Jamie woke up at 8:30 the next morning to a shout and the sound of Griswold cursing profusely. After she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she saw Griswold standing strangely, breathing rapidly, and her face contorted in pain.

            “Are you okay?” asked Jamie. “What the hell happened?”

            “I stubbed my toe on the fucking coffee table!” said Griswold as she applied pressure to her toe with her other foot. “I drank a lot of water last night and had to pee and I hit my toe while I was walking around in the dark! God dammit!”

            Jamie looked confusedly at Griswold. “Wait,” she said, “I don’t remember you drinking much water after we got back from the restaurant. When did you do that?”

            “I couldn’t fall asleep because I’d gotten hungry again, so I drank water in the hopes that it would trick my brain into feeling full!” replied Griswold, still wincing in pain.

            “Why didn’t you just get something from the kitchen?” asked Jamie.

            “Look,” said Griswold in an exasperated tone, “August was kind enough to let us stay in his house and I know that he and his mother are struggling financially. I didn’t want to impose on him any more than I had to by eating his food as well. Okay?”

            “You could’ve just done that,” said a voice at the entryway to the living room. Jamie and Griswold turned to see August standing there. “I mean, you’re helping me find my mom. You don’t have to worry about taking a few snacks.”

            Griswold, still applying pressure to her toe, went quiet for a moment. “Really?” she asked.

            “Really,” replied August.

            “Well…” hesitated Griswold, “I greatly appreciate the offer and I’ll try to take you up on it if need be. Right now, though, we should all get ready to leave. We’ve got to get back to the crime scene as soon as possible.”

            August went back up to his room while Griswold grabbed her clothes and walked over to the downstairs bathroom to change. Jamie got dressed in the kitchen. After getting ready for the day ahead, the three were out the door by 9:15 A.M.

            They drove back through the south side and downtown of Youngstown, arriving again at the scene of the crime at 9:45. On Griswold’s instruction, Jamie parked on North Champion Street next to the food bank. From there, they had a clear view of the lot next door and the many cars that were parked there.

            Griswold then turned to August and said, “Stay here. We’ll be a while.”

            “Gotcha,” replied August.

            Jamie and Griswold, who held Tickler, stepped out onto the street. As they walked into the parking lot, the sun beat down on them from a brilliant blue sky.

            “What are we looking for again?” asked Jamie.

            “I’m not exactly sure yet,” said Griswold. “For now, let me know if anything piques your interest.”

            The two then began the arduous process of searching the area. They used their feet to pick at small piles of refuse that had coalesced along the edges of the lot, hoping this would reveal some detail they had missed. Wanting to leave no stone unturned, they got down on their hands and knees to search underneath parked vehicles. All the while, the sun climbed higher in the sky.

            After nearly an hour of searching, Jamie went over to Griswold, who had walked over to the opposite side of the lot.

            “Find anything?” asked Jamie.

            “Sadly no,” replied Griswold.

            “Me neither,” Jamie said despondently.

            “In that case, we should probably move on to the area around the churches and see if there’s anything there,” suggested Griswold.

            They were about to enter an alley formed by the two churches when Griswold froze in her tracks, turned, and ran back to the nearby parked cars. Jamie followed her.

            “Wait, where are you going?” asked Jamie.

            “Hiding!” Griswold said as she crawled under a red pickup truck. “I see some squad cars at the far end of the alley and they’re headed this way!”

            Jamie lay flat on her stomach and joined Griswold underneath the truck. They had a clear view of the back wall of one of the churches in front of them and could see the entrance to the alleyway off to their right.

            “When can we come out?” asked Jamie.

            “As soon as the police are gone, which shouldn’t be too long,” said Griswold.

            At this moment, two cop cars pulled into the lot and parked in two spaces along the church wall that Jamie and Griswold were facing.

            “Son of a bitch,” Griswold muttered.

            They both moved further back under the truck as one of the cops left his car and walked into the alley. For a time, nothing happened and the scene was silent.

            “What the hell is he doing?” Jamie thought.

            After several minutes, Jamie and Griswold heard the beep-beep-beep of a garbage truck backing into the alleyway. All of a sudden, the noise stopped and they heard trash falling into the garbage truck, followed by the loud metallic thud of the dumpster being lowered back to the ground. Then they heard a man’s voice.

            “Hey buddy,” he said, “you’re going to have to move that dumpster a bit. It’s sitting on top of a storm drain and it’ll cause a backup. Wouldn’t want to flood the church basement.”

