"Look detectives, I really want to help with your case, but I've got a job to deal with you know?" Said David Landis as Jeffries and Vera escorted him into an interrogation room. "I can't just keep coming down here like this. What is it you want to talk about anyway? I already told you about my drug dealing for Allen."

"Well now we want to talk about something else," explained Vera. "Let's talk about your acting."

"Acting?"

"Yeah, that was one hell of act you put on back then," said Jeffries. "The whole 'wayward teenager caught up with the wrong crowd' routine. You had everyone fooled, including Rodney and Darnell. You even managed to fool us with it 26 years later."

David looked confused "What are you talking about?"

"Let me spell it out for you," said Vera. "It was all a lie. You were Allen's lapdog the whole time. You never intended to stop working for him, and when Darnell threatened to make that impossible, you had him killed."

"That's absurd!" Landis shot back. "What I told you before was the truth. I didn't have any more contact with Allen after Darnell caught me."

"Save it. We have a witness who spotted you next to the pay phone where the bogus call to the police was made. The one that sent Prince to his death. You were the one who set up the hit."

"Listen, I don't know what your witness said but the..." Landis paused in the middle of his sentence, apparently suddenly thinking of something. "Wait a minute. Did you say hit? I read in the papers that the event that night was a botched robbery."

"Yeah your plan worked really well," replied Jeffries. "That's what everyone believed back then. But now we know the truth. We know those men were waiting there just to kill him. And you're the one who made it happen."

Vera was about to ask for a sample of David's prints, hoping to use a bluff like Stillman had instructed, but he never got the chance. All of a sudden, David turned pale and as white as a ghost, his face an expression of utter horror. Then he completely broke down. "Oh my god!" he cried, putting his face in his hands, "it can't be!"

Jeffries was a bit concerned. "Hey, are you alright?"

By now David was sobbing uncontrollably. "I killed him!!" He wailed. "After everything he did for me, I killed him!"

Watching the interview from the other side of the two way mirror, Stillman was very surprised. On the one hand, he was technically getting exactly what he wanted: A full confession. But it didn't make sense. If Landis really had set up the hit, why was he so shocked? Stillman had been through enough interviews to know true emotions when he saw them. What was happening right now was clearly no act.

Meanwhile, inside the room, Jeffries was sensing victory. "Take it easy man. Look, maybe we were wrong about you. Maybe there's some part of you that still does care about Darnell. But you gotta tell everything."

David did not respond. He was still trying to pull himself together.

"Come on David, it's time to come clean," Added Vera. "You owe Darnell that much."

Finally David managed to regain control of himself. "Alright detectives. I'll do it. But I want you to hear me out because it seems you are very mistaken about the whole thing."

"Well then go ahead and set us straight."

"Everything I told you before was true." David explained. "I didn't have any more contact with Allen after Darnell caught me, with the exception of a phone call telling me I was done working for him. But then a few days before Darnell was killed, I was walking back home from a trip to a nightclub when I got surprise visit from Raynard Whitney.

"Who was Whitney?"

"The one person you do not want to meet in a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter. He was the top enforcer for Gerald Allen. Whenever Allen had a problem that needed to be 'handled', he was the guy who would do it. He was the main reason no one who worked for Allen would ever dare to betray him. At first I thought he had come to silence me forever, but instead he had a simple proposal. As they say in the godfather, he made me the offer I couldn't refuse."

("Who can it be now" by Men at Work)

After all his time working for Allen, David now found himself in the main situation he hoped he would never face. Alone on the streets at night with one the most feared men in Allen's criminal underworld. At this point, all of Darnell's assurances of his safety seemed very hollow.

"Hey there Landis," said Whitney as he stepped up to confront him, "I need to have a word with you. That is of course, if you've got the time."

David tried to hide his fear. "Sure Ray. What do you want to talk about."

Raynard smiled. "About the heat you brought down on Allen. That was really fucking stupid, getting caught by that cop! You didn't think Allen was just going to let that go now, did you? Gerald isn't the type to tolerate failure on such a colossal scale."

"Now wait a minute," David desperately protested. "Allen already told me he was done with me. And he doesn't have to worry about me ratting him out to the cops. I assure you my lips are sealed."

Raynard laughed. "I'm a afraid it's not that simple, kid. You're right about Allen being done with you, but before you move on, you gotta do one last job for him. Consider it repayment in exchange for him letting you get out of this situation with a pulse, and without any broken bones."

"A job? what are you talking about?"

"Relax kid, it's really simple. Over the last few days there have been some guys from a rival gang dealing on Allen's turf. Big mistake on their part. Allen wants them 'delt with', if you know what I mean."

"Yeah I understand. What does this have to do with me."

"You're going to sick the cops on em," Raynard explained. "Allen got a tip that they'll be dealing near Westland Jewelry store at Hastings street the night of the Super Bowl. You're going to head to the abandoned apartment complex on Summers street and wait near the pay phone. I'll be monitoring the area to see if they show up. If they do, I'll call that phone and give you the signal. Then you're going to call the police make sure those idiots learn never to deal on Allen's turf again."

"And if I do this for Allen, that's the last I'll ever hear from him or you?"

