A Perfect Crime (TWS)

Really, it wasn't so much one single thing as a whole wave of realizations leading into each other.

It started with a potted plant I could see just outside the exit door. But I'd seen that same plant inside when we came in.

And once I realized that, it became clearer that these thugs weren't leaving the building, they were entering it. We were seeing the whole scene backwards.

Except, it was more than that. Once I looked more closely at the walls, I realized that this was on the second floor.

I said all this out loud, of course, because that's the right way to do things, not writing down everything on Observation Form 492-D12. The kid gave me a funny look as I did.

"But, there's no entrance to the building on the second floor."

That's what I would have thought too, but the facts were staring me right in the face. I dragged the kid to the second floor and looked for a potted plant.

It was identical to the plant on the first floor, no doubt because both had been bred to the Council's exact and necessary specifications. A little tapping around revealed a painted-over door. I pulled it out and found...

Well, nothing. We were on the second floor, after all. It just opened out into thin air.

"They didn't look like flyers," I mused. "That leaves levitation. But why? Why go to all the trouble to levitate to an outside entrance that was being recorded anyways?"

At that moment, my communicator beeped back. They'd run the check and this Crone had a license to conduct up to Class C criminal activities. Racketeering, extortion, bribes to non-Council officials (obviously the Council themselves were totally incorruptible), and up to four non-lethal assaults per reporting period.

But not murder. That was just asking for a suspension. That might explain this - those weren't the Crone's goons, but someone else trying to ruin a criminal in good standing. They staged the murder and made it look like the Crone was responsible. It even explained why they'd go for a dissident - it could be passed off as an attempt to curry favor with the Council for a better license.

Of course, the Council would never do anything so unethical. But that didn't matter as long as the masses believed it.

It was a good theory, and the kid was nodding along as I explained it, but I couldn't do anything more to check it from here. I had to meet with this Crone and find out what I could.

But I'd have to go undercover. Legal Enforcement Agents weren't supposed to meet with crooks unless they were authorized to take bribes, and my license had been suspended while I was under review.

Of course, I couldn't let the kid tag along for that. Kind of blows your cover to constantly be filling out False Claims Made For Enforcement Purposes forms, after all. So I needed to come up with something to keep ??? busy while I did the real work.

But how do you keep an eager young rule-following cephalawpod occupied?