Disclaimer: I don't own Boomtown.

10. Teamwork– Month Eleven

"Did you get enough food?" McNorris asked dryly. Both he and Michael were watching her down a whopper and large fries in amazement.

"Probably not." This was the first time she'd gotten the chance to eat today. Considering she only had fifteen minutes to get from her office to the DDA's she thought she'd done rather well in her foraging, especially since there was only one fast food restaurant between the station and his building. She continued to eat as she stared out the window. She was tired and getting a little slaphappy now that her stomach was getting full. All she wanted to do was take a catnap but this was the only day this week all of them could meet so she was sucking it up. They needed to get this done.

"I'd love to know how you can eat that way and stay so thin." Michael was eating a chicken salad as he spoke. She was trying to remember the last time she'd seen a full-grown man voluntarily eat a chicken salad and nothing else. She wasn't sure she ever had, but hey, this was California not the Midwest, and Michael was hyper focused on all things health oriented. There was no point in comparing him to anyone else; he was too unique for that.

"She's not that thin." McNorris said. He was still trying to get revenge for forcing him to spend time with Michael. A jab at her weight was the least of her worries, that didn't mean it would go unpunished. She chucked a balled up napkin at the blond. It bounced off his temple and he glared at her as it hit the floor next to his shoe.

"Sometimes I wonder why you're still single and then you say something like that. Really clears the whole thing up."

He continued to glare at her and she smirked. Grabbing a few fries she silently bemoaned her lack of ketchup and downed them. "I don't see you bringing home a man." He snarked back at her.

"I don't want one." She stated.

"Do you want a woman?" He threw back.

"I'm not gay." She responded, unperturbed with his efforts to annoy her. "Although some days I really think that would be easier than dealing with you lot and your Y chromosomes."

"That surprises me." Michael cut in before McNorris could take that comment and run with it.

"That she's straight?"

"Ass." She threw at him.

"Why don't you want a partner?" Michael asked curiously.

This was straying into dangerous territory. She shifted the line of questioning as she poked a tomato back under her bun. "Why don't you? You seem like the settling down type."

"I never found the right one. That doesn't mean I stopped looking."

"How touching." David was clearly so interested in this. He began to scan through his e-mails.

"Unlike McNorris, I don't suffer from chronic pessimism."

She grinned. "Actually, I think its chronic narcissism."

"That might be true but he'll never let me diagnose him." Michael responded with a falsely wistful gleam in his eye.

"I know right? He's no fun at all."

"I'm never letting the two of you in the same room again." McNorris stated stubbornly.

She laughed and found herself enjoying the banter. It surprised her. She didn't let herself enjoy things very often anymore, not as much as she should. Then Michael kept pushing and the fun faded away. "But really why don't you?"

She shrugged and David cut in. When he spoke she realized he was actually trying to help her escape the pitfall Michael was setting up for her. Considering how peeved he was with her for making him work with the other man she was surprised he was helping her. "She's probably afraid to get married. You should be. I don't see you living with a man on a regular basis without killing him. You'd be bored inside a week with the way your mind works."

She thought she'd been very good at being married. "I rather enjoyed being married, thank you."

Both of them looked at her and she realized what she had said too late. Damn it. Why could she never keep her fat mouth shut? Her pride was once again her downfall. Ghost boy had even given her an easy out and she'd stuck her foot in her mouth. She bit into her burger and reached for a napkin. "What?" Dark eyes flashed with surprise. "You've been married?"

"Oh, God, are you still married?" McNorris asked as his eyes flicked up with interest. His gaze shifted to her back for the briefest instant and her stomach churned. She knew what he was thinking, but Jason never would have hurt her. He'd been nothing but sweet to her in the time they'd had together.

Still, that was a dumb question considering he knew she lived alone. He'd certainly busted in enough in the last month. It was his new favorite thing to do, breaking into her house. After the first two times she gave up scolding him and simply let him do it. It wasn't like he was going to catch her doing anything of interest and she figured if he didn't think it was taboo he would eventually loose interest and stop. She was actually considering giving him a key to further turn him off. Of course, this was ghost boy, so her logical assumption about his reaction could be the polar opposite of what he might do. If he got a key he might not ever leave. "No."

