SMALL TOWN BRINGDOWN
by Chris Lark cql@hopper.unh.edu
RATED: PG

As some of you may have noticed, in my story "An Inch An Hour", Kowalski flashed on Pike's line in the episode "Spy Vs. Spy" about the mob guy who was killed in a car crash and then impersonated by Ray: "Was it an accident? You be the judge!" Well, I've been the judge, and here's what I've ruled; story and parts, as always, named after some favourite Tragically Hip/Sarah McLachlan songs. Personally, I think Paul Gross was just yanking our chain with his monologue at the end of "Call Of The Wild", so I've chosen to ignore most of it (you'll see what parts I've ignored as you read). 'Sides, he told us what happened, but not when. Enjoy.

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They say that a Mountie always gets his man. But when a legendary Mountie was murdered, it was left to his son to track the killer...even to the ends of the earth.

Now, Canada's best is teamed with Chicago's finest, and the city will never be the same again.

With a little help from a supernatural source, they could become the greatest crimefighting duo ever...if they can only keep from killing each other.

--CBS Introduction to Due South

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Intro: Get Back Again

Three days? Three days since Benton Fraser had returned from his undercover assignment as a female teacher at St. Fortunata's? It felt like three years. Of course, when dealing with Louise St. Laurent, every day seemed like a year to Ray Vecchio. He'd been spending three days arguing with her about the perpetrators who had been trying to empty out a sixty-year-old treasure vault beneath the school, and he had further argued with her about the person who had led them to that vault. Ray had done everything short of blackmailing Louise to make his point, and he'd made it. All he had to do now was brush off some paperwork, so he was sitting at his desk and doing that.

Writer's cramp was just starting to set in when Ray finished the last form, and he dropped it in a desk drawer, threw his pen aside and got up, striding away from that Godawful desk. He hated it there--the street was his element, questioning witnesses or pursuing suspects. He might actually get a chance to do that now. He went out the side door of the 27th Precinct's squad room, went around the corner, and paused. Celine Comerford had kept her appointment, and she was sitting on the bench by the stairs, gazing dejectedly at the floor. Ray walked over and sat down beside her, and she turned to face him.

"Okay, Celine," he began. "I talked to the State's Attorney, and she says if you testify against Johnstone and his goons, she'll drop the larceny charges."

"That's good," Celine said. "I'd testify against that creep even if I wasn't facing any charges."

"Yeah, well," Ray smiled. "If I'd been kidnapped and assaulted by the bum, I'd jump at the chance. How are you holding up?"

Celine sighed, gazed at the floor again, and shook her head. "I was just thinking about Todd. If that guy hadn't chased us, maybe he wouldn't have gotten hit by the car and maybe he and I could be long gone by now. I just wish we could charge Johnstone with killing Todd, too."

"It's a long shot, but I'll try it," Ray said, quite suddenly.

"Why?" Celine asked in surprise, staring at him. "Proving it will be almost impossible, and we both know it."

Ray heaved a sigh of his own and glanced obliquely at the floor before answering. "Well, because I know how you feel," he said. "I lost someone I loved just a couple of months ago. Her name was Irene, I knew her in high school and we dated and danced for a while. The only catch was, her brother was and still is my archenemy."

"Still is?"

"Yeah, he's a mob guy now. You heard about Louis Gardino, didn't you?"

"Yeah, he was the cop who got killed by the car bomb," Celine recalled.

"The same. We all figured it was Frank Zuko who did it, but Irene stuck up for him. My pal Fraser, in his infinite wisdom, cleared Zuko and blamed it on one of his boys. Anyway..." Ray paused to sigh again, blinking a tear back. "I tried to get Irene out of the house, the killer took a shot at Frank, he reflexed, and Irene took the bullet. She was gone by morning."

"I'm sorry," Celine said quietly.

Ray just nodded. "Well, anyway, I know how you feel about Todd. I think if Fraser could prove on a long shot that that other clown killed Gardino, maybe we can get Johnstone for Todd. The State's Attorney is an old 'friend' of mine. She might see my point, and if you testify, we might do it. Johnstone was responsible--inadvertently, yes, but he still was. I'd guess it's negligent homicide, the minimum is a few years in Joliet."

Celine half-smiled; she liked that idea. She wanted someone, preferably Johnstone, to take the fall for killing her boyfriend, and she'd testify to it if it meant he'd go away for it. "When does the trial start?" she asked.

"It'll be a few months. Johnstone's attorney will be duking it out with the state and making motions and deals like nobody's business. You just stay out of trouble for those few months and you'll probably be the first one on the stand. Think you can manage that?"

"Yeah. I think I learned something when Melissa told me she was going back to help you and your friend. You know, it's funny, that was the first thing we wouldn't agree on and finally I was the one who agreed with her. I always thought it'd be the other way around."

"Well, don't always think you're right, kid. I thought I was right and I was about to cross the line to prove it, and an innocent man almost went away. Let's go, huh? The State's Attorney will want to talk to you before she thinks any more about dropping charges." Ray got up, and Celine slowly rose and followed him down the hall. A cop who sympathised--that was a new one on her. From what Todd had told her, the cops were a bitch to get along with. This made her wonder what else he'd been wrong about before he died.

**********

The trial was over and done with five months later, and unfortunately, Ray hadn't been able to convince Louise to amend the indictment. It took a few days before a verdict, and from the rear of the courtroom, Fraser, Ray and Celine watched the jury file back into the box. Johnstone and his two thugs were standing behind the defense table, and the judge was gazing at the jury before reading the verdict and passing it back to the foreman.

Guilty as sin on all counts.

Celine was holding her breath as the verdict was read on each defendant, and she had rarely felt more joyful than she did when they were found guilty of kidnapping and assault with intent. Thank God the deal had been worth it. When she found out that the deal had been worth it, Celine's breath left her in a rush, and she closed her eyes and slumped in her seat, feeling Ray give her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. She was immensely grateful, and she didn't even hear the judge pronounce the sentence as she prayed her thanks to God. While she prayed, she whispered under her breath, "We got him, Todd."

"I'm just sorry we couldn't get these guys on killing him," Ray said.

"It's okay," Celine said. "At least you tried. I'm grateful you did."

**********

TWO YEARS LATER...

As Fraser and Ray walked into St. Fortunata's, Fraser looked around, remembering the days he'd spent here undercover. There were a few points where he thought he'd almost been caught, but he was glad to be wrong for once. Of course it was no help that he had lost his disguise in trying to grab that bottle of Scotch, thus exposing his identity to the girls; but now it was over and done.

Beside him, Ray was rather nervously rubbing his hands as he looked around, and Fraser understood his friend's feelings, or so he thought. This morning, Ray had been sent down to St. Fortunata's to speak with the headmistress about a possible case, and Ray was already well acquainted with that headmistress, one Sister Anne MacRae. Fraser couldn't blame him for being nervous, now that he knew the story of his and Sister Anne's past. He had a feeling Ray would try to slough it off with small talk, and sure enough, Ray tried to strike up a casual conversation with him as they crossed the nave of the school.

"So, you and Kowalski find the Hand of Frankenstein or whatever it was you were looking for?" he asked.

"You mean the Hand of Franklin?" Fraser corrected. After a thoughtful pause, he answered, "I suppose you could say we did. Stan did, anyway, but I think he was the only one actually looking for it. Might I ask how your relationship with Stella is progressing?"

Ray shrugged. "Let's just say I'm glad Kowalski's out of town for a few weeks. Stella's making noises about moving to Florida, but I'd like to wait on it for a while, maybe several more years. At least till I've got a decent amount of time in on the force."

Fraser nodded, and there was another thoughtful pause. He himself was almost afraid to think of the circumstances when Stan Kowalski found out that Ray was dating his ex-wife. They had met after Ray had come back from a harrowing undercover assignment with the mob, during which Kowalski had impersonated him; and Fraser and Kowalski had been tracking gunrunners in the Northwest Territories when Ray met Stella. As far as Fraser knew, Kowalski didn't know about this relationship yet.

"You remember your disguise, Benny?" Ray said with a teasing smile.

"Why would I need the disguise, Ray?"

"See if Melissa recognises you if you bump into her."

"Actually, I expect she'd recognise me even without the disguise, considering that she got the full impact of it when I lost it. A comedy of error, it was. However, since I long since gave that disguise away to a needy neighbour, I don't anticipate using it again any time soon."

Sometimes Fraser was so unflappable that Ray felt like throttling him. He almost had a couple of times since he returned from his undercover assignment, but now he was no longer undercover with the mob, and he had to control himself again. He'd been in there close, too--he'd been impersonating a mob lieutenant by the name of Armando Langoustini, who had been very, very close to the middle of the cartel. Just over a week ago, Ray had recovered from a critical gunshot wound he'd received while defending Fraser from the gunrunner he'd been trying to entrap. Naturally, the gunrunner--who had also killed Fraser's mother thirty-odd years ago--was now in maximum security awaiting trial.

At the door to Sister Anne's office, Ray took a deep breath and knocked, and at length the door opened. Sister Anne immediately knew who she was facing, and a pleased grin broke across her face. "Ray!" she exclaimed. "Hi, how are you?"

"Uh, I'm great," Ray said. "Considering that I just recovered from a gunshot wound, I'm in okay shape."

"I heard," Sister Anne said. "Ben, you doing well?"

"Fine, thank you, Sister," Fraser said. "For certain, I'm glad to have Ray back. As you can well imagine, not even the Mafia can keep him down."

"Yeah, well, if my dad couldn't, neither can the Mafia," Sister Anne joked. "Come on in." She ushered them into her office, and they sidled inside. Sister Anne closed the door and motioned at the two chairs in front of her desk, then walked over and sat behind it.

"My lieutenant sent me down here to talk to you about some information one of your students has for us," Ray said. "Something to do with a member of the syndicate I was working against?"

"Oh, yes," Sister Anne said. "Lieutenant Welsh said he'd be sending you our way. You remember Celine Comerford, don't you?"

"Sure. It was her idea to indict that Johnstone creep for negligent homicide, even though we couldn't get him on that."

"Hm, she's gotten to be quite a bright girl since then," Sister Anne said. "Well, she's the one you want to talk to. A friend of hers told her a few things that spurred her to talk to me about talking to you...now if you can make any sense out of that, you're even brighter than she is." Sister Anne laughed, and Fraser and Ray with her.

"Where is she?" Fraser asked.

"Basketball practise in the gym, if you want to go see her now."

"Yeah, we'll do that, thanks," Ray said, getting to his feet. "Good to see you again."

"You too, Ray, and Ben."

Fraser nodded and smiled to Sister Anne, turning toward the door. As Ray was heading toward it, he stopped and turned back with a raised finger. "Oh, Annie, one more thing," he said. "Celine and her friend didn't mention any names, did they?"

"I don't know the name, but I know it was some Mafia figure who was killed in a car crash," Sister Anne said.

Fraser and Ray's eyebrows rose to their hair (or Ray's would have if he had any hair). They didn't have any hard evidence, but the possibility was a huge one that the name of this Mafia figure was Armando Langoustini. His death in a car crash had allowed the Feds to move Ray in there to impersonate him.

"Is that a fact?" Ray said. "Thanks, Annie. We'll see you." He exited the office with Fraser on his heels. Why didn't he like the sound of this?

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Part 1: Black & White

Fraser and Ray ambled down to the school's gym, where they came upon the middle of basketball practise. Ray guessed correctly that this was tryout week for aspiring team members, and the newer girls were being trained by some of the "old pro" types and the coaches. Most of them were doing well, although others were having a little difficulty here and there. Fraser and Ray skirted the bleachers on one side of the gym, looking around for a familiar face. Eventually one came into view, only it wasn't the one they were looking for; nonetheless, Fraser decided he might as well just say hi.

The girl he'd seen was walking over to a bench in front of the bleachers, wiping her forehead with a small towel. She looked beat and a little defeated, and she draped her towel across the bench and sat down on it, facing away from the basketball court.

"Hello, Melissa," Fraser smiled when he was standing over her.

Melissa looked up, startled, and then she got back to her feet with surprised pleasure. "Miss...er, Mr...Fraser!" she exclaimed. "Hi! It's fancy running into you here!"

"I'm rather surprised myself," Fraser said. "Is Celine around?"

"Um, yeah," Melissa said, searching the gym for her friend. "She's over there." Fraser and Ray followed her gaze, and there was Celine, breaking in some new recruits. She was proving to be quite a terror with the basketball, but the new kids were starting to get used to her Jordanesque playing.

"Ah," Fraser said. "Ray, why don't you go talk to her. I think I'd like to chat with Melissa for a little bit."

"Sure thing," Ray said. Scratching the side of his neck briefly, he turned and started around the gym to go over to Celine's hoop. He had a little idea in mind, and he was pretty sure she would like it.

Fraser and Melissa sat down on the bleachers together, watching the girls running around in small groups near the gym's six hoops. "So you're going out for basketball, are you?" Fraser said.

"Yeah, this is the second time," Melissa said. "I tried out last year, but I didn't make the team. And that was after Celine had been trying to get me to try out for over a year. I'm really glad, though, that she found something to get her feet back on the ground."

"So am I," Fraser said. "Even in the North, although they were rather sparse, there were a few cases of youngsters turning to crime because they couldn't find any better youth activities to get involved in. I've found that to be much more common in Chicago. I like to think that Ray was part of the driving force for Celine to turn her life around."

"I guess," Melissa shrugged, hoping that she'd also been part of that driving force. She'd been hoping it ever since the vault case was closed.

"Melissa," Fraser said, scratching his eyebrow, "has Celine ever mentioned any chats she's had with a friend of hers about the recent death of a Mafia figure?"

Melissa's eyebrows rose, which told Fraser immediately that Celine hadn't discussed this with her. "No, not to me, she hasn't," Melissa said. "Why?"

