Avalon Heights

Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis stood looking down at the body blocking the main front door of the Avalon Heights Building.

"Daniel Carrera," the cop on the scene said. "Doorman for Avalon Heights. Shot right through the head while at work. Died instantly."

"Any witnesses?" Curtis asked.

"Lots…" the cop shrugged. "But all they saw was Carrera get shot. Nobody saw a gunman. We'll know more when they autopsy the guy. Bullet's still in the brain."

Lennie Briscoe sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay…start canvassing the area, find out if anyone had a beef with him."

"The wife or girlfriend too…" Curtis looked over to his new partner. "Right, Lennie?"

"Yeah…" Lennie sighed again, remembering the arguments he'd had with Mike Logan before Logan got himself…exiled.

It's always the wife. Or the girlfriend.

Several hours later, the two detectives were at the CSU Lab.

"Your guy was shot with a .308 Winchester," the tech informed them. "Fired from quite a long distance away."

"A hit?"

A very professional hit," Briscoe corrected Curtis. "With a very professional hitman."

…

"Why would anyone kill my Danny?" Under normal circumstances, Angelique Carrera might have been a pretty woman, beautiful even.

But, not with her features ravaged as they were, with grief.

"Who would want to kill Danny?" she dabbed at teary reddened eyes. "He never did nothin' to nobody! He was a good soul, Danny was."

"So…" Briscoe prodded. "No affairs, and he didn't gamble?"

"Damn straight! He didn't do neither of those things! He was a good man. So, why the fuck are you trying to stain his good name instead of finding the bastard who did this to him?"

Curtis repressed a sigh as he looked at her.

She was visibly pregnant, with a three-year-old girl sitting on her lap.

Newly widowed, with a small child, and another one on the way…

Impossible not to feel sympathy for someone in this plight.

But, as Lennie has told me countless times, it's always the wife. Or the girlfriend…

"We'll keep you in touch when we know more," he stood, Briscoe following suit. "We're sorry for your loss…"

The next order of business would be to check for Life Insurance policies…

…..

"Yep, he had one with us," the insurance agent, Ken Tyler by name, said as he handed the folder to Detective Briscoe. "Payout's a cool two mil…"

"Which will be a great comfort to his grieving widow, and her children."

"Yeah…" Tyler nodded. "What's her name?"

"Angelique Carrera. Why are you asking me? It should all be in the policy, shouldn't it?"

"Yeah, well…I don't know anything about an Angelique Carrera," the agent shrugged. "The beneficiary of the policy is an Anais Van der Hooten."

"Anais Van der Hooten…" Briscoe considered that. "Don't know the name."

"I do," Rey Curtis spoke up. "Science Fiction writer."

"You read sci-fi, Rey?"

"I dabble, Lennie. She's sort of a Harry Potter in Space Academy. Up to four books now in the series."

"That's considerably more than dabbling, Rey…"

"Deborah likes them, Lennie. She's read them all. She wants our kinds to read them too."

"So Anais Van der Hooten is popular in your household?"

"Not if she's a murderer, Lennie..."