"A new lead?" Royce asked, barely masking the excitement he felt.

"Yes, sir," Sully answered, nudging the wax paper package closer to Royce's side of the desk.

Royce ignored it, having forgotten about food in his anxiousness to hear whatever story Sully had to tell. His body, however, was of another mind, as his stomach rumbled again.

Slowly, he unwrapped the bundle in front of him, not wanting to seem too eager.

"Thank you for dinner, Sully. I'm half-starved. Where did all this come from?"

"That amazing little Italian place down the street, Francesco's. They make the best paninis. I thought I'd stop over and grab a couple."

"Yeah, they're amazing, but I thought they only served these at lunch," Royce said, already tearing into his sandwich.

"They usually do, but as it turns out their night manager happens to be an incredibly gorgeous woman named Victoria. She told me she'd make an exception for such a handsome man as myself."

Royce very nearly choked on a mouthful of ciabatta bread, as he let out a barking laugh. "So, she's blind and beautiful," Royce cackled.

"I hear you, old man," Sully said, laughing. "Keep on cracking jokes, but I have a date with her this weekend."

"Ok, ok," Royce declared, wiping at his eyes, before taking another bite of his sandwich. "What exactly is it that we're celebrating?"

"Well," Sully answered in a dramatic tone. "I got some really telling information from the suspect's mother today."

"Alright then, let's have it," Royce replied.

"I'm assuming you've already talked to the coroner?"

"Uh-huh," I have the coroner's report and the findings of the autopsy right here," Royce said, lightly patting a thin manila folder at the corner of his desk. "The deceased was a Mr. Leo Cooper, age twenty-eight with a rap sheet roughly the size of the King James Bible."

"You got it," Sully answered. "Chris and I went out to speak to his family today. He was the oldest of three and still living with his mom."

"That's not terribly unusual under the circumstances," Royce answered. "He was an ex-con fresh out of county lock up. I imagine finding a job or keeping a house, for that matter, would be mighty difficult."

"You're not wrong," Sully answered. " He's been in and out of jail since he was a teen, on one petty crime or another. His mother Mariah, works a full-time job at one of those diners out on the interstate, but she barely brings home enough to make ends meet. Leo's dad, Michael, ran off years ago after Leo's mother caught him red-handed with another woman. It wasn't the first time Mariah had called him out but it was the worst because the woman she caught him with was her best friend. The family hasn't heard from him since."

"Sully, all of this is real interesting, but I have to be honest, I'm not sure how any of this is pertinent to our case."

"Hold your horses, old man. I'm getting there. You gave Leo's rap sheet a nice thorough read, right?"

"Of course, petty larceny, shoplifting, that sort of thing."

"Right," Sully answered. "And all of that starting at age fifteen. Would you like to guess how old Leo was when his father bailed?"

"Fifteen?" Royce guessed, polishing off the last of his sandwich before wiping his mouth with a napkin from the bag.

"Right again," he answered. "He was helping his mom pay the rent, buying groceries, and even putting gas in her car when he could. Mariah knew that her son wasn't working a normal job, and they fought about it often, but he was helping keep the family afloat. When he came out this last time, though, something was different."

"How so?" Royce asked.

"He got involved in church. He also had regular meetings with a correctional counselor on the inside. Nicholas Torres. He set Leo up with an apprenticeship with one of the local construction companies. When he was released, he got the phoenix tattoo. He told his mom that it was a symbol of where he had come from and a reminder never to go back."

"That sounds real pretty and all Sully, but we've both been doing this long enough to know that perps finding the Lord behind bars is hardly a new concept. It plays well at parole hearings."

"I know," Sully replied. "But according to Mariah, he was deadly serious. It wasn't just an act. Leo was attending church regularly even after he was released. He was staying in touch with the correctional counselor and was even attending a few night classes at the community college."

"So then the question is," Royce said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his now full stomach, "how did a kid, who was trying to turn his life around, get mixed up in this mess?"

"His mom blames herself for it. She got behind on the rent while Leo was incarcerated," Sully answered. "Just before his release, Mariah received a notice that her landlord, a Mr. Daniel Willis was preparing to start the eviction process. When Leo found out, he set up a meeting with him. Apparently, he was able to convince Mr. Willis that all he needed was a month, and he would have the bill paid in full."

"Did he ever pay?"

"Nope. Mariah got the eviction notice this week. If she can't find another place in the next thirty days, she and her girls will be homeless."

