Eames set down her bag and slid into her chair with a pained grimace the next morning, trying to keep her back from coming into contact with the back of the chair.
Goren looked up at the movement, quickly looked away again in embarrassment, and then did a double take as he processed the expression on her face. "Are you ok?"
"No," she grumbled, twisting one arm around to rub at the sore area. "I have the mother of all bruises on my back, thanks to a certain someone and his intimidation tactics."
The only thing he could think of to say to that was an uncomfortable "Sorry," before he returned his attention to the stack of papers on his desk. "The tip line's been ringing off the hook. These," he said, tapping the pile, "all came in last night."
"Yeah?" she replied skeptically, pulling the top page off the stack to look at it. "And how many of these 'tips' say the killer is Jack the Ripper or the President?"
Goren nodded reluctantly. "Probably most of them. But it's still more than we had yesterday."
"Oh yeah?" She made a show of looking around. "What I want to know is, where are the magic profilers who are supposed to be solving this case for us?"
"You better watch it, Detective," said a male voice from behind her. She turned to find Straub balancing a box of donuts in one hand and smirking at her. "Or we 'magic profilers' might decide not to share."
"Hey," she said, turning around to open the box and pulling out a donut without giving Straub time to pull away, "all I'm saying is we spent all day with you guys yesterday and we still haven't got a profile, which means we're no closer to picking out the right guy."
"It helps when we put a little thought into our profiles," Kratzer told her, appearing from behind Straub with a grin on his face and a Dunkin Donuts Box o'Joe in his hands. "Eddie, Tony, and I all prepared our own last night, using the material you gave us. We're ready whenever you are to sit down and go over them."
Eager to get out of her uncomfortable sitting position, Eames jumped to her feet and waved the donut she was holding at him enthusiastically. "I'm ready. Goren?" she prompted, turning to look at her partner, who was watching her with amusement. "You coming?"
Goren just watched her for another second, then nodded and stood. "Sure."
"Good. Oh, help me carry these in?" she asked, pointing to the stack of tips and giving him a meaningful look as the three FBI agents headed en masse toward the conference room.
He looked at the pile, which wasn't unusually large, and then at her. "You want me to help you with that?"
"Actually," she said, circling the desks to get to him but keeping her eyes on their visitors until they had disappeared into the conference room, "no. I just wanted to get you alone so I can make you feel appropriately guilty."
"Guilty?" With a sigh, he picked up the stack and started to turn away from her. "I told you I was sorry, Eames. I don't know what -"
"Not about that," she broke in, grabbing his arm and pulling him around to face her again. "About this."
"What?"
Her response was to pull up the back of her shirt a few inches, displaying a deep purple bruise the size of a saucer that spread across her back just above her waist. "This."
Horrified, he dropped the papers and stared at the mark for a few seconds, then looked up to meet her eyes. "I did that?"
"You're heavy," she said with a shrug, letting her shirt fall back into place and taking a bite of her donut. "Ok, now we can head to the conference room."
"Eames, I'm sorry," he said, ignoring her dismissal. "Are you sure you're -" he began, reaching out to touch the now-covered injury as if to prove to himself that it was real.
"Don't!" She flinched away from his hand and swung the donut at him defensively. "It hurts like a bitch. Keep your hands off."
"Sorry."
"You should be," she told him primly. "Next time you get the urge to tackle me, do it on something that doesn't have a sharp edge."
That earned her a dark look from him before he turned and picked up the pile again. "Let's not keep them waiting."
xxxxxxxxx
"What're those?" D'Argenzio mumbled through a mouthful of donut as Goren dropped his armful of papers on the table in the conference room.
"Tip line reports," Eames told him, reaching for another donut. "They're mostly BS."
"You haven't even looked," Goren reminded her as he pulled out a chair at the end of the table, turned it around, and straddled it.
"I've been preoccupied," she shot back, taking a seat to his left. "Remember?"
Kratzer looked up from the file folder he'd been studying. "With what? It's only eight-thirty."
"Nothing. Are you going to give us the profile or not?"