"Then I guess Ray's the first person besides that friend to know about this," Fraser presumed.

Ray was almost up to Celine's hoop, and he was watching her virtually climbing all over whoever had the ball. Celine and another senior student were giving each newbie a chance at feinting and driving for the basket, and they were taking turns at guarding the person with the ball. The one who currently had the ball was being guarded by Celine, and she made the mistake of bouncing the ball too far out in front of her as she tried to make it to the basket. Celine had the ball in the wink of an eye, and she turned around, bounced a few steps and tossed the ball cleanly through the hoop from about ten feet away.

Ray, now coming under the hoop, grabbed the ball as it fell from the basket, and he walked onto the court, bouncing the ball with a dangerous smile.

"Hey!" Celine said with a reaction quite similar to Melissa's. "Hi, um...Detective Vecchio, right?"

"That's me, a.k.a. the Terror of Basketball Boulevard," Ray grinned. "Showdown, kiddo." He paused and bent over, assuming a face-off stance. Celine did the same, waiting for him to make his move, and the rest of the girls stood aside and watched the duel. Ray edged to the left, and Celine matched his move; he edged to the right, and she stayed with him.

"You better watch out," she told him. "They don't call me the Phantom for nothing."

Ray noticed for the first time that the only marking on her team uniform was the name of the school, with no name or number. Sure enough, she was the Phantom, not once identified at a game except by that nickname. "Yeah, well, you think 'Terror of Basketball Boulevard' is just some lousy cooked-up title I pulled out of a hat?" he came back. Eventually he turned around, making a move toward the basket, and Celine, anticipating this, bolted after him to grab the ball. But she didn't anticipate Ray throwing the ball over his shoulder and her head, and he whirled around and leaped upon the ball, grabbing it. With that, he circumvented Celine and jumped, not quite high enough for a slam dunk but high enough to get the ball through safely. Catching the ball, he tossed it to Celine. "Listen, I need to talk to you for a second."

Celine nodded and passed the ball to her senior friend. "I'll be back in a little while," she said. While her friend continued training the new recruits, Celine walked off with Ray, who put his arm around her shoulders and moved toward the emptier end of the gym.

"I just spoke to Sister Anne," he said. "She said that a friend of yours had something he'd like to share, something about a mob guy I've been working against."

"Yeah, only I don't know if you were really working against him. My friend says he got killed about a year ago, some car accident in New Hampshire."

"Did your friend say what the guy's name was?"

"Um, yeah, but I can't remember, it was a long and weird name..." Celine squinted, trying to remember. "Arman something-or-other."

Ray squeezed her shoulders a little tighter, and she stared up at him, wondering what sort of a nerve this struck with him. "Armando Langoustini?" he asked tensely.

"That was it," Celine said. "My friend goes to the U of New Hampshire, and he's home on spring break, and it sounds like this, um, Langou...stini fellow had a place there. I don't know all the gory details, maybe you should talk to him."

"Yeah, I should. What's his name?" Ray withdrew his notepad and pen.

"Pete Porter. He lives at ten-seventeen North Octavia. I've never been to his place, though, I just..."

"Pete Porter?" Ray interrupted. "I know that kid."

"Do you?"

"Yeah, he helped Fraser and me clear some friend of his of burning down an apartment house a couple of years ago. We stayed in touch for a little while, but then we both got busy and drifted apart. Thanks a lot, kid, we'll talk later."

As Ray was pocketing his note pad, Celine raised her finger to keep him from going away. "Oh, there's one more thing," she said. "My mom is a librarian for the ATF. She might know about...Linguine or whatever his name is, and she might not know much, but you could ask her too. I think she mentioned him one time, and I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe I'd better ask Sister Anne to let you guys know."

Ray smiled at Celine's mispronunciation, mostly because he liked to think of it as an insult to the guy. "Langoustini," he corrected her anyway. "Thanks a bunch, I'll talk to your mom, too. Say, how'd you and Pete get to talking about this, anyway?"

"Well, I don't know why, but Pete's got some kind of special interest in the mob. In fact, he has those Far Side page-a-day calendars every year, and he saves all the mob cartoons in a little pile on his desk. My favourite is where 'The Sandwich Mafia sends Luigi to sleep with the fourth-graders' and the picture is these two sandwiches dropping another one into a cafeteria full of little kids."

Ray laughed. "Only in The Far Side," he said. "Thanks again, Celine. If you think of anything else, give me a buzz." He pulled his business card from his inside jacket pocket, and Celine dropped it in the pocket of her shorts, pleased that he'd called her "Celine" instead of "kid". Ray turned and started back to the other side of the gym, and Celine returned to her group of new recruits.

**********

With Ray's recently resurrected Riviera aimed towards 1017 North Octavia, he was regaling Fraser on some of the operations he'd been involved with down in Las Vegas. As Ray talked, Fraser wasn't especially amused to hear that Ray had helped to carry out some hits; he'd thought that Ray was just a bit too humane for that. He then reasoned that Ray's cover would have been blown in nothing flat otherwise, so he left the issue alone.

"Get one gander at the Great Salt Lake, and you'd agree," Ray was saying. "That's not the place where you'd want to spend eternity. We made a lot of trips up there, though. Did you see 'The Last Don' last year?"

"I can't say as I did. Stan might have watched it, though."

"Well, it's accurate. We did some of the things they did in that movie, but not all." Ray smiled, remembering what he'd seen of that movie. "Kind of weird, though. If Giorgio Clericuzio was a real person, he and I could be twins. Triplets, if you throw Langoustini in there."

"Really," Fraser said. "Did the character remind you of yourself?"

"Yeah, it was like looking in a mirror. Of course he was a lot older--he had glasses and some grey hair--but who's to say I won't look like that in about fifteen years?"

"Certainly not me," Fraser said. Ray hit the turn signal and pulled over in front of the house, a relatively small affair with one floor and maybe an attic and basement. From the outside, it looked livable, although appearances could be deceiving. Fraser and Ray got out of the car, and they walked up the lawn to the front door. Ray knocked, and shortly thereafter, a towering young man came to the door and swung it open.

"Hello..." he started, and then he broke off as he recognised his visitors. "Ray!" he exclaimed. "Hi, how are you!"

"Hey, Pete," Ray said. "All things considered, I'm ginger-peachy. Yourself?"

"Great, thanks. Come on in." Pete held the door open for Fraser and Ray to come in, and they entered the house and walked toward the living room. They sat down on opposite sides of the room, and Pete leaned back on the couch.

"So how's Ariel?" Fraser asked.

Pete shrugged and stared down at the floor; hearing about his erstwhile girlfriend still made him a little discontented. "I wish I knew. She moved away a few months ago. Her grandmother just felt like getting out of Chicago for whatever reason, so out they went to Oregon. We just decided it would be best to end it then and there."

"Oh," Fraser said quietly. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Well, thanks." There was a long pause, and Pete tried to focus on something else. He'd done his best to let Ariel go, but apparently, it hadn't entirely worked. "I take it Celine has talked to you about what she and I have been discussing," he said finally.

"Well, actually," Fraser piped up, "she told the headmistress of her school, who told Leftenant Welsh. He sent us to hear what you and she have been discussing."

"Try making sense out of that," Ray half-smiled. "Well, as you probably know, I was in Vegas impersonating Armando Langoustini for the last eight months. You know the name, Celine said."

"Yeah. I'm at the University of New Hampshire, and Langoustini had a summer place in Portsmouth. Several times, I read stuff in the papers by reporters who would take a shot at interviewing him about organised crime. He granted some, but not all. He also never implicated himself in any mob activities, he always spoke in the third person."

"Did you hear about the car crash that killed him?" Ray asked.

"I heard about it, but probably didn't pay any attention. Car crashes have become so commonplace in New Hampshire lately that it's easier and easier to ignore them. There are those in which the victim is never identified, so I guess that was one of them."

"What newspaper was it that tried the interviews with Langoustini?" Fraser inquired.

"There were a couple, actually. Most of the time it was the Portsmouth Herald."

"Any federal law-enforcement offices around there?" Ray asked, jotting this down on his note pad.

"The only one I know of is a DEA office that opened in Portsmouth last year. There might be others I don't know about, though."

Ray closed his note pad, capped his pen, and shoved both into his jacket pocket. "Well, thanks a heap, Pete," he said. "You've been a big help, again. Keep Celine out of trouble, willya?"

"I've been doing that," Pete smiled. "It seems to be working so far. I'm actually quite happy with her."

"Yeah, so are we." Ray shook hands with Pete, as did Fraser, and Pete showed them outside. They returned to the Riviera, and Ray, taking another flip through his note pad, found Celine's home address and her mother's name while he was starting the car.

"Marie Comerford, five thirty-eight Akron Street," he read. "Let's go say hi." Shifting into reverse, he backed out into the street, and off he drove to the Comerford place.

**********

Celine got to that house well ahead of Fraser and Ray, and insofar as the storm door was wide open, she just popped in. Her mother was taking care of the plants in the living room, and Celine walked in and dropped her bag on the floor by the doorway. "Hi, Mom," she called.

"Oh, hello, Celine," Marie Comerford answered, placing one plant on the bay-window shelf. "What are you doing home?"

"I just came by to get a couple of books I wanted to have at school," Celine said. "Oh, and I wanted to tell you about my new friend Pete."

"Oh, who's he?"

"He's a guy I met at the basketball court. Somehow we wound up playing ball together, and we just got to talking and then friendship."

"I take it he's not another Todd," Mrs. Comerford gathered.

"No, no, he's anything but Todd," Celine said. "I mean, sure, Todd was really good to me and nice and everything, but Pete's even more than that. He and I have a lot of common ground already."

"Like what?"

"Oh, writing, music, Star Trek, stuff like that. In fact, he was telling me about New Hampshire, that's where he goes to college, and he lives with some relatives over there."

"New Hampshire, hm? One of the microscopic states. He must like having some elbow room out here."

"He could take it or leave it, he says. What he's told me is actually kind of interesting." Time to make her move; could she do it without arousing suspicion from her mother? Without pause, Celine continued, "For one thing, there used to be some Mafia guy living over there till about nine or ten months ago. I think you told me about him."

"Oh, really," Mrs. Comerford said with raised eyebrows. "I didn't think New Hampshire was the mob's kind of state. What was his name?"

"Didn't think so either, but Pete tells a different story." Although she knew the name, Celine decided that deliberately mispronouncing it would be a wise move. It would be especially wise, since her mother didn't take kindly to mispronounced names. With a distant look, she acted like she was trying to remember. "His name was, um...Arman Linguine or something like that?"

"You mean Armando Langoustini?" Mrs. Comerford said, finishing with the plants and sitting in an easy chair across from Celine.

"That was the guy, yeah. Pete says he had a summer place in Portsmouth until he disappeared a while back."

"Well, he didn't really disappear. It was a car crash where he died on impact. He was coming to an intersection, and a trailer truck was either ignoring the traffic light or its brakes were malfunctioning. It carried what was left of Langoustini's car for almost a block before the car slid off its front end. Makes me think the driver might have been drunk."

"Geez," Celine said. "That's a hell of a way to go." So far, this was working out great. Her mother must have heard this and then some about the "accident", and it seemed that she trusted her enough to tell her all about it. Well, that detective would be very happy to hear about this, Celine thought to herself.

The doorbell chimed, and Mrs. Comerford got to her feet and left the room to answer the door. Celine cocked an ear to hear who it was, and she recognised the voice right away; it was Ray.

"Mrs. Comerford?" Ray said, taking his badge from his belt. "Detective Vecchio, this is Constable Fraser. You mind if we talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure, come on in." Mrs. Comerford ushered them into the house, and they walked into the living room. Fraser, seeing Celine on the couch, tossed her a brief wave.

"Hello, Celine," he said pleasantly.

"Hi," Celine smiled.

"You know each other?" Mrs. Comerford observed.

"Yes," Fraser said. "A couple of years ago, I went undercover to find a vault on the St. Fortunata's property to which Celine had found some clues. She was instrumental in convicting a few criminals."

"Oh, I remember." Mrs. Comerford elected not to go into any more details, particularly the one about Todd. She cleared her throat and looked down at Celine. "Um, could you go elsewhere for a little while? I need to talk to these officers for a little bit."

"Sure." Celine got up and retreated to the doorway at the back of the room, and when her mother's back was turned, she silently mouthed *Back door* to Ray and gestured over her shoulder. He nodded in understanding, and he sat down beside Mrs. Comerford while Fraser sat in the chair. In the meantime, Celine ducked out of the living room, marched in place briefly to make it sound like she was walking away, and then sat down on the floor to eavesdrop.

"Here's the point," Ray began. "For the last several months, I've been impersonating a mobster in Las Vegas. They moved me in there when he was killed in a car crash. Now a source of ours has a feeling that it wasn't accidental, so we wondered if you might know anything about it."

"Why come to me?" Mrs. Comerford asked, confused. "There's a lot of other federal agents around here you could ask. All I am is a librarian."

Not wanting to blow Celine's cover, Ray wracked his brain to think up a believable excuse. As he was hoping, Fraser beat him to it. "Well, the mobster Detective Vecchio was impersonating was supposed to negotiate an arms deal with a renegade militia group. We hoped you might have a little more information on his contacts in the ATF and FBI who organised the bust. If anybody in either of those agencies was responsible for the mobster's death, there may be information that would lead us to whoever that is."

"Well, it's not anything I'm authorised to reveal, except to my superiors," Mrs. Comerford said.

"With a court order?" Ray asked.

"Do you have one?"

"No, but if you can give me an hour or two, I can come to your office with one."

"Well, if you want your information, Detective, you might want to get one. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, though. I know some judges, and most of them don't like giving court orders to release federal records."

