A/N: I'm taking a break from the personal side of CI and doing a professional casefile story. This is partly inspired by the mothership episode "Shangri-la", Nicole Wallace, and my own fantasies of guest starring on CI. (Please, Bobby, interrogate me!)

And Ms. Siferd was actually my much-hated freshman English teacher this past year and Mr. Clark actually teaches psychology at my high school. Oh, and somebody in my class actually made the Shakespeare comment that Eames does.

And, as always, all of the characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC, so please don't sue. (Except Mercutio. He belongs to the Bard.)

Bobby stared at the cup of coffee sitting on his desk, watching the steam curling upward before disappearing into the air. He was lost in thought, contemplating the file that rested next to his mug. He was stuck at the stage in the case between initial investigation and the moment the who, what, where, and why finally dawned on him. It would come to him eventually, it always did. Together with Eames, he was unstoppable.

Alex watched him from her desk opposite his. She didn't say anything; she figured out a long time ago that it was better not to ask. She usually didn't want to know.

Their current case was turning out to be quite a puzzle. The body of the guidance counselor had been found in the stairwell of the Oakton Preparatory Academy for Girls, an esteemed private high school. The corpse had given the French teacher that found it quite a shock. At last count, Caroline Mercutio's body had 46 stab wounds, most of them superfluous. Whoever had killed her wanted it to hurt.

They were reaching a dead end. TOD was 6-8 P.M., so there were no witnesses. There were virtually no forensics, no apparent motives, and no suspects. They had nothing. Zero. Their only hope was that the lab would be able to salvage something from the school's security tapes, and even that front didn't look too promising.

The Captain approached the pair, both still wrapped up in their own thoughts. "What've you got on the Mercutio case?" he asked, jolting them out of their respective reveries.

"Nothing yet," Eames replied as she reached for the file. "This killer was very careful. He killed her in a public area, so prints are useless. There's no blood other than the vic's, no DNA, no fibers, and no murder weapon. We're headed to the school first thing tomorrow to talk to staff and students." She paused and studied the picture of Caroline that was paper-clipped to the folder. "Why would someone want to kill a counselor? She spent all day helping these kids, why would someone have a beef with her?" She tossed the manila file back on the desk and sighed in frustration.

"Goren, you're being awfully quiet," Deakins remarked, turning his attention to her partner. "You got any bright ideas about why someone would want to kill this woman?"

Bobby leaned back in his chair. A mixture of insight and confusion flickered in his eyes. "Whoever this was, they had something personal against Mercutio," he said. "Something that made them want to inflict that much pain before they finally killed her."

"But Mercutio was my favorite character!" Eames said in a fake whine.

The two men gave her puzzled looks. "You guys didn't have to read Romeo and Juliet in high school?" she asked, a teasing smile playing at the corners of her lips. "English class, freshman year. Ms. Siferd. We all hated that woman." A nostalgic look crossed her face. "I told her that Shakespeare was a perv to have a 13-year-old get married. She gave me detention."

Bobby chuckled and rolled his eyes. He liked to imagine her as a spunky little teenage smartass. It somehow fit into her persona to be the girl that talked back to the teacher. It was all part of the Gordian knot that was Alex Eames.

The sudden jingle of his desk phone interrupted his thoughts. He reached for the receiver and picked it up on the second ring. "Goren," he said into it, suddenly becoming all business. "Mmhm…mmhm…yeah, we'll be right there." He hung up and looked over to his partner. "That was the lab. They're done with the autopsy." He grabbed his coat and started toward the elevator, Alex following closely behind.

"Caroline Mercutio, 37 years old, cause of death was the 46 knife wounds to her chest, back, and arms," Rodgers read off. "This woman didn't go down easy. I found traces of sodium hypochlorite under her nails."

"Bleach…" Goren muttered, now doing his own examination of the hands.

"Right. Given Ms. Mercutio's occupation, I'd say your killer swabbed her to get rid of skin cells." She reached for the body's leg. "There's also some bruising on the front of the right ankle and the right hip," she said, pointing them out as she spoke. "Could be from a blow to either area."

"The killer…grabbed her by the hip…no…" He got an inquisitive look on his face. He pulled Eames over in front of himself to re-enact the murder. "That would have left a different shape of bruise. He…" Goren backed up a foot and paused. After a moment, understanding flashed through his eyes and he smiled. "He tripped her from behind," he said, sliding his right foot in front of Eames' ankle and tugging slightly. She stumbled forward a bit and threw out her hands for balance. Regaining her composure and turning around, she gave her partner a reproachful look. "Why do I always have to be the guinea pig?" she asked, patting her hair back into place. She turned back to the body. "But then what's the hip bruising from?" she asked.

Bobby looked thoughtful again. "Once she was down…" He trailed off and stared at the victim. A few seconds passed before he spoke again. "He kicked her in the side. Hard. Repeatedly."

Eames shook her head at the thought. "I guess somebody hated Shakespeare even more than I did."

The glass doors glinted sharply as Alex walked into the squad room the next morning. She drained the last dregs of coffee from the foam cup in her hand and tossed it in the garbage as she passed. Dropping into her seat, she glanced at the stack of papers that was already forming in her "In" basket. Great. More paperwork.

"We should get going if we're interviewing at Oakton today," he said, not looking up from the reports he was reviewing.

"Good morning to you, too," she replied sarcastically.

He lifted his head to smile at her. "Sorry. Good morning, Eames."

She smiled back. "That's better."

"Ms. Halston? I'm Det. Eames. This is my partner, Det. Goren. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Caroline Mercutio."

