Eames's cell phone rang just as she closed the door to her apartment behind her. Since she hadn't planned to spend the night at Goren's, she'd had to return home to shower and change before driving them to work, and Goren had decided to tag along in his own car.
Shooting him a look that warned him to be quiet, she opened the phone. "Hello?"
She needn't have worried about her partner; at the moment, he was too absorbed in examining her apartment with new eyes to cause trouble for her phone call. Her bedroom appeared to be getting a particularly thorough walk-through.
"Alex!" Deakins voice rang through the phone.
She groaned. "Whatever it is, we don't need to be in another half-hour."
"And good morning to you too, Detective. I'm not calling you out, so you can relax."
She did, rolling her shoulders to work out the tension that had worked its way into them. "Sorry. Long night."
She heard Goren snicker from the doorway of her bedroom and turned to gave him a look that threatened retribution; he shut his mouth, but couldn't wipe the smile off his face. He could obviously tell that she was speaking to Deakins, she thought, and somehow the idea of her complaining to their boss about the "long night" she'd had . . . well, she had to admit it was ironic.
"I know the feeling," Deakins was saying when she turned her attention back to the phone. "I was actually calling to find out what you guys want for breakfast, since I promised to buy."
Alex instinctively tensed, then told herself to relax. Deakins wasn't asking her for both orders because he suspected that Goren was hanging over her shoulder; it was just that she'd been appointed keeper of Goren's food preferences at some point a few years ago, mainly because he was usually either busy or unable to remember whenever such information was needed. "Coffee for both of us. Where are you getting the food?"
"Goldberg's," he said, naming a conveniently located bagel shop/deli.
"Scrambled egg on a plain bagel for me," she said, then paused, flipping through her mental files for what the deli served that would fit Goren's requirements. "And taylor ham and egg on an everything bagel for that guy that sits across from me." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Goren's eyebrows go up; he was always impressed when she managed to choose something he really would like to eat, even though she hadn't ever failed to do so.
"Got it. You should get him to write this all down, you know that? I can provide more productive things for you to memorize."
Shrugging her shoulder to dislodge Goren's smirking face, which was now resting on it, she laughed. "I don't doubt that you can. But at least if I forget his breakfast all I get is a dirty look."
"Good point. Well, I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing, Alex. See you in a little bit."
"Yep, bye." She slid the phone into her pocket, turned around, and gave Goren a playful slap in the head. "You're going to get me in trouble!"
He gave her his best look of startled innocence. "Well, I had to hear what he was saying, didn't I?"
"You know you didn't."
He shifted his eyes away from her. "Ok, maybe I didn't. But I wanted to."
"Can I trust you not to answer my phone while I jump in the shower?"
"Of course." He wanted to add that she should be more concerned about him climbing into the shower with her, but the clock was ticking and they were rapidly running out time to even jest. "Can I clean up in here, instead?"
She gave him a tired look. "Knock yourself out. Just don't put anything in the wrong place." With that, she turned and disappeared into the bathroom.
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Deakins had left the brown bag containing their food in the middle of Eames's desk, and they both made a beeline to it from the elevator. "Everything . . ." Eames said, pulling out a foil-wrapped circle marked with an E and handing it to him. "Plain for me. Here's your coffee," she added, putting it down in front of him. "Looks like he got juice, too. He must really need us in a good mood today. You want orange or grapefruit?"
"Mmlurgh," he mumbled around a mouthful of his sandwich, which he'd managed to unwrap and bite into in an impressively short time.
"Orange it is," she said with a nod, dropping the carton next to his coffee.
Knowing that Andrew Kim was due in half an hour, they gulped down their food as if they hadn't been fed in days. Eames muttered a curse as she burned her tongue on her coffee, then opened the folder she'd pulled in front of her and scanned the notes she'd made last night. "Maybe he'll be easy to crack," she said thoughtfully. "If he's wound as tight as you think . . ."
"It's a possibility."
"But you don't think it's likely?"
He looked up at her. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm having a hard time getting deep enough into his head."
She raised her eyebrows. "That's a new one, coming from you."
He shrugged. "It's been a long time since I was twenty-five."
"You and me both," she said with a quiet laugh, looking back down at her notes. "Hey, did you realize that 'Andrew' isn't his first name?
"What?" Goren reached over and snatched the folder out of her hands. "Longxing 'Andrew' Kim? How the hell did I miss that?"
"Probably because it's only printed this once, on his admission information. After that, everything in here uses 'Andrew' or 'Drew'."
Goren shook his head wonderingly. "Longxing . . ." he repeated thoughtfully to himself.
"Breakfast ok?" Deakins asked, approaching their desks. When both detectives nodded, he said, "Good. So what's the plan for the kid you're talking to today?"
