BADGE

"Which means he was tipped off Tuesday or Wednesday morning."

"Which means the leak is coming from somewhere in this building." Goren said, pulling up a chair beside his partner. They were finding that Randolph their suspect had long arms, she was always one step ahead, pulling favours high and low throughout the department to cover her tracks.

"I checked who the requisition went to in the Chief of Detectives office, besides of course the Chief of Detectives." Eames continued.

"Well I can vouch for his assistant." Goren said quietly though it was the last thing he wanted to cop to.

"Denise? You dog!" Her tone was outrageously chipper and Alex barely spared him another thought before picking up the phone and moving on. "Yeah I'd like to check on requisition number…."

This was how they communicated. He watched her on the phone. Her thin shiny lips moving quickly, her skin pale against the black handset. This was how he told her he was dating. More then dating. Denise had been in his apartment on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, they had woken up together after a night of intense sex. He had screwed her like he was trying to screw the demons out. He didn't have any problems getting it up for Denise, with her tight little ass and that mouth, she was willing to put it anywhere. But Denise was getting attached. And he wasn't. It was almost time to cut and run.

Don't shit where you eat.

A less then delicate way of saying office affairs never went down well. At least he was separated from Denise by a few layers of bureaucracy but what about Eames? Carver! That was dangerous. That was everyday. He was married. What in the fuck was she thinking? Goren was dying to know. He waited for her to reciprocate. He waited for her to maybe give him a clue that she had ended it with Carver. He waited for her to slip it into casual conversation as was their way.

He waited.

And he waited.

And he waited.


"My partner's a miser and I'm frugal and neither of us could afford a house with a mortgage and two kids in private school…" Bobby shot at out in his hammy Canarsie cadence. Again Alex stood back and watched him go from the doorway, this doorway was to the kitchen of a single family home in Brooklyn Heights. On the sofa sat their suspect and her mother. the latter looked frail and shell shocked, the former looked tense and scrappy.

"You're not that frugal." Randolph finally burst out gesturing with anger. "You buy nice clothes, pay full price, nothing in your size is ever on sale. You buy good quality accessories like that leather case. You're not married so you spend money on dates. You like good food, you have someone in to clean your apartment every week. You're smart, you have lots of interests and hobbies and you spend a fortune on them. I don't wonder that you don't have money for a house, I wonder how you make subway fare the way you spend money."

BAM! Alex thought, Profiler profiled.

And how!

Despite the fact that Terry Randolph was a murderer, Alex felt her stomach do a happy dance. She knew it was horrible to feel such joy at Bobby's takedown - she was after all still on the side of right and good and rule of law. But as she watched Bobby's act falter, his brow drop and his face take on that 'just slapped' look, Alex felt like singing an impromptu aria.

Suddenly his regular soft reedy tone was back, all of his artifice was gone. "Uh… a… that's very good Randolph. But you didn't answer my question." He fell to one knee and went for the cheap shot, the fretful older woman. "How can she afford private school? Where does the money come from?"

This whole trip to the Cluster Sargeant's home was a rig, a game, a racket. They were here to put her on edge and plant a little misinformation in her ear. But first came the Goren show in full effect. Only, Alex thought, this time maybe he'd laid it on a little too thick because Terry Randolph had the chops. She had been repeatedly denied the detective promotion before leaving for the school security division. So was it any wonder that the big, bold, clownish portion of Goren's shtick had been quickly unravelled under the shrewd eye of a cop turned criminal?

Maybe, Alex thought, Randolph might not have gone down that dark lawless road if she hadn't been a woman struggling to make it in a man's world. They were here to bring Randolph down Alex was good with that, but maybe this would also bring Bobby down just a few precious notches.

Alex couldn't help but think he needed it.

A little comeuppance.

And moreover she'd needed to see it happen.

Alex had needed to see Bobby in all the ways she had over this last 11 months of hard graft - as sharp, as cocky, as belligerent, as absurd but also as kind, as generous, as caring, as thoughtful. She'd needed to see 360 degrees of Robert Goren. She'd needed it, so that she could tear up her new partner request (which oddly had still been sitting in Deakins' 'to do' pile). The fight was over. They were in this together now.

It was time to see where this Goren and Eames thing could really go.


Season 1 finis