To Catch a Thief | Peter Quill

Part 6

After seeing Peter in the red jacket, you went straight to the office to check his name in the database. Sure enough, Peter Jason Quill had a record including petty theft, fraud, and public intoxication. He even spent a few months in jail.

You ran another search to check for any notes left behind by Star-Lord. To your surprise, a few pages showed up and you clicked on the first case. It involved a convenience store robbery about 17 years ago, but the theft left behind a written note wedged between two boxes of candy bars. You opened the image attached to the file and inside was an IOU:

Bread

½ gal milk

peanut butter

candy bar

IOU $3.85

-Sorry Star-Lord

Going back, you clicked on a few more realizing all the notes were from small retail stores 13 to 17 years ago. The IOU's listed the stolen items with a signed apology from Star-Lord. All the stores dropped charges when they received money from Star-Lord along with a written thank you for keeping him fed. Forensics ran tests on the envelopes and notes, but no DNA was found.

Why would Star-Lord be stealing food and leaving behind IOU's? Isn't the whole point of stealing not to get caught? If Peter was this Star-Lord it might've been the same time his mom got diagnosed with cancer. Did her treatments force her to stop working, leaving Peter/Star-Lord to fend for himself?

You scanned over the last page showing his most recent crimes. The last crime documented occurred a few years ago involving Halfworld Research and Sweet Dreams Cosmetics; this was the case Luis mentioned. Star-Lord exposed and shut down these companies for their involvement in illegal animal testing and animal cruelty.

Somehow, he got a hold of documents and recordings showing the mistreatment and the insane experiments happening to these animals. It was graphic to look at the screenshots from the footage. One image had a raccoon with his back shaved and some sort of mechanism attached to his back. How could someone do this to a living thing? These companies also deceived their donors by putting on the front about how they were against animal testing. Luis was right, this was a complicated case, but the only connection this case had to Star-Lord was the note he sent both companies:

You know what you did A-holes.

-Sorry Not Sorry, Star-Lord (SL)

"Whatcha doing?" Gamora asked, making you jump in your chair. She rested her chin on your shoulder staring at the computer screen. "Did you figure out what SL stands for?"

"Yes, I think I did," you replied, staring at the signed note.

Oh, Mama I can hear you a-crying', you're so scared and all alone

Hangman is comin' down from the gallows and I don't have very long.

- Sorry SL

"Isn't this renegade by Styx?" Kraglin asked you.

"It is. Gold star, Kraglin. Gold star." You flashed him a warm smile giving him a high-five.

"Does this mean SL has mommy issues?"

"Or his mom could be in trouble?" You chewed on your bottom lip glancing over the written note. "SL steals for a reason, so if his mom is in trouble, he might be committing these robberies to keep her safe."