Officer Savalas and Officer Amavia arrived at Detective Fog's door for a character interview just as the sun was setting. The two women in uniform were the cops on the scene of Nick Minardos's murder and wanted a word with her partner on the case.

Because the situation was so nutty, they had no idea where else to turn.

Alexa Savalas knocked and waited with her partner, and frowned when forty-five seconds later, the door was opened by the detective herself.

"Can we come in?" Karena Amalia asked, holding up a badge to speed things along.

The pair looked like twins in matching cop uniforms with matching peaked hats, their hair pulled back hiding any difference in color, no makeup, eyes au naturel of a vaguely hazel persuasion.

"Please," said Detective Fog, not making any trouble. She stepped back and gestured them to enter. "Continuing the investigation of the Aniston/Mindardos murder?"

"Something like that," said Officer Savalas. "Actually, we'd like to speak to your partner." Jimmy was behind his desk, tapping away productively at his computer.

Detective Fog sat down on Jimmy's couch and settled in with her laptop. "Sure," she said, "take my office."

Jimmy didn't greet or make eye contact with the pair of officers and zoomed into Detective Fog's office without even seeing them. When the two entered, he looked surprised, having sincerely not looked up from what he was doing to see the officers of similar height and not that different build or facial structure. He was quite swamped this Monday.

There were only two chairs. Jimmy didn't offer either officer a seat, and they didn't offer him a seat. It was straight to business.

"I'm not sure if you know about this," said Officer Savalas, and she offered Jimmy a small tablet she'd been holding, a video already playing on its screen. Security footage from the investigation room at the police department shot from an awkward angled camera in the corner hanging from the twelve-foot ceiling.

The view was of Detective Fog's hat, which hid her entire stick figure, and Bernie Meyers's hat, which did not conceal his giant stomach coming out over his belt. The angle was awful, but the audio was fine.

"If I did remove his vocal cords as a frame-up, it sounds like the perfect crime," said Detective Fog. "Now, I walk. Plus, if someone were going to frame me, why would they use surgical skills well beyond my abilities and also expect me to be able to shoot straight in the dark? It doesn't add up. It sounds to me like I'm still good for this."

Jimmy laughed over Bernie's reply. "Good point, boss," he said and watched Bernie shush the other officers, then turn his head up to the camera Jimmy was watching from with his finger to his lips.

"Why are you showing this to me?" Jimmy asked.

"We're giving you one opportunity to talk to us, earn some immunity before we rope you in for conspiracy to commit murder. Your employer's a nut. It's not your fault. Tell us the whole story now, call up your lawyer, tell him or her you've got a fantastic deal, and put your feet up on your new desk here. Haven't you always wanted the whole office to yourself, get yourself a personal assistant to bring you tea and biscuits? Once we lock up your boss, all that can be yours."

"I thought you had a suspect," said Jimmy. "Cassandra Aniston admitted to the crime. That's not a good enough string up for you, you want someone with more publicity, make you look like bigger douchebaggettes when you're proven wrong?"

"Cassandra Aniston was in your presence until less than half an hour before her husband was killed, isn't that right?"

"That's right," said Jimmy. "Come to think of it, no, Cassandra Aniston's not guilty. But that's why I called her a string up. You've got her admitting to the crime."

"She didn't have enough time to beat Detective Fog there and rig up the insanity that killed Nick Minardos. Maybe if she'd called an Uber, but she was going on last night about a cab, I don't think the girl's that tech-savvy. Not sure if that will hold up in court. Ditto on the self-firing mechanism. Does Cassandra have an engineering degree or a history of mechanical invention projects?"

"So you need a new suspect. So you're going back to your old suspect, whom you already released from arrest, because it makes no sense and no judge in the world is going to prosecute. Well, maybe in the world, in some fascist country, but in the good old U.S. of A., we have a wonderful criminal justice system that never convicts an innocent party. Don't break that track record now. You couldn't prosecute because Ms. Alafogianis couldn't have performed that vocal cord surgery. What's changed?"

"What's changed is that we think the vocal cords weren't removed by a world-class surgeon after all. The likelihood of such talent working for the mob seems low anyway. Our medical examiner seems to think magical repair of the surrounding tissue much more likely. Do you know who blew open the locked door to the warehouse where the murders took place? A certain 5'3" superhero?"

Jimmy held up his hands, palms forward, and said, "Now wait a second. You're saying that because Detective Fog can magically blow warehouse doors open, which she may have done to rescue Paul Aniston from his tormentors, she's a suspect for his murder? Someone rigged a gun to fire at her so that she would shoot back and kill Nick Minardos, and she's your prime suspect?"

"As Detective Fog pointed out in the video, a well-crafted frame-up doesn't look a whole lot different from the perfect crime, from where we're standing."

"Stand somewhere else. What a convoluted mess. I don't suppose you've never heard the saying, 'Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected'? It's more commonly put, 'the simplest explanation is usually—' Never mind, I can tell that's not going to be up your alley."

"What's the simplest solution?" asked Detective Amalia.

"That it wasn't Detective Fog. Or Cassandra Aniston."

"Aniston was released this morning on bail. Still begging us to believe her that she killed her husband. We don't believe her. But we've got a physicist checking out the blown open warehouse door, and if he determines it could only have been done with magic, we'll be back here with an arrest warrant. For first degree murder."

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