"How long were you married?" Michael questioned.

What was this, twenty questions? "Eighteen months."

"Did the novelty wear off that quickly?" The DDA asked. He was feigning disinterest even as he probed. Apparently his interest in getting some answers about her past outweighed his need to annoy Michael in the same quest.

She tried to throw them off with humor. "Hey, I wanted it to work, but gosh darn it, wouldn't you know necrophilia is illegal in the U.S.?" Uncomfortable silence filled the room and she rolled her eyes. "Why does no one think that's funny? At some point I thought someone would laugh."

"What happened?" Michael's voice was steady, if soft.

"He died." She answered without hesitation or much emotion. She wasn't willing to share and was bothered that she had somehow stumbled into telling them she was married at all. So she stayed calm and collected in the hopes that the subject would drop as quickly as it came up.

"Yes, we've established that." McNorris responded.

She knew her eyes went distant for the briefest moment before leaping into the present. "He died." She repeated. She had no interest in perusing this conversation. She bit into her burger again as the two men shared a glance. It was the first sign of unity the two had ever shown.

She chewed thoughtfully as she watched them. She was really sure that if they worked together they would be nearly unbeatable. It was actually a fairly scary prospect. They could take down the mob or something. They would be, like, really dorky superheroes. Their costumes? One in a suit and one in a sweater vest! Unstoppable! The mental image of them fighting crime in such a cartoonish manner erased her sadness and she was happy with her rather goofy and eccentric imagination.

When she swallowed she decided to make her observations known. "You know, I don't understand why you two fight so much."

She was surprised McNorris helped her shift the conversation no matter how snarky his response was. "Because Hirsch is gunning for sainthood and it sickens me."

She raised an eyebrow and turned her attention to Michael. "I thought you were Jewish?"

McNorris tried to kill her with a glower as Michael fought back a laugh. At least the tension was gone. "I am."

She looked back to McNorris. "The sainthood thing is out. They don't do that in the Jewish community and you can't get honoraryly named a Rabbi."

"Are you Jewish now?" The attorney asked sarcastically.

"Me? No. I was raised Protestant but I have to tell you I converted to atheism. It works better with my worldview. How's Catholicism holding out for you?"

"Why?" He asked warily, as if he were afraid she was going to attack his basic belief system. She wasn't sure why he thought that, she had no interest in doing that. She respected his faith the same way she respected everyone else's. That was an area she had no business sticking her nose in.

"I'm curious." She glanced down at her empty paper bag. "And now I'm out of food to distract me."

He visibly reined in his temper. "It's the same as it's always been."

"Full of ups and downs?" She nodded in understanding. "The ritual thing does seem to stick to the services."

"You've been to one?" Michael asked curiously.

"Sure, lots actually." She balled up the paper bag. "I've been to all kinds of religious services. I particularly liked Buddhism. No preaching, just oneness with the world, and you don't wear shoes. Any belief system where you can sit without shoes is pretty darn cool in my book."

"This from the woman with more shoes than she can wear." McNorris threw out as he typed. It was good to know someone noticed the vast array of footwear she had. She was proud of her collection; it was one of the few things she ever splurged on.

"I don't relax with shoes on though. No one can relax with shoes on. It makes total sense that you can only achieve inner peace with bear feet."

"Why?" Michael asked.

"Can you relax with shoes on?" She asked in disbelief.

"No, not the shoes." The psychiatrist redirected her. "Why did you go to so many different services?"

"Don't ask her." McNorris warned. "The answer is never the one you expect."

Michael pointed to him. "That's why he doesn't like you."

She laughed before answering his question. "One of my majors was anthropology. I did a term paper comparing the major religions. I got a bit overzealous in picking the ones I wanted."

McNorris sighed before asking a question of his own. "I knew this would happen. I knew you would get me involved. How many majors did you have?"

