"The only question I have left," Kristogar Velo began, "is whether or not you two personally killed Billy McCoy, or if he just happened to be dead."
Clive cocked his head in genuine puzzlement. "Who's Billy McCoy?"
"He's the owner of that 'model' spaceship, if I'm not mistaken. And the resident of the rooms you've been paying for in the building next to where you murdered Ms. Holcombe."
"Do we really have to take this?" Sunny demanded. "Or can we just call our lawyer?"
"You don't have to do anything at the moment," Sullivan conceded. "I haven't even read you your rights yet. I just figured that you might want to hear Velo out so you know what you're up against."
"Will you answer my question, or should I proceed?" Velo interrupted. Taking the Alfords' silence as an answer, he continued. "At any rate, what is known is that Mr. McCoy was dead. You had his mode of transportation in your house, your names on checks sent to him, and he had been under your care for quite some time."
"Why would that be?" Sullivan smiled, playing along. The Alfords were steadfastly remaining deadpan. "What was so damn important about McCoy that you had him sheltered up in some hellhole downtown?"
"The fortune of the Alfords, as you know, has been made over the years...in microcircuitry." Velo paused, as if to let this detail sink in to the present company. "All these years, the Alfords' have been at least three steps ahead of everybody in this field, and nobody could figure out how they did it."
"So how did they do it?" Sullivan asked.
"They didn't. All along, it was the work of Mr. McCoy, who could provide all sorts of advanced technology of that the Alfords' competition would never even dream. Behind the scenes, of course. Nobody would have even fathomed such a man as Mr. McCoy existed."
"What did McCoy have that nobody else could have found?"
"Experience in microcircuitry beyond what any of us could gain in a lifetime, or several lifetimes. See, the thing about Billy McCoy...was that he was only a couple inches tall."
"How's that?" Sullivan asked. "Since when is a man only a couple of inches tall?"
"When he's an alien." The two uniformed police officers reacted in bewilderment. The Alfords maintained their composure. Velo continued. "But something went sour, didn't it? Either McCoy died, or he was no longer providing use. Or maybe you just stopped getting along. Whatever the case, the Alfords found cause to panic. Their company...their stock...has been treading water for awhile now. I'm sure their Board of Directors are asking questions. So the Alfords decided it would be best if they pushed away as many people as they could and retreat into a sort of isolationism. Outside of the occasional P.R. appearance, or night out with the friends, of course, to appear as if things were as normal as they ever were." Kristogar paused, and stated the next part softly, almost sadly. "And that's where Ms. Kellie Holcombe comes in."
"She was part of the help," Sullivan stated. "They pushed her away."
"Naturally. But as a housekeeper, Ms. Holcombe knew more than any other workers throughout the estate would. She knew little things like what kind of lingerie the missus would wear for the master's special days, which cooks spit in the food they prepared for guests, and which parts of the neighbors' yards the dogs preferred to leave their shit." Sullivan couldn't supress a chuckle as Kristogar Velo, for the first time, dropped that politically correct air of formality. Then Velo finished, "And she also knew that the secret to the fortune of the Alfords, whatever it was, rested within that vault, over the fireplace, in the living room."
"I'm sure we'd all like to know such things about our employers," Sullivan observed. "Especially if we were about to lose our job."
"Exactly. Holcombe didn't have much going for her beyond working here. She didn't get paid well enough to have too much money saved, and she was trying to live beyond her means anyways, thinking she at least had job security. It must have been made clear to her that, having been dismissed, she would not be welcome to stay here, with the Alfords, until she found a new direction. She didn't even have family as a source to turn. Nobody even came to identify her body." Velo had briefly lapsed into the sad tone again, but then resumed evenly. "Her last option was the safe, and learning what it contained."
"Holcombe doesn't sound like she was close enough to the Alfords to be given the combination," Sullivan offered.
"I doubt that as well. But for a housekeeper, cracking a five-number combination wouldn't be as hard as it would for a burglar. People are sloppy, and they make sure numbers in a combination like that would be easy to remember. The numbers would have a special significance to the owners of the safe, and since a housekeeper knows what is specially significant to the owners, she can perhaps narrow down the possibilities."
"So did Holcombe figure out the combo?"
Velo nodded. "She must have. It may have taken her awhile, or maybe she got lucky hit paydirt the first time. Either way, she opened the safe and found what was inside." Velo paused and looked each of the Alfords in the eye. "I can't help but come to the conclusion, however, that what Ms. Holcombe found was so meaningless to her that she didn't even approach you for the purpose of blackmailing. She probably thought she hit a deadend."
