"How can you be so sure about that?"
They'd spent the past half hour listening to Steve's analysis of their killer, taking apart every piece of the MO they'd gathered so far and cross-referencing what little evidence there was against the profile in question.
With his skull pounding from a stress headache, Mike rubbed his tired eyes for the umpteenth time, disappointed to find that it still didn't help.
Across from him, Daniel shared the same sentiment, kneading his fingers nervously, as they watched Steve pace the confines of his small living room like a caged tiger.
"It's the only possibility.", the young Professor argued and ran a nervous hand through his wavy hair, as he paused by the couch for a second, putting both hands on the armrest as if to let his plaidoyer sink in some more, "And the sooner you can get R&I to do some research, the sooner you can put a lid on this."
"A woman?", Dan reiterated incredulously, brows raised as his intellectual blue eyes scanned Steve, "You're sure? I mean…what if it's a skinny guy? Cross-dresser?"
Mike could tell the moment the words had been said that Steve had taken offense, his hands clamping onto the back of the couch like vice grips, as he glared at the young Inspector in unmasked annoyance. Taking a couple shallow breaths and turning a shade paler, he shook his head and grunted, before facing his audience again.
"You know, if you're both just going to sit here and doubt everything I'm saying, I might as well head home and get some rest. I've got better ways to spend my limited free time. You can wait for Lenny."
Somewhat thrown off guard by the hostile outbreak, Mike raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, hoping to settle the young man's boiling temper like he'd done many times before. And yet, part of him began to suspect that the strange behavior had something to do with Steve's eerie question earlier.
"Easy now, relax. This has nothing to do with us questioning you. We're just doing our work…you know how that goes.", he said soothingly and watched Steve clench his jaws in defiance, but remaining quiet otherwise, "So let's go over this one more time please, just to make sure we have a solid foundation for tomorrow's…well…today's research. You think this may be a disgruntled police cadet who was flushed out, or maybe the mother or wife of an officer killed in the line of duty, correct?"
Steve nodded slowly and did another round of pacing, before shoving one hand in the pockets of his black dress pants and wiping the sweat off his forehead with the other, making Mike wonder once again if he wasn't running a temperature.
"Correct. You're looking for somebody who's going to have the background knowledge on how to approach a police officer without raising suspicion. Think about it…neither one of your officers had drawn a gun…at least those who were carrying it at that time. No sign of struggle. It's like she just walked up at them, engaged in some sort of conversation and then blew them away without a warning."
Mike glanced over at Dan, who cocked his head in silent agreement.
"It does go along with Charley's find on the small-sized glove print. But how do you suppose she knew that Bo Stierwalt and Miles Farnum were cops? They were both in their civvies at the time of murder."
"That's where your research is going to have to come in. Either she's getting first-hand information, or somebody in the department is feeding it to her. I am very intrigued by the Stierwalt murder because he was no longer active, so he really sticks out in her MO of killing cops. The other issue is the now rapid succession of murders. The gap between the first two was far bigger than the second two…"
"Which could mean she's getting her technique down pretty good…", Dan mumbled, a haunted expression filling his features when Steve nodded.
"That or there's some outside stimuli causing this. Could be some anger…resentment…possibly even some sort of timeline she's following. It's hard to say this early in the game. I take it you've ran ballistics already?"
"We did. And the gun was not used in a prior crime."
As Mike took a sip of water, he watched Steve bite his lip deep in thought, before staring at the ceiling, the hand on his couch never letting go as if it was needed to keep him upright.
"That kind of figures. This is some personal vendetta, the worst kind. We need to get R&I in on this as soon as possible."
"Don't worry, we're planning on doing exactly that. I'll let them know first thing in the morning."
What was supposed to be a casual comment made Steve freeze in his tracks, as he stared at both detectives in disbelief.
"What do you mean first thing in the morning? What…whatever happened to working through the night? Waking up the guys downstairs to get the work stared?! You never had any issues dragging me out of bed at the craziest hours."
Taken aback for the second time, Mike didn't answer right away.
Instead, he met Daniel's surprised glance, the young Inspectors' brows knit in worry, uncertain of what to say. Before he could even open his mouth to stop the unwarranted outburst, Steve continued undisturbed.
"I mean, remember the ehm…the Charley Blake case and how you practically made me work for three days straight to get the answers?! And here you have some manic woman on the loose blowing away cops and you want to wait until you get back to the office? What if…what if it'd been Dan or me she'd killed?!"
"That's it.", Mike interrupted sternly and got off the couch, walking up to the young Professor until they were eye to eye, "You drop this right now, you hear me? Don't even say something like that."
Steve stared back at him defiantly, the slight shaking of his hands and his rapid breathing being the only indication of the turmoil going on inside him; struggles he stubbornly kept hidden from his best friend and causing nothing but undo frustration by doing so.
"Why don't we all take a second to calm down? It's been a long day and I think it's getting the better of all of us.", Dan tried soothingly and rose from his chair, but kept a few feet of distance between the other two men.
"No need for that.", Steve growled and pulled up his shirt sleeve to check his wristwatch impatiently, "Looks like you've got another five solid hours of breaktime ahead until you have to worry about getting me some R&I answers to the profile you so urgently needed this afternoon. If you don't mind, I am going to head back to Berkeley, I have a lot of work ahead of me…work that got pushed off so that I could create your profile. Call me if you need me, or better yet, just dump this in Lenny's lap when he gets back from vacation."
Not believing what he heard, Mike followed his best friend a few steps until he reached the coat rack. As he watched Steve put on his dress jacket and beige overcoat, he couldn't shake the feeling that something quite disturbing must be going on in the young man's life for him to be so ill-tempered.
"Nobody's there right now, Stephen.", Mike finally said quietly, keeping his voice low and his body language non-threatening, hoping to diffuse some of the misguided anger bestowed upon him. Instead, Steve glanced up in pure annoyance, a slight shade of red making its way up the sides of his neck.
"What are you talking about?", the young Professor hissed back and grabbed his copy of the manila case file, ready to storm out the door.
"The R&I Department. Nobody is there right now. They eliminated a third of the staff in the last round of budget cuts. So they had to get rid of all on-call personnel. We don't have a choice but to wait until morning."
Momentarily startled, Steve hesitated in his tracks, one hand grasping the door handle tightly as his mind processed the new information. Then, as if unable to come up with a fitting explanation for his out-of-conduct behavior, he simply nodded and walked out of the door.
"I'll see you later Mike. Dan."
The Lieutenant must have stood there in a daze for over a minute, when finally, Daniel's warm hand appeared on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Or all week."
Glancing through the window and seeing the headlights of the Porsche nearby turn on and do a three-point in the road, before squealing tires signaled the young Professor speeding off; Mike shook his head.
"I have never seen him like this. Something is going on. And it's not good."
"But what are you going to do if he won't tell you?"
"Ask questions. Talk to the guys on campus.", turning around and ushering Dan back towards the living room and their waiting case file, Mike couldn't help but feel a shudder run down his back, "But in the meantime, Steve's right about one thing. We need to get R&I to prioritize our case before our lady killer strikes again."