The Three of Us

Part 23 - The Powder Keg

The next morning, after breakfast, Jay and Malcolm sat in the cafeteria together in order to work on the Patti Socorro matter. Karin was getting some more experience at Tactical while Julie led the MACOs in another readiness drill. Brian and Craig flitted in and out in order to clean up as Lili stayed in the back, decorating a cake. She didn't really want to go out there, fearing she'd lose her poker face and tell them both – or they'd figure it out on their own – far too soon. And so she concentrated on lettering – a little cake for Jeris and Jobiram was the plan – she figured they might never have had a cake decorated with their names in icing on it before. Welcome Jobiram and Jeris she wrote out carefully in script, adding serifs and flourishes and a decoration of pansies.

"Well, what have you got so far?" asked Malcolm.

"Not too much," Jay admitted, "I questioned my people a bit but then I was captured."

"I see. Did you find out anything?"

"Not really. Assuming Hodgkins knew what he was talking about – and I don't think the man had any reasons to lie on his deathbed, for God's sake – well, this means someone's not coming clean."

"Right," Malcolm said, "and then there are my people. I haven't questioned them, in deference to your assignment to this matter."

"Huh. Well, maybe we should question each other's men; see if we can get any sort of information out of them."

"Perhaps," Malcolm allowed. He then told Jay about what Craig had confessed to.

"I think Ensign O'Day is right," Jay said after a while, "He doesn't sound like he was one of the attackers. Besides, I'm not so sure he'd have the time to go to Engineering, do the remote programming on your PADD address, grab the can, spray the message – and make it coherent – then take the can back to the storage area and then go after Socorro."

"Still," Malcolm said, "those men didn't get all the way to climax; at least, there was no evidence of that found at the scene."

"I'm not so sure I want to think about what that means," Jay said, "they might've just changed unis afterwards."

"You may be right," Malcolm said, shaking his head. "Clearly, they knew enough to do that, and not, well, not leave any DNA evidence."

"Yeah," Jay agreed, "it was obviously premeditated. Put that together with the flickering lights – I gotta figure that the lights being out was related. Somebody did that as prep work."

"And then they got the others there," Malcolm said.

"How?"

"There must be another anonymous PADD message."

"Then it's all related," Jay concluded.

=/\=

Chip bounced Dan and Sandra's daughter Kimberly on his knee as they sat in the Observation Lounge. "And then maybe we'll talk about The Three Little Pigs," he said to her as she giggled at him.

"You're good with her," Sandra said, "Ya want her?"

"Huh? Nah, that's okay," Chip said, "although I do want one or two of my own someday. But I'm not so sure Deb would cooperate." He laid the bait out again.

"Huh, well, someone could be a surrogate, I bet," said Sandra, "that waitress. She's gotta be way, way, way past having kids and all. Ask her or something."

"Lili?" asked Chip.

"Yeah, but God knows, I mean, get Phlox to knock her up using a test tube. I mean, who'd wanna hit that?"