By the time the light from the rising sun began to illuminate the bullpen, many of the surrounding desks slowly filled back up with detectives and sergeants alike. With the smell of freshly brewed coffee emanating from the nearby table at a steady rate, Steve was beginning to lose track of both, time and his alarmingly high caffeine consumption.
"What is it that makes you so certain that our answers are in these files from the shooting range, Professor K?"
To either side of him, Squirrel and Luke were half leaning, half collapsing against the two desks they'd pushed together earlier, careful not to disturb the array of pencil holders, staplers, rolodexes, name plates and phones.
"Gut feeling. That's all I have left to rely on at this point.", Steve answered quietly, his voice having grown hoarse over the duration of their nightlong research.
"Hm."
With a final grunt, Squirrel rested his head on his outstretched arm, not realizing, or caring, that his shoulder was leaning against Steve's. On the other side, Luke's condition wasn't much better as the young man continued to fight his eyes from wanting to close.
"I think I may have lost feeling in my fingertips. Does that mean the neurotransmitters in my brain are failing?", he asked blithely, causing his teacher to chuckle.
"It means you need more coffee. Grab me a fresh cup too, will you?"
Returning the smirk coming from Hassejian's desk a few feet away, Steve shifted his attention back to the files ahead. And yet, the slumped over figure warming his arm one chair over continued to remind him of own sore muscles and the fact that his body was beginning grow exhausted from the strain he was putting it through.
Stifling a yawn, he repeated each of their victims' names in his head once again, hoping it would bring up a clue, any sort of connection to something that might have happened in the past four years of Mike Stone's Homicide career, summed up in the large stack of case files he'd read through on the other end of their work table.
"Here you go, Professor K."
Reappearing by his side, Luke set down a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, a second one over near the corner of the desk.
"Thanks…", Steve mumbled absent-mindedly and rubbed his dry eyes with his thumb and index finger, desperately fighting the unmistakable sense of defeat effectively taking over their work area, "Let's go over this thing one more time, see if we missed something. Come on, wake up, Squirrel."
Dreadful moans appeared from either side of him that quickly died down when Steve scowled at his students, yet sparing them a repeat of his earlier speech about long work hours in the homicide department and the difference between a good cop and an excellent, committed cop.
"Three fatal attacks, then two attempted murders. The killer is circling in on Mike and Dan. We are assuming this is related to a case they worked on sometime over the course of the past four years. We are also assuming our killer is female and is somewhat related to the police department, at least related enough to not raise suspicion when she approached her first three victims. She drove a blue LTD last night when she attacked Mike, the ABP hasn't yielded any results yet. We're still on hold on the murder weapon until we can narrow down our search pattern. And then there's the connection to the shooting range."
"But there are no females working on the shooting range…", Squirrel mumbled from his stretched-out position on the desk, never moving.
"Correct.", Steve noted and reached for his coffee, "And yet, there's a direct correlation between the day of the recertification and our victims. Especially because of Bo. What are the odds of him being there along with two active cops and they all get pulled into this mess? I am telling you, whatever went down that day, whatever they did or whoever they talked to, our killer marked them for death on that range back in June."
"Which goes back to possibly a disgruntled female police officer…"
Luke had lowered his voice significantly, obviously afraid to even vocalize his worries.
"We already checked every potential lead and couldn't come up with a connection, especially for the ones who were on the range that day.", Steve reminded his team, before indulging in some fresh coffee, "How about something else…let's try to look at this from a fresh perspective, shall we?"
When both students nodded hesitantly, Steve leaned forward in his chair, never moving the arm Squirrel was bedded up against.
"We've spent our entire research under the assumption that there is some sort of connection between our three initial victims, right?"
"Well, there is. They're all dead. They're all related to law enforcement. Similar in age.", Luke interrupted, only to have Steve raise a cautionary hand.
"Let's assume anyways. Let's forget about the fact that they have a common professional background because honestly, I think that's what's been throwing us off. We've been too focused treating this as a hate crime against cops, when we should have been looking at the common denominators outside the police force. As a matter of fact, let's assume they have nothing in common at all for a second. When we take away all those parameters, what do we have left when it comes to glue that's holding this serial killing together? Come on guys, think! What is left that ties all three homicides together? Because I think if we can figure out that tie, we will figure out who's after Mike and Dan."
"MO ties them together.", Squirrel hypothesized and slowly sat up straight again, but not before stretching both of his arm extensively.
"Okay…what else?"
Noting the increase in pace next door, Hassejian glanced up from his desk, brows furrowed at his old co-worker.
"That damn piece of paper from the shooting range.", Luke grunted and took a sip of coffee, before gesturing wildly, "But that puts us back to square one. Whatever we do, whichever angle we think about, it comes right back to that range!"
"It does…doesn't it…?"
Rubbing his tired eyes for a second time, Steve drew in a deep breath, relishing in the fleeting moment of peaceful darkness, before facing his audience again.
"Professor K, what if it's not the range?"
Squirrel's off-hand comment made him perk up and Steve glanced over at the young man, who was playing with a crinkled-up napkin in his hand.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…what if this has nothing to do with the range, but just with the piece of paper these names are on."
When his sluggish mind couldn't follow along right away, Squirrel smiled back at him sheepishly and leaned forward to point at the attendance chart.
"Look at this, Professor K. There were two groups there that day for re-certs, one in the morning, one at night. Our three victims comprise that night-group. Now if you want for us to ignore all the other ties, one of the few things remaining is this piece of paper tying the names of our victims together."
Glancing back down again at the file he knew inside and out by now, Steve summoned the last of his concentration, re-read the names, and suddenly froze in his spot.
Both of his students noticed the change in demeanor and fell quiet, as he clenched his jaws, furious that he'd missed the obvious fact that was right in front of him all along.
"Guys…I think we're onto something here. If you look closely, our victim's names appear in the same order of their murder. What if…and that's just a theory…but what if whoever is responsible for this, picked her victims off this sheet?"
When both boys nodded, Steve reached for the nearby phone, dialing the number to Franklin Hospital he knew by heart, while holding the receiver between his ear and shoulder.
"Luke, Squirrel, have Norm help you guys find out exactly who all has access to these records, from the day they reserve the range to the day the certificates are printed. I want everything on that from records, personnel, the works. Get Dewitt in on it if you have to. In the meantime, I will see if I can get a hold of Mike. He might know somebody between point A and B with a really bad grudge."
