How It All Started – Chapter Two

The Way to a Man's Files Is Through His Stomach

Steve met his father's eyes pointedly. "Dinner," he answered sweetly. "Right now I am working on dinner." He rose to his feet to show that the topic of conversation was closed. "Can I get anyone any more lasagna?"

Steve tapped his pencil lightly against his blotter, studying the screen in front of him. Transferring his notes from yesterday seemed to be taking a long time. Instead the evening seemed to keep playing through his head, over and over…

Jack tried to hide a smirk. "Subtle," he offered approvingly.

"Yeah, well, subtlety gets me nowhere with this crowd. Is that a 'yes' to the lasagna?"

"I wouldn't mind." Jack hefted himself to his feet. "In fact, let me give you a hand."

Steve nodded. "Even more subtle. Serving lasagna is definitely a two man job."

One "i" in hypothesis…he clicked on spellcheck. He could have asked, he supposed, but he hadn't been in any mood to let them know that he wasn't immediately sure which "i" to eliminate…

Jack shuffled his hands into his pockets and followed close on his heels. "Look, Steve, we're just curious, is all - it's good mental exercise for me and Amanda - keeps us sharp for medical practice."

"Uh huh. And you don't have enough medical mysteries of your own to keep you - er - sharp?" Steve located the potholders and reached for the oven door.

Steve typed in a list of the victims names and ordered them by date…

"Of course we do…" Jack smiled with lazy charm, thoughtfully offering him the metal spatula sitting nearby in the spoon rest. "But this gives us a change - you know, brightens up our perspective."

"What a good idea. Bring along that trivet, will you?" Steve manoeuvred the pan out of the oven and used his shoulder to slam the door closed again. "Maybe I'll stop by Community General and consult on a couple of medical cases this week too. Wouldn't hurt for me to keep a little sharp."

Jack lost his smile. "Steve, you have no idea what a scary thought that is."

Steve nodded. "Then you understand my position perfectly." He started back to the deck, carefully toting the pan of lasagna.

He added the victims' personal information and crime scene locations, stared at them, trying to see a connection he might have missed earlier…

Jack grabbed the trivet and followed, hustling a little to keep up. "It's not the same thing!" he protested. "You need formal medical education to diagnose a patient!"

"Oh?" Steve met his gaze blandly. "And you don't think that a couple of Criminal Justice courses come in handy when putting a case together?"

"Well, of course they do." Jack's eyes danced mischievously. "That's why we have you."

Steve tossed him a sour look. "Glad I could be of use. Could you get the - ?"

The words on the screen blurred together and he paused to rub his eyes. Rough night…couldn't remember how much sleep he'd actually gotten…

Jack hurried around to get the door, just warming to his argument. "Come on, it's a lot different, you've got to admit. You diagnosing a patient puts a life at risk - our talking about your cases doesn't." He stepped onto the deck and arranged the trivet on a nearby table.

"Really." Steve gingerly placed the hot pan on top of it, his voice deceptively pleasant. "So you wouldn't call, say, getting caught in an explosion, for example, 'putting lives at risk'?" He folded his arms and waited.

Okay. He glanced back at his notes. Actual recorded physical evidence…

Jack looked cornered for a second, then he cleared his throat. "I - don't remember ever - "

"I think," Mark interrupted helpfully, "that he's talking about that teensy weensy little explosion that Amanda and I found ourselves in  - really, I think you make much too much of that, Steve."

"Great." Steve smiled a tight smile. "Can I use that in your eulogy?" He picked up the spatula and dug at the lasagna with more force than was absolutely necessary.

"Oh, now, Steve - " Amanda got hastily to her feet to rescue the lasagna, putting her hand over his on the spatula handle and keeping it there until he reluctantly surrendered it to her. "Mark is right. That wasn't anything. Why, my clothes weren't even damaged."

The meticulous list fuzzed together and Steve threw down the pencil and spun his chair away from the computer to give his eyes a break.

"I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel." He snatched Jack's plate off of the table and held it while she scooped out a generous, steaming square, then smacked it back down in front of him. "Dad?"

"Uh, yes - I wouldn't mind a - " Mark winced as his plate disappeared abruptly from in front of him, then winced again as it reappeared with a large hunk of lasagna and a resounding clatter. "Steve - " he grabbed for the moving wrist as it reached next for Amanda's plate and raised his eyebrows with a slight smile. "Go a little easier on the china, would you?"

Steve paused and met his eyes, then jerked his head in a nod, some of the tension leaving him. "Sorry. Amanda?" He offered her her plate.

He picked up the pencil again, twirling it mindlessly between his fingers. Not one of his more gracious evenings…

Amanda shook her head. "Oh, no thank you - it was wonderful, but I've had enough. Where's your plate, Steve?" Steve handed over his plate and watched her cut an oversized slice. She smiled winningly at him. "How does that look?"

Steve grunted noncommittally.

Amanda's smile broadened demurely as she scooped some extra cheese over it. "You know, Steve," she murmured soothingly, scraping around for a little extra meat sauce, "we only thought you might like to talk about it - you seem very tense."

