Conner and Nick, being the two only people who had a fairly good record of being able to calm Captain Steel down had convinced her to go back to the police station and organize more groups to look deeper into the records of the students, even though the real reason, as Conner had explained to Nick was that he was afraid that Captain Steel was far to dominate in her questioning to pull off a good cop, bad cop routine and it might be better for the sake of the case, if Tim played the bad cop instead.

So knowing that he and Conner where typically the voices of reason Nick called up his friend Tim to see if he would help out. Despite the fact that he had a mountain of paperwork Tim came, saying that he would do a lot for a friend and that an extra hour or two on his work day wouldn’t make much of a difference, because Captain Steel was harsh during cases, but calmer after cases were solved.

Tim was easy to like, he had a lot of similarities to Nick, but he was more willing to work hard and despite the long hours that he willingly worked he still maintained a positive attitude, in fact he always maintained a positive attitude, no matter what the circumstances.

“So are you sure about this?” Conner asked over the phone.

“Yes, the evidence supports this, so all we need is the proof, so try the test, and take a second look at Ms. Sullivan’s organs,” Nick replied.

“Wow, if you’re right this is the most creative murder that I’ve worked on,” Conner replied, impressed. “I think that I should write it down, I could probably use it in a book later on.”

“Not this case,” Nick replied. “Not yet at least, you need to do that test first.”

After that Nick closed his phone and reached forward to open the drafting class room door. “Hello Mr. Henry we would like to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll answer,” Mr. Henry replied coldly from behind his desk.



“That smart mouth of yours will just make us assume you have something to hide,” Tim interjected with an equal coldness in his voice. “Do you know how bad assumptions are, especially when they can put you away for life?”

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Nick said, playing the good cop just as planned. “We’re just here to talk civilly and if you feel like telling about anything that you know we’ll do what we can from there.”

While Nick and Tim continued to talk to Mr. Henry, Jake snooped around the rest of the room, looking for evidence, as he was supposed to. Most of the room was dominated by drafting tables and computers along the wall, but all of those were the same and didn’t interest Jake. However there was a small alcove on the left side of the drafting classroom with drawers and stacks of books. That alcove was a lot more interesting than the main room. It had a lot of places that could hide small or large objects.

Meanwhile Nick and Tim continued to interrogate Mr. Henry. Nick stared into Mr. Henry’s eyes expecting to see something there.

“So if you thought that you could outsmart the system then you’re wrong, we have a nice little pile of evidence to back up our suspicions, so you would probably be a lot happier if you tried to work with us,” Tim said, playing the role of the bad cop to a tee.

Mr. Henry’s eyes mimicked those of a professional poker player’s eyes when he responded. “Nothing would please me more if I helped you officers. Now you can cut all of this pointless talking, I’ve been watching you and I know what your moves will be and I have one or two powerful contacts that would willingly pay you back tenfold for anything that you do to me,” Mr. Henry replied. “Don’t ask me again though, because I won’t give you any incriminating evidence.”

Meanwhile Jake riffled through the drawers. There was a red pen, a few triangles, a book that had been left in the drawer accidentally by one of the students, a compass and some gum stuck to the underside of two of the drawers.

Meanwhile Tim was starting to get agitated and quickly found that he wasn’t acting his role anymore, but was instead being his character. “You know how upset you’ve made some people. You chose the wrong girl to kill.”

Meanwhile Jake continued his search. There was a pile of books on a cart and a poster on the back wall with a little lump behind it, just then Jake backtracked a little and found what he was looking for.




“Where’s my former student?” Mr. Henry asked loudly and suddenly.

“I’m right here,” Jake said, approaching his former teacher. “You’ve changed, what happened to you?”

“I have always liked to pull the strings and know what is going to happen, you knew that,” Mr. Henry replied.

“No,” Jake replied with no hint of pleasure in what he said. “I mean that you wouldn’t have killed a young woman when I last saw you.”

“Oh, I get it, you’re trying to pressure me more by adding in another bad cop,” Mr. Henry responded.

“I’m not a good cop, or a bad cop, I’m a private investigator with evidence,” Jake said, almost regretful at finding the truth. “The evidence is this pen, it was leaking, but it’s red, just like the pen that was used in the case that we’re working on. Did you know that we can test pen inks and we’ll be able to tell if this was the pen used in the crime?”