Eames swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and said, "I'm starting off alone, probably do a bit of the good cop thing. He needs to account for a lot: his movements in the past few days, his grades, the condition of his office last night. Not to mention the big honkin' note Li wrote in his file saying he shouldn't be admitted."
"He might be having . . . financial problems," Goren added. "As far as we can tell, he's living entirely off of his fellowship."
"Which isn't that substantial," Eames added.
"You want Carver watching?" the captain asked.
They exchanged a look. Finally, Eames nodded. "Yeah, if you can get him up here it's probably a good idea. But make sure you tell him we're not sure whether the guy's going to talk. I don't want him chewing me out if I don't get anything useful."
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"Hi Andrew," Eames said fifteen minutes later, entering the interrogation room in which the boy sat stiffly. "People call you Drew, right?"
"Uh, yeah."
She gave him a bright smile. "Well, thanks for being willing to talk to us. I hear you have a busy schedule."
Drew looked down at the table shyly. "It's not that bad."
Great, Eames thought as she sat down. There's no way this kid's going to crack if he'll hardly open his mouth to say hello! "I've got a few things I need to ask you about. You understand that you're not under arrest and you can leave if you don't want to answer the questions, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good." She opened her folder and made a show of shuffling through the papers inside it. "Tell me about your relationship with Dr. Li. He was your advisor?"
"My advisor, yeah." His eyes flicked to the folder for a second, then returned to his hands.
"I know different professors have different advising styles," she pressed on. "Tell me about Dr. Li's. Was he very informal? Friendly? Strictly professional?"
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Behind the one-way, Ron Carver glanced at Deakins. "This is what you needed me up here for? Who is this kid?"
"This kid," Goren said impatiently, not moving his eyes from the window, "is our best suspect at the moment. Give her some time to work on him."
"Since when are youthe patient one, Bobby?" said Deakins.
Refusing to be goaded, Goren just waved a hand at the two men. "Be quiet and watch."
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"He was professional, I guess. I mean, he wasn't anybody's best friend." Before Eames could speak, he added, "I know everybody's probably told you how evil he was, but it wasn't always that he didn't like people. Sometimes he just didn't like dealing with them."
"I know someone like that," she said with a personable smile. "Comes off the wrong way sometimes."
"Exactly. I mean, once he got to know you . . . I know for a fact that he's had Alejandro, me, and Jim all over for dinner on different nights."
"He liked to play host?"
"Not really. I mean, he didn't act like a host, he just acted like he invited you over for dinner and asked you to please put the plates out on the table when you got there."
"Hmm." She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, noticing that Drew's eyes followed her movement for a second before he caught himself. "When was the last time you were over at his apartment?" she asked casually.
This was a sticky question; a lot depended on how much the suspect knew they knew. If things had gone as planned, he didn't know that the warfarin had been detected or that they were aware that the murder was actually begun a day earlier than it appeared. If that information had leaked, however, or if he was overly suspicious, it would be a simple matter for Drew to move his last visit back a few days or weeks.
He hesitated a second before answering; she got the feeling he was trying to read her face to find out what she knew. Think again, kid. I've been doing this almost longer than you've been alive. You're not getting anything from me!
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"Has he been kept up to date on the investigation?" Carver asked nervously. "If he says it was two weeks ago, you're going to have a hard time proving he's lying."
"As far as we know," Deakins told him, "no one at the school's aware of the results of the autopsy. Unless he's gotten information leaked to him, he should have no reason to lie. He'd think it was still safe to say that he was there the night 'before' the death."
"She's good," Goren mumbled under his breath.
Both men looked at him. "Pardon?" asked Carver.
Goren waved toward the mirror. "Look at her face. I haven't seen anyone do such a good 'dumb' look in a long time. She's playing off the fact that he probably views women a lot like his advisor did: as hangers-on who aren't overly capable. She's getting him to stop considering her a threat."
"She is good," Deakins agreed. "You been giving her lessons? Usually you play the dumb one."
He shook his head. "It wouldn't work this time. It has to be a woman."
"This observation just got a lot more interesting," Carver said softly.
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"Maybe two or three nights before he died," Drew hedged. "To work on a re-write of one of the chapters of my dissertation." He looked back down at the table. "I can't believe he's just . . . dead."
"I wouldn't say 'just' dead," Eames said pointedly. "It wasn't a sudden heart attack or something."
He swallowed noticeably. "I know. That's what makes it even worse."
Her legs were beginning to cramp. She uncrossed them and leaned forward with a smile and a lighthearted wave of her hand. "Let's take a step away from the depressing stuff, ok? Why don't you tell me how you've been doing in your classes."
"Uh . . ." The kid had a terrible poker face; she could see the calculations going on in his head as he tried to decided how much of a lie he could get away with.
"Drew?" she prompted after a few seconds. "I don't need your exact GPA; just get me in the ballpark."
"A's," he said quickly.
Eames tried not to display the sly smile brewing on her lips. "All A's?"