"Well, I know some judges, too," Ray said. "A lot of them do like giving such orders. God willing, I'll be at your office in an hour." With a somewhat imperious expression, he got to his feet and walked out of the living room. Fraser rose with him, and he paused long enough to shake hands with Mrs. Comerford.

"Thank you kindly for your time," he said.

As they walked down the front steps, Ray half-turned his head. "'Don't count your chickens before they hatch,'" he scoffed. "Who the hell says that anymore?"

"Oh, probably a multitude of primary-school students," Fraser presumed. "Well, at any rate, Celine wants to meet us at the back door. Shall we?"

"We shall." They got into the Riviera, and Ray started up and drove off to find a side street on which he could circle the block.

Celine gave them a couple more minutes before she came back into the living room, holding up the books she'd grabbed. "All set," she said. "I'll get the bus back to the school."

"Okay, see you later," Mrs. Comerford answered, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Good luck."

"Thanks. Listen, they weren't rotten to you or anything, were they?"

"They were as good as could be expected from the Chicago police," Mrs. Comerford said with a smile and a sigh.

"And the Mounties," Celine reminded her. "Just want to be sure, that's all. Bye." She headed for the back door, went outside, and waited for Ray's car to show up. Soon it appeared from the corner down the block, and it pulled up and stopped behind the house. Fraser let Celine into the back seat, and Ray drove off for the precinct.

"Were you eavesdropping?" Fraser asked.

"You bet. And she didn't tell you the half of it."

"Oh, what didn't she tell us?" Ray asked.

"The gist of it is, she's in on it," Celine said. "She told me all the gory details before you guys came in."

"Like..." Ray probed.

"Like the trailer truck that rammed Langoustini's car at an intersection, then carried it for a block before it slid off."

Fraser nodded. "That's definitely murder, if the truck didn't slow down or stop even after it rammed the car," he observed.

"Great, let's go over there, investigate further and hopefully find us a Fed to bust," Ray said.

"Well, you know, Ray, it's not necessarily the federal police," Fraser pointed out. "It could easily have been a member of a rival gang, carrying out a typical mob hit. It doesn't seem likely that Mrs. Comerford will release her records to us, either."

"Yeah, I was only bluffing about getting a release order anyway," Ray muttered.

"Why don't you just give me a chance to get some more out of her?" Celine said. "I'm pretty sure I can do it. If I could get those tidbits out of her, I'll bet I can get you more. She never said a word about not being allowed to reveal any of that."

"Indicating that she trusts you enough to tell you what she knows," Fraser said. "That could be useful if she doesn't get wise to you."

"And if she does?"

"Then we'll just have to go to New Hampshire to continue the investigation," Fraser said. "That is, if that trailer truck is still available. One never knows."

**********

Next stop: precinct. Ray wanted to talk to Welsh about their progress thus far, and hopefully ask him about a court order to get the information from the ATF office. Upon his arrival, though, with Fraser and Celine still at his heels, he found that Welsh wasn't alone. There were two men in his office, and Ray knew who they were all too well.

"Well, well, well," he observed. "If it ain't Turner and Hooch in the flesh."

"Actually, I believe their names are Ford and Deeter," Fraser offered.

"It's a comparison," Ray supplied. "Listen, Celine, if they start looking at you funny, just make like you've got an appointment and beat it."

"Whatever," Celine sighed with a cocked eyebrow, wishing she knew what Ray meant, but taking his word for it anyway--she knew she could take his word for a lot of things.

"Say, Benny, I don't suppose those two showed up while I was in Vegas," Ray said.

"Now that you mention it, they did," Fraser said, electing not to go into the gory details, since Ray had a personal involvement in the case Fraser and Kowalski had been on at the time.

"Did they react weirdly to Kowalski?"

"No, they also seemed aware that he was impersonating you."

"So they knew he was supposed to be acting as you," Celine guessed.

"Yeah, I guess so," Ray said. "How they knew that, though, I wish I knew." A distant look came over his face as something came to his mind. "Come to think of it, I don't know who gave the order to send me in. The only one who said anything to me about it was Welsh. He said it came from way up the ladder, but that was it."

"That's all he told me, too," Fraser said.

At this, the door to Welsh's office opened, and the two FBI agents strolled out and headed for the side door. Glancing in Ray's direction, they diverted their walk and headed straight over to him. Pompous as always, Ford put his fists on his hips and stared down at Ray, cocking his head to one side.

"If you know what's good for you, Vecchio, you'll stay off this one," he cautioned.

"Stay off what?" Ray said.

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Sorry, Ford, but no, how can I know what you're talking about unless you tell me?" Ray said, getting to his feet and folding his arms. Being taller than Ford made him feel a little better, more dominant. He could take this little slimebag if he had to anyway.

"Your case," Ford answered. "I've just been discussing it with your lieutenant. Now, naturally he's dissented with me on every point I make, but I think he'll cooperate on this one. If he'll cooperate, so will you. Stay away from this case."

"And I suppose you're investigating it?" Ray said.

"There's nothing to investigate. The man died in an accident, that's all there is to it. So for both you and me, there's no case here." Ford looked down and noticed Celine, who could already tell that Ray had a not-so-happy history with this character. "Snitch, is she?" he gathered.

"What's it to you?"

"Tell her to keep her mouth shut. We wouldn't want anything to happen to her because someone talked too loud." Without waiting for another word, Ford walked out so that he wouldn't have to hear Ray defeating him. Deeter followed closely, and the three around the desk watched them go.

"Good riddance," Ray said, sitting back down. "Watch out for those two, kid."

"Yeah," Celine concurred. "Listen, I promised Pete I'd meet him at the basketball court in an hour. This won't take that long, will it?"

"Not if nobody else bugs us," Ray said, nodding toward his sister, who had recently taken a job as a civilian aide while Kowalski was in Ray's stead. Fraser agreed with him a hundred percent, as he was the target of Francesca Vecchio's attentions more often than anybody else in the precinct. She'd pursue him beyond the grave, he didn't doubt that for a second.

**********

After a couple of hours of basketball, Pete gave Celine a lift home. Since they both knew about Celine's new "job" as a police informant, neither of them discussed it; they just chatted about their usual subjects of writing, Star Trek, music, and the like. Celine had found both on and off the court that Pete was great to talk with, and she was enjoying it as always.

"You know what I was just thinking?" Celine said as they turned onto her street. "I was thinking about the first time I met Todd. I was coming out of art class, and I bumped into him while he was dusting the hall paneling. We wound up talking, he told me to meet him down in the basement. That was when all that crap with the vault started. I didn't like it at the school and neither did he, so we just decided to take off together as soon as we had the money for it. Then, well...you know the rest."

"Yeah, I know," Pete answered. "You didn't know he was a criminal, did you?"

"No. I didn't know till I heard it from the detective. Even though Todd gave me a lot of things I wanted, I still would have liked a boyfriend who was more honest with me than he was. I forgave him eventually, but I knew I wouldn't make that mistake again."

"Well, I know you won't."

Celine stared at him with a frown; she'd been hoping he would take the hint, but he didn't seem to get her point. As she was already aware, he would be a tough nut to crack. Oh well, time was on her side.

"Is it coming up?" Pete asked, pointing out the windshield.

"Yeah, we're almost..." Celine's voice trailed off as she saw what was ahead of them. In the street and on the sidewalk, police cruisers were parked everywhere, and one of the houses was surrounded by yellow tape and uniformed officers.

"There..." Celine finished, dreading what she would see when they got to the house. Pete pulled over and parked on the roadside, and Celine jumped out of the car and hurried toward the scene. Just as she had feared, it was her house. She ran up to one of the cops, who immediately put out his arm to keep her away.

"Hold on, young lady," he said. "That's a crime scene in there, you can't go in."

"Crime scene?" Celine protested. "That's my house! What the hell is going on in there?!"

She was rather surprised when the cop stood back and let her through, but he did. She bolted past him and up the steps to the front door, running into the house. There were men tramping everywhere, and the words CRIME UNIT were stamped on the back of almost every jacket Celine saw. The terror of the circumstances here enveloped her completely as she saw the smashed bay window; the glass that wasn't broken was exhibiting a number of bullet holes, and there were still more bullet holes in the opposite wall. Just as she was starting into the living room, Ray appeared from it and stopped short when he saw her.

"Celine," he gasped, reaching forward to take her by the shoulder. "My God, I was afraid you'd come in." He didn't try to stop her from coming into the living room. In the middle of a pool of blood on the floor, the medical examiner and photographer were bending over a body showing more bullet holes than the wall. Celine barely had to look--she'd spoken to that body while it was still alive not four hours ago.

Choking on her sobs, Celine whirled away from the sight and sagged forward. Ray hugged her tightly as she cried on his shoulder, and he stared across the room at Fraser with a feeling of defeat. It was almost certainly because of them that Celine's mother was dead, although it was true that they didn't know where the leak had come from. The mob was onto them somehow, but Ray didn't care how at this moment. Celine was feeling terrible. This wasn't the only way he would make her feel better, he promised himself.

***********************************************************************
Part 2: Another Midnight

When Celine had calmed down a little bit, Fraser and Ray took her back to the precinct while other officers canvassed the neighbourhood. Francesca procured a cup of water from the canteen, and while Celine sipped, Ray sat beside her and did his best to comfort her while they waited for some more information on the hit. In the meantime, he, Fraser and Francesca were all speculating on how the mob had found them out; Francesca, as usual, had some of the more outlandish ideas.

"I dunno," she was saying. "Maybe it was another crime of passion. She was divorced like four times, wasn't she? Could have been one of her--"

"Frannie!" Ray interrupted, pointing his finger. "Not around her, okay?" He patted Celine's shoulder again, and Francesca gave him a dirty look, although she knew it wasn't advisable to be talking about this in front of Celine.

"Now, Celine," Ray said gently. "Do you know of anybody--I mean, anybody in this whole world--who would have such a hard grudge against your mother?"

"Not even any of her ex-husbands hated her that much," Celine sniffled. "Sure, she had some disagreements with people at the office, but everybody does. It was nothing this serious."

"Well, we'll know if there's a mob angle as soon as forensics has something on those bullets," Ray said.

"Ever since you went undercover, Ray," Fraser spoke up, "I've had a bad feeling about mob spies in the department somewhere. I was afraid that one of them would catch on to the scheme through a slip of somebody's tongue, and alert the Iguana family about your presence. Now, while it's true that your cover held long enough for us to arrest Muldoon and most of the Iguana family without the mob getting to you, we may still have a spy from another syndicate in here somewhere."

"Like who?"        

"I wish I knew."

"Give me a week and I'll root the bastard out," Francesca said resolutely.

"Well, thank you, Columbo, but we can take care of that ourselves," Ray told her in a low, peremptory tone of voice.

Through the front doors of the squad room came Jack Huey and Tom Dewey, who had been in charge of the neighbourhood-canvassing after Fraser and Ray left. They were both holding open notepads, and Huey was the first to give a report. "Just about all the neighbours heard everything but saw nothing," he said.

"Machine-gun fire, breaking glass, peeling rubber, all the good stuff," Dewey threw in. "Big black Lincoln limo. Kind of like the one you like to brag about, Vecchio."

"I'm guessing nobody caught a licence number?" Ray gathered, ignoring Dewey's remark.

"Didn't see it or hear it," Huey said, giving Fraser a look. "And just so you know, Fraser, there wasn't any mud on it either."

"I see," Fraser said. "Well, since the Comerford case and the Langoustini case are most likely connected, Ray and I may be leaving for New Hampshire for a couple of days. We'll keep in touch with you about this shooting, though. Our witnesses seem to have described a classic mob hit."

**********

For fear that Celine would be next, Fraser and Ray left her in protective custody (for as long as the department could afford) before they left for New Hampshire. Francesca buzzed the Portsmouth Police Department to advise them that they would be having some guests, and while she was at it, she got the name of the detective Fraser and Ray would want to talk to. Since they were currently suspecting the ATF of Langoustini's demise, Ray decided that it might be safe to call the DEA office as well, so Francesca complied. As ever, she was all smiles and good-luck wishes for Fraser when he and Ray departed the precinct.

They caught the morning flight from O'Hare to Logan Airport in Boston, and from there, they transferred to a small courier jet to the Pease International Tradeport outside Portsmouth. The tradeport had once been an Air Force base till its closing almost ten years ago, and it was still home to a few wings of KC-135 tankers and a two-mile runway. The jet, which was considerably more cramped than the airliner that had flown Fraser and Ray to Boston, landed smoothly on this runway and dropped its passengers off on the tarmac in front of the terminal.

"Will you tell me something, Benny?" Ray asked during the walk from the plane to the terminal.

"If I can," Fraser promised.

"Why do I think it was a bad idea to leave my car in the hands of my sister?"

"Well, although there was one time when she threatened to wrap it around a tree because you wouldn't come out of the bank on time--"

"She WHAT?" Ray demanded.

"Oh, yes, she told me everything. When we were locked in the vault, she intended to wrap your car around a tree if you weren't out of the bank in two minutes."

Ray sighed, the first of many. "I'll have to have a talk with her when we get back. That's if she hasn't already made good on it."

"Oh, I don't think she will, Ray. Since I also left Diefenbaker under her care, I'm quite sure she'll have her hands full enough with him..." Fraser's voice trailed off as he realised that he might have made a critical error. "Oh, dear. Ray, you haven't seen any catalogs for dog clothing around the house, have you?"

"Well, seeing as my house was burned to a crisp right after I left for Vegas, I shouldn't think so," Ray reminded him. "But I've been over to her apartment, and no, nothing of the sort. Don't worry about it."

"As you wish. So, do you think we should try the DEA office first, or the police department?"

"Let's get the Feds out of the way while we can. DEA office."

