Episode 14-A
Now was the time to get their house in order. Alex had run and acted with dangerous swiftness, darting ahead of the evidence at time, and had based quite a bit on intuition and logic that, ultimately, came down t a feeling. A feeling that one person or another was telling a lie or not telling a lie.
The start of it was simple: someone had died in a manner that had seemed impossible, at least by any understanding of technology or logic that Alex understood, and so they had considered the idea that this was not random, that it was something with rules that could, thus, be understood, and that it was a person doing it, someone that could be caught.
Someone who knew of the Principal's frustrating laxness and, later on, the coach's disgusting perversions and crimes. That implied that it was someone at the school, and the fact that the coach had died even after being saved implied that in some way it was not so simple as controlling a mind.
And so Alex had hunted.
*******
The sky was clear that day as they stood on the roof, flipping through the notes, one by one by one, soft, delicate hands, this time with long nails, touching each one intimately.
James was standing near the entrance, watching them, perhaps with concern. But getting up a little higher to look down at the way people moved, it told them something. It told them that people had patterns, and wasn't that a truth they adored?
Damien and Wendell, and others still, had been fooled by it as they had moved to get closer to the two prime suspects.
But why were they suspects? When the FBI team came to join with them, what would be said? That they were close by, friends of one of the first victims, whose stories had fit and yet had seemed strange?
"They're going to get craftier," Alex said.
"There you go again," James said, "you want me to play your little Watson game. Well fine, then answer me this, friend." He stepped forward, closer to Alex, "Why is it a they? Only one person can wield the notebook. Do you think that one of them brought the other in? If so, which one?"
"I think… I think that it depends on which one we have first. Patricia, Patricia I'm not sure about. If Rachel was the first," Alex said, tapping their chin and stretching their body out, allowing it to fall at an angle so they could think better, "then she brought Patricia in voluntarily. But, and this is just a feeling, if Patricia was first, then Rachel brought herself in. I tipped her off in some way, in our meeting…"
"I'm asking all of this because there is some suspicion that the murder of Mr. Black happened in part because of all of this. It's too close together," Alex said, "And it's a solved case, but you know, a person wonders." They said it without guile, "And if we can help people find closure, then that's important, too."
Rachel hadn't quite bought it, in such a scenario, and that had made them think about the Guiltmonger.
"What, so she mentioned GuiltMonger for no reason?"
"They're friends. How hard would it be for Patricia to encourage Rachel's presence on the site as cover for her actions? Or, if Rachel is the first, then she was playing it the whole time but realized that she was being drawn closer and closer into the mystery, and so she brought Patricia in. We need to look for that trick: throwing us towards one of them, but making sure that it's the other that has pieces of the notebook or incriminating evidence."
"So you think both are involved in the murders?" James asked, dubiously, then brightened, "Actually, that would explain a few things. The theatrical nature of some of them…"
The lightning bolt that had hit the Christian who thought that God wanted people to kill gays and blacks, and who had held the government in a cult-fueled standoff near the beginning of January sprung to mind.
"If that's so, then we've made one big mistake, and we can't be sure that another might not kill all of us, fake names or no."
"What mistake is that?"
"We shouldn't have struck so soon. If we waited, they might have gotten lax, or expected that we wouldn't go so far, but now that they know… they'll hide it all the better, and yet the first time we didn't know what to look for. I already have ideas for how to mess with them."
And why them? Because once you narrowed it down to someone in the school that hated Mayor Buford, you were well on your way to a roster that only included five-sixth of the school… because the Mayor was that hated. Nobody even pretended to miss him now that the time had passed to shake your head and say, 'For shame, for shame.'
But then, the actions of Mr. Sellers narrowed it down further, or at least made it likely considering the confluence of 'he talked about an event, and then something was done about it'. It could be a coincidence, and the report would have to say that, but if it wasn't, that meant that they were done to thirty-odd suspects.
"When you say it like that," James admitted, "you're right."
"We should get a psychological profile of each of them," Alex muttered to themselves, "or something."
Something to explain why they had so quickly narrowed it down. Some of it was knowledge: of those in the Debate class, only certain categories of people were aware of what the Coach was doing.
