Murder of The Gambler

The **Murder of The Gambler** is a crime that took place outside Steve Sharpe's trailer in Cornhusker Estate Trailer Park in Blue Valley, NE. During the event, Shiro Ito murdered Steve as he believed the hacker had uncovered Jordan Mahkent's plans.

## Day of The Murder

Steven Sharpe strolled into Blue Valley one day in September, looking for a second chance at a fresh start. He came to make amends to the people he had hurt through his work with the Injustice Society of America. He stopped at the Whitmore-Dugan House first, to assure Pat and Courtney of his good intentions. He told them he didn't want any trouble. He wanted to change and be better for his daughter Becky, who he just learned existed. While Pat is skeptical of Gambler's story, Courtney believed that he wanted to a better father.

From there, Steve headed to Richie Rock's Diner where he sat with Richard Swift, who wasn't pleased to see his old comrade. He scoffed off Steve's notion of having a daughter, as he believed it to be a lie. He warned him to get out of town before Courtney and the others find out whatever it is he's hiding. Or worse, that Richard does. When Steve pushed that he wasn't hiding an evil plan, Richard showed his black eyes, which prompted Steve to leave in a hurry.

Steven headed to Cornhusker Estate Trailer Park, and walked into his brand new trailer. He set his briefcase down on the table, unlocked it, and took out a photo of Becky. He smiled proudly at the photo, then proceeded to unpack the rest of his belongings, while dancing to his music. Outside, Larry Crock glared at the trailer from his car, his hands gripping the wheel. Inside, Steven began his records database search for Rebecca Sharpe. Outside, Larry picked up the metal baseball bat from the passenger seat - it's payback time. He raised the bat but then groaned, forcing himself to put it down. Inside, Steven picks up his gun from his luggage, just as Larry sped away from the trailer park, unseen. Steven came out to investigate the noise, then returned to his trailer as a suited figure watched him from afar. Steve looked at his gun then the picture of Becky and back again. He dropped the gun into the trash can. His trailer door opens and Richard Swift entered. He's willing to let the past go. To someone like him, the past is everything. Sharpe would be eternally grateful if they could reset the backgammon board. Richard nodded - this is a time of new beginnings for everyone.

Across town, the JSA responded to an attempted robbery of a truck. When they showed up, Dr. Mid-Nite identified them as members of the No Limit Gang, who were once associated with The Gambler. The JSA watched in surprise as Artemis Crock took out the gang members as part of her unofficial and self-declared team tryout. The JSA returned to their base of operations where a disagreement prompted Shiv to leave for a while.

Meanwhile, Steve's computer dinged with a pop-up that an unidentified feed was found. There are nine security camera feeds displayed on his screen, none of which he knew about - the BVHS cafeteria, Chapel Residence, Whitmore-Dugan House, Barbara's office at The American Dream, the meeting room of The American Dream, Main Street, exterior of Richie Rock's Diner, exterior of The Pit Stop, and the Sharpe trailer. He shakily stood and retrieved his pistol from the trash. He went outside to investigate, and found the camera in a tree. He tried to dislodge it when a loud sound broke out. The security camera cut out. The JSA arrived to interrogate Steve about the No Limit Gang being in Blue Valley. They heard a gunshot and rushed to the scene, where they found Shiv crouched beside Steve's dead body, his smoking gun in her hand. She looked to Courtney and insisted that she didn't do it. Shiv professed her innocence instantly. She came there to see if The Gambler had any connection to the lame robbery earlier. She saw the carnage, picked up the gun, and it went off. Shiv dropped the gun, so the JSA slowly walked closer to the body. Stargirl knelt beside him and found the letter addressed to Becky in his jacket packet. She held it close to herself.

## Investigation

### Initial Suspects

The Justice Society of America began investigating Sharpe's murder at the persistence of Courtney, who believes he was trying to change for his daughter. Rick and Yolanda are reluctant to investigate as Sharpe wasn't a good person, but she convinces them to help her. Everyone thinks Cindy is the prime suspect as she was found at the crime scene with the murder weapon. Beth relayed that the goggles couldn't find a bullet hole anywhere. Rick still didn't think that ruled out Cindy. Sylvester surmised that whoever twisted that trailer into a pretzel had to be as strong as Solomon Grundy. Courtney and Pat believe that whoever has Gambler's missing laptop is the killer. Sylvester added it wasn't until The Gambler came back to Blue Valley that he was murdered, making the former villains all suspects, including Cindy Burman.

Pat and Sylvester started their interrogations with Richard Swift, who sat in his booth at Richie Rock's Diner. He told them about his encounter with Sharpe at the diner, then relayed how he felt bad and went to his trailer to make amends. Sylvester believed that Shade went to Gambler and professed he would murder him, though Shade wanted a little more credit for subtlety. The tension rose until Sylvester grabbed Gambler by the collar until Pat pried him off. The pair left as Pat apologized to Shade.