In the terminal, they collected their baggage from the conveyor in the baggage room, and out they went into the main waiting room. "All right," Fraser said with a sigh, looking around the room. "Now, public transportation." In a corner, he spotted what looked like an information booth, and walked over to inquire about just that. The information manager volunteered to divert a bus into the tradeport, and Fraser thanked her kindly before joining Ray outside the terminal. There was a bus stop right there, and there were several people already waiting. Most of them regarded Fraser with curiosity and even surprise, and the rest left well enough alone.

"I've got to try that uniform another time," Ray said. "Talk about an attention-getter." Fraser just raised his eyebrows, but didn't reply.

Fifteen minutes later, the bus rounded the curve by the airport and pulled up at the stop with its hazard lights flashing. The front doors opened, and although Fraser and Ray were standing near them, Fraser held Ray back to let the other passengers on board first.

"After you," he said, ushering the first one aboard. "Please, sir, after you. After you, ma'am..."

"Fraser, do you want to get down there any time this week?" Ray demanded.

"Well, it's only three o'clock, Ray, the office doesn't close till four thirty."

Ray sighed, rolling his eyes. "Earth to Benny, we're on Eastern Time, your watch is now an hour slow?" he said irritably.

Fraser looked at his watch, seeing that Ray was right once again. "Oh, dear," he said. He hopped up the steps onto the bus, dropping his quarters into the fare box. Ray followed suit, and once they were seated, the bus took off for downtown Portsmouth.

As it traversed a bridge spanning Interstate 95, Fraser looked around, taking in the rather agreeable conditions on board. At least, they were agreeable compared to the conditions on most Chicago buses. Fraser, certainly glad of this, took a brief look under the seats on the other side of the bus. There was a fire extinguisher lying there, and Fraser noted the inspection tag. As he did, a frown creased his forehead. "Ray, something's wrong," he said, alert.

"What?"

"That fire extinguisher. I don't know if they're all inspected at the same time or if each bus's extinguisher is inspected one at a time, but that extinguisher is tagged for a different bus." With that, Fraser got up, walked forward and bent down beside the driver. "Excuse me, sir, but I think it would behoove you to pull over," he advised.

"What's the problem?" the driver asked.

"I believe a fire is imminent on this bus."

Puzzled but concerned, the driver pulled the bus over a short distance past a traffic light, hazard lights on. He opened the doors, and Fraser got off and started looking over the outside, while Ray remained aboard and excused himself to the passengers as he inspected the inside. Meanwhile, the driver picked up his radio phone, watching Ray search the bus's interior. He tried twice to call the base, but got no response.

"No answer?" Ray said.

"None. Radio seems to be working fine, but they're not answering."

"Great," Ray growled to himself, resuming his search. The muttering was increasing in volume, and Ray hoped he and Fraser would find any problems and eliminate them before panic struck. He dropped to his knees in the middle and peered at the heaters under the seats, and in there, he found just what he was after. He got up and got off the bus, going around the front to meet Fraser.

"This was in one of the space heaters under a seat," he said. "Oily rag, might have caught fire if the heat was on long enough. The bus's radio is down, too."

"And this was in the engine," Fraser said, holding up a vial. "Gunpowder. If the engine got much hotter, this could have exploded and ruptured the radiator coolant, or worse yet, ignited the fuel."

"You don't think we're being followed, do you?" Ray asked with a touch of concern.

"I'm not sure, Ray, but I think it's something we should consider at least. I don't like this. Let's get down to the DEA office, perhaps something will arise."

**********

Fraser and Ray spoke with one Agent Dexter at the DEA office. Ray had never met this fellow, but he had a feeling that Dexter had been in on the accident that killed Langoustini. However, Dexter didn't give him and Fraser any comments or expressions that suggested he'd been in on it. Fraser was content with the agent's mood, but Ray had a mind to push the envelope.

They walked from the front office into some of the personal ones, and Dexter led the way into his, making a beeline for the file cabinet with several folders to dump in it. "What did you say the guy's name was again?" he asked.

"Armando Langoustini," Ray answered. "He was a member of the southwest arm of the Iguana family, had a summer place here."

"Oh, yeah, Iguana family. Actually, we didn't have many dealings with them. We do drug busts, the Iguanas aren't that involved in drug traffic. They're gunrunners."

"Well, we understand that, sir," Fraser piped up. "However, since we understood that Mr. Langoustini had a summer home here and this was the closest federal office, it seemed appropriate to come to you."

"And why exactly is that?"

"We've got a suspicion that some Feds planned and caused Langoustini's death," Ray said.

Sticking a folder into the file cabinet, Dexter turned around and gave him a demeaning glance. "That's kind of hard to believe."

"What if it's true?" Ray demanded. "What if one of your own associates planned and committed a murder? Are you just going to let him kill a guy and get away with it?"

"When I'm trying to work, like I am now, I probably will. Excuse me." Dexter pushed between Fraser and Ray and returned to the main office, and they watched him go.

"Strike one," Ray muttered, skulking away. Fraser followed, and he paused before the door and turned around to observe Dexter speaking to another agent. Ray paused with him, and although neither man could hear the conversation, Fraser could lip-read it. He watched them talk until the other man turned and went back to his desk, and then Fraser and Ray departed.

"What was that?" Ray asked.

"Dexter was speaking to that other agent about Langoustini," Fraser said. "They both agreed they didn't know a thing about him. I don't think there's anything for us here, Ray. Let's talk to the police, they might be a little more cooperative."

The police cooperated, all right, but it was only through Fraser's politeness and virtual brainwashing that they did so. Ray was surprised that he didn't use an Inuit tale on them, and he followed the detective Francesca had told them to speak to. However, the detective was not as forthcoming as he and Fraser had been hoping.

"What do you mean, you don't have it on file?" Ray demanded. "How can you not have it on file? A guy got killed in a violent automobile accident at a downtown intersection in broad daylight, and you don't have it on file?"

"I'm sorry, but we don't," the cop insisted. "I wish I could help you, Detective, but if we don't have a case file for it, we don't know if it even happened."

"Well, actually," Fraser stepped in, "we do have a source who has informed us that there was a car crash in this city last year. A man was killed."

"There, you see?" Ray said. "If a Mountie is asserting this, how can it possibly be a lie?"

"I hate to disappoint the two of you," the Portsmouth cop said, sounding stressed. "But we have no such case file, so we can't help you."

"Yeah, well don't expect such an easy extradition when one of your perps flees to Chicago!" Ray yelled after him as the cop walked away into the squad room. Fraser took him by the arm, and they went into a corner of the hallway, where Fraser looked both ways and lowered his voice.

"Ray," he muttered, "if there's no case file, that means there was no investigation."

Ray's eyes widened as he saw what Fraser was getting at. "Yeah," he said. "And it's not in the local police department's case files, yet it is in the files of the Chicago ATF office."

"Two plus two equals four," Fraser said.

"Okay, I have to make a phone call. Why don't you borrow a phone and call over to the Chicago P.D. Maybe Huey and Dewey have something more with the hit on Celine's mother."

"I think I'll also ask them to get a court order on those ATF files," Fraser said.

"Good idea."

**********

Fraser borrowed a detective's desk phone to call over to Chicago, while Ray found a pay phone and made his own phone call. Fraser got the information on the hit from Huey and Dewey, and they agreed to go over to the courthouse and get a warrant for the ATF files. That done, Fraser went off to locate Ray, and he found him at the pay phone in the hallway, just hanging up.

Ray turned away from the phone, nodding to Fraser. "Well, you were right about the fire extinguishers on those buses," he said. "They're inspected one at a time. I asked them to do a double-check, and somebody switched that bus's extinguisher for another one, which was two weeks overdue for inspection. Somebody also pinched the transmitter from the radio."

"Interesting," Fraser said thoughtfully.

"It gets better," Ray said. "The mechanic I talked to said that he saw somebody hanging around the garage the other day, and he'd seen this somebody driving for them about ten months back, a temp job as an interim replacement. He was also a temp driver for a trucking company based out of Dover. Now the guy I talked to didn't know his name, but I'm thinking about seeing how long this fella worked for the bus and trucking companies."

"Let's find out," Fraser said. "While we're at it, perhaps we should try and get a description, and correlate his terms of employment with the time of Langoustini's death."

"You read my mind. We're onto something, Benny, we'd better get on it before this trail freezes up."

"Agreed," Fraser said, walking with Ray to the main doors of the station. "Actually, I wasn't reading your mind. While it is true that some people have clairvoyance enough to be aware of others' thoughts, I'm not one of those people."

"It's a figure of speech, Fraser, you were just thinking the same thing I was."

"Oh, so it's the lingo thing. Yes, I got a long and involved lesson from Stan on that subject."

"Greeeat."

They walked outside to hitch a ride with another detective who was heading out on an assignment, and Fraser quickly told his two cents to Ray before that detective came outside. "Huey says that they have a rough lead on the hit," he said. "They've matched the bullets to a few others from some past hits. They're tracing them back to several origins, but the most likely one seems to be either the Iguana family or the Crosetto family."

"Iguana family?" Ray echoed, stopping dead in his tracks and spreading his hands. "That's the one I was working against!"

"Hmm," Fraser said. "So if they are responsible for the hit on Celine's mother, and they've also done their best to get you out of the way by setting a fire on a bus, that means that they're onto you somehow."

"How, I really wish I knew," Ray said. "Did you ask Huey to look into that?"

"Well, no, Ray, he was busy enough, and you did ask him to get the court order as well."

"Yeah, okay, can we dispense with the guilt trips? Let's just talk to the truckers."

The detective drove them up to the trucking company in Dover, where they had a chat with the security guard on duty. He'd been working as such for several years, and when Fraser asked him about the accident, he lit right up and led them into the garage. He remembered the truck that had been in the accident, having been on duty when it came in for repairs to its front end. He found it after a fashion and thumped a hand on its side.

"You're sure this is the one?" Ray asked.

"Positive," the guard said, reading the licence plate. "June twelfth of last year, it came in after a run up from Portsmouth with damage to its bumper, grille and right side. Word was, it had hit a car at an intersection."

"Was there any further word from the Portsmouth P.D. on that case?" Fraser asked.

"None."

"Well, the licence plate is still bent out of shape, which indicates that it did strike a hard object with great force," Fraser observed. "Can we get forensics over to dust the steering wheel and other instruments?"

"Give me five," Ray said.

Fraser held up his hand, waiting for Ray to slap it. Ray, however, just stared in bafflement. "What?" he asked.

"Well, you said to give you five, Ray," Fraser said.

"Benny, I meant five minutes, not five like that," Ray said.

"Oh, sorry. I stand corrected."

"Nothing to be sorry for. I guess Professor Kowalski should attend a teacher workshop some time." Ray turned and loped off to the office to call the Dover P.D.'s forensics team down to the garage.

A couple of hours later, Fraser was in the squad room at the Dover P.D. when Ray entered with the forensics report. He handed a copy to Fraser and kept one for himself, and they went to the station's lunch room to sit down and start reading through the names. "They found a couple dozen sets of prints on the wheel and the switches in the cab," Ray said. "I asked them to narrow it down to anyone who works or has worked for the Feds at any time. Here's what they spit out."

"Still a number of names," Fraser said. "I suppose the federal agencies have sent several people undercover with that company."

"Let's see if we recognise any," Ray said. They sat down, and they started reading names. Fraser wasn't looking for any in particular, and he wondered what names Ray might be looking for. After about a minute, he found out.

Ray looked up from his copy of the list with a gleam in his eye, and his smile was all but feral. Fraser knew right away that Ray had seen exactly what he wanted to see. "Ford, Mark Allan," Ray said. "How many Mark Allan Fords do we know who work for the FBI?"

Fraser thought for a moment before answering. "I can't think of any more than one," he said. "But Ray, it is somewhat circumstantial. I mean, just because Ford's fingerprints are on the steering wheel doesn't necessarily mean that he drove the truck when the accident occurred."

"Then why do you suppose he told me to stay away from the Langoustini case?" Ray asked smugly.

"Point taken," Fraser said after a thoughtful pause. "Back to Chicago, I take it?"

"Next flight from Logan has our name on it."

**********

Fraser and Ray got a description of the temp driver from the bus mechanic and the trucking-company guard, and they hardly rested while going back to Chicago. They took a night flight from Logan to O'Hare, and they checked up on Celine first thing in the morning before going to the precinct. Celine expressed a desire to come along, and Ray didn't see why not, so all three of them went to the precinct with one cruiser some distance ahead and another just behind. Still, Fraser and Ray kept an eye out for trailer trucks at the intersections, as well as snipers or pedestrians who might be toting firearms.

At the precinct, who should they run into but Stella Kowalski, who had been called there by Welsh after he heard the news from Ray, Fraser, Huey and Dewey. They passed the ladies' room as she was coming out, and naturally, she and Ray had some surprised and pleased greetings.

"Ray, hi!" Stella said, kissing him on the cheek.

"Hey, Stella," Ray kissed her back. "On your way to Welsh's office?"

"Yeah."

"Good, us too. We've got some news you'll enjoy hearing."

However, Stella didn't enjoy it as much as Ray was hoping. She congregated in the office with Fraser, Ray, Huey, Dewey, Welsh and Celine, and they talked behind closed doors and window blinds. "I'm sorry, Ray," she was saying, "but what makes you so sure that this Agent Ford is responsible for the death?"

"One, he's had this massive grudge against me for beating him to the solution to at least three cases," Ray answered. "Two, his fingerprints were on the steering wheel of the truck that was used in the accident. Three, a mechanic who works for the local bus company, and a security guard for the trucking company, both gave us the same matching description. The mechanic told us that he'd seen Ford working as a temp at the time of the accident."

"It's circumstantial at best," Stella said with a shake of her head. "How many other agents came up on your fingerprint list?"

"At least five or six others, but Ford was the only one of them who told me to stay off the Langoustini case," Ray said.

"He came to me with the same gripe," Welsh spoke up. "He came into my office the other day and said that he knew we were investigating Langoustini's death. He didn't say how, but he told me to stay away from the case."

