"I'm more sure than ever that this kid's hiding something," Eames said, picking up a piece of melted cheese that had fallen off her pizza and dropping it into her mouth. "But what do we actually have on him?"
"Not enough," Deakins, who was leaning against the side of her desk, said with a sigh. "You guys know I respect your hunches, but if we're going to nail this guy, we're going to need something more concrete. So far all you've established for sure is that Li didn't seem to like Kim - not necessarily vice versa - and that Kim was scheduled to visit the night Li would have been poisoned."
"Which he may or may not have actually done," Goren said around a mouthful of pepperoni. "Without any physical evidence from the scene . . ."
"It's going to be hard as hell to prove he actually went," finished Eames.
Deakins made a negative-looking gesture with his pizza slice. "So much for opportunity. That means that out of the means-motive-opportunity trinity, we're zero for three when it comes to linking them to Andrew Kim. Maybe .5 for three if we're optimistic."
"Don't count us out yet, Captain," said Goren. "We're far from having exhausted our avenues of investigation, especially for the means."
"He's right," Eames said. Glancing at the two men and noticing that they were both looking elsewhere, she reached out and snagged the last slice in the box.
"What are you going to do, survey all the grocery stores in Manhattan for a list of everyone who bought rat poison? Good luck!"
She swallowed hastily. "Two points: first, if we can find traces of the poison - even dust - at the scene or in Kim's apartment, we can probably narrow down the brand, which would made a store canvass much more feasible. Second . . ." She paused. "You remember the Sylvia Moon case?"
"Of course."
"Well, rodenticides are usually dyed green, and they come in pellet form."
Goren gave her an impressed look, not having realized she'd done the research already. "Which means that he couldn't have just been slipped a pill; it would have had to be ground and sprinkled on his food or something."
"Mortar and pestle, anyone?" Eames said with a grin.
"I bet if you two ask Carver nicely, he can finagle you a warrant to find out."
"Mmm," Goren said, handing Eames a piece of crust he didn't want, "if 'nicely' is a requirement, maybe Alex should do it."
She accepted the crust and took a bite, then sighed dramatically. "Oh, Bobby . . . Where would you be without my ability to play nice?"
"Probably back in Narcotics," Deakins joked, "because I'd have been forced to boot him out of here after he'd scared away his twentieth partner."
"Probably," Goren agreed good-naturedly. "But I've got Eames and I'm keeping her, so I'll be staying here."
She faked a speculative look. "Maybe I should ask for a raise . . ."
"Don't push your luck, Detective." Deakins stood up and brushed some crumbs off of his suit. "You guys know the drill; keep me posted."
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"You're keeping me?" she murmured as they walked into the crime scene later that day. "How generous of you."
He stiffened for a moment as he tried to interpret her tone, then noticed the amusement in her eyes and relaxed. "Well, Deakins had a point. I wouldn't have a job if you weren't here . . ."
She snorted. "Somehow I don't believe that. You just like not having to make the effort to be a people person."
He waved to the uniform who was guarding the door, who nodded and handed him the key. "I couldn't be a people person if I tried."
"Hah! You say that like I haven't seen you make all sorts of people do whatever you want just by smiling at them."
He tried to hide his smile. "And yet I can never seem to get you to do what I want."
"Damn right you can't."
They stopped in the foyer of the apartment, surveying the black-dusted surfaces, where fingerprint powder still lingered, and freshly vacuumed carpets. Eames shook her head. "Those CSU guys are welcome to do my floors any day, but I'm keeping them away from my kitchen counter."
Goren grunted noncommittally and wandered off toward the kitchen.
"How much of a cleaner was this guy?" she said, turning and walking toward the bathroom. "You think he washed the dinner dishes?"
"Hopfully not," he called from the threshold of the kitchen. "But I'm about to find out." All it took was two more steps in the direction of the sink to resolve the issue: both basins of the sink were empty. "Damn!" He double-checked, opening the cabinets to make sure the dishes had been put away and not stolen.
Attempting to make her way around the bathroom without getting fingerprint powder, which covered every surface in the room even more extensively that it did in other areas of the house, all over her khaki pants, she called back, "Is that a no?" To herself, she muttered, "We should make these guys take pay cuts for every pound of powder they waste."
"Dishes are all clean and stacked."
There went their best chance at finding residual poison, she thought with a sigh as she used one gloved finger to pull open the medicine cabinet. Its contents matched what his medical records had shown: the guy didn't take anything stronger than aspirin. The cabinet held a basic toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as a bottle of peroxide, one of aspirin, and a box of OTC allergy pills. She closed the medicine cabinet and looked around the room, noticing that there were drawers built into the vanity.
After a few minutes of searching the rest of the cabinetry and drawers, she'd turned up a box of Q-tips, a small bottle of Old Spice, and an electric razor that didn't look like it had gotten much use. She checked the labels of the cleaning products under the sink for any ingredients resembling warfarin or its variants, but the most dangerous thing to be found was a leaky bottle of bleach standing next to a bottle of ammonia. Ok, so the guy wasn't terribly well-versed in household safety, but it still didn't tell her anything about his death.
