Authors Note: I added a couple acknowledgements in the author's note at the beginning of chapter one, and reposted the chapter. I know some of my friends who read the first chapter are not familiar with the show. But if you Google Murder In The First Cast you will see the actors who play the characters in this chapter. The character of Abbi is an original one so her photo will not be on the TV cast list.

Chapter 2: Ladies Needed

Hildy smiled as the guy's voices got closer. David Molk and Edgar Navarro were having their usual banter as they walked into the conference room. This morning Edgar was defending the health benefits of eating food from the street vendors at Columbus Circle by Central Park. He began wolfing down two large hotdogs, a large portion of fries, and a cherry Fanta. David looked at him in amazement, and asked him for the umpteenth time -

"Edger, where do you put it?" because Edgar was small in both body and stature. He smiled at David with his mouth full of food, and laughter in his eyes. David then got an impish look on his face as he took the teasing a notch higher as he said - "Your wife sent you off to work with no breakfast this morning Edgar? What did you do last night? Oh wait….you did nothing!"

Anyone looking at David would realize he enjoyed laughing at his own jokes by the way he was cracking up as he sat down to power up his laptop.

Terry chuckled at David's teasing as he entered the room. Edgar eyes twinkled as he washed down a big bite of hot dog with a gulp of Fanta before telling David, "Not only did I do nothing last night, but my wife did nothing too. So we did nothing together, and both our nothings have us eating big breakfast this morning because we did not have time to cook as we slept late. I wonder if you ever do that kind of 'nothing' David, seeing that you are not married and all".

David just shook his head because he knew Edgar never took offence to his teasing, and could turn a joke right back on the joker. Jim Koto, and Abigail Charles, were the last two to enter the room, bearing a box of warm croissants from the bakery a few blocks away down on 8th Avenue. Hildy switched the kettle on as she knew everyone including Edgar would want cups of tea or coffee shortly as they began to discuss their open cases. Hildy felt so comfortable, felt so much affection, as she looked at the small team around the table. All the guys were former police officers, but unlike Hildy and Terry who originated in California USA, they were from New Jersey, Connecticut and Upstate New York.

Through the years, Jim, David and Edgar collaborated with Terry and Hildy on a number of police cases. They did this by sharing information whenever a suspect had connections in the area where the guys worked. This cooperation developed into good working relationships, which over time grew into good personal friendships. It so happened for various reasons, each man resigned from the police force, and subsequently were involved in other types of employment.

When Hildy and Terry decided to move to New York City, they contacted their friends, and asked if they would be interested in coming to work for them in their new private investigation firm. The men missed the excitement, the sense of accomplishment that came with solving a case, and righting a wrong. They did not miss the long hours, and frustration, attached to police work then your open cases were not closed. The opportunity that Terry and Hildy presented the men with, gave them the chance to work in an environment where they would have a much greater success rate to solve cases. They would once more be solving crime but without the long over time hours and the stress associated with it. So they all accepted the offer to join the firm.

Everyone except Abigail, or Abbi as has she was called, had a history in law enforcement. That did not pose any problems for the team as Abbi brought fresh eyes and a different perspective to their discussions when they talked through their cases. Even though Abbi was hired basically as their receptionist, she often made good suggestions when they had their Monday mornings case conferences. Hildy looked at Abbi and laughed as she saw the young woman who was the youngest member of the team rush Terry for the last two almond croissants in the box.

"Girl, you are becoming an Edgar in training, I think I should call you Mini Edgar or M.E for short". Abbi just laughed at Hildy's words and said to everyone in the room "You all are just jealous that you don't have metabolisms like Eddi and me," Then the big eaters high fived each other as everyone laughed.

'OK people , where are we on our open cases?' Terry asked the team as he got down to business. They spent the next thirty to forty minutes going over strategies for the three cases the firm was currently investigating. During this time it became more and more evident, that they needed better technical support to do the extensive online searches required to assist them is solving their cases. Without the computer resources of the San Francisco Police Department at their disposal to check, and cross reference various leads, progress was not as fast as they would like it to be. Terry's frustration began to show as he felt they should have closed at least one of their open cases by now.

