I disclaim, as always. Some of the characters are mine, as is the prose, but the songs aren't and most of the characters belong to Days Of Our Lives.

The Beginning

This is the story of one very stubborn boy and one very patient girl. It all started long, long ago in a land far, far away where the Bad do wicked things and the Good don’t always win, but as starting from there and going all the way through to now would take too long to tell here, we’re going to begin not long, long ago, but in recent times. Do not be deceived - the land is as distant as ever. So although it all began in a land far, far away in a time long ago, when the Good were beautiful and the Bad cackled to announce their intentions, we’re starting when everything was Bad and about to get Worse.

Why all the capital letters? Because when evil’s coming in the shape of a Dimera, or, worse, the Salem stupidity gene that affects most citizens of Salem at some time, it needs a capital letter to show just how Bad it is.

Right, now for the story.

It was, well, frankly, it was last week. Thursday to be exact. Nothing was going right that day, not for Abe, not for Roman, not even for Mimi who since her reformation after OperaGirl.net hasn’t been able to hurt a fly. As our hero and heroine were the children of some of Salem’s most prominent residents absolutely nothing was going right for them and everything that was going wrong was going spectacularly Wrong. This is of course a form of natural law that states that anything that can go wrong will be shot to Hell as soon as things look like getting back on track after a very difficult period when femme fatales were attempting to seduce the hero and guys with well exercised chests and floppy haircuts were offering shoulders to cry on to the heroine because of the hero’s naturally heroic responses to the fluttering of the femme fatale attempting to seduce him and faking feminine distress.

So it was Thursday. A slow day, usually, when the weekly plot by Evil (I did say Bad was about to get Worse) to destroy a prominent Salem resident or residential family began to thicken with foreshadowing to allow for the Friday cliff-hanger without the actual event happening quite yet. As it happened, Evil was having an off day. Their normally perfect hair and make up had become a little dishevelled from too much thrusting of the hands through the luscious locks and flitting of eyelashes weighed down with mascara and the doughnuts had been positively stale. That was the problem with being Evil - Mrs Horton’s doughnuts became a forbidden pleasure, beneath outward contempt and too well protected to steal, unlike certain children, and brand names simply didn’t cut it compared to her powder puff creamy confections.

What? Oh yes. The story. Like I said, it was a Thursday, and it was late, one of those endless days that seem to take weeks to get through.

First things first though. It’s time to meet our secondary hero. Well, anti-hero-type-hero. He’s not all that heroic. He drinks too much, swears a lot, though this has been edited out on the whole, and generally makes himself a huge pain in the ass as much as possible. He suffers from major character flaws and tends to act first and think later. One other thing, there is only one person nearly as bull-headed as him and that’s our chief hero / idiot / romantic idol. This story was nearly called the Good, the Bad and the Stubborn. That says it all, really.

Well, except explaining why Aretha Franklin comes into this at all, why cops are so obsessed by doughnuts, why Dimeras don't just die, they depress everyone doing it, the eternal question of how 24 gets more gripping every week, why this was written at all, not to mention how on earth in a town the size of Salem with a population that frequently visits Europe no-one noticed that Colin wasn't in fact English but, that oxymoron, an Australian who played bad cricket.

Did I mention that you should expect angst and laughs in about equal proportions? No? That's because you shouldn't. After all, this is an RG fic...

Part 1 1/2

Thursday - Salem Police Station

Salem Police Files Date 03.25.03

Case: The Murder of Colin Murphy

Case No: 87179

Code Name: Bopping Butler

Statement no. 140203

Tape Transcript no. 140203B

Interviewing Officer: Det. Irving

Also Present: Commander Carver

Interviewee: B. Henderson

Relationship to the deceased: butler to Murphy’s married lover, Nicole Kiriakis, and her husband, Victor Kiriakis

Irving: Henderson, can you tell me exactly what happened the night of New Year’s Eve?

Henderson: Everything, sir?

Irving: Drop the sir. I’m not your employer. No, not everything. Just start when the guests began to arrive.

Henderson: I was watching the hired caterers, we use the same caterers as Tuscany’s, but without Maggie around, you have to watch them like a hawk.

Irving: Henderson, all we want is the facts, just the facts.

Henderson: Well I’m telling you the facts. It’s a fact that those caterers are thieves!

Irving: OK, Henderson, we’ll do it another way. We have the guest list here for the night of the murder.

Carver: Evidence document no. 999465.

Irving: Now I want you to tell me if you saw any of them leave the house around the time Colin Murphy was killed.

Henderson (excitedly): It would be faster if I told you who stayed inside around the time Dr Murphy was killed!

Irving: Henderson, please, just tell us who was missing at the exact time of Dr Murphy’s death.

Henderson: The most obvious missing person was the bride herself.

Carver: Would you care to explain to me the exact relationship between Dr Murphy and Mrs Kiriakis nee Walker?

Henderson: No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that.

Carver (louder): Why the hell not?

Henderson: It’s against my moral code.

Carver (shouting): I don’t care if that’s against your religion, a man was murdered!

Henderson (sound of arms crossing): I won’t talk, and you can’t make me.

Carver (sound of hand hitting table): Damn it man, we’re talking about murder. Tell us what was going on between Nicole and Colin or so help me…

(Henderson squeals)

Irving: That’s enough, Carver. Henderson, you aren’t under arrest. We can’t make you tell us any information you don’t willingly volunteer. Carver, outside now. Interview suspended 14:52.

********

"If he knows, he’s not telling who killed the good doctor," Detective Irving rubbed a weary hand over his handsome face. At thirty two, he was still young, but his deep blue eyes had begun to show the weight of all the horrific things he had seen on the Chicago Homicide squad.

"I can make him tell," Abe was as tense as a high wire and was cracking his knuckles as he spoke. The sound was irritating Det. Irving, making his nerves curl at the ends. This case was one of the bad ones. A murdered doctor, families of two senior detectives intimately involved and too many suspects. He liked simpler cases, where there was a woman standing over the body with bruises on her face and an axe in her hands, crying ‘I had to do it. I just couldn’t take it anymore.’ The reasons for the murder might churn his stomach, but at least he felt that it left one less bastard in the world.

The Commander’s face expressed his discontent and reminded the Detective why he was in Salem at all.

Irving breathed deeply to soothe his own nerves. No good would come of losing his temper now. There was always his motel room trash can for that. He wasn’t going to start his stretch in this backwater town by bawling out his local liaison officer. There would be enough yelling later. Even though the first hadn’t worked, he took a second calming breath before he spoke again, feeling no less aggravated than before. "Abe, I know this case means a lot to you."

"Most of the suspects are good friends of mine," Abe interjected quickly, shifting his body into a less threatening pose as he watched the other man barely control a seething temper.

"That means that we have to do the best, most impartial job we can. Absolutely by the book. I don’t want any prosecuting D.A. telling the jury that we didn’t look hard enough at the suspects who were Bradys or Hortons, just because they were Bradys or Hortons or friends of ours. We need an airtight case to make this stick. That means," Irving stared hard into the older man’s eyes, willing him not to be stubborn, willing him to realise that if he turned this into a head-butting contest, he would lose, "no badgering the witness, no off duty investigating, and no, and I mean no, discussing the case outside of this office with anyone who isn’t OK’d by me. You get me?"

Abe stared back at the young detective, half resentful of his intrusion. This was his turf, and it should be his case. He didn’t welcome outside help, but he didn’t welcome his friends getting thrown in jail even more. "I get you alright."

Irving nodded, moving back to sit in the swivel chair behind the desk of his temporary office. "Good. Now get some coffee and tell me about Dr Murphy again. You missed a few things out last time." Abe’s expression flickered. The other detective put his elbows on the desktop and leaned forwards. "Like what exactly happened to the other bullet." Abe’s mouth dropped open. Irving opened the file from the Crime Scene Officer’s report with a lazy flick of his wrist. "The one fired from the veranda that was buried in the trunk of the tree," he glanced down briefly to refer to the file, "approximately two feet from where the body was found."

Abe started to answer him, trying to defend himself, but Irving put up his hand to stop him. He wished for no excuses.

"I don’t want to know why I wasn’t told this at first," a slight grin came onto his face, "I can guess the reasons," and then died away again, "but if you don’t tell me everything, and I mean everything, then I’m going to make a phone call to the commissioner and get you taken off this case for good. Get me?" The nod sufficed as an answer. "Good. Now tell me," Irving leaned back again, "why hasn’t Larry Welch been brought in for questioning? And don’t give me that he’s dead, drowned after being shot by Bo Brady in self defence and in the line of duty. We both know that’s not true. So, Commander Carver, why are you covering up for the man who nearly killed your best friends and is a wanted felon?"

*******

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Rex shifted uncomfortably. He was a Dimera, that meant his moral code was faulty from birth, but he was trying to be good, and this didn’t seem like something a good person would do.

Belle sighed in exasperation. It was so hard to find good sidekicks that didn’t interrupt your romantic scenes, as Mimi had done so many times, or continually whine about themselves, as Chloe had done when going out with her Dimpled Greek God, or just plain annoy you, as Rex was doing now. "Do you mean is this morally reprehensible and irresponsible of us?"

"Yes," he waited for his answer patiently, back braced against the wall. He was a Dimera, that meant he had a lot of patience.

"Only if we get caught," Belle grinned. It was a smile that had made her brother Brady reach for his baseball bat to fend off whatever was coming next, Mimi to hide her barbie dolls and Shawn to grin at her in return in her childhood. Now it served only to make Rex even more nervous than before.

"I don’t know," he was hesitating, his always dubious moral sense wavering.

She pulled herself on top of the wall, "See you later, then."

"Huh?" Rex still wasn’t used to this side of the girl who had rescued him and his sister again and again, and who was usually so sweet and mild.

She looked back down from her position, sitting side straddle across the stones. "Well if you’re not coming with me, I’ll just have to do this myself."

"No," even he knew when it was time to give in, and a sense of honour that had absolutely nothing to do with burning curiosity forced him to give in. "I’m coming."

"Good," Belle glanced at the drop from the wall and felt her nerve waiver. "You go first."

That was why Det. Irving, trying to crack one of the toughest murder cases of the year, was faced with two and not one teenaged trespassers on his crime site when he went to examine it for the fifth and certainly not final time.

*******

"This is crazy," John stomped over to the Detective’s desk and dropped his knuckles onto it hard enough to rap. "They weren’t doing anything."

"They were trespassing on a crime scene," Det Irving was not impressed by Mr Black’s air of authority. "My crime scene."

"It was just fun and games, kids’ stuff," John argued, his eyebrow twitching. "My daughter was the one to discover the body, surely you can’t believe she would do any damage to the investigation now!"

"Criminals are known to return to their scene of their crime," the Detective’s expression was impenetrable.

"You can’t believe that Belle killed Dr Murphy!" John was beginning to go red in the face.

"Everyone is a suspect until I can prove that they didn’t do it," Det Irving was almost smiling now.

John was turning scarlet, "Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?" He slammed his knuckles down hard enough to make the Detective’s coffee splash onto the desk and the pens rattle. "What happened to the law around here?"

Det. Irving’s face muscles did not even twitch in response to this sally. "In my experience, Mr Black, everyone is guilty of something, and the law is as intact as it ever was."

Exasperated beyond endurance, John stormed out of the office to find someone senior to whom he could complain about his treatment at the hands of Salem’s newest detective.

Back in his office, Irving smiled, It wasn’t everyday that he got to seriously annoy someone with so much natural authority and power. If his then-girlfriend, the one who had broken his heart after singing ‘You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman’ to him, hadn’t made him quit, he would have lit a cigarette in celebration. Instead he just grinned more broadly. Another day, another ass kicking. He was really beginning to like Salem.

Part 2 and a bit

"I don’t believe it," Rex groaned as he rested his arm against the bars of his cell. "This is ridiculous. Dimeras never get locked up."

"Only because your family sneaks off first," Belle mumbled, irritated at herself for getting caught. Her father had taught her better than that.

"This was your idea," Rex wanted to go home. He didn’t like the dank cells of Salem’s police station, and Tony was going to be furious when he found out that he’d spent the afternoon in jail rather than in class.

"No one made you come," Belle was not feeling too full of sunshine herself. She wanted to know when she was going to be let out. Every minute in here was a minute taken from crime solving time, and that was a minute taken from Shawn loving time.

Rex grumbled something unintelligible, then tried to change the subject, attempting to avoid an argument, "So who do you think did it?"

Belle stared blankly at him. "Did what?"

"Killed Dr Murphy," Rex answered, "we only know who didn’t do it."

"Well I didn’t do it, Jack Deveraux didn’t do it, Victor didn’t do it," Belle paused and thought about this last dismissed suspect, "unless he hired a hitman. How about you, Rex, did you do it?" She caught sight of his horrified expression and had to suppress a giggle. "You’re either the best actor in the world or innocent. Which is it?"

Rex gabbled something.

Belle put out a hand and patted his shoulder through the bars that divided their cells. "Don’t worry, I’m only joking."

He relaxed a little.

"You’re a Dimera, and the only thing worse than a Dimera’s acting skill is their morals. You couldn’t look quite so like innocence outraged and be guilty." This time she let the giggle escape her as Rex spluttered a defence. "You are so easy to wind up!"

*******

"Get ready to release the teens," Det. Irving was bored of games, "but let me see them first and don’t tell them they’re being released."

"So you’ve finally realised that Belle had nothing to do with Murphy’s death," Abe Carver showed white teeth in his self-satisfied grin.

"Belle Black had nothing to do with the murder, I never thought she did." There was no Bridget O’Shaunessey in this detective picture, but he couldn’t help being depressed by that truth. "But someone in Salem is a murderer and I’m no-one out until they can prove an alibi as tight as…" he searched his imagination for a simile without immediate success.