"Remember on the same day, he also told me to keep my mouth shut?" Celine said.

"It doesn't prove anything," Stella dispelled. "For all we know, he could have been acting under the orders of a superior who didn't want the mob getting wise to this investigation. I can concur, I wouldn't want Ra--er, Detective Vecchio to be found out and victimised by the Iguana family."

"Well, we got the court order to release the ATF records," Dewey said. "Not only was there a load of literature on Langoustini and plans to get him out of the way, but we also found information on a few FBI and ATF agents working undercover with the Iguana family. Ford's partner was among them, so my partner and I figure two plus two equals four."

"Which in turn equals no evidence, unless you've got some proof against Ford himself," Stella said.

"All right, then explain this," Welsh said. "I called to some of my colleagues in various other precincts around the city. Ford never came in to talk to any of them. Looks like I was his only concern."

"I doubt it's a coincidence that Detective Vecchio is a member of your unit, sir, and that he impersonated Langoustini for several months," Fraser pointed out. "We must also consider the fact that the Portsmouth P.D. had no case file on the crash that killed Langoustini. If Detectives Huey and Dewey's suspicions are correct, it's possible that whoever is responsible for the death, if anyone, attempted to erase all evidence that it happened. The only people who can erase a case file are members of the police department or a power higher in the chain of command."

Stella stared at him, starting to see the collective point of everyone in this room. At this, Welsh chimed in, "I'm sold."

There was a long pause while Stella put everything together and worked it out to a tangible conclusion. A positive I.D. from two parties, the opportunity, the motive, erased evidence, corroboration from federal records...no question, they had a case. "Okay," she said finally, nodding to Ray. "Pick him up."

**********

Still towing Celine, Fraser and Ray went straight to the courthouse for a warrant, and then went straight to the Chicago FBI office and asked after Ford. Provided with his location in the office, they marched purposefully toward it. Ray was rather surprised that the secretary had allowed them in, but he decided that an arrest warrant had to mean something even to the
Feds.

Celine had decided wisely to stay back out of sight while Fraser and Ray went in to conduct their business; she had no intention of drawing any more attention to herself than she had to. Fraser himself was content to stand back out of Ray's way while this was going on, seeing as this would likely get awfully heated and he wanted no part of that. He went into the bullpen with Ray, and they found who they were looking for in no time.

"Ford, just the man I wanted to see," Ray said pontifically, striding over to him.

"What do you want, Vecchio?" Ford demanded, glaring up from a file folder in front of him.

"I want to talk to you, that's what."

"Well, I don't have time for that," Ford snapped. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm in the middle of a case here, so if you'll excuse me."

"Well, you want to know something?" Ray cut him off before he got very far away. "Interrogation is like Jell-O, there's always room for it." Moving in behind Ford, Ray withdrew his handcuffs from his belt. "Mark Ford, you're under arrest for the murder of Armando Langoustini. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

***********************************************************************
Part 3: Fear

Ray spent most of the morning processing and booking a sullen Ford, who was then dumped in the lockup to await his extradition to Portsmouth, since the crime had been committed there. Before long he had a visitor, and it rather gratified him to discover that it was his partner, Deeter.

"Guess now you know what it's like on the other side of the gate," Deeter observed from his side of the glass partition in the visiting room.

"Don't start, Deeter," Ford said sternly. "I take it you know why this happened?"

"Vecchio and the Mountie over in New Hampshire, plus the Comerford kid getting information from her mother. We don't have to be rocket scientists."

"You take care of things, understand?" Ford instructed.

"You got it," Deeter said, hanging up the phone. Take care of things he would, and he got up and left the visiting room to take care of them.

**********

Celine didn't feel the least bit safe anymore, not now that the department had run out of money to keep her in protective custody or under surveillance. She'd done her best to understand that it just wasn't within the department's budget. The only solace she had was that she'd be meeting Fraser and Ray at the basketball court, and as she left the locker room and the building, she couldn't wait to see the huge old car sitting by the sidewalk. Funny--it had to be one of the most unattractive cars she'd ever seen, but seeing it was always a comfort to her lately.

"Celine Comerford?"

Celine spun around, seeing a tall, rather craggy-faced character coming toward her with a badge in his hand. There were two other slick-looking individuals with him, and Celine didn't like the looks of any of them.

"Agent Deeter, FBI," the tall one said. "You mind coming with us?"

"Yeah, actually, I do," Celine said.

"Well, I think you'd better, kid. All we want to do is ask you a couple of questions."

"About what?" Celine said suspiciously, backing away. It did no good. The further she backed away, the further they advanced toward her.

"You'll know when we get to where we're going."

"Well, sorry, but I'll pass," Celine said. With that, she whirled around and bolted down the sidewalk, running like the wind away from the supposed FBI agents. They were running after her in a pinch, and she sprinted around a corner and looked over her shoulder, seeing that they were still on her.

Suddenly, a rushing motor and a screech of rubber caught her attention, and a snazzy-looking, dark blue Lincoln town car skidded to a halt beside her. From its open passenger window, she heard the driver call, "Get in!" Glad for any chance to get away from the three men on her tail, Celine ripped the rear door open and dived into the back seat, and the car was squealing away from the sidewalk before she had even closed the door. The FBI men stopped short, well aware that they'd never catch up with the car while it was at that speed.

Celine looked out the back window and took a relieved breath, then turned forward again. The man in the driver's seat was middle-aged and portly, and he wore a grey fedora and trench coat. He held a smouldering cigar between his fingers, and he turned his head to her and nodded once. "Name's Pike," he informed her.

"Glad to meet you. Hey, watch out!" Celine cried, pointing ahead of the car. Pike was hardly startled, and he just swerved to the left to go around the parked taxi ahead. The car was now moving at at least ninety miles an hour, and the swerve threw Celine up against the door. She recovered and watched the surroundings flash past, and by the time the horns started beeping, they were almost too far behind to hear.

"Pike," she said. "Thanks for getting me away from those guys--"

"Well, the least I could do for a kid like you who's done her best to turn her life around," Pike grinned, puffing his cigar.

"How do you know that?" Celine frowned. "You don't even know my name!"

"Care to bet?" Pike said with a cagey smile, constantly changing lanes to get ahead of the slower traffic. The way he was driving, all of the traffic was slower. "Your parents must have had a thing for the letter C when they were thinking up names. Celine Christina Comerford, born July second, nineteen seventy-nine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, height five feet ten inches, weight a hundred and thirty pounds, hair and eye colour brown, eyesight twenty-twenty, blood type A positive, religion Catholic, school grades average. Lived in Pittsburgh till the age of seven and then moved to Chicago. Parents divorced just afterwards, mother remarried, divorced when you were ten, divorced again two years later, then two more divorces each two years apart. Mother just gave up after that."

"Yeah, don't remind me," Celine said, trying not to think of her mother.

"Sorry to hear about your mom, kid, I really am. But I know who it was."

"You do?" Celine asked breathlessly.

"Hey, I know everything, didn't I just prove it?" Pike said, taking a curve on two wheels and going under a bridge.

As Celine was thrown repeatedly from one side of the back seat to the other, she wondered if Pike's decidedly atrocious driving habits were his normal style, or if he was just putting them on to get her away from the FBI guys. "Holloway Muldoon had a buddy, some don named Vincento Iguana," Pike rattled on. "Muldoon was planning an arms deal with Armando Langoustini until the Bookman's untimely demise in Portsmouth, New Hampshire about ten months ago, but you know about all that. Langoustini was the liaison between Muldoon's gang and Iguana's, but the new contact, still Armando Langoustini alias Ray Vecchio, was too busy with Muldoon to worry about Iguana. Anyway, word gets around about that untimely demise, and not all of it's good. Suspects aren't just confined to their side of the law. Somebody's been talking, kiddo, I don't know who, but somebody's been talking and word got to Iguana just after Vecchio returned to the fold. The gist of it: hit Marie Comerford. Iguana gets his hit men together, drives by your place, end of story."

"Somebody's talking," Celine said.

"Like I just said, baby."

"You don't mean me or my friend Pete, do you?"

"You got anything to do with the ATF?" Pike asked, tossing his spent cigar out the window and running a traffic light. As he did so, he veered to avoid some traffic coming on the perpendicular route.

"My mom was an ATF librarian, but that was it."

"Well, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes, then. She's been squawking to somebody and it's been getting to the cops. Gimme a day, though, and I'll know who it is."

"I thought you knew everything," Celine said.

"Hey, I only know everything when I'm smoking a cigar." With that, Pike picked up another cigar from the tray by his seat, and he shoved it in his mouth and lit it. Celine, although she knew that was absurd, was still wondering if it was true, and she waited to see what he'd say.

"Hang on..." Pike said, taking a 270-degree turn onto a side street and almost throwing Celine out the door in the process. She struggled upright and rubbed the back of her head, wincing in pain.

"Hold it, hold it--she's been talking to you, hasn't she?!" Pike barked. "And you've been talking to the cops! There's a bigger leak here than the Hoover Dam!"

"It's not just me!" Celine protested, amazed that Pike's earlier comment seemed true.

"I know, I know," Pike said. "Your pal Pete's as good as a snitch, y'know? But in my business, who needs him?"

"I do," Celine told him.

"Don't pour the syrup all over my upholstery there, kid," Pike said. "Just watch your back. The Feds are the Feds and the mob is the mob. Don't trust either of 'em, they're getting to be one and the same."

"Thanks, I won't," Celine said.

"Well, then, nice talking to you, here's your stop. Have a good day." Pike slowed down to about forty miles an hour while Celine opened the door, and she jumped out of the moving car and into a pile of discarded mattresses and garbage bags lying on the sidewalk. She was vaguely aware of screaming rubber as she collected herself and got up, and by the time she looked up the street, Pike's car had already disappeared.

Weird, she thought to herself. Highly weird. She wasn't at all sure if she wanted to run into that guy again; but one redeeming factor was that she knew who had put the hit on her mother.

**********

Knowing that Fraser and Ray would be almost fascinated to hear about this, Celine called them and told them what had happened, and Ray agreed to come and pick her up. Celine hid out in a dilapidated tenament near the place where Pike had dropped her off, and when Fraser and Ray showed up, Pete was with them--he'd been hoping to meet Celine at the basketball court, and perhaps share a game with Fraser and Ray. However, all four of them decided that the precinct's gym would suffice, so they returned there for a game and a talk about the status quo.

All four except Fraser, who as usual wore his riding breeches with his undershirt sleeves rolled up, were in gym clothes, and Fraser and Ray formed one team while Pete and Celine formed the other. They were running around near one of the hoops at the corner of the gym, and Fraser and Ray had racked up twelve points, Pete and Celine eight.

"You know, Celine," Fraser was saying, "it's interesting that you should run into Pike. The last I heard from him, Detective Kowalski and I received a letter saying that he would continue searching for a spy he'd been hunting for the past twenty years. I hardly think he's the kind of man who would take a break to assist a murder investigation." He tried to cut around to the left, but both Pete and Celine were blocking him off no matter where he went.

"Well, didn't you say that he knew just about everything about Ray impersonating Langoustini, and Kowalski impersonating Ray?" Pete inquired.

"That's right," Fraser said. Deciding that his best move would be to shoot from here, he did exactly that, and the ball sailed right over the kids' heads. It fell cleanly through the basket, and Pete went over to catch the ball and toss it to Ray, who then returned it to him.

"Well, then," Pete went on, "he probably got wind of the Langoustini case, and God knows most of Chicago knows about the hit on Celine's mom. Could be he had some information he wanted to share."

"Yeah, let's hope that's all it was," Ray said. Pete took advantage of the lull, bolting far enough around Ray to pass the ball to Celine. She was about to go for the basket when she found herself facing off with Fraser, and she bounced the ball from hand to hand while Fraser stood ready and waiting. Celine kept it up for almost half a minute before she made her move. She feinted to the left and leaped to the right, and she was making for the basket when she quite suddenly found the ball swept out from under her left hand. Fraser had it, and he made another successful shot.

"Geez," Celine said. "That always works on the guard. I just keep it up for about a minute before I move. I just get them so bored with it that they don't expect it when I go."

"Well, obviously they never learned how to stay alert," Fraser said. "Alertness is one of the most basic concepts in the RCMP. Never let your guard down."

"Yeah, never try to fool a Mountie, either," Ray grinned. "That's one thing I learned the hard way, kid."

"Yeah," Celine agreed. "There's a lot of stuff I'm learning the hard way right about now, too."

"Such as?" Fraser said, tossing the ball back and forth with her.

"Such as the fact that my mom was involved in a conspiracy to kill a guy. I mean, sure, it allowed them to get a cop in there undercover, but that doesn't make it right." Celine threw the ball to Pete so he could make a shot, but Ray neatly intercepted it and dashed to the rear right corner of the court.

"No, you're right, it doesn't," Fraser said.

"It's just a little too disquieting." Celine was pretty good at tricking guards--she jumped for the ball just as she finished her sentence. Ray had his own share of tricks, though, and he sidestepped Celine and got around Pete. Fraser was wide open, so Ray tossed the ball to him, and he made a shot. However, he was too far away, and the ball rebounded, to be caught and dunked by Pete.

"Ha ha!" he yelled. "Nice rebound, Fraser!"

"That's a matter of opinion," Fraser said. Ray and Pete tossed the ball back and forth, and Pete started bouncing it around. He eventually dashed for the basket with Ray on his tail, and concentrating on the basket, he sent the ball aside and right into Celine's hands. Both Fraser and Ray focused on her, and once she was just below the basket, she spun around and passed the ball back to Pete. Before Fraser and Ray could guard him, he'd already dropped the ball through the basket.

"I'm guessing your mom didn't get to tell you anything else before she was hit?" he said to Celine.