"But the Alfords knew she broke in anyways?"
Velo gestured to the room around him. "Look at this place. Of course they have security cameras. And the Alfords, already paranoid enough to fire their entire house staff, was surely paranoid enough to be checking the security tapes every night. So they saw Holcombe break in and discover the ship."
"Interesting. So the worry is that she finds out that the Alfords are housing aliens and can go to the press about it," Sullivan gathered. "Talk about a shitstorm waiting to happen. You think the press or government would come down as hard on people harboring aliens as they do on people harboring metas?"
"Why not? At the very least, the story becomes a sort of circus sideshow attraction and discredits the Alfords altogether. The exact thing that doesn't impress any Board of Directors. If Holcombe knew the truth, she must be eliminated. No chances."
"And that's that?"
Velo nodded again. "Pretty much. I assume they already knew that Holcombe lived near Mr. McCoy, and that she walked by his building every day. So McCoy, one way or another, ends up dead. His body is placed on this"--Velo lifted the crossbow he had been holding for all to see--"and shot at Ms. Holcombe. To ensure the women's death would be swift enough that she would be dead before she could even scream, they probably put something like a match on the weapon as well, so that Billy's body would make a fiery bullet of sorts and go clear through Holcombe's body. Since McCoy's body was not designed to fit an old crossbow, friction would be inevitable, and the match would light with ease."
"I'm always amazed at how the most vicious bastards can be the most elaborate," Sullivan observed. Clive finally dropped the edge from his demeanor. He chuckled, which brought Sullivan to demand an explanation. "What the Hell's so damn funny?"
"You can't possibly be serious," Clive smiled, almost jovially. "Stories about little, tiny alien men flung from crossbows. How in the world could anybody be convicted of that?" Sunny laughed now, having suddenly regained a measure of confidence.
Sullivan glanced back at Velo expectantly, but his heart sunk to see that, rather than strike back with more evidence, Kristogar just slowly tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. "You're right," Velo conceeded. The air started to hang heavy in the room. "As of now, no government on the planet officially acknowledges so much as the existence of aliens. Without that, any evidence supplied by Billy McCoy is useless, and without that, nothing can be pinned on the two of you."
Clive and Sunny both smiled and nodded smugly. "In that case," Sunny said, "I'm going to kindly ask the four of you--"
Velo interrupted, still staring at the ceiling. "I'm not finished." The Alfords lost their regained confidence once more, while Sullivan and the two other cops waited, unsure of what further role they would play.
Kristogar leveled his head once more and stared right through the Alfords. "I can see how easy it must have looked. How smoothly you could get away with killing your former housekeeper...how it seemed that nothing could possibly lead its way back to you. An apartment filled with mousetraps...so that Billy McCoy would not be eaten while he was asleep. But who could prove that McCoy even existed, that he was even real? Who would know a toy in a safe was that kind of evidence? You even used a crossbow and a bomb, a random combination which provided an exquisite scene...which may not be classified as a crime scene in the first place...McCoy's remains, if found, would be assumed to have been Holcombe's... Everything I have presented so far is moot. It is not evidence that could be used against you...except for the crossbow. The only way to send you up with either one's murder is by placing you with the murder weapon at the murder scene."
Velo paused again, and at this point anybody else was afraid to say anything. He slowly started to smile and continued. "You are not as clever as you think. You rented out an entire floor so that no neighbor could ever stumble onto McCoy's existence...used a crossbow, because the building was heavily populated and people would hear a gunshot...in and out, and nobody could possibly be the wiser. It never occured to you that you could ever be outmaneuvered, by a couple of kids from the fifth floor, playing a spirited game of hide-and-seek..." Velo's smile turned out in full effect at this point, as he readied to deliver the final blow. "...on the fourth floor."
The Alfords immediately tensed up. Sullivan couldn't control his laugh. "You've got to be shitting me. So the kids..."
"Saw everything. And the Alfords never even knew they were there." Velo tilted his head as he kept on grinning. "I gathered they have gotten quite good at the game over the years."
Sullivan breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Finally. I thought we were about to lose them for a second there. Okay, I've always wanted to say this..." Sullivan turned to the two officers with him. "Take them away, boys." As the officers read off the Miranda rights, the Alfords sagged their shoulders in dejection.
