"Okay, I have your list," said Amanda. "I'll swing by your apartment on my way to the Agency. I'll do a quick check-in with Billy and then come back here and we can regroup on figuring out some leads."

"Look at you," teased Lee. "Sounding like an agent."

"You dragged me into this as your secret partner," Amanda shot back. "I get to be an agent for the week."

"Secret in more ways than one," said Lee, pulling her close and dropping a kiss on her lips. "Call me when you get to Billy's office if there's anything he wants me to clarify."

"Okay. See you soon." Amanda gave him another kiss and waltzed out the back door.

Billy was perusing his phone messages when Francine arrived. Louise had handed them to him with a grimace. "The usual stuff, I'm afraid, Upstairs management yelling about something, CIA yelling about something, Oh, this one's new. It's from the Pentagon, yelling about something. He said he'd be here sometime today, but didn't say why."

"Any idea what he was angry about?" he'd asked.

"No, he just yelled about suits and idiots for five minutes, then hung up."

"Well, I look forward to finding out what we've done to annoy them this week," Billy had sighed.

He'd still been trying to figure it out, when Francine had led a stammering, blushing Susan into his office and told him she had a report for him. He'd been expecting a report on staffing issues or workload or perhaps some kind of petty cash theft, but instead Susan had launched into a surprisingly calm and coherent description of what she'd found at the cemetery the night before.

"Dug up?" he'd questioned. "You're sure you were at the right place?" he asked, unconsciously echoing Francine's question from the night before.

"It had his name on it," said Susan. "And then I called Miss Desmond and she came to look too."

"It was Lee's grave," confirmed Francine. "And it was dug up by an amateur."

"I need to make some calls," said Billy, reaching for his phone.

"Wait," said Francine. "There's more."

"More?" he exclaimed.

Susan laid a file on his desk. "This shows how everyone in the Agency who could have killed Lee and Vernon can be eliminated except for two people: the Level 3 janitor and Leatherneck Nelson."

Billy glanced at Francine, who nodded.

"It's spot on, Billy," she confirmed. "Believe it or not, the ladies in the steno pool managed to track when every person in the Agency clocked in and they've narrowed it down to those two."

"You're certain this is correct?" asked Billy. "We've been concentrating on agents, not civilians."

With a quick look at Francine for support, Susan nodded vigorously. "Yes sir! We cross referenced access levels for this floor, and clock in and clock out times and then eliminated a few people for physical reasons." She gave a nervous laugh. "I mean, my friend Lydia has no alibi, but she's also 7 months pregnant, so she probably couldn't have overpowered anyone unless she sat on them."

"And these are really the only two left?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes Sir!" said Susan emphatically. "Everyone else has an alibi – that's the thing about this being such a busy place, you're hardly ever alone, so someone sees you. So, for instance, the camera in Lee's desk? No one could easily have accessed it unless they were here at night, or if it was someone you wouldn't think twice about being near his desk and so no one noticed."

"So, Leatherneck delivering something for use in the field," said Francine.

"Or someone cleaning around it," added Billy. He pursed his lips and leaned back. "I just can't see it being Leatherneck though. He and Lee are good friends."

"Well, that's where it gets interesting," said Francine. "The ladies are right that Leatherneck was clocked in as far as the paperwork goes, but I did some checking and he ended up in medical the night Vernon was murdered. A heavy box fell on his foot - it wasn't serious, but it did need an x-ray. Anyway he's got a rock solid alibi for those hours when Vernon died."

"So you're seriously trying to tell me the janitor did it?" asked Billy.

"Better than the butler," quipped Francine.

"Okay," Billy pulled the paperwork towards him again. "What do we know about Russell Sinclair? His name sounds familiar."

"Again, this is where it gets interesting," said Francine. She nodded at Susan. "Explain what you found."

Well, you see Sir," Susan explained. "We hardly know anything about him, except that he has that whole Phantom of the Paradise thing going on." Off Billy's confused look, she went on "Paul Williams? Scarred face? Haven't you seen it? It plays on late night tv all the time! It's about a guy who's mad because this producer stole his music so he-"

"Get back to the point, Susan," Francine interrupted.

"Oh! Yes! Well, Russell Sinclair's personnel file is missing a whole bunch of stuff, including when or why he came to work here, so we really don't know anything about him! He could be a Russian spy or something!"

"It's not as crazy as it sounds, Billy," said Francine. "I looked at the file myself and it's too thin. However he got in here, he must have had help covering up his past."

"Do we know who brought him in?"

