It was a drafty morning as I boarded the bus. I saw a flash of silver and heard a cry. I ran onto the bus and saw a woman. Her eyes were open and she looked surprised. I looked down at her. Pooling from her body, was thick, red blood. The source of this, I saw was a fountain of red liquid erupting from her chest. I pulled out my cell phone and hit the memory dial for Sergeant Hobbs. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” screamed Sergeant Hobbs.

“I don’t care what time it is, I need you down here now!” I responded, sounding just as loud. “I’m going to call Bones, I’ve got a murder on the bus.”

Ten minutes later, we all gathered around the pale victim. She was still looking wide-eyed and frightened. She had coal-black hair, a pink shirt with The Beatles printed on it, green pants and flip-flops. “Our murderer seems to have taken any means of identification with them,” Detective Bones said.

“The only thing the killer did not take,” said Sergeant Hobbs “Is her fingerprints. Let’s get her back to the lab.”

“She was a what?” I yelled when we got back to the lab, sounding not unlike earlier in the day.

“A red herring,” Sarah replied a little too patiently, as if she was talking to a two year old who could not have any ice cream. “I’ve already told you, a bomb was dropped at the SBC Center. No one was killed.”

“Let’s go down to the SBC Center,” I remarked wearily. “ I have a hunch we will find at least one clue.” Detective Bones went with me to look in the ruins. When we got there, we paused for a moment. We dawned gloves so that we would not put fingerprints on any evidence we might find.

Back in the lab, Sergeant Hobbs was talking to a witness. “It scared me half to death! And half deaf!” the witness exclaimed trembling.

“Did you see what the plane looked like?” questioned Sergeant Hobbs.

“Yes, it was a black plane with red letters that read: Let this be a lesson!”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“My pleasure.” The woman left and Sergeant Hobbs followed her out.

Walking swiftly through well-learned halls, he entered the chief’s office. The man behind the desk looked up.

“Sir, we have deduced that the bomb was dropped by any passenger planes.

“And you know this how…?”

“Our witness claimed the plane was black with the red letters: Let this be a lesson.”

“O.K., dig up all the info you can on any black plane or black plane paint.” The Chief said. “I want their pilot and/or owner down here, now!”

By the time I got back to the lab with Detective Bones, there was the buzz of fear in the air. “What’s going on?” I asked a worker. She pointed nervously at the Chief’s office. We walked/ran to the Chief’s office. When we arrived, we found a room full of people crowding around the Chief who appeared to be reading something. “Chief, what is happening?” I asked. He noiselessly handed me the sheet of paper that he was reading. The paper was a collage. A collage of letters and words cut out of magazines.

“Man!” said Detective Bones. “We will never be able to find the person who wrote this! It should be a crime to write a letter like this!”

“If they are bombing buildings, do you really think they would care about a law like that?” I asked her absentmindedly. I looked at the letter again. It read as follows:

Hi CSI Guy,

I’m going to give you a motive to get going on this case. I can promise you that unless you get a serious breakthrough, a bomb is going to go off at the White House. I can’t tell you when. That’d just be stupid. We all know only you are that stupid.

Sincerely,

Your one unidentified Suspect

I looked up. “This is some kind of joke, right?” I asked. No one answered.

“I want everyone from the post office down here, yesterday.” Commanded the Chief as he walked out of his office. We all followed him as he poured himself a cup of coffee. No one broke the silence as he poured himself a second cup. A young woman I had never seen before came in looking a little anxious.

“Sir, the people from the post office are here,” she said.

“Good, bring them in.” We walked to a meeting room to find rows of people in crisp, blue uniforms.

“Good morning, Chief, co-workers,” said a man in a fancy hat. “I am the head of the Post Office. Is there something wrong?”

“Have any of you made deliveries in the past 24 hours?” Detective Bones asked.

“They all have,” the head told us.

“Wonderful, with all of us working it should only take 3 hours or so,” Sergeant Hobbs sighed. We all took people into different rooms. The chief started towards the head.

“Come on, we don’t have all day,” the chief said.

“You think I am involved in this crime, sleuth?” he asked, sounding appalled that anyone would even think to suggest such a thing.

After questioning we had learned nothing more than the head was a very jumpy man. We also found out that, after digging through some files, all people that were connected to black planes and black plane paint were mysteriously dead. “This mystery is getting weirder every day,” I remarked.

“Back to your evidence. Have you found anything?” the chief wondered.

“If someone purloined our evidence, I’ll kill them,” I said. “Just kidding, Chief.”

“Does the head of the Post Office have an alibi?” Detective Bones wanted to know.

“No, so I am going to go digging up any background information on him that I can,” the chief responded. I returned with a sooty black glove.

“This was found at the scene of the crime,” I told everyone.

“How could it have survived a bomb?” Sergeant Hobbs asked.

“It couldn’t,” I said. “But it is still sooty which tells us that…”

“It was dropped before the soot settled!” exclaimed Sergeant Hobbs. “We have the plot, the building was bombed, the glove was dropped, and the setting, on a busy street, at midnight, and there was evidently no game.”

“We need to find the owner,” said Detective Bones talking about the glove in her gloved hands.

“Did you find anything?” I practically yelled an hour or so later.

“Hold your horses!” Detective Bones said. “And yes, it belongs to a Matt Sterling. Ever heard of him?

“No way, not Matt. I refuse to believe it. The glove must have been stolen! He was framed!” I yelled in frustration.

“Calm down,” detective Bones said. “How do you know him?”

“He was my roommate in college, and when he grew up he became a librarian for George Bush. There is no way he could or would bomb the SBC Center.” Just then, the chief came running up.

“Good news, the head of the Post Office changed his name. When he was 20 he changed it from Matt Sterling to Ronald Stravoski. He has an escort here.”

“No,” I told him.

“Excuse me?” asked the chief.

“No,” I repeated. “He did not bomb the SBC Center.”

“You can not always rely on old ties,” Sergeant Hobbs said.

“If someone has to interrogate him again, it is going to be me,” I declared.

“Fine, he is downstairs,” the chief informed me. I ran downstairs and took a good look at the head. I felt knots getting tighter in my stomach. It would be impossible to erase the distinctive laugh lines from Matt Sterling’s face. Whether his name was Matt Sterling or Ronald Stravoski.

“Morning,” I said as pleasantly as I could. “What are you doing here?” I hissed. “That’s not part of the plan.”

“Chill. I’ve got everything under control.”

“If you slip….” I began.

“Make sure you don’t slip. You could put us both in jail,” he said smiling.

“Wipe that stupid grin off your face you, you idiot!”

“You act as if I am not a genius.”

“If we land in jail, you are not such a genius,” I retorted. “And what business did your glove have, being dropped?”

“As long as you give me the money, we both go undetected, report to Bush, and then kill more random people in the public library, we won’t go to jail.”

“Fine, here is your filthy money,” I said as I threw a black duffle bag at him. Suddenly the door burst open and a dozen men in black surrounded us.

“As you well know, this is the FBI!” they said. “You are under arrest for the bombing of the SBC Center, and the robbing of a bank,” they told me. “You are under arrest for murder, impersonating a post office worker and a possible bombing,” they told the phony head of the Post Office.

“It was all his idea!” Matt Sterling shouted.

“Shut up!” I yelled at him. “It was totally your idea!”

“I don’t care whose idea it was, just put your hands on the back of your heads.” Growled a man in a black suit.

Two days later we were taken to jail where another friend who was partially involved in the plan, but dropped out at the last minute broke us out.