"Good morning, Dad, Mom, Joe, Maggie…" Frank mumbled as he staggered towards the dining table, extremely lethargic from the lack of sleep. Used to such morning stupor, he knew he would be fine after his daily caffeine shot. After talking with Dunks the previous night, he felt like he had rammed headlong into the brick wall again. He did not doubt Dunks, though the conversation left him skeptical of his original track of analysis and he had a feeling that he could be stretching the pranks a little too far to fit the culprit into Bret’s profile.

"I don’t think he received any suspicious letters or we would have heard about it. And I think he was pretty much a lonely man until he fulfilled the sentence of death by lethal injection. It’s not much but I assure you, from our interrogations, he did not mention any other accomplice and from our findings, it’s pretty much a one-man job. Besides, from what you told me, the pranks are not as life-threatening as Bret’s were. They could be just malicious jokes played on your brother…"

"Oh…"

"This doesn’t sound like the Frank Hardy I knew on the case… disappointed?"

"Yes, I was hoping for… something to nail someone or at least a direction to go. I was so sure, but… I don’t know anymore. I guess I owe you one."

"You don’t owe me anything, Frank. I know you’re not asking me on behalf of Chief Collig but I’ll close an eye this time. Keep me updated though and don’t walk too far for the thickness of your soles. Please, if your kid brother’s in danger, tell the police or at least your dad. Just promise me that."

Joe looked up from the bowl of cereal he was playing around with and grimaced at Frank’s disheveled form. "Freddy Kruger visited you last night and decided to pass you his good looks?"

"Very funny…"

Maggie too was examining Frank closely. "You do look very bad, Frank. Maybe you should sleep some more. There’s a later service at ten."

"No, I don’t think I will… thanks anyway. I just need coffee..." Frank muttered under his breath, searching drowsily for that nice little flowery pot in which his mother would pour the freshly brewed coffee. "Coffee…"

Fenton looked up from his paper and shook his head at his eldest son. "You’re spending too much time with your books. Go get another girlfriend or something… you can’t hide your broken heart by burying yourself in your thesis or walking through your mind with philosophers..."

"Frank’s back together with Callie. They kissed yesterday while you two were out helping Emily move into her new apartment." Maggie announced, happily, scooping a huge spoonful of Banana Nut Crunch into her mouth. "Ansh I shink she shaid she love shim and shumshing…"

"Don’t talk with your mouth full, honey. It’s not ladylike. And Frank, I have always known it was just a simple lovers’ spat. The two of you need to learn to give and take." Laura beamed at Frank who gave her a strained smile, thinking of all of Maggie’s little secrets that he could rat on but decided to just forgive. On a somber note, he knew Maggie’s decision was her own to announce.

Maggie wrinkled her nose at her most hated word in the dictionary.

"I am… I am ladylike." She praised herself unabashedly. "Just hungry and talkative at the same time."

Laura shook her head and glanced at Joe’s soggy cereal with some worry. Once again, Frank felt sympathy for his mother, no, more like empathy. As their mother, one of her major preoccupations would always be their diet. And Joe’s voracious appetite for food had diminished in direct relation with his dulling ravenous hunger for life.

"Darling, do you want a different cereal? Or a toast? Or an egg? You’re not eating much lately…"

Joe shook his head weakly and scratched the back of his head. "I have a headache, not much of an appetite when I have a headache…"

"Are you all right?" Laura reached over and felt Joe’s forehead. "You have a slight fever…"

"I’m fine, mom… really. OK… I’ll drink a glass of milk…" As if to allay his mother’s anxiety over his diet, Joe poured himself a tall glass of milk and gulped it down hurriedly before he banged the empty glass too loudly onto the table, scaring everyone with his weirdness.

"All done. Milk has all the vitamins and minerals I need for breakfast."

Sighing, Laura went back to her own breakfast but Frank knew she must be feeling as enthusiastic as Michael Jackson going for another nose job. The worry lines on her forehead were not erased when she relaxed her brows- they only faded somewhat. Not wanting to trouble her since she was vexed enough by her younger son, Frank stood up groggily and stepped into the kitchen where his morning’s best friend should be.

See what you have done to Mom, Joe? Her face… do you actually see her face when you look at it?

Breakfast used to be cheery and the air boisterous with laughter and bad jokes. Yet, hearing the silence that followed Joe’s peculiar display- the jerkiness of his actions and crazed eyes-, Frank almost thought his house was a tomb that housed five lonely ghosts all dwelling in collective misery.

