Danny couldn't sleep. He turned on his double sized bed, facing the door this time. The slow motion passage of time on his digital clock was getting on his nerves, so he had turned. The door wasn't much of a view either.
His blurry vision didn't allow for many details, but he knew his own furniture well. None of it was new.
Next to the door was a leather armchair, though little of the black leather could be seen. His discarded clothes and bed cover were pilled in a mess over it.
Next to the chair was a small table, the sole propose of it being to support a small CD player and columns. He rarely used it, preferring the more potent sound of the living room set, but most of his girlfriends seemed to find the idea of music in the bedroom… romantic.
He turned to face the clock again.
02:45
After calling a sandwich of canned tuna and a beer dinner, Danny had considered calling his current girlfriend, invite her over, and take his mind off business for a pleasant couple of hours. He thought better of it. He wasn't in the mood to talk with anyone.
02:46
Don had called around eleven, asking how he was, making sure that he wouldn't be doing anything stupid this time.
Aiden had called two hours later, knowing that at 1 Am he would still be up. No much was happening with the case, but she wanted him to know that Mac and Stella had gone back to one of the crime scenes to recheck something. She wanted to make sure that he would call her back if he needed anything, or any one to talk to.
He hadn't even picked it up, just listened to their voices as they spoke to the answering machine.
02:47
He tossed the covers aside, annoyed by his insomnia. He should be in the lab; he should be in the street, working to put whoever had done those murders behind bars. Not here, listening to Ms. Newman maniac cleaning spree at almost three in the morning.
Forbidden to work on the case as he might be, he couldn't command his own head to stop going over every detail that they had processed at the time he had left.
The victims had nothing in common, and now he knew why. They were picked randomly, probably from something as harmless as phone book. Picked solemnly to spell his damn name!
Who would go to such extend just to pass on a message?
The theory of a serial killer came to his mind again, and again he put it aside for lack of sense. A serial killer bent on sending a message of… what? Revenge? Justice? Why not just kill him and be done with it?
He'd dealt with serial killers before. Not many times, he was glad to admit, but some. The concept that they were insane was a common mistake, one that he had stop making in his rookie years.
Insanity was trying to understand them. They functioned with a very particular set of rules, their own rights and wrongs. The problem usually was that their rights clashed with the majority of society. Things like violently kill a number of people in a number of sadistic ways were highly frown upon these days. Go figure!
But one thing that serial killers didn't do was change their MO so drastically from crime to crime. They might, occasionally, change a detail or another, so that no one caught them before they were done. They never changed the entire scenario. That was their mark; that was their legacy.
This one wasn't worried with any of that. This one killed differently, he used different methods, he took advantage of his surroundings and he favoured murder weapons that left no trace.
The one theory that Danny had hesitated to share with Aiden jumped to the front of his thoughts once again. Could this be the work of a professional hit man?
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Mac and Stella were back at the lab. It was late in the night, or early in the morning, depending on the depressing point of view of whoever was still working at those hours.
The crime lab never truly stopped, it just had slower hours. Three in the morning was just that.
They went directly to the multimedia lab, hopping to find someone there. The blond head of Rubben, the barely out of high school computer wiz kid that worked the night shifts to pay for university, was hunched over the table supporting a series of working computers.
Mac shook him awake. The kid blinked, recognized him and looked amazingly unaffected by the fact that he'd been caught sleeping on the job.
"Well if it isn't THE MAN himself, paying a visit to us poor underpaid peasants in the cellar," Rubben said in his usual greeting to any detective that chose to visit his lab in person, instead of demanding results over the phone. "What can I do to help you, Detectives Tayler and Bonasera?"
"We need you to trace a cell phone," Stella told him, already handing a piece of paper with Margaret's number on it. "We don't know if it' still on, but if it is, battery may be dying."
"So you need it fast," he guessed, his hands already on the keyboard, assessing the communications mainframe. "So, has anyone ever told you that your name it's Italian for good nig…"
"Many times Rub," Stella cut his sentence, her eyes never leaving the computer screen. She could feel the warmth coming from Mac' shoulder, standing right beside her, waiting. "Can you get a connection?"
"Ok, I get it… shut up and work," he said, inserting the phone number on the trace programme. "It's ringing."
Stella was holding her breathe. Ridiculous, she knew, but a physical reaction that she could not avoid. However, if their luck held on for just enough time for them to get a lock…
"Got it!" Rubben announced with enthusiasm. The computer in front of him was showing a detailed view of the city. A white dot was blinking in Queens. "Jackson Heights, number 82. A basement of some sort, by the looks of it. I'm getting a weak signal."
Mac looked at Stella, a smile on his lips.
"Sylvia Nortons lives in number 90. The Stutons lived on number 84."
"So, who lives in number 82?" Stella wondered out loud.
"Let's find out," Mac said, already half out the lab. "I'll call Flack, tell him to get us a warrant."
"I'll get Aiden," Stella said, following him.
Neither heard the sarcastic 'you're welcome' shout coming from the multimedia lab.
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