"No," Celine said with a downcast look. "Hey, let me ask you guys something. Didn't you say that that guy Ford was seen over in New Hampshire shortly before you got there?"

"Yeah," Ray said.

"And there was almost a fire on the bus you took from the airport?"

"We thought about that," Ray answered. "We figure if Ford wants us out of the way that badly, he must really be desperate to cover this up."

Celine's reply was delayed by Ray's sudden move to the right. She chased him around in a circle, and when Ray shot, Celine leaped. She pulled herself up by the basket, grabbed the ball, and dropped it in. Ray was nothing if not amazed.

"Well, I was thinking he might also have had something to do with the hit on my mother," Celine went on. "I mean, until I met Pike. She talked to me about the Langoustini case, and I thought if Ford was covering it up, he might have her killed and make it look like a mob hit. But since this Pike guy seems to know everything else about my family and me, it's pretty easy to believe his story about the Iguana family."

Fraser took the opportunity of Celine's speech to start his run, so Celine bolted after him. Fraser threw the ball to Ray, but when the latter found Celine all over him, he had to return it to Fraser. Pete had other ideas. He came up behind Fraser, intercepted the ball, circled behind Fraser, made it to the basket and got in another shot. He and Celine high-fived, grinning at the prospect of drawing even with Fraser and Ray. Pete did another ball-toss with Fraser, and Ray waited for Fraser to pass the ball to him.

"But maybe it's still worth looking into," Celine suggested. All three of her companions turned to face her--but she wasn't there. She had been standing below the basket, but she had just vanished.

"What the..." Ray murmured. "Where'd she go now?"

"I'm right here," Celine's voice came out of nowhere. "I'm the Phantom, remember? You guys can go on without me, I'll be back."

"Well, whenever you return," Fraser said to the thin air, "I have something else I need to talk about." Hiding his footsteps under the sound of the bouncing ball, he was following Celine's voice to somewhere behind the backboard. He was nearly there--

Celine dropped from her "hangout" in the backboard frame, swiped the ball, and jumped backwards to send it into the hoop. "Like what else?" she asked innocently.

"Phew, they don't call her the Phantom for nothing," Pete observed with admiration.

Everybody knew where she'd been hiding, so when they had gotten over their surprise at this little stunt, Fraser continued. "The bullets extracted from the wall of your house have been analysed, and they've been traced to a possible two crime syndicates, Iguana and Crosetto. Unless Agent Ford has some sort of connection with either of those syndicates, I don't see how he could have put the hit on your mother." Having taken the ball, he resumed bouncing.

"As in, if he was undercover?" Pete suggested.

"No, he and Agent Deeter were both at the precinct at the time of the Kuzma case, so he couldn't have been undercover then," Fraser said. A distant look came over his face, and he held the ball for a short while. "But he or Deeter might have been undercover at a different time, before or after the Kuzma case. Detective Dewey did say the Ford's partner was undercover in the Iguana family at one time. In fact, they may well have suspected that Ray would try to find out more about Langoustini's death after he returned, so they could have covertly asked some of their fellow agents to deliberately blow his cover."

"Wouldn't put it past them," Ray said.

Fraser's trick had worked, so he sprinted for the hoop and slammed the ball inside it. Celine made a mental note not to let herself be disturbed in a game again, and to try and recognise it when someone was deliberately trying to distract her. "Well," Fraser went on, exchanging the ball with Pete, "in that case, it's more likely that they didn't suspect any leaks from the FBI or ATF offices. Ergo, I doubt that we could tie them to the hit."

"Well, I know a way to find out," Ray said. "When you and Kowalski went to the armpit of the Frozen North to stop Muldoon and Bolt, I questioned a guy from the Iguana family and made him think I was Langoustini. He told me everything I wanted to know. If we could pick up somebody else from that family, I could do it again."

Pete was listening attentively, but he was also targeting the basket again. He caught Fraser and Ray with their guard down, and he took three long strides for the basket and dunked the ball straight in. Catching it, he turned to Fraser and grinned. "So much for never letting your guard down, eh, Fraser?" he smirked.

"Hey, look, we're still even," Ray said, pointing his finger. Then he lowered it with a distant look of his own. "Benny, what was that you said about the Crosetto family?"

"That it was one of the possibilities for the hit on Marie Comerford," Fraser said.

"It's also one of the chief rivals of the Iguana family," Ray said.

"Interesting," Pete mused. "Then it could be that when Ford killed Langoustini, he tried to make it look like the work of the Crosetto family."

"Maybe," Fraser said, making another drive for the basket. Celine was ready for him, though. There was a brief showdown, during which Celine eventually claimed the basketball and got it in before Fraser or Ray could stop her.

"Even, huh?" Pete said to Ray.

Ray gave him a dirty look, and he walked over to Celine. "All right, look," he said. "I hear that you've demonstrated some pretty cool disappearing acts during basketball games. So I hope you're used to disappearing, because you'll have to for a while. Whenever there's a chance that the mob could be coming after a witness, we need to get them either out of town or into witness protection."

"Is that what you want?" Fraser asked.

"Well, I don't really have anybody here anymore, except maybe for Melissa," Celine shrugged. "I get the feeling I can't live with any of my relatives." Ray shook his head sympathetically.

"Can I think about it?" Celine asked.

"Well, think fast," Ray said. "We can't keep you under surveillance and we can't leave you alone any time, either. We'll have to get you out of here, and soon."

"Okay, I'll try."

"That's good enough," Ray smiled, patting her on the arm. "Thanks for the game." He walked over to a nearby bench to grab his towel, and he and Fraser retired towards the locker room. Pete and Celine remained by the bench for a bit, and they each took a gulp of water from their bottles and wiped away the sweat.

"You know, Celine, I'm a light sleeper when the window's open," Pete said. "Is there still a stretch of yellow tape around your house?"

"Yeah." Celine stared at him as his suggestion dawned on her. "You mean, you'd like to have me over for a night?"

"Well, for as long as I need to before you decide what to do. Just ask Fraser and Ray, you can trust me."

"I don't need to ask," Celine smiled. "I already know I can."

"Um...okay," Pete said, wishing his girl-shyness would leave him alone long enough to keep Celine out of trouble. "I'll pick you up after we change and give you a lift."

"I'd like that, thanks." Celine kissed him on the cheek, picked up her water bottle and towel and loped off to the women's locker room. Pete sighed, shuddered a little bit, and followed Fraser and Ray, wondering how his family would take this tonight.

**********

As it turned out, they were more than happy to have Celine over for dinner and for the night, and Pete graciously gave up his bed and rolled out his sleeping bag at the foot of the bed despite Celine's objections. It was rather safe, though--as far as they knew, nobody except Fraser and Ray knew that they'd been seeing each other. Over an hour after the rest of the family had hit the sack, Pete opened his bedroom window and let the cool air in, and Celine piled on the covers before sliding under them. She'd have to sleep in her street clothes, since they hadn't been able to return to her house or St. Fortunata's to pick up sleepwear, but she didn't mind.

"Trouble getting to sleep?" Pete asked after a while.

"Not really. No more than usual."

"Then I'll give you a hand," Pete said, grinning to himself. "An FBI agent, a Customs agent and a DEA agent die and go to heaven, and St. Peter meets them at the Pearly Gates. He takes the FBI agent aside and puts him in a little room, and there's a mad dog in there. St. Peter locks him in and calls through the door, 'Mr. FBI agent, you have sinned. You must spend five years in here with this mad dog.'"

Celine giggled, and Pete continued. "Then St. Peter takes the Customs agent aside and locks him in another little room, there's a mad gorilla in there. St. Peter calls, 'Mr. Customs Agent, you have sinned. You must spend ten years in here with this mad gorilla.' So then he takes the DEA agent aside and into another little room, but it's empty. St. Peter tells him to wait, so the DEA agent sits down and waits for a little while. Then Madonna comes in. St. Peter locks them inside and calls, 'Madonna, you have sinned!'"

At this, Celine laughed out loud, and Pete just snickered. That was one of his favourite Fed jokes, and he'd told it to Fraser and Ray once, and Ray had laughed just as hard as Celine was. Fraser, of course, hadn't gotten it, and he hadn't gotten it even after both Ray and Pete explained it meticulously to him twice.

"Oh, geez, thanks, Pete," Celine sighed happily. "You know, that's actually made me feel better."

"That was the general idea. Good night."

"Good night," Celine replied, rolling over on her side. She drew up the covers and closed her eyes, and she was content, feeling a little safer.

Or rather, she was feeling a little safer until she heard the sound of breaking glass from somewhere outside the bedroom. She and Pete immediately sat bolt upright, and Pete was on his feet in an instant, dashing toward the door of his room. Just as he was getting there, the door flew open and slammed him in the head, knocking him out cold. He tumbled backwards to the floor, and Celine leaped out of the bed and tried to get to the window, but she was too late. The man inside the room was already on top of her, and he raised the window screen and crammed Celine out the window into the arms of two more men waiting outside. Stifling her screams, they picked her up at either end and bore her down to the waiting limousine in the road. Unfortunately, Pete was the only light sleeper in the family; none of the rest had heard a thing. And right now he wasn't sleeping so lightly.

**********

Sunlight was starting to dance through the window by the time Pete was revived by a cold breeze from the still-open window. The immense headache helped to bring him around, and he shook his head and got up, holding onto it with both hands. He staggered over and closed the screen and the window, silently cursing himself for not being more alert. How could the mob have possibly found out about this?

How they had found out wasn't important to him. Where they had taken Celine was the main thing on his mind. He turned around to look for anything on the floor of the room that might indicate where they had come from and where they might have gone. What he found were several wood shavings on the floor, as well as some sawdust here and there. He got up and went back to the window, and as he'd suspected, there were more shavings and dust on the ground below it.

"Oh, my God," he muttered to himself in consternation, racing out of his room. He'd barely have time to call Ray and change his clothes before going out to do something.

In the meantime, just as Ray was arriving at his desk in the precinct, the phone rang. Wondering who could be calling him at this ungodly hour, he dropped his lunch bag in a drawer and picked the receiver up. "Vecchio," he said.

He listened for a minute, and his eyes widened in shock. "Oh, God," he said. "Okay, I'll be there with backup ASAP!" He hung up and dashed back to the squad-room doors. "Frannie, get a SWAT team together and get 'em up to the Wooden Leg Sawmill pronto! We've got a mob hit on our hands!"

"The sawmill?" Francesca gaped. "Team's on the way!" She was on the phone before Ray was even out the doors, calling for a full team. Ray nearly bumped right into Fraser coming down the stairs, and Fraser didn't say a word; he just dashed back the way he had come with Ray.

In the meantime, the Wooden Leg Sawmill was in operation, with one man working at the moment. He was at the headsaw, running the saw carriage back and forth and turning a large pine log into fifteen-odd boards. He had just finished sawing up half the log when he felt somebody patting his shoulder, and he turned around. The somebody rammed a very hard, very fast fist into his face, and he toppled across the carriage track and fell into the wood-shaving pit below. The somebody stepped across the track, made sure the carriage operator was unconscious, and closed the trap door over the pit.

Outside the sawmill, the same limousine that had made the quick getaway from Pete's house last night was coming to a halt. From the rear seat, two men in lumberjack clothing pulled a bound and blindfolded Celine out of the car and pushed her across the dirt road to the sawmill. She nearly tripped on the raised floor of the mill, and they brought her to a halt at the saw carriage. Untying her hands, they forced her to lie down on the flat top of the log that was still sitting on the carriage, and with that, tied her down to it.

"What's this?" she wondered, turning her head both ways. "What are you doing?"

"You don't need to know," one of the hitmen answered. "Put it this way, you're going to have a splitting headache in a few seconds." He and his partner exchanged evil grins, and he reached forward and untied the blindfold. Celine blinked rapidly and looked around, and when she saw what the hit man meant by "splitting headache", she let out a shriek that raised almost every hair in the mill.

"Oh, God, no!" she screamed desperately. "Please, don't do this! I'll keep quiet, what can I do to keep quiet?!"

"You can just lie there," the hit man said sadistically. He nodded to the new carriage operator, who pushed the lever forward. Celine's screams died down to terrified sobbing, and she prayed hard and fast as she felt the carriage moving toward the headsaw without slowing. Much too soon, the wind from the headsaw, now spinning at its top speed of 105 miles an hour, was starting to riffle her hair. She shut her eyes tightly and steeled herself for the end, but no end came.

Instead, she heard the sound of the lever being snapped backward, and the carriage ground to a halt and regressed from the headsaw, rolling in reverse until it hit the huge rubber tires that acted as a stop. The hit men stared at the carriage operator in surprise, and he turned around and shoved up the face shield on his hard hat, revealing himself to be no one but Pete Porter.

He'd punched out the erstwhile carriage operator (also a hit man), and now he punched out the nearer one, giving him a backhanded swing that sent him flying over one of the log-rolling runners and onto the floor, dazed. The other hit man drew a pistol, and the time it took him to remove the safety was enough time for Pete to leap over the left log-rolling runner and right into his adversary. The gun went off, and the bullet hit one of the fuse boxes on the other side of the mill just before Pete slapped the gun out of the hit man's hand.

He needn't have tried to incapacitate the mob guy--Ray Vecchio had appeared out of nowhere, dragging the hit man backwards across the right-hand runner and booting him in the kidney before depositing him on the floor. Ray then vaulted over the runner, and Pete snapped out his Swiss Army knife and worked swiftly with Ray to free Celine from the log. Looking behind them, they saw that the bullet striking the fuse box had resulted in a fire that was spreading like the bubonic plague. That mill was pretty old, ergo highly combustible, and the fire was getting much too close to the log-rolling door. Pete gave the still-trembling Celine some support getting up and running for the door, and they dashed outside before the fire got very far.

"You okay?" Ray said to Celine.

