The next day I woke up with a fresh burst of energy.

Involving Carli had been the smartest idea I'd had in ages. I wasn't finished. Up until that point, I'd just been missing this simple trick: having a little helper who would lend me their eyes on demand.

I got ready for school while mentally drafting a list of everything I needed to buy to keep Carli on my side.

A laptop and a cell phone, of course. Those she expected. I would also show up with a new bike, a flashy one, not like the junker she rode around on.

If I drowned her in gifts, maybe she would turn a blind eye when she realized that my investigations were directly contradicting her brother's interests.

"I'm off to school," I hurriedly bid my mother as I crossed the living room.

"Hey, hey! What about breakfast?"

"I'm late!" I opened the front door, but my mother's shrill voice stopped me in my tracks. She was coming toward me.

"Take this." She handed me a white square, which I discovered under my fingers was the fabric of a handkerchief.

"There's a cheese toast inside," she explained.

"Okay, thanks!" And I attempted to flee again.

"It's your grandmother's birthday today."

I scoffed with one foot firmly planted outside the door. "Great, good for her."

"You need to go see her."

I eyed my mother skeptically. "And you? Did you go see her?"

"Don't worry about what I did. She asked for you. She says she hasn't seen you in months."

"Well, if she wasn't such a bitter old hag..."

My mother gave me a light tap on the chest, the pinnacle of violence she was capable of. "She's your grandmother! And she won't live forever. Go see her, wish her well, and if she asks where I am, tell her that I... have a fever, and I'm afraid of passing something on to her."

"You don't seem sick."

She pushed me out and started coughing like a poor Victorian orphan. "Cough, cough, I really can't... cough, cough, I can't do it, Benjamin... cough..." And she closed the door.

Well, my diabolical grandma would manage to get through her birthday without being able to torture her nephew.

I never had any love for her, and the feeling was warmly mutual: I couldn't forgive her for everything she put my mother through, and on her part, she never managed to stomach that in her perfect family, my mother decided to adopt a boy instead of a girl.

...

I spent most of the morning in the college counselor's office meticulously going over my applications to Ivy League universities. I had good chances. Both my SAT and ACT scores were nearly perfect. I still needed Dotty's recommendation letter, but my presentation essay was already polished and wrapped up.

My top choice was Yale's criminology program. If I made it past the initial selection, they would call me for an interview. I was sure I could impress the admissions committee in an oral exchange.

I was doing great. How could I have lost all my confidence over that nonsense about the corpse? My hypovision wasn't even that severe. Actually, I was this close to seeing perfectly.

Okay, maybe not perfectly, but well enough.

...

At the police station, I found Dorothy settled into her usual chair. I leaned against the desk with a giant, confident grin.

"Benjamin!" She greeted. "You disappeared yesterday."

"I know, I'm sorry. I had to reflect on what I saw, and here's what I think: the victim was a boy around nineteen or twenty years old. Given the dragon tattoo on his neck, he probably belonged to Jodi's gang. The murder took place at the scene of discovery. The shooter must have been roughly at the entrance of the alley when they fired, with a medium-caliber gun, between a .22 and a .45. The fact that they shot where they could have been seen by a passerby and where the body would have been easily found indicates that the shooter felt protected in some way, perhaps by Jodi's name. Considering the shape of the entry wound, it's plausible to assume that the shooter was more than a meter away from the victim, and that they were of similar heights."

Alright. This would be enough to salvage the embarrassment from the previous day, right?

Dotty was stirring a spoon in a cup. She pulled it out, tapped it on the edge to drain it, and set it down on the desk.

"Interesting... Mostly wrong, but interesting."

I gasped like a fish out of water. Dotty was smiling, but I couldn't tell if it was a benevolent smile or one of mockery.

"I understand your reasoning, kid, and I understand that you're eager to prove yourself by showing off how clever you are, but in this line of work, it's dangerous to assume that you can infer data that isn't there just through intuition. When you first look at a corpse, what you need to do is figure out how to obtain concrete information. Presuming that the gun was of medium caliber based on the shape of the entry wound is a neat trick, but in real life, the exact dynamics of a gunshot wound are highly variable, and assessing wounds requires specialized skills from forensic experts and medical examiners. The same goes for the position and distance of the shooter at the time of the shot."

Well. And now I felt really stupid.

Dotty set her cup down on the desk, opened a folder, and handed me a densely written sheet of paper.

"We found the bullet a few meters away, it was a .35 Parabellum."

A .35 Parabellum. A very common bullet, it could have been fired from who knows how many different guns. But... it did fall between .22 and .45.

"The victim was nineteen years old, five feet and six inches tall, named Charlie Stan. Analyzing the intracranial fractures and the path the bullet took, ballistics determined that the shooter was significantly taller than Charlie and must have been slightly offset to the right, where the alley wall would have shielded them from passersby."

"Okay, got it. I was reckless."

"Don't beat yourself up. It was a good argument. Now, tell me, how would you proceed from here?"

"I would reflect on the motive?"

Dotty chuckled. "The motive could be anything. These people kill each other over any nonsense."

Hearing the same nonchalance that Carli had used from my mentor's mouth shocked me into silence.

Dotty stood up, circled the desk, and waved a hand in what I supposed was the gesture for follow me.

"And tell me, who would you interrogate first?"

I fell in step behind her as we entered one of the narrow white corridors of the station. "The boy's family? To understand what kind of company he was keeping."

"That's a good answer," she said, reaching for the handle of the waiting room for interview room number two. "Do you know who I interrogated first?"

