Arthur Wegman sealed the envelope and handed it to the UPS driver, feeling the weight of his obligation lift from his weary shoulders. The way his partner had treated the sheriff and the citizens of Split Oaks did not sit lightly with Detective Wegman, he felt they deserved a little more respect, and in keeping with his promise, the envelope he was sending to Brian Weller was a copy of the latest report on the Ingersol police investigation of the Paynter Gough homicide.

Wegman figured that the Split Oaks sheriff, if he wanted, could extend his own investigation from that end. The UPS driver initialled the delivery form and hurried out of the squad room. Wegman had tracked the name of Gwen Armitage to a last known address in Wiesbaden, Germany then lost her. Both had just disappeared. The interview with L.T. Winslow produced nothing of value except the first name of her companion – Mickey, but couldn't follow up on him either.

Winslow had left Gwen Armitage in Germany with no further contact. The case was running dry. Money was not a viable motive; Paynter Gough was living on a small, old pension from his insurance and the property was nothing to get excited over. Revenge? But for what? If anyone should have been killed it would have been Gwen, or her pal Mickey, from what Wegman learned.

Random was the department conclusion. Someone thinking the old man had loot stashed or something; kills him and moves on. Cased closed - or at least, in limbo. The circumstances of the case still irked him; the double beating and the stabbing constantly niggled at his thoughts, but with absolutely nothing else to go on, the powers that be said to put it aside and get on with other, more pressing cases.

><><><><

Janet held the dryer away from the long strands of hair she was combing, bringing it closer as the comb slid through the tresses. Carol Tzajke leaned her head forward and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation.

"What's the latest gossip, Janet," she murmured.

"I'm fresh out. You people are going to have to start stirring the pot a little."

"No new people in town?" The question sounded forced and Carol hurried on. "Nobody choosing Split Oaks as their retirement paradise?"

"As if. Nope, nobody I know of. Why?"

"No, no reason. Just making chatter."

"The treatment has done wonders, Carol. Your hair is looking much better."

"I thought it might all fall out," she said with an exaggerated chuckle. "Doc Butler says part of the problem is stress."

Janet nodded in the mirror. "Stress can do a lot of damage in many ways so I wouldn't doubt it in the least. But if that's the case, you must be free of it now."

Carol caught her eye in the mirror and chewed her lip. "It's this damned affair I've gotten myself into. My god, Janet, I'm a married woman and a mother of a wonderful child, what's the matter with me? Why would I jeopardize that?"

"Stress?"

"Not funny, Janet. Although..." She stared at her reflection thoughtfully.

"Although what?"

"Nothing. Just stupid fantasy. How are you and the sheriff getting on?" She said, suddenly changing the subject.

Janet stopped combing and gave her an arch look. "I thought I had the market cornered on gossip."

"In this town? Good luck."

"You just answered your own stress question, Carol." Janet turned the conversation back to her customer and away from she and Brian.

"Yeah... I did, didn't I."

Janet shut off the dryer and began a brisk brushing, folding the hair over her fingers with professional skill. "How does your uh- friend feel about all this?"

"My lover? Don't back door me Janet, we're both grown-ups here. He isn't the least bit concerned."

"Should he be?"

"No comment."

"Okay then, let's talk about the weather." She fluffed the hair and cupped the ends, checking the result in the mirror. "Want some spray?"

"No thanks, and don't be angry. He is just not up for discussion."

"Your call. So... we're done. Like it?"

"Great. Thanks, Janet. And thanks for the ear." Carol took some money from her purse and placed it on the counter.

"Maybe I should have called the place: Ear's Lookin' at You." Janet watched her leave, a thread of curiosity tugging at her thoughts.

Carol steered her car away from the curb and down the street, looking in her mirror regularly before making a sharp right turn onto the road beside the bakery and accelerated quickly up the grade into the trees. School was not out for another hour and a half, and she decided that something needed to be done about her problem before she picked up her daughter.

Carol pulled off the road onto the meagre trail that vanished into the bush and stopped the car. She sat and listened for any other traffic and then gave two short beeps on the horn. She wound down the window and breathed in the cool, damp air, listening carefully.

A moment later she heard an answering beep and she climbed out of the car and locked it, setting off along the trail into the woods.

"I thought you might come today," the man said, stepping from behind the side of an old sugar shed. He let her into his arms and they stood, clinging to one another, silently.

"I had a hair appointment... it just seemed a good time to..."

"What? What's wrong?"

"We've got to stop seeing one another." She stepped back and looked into his eyes, holding his arms.

"Why? What's happened? Is it Erik? Does he know?"

"No, no... but it- I just can't do this any longer." She turned away and picked at the bark of a small sapling.

The man came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her waist. "Why then? We need each other, Carol." He turned her around and tried to kiss her.

"No! Don't- please. I just can't do this anymore. It's ruining my life... the stress..." She felt his hands against her back pulling her close, his mint scented breath on her cheek. "Please..."

His lips found hers and she moaned aloud, struggling for the briefest moment then joining with a hungry passion. Carol let him guide her to the shed where inside they had fashioned a secret love nest of blankets and an air mattress, and setting the small travel alarm for an hour, she forgot her reason for coming.

><><><><

Brian signed for the envelope from Ingersol and tore it open, eager to read the contents. He learned about Gwen Armitage, her mystery companion, Mickey, and the sad tale of their treatment of Paynter Gough. He read all the pathology statements, the summation by Wegman and noted that it had become a cold case.