“A leaking pen you say?” Tim asked quizzically. After speaking, Tim tested the ink stain back at the lab and once he was done he called Nick. “That’s not ink.”

“We have to talk,” Nick said, all traces of kindness gone. “Now you’re going away for life if I have anything to do with it…and I have plenty to do with it.”
***

Captain Steel asked the one question that everyone was wondering. “So why did you do it?”

Mr. Henry looked around the room and for a moment it seemed that he was starring through the one way glass. Then he launched into his tale. “It’s a simple story really. A website was all it took to open my eyes. I just stumbled across it and it told me what I needed to know. It taught me that not all people can be made happy, because some people lose something precious to them, but everyone can be made upset, it’s simple you can kill someone, but you can’t resurrect anyone, so when I decided that the best way to make a world where life is fair, is by making everyone as upset as everyone else, then in the end everyone would find happiness in the little things, no one expecting big things and no one feeling better than anyone else. Many people today judge their happiness off of material things and the world only has a limited amount of material things, so making everyone equally happy is impossible.”

“So you killed a college girl just because she was making people happy?” Captain Steel asked, unbelievingly.

“Of course, but that was just a start, many more children must be sacrificed for the world to finally be fair.”

At that point Nick, Jake, Zach, and Rachel were behind the one way glass, looking in on the murdering psychopath. Rachel turned towards Zach. “Do you know where the other college students are?”

“Yes, Captain Steel was afraid that Mr. Henry might have associates who work for, or with him, so they’re under protection just a few doors down.”

Just then Conner walked up to Nick. “You were right, I found the stitches on all the cancerous organs and when I tested their DNA it turned out that they had belonged to other people, so that’s why she’s sitting on one of my tables rather than studying in school. I must admit though it is impressive, all of the stitches are so tiny and most of them took multiple cuts to get to them. One thing’s for sure whether it was Mr. Henry or not that took out her organs and replaced them we’re dealing with a professional.”

“So you’re saying what exactly?” Zach asked. “That it was a medical accident with a cover up.”

“No,” Conner said rolling his eyes. “I’m saying that this was a foul murder with a cover up of replacing good organs with some that don’t have a good market price. It’s not that hard to understand.”

“I know, I’m just messing with you,” Zach replied.

Back in the interrogation room Mr. Henry continued to rant in his odd icy tone. “Those people were unbalancing the amount of happiness in the world, chasing a foolish dream that would simply lead to the opposite of what they hoped for. At least now that problem is fixed, but don’t think that they’re the only ones, I now see that this whole police station does so much more good than bad. Even the toughest, roughest of you do good. Captain Steel, you say that you want to smash my face against this table and you could, but I know that you are just trying to prove that you aren’t as weak as who was it? A bully possibly, thought. I can see it in your eyes, every time that you threaten me and I can see what you think in your eyes too Rachel. You’re very hurt by what I did, every time that I watched you I knew that you want to help the environment, you’re just like them, the other students, but you aren’t Tim. You have always been so overworked that you have lost the Irish heartiness that you used to have, sad isn’t it, but not as sad as you Zach. You have an incredible amount of energy that you don’t know what to do with, I know that eventually you’ll turn to drugs to solve that problem. Speaking of change I believe that you have had a lot of change Nick, you used to be good natured and you still are, but ever since your wife died you’ve been disturbed, you hide it well, but I know you’re as crazy as your step brother.”

“That will be enough from you!” Nick yelled bursting into the interrogation room. “If I liked using my mouth as much as you obviously do, then I wouldn’t risk tempting someone to mess it up.”

“I have the blueprints you know.”

For some reason Nick was suddenly much more interested in what Mr. Henry was saying. “What do you mean?”

Mr. Henry smiled smugly. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Nick stared intently, speaking in s low menacing voice. “Where is it?”

Mr. Henry began quietly laughing. “Where she was last. Too bad for you that it could be anywhere, guess you’ll have to find where she was last.”

“Enough!” Nick shouted. “No more talking about anything that doesn’t involve you going to jail, to start with how did you kill her!”

“Come here,” Mr. Henry beckoned. Then he whispered as though he was trying to let no one except Nick hear. “What you should be asking is how I killed them.”

That’s when the bomb exploded.