"Our victim is Benjamin Carriendo, a 26-year-old Spaniard-American male who was recently transferred over to Hunter's Point," Alicia supplied the information to Alfred from what was written down on the clipboard, "both of his parents passed away and only had his older brother, Antonio. He had lived with his brother after his parents died and before he joined the Navy. That was for about 4 years. The list of his friends is not definite, but others are beginning the tedious task of interviewing. We are in charge of interviewing immediate family members and friends."

Before Alfred managed to begin his banter, Alicia responded, "Not my decision. But we do get the most important of the interviews, so clearly they are trusting us with it. Hopefully, you might find clues linking all of the cases together."


They should have expected this. Truly they should have: taking the violent, yet the sudden death of immediate family never bodes well for anyone. More so with the last of immediate family members. After the man had calmed significantly, they slowly probed questions his direction.

"No lo entiendo (I don't understand)," he sobbed, "who would have killed him? It makes no sense."

"Would you let us search his room? Maybe clues towards the killer are inside."

Antonio looked at Alicia before giving a teary-eyed nod, and soon the small trio left the small living room in search of clues. Alfred stayed behind and began the grueling process of the interview.


"From what we gathered, you say that Benjamin was a well-rounded guy. Nice guy so to speak."

Antonio nodded. The interview had been going on for the better part of the hour, and Alfred noticed that he was exhausted. "Okay, the last question before I let you go: was there any strange moments before he went missing?"

Antonio clasped his hands together and looked down, deep in thought. Alfred allowed him to think, hoping that with the silence he was providing Antonio could possibly remember more.

"Actually, there is something that is kind of strange, but I'm not sure if it counts at all."

Alfred gave him an inquisitive look, "It might help considering that this is a strange case, anything strange could have open leads."

"Well," he cleared his voice, "he recently set me up on a blind date he met at a bar. Her name is Lovina, someone who is from the area. The strange thing here is that he has never set me up with anyone before. Usually, I was the one setting him up with pretty ladies."

"That's all?"

"Yes. Since he spends most of the time on the base, I don't get to see him frequently."

"Can I get her number? If it is strange, then it would be important to interview her too."

Antonio nodded before weakly repeating the number for him. Alfred scribbled it on the notepad he had in his hands before deftly closing. He briefly shook hands with him and asked for permission to enter into Benjamin's room.

"Go ahead," Antonio uttered dejectedly, "If it means you can find his killer faster, you have full access to his stuff within the house."


By the time Alfred managed to catch up with Alicia, she had already started to shuffle through Benjamin's possessions.

"You find anything interesting?" He asked from the door frame as he began to place shoe covers to avoid contaminating the scene.

"Not at the moment," she replied back, still sifting through the drawers, "I was able to find fingerprints all across the bedside table. I already took the set of all of the ones I could find. What is surprising is that that is the only place I could find them. You'd imagine that you'd find them on the doorknob, the dressers, or even the closet door, but nothing. Our killer is very meticulous with hiding evidence. Or maybe," she trailed. Alfred looked up from what he was doing and supplied his opinion: "You think the victim hid his own tracks?"

"It seems possible. Maybe he is hiding something; something that he knew people would not approve?"

At this point, Alfred had already suited himself up with protective gear and helped with the search. If there is anything that Alfred had learned in his training and previous experiences as an investigator, it was that you can see the person's behavior and personality through their home. Was it clean? Messy? Filled with paperwork or trinkets? Were there posters covering the wall?

In this case, it seemed that the victim was neat and efficient. There wasn't much of a mess (whether from Benjamin being clean or his older brother keeping it up periodically. Photos inside of frames were all across the drawers and hung on the walls. They ranged from photos of younger photos of himself with his brother with their parents in time-stilled shots in their silly outdoor adventures. There were others where he was clearly in his teens, hanging out at sports games on the sideline, with a woman he assumed was his girlfriend at the time. There were photos of his high school's graduation, the look of his parents and brother clearly proudful of his accomplishment.

The photo that caught his eyes was one of the few that he noted were from his enlistment in the Navy. It was a photo of what he assumed was his close friends back in San Diego, everyone looking across the shipyard, the rising (or setting, he wasn't sure) sun illuminating their content faces.

"Hey, can you help me lift up the mattress from the bed frame?"

He was caught out of his reverie and glanced in the direction of Alicia. She had her hands clearly underneath the mattress, intent on doing it herself but fully knowing that she was going to need help. Sweat had begun to drip down the sides of her temples because of the laborious work she had already put in for the past nearly 2 hours. "Is this the last place you need to check?"

She nodded while wiping off most of the sweat in the crook of her elbow, "From this room it is. Besides the fingerprints and traces of his hair, we have nothing else for solid evidence. Hopefully, we get some evidence from under here."

He quickly sett off to help her, rushing to the other side of the bed. He slid his fingers deftly underneath the mattress, and before he had the opportunity to lift it up:

"Ouch! What the-?"

He immediately moved his hands somewhere else underneath the mattress and with one mighty tug, quickly lifted it from the frame, leaving Alicia stupified by his strength. He grinned, amazed that he could still impress people with a display of his raw strength. "Please," he replied with his grin slowly becoming a smirk, "you wouldn't be the first one to have been awed at the heroic strength that Alfred Fletcher Jones has."

That snapped her out of her stupor. "Shut up, you pompous ass."

"Mhm, keep telling yourself that, princess," he shot back as he quickly surveyed what was poking him. His eyes grew wide with both surprise and concern. He pulled up the object with two deft fingers before showing it off to his partner. "Seems our victim wasn't too clean about his past habits."

She studied the object with fierce intensity, "This is you assuming that this is his?"

"No, " he denied, "He might not have done drugs, but there is the possibility that he was involved in drug trafficking."

She pondered about his comment. I seemed plausible to her; after all, should his be a drug-related crime, finding used needles inside the victim's personal items would almost be natural. Almost. She quickly grew concerned. "Come here," she demanded.

He tilted his head, confused, "Why?"

She groaned out of frustration, "Just come here, dammit. If you just pricked yourself with the used needle, you just opened yourself up to who knows what diseases." He walked over to her, clearly infuriated that she was bossing him around, and outstretched his affected arm. She gently grasped it with her own and slowly began to peel off his glove. Once she had it off, she turned his hand palm-side up and began to fully examine his fingertips. Alfred knew that this could be considered as intimate, so before he made a complete fool of himself, he decided to cut the silence. "Damn it, woman," he hissed under his breath, "You're a private detector, not an EMT."

"First of all, I actually have my EMT certification. Second of all, did you really just-?"

He looked on sheepishly, "Yeah, I might have."

She shook her head fondly. She couldn't admit it out loud yet, but she was growing fond of him. "Nerd," she joked back. She just finished her examination and replied with her most 'doctor' voice, "Well, Mr. Jones, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you might die."

His eyes grew wide, "Surely, you jest."

She gave him a serious look. Concern bloomed within his chest; surely, he wouldn't die because of something as simple as this?

She nodded, "Yes. There is the possibility that you could die. There always is. But as long as you go and get blood tests, you should be fine. Lighten up."

He was filled with giddy irritation. "Wow, aren't you fun at parties?"

'Yeah sure and you become the stripper. Now come on, we need to bag the needle and this, " she waved a piece of paper in front of him, "letter which happens to be one of the few letters that I found, and I think it might hold important information."