The Case of The Criminal

Dead Man Running

"Coach Caldwell," Adalet calls, "Lt. Adalet and Inspector Jones, we will be investigating Troy's death."

"This is such a mess. Losing my quarterback at the height of the football season!" Franklin rubbed the top of his head, "things couldn't get any worse."

"Coach, I understand this is bad for the team," Jones assured, "but shouldn't the death of a player be more important than the loss of a football season? "

"You'll have to excuse me," he apologized, "we all have our own way of dealing with grief. Of course, I'm deeply saddened about Troy's death. No man this young and so full of promise should have to die. "

"Was there anything wrong with Troy? Anything that could explain what happened to him?" Adalet questioned.

"Not that I know of. I don't think he did much besides training for the games. Entering the major league was his dream, he put everything to it," Franklin sighs sadly, "now if you'll excuse me, Lt. Adalet, I've got a team of traumatized players to get back to."

They watched him exit from the way the players just had and Jones turned to the other cop.

"I know Coach Caldwell sounds pretty harsh, but he's a great coach, Adalet. He's always had his players' best interests at heart, and it's paid off," Jones defended the man's heartless reaction.

Adalet nodded in understanding, "now . . . Our victim was a football player, but he was a student at Grimsborough University first and foremost."

"The football players are all housed in the same dorm," he explains, "to enhance team-building. Let's go check our victim's room out!"

It wasn't hard to locate their victim's room, the building which housed the tram's dorms was the one closest to the sports field. The football team's players' dorms were on the fourth floor and they entered the one marked "Takiguchi & Baker". They entered the messy room and saw a laptop on the desk with the victim's name on the cover and an overflowing laundry basket beside the closet doors.

"Ah, an overloaded laundry basket . . ." Jones reminisced, "the staple of every student's room! If you want to have a look at it, you'd better plug your nose, Adalet!"

"You can search it," she countered, "your the one who brags about his football days!"

"Fine . . . fine . . ." he agreed, "and I see you've found the victim's laptop! Let's boot it up and see what we can find!"

Adalet opened the cover and pressed the power button. The screen lit up with a green background and a block asking for a password.

"Troy's laptop is asking for a password . . ." she says going to sit at the desk chair.

"Hold on, I got this one!" Jones grins sliding into the chair before she could.

"Ah-"

"No, don't worry, just let me do my thing!" he waved off her concern, "A, B, C, D! No. How about 1,2,3,4 . . ."

"You're going to lock it," she deadpanned.

"Okay, I am now officially fed up with this," he threw his hands up and stood, "Adalet, could you please have a go at cracking the password on this laptop, please?"

"Go do the laundry," she shooed him out of the chair.

Adalet sat in front of the laptop and worked on cracking the passwords as Jones and Hunter looked through the laundry basket. The Inspector pulled out the clothes and found a Quill jersey that read "BAKER" across the shoulders.

"Our victim's laptop had an extremely secure password," Adalet reports as she disabled the password access, "let's send this laptop to the lab. I'm sure Alex will be happy to retrieve all that relevant data for us!"