A/N: Look! A plot! My, oh my, will wonders never cease...
"No new bruises," Straub observed quietly to Kratzer the next morning, watching with interest as Goren sat down across from where the two agents had temporarily taken over Eames's desk.
Kratzer, who had already noticed the lack of marks, shook his head in disappointment. "Which means he probably didn't talk to either of them. Guess his balls aren't as big as we figured."
Straub shrugged and returned his eyes to the crime scene photos he was studying. "I sure as hell wouldn't want to face either of them after they got into a catfight over me. Especially the medical examiner. She looked like she wanted to spit on Alex."
"Good thing she didn't. That'd be a scene I wouldn't want to work."
"No kidding."
"You girls having a coffee klatch?" Eames asked, coming up behind them and bending down to throw an arm across each one's shoulders, making both men jump. "Because from back here, it looks like either you're sharing secrets or you're flirting with each other."
The two men jumped apart reflexively in response to that. A second later, Straub straightened up from where he had been bending over side of the desk, walked toward her until they were almost touching, and looked down his nose at her, giving her his most threatening glare.
Eames just grinned and gave him a gentle shove. "Down, boy. After five years of Goren, I'm more scared by short guys than tall ones."
"So if we got D'Argenzio over here . . ." he replied thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder at where the younger - and shorter - man was hovering over Barek.
". . . then Barek would come after you for stealing her new office boy," she finished for him. "And trust me, you don't want her after you any more than you want me after you."
"Hmm." He gave that a few seconds of thought, then obediently backed away from her. "Point taken. I'm going to get some coffee."
"Smart choice." Moving her attention to Kratzer, who was in her chair, she leaned over his shoulder, putting her face next to his, and announced cheerfully, "Good morning, Ted! I suggest you vacate my chair before I boot you out of it."
Worried by the sharp command, he looked up at her, but saw no real displeasure on her face. "Yes, ma'am," he replied tolerantly, getting to his feet and motioning her grandly to her chair. "You look like whatever you did last night did you some good."
"I'll take that as a compliment," she told him, dodging his implied question as she sat down and started to sort through the photos he and Straub had been looking at. "Are these from yesterday?"
"Yeah. Your partner's got the older ones," he said, nodding toward Goren, who was doing his best to look absorbed in his study of the pictures.
"Ok," Eames said absently, not looking up. "These are what I need right now anyway. I didn't get a good look around yesterday before -" Cutting herself off abruptly there, she shook her head and corrected, "I just didn't get a good look around."
Kratzer shrugged and divided the pile in half, taking half for himself and leaving the rest to her. "Where can I get an extra chair around here?"
Her attention on the photograph she was looking at, she just jerked a thumb over her shoulder at an empty desk. "I wonder what he's doing with the clothes."
"The clothes?" Straub echoed, depositing a cup of coffee on the corner of her desk, as far away from the photos as he could. "What about them?"
"Well, he's taken at least one article of clothing from each victim, but there's no clear pattern. The first girl lost a shoe. The second, he took her sweater. The third one, everything except the bra. Fourth, bra and shirt. And the last one was totally naked. I mean," she said with a sigh, "it's a pretty eclectic bunch of stuff. It's not like he took pants from one, shoes from another, and a shirt from another, and he's making himself a pretty outfit. Or if he is, he's got a closet full of duplicates."
"Eames!" Goren burst out excitedly, unable to pretend any longer that he wasn't listening, now that she had just given him an idea.
Straub, startled by the suddenness of the exclamation and wondering what had just bit Goren on the ass, put down his coffee and raised his eyebrows.
Eames, on the other hand, was more than used to being summoned by a yelp of her name, and calmly lifted her head to look at her partner. "Yes?"
"Do we . . . do we know what the items he took looked like?" He barely made it through the first two words before absently turning his eyes to a search of the top of his desk, appearing to forget that he still had the full attention of both Eames and Straub.
"Ummm . . ." She reached for a folder sitting on the corner of her desk and flipped it open. "First girl, high-heeled boot. Knee length, black leather."
Finally finding the pad of post-it notes he'd been looking for, he nodded and wrote that down on the top sheet, then peeled it off the pad and stuck it on his desk just to his left. "Next?"
