I don't own The Hunger Games.
"Okay." Detective Johanna Mason muttered to herself as she strolled down the wooded path to Katniss Everdeen's off-campus address. "Let's re-cap what I already know."
Cato Evans was missing.
His car had slid on fish oil in the road and his brake wire had been cut, so he had spiralled into the lake.
No body had been found, so this was being treated as a missing person's case, not a homicide.
Katniss Everdeen, heiress to the Omega Protein Company, hated him. She had easy access to all the fish oil she wanted.
Cato had a long term girlfriend, Clove. He possibly could have cheated on her with Glimmer whilst in Brazil.
As Johanna walked, she thought up different theories in her head. Katniss could have done it out of hatred. Clove could have done it because of Glimmer. Glimmer might had done it because of Clove. The girls could have acted together because he was seeing both of them, and enlisted Katniss to help them out. Finnick may have been jealous of all attention Cato got, and done it himself- he knew where the warehouse was.
"Hello?" Katniss answered the door after the detective knocked three times. Her house was small, with a thatched roof and huge pine trees.
"Detective Mason, here on official police business." Johanna explained, tapping the golden badge attached to the side of her belt.
"Oh. Come in." Katniss opened the door wider and Johanna stepped inside the room. If she thought Katniss' appearance had been strange, with her pink streaked hair and nose and eyebrow piercings, then the inside of the house was fairly normal. It was just like any other cabin in the woods, with a wood burner and a creaky old staircase.
"Why do you live in the woods?" She asked.
"There's only a select few people that I like. The ones that I don't like tend not to come to the woods." Katniss explained. "Would you like a drink?"
"No. What I would really like, Miss Everdeen, are some answers. I've heard you're not a fan of Cato Evans. Is that correct?"
"That asshole?" Katniss scoffed, sitting down on her orange tatty couch. "No."
"So did you think that maybe you would…Make him disappear?" Johanna asked, sitting opposite her on the coffee table.
"What? What the hell's going on?" Katniss asked. She looked confused, but that could easily be faked.
"Cato Evans is missing. His car slid on a strategically placed puddle of fish oil and his car skidded into the lake because someone cut his brake wire." The detective leaned closer to Katniss with narrowed eyes.
"I didn't do it!" Katniss yelped. "I could never do that to someone!"
"Really?" Johanna asked doubtfully, pointing in turn to the deer heads that hung mounted on the walls and the bow and quiver of arrows that leaned against the far wall.
"Okay, so I hunt in hunting season. That's not a crime- and I could never kill a human!" She protested.
"I never said anything about kill. He's missing, and you're looking quite guilty Miss Everdeen."
"Why? Because of my dad's business? Because we have a warehouse down here? Anybody could have gotten in there- it's not hard to break that rusty old chain. I haven't been down there in years!"
"Then how do you know that the chain is rusty?" Johanna questioned, leaning back again.
"Because that's common sense? Anyway, if I was going to do this I would have done it back in high school!" Katniss snapped.
"Watch your tone, or you'll be taking a little ride downtown with me. Maybe you'd never thought of it until now. Maybe you were building up the courage. Maybe he pissed you off even more recently. Maybe he-"
"It wasn't me!" Katniss pulled on her hair in frustration.
"Let's get the easier questions out of the way then, Everdeen." Johanna pulled out her notepad and pen. "Why do you hate Cato Evans?"
"Because…" Katniss hesitated. She looked around the room uncomfortably and sighed. "My boyfriend Peeta loves football. Back in high school Cato was the starting quarterback, ever since sophomore year. Peeta deserved that spot way more than Cato did! Peeta's nice, and kind, and…Well, Panem Town offered Cato and scholarship and Peeta didn't even get in at all. It made me hate Cato even more, but I had nothing to do with this!"
"Fish oil was used. That indicates that you had some involvement with this."
"I didn't. I hate my dad- I don't even want the stupid business. I want nothing to do with it, because I want to make my own way. I want to be a professional archer, in the Olympics and stuff. I wouldn't risk my scholarship and all my opportunities by doing this. You know, it's possible to hate someone and not kill them."
"Hmm. Who do you think could be involved?" Johanna asked, her final question.
"Clove. Clove Wright. She's his girlfriend, but everyone knows he was about to leave he for Glimmer Carvalho, the Brazilian transfer." Katniss explained after a moment's hesitation.
"Thank you, Miss Everdeen. Don't skip town- I'll be in touch."
…
Back at the precinct, Johanna found Beetee eating a cheese sandwich at his desk.
"Beets." She called, startling him.
"Detective." He nodded to her, and put his sandwich back in his lunch tin.
"Have you got into Evans' laptop yet?" Johanna asked. She perched herself on the edge of his desk and watched as he pulled up a file.
"Not yet. I'm trialling a software that should get us in, though. We found this in the passenger seat car door."
Johanna leaned in to look at the picture on the computer screen. "It's a newspaper."
"You sound unimpressed." Beetee stated. "But this tells us that we were right, his car went in three days ago."
"So why did nobody report him missing?" Johanna asked, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
"Exactly." Beetee said, spinning his chair around so that he was facing Johanna.
"I think I should talk to the roommate again. I want to talk to the girlfriend first though, and then the rumoured love interest. Pull up what you can on the Panem Town database on Clove Wright." Johanna instructed. Just because she was the youngest detective on the force didn't mean that she was any less commanding. She was definitely the scariest.
"The Panem Town database says she lives here." Beetee pointed at her address. "On campus. She's in her second year. She's the head cheerleader, but she's on the debate team and long distance track as well. She's studying sports medicine, but she's there on a cheerleading scholarship."
"Okay. Thanks, Beets." Johanna jumped off of her desk and slid her sunglasses off her head and over her eyes. It was time to go ask some more questions.
"Wait- Johanna." Beetee stopped her.
"Hm?"
"Clove's already here. A uniform brought her in, she was caught fighting in the street." Beetee said, reading through his emails.
"Oh. Convenient." That made her job just that much easier.