There wasn't enough time to thank him in the morning, as it turned out. Alex, in a fit of mulishness, refused to get out of bed for so long that he eventually gave up on finesse, pulled the covers off her, and rolled her out of bed when she refused to stand up.
In retaliation, she made a point of sulking until he agreed to buy her a cafe mocha and a cherry danish on the way to work, and as a result, they jogged into the MC squad room ten minutes late, only to find Deakins perched on Bobby's desk, glaring at them. "Late call-outs do not equal late show-ups, detectives," he informed them as they approached. "However, if that Starbucks bag I see in your hand," he added, nodding at Alex, "contains something for me, I might let the tardiness slide."
Always a few steps ahead, they had anticipated this, and it took mere seconds for Alex to produce a king-sized blueberry muffin from the bag and hand it to him.
"Forgiven," he mumbled through his first bite. "Brainstorming, my office, ten minutes."
"Ten minutes," Alex said with a small smile when he was gone. "Just enough time for me to cram down my morning sugar rush." She bit into her pastry and began to chew, then paused. "Are you not having breakfast, or did you eat at home?"
Setting aside his portfolio, he rolled his eyes, lowered his voice, and leaned across his desk toward her. "With the amount of time it took to get you up, I could have made a four-course gourmet meal," he whispered. She threw a danish crumb at him and he grinned and went on, "I think that food needs to be in your stomach more than it needs to be in my hair. And yes, I had breakfast at home."
"Good," she replied, taking another big bite. Closing her eyes, she threw back her head and adopted an exaggerated expression of pleasure, mumbling "Mmmm . . ." as she chewed.
"You know," he said thoughtfully as he watched her eat. "That face is actually a lot like your -"
"Say one more word and you're doing all the paperwork for the next week," she cut him off grimly, opening her eyes to glare at him.
He shut his mouth and tried not to laugh.
A few seconds later, she popped the last bite of danish into her mouth and licked her fingers. "Done. Ready?"
"Sure."
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They walked together to Deakins's office. As was their habit, Bobby held the door for her then followed her in.
He noticed that the entire muffin they'd brought Deakins had been devoured; its crumb-filled wrapper was balled up on the corner of his desk. He was considering making a move to throw it out when Alex not-so-subtly stepped on his foot in warning. He glanced at her, sighed, and took a seat instead.
"What's wrong with you, Alex?" Deakins said in mock-horror. "Never, ever turn down someone who wants to clean up after you! I tell you this from experience, young lady."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said noncommittally. "So, brainstorming?"
"Right. We didn't have much time last night to field ideas, so I figured we might as well do that before I send you out to chase your tails."
"The daughter is obviously on the top of the 'Must Interview' list," Alex said.
"Goren, are you going to cover that?" Deakins asked.
"We're going to try her apartment this afternoon."
"Good. What else have we got?"
Eames shrugged. "She was a defense attorney. There's probably hundreds of of convicted criminals in the city who had an ax to grind with her."
"Along with the occasional prosecutor," Goren added. "Some of them don't take losing lightly."
"Husband?" Deakins suggested.
"Possibly," Alex acknowledged. "Bobby, you got a look at him, didn't you?"
He nodded. "He wasn't giving off obvious murder vibes, at least. But I really only saw him for, uh, a few seconds. He was concerned for his daughter, I'm sure of that."
"We'll keep him on the list until you have something more concrete than 'vibes,'" Deakins said. "Other suspects?"
Goren and Eames looked at each other and shrugged.
"Ok, then how about useful witnesses? Daughter and husband are a given."
"People she worked with," Alex said. "Partners and paralegals at the firm."
"Friends, if we can find out who she socialized with," Goren added. "That'll have to come from the husband."
Deakins nodded. "Makes sense. Either of you got a theory you want to try out while we're here?"
There were a few seconds of silence before Eames said, "There's always the 'jealous husband' theory and the 'greedy heir wants her money' theory."
Shrugs and doubtful faces abounded.
"For now, I kind of like the 'prosecutor gone bad' theory," Bobby said.
Alex smirked. "Yeah, just so you can get Carver by proxy."
"Enough," Deakins said. He was beginning to get the hang of preventing them from bickering; it was just a matter of noticing when Eames's eyebrows went up and Goren's chin went down and then breaking in. "What are you going to work on this morning?"
"Can the DA's office get us a list of all the defendants she's represented in, say, the past year?" Alex suggested.
"I'm sure they can, and I doubt they'll hold us up for a subpoena, since it's one of their own - sort of."