"What a mess."

"I'll say," Sully replied. "This poor woman has been through hell and back, and now she's losing her home too. She's beside herself about it, especially considering she has other kids to take care of."

"Right," Royce said, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the side of the desk. "The girls. I remember you mentioning that. How old are her daughters again?" An idea was brewing at the back of Royce's mind, and the longer he sat with it, the more convinced he was becoming.

"Sixteen and fourteen," Sully answered. "Why?"

"If Leo's good for this I'm just wondering, what he must have felt holding a young woman not much older than his own sisters' hostage," He answered, his fingers still drumming incessantly on the side of the desk.

"You think he had an attack of conscience?"

"Maybe something like that. I mean, think about it. He wasn't exactly cut out for this type of work, was he?"

"I'll admit that he doesn't seem the type. None of the crimes he committed were of a violent nature, but you know, as well as I do, that it's not uncommon for criminals to escalate. He had been in and out of jail for years. It's not exactly San Quentin, but still, incarceration isn't known for making criminals softer."

"So we're agreed that he looks good for the kidnapping," Royce replied. "But then where does that leave us? We still don't know who killed him. Without any other evidence, Emily is still our only suspect."

"Yeah. You have to admit, at this point, that is a possibility. Think about it. He kidnaps her and sends the ransom letter. She manages to escape before he can collect, he catches her in the act, and she shoots him. There's still the matter of how she managed to get the gun, but either way, the theory's plausible. It would play as a clear-cut case of self-defense in a court of law."

"Something in my gut tells me that isn't how this went down. There was a third person in that house. I'm sure of it. The problem I'm having is that everything you told me points to the fact that he was genuinely sincere about turning over a new leaf. I think, for whatever reason, he saw this as an easy payday. Maybe even low risk. Just one last job to pay off his mom's debts before going straight."

"Someone else was the brains then?

"I think so. Leo was strictly small-time. He had no experience with this type of thing. If someone a little smarter or maybe a little more experienced, had put the right spin on it, he might not have known what he was getting into until it was too late."

Sully ran a large hand over his smooth skull while chewing thoughtfully on his sandwich. The silence stretched out between the two men for a long moment while they sat considering the implications of the new discoveries.

Sully was the first to speak.

"Ok. Say you're right. That could be exactly how he wound up dead. If he had an attack of conscience as you put it, that might not have sat well with whoever he was working with."

"That's exactly what I'm thinking."

"That's the one thing you and Chris agree on except he seems to think that Jake Merrill was the brains."

Royce stood and began slowly pacing the room. "There's no way to prove that. There's no way to disprove it either. We don't have any forensic evidence connecting him to the house."

"Nope. Chris was hoping that the fingerprint evidence would pan out, but they didn't even find Leo's there."

"I don't doubt it. The coroner's report had medical gloves listed in the items recovered from the body," Royce said, taking a seat as he picked up the small manila folder and began thumbing through the paperwork again.

As he read through the initial autopsy investigation, he noticed something that he had missed the first time around. Probably, he thought to himself, because his first read-through had been mainly perfunctory. Leo's cause of death had been apparent. The autopsy was just routine in criminal cases or suicides.

Royce had only given the paper a quick once over for two important details. The gunshot wound was the cause of death, and it had not been self-inflicted. Royce had assumed those were the most important portions of the report. Royce had been wrong.

Quickly flipping open his laptop, he began searching through files. Something in his expression caught Sully's attention, and he leaned across the desk, trying to get a better look at the computer screen.

"What are you on to there, Royce?"

"I'm not sure yet, Sully. Maybe nothing."

He passed the autopsy report across the desk to Sully and tapped the page.

"Read this, would you, sir?"

Sully picked up the folder and began inspecting what Royce had pointed out.

"It's a bunch of medical jargon," Sully said. "But from what I can see, it says he was in possession of a healthy set of lungs when he died. Royce, I'm gonna have to be honest with you. This is real interesting, but I don't see how any of this is pertinent to our case."

Royce laughed aloud. Partially at Sully's thinly veiled jab at his previous statement, but also in excitement as his eyes lit on the exact thing he had been looking for. Turning the laptop to face Sully, he tapped the screen labeled evidence.

"There were several things sent for DNA testing," Royce said. "Among those were three freshly smoked cigarettes found in different parts of the house."

Sully looked up at Royce, a grin spreading across his handsome face.

"Someone in that house was a smoker, Sully, and it wasn't Leo."