wrap and gum. "How long have you all been doing this?

"This is our first time here," Sue answered. "We started at our school, Riverside High, two years ago and last year started giving presentations at the local middle schools. Then, we decided to hit the streets. Then we could reach even more people."

"We're also co-sponsoring the home coming dance next month," Tameka added. "I'm also on the step team, and we will be performing at half-time."

"What's a step team?" Rusty had no idea what that meant.

"What!"

Before Rusty knew what was happening, step was happening. Tameka was clapping, stopping, and dancing about. Rusty had no idea how she could do that on command, but she was pretty excellent.

"I'm on the step team too," Kyle join. He started stomping his feet and wiggling about, clearly he was not on any step team and never would be.

"Hater's gonna hate," Tamika said as she flipped her hair.

The headmaster was not amused. He had received complaints from the parents and came outside.

"What are you all doing out here?"

"Exercising our First Amendment Right!" The group said in unison.

"This is a private high school. You will need to leave."

"Well, it is not," Sue answered. Across the street is a private high school, but we are on a public sidewalk. We don't have to go anywhere."

"We can see what the police have to say about it."

"They will say what I just said. This is a public sidewalk," Sue was not afraid of a stuffy old man who probably hasn't gotten any in this era.

The headmaster walked away. He needed to contact legal and see if they could do anything about this.

After he left, Sue said, "We were heading out anyway, but I didn't want to give him any satisfaction. There's a charter school that gets out in 10 minutes." The grouped grabbed their stuff and hopped in Sue's SUV. They drove down to the school. Rusty sat next to Kyle. "So what do you do when you're not exercising your First Amendment rights."

"I'm captain of the wrestling team, and I volunteer with Street Law. I also like long walks on the beach," Kyle said with a smirk.

"Aren't you a romantic?" Rusty snickered. What a tool, he thought. What a perfectly crafted tool.

"What do you do all day other than listen to dogma disguised as education?"

"I play chess."

"A real man of action."

"All about strategy."

"Strategy. What are you planning?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Rusty smiled. He was hoping to see more of this guy.

"We're here," She yelled. They climbed out the car, and began giving out their goodie bags and waiving their signs.

The kids at this school flocked towards them, taking a bag and making off like bandits. It was only 15-20 minutes before they were all out of supplies.

"I should have bought more condoms," Sue muttered.

"That's what she said," Kyle snickered. "They all laughed.

"Time for Pizza." Akio said.

"I should have asked before," Sue lamented. "Rusty, would your mother be alright with you coming with us?"

"I haven't seen my mom in three years, so I doubt she'd care." Everyone's face fell when he said that. "I live with my Aunt Sharon, I'll ask her." Rusty didn't need to tell all of these people his life story, not a great way to make friends. "Hey Sharon," Rusty said into the phone. "I just joined a new student group. …. Chess was cancelled today. Can I go with the group and get pizza?" Rusty handed Sue the phone. Sue and Sharon spoke and she handed the phone back to Rusty. Rusty spoke to Sharon on the phone. She agreed to pick him up from the pizzeria, and she hung up."

"You joined our student group. You don't go to our school." Kyle laughed.

"So." That was the end of it. They all went for pizza.

The Squad room.

Tao was reading through the files that had been faxed to him. He was surprised to find out that Phillip Stroh was Prescott's attorney for her most recent case. They wouldn't be able to interview him about her case for obvious reasons. Tao learned that she signed a retainer agreement- agreeing to pay 5k upfront. He didn't however, see an actual check or a copy in the file. He also saw a copy of the police report that the Gordons had filed.

Tao looked at Stroh's notes. She admitted to grabbing the boy when he went looking for the little boy's room at TGI Fridays. Tao stopped reading. He didn't want to see the rest." The file didn't have much else in it. Stroh hadn't contacted any experts or interviewed anybody.

He didn't do very much, Tao thought. Tao was kind of surprised that he didn't keep working on the case, at least until the retainer ran out.

He went to find the Captain.

"Captain Raydor, You're going to want to see this."

"What is is lieutenant?"

"It's Prescott's file from her attorney's office. Guess who her counsel was."

Sharon dreaded the thought of Peter Goldman.

"Philip Stroh."

"What?"

"He was her attorney before she went missing, before he went to jail, Captain." Tao handed her the file. "She was supposed to pay him 5k, but I see no indication she actually paid it."

This made her case against Jr not look so good. Her lawyer was a man who had a penchant for strangling petite blonde women and leaving them in ditches. "Why would he kill his own client?"

"I have no idea, Captain. He targeted strangers before."

"Update the board please." Captain Raydor went back to her interview.

"Jr. Have you seen this man before?" She showed him a picture of Stroh.

"No. Who is he?"

"He was your sister's attorney."

"She had that other guy."

"That was a civil attorney. This one was her criminal attorney."

"Mom mentioned something about a lawyer calling for money. I think she hung up."

Money is a motive, Sharon thought. How to prove it. She let Craig go and called his mother.

"Ms. Wyatt. I have a quick question for you. Did you get a call from your daughter's attorney last May? He asked you for how much? You told him she was on her own and you hung up. Thank you so much."

Captain dreaded this but she went to see Chief Taylor.

"You think Stroh killed Prescott!" Taylor was ready to have a heart attack. "He's currently appealing his convictions claiming Chief Johnson's conduct entrapped him into trying to kill her and Rusty."

Sharon gave him a stank look.