"And a list of recent parolees, too," Goren said.
"Wonderful," Alex said with a roll of her eyes. "A morning of cross-referencing databases, my favorite."
"At least you can suffer together," Deakins said with a grin. "Go on, get out. Get back to me if you find something good." He waved them out the door, wondering for a moment what had sparked their recent run of squabbles.
Then the phone rang and his thoughts moved on to what he wanted his wife to make for dinner.
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Half an hour and two cups of coffee later, the fax machine began spitting out page after page of court records involving Gabrielle Young, all alphabetized by the prosecutor's last name. Every few minutes, one of them would walk over and retrieve the newest pile, then return and dump it on top of the rest of the pages covering their desks.
After half an hour of that, the machine paused for a few seconds, seemed to gasp in exhaustion, and resumed printing, this time a list of the current statuses of every defendant Young had represented in the City of New York in the last eighteen months. With a sigh, Alex stood up to get the newest pile and glanced back at their desks, which were beginning to resemble a scaled-down ski slope. She was pretty sure a person could suffocate if they got covered with that much paper.
They sat opposite each other, leaning back in their chairs with legal pads and print-outs in hand, attempting to read the lines of tiny print without getting dizzy and copy down relevant information without getting hand cramps. Occasionally one of them would lower a page back to their desk and mark something with the highlighter, or drop the paper into their lap and stretch or yawn.
It was during one of her stretches that Alex happened to look up and meet Bobby's eyes. He looked down at the pile of paper, then back up at her. "Ten down, one hundred ninety-nine to go," he said with a pained sigh.
Alex, who had almost forgotten either of them had the power of speech, stared at him for a second, then started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
"Do you think this would go faster if we started a round of 'Ninety-nine pages of names on the wall'?"
He blinked, then gave her an answering smile. "I think I'd be a lot more willing to sit here if we had ninety-nine bottles of beer sitting around our desks."
"I'll buy you a beer after work if you buy me one."
"Where's the fun in that?"
"You tell me," she shot back.
"Well, we do seem to tolerate paperwork better when it goes with alcohol. Maybe it should become our strategy."
She rolled her eyes. "Great, then we wouldn't be just 'Goren and Eames, the weird cops,' we'd be 'Goren and Eames, the drunk weird cops.' So much better for our reputations."
"Ok, you've got a point there," he said with a sigh. "You find anything yet?"
"Nothing worth reading twice. Bunch of parolees," she said in a tired voice, leafing through the pad in front of her, "a couple prosecutors I happen to think are bitchy, and a damn long list of satisfied customers. You?"
"Same."
"Damn."
"Agreed. So, about that beer . . ."
She grinned. "You're on. Now get back to work, Detective."
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They were making their way to the elevators, print-outs in hand and debating where to go for lunch, when it happened: Alex, concentrating on a name on her list that looked familiar, rounded the corner and ran smack into another body, then bounced off of it with a gasp. Moving quickly, Bobby caught her before she could go down, and set her back on her feet. After a second, when they were both sure she was steady, they looked up to see who she had hit.
Mike Logan was leaning against the wall slightly in front of Alex, watching them with an expressionless face. "You ok?" he asked her after glancing at and then mentally dismissing her partner.
She brushed imaginary dirt off her sleeve. "I'm fine, thanks. You should watch where you're going."
Logan raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't the one trying to walk and read at the same time. That's like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time - it just can't be done. What's so interesting that you can't stop walking to read it, anyway?"
"New case," she muttered with a baleful look at the stack of papers in her hand.
"Wow. Deakins really doesn't let up on you guys, does he? My sympathies."
"That's what comes with being the best," Goren said tersely.
Alex looked up at him in surprise. "Bobby! You never brag. Stop being an ass just because you're talking to Mike."
"Yeah, 'Bobby'," Logan mimicked with a grin.
His smile disappeared quickly when she turned on him and snapped, "And you, as usual, are doing your best to cause trouble. Go harass your partner or something; Goren and I have got a lot to do." She shook her handful of papers in his face threateningly as she spoke.
"But Carolyn's not as much fun as you," he complained.
"Good. You need a calming influence. Now if you'll excuse us, I'm hungry." With that, she turned her back on him in dismissal and pushed the call button for the elevator.
Goren cast her an amused look and moved to wait next to her. "So . . . where was it you wanted to go for lunch?"
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A/N: Everyone together now...Logan's back! And still up to his usual tricks..