"No," Celine answered shakily, sinking to the ground and leaning back against a small birch log.

"Okay, just sit tight, we'll be back," Ray said. With that, he and Pete charged right back into the fire; they weren't going to let those hit men escape justice that easily. Celine, wishing she knew what they were thinking, looked over toward the road as she heard the sirens on their way in.

It took Pete and Ray a painfully long, broiling minute to pull the two hitmen out of the sawmill and toss them aside a safe distance from it, but they weren't done yet. "Come on, Ray," Pete shouted. "There's still one more in there!"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Ray snapped, running back inside after him. That fire was spreading so fast that they might have to go for the other exit to get out of here. It was already licking across the ceiling, and it had engulfed most of the wall where it had started. On the other side of the mill, Pete heaved the trapdoor open and jumped into the pit, pulling the erstwhile carriage operator/hit man up and shoving him up to Ray's reach. Ray dragged the man out of the pit and then helped Pete up, and together they carried the hit man out of the mill by the far exit. They ran around the corner to find a full team on the scene, and they dumped their man with the other two and went to find Celine.

But she wasn't there.

Looking around frantically, they both saw one other person worth looking for: Bill Deeter. Motioning to Pete to stay put, Ray stormed over to him and stepped right in front of him, glaring into his eyes. "Where'd you put her?" he demanded.

"I don't know who you're talking about," Deeter stonewalled, starting past him.

Ray grabbed his shoulder and shoved him backwards. "Don't get cute with me, pal, you damn well know who I'm talking about," he barked.

"Don't you get cute with me, Vecchio," Deeter snapped. "I'm a federal agent, you're a police detective."

"Yeah, and you're also a suspect in a conspiracy to commit murder, Old Mr. High-and-Mighty Federal Agent," Ray bluffed. "That means you don't tell me, I tell you. Now where'd you put her?"

"Witness protection. No cause for worry." Ray had kind of thought that Deeter was stupid enough to fall for the bluff. Deeter marched around him, and Ray turned.

"If she's in your hands, I've got plenty of cause for worry," he yelled back, but Deeter ignored him. Ray turned around again, seeing Fraser coming forward from Huey's car. Ray shook his head in defeat, and Fraser closed his eyes with the same feeling. So close, and yet so far. What had gone wrong?

******************************************************************
Part 4: Locked In The Trunk Of A Car

"Twice in a row," Pete grumbled, shaking his head as he leaned heavily against the Riviera. "Twice in a row, I've dropped the ball and I've lost Celine. I'd make a lousy Secret Service agent."

"Don't worry," Ray said. "How could you know? Look, at least we've got a lead. Deeter told me that she's in witness protection somewhere. There's a lot of places where she could be, but we'll check them all and find her." He turned to Fraser, who was standing beside him and not looking terribly assured.

"We will find her, right, Benny?" he said.

"We'll certainly try, Ray."

**********

They would try, but it didn't mean they would succeed. All three of them spent the entire morning searching for Celine, and God only knew what was happening to her while they were looking. They searched every possible witness-protection location they knew of, showing her picture, giving her name and description, providing any information that might lead them to her, to no avail. Celine had well and truly disappeared, and they were running out of places to look.

At the second to last place, the trio got out of the Riviera and walked toward the building, and Pete overheard some rather suspicious noises from an alley across the street. He decided to jog across and investigate while Fraser and Ray continued to the building, and when he got into the alley, he saw a few men surrounding a huge black Cadillac. One of them was shutting the trunk, and Pete walked slowly and quietly toward him as he was locking the tailgate.

It was then that he heard somebody else coming up behind him, so he turned to see who it was. As he expected, this person was holding a gun on him. Pete promptly grabbed him and flung him bodily into the man by the rear of the car, dumping them both on the ground. The other two at the car got right into action, and Pete slugged the closer one, then turned to take the other one. The second man had other ideas, though, in the form of a small spray can of ether. Pete didn't know it till it was too late, and for the second time in the last 24 hours, he was knocked senseless to the ground. The trunk man reopened the car's tailgate, and with a snide comment about what Pete and Celine would be doing in there together, waved to his partners to dump the other kid in the trunk.

It was then that Fraser and Ray arrived, and noting the gun in Ray's hand, all four mob guys opened fire. Fraser and Ray ducked aside, and Ray fired back, shouting to Fraser.

"I'll cover, you get out of here!" he yelled. He came out from his hiding place to provide covering fire, and Fraser bolted from the alley, running off to the left. Now Ray had his hands full.

Once again, it was one gun against four, but Ray was used to odds like those. He took cover behind a pile of junk just long enough to fire a few shots in return, and then he kept running, keeping his head down. He zigzagged down the alley, and just as he was coming to the end of it, a dark blue Lincoln town car screeched to a halt in front of him. He looked over his shoulder and fired a few more shots at his pursuers, then exited the alley.

"Get in!" the car's driver called. Ray opened the back door, threw his gun inside, and scrambled in after it, and the car laid about half a tire's worth of rubber pulling away from the sidewalk. By the time the hit men had gotten to the sidewalk, the car had already melted into the traffic and was speeding away at nearly a hundred miles an hour.

Ray sighed with relief, shoving his gun into his belt, and was about to voice his thanks to the driver when the man turned to him. "Name's Pike," he said through a cloud of cigar smoke.

"Yeah, hi," Ray said. "I'm--"

"Raymond Ignazzio Vecchio, a.k.a. Armando 'The Bookman' Langoustini for the past eight months, and now the primary investigator into his death," Pike interrupted.

"Hey, how'd you know that?" Ray asked.

"Just ask your snitch Celine Comerford, I know everything when I'm smoking a cigar." Pike took another drag on the cigar, veered into the other lane to avoid a garbage truck, slipped the car between two others in the opposite lane, and continued. "So, have fun getting your life back from Kowalski?"

Ray, bracing one hand against each side of the car, stared in disbelief. "How'd you know about that?" he repeated.

"Like I said, when I'm smoking a cigar, I know everything. Maybe you could've asked Celine if you'd been able to save her from the Feds."

"Yeah, I try to save her from the Feds and instead I bump into a gang of mob thugs," Ray said. "What the hell's going on here?"

"You really want to know?" Pike asked. Without waiting for an answer, he plunged on. "There's a Fed, I don't know who, but he's in it with them. You, my friend, didn't make a false arrest when you busted Ford. Whoever's in with the mob was planning to kill the Bookman at the same time, only Ford got to him first."

"Yeah, the fingerprints on the truck's steering wheel dropped me a hint," Ray said sarcastically.

"Annnyway, our guess is, this Fed was undercover with either the Iguana family or the Crosetto family, we're not sure which since those bullets in the wall of the Comerford place make both of them likely suspects. It was a few months ago, though. Now this Fed is a double agent. He spends enough time in with the mob that he gets really friendly with the top dogs, friendly enough that he turns the other cheek. They make him an offer he can't refuse, so to speak, and he takes it and becomes what he's beheld. Now he's telling the mob what the Feds are doing."

"If it was me, I'd say he was in with the Crosetto family," Ray said. "They're rivals of the Iguana family, of which Langoustini was a major part. In fact, I'll betcha it's this Ford guy I busted."

"Want to bet?" Pike said, veering into an alley and avoiding all the junk piled in it as he drove through it. "Ford's still in the clink, but somebody's still out to get you and Celine and everybody else who's involved in this case."

"Oh, great," Ray grunted. "That's got to leave somebody I can suspect..." His eyes widened as it came to him. "Wait a minute," he said. "I think I know who it is!"

"Well, not bad for you, buddy," Pike said with a grin. He exited the alley, swerved back onto the street and was already too far ahead to hear any horns honking at him. Ray's head nearly broke the window of the back door. "Then I guess you know one of this guy's favourite M.O.s."

"I mean, I'm not sure who he is," Ray admitted. "Any ideas?"

"Yeah, it's big, it's metal and it turns cars into pancakes," Pike said. "People, too, if there are any in them."

"Oh, my God," Ray exclaimed. "Can you give me a hand stopping this guy?"

"'Fraid not if I don't want to blow my cover, but I bet your Mountie friend can help." Pike did a 180 right in the middle of the crowded street, and Ray tumbled to the car's floor. As he picked himself up, grunting, Pike was already speeding back toward the place where Fraser and Ray had split up.

"I'd wish you luck, but you don't need it," Pike said. "See, I know a lot about you. I'd give you a rundown, but we'll be there before I'm done."

"Yeah, the sooner, the better," Ray grumbled, rubbing the back of his head.

"Illinois Central freight yard, track forty-seven, road switcher number Seventy-three-oh-eight," Pike said. "You'll find it with four or five flatcars on the ol' drawbar."

"And you're telling me this because?"

"'Cause you don't want to look any more suspicious than I do, do you?" Pike said, turning to give him a look. "Okay, here we are. See, red jacket right where I said." Ray looked ahead, and sure enough, they were coming up on the red jacket with dizzying speed.

"Thanks for the lift," Ray said.

"Hey, no problem, just had to give the ol' carburetor a good workout," Pike said. "I should get a seventy-one Riv myself. Like you always say, they haven't built a car yet that can take one of them."

"Is there anything you don't know about me?" Ray demanded.

Pike slowed down till the speedometer was reading 40. "I'd tell you, but there's no time," he said. "Well, it's been fun, Vecchio. Say hi to Kowalski for me." Ray just nodded, opened the door and jumped out of the moving car, running forward till he could stop himself. Fraser helped him with that, jarring him to a halt as Pike's car melted back into the traffic and was gone from view.

"Long story, Benny," Ray explained. "Let's get to the Illinois Central freight yard."

"I brought the car around to the front," Fraser said. "I take it Pike had more useful information?"

"Like I said, long story."

**********

With the help of Ray's red dashlight, they were at the freight yard in record time. Ray found the described track and locomotive, and he came to a halt next to it and cut the engine. He and Fraser got out of the car and leaped up the ladder to the engine's catwalk, then entered the cab.

"Better find the on switch soon, Benny," Ray said.

Fraser hesitated briefly, prompting a deprecating reaction from Ray. "I'm sorry for lingering, Ray, but it's recommended that we let the engine idle for one hour before we set it in motion, so..."

"And you seriously think we have an hour?" Ray demanded.

"Understood." Fraser punched the ignition switch, and the engine trembled and rumbled to life. Once its pitch had risen to a steady idle, Fraser started studying the myriad levers and switches pointing at him. "All right," he said. "Now, on the Musical Ride train a couple of years ago, I was able to take a cursory note of the basic operations of the locomotive. Although it was a different model from this one, I don't believe it's entirely dissimilar--"

"Okay, my turn," Ray said, elbowing him out of the way.

"You know the operations, Ray?"

"You're not the only one who studied operations on that train, Benny." Ray plunked himself down at the controls, located the throttle, and notched it out two spots. The engine noise rose in pitch, and the short train shuddered into motion, moving on out of the yard. Ray notched the throttle out a little more, and Fraser stood back, rather impressed to see Ray handling it so well. He just wished that the startup could go a little faster.

**********

It was the noise of crunching metal that woke Pete up. He was a tad groggy, and he shook his head to clear it. As he tried to rub sleep out of his face, that was when he discovered that his right hand was cuffed to the steering wheel of a stripped and dilapidated car. He looked around him, and the car was some distance off the ground, probably sitting on top of several cars in similar condition. It was in the middle of an auto junkyard, and the crunching metal turned out to be another car being flattened by the crusher.

Immediately Pete's breath and pulse quickened, because he knew that was the fate that awaited him. He felt a warm presence beside him, and he found that the same fate awaited Celine; she was in the driver's seat beside him, and her left hand was cuffed to the doorjamb. She was still unconscious, and Pete decided not to wake her up, preferring that she die without fear or pain.

The forklift picked the flattened car up from the crusher and conveyed it over to a heap of other flattened cars nearby, and then it turned toward the car they were in. Pete got his breath under control, accepting his imminent death, and just hoping that someone would find out about it and bring the Iguana family to justice. Unfortunately, his knowledge of the mob told him that it was highly unlikely anybody would find out. Now the forklift was picking the car off the pile, and the rocking and clunking awoke Celine.

"Hmm..." she groaned, raising her head. "Where are..."

"Um, you don't want to know," Pete told her.

Celine blinked rapidly, cleared her vision, and looked out the window beside her. On seing the car crusher growing closer, she gasped and recoiled. "Ohmigod," she cried. "Oh, God, no, not this!" As she fought frantically to break the handcuffs, Pete grabbed her by the shoulders with his free arm and hugged her close to him.

"Celine, no!" he said. "Celine! Calm down, this won't do any good. We're perfectly stuck."

"Then this is it," Celine said tonelessly. "We're gonna die. After everything, the protection, arresting Ford, finding out who put the hit on my mom, you getting me out of the first scrape, now we're gonna die."

"It does look that way," Pete noted. "At least you'll see your mother again. That's the bright side--well, it's the only bright side I can think of."

Celine turned her head and gazed up at him, and he could read the mixture of fear and sorrow in her eyes. "I didn't think it would come to this so soon," she said softly. "Now that it's coming, I want you to know I'm grateful for everything you did, and I always was. And I'm glad we're going to die together. And..." Celine's voice trailed off, and the forklift started to lower as it drew near the crusher.

Pete cocked an eyebrow and squeezed Celine's arm, and it prompted her to finish thickly, "And I love you."

Pete smiled, and a wistful look crossed his face. "You know, at first it was your basketball prowess, but soon it was a lot more than that," he said. "It was how much fun you were to be with and talk to, your warm feelings, the beautiful personality you developed in no time, that made me love you too."

The forklift rather abruptly dropped the car into the crusher, jolting both kids around a little in the seat and bumping their heads together right at the mouth. The kiss was almost entirely accidental, but now that it had come about, neither of them wanted it to end. Celine's kiss nearly sucked Pete's breath out, and Pete felt like the rest of his life had gone by before it was over.

