Serendipity

[happyman]

Why do I have the feeling Schlock just blew this whole case wide open?

Time to theorize.  Are the toughs being set up as the fall guys by the police department?  What's really going on?

[mbarker]

Or it might be the other way around -- the police department just blew up! And Schlock will get blamed, since he's that weird alien who was talking about smelling boomex. Just before they all went BOOM!

[ryos]

Here's my theory: some of the cops are crooked; they're in on whatever illicit scheme the Barsoom has going; when the last squad of (good) infiltrating cops got too close to the money, the crooked cops took them out. Trenchcoat Monobrow (which is a much better name than Timmons or whatever) suspects corruption, but doesn't know who or how, and is too close to the principles to be able to investigate safely.

Timmons himself is obviously a fan of cloak-and-dagger ops, and something of a romantic in that sense.