"Stupid argument, I know, but this litigation is already costly. You want to add a new murder charge."

"This case has nothing to do with Chief Johnson. A new charge might leverage Stroh into taking a deal."

Taylor liked the sound of that. "Why him?"

"He was her lawyer. She was supposed to pay him. She never did. He tried to collect from her mother. Her mother wouldn't pay. She's petite and blonde and was found strangled in a shallow ditch, and we all know Stroh's MO."

"She wasn't buried where the other girls were, why?"

"He knew her. All of his other victims were planned. He picked strangers and avoided the cameras. He couldn't avoid his relationship with Prescott. If she had been found with the others, he would have been clearly implicated in all of them. He wanted everyone to think Prescott was gone, so he buries her and drives the car to Mexico."

"Can we prove that?"

"We have his fingerprints. We can compare them to the car. He must have come back from Mexico somehow. We can check the airlines, rental car companies, etc, until we figure out how. Also, when Morales finishes his findings, we can compare his results in this case to that of the other victims. We also had a witness who heard an argument over the weekend where she was killed. He said he could identify the voice if he heard it."

"Tread carefully. Do whatever you think Brenda would not."

"Understood, Chief."

Sharon brought her squad together and brought them up to speed on the new development. She sent them all to work. Tao to get Stroh's fingerprints to SID to compare to the car, Sanchez to look for proof that Stroh was in Mexico, Flynn and Provenza to try and get a voice match from the neighbor, and Sykes to get Morales' final report."

Sykes came back. "According to the doctor, the killer was in between 6'1 and 6'3 and he slammed Prescott into the wall. He likely would have injured his hand given the amount of force he used. We could x-ray Stroh's hands and see if he has old injuries that would be consistent with pinning her into the wall and strangling her."

"Not yet. We don't want him to see this case coming."

"I asked Morales to pull up the other Stroh cases and compare Prescott to them. He said he'll call when he's done."

FBI Office

Fritz wasn't surprised that his coworkers knew where to get great, custom-made fake jewelry. He got a name and went down to see him.

"I'm looking for Bucky."

"Why would he want to see you?"

"I got some cash, and I want get something for my bitch. I don't want to waste my money at Littmans. I heard this was the place to be."

"Good enough."

Fritz came in. It was a dark room, poorly lit a counter in the front with a sketch pad and a heavy metal door in the back.

"Now what do you want."

"I was wondering if you could make something like this." Fritz showed him the necklace that was the center of so much controversy.

"Where did you get that?"

"Did you make this?"

"So what if I did."

"Who did you make it for?"

"Why should I tell you?"

Fritz flashed a badge. "You have a choice. You could cooperate, and I will leave here and never come back, or I could seize all of your merchandise as counterfeit. The choice is yours."

Bucky sighed. This was not going to be a sale after all. He got his black notebook and started flipping through it. I made that last April to sell to a dame. She was pretty and paid me $250. It says here a Holly Prescott.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep. You can ask her yourself."

"Well I can't. She's dead."

"Too bad."

Fritz left. So Holly sold her real necklace and later had a fake made and sold it as real. Maybe she gave it to Stroh as a payment. Fritz called Captain Raydor.

"Hey Sharon. I found a fake diamond necklace."

"I am not the fashion police."

"Cute. This necklace is important. It belonged to Holly Prescott."

"Someone gave her a counterfeit necklace?"

"No. She paid for it to be made and then gave it to Stroh. He thought it was real and tried to sell it and flipped out when he found out it was fake."

"How do you know this?"

"I got a box of counterfeit jewelry and was told to investigate. Brenda saw this one and recognized it as the one from her case. We went to the pawn shop who lead us to the jeweler who lead us to Stroh and when I found the maker of the fake necklace, he said Prescott commissioned it."

"He was her lawyer," Sharon said.

"I figured that."

"Do me a favor. Don't tell Brenda yet."

"She already knows that Stroh got the necklace. She doesn't know that Prescott commissioned it. Might I ask why it matters, not that I want to involve her in this anyway."

"He's appealing his convictions. If we could get a new case where she was not an investigator, we might be able to get him to take a deal and be done with it."

"This deal better not let him walk out of there. If he does, he will walk 6 feet under."

"I'll keep that in mind. Do he have a deal?"

"Fine."

Brenda's office

She was bored. Paperwork sucked. She had to file everything for ADA Baldwin, and she was not in the mood. Knock Knock.

"Come in."

Andrea walked through the door.

"Hey Andrea, how's it going?"

"I was hoping I could ask you for advice."

"Sure. Sit down." Anything sounded better than work.

"It's about a guy."

"Oohh. Do tell."

"Well, I like him, and I think he likes me, but we work together."

"Ohh an office romance."

"You have more experience with these things than I do."

"Tell me he's not married." Brenda did not recommend that at all.

"No, Silly. I didn't mean that kind of experience. You have worked with Fritz."

Brenda did not think she was the best to ask about this. Their working together has not been the greatest for their personal relationship.

"I don't know how to deal with a working relationship and a personal one."

"It helps if your personal lives are about something else. Don't bring work to your fun, and don't take professional disagreements personally." Brenda preached much better than she practiced, but her practice was improving. "Don't be afraid to take a couple of days off and enjoy the now. Also, so when will you reveal this mystery guy."

"Not yet. We haven't actually gone out yet or anything. I just feel silly, like a giddy teenager."

Brenda laughed. "Spend more time with him. He'll figure it out."