《Killer Bay》The Ice Queen
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"Ah Adalet, I'm really glad to see you settling into Pacific Bay so well . . . and doing such a great job!" Andrea says as Adalet and Frank stood in front of her desk, "you'll be on night duty with Frank . . . Try not to see it as a punishment."
"Alright, Adalet? I'm kind of relieved to be partnering up with you," Frank whispered, "I was scared I'd get stuck with Amy."
"It's Amy who should be relieved," the chief says having heard him clearly, "hopefully not much will happen tonight, just watch out Frank doesn't fall asleep: he's a loud snorer."
Adalet snickered, "oh trust me, I can sleep next to someone who snores like a chainsaw!"
Andrea laughs, "anyway, I'll leave you both to it. Have a good night."
"Well Adalet, what do you say we go for a walk," Frank volunteered, "at this hour, the beach is deserted, just the way I like it."
On the beach . . .
"On quiet nights like these, it gets me thinking, maybe there's some good left in Pacific Bay after all," Frank says breathing in the salty air, "and look over there, there's a bonfire raging. I guess there must be an end-of-summer party going on."
"Frank," Adalet frowns as she strained to see the bonfire, "there's something not right about that bonfire . . ."
"What's that Adalet? You think something's not right with that kid by the bonfire?" he asked, he cupped his hand around his mouth, "hey you, by the bonfire!"
They waited a few seconds but received silence as a reply.
"They ain't answering, but they're probably just stoned. Anyway, let's leave them to it Adalet, we ain't babysitters . . ." Frank trails off as his partner and the dogs ran off towards the fire, "wait, Adalet, where are you going?!"
Frank hurried to keep up with Adalet and the dogs as they reached the bonfire. The most freaky-looking statue was positioned next to it and the captain also saw a phone beside it and a speargun tossed near the water's edge.
"What the--?! We're in the middle of summer, in freakin' Pacific Bay . . . So how on earth did this girl end up as a human popsicle?!" Frank cried.
"I'd recognize that stare anywhere," Adalet said kneeling and getting her cellphone.
"And you're right Adalet, that icy stare belongs to Becky Walden!" he agreed, "we warned that nosy kid to stay out of trouble: obviously she didn't listen . . ."
She ended her quick call, "we should start by sending Becky's body over to autopsy."
"I'm guessing Roxie is out partying by now," he smirked, "but she's gonna have to come back in."
"And there's Becky's phone," she picked up the cell phone with her gloved hand, "it might help shed some light on all this madness."
"But only you have the skills to unlock it," he snorts, "And what about this speargun? If you think it ties in with our investigation, we should dust this sucker for prints, see who it belongs to!"
Adalet opened her case and hooked up the cell phone to her tablet. She opened the code-breaking app and found the code that matched up with the partial one she recovered.
"You really are a phone whisperer, Adalet! Now that you've unlocked the victim's phone, how about we send it to the lab?" Frank says taking it from her.
Once Frank had the phone, Adalet took out her brush and powder for the speargun. She dusted the neck of the gun and the handle for fingerprints. She got a clear set off of it and laid the speargun back down in the sand.
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"Now to run these prints through the database," Adalet said scanning the speargun.
Frank shrugs, "that's fine by me."
Adalet pulls up the Pacific Bay fingerprint database and compared the prints she'd just taken. She got a match to a precious suspect and read the name off for Frank to hear.
"Smooth going, Adalet. So you found this speargun next to the victim's body, and now we know it belongs to Roger Strout," Frank summed up the events.
"And Roger was one of my suspects during that deep-sea diving case," Adalet replied, "well, looks like he's back for a second round."
"You ever hear the bedtime story of the speargun and the frozen girl, Adalet?" he asked.
She shook her head, "no, doesn't sound like it has a happy ending."
"Me neither," he responded, "so let's go pull Roger out of bed and have him tell it to us."
Once Roxie had arrived with her van to take the body and lab samples away, Frank and Adalet drove out to Roger's beachfront house. They banged on his front door and watch the light turned on and the diver shuffles to the front door. And does the man own anything other than wet suits? Seriously, he was sleeping in one!
"Roger Strout, here's a fun fact: Capt. Adalet found your speargun on the scene of Becky Walden's murder. How do you explain that one?" Frank questioned.
