AJ sauntered into the room and immediately fell into a chair placed around the large, round table. He bent forward, his elbows on his knees and his head resting on his tented hands. Quickly, he changed position, placing his arms on the table and bouncing his legs up and down.

"You seem nervous, Mr. McLean." The older detective studied the young man seated across from him with a grim smile.

"Can you please call me AJ? Or Alex? Please?"

"Certainly."

"I've never been questioned by the cops before, and considering what happened to Nick last night, hell yes I'm nervous!"

The detective opened his notebook to a blank page and smoothed the paper down, preparing to take notes. "Why did you go to Mr. Carter's room last night?"

AJ ran his hand down to the cuff of his sleeve and grabbed it between his fingertips, pulling the fabric into his palm. "Anything I tell you stays here, right? No one else knows?"

The officers exchanged glances. "Unless they need to know it." the detective assured him.

"Okay." AJ took a deep breath. " I have a rather extensive collection of porn videos. Nick was feeling a little horny..." He looked up at the unsmiling faces surrounding him. "I mean..."

"It's quite alright, Alex, I think we all know what you mean."

"Yeah, okay, so anyway, he asked if I could bring one down to him, so that he could, you know, have something to watch while he, you know..." AJ shrugged and blushed slightly.

"Did you view this video with him or did you give it to him and leave?"

"I stayed for a bit, it was one of the best ones in my set!" AJ grinned.

"And did you and Mr. Carter, how shall I put this? Relieve each other?"

"Hell no! Nick and I are buddies. Were buddies. He could beat off in front of me, I didn't care about that, but I wouldn't do him. No way!"

"So you stayed for a few minutes and left the room, correct? Did you see anyone in the hall?"

AJ thought for a few moments. "A girl got off the elevator and went into a room down the other end of the hall from us. Probably just a fan."

"And he didn't say anything about anyone calling or coming to see him later?" "No, he just wanted that video man, he was really eager, if you know what I mean?"

"Do you know anyone that would want to kill him?"

"I don't know anyone that would want to kill anyone, least of all Nick. Everybody loved him, even if he aggravated us sometimes."

"No one that he would have aggravated enough to want to kill him?"

AJ shook his head. "No way, can't think of a soul."

"Who knew about the knives?"

"Oh God, Nick showed those to everyone when he got back from the mall with them. He was so proud of them. I remember he pretended to stab Howie, or maybe it was Brian, with one of them. Acting all ninja like." AJ smiled sadly at the memory.

"So everyone knew he had these?"

"Absolutely, everyone in our circle of people knew about them."

"Thank you Mr. McLean, if you think of anything else for us."

"No problem, find the bastard for us, that's all I ask. Find him and lock him up."