J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story and for any reviews, favorites, and/or follows! I appreciate any or all of them! Thank you especially to AllTrekkedUp and Julie for your reviews on chapter 2!

Chapter III

Curiosity

"Do you think there's anything to Gage's idea that the accident wasn't really an accident at all?" Jim asked, hours later in the day when he and Pete were nearing the end of their watch.

"Could be," Pete agreed. "The detectives will get that straightened out after they pick up the driver."

"Yeah. I guess so." Jim couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. One of his biggest complaints about his job was having to turn over the interesting cases to detectives, after which he may or may not learn how they turned out. In this case, of course, being both a witness and a responding officer, he would testify in court, but it could take months before the case would go to court. "Still, I think they should look into the victim's background and see if they can find any motive for someone murdering him."

"I'm sure they will if they think there's anything to the idea that it was homicide," Pete told him. "Why are you so worried about it?"

Jim shrugged. "Just curious. We were so close when it happened, and we couldn't stop it. We couldn't even catch the driver. It's been bugging me all day."

"Things like that happen," Pete said. "You've been on the job long enough to know that." Despite his words, it was bothering Pete, too. It was beyond him to guess whether the hit-and-run had been accidental or intentional, but there was something odd about how quickly the driver had disappeared. True, he had had a small head start, but they should have still been able to spot him somewhere. Pete knew that during their lunchbreak, which they had taken at the station because they were still filling out paperwork from the accident, Jim had not only taken a few minutes to call Jean and check on her, but he had also done a little bit of digging on the victim, who had been identified as Roger Winfall. "What did you find on Winfall?" Pete asked.

Jim glanced at Pete in surprise, as he hadn't told him of his investigation into the dead man, but he quickly shrugged it off. "I pulled his record. He was clean except for a few tickets over the years that he always paid. I didn't find anything else on him."

"Well, I doubt he got killed because of a ticket," Pete said.

"No," Jim agreed. "If there's anything to the idea that this was homicide, those tickets don't give any answers."

Pete glanced at his watch. "Looks like it's about time to head for the barn."

"Good." Jim covered a yawn with the back of his hand. Having been tired when he had begun work that morning, he was doubly tired now. Worse still, though his sore throat had gotten no worse throughout the day, it also hadn't gotten any better. He was sure by now that he was going wake up with Jean's cold the next morning.

They had just gone into the station and were on their way to the locker room when they happened to run into Detective Sergeant Harmon, who was handling the investigation of the accident. Jim couldn't resist stopping him to ask about it.

"Any news on that accident this morning, Sarge?"

Harmon crossed his arms. "Yeah. We found the car, we think. We're still waiting on the lab tests to verify it one hundred percent, but it looks likely."

"That was fast work," Pete commented. "You have an ID on the owner, then?"

Harmon nodded with a sigh. "That's the problem. The car's a West LA stolen. It was taken from a parking lot day before yesterday. We got some good prints off it, so we might get lucky anyway. More likely, they'll just belong to the owner."

"Where'd you find the car?" Jim asked.

"Davis and his partner spotted it while they were on patrol," Harmon told him. "The license matched the partial that you got from that fireman, and the front end was dented with some bloodstains. We knocked on a few doors, but nobody claimed the car and nobody saw the driver. It looked like he'd dumped it. The driver would have to be pretty dumb to abandon a car like that and leave any fingerprints or anything like that behind. But you never know. Like I said, we might get lucky."

"Let us know how it turns out," Jim said

"Will do," Harmon replied.

/

Johnny dug through the fridge at Station 51, trying to find something to eat. He and Roy had had calls back-to-back for the last few hours, starting with one that had pulled them away right before lunch. It was now six o'clock in the afternoon, and so Johnny was justifiably starved. He pounced triumphantly on a container with the lunch leftovers inside.

"You guys sure didn't save much for us," he commented as he took the lid off.

"You don't want that," Marco Lopez said as he stirred something on the stove. "It'll spoil your appetite for supper."

"Marco, right now, nothing could spoil my appetite," Johnny replied. He held out the container towards Roy, who was sitting at the table, resting his chin in his hands. "You want some?"

Roy started, as if the question had caught him off-guard. He mumbled, "No thanks," and then, not wanting to be part of any further conversation, he headed toward the dorm.

"What's the matter with him?" Marco asked.

"Oh, it's that accident this morning." John retrieved a fork from the silverware drawer. "It's been bugging him all day. He thinks we caused it."

"The police must not have thought so." Chet Kelly glanced up from the magazine he was reading. "What makes Roy think so?"

"Just the way it happened and everything," Johnny said with his mouth full. He swallowed and continued with the thought that had been on his mind all day – at least, whenever he'd had time to think at all. "It doesn't make sense. If anything, we should have prevented that accident."

Chet scoffed. "Yeah. Sitting in the middle of an intersection is a great way to prevent accidents."

"I mean that particular accident," Johnny explained. "The guy might have hit us, sure, but with us right there, he shouldn't have been able to hit just the jogger."

"I don't know," Marco said. "Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. If he would have hit the squad, then both vehicles would have probably still hit the jogger."

"But he didn't hit the squad," Johnny insisted. "That's the point. What I'm trying to say is that with the squad where it was, this particular accident couldn't have happened."

"But it did," Chet reminded him. "I don't see what's so hard to figure out about that."

"What if it wasn't an accident?" Johnny suggested, getting right down to what he'd been thinking. He had already told Officer Reed at the scene of the supposed accident, and he'd been turning the matter over in his mind ever since then. He was more convinced of it now than ever.

"I think you've finally completely lost it, Gage." Chet shook his head. "What could it be if it wasn't an accident?"

"It could be murder," Johnny pointed out.

Marco gave him an incredulous glance. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not." Johnny paused long enough to take another bite, and then he set the food down on the table. He went over to the blackboard that the captain used for drills sometimes and began sketching what had happened that morning. "Look. The squad was here, and the jogger was right here. The driver came out of nowhere, ran the stop sign, swerved around us, hit the jogger, and then drove off. First point, why would have he swerved like that if he wasn't trying to hit the jogger on purpose? Second point, the two cops were down at the next block, and this guy didn't pass them. That means there's only one place he could have come from – he must have been parked and came screaming out of his parking place right when he knew that jogger would be passing by. The hit-and-run man could have planned it out. The victim could have easily gone jogging every morning at the same time and in the same place. The guy could have meant to make it look like an accident, and then we just happened to get in the way." He turned away from the board to look at Chet and Marco. "What do you guys think?"

"I think you don't have the brain capacity to play Sherlock Holmes," Chet said.

"Very funny, Chet." Johnny walked back to the table to pick up the lunch leftovers again and continue eating. "I'm serious. If I'm right, we could have a very big problem on our hands."

"How so?" Marco asked.

"Roy and I were witnesses," Johnny explained. "What if the murderer decides to make sure we don't talk?"

"Then he's a little late," Chet pointed out. "You've already told the police everything you know, which isn't much."

"Besides, things like that only happen in the movies," Marco added.

"And if it was murder," Chet continued, "how would the murderer know that you know it was murder? He went to a lot of trouble to make it look like an accident, if it really was a murder."

Johnny couldn't very well argue with any of those points, but he wasn't about to give up his theory. "Either way, I'll sleep easier when they pick this guy up."

Chet shook his head. "If I know you, Gage, you're not going to let any of us sleep until they pick him up."