"Having tea with the Queen of England?" Abe cheekily suggested.

"No, as tight as being under CIA surveillance in Fort Knox when the trigger was pulled," Irving thought about this for a moment, "and then I won’t rule out their using a hitman."

Abe’s grin vanished. "You really are a suspicious bastard, aren’t you?"

Irving shrugged. "We make the best detectives. We suspect everybody. By the way, you didn’t kill him, did you, Commander?"

Abe didn’t deign to reply. Like John before him, he stomped out of the office cursing under his breath.

As before, Det Irving grinned happily. Salem was proving a veritable doughnut box of delights.

*******

"Get up." The tall, light haired detective had appeared as if out of nowhere and was now standing in the doorway of the hall that led to the cells.

Belle shot to her feet. "Are we free to go?"

"No," the detective was analysing his first impression of her. Short, blonde haired, a real fireball when it came to defending herself or her boyfriend, he couldn’t help but like her. That, however, was not about to cloud his judgement. "I’ve come to ask you a few questions."

Rex Dimera was watching him warily. "What about?"

Irving smiled, a smile that everyone in Salem would soon learn meant trouble. "Why neither of you told me that Mrs Horton makes the best doughnuts this side of Texas." The grin didn’t change as Belle giggled and Rex relaxed half a degree. Irving went on. "Or that Colin Murphy wasn’t the only person you saw outside the Kiriakis mansion the night the good doctor was killed. You saw someone else that night. Both of you."

Rex started and made a motion to deny it, but Irving just stared him down. "I know you were there, and your sister, Rex. Stop lying. The pair of you. I want the truth." He settled himself against the doorway, a cup of coffee in one hand that slowly filled the room with an appetising aroma and one of Mrs H’s famous doughnuts in the other.

From where she was standing, Belle could see it was jam filled. Her mouth started watering. The detective took a big bite out of it, licking away the spilt jam from his lips sensually. "Mm-mm," he murmured, "that sure does taste good."

Rex licked his own lips and stared hard. That doughnut was just so tempting.

The detective chewed and swallowed. "So, are you going to tell me the truth, or do I need to send the entire box of Mrs H’s doughnuts back including the ones laced with digitalis to make you two appear dead?"

"No!" Rex started forwards and gripped the bars of his cell. This was a torture not to be endured. "We’ll talk, we’ll tell you anything you want to know, just don’t take the doughnuts away."

Irving nodded briefly, then leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms across his chest and staring at them. "Nice to find someone who’s willing to be co-operative around here." There was the lightning quick flash of a smile. "Now," the smile was gone as if it had never been, "tell me, why is it that everyone in this town lies about seeing Larry Welch and claims he’s dead when he so clearly isn’t?"

Belle gasped. "How did you know?"

Irving shrugged. The deduction had been easy. "That’s not important." He picked up another doughnut from the box he had laid on the table next to him. "So what were Larry and Cassie talking about that was so secret?"

Rex dropped his head. "My sister’s an idiot."

Belle made a noise that would be a snort in a girl less ladylike. "No kidding."

"Children," Irving waved the doughnut at them. "Stop arguing. I need answers. Tell me what I want to know and you can leave."

"I didn’t hear," Belle looked depressed. "I was too far away."

Rex’s eyes were fixed on the doughnut. "I wasn’t." He had the detective’s full attention. "Cassie thought that she could get Larry’s help in convincing Shawn to fall in love with her."

Belle swore quietly.

"Miss Black," the Detective’s voice expressed his sympathy but was still authoritatively firm, "please don’t interrupt."

"I told you," Rex sighed, "my sister’s an idiot. She thought she could get Larry to kidnap Hope again so that she could find her and save her, thereby earning Shawn’s everlasting gratitude and therefore love. Of course, Larry wanted to know what was in it for him. Cassie told him that she knew who killed Colin Murphy, the man he hired to kill Bo Brady."

"I know this," the Detective was looking bored. "Larry hired Colin to kill Bo so that he was out of the picture when it came to Larry getting to Hope. With the Love of her Life dead, Hope would be weak enough to fall into one of his traps. Colin was set to kill Bo the night he himself was killed, but Bo didn’t do it."

Rex’s eyes were clouding over with confusion. "How did you know all that?"

Another heavy sigh. "Because Abe, after a little coercion, told me about the bullet with Bo’s name on it, from various sources I know that Larry is alive and no, you don’t get to find out what those sources are, the pills Shawn has been taking are clearly amphetamines designed to drive Hope mad, and if there’s one thing you can rely on around here, it’s an Evil ex-lover of one of the most prominent residents who is behind it all." Irving’s face expressed how tired he was becoming. He hadn’t slept in almost twenty-two hours. "What I don’t know is who killed Colin and why there was another bullet at the scene of the crime."

"You feeling OK, Detective?" Belle’s blue eyes were watching him keenly. He looked exhausted, surprisingly something that even Mrs H’s doughnuts couldn’t fix.

Ashamed of himself for letting his emotions show so clearly on his face, Irving nodded curtly. "Yes." He turned to Rex. "Thanks for your help. I may need a statement later. For now, you’re free to go."

"Thank God already," Belle muttered as she turned to pick her things up.

"Not you, Miss Black," Irving was feeling miserable and in the mood to spread it around a bit. "I need to ask you a few more questions."

Rex, having been released by the Officer on Duty, glanced back apologetically at Belle. "See you later."

She merely scowled back at him. It was his fault they’d been caught at all. He was meant to be keeping a look out while she searched for clues. Instead he’d been pestering her about what she was doing, what she was going to do, and, worst of all, whether she thought that Mimi liked him or found him too out of this world.

*******

"Shawn?" Cassie’s whining voice was in his ear again, and he could feel his Ho-radar start to beep.

He swallowed his impatience and, with as much kindness as he could muster, answered, "Yes, Cassie?"

She tossed her wantonly red hair over her shoulders and pouted. If he had read the proper literature, or tuned in to a daytime soap, he would have known that this was classic villainess behaviour, but he hadn’t, so he didn’t, and so he had only a lifetime of experience of Salem with which he could defend himself. "I need to talk to you. It’s about That Night."

"Does it have to be now?" He made a show of glancing at his watch. "I’m meeting Belle soon."

He was looking down so that he did not see the flash of green envy that crossed her face. Another sign of Badness. "Yes. I think Det. Irving knows."

"He can’t know," Shawn’s impatience was rising back up his gorge. "He’s only been here for two days. He doesn’t know anything. He was interviewing Henderson earlier." His Dad’s police radio had reported the call that Victor had made to complain about his butler’s absence at the time when cocktails were to be served. Victor hadn’t threatened reprisals. He didn’t need to. The butler had been returned almost immediately. Even Det Irving seemed to fear Salem’s answer to the Godfather.

"But I’m sure he’s figured out that we had something to do with Colin’s death," she let her lower lip wobble just a little bit, enough to attract his attention to her ruby lips and wide mouth.

‘First Brillo-head, then the Sinthia, now this Space Sex Bunny! How do I get myself into these things?’ Shawn thought to himself, ignoring her blatant attempt at seduction and struggling to pull himself away from her wandering hands. A single finger on his biceps was enough to make him shiver with trepidation. He really didn’t want to feel her any where Belle wouldn’t approve. He had a fair idea that Belle wouldn’t mind if Cassie was on the other side of the planet, and he toyed with the idea of buying her a ticket, but then decided that she would probably be back faster than a cop to a doughnut shop. The girl liked her sugar.

"Cassie, don’t worry. He hasn’t figured anything out. He’s just doing his job." He sounded so much calmer than he felt, and he was calmer than perhaps he should have been. After all, he had nearly come to a decision that would shape the rest of his life. "If you look worried or afraid, he’ll work out we’ve got something to hide. Just stay cool. Let me do the worrying for you. Not that there’s anything to worry about."

Shawn’s brain, usually inoperative, was buzzing like a sawmill. He gave her a tentative smile, tentative as God only knew how she would take it. "We’ll talk tomorrow, OK? I’ll meet you in the park by the bench near the river. I’ll have worked out what to do by then. In the mean time, don’t fret. Irving presents no danger."

It was only then that she played her trump card. "Then why did he arrest Belle and Rex for trespassing on the crime scene earlier and take them in for questioning?"

*******

There was a strange sound in the jail, one that came abruptly to Belle’s attention as it grew louder. Belle stared at the Detective who was still eating doughnuts. "Are you humming?"

A guilty look briefly flashed across his face. "No." He lied swiftly.

"You were," Belle’s eyes bored into his. "What was it?"

"I wasn’t humming," Irving felt himself becoming as intimidated by the daughter as the father had been by him.

"Were too." Belle grinned. Having reduced the Detective to big brother status, she could deal with his interrogation easily. "It was ‘Save Me’."

The Detective, infuriated with himself for falling into her game so easily. He should have known better. "Miss Black," he forced himself to come under his own iron will. The stubbornness that had driven his mother to distraction was finally doing him some good. "Whether I was humming or not is of no importance."

"Ah," Belle’s grin widened mischievously. "So you were humming."

Irving forced himself not to sigh in exasperation. "Miss Black, a man has been murdered and it’s my job to find his killer. Are you going to help me or do I need to call your mother?"

She visibly paled. "My mother?"

There was no hint of amusement in the Detective’s voice. "You aren’t a minor, but I’m sure she would want to know what questions I was asking you during your stay here."

"My stay?" She was horrified. "I’m not staying."

"You broke the law, Miss Black." That infamous smile flashed again. "I can keep you here over night, longer since I witnessed you in the act of trespass."

Belle groaned. She knew the law. She had broken it and now her ass was his. She was already late to meet Shawn in the Brady Pub. He’d had something to tell her. Now she would have to spend time apologising, explaining and listening to his fury that she had done something so stupid.

"So," Irving’s blue eyes were watching her intently, his brain recording her every tiny reaction, "Belle, are you going to stop lying to me or does your mother need to come in?" He watched as she gave a small, frustrated nod. "Then tell me, why is it that I don’t believe you when you say that you were too far from Cassie and Larry to hear what they were saying?" He pulled a tiny black microphone from his pocket. "Could it be that you’re Father had Cassie bugged and that you were listening in the whole time?" He wasn’t smiling anymore. "Miss Black, I really do think it’s best if you tell me the truth. Your boyfriend’s cousin was murdered. You know that. You found the body. If the murderer goes undetected," his hands went up in a gesture of helplessness, "that means you’re putting other lives in danger."

Belle saw a sudden light at the end of the tunnel. "I don’t know anything about a murderer and you don’t know that Colin’s death wasn’t an accident. Maybe he surprised Larry spying on the Brady family, they struggled and the gun went off."

The light was the oncoming train of Irving’s logical thought. "Larry Welch did not kill Dr Murphy. He was sighted by a guard on the other side of the mansion at the time the murder took place. Cassie Dimera did not kill Colin Murphy. As the gun went off she was buying red liquorice from a Seven-Eleven two blocks away. Tony Dimera did not kill Colin Murphy. He was under surveillance at his house. Rex Dimera did not kill Colin Murphy. He was playing chess against Tony, and winning, I may add. Jack and Jen Deveraux have been cleared. They didn’t kill Colin, though I suspect they had good reason to. Little Abby Deveraux is far too young to have killed Colin. Anyway, she didn’t have gunpowder residue on her hands or the strength to bruise the good doctor."

She gasped, "You actually thought Abby might have done it?"

He shrugged. "Everyone is a suspect in the eyes of the law."

"What about Will Roberts, Sami and Lucas’s son?" She was taunting him now, half disbelieving that he had even thought of investigating such small children for the crime.

Irving deliberately took the bait. Every suspect’s name crossed off the list went further to intimidate Belle into telling him something useful. He felt a bastard doing it though. "He was playing in a maid’s room. Six people can testify to his whereabouts."

"And my mother?" Her blue eyes were widening. "My father? Are they suspects too?"

Another casual shrug from the detective. "Marlena and John were dancing, the entire band backed them up."

Belle’s gaze darted to the doughnuts, "Mrs Horton?"

That made him laugh. "Alice? Oh, she wouldn’t kill Colin. Anyway, she and every member of the Brady and Horton family in the country but not invited to the party were eating chowder and celebrating the New Year in the Brady Pub."

She felt safer now. Most of the people she cared about most seemed to be off the hook. "So who’s left to investigate?"

"There’s Bo and Hope Brady; Nicole Walker-Kiriakis; Brandon Walker; Sami Brady; Lucas Roberts; Kate Roberts; Victor Kiriakis; Faye Walker; those are the major suspects, and of course, your boyfriend, Shawn-Douglas Brady, though I hear he goes by Just-Shawn these days." His blue eyes were watching her more closely than ever. The slight intake of breath, the widening of the eyes, the increase in her heartbeat, a thousand tiny signs told him she was innocent. She didn’t know who the killer was. He refused to use her further. "Miss Black, I think you’ll be glad to know that you are free to go now."

"Wait," Belle gripped the bars of her cell as the detective signalled to the guard to unlock her cell. "Did you mean what you said about Shawn?"

"That he’s a suspect?" She nodded to confirm his question. "Of course. You were too up until you broke into the Kiriakis residence." She stared at him hard, disbelieving him. His hard blue eyes softened and a smile gentled his lips. "I credit you with too much intelligence for you to be the killer returning to the crime only to be caught in the act of trespass."

She ran past him, tears starting to form.

He hadn’t meant to make her cry. He hated making girls cry. He’d hated it whenever Hannah had cried. He had some answers now. The tape that his fellow officer had found when searching through Belle’s bag would provide a few more.

There were some days when he really loathed his job.

"Detective Irving?" It was Officer Ruiz, another under-worked and overpaid member of the Salem police force.