"Yes ma'am," he said, raising his eyebrows and giving her a snappy salute
She leaned forward to pour a cup of coffee, slid that one over to her partner, then poured another for herself. "Good. Go."
Kratzer and Straub exchanged a look, then Kratzer nodded. "Eddie, how 'bout I start with mine and you jump in if you've got anything different."
Straub, who was concentrating on dumping cream into his coffee, nodded distractedly and grunted.
Kratzer glanced at Eames and rolled his eyes. "Ok. First off, I'd say we've got an organized offender here. He's dumped bodies in public places without getting caught. The victims have a physical resemblance to each other, which suggests that he's holding out for the right ones, not just killing indiscriminately. By the same token, we're not seeing any mutilation, which means he's still exercising some self-control during the killing. I'm saying white male, thirty-five to forty-five."
"That old?" Straub broke in skeptically. "You know they usually start younger."
Kratzer shook his head. "This much control over himself . . . he's a mature adult. A mature functioning adult, even."
"Yeah, but with little enough impulse control that he's still getting is jollies by killing women instead of fu-" A loud cough from Kratzer cut him off, and he looked around the table and winced. "Instead of dating them, I mean."
"We've both heard the word 'fuck' before, Special Agent," Eames pointed out dryly. "Although I think it's a little tasteless in this context, given that we're dealing with women who've been raped."
"Uh, yeah. Of course. Sorry."
"Tony?" Kratzer said, looking at the young agent. "What did you think?"
D'Argenzio blinked, surprised at being called upon. "Uh, above-average intelligence. Neat appearance, maybe attractive to women like Bundy was."
"Why?"
"Well, there's no defensive wounds on the women. No skin under their nails, at least that we've found. Even if he blitzed them, you'd expect them to scratch at his arms. The fact that they didn't, it makes me think that she knew him, or at least wasn't afraid of him . . . which means that he probably doesn't look like someone to be afraid of."
"Not bad, Tony," Straub said, nodding approvingly. "Now tell us where he's going to be working and living."
D'Argenzio stared at him for a second, then shook his head and jammed a large bite of donut into his mouth. "Fuck off," he mumbled through it.
Eames burst out laughing and looked at Straub. "Anyone ever tell you that thing about catching more bees with honey than vinegar?" Glancing at Kratzer, she added thoughtfully, "Or is this just the way he operates?"
"You get used to it," he said with a shrug.
"I bet you do."
Straub, leaning his chair back precariously on two legs, jerked his chin at Kratzer in challenge. "You know you got something for his job, Teddy. Don't tell me you didn't."
"Didn't say I didn't," Kratzer replied coolly. "But when you phrase it like you did, you know you're setting him up."
Impatient with the back-and-forth, Goren leaned forward and, before Straub could reply to Kratzer, cleared his throat and announced, "He's capable of a skilled job, but he might have a sporadic work history. Probably lives with a wife or girlfriend. Might have souvenirs on display in his apartment."
Silence from the FBI agents.
Eames gave the the agents a smug look and reached under the table to give Goren's knee an approving squeeze. "Now do you guys see why I didn't think we needed three of you?"
"Guess so," Kratzer said, chuckling. "You trained in profiling?" he asked, turning to Goren. "Or are you just a good guesser?"
"Army Intel," he said shortly. "Then National Academy. Can we get on with this?"
"We holding you up?" Straub replied irritably.
"Eames and I have got two hundred tips to sort through before noon, when this place is going to be overrun with task force cops asking us what to do."
Straub snorted and reached for his coffee.
"Ok, ok," Kratzer said, giving his colleague a warning look. "I think we're done for now. We're going to need more case details before we can narrow the profile any more. You guys can go check out your tips," he told Eames, "but leave the coffee here. The stuff you fed us yesterday nearly burned a hole in my stomach."
She rolled her eyes and stood up, pushing the box of coffee into the center of the table. "Enjoy it, boys."
Straub, deliberately misunderstanding her statement, wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Oh, we intend to."
With a snort, Eames turned and headed for the door.
