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Jan Sleet pulled out her pocket watch. "It's been over forty-five minutes." She looked down. "Daphne, I would ask you if you thought she was really coming, but you wouldn't tell me, would you?"

Daphne looked up and barked.

"I didn't think so."

They were standing on the sidewalk in front of the pet store. The door opened and Stephanie poked her head out. "Hey, you guys," she said. "What's going on? Do you want to come in and visit?"

"Perhaps in a few minutes," Jan said. "We're waiting for somebody."

"Okay. I can make a cup of tea, if you have the time. I'd like to find out how things are going with the case." She smiled suddenly. "And if you're interested in some really cute kittens..."

Daphne's bark was emphatically negative. Stephanie laughed and went back inside the store as Vinnie said, "There she is."

This was starling in full regalia, as she was always depicted in posters. She was wearing a stained and worn fatigue jacket over a T-shirt and jeans, plus dark sunglasses. There was a gun belt across her hips, and she walked toward them slowly, with no expression and no indication that she even saw them.

Vinnie wondered if she was simply going to wipe them out. It seemed like a crazy thought, but of course she was known to be crazy.

"Pretty impressive, no?" came a raspy voice from behind them, and Vinnie and Jan jumped. They turned and saw Katherine, calmly lighting a cigarette. They turned back to the woman approaching them, who removed her sunglasses and smiled, revealing herself to be Pete.

Vinnie had half noticed that they looked a lot alike the day before – same height, both lean, similar hair color – but Pete had nailed her slow, ominous walk, and he'd obviously hacked off his long hair to look like hers.

Jan glanced back at Katherine and again at Pete as he put his glasses on. He was about to speak, but Jan nodded. "Well known, iconic, easy to recognize, and therefore easy to imitate. I get the point."

Pete unbuckled the gun belt and gave it to Katherine. "Having made the point," he said, "I think we'll go home. Professor?"

Vinnie handed over Daphne's leash, but she didn't seem to want to move from his side.

"Daphne!" Katherine said sharply, snapping her fingers.

Vinnie squatted and rubbed Daphne's head, then he leaned forward and whispered, "I'll come by tonight. Probably after dinner. If I'm invited, of course."

She licked his cheek and trotted off with Pete and Katherine.

Jan regarded her father. She sighed. "Words fail me," she said. "Which, as you know, doesn't happen very often." Vinnie shrugged. "Well, since you have become... attached to one of my suspects, I suppose I should bring you up to date on the case." She held up a finger. "With the understanding--"

"That whatever I learn goes no further. Of course."

 
A small bell rang when the door to the pet store opened, and Stephanie stepped out of the back room. "Hi," she said. "Give me a minute – I need to wash my hands."

They heard running water, and then she came back in. "It's really hard being behind the counter and doing everything else, too." She was wearing jeans and a tank top, and when she went behind the counter she pulled on a blue sweater. "This is the nicest top I own," she said, "and I'm trying to keep it clean so I'll look okay for the customers." She laughed. "Well, when they come in. I think I've taken it off and put it back on at least ten times so far today."

She ran her fingers through her short blonde hair, then she grimaced and quickly patted it back into place.

"Do you have a few minutes?" she asked. "Would you like some tea? I want to hear about the case, and I have a couple of questions, too."

Jan nodded. "We'd love some tea, thank you."

They went into the small office where Tom Drenkenson's body had been found. Stephanie put up water on the hot plate on top of the filing cabinet, and Jan took the desk chair. Stephanie leaned against the desk and Vinnie sat on a rather flimsy-looking folding chair.

"So," Jan said, "what are your questions? Let's start there."

"Well, I was wondering who's going to take over the store. I mean, I'm glad to handle things for now, but what's going to happen?"

"We don't know yet. As far as we've been able to learn, Mr. Drenkenson has no family in this area. We've written to his sister – she's the only close relative we've been able to locate – but she lives in Oklahoma and I would imagine she might not want to come here to run this store. So, you should be thinking about whether you'd like to take over."

"Me?"

Jan laughed. "Yes, you. Who else? You might need to pay some money to his family over time, something like that. Anyway, we don't know yet, but you should be thinking about whether you'd want it."

Stephanie leaned back, almost losing her balance. "Wow," she said. She looked around at the shabby little office. "I was not expecting this."

"Apparently. What was the other question?"

"Huh? Oh." She smiled. "I do have to ask what that scene was out on the street with starling. I saw some of it through the window."

"As you know, I put out a call to all the runners to find out if any of them saw anybody suspicious in the vicinity of the store at around the time of the murder. Well, somebody did come forward, and he said he saw starling."

Stephanie's eyes got wide – they could see her start to invent scenarios where starling had killed her boss.

"I went to see starling," Jan continued. "She lives with Pete, who was in the same band as Mr. Drenkenson." Stephanie's eyes got even wider. Her brain was obviously steaming ahead at full speed now. "The little vignette outside on the street was their demonstration that starling would have been easy to imitate."

The teapot whistled and Stephanie moved to make the tea. There were only two mugs – Mr. Drenkenson's and the one she had brought in for herself – so she decided she wouldn't have any. She didn't like tea that much anyway, but it was cheaper than buying soda every day.