"Three."

He nodded as if he didn't expect anything less. "Three. Why not? Four is overdoing it but three is classy."

"You actually know what that word means?"

"You aren't funny." He remarked as he went back to his e-mail.

"I am sooo funny. Really, you have no idea."

"How did you manage three degrees?" Michael asked. "Did you go back to school?" He was studying her in a way that told her he knew there was no way she was old enough to have done that.

"Nope, I'm just good a logistics. I scheduled everything right." Sure, she nearly ran herself into the ground to get her degrees, but she'd done it all the same. You had to work to be successful sometimes. In college she'd worked her little tail off. That work got her into one of the best graduate programs in the country.

"Stop asking questions, Hirsh. It'll only give you a headache trying to work it out."

Michael was stuck on this though. "When did you sleep?"

She crumpled her bag up. "Who needs to sleep? Sleeping is for pansies."

"Ahh." David said.

"Ahhh, what?" She asked.

"That's what made you crazy, sleep deprivation. I've been trying to figure it out for months. I feel better now."

"Glad I could help clear that up. So I'm thinking we need a pair of ballet slippers."

Michael sent her a perplexed look and McNorris actually looked around the computer at her. Even for her that had been pretty random. "What?"

"Ballet slippers. You know, what dancers wear?"

"Why do we need ballet slippers?" Michael asked as McNorris shook his head.

She reached out and picked up one of the images sitting on the edge of his desk. She'd been staring at it upside down for the better part of twenty minutes. "That's the only shoe I can think of that would leave a print like this." She pointed and held the picture up. "We need to go all CSI on their asses and do a comparison."

McNorris snatched the image from her so fast she rocked forward. She huffed at him in annoyance, but he was ignoring her. "This isn't a foot print."

"Yeah it is. What else would it be?"

Michael reached over and picked up the rest of the report. He flipped through it quickly. "A drag mark." He read. "Possibly from a baseball bat."

"So what? You're going to trust the report? You guys are not good at this. You're so lucky I'm here." She waved at the image. "The kid was shot. Why would the killer bring a baseball bat if they had a gun? It was probably his girlfriend. Is she in dance class?"

McNorris was already on the phone as Michael shot her a look and continued to read. "Did you already read this?"

"No."

McNorris was listening for someone to pick up and also answered. "She always looks at the photos first."

"Look at you learning to work with me." He shook his head and then started talking to someone on the other end of the phone. She turned back to Hirsh. "Reading the report makes you biased to the writer's point of view. It'll completely ruin your objectivity. Cops are great but they aren't trained to look for stuff like that. And even the detectives that are can miss things if they're having an off day."

"How did you know it was a ballet slipper?"

"I had a friend that took dance." She shrugged. And it was true, her best friend from the ages of three to twelve had been in ballet. They had found different groups in middle school, but that wasn't something she was likely to forget. "She never could remember to take them off and switch shoes after she got out of class. It drove her mom nuts when she came home covered in mud. They must have bought her fifteen pairs of those slippers."

Across the desk McNorris was speaking into the phone, explaining what he wanted with as much patience as he ever showed. "No, the girlfriend. Is she in dance class?" Someone must have gone to check because he spoke to her again. "Do you see anything else?" He slid the images toward her. She took them and studied them intently. After a minute she shook her head and passed them to Michael.

"Nope, sorry."

McNorris gave her a half smile. "The shoe was more than enough."

She winked at him jauntily, pleased with his mood. She stretched her arms up over her head. "Too bad this has nothing to do with why Michael's here."

The DDA was on her in an instant. "What are you talking about?"

"We hardly need a medical expert for a shooting. It's weird the way this overlapped with the other murders. Dumb luck I guess, that, or a really bad neighborhood. Remind me not to move there."

She heard someone say something on the phone and McNorris answered. "Have her brought in and give her to Fearless. I have to go." He hung the phone up quickly. "You don't think this is related to the first three murders?"

"No. This kid wasn't poisoned with a neurotoxin."