As the person responsible for the day to day running of the firm, along with her investigating duties, Hildy realized that she needed to source additional help quickly. What she needed was someone with the computer technical knowhow, to circumnavigate all the firewalls, and online obstacles, without actually breaking the law, while surfing the web. And she needed this computer genius before the week was out. She already read a few resumes of qualified person who responded to their advertisement for an I.T Specialist. The firm preferred someone who also had background in law enforcement, but thus far, no one measured up to what Hildy was looking for. Another thing Hildy considered when reading the resumes of the applicants was, if the person was female. She would not admit this to the guys, but after working in a male dominated environment at the SFPD for so long, she longed for a bit more estrogen and less testosterone around her all the time. She smiled to herself as she knew David and Jim would not have a problem with that at all, as they were single, and always socializing with some woman or other.

As the meeting came to a close and everyone went off in various directions to take care of whatever needed to be done, Hildy began to feel a bit stressed as she had no more résumés to review. Just then Jim came back to the conference room, and told her that one of his college buddies mentioned to him last night while they were at the gym, that he had a new neighbour. Hildy wondered why Jim was telling her all of this, especially when she was trying to start writing up some case notes, but she listened anyway.

"So my buddy said the new neighbour is gorgeous but he has not asked her out as yet. He did not want to appear as if he was trying to make a move on her too soon, seeing that she just moved back to the US." Jim laughed. Hildy thought, "I hope this isn't going to be one of Jim's long, beating around the bush stories", as she mentally smiled while trying not to laugh.

"According to my buddy, the neighbour has her degree in Computer Science, and seeing as we need an computer tech person, maybe I can ask my friend to get her number, and this will give him a legitimate reason to ask for it". Hildy finally laughed as she asked Jim if he was sure he was trying to get a tech person for the firm or help his friend hook up with the lady next door? Jim had the grace to admit that he was killing two birds with one stone here. After pondering for a few moments, Hildy told Jim to contact his buddy, and see if he would be lucky to get the phone number. Jim assured her that knowing his friend as he did, he was confident they would have the cell number soon, and then he left the office.

Later in the day Jim called Hildy with the cell phone number, and name of his friend's neighbour. Hildy smiled, and shook her head as she wrote down the information. After ending the call with Jim, she sat back in her office chair and read the name aloud; Kami Keefer. She wondered if making this call would be a waste of time. However, as the firm needed help with working the web quickly, she decided to give the 'neighbour' a call. Hildy reasoned that even if the woman did not have a background in law enforcement, at least they might get some computer help providing her qualifications and references, were acceptable.

Hildy placed the call and waited. She was just about to disconnect the call when someone answered. Hildy asked for Ms Keefer, and identified herself. Then the voice on the other side said that she was Ms Keefer. Hildy was immediately struck by how lovely Kami's voice and accent sounded. After a few minutes of explaining what she was looking for by way of computer experience, and being satisfied that Kami appeared to have the qualifications that the firm needed, she arranged for Kami to come in for an interview the following morning.

Hildy sat for several minutes after the call ended just replaying the conversation in her mind, as she tried to analyze her thoughts. She kept thinking to herself that Kami had a beautiful voice. Hildy could not understand why images of warm honey kept coming to her mind as she replayed the words of their call. Why would one phone call make her think in poetic imagery? Hildy remembered promising herself when she walked away from her life in San Francisco, that New York would be a new beginning for her. She promised to finally be true to herself; to remove the mask, the persona she wore of 'heterosexuality'. But thus far she made no attempt to change anything about her 'public image'. Hildy was in the closet for so long that even though she had the desire to step outside, she had no idea how to open the door that was always directly in front of her. Hildy sighed as she tried to block the thoughts that so valiantly fought to be examined, all because a total stranger had a beautiful voice on the phone.

Taking a deep breath, she told herself tomorrow morning should be very interesting. She remembered that Jim said that his college buddy found Kami to be gorgeous, "Hills girl, get a grip of yourself. You could be in big trouble if you let a simple voice send you off on a tangent like this. It is one thing to interview a candidate for a job; it is another to get silly over her voice".