"God," Barek said to Eames half an hour later as they watched Logan approach carrying two bags of Chinese take-out, "even though I know it's not her fault, I still wanted to just reach out and shake her."
"And shout something along the lines of, 'You deserve better than scum like him'?" Eames supplied with a smile. "Agreed. Probably Goren, too." She glanced at her partner, who was hard at work typing up the main points of his interview with Claire Young. "Although actually, I think he'd rather go right to the source and take a swing or two at Tony, judging by the way he was dealing with Claire."
Goren looked up at the two women as Logan dropped the bags of food on his desk. "I may not be looking at you, but I can hear you, detectives."
Barek turned slightly red, but Eames just grinned at him. "You going to deny that you'd love to get Tony alone for a few minutes?"
"No," he muttered, returning his eyes to the computer in front of him.
"I take it she gave you something good?" Logan asked, looking around at the faces surrounding Goren's desk.
"Good, yes," Barek said with a sigh. "Pleasant, no. What'd you get from Norman Young in your . . ." She faked a dramatic shiver as she finished archly, "Man to man talk?"
Logan glanced at Eames, looking for help, but she just gave him a pleasant, yet dangerous, smile. "Yeah, uh, sorry about that," he managed, not looking directly at his partner. He might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he knew enough to be scared of Carolyn Barek right about now. "He just . . . didn't seem to want to talk with you around."
She glared at him for a long second until she got the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, then smiled and turned away to begin sorting through the take-out cartons. "Who got the dumplings?"
"Me!" Alex exclaimed, snatching the food out of Barek's hands.
Barek raised an eyebrow. "Well, I guess it's been a while since someone had breakfast."
Eames looked thoughtful. "Bobby, did we have breakfast?"
"What?" Keeping his hands on the keyboard, he glanced up at her. "Uh, no, I don't think so."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Looking back at Barek, she shrugged. "Busy morning. Now hand over my egg roll."
" 'Busy,' huh?" Logan echoed with a smirk. "I'll just bet it was."
"And speaking of 'busy'," added his partner, "where did you get those scratches, Goren?"
Eames suddenly looked like she found her lunch incredibly interesting. Keeping her eyes down and her mouth full, she listened for Goren's explanation, whatever it would be.
"I'm not answering that question, Detective -" he started to tell Barek calmly.
Before he could say anything else, Barek interrupted him: "And just why is that, Goren?"
He just gave her a casual smile. "You didn't let me finish."
Alex looked up and caught the glint in his eye. He was preparing to volley something right back to the other pair, she realized. Which meant that he'd found ammunition. Which meant . . .
She took another look at Barek and finally saw it. Smothering a giggle, she looked at Goren. "You mind if I . . ."
He waved his hand invitingly. "Go right ahead."
"I believe what my esteemed partner was about to say," she said, looking at Barek cagily, "is that he's not answering that question until you explain where you got that beautiful hickey."
"I . . . what?" Barek clapped a hand to her neck reflexively. "What are you talking about? I don't have a . . ."
"Right here," Goren said, reaching out to point to the mark just above her collarbone.
"Hey!" Barek took a step back and slapped his hand away, glaring at him. "It's not a -"
"Sure it's not," Alex broke in. "Maybe your partner would like to explain what it is, then?"
Logan shoveled a forkful of rice into his mouth and shook his head emphatically.
"Turnabout's fair play, guys," Alex reminded them. "But we'll let it go for now and save that topic for after-work conversation. Mike, tell us about your interview with Norman Young."
"Yeah, Logan," Deakins said, catching the tail end of her words as he approached the four detectives. "Fill us in." Looking down at the food scattered across Goren's desk, he added, "And some of that better be for me."
Logan passed him an aluminum container and a plastic fork. "General Tso's chicken," he said with a grin. "Good?"
"Good." Deakins took the container and pried it open. "Very good." He dug his fork in, then mumbled through the first mouthful, "Now, tell us what Young had to say."
"Gabrielle Young hated Tony Meadows," Logan began, then paused to eat some more rice. "And," he went on, swallowing, "Norman Young still hates him. They think he treats their daughter like shit -"
"Which he does," Alex pointed out.
"Which he does," Logan acknowledged. "Young says that ever since Claire started dating the guy, she's been pulling away from her parents and her friends bit-by-bit."
"Anyone else feel like we're living a chapter in a psych textbook?" Barek said, looking around at her companions. "This is a little too easy."
Logan looked confused and Eames just shrugged, but Goren nodded. "It does seem neater than you'd expect - but on the other hand, there's no indication any of this is a set-up."
"You guys are forgetting," Deakins threw in, "that something that's in textbooks is there because it's something that the majority of cases involve. Crooks are generally a lot more less original than we give them credit for."
"Good point," Barek said with a nod.
"Thank you." With that, Deakins seemed to tune them out again as he returned his attention to his lunch.
"Are you guys done?" Logan asked, raising his eyebrows. "Because I kind of thought I was in the middle of telling you something."
"So keep talking," Eames said with a shrug, pushing a fortune cookie toward him.
"He didn't know much about Tony's background. Said the kid doesn't talk about himself much, unless its to brag or something. He thinks there was a girlfriend before Claire, one who Tony broke up with in favor of her, but he had no idea of the name. Details of how they got together are sketchy, too, which didn't particularly surprise me."
"I certainly didn't spend a lot of time telling my dad about the past history of every guy I dated," Eames agreed.