"Who?"

"The murderer."

...

The suspected murderer was seated in front of an iron table. The one-way mirror separating us from the interrogation room didn't provide a very clear view. The man had dark hair, a green jacket, and broad shoulders. Even sitting down, it was immediately apparent that he was a hulking figure.

On the other side of the table was Victor, the detective in charge of homicides in the Pit.

Dotty had simply replaced him the day before, but from the way my mentor smiled, it was evident that she considered this interrogation a personal victory.

In the monitoring room, it was just the two of us in dim light. "How did you do it?"

Her powerful arm wrapped around my neck. "My dear boy, when you look at me with those puppy-dog eyes of adoration, I feel like I could puff up with all sorts of airs, but truth be told, it wasn't some extraordinary stroke of genius. We found a witness who gave us his name: Luther Cline. It wasn't exactly a shock. Luther is a regular, he would have been my prime suspect anyway. When there's a dead body with a dragon tattoo, you can bet your life that Jodi's right-hand man got his hands dirty."

I lost myself staring at that man beyond the glass. A murderer. A real murderer. He took people's lives routinely, just like I went grocery shopping.

A shiver ran down my spine and hid.

Luther sat with ease, a bit slouched, as if he were bored.

Detective Victor was in stark contrast to his suspect; he was a small man, with his back as straight as a pole, trapped in a suffocating tie.

"We searched your apartment. We found a Glock 19 that had been recently fired. The bullets still in the magazine match the one found at the crime scene."

Luther inspected his nails. "Mmmh, no, none of those words is my lawyer's name. Want to try again, Vic?"

"We found gunshot residue on the cuff of the jacket you were wearing at the time of the arrest."

The door to our little room was opened, flooding painful light along with a mustached, bespectacled man. The man froze upon seeing me. "Agent Winfrey, I thought I told you not to bring this kid around again."

In response, Dotty grabbed my cheeks. "But boss, look at him! He's so adorable, I can't say no to him!"

Boss?

Oh, damn, this was Marvin Velez, the department chief. I tried to find my tongue to introduce myself properly, but he raised a hand to silence us both as Victor resumed speaking.

"This time we have an eyewitness. We have all the evidence needed to proceed with an arrest. Are you absolutely sure you don't want to start cooperating?"

Luther threw his head back and began to rock in his chair. He started to sing: "Lawyer! Where are you, my lawyer?"

The suited man rose with a contemptuous sound. He left the interrogation room and immediately our door opened.

"Sir? What should we do?"

Velez, the department chief, ran a hand over his face, then through his hair.

"It's too easy." I broke the silence without even realizing it. The three heads in the room turned to me, now I couldn't back down. I swallowed to gather my courage. "Both the bullet and the gun are extremely common models, and... the gunshot residue on the cuff? The murder happened yesterday, is it possible that a repeat offender wouldn't bother to dispose of the clothes and the murder weapon? Witnesses can lie. It can't be that simple."

The moment of interest passed. The police chief stopped looking at me as if I hadn't spoken. He turned to his small agent. "Proceed with the arrest. This time we have enough evidence to incriminate him. When he realizes he's risking spending the rest of his life in prison, we'll offer him a deal, and we'll finally bring down this damn criminal network."

Victor opened the door to go obey, when another agent stood in the doorway, out of breath from running. "The witness recanted. He now says he didn't see anyone and wants nothing to do with this story."

There was a collective groan from all the police members.

"Bring him here!" Velez roared. "I'll talk to him."

The sound of another door opening silenced the general uproar.

Luther Cline had exited the interrogation room and was placidly joining the group of policemen. "Listen, guys, either you arrest me or I'm out of here. I have an appointment at three. So? Do you have anything concrete? No? Fantastic. See you around, beauties."

Everyone turned to the chief, waiting for his response. Even without the witness, there was still enough evidence to justify an arrest, or at least investigative detention.

The mustached man crossed his arms. "Give my regards to Jodi. Tell him his days as a free man are numbered."

Luther chuckled. "I don't know any Jodi. And you, down there..." He raised a hand to point, but it took me a moment to realize that he was pointing at me. "Your hair is cool."

...

I spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in my corner with my ancient computer. They were all nervous about the failed arrest. The witness had refused to show up, and now they couldn't reach him anymore.

I waited until the end of my shift before bothering Dotty again, and made sure to do it with a nice hot chocolate.

"Oh, thank you, dear. You're a sweetheart."

I waited for her to take a sip before continuing. Not that there was much need, Dorothy reminded me more of a sweet kindergarten teacher than a homicide detective.

"I don't understand. We could have arrested that man. If the chief really believes he's guilty, why did he let him go?"

"I told you. The goal isn't to arrest Luther, or Jodi, or any of his lackeys. We want to destroy the entire organization, and we can only do that after setting up a massive trap to catch the whole gang. We need information for an operation like that, and the information has to come from within. If we had scared Luther with a serious sentence, he might have decided to cooperate. But without the witness, many juries might consider our evidence insufficient."

"Because it is insufficient." Oops, I said that out loud.

Dotty laughed. "Not getting rid of the clothes and the murder weapon is a supremely stupid move, it's true, but that doesn't mean there's some grand master plan behind it. It means what it always means."

"And that is?"

"That criminals are stupid. My dear Benjamin... don't go into this profession expecting to find your Moriarty. These people can barely write their own names. They become criminals because they can't do anything else. Here's a piece of advice for the future: when a case seems too stupid to be true, it almost certainly is."