"Was your friend able to rig it?"

"Of course. I told you, Randy's one of the best. You just got to learn to trust me, man."

"You, I trust. I'm just not sure that I can trust a student of Computer Engineering."

"Oh, you can trust Ran. When I told him what the plan was, showed him this little jewel, he thought it was a great idea."

"Riiiiight."

"So? We got time to stop by the loft and eat before we do the dirty deed?"

"Yeah. Besides, the later it is when we do this, the better."

"Sneaky. I like it."

With all the skills and training at his disposal, the taller of the two men currently sneaking around the Central Precinct of the Cascade Police Department gingerly made his way across the tiled floor of the Major Crimes Unit. Stopping at the door of the Unit's Commander, he looked over his shoulder at his shorter partner in crime. The partner nodded, indicated that the coast was still clear and would he *please* speed things up? The kid had more moves than a person playing charades, but he got his point across.

Pleased to find the office door unlocked, (who would break into a captain's office anyway) the tall man slipped into the room. Carefully, and as quietly as he could, the intruder made fast work of unwrapping the bundle he'd carried under his arm, placing it on the desk at just the right angle, then slipped back out.

The deed was done. Total time spent on the mission since crossing the floor of the bullpen? Five minutes, twenty-four seconds. Number of witnesses? Zero.

The two men didn't bother to wait for the elevator at the end of the hall, taking the stairs down five flights, stopping off by the records department to drop off some files they'd checked out earlier in the day. A cover mission, in case anyone was curious as to why they were in the station so late at night. Taking the elevator this time, they proceeded down to the garage, into their vehicle and left. Once the driver pulled out onto the streets, a stopwatch in the hand of the passenger 'clicked' and the mission was considered complete.

Whether or not it was successful? That would be determined in about ten hours.

'Damn, I hate Mondays. And this really hasn't started out to be my special day either.'

The dark thoughts running through the tall African American's head accompanied him all the way from his home to his place of employment. Parking his Department issued sedan in his designated spot, he made the same boring trip that he made nearly every day. First stop, Dispatch, to pick up the overnights and to grab the copies of any and all APB's and BOLO's that were still active. Second stop, Records. There he dropped off the reports that he'd taken home with him the night before to read over and sign, hopefully closing the cases, at least until the cases went to court. The third and final stop before going to his office was the Mailroom.

Sifting through the large stack of envelopes, he spotted one addressed to him with a familiar return address: Riorden Hall, Washington State University. Tucking the rest of his paperwork and mail under his arm, he flipped the bright blue envelope over and carefully ripped it open, exposing the card within.

The front of the card showed a nice scene: A lone fisherman, sitting in a small boat on placid waters, the sky painted with the bright colors that, to him, signified a sunrise. The fancy writing in the upper left hand corner of the card was a simple statement.

Happy Birthday to the Greatest Fisherman I've ever known...

A smile crossed his face, lightening the dark brown eyes behind the gold frames of his glasses and he opened the card.

Dad, Many happy times I spent with you on fishing trips, and I hope that we can have many more in the future. I'm sorry I couldn't make it back to Cascade in time to celebrate your birthday with you, but I promise to make it up to you over Spring Break. In the meantime, I got something for you, having it shipped, but it might be a little late. I just hope you like it. Daryl. PS: Tell Blair he was right, the cafeteria here in the Student Union really SUX!

Chuckling over the last statement, the man put the card back in its envelope, tucked it back into the pile of mail and stepped off the elevator onto the seventh floor. Walking into the Major Crimes Unit, he was a little surprised to see a few of the detectives already there, hard at work. Usually, unless there was a huge case working, he would beat his detectives into the station by a good fifteen minutes, or more. Acknowledging the greetings of the two men, Detectives Rafe and Brown, he walked towards his office.

With a firm grasp on the brass doorknob and a fast flick of the wrist, he stepped inside his 'home away from home' and nearly dropped everything as a voice started singing loudly.

"Take me to the river, throw me in the water...."

Slowly recovering his composure, he looked for the source of the music and found it. Propped up against his computer terminal was a plaque with what looked to be a stuffed and mounted Rainbow Trout anchored to it. And the damn fish was moving! It was looking at him, its mouth moving in time with the words, and he started to chuckle. The tail was even keeping a beat as it flapped against the hardwood it was anchored to. The song finished and the man took a step towards his desk, only to have the 'fish' break out into another song. This time it was Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" tune.