"Me either," said Barek. "I saved that for my friends."
"Speaking of which," Deakins broke in, waving his fork to get their attention, "I assume you are talking to her friends again sometime soon?"
"Of course." Barek cracked open her fortune cookie and read the slip of paper inside. " 'You will make great discoveries when you truly open your eyes'," she read. "That's a boring fortune. I want another one." She reached for the pile of cookies, but her hand hit only bare desk as everyone reached out to claim their own cookies before she could get to them. Foiled, she crossed her arms and frowned at them.
Careful to avoid her glare, Logan broke open the cookie Alex had pushed toward him a minute ago. " 'He who plays tricks will soon have tricks played on him'."
"Well, that one's appropriate," Eames commented with a grin. "Better watch your back, Logan."
"Very funny," he shot back. "How 'bout you read us your fortune, Eames?"
She stuck her tongue out at him and opened her cookie. " 'Happiness comes from what you are, not what you have'. Ok, I can get behind that one, as cheesy as it is. Bobby, what's yours?"
Goren blinked and looked down at the cookie lying in front of him. "I have to open it?"
"Yes," she said huffily, "or I'm going to open it for you and add 'in bed' to the end of whatever it says inside."
Snickers answered this comment, and he glared around the desks before conceding defeat and opening his fortune cookie. " 'The kitten that purrs on your lap will soon be the cat that scratches you'," he read. "What does that mean?"
"Well, it did mention 'scratches,'" Barek pointed out. "Maybe . . .?"
"Zip it," Eames ordered hastily, elbowing the other woman. " Bobby, I think it means you shouldn't underestimate people, even if they look weak."
"Case in point: you?" Logan asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Sure," Alex said cheerfully. "I don't look like I could kick your ass, but you better believe I can do it."
He swallowed dramatically. "Yes ma'am. Point taken."
Deakins cleared his throat. "This whole discussion is very amusing, but you guys mind if we get back to the information that actually matters for the case?"
"Not until you read us your fortune, Captain," Eames informed him.
He snorted. "I don't believe in those things. They're -"
"Who said anything about believing?" asked Barek. "It's just for the entertainment value, as far as I'm concerned. Come on, read it!"
"Oh, fine. You guys are worse than my kids, I swear!" He pulled apart the two halves of his cookie and drew out the slip of paper. " 'Authority works best when hardly used'. What the . . .?"
Logan grinned. "I believe that's Confuscious-talk for 'Get off your detectives' backs,' Captain."
Deakins rolled his eyes. "When was the last time any of you did what I told you to do, anyway? I don't need a fortune cookie to tell me that my best teams work best when left alone."
"Amen," muttered Alex.
"So, Mike," Barek said thoughtfully, turning to her partner. "You didn't say if Claire's father suspected any abuse. Did you guys talk about that?"
"Wha?" Logan looked up from the fortune cookie pieces that he'd become absorbed in. "Oh, yeah we did. A little, at least."
"How little?"
"He never saw any marks on her." He popped another piece of the cookie in his mouth and added as he chewed, "He said that if there had been, he and his wife would have pulled her in so fast that her head would have spun . . ."
"I sense a 'but' coming on," Alex said as Logan let his sentence trail off.
He nodded. "Yeah. He said Gabrielle was really suspicious. As far as he knew, she had no proof, but he knew she was trying to get Claire away from him before he did do something to her."
"Hello, motive," Barek said with a low whistle.
"Did Gabrielle discuss with him what her next move would be, if she did find evidence?" asked Goren, jotting down a note in his portfolio.
Logan shrugged. "He wasn't sure, except to say that he didn't think she would hesitate to bring out the big guns if she really thought Claire was in danger."
"Big guns like . . . the police?" Eames said. "Or like pulling her financial support?"
"He thought she wouldn't be above either of those, but she hadn't discussed specifics with him."
"Someone like Gabrielle Young," Deakins said, nodding, "is not always the greatest team player. If she thought she had something, she might have been playing it close to the vest until she could strike."
Barek sighed. "So we know from Claire that Tony isn't averse to manhandling her, although he might not have actually hit her yet. We know from Claire's father than her mother was desperate to get her out before that happened, to the point where she might go on the offensive if she felt she needed to . . ."
"We need those ex-girlfriends," Eames said, thumping her fist on her desk emphatically. "His parents are dead, and that means the exes are going to be the only ones who can give us insight into how Tony would deal with something like that."
"Ok," Logan said with a shrug, "so we man the phones. I got nothing better to do with my afternoon; how 'bout you guys?"
The other three detectives looked at one another, then copied Logan's shrug.
"Hell," Barek said with a grin, "I'll take it into the night if we need to; it's not like I've got any hot dates or anything."
Alex coughed pointedly, but didn't comment about Barek's dating options. "Anything's better than sitting at my desk playing solitaire and trying to keep Goren awake."
"I beg your pardon?" Bobby said with a look of exaggerated hurt. "I don't fall asleep at my desk, Eames. And you are years past playing solitaire, Miss 'Warcraft III'."
She glared at him. "Bobby!"
"Don't even bother," Deakins said, shaking his head and lowering a hand between them as if separating a fight. "I don't want to know, anyway. Get to work guys. Let me know if you get anything."
A mumbled chorus of "yes, sir"s followed him as he headed for his office, still wondering at the weird things his detectives could find to fight about.