"Well, one or two B's. Everyone has a bad class or two," he added defensively.
Time for a strategic decision. Did she call him out on his lie now, and put the interview into openly hostile territory? Or should she let it slide while she asked the rest of the questions they needed answered?
"Good for you," she said cheerfully, deciding that the kid would clam up if she put him in the hot seat right away. "Have you heard about what happened to your officemate last night?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I can't believe someone broke into our office. What could they want from there?"
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"Good to see he's still concerned about his ex," Deakins said with a chuckle. "Girlfriend hit in the head? Forget that, someone opened my filing cabinet!"
"I wonder if he's spoken to her since then," murmured Carver.
"Probably, uh, not," Goren said, trying to keep his eyes on the suspect's face as he spoke. "If he'd come in here later in the day, she would have called him by then. But she wouldn't have called him in the middle of the night, since his stuff wasn't damaged, and it's too early for a casual morning call."
"It always depresses me to see someone so young and clean-cut be such a cold fish," Deakins said. "Young punk in a leather jacket, fine - but a skinny Chinese kid who just wants people to believe he got straight A's?" He shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, but somehow I still am."
"Chinese . . ." Goren repeated.
Deakins blinked. "That's what he is, right?"
"A lot of Chinese students borrow English names when they come here to school, because English monolinguals find it difficult to pronounce their birth names," he replied as though something were dawning on him.
Deakins and Carver looked at each other. "Ok," Deakins said after a moment. "That's a useful factoid, but where are you going with it?"
"James Li was also Chinese," Goren said slowly. "He would have known . . ." Suddenly his head jerked up. "Stay here!" he ordered his startled companions as he ran out the door.
Carver blinked as the door swung shut behind the detective. "What was that about?"
Deakins, smiling, shrugged. "No idea, but he only makes a dramatic exit like that when he's got something big."
"Should we stop the interview until he gets back?"
"No," the captain said with a shake of his head as he turned back to the mirror. "The way she's going, she might get it out of him without needing whatever Goren just went for."
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"Sara's doing fine," Eames was saying behind the mirror. "We sent her to the hospital, just in case." Damn, how confrontational would she have to be before the guy would forget about the office and remember his friend?
"That's good. Have you figured out whether they took anything from the office? Maybe Sara's laptop?"
"Uh, no. No, as far as we could tell, nothing was missing. It did look like someone had rifled through your notes and assignments, though." Any rational, anal-retentive student would jump on that, she thought. Let's see whether this guy does.
His eyes widened slightly, then returned to normal. "But they didn't take anything, right?"
"Right. Everything's still there." She glanced down at her folder, noting that she had one more big question to ask him before she could really pounce. "Are students allowed to view their grades and records in your department? The paper kind, not the the internet kind."
Drew looked confused. "Uh, I guess probably we could. I've never checked."
"So if there's anything other than the basic grades and transcripts in your file, you're unaware of it?"
"I suppose I am."
Eames allowed her attack smile to appear. "So then you didn't know about this?" she asked, sliding a photocopy of Li's defamatory letter across the table.
He read it, his eyes growing progressively wider. "That son of a . . ." He looked up at her, expression resolute. "No, Detective, I didn't know about that. I think I'm glad I didn't know."
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But here's the thing, Drew," she said smoothly, not giving him time to regroup. "We've looked at your grades, too. And they're not 'mostly A's' like you just told me. Especially in Dr. Li's classes."
Before Andrew could think of an explanation for that, there was a quick knock on the door as it was pulled open. Goren appeared in the doorway.
She looked up at him, noticing immediately that he was shifting his weight from side to side. He was eager to get in on the questioning, then; he must have figured out something important. "You mind?" he said out of habit as he approached the table.
Eames waved a hand toward the empty chair and nodded.
All business now, Goren sat down and opened his portfolio. "Hi, Drew."
"Hi." The student was watching Goren warily; he was smart enough to know that this interruption meant that something had probably changed.
"Uh, 'Drew' . . ." Goren went on, hardly pausing to hear the greeting. "That's not actually your real name, right?" he asked, using the overly-inquisitive tone that often helped him disarm suspects. "It's just the name you adopted when you started school."
Andrew, looking unhappy with this line of questioning, mumbled, "Yeah."
"Your real name is . . . Longxing," Goren said, pretending to read it off a page in his portfolio. "Did I pronounce that right?"
"Close enough."
Goren grinned widely. "Great, so now we've been properly introduced. Detective Eames," he said grandly, turning to her, "I'd like you to meet Longxing Kim."
"A pleasure," Eames said with a poker face, concealing the fact that she was highly entertained by this turn of events.
"But I should call you Drew, right?" Goren asked, snapping his head around to look back at their suspect.
"Yes. It's what everyone calls me."