"I'm on my way to check it out now," said Susan.

"You do that, and get back to me as soon as you find anything," ordered Billy. He reached for the phone again. "That was excellent work, Susan – thank everyone who worked on it for me. But now if you'll excuse me, ladies."

Susan marched out of the office, flushed with success at how Billy had believed her, but Francine stopped at the door and closed it behind her. She turned and dropped the blinds out to the bullpen and turned to glare at Billy.

"Is there something else, Francine?" he asked, leaning back into his chair.

"Oh you bet there is!" she snapped. "I didn't tell Susan this, but after coming to verify everything she said about Lee's grave, I needed somewhere to calm down and think through what we'd found, so I figured I'd do what Lee always seemed to do. I went to talk to Amanda King! And guess what I found there?"

"Oh boy," muttered Billy.

Francine began to pace back and forth, radiating rage.

"It is so good to know just how highly regarded I am around here. I mean, an operation of this kind of importance and am I informed? No, I am not informed!" she stormed.

"Francine, it was a need-to-know only. No one knew except Lee, myself, and Mrs. King."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asked, incredulously. "That you would trust a secretary before you'd trust me?"

Francine, you know I trust you implicitly. But if you were a man hellbent on killing Agency personnel, would you look for your victim in suburban Arlington?"

"No, and that's the only reason you don't have my resignation letter!" she replied, throwing herself into one of the chairs. "I understand why you did it, but trusting Amanda and not telling me? That hurts, Billy."

"It was a fast-moving operation. Lee had been attacked and we needed to act quickly. He had a few days at my place to recuperate while we came up with a long-term plan."

"I could have helped with that!" exclaimed Francine.

"You know how it goes in this business, Francine. The fewer people in the loop, the better and we didn't know where the threat was coming from."

"You didn't seriously think it was coming from me?" she asked, sitting up in her chair.

"Of course not!" he answered immediately. "But we didn't want to have any possibility of Lee's attacker scenting a fake story. That's why we didn't even tell Amanda until after the funeral. We needed the grief to not just look real, but be real."

"She told me that," admitted Francine. "And from the sounds of it, she was as angry as I was when she found out."

"Was she?" asked Billy. "She didn't mention that when she came in to report."

Francine thought back to Lee's admission that Amanda had slugged him and smiled. "I'm sure she didn't," she said. "She wouldn't want to ruin her image as a mousy housewife. Not that I think of her that way," she rushed to add off Billy's look. "Not anymore – she's impressed me quite a bit in how she handled all this." And she was kind to me, Francine's thought went unsaid.

"Well, the steno pool has impressed me even more," admitted Billy. "Who would have thought they could pull together that much intel in sch a short time?"

"And figuring it out by looking in a completely different direction than the so-called experts," Francine replied. "That'll be a satisfying poke in the eye for the men in here who thought they were going to crack it."

"Very true." Billy looked at his watch. "Amanda should be here any minute for her daily check-in," said Billy. "Let me give Lee a call while we wait, give him a heads up on what they found."

He reached for the phone, but it rang before he got there.

"Melrose."

"Hey Billy, it's me," said Lee

"Well, speak of the devil," said Billy. "I was just about to call you. Hang on, let me put you on speaker. Francine's here as well."

"Lee, we think we have a suspect narrowed down," said Francine. "Believe it or not, the steno pool figured it out. We don't know why, but it looks like our guy might be the janitor, Russell Sinclair."

"Russell Sinclair as in Buzz Blade?" asked Lee, his voice rising.

"I knew that name sounded familiar!" exclaimed Billy. "It must be a coincidence though!"

"I don't think so," said Lee. "Remember that ticket Amanda found in the hotel room? That drive-in is playing the Buzz Blade movie. And the Neiman box results? They say someone was watching old episodes of Buzz Blade at 1:30 in the morning – long after Jean-Claude's time of death." He paused. "Didn't Amanda tell you all this already?"

"Well, I'm sure she would have," said Billy, "but she hasn't arrived yet."

"What?" Lee half-shouted. "She left over an hour ago! She was going to my apartment to pick up a few things for me and then go straight to see you!"

"Maybe there was traffic" Billy started to say, but realized he was talking to dead air. "Francine, check with Mrs. Marston that Amanda hasn't arrived, then put out an APB for her car," he ordered.

Meanwhile, Lee had phoned his apartment. "Amanda?" he said, the second he heard it connect.

A deep voice responded instead. "I've been expecting your call, Mr. Stetson. If you want to see her alive again, you'll come here. Alone."