"Yeah?" He dragged himself away from the doughnuts, tempting though they were.

"We got John Black in reception," Ruiz grinned, "he’s demanding that you release his daughter or he’ll file a police harassment suit. He said something about some doughnuts being stolen." The officer glanced knowingly down at the box by the detective’s hand. "You know anything about those, sir?"

Irving tossed the box over to his colleague. "Not anymore I don’t." He began to stride from the room but checked his paces for a moment. "Don’t eat the ones with chocolate sprinkles."

Ruiz, caught in the act of lifting one of the chocolate sprinkled doughnuts to his mouth, stopped abruptly and stared at it warily, a memory of another imprisoned prominent Salemite receiving Mrs Horton’s doughnuts crossing his mind. "Is it one of the drugged ones?"

"No." Irving positively smirked at having made Ruiz stop, "But they are my favourites."

He was out of the room but not out of hearing when Ruiz shouted after him, "How about the coconut ones?"

In response, he jerked a thumbs up at the officer. Grinning, Ruiz bit into the coconut covered confection. His superiors never usually let him eat the doughnuts, drugged or not. Irving was a real peach, or rather a real peach jam doughnut. "Hey guys!" He yelled happily, picking up the box after locking the cell doors, "Guess what Mrs H sent us?"

Part 3 and a morsel

Belle had washed the tears from her face and redone her hair before she had gone to the Brady Pub. Shawn would tease her if she was late, but be concerned if she looked like she’d been crying. She didn’t want him worrying about her. Not now. He had bigger problems, like the fact that Detective Irving was investigating most of his family on suspicion of murder.

She leaned heavily on the counter behind which Caroline stood, polishing glasses. "Have you seen," she stopped briefly, as if to catch her breath, but in reality pushing back the word my, "Shawn tonight?"

"No, dear," Caroline’s blue eyes were as bright as ever. "He hasn’t been in today at all. Was he meant to meet you?"

Belle nodded sadly. She was already an hour late. Where was he? "It doesn’t matter. I’ll just call him on his cellphone."

Caroline smiled and moved off to help another customer.

"Hey, this is Shawn," his voice gave her instant relief.

"Shawn, thank God," but he was going on.

"I’m sorry I can’t pick up right now, but I’ll get back to you if you leave your name, number and message after the be-" As always he was cut off before he could finish.

Belle left a brief message, hoping the strain in her voice wouldn’t worry him.

*******

Detective Irving was back facing John Black across his temporary desk, only this time he had Abe Carver, Roman Brady and Bo Brady also in tow. Undoubtedly, if he had heard of Rex’s confinement, Tony Dimera would probably also be in attendance. The detective was quietly thanking whatever deity was looking over him. He was beginning to feel like Jack Bauer in an endless episode of 24. At least he didn’t have a daughter or a pregnant wife to be kidnapped and held to ransom.

He thought of his dog at home, and hoped nothing would happen to her before he got back to Chicago.

"Irving," John slammed his fists down on to the desktop. "I demand a full apology and immediate release for my daughter."

The news of that infamous smile was spreading through Salem like wildfire through the Australian outback after a rainless summer. The detective’s latest use of it would act like a can of petrol thrown over the flames. "I don’t understand, Mr Black." He subtly emphasised the ‘Mister’. Mr Black had no official capacity here, no matter how closely he and the SPD usually worked. "I’m not holding your daughter."

John was brought up short and snorted like a war-horse feeling the bit pulled back between his teeth. "What about my apology?"

"Apology for what?" Irving’s tone became sarcastic, "For doing my job? For tracking a man who killed your," he turned to the Brady boys with a look of disdain in his eyes, "cousin? For arresting a pair of teenagers who broke the law and contaminated a crime scene?" He was growing angry, his blue eyes boring into John’s cerulean ones, but his anger burned like dry ice, coldly. "Mr Black, if you don’t get your over reaching, unofficial, sneaking, pompous, over bearing, double crossing ass out of my office right now, I’m gonna have you arrested for trespass and harassment."

John Black, unsure of the psychological soundness of Salem’s newest detective, backed away a little.

Irving turned to the Brady men. "I’ve explained this to Abe, now I’m going to say it again, and I’m going to keep repeating myself until someone understands me. This is going to be a clean case, that means no interference from anyone connected with the Brady, Black or Horton families, however tenuous," he shot a glance at Abe, who was standing a little further away out of feelings of self protection than he usually did, "that connection might be. I don’t want to see any of you in my office again until this case is over unless I am the one who called you here." Irving, his anger crystallising in his mind until it was as hard and as unforgiving as diamonds, spoke slower now, spacing his words as if speaking to an idiot child. "Do you understand me?"

The four older men nodded, reprimanded.

Irving nodded once, curtly. "Good. Now get out of my office. Don’t you people have work to do?"

Their pride in tatters, the three police officers and Mr Black left the room.

Still resisting the urge to smoke or grin in self satisfaction, Irving settled down to the difficult work of assessing just who had killed Colin Murphy, and, crucially, why.

This is not to say that he allowed himself no victory pleasure having defeated the combined forces of the Brady boys, Abe Carver and John Black.

Instead of the cigarette or the smile, he opened his door and yelled. "Hey, Ruiz! Any of those chocolate sprinkled doughnuts left?"

*******

She’d never been into a club like this one before. Officially, she wasn’t supposed to go into any club until she was twenty-one, but she was desperate. She couldn’t go home, couldn’t go to her usual haunts of the Brady Pub or anywhere in Salem Place, the Blue Note and the Cheatin’ Heart’s doors were closed to her and her dorm room, currently occupied by the ET-wannabe was even less attractive than standing in the rain outside.

So she had come inside the Bat and Cricket Bar and was now sitting at the counter drinking beer, and completely failing to drown her sorrows. The fact that the beer was non-alcoholic root-beer wasn’t helping. The music, however, was suitably depressing.

"Sometimes you love me
Like a good man ought to."

She tried to place the singer. She wasn’t modern, that much was for sure.

"Sometimes you hurt me so bad
My tears run like water."

Oh, did she ever know that feeling. She felt herself tuning more and more into the song, and an entirely different lyric flashed through her tired mind - ‘strumming my pain with his fingers’. Except the singer was a woman, soulful and heartsick.
"You get me up
Right before your friends
Then you disown me baby
Until we´re alone again."

The young man was staring into his beer like he had never seen a drink before. It wasn’t his salvation, he was no fool, but for a little while it numbed the pain. He couldn’t deny that he missed his ex-girlfriend, but in time that feeling would pass. He just had to be patient.

"Who am I kidding?" he groaned, resting his head briefly on his crossed arms and loathing himself for his cowardice. "This feeling isn’t going anywhere."

"Tell me about it," the short blonde sitting a few seats down from him looked up from her drink and caught his eye. "Evening, Detective Irving."
Barely raising his head, the Detective murmured, "Evening, Miss Black."

"Love got you down?" The dark haired bartender, unusually good looking even by Salem standards, slowly turned his dark eyed gaze on them, polishing a glass with a cloth he usually kept slung over one well built shoulder.

"You don’t know the half of it," his customers said in unison.

"Your love is like a see saw
Your love is like a see saw baby."

"Who’s the singer?" Belle jerked her thumb at the record machine playing in one corner.

Irving shook his head, slowly and solemnly. "That’s the trouble with the youth of today. Can’t tell their Arethas from their Ellas."

Shaking his head in despair, Tony moved away to try his hand at cocktail shaking.

"Hey," Belle didn’t quite manage righteous indignation but she did make the word sound livelier than a graveyard at midnight. "There’s no need to mock the ignorant. If you’re so good on the soul singer, teach me."

He took a long draw on his beer. "No point. You’re too self absorbed at the moment to learn anything and I’m too self pitying to teach you."
"Your love is like a see saw
Goin´ up and down all around
It´s like a see saw."

"Normally," Belle confessed, "I’d argue with you, but right now I really do feel too self absorbed to care."

Her companion nodded wisely. "See? That’s what heartbreak will do to you. Aretha knew that. Now you do too."
"Sometimes ya tell me
Ya don´t need my sweet candy man."

"How did you get to be so wise?" Belle’s blue eyes were softened by the Detective’s gentle tone.

"Experience," he took another swig of his beer, emptying the bottle this time. "Lots and lots of bad experience."
"And then sometimes baby
Go-go away
An I´ll stay
You lift me up…"

"Ah, the school of hard knocks," Belle copied her companion and finished her own bottle in a single gulp. "I know a lot about that."
"When I´m on the ground
But as soon as I get up now
You send me tumblin´ down…"

"Aretha," Detective Irving was half smiling now, "there’s a real lady. My ex, she loved Aretha, but she didn’t behave like a lady." His expression clouded over as he remembered the way she had acted. "Living with her was like having your heart played by an angel with no conception of humanity."

She checked her bottle to make sure that what she was drinking was truly non-alcoholic. She surely couldn’t have heard him right. "Huh?"
"Now your love is like a see saw
Your love is like a see saw baby…"

Irving’s blue eyes were turned to the heavens. "She was wonderful, but she didn’t know that some things hurt like hell even if they aren’t meant to hurt you at all."
"Your love is like a see saw
Goin up.... down
All around
Just like a see saw…"

"I still don’t get you," Belle signalled to the bartender and ordered another round of drinks. "What did she do?"
"When I kiss you and I like it
And I ask you to kiss me again…"

"She used to kiss me," this time he sighed gently, "she was an incredible kisser."
Belle nodded sagely. "So is Shawn. I swear he’s got voodoo lust potion in his lips."

"When I reach for you
Ya jump clean out of sight…"

"Then she’d wander off like nothing had happened. Like we were just good friends." He stared into his drink morosely.

Belle snorted. "Down with being ‘just good friends’." She slammed her bottle onto the countertop.
"You change just like the wind
That ain´t right
That ain´t right…"
"She wasn’t like most women," Irving was getting maudlin. He hated himself when he was maudlin, however, and so tried to coax and cajole himself out of it at once.

"They never are," his companion let her gaze run over the other patrons of the bar.

"That ain´t right
That ain´t right baby…"

"I should never have let her go." Already the detective’s words were becoming slurred, and this was only his fifth beer.

The blonde sitting next to him dropped her bottle, only for it to be caught by their new, and already bored, bartender by the name of Ella. "You’re damn right. Never let anyone go who you can hold onto."

"You’re both drunk," Ella was in no mood for another night of drunken ranting. She wanted to be at home on the net, or curled up with a good Georgette Heyer novel and an early Rolling Stones record.

"You’re very beautiful," the inebriated detective told her.

"Your love is like a see saw
Your love is like a see saw baby
Your love is like a see saw…"

"You may be drunk, but I’m not." It was true that she did not sway as she rose to her feet, but Belle was not entirely steady either. That could, however, be something to do with not having eaten for some eight hours straight. "I’m going to find Shawn. You’re still damn right. I’m not letting him go. Not again."

"Goin up goin´ down
Goin´ all around
It´s like a see saw…"

"That’s a dollar fifty," Ella held out her slender hand for the money.

Belle stared at her like she was crazy. "I have to pay?"

"You may be the daughter of the third richest and most insane man in Salem, but that doesn’t mean you get free drinks, pay up." She rapped her knuckles against the wood of the bar. Grumbling, Belle obeyed.
"Your love is like a see saw
Your love is like a see saw baby
Your love is like a see saw…"

A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She turned around again. "Any idea where I can find the love of my life?"

Ella shook her head, swinging her gold earrings. "I’m not his Mama, but I may well be his second cousin on his Daddy’s side."

In friendly fashion, Belle patted Detective Irving’s shoulder. "Good luck with the drinking, and if you see Shawn, tell him I’m looking for him." She thought about this. "If you see Cassie, tell her to go to hell from me."
"Goin´ up goin down
All around…"

"Sweet kid." Irving noticed his bottle was empty again. "Bartender, another beer here if you will."

Ella leaned over the bar and glared at him. "You’re drunk."

"You noticed," he looked back at his bottle, wondering why it was still empty. "Sweet of you."

"It’s my job to notice things like that," Ella watched him as he poured the last drop of alcohol down his throat and groaned his disappointment. He was kind of cute, in a blood shot eyed, exhausted puppy kind of way.

Irving smiled at her lopsidedly. "And it’s my job to notice things like the tension between Belle and Cassie, partly due to the fact that Cassie knows some secret about Shawn and Belle doesn’t, Abe is still covering up for that rat, Larry Welch, the DA has it in for the Bradys, the Bradys have it in for Dimeras and vice versa, Roman’s worried about Sami, Marlena’s more worried about the Gemini twins than her own daughters, especially Belle, John’s getting more pissed off by me than I should have any right to expect, and you are particularly beautiful tonight. You want to know who killed Colin Murphy?"

"You’re evidently a gifted detective, if a drunk one." She wasn’t in the slightest softened by his compliments, though his heaven blue eyes were beginning to take effect on her unusually delicate sensibilities. She allowed herself the smallest grin back at him. "So who killed Colin Murphy?"

He leaned towards her as if about to reveal a dark secret. "I don’t know, but I’m damn well going to find out."

"Well, when you know, tell me." Sniffing the air, she detected the smell of Jack Daniels on the Detective’s breath as well as the heavy aroma of Budweiser beer. "You’re still drunk, Irving, and after this next beer, I’m cutting you off and sending you home in a cab."

Irving was grinning now. "I maybe drunk, but you’re still beautiful. Want to come back in that cab with me? I’ve got a whole stack of Aretha records in my room."

Ella grinned in reply. "Some other night, maybe. I sure do like Aretha…"

"It’s like a see saw yeah
See saw baby…"

 

Song credit: Aretha Franklin, 'See-Saw'.

