Problems Up High

We'll need another election soon...

**Problems Up High** is the 14th case in The Origins and the 4th case to occur in the Pacific Region.

## Plot

After the team's encounter with Fabian Marc-Holmann back in Vancouver, the team decides to go to Salt Lake City, Utah after hearing about a recent murder that occurred. Before Ursula Gemini and the player leave to go to the murder scene, Aaron Hall, the team’s profiler, tells the duo that he recommends seeing his wife, the mayor of Salt Lake City, Fiona Hall. The trio go to see Mayor Hall, but instead, they find her dead and spy Amanda Middleman biting her nails, sitting on the mayor’s table, sweating. We bring Amanda out of the room and Aaron starts to cry at the sight of seeing his wife with an arrow in her head. He collapses to the floor, staining his pants with the puddles of tears and his wife’s blood around him. Ursula decides to call Jade Thunderwall, the team’s beat cop, to take Aaron back to the HQ. While waiting for Jade, the duo decides to interrogate Amanda, who said that she lost her parents in a fire and wanted to accompany Aaron. We agreed, but with the supervision of Matt Azarova, the team's weapons expert. When Jade comes to pick up Aaron, Ursula and the player realize that the killer must've entered and left the mayor's office from the hallway of rooms outside the scene. After investigating the hallway, the duo found a broken watch, which we sent to Imogen Caulfield, the team's tech expert. After analyzing the watch, Imogen found some black hairs on it. After analyzing the black hairs, Imogen realized the hairs belonged to Fabian Marc-Holmann. We call Fabian to the station and he tells us that he was supposed to interview the mayor about higher crime rates in her city. When he heard about the recent murder (without knowing she was the victim), he thought it would be a good thing to talk with the mayor about in their interview. The interview was supposed to take place in the mayor's office, which is when Fabian realized his watch was loose. When he saw the mayor's dead body, he freaked out and ran away. After he got outside of the building, Fabian realized that his watch had fallen off, but didn't want to go back into the crime scene in fear of tampering with evidence of the murder. The team decided to keep Fabian in their custody for the time being. Also in the hallway was a security cap. After analyzing the cap, the team's lab chief, Sandra Davis, told the duo that the DNA on the cap matched a certain Kaleem Clarke. After analyzing the sample, Sandra told Hunter Hondo, the team's informant, to go around the city, find Kaleem, and bring him to the station for interrogation. After Kaleem was brought to the station, he told the team that he is the mayor's security guard. After he caught wind of an intruder sneaking into the building, he rushed to the mayor's office to see if she was alright. Instead, he found her dead and Amanda sitting at the table crying anxiously. After getting back to the base, the duo go to Maria Caulfield, the team's coroner, for an autopsy description. Maria said that she knew the killer touched the arrow, as she found traces of a food and a drink on the arrow. The food was that of a spicy pepper's and the drink was a certain orange cocktail. Since nothing was in the mayors' stomach, both had to have come from the killer. After Maria's report, Ursula and the player go over what they have so far in the case. They reviewed Amanda and her story about her husbands' death, Fabian and his panic attack, and Kaleem's attempt to save the mayor. In the middle of discussing, Annie Legend, the team's historian, Matt, and Amanda rush to tell the duo that Aaron ran away from the base.

Annie said she found a faded letter on the seat Aaron was crying on before he left. After uncovering the letter, we realized it said "Meet me at the park waterfall. I know that's where you two first met. -Lily." Ursula and the player immediately suspect that this "Lily" could potentially be dangerous and wanted to harm Aaron. Ursula and the player rush to the park to retrieve Aaron, and they find him and a much younger girl sitting on a bench, looking down into the depth of the river. We ask the girl who she is, and she introduces herself as Lily Hall, Aaron's daughter. We talk to Lily about trying to get Aaron out of the office, and she said after hearing about her mother's death, she wanted to spend some quality time with her father. Ursula and the player laughed in relief, as they were so scared that Lily was a potential threat to Aaron. The duo later investigated the park waterfall, and they found a random dog collar. Ursula suspected that it was suspicious and sent it to Sandra. Sandra replied by saying that the dog collar had pepper powder and orange cocktail splats, the same type on the arrow. Sandra then pointed out that only dog owners would have a collar. Hence, the killer owns a dog. Ursula and the player also found a bunch of ripped papers near the water at the park. After piecing them all together, we realize that the papers belong to engineer Stephen Carr. When we ask Stephen about his broken papers, he said that there was a technical problem in the city and she needed a technical engineer on the job, and Stephen is the best one in the city. He ripped his papers because he's been coming up with a potential solution for days but he just realized that it didn't work. We later go back to the scene of the crime, where we find a loose dog. We identify the owner of the dog to be none other than Kaleem. When we ask Kaleem about his dog in the crime scene, he says that he lives near the mayor's house and he often walks his dog into her office, as he likes to run around there. When Kaleem and his dog heard a scream from the mayors' office, Kaleem and his dog ran to see what happened. This is when his dog's collar broke for running too fast and the dog ran into one of the other rooms. After the murder, Kaleem has been looking for the dog ever since. He thanked us for finding him and headed back home. Also in the scene, we find footprints leading inside the building towards the mayors' desk. After sending the shoe size to Imogen for further analysis, she said they match leather shoes. We immediately think of one suspect who always wears leather shoes: Fabian. When we ask Fabian about his footprints heading towards the mayor's desk, he said that he believed that the mayor had some secret information on the organization the team has been fighting, JUSTICE. They believe that all criminals should be dead and we've already exposed five members. Fabian said this could be why she was killed. After their talk with Fabian, the duo reviewed what they had so far. They mentioned that they met Aaron's daughter, Lily, and Stephen Carr, an engineer. Ursula also mentioned to the player that Fabian went through the mayor's belongings and how Kaleem's dog went crazy. As soon as we've finished our review, Stephen comes into the police station and tells us that there's an emergency going on.