Michael was in the report again. "No, he wasn't. The final autopsy report only indicates a gunshot to his chest resulting in massive internal injury. Death by exsanguinations."

"It probably didn't tickle." She agreed. "But this is just a one off." She waved at the images as she got up and went to the other three files he had sitting on his cabinet. "These ones were planned." She set the files down on his desk and sat back down. "What I want to know is who would even know what this poison was, or how to get their hands on it."

Michael flipped open the coroners report to see what compound she was talking about. He hummed under his breath as he pulled his notebook to him and started to write quickly. She picked up another file and McNorris took the remaining one. She took one look at the one she had and held it out to the DDA. He traded with her without blinking and they both tried again. "Do you have fibers?" He asked.

"Every morning." She replied. Michael snickered as McNorris ignored her joke.

"How about needle marks?" Michael asked.

"Umm… no. I don't see that anywhere." She answered.

Michael clicked his tongue. "Check the pictures for them. Have these people been buried yet?"

The DDA was searching through his own set of photos. "Only one."

"Why only one?" Michael asked.

"Religious affiliation. He had to be buried within twenty-four hours. He was the first victim and he was in the ground before we got the tox screen back. The coroner thought it was a heart attack."

"I hope we don't need to get him exhumed." Michael murmured.

Both she and McNorris flinched at that. The last time they'd had that done they had both gotten brow beaten for a week before what they were looking for showed up. Digging up the dead wasn't looked favorably upon by anyone. Talk about bad PR. It pissed off the family, made the coroner appear incompetent, and the police look like a bunch of dogs that couldn't catch their own tails. If at all possible she wanted to avoid being public enemy number one at the department again. That had been a craptastic week, and even her attempts to escape by working in this building had proved fruitless. The DA was about as happy with McNorris as her captain was with her. There was safety nowhere. "Let's not do that."

"Agreed." McNorris said at once. "No exhumations."

"Well either they ingested it or they were injected. There's no other way to get this chemical in the body. The molecules are too big to be absorbed through the skin."

"Now that would be a cool way to kill someone." She commented.

"Darcy, please keep your morbidity to yourself until we put the autopsy photos away." McNorris requested as he read through the report he had.

She stuck her tongue out at ghost boy and his lip twitched up for the briefest second. "Spoil sport. Maybe I'm trying to write a crime novel. Did you ever think of that? I need fresh ideas."

"You don't have time to write a crime novel, but when you do I want to read it."

"That's sweet."

"Someone has to honestly tell you how bad it is."

She sniffed at him in an affronted manner. "I'm hurt you would critique my hypothetically awesome book that way."

"How do the two of you get anything done? I know you win cases, I've heard about them, but how you manage to accomplish anything like this is beyond me."

She laughed and McNorris smiled briefly before returning to the original question. "No needle marks but this says there was evidence of the poison in the food they got out of her stomach."

"I'm sure Detective Hansen followed up on that. He's pretty meticulous."

McNorris huffed. "By that you mean he's predictable in his average effort output?"

"Don't be judgmental. The guy is like, eighty years old. I want to see you working at that age and coming up with anything useful."

The DDA flicked his fingers in dismissal of her defense. "It's time for him to retire. The precinct needs some new blood that's eager to solve crime."

This man was so easy to read. "And more notably ask 'how high?' when you say jump."

"That too." He agreed.

She blew air out of her mouth and up in an effort to get her hair out of her eyes. It sorta worked. "So they ate it. It's in my report."

"Yes." Michael nodded. "I have it in the food here too." The psychiatrist went thoughtful. "I don't think this is as hard as you two made it." McNorris glared at her and she shrugged. "Let me make a call. I should be able to clear this up in a few minutes." With that he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contact list.

As Michael spoke to someone the attorney tossed the report he was holding on his desk. He wasn't happy the psychiatrist was traversing this case with such ease. "Never again, Darcy. I'm never working with him again." She just smiled.

Author Note: Thanks for the reviews! I love them!