Beth, Rick, Yolanda, and Courtney sit at their usual lunch table. Beth accesses the coroner's report, which lists the official cause of death as blunt force trauma from the tornado. Rick assures them that Grundy did not kill The Gambler, earning dubious looks from Yolanda. He checked the grave site and he's still buried. Beth believes him and refocuses on the autopsy report. Aside from the broken bones and bruisers, The Gambler also had a stab wound right to the heart. The coroner theorized it was debris thrown by a tornado.

That afternoon, Sylvester and Courtney visit Shade as he wanted to apologize for his actions earlier. Unfortunately, the conversation turned sour quickly and Sylvester ultimately shot Shade with the staff in a fit of fury. Courtney intervened as she called the staff back to her. After a moment, Richard provided them with is alibi - he taught Maria Carmen Saravia how to make tea all night at Richie's the night of the murder. He announced his plan to leave Blue Valley and not provide any further assistance to Courtney and her friends. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, as Courtney glared at Sylvester. Meanwhile, Cindy worked in the ISA headquarters underground to unlock The Gambler's missing laptop, which she stole.

### Blackmail

Beth and Rick drive down the street in his car. As they talk, her goggles flick on and make a clunking noise. He glances over to ask what it is, but she's not sure, as she's never heard the goggles make this sound before. She sees bank statements appear in the lenses. Someone is forwarding her a bunch of documents. She thinks The Gambler was blackmailing someone. He asks who sent it to her, but it doesn't say. They exchange looks of confusion. In the underground tunnels, Cindy sits in the ISA headquarters while typing on The Gambler's laptop. A pop-up tells her she successfully sent the files to Beth Chapel. She types into the computer and finds an archive of the Dragon King files, though it's locked behind a password. She enters her first guess and a cartoon figure of The Gambler pops up - he's sorry to say that's the wrong password.

Courtney, Yolanda, Beth, Rick, and Cindy sit at the JSA table to discuss what Beth found out about the documents. The deposits made to The Gambler came via wire transfer from an Irwin Hasen, which is an alias for Lawrence Crock. She concludes The Gambler had been blackmailing the Crocks before his death. Courtney instructs them not to tell Sylvester, as he'll want to rush right in. Rick thinks they should all rush in if they're guilty. Courtney laments they have to wait. Cindy asks what they're waiting for - Beth has solid evidence for murder. Courtney tells the team that just because The Gambler was blackmailing the Crocks doesn't mean they killed him. She looks over to Artemis who is sitting on a cafeteria table laughing with her friends. If they're going to take Artemis' parents away from her again, they have to be sure. The team is quiet as they agree to regroup with Pat and come up with a plan. Until then, they don't say a word to Sylvester.

When school is over, Cindy disobeys Courtney's direct order by heading to the Whitmore-Dugan House to talk with Sylvester. She tells him everything and he subsequently refuses to work with her, deciding to attack the Crock's at Bell's Market instead. Mike warns Courtney that Cindy told Sylvester and he's going to "get them", so S.T.R.I.P.E. flies off to stop the fight.

The Crock's and Whitmore-Dugan's assemble at the Whitmore-Dugan House, where Paula cracks Larry's shoulder into place. The Gambler was blackmailing them, that part is true. But they didn't kill him. They wanted to, but they stayed strong. He was blackmailing them for ISA crimes they didn't commit. Stuff other members didn't without them. They're dead now so they wouldn't have a chance in hell of proving their innocence. Pat reminds them that they're not all the innocence. Larry agrees as they're guilty of plenty of things. The admission makes the couple chuckle. Some of the crimes they even went to jail for. Truth be told, they wouldn't even be sitting there with their freedom if it weren't for a legal loophole. They couldn't risk going back to prisons, so they paid Sharpe. Courtney references the payments stopping two months ago. They admit the putz stopped blackmailing them. He didn't say why and they thought he was playing a new angle, then, he paid them back right before he died.

Courtney realizes Sharpe really was trying to be better. Paula and Larry didn't realize that until after he was killed. Larry wants to get everything on the table, admitting he did pay Steve a visit the day he was murdered. When Sharpe showed up in Blue Valley spouting off his "turning over a new life" jambalaya jive talk, Larry didn't buy any of it. He figured he came back to start blackmailing them again so he drove out to his trailer to have a little talk with him. But he left before he did something stupid. Barbara asks why they didn't tell them this before. He admits he was trying to protect them from any unnecessary heat. Paula apologizes to Barbara, as they should have been honest with her. The last time they went to prison it nearly destroyed their family, not to mention the food - so many carbs.