Crossing over to the desk, in a few long steps, Captain Simon Banks picked up the singing fish plaque and looked for clues as to who could've put the thing in his office. What he found instead was the 'off' switch, which he calmly moved into the 'off' position from the one that it had been set to. The music, whistling and singing stopped.

Looking through the blinds of his office windows, he spotted two more of his detectives, or rather, one detective and one police observer walking in the doors and settling over by the detective's desk. 'Not them, then. Ah, Rafe and/or Brown. They're the practical jokers of the unit.'

Stepping over to the door, he yanked it open and bellowed out into the adjoining room, "Rafe! Brown! Haul your butts in here. NOW!"

Jim Ellison, Detective, and his friend and unofficial partner, Blair Sandburg, watched as the two men the Captain had called for looked at each other, shrugged, then got up from their desks and proceeded into the office of their commander.

"Now there go two men who are wondering what in the hell they did to get yelled at," Blair observed as he dropped his backpack to the floor beside Jim's desk.

"Yea-up. Probably thinking that whatever it was, it can't be good," the detective agreed as he sat down and started to bootup the computer on his desk, intent on getting some paperwork done before the observer had to leave for classes in two hours. "You sure you can find that file I lost in the nether regions of this damn thing?"

Pulling a chair around to sit beside his friend, Blair nodded. "Sure. It was a text document right?"

"Mmm, hmm. A rough draft on my notes for the Parker case." He rolled his chair further to the side of his desk, allowing the younger man more access to the keyboard.

"Do you remember the first two or three words of the report, or did you just put the case number as a header?"

"Case number. 98-15847."

Fingers flying, the observer went to work. A few minutes after he had found the missing document, a very confused looking Brown and Rafe emerged from the Captain's Office.

"H! Rafe! What's up?" Jim called out to the dejected detectives.

"Oh, nothing much. H and I are being framed."

"What?" Blair looked up from the report that he'd found for Jim, and had automatically started editing. "What for?"

Henri Brown started to chuckle. "Actually, I wish I had thought of that little trick. I'd love to shake the hand of whomever did."

"Okaaay. Rafe? What is your partner talking about?" Jim looked to the more sensible of the two men, expecting a straight forward answer.

"Someone put one of those animated fish things on the captain's desk before he got in this morning and when he walked into his office, the thing started singing to him." Rafe started to snicker, but managed to finish the tale. "Guess it kinda surprised the hell out of him. And since H and I were here bright and early Banks figured that *we* had to be the culprits."

Jim looked up at them, eyebrow raised, and a small smile on his face. "You mean to tell me that you weren't? That I now need to be on the look out for another practical joker?"

"Seems that way to me." Rafe shrugged as he walked over to his desk.

"So you two are just going to take the 'fish rap'?" Blair started to chuckle and shake as he tried to hide his mirth.

Brown reached over and gave the observer a 'noogie,' "Oh, you are just too funny, Hairboy." Henri moved back towards his desk. "Fish rap. <snicker> That's pretty good. I'll have to remember that one."

Blair and Jim looked at each other, both giving way to the laughter that accumulated in their throats. After calming down enough to speak coherently, the younger of the two men whispered, sentinel-soft, "Jim? Should we tell them?"

The detective shook his head. "Let them figure it out for themselves." With little effort on his part, Jim focused his hearing on what was going on in the captain's office. The uncharacteristic *chortling* issuing forth from the man seated in the office made him just curious enough to try to see what had Simon Banks nearly rolling out of his chair.

After listening to the two practical jokers protest their innocence, Simon had dismissed them and called up his e-mail program. Seeing several entries from other division commanders and one from the Chief of Police, he scrolled down and found one sent to him from DrylBnks@wash.uni.net. Daryl rarely sent emails to his office, so he called that one up first.

Dad, Happy Birthday! I hope you like the Singing Fish. Love, Daryl

The chuckling started. Daryl had sent the fish, and knowing his son, Simon was now sure who he'd asked to put the thing in his office. But he wasn't about to rescind his accusations against Brown and Rafe. Not if it meant a slow down in the little 'jokes' those two liked to play on their fellow detectives.

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