The visibly shaken principal nodded to the pair. "Yes…you can…come into my…office…" she said distractedly. She motioned the detectives to a door leading to a small room that adjoined the school's main office. "Right…right this way…"

"Ms. Halston," Eames began as she sat in one of the plush chairs that was offered, "was Caroline having any problems here at the school?"

"Caroline? Oh, heavens, no. Everyone loved her." Tears started to fill her eyes as she spoke. "She was the moderator for our academic honors society and the Future Authors Club. She'd been with us for 12 years. I don't know how we'll ever replace her…"

There was a short pause. "You were friends outside of work," Bobby said from his position by the left wall. He picked up a framed 5-by-7 photo from the shelf that hung there. "This is the two of you at one of the Central Park concerts, isn't it?" he asked, holding out the picture to Eames.

"Yes. That's us with some of the other teachers from Oakton," she said. "Sometimes we would get together and go out…to cultural things like that."

"Did she have any personal problems that she might have told you about? Family things, a jealous ex, something like that?" Alex questioned, softer this time.

"No…she never really talked about her personal life with me. She was a quiet girl, kept mostly to herself," the principal replied. "She was such a wonderful person. I can't imagine why anyone would want to hurt her…" A tear slid gently down her cheek as she spoke.

"We're so sorry for your loss, Ms. Halston," Eames said gently. Handing her a card, she said, "If you need to contact us, my number's on here."

The detectives quietly shut the door behind them as they left her office. Bobby approached one of the secretaries. "Excuse me," he said, "can we have a list of the students in the academic honors society and the Future Authors club?"

The secretary looked up from the papers she was filing. "You're the detectives investigating Caroline's murder, aren't you?" she asked. At their nods, she typed something into her computer. "I'll get you whatever you want if it'll help find whoever did such a horrible thing. It's so terrible, what happened. She was such a sweet woman." Handing them the requested papers, she said, "The students' schedules are in there too, if you want to talk to them right away." She checked her watch. "Right now it's 2nd period."

As they entered the hallway outside the main office, Eames checked the names on the list. "First up is…Miranda Dever."

An hour and 21 very intelligent teenagers later, they were almost done. "Last girl," Alex remarked. "Audrey van Acker, junior, 3-year member of FA." She chuckled when she saw what her class was. "You'll love this girl, Bobby. Right now she's in psychology, room 319."

He smiled at the teasing in her voice. "Now you'll see how simple it really is to read people," he replied, nudging her playfully in the hip.

"Now, Cyril Burt was very prominent during his lifetime. He was a firm believer in eugenics, or hereditary psychology." The teacher paused as he wrote "eugenics" on the board in big letters. "Does anyone know what organization he helped found?"

No hands went up. The majority of the class seemed to be nearly asleep, eyes glazed and heads supported by palms.

"Anyone?" the teacher asked again, not noticing the two detectives that had just entered the classroom. "Anyone?"

"Mensa," Goren spoke up from the doorway. "He was made honorary president in 1960."

The teacher turned in surprise at the unexpected voice. Seeing their badges, he smiled. "Ah, very good, detective!" he remarked, walking over to shake their hands. "I'm Brian Clark. How do you happen to know so much about our good friend Cyril?"

"Oh, he's just a mine of worthless information," Eames said sarcastically. "And as interesting as Mr. Burt may be, we're here about Caroline Mercutio."

"Ah, yes. The other teachers said you'd be coming. You'll want to talk to Audrey." Turning to his class, he motioned to a petite brunette in the third row. "Audrey! These officers need to speak to you." He looked back to Eames. "And by the way, it's Sir Cyril Burt."

She rolled her eyes to Bobby as they guided Audrey out of the classroom. "I just remembered why I hated some of my teachers," she said under her breath.

"Sorry about him," Audrey said once they were out of earshot of the classroom. "Mr. Clark is kind of…obnoxious sometimes. He has this holier-than-thou attitude."

"Reminds me of my own high school days," Alex said with a smile. "But we need to talk to you about Ms. Mercutio."

Bobby pulled a pen out of the briefcase he always carried. "How friendly were you and Ms. Mercutio?"

"She was friends with everybody in FA and the honors society," Audrey said. "I'm in both, so she really liked me. She always told us to call her Caroline instead of Ms. Mercutio." A sad smile crossed her face. "When my grandma died freshman year, she gave me her phone number so I could call if I ever needed to talk to someone. She wasreally nice like that." She wiped away a tear that had formed in her eye. "She would always ask me how my work was coming. I'm in the art club, too. Sometimes she would stop by our meetings to see our projects."

Eames put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Do you know if there were any students who didn't get along with her so well?"

Audrey sniffed back a few more tears. "No…not that I ever saw…everybody I know loved her. She took her job really seriously. She was always trying to help out."

Bobby handed her a tissue from a pack in his case. "Thank you, Audrey. We know how hard this must be for you." She wiped her eyes. "You can go back to class now."

Once she was gone, Goren and Eames exchanged looks. "That's everybody," she said with a sigh. "Let's g-"

An computerized version of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" interrupted her sentence. Eames pulled her cell out, checked the caller I.D., and answered with a stiff "Eames."

"Yeah…uh-huh…no…alright." Snapping it shut, she turned back to Bobby with an optimistic smile. "That was the lab. They've got something on the tapes."

P.S. Sir Cyril Burt was a real psychologist in the mid-1900s. He was the first person to have the idea of an organization for people with high IQs. Since his death, a lot of his work has been discredited as forged.