The coffee pot resting on the kitchen’s pale blue cabinet counter was empty and Frank was stunned for a moment- jolted out from his sleepy stupor. Always, he just expected coffee to be freshly brewed for him, and when faced with a traumatic start to his morning, he was feeling as helpless as baby.

Get a grip on yourself. The instant coffee mix is just next to the pot…

Slouching with the disappointment of not having his caffeine addiction instantaneously satiated, Frank listlessly unscrewed the cap of the instant coffee powder jar. Hit by the bittersweet fragrance of the coffee powder, he grinned like a Cheshire cat, his moodiness all but disappeared. Hurriedly, he lifted up a mug hanging from a hook above him and scooped two large spoonfuls of the powder for himself before pouring hot water inside from the twenty-four hour operational electric thermal flask. Savoring the first sip, he felt the strong arms of coffee whipping his muscles and cells to work like a slave-driver.

Ah…

He stepped out of the kitchen with his unadulterated mug of coffee only to be reproached by Laura’s disapproving stare.

"I know you’re trying to get me to quit, Mom. But today’s not the day, sorry…" He apologized with a smiling face, too happy from the rich, aromatic drink and Laura curled up her censorious lips. Before she could reiterate her thesis on Coffee- An insidious Drug of the 21^st Century, Joe’s voice saved him from her nagging clutches.

"Frank… how’s what we discussed last night about my essay assignment?" Joe asked him, lying through his teeth. Laura diverted back her attention towards Joe and Joe’s smile was a little less than just humoring.

"I’ve got a big assignment and I’m seeking Frank’s help mom."

"I hope that’s the truth…" Laura dragged the last word, not convinced. Her radar was almost as perceptive as Joe’s gut feelings which had helped them cracked many cases in the past when Frank’s logic failed him.

Which was pretty rare.

Fenton did not even look up from his newspaper and Frank, sitting opposite him, could not see his father’s expression. Maggie, sensing nothing wrong or simply too preoccupied with her music, had closed her eyes and was now swaying her upper body vaguely to some tune that was serenading only her as her hands began waving around like a conductor’s.

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The Hardy Family.

Suppressing a giggle from his sudden mental ditty, Frank tried to answer Joe with a straight face, feeling a little irreverent. "Come up with me and we’ll talk. Are you done?"

"Yup." Joe nodded his head vigorously and winced.

So, the headache’s real.

"Mom, Dad, Maggie, we’re done…" Frank informed them, masking the sudden burst of hilarity as a polite smile, as he stood up from his chair, the cup of coffee in his hand. Joe, in the meantime, had already walked over to the stairs purposely, stopping only to wait for Frank while tapping his feet.

A short while later, the two brothers went inside Frank’s room and Frank shut the door behind him while Joe sat down on his bed, rubbing his temples. Worried, the amusing image of his family at breakfast dissolved in his mind, Frank took a seat next to Joe and massaged the top of Joe’s head, feeling unfamiliar icky greasiness but decided to think no more of it. "It’s very painful, huh?"

"I don’t know… but I’m always getting headaches… maybe I didn’t sleep enough last night, too…" Joe dismissed his ailment and nodded towards the phone. "So, what did Dunks tell you last night?"

"To cut a long story short, he didn’t tell me anything useful though he did make me reexamine my deductions again, which is what I did until 2 a.m. And I must admit, I may be wrong, though, even that is not a certainty." Frank shrugged miserably, not liking the lack of clues for him to play around with until he could link them somehow into some coherent inferences and most of the time, the one that was the truth or closest to the truth would jump out at him and grab him. He then stood up from his bed and went to his table to retrieve a piece of writing paper with his almost illegible script. Joe waited in atypical quietness until Frank passed his somnolent brother the paper and sat down on the bed again.

"Everything that happened to me is too mild to be considered worthy of Bret’s copycat, if he or she is really following Bret to the T, right? I just knew it. Cat-pins as souvenirs? Bret takes things like the victim’s fingers, scalp, nose… something that actually belonged to the victim’s body and ingested them when he could. And as for mode of transportation, his kind of destruction would actually cause a deadly accident like draining the car’s brake fluid besides the usual vandalism of course. And the graffiti is a little too mundane for the likes of him. If he has a copycat, the copycat will definitely want to not only emulate Bret but also to surpass him." Joe summarized what Frank had written and folded the scribbling up before resting it on his lap as he stared into mid-air.