Part 4 and a tad

She had seen him kill a man, watched the body fall, the singular look of half triumph half devastation cross the face of the Love of her Life, seen Evil vanquished and yet… Yet she did not know the depths of passion in him, know how far he would go to protect the people he loved. He was still surprising her.

People said he had his father’s eyes. She rather thought he had his mother’s. There was more compassion in his eyes than in his father’s, or at least that was what she saw in them. She touched his cheek, noting the five o’clock shadow stubble that roughened her soft palm. He did not pull away, but nor did he press his face into her hand as she had hoped he would do.

"Has Detective Irving found anything new?" She watched as he visibly relaxed at the sound of her voice.

"No," he rubbed the back of his tired neck with one hand and reached out for her with another. "He’s hit a brick wall. No idea who did it." He watched as she raised one perfect eyebrow. "OK, so plenty of ideas who did it, he’s just not sure which one is right."

"That sounds more like our detective Irving," she murmured, half closing her eyes and thinking hard.

"It does, does it?" He put one arm around her waist and drew her closer. "Are we alone tonight?"

"Darling," the word was enough. They were alone. He bent his head down towards hers.

"Aww! Again?" With a disgruntled look on his face, their full grown son wandered through the living room, picking up the books and football videos he had left on his last visit.

"Hey!" Bo grinned widely. "You should be used to us by now."

Her husband’s arm wrapped tightly around her middle, Hope felt cradled by love, like a child in her lover’s arms. "Are you seeing Belle tonight?"

"I was." He took a rucksack off the floor. "She stood me up. I’m having a tutorial with Rex instead."

The famous Horton eyebrow was lifted. "Not Cassie?"

Shawn muttered something under his breath, and his father whacked him on the arm for cussing.

"Problems?" How could she look so concerned and so happy at the same time? The question was turning over and over in Shawn’s head.

"It’s nothing." He brushed a hand through his dark hair, a sure sign of his distress.

"Are you sure?" His mother laid a gentle hand on his arm.

He pulled back abruptly, "I said it was nothing."

The hurt look on her face made him feel like trash, but that’s what he was now. Trash. "Bye."

He slammed the door on his way out, and his mother’s soft voice could barely just be heard as he stomped his way down the path. "Oh, Bo…"

*******

She had seen him kill a man, watched the body fall, the singular look of half triumph half devastation cross the face of the love of her life, seen Evil vanquished and yet… Yet she did not know the depths of passion in him, know how far he would go to protect the people he loved. He was still surprising her.

"Shawn?" Cassie emerged from the bushes like a wraith from behind a gravestone. "Are you OK?"

"Fine." He kicked the garbage can so hard that the lid came off and rattled down the street. "Just dandy."

"You’re not." She took a step towards him.

"Well that was a brilliant observation from a girl with your IQ," he snarled. She didn’t back off.

Cassie lowered her eyelashes so they rested demurely on her cheeks then looked up at him. "You didn’t tell anyone, did you?"

"No, Cassie, I didn’t." He looked angry, angrier than she could ever remember seeing him.

"Good," she took another few steps towards him, and in a gesture that was unknowingly the same as his mother’s to his father’s, she laid a hand on his cheek and like Hope, felt the stubble growing there scratch her palm.

People said he had his father’s eyes. She rather thought he had his mother’s. There was more compassion in his eyes than in his father’s, or at least that was what she saw in them.

He did not pull away, his stubble roughening her soft palm further still, but nor did he press his face into her hand as she had hoped he would do.

"It won’t be long now." She nearly whispered the words, feeling towards him a greater tenderness and intimacy than ever before.

Like his father, Shawn resisted the temptation to lean his cheek into her palm. His words were more loudly and roughly spoken, "Either way, it won’t be long now."

There was a dark look in his eyes when he said that, a look Cassie didn’t like. "What do you mean? Shawn, promise me you won’t do anything stupid."

The laugh he let out was bitter, and it jarred upon her ears. "You really need me to promise you that when the detective is so close to finding us out anyway? Fine, Cassie. I promise. I won’t do anything stupid. My life is ruined anyway."

"Don’t say that, Shawn." She leaned forwards to hug him but he pulled back.

"I’m late for your brother," he excused himself and fled. He couldn’t tell the step he planned to take. She wouldn’t understand.

At the corner, he turned west to follow the path the sun had blazed during the day, only Rex’s dorm room lay to the east. Shawn had lied. He had somewhere else to be that night. One missed assignment was going to make little difference to a man about to go to jail.

It was time to tell all. His guilty conscience was smothering him and hurting the ones he loved the most. He went into the night.

The words of his youthful transgressions echoed in his head, spoken in a different confessional than the police station he would soon be sitting in.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…

*******

Aretha was still playing on the jukebox. The detective wasn’t as drunk as he should have been, nor was he as drunk as he would have liked to have been.

Giving up on getting rid of him, Ella laid another beer in front of him and walked away to serve her latest customer.

"What’s your pleasure?" She leaned forwards a little, being deliberately provocative to see if Irving would respond to her flirtation with another handsome man.

If he had been in flirtatious mood, Shawn would have answered ‘your smile’. As the last thing he was feeling was flirtatious, he answered instead, "Beer."

At the sound of his voice, the detective raised his head and stared over at him hard.

"Root beer," Shawn corrected himself, remembering that the detective knew precisely how old he was.

Disappointed that her latest customer had clearly not reached his twenty-first birthday, Ella moved away to pour his drink and mutter about the injustices of a life that provided two good looking men on the same night, only one was too drunk and the other too young to be of any interest.

"Mr Brady," Irving was just drunk enough to tilt his beer towards the boy in a mock salute, but not sufficiently inebriated to attempt greater camaraderie.

"Detective Irving," the younger man sat at the bar with an expression that was an odd mixture of spiritual exhaustion and mental exertion playing across his handsome face.

"Your lover was looking for you," Irving grinned over at his youthful companion briefly.

"She’s not my lover," Shawn answered, sounding miserable and not a little bitter.

"I don´t want nobody, always
Sittin´ around me and my man
I don´t want nobody, always
Sittin´ around there
Lookin´ at me and that man…"

"Ah," the detective nodded sagely. "Interfering in-laws?"

"Be it my mother, my brother, my sister
Would you believe, I get up
Put on some clothes
Go out and help me find somebody for this self,
if I can?"
"Try unbelievable circumstance." Thirstily, he drained his root beer and signalled for another. "I think, perhaps, we’re not meant to be."

Irving snorted loudly at this tentative assertion, and answered more vociferously than was usually the case. "No one is ‘meant to be’. You have to work at it, slogging away until you die, and maybe, for one brief moment, you’re happy, and there’s light in the dark tunnel." He once again inspected his bottle, then went on, apparently satisfied with it’s fullness, "Love is like a campfire. When it starts it burns high, flames up to the heavens, and they are wondrous to behold, but they can’t last long. It takes too much energy and vitality for that. Then there are two things it can do-"

Shawn interrupted rudely, "Is this leading somewhere or is it just the ranting of a drunk man?"

"Now I don´t mind company
Because company´s alright with me
Every once in awhile
Yes it is…"
"I’m not drunk," his slightly slurred voice belied his words, "and this is leading somewhere." Grumpily, he went on, "Like I said, it can do one of two things - die, finishing its brilliance in a cenotaph of cold ashes, or it can die down to a lulling flame, which will grow hotter and last longer than any of the burning flames of passion that were so spectacular to behold." He caught Shawn’s eye and noted his disbelieving expression. "Your parents still together?" He accepted the nodded reply. "Bet they are more in love than ever." Another nod. "Took a lot of time for them to get that way." Shawn was looking more thoughtful as he nodded now. "Hah. It takes more work to keep the flames banked through the cold starry night of this life than most people are prepared to put in. They give up much too easily. They think they’re not ‘meant to be’," Shawn had his previous remark thrown scornfully back in his face, but did not resent it, "so they move on to watch the flames dance high once again until they settle for a pile of ash that keeps just hot enough for them to warm their hands over if they don’t mind getting a little dirty."

"Now I don´t mind company
Because company is alright with me
Every once in awhile, yeah
And Ooooooooooooooh…"

"So I should fight for her heart?" Irving shook his head at his protégé’s strident tone.

"It’s not the fight that matters most, it’s the little moments." He returned to his metaphor, not noticing Shawn’s slight sigh of discontent. "The fire can sometimes need a small bundle of twigs carefully placed more than a single big log flung on."

Aretha’s voice penetrated their gloom once again. Though she had been playing as long as they had been talking, they had failed to attend to her.

"When me an that man get to lovin´
I tell ya girl, I dig ya, but I don´t have time
To sit, and chit, and sit and chit-chat an smile
Don´t send me no doctor
Fill me up with all a those pills
I got me a man named Doctor Feelgood
Yeah! Yeah!"

"Listen to the lady," Irving instructed his student. "She’s wise in the ways of love."

"The philosophising of a Budweiser imbibing, doughnut devouring, Aretha-adoring detective," Shawn murmured to himself, "is making more sense than it should." He stared suspiciously at his root beer, wondering exactly what kind of root was in it. Then, more loudly, he said, "But what if I’m not worthy? What if, in the future, I’m going to leave her in more pain than if I break her heart now?"

"Then tell her the truth tomorrow," the older man finished his beer and prepared to stand up. "Let her decide if she wants to risk her heart. One last thing, Kid - don’t ever lie to her. No matter what the truth is, it can’t hurt her more."

He stood, swaying slightly to the music, and began to walk away.

"That man takes care of all my pains and ills
His name is Doctor Feelgood in the morning
To take care of business is really this man’s game
And after one visit to Dr. Feelgood,
You understand why I feel good, in this pain…"

Shawn’s mind was filled with conflict. Conscience, love and a sense of self preservation were at war within him. He came to a sudden decision. "Detective?" He waited for him to turn, his brown eyes burning, "I need your help…"
"Oh! Yeah! Ooh!
Oh, good God a-mighty
The man sure makes me feel real........
Good!"

 

Song credit: 'Doctor Feelgood', Aretha Franklin.

Part 5 and a titbit

"Rex!" Mimi almost gurgled the world, delirious with happiness as her latest beau delicately kissed her neck. "Stop it, we’re meant to be looking for clues."

"I am," the former suspect-alien muttered, pulling her a little closer. "I’m making sure she hasn’t got to you too."

Mimi slapped him playfully, smiling all the while. "Now come on. She may be back any minute, and we haven’t found anything yet."

Grumbling a little, Rex let her set him to work on going through the desk as she worked on the chest of drawers.

"Nothing," he didn’t sound too upset that he’d finished his search, and already his arms were snaking around Mimi’s waist.

"There has to be something," she sighed, and it changed to a groan as Rex pulled her closer. "Baby, we have to find this first then…" good intentions were about to be thrown out the window when she at last spotted what she had been searching for so desperately. "Got it!"

Rex grinned down at her, wondering how on earth she had become so adorable when nearly every other Salem woman was either so high strung that they made pedigree racehorses look relaxed or, to put it mildly, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know.

"Got what?" His mind was back on the mission, which was what Mimi had insisted on calling their search of his sisters’ room.

"Her diary of course," Mimi wriggled her way out of his arms and leaned down bending at the waist, in a move she borrowed from ‘Legally Blonde’, to lift the locked, green book from the floor. The ‘snap’ part brought her back up to staring into Rex’s stunned face. She quickly thanked whatever teenage deity was looking after them that she hadn’t broken his nose. The idea of not being able to kiss him for weeks because his face was in plaster did not appeal, especially as he had that look on his face.

"Meems," he had a way of elongating her nickname that weakened her wonderfully.

"Help me search for clues." Did he know what he did to her? She took a sly glance up at him. He knew alright. For an alien boy that had crash landed in a space ship the summer before, he was certainly wise to the ways of women. "Read it through and tell me what you find. I’m going to check her jewellery box."

He shook the lock ineffectually. "How do I open this?"

Mimi took it from his hands. "Now I know your not from around here. Any true Salemite would be able to unlock it in a flash. Are you sure Cassie’s your sister?"

Rex sighed. "Definite, I’m afraid."

She gave him back the diary, now opened. "That’s a real shame." Her voice had dropped along with her eyelashes.

Rex gulped, hard. He wasn’t used to being around girls. He tried to remember what Shawn did in these situations.

He licked his lower lip lasciviously, and was surprised to her Mimi’s slight intake of breath.

He lowered his head, inching his lips towards hers. They met, and Rex thought that never before had he felt something so wonderful.

Then he stopped thinking at all.

Unfortunately for them, Rex’s thinking of what Shawn would do next was only too appropriate. Right on time, Cassie barged into the dorm room without any consideration for the feelings of those inside.

"Stop that right now," she began to shriek, then realised that she wasn’t looking at Shawn and Belle making out, but Mimi and her brother. Utterly disgusted, she stared at them in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing in my dorm room?"

Rex shrugged, an expression of nonchalance that belied the fact that Mimi was stuffing Cassie’s diary up his shirt to prevent Cassie from noticing, and gave the answer that he knew would send his sister flying from the room. "Belle was with Shawn in our room," he silently prayed for forgiveness for that particular lie both from Shawn and whatever deity may or may not have been looking out for him, "They made it quite clear they wanted to be alone."

"Over my dead body," Cassie hissed between clenched teeth and stormed from the room.

"Belle wasn’t with Shawn…" the words trailed off as Rex placed a gentle finger over Mimi’s lips, using his other hand to turn on the stereo so that Aretha’s voice could be heard singing ‘Oh Me Oh My I’m a Fool for You Baby’.

"I know," he grinned wickedly and wiggled his eyebrows in a move copied from his uncle John and all too unfortunately not from his friend Shawn. "Now are you going to lock the door, or am I?"