Over her shoulder, she asked, "And what's with that girl who walks around like a dog? I've seen her a few times, when I'm out on patrol, but why did she go off with starling?"

There was a pause as she turned with the two steaming mugs.

"She lives with them, with Pete and Katherine," Jan said. "'Katherine' is starling's real name."

Stephanie gave them their tea and they thanked her. "I hope you don't want milk," she said. "We don't have a refrigerator." They assured her that this was fine, and they declined her offer of sugar.

Stephanie leaned against the desk again. "I have another question, but first I have to say that the dog girl gives me the willies. I mean, when I'm on patrol I see all sorts, and I try not to judge. My father used to say that our job was to stop crime, not to question how people live their lives." She smiled a rueful smile. "I think that's right, and, unlike him, I actually try to do that."

Vinnie laughed. "You must get a lot of practice here."

"Oh, I do. It's been an experience for a small-town girl, I can tell you."

Jan smiled. "Well, as the professor here can tell you, I was a small-town girl once myself. Have you met the Golden?"

"I don't think so."

"Three of them, around fourteen years old, gold skin, gray eyes, blonde hair, they all look exactly alike?"

"Oh, sure, I've seen them on the street. Yeah, they're pretty odd. Are they brothers?"

"Two brothers and a sister, actually."

"Really? They all look the same."

"Once, by accident, I saw them... well, let's say that I saw enough to know for sure that one of them is a girl and the other two are boys." Stephanie started to blush. "Trust me, however odd they look on the street, they're much more peculiar to talk to."

"They look like they're aliens or something," Stephanie said.

"They may well be. I was investigating them once, and when I got a little too nosy one of them said, 'Mrs. O'Connor, you are seeking to understand more about this situation, and us, out of a general desire to understand the world, which we completely respect; however, when the phenomena under investigation are sentient, and are posing no provable risk to the community, we would suggest that the rights of the phenomena under investigation should outweigh the rights of the scientific investigator.'

"I had to admit that they were right, of course. And, in that spirit, and in the spirit of your father's words, we should probably talk about the case."

Which was, Vinnie thought, an elegant way of stopping Stephanie from getting back to her queasiness about Daphne. He appreciated that, though probably not as much as Jan thought he would. She might think it was icky to have her father involved with a suspect, and a suspect who lived her life as a dog at that, but he didn't see anything wrong with it (and in fact he was quite happy with how things were progressing).

 
After they had walked for two or three blocks, Daphne stopped and stood up. She unclipped her leash from her collar and Pete handed her the end he'd been holding. She coiled up the leash and stuck it into the back pocket of her jeans.

"I'm going to go for a run," she said. She gave each of them a peck on the cheek before trotting off.

Katherine smiled as Pete said, "She always knows, doesn't she?"

They started out again, bound for home. After a minute, Pete said, "I'm... I'm not ready..."

"I know," Katherine said, taking his hand. He squeezed her hand lightly, then left it up to her whether to hold on or let go. She held on as they walked.

"I don't think our little stunt really had a big effect," she said.

He laughed. "I know." He rubbed his remaining hair. "And now my head is cold." He shrugged a very Pete shrug. "We'll have to see what happens."

"Vinnie seems nice," Katherine observed after a moment.

"He does. I think Daph is quite taken with him." He paused. "I was really surprised to find out that you and he knew each other way back when."

She laughed. "So was I. And that was one of my favorite mugs, too."

Pete let the silence linger then, knowing that she had things she wanted to say, and that she would say them when she was ready. He squeezed her hand.

 
"Stephanie," the detective began, "did Mr. Drenkenson usually lock the door when the store closed? Did he lock the door that day? Was the door locked when you came in to check why the light was on when it was well past closing time?"

"He usually locked the door when it was time to close the store, but on Sunday I locked it when I left. He said he was going to stay for a few minutes – he was at his desk here – and he asked me to lock the door and turn out the lights out front when I left, so no customers would try to come in."

"Was this normal behavior? Did he often stay late?"

"Not often, but sometimes. When he had paperwork to do, and I know sometimes he had business reports which were due on Monday. So, it could have been that. Oh, and no, the door was... Hey wait. This means I'll need to do the reports–"

"We'll get to that later. Under the circumstances, I'm sure the delay won't be a problem. Was the door locked when you came back to investigate?"

"No, it wasn't."

The great detective smiled. "That's too bad. I was wondering if I'd have to figure out a fiendishly clever method for how the door got locked, since Mr. Drenkenson had his keys in his pocket." She leaned back in her chair. "This store has, as you know, only one door – the front door to the street. The windows in this room are high and small, so no one entered that way. That's also true in the storage room on the other side of that wall. The windows to the street are display windows, which don't open. So, it appears that whoever killed Mr. Drenkenson came in through the street door.

"As Vinnie can tell you, Stephanie, when I was growing up I often read mystery novels where a crafty killer would have lurked outside that window, waited for the ideal moment, thrown a knife with deadly accuracy, a skill perhaps learned during his circus days, and killed without ever entering the room.

