Steve rubbed his tired eyes for the umpteenth time, frustrated at the fact that his 4-hour power nap earlier this morning hadn't helped much to ward off the growing exhaustion slowing down his system.
Staring at the map in front of him, unable to focus much longer, he allowed his eyes to trace Highway 128 into Yorkville, where a tiny red flag marked the last known location of Jeffrey Fisk. Further south in Geyserville, another flag signaled the convenience store Ron Sterling was last seen at.
Reaching for some sunflower seeds in his pant pocket, in hopes that they would somehow awaken his mind and make the answers to their evening-long search jump out at him; Steve sighed.
Only fifteen cases had matched his rigorously narrowed search criteria. All but two of them were men. Most of them were considered homeless or runaways, the Missing Person's report, filed by a caring relative or friend, nothing but a sheer formality, with no special urgency to solving the case.
All of them, except sixty-five-year-old Russel Thompson, were in decent health, although some of them smoked or had a tendency to alcoholism. Thompson, who was suffering from a heart condition, went missing after going hiking in Sonoma State Park.
While his tired brain cells tried to convince him to shrug off the disappearance to an unfortunate accident, maybe a mudslide after a reported heavy rainstorm that weekend, creating a slim likelihood of ever finding his body in the massive park, the detective inside forced Steve to keep an open mind.
Washing the rest of the sunflower seeds down with a cold sip of water, he found his eyes wandering over to yet another flag.
Emily Smith, only twenty-three years old, known to be bipolar and schizoid, mostly keeping to herself, having severed any contact to her family. She'd disappeared six weeks ago from a campground in Mendocino National Forest. The two friends that were with her at the time said she'd left her tent to go to the bathroom but never returned. No screams were heard and no signs of struggle found anywhere nearby. Her psychologist mentioned a tendency to walk off and disappear for days, but several weeks out in the wild with no supplies and declining weather wasn't suggesting a promising outcome for that case either.
Between the fact that his missing persons were taking him farther and farther north, much farther than his initial search criteria had suggested; Steve was quickly growing frustrated at the sheer lack of facts and lifestyles tying all his people together. Different backgrounds, different time of the day or week when it came to their disappearances, different social circumstances, some in groups, some known loners, some seemed to venture out and disappear on their own terms, others just vanished into thin air…
Eventually, only a few facts remained stubbornly obvious…all fifteen of them had shaky social contacts, nobody that would expect them home every night, nobody who would go out of their way to try and find them…and yet, despite their disappearance, their bodies hadn't been found yet.
One other thing that seemed subtle at first but was quickly coming into focus for him was the fact that there were no signs of struggle in the few cases that included remote areas. No screams, no signs of wildlife killing a human, no destruction of property, in fact, no property was taken in any of the cases where belongings were found at a campsite or an abandoned house or car.
Steve reached up and rubbed his chin, nervously tapping his index finger against his lips.
"Mike, you think it's possible these people were abducted by aliens? Maybe they did some tests on our victim and decided to send him back? Along with a copy of the San Francisco Telegraph, because they didn't like the article about the budget talks and thought the comics were lame?"
Steve heard Mike get up from his chair, joining him at the large map by his file cabinet and putting a warm hand on his upper back.
"I think it's been a long day. Our minds are fried. Let's try this again tomorrow morning, what do you say?"
"Did you find anything cross-referencing our body's injuries to those of others?", Steve asked in return, not willing to give up quite yet. His determination quickly faded when he glanced over at his partner and saw the defeat in his bright blue eyes.
"No. I sure I wish I did."
"See, something doesn't jive about this whole body drop thing…"
For some strange reason, on that particular evening, Steve was unable to let his thoughts drift to a calmer state of mind. Looking out of the window at the skyline that had long turned dark again, he clenched his strong jaws, before releasing a forced breath.
"Mike, if this whole organ snatching is the real deal, if we got this professional group of surgeons out there making a nice buck on selling livers on the commodities exchange, if we assume that they know exactly how to stay undetected…how is it that this body got washed up? Did it fall off the body wagon? Somebody dropped the ball and didn't sink him in the bay like they were supposed to? You'd think they know better than to have a body like that appear, letting everybody know what's going on. This is a major screw-up for a cartel as ruthless as what Ed described…don't you think?"
Nodding faintly, Mike rubbed his back as if to hope it would settle the young Inspector down that evening. But fact of the matter was, the longer Steve thought about that argument, the more his mind began to snap awake again.
"Let's see what we can dig up tomorrow morning when we have more manpower down in Missing Persons. Richard will be back and can get working on the sketch drawing first thing; we'll get that circulated as soon as possible. I think a lot of our answers will become clearer once we find out exactly who our floater is."
"And what if we don't?"
He could tell that after a long day like this one, Mike was growing tired of the give and take going on between them. Turning around and putting both of his large hands on the young Inspector's shoulders, he smiled faintly, before pointing his chin to the exit door of the bullpen.
"No fretting tonight is going to help us tomorrow. It's time to call it a day. We're starting to run ourselves ragged in a case that deserves anything but. You're going to start making mistakes if you don't give yourself a break for a little while. Get some sleep; I need you alert and wide-awake tomorrow. After I get done briefing DeWitt and Rudy on this case, let's sit together and see what else we can do to figure out what is going on."
Mike waited until he nodded, before patting his cheek affectionately and smiled.
"Besides…what do you say about some meatloaf for Christmas dinner? Thanksgiving leftovers are the best."
"I'd love to Mike, I really would, but I gotta do laundry. Been pushing it off since the weekend. I am wearing my last clean pair of socks, I swear to you…"
Steve could tell that his partner was disappointed, but managed a kind smile and nodded in understanding anyways, so he squeezed Mike's shoulder sympathetically and pointed at his wristwatch.
"I'll give you a buzz when I am done though, how about that? Just in case something came up in the meantime. You never know what I find out at the Laundromat."