"Becky's dead?!" Roger exclaims, "look, I was out on the boardwalk with my pet octopus . . ."
He gave a deadpanned look, "your pet octopus?"
"Why the look? It was in a special container to show to tourists. It's good for business," he explained, "anyway, that girl decided to steal my octopus in its container and she ran away! I tried chasing her, but couldn't keep up!"
"Oh yeah, so how come we found your speargun next to her dead body?!" he demanded.
"When I got to the beach, she was nowhere to be found. That's when I forgot my speargun!" he shot back.
"This ain't over, Roger," he promised, "and next time you lie, try and come up with a better story. It's embarrassing."
"I don't know if I should believe that lie because it's so crazy or not," Adalet commented as they let Roger go.
"I agree Adalet, Roger's a terrible liar," Frank snorts, "but one thing we did learn was that Becky went to the boardwalk tonight."
She nodded, "we should check it out."
"And we could even stop for some food on the way . . ." he whistles as they walked towards the boardwalk, "or even just a drink!"
"Even if you could, you'd be drinking for two!" she laughed.
"I can live with that!"
On The Boardwalk . . .
"Ugh," Frank massaged his temples, "all these neon lights aren't helping my headache. Did you find anything, Adalet? A torn T-shirt and the bargain bin from the souvenir shop?"
"You want to search through it?" Adalet offered.
"I don't wanna be seen searching through bargain bins. With my Hawaiian shirt and all, it'd make me look like a cheap tourist . . ." he joked, "and I guess we're gonna have to stitch this T-shirt back together . . . By "we", I mean "you", Adalet: I'm hopeless at this kind of thing."
Reluctantly Frank search through the bargain bin from the gift shop. Adalet took the Tron t-shirt and began to sew it back piece by piece. As she was almost finished with the shirt, Frank gave a cry of surprise causing Adalet to look up.
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"What's this bloody sword doing among all these buckets and spades?" Frank wondered holding up the blade.
"I don't know," Adalet responds, "but we better collect some of that blood!"
Adalet tied off her last stick before she took the sword from her partner. She swabbed the tip of the blade and got a sample of the blood for Yann to look at.
"Okay, let's send this blood sample you got off that sword over to the lab," Frank says taking the sword and sample, "I'm curious to see how it fits in with our investigation."
"And I want to know what the designer was thinking when they made this shirt," Adalet replied picking up the shirt she'd repaired.
"You're pretty good at fixing torn clothes, Adalet . . . Maybe I could give you my socks to fix one of these days?" Frank laughed as she pulled a disgusted face, "you're right Adalet, it was a bad joke . . . Haha, I can be a real goof sometimes . . . This T-shirt you pieced back together has a photo of Becky . . . But who's the grinning idiot next to her, Adalet?"
"His name's Zack Taylor," Adalet answered, "he's a lifeguard I met during the shark attack case. Let's go talk to him!"
"I agree," he nods, "we should pay him a visit and wipe that smile off his face!"
After leaving the blood sample at the station, Frank and Adalet went back to the beach. They arrived at the lifeguard cabin and saw all of the summer lifeguards outside having a party. Adalet caught sight of the blonde suspect and called him over.
"Woohoo, Capt. Adalet!" Zack stumbles over with a can in hand, "come party with us! It's been a crazy night so far!"
"Go easy on the enthusiasm, kid, it's irritating," Frank grumbled, "Capt. Adalet found a cheesy T-shirt of you and Becky Walden, and since she's been murdered, we wanna ask you some questions."
"Oh my gosh, Becky's been killed?!" he gasped, "but that's impossible, we were just hanging out on the boardwalk earlier tonight!"
"No offence, Zack, but we have trouble believing a popular guy like you would be friends with a geeky girl like her," Adalet admits.
"She was always alone and I felt sorry for her because everyone hated her. So I tried to cheer her up a bit: it's what I'm good at," Zack flashed his perfect smile, "sadly, I don't think anybody will miss her. Ugh, I don't wanna die like that: alone and unloved."
"Here's a tip, kid: if you don't wanna die alone and unloved, put a damn T-shirt back on!" Frank advised.
Later in the office . . .