Frank rubbed his solar plexus, as if the little action could help him focus and somehow, let the answer just flow into him.

"Frank, can you remember who was at the party and is still in Bayport?" Joe asked out of the blue and Frank’s heart did a little jump.

"Wait… Joe, you don’t think…"

Joe tilted his head to one side and smiled bitterly. "Chet, Tony, Phil, Callie, you, me and that guy."

"Joe, Biff was in Chet’s house the entire time…" Frank tried to reason but he noticed that Joe was not even listening. If Joe wanted to suspect Brian, then Frank could have easily thrown Phil into the picture with his hints about liking Vanessa as well as his suspicious behavior in Andrea’s home. Even his eagerness, more so than Chet or Tony’s, could be seen as a way to divert attention away himself.

Vanessa belonged to Joe. She told Biff she could not accept him because she loved Joe. Biff was jealous and somehow, maybe his envy and anger induced a murderous rage in him.

Biff was the one who informed everyone about Joe and Vanessa’s disappearance from the party. I don’t believe I had seen him around all the time, I just… I just assumed...

Crimes of passion. They are pretty common.

Oh God… oh God…

Joe gazed into Frank’s eyes with his seemingly lackluster ones. Nonetheless, Frank could see hot, blue flames slowly being stoked behind the dulled irises.

"Think about it, Frank. He’s back when all these pranks just started to rain on me. Why would he even leave for Arizona when I’m still here? We always thought it was because he could not stand the guilt, but we never asked ourselves about the nature of the guilt."

Frank was short of breath. As terrible as the misgivings he had towards Brian Hooper for betraying Joe by sleeping with Vanessa were, especially when Vanessa was at her most vulnerable state of mind, he still could not believe that Brian was capable of murder. Brian was a typical gentle giant and he had been their childhood friend. The five of them grew up together- him, Joe, Tony, Chet and Brian, with Phil joining the gang at an older age.

However, looking at Joe’s blank stare, he knew Joe had no trouble accepting his own deductions.

"Frank, what do we do now?"

He’s asking me what to do. What do I do? Go up to Brian and ask him if he killed Vanessa?

Oh, like, "Hey Brian! I know we’re long time friends and all but then, I need to ask you… are you the murderer? Don’t be shy, it’s ok. You can tell me."

"I don’t know… Joe… we aren’t even sure…" Frank’s slack-jawed reply sounded empty even to himself. In the past, he could always come up with fantastic plans to lure the culprits to confess or slip up. And whenever one of his friends was suspected of a crime, there was almost no doubt to their innocence because he knew who they were and he knew them to be some of the simplest and most upright people that he ever came across. Of course friendship played up the biases, but usually, his friends would turn out to be innocent of whatever they were accused of, except for childish pranks they heaped upon one another all the time.

Childish pranks. Graffiti. Slashed tires. Done in rage. Wrath of a jealous competitor?

"No, Frank. It’s you who’s not sure." Joe finished and stood up, about to leave. Frank snapped out of his dumb spell and grabbed Joe’s hand.

"Don’t do silly things, Joe. You don’t want to end up inside again. If it’s Biff, we’ll have to source out the truth in other ways. Don’t do anything without me accompanying you and without consulting with me first, you understand?"

Not a good idea to tell him about Phil.

Joe nodded and this time, his smile was normal; assuring. "You don’t have to worry about me, Frank. I know what I’m doing. I won’t hurt him. My experiences made me wiser and I’m not about to stoop to his level… if it’s him." Joe added in the last line almost as an afterthought for Frank’s benefit. Frank’s grip on his brother waned in strength and a second later, his hand drop numbly down on his lap. Joe eyed him with some concern but the two brothers were interrupted abruptly.

 

"Joe! Your call!" Maggie’s shrill voice permeated into Frank’s room and her knockings on his door akin to that of a machine gun rattling away, slicing through the tension and tearing it down for a while. Joe raised a curious brow towards the door and strolled over to open it.

Frank was still speechless. His heart, heavy with their latest analysis that sounded like it actually had a grain of truth inside, was almost reluctant to beat.

A grain of truth. Which grain? The motive- the crime done in a rage due to passion? The culprit- Biff? Or something else we’ve missed?

"Yes, dear sister?"