A separate, handwritten note, apologized once again for Reece's behaviour during the investigation and a positive suggestion that if Brian uncovered anything of interest, he, Wegman, would personally help him look into it on his own time.

Brian felt a good feeling toward the older detective and began thinking again about the puzzling aspects of the murder. He went to his file cabinet and dug out all the information he had compiled on the crime and spread it out along the windowsill and his desktop.

Organization was what he needed. How best to do that? TV shows used cork board or a blackboard, which he didn't have and he wondered if Jenny Asaki might help him there. CSI spread everything out on big tables and assembled it like a jigsaw. Brian laughed aloud. Get a grip guy, this is Split Oaks and you're a faux cop. Deal with it.

He sorted the information into piles that represented the timelines of the events they knew and then decided that he needed a large coffee before he tried analyzing anything.

><><><><

He couldn't believe his eyes. At first he thought it was the endless bouts of drinking finally catching up to him but he knew, looking at the change in her, the hardness about the mouth and eyes, the traces of grey in the now dull, blonde hair, that she was real- more real than he wanted. Her voice was even tougher; gone was the musical, playful quality, replaced instead with a selfish whine that made his head ache when she asked for money.

Now it was his ears that betrayed him. He felt his stomach knot and his head began to pound and he roared at her to get out of his house, hurling his empty bottle past her head and screaming with rage. As he advanced on her, fists clenched, eyes blazing and tear-filled, she picked up the bottle and threw it back, hitting him painfully on the forehead and knocking him to the ground.

Paynter lay dazed, unable to open his eyes, a warm, sticky puddle forming beneath his cheek. He heard what sounded like a gasp and then running feet and finally a black silence. When he tried to open his eyes, the one against the floor remained shut, stuck in a tacky pool of warm liquid. The other eye strained to focus along the planks of the floorboards that stretched away beneath the furniture and disappeared into the shadows.

His head throbbed mightily and with all his effort, he managed a kind of push up, freeing his face from the floor and sending lightning bolts through his skull. The room bent and twisted as he continued his determined rise, finally staggering into the back of his sofa and bracing himself with both arms.

Paynter's head filled with images from the years in Germany, the smiling face of Gwen, her soft lips and body against his, the joy of learning about the wedding and then the betrayal. Her face floated in front of him, sneering, mocking and finally morphing into that of Mickey and Paynter groaned, slumping toward the floor.

The grip on his arm tightened painfully and he felt himself hauled back up and pushed against the sofa, the red velour covering looking like a sea of blood beneath him. The grip relaxed and he tilted his sore head up, focusing.

"Hello, Paynt, been a long time."

Paynter's eyes widened and he began to cough causing his head to throb. "M-Mickey?"

"Bingo, Paynt! Thought I'd changed a little more than that but you knew me right off, didn't you?"

"Mickey I- my head, I... Gwen was just... she..."

He moved next to Paynter and took him roughly by the jaw. "Gwen was here? Well now, I hope she didn't get all your money, Paynt. I want my share too.

"Money? I don't- I haven't—"

Mickey slapped the side of his head and it exploded in a burst of stars. "Don't start that, Paynt. I ain't gonna spend all night arguing with you. I know you got this inheritance, tell me where you keep the cash and I'm gone. And don't say the bank 'cause I already checked."

Paynter reeled around, sitting against the back of the sofa, one hand trying to steady his bleeding head. "I need a doctor..."

"Look, I'll make this easy. I've already searched this sorry house when you were out binging so I figure you've got it somewhere else. The barn maybe. Is it in the barn, Paynt?"

"I told you- no money- I don't have any left. You- she..."

"I know, I think of her in times of stress too," he mocked cruelly then took his arm and shoved him toward the front door. "Out to the barn, Paynt. No more bullshit."

Paynter hung draped on the side of a stall while Mickey threw angry glares about the dingy space looking for a likely spot to hide cash. He prodded the dazed man in the back and warned him to stop stalling, finding a piece of pipe near a broken pump and using it to prod him even harder.

"Quit wastin' my time, Paynter. Where's the money?"

Close to passing out, his head splitting and a fresh stream of blood streaming into his eye, he turned to face Mickey, his one arm hooked on the top of the stall, the other slipping the knife from the hook on the inside of the stall.

He watched Mickey break apart and come together again like shards of broken glass. He saw the pipe come up, this time for more than a prod, and he used the last of his strength to shove himself off the stall and lunge at Mickey with the knife.

Mickey jumped back in surprise, grabbing Paynter's arm and twisting it back. The knife blade slid through Paynter's shirt into his side, ripping across his stomach as he twisted with the impact. Mickey swore aloud, knowing his chance at the money now lay dead at his feet.

Thinking quickly, he lifted the body up and stumbled back to the house, dropping it back on the living room floor and then used the pipe to beat the back of Paynter's head to a soft mess. He looked at the bottle Gwen had thrown and decided to leave it then took the pipe back to the barn and tried to wipe it off before hiding it in some straw, retrieving the knife as he did.

Swearing to himself, Mickey checked to make sure no one was about and left the farm, cutting across the field and into the woods away from town. What he'd done should confuse the locals for a while, he figured. I guess it's in for a penny, he thought with a grim smile, so it's time to put a little more pressure on his source to try and find out where old Gwen might be hiding.