As soon as we've finished our evaluation of the case so far, Stephen Carr comes running into the police station, saying that there's an emergency, and that most of the city is in a blackout at the moment. Stephen asked for his papers back, as he might find a way to solve the problem. We give Stephen his papers back and an hour later he turns the electricity back on. We later go back to the waterfall park, and we find an older-looking paper saying "The job is done. -Michael." Since Aaron is in no mood to analyze the handwriting, we send it to the next best person at it we know of, the team's judge, Alexander Virgo. He tells us that the handwriting matches a death threat from one of his latest cases. He mentioned that in this case, one Michael Fearwille killed Micael Aston. Michael said he killed Micael because he was paid to do it, but always refused to say who paid him. Ursula asked Virgo for more information on Micael Aston, and Virgo said he apparently was a terrorist member who killed one Aaron Maximiliam. This is when the duo realized that Amanda must've been the one to pay Michael Fearwille to kill Micael Aston, since Micael Aston killed her husband. When we ask Amanda, she says that she paid Michael to kill Micael not only because he killed her husband, but because he was a terrorist member and she wanted to put a stop to it. She said that she confessed secretly to a judge and that she was pardoned. We put Amanda in the team's custody for the time being. On the scene, we also found a note that said "I'm done, mayor!" As Virgo was busy for the time being and since Aaron was spending time with his daughter, the page was given to Sandra, to see if she could try to get any DNA from it. Fortunately, she did. The DNA was from Stephen. We asked Stephen about his note and Stephen told the team that he's gotten tired of always fixing the city's electrical problems, as he barely even got any time to sleep. Stephen decided to take a break, which outraged the mayor. We later decide to check up on Aaron and Lily. We see that Aaron has brought back a plate of spicy potatoes and an orange cocktail for Lily to eat and drink. They're both upset and saddened by their mothers' death and they want justice for her. Aaron says that they should recheck the hallway of rooms again, so that's exactly what the duo sets off to do. They find two clues, both were sent to Sandra. She then tells the team that based off of those two clues, the killer must wear blue and be male. Ursula and the player both decide they now have all the evidence needed to arrest the killer, they just hope that they make the right decision.

## Killer And Motives

The killer turned out to be Stephen.

Upon admitting to the murder, Stephen admits to being a JUSTICE member who was sent to kill the mayor, as she was a leading person in the fights and protests against them. Judge Virgo sentences Stephen to life in prison.

## Additional Investigation

After arresting Stephen, we tend to interrogate him, but the only thing we find after going inside the interrogation room, is a tarot card, "The Fool.” With Stephen now gone, we can't be safe from JUSTICE attacking us, but since we don't know their plans, we don’t know where they will attack next. Luckily, Aaron and Lily decided to search Mayor Hall’s room, and they found a file with “JUSTICE” on it. After sitting through it, Aaron tells the team that the Mayor found out that one of JUSICE’s main headquarters is in Las Vegas, Nevada. She also found the coordinates for it. We ask Stephen about this through a payphone, and he tells us he’s not going to say anything, rather than that’s the reason JUSTICE sent him. The team's chief Jessica Charles, enters the room, and says that the president of the U.S.A. wants to talk with us. When we speak with President Remington Dunn, he tells us that the CIA has been trying to take down JUSTICE and The Russians for a while, and that they haven't been able to do it yet. Remington tells the team that he wants to ally with them in this fight against both organizations. The team agrees and we decide to head to the coordinates in Mayor Hall’s folder next.

## Suspects

Amanda Middleman (Traits: 1, 2, 3)Fabian Marc-Holmann (Traits: 1, 2, 3, 5)Kaleem Clarke (Traits: 3, 4, 5)Lily Hall (Traits: 1, 2, 4)Stephen Carr (Traits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)