            “What?” Jamie whispered to herself. “The cops came here to fix a storm drain?”

            Griswold went quiet for a moment. “That does seem strange,” she whispered back.

            Griswold shimmied her way towards the front of the truck. Jamie did the same. The two watched the alley intently and listened as the dumpster was raised and lowered again. After they heard the garbage truck drive away, the cop reappeared holding a bright yellow cylinder.

            “What on earth is that thing?” Griswold asked herself.

            “We need to get it?” asked Jamie.

            “I’d say so,” replied Griswold. “It’s likely a – ”

            Jamie put a finger to her lips and cupped her hand over Griswold’s mouth. The cop was walking towards their hiding spot.

            Jamie frantically gestured to Griswold, mouthing the words, “Give me Tickler! Now!”

            Griswold handed Jamie the cane. She flipped it around so that the bottom of the instrument pointed towards the approaching cop. He came closer and Jamie readied her finger on the appropriate switch. He was at front of the truck. He then stooped down and looked at Jamie and Griswold.

            “What the – ” he began.

            Jamie pulled the trigger. An electric barb shot forth from the cane and struck the cop in his left cheek. He violently spasmed for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground, dropping the cylinder which rolled under one of the nearby cars. A cartridge slid out of Tickler.

            “Denny! Denny, are you okay!?” came a voice from near the church. Jamie and Griswold peered around the collapsed cop to see two other policemen approaching. As soon as they stopped and observed their friend, Jamie, clutching Tickler in her right hand, rolled to her left out from under the truck. Quickly standing up, she threw Tickler with all her might at the cop nearest her. The cane’s steel ball handle knocked him out cold and he too collapsed.

            “What the fuck!” the remaining cop exclaimed.

            Jamie then ran at said cop at full speed and sucker-punched him in the stomach. He keeled over and Jamie dealt him a blow to the head. He fell to the ground as well, forming a line with his unconscious colleagues in front of the truck.

            “Wonderful job, my dear!” Griswold said as she came out from under the vehicle. “Now let’s just see what these buffoons were after, shall we?” She dusted herself off and picked up Tickler, pocketing the empty taser cartridge. She then put on a pair of black, leather gloves, walked over to the cylinder, and picked it up.

            “Welly, welly, welly, well!” said Griswold as she examined the object. “What do we have here?”

            It was a miniature oxygen tank about the size of a water bottle with a black mouthpiece and regulator on one end. Turning the tank over in her hands, Griswold said, “Jamie, could you please follow me? I have a hypothesis I’d like to test.”

            The two walked into the alley formed by the churches. There, they saw a dumpster next to a storm drain, the ground around it still wet. As they walked up to the drain, Griswold pointed at its grate with Tickler. “Do me a favor and see if you can lift that,” she said.

            Jamie shot Griswold a confused look, but silently obliged. She squatted down and lifted the grate off of the drain.

            “Just as I suspected!” Griswold exclaimed with glee. “Oh, this is too perfect!”

            “Can I put this down now?” Jamie asked.

            “Oh, sure!” said Griswold.

            Jamie let the grate fall back into place with a clang, somewhat startling Griswold. “Sorry about that,” Jamie said upon seeing Griswold flinch.

            They walked back to the cops who were still unconscious in the parking lot. Jamie laid them flat on the ground and Griswold took pictures of all three, making sure to get their badge numbers in the shots. After this was done, Jamie dragged the cops over to their squad cars and rolled them underneath so they could at least be somewhat out of view of passersby.

            They then ran back to their car, Griswold still carrying the oxygen tank. There, she put the tank in a Kroger bag, tied it up, and placed it next to August in the back seat. As Jamie and Griswold got back in the car, August, having seen and heard only some of what went down across the parking lot and eyeing the object that was placed next to him, cautiously, but optimistically, asked, “So…what did you find?”

            “Well, my dear,” said Griswold with a smile, “if I am correct, I believe that we may have found the lynchpin to the entire case!”

            At that moment, there was a scream from across the parking lot. “Lord Jesus! There’s bodies under that car!” yelled a little old lady. With a look of horror on her face, she ran into one of the nearby churches.

            “So, uh…I believe that’s our cue to leave,” Griswold said. “How does the Golden Dawn sound for lunch? I’ve heard wonderful things about it.”

            “On it,” Jamie said as she drove away from the scene as rapidly and inconspicuously as possible.