New York City, NY. Harley & Co. Offices, 1500 Hours, Wednesday.

Arnold Davenport, Executive Director of Harley & Co. was in his office on the 22nd floor of the Harley & Co. Office Building. He was rummaging through his desk, desperately trying to find something. His back faced the majority of the room, he didn't take his eyes off his desk. A shadowy figure dressed in grey entered the room, but not from the door, the person in grey had entered from the opposite side of the room, where there was no door. They silently walked to the door, and slid a chair over, effectively locking the door. Davenport turned, but to his horror, there stood a slim figure, grasping a knife in their left hand, slowly walking towards him. An ear-piercing scream filled the room, and many others, but then... silence.

New York City, NY. NYPD, Detective Whitehall's Office, 1200 Hours, Friday.

"A locked room murder! What a case! I haven't had one like this in years, decades, even! It's much better than the Grand Theft Auto cases and stolen sweet rolls!", Whitehall exclaimed as he paced around the room, reading the file. Police Captain Reagan stood, hunched over on the detective's desk. "Whaddya make of it, Detective?", He glued his eyes to the pacing detective. "I make it to be that I will have an interesting day ahead of me! Take me to the murder scene!"

"What an utmost peculiar scene." The office was clean, looked untouched, apart from the bloody desk and missing chair, now on the ground next to the door. The officer in the room lit a smoke and looked on at the body sketch, titling his head. "Hand me the file.", The detective kept his eyes on the room, but held his hand out towards his assistant, Nancy, who placed the file in it. He looked through the file and squinted his eyes. "'Stabbed to death with a Starburr Kitchen Knife Metal Grade.' Those knives aren't commercial yet. How'd the killer get their hands on one?" "Perhaps they worked in the factory.", The assistant chimed in. "Perhaps... Nancy, look at this picture." Whitehall pointed at the photo of the body, six stab marks in the left side of the victim's chest. "What about it, detective?" "The stab marks were on the left side of chest, not the right. A right-handed person would have stabbed the victim in the right side of the chest, and the opposite with a left-handed person." "I didn't notice that, but of course I don't have as keen an eye as you, detective." "Yes, and paired with the possibility they work at the Starburr Factory, we narrowed down the suspect pool a bit. Nancy, call the Starburr Factory and ask for any left-handed women that work in the packaging department." "Women? Why'd you figure a woman did this?" "Look at the bloody footsteps." He took his shoe off and compared it side-by-side, then asked for his assistant to do the same. There was little difference between his assistant's shoe size and the assailant's footstep size, while the detective's shoe was bigger than both. "The murderer was a woman, left-handed, and most likely works in the packaging room of the Starburr Factory. Call the factory foreman, pronto."

Nancy exited the room with her flip-phone, and muffled talking was heard through the thin office wall. The police officer had lit another cigarette and a cloud of smoke appeared above his head, but it slowly dissipated, seemingly vanishing out of mid-air. The detective still pondered on how the murderer entered the room. I have everything else; I just need a motive and a way of entry. He studied the smoke cloud; It got bigger, then smaller, bigger, then smaller, but it always shifted to the right before losing its size. A vent was hidden in the ceiling, the grate matched the color of the roof, impossible to notice unless searching for it specifically. A vent! That's how the murderer got in, but what vent did they enter to get to this one? "Officer, do you have a floorplan of the building?", The detective approached the man. "No, but there's a map next to the elevator." A map, that's what I need to see!

Whitehall rushed out of the room, and sprinted down the hall towards the elevator, a map was positioned right beside it. He ran over and studied the floorplan. Maintenance closet on this floor, isolated, small. Perfect place to unscrew a vent and climb inside. The detective hurried to the closet and arrived just as a maintenance woman locked the door. "Hello ma'am! Has anyone entered this closet in the past few days except for you?", the detective put on his "cheery" voice. "Only the other staff members. If this's tied to that investigation, nobody but me, Paul, and Sally have been in here. The suited men don't have keys, and they're the only other people allowed up here, apart from other types of staff. Only us cleaners have a master key, well, somewhat of a master key. You see, the head foreman of the maintenance wing proclai-" "Great, thanks. Could you let me in the closet?" The lady scrunched her nose and unlocked the door, walking off.

