Hello everyone! So glad you're hanging with me on this one! I have to say this is hands down the most challenging of the Crumbsverse stories I've ever written but I am also very very proud of it and I hope you're love reading it as much I am loving writing it!

As Elliott had no injuries that needed treatment, he was moved right into an Interview room where Adam and Esposito thought he should stew awhile, but Beckett said no, that would give him time to get his story straight, and Ryan fell somewhere in the middle.

'Who you want in there,' Montgomery said.

'I think we should go in first,' Ryan said, jerking his thumb at himself and Esposito. 'Soften him up and then you go for the kill and we take his statement when he gets to the drippy-eyes-loosened-bladder phase.'

'Delightful as that sounds, Detective Ryan, we're sending in the hippo first.'

'The what?'

'Adam, he's our hippo.' Beckett patted him on the shoulder. 'Just like with Cowlan.'

'I don't understand, I'm a hippo?'

'Trust me, you're a hippo. Take five minutes, get some questions together and you'll get him on his heels first.'

Adam looked at Beckett like she'd done gone cuckoo-bananas-batshit crazy. 'Okay,' he said warily, and left Observation; the moment he was gone Esposito and Ryan stared with the same expression Adam had worn.

'Beckett, are you fucking nuts?' Esposito hissed. 'I know Elliott's been read his rights already and Adam's got an official status, but this is really pushing it.'

'Elliott's a panicked, cornered animal, there's no telling what he'll do,' Ryan added, but Beckett shut them both up with a single look.

'You two did not see him with Cowlan. He will bring it.'

Montgomery saved the chuckle for later, as he knew there was little more Beckett enjoyed proving the girl in the room was the head girl for a reason. They watched as Elliott picked his nails, scratched his nose and tried to calm himself down, then as Adam went in.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,' he said, walking in with his little notepad and several sharpened pencils.

'You don't look like a cop,' Elliott sneered.

'I'm a civilian consultant, just doing some background information checking for the detectives. They're busy, you know, have to make sure this is worth their time.'

'Never had to hire out the help when I was in uniform,' Elliott snarked, leaned back in his chair when he realized he was now receiving an audience. 'What you wanna know?'

'You started out in Narcotics at the seven-two, right? Even as a rookie?'

'Yeah, you could say that me and my pals at the Academy, we had the nose for narco.'

'Would those pals be Frank Cowlan, Christopher Spitzer and John Raglan?'

'The first two, sure, but Raglan was in for the blood. He barely did a year in narco before he went to Homicide.'

Adam scribbled furiously, then purposefully broke his pencil tip, dropped his pencil. 'Sorry, about that.'

In observation, Ryan squinted, then grinned as Adam's notepad tipped towards the one-way glass as he leaned down - Admitted connection to 3 Musketeers. 'Son of a bitch, he is good.' He turned to Beckett and looked at her. 'Okay, he's a hippo.'

'Someone wanna catch me up?' Esposito asked.

'It came up one girls night that Ryan is a dolphin - he seems all cute and cuddly, but underneath he's a shit-kicking bad-ass. Adam is the same way,' Beckett explained. 'Everyone who sees him sees a young, pretty, and probably very green and most certainly very dumb rookie. But we all know he's got some teeth in his head and he knows how to bite.'

'And hippos do too? Seriously, hippos?'

'A hippo has teeth the size of bowling pins,' Montgomery supplied, then shrugged when they looked at him. 'Liz loves Animal Planet.'

'Hippo,' Esposito repeated, then continued to watch the show as Adam continued his rope-a-dope routine with Elliott.

Adam, unaware of the high praise he was getting on the other side of Observation, continued his so-called background check. 'Why did you go into Records so quickly?'

'Kid, you get a lot of knocks on the street, you learn that sometimes life has other plans for you as a cop.' Elliott rapped his knee. 'Took a hit here barely five years into my service before I was riding a desk.'

