Wheels Up - Recap

At a roller derby skating rink in Miami, two women's teams were jostling one another for elbow and skating room as they raced round the indoor oval track, jeering each other, calling names. The hoarse voiced male announcer rapped out names like Wrath of Khani and Miami Spice Girl, loudly yelling the order of ascendance as each woman struggled mightily to beat her opponents to gain first place. Suddenly, Wrath of Khani fell to the side, clutching the metal rail and looking very ill. She staggered off the track and into a nearby dressing room where she headed straight for the nearest porcelain throne, vomiting up her stomach's contents, then crawling across the hard tiled floor toward her locker. She was met with something very hard that left a round impression on her sweating, pale skin, the object made to bounce off her vulnerable body and cause tremendous pain. Her unknown assailant pummeled her into unconsciousness, then death and the culprit fled.


Agents were called in to look over the scene and the body belonging to one Connie Briggs, now deceased. It was determined that she had been killed by blunt force trauma, taking somewhere in the neighborhood of at least one hundred fifty pounds of force to accomplish the fact. It appeared that she had been beaten to death . Her body was taken back to the lab for further investigation. Meanwhile, the agents talked to her team mates and members of the opposing team, but no one had seen anything, claiming that they had all been very busy working on the track, keeping the audience happy. The beatdown girl, Debbie, had been good friends with Connie and since she had been missing from the track for at least fifteen mintues, as determined by two of the agents watching video of the time when Connie had gone from the track, that was checked into. The beatdown denied that she had killed Connie, and as for the time she'd been missing, she had been pushed into the hard metal rail and gone over it, injuring herself. That and taking a few minutes to pose for photographs wanted by her fans and give autographs, it was a little bit before she had gotten back on the track and into the groove once more. Debbie said that she had been Connie's derby wife, that they had been very close, not lovers, but partners, had each other's back, as it were. There was no way she had killed Connie.

A couple agents were sent to look over the locker room and in particular, Connie's locker. A toilet full of vomit was found and a discarded mouth guard beside it. The mouth guard was taken back to the lab and investigation showed that ipecac had been put on it. Thus, when Connie had put it into her mouth, the ipecac had made her vomit into the toilet. The contents of Connie's stomach had traces of ipecac in it. An autopsy showed that Connie had bled to death internally and that some of her limbs bore old fractures only partially healed, at least six months old, if not older. A couple of her ribs were broken, had not healed. One small jagged piece of broken rib had broken off and ruptured her aorta and caused near instant death. Who had caused those fractures, an ex lover, one of her team mates?


A Vince Kessler had switched out Connie's mouth guard, using one of those do it yourself guards that has to be boiled and then bit down on. The mouth guard found near the toilet was nearly too big for Connie's mouth and would bear some of the maker's DNA. It proved to be Kessler's and when he was questioned, he denied having killed the derby skater, but he had put ipecac on it and placed it in her locker.


Lucy Strickland, the deceased Connie's listed emergency contact, was called to headquarters where she was informed of Connie's death and questioned about her room mate. Lucy said that she and Connie had been best buds and she would never have killed Connie. She said that she and Connie had met in high school and had moved to Miami to attend college together, had roomed together. She did mention a skating opponent of hers named Tara Warner, also known as "Tarred and Feathered", had been an old enemy of Connie's and maybe they should go talk to her. Lucy told the agents where Tara could be found. They found Tara in a wheelchair going through rehabilitation exercises in a hospital accompanied by her brother, Vince Kessler. The two were angry when it was suggested that either had killed Connie, especially Vince, who told the agents that Tara was a paraplegic because of Connie, but neither of them had killed her.


The agents went to investigate one Jake McGrath, a former boyfriend of Connie, a biker who led them a merry chase on his motorcycle through the streets of Miami til they reached the beach where he was questioned closely. He denied having hurt Connie, invited them to follow them to his home where he showed them a punching bag he'd set up for Connie and her room mate, the aforementioned Lucy. He said that both women had put him to shame on the bag, that they both liked it rough. That piqued the agents' interest and they called Lucy to meet them at headquarters.


At headquarters, in a private interrogation room, two agents talked to Lucy, telling her that they had just talked to Jake who had denied roughing up Connie or breaking any of her bones, let alone kill her. Unbeknownst to Lucy, the agents had gone through her locker at the derby building, finding an elbow guard that bore the exact imprint that had been found on Connie's body. The only difference between Lucy's guard and the other girls' guards was that hers was made of steel, which would certainly have been able to do the damage that had killed Connie. The agents held Lucy's guard up before her, tapping on the hard steel, making it ring. She admitted to having used it on Connie the day she died, saying that she had loved Connie, but that her room mate had changed, gained a cold personality once she had joined the derby association. Lucy had only wanted Lucy's friendship and love, but instead had met with cold disdain and Lucy had snapped that afternoon, using her elbow guard to batter the woman until she died, then left the building. Lucy began sobbing as reality finally hit her that she would never see her beloved Connie again as the agents handcuffed her and led her away.

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