"Do you remember the Twenty-third Psalm?" he asked, resting his forehead against hers.

"Clear as a bell."

"Let's pray that God listens." Pete hugged Celine as closely as he could, and they both started to whisper the Psalm in unison. They heard the grinding sound of the crusher descending toward the car's roof, and Celine squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed even harder. Pete bent over and covered her as if to protect her from the unforgiving machine, and he watched it swinging gradually down upon the car. A tear trickled down Celine's face, and she ground her teeth together, not daring to look.

Also watching the crusher was Bill Deeter, standing at the controls and occasionally looking at the two inside the car. Funny, they didn't look as terrified as he'd expected, or hoped. Religious types--he'd never gotten along with them. It was no wonder he hadn't gotten too close to the center of the syndicate.

Pete could see that the crusher would be touching the car's roof any time now. He squinted as he looked up and saw the ceiling start to buckle, and Celine clenched her teeth even tighter and gulped. She was wincing so hard that her neck muscles cramped.

Intently watching the crusher, Deeter wasn't aware of the locomotive and brief train rumbling up the tracks right behind him. He wasn't the least bit aware of it until Ray Vecchio, standing on the catwalk around the engine's nose, leaped off of it and into Deeter from behind. He knocked him flat to the ground, scrambled to his feet, took a long step over to the crusher controls and shoved every lever into reverse. The crusher halted just as the car's ceiling was about to touch Pete's head, and it began to swing back up. Pete stared in amazement, and he shook Celine, who opened her eyes and saw the crusher receding. She gasped for joy and almost laughed, and she and Pete hugged each other tightly with their free arms.

Ray was otherwise engaged at the moment, and couldn't rejoice in anything. The guy in the forklift was getting up with a gun in his hand, and Ray plugged him as quickly as he could. The forklift operator cried out in pain and fell backwards out of the lift, and Ray trained his gun on Deeter, who was getting back to his feet.

"Not another twitch, pal, or you're going to hell with him," he barked. "Iron on the ground. NOW!"

Stiffly, Deeter reached back and took his gun from his belt, then tossed it aside and raised his hands. "You're not scaring me, Vecchio," he said. "I know you're not the Bookman."

"No, you know the Bookman was killed by your partner's own hand," Ray snapped. "But he wasn't the only victim of this little conspiracy of yours. Marie Comerford joined him in that capacity."

"You know this for a fact?"

"Yeah, I do. You went undercover with the Iguana family long before I did, that's how you knew about Langoustini in the first place. If I don't miss my guess, you got corrupted pretty damn bad, you went from undercover agent to full-blooded mob guy. You came back, and you and Ford would have loved to see me dead, so you whacked Langoustini and sent me in on the off chance that they'd find me out and kill me, too. You did that by sending in those other Feds to blow my cover. Only catch was, Fraser and Kowalski showed up and gave me the chance to eliminate that."

"You're getting as clever as your Mountie friend," Deeter noted. "Yeah, this is all great, but what makes you think we had anything to do with Marie Comerford?"

"Because you and Ford told me to stay off the Langoustini case," Ray answered, noticing that Pete and Celine were listening closely. "That's when you found out Celine was my snitch. There was only one place she could have gotten that information, and that was from her mother, the ATF librarian. You couldn't have information getting from Marie to Celine to me, so you had to kill Marie and make it look like a mob hit. You'd be in the clear if we thought the Crosetto family was behind it, and you called in your cronies from the Iguana family to hit Marie. Cover story: you'd blame Langoustini's death on the Crosetto family and make it look like Marie was leaking that information to us. No loose ends, either, so you had to kill Celine as well, and you got some guys from the FBI to kidnap Celine so you could hold her for your mob pals. Cover story: you were taking her to the witness protection program. And you had to kill Fraser and me, too, to keep us from squawking, so you asked Ford to go to New Hampshire and set up a fire on the bus. Nice solid alibi for you."

"You'll have a hard time proving that, Vecchio," Deeter said scornfully.

"The hell he will!"

Deeter spun around at the sound of the new voice, and Ray stared past him. From behind the forklift came Pike, gun held on Deeter and still puffing that cigar. "He'll have me to back him up," Pike said. "And I know everything. I know everything about you, the Iguana family, Langoustini, Ford, the Comerford case, and I couldn't have said it any better than he did."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Name's Pike. Suite Three, Sixth Sub-basement, Building Twelve, Third Sub-area, Chicago Office, Midwestern Area, Eastern Division, Central Intelligence Agency. We know everything, buddy. We know who you are and we know what you did. I've got me a full covert strike team just waiting for you to make a funny move. So, you going to make a funny move, or you going to own up to this?"

Deeter sighed; he was cornered, and he no longer had any backup. There was nothing else he could say to dispel what Ray had said. Now there was corroboration, and from Ray's mention of the Crosetto family, Deeter knew that there was proof. He turned his back to Ray and lowered his hands, and Ray stuck his gun in his belt and pulled his handcuffs out. As he was doing so, Pike saw the train backing up and slowing to a halt on the tracks near them, and Fraser stepped out of the cab and climbed down to the ground.

"William Deeter," Ray announced in a low voice, "you're under arrest for the murder of Marie Comerford, and the attempted murder of Celine Comerford. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law, assuming the jury will want to listen to you. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, which everyone here knows is a damned joke, one will be provided for you without charge if he's stupid enough to want to defend you. Do you understand these rights? Good. Let's go." He hadn't allowed Deeter a word in edgewise, and he shoved him over to the forklift, to which he cuffed him and then dug his cell phone out of his pocket.

"One more time, couldn't have said it better myself," Pike said to Ray with a complimentary grin.

"Yeah, thanks," Ray said, dialing the precinct number.

"Good work, Ray," Fraser called to him, walking toward the crusher.

"Same to you, Benny," Ray said, getting an answer on the phone. He called in for backup, and Fraser reached the car and bent down to peer inside.

"Are you two all right?" he asked.

"We're okay now," Pete said, grinning. "But I think you'd better move over, Fraser. Ray's getting to be a contender for you."

"Ah," Fraser said. "Well, a little friendly competition can't hurt, he and I have been having it for years. Just sit tight, we'll have you free soon."

"We can wait," Celine answered. Fraser just nodded and smiled, understanding fully. He straightened up and walked over to Ray, who had finished putting in the call. When Fraser's back was turned, Pete and Celine just remained in an endless hug.

Within the half hour, they were free of the car, and they were standing off to one side as the crime unit milled around the scene. Fraser and Ray were in the middle of it, having incited Deeter to call his cronies over to the junkyard with the story that the last information leak was dead. Now the lot of them were being crammed into the paddy wagon, and Fraser and Ray watched it drive around the forklift and away from the junkyard.

"Well, doesn't that make you feel warm all over, Benny," Ray said. "About a half dozen more mob guys safely ensconced into the lockup."

"Quite warm all over, Ray. One thing I'll never understand is how a federal agent can be so completely corrupted by organised crime. I mean, money isn't everything."

"Yeah, well, maybe in Canada, money isn't everything because there's hardly anything to use it for. But south of the border, let's just say that growing lettuce is a hobby you might want to get into."

"Understood." They walked past the forklift, and the happy couple consisting of Pete Porter and Celine Comerford still stood there watching the proceedings.

"Well, I've heard from some folks who don't enjoy the witness protection program," Ray said to Celine. "There are others who like their new lives a lot better, though. There's a lot of reasons why. But then again, you could just leave the city altogether."

"That I'd like," Celine said. "I mean, I know I'd be losing all my best friends and I wouldn't be able to contact them, but I'd like it a lot better than having to change my identity and make them adapt to a new person."

"Yes, that would be easier," Fraser said. "I'm sure Melissa will understand, though, and she'll be glad to know that the Celine Comerford she made friends with is still extant somewhere. Have you thought about where to go?"

"Didn't have to," Celine said, smiling up at Pete.

"I've just been here on spring break from the U of New Hampshire," Pete told them. "I'm going back there on Monday. Celine jumped at the chance to come with, so all that has to get done is a little paperwork before she can come back with me."

"I'm positive I'll love it," Celine said. "We figure, there's no way the DEA guys there have to know about me. Of course I can still hang around for the big game tomorrow, but after that, I'm free to go."

"Sounds great," Ray said. "But in that case, you'd better leave tomorrow soyou can get her out of here ASAP." Hearing the sound of a motor, he looked past the pile of cars behind them and saw Pike's car zooming up and to a halt. The passenger window was open, and Pike was leaning over to it.

"Can I give you lovebirds a lift?" he grinned.

"Um, thanks, but I think we should..." Celine started, but she couldn't finish, unable to think up a good excuse. Truth be told, she wasn't looking forward to another drive with Pike.

"We'd be delighted," Pete said to Pike. "Right?"

Celine hesitated. Oh well, if he was happy, she might as well be happy too. "Right," she said. They got into the back seat, and Fraser stooped to the window.

"I imagine you'll return to your search for Nautilus now," he said to Pike.

"Seek and ye shall find," Pike said. "It's been nice knowing you, Mountie. Adios." He tossed Fraser a half-salute.

"Good day, and good luck," Fraser said, straightening up. With that, Pike closed the window, hit the accelerator and drove out of the junkyard at his customary eighty miles an hour. The car sped out of sight in seconds, and Fraser and Ray watched till it had disappeared from view.

"Long story?" Ray guessed.

"I think we have time," Fraser said.

***********************************************************************
Coda: Phantom Power

The next day, Fraser and Ray went over to St. Fortunata's to attend the basketball game. As Fraser had thought, Melissa was also there, and Sister Anne. The four of them found seats together in the bleachers, and they watched the St. Fortunata's team and the rival team, St. Anna's, warming up. Fraser, sitting next to Melissa, glanced down at her. "So," he said finally, "did you have any luck?"

"You mean making the team?" Melissa asked. "No. I just barely missed it. It's okay, though, Celine wasn't too disappointed. I'll really miss her."

"Well, thanks to Detective Vecchio, there's not much left of the Iguana family," Fraser said. "Maybe Celine can come home within a year."

"I sure hope so. I mean, we're best friends, I'd hate never seeing her again. But I guess it's better if I don't see her because she's out of town and not dead."

Fraser nodded in agreement and cocked an ear to Ray's chat with Sister Anne. "We've concealed a metal detector at the door," Ray was saying. "If anybody comes in with a firearm, we'll know about it. I've also got undercovers in here watching any possible sniper spot."

"That's great, Ray, thanks," Sister Anne said. "That's the best sense of security we could have, for me as well as Celine. This is one time when Celine's nickname will come in handy."

"You mean the Phantom?" Ray said. "She proved it when we were playing a couple of days ago. She'll be okay."

Sister Anne nodded, a little more reassured. She looked down the bleachers and saw Celine standing behind the player bench with Pete, having a pre-game chat.

"I talked to Ray, and he said it would be best if we leave right after the game, and not let anybody hold us up," he said. "We'll be under escort all the way."

"Good. My last big game in this gym, I'll miss it." Celine looked around rather wistfully, and Pete patted her arm.

"I know plenty of others at UNH," he said. "Be a great way to kill time together. Anyway, since it's your last game here, best of luck." He gave Celine a kiss, and she thanked him, knowing now that she'd do well.

Pete sat with Fraser, Ray, Sister Anne and Melissa in the bleachers, and the game was on. Living up to her nickname, Celine was hiding in the back of the St. Fortunata's team, waiting for an opening to get to the front and pinch the ball. She found such an opportunity in no time, moving forward, hiding behind other players, stooping to keep herself concealed, until she made it to the ball and whipped it out of a knot of three or four players who were trying to claim the ball simultaneously. Celine vanished, and when she reappeared again, she was running like the wind alongside the foul line. She got within maximum range of the basket and shot, leaping so high into the air that Ray could see a contender for Michael Jordan in her. He was positive of it when the ball fell through the basket without a hitch, and Sister Anne repeated to herself that it was a good thing that the announcer was referring to her only as "The Phantom." She and the others applauded, and the game resumed.

It went on like this for all four quarters, except that Celine had plenty of other tricks up her sleeve. Hanging from the backboard and then swiping the ball from an opposing player worked to perfect advantage, as did hiding behind other players, many times. Unfortunately, there was a point in the middle of the second quarter when St. Anna's was pulling ahead, but a glut of encouragement from Fraser, Ray and company spurred Celine to dive right into the action.

By the end of the quarter, she'd helped to bring it up to a tie. A free throw by one of her teammates broke the tie and got St. Fortunata's back into the lead, and she went back to appearing and disappearing with regularity. She was bouncing the cover off the ball by the middle of the fourth quarter, and her uniform was sopping wet. The fourth quarter was ending in another tie, until a notorious St. Anna's player got the ball and drove for the basket, dodging St. Fortunata's players like nobody's business. She was within throwing range in seconds, and she made a shot that was inevitably going in and breaking the tie in St. Anna's favour.

Not if Celine had anything to say about it.

Hiding on the other side of the team, she sprinted for the basket, leaped up and grabbed it, and pulled herself up just far enough. The ball flew into her free hand, and she dunked it, receiving a deafening cheer from the St. Fortunata's spectators and players. Game over, 42-40 win for St. Fortunata's. Celine was thankful that it was a different kind of mob that was all over her after the buzzer sounded, and soon, the hugs from Fraser and Ray and their companions were making her back sore. Nonetheless, in the middle of all the hard changes she'd have to make, she had something to be happy about while leaving Chicago.

finis
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Copyright 1998 by Chris Lark. All rights to Due South are reserved by Alliance Communications and CTV, and no infringement in the least is intended. Please do not reproduce this work for any purpose but personal, or copy to any other Web sites, without author's permission. Please do feel free to E-mail me at cql@hopper.unh.edu with any questions you might have.
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