Alex had done the math, and counting as many people who might have overheard it or said something as possible, it still meant that the suspect pool was only fourteen people.
Wendell, that was another gut feeling, along with the feeling that exonerated Damien, but both were things that could be quantified to some extent. And Mr. Sellers?
They had contacted him, they had pressed the issue, and it had seemed to work. There was still more to do, but eliminate him, and it was already down to eleven suspects.
There was a lot to justify, and a lot of mistakes, and yet ultimately they had run down the second killer far better than the first.
They'd almost had him before Darius had gone in and killed him, and Alex suspected that even without Darius, they would have gotten the boy, Marcus, before too long. But before too long meant many more deaths, and so they couldn't begrudge it.
What they could begrudge was the fact that they didn't understand what the first killer's next move was. The lack of personal motive, and the uncertain whimsy meant that merely predicting who they would kill would put them only so much closer to the truth. Because it wasn't going to be personal, and not all that revealing.
Even tapping to see what news sites they read might not catch it if they were clever enough to store the names and faces in their mind and remember them. And even if it was caught, what of it? Was going online to a popular news site and reading the stories really the slam-dunk evidence that Alex was seeking?
And yet, cases were built like this. Brick by brick, piece by piece.
Alex thought about how and where Rachel and Patricia were moving. They were meeting today, for dinner at Patricia's house, for it was only a day until New Years, and they wanted to do a bit of the Christmas thing, having gotten too out of sorts and even upset over the strange actions of the police that, of course, were entirely unfounded.
Were they talking? Were they whispering? Plotting?
Well so was Alex.
*******
January the third. Four people, sitting in a conference room, waiting for the arrivals. Four people to be added to a team of four, plus plenty of other sources and contacts that were not directly part of the team. So few because it was thought that Alex's report indicated that they had an understanding of the case, and they would not want to upset the balance of 'his' they said on the report, to Alex's annoyance, team.
Wouldn't want to brush Alex aside.
Good, very good.
The door opened, and Jesus Smiley stepped in, ahead of the others, it seemed. "Good day, Detectives. I hope your New Years was enjoyable?"
Alex didn't bite at the small talk, though they had spent all of the 1st groaning over a near-fatal headache.
"It was," Oliver said, "I went and visited my family, and recharged and tried to think about what we're going to do next."
"Ah, good, good," Smiley said, seemingly surprised anyone had taken up his question at all. "Well, allow me to introduce…"
Who joins up? Pick 3
[] "Morgan Smithson, an expert in evidence of a certain type. He's just the man if you want to find hidden things, and his brain is top-notch when it comes to twisted ways that murder can be done."
[] "Urich Hatler is a bit of an obsessive when it comes to systems, especially security. I know that might not sound so useful, but we need to protect this book, and we also need to figure out how and where they are protecting their own book." (Also known as something of a demolitions expert, though that's not really relevant… or is it?)
[] "Laila Otters used to be an undercover cop before she joined the FBI, and she has plenty of experience there. Another person to work against your style of investigation seemed like a sure pick, Alex."
[] "Nancy Grates is something of an oddity. A logician, as much as a crime-solver. It seemed that her understanding of logic and rules might lead her to ask more about what Ryuk can do, and what he can't do."
[] "Rick Oates knows the law quite well. It's proved useful in cases of his in the past, where the police and the FBI have had to push a little farther than usual, or deal with RICO conspiracy matters. Considering that your read is two people working together, and perhaps more, and that you wish to do a lot of monitoring that's rather difficult to get… I thought you'd appreciate him."
[] Kyle Klein is new to our department, but very bright, and more than that, willing to take risks. That'd not normally be a plus, we're the FBI, not a SWAT team, but considering the secret nature of the precautions you're wanting us to take...oh, and of course, none of the names I'm telling you are real."
******
A/N: And there we go. Actually, Darius is part of the 'team' as well. I might make a post after you choose in which I list everyone, because that's going to be the core team and unless/until people start dying, it's not going to change much!
Also, yes, this is a clipshow episode.