"The Tiki Shack was rocking, but this is way cooler! Your victim was frozen solid thanks to a little something called liquid nitrogen," Roxie informed with excitement, "liquid nitrogen is the bomb! It causes rapid freezing as soon as it touches something! I analyzed the victim's blood, and I found an insane amount of alcohol in her system. This means she had a great time!. . Until she ended up dead, of course."
"Of course," Adalet agreed sarcastically.
"About the body, pieces were broken off and you won't believe by what! It turns out your killer was listening to loud music which formed sound waves! The sound waves travelled through the body, delivering thousands of shocks. It's as if a thousand hammers were all hitting at once, from the inside out!" she was starting to sound a little too happy, "these cracks on the body acted like a music sheet and preserved the sound waves' beat: *Dum Dum Dum*. Turns out your killer was listening to electronic music!"
"Huh, everything you just said sounds like science-fiction. But if it helps us catch our killer, we'll take it!" Frank says, "Hannah?"
"How's it hanging, Adalet? I checked out the victim's phone and noticed it was overheating, for no apparent reason!" Hannah starts, "so I dug deeper and discovered it was overheating because there was a program secretly running on it. A spy software to be exact!"
"And what does this spy software do?" the senior detective asked.
"Take a wild guess, Frank: this spy software allowed a GPS device to track Becky's every move! I tried to pinpoint the location of the GPS device that was tracking your victim's phone. But it's been switched off," she explains, "as if it wasn't of use anymore . . . But this proves that the GPS device was owned by your killer! With this information, you should be one step closer to catching them, Adalet!"
"So our killer uses a GPS device? You see Adalet, this is why I don't trust technology!" he said.
Adalet rolls her eyes, "alright, alright . . . Yann, please start talking so he'll stop talking!"
"Heya Adalet, don't you just love working night shifts?" Yann asks, "everything is so calm, it's like working in a sacred temple."
"Yann," Frank sighed, "before you turn into the next Dalai Lama, can you tell us about that blood Adalet collected from that sword?"
"That blood was mixed with stomach juices. This can only mean that the sword was swallowed, and the person cut their stomach from the inside," he reports.
"Who would be stupid enough to swallow a freakin' sword?!" he cried.
"Well, this blood belongs to Lenny Spitfire. He's that street performer that Adalet dealt with just recently," he adds, "sword swallowing is a part of his act, but this time, something went wrong."
"And since Lenny was on the boardwalk along with the victim, he may have seen something," Adalet says, "so what do you say we go question this sword-swallow, Frank?"
"So long as he doesn't have anymore on him!" Frank replied.
Frank and Adalet headed out to the Plaza and looked for Lenny Spitfire. They found the performer setting up for his late-night show in the center of the plaza and had a lit torch burning in each of his hands.
"You think dragons are extinct? Well, think again as you watch me breathe . . . FIRE!!!" Lenny roars lifting his torch skywards.
"Keep that fire away from my face!" Frank yelped shielding his face, "Capt. Adalet wants to ask you a few questions about Becky Walden . . ."
"AAAARGH!" he shouts, "I hate her so much! Earlier tonight, she distracted me when I was swallowing my sword. She made me cut myself!"
"Well, that's kind of your fault for swallowing swords in the first place . . ."
"You don't get it! She was here all the time, trying to embarrass me!" he says angered, "that girl was made of ice and I'm made of fire: maybe that's why she disliked me. But she should have known that fire always wins!"
Later at the station . . .
"So much for a calm night, hey Adalet? A girl, who everybody seemed to hate, ends up frozen on a beach in summer . . ." Frank says sitting in his chair, "let's see Adalet, we know that before getting killed, Becky went on a wild, drunken night."
"Maybe her drunkenness explains why she decided to steal that octopus from Roger," Adalet hypothesized.
"We also know Lenny hated her guts as she was always trying to make him mess up his performances just for fun. And there's Zack who became friends with her. But that kind of guy never does anything just to be "nice"," he snorted, "so I wonder what he was really after. Huh, don't you find it strange that our three suspects so far have all been involved in previous murder investigations, Adalet? I don't like those odds."
"Read some of my old case files," she replied, "I've had a guy involved in four murders and arrested during the course of one, and his knives used as a murder weapon for two!"
He made a wheezing laugh, "man, someone's unlucky!"
'And I married into his family . . .' she thought with an eye roll, "if we're to understand any of this, we need to retrace Becky's steps and find out where she started her wild night!"