"Well, I went out Sunday night and examined the ground under the window. It got very muddy in that sudden and intense rain earlier that evening, so it's impossible to tell if there were tracks from before that, but I have never, unfortunately, encountered a murder like the one I just described, and it would take some hard evidence to convince me that this is the one."

Stephanie looked about to speak, but the detective continued, "To anticipate your next comment, you are correct. The knife was not found in the room, so... I'll spare you a reconstruction of a fiendishly clever way that could have been accomplished if you'll both agree, at least tentatively, that Mr. Drenkenson admitted his killer to the store."

They nodded.

"To continue, there's no evidence that the lock was forced, and no sign of a struggle, so it doesn't seem that he was attacked out in the front of the store and then brought back here. So, if he let his murderer in and they came back here, after the store was closed, it would seem that they knew each other."

"Maybe the murderer threatened him, to get him to unlock the door," Stephanie suggested.

"Possible, but then we're looking for somebody with a gun. You can't force somebody to unlock a door and let you in by threatening him with a knife."

"starling has guns," Stephanie said.

"And she carries at least one knife, too, as I happen to know. Are you favoring starling as our murderer?"

Stephanie shrugged as Jan brought out her cigarette case and her lighter.

"I have no idea who did it, but I do have to point out that I could make a case against you that's at least as good as the one I could make against her. For one thing, you had a motive. You don't carry a gun but I know you are experienced with them, and in any case you wouldn't need a gun to get into the store since you have a key." She smiled at Stephanie's expression as she lit a cigarette. "I'm not accusing you, but I'm cautioning you to avoid deciding who you want to be the killer. Let the evidence lead you, not the other way around. I... I imagine you don't approve of starling."

Stephanie made a face. "She's a murderer!"

Jan nodded. "She is indeed. Many times over. But we are a nation of laws, as the phrase goes, and she has not murdered anybody here. She has killed, but only in self-defense, or in defense of Pete, her boyfriend."

Vinnie was watching the two women with great interest. It had been a long time since he'd seen his daughter conducting an investigation, and he was struck by how confident she was. He could tell she was completely aware of every spoken and unspoken nuance in the room, and he was pretty sure she had started to light a cigarette at the exact moment that she had Stephanie on the defensive, suggesting that she might be the killer, in order to make it awkward for Stephanie to object to her smoking. This was, of course, Stephanie's office now, but he knew the girl wasn't yet thinking of it that way.

From the dynamics of the conversation, it felt like Jan Sleet was much older than the young superhero, but Stephanie seemed to be around eighteen, so the real age gap was more like seven years. Of course Jan's imperious demeanor and her three-piece suit added to the feeling of disparity (plus the fact that she towered over the younger woman), but part of it was also that Stephanie had apparently been raised to be respectful to authority. Vinnie had raised his daughter to be suspicious of authority, and never to respect anybody simply because they had a title.

"As far as motive goes," he put in, "my sources tell me that there was some bad blood in the band that Pete and Mr. Drenkenson belonged to. That could have provided a motive for Katherine."

"Have your sources told you the details of this bad blood?"

"No."

"Well, I've spoken to Fifteen, who, in addition to being our aide, is friends with Pete and starling, and he was a roadie for Kingdom Come when it was a going concern. So, I know a little more about the bad blood.

"There was a woman named Jennifer Owens, who was Mr. Drenkenson's girlfriend when the band was formed, and there was a man named Philip Henshaw, who was also in the band. He sang and wrote the songs and played guitar." She frowned at Vinnie. "Does that happen – two guitar players in the same band?"

"It's very common. One plays more chords and the other melodies. Rhythm and lead."

"Ah, thank you. Anyway, Miss Owens quickly changed her allegiance to Mr. Henshaw, who is apparently quite a bit more charismatic than Mr. Drenkenson was. This caused some of the bad blood, as you can imagine."

Stephanie shrugged. "I'm not seeing a motive for anybody to kill Mr. Drenkenson. Not from this."

"Exactly. Drenkenson could have been angry enough to kill Henshaw, or Owens, but not the other way around. Based on what we know now."

"What happened to Jenny? Where is she?"

"She left town, by all accounts, after she stabbed Mr. Henshaw."

"Wait a minute," Stephanie said. "He's dead – the charismatic one?"

"Oh, no. It was a drunken altercation, in a club called The Quarter, during what turned out to be the last performance by the band Kingdom Come. She stabbed him on stage with a broken beer bottle. Reportedly she left town later that night, possibly to avoid reprisals by Mr. Henshaw's many friends and supporters." She caught Stephanie's eye. "For example, the Jinx were big fans of his."

Stephanie's eyes widened. "Yeah, that makes sense." She grinned briefly. "I'm always very polite to them when I'm on patrol." She paused and then she frowned. "I'm still not seeing how this helps."

"I don't think it does, except in a negative way. But I'm sure there are things we don't know yet, or some connection we're not seeing in what we do know."

She turned to Stephanie. "I have to let you know that I'm also looking at Larry Gerard." Stephanie started to protest. "I spoke to Angel Valentine this morning, and she explained how out of character it would have been for him to step in to defend you, and also he's reportedly out of town, but he does have to be considered."

 
to be continued...