This was too easy, Goren thought. The kid was playing right into his hands. "Everyone? You don't actually mean . . . everyone, right? I mean, since Dr. Li spoke the same dialect of Chinese as you . . ." He let his voice trail off as he shrugged. "He'd probably call you by your real name, wouldn't he?"
Andrew's eyes moved to Eames as though begging her to get this weird guy off his back. She gave him a bright smile and tried to look oblivious.
"He called me both," the boy finally said. "Drew if there were any people around who called me that. Sometimes Longxing when it was just us."
"That's interesting," Goren said. Then, in an abrupt change of subject, he leaned forward and said casually, "Hey, I bet you spent a lot of time with him. I mean, since he was your advisor and all. Did you ever work as a research assistant for Dr. Li?"
"Not officially, but I helped him occasionally."
"Good! That's good." Goren slipped Li's date book from underneath his portfolio and slid it halfway across the table, so he and the suspect could both see it. Eames noticed that the top section of the page it was open to, which should have showed the date and month, had been mysteriously crumpled and folded so that the information was obscured. "So maybe you can help me out here. You know, we're trying to figure out his last day was like, but his handwriting, well . . ." He chuckled, as if saying, well, you understand. "We can't figure the stuff out. Like here," he went on, pointing to the morning of what he knew was the day before Li's body was found. "What does this say? Sec . . . mee . . . meet?" he sounded out haltingly before looking up at Andrew.
The boy leaned forward, scanning the writing. "Meet with secretary," he read smoothly. At Goren's raised eyebrows, he offered a small smile. "It takes a while to get used to, but it makes sense once you know how he wrote."
Goren turned the book back toward himself. "That's amazing. Isn't that amazing, Eames?"
She leaned over and coolly studied the book. "Personally, I'd be more impressed if he could read that second one, the one by eight p.m. Looks more complicated."
Goren pushed the book back to Andrew and raised his eyebrows. "You're not gonna turn down an easy opportunity to impress a woman like her, are you?"
Feeling much more relaxed now that the atmosphere was friendly and the questions weren't probing, Andrew looked at the line Eames had indicated. "He used a lot of random abbreviations. This one . . . hmm."
Eames crossed her arms and gave Goren a haughty look. "See, I told you he wouldn't be able to do that one."
"No, I can figure it out. Give me a second." In part of his mind, Andrew knew that these cops were being entirely too nice, and that the female one had to know exactly how attractive she looked to him, but he still couldn't see the harm in impressing her just a little. "R-w-w-slash-ldk-colon-c2. Let's see . . . 'rww-slash' is probably 're-write with.' Like what he was doing with me. So if that's 're-write' . . ." He paused. " 'ldk' must be me. When's this from?"
Goren tipped his head to the side and pretended to be studying the page. "I'm not sure, actually. They were organized by date, but I kind of, uh . . . I kind of dropped the pages earlier and I . . . I don't know if I put everything back in the right place."
"Oh," Andrew said, seeming to buy Goren's "bumbling detective" act. "Ok, well, we've got 're-write with Longxing Drew Kim.' The 'colon-two' would have to be the chapter."
At the puzzled looks the detectives threw him, he explained, "It means the re-write was on chapter two of my dissertation. Which means it was recent . . . I've only done three of those so far."
"Ok," Goren said, moving a finger over the page. "So this, here," he said, pointing to the R, "this is is an 'r'? Yeah, I can see it now. Up leg, loop, down leg. You're right." He made a show of slumping back in his chair. "You're something else, Drew. You should be a pharmacist, you'd be able to read all the doctors' writing."
Andrew turned slightly red and stared at his hands. "Was that all you needed me here for?"
Eames met Goren's eyes over the suspect's bowed head. With an almost imperceptible shake of her head, she communicated that she didn't think they should show their hand yet.
Goren nodded back, then looked down at Andrew. "For now, yeah. But you know, we might need you again for this handwriting thing. Could we have a copy of your schedule so we know when we can call you?"
"Sure," Andrew said, eager to escape the room. "Got a piece of scrap paper?"
Eames tore a sheet of paper off her notepad and slid it over to him.
He scribbled down a list of his classes, added what looked like his phone number, and handed it back to her with a smile.
"Thanks," she said dryly as she folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. "We're done now, you can go whenever you're ready."
She didn't have to ask twice; within five seconds Andrew was out of his chair and through the door, into the arms of the uniform waiting to escort him out of the building.
As the young man swaggered away, obviously proud of having survived an interview with the police, Deakins and Carver made their way into the interview room.
"Hey, Alex," Deakins said with a grin. "When was the last time you got a guy's number that quick?"
She smiled sweetly at the three men. "I have all yours, don't I?"
Carver snickered, Deakins gave her a dirty look, and Goren looked like he was stifling a burst of laughter. Turning away from them, she wiggled her fingers in a girlish wave. "So, boys . . . what's for lunch?"