Practicalism practiced with overwhelming prejudice in your favor. That was the slogan of the Paperbox Detective Club. One of the club’s presidents, Finch Carrolway, had a near dogmatic conviction to it. She always opposed the idea that rules were made to be broken, and this slogan was the one rule that she hadn’t the courtesy to allow even her associate to break, even with good intentions. 

“Do you think she is lying?” Asked Lehmann, the moment Son stepped out of the door. 

“Whether or not she is lying is not of our concern,” Finch muttered. That was the way she talked, beneath her breath with a falling intonation; untrained ears would often find the words coming out of her mouth garbled and ambiguous. “If she said she wasn’t the one in the video, then she wasn’t. If she said she wasn’t responsible for Mark’s missing, then she wasn’t. Our confidence lies fully with our client, end of the story.”

“And that always works out the way we wanted,” Ha commented with a loud yawn. No native English speaker could ever pronounce his real name with even the slightest resemblance, thus its only recognizable syllable naturally became his mononym. “I still remember the fucking crop circles… fuck me, what a pain in the ass that was, and you think enough noir novels would have told you that most clients coming to our door has secrets of their own. Femme fatale.”

“She is of your ethnicity, Ha.” Said Conroy, the boy sitting on the windowsill. He was huge in stature, muscular outlines made his shirt look severely undersized. “You should be our liaison with her. Use your mother tongue. It would be more approachable for her, I’m sure, maybe get more information out of her.”

“In your favor, Conroy, not in our favor. You want me to interrogate our client.”

“Who says we were to interrogate her? I mean, you are bound to be more comfortable if you are speaking your mother tongue, right? I just think it would be nice if you could…”

“We don’t have the same mother tongue.” Ha said, strolling his way to the desk where Finch sat, “Her accent. She was a Southern coastal city girl. I’m from the North East.”

“Enough.” Finch halted the chatters, “The first order of business is to find Fluorite Tanning. She is a school celebrity, someone got to know where she is. If what Son said was true, she must’ve known something about the fire. Lehmann, I trust you can navigate the student government just fine.”

Lehmann replied with a joyful whistle. 

“Conroy, you go with her. That place is crawling with Idahols, I don’t want her cover to get blown and end up on some list. If someone is troubling her, punch their lights out.” 

“Yes! You got it!” Conroy answered with enthusiasm. He had been enamored with Lehmann the day he joined the club, working with her was literally his wet dream come true. 

“Ha. Tail the girl. Vet everyone around her. The people setting her up as the scapegoat obviously want to cover up something. Find those nobody friends of theirs, I need their names, their address, their classrooms, everything.” 

Ha nodded. “The fuck you are doing then?” He asked. 

“I have to sleuth over that video to see if I could catch something,” Finch said, gesturing for Conroy to hand over the laptop. “Unless you want to watch me do a frame-by-frame analysis on a porno, you probably should leave and go do your job.”  

“You ok with working with a laptop?” Lehmann asked. 

A visible shiver ran across Finch’s half-lit face, “I’ll manage.” 

Lehmann had a very specific look. A meticulously engineered set of androgynous appearance and casual mannerisms with light makeup and a defenseless smile, honed for days on end in the hopes of achieving one and only one thing: approachability. The Girl Next Door in its ultimate form, especially effective against heterosexual boys and lesbian tops. She occupied a measly position at the school newspaper as an in-and-out copyeditor who helped out during rush hours like the finals or during elections, the lowest on the totem pole not unlike that of a temporary contractor. But the position also provided her with a cover going in and out of places one normally would have a hard time reaching. The student government had a modestly sized conference room slash office in the North East Wing building where weekly meetings convene. 

“What do you need Tanning for?” Asked one of the clerks working under Fluorite.

“Oh, just some routine questions for the newspaper.” Lehmann lied, “The PTA… Well, they freaked out a little about this whole missing kid thing. The school believes that in order for us students to keep our administrative privileges, the government should put out a statement condemning gang violence and… you know, the sorts and sorts. Orders from the top.”

“Right, you don’t say.” 

“It’s all a hassle, isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder if the measly lunch money is even worth it.”    

She smiled lazily and leaned against one arm. The clerk blushed and laughed clumsily with her. Conroy stood on the side, silently admiring the awe-inspiring effectiveness of his colleague. 

“I um… I actually don’t know where Tanning is.” The clerk said, scratching his head in embarrassment. “BART?!” 

“YEAH?” A sourceless voice answered from across the room. 

“You know where Tanning is?”

“WHO?” 

“Our boss you fucking dingaling!”

“OH! SHE IS OUT AIN’T SHE? MESSY BREAK UP WITH THE CAPTAIN I HEARD?”