Deakins was in the squad room when Goren and Eames got there. He met them at their desks. "Well?"

Eames sat down. "Male Caucasian, thirties, no ID yet. He was dropped on the steps of the church after being killed someplace else."

Goren leaned back in his chair. "He was tortured to death. He has electrical burns on his ankles and wrists, and his hands and feet have been burned. We won't get any prints off him. He also had the number five painted on his abdomen in blood."

"The number five? What's the significance of that?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, let me know when you find it."

Not 'if,' Eames noticed. 'When.' Deakins put a great deal of faith in him…in them. And she knew the person, the investigator, she had become over the last five years was due in no small part to her partner. Before they became partners, it had always been 'him.' Through the long succession of partners he had gone through back then, it was still 'him.' That was part of the reason no one ever stayed with him. When she became his partner, it started out the same, but then something changed. She wasn't sure exactly what, but at some point, 'he' had become 'them.' Robert Goren, the brilliant genius who always flew solo, became Goren and Eames, the brilliant duo who had become inseparable.

She reached across the desk to take the file folder he handed to her, then pulled a form out of the drawer, picked up a pen and got to work. Goren got busy on the computer, searching for the first four murders he was convinced were out there.

An hour and a half later, Goren grabbed the phone and dialed. Eames looked up. "Find something?"

"Maybe."

He spent the better part of the next forty-five minutes on the phone before he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

She looked at him, expectantly. "Come on," he said as he grabbed his portfolio, got to his feet and headed for Deakins' office. She could sense his excitement. The captain motioned for them to come in. "What did you find out?"

"Our number five really is number five. Over the past two months, four other bodies have been dumped, one in each of the other four boroughs. All Caucasian males, in their thirties, and none have been identified. Each had a number painted on his abdomen in blood and every one of them was found on the steps of a church, except for number three, who was found tied to a pew inside the church." He opened his portfolio. "Number one was found in the Bronx, beaten to death. He had a roll of ten bills stuffed in his mouth, all tens. He was knocked unconscious, then beaten to death with a money bag full of coins, which was left by the body."

"Let me guess," Eames ventured. "They were all dimes."

He nodded and continued, "Number two was found in Queens. Blunt force trauma to the head, no murder weapon recovered, and his tongue was removed post-mortem. Number three was left in Brooklyn, strangled and tied in a pew inside the church. Number four was on Staten Island, also killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, no weapon recovered, but this victim's chest was mutilated post-mortem. Number five is ours."

"Somebody have a grudge against the Church?" Deakins asked.

"Maybe. The four precincts who handled the first four murders are sending me what they have."

"When was the first murder?"

"Almost two months ago. Each murder occurred ten days after the one before."

Eames shook her head. "This guy seems to like the number ten."

Deakins looked from one detective to the other. "Any ideas?"

"Not yet," Goren answered.

"Well, keep me informed. Since no one else has connected these murders yet, let's keep it under wraps for as long as we can."

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By late afternoon, Goren had a box filled with everything the other four precincts had, which wasn't much. The files weren't very thick; there was little to go on. He examined the photos of the four scenes and the medical examiners' photos of each victim, then he passed them to his partner. Each murder was distinctly different from the other four, but each body bore the mark of the killer---the red number painted on each abdomen in the victim's blood.

He sent the roll of bills and bag of coins to the lab, to see if they could come up with anything. Eames looked up at him. "What do you think they're going to find after two months that the lab in the Bronx didn't?"

He shrugged. "We'll know if they find it."

"I love it when you talk in riddles. What did you tell them to do with all those dimes?"

"Dust them."

"All of them?" He nodded. "Oh, they're gonna love you. Didn't they already do that?"

He looked through the file. "If they did, it's not here."

"How many dimes are there?"

Again, he consulted the file. "One thousand. A hundred dollars' worth. The same amount that had been stuffed in his mouth in bills."

"There's that ten again. What do you think is up with that?"

He shook his head. "I don't know yet."

She watched him return to the files. He was determined to figure it out…and if anyone could, she had no doubt he was the one who would do it.