'Yet you still hold the rank of Detective-Sergeant.'

'Pity-prize. I was already a detective when I got shot, and what the hell does this have to do with anything?'

'Just following orders, sir,' Adam replied, knowing the man saw him as nothing more than a spineless civilian in big flashing letters. 'What makes you think the promotion was a pity-prize?'

'Because the guys higher up on the food chain gave me that instead of letting me back on the streets. Put me in charge of snot-nosed whelps and then when I said I wasn't no baby-sitter, I was moved into Records where I could be the scowly old-timer and not get shit for it.'

'Interesting, interesting, so you weren't around in the narcotics bureau when Matthew Montrose was murdered?'

'That's my cue,' Beckett said and took a few huffy breaths, then looked at Esposito. 'Tell me something to piss me off.'

'Every time you reach for your desk phone, Castle looks down your blouse,' Ryan said, and Beckett rolled her eyes.

'Something on the job.'

'Karpowski scored higher than you on the lieutenant's exam,' Esposito offered.

'Good, she deserves to make lieutenant.'

Montgomery looked at her, and with soulful eyes that were the antithesis of his words, said bluntly, 'You can't get him to crack.'

'Thank you sir.' Beckett curled her lip in distaste, stamped the 'fuck you' expression on her face and marched out of Observation into the interview room looking like she was going to kick Adam's ass all the way to the street. 'What the fuck is this, you think you can come in here and interview my suspect, Brennan?' she barked, and was pleased when Adam broke the tip of his pencil.

'I'm sorry, sir, Beckett, I just wanted to help-'

'Well then help me by getting me some coffee and get out of here! Now!'

The moment he was clear of the door, Adam found Ryan and Esposito there clapping him on the back.

'You did good, kid,' Esposito told him. 'Let's finish watching the show.'

Back in Interrogation, Beckett watched the delight in Elliott's eyes and could have backhanded him out of the chair for that alone. This kind of slug didn't deserve the badge he'd hid behind for so long. 'I do apologize, Detective-Sergeant, but he is a little too eager for his own good.'

'Yeah, Frank told me how he tried to get the dirt on him a day or two ago.'

'I'm surprised you had time to talk to him, seeing how you were so busy eating Swiss chocolate treats courtesy of Camilla.'

She knew it was sick of her, but the way every last drop of blood drained from Elliott's already pale face. Leaning forward, she folded her hands on the table. 'Yeah, I've been doing my homework, George, you're not just some wild goose I'm hunting for fun. So let's start at the top.'

'I want my lawyer,' he spluttered.

'Fine, then you go back into Holding and we'll wait for a lawyer, and I'll use that time to collect up all the papers I've got showing you in bed with dirty cops.'

'Dirty- now wait just a minute, here, who the hell said anythign about dirty cops?'

'You did, when you admitted you knew who killed John Raglan. Oh and the only deal you're getting is the one to keep air in your lungs,' she added, rubbing that bit of salt in the wound. 'Talked to the DA before we came to get you at home, and he said no one gets a free pass on this one. So you have two options.'

Beckett stood now, pacing casually behind her chair as she spoke. 'One, you start singing now and you will probably spend the rest of your pathetic, wasted life in a cage with no chance of getting back out. Or two you shut your mouth and the others will think you were in here talking to the cops and you'll go the way of Matthew Montrose and Timo Ross, Johanna Beckett and Jarrad Brennan, and everyone else you sons of bitch are responsible for. Your move, Elliott.'

'I'm a detective-sergeant, you will address me by rank. I'm a cop, same as you,' Elliott replied stiffly and this time Beckett got in his face into his so her nose was millimetres from his.

'Don't you dare call yourself a cop in my presence, don't you fucking dare. That kid who came in here, he got booted off the force because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to do the right thing and in my opinion he's more of a cop now than you could possibly dream of being. You have thirty seconds to decide what you are going to do. Talk and live, walk and die.'