*******

The detective had woken up with a headache the size of Dublin. This had been matched, rather neatly he had felt, by a bruise on his forehead, from when he had fallen against the coffee table passing out the night before, the size of Belfast. With both sides of divided Ireland represented in his head, he wondered about drinking a pint of Guinness reckoning that it was a hair of the dog that bit him.

Then he remembered he had a murder to solve, swore violently, and pulled himself together. This meant four cups of coffee, a quantity of bacon, eggs and buttered toast, and a lot of blinking in the harsh light of day.

He was, therefore, in no mood to be pleasant to any of his co-workers.

"Good morning, Irving," Abe was grinning. Irving hated him for looking so cheerful.

"Is Murphy’s murderer in the cells?" He snarled.

Abe looked surprised. "No."

Irving nodded, once, satisfied. "Then what’s so good about the morning?"

"The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the coffee’s hot and my wife is beautiful." The Commander grinned even more widely than before.

"The sun always shines when the sky is blue, the coffee’s decaf for some damn reason and your wife isn’t my wife, so it doesn’t do me any good that she’s beautiful." Irving rubbed face roughly, feeling the light stubble he hadn’t shaved away.

"And Mrs Horton sent us another box of doughnuts this morning." Abe watched, amused, as Irving’s entire aspect changed.

He glanced up, his face filled with suspended emotion. "With chocolate sprinkles?"

"Yep," Abe’s smile couldn’t get much wider as he watched the young detective straighten up, the change in him startling and magnificent.

"Well why didn’t you say so before?" Irving started whistling ‘Doctor Feelgood’. "It’s a damn fine morning. Now give me one of those doughnuts and bring in Mr Kiriakis for questioning. Just ’cause there’s doughnuts going doesn’t mean I’m going to get soft."

*******

"Victor," Nicole had her slender arms wrapped around the tycoon’s hefty throat. "Darling…"

"The answer’s no, Nicole." He didn’t even look up from his newspaper.

She pouted, the dark pink of her lips gleaming in the morning light that poured like golden syrup through the French windows of the mansion. "You don’t even know what I was going to ask."

"Don’t I?" He was still reading the paper. The fact that he wouldn’t even look at her upset Nicole more than the coldness of his voice.

"I was going to ask," she sat fully in his lap, wriggling closer, moving the newspaper out of the way so that he could not ignore her any longer. "Did you have Colin killed for me?"

His eyes were the frosty blue of the Rocky mountains. "Did I?"

Genuinely startled, her eyes widened involuntarily, making her look much younger than her real age and far more innocent. "Didn’t you?"

*******

Cassie burst into Shawn and Rex’s dorm room, indignantly expecting to find Belle all over her man. Instead, she was greeted by the smell of teenage boys’ rooms everywhere, and no greater sign of Shawn than his discarded blue shirt which lay where it had been tossed on the rumpled sheets of the bed. She sniffed the air, regretting it when the distinctive odour of old trainers filled her nostrils, but noted no hint of Belle’s rose perfume.

"Cassie?" The girl spun around to find house-mistress Caprice standing in the doorway. "What are you doing in Shawn-Douglas’s room?"

She was a Dimera, and so did not hesitate to lie. "Looking for a book he borrowed. I need it for my next class and Rex said it was fine for me to come in here."

The fact that no one ever locked the dorm room doors meant that her lack of keys could easily be explained away.

Caprice watched her suspiciously, but couldn’t think of any new reason to reprimand the ex-alien. "Find the book and leave the room." Her gaze was admonitory. "I don’t want to see you in here alone again."

The Dimera muttered something under her breath, and was reproved by Caprice’s stiff glance at her. "Yes, Caprice." She added dutifully, with the correct demonstration of obsequiousness.

"And Cassie?" The girl had walked past the woman and was half way back to her own room when the words made her turn.

She looked up, her eyes full of seemingly guileless innocence. "Yes?"

Caprice was staring at her hard. "Don’t think you can fool me with your air of innocence, young lady. I’ve seen Marlena possessed by the devil, Stefano die countless times, John in mercenary mode and, most harrowing of all, Pop-Shawn shirtless. Nothing you can say or do can shock me."

The girl stared at her speculatively, eyes narrowed, hands on hips, head tilted to one side slightly. "Really?"

Caprice nodded firmly. "Really."

"OK," Cassie Dimera smirked a little. "Then I guess you really won’t mind that a total stranger is getting me drunk, naked and horny while my brother plots to take over the world, my father attempts to seduce my mother, a woman he has never slept with, to the Dark Side, my stepfather is keeping various people under surveillance and hindering a murder investigation, my half sister is making out like a Discovery Channel animal with her half brother’s cousin, and," having run out of ideas, and seeing Caprice so far completely unimpressed, Cassie finished pathetically, "the fairy lights in my dorm room aren’t checked for safety wiring!"

"No safety wiring?" Caprice’s face was a picture of aghast shock. She ran past the young alien-twit crying, "I must call the Principal! You could all be electrocuted by unsafe wiring!"

Shaking her head at the madness of the average Salem resident, Cassie hurried on down the hall, scheming to seduce Shawn, devastate Belle and frame that interfering twit Mimi for murder. All in a day’s work for the female half of a pair of Evans twins, really…

*******

"Damn it!" Tony Dimera threw down his cravat in frustration. He was attempting to achieve the difficult Mathematical Tie and was failing horribly. It seemed that while crime paid certain dividends when it came to hired help, it did not extend itself to assisting him in his arrangement of his clothing. "Eliana! ELIANA!" He shrieked down the stairs.

The long suffering maid trod slowly up, complaining under her breath about the change in regime that had occurred after the Stef’s departure. Under his rule at least she could depend on his being able to dress himself and not expect her help before he had finished his daily cackle. Tony showed no such courtesy. The fact that he was also a secret fan of the movie ‘Grease’ had driven her to seek refuge in the Kiriakis mansion on more than one occasion.

"Yes, oh great leader?" She muttered as she came into his overly ornate bedroom and watched as he struggled in yet another attempt at tying his cravat. "What is it this time? Has the Chihuahua been sick again? Or is it merely that you can’t find your Tomb Raider poster?"

"It’s my cravat!" Tony was whining pettishly now, a sulky childish look on his face.

"Come here." Eliana tugged at the material and in a few moments she had it perfectly arranged into a Mathematical knot. "Your father always used to do these himself," she murmured thoughtfully.

"Stefano? Really?" Tony’s brow crinkled with the effort of thinking about something that wasn’t chess or Marlena.

"No, not Stefano," Eliana chided him, giving his lapels a stiff brushing. "Your real father." She sighed wistfully, "He truly was a gentleman."

"And is no more?" Tony was fascinated, but didn’t want to scare her off. Eliana had seen far more than she would ever tell and apparently knew just whom Daphne had had her fling with all those years ago.

"He left America, oh so long ago." If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn their were tears in Eliana’s eyes. She pulled back her emotions forcefully. "But that’s all over now."

"Eliana," Tony’s voice sounded charming, but held the note of command that told her that her job depended on her answer to the coming question, "Who was my father?"

She stared at him speculatively, "You truly want to know?"

Exasperated, Tony answered curtly, "Yes!"

"Well," Eliana prevaricated no longer. "The truth is he’s…"

*******

"Commander Carver!" An errand boy from the crime labs that Bo would have recognised as Kevin Lambert on his work experience placement ran up to the Commander and gave him a package to sign for. The envelope was thickened by a huge wad of papers inside and new photos. Having been given back the signature form, Kevin nodded his head quickly and went on running.

"What’s that?" Sergeant Louise Cruise, code-name Fontella, came up behind him to peer over his shoulder.

Abe grinned as he examined the documents. "The evidence we need to nail Murphy’s murderer."

The detective on duty at the time, Roman Brady, wandered past them in search of Mrs Horton’s doughnuts and lots of strong black coffee. He growled at his old friend in the manner of a bear with a sore head. "Who’s been blowing sunshine up your ass, Abe?"

"We got him," Abe, ignoring the familiarity that was breeding contempt, was almost chuckling with pleasure, cracking his knuckles in anticipation of the arrest he longed to make.

Roman Brady growled something incomprehensible and took the papers from Carver. "Well I’ll be damned. Maybe we’ll get to hang the son of a bitch after all."

Turning to the Sergeant, Commander Carver could not suppress his satisfaction. "Get a warrant for the arrest of District Attorney Palmer drawn up. We’ve got his fingerprints all over the murder weapon and we know he was at the scene at the time of the crime because one of the caterers ID’d him. He’s got the motive. We know he was trying to get Murphy to write phony death certificates for the guys who died during the last big rumble between the drug gangs of Salem that knocked the Mathias boys clean off the face of the planet, but we couldn’t get him for it because with Murphy dead, we had no proof. At last," Abe’s eyes were alight with an almost diabolical glee, "we’re going to throw his blackmailing, scum bag ass in jail!"

Louise ‘Fontella’ grinned back. "Damn right," she quickly added the missing ‘sir’ but Abe hadn’t noticed her slip up. Walking into his office, soon to be vacated by the Chicago detective he loathed so much, he picked up the phone and called Bo Brady. It was party time at the Brady Pub alright. Carson Palmer, rightly or wrongly, was going down.

*******

Detective Irving, thankfully full of coffee and doughnuts that had held chocolate sprinkles, leaned back in his desk, slowly taking in the face of his latest interviewee. The tape rolled on, already having recorded the necessary information for the police files, and Irving paid no attention to it. "I was talking to Mr Henderson yesterday. He was telling me about your thieving caterers, his own strict moral code and the affair between Nicole Kiriakis nee Walker and Dr Colin Murphy having come to a rather sticky end."

The impassive face didn’t so much as flick an eyebrow upwards, a feat greater than even the famous John Black could have managed under the circumstances. No emotion was expressed, but Irving thought he could see the slightest display of intrigue in those fathomless eyes.

"Detective - Irving, wasn’t it? Would you care to explain to me why you need me at this point in the proceedings? Are you any closer to catching the killer?" His eyes were as hard as adamantine, crystal blue and piercing.

So were Irving’s. "I need you because this is a murder investigation and a man died on your property on the night of your wedding to Miss Walker. I’m collecting statements."

"Shouldn’t a sergeant be doing that?" He was scornful.

Irving let a slow grin spread across his face. "Ah, but I accord special honours to such important figures as you, Mister Kiriakis."

The detective had a habit of making the word ‘Mister’ sound as insulting as any curse word. Victor didn’t react, but recorded its use in some dark recess of his mind. "Thank you for the courtesy." He intertwined his fingers and stared over the desk at the younger man, making it perfectly clear he knew no courtesy had motivated the detective.

"You’re welcome," Irving refused to be out done in politeness. "Now," abruptly his manner changed and he leaned forwards, "tell me, how long did you know about the affair that was going on between Dr Murphy and your then fiancee, Miss Walker? Or had you been orchestrating the whole thing in order to bring her under your thumb?"

Victor let a rare smile cross his lips. He liked this young detective. He was smart, intuitive and most of all, perfect for his plan. "You were right. I orchestrated the affair. I needed to be able to control Miss Walker."

"Would that have anything to do with your scheme to get Miss Chloe Lane out of the Kiriakis boys’ lives and Sami Brady away from your step-grandson Will?" Irving watched his opponent for any telltale reaction, and had to admire his self control. "Or possibly you just couldn’t stand the thought of anyone in Salem not being in your power, including Tony Dimera. I know you’ve been, well, I would say blackmailing him, but blackmail is such a dirty word, don’t you think? Shall we say that you’ve been using your considerable powers of persuasion to convince Tony to help you."

Another cold hearted man would have shrugged. Victor stared harder. "You have remarkable power of deduction there, Detective, it’s a shame your imagination clouds it so much."

"Mister Kiriakis," Irving’s tone became confiding, almost affectionate. "I have no interest in the power plays between Salem’s residents, or what secrets your wife’s past holds, or even what you’re plotting against John Black not only as a business rival but also as the man who married your daughter and didn’t spend the rest of his life mourning her death. The only thing that interests me is who killed Colin Murphy and why. So I have one question for you, Mister Kiriakis: on the one night when, surely, security was even more than usually desirable, why were the security cameras in the grounds switched off?"

*******

"Shawn, wait," Cassie caught at his arm, pulling him back so that he was forced to face her.

"Cassie," Shawn turned round in fury, a rare Salem storm soaking them both to the skin, "I don’t want to talk about this. You’re an accessory to murder as it is; I don’t want to increase your culpability."

"I don’t care about my culpability," she reached out her hand to cup his face, brushing back a lock of dark hair plastered to his forehead as she did so, "I only care about you."

He pulled her hand down forcefully. "Stop it."

"I can’t," she whimpered in response.

"I can’t go on with this," it was his turn to push his wet hair off his forehead, "It’s too hard. I can’t keep lying to everyone I love. It hurts too much." He stared deeply into her eyes, willing her to understand why he was about to take such a drastic step. "I’m going to confess."

"You can’t!" She whined, grabbing at his hand again, wrapping her fingers around it, unable to comprehend why he would throw his entire life away. "You’ll go to jail."

"I don’t care anymore," Shawn half turned away from her, then looked back, "Go inside, Cassie. It’s raining."

Cassie stared at his retreating form and, with half a smile, unconsciously quoted Andie McDowell in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ as he walked away from her, "I hadn’t noticed."

*******

"Where were you last night?" She didn’t whine, it was a softly spoken question half voicing her quiet fear that he was pulling away from her. She was losing him. She’d never admit it to any one else, but she was losing him, and she could do nothing to keep him by her side.

He looked over at her, and inside his heart broke just a little more because her large eyes were made to look even bigger by the tears that she was trying so hard not to cry. "I went home to see Zack."

