A/N: Thanks to everyone out there reading this. Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy.
Thanks goes to SallyJetson who continues to use her beta'ing skills for good instead of evil.
Chapter 10: Dead Ends:
Look… time… sip… look… time… sip…
That had been Danny's routine for the last 10 minutes, as he leaned against the hallway wall. He knew that Sheldon had the morning shift, while he and Lindsay had the later one, but he couldn't wait to find him to compare notes. He looked down the hallway once again before checking his watch, noting that it had only been 46 seconds since the last time he checked, and finally taking a sip of his coffee. Others would pass down the hallway noticing his stance, giving him peculiar looks or raised eyebrows, which he ignored or failed to realize, his eyes focused on the elevator doors.
He had analyzed his half of the evidence, but couldn't put it all together. It was times like these that he needed a sounding board, someone who could see what he was missing, who could connect seemingly unrelated pieces, and make sense of it all. Too bad the one person, who he wanted to talk with, was the one person he couldn't.
The elevator's 'bing' grabbed his attention. Looking up he saw his friend, but not the one he was looking for.
"Shit Messer, you look like Hell hungover. You been here all night?" Flack asked as he made his way over.
Danny nodded, "I wanted to get somewhere with this case and didn't see much point in going home," he replied simply. The truth was that home wasn't really home anymore. His bachelor apartment now contained chick flicks, couch throws, girls' clothes, and worst of all, tampons. The strange thing was that he didn't care, he really didn't. All of those things just reminded him of her, her scent, her mood, her being. He liked seeing her spare toothbrush next to his, hell part of him wished it wasn't just her spare, but right now he didn't need to be reminded, reminded that it was missing something, missing someone, that he was missing someone. It was no longer home, just a remembrance of what he wanted and what he might be losing.
Sensing his friend's distress Flack simply nodded before deciding to probe a little deeper into the heart of the matter. "You heard from Linds at all?"
Looking down, Danny responded, "She called around nine last night… I let it go to voice mail." He didn't need to look up to know the look that was being sent his way. "I just… I need to find proof before I talk to her," he tried to explain, daring to look at his friend though only seeing a fixed stare that was even worse than he anticipated, and which played with the guilt in his gut. "I'll call her as soon as I check in with Hawkes to see if we've gotten anywhere, alright?"
"I didn't say anything."
"No, but you were thinking it. Must be takin' lessons from Stella, she's the only one that can look at me like that … well, her and my mother," Danny mumbled.
"You're free to do what you want, just remember what I said about the frequent member card," Flack stated as he made his way to down the hall, "Sounds like you could really use it."
As Flack's footsteps echoed away Danny turned his attention back to the elevators and a few minutes later saw Sheldon emerge from the throng. Before Danny had time to give any sort of greeting, Sheldon noted his presence, "I thought your shift wasn't until later?"
"Yeah, well I want to go over this evidence with you, see if we can get somewhere."
"Alright, alright," Sheldon replied with a smile, slightly amused at his friend's enthusiasm, but it turned to concern once he noted Danny's wardrobe held over from the day before. "Sure you don't want to change, or wash up before we get started?"
"No. Just want to figure out what's goin' on."
"Okay," he relented, knowing that nothing he could say would change Danny's mind. "I'll meet you in the lab once I put my stuff down."
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Five minutes later they were in the lab ready to go.
"So I analyzed the ribbon from Montana's bouquet as well as what I got from Bernard's Florist and compared it to the one around our dear departed feline," Danny stared, gesturing to the three blue ribbons on the table. "The dyes in the ribbon all match which means they're probably from the same dye lot. I also compared the cut edges; the shop's roll matched the bouquet, no big surprise there, but it didn't match the cat's."
"So that means that they're either from different rolls or there was a piece missing from the middle that we'd need to compare it to." Hawkes concluded.
"Exactly. Unfortunately the shop has sold six bouquets with this ribbon in the few days, two of them paid cash and there's no surveillance footage. I ran the four that paid with credit card but nothing unusual came up, so no real luck there. Not to mention the fact that we don't actually know when our creep's ribbon may have been obtained, so looks like a dead end."
"Well I finger printed the envelope from the package. Prints came back to you, Adam, and the downstairs receptionist. The rest of the prints were too smudged to make out and were probably from handlers at the post office." Hawkes explained.
"Great, another dead end. Tell me you got something more?"
"The feathers from our action hero, were indeed from Gallus gallus, aka chicken, but were also from several different breeds. I counted at least seven possible but I'm still working on identifying them."
"Okay. Sort of weird but doesn't actually tell us much. As for the tar, it isn't even tar, its bitumen, also known as asphalt." Danny reported his findings while pointing to the spectral composition. "Not actually sure that helps much since there's way too much asphalt in this city."
"Yeah, but asphalt on the streets is mixed with other components to make asphalt concrete in its hardened form. In order for it to stick to the figure, it would have to have to be soft and adhesive."
"Alright, so it would have to be the pure stuff, and something like that might be hard to get your hands on." Danny thought out loud.
"I'll try to find out who would have access. As for our last piece of the puzzle," Sheldon stated while holding up the partially cleaned action figure, "I would like to introduce you to Officer Buzzard, one of the members of the Everyday Heroes League that the country is trying to use to promote unity and citizenship. It is currently available at 182 stores in the city, and has sold a total of 4,682 figures in the past month. I'm getting them to fax over a copy of their sales records."
"But if they paid with cash…"
"…Then we'll have to give up or start watching the surveillance footage from all 182 stores, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not."
"No kiddin'," he agreed. "So all we've got are multiple breeds of chicken feathers and asphalt. Not a lot to go on." Danny summarized, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. The lack of sleep and evidence was starting to take their toll.
"And so far nothing really points at Jason. Besides the flowers, there isn't anything to connect him, and last I checked buying another guy's girl flowers wasn't against the law." Sheldon pointed out.
"No, aggravating, but not illegal."
"Why don't you head out? Your shift doesn't start for a few hours and it might be good to step away for a while. I'll keep working on our leads."
"Okay. I got something I should do anyway. Thanks Doc," and with that Danny finally left.