The detective investigated the room. No doubt the screws have been loosened. Not a sloppy job when they were rescrewed. This was an inside job, and there's no doubt about it. He noticed a grey skinsuit underneath a shelf, perhaps a disguise, perhaps not. You can't really tell. Footsteps came from outside the closet, and Whitehall tensed up as the soft thuds came closer. But to his relief, Nancy stood in the doorway of the closet, holding up her phone. "The employees fitting the description you gave are 'Karen Newcomb', 'Rachel Puckett', 'Sarah McCarthy', and-" "Wait, Sarah?" "Yeah, that the perp?" "I was just told that a 'Sally' works here in maintenance and was in here in the past few days, she must've unscrewed the grate and used the vents to get to the victim's office, then killed him, and escaped through the vents. Sally is short for Sarah." The detective's eyes widened, "Get me Captain Reagan and a few officers, I've found our murderer!"

Two police cars parked on the sidewalk leading to the Harley & Co. Building, the captain and three other officers got out and rushed into the building. "Hi, is there a 'Sarah McCarthy' in the building? Check under maintenance staff.", The captain questioned the receptionist. "I don't believe that's my information to give.", the reception replied. The captain flashed his badge and asked again. "Ok, yes. She was called up to the 22nd floor just five minutes ago." The captain managed a quick thanks and lead his small team up the elevator.

Whitehall stood in an office; the man who owned it sat in his chair as the detective requested Sarah to the office to 'fix a broken wire.' Five minutes past, no Sarah, but the captain arrived, and just on time, too. The woman got out on the elevator on the other side of the floor, and stopped by the office door, knocking on it. She let herself in and a crowd of people awaited her. One confused businessman, a snarky assistant, a confident detective, and four distraught police officers. "What is the meaning of this?", she finally spoke. "Sarah McCarthy, you're under arrest for the murder of Executive Director Arnold Davenport.", the captain stepped forward, taking out his handcuffs. "What? I did no such thing! You have nothing saying I did!" The detective piped up, "We have CCTV footage of you going into the maintenance closet, staying in there for seven minutes, approximately the amount of time needed to go through the vents, into Arnold's office, kill him, and leave the same way you came." "I could've been doing anything!" "Well, I found a skinsuit, and I bet if I dust this, along with the vents, I'd find your finger-prints all over."

Sarah froze, possibly contemplating her next move, but she stood frozen, for a moment, everyone thought she was having a panic attack. Her eyes widened, she blinked wildly, and her breath was unsteady. The captain went to try and console her but got a swift punch to the face, and faceplanted into the carpeted floor. She took his gun, quickly taking off the safety and aiming it at the people in the room. "I refuse to be taken alive! What I did was a favor to this company! If I didn't kill him, he would've led this company to chaos! I did what I had to do!" She shot the gun, and the bullet went flying into the glass window, shattering it. She was quickly pinned down as the four police officer dogpiled on her.

New York City, NY. NYPD, Captain Franklin Reagan's Office, 2000 Hours, Friday.

"Good work, detective. I should give you a raise!" Captain Reagan sat back in his chair; feet crossed on his desk. "Thank you, Captain. Turns out, these cases are a bit too exciting for me, I just want to go back to my old work as a boring detective.", Whitehall chuckled, but he knew he had some fun this evening. "Hey, detective," Nancy stood in the doorway "A man came in, he wants a detective to help him find his missing wife." The detective stood up, straightened his tie and said, "Send him to my office." Nancy left and Whitehall walked to the door but was stopped by the captain by the doorway, "What about being a 'boring detective?'" "Did I say that?", The detective smiled, and walked off...