Author's webpage: http://gURLpages.com/nolabel/drum.queen/index.html

Author's disclaimer: All characters except for Jessie Henderson belong to Alliance Communications.

        "That's it, Fraser! You need another human friend!"
        Constable Benton Fraser looked up from his wolf-dog to his partner.
"Why do you say that, Ray?"     "You just told Diefenbaker that you would

order him a sausage pizza if he helped us find some clues," explained Ray Vecchio. "Dogs do not eat pizza!" "Diefenbaker does."

Ray shook his head. "Even if you really could get him some pizza, he wouldn't look for anything. He never listens to you, remember? Now let's get back to the case." He gazed around the apartment of the now late Edward Babbish. His gaze fell upon a picture frame on the floor, the glass shattered. He knelt down and carefully picked it up. It was a picture of Babbish and a woman at the beach, and it had been shot. "Fraser, look at this."

        "Just a moment, Ray." Fraser was crouched down by the doorway. He spotted
some mud, picked up a piece, and tasted it.     "WOULD YOU STOP DOIN' THAT?"

yelled Ray. "That is the most disgusting thing in the whole world!" Fraser ignored him. "It seems to be very rich soil. It must be from a

garden of some sort. Now, what did you want me to see?"         "Look at this
picture," Ray answered. "It's of Babbish and some chick."       "Do you think

she killed him?"

        "She's seems like someone we should question."
        Just then, Jack Huey walked out of the apartment bathroom. "The bathroom

mirror's been shot, but that's all I could find. Why don't you guys go on home? It's getting late; Dewey and I'll take care of it." "Thanks Huey." Ray looked around. "Fraser, have you seen Dewey?" Fraser frowned. "That's funny, he was here a minute ago."

        Suddenly, a chuckle was heared, and Tom Dewey walked in with a slender
blonde woman. "Don't worry, Miss Jackson, we'll find the killer."       The

woman smiled. "Oh, I do hope you find him. Mr. Babbish was such a good man. And please, call me Becky." She turned and walked out of the room. Dewey put his hands in the air and smiled. "I'm good. I am so good!" "Tom, who was that?" Fraser asked.

"Just the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. I was asking the neighbors if they had seen anything, and low and behold, she lives a few doors down." "And the rest of the neighbors?" asked Huey.

        "Oh, they weren't very good looking."
        "No, did they see anything?"
        "Most of them were out during the shooting. There were a couple in,

but they didn't see anything." "Great, just great,' said Huey sarcasticly. "Well, Ray, Fraser, you two can go on. Dewey and I'll take it from here." In Ray's car, the discussion of Fraser's need for another human companion arose. "Why don't you get a girlfriend?" Ray asked. "Oh, Ray, I'd be too imbarressed."

        "Okay, what about bein' a mentor?"
        "A mentor?"
        "Yeah," Ray replied. "I saw a flyer on the bulliten board at the station.

It's from the Marx Orphanage, and they want mentors for their kids. You

should do that."        Fraser shrugged. "It sounds like a good idea."
        "Trust me, for you, it is."

The next day, Fraser walked down the hallway toward the office at the Marx orphanage. The hallway was blocked by a group of kids huddled together on the floor. One of the kids, a girl of about five feet with blondie-brown hair, stood up. "Okay," she said, "the moment you've all been waiting for. The world famous Henderson Eyedrop!" "She held an orange marble up between her olive-green eyes and leaned slightly forward. She dropped the marble, which knocked a smaller one out of the chalk circle on the

floor. Cheers came from the other children.     "Um, excuse me."
        The group turned and looked at Fraser. "Could I possibly get through

here?" he asked. The crowd parted, and he stepped through. "Thank you kindly." In the office, Fraser talked with Andrea Torelini, the principal of the orphanage. "We've had kids sign up for mentors, but we haven't had enough people sign up for mentorship," she explained. "I'm really

greatful that you came, Constable."     "Oh, it's really no trouble at all."
        Ms. Torelini handed him a piece of paper. "These are the mentor rules.

Kids are mentored from ten a.m. to seven p.m. every Saturday." She then got on the p.a. system and said, "Could Jessie Henderson pleae come to the office?" After a moment, the girl with the blondie-brown hair and olive eyes walked in. "Okay, what did I do know?" "Jessie, this is your new mentor," Ms. Torelini replied. "Constable Benton Fraser." "Hey, your the guy from the hall!" Jessie noticed. Then she frowned. "Wait a sec, you're a mountie. What's a mountie doing in Chicago?" "Well," Fraser began, "I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father. And for reasons that don't need explaining at this juncture, I've remained, attached as leason to the Canadian Counsolate." "M'kay," Jessie nodded.

"Well, since today is Saturday and it's 10:30, I guess you could start the whole mentor thing now." Ms. Torelini suggested. "Sounds good to me." Jessie began walking toward the door. "Come on, Mr. Fraser." "Why don't you just call me Benton?"