"A guy! He says it’s urgent… so I ran up the stairs in all hmm… urgency."

"Thanks, Maggie… I bet it’s the damn hall-master. I gave him our house phone number so he can call me regarding the payment instead of hounding Shane."

Biff. Phil. Good Friends. We may as well stretch it to include Tony and Chet as well. The party… what a party…

"I don’t know. I didn’t ask him for a name. But he sounded kinda sickly…"

Frank heard Joe grunting with displeasure.

Biff. Phil. No, I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this! What to do? How do I go about searching for clues to absolve them?

What if in my course of investigation, I find them guilty?

"You better go… what’s the matter with Frank? He looks kinda sick too…"

"He’s ok… I guess. Just in shock."

The chattering of his siblings stopped and Frank heard two sets of footfalls, one set growing fainter and the other one louder. A slender hand gestured sketchily in front of his eyes and he broke away from those disturbing hypotheses to greet his sister who had sat down beside him on his bed.

"Hey… where’s Joe?"

"You ok? He went down to take a call. Are you all right?" Maggie felt his forehead and Frank patted her left hand reassuringly.

"I’m ok. Just a little… never mind."

"Out of sorts?"

Frank pondered for a moment and decided that he would just go along with his inquisitive sister to attain quietness and peace faster. "Yah, out of sorts. My thesis… you know. And with Joe’s assignment… I’m a little swarmed…" He let on as much truth as he could and saw Maggie smiling with some understanding. His little sister, the only one around who could still give a heartfelt, genuine smile.

"Me, too. With Craig and the concert. I’ve given Mina one ticket too… we can sit her next to Joe, don’t you think?"

"Thinking of switching careers to become a matchmaker? I think we should let the two of them work it out themselves." He mussed up her blond curls and let out a light laugh as she slapped his hand sharply away and shifted out of his reach by standing up abruptly.

"I’d love to stay and chat but I need to practice. But if you really have something to confide, feel free to knock on my door, ok?" Maggie placed her hands on his shoulders and bore her dark brown eyes into his which were only a shade more enigmatic. Frank pinched her nose briefly.

"Ah! Not only a matchmaker but a psychiatrist as well… I see you have many talents."

Maggie wrinkled her nose at him and rubbed at it a little before her face fell to capture the apprehension in her heart.

"I better find something I can do besides music. If my own family members don’t show interest in what I do, I don’t think the general public will… you know…. I mean, their claps won’t mean as much as all of yours." She spoke dejectedly, wearing her emotions literally on her sleeves- wiping her eyes with them.

"Maggie… we’ll be there. No matter how busy we are, we’ll be there… don’t worry your pretty head over it, all right?" Frank rose and gave his sister a comforting hug- rocking her sideways affectionately. He felt her nodding and then, after extricating herself, she forced a brave smile on her face.

"I have faith that all of you will be there. Don’t let me down. I may just run away to join the circus."

"Then it’ll be nothing but peace and quiet." Frank teased her and she scowled before wrinkling her nose again at him and then left him to his own thoughts.

His own thoughts and suspicions made him feel like a traitor for some reason. More specifically, a reason called loyalty. It caused him to ask himself serious questions about perceptiveness and impartiality as an investigator. The possibility of his friends being culprits of any crime was just as high as a stranger on a street. His friends were not saints and though he liked to think that he knew them very well, the veracity of the matter was that he had barely penetrated the mask they put on for the world to see and love- that he really knew very little about them. It took more than a lifetime to truly know oneself; it would take an eternity to understand someone else fully.

And even more, because human beings are indecisive creatures. When you think you can finally grasp some comprehension to their actions, they change.

We all change as we grow.

His phone buzzed on his table and shocked him out of the trance his introspection wove on him. Picking it up, he retrieved the short message that Joe had just sent to him.

I’ve gone back to the hall. Take care and if you still can’t sleep, take a valium or something. You’re turning into a zombie.

With a short, bitter laugh, Frank erased the message and sat back down on his bed before he let himself fall backwards, closed his eyes and allowed sleep to conquer him on the lazy Sunday morning.

I can always go for the evening service. And after that, I need to talk to Callie. Callie…

A smile formed on his lips. Somehow, just thinking about her eased his troubled heart and he slept like a baby for the first time in ages, without any disruption, until late in the afternoon when the sun pierce through his window and warmed him up for the coming evening chill.