"Frank, before you try and go to every bar and club under the pretext of finding out where Becky went on her wild night . . . I think I just may know where Becky went on her fatal night! The Little Mermaid club just filed a complaint," Andrea informed them handing over the form, "they said a customer who fits Becky's profile tallied up a bill of 1005 dollars and ran away without paying!"
"Sheesh," Frank's eyes bugged out, "a 1005 dollar bill?! What the hell did Becky do at that club?!"
Adalet whistled as she speed reads the form, "we know Becky ended the night frozen on a beach, and now it's time to go see how it all started!"
When they entered the night club Adalet and Frank took a look around. The captain picked up an ice bucket that one of the servers had left on a table and a forgotten GPS that had been dropped on the couch. Hunter meanwhile had found a torn flyer on a barstool and barked until Frank came and picked it up.
"Good thinking in picking up that ice bucket, Adalet. I'll take two with a drop of whiskey, please . . ." Frank placed his order.
"Frank, I'm a cop, not a bartender," Adalet deadpanned, "this is for searching through."
"Oh, you want to search through it?" he said, "and let me guess, you want to restore this torn flyer as well. Do you ever think of anything other than work, Adalet?"
"Nope! And since we know the killer was using a GPS navigation device to track our victim's movements," she showed him the GPS she'd found.
"So it makes sense to check this one out. But of course, it's locked . . ." he says, "you better handle it, Adalet. Electronic devices ain't good for my anger management: I just end up breaking them out of frustration."
Adalet took the ice bucket first and after slipping on a long glove, she stuck her hand into the frozen water. She fished through the cubes and tiny umbrellas and pulled out a short strip of thermal paper.
"There was a receipt for 1005 dollars in the ice bucket, Frank," Adalet says laying out the slightly soggy paper, "the Chief said Becky spent this exact amount in the club, so it must be hers!"
"There seems to be a drawing on it, but it got faded with all the water," Frank pointed to a messy spot on the receipt, "I guess it's a dead end . . . Unless you can be bothered fixing it, Adalet?"
She just gave him a smirk in reply. Adalet grabbed her brush and dusted the faded area he had pointed out to her. Someone had used the receipt as a doodling pad and had drawn a caricature of their victim and a mermaid standing over her.
"I like your style, Adalet. So that drawing you recovered from the victim's receipt is of a mermaid," Frank bent down to read the writing, "who seems pissed with our victim."
"Think Russell could get something from this?" Adalet asked.
"For sure," he nodded, "he'll have a wisecracking answer as to who this angry mermaid is."
Frank took the receipt and a bag to document their find. As he was doing that, Adalet hooked up the GPS device to her tablet and cracked the code on it. The screen looked normal enough, but to be sure they would need Hannah to look at it.
"See, that's why I don't trust electronics: you can hack into them too easily . . . Or is that just you, Adalet?" Frank pondered.
Adalet chuckled, "we should send this GPS device to the lab."
After putting the device in her case she grabbed her tape and took the flyer pieces. They saw a familiar face printed in the center of the flyer and tons of writing under and above it.
"I never had any patience for puzzles," Frank comments, "but I'm glad you seem to enjoy 'em, Adalet. So you pieced back a flyer."
"It's for the club event "Fire and Ice"," Adalet read, "and it was hosted by Derek Stone!"
"Huh, this guy acts like he's the Scarface of Ocean Shore! And this is the second time he's a suspect in one of your murder investigations, Adalet!" he frowned.
She read more of the information, "the flyer says it was an electronic night. Since Derek was hosting, it's safe to say he likes the music!"
"I'm right behind you, Adalet: since our victim went to Derek's club event, we've gotta question the little creep!" he grinned.
After picking up Derek on the way back to the station, Adalet rushed the GPS and receipt to Hannah and Russell respectively. When she met back up with Frank has was outside the interrogation room waiting for her.
"Yo, you want a hit of my bong, homie? This weed is so good it should be illegal!" Derek laughed high as a kite.
"Very funny, Derek," Frank didn't sound amused, "Capt. Adalet is investigating the murder of a girl who went to your club night at the Little Mermaid."
"Yeah, didn't you know? My parties are killer!" he boasted, "I'll give you VIP tickets to my next one: it's a GPS party, where you can track the girls you like!"
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