        "Tell you what," Jessie desided, "I like nicknames. I'll call you Benny."
The two left the office. "So, where do you want to go?"         "Well, I have
to stop off at the police station." Fraser hailed a cab.        "You work at

the police station?"

"Well, no, but I have a friend that does." The two got into the cab and headed for the station.

        "Her name is Alicia Verecusa," Francesca said of the woman in the picture.
"Her address is 125 East Second Street."        "Thank you kindly, Francesca,"
Fraser said, taking the printout.       "Anytime, Frase." 
        "So let me get this straight," said Jessie. "You're on the trail of
a killer?"      "Yeah, whatever," Ray replied, heading for his desk.
        "Ths is so cool!" she smiled. "Can I help? Please, please, please?"
"No, you cannot help," Ray answered. "You're just a little kid."        "I'm

thirteen years old!"

        Ray sat down at his desk. "You still qualify as a little kid."
        Francesca had followed them to Ray's desk. "So, what are you going to
do to this Verecusa lady anyway? Bake her?"     "Bake? Frannie, don't you
mean fry?" Ray asked in a puzzled voice.        "Okay, fry. Bake. Toast. Whatever."

Then she turned to Jessie. "You know, you could help by being the civilian

aid's assistant."       "What would I have to do?"
        "I'll let you know when the time comes. Just follow me." The two walked
back to her computer desk.      "Okay, Fraser," said Ray, "we're gonna go
see Verecusa. I'll do the talkin'."     "Ray, when you do the talking, it

always involves kicking someone in the head." "Relax, Fraser, I don't kick women in the head."

        "Benny!"
        Fraser turned around and saw Jessie sitting on Francesca's desk, her

legs curled up, looking at Diefenbaker. "You dog is trying to eat me!" "Well, actually," he said, "he's half wolf. And where he came from there were very few people with blonde hair. He's just trying to be friendly." "Where I came from," Jessie replyed, "friendly dogs didn't try to eat you." "Diefenbaker," Fraser demanded, "be nice."

Diefenbaker read his lips, understood, and backed away.

"Why does she have to come?" asked Ray of the girl in the backseat. "Because I'm her mentor, Ray," Fraser answered.

"I've always wanted to be a detective," Jessie remenisced. "I read all the Nancy Drew books in the library. I even tried to start a detective club--but nobody joined." "Okay, here's the house," Ray announced. He turned around and pointed at Jessie. "You, stay in the car." "You can't make me."

        "Ray." Fraser tapped on his partner's arm.
        "You will stay in the car if I have to tie you down." Ray ignored him.

"Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray. RAY!"

        "What?"
        Fraser pointed at the walkway to Verecusa's house. Along it there was

a flowerbed. He stepped out of the car, bent over to pick up some soil, and put it in his mouth. "What in the name of Joe DiMaggio is he doing?" Jessie gasped.

        "Canadians have odd diets," Ray answered. 
        "It's the same soil," Fraser stated, standing upright.
        Ray got out of the car. "Fraser, how are we going to use that against

her? We can't just say, 'Oh, we found some dirt on the floor in Babbish's apartment and it's the same as the kind in your garden.' We don't even have the dirt from the apartment." "Well, Ray, before we left, I scraped it off of the floor and put it in a plastic bag. I thought it would be

useful, so I took it to the station for testing."       "You wouldn't happen
to have some handy-dandy plastic bags with you right now?"      Jessie, who

had rolled down her window, now stuck her head out through the opening. "I have one! I packed a sack lunch and I have a sandwich in the bag. "Great!" said Ray, walking to the car. "Now let me have it."

        "No."
        "What?"
        "No. Not unless you let me help."
        "I don't have time for this, Jessie. Let me have the bag."
        "Never!"

"Is this the Verecusa house?" Jessie asked when the door opened. "Yes it is," said the brunette, long-faced woman.

Jessie held out her hand. "Please to meet you ma'am. My name is Heidi Green, and I am a volunteer at Emergency Aid, a company dedicated to helping those in need. Do you mind if I come in? It's a little nippy

out here."      "Oh, come right in, it's no trouble." She moved out of the
way and let Jessie step in.     "We are taking up a donation for a family

in southern Illinois who lost most of their posessions in a tornado. You don't have to give the money now, just sign up to donate." Jessie looked around. "My, you have a lovely house, Mrs. Verecusa." Her eye caught a picture on the mantle, the same one that was in Babbish's apartment. "Is this your husband?" she asked. "He looks very charming." "Oh, that's just my fiance," Verecusa replied. She sniffed a little bit. "You've

made a good choice, ma'am. When are you getting married?"       "We--we aren't
anymore." She sniffed again. "He d-died a few days ago."        "Oh, I'm so

sorry!" Jessie gasped. "And after all the things I said, you must hate me." Verecusa took a tissue from the box on her coffee table and dried her eyes. "Oh, that's perfectly all right. You didn't know." The two sat down on the sofa. "Now, about this donation..."