It was a lie, she knew it, and he knew that she knew it too. He wondered if she’d tell him she knew. It would be a start. It might lead to an argument. If a year ago you had told him that he would pray to God that he would argue with her, he would have laughed in your face. Now he felt that he needed anything from her right now to show that she still could believe in him, that she could still fight for him, because he felt himself slipping away with no strength left to fight for himself.

She turned her face away. Why couldn’t he tell her the truth? Why did he have to lie to her again and again? The first tear fell, but she wouldn’t let him see her cry. Not again. "I’m leaving Salem."

"What?" The cry was as anguished as any she had caused him to give. "Why?"

She kept her face hidden from him, not letting him see how much he was hurting her even now. "I think you know why."

He reached a hand out for her. "Darlin’…"

The hand dropped unseen and the word died on his lips.

He couldn’t tell her. It would kill if she knew. How could he tell her he was a murderer?

"Go."

Her jaw dropped and her hair slapped against her face as she twisted to stare at him in disbelief. "What?"

"If that’s what you really want, just go. Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know." He stood up from the park bench slowly, his leather jacket settling over his wide shoulders until it hung as if on a Calvin Klein model. Better, as if it hung on the shoulders of the rebel god himself, James Dean. She was still struck dumb by his words. "Just remember this, I love you. I can’t stop loving you. God knows, I’ve tried. It would be better for us both if I could, but I can’t. Wherever you go, you’ll take that part of me with you, but you don’t have to keep loving me. Leave. Now. Don’t look back. Forget me."

She nearly laughed then, miserable as she was. He was asking her to do the impossible. How could she forget him? It would be like forgetting the sun, or the rain, more apt for all the tears he was making her cry. "I can’t. You’re unforgettable. You’re stuck with me, for better or worse, wherever I go."

At first he just growled something unintelligible. "Then you’ve got to know it will be for the worse. I’m not who you think I am. I can’t be that person." He resisted the urge to sigh. That would only make her feel pity for him. He didn’t need her pity. He didn’t deserve it. Not after what he had done. "You’re leaving. You told me that already. I won’t be here when you come back. Forget me. Forget everything that you thought you saw in me. You were wrong. I’m not who you thought I was."

Her calmness melted away in the heated blaze of his words. "Tell me. Tell me what you did that’s so awful."

He turned his dark eyes upon her. "I killed a man. I shot Colin Murphy."

"No." The word made him ache. She didn’t believe he’d done it, but he remembered pulling the trigger and watching the good doctor fall.

"I did," his eyes became stormy with pain. "I killed him."

"No." She repeated herself, and this time she stood up and took a single step forwards. Her faith in him was something he would have given his soul to cherish, to keep safe forever, but had to destroy. "You can’t have."

"I did." She touched his cheek gently, laying her hand until it cupped his jaw, noting the way the muscles clenched and how he, in a gesture as unconscious as it was instinctual, he leaned into her. "I pulled the trigger. Now he’s dead."

"You didn’t kill him," her faith was implacable. "I know you didn’t. You couldn’t have."

"I did. Believe me. Walk away now." He, to no avail, was trying to pull himself away. "I have to take responsibility for my actions. Don’t make this any harder than it already is."

"I won’t believe it. I can’t. You couldn’t kill a man. You don’t have it in you. You’re too good." He had never loved her so much as at that moment. He had never wanted to feel the ground swallow him up whole so badly either. Her very faith in him was the thing that tortured him most. It was worse than the guilt that came from killing a man who had threatened to kill his father, worse than the knowledge that he had taken a life, worse even than knowing that when he died an eternity of torment in Hell awaited him, a place where he would never see her again. He had to break the childlike trust she put in him, he had to confess everything.

"I killed Colin because he was going to kill my father, and I couldn’t let him. Not after everything we’ve been through to be together as a family." He paused as he saw understanding dawn in her eyes. "I couldn’t let him take the life of the man I love and admire most in this world. I would rather he killed me."

"No," she wasn’t crying, but her voice expressed the hysteria she was close to. "Don’t say that. Colin was a bad man. He’s dead now. Bo is safe. Nothing else matters."

"Don’t you see?" He was shaking his head, and he took her hand down from his cheek to hold it gently, rubbing small circles on it with his thumb. "I killed a man, now I have to take the consequences." He stared over her shoulder. "Isn’t that right, Detective Irving?"

"I’m sorry." The detective looked as if he had aged fifteen years in fifteen minutes. His dark blue eyes were surrounded by deep lines and his mouth was set in a grim frown as he began to read the boy his Miranda rights. "I’m arresting you for the murder of Colin Murphy…"

Our Hero was barely listening to him, his full attention was turned on our Heroine. "Forget me."

"I can’t." She shook her head gently. Why did he keep asking her to do the impossible?

"You have to. I don’t deserve you." A truth universal to all men who had good women in their lives.

"If we all got what we deserved, the world would be a much sadder place." The good woman’s only answer.

"This is goodbye."

"No. This is au revoir." She just managed a little smile. "I will see you again."

"It’s time to go," Irving interrupted, allowing the hero to stand free without the inevitable handcuffs restraining him, but standing close enough to see the glimmer of tear drops on their eyelashes.

Her lover stared into her face with eyes as dark as storm clouds over the sea. "No, this is not au revoir, love. This is something quite different." He turned away from her so that she couldn’t see the pain in his eyes any longer, so that he wouldn’t have to see her heart break as he told her the truth. "Forget you ever knew me."

She tried to put a comforting hand onto his arm, but he drew back. "Impossible."

"Then remember me as I once was. Not as I am now. Remember me when I was innocent, when I deserved your love." His eyes met hers for the last time, and he could not turn away, no matter how much pain she saw there.

A sudden strength filled her, he needed her. She could be strong for him now as he had been strong for her before for as long as he needed her. "Remember this: whatever happens, I have loved you with every breath in my body, every atom of my being and every particle of my soul."

She would always remember that look in his eyes, the way, search as she might, she could find no hope there. It would haunt her in the years to come. She would blame herself.

Irving tapped him on the shoulder, and he nodded once, still not looking at him. There hadn’t been enough time. There would never be enough time, but perhaps time wasn’t what mattered. Eternity wouldn’t be enough for them. His last word would echo in her mind forever. "Adieu, Isabella."

‘Adieu’ - ‘To God,’ Belle.

Part 6 and a teaser

"Truly? He is my father?" Tony was stunned. He hadn’t been expecting such a revelation.

Eliana nodded a little sadly. "Yes, but you must tell no one. No one."

"Don’t worry, Eliana," Tony was thinking again, rubbing his hands together and smiling smugly. "I won’t be telling anyone."

A scheme was already brewing in his overly fertile brain to turn this latest piece of information to his advantage. Yet again, a Dimera was going to make Salem pay for life’s injustice.

*******

"Why is my son locked up in a cell downstairs?" Bo’s dark eyes were shining with ill concealed fury and his voice was as tense as a violin wire.

Detective Irving wondered who Shawn had called since most of Salem was beating down his door with protests of their relative’s relative innocence. "Because, Detective Brady," Irving’s voice was nearly as weary as the look in his eyes, "he confessed to the murder of Doctor Colin Murphy."

Bo went as red as the strawberry filling to one of Mrs Horton’s doughnuts. "That’s nonsense! Shawn didn’t kill anyone."

"I know," the younger man’s quiet words made Bo’s jaw drop. "But he confessed and until I can prove that he didn’t do it, he has to stay locked up. It’s for his own sake - your Commander had to release Palmer on the grounds of insufficient evidence when Shawn confessed and now Carson’s out for Brady blood."

Bo wasn’t sure how to answer that. Should he demand Shawn’s release, threatening civil unrest, or condone Irving’s behaviour and call off the intertribal war now brewing at the Brady Pub. "I…" He trailed off. He knew Irving was right. He hated it when Irving was right, and now his gut clenched at the thought of leaving his eldest son to rot in jail while the real killer walked free.

Irving knew he had one the latest battle. Now he just had to find the murderer before Shawn was condemned for a crime he didn’t commit and win the war.

‘Ack!’ Irving thought, disgusted with himself for his own sense of over the top melodrama. ‘Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe would never have thought that!’

Fictional detectives aside, it all left the inevitable question: If Shawn hadn’t killed Colin, who had?

*******

Victor Kiriakis laid down his newspaper in order to bestow one of his infamous icy stares on his lawyer, who failed to quail as Victor had intended.

"My grandson’s in jail? Again?" His ice blue eyes flicked to the doorway as Nicole flounced in, wearing her usual outfit of next to nothing with accessories that were completely see through.

"Who’s in trouble this time?" She lay herself decorously down on her husband’s desk, arranging her body so that she displayed herself to her best, most languorous advantage.

"Shawn-Douglas," the words stuck in Victor’s throat. The boy should have been called something Greek - or at least not so damn Irish. He would have preferred him to be another Victor, a Nico or even a Jason, but no, he had to be a Shawn-Douglas, a name which didn’t even have a Greek equivalent that Victor could think of. "Get him out. I don’t care what you have to do - just get him out of jail and out of trouble."

Gene nodded, never letting his eyes wander over Nicole’s exposed body, his fear of Victor greater even than his lust, and left.

"Pretty low even for you, Vic," Nicole’s eyes were narrowed and cat-like. "Framing your own grandson for a crime you committed and then paying to get him back out of trouble, but letting suspicion linger like a bad smell."

For the first time ever, Nicole saw Victor’s blue eyes soften in surprise but not rage. "Nicki," even his voice sounded more gentle, though considering how he usually sounded that wouldn’t be hard, "I did not have Shawn framed for Colin’s murder and I did not have Colin killed. For a while I even believed you had killed him, but I know now that you didn’t."

"Then why…?" She didn’t quite know how to finish her question, so let it hang in the air between them for him to read into it what he would.

"The shot you fired hit the tree. You don’t imagine there’s a weapon in this place that I don’t know about or a bullet’s target that I can’t pinpoint?" He almost laughed, but Nicole was as stupefied as before.

"But if I didn’t kill him, and you didn’t kill him, and Shawn didn’t, and neither did the D.A.-" She stopped herself too late as his eyes caught fire at her words. He stared at her as she went on to explain: "He was at Club Echelon with a girl-friend of mine."

Victor grinned slightly then. So the Commander had arrested the wrong man? That would be something to remind him of at their next poker game.

"So who did it?" Nicole concluded, still looking more like a schoolgirl than a sex siren.

Struck by sudden tenderness, he drew his bride into his lap and kissed her cheek gently. He didn’t want to die a lonely old man, bitter and cynical. "That, my dear, is something you will have to ask Detective Irving."

*******

She was holding a protest at his arrest outside the jail, but he could hardly be released as he had confessed. That, however, did not stop Belle from protesting or Irving from going out every half an hour to offer her coffee, a chair, a doughnut (though not with chocolate sprinkles), or simply advice. She accepted none of it, considering it to be consorting with the enemy, but he didn’t give in.

When he came outside for the eighth time with a clipboard in his arms, she grinned. "Decided to give in and join me?"

"No," Irving sighed. He would soon be returning to Chicago, and he would miss this insane town where each citizen had their own hotbed of neuroses and no one was ever as sane as they first appeared - a disturbing fact as no one ever at first appeared to be completely sane, or, in many cases, even rational. For now, he had to deal with an upset blonde teenager whose boyfriend was in jail and who was currently staging a protest on the steps of the police station. "I need inspiration."

She wrinkled her nose, "Well, I can try."

He laughed. "Not from you," he had to resist the temptation to ruffle her blonde hair, instead grinning down at her. "Actually I was thinking about a little game of Clue."

Her stare was of such blank bewilderment that he chuckled again.

"I’m going to call together everyone who was at the Kiriakis mansion the night Dr Murphy was killed back to the house, and see if it reveals anything new."

Belle looked sceptical. "Is that going to work?"

"Probably not," Irving’s grin became devilish, "but I can’t wait to see the look on Henderson’s face when I tell him that the same caterers are coming back."

*******

"Are we set?" Hope Brady was checking the freshness her stale doughnut, making sure it was only ‘stun’ and not ‘kill’. There was a shortage of stale doughnuts and had been since Detective Irving had come to town. He was eating so many fresh ones that Mrs Horton could barely keep up with the demand, and Hope had had to hide these in her pantry, little suspecting that she would be forced to use them for such a purpose.

Alice Horton, pushing the lead centre back into her walking stick, nodded her head curtly.

Jack Deveraux stood, camera poised ready to snap a photograph at any give moment, by the bar. His fiancee and ex-wife, Jennifer, was rattling instructions off down her mobile phone at a pace that would have made Ops’s head spin.

"We’re set." Maggie fixed her final hair clip into place, and smiled grimly over at Hope.

"Then let’s go." No one was taking her baby away from her, murder confession or no murder confession. Anyway, everyone in Salem knew that at the best of times a confession was dubious. Evidence always was. Unless fifteen people, a security camera and some one who specialised in CSI work watched you kill the other person, there was always a chance, no matter how convinced you were of your own guilt, that you were innocent.

The stampede out the door was only interrupted by the solitary ringing of Hope’s cellphone. "Yes?" The word came out more brusquely than she had intended, but she wasn’t going to worry about manners now. She had a Brady to save.

"Hope, put down the doughnut. I’ve made a deal with Irving." Not even her husband’s soothing voice could make her want to give up on her crusade however.

"But Bo…" She searched for the words that would convince him that she was right, and found none. He was right, she knew it, and hated the fact.

"I know, I know." She could hear him sighing down at his end. Then his voice became less melancholy and more purposeful. "Fancy-Face, there is something you can do."

