Chapter Five: Twists and Turns

Missy Matthews lived just outside of Portland, in a run-down little house with an overgrown yard and a single, dying tree. Jonah stepped beyond the peeling white gate, narrowing his eyes at the house. Jennifer Matthews had been Wesen, and there was a good chance her mother was as well. What she was, or how she would react to him, couldn't be divined.

Perhaps he would've caught the distinctly mouse-like scent had he not been distracted, worrying who the man who had been following him had been. For now, he tried to put the incident out of his mind.

Nick knocked twice on the door, and it opened a fraction. A short woman who bore a striking resemblance to the victim peeked out, her eyes rimmed red. "What do you want?"

"Miss Matthews? Detective Burkhardt and Devonshire, Portland PD. Would you mind if we-"

"You want to talk about Jenny," she finished for him, sniffling. "I already got the call. She's really gone?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Nick confirmed gently.

Missy nodded twice, then opened the door a bit more. "Come in, then." She peered suspiciously up at Jonah as he passed, but otherwise seemed to take no notice of anything unusual. So what if he's Wesen, she thought numbly, shutting the door behind them. Just detectives. They just wanna help.

She led them into a cluttered little living room, where she gestured for them both to sit. Once they both declined the offer of a drink, she sat down across from them on a separate sofa. "How can I help?"

Jonah and Nick exchanged a look, and Nick was the one who began. "We only have a few questions, then we'll get out of your hair. Do you know of anyone who might've wanted to hurt Jennifer?"

The woman frowned questioningly. "But… she died in a bank robbery."

"There's a chance that Jennifer knew her killer," Jonah clarified, knowing that they really had no evidence to back this theory up, and that the mother was probably the only link.

The woman sniffled again, swallowing hard before responding. "I, I don't think so." She stared hard at the ground. "We weren't very close, these last few years…"

"It's okay, ma'am. Just anything you can remember."

"Well… perhaps Kevin. Kevin Woods. He was her boyfriend a while back? Wasn't a nice boy, got arrested a few years back. Drugs or the like." She retrieved a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly.

Nick nodded, taking a mental note of this. "Thank you, Ms. Matthews. Anything we can do?"

He's attempting to stay on her good side, Jonah noticed as the woman glanced up gratefully. She doesn't have anyone who really cares.

"No, thank you, detective," she negated, but still seemed a bit less hysterical.

As they strode back to the car, Jonah asked "Should we be looking into this Woods character?"

"Definitely. Let's pay him a visit."

-break-

Kevin Woods wasn't home. It appeared he hadn't been home in some time. The apartment was bare, abandoned, save for a few bags of ancient take-out in the fridge. The landlord was naturally confused, since he had been making his payments all on time.

"What do you think?" Nick asked, scrutinizing every inch of the room.

Jonah shrugged, deflated. Any scent was stale, at least a few weeks old, and there was barely anything around to figure out where Kevin Woods was. "Maybe he holed up somewhere else? I mean, the robberies did start a few weeks ago…"

"Hmm, yeah, doesn't explain why the bills keep being paid though."

Jonah paused in the kitchen, in front of the refrigerator. All the scents were old, sure, but there was one specifically out of place. "Hey, Burkhardt. Got a black light?"

Nick didn't, but CSI soon arrived at the scene. When the lights were turned off and the black light shone, part of the floor lit up in front of the fridge.

"Really big blood puddle," Nick observed, glancing at Jonah. "How'd you know it was there?"

He shrugged, turning away and following the blood trail over to the window. "Just a hunch." Jonah snapped the black light off and opened the window, leaning out. Several stories below was a dumpster. Clearly, it had been forgotten by waste management long ago.

On the ground a few minutes later, two CSIs flipped open the lid of the dumpster.

What was left of Kevin Woods stared back at them.

-break-

Briar was bored. After narrowly avoiding detection by the Riddari, he'd trailed the pair a bit farther behind, keeping his distance. But they were just chasing down stuff from this case. Dull.

Of course, now they'd discovered a body, and things were more interesting. Kevin Woods was just a Kehrseite, but the wounds on his body were clearly made by Wesen. Not Hundjäger, he noted, judging by Devonshire's reaction.

Ducking back into the trees, Briar made a call. Not to Milo, not after last time.

"Daily phrase," a feminine voice requested.

"Die Lerche fliegt," he replied, only barely getting the pronunciation right.

The woman huffed in disapproval, but didn't hang up. "What can I do for you, Mr. Laughlin?"

"See if we have a file on a Kevin Woods. A target file, not an operative file."

Several minutes of silence. "Yes, one of our operatives had a personal grudge and requested the Feros' blessing in his execution."

Briar hung up quickly. Just amazing, he sighed to himself, peering from between the branches at the detectives. More complications.

-break-

In an otherwise abandoned warehouse, three men sat around a table, counting out the money. The leader, a man named Roy Sullivan, sulked in his chair.

One of the others nudged him with an elbow. "C'mon, Roy, it's not that bad."

"Bullshit," he snapped, and the other drew back. "Now we've gotta hit another bank to make up for this."

The quiet bank robber, Tyler Sullivan, finally spoke up. "Did you really have to kill Jenny?"

Roy turned to him with a sneer. "Oh yeah, I forgot, you had a crush on the little rat, didn't you?"

Tyler shrugged. If he had felt anything toward her, that feeling died long ago. "I more meant that the cops'll be after us more."

Roy waved the worry away. "Our inside guy said he'd take care of it. Frame someone or whatever."

"Well, he's not gonna be able to do that at a different bank," the youngest Sullivan brother, Mac, piped up.

Roy growled, woging in annoyance. Sharply pointed ears, long snout, and brutal canine teeth. He was a Schakal, as were his brothers, and Roy was pack leader.

"We'll work it out," he affirmed, words garbled by his fangs. "If Morris wants to keep his head, he'll get us the money."