"That's right Landis." Then Raynard cracked his knuckles. "Of course, if you don't want to do this job, I can think of a few other ways of settling your little debt."

"No, no, I'll do it." David said hastily. "Anything to put this all behind me."

"That's what I wanted to hear. And you better not screw up this time. Allen's patience with you has differently run out."

"Hold on a second," said Vera at the end of the story. "What exactly was Allen's plan to have these rival dealers "delt with"

"Allen had a really efficient system," explained David. "Whenever he discovered people dealing in an area he thought was his, he'd just have someone call the cops on them. One of his men would phone the police anonymously and give some bullshit reason for sending them out there. When the police showed up, they would find the dealers, confiscate their drugs, and haul them off to prison."

"Using the police to eliminate his competition for him," remarked Jeffries. "That's pretty clever."

"Yeah, Allen was able to wipe out his competitors while keeping his own hands clean. That's what I thought I was doing that night. Look, I know it wasn't the most morally upstanding choice, but I figured it was the only way completely break away from Allen for good. Besides, even if it was in Allen's interest, I would still be taking some drug dealers off the street. I figured I could take some comfort in that."

"Well what you did was send Prince to his death. And you nearly got his partner killed too," Vera pointed out.

"Look I swear to you I had no idea that those guys were paid to kill him. I didn't even know Darnell would be the one to be dispatched to the scene. I didn't know where he was. I didn't even know he was on duty at the time."

"Really?" asked Jeffries. A week before, Darnell invited his closest friends to his house for a Super Bowl party and told them where he was going to be that night. I'm sure you were there"

"I didn't go to that," replied David. "That party was for his older friends and work pals, not me. You can ask anyone who went that party, and they'll all tell you I was not there."

"Okay fine, let's assume you're telling the truth and you were just an unwitting pawn in a hit set up by Allen. If that's the case, then what did you think Darnell was killed for? And why didn't you go to the police afterwords?

"I just figured those dealers panicked and opened fire on the police because they didn't want to go to prison. I felt terrible about making the call, but I didn't feel personally responsible for Darnell's death. And I didn't see the point of going to the police. You already got two of the three bastards who were responsible. I had no information about the third one, and no proof Allen was involved with the whole thing, since I didn't get the assignment from him directly. I figured you guys would catch the third shooter eventually, and if you didn't then me going to the cops would not have helped at all. I would have been arrested, while Allen would use his connections to stay free, like he always did."

"Oh I see," Vera said sarcastically. "So after everything Darnell did for and after getting involved in his death, you avoided going to the police to save your own skin...again. That's really noble of you. I'm sure Darnell would be proud."

David nodded. "You don't have to remind how weak I am, detective. Darnell was the one who was willing to put his life on the line for other people and for what he thought was right, not me. It's something that's haunted me to this day. But if it means anything, I've spent all this time trying to make up for it. I became a doctor and dedicated my life to the medical profession. I've donated huge amounts of my income to charity. I've done unpaid volunteer work on humanitarian aid missions around the globe. I know it's nothing compared to what Darnell was willing to do, but it's all I'm capable of.

"Well in addition to you not mentioning any of this before, there's still a major problem with your story," said Vera. "Byron Wilford said you told him that you were still working for Allen as one of his dealers right up to the night Darnell was killed."

"Wilford? So that's how you found out I was the one who made the call. Look, the guy was ranting like a maniac and ended up sticking a gun in my face. I told him I was still dealing for Allen just to get rid of him."

"Well even if you're telling us the truth, you should know that we could still charge you and accessory in the murder. And we are going to need a sample of your fingerprints so we can exclude you as the one who pulled the trigger."

David got up and sighed. "God, prison, a professional hit, this is all a lot to take in. I still can't believe I was a part of it all." Then he turned back to face the detectives. "Fine I understand. If I need to go to prison to live up to what I did, then I'll accept it. And I'll submit a sample of my prints as well. I may have been involved in the crime, but I was absolutely not the killer."

On the other side of the two-way mirror, Stillman and Kat looked on with surprise at hearing David's story.

"So you think he's telling the truth?" Asked Kat. "He certainly seems sincere."

"Well that may be, but then again, he seemed that way the last time he was in here," Stillman pointed out. "All the same we need to look into this. I want you to get to work on researching this 'Raynard Whitney' fellow. Find out everything you can on him. It looks like he'll be the person to bring in next."

"No problem Lt, pretty soon I'll be able to tell you his favorite color."

As Kat headed off to begin working on her assignment, Lilly and Scotty entered the room. "Ah welcome back," said Stillman as they walked in. "I hope your trip to the crime lab was worthwhile."

"It most certainly was," replied Lilly, her voice ringing with excitement. "We need to have a meeting with the entire squad immediately. You know that big break in the case we've been looking for? I think we just found it."

"Really, so that gun in Tyler's house had something to do with the murder?"

"Boss, we think the gun had everything to do with it. What we found might be enough to close the whole thing," said Scotty, also sounding enthusiastic.

"Well that's great to hear. We've found some big breaks ourselves here at the station. I'll get the squad assembled for a meeting. Hopefully we can combine everything we've found to put this case away, permanently.