"Eames?" Goren called as he pulled his head out of the large cabinet under the kitchen sink and stood up. "You find anything?" He started pulling out the shallower drawers one at a time, hoping to find something - anything - that showed a hint of green.
"I got squat," she replied from the kitchen doorway, leaning against one side of it. "Except for finding out that if he hadn't been murdered, he might have managed to gas himself to death by accident one day."
"Yeah, well . . ." He pulled out another drawer, rummaged through it, pushed it shut again. "I'm doing even worse than you."
"What've you already checked?" she asked, stepping into the room and surveying the numerous cabinets.
"The cabinets closest to the sink . . . uh, those two drawers," he said, pointing to each object as he named it, "the cabinet under the sink . . ."
"You didn't check those yet?" she asked, pointing to a row of square cabinets that sat a little higher than Goren's eye-level.
"No. Want me to?"
"Yeah. You check those, I'll do the lower stuff."
They worked in silence for a few minutes before Goren pulled open the last cabinet, paused, and said, "Eames . . ."
"What?"
"Coffee bean grinder," he said, lifting out the item in question, which looked like a miniaturized food processor, and setting it on the counter.
She looked at it for a second. "You know, most grinders of that type things aren't really washable. You kind of have to wipe it out by hand."
His eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "And when you're hand-washing something with a blade, it's nearly impossible to not miss a spot or two."
"Right, because you don't want to cut yourself . . ." She looked up at Goren. "Got an evidence bag?"
He pulled one out of his pocket and shook it open.
"We're pretty sure it was given to him in some kind of food or drink, right?" she asked, looking thoughtful.
"Um, yeah."
She nodded. "Well, I think we've pretty much covered the kitchen. What say we give the non-food-related rooms just a once-over, at least for now?"
He looked up from the bag, which he was struggling to close over the oddly-shaped grinder. "You in a hurry or something?"
"I, uh . . ." Strangely reluctant to be the one to bring up what she'd suggested last night that they do tonight, she searched her mind for a plausible response. "My pants are already ruined. I don't want to have to write off my shirt, too."
He took a closer look, doing a slow circle around her. "Huh. Do you realize you've got black handprints on your butt?"
"Like I said," she managed through gritted teeth, "my pants are ruined."
"Oh." Having said his piece, he turned and walked toward the bedroom, adding over his shoulder, "They're not ruined. I can get those marks out. Don't worry about it."
Why did he have to be so damn literal? Twisting the upper half of her body, she brushed at the marks he'd pointed out. With a sigh, she turned to the living room and started examining Li's entertainment center and sofa.
"Eames?" he said from the doorway ten minutes later. "Find anything?"
"Nope. You?"
"Nothing we didn't already find last time. Ready to go?"
"Yeah." She gave the marks on her behind another half-hearted swipe as she stood up from her crouched position.
"Don't," he said, grabbing her hand.
"Huh?" What did he think she was doing, carrying evidence home on her butt? "I'm just trying to get rid of those marks you pointed out."
"Right," he said, unperturbed. "Don't."
She took her hand back and have him a wary look. "Should I ask why?"
He turned his head slightly so she couldn't read his expression. "It's just that if you tell Deakins that your pants are ruined, and show him the marks, he'll probably tell you to just go home early after we take this grinder to the lab. So that you don't have to walk around One PP looking dirty, I mean."
She looked at him for a long second, then just shook her head. "Come on, let's go." Without waiting for him to follow, she headed out of the apartment.
Five minutes later, as they were settling into the car, she looked over at him. "You want to tell me why I should lie about my pants just to get out of work an hour early?"
He cleared his throat and looked out the window. "I just thought you might like the time off."
"What's gotten into you lately, Bobby? Since when do you condone taking time off for things other than death or the plague?"
Laying his head back against the headrest and looking at the car's ceiling, he said quietly, "If Deakins sends you home early, then there's not really much point in me staying, either. Especially with only a little over an hour of the work day left."
She glanced at him. "So you want me to ditch . . . so you can ditch without feeling guilty?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of us . . . ditching . . . together."
She moved her eyes to the road and determinedly kept them there. "Us?"
"Well you said . . ." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Last night you said that, uh . . ." He stopped and cleared his throat again.
His uneasiness about this topic could only mean one thing. "Go on," Alex said, intrigued by this show of bashfulness now that she could guess his motives. "I said what?"
"Well you didn't say, I guess. It's more like you implied . . ."
"Bobby, don't make me lean over there and throttle you, because then I'll crash the car and I don't want to have to explain that to Deakins."
"You implied that you wanted to, uh, see me after work. So I just thought that maybe the pants thing would buy us a little time . . ."
She grinned as she pulled into the One PP lot. "You're just trying to buy yourself more time so you can do the whole perfectionist, obsessive thing," she teased.
Instead of mumbling something nonsensical, as he would normally do, he turned and looked at her, asking, "Are you going to tell me whether I drew the right inference or not?"
"Oh, come on. You have a ridiculously high IQ and now you're going to pretend you're clueless?"
"If you hadn't noticed," he said, "when it comes to you I generally am clueless."