Brightening again at the prospect of action, she rallied the troops. One way or another, Shawn wasn’t going to stay in jail. If her husband’s plan failed, then the Brady / Horton / Kiriakis / Deveraux clan storming Salem police station would be the next option. They could wait. If it was one thing a Salemite had, other than the hotbed of neuroses that Irving found so irresistible, it was patience. Or so she thought, anyway.

*******

"So I said to him, ‘Yes, he’s your real father’, and he fell for it!" Eliana was laughing so hard she wobbled on her kitchen chair.

Henderson wiped tears of glee from his eyes and held out the bottle, bumping it against her glass. "Dimeras are so ludicrously stupid!"

Eliana could only nod her head as she laughed herself off her chair and onto the floor.

Helping her back up and placing a gentlemanly kiss on her outstretched hand, Henderson didn’t hear the knock or the opening of the side door of the Kiriakis mansion as the young Detective slid in.

"Dearest Eliana," he was staring deep into her laughter lined eyes, romantic sentimentality tingeing his words with unaccustomed feeling, "will you…"

"Yes?"

Irving couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the delicate moment so waited while Eliana, with trembling lip, gazed up, doe eyed, at the Kiriakis’s butler.

"Would you do me the very great honour of becoming my housekeeper here at the Kiriakis mansion?" Henderson looked apprehensive, scared and happy all at once.

"Oh," the word was turned into a sigh of pure delight as Eliana nodded her acquiescence. "Yes, Hendie, I will."

Seeing that no kiss to seal the bargain was going to be forthcoming, Irving coughed politely.

So enamoured was Henderson that he failed to drop his new housekeeper’s hand, and she, gripping his all the more tightly, flushed happily.

"Sorry to interrupt," Irving’s broad smile and twitching eyebrows showed how amusing he found the situation, but he refused to embarrass Eliana further by noticing that she was still sitting on the floor. "I just wanted to warn you that the caterers from Mr Kiriakis’s last wedding ceremony will be returning tonight for the re-enactment."

Henderson was almost too happy to let this news affect him, but not quite - his slight smile quivered then strengthened again. "Thank you, Detective. That was very kind of you. Was that all?"

"Yes," Irving couldn’t resist a final grin as he walked back out the side door, "and congratulations on your engagement, Eliana. I think you will be very happy."

Eliana’s smile was blindingly lovely. "Yes," she sighed contentedly, "and no more Mathematical ties!"

That made Henderson laugh so hard that he was quick in joining her on the floor.

Shaking his head, Irving left Salem’s most under-appreciated servants to their happiness and went in search of doughnuts… and criminals - but doughnuts first. The doughnuts in Salem always came first.

*******

Shawn was being released, albeit temporarily, into Irving’s custody for the party. The Detective wanted him there for the simple reason that he didn’t believe the true murderer would show up unless the confessed killer was there to gloat over. If there was one thing that Salemites all liked, other than Alice Horton’s doughnuts, it was gloating.

Shawn wouldn’t speak to Belle as he was marched past her on the way to the Kiriakis mansion. He didn’t want her in his life anymore. Or rather, he wanted her to live a life without his malign influence. He had come to the conclusion that he was no good for her, that all he would ever do was hurt her, but he couldn’t help loving the fact that she still loved him, wanted him, even though he had told her that he had his cousin’s blood on his hands.

"Ready?" Detective Irving’s hands were almost gentle as they pulled the handcuffs tight around Shawn’s wrists. He nodded. He didn’t know what purpose this was going to achieve, but right now the only person he felt he could trust was Irving. He was the only one who wouldn’t lie to him either to protect his feelings or to protect their own secrets.

"I’m ready." Shawn’s lips twitched as he noted the Detective’s wicked grin.

"Good," he was almost purring with anticipatory pleasure. Tonight was going to be fun. "Cause we’re about to cause some havoc."

*******

Victor Kiriakis was not happy, and when he wasn’t happy, he liked to spread the misery around so that he knew he was not alone. That was his secret fear, Irving assessed: To end his life alone and lonely. It was not an uncommon fear, but to Victor it must seem an almost shameful one.

Irving couldn’t resist a smile as he noticed the increased warmth between the millionaire tycoon and his very lovely and very young wife. He was glad that something good seemed to be coming from Dr Murphy’s death. Perhaps it really was true that it was an ill wind that blows no one any good.

Then he noted Bo’s expression as Abe explained to him how Larry had been blackmailing the SPD and changed his mind. Some winds were bad from start to finish.

It was odd how that slight breeze came at the very moment he was thinking of ill winds and brought on it the scent of perfume he would always associate with his ex-girlfriend.

"Evening, Detective," Belle Black was looking stunning in a black evening gown and diamonds.

"Evening, Miss Black," Irving was grinning again, one that nearly split his face in two. Absolutely no reason for it either.

She took a sip of a drink that looked like champagne but was actually soda. "So, are you going to tell me why we’re all here or do I need to bribe Henderson?"

"No need." Irving knocked back a soda of his own, without for once wishing it was beer. "You’re here to help me find a murderer."

Her blue eyes were startlingly beautiful, especially when she widened them like that. "Dr Murphy’s killer?"

"Has anyone else been murdered in Salem recently?" Irving knew his levity was out of place but didn’t care. It was as if he was possessed by a demonical energy tonight, and his wicked sense of humour was coming to the fore.

"Detective Irving!" Victor was looking unusually harassed, but seemed to calm as Nicole laid a slender hand on his arm.

"Mr Kiriakis," the Detective seemed to be floating on charm as he turned to face the pair, "Mrs Kiriakis, always a pleasure."

Nicole did not snarl her usual sarcastic response, but smiled gently. Life didn’t seem too bad, except for the fact that her step-grandson was on a murder charge of which she was sure he was innocent. "Detective Irving," her smile had never been so lovely before because she had never been so happy before, "I understand you’re close to announcing Murphy’s killer."

"So you don’t believe it was Shawn?" He said it in such a bland tone that Belle blanched. How could he be so flippant?

Nicole shook her head, her hair tossing over her, for once, well covered shoulders. "No, and I’ve heard that you don’t either."

The abrupt ringing of a cell phone distracted them all momentarily. "Excuse me please." Irving turned away from them all and answered it. "Really? That’s very interesting. Thank you, and please say hello to Martha for me." He turned back again, smile bigger than ever. There was a mysterious element in that smile now, as if Irving was inwardly laughing at them all.

Belle, who had put a hand on Irving’s arm to attract his attention, unconsciously tightened her grip until she cut off his circulation.

"I don’t think anyone here honestly believes Shawn did anything so heinous as kill Colin Murphy," Irving toasted them with his glass, "but someone here did, and I have every intention of exposing them tonight."

"Really? So close?" It would have been cruel to disappoint the hope in the younger blonde’s eyes, and the Detective had no intention of doing so.

"Yes, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a word with someone." Smiling still, charm drifting off him like warmth, he made his way through the crowd and settled by the police officer holding Shawn and the band. "Ready?"

"As soon as you are, Detective," Shawn was smiling for the first time in what felt like months.

"Good," the smile became his infamous wicked grin, "let’s get this show on the road!"

He walked in front of the band, who were playing ‘Save Me’, and tapped the singer out of the way. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention please. First, I would just like to thank you all for coming." He nodded to one side and Shawn, finally freed of his handcuffs, jumped onto the stage and joined him. "Also to tell you that I’ve found sufficient evidence to clear Mr Brady here."

An audible sigh of relief came up from the assembly. The Brady / Police war was cancelled.

"Who did it then?" Always the reporter, Jack Deveraux was yelling from the back. "Who killed Colin Murphy?"

"Ah," Irving’s smile vanished for a moment. "That’s what we’re all here to find out. Everyone here was present at the Kiriakis wedding, and all evidence points to the murderer being somewhere in this room."

There was the sound of a tray being dropped and clattering to the floor, but Irving ignored it and went on.

"So tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to play a little game of Clue." He was enjoying himself far too much for this to be like real work. "Number one, the where is an easy question."

"We all know Colin Murphy was shot in the garden," Sami Brady stomped her foot moodily. "Why drag this out?"

"You’re wrong," Irving, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, kept his cool and made a small theatrical gesture. "Colin Murphy was killed right here in this room, only I didn’t realise it until earlier today."

"How is that possible?" Hope Brady was looking utterly confused. "The shooting took place outside."

"That leads us to answer number 2, the murder weapon." Lifting his glass high into the air, the Detective almost declaimed his next words, "This. Such a simple thing. No bullet killed Colin Murphy, though he was shot and shot by Shawn here. No, the truth is Colin Murphy was dying long before he had his fight in the shrubbery. Colin Murphy was poisoned, and poisoned only minutes before he was shot, killed in your very midst."

This time the crowd was silent, too thunderstruck to utter a sound.

"Who?" Irving could hear Bo Brady’s knuckles cracking from across the room. Someone had set his son up. Someone was going to pay. For a brief moment, Irving felt sorry for the killer, and then the feeling passed. He deserved everything that was coming to him.

"Ah, answer number three," he couldn’t look more pleased with himself, "as I’ve said before, the murderer is standing right here in this room with us, and ask you now to all please note that I have taken the precaution of locking the doors and posting guards." Various Salem PD officers were standing, arms crossed, in front of the exits. "No one is leaving until the killer is caught and brought to justice."

Was that a suggestion of a smirk playing around the Detective’s mouth? Belle couldn’t be sure, but if he kept them in suspense for much longer he wouldn’t be smiling for a very long time.

"So who did it?" The words ‘It’s clobbering time’ seemed to hang unspoken in the air as the Salemites grew restless. Someone had set up Shawn Douglas Brady, not only a Salemite of good standing, but carrying in his veins the blood of almost every major Salem family, and if his current relationship with Belle Black was to continue, the future Kiriakis / Brady / Horton half of the ratification of the relationship between those families and the Blacks / Alamains.

"That’s where the game of Clue comes in," definitely too much fun to be work. "I want everyone on the left side of the room." The response was slow in coming so he barked, "Now!"

They moved considerably faster after that, and the power hadn’t even begun to go to his head.

"Good. Now as I call your name, I want you to cross to the right side of the room." He crossed his arms and stared over at them all, as if suspecting each one of nameless terrible crimes. "Jack Deveraux. Jennifer Horton. Victor Kiriakis. John Black. Marlena Evans-Craig-Bradford-Brady-Black. Isabella Black. Samantha Brady. Brandon Walker." The list went on and on until most of the people were standing on the other side of the room. Only six or so were still on the left when the Detective finished. Shawn still stood by his side, almost as menacing a figure as his grandfather. Both were looking decidedly unhappy that someone had dared to set Shawn up and murder Colin on Victor’s wedding night. Victor moved to be near his grandson and together they were a formidable sight.

Belle was grinning almost as much as the Detective had been, incapable of stopping herself when she was so happy. Her entire family and her boyfriend had been cleared of any suspicion. Everyone who stood on the opposite side of the room to her was known, but surprisingly not directly related, to her.

"Right," Irving clapped his hands together, his smile almost as big as the one he had shown after first tasting one of Mrs Horton’s doughnuts. "The ones on the left side of the room are the suspects. Colonel Mustard, Mrs White, Mrs Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, and Reverend Green." There was an audible groan as he pointed to each one in turn - Nico, Nicole Walker-Kiriakis, Kate Roberts, Eliana, Tony Dimera and Abe Carver. Only Eliana smiled as she was chosen for Miss Scarlet. She liked the idea and flashed the Detective what in another woman would have been a seductive wink.

"Now," Irving stopped smiling for a moment, though his tone became no more serious, "one of the six of you killed Dr Colin Murphy." Abe snorted. "Play along, Abe, or shall we start talking about Larry Welch?"

Abe relaxed back, fuming quietly. Irving knew he hadn’t killed Colin, but for the game to work, he needed a sixth player and he enjoyed pissing his superior officers off too much to pass this chance up.

"I would propose that we ask everyone here if any of them could supply an alibi to any of you," Irving’s smile was feral now, "but I wouldn’t put it past anyone in this room to lie for their loved one if they felt it necessary."

There were a few rumblings at that and one ‘damn right’, from a Brady.

"So really I think we should just ask the real murderer to own up." His grin was transfiguringly beautiful and dangerous as that of a tiger’s before it leapt on it’s prey.

There was a stirring as someone raised themselves to their feet and every eye in the room was turned upon them.

Mickey Horton, who seemed to have snuck in at some point, blushed apologetically. "Sorry, just need to use the bathroom."

Henderson bowed politely as he opened the door.

"Go with him," Irving instructed one of the guards. "Make sure he comes back to defend the guilty party."

Shawn turned his face so that no one would be able to read his lips and whispered fiercely to the Detective, "Do you want them to get the death penalty? Uncle Mickey is the worst lawyer in town!"

"I know what I’m doing," he clapped Shawn comfortingly on the shoulder. "No worries."

Shawn muttered something unprintable under his breath and Irving couldn’t help not grinning but smirking. He hadn’t known that Salem boys even knew that kind of language.

"Now, as I was saying, I think it’s time the real murderer owned up, don’t you, Mrs Kiriakis?" Everyone stared at Nicole. She was as cool as James Dean but only half as sexy. "You had motive, means and opportunity, didn’t you?" The words were pounding down, but Nicole was unmoved. "Only you didn’t kill him. You tried, but your shot went into the tree next to Colin’s body. Nico," the henchman turned his head to stare at the Detective, "you are Mr Kiriakis’s - now, how shall I put this? - personal assistant in matters which are very personal. It would have been easy for you to kill Dr Murphy and cover it up, so easy in fact that Mr Kiriakis ordered you to do just that, but it was too late. By the time you came to shoot the good doctor, he was already dead.