        Back at the station, Fraser scribbled down every detail that Jessie
told him about Verecusa. "She was his fiance, you said?"        "Yeah. There

was a picture of the two of them at the beach on her mantle." "There was one like that at Babbish's apartment!" Ray remembered. "Anything else?" "Right after she signed up to pay twenty-five dollars, I told her that she had my sympathy. Then she said, 'You know, a lot of people called me and told me that, all of them were his neighbors.' Is that any help?" "It's all a very big help," Fraser encouraged. "Anything else?"

"She said that seven people called, but then she changed it to six. She mumbled something about Rebecca calling the day before Babbish died.

Then I said goodbye and left the house."        Fraser quickly wrote the last
bit of information in the notebook. "Thank you kindly," he said.        Just
then, Dewey walked by Ray's desk, whistling "Date with an Angel".       "What

are you so happy about?" Ray asked almost accusingly.

"Just like the song," Dewey replied, "I've got a date with an angel. Remember that girl I met at Babbish's apartment, Becky Jackson? Well, we're having lunch together today." "How sweet," Ray said sarcasticly. "Save me a doggy bag."

        Fraser frowned. "Tom, what did you say her name was?"
        "Becky Jackson," he repeted.
        "I think you might want to cancel lunch." Fraser looked back at his

notes. "Miss Verecusa got a phonecall from a woman named Rebecca the day before Babbish was killed." "Hey, you're right!" Jessie realized. "It could be the same person." "There's only one way to find out," Ray said, heading for the door.

        "Detective Ray Vecchio, Chicago P.D." Ray showed Verecusa his badge.
"Are you the former fiance of the late Edward Babbish?"         "Yes," she answered.

"Is there something wrong?"

"We would be very appriciative if you could tell us if you recieved any phonecalls or visits during the time before babbish's death," Fraser

explained.      "Who are you?" she asked.
        "Consatble Benton Fraser, RCMP."
        "He's Canadian," Ray explained.
        Verecusa showed the two into her living room. "I only got one phonecall

the day before. It was from his neighbor, Rebecca Jackson. She wanted to talked to me person to person. Then she came over to my house and explained that Eddie had been acting a little odd lately. She asked me if there was anything wrong with Eddie; I said no, everything is fine. She seemed a little surprise that we were getting married." She giggled a little bit. "As she walked down the front path she stepped in my flower bed." "Thank you, Miss Verecusa," said Fraser, shaking her hand. "You've been a great deal of help." As they left, Ray's cellphone wrang. It was Francesca. "They did the test on those two dirt samples that you brought in. They're the same, all right." "Okay, Frannie. Thanks." They got in the car and headed for Babbish's apartment building.

"This time, you stay in the car. When I get back, I wanna find you in the car. Got it?" Ray pointed a finger at Jessie, who was in the backseat. Jessie sighed. "Yeah yeah. But does Diefenbaker have to stay with me?" Dief whimpered, as if he knew he had been offended.

Fraser and Ray went up to the second floor of the apartment building and knocked on Jackson's door. She answered with a pleasent smile on her face. "Hi there! need some help?" "We just need to ask you a few questions about the late Edward Babbish," Ray explained. "Oh, don't remind me of that," she sighed, sitting down at her coffee table. "I was so upset when he died, I just couldn't stand it." Fraser's keen eye noticed a picture frame in Jackson's trash can next to the coffee table. He reached in and pulled it out. It was a picture of Babbish. "Did this fall off of your table?" he asked innocently. "Oh," Jackson sighed again, "that was out of a fit of rage. We had broken up a few days ago." "Ah," Fraser nodded. "Was it because you found out that he was already engaged?" Jackson looked up with a start. "Wha..."

"I already noticed the dirt on the bottom of your shoe from when you stepped in Miss Verecusa's garden. Now, what I think happened," he explained, "is that you found out one way or another that he was already engaged while you two were dating. You went over to talk to Miss Verecusa and find out if this was true. In a fit of jealousy, you came back to the apartment building and shot Babbish. Am I right?" Through all this, Jackson had little by little become tense. Now she jumped up and ran to the back window. Quickly she jumped onto the fire escape. Fraser and Ray followed her, but she had already gotten to her car, which had been parked by the escape. She pulled her keys out of her pocket and fumbled for the right one. Suddenly, Jessie apeared at the window. Pulling her orange marble out of her pocket, she held it up between her eyes and whispered, "The Henderson Eyedrop." Just as Jackson was about to unlock the car door, Jessie let go of the marble, and it knocked the keys out of her hand. Ray ran up to Jackson and slapped handcuffs over her wrists. "You have the right to remain silent..."

"I hope you leared something from this," Jessie said to Ray as he and Fraser dropped her off at the Marx Orphanage. "Yeah, I know. I'll never leave you in the car again."

Jessie smiled and waved over her shoulder as she walked up to the door. "See you Benny. See you Ray." "Fraser, that girl scares me," Ray said to his partner.

        "Why is that, Ray?"
        "She's only thirteen, and she was a valuable resourse in catching a
criminal."      "Well," said Fraser, looking into the backseat, "I think
Diefenbaker liked her."         Dief smiled.