How It All Started

Disclaimer:  This is a work of fan fiction written for fun and not for profit by the members of The Sloan's Deck Writing Group (The Deck).  All DM characters are property of CBS/Viacom.  All new characters are property of The Deck.

Chapter One

Steve took the last few things off the dining table and put them carefully on one of the occasional tables nearby. Then he moved into the kitchen grabbed two cans of soda, a bag of chips and a donut, carefully balanced them all the way back to the table and sat down with a sigh.

Just by his feet was a brown box full of files and once Steve had made sure that his goodies wouldn't get in the way he hauled it out and up on to the surface in one movement. For a moment he just stared at the contents, he hadn't realised just how much stuff he had brought home.

Ten minutes later he had the most relevant information spread out in front of him, a tablet of paper and a pencil by his left hand and was deep in concentration.

Mark looked out of the kitchen and saw his son's head bent over the table and all his doodads on the wrong surface. He smiled and returned to his chores, he knew that Steve would put them back when he was finished, and then he would put them all in their right positions once his son was in bed.

The pasta dish he was preparing was still lots of separate ingredients and so, whistling a tune that was recognisable only to himself, he began to read through the recipe that he had managed to get at work during the week.

"Dottore Sloan, you are an angelo, I don'a know how I will evah say grazie for alla you've-a done. Ifa there is anything, anything at alla." Lucia Puchellini wiped away a tear that had fallen from her eye, and smiled. She had arrived from Italy a month earlier to live with her son and his family. Her eyes had cataracts so bad that she had been unable to see anything properly and Roberto had rushed her to see his own physician, Mark.

One of the first things Roberto had done was get his mother medical insurance, and, because she'd had no treatment or diagnosis in Italy, she was able to be treated almost immediately. Now, thanks to Mark, and the specialist he had recommended, she had a bright future ahead of her, living with her family, being able to see her grandchildren grow up, and travel round the new country she was going to call home.

Mark had whispered to her, "Your son told me you have a famous lasagna recipe, I think a copy of that would be payment enough."

The lady had thrown her hands in the air in horror, "I have a-never told anyone, not even a-Sylvia knows." Sylvia was Roberto's wife, a lovely lady, but definitely not Italian, and not, it seemed, privy to all her acquired family's secrets either.

Mark had just smiled, finished checking his patient over and then left. Two hours later a young nurse had brought him a piece of paper with a scratchily written recipe on it.

Signor Sloan,

Please excuse my writing, this is the first time I have used it in five years …

Mark had been deeply touched, and he planned to make two meals, one for himself, Steve and his extended family, and the other ready to take to his new found friend the next day.

For just over an hour the Sloan household was quiet and productive. Steve made three pages of notes which meant he could actually get rid of about six files when he went to work the next day, and Mark had a very satisfying, appetising smell wafting from the kitchen as he made his way into the living room.

"Are you all right, Son?" Mark looked over Steve's shoulder and reached out to pick up one of the sheets of writing.

A large hand smacked down on the paper, "Ah ah ah, oh, no, you don't!" Steve kept his hand on the paper, "I'm fine, thank you. Me cop, you doctor, ok?"

"Sometimes you're just no fun!" Mark picked up an apple out of the dish and polished it absent-mindedly on his shirt. Steve carried on reading through a page of closely typed information and after a couple of minutes, by which time Mark could see his face in the piece of fruit, he couldn't resist any longer. "Is that supposed to say hypothesis?"

"What?"

"That," Mark pointed a finger at Steve's hand written notes, "hypothesis only has one i."

"Dad!"

Mark was saved by the sound of the doorbell and with a chuckle he left the room, descended the two steps and smiled at the sight of Jack Stewart waiting to be let in.

"Hey, Mark, that's a smell that takes me back." Jack smiled and sniffed the air. "I think this will go well with whatever it is you have made." He handed his host a bottle of red wine and, when Mark indicated, he made his way into the main house.

"Hi, Steve, what are you doing?" Once again a hand moved towards the notes on the table, and once again Steve beat him to it.

"No, Jack, leave it. I know where everything is, go sit on the deck, I'll only be about a half hour."

"You'll need to be less time than that or the Lasagna di Signora Puchellini will be fit for nothing but ceiling tiles."

"Well, if everybody would leave me alone, I would get finished much quicker, Dad, stop it!" Steve saw his father and Jack exchange glances and he knew they were just itching to see what he was doing.

The two doctors moved out onto the deck, and Steve tried to put them out of his mind so that he could regain his concentration. The case he was working on had been ongoing for about six months. So far three, seemingly unrelated, male victims had been found, their hands tied behind them, on their knees with a bullet through their brains from the same gun. Steve knew that the velocity of the shot should have sent the men to the floor, but they had all been found in the position of execution and that was where the similarities ended.

All of them were in their forties, but none of them were the same age. Two were married; one with children, one without, the third had been single. Two of them had used the same bank, but not the same branch. They had been reasonably comfortably off, but that hadn't been apparent from their lifestyles. They had all worked, one as a teacher, one a florist and the other designed computer programmes.

Every avenue Steve had gone up resulted in a dead end. He couldn't find anything, other than the cause of death, which was the same in all three cases. He was just starting in on the educational records for the umpteenth time, having read them all each time a body was found, when once again his concentration was broken by the door bell. Knowing that his dad was still outside with Jack, Steve slammed his pencil down on the table and headed for the front of the house.

"Hi, Steve, ooh, something smells good, what is it?"

"Lasagna di Signora Pu something or other."

"You're kidding, Mark got the recipe, why the sly old dog, however did he do that? The last I heard she refused to give it to him." Steve shut the door behind their guest and followed her back into the living room.  "Oh, someone is busy, what are you working on?"

Because Amanda was in front of Steve, this time he wasn't able to get to the pages of writing first. She picked up the top sheet and began to scan over Steve's notes. "I know about this, I had lunch with Marti Redman yesterday, she works at the county coroner's office and she was talking about her boss Gavin Tindall, he did the autopsy on Mr Little on Wednesday … Um, Steve."

"Yeah, what." He knew he sounded ungracious, but that was because he was.

"There's only one i in hypothesis."

"I know, thank you very much, that has already been pointed out to me!"

"Amanda, is that you?" Mark came into the room as he heard the voices. "Well, now we can sit down and eat. Steve, I set the table on the deck so that your work didn't need to be disturbed, maybe we can help you with it … what? What did I say?" Mark saw the look on his son's face and his words sort of petered out. He moved into the kitchen and began to hand the various dishes to Amanda, Jack and Steve and they were soon all sat round the table enjoying a wonderful meal.

"It's not that I didn't appreciate your help before…" Steve had finished his first helping of lasagna and was waiting for his dad to bring the dish out of the oven again. He was the first with an empty plate and so he knew that he would be sitting for a while.

"But you don't want it now? I see, so you get rid of all the difficult cases, with our help and then close the door in our faces, well, that's gratitude for you … these young whippersnappers, no appreciation of what their elders and betters do for them." Mark had put on his old man face and voice and Jack and Amanda were soon laughing with him. Steve on the other hand was not amused.

"Dad, I want to make lieutenant some day, hopefully soon, and having my old man, a third year medical student and a doctor in the back of my car every time I arrive at a crime scene isn't gonna help my chances, ok?"

"Well, ok, but … "

"But what?" Steve looked at his father warily.

"But what are you working on right now?"