"No," Irving’s upper lip curled, "you didn’t kill Dr Murphy. You had the motive and the means, but not the opportunity. Ms. Roberts however," his ice blue eyes rested on Kate piercingly, "had the opportunity and the means. We know she had access to drugs through her hospital connections. We know there was no love lost between her and Dr Murphy, and we know that she is a thoroughly ruthless woman." Irving let his hands fall to his sides. "But Ms Roberts didn’t kill Dr Murphy. At the time, she was with Captain Roman Brady - in circumstances I believe they would both appreciate if I kept secret." There was a coughing sound from the other side of the room and Shawn slapped his uncle firmly on the back. "Eliana - you were insanely jealous of the attention paid by Dr Murphy to Jennifer Horton, attention you felt should have been bestowed on yourself as his partner in the scheme to topple Tony Dimera from his temporary position of chief evil-doer in Salem and reinstate Stefano - who, by the way, isn’t dead - as the Big Bad around here. You were furious that Colin spent so much time seducing the locals and so little time working on reintroducing Satan, oops, I mean Stefano, to Salem." The detective smiled indulgently and Eliana simpered in reply, pleased with her master’s nickname. "Only you didn’t kill Colin. At the time you were monitoring the bugs in the Dimera mansion, where you were listening to the total lack of Tony Dimera and a surprising presence of Stefano."

Tony started and looked shocked. "Father?"

Irving’s grin was like that of a tiger having just eaten the whip cracking ringmaster in a circus. "The one and only. He was talking on the phone at the time, a fact we have carefully recorded, to none other than Abe Carver. No Commander Carver here was arranging a deal, but not a hit on Dr Murphy. No, in fact he was asking Stefano for help in breaking Larry Welch’s stranglehold on the Salem PD and Stefano was, surprisingly enough, very willing to assist. It seems he and Mr Welch had a contract in the past which Larry, if you will pardon the pun, welched on. In the background of the recording you can distinctly hear the sound of a train running past, verified as the train from New York passing through Salem some two minutes before the murder was committed. The train tracks are on the other side of town. There is no way that Commander Carver could have killed in person the man who was blackmailing him with the information about the true identity of Brandon Walker."

Irving settled back to watch the effect of all this information on the crowd.

"That means Tony killed him," the growl of the crowd increased as Tony lifted his hands in a gesture helpless protestation.

"Actually, Tony Dimera didn’t kill Colin either." Irving leaned forwards, the grin gone and the most serious look on his face. "He was testing the efficacy of his hologram equipment built by his adopted son, Rex Dimera, to see if it could fool the Salem PD cameras. It could, but actually at the moment Colin Murphy was killed, Tony was being taught to tie his cravat into a Waterfall, and failing horribly. He is the only Dimera ever to take Madame Monique’s Course in Cravat Etiquette and fail not once, not twice, but six times." Tony hung his head in shame, his face turning purple with embarrassment. "Nor could almost anyone else in this room. Colin was afraid for his life, unwilling to trust anyone, and so he was very careful about what he ate and drank, even employing a taster to check that he wasn’t being poisoned, but unfortunately for the good Doctor, even his knowledge of medicine wouldn’t save him.

"You see only one person had the means, motive and opportunity to kill Colin Murphy, because, ladies and gentlemen, Colin Murphy was not killed by a bullet," the muttering that had stopped during Irving’s reasoning rose again, beating around his ears like the sea around the shore, "no, I can now reveal that Colin Murphy was poisoned, a dead man walking before anyone pulled the trigger on the gun that seemed to kill him," Irving was having so much fun he wasn’t sure he wasn’t breaking the law. This much pleasure had to be illegal, and the thought fuelled his dramatic performance to even greater heights. "No he was in fact killed by a little known European poison administered to him in his champagne and there is only one person who could have done that, only one person who had access to his drink, only one person he would trust when he was handed that drink-" He stepped back to reveal the killer, pointing a single accusatory finger at the only person not to have been suspected.

Gasps of shocked horror filled the room and a scream sounded out as the murderer was finally revealed…

"Henderson!"

Part 7 and a Drop

Her scream still resounding in their ears, Eliana moved forwards, shaking. "But why? Why, Hendie? Why did you do it?"

Henderson’s head was held high and his expression courageous, and his lips were firmly shut.

"I think I know," Shawn was by the detective’s side, his dark eyes full of fire, "Dr Murphy wasn’t exactly a favourite around here. He had been having an affair with Nicole. He scorned Victor’s ideas of power and propriety. He had dealings with both Larry Welch and Tony Dimera. He wasn’t adverse blackmail, seduction or even murder, but worst of all from Henderson’s point of view, he hired the thieving caterers and paid them to spy on the party."

Henderson broke at those last words, shocking the already surprised guests even more as he became incandescent with fury. "Yes, and he had no respect, no respect whatsoever for the china! He actually broke a Portmeirion plate in one of his arguments with Mrs Kiriakis and ruined a perfect dinner set! And do you know what he said when I taxed him with it?" Henderson was pale with rage now, "He had the effrontery to call me a fussy, bustling old maid!"

Eliana, understanding the full implications of the insult, let out a horrified shriek. "How dare he?"

"Me! A fussy, bustling, old maid who couldn’t mind his own business if his life depended on it!" Henderson was passing from rage into madness now. "And I couldn’t have him use such disrespectful terms about Miss Walker’s, as she was then, name as he did, bandying about a woman’s name in public with absolutely no sense of shame! Yes, I killed him, but I never meant poor Master Brady to go to jail in my place. If I had believed he would really be sent down, I would have come forwards at once, but I had to think of Eliana too."

Irving crossed his arms across his wide chest and frowned. "So you poisoned Murphy, hid the evidence and waited? What was your plan?"

Henderson smiled gleefully. "Bad oysters, of course sir, which would have meant the caterers would have been prosecuted."

"Did you have no compunction about killing a fellow human being?" This was slightly rich coming from Victor, but Irving let it pass.

The butler drew himself up to his full height imperiously, and said, as if it explained everything, "Sir, he was not a gentleman!"

And Irving couldn’t help but laugh.

*******

"You know, you’re pretty good at this detective business," Irving told Shawn, "Ever thought of becoming one yourself?"

The boy grinned. "Maybe, when I’m a bit older."

"Not my baby," Belle was frowning, but to Irving she seemed just as lovely as when she was smiling. "He’s going to be a doctor." She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in her boyfriend’s ear just loud enough for the detective to hear, "My very own Dr Feelgood."

"Detective, could I borrow the prisoner for a few minutes?" Eliana, looking sedate and demure, looked up gently at Irving.

He smiled down on her, knowing this to be one of the worst nights of her life. "As long as you stay within sight and don’t try to kill him, I don’t see why not."

"Thank you." The middle aged maid hiked up her skirts and jumped onto the stage. She grabbed the microphone which was still being clutched by the shocked bandleader. She turned to the band, whispered something and then winked over at the detective.

The music started, and from the first bars, Irving knew they were in for something special.

"This is for my fiance, Herbie," Eliana gave a big wink to the now handcuffed butler. "All I’ve got to say is give me some or else."

She held the microphone in front of her, turned it on, waited for her note and then let rip.

"What you want
(oo) Baby, I got
(oo) What you need
(oo) Do you know I got it?
(oo) All I’m askin´
(oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)"
Belle was suddenly behind her, dragging various other Salem women with her and all together they formed Eliana’s backing vocals.
Eliana was going on regardless. "I ain´t gonna do you wrong while you’re gone
Ain´t gonna do you wrong (oo) ´cause I don’t wanna (oo)
All I’m askin´ (oo)
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)"

Irving was fully focused on the stage, but from the corner of his eye he could see various members of the party beginning to dance to the surprisingly good and very vibrant rendition of the Aretha Franklin classic.

"I’m about to give you all of my money
And all I’m askin´ in return, honey
Is to give me my profits
When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)
Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)
When you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)"
Henderson, on the other hand, was looking more terrified by his fiancée’s performance than he had when Irving had handcuffed him.

"Ooo, your kisses (oo)
Sweeter than honey (oo),"

Irving could have sworn Eliana had just winked at him.
"And guess what? (oo)
So is my money (oo)
All I want you to do (oo) for me
Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)
Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)"
Eliana went for the big line, leaning back and taking the microphone with her, her grey maid’s outfit making her an incongruous figure among all the other evening gowns, but the evening gowns themselves were incongruous as the women in them were - well, the only way Irving could think of describing them was ‘getting down and funky!’.
"R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB!"

It was a scene no one present would ever forget. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t.
"Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep on tryin´ (just a little bit)
You’re runnin´ out of foolin´ (just a little bit)
And I ain´t lyin´ (just a little bit)
(re, re, re, re) ´spect
When you come home (re, re, re ,re)
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I’m gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)"

Irving knew he was smiling like a fool, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had just realised that he wasn’t in love, recovering from being love or preparing to fall in love again. He was free. Better yet, he had just caught a murderer, pissed a few important people off, helped out Love’s Young Dream and watched the murderer’s fiancée do the most amazing rendition of ‘Respect’ he had seen since Aretha in ’79. Life was kicking some major ass.

*******

Chicago, after the conclusion of the case of the Bopping Butler…

"Hey, Mac, have you seen this?" Joey tossed a file to his fellow uniformed cop across the messy desk that belonged to their superior officer. "Salem, wasn’t that where Irving got those doughnuts?"

"You know," his colleague answered, a slow smile spreading across his handsome black face at the memory of the delicious doughnuts he had brought with him, "I think it was."

Irving chose that opportune moment to stumble in, bleary eyed and exhausted, in search of coffee and doughnuts, disappointed by the knowledge that they could not be as good as those cooked by Alice Horton. "What’s that?"

Officers Joey Mendoza and Mac Tetherson turned to look at one of the Chicago PD’s most respected, if eccentric, detectives with matching grins. "Your new case, Detective. The chief just sent it down."

Opening the file, Peter Irving couldn’t help the grin at that came to his lips when he read the case name. ‘The Case of the Desprinkled Doughnut’.

"Irving!" Irving’s boss was yelling for him across the entire department floor. "Get your ass back to Salem right now! Someone’s stolen Mrs Horton’s doughnuts!"

If Irving had ever looked happier, it had been when listening to Aretha’s voice while eating doughnuts with chocolate sprinkles and basking in the afterglow of a case well solved. With the greatest promptitude ever, he ripped off a salute, grabbed his coat and ran for the door. "Yes, sir!"

"And Irving?" The yell made him pause and Irving skidded to a halt at the door with an expectant look on his face.

His unseen boss slammed open the door between them again and hollered more loudly than ever. "Take the rookie with you!"

Irving’s eyebrows wiggled happily. "Hey Shawn! Get your stuff! We’re going to Salem!"

Chicago’s newest detective leaped happily from behind his paper work loaded desk and went running after his superior, joy oozing from him like jelly from a doughnut centre. "You got it, PI!"

Joey and Mac looked over at each other with their matching grins growing wider by the second. They hi-fived. They knew they would be getting the best doughnuts in the country in just a few short days. Life was looking deliciously circular.

 

Song credit: 'Respect' Aretha Franklin.

The End

That was the story of one very stubborn boy and one very patient girl, but nowhere near all of it. That wasn’t even volume one, just some of the early chapters. It all ended much, much later in a land far, far away where the Bad were eventually punished for doing wicked things and the Good almost - sort of, just about, nearly - won. So although it all began in a land far, far away in a time long ago, when the Good were beautiful and the Bad cackled to announce their intentions, we’re ending this bit when everything was Worse and about to get back to simply Bad. This is because Average is something to aspire to, and Good is considered bordering on the Impossible, which is all down to Murphy’s Law and the average number of good doughnuts per citizen - e.g. not enough.

Last things last though. It’s time to say goodbye to our secondary hero. Well, anti-hero-type-hero. He wasn’t all that heroic. He still drinks too much, swears a lot, though as stated before this has been edited out on the whole, and generally made himself a huge pain in the ass to as many authority figures as possible. Plus he still has that whole unexplained Aretha Franklin obsession that isn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard Ella tries. He has also yet to stop suffering from major character flaws or tending to act first and think later, but somehow he’s kept his job, his sanity (or what little he had left) and his sense of humour, such as the name of the first drink Henderson served to Victor when he was released from prison ‘Agatha Christie Did It’.

Certain facts, such as how Henderson got out of jail so quickly, what exactly is in Mrs Horton’s doughnuts, how Irving knew half the things he did know and why Abe let Larry blackmail him instead of telling everyone the truth, remain inexplicable, but then, it was Salem, which in a few strange ways is like the X-Files crossed with 24: If you can explain it, understand it, or simply know what’s going on, they’re doing something wrong.

So that’s that.

Well, except the questions posed at the beginning of it all still haven’t been explained i.e. -quite why: Aretha Franklin comes into this at all, cops are so obsessed by doughnuts, Dimeras don't just die, they depress everyone doing it, the eternal question of how 24 gets more gripping every week, this was written at all, and not to mention how on earth in a town the size of Salem with a population that frequently visits Europe no-one noticed that Colin wasn't in fact English but, that oxymoron, an Australian who played bad cricket. (If, on the other hand, Colin had been English, the badness of his cricket would have been completely explicable.)

Did I mention that you should expect a sequel explaining all the above with jokes, doughnuts and yet more great music? No? That's because you shouldn't, or maybe you should. My plot bunnies wear army boots. When they strike, it’s like the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - no hero is safe, and every neck is eminently ravishable. Hmm, there maybe a plot in there somewhere - Attack of the Killer Rabbits from Salem Lake starring Peter Irving, Shawn Brady, Belle Black and Assorted Bad Jokes from RG. Incorporated.

Watch out, the Aliens are coming, and They’re fluffy…

R - Responsibility

E - Equality

S - Solidity

P - Perseverance

E - Esteem

C - Consideration

T - Trust