"That's true, Son." Mark cut a forkful of his lasagna, his face guileless. "You do seem tense. It might help to just talk through it."

"That's right." Jack discreetly topped off Steve's wineglass. "Better for your blood pressure. And there's no danger to anybody in talking."

Steve didn't answer right away, one side of his mouth twisted in a sardonic curl, his eyes on Amanda, who was ladling extra tomato sauce over his portion. He knew he was being played, but…

But. But the truth was that talking could help sometimes. After all these months of picking relentlessly through the same information, he was only too aware that he was numbed to some of the details - that subtleties could be lost to him. A fresh eye, a fresh ear, could catch something that he was no longer sensitised to. With a sigh, he looked back at his notes.

Amanda held his plate out to him. "How's that?"

Steve looked at it. "Just talk," he repeated slowly.

Amanda opened her eyes at him. "Of course!"

"You mean just conversation. That means that nobody is going to start mysteriously showing up at the crime scene, or find reasons to chat up witnesses or go snooping around and getting underfoot of the investigation."

Mark looked shocked. "Now, would we do that?"

Steve barked a short laugh.

Mark cleared his throat. "Well, maybe we have, once or twice…but - "

"Promise."

"What's that?"

"If I tell you about this case then this is as far as it goes - talk. No creeping around trying to solve it. Just conversation. That's it. Promise me."

"Now, Steve, you know I'd never do anything to jeopardize - "

"We promise," Jack cut in abruptly, watching Steve's face. "Right, Amanda?"

Amanda nodded vigorously. "Oh, cross my heart!"

Steve lifted his brows at Mark.

Mark held up his hands in surrender. "Just talk," he vowed. "Unless, of course, there is some medical insight that we can offer…?"

Steve frowned. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that that was somehow leaving a much bigger loophole than was immediately evident, but…

But. There was that word again. Probably he shouldn't have been talking about it. Probably it had been a bad idea. Probably he would live to regret it…

"Okay," he said at last, taking his plate from Amanda and settling back in his chair. "I'll give you the basics. We have three murders, all males in their forties, all done execution style, all with the same calibre gun, but that's where the similarities seem to stop. They - "

Amanda gasped, her eyes like saucers. "A serial killer?"

"Your friend Marti Redman neglected to tell you?" Steve's voice was tinged with sarcasm.

"She's not allowed to - I've never been involved in a case with a serial killer before!"

Steve abruptly lowered his fork. "Okay, this is what I mean. This is not a game, and it's not some intellectual puzzle! People are being killed and that's bad enough - I'd like it if none of them turned out to be any of you!"

He shuddered, bouncing the pencil idly on top of the notepad. Just great. Now if they got carried away and anything happened to any of them, he had nobody to blame but himself. Stupid, Sloan. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

Amanda flushed. "That came out wrong. I know that - those poor men. Did they have wives? Or - or children?"

Steve nodded, eyeing his lasagna with suddenly diminished interest. "Two had wives. One had two children. One didn't seem to have any kind of a steady romantic relationship."

He stared at the notes. No consistency in height or colouring, body type or occupation…

There was a brief silence, and Mark stepped in to bridge it in a quiet matter of fact tone. "What else can you tell us?"

Steve abandoned his lasagna and took a sip of his wine instead. "Not a whole lot. We have a profile, but it's more based on general statistics than anything specific to this case. Since over ninety percent of serial killers are white males between the ages of twenty-five and fifty, we're focusing our search there for now and looking for new links."

Jack gave a low whistle. "Ninety percent? You mean, guys like you and me?"

Steve managed a faint, wry smile. "Well, not exactly like you and me, hopefully - unless there's something you want to tell me?"

Amanda ruffled her brows. "You mean there are no female serial killers? Or black, or Asian?"

Steve sighed. "Yeah, there are, Amanda - it's just a statistically small percentage, and we have to start somewhere."

Not that it was much of a place to start…he'd run the demographic through the databases of known offenders time and time again with no promising results. But serial killers could remain undetected for years…

Amanda stopped toying with her salad, her face troubled. "Well, what else do serial killers have in common?"

Steve shook his head. "A sense of ritual - lots of times they collect trophies from their victims…" He trailed off, poking a fork at his lasagna, then pushing it aside. "And one thing more. They never just stop. They may seem to if they die or move on to someplace else, but as long as they're alive, they never stop killing - never." His eyes travelled from one to the other bleakly. "There's always another victim. It's just a matter of time."

And they were running out of time. As long as this case remained unsolved, as long as he kept coming up empty, people were at risk. There would be another murder. He glanced down at his hands in surprise, realized that he had broken his pencil in two. He stared at it for a moment, then tossed the pieces aside.

"Hey, Sloan!" He glanced up as the desk sergeant dropped a message on the desk in front of him. "This just came in for you. 'Nother killing - looks like the same MO."

Steve picked up the message and stared at it, hit the "save" button on his computer screen. The names listed there seemed to gaze back at him, reproaching him. He hastened to shut the file down and grabbed his jacket. "I'm on my way."