100 Theme Challenge #54

Sequel of #50, #51 and #52.

54. Lock and Key

Part IV

Sharon's interrogation didn't give him any new clue except for McDoyle, but the latter had an alibi despite not remembering much of his night. It seemed it wouldn't be easy to solve this case, but Jack was all for it. There was nothing interesting in an easy prey. His partner had been working on finding where the cards had come from. There weren't many stores selling them, and Gary and him visiting all of them. So far, none had been the good one.

The last place they visited was tiny, squeezed between two tall buildings. It was a real pawn shop though, items locked behind glasses, and the owner staying vigilant as he watched them enter.

"Hello, gentlemen. What can I do for you?"

They flashed him their FBI plate.

"I'm Jack Byrne, and this is Gary Ramsey. We'd like to know if you ever sold this." He showed him the card, protected by a plastic bad. The owner frowned as he looked at it. "I do recognize it. That crooked corner here, exactly the same that one I sold a few weeks ago."

"Do you keep a registry book for your transactions that we could look up for the seller's name?"

"Sure do. I'll be right back."

He left them alone in the front shop, and they looked around. There sure were a lot of collection objects, as useless as they come. Jack wondered for a moment what was the people's motive for buying these decorative and totally unpractical things. Of course, he himself had a collection, but guns at least had their many uses.

"Here it is. The person who bought the card is a man named Paul Clark."

They thanked him and quickly left to look for the man in their archives. At the office, people were running left and right because of a hostage-taking by some crazy couple, but Jack and Gary were dispensed of doing anything because they already were on another case. It probably would end up with one or two hostages being killed and the couple on the run again, like they had been for the last few months. Jack dismissed the whole thing out of his mind to focus on his task at hand: finding that Paul Clark's address. Gary found it quickly.

"I thought it couldn't be this easy, so I looked in the death records, and here it is." He showed him the paper: Paul Clark had been dead for over two years now. The case fell in their hands and not the police's because of the death's causes, but had been closed it with a "Suicide" stamp. Paul Clark had killed himself by jumping from his apartment's window on the eleventh floor.

"This is getting a bitch," Gary frowned.

"The killer was wise enough not to leave his real name, but we'll find another way."

"Suit yourself to scrape your brains over this one for tonight. I promised Martha I'd go to the Art Institute with her and the kid. There's an exhibit of Japanese prints, and she's been bugging me to go see it with her."

"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow."

Once alone, Jack pinned the death record on the wall.

(What is 100TC?)