The next day at BVHS, Courtney tells her team the Crocks didn't kill The Gambler. They seemed pretty sincere, and the way the trailer was ripped apart isn't really their style. The can now rule out the Crocks, Grundy, and Shade. Yolanda asks about Cindy, since she did exactly what Courtney told her not to do by going straight to Sylvester. Cindy arrives just in time to hear Yolanda's remark. The Crocks looked guilty, so she wanted to take them down, and prove herself. She thought if the great Sylvester Pemberton gave her the seal of approval, they would too. Courtney stands up so she's at level with Cindy. If she does anything like that again, she's off the team.

### Attack on Starman

In a lair, TV monitors cover the walls with several different feeds. The meeting room at the American Dream, Richie Rock's, Barbara's office at The American Dream, Main Street, the BVHS cafeteria, Whitmore-Dugan residence, Cornhusker Estate, Pit Stop, the Chapel residence, and finally, one of the screens flickers to a live feed of the Sharpe trailer. Sylvester Pemberton arrives at the wreckage. Across from the wall, a black gloved hand clenches. Sylvester senses something behind him, and a giant shadow crawls up his back. The attacker snatches him from the ground and lifts him high into the air. A body falls from the sky, landing hard on the ground below. His face is bleeding and a gash on his nose leaves a trail of blood. As he lays unconscious, a roar echoes across the Estate.

## Evidence

### Actual

* Super strength needed to destroy the trailer - carried out by Shiro Ito in the body of a mutated albino gorilla.
* Multiple surveillance cameras around Blue Valley - belonged to Jordan Mahkent.

### Eliminated

* The Gambler's Gun - wasn't the murder weapon.
* Laptop - found in Cindy Burman's possession; was not of importance to the crime itself. Cindy stole it to find a cure for her transformation into a reptile.
* Single skin cell left behind at the crime scene - matches both Dragon King and Cindy Burman. Explained by Cindy as her transforming into a lizard per her father's experiments. She had visited the trailer after the incident and saw Gambler's computer, leaving behind her skin cell when she stole it.

## Perpetrators

* Jordan Mahkent/Icicle - Jordan set up the cameras that were surveilling the town. He also would have motive to kill Gambler once he discovered the cameras. He had a larger plan to accomplish, which would have been disturbed by Gambler's knowledge, since he was changing for the better. Jordan instructed Shiro Ito to kill Gambler and trash his trailer.
* Shiro Ito/Dragon King - Carried out the crime on Jordan’s orders in the body of a giant albino gorilla capable of inflicting the damage done to Gambler's trailer. He punctured a hole in Gambler's chest using his sharp canines.

## Eliminated Suspects

* Richard Swift - had an alibi of teaching Maria the art of tea brewing at Richie Rock's Diner.
* Larry Crock - held a grudge against Gambler, and went to his trailer park with the intention of getting payback. The Gambler was also blackmailing him and Paula. However, he proclaims his innocence as he wouldn't risk going back to jail over a putz like Gambler.
* Paula Brooks - held a grudge against Gambler. The Gambler was also blackmailing her and Larry for millions of dollars. However, she proclaims her innocence as she wouldn't risk going back to jail over a putz like Gambler. The messiness of the crime also doesn't match her typical MO of discretion.
* Solomon Grundy - was killed in the Battle Against Eclipso and remains buried in the woods. While he is strong enough to cause the type of damage done to the trailer and Sylvester, he lacks the mental capacity to cover up the crime.
* Mister Bones and Louise Love - while they did do their own research into the JSA after Courtney, Pat, and Jennie came to The Helix Institute For Youth Rehabilitation looking for Todd, they were not aware of the cameras in Blue Valley, and claimed that they would never invade the privacy of others' homes. They were ruled out as suspects by Courtney and Pat.
* Cindy Burman/Shiv - was found at the scene of the crime holding Gambler's pistol. While he wasn't shot, he was stabbed through the heart, which is Cindy's M.O. She also stole The Gambler's laptop from the crime scene, but explained it was only to find a cure for her reptilian transformation. After finding Gambler dead, she stole his laptop and unknowingly left behind a single skin cell that became evidence. Ultimately, Cindy was caught in a case of wrong-place-wrong-time, and was not responsible for Gambler's death.
* No Limit Gang - were in town the night of the murder and were former associates of The Gambler. They were never investigated further and believed to not committed the crime against their cohort.
* Ultra-Humanite - was not in his notorious albino gorilla form at the time of the murder, as he was in the body of Sylvester Pemberton. This, by default, alibis him out of committing the crime. He was involved in the surveillance cameras and overall scheme.

## Notes and Trivia

* This is the first murder that the JSA has to solve. Previously, they knew the identity of murderers, including that Icicle killed Joey and Brainwave killed Henry.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "*Chapter One: The Murder*"
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "*Chapter Two: The Suspects*"
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "*Chapter Three: The Blackmail*"