"According to her roommate, a pink and black v-neck sweater."
Down that went on the next post-it, along with further notes that she couldn't read from across the desks. A few seconds later, belatedly realizing that she was waiting for him to finish writing, he circled one hand in the air, telling her to go on while he completed the note.
"The third girl . . . for the pants, I have no idea, but judging by the marks where he pulled her underwear off, it was a thong. One of those teeny-tiny ones."
Straub looked at her and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively in response to that. "Should I question how you were able to determine that, Detective?"
"I sure as hell wouldn't answer you if you did," she said dryly, flipping to the next page in the folder without sparing him a glance. "Part of her shirt tore off under her. It was red silk, but that's all I can tell you about that."
"Ok." Goren stuck the notes containing the second and third victims' clothing information next to the one holding the first victim's, then looked up at her. "Next one?"
"Demi-bra and blouse." When only silence answered that, she looked up and found both men eyeing her warily. "What?"
Straub caught Goren's eye and shook his head emphatically. "You ask, man. I'm not risking my ass."
Goren sighed, then cleared his throat and looked up at his partner. "Where'd you get the information on the bra?"
She blinked. "The style, you mean?"
"Uh, yeah."
"She had a line of irritation across her . . ." She trailed off there, realizing why they had been so apprehensive about asking. "I swear, you guys act like you've never seen a woman in her underwear before. She had a slight rash across her breasts. It happens when there's scratchy lace on your bra. And only a demi-bra would be cut almost down to the nipple, which is how low the irritation was. Any other questions, or can we move on?"
Kratzer, who happened to return just then with a chair, gave the tableau a curious look: Straub, barely restraining a smirk; Goren, staring at his hands; Eames, arms crossed and eyebrows raised as she looked at the two men with amusement. "Obviously I missed something interesting," he said as he set the chair down at the side of her desk.
"These two," she said with a shrug, "have apparently never stopped long enough to actually look at a woman's bra before tearing it off."
Goren hastily turned his attention to writing down the clothing information. Straub, having no such excuse to look away, tried again to glare at Eames but quickly found himself trying not to laugh, instead.
No good could come of pursuing a line of questioning that involved Eames and women's underwear, Kratzer knew instinctively as he watched the men's reactions. "Sorry I asked. Go on with whatever you were saying."
"Thank you." She returned her eyes to the folder. "The girl from yesterday was completely nude. It's -" She paused, examining a block of unfamiliar writing on the page, then looked up at the FBI agents. "Which one of you wrote this?"
"Me," Kratzer said after leaning over her shoulder to see where she was looking. "Her sister showed up at the scene. I got it from her."
"Ok." After taking another second to decipher the writing, she looked up at him in surprise. "Above-the-knee denim skirt and a backless shirt?" she read dubiously. "Are you sure, Ted? That's a little over-the-top for a grad student.."
He nodded, grimacing slightly. "It didn't sound particularly attractive to me, either, but that's what the sister said, and she saw her that morning."
Goren noted that down, then pulled that sheet off the pad and set it down with a flourish next to the other four. "So then we've got . . ." he began slowly, looking down at the line of notes spanning his desk, "a high-heeled shoe, a v-neck sweater, a, uh," - he cleared his throat - "a thong and a silk shirt, a demi-bra and a blouse, and a short skirt and a backless shirt."
"The v-neck," Straub said after a second's thought, walking around to Goren's side of the desks to get a better look at the notes. "Did the roommate say whether it was low-cut?"
Eames blinked in surprise. "Uh . . ." She looked down to consult the folder, nodded to herself, and then looked up and used one hand to point to a spot between her breasts. "About to here, she said."
Kratzer coughed and averted his eyes.
Straub, on the other hand, followed her gesture and then grinned widely, waving a hand at the post-its. "That's it, then."
"What's what?" she asked, dropping her hand and looking at him quizzically.
"High-heeled boot. Low-cut sweater," he replied, ticking the items off on the fingers of one hand. "Thong. Lacy bra. Short skirt and revealing shirt. All sexy."
"You think he took sexy items of clothing?" Eames asked, looking skeptical.
"It could fit," Goren said slowly. "Serial killings are almost always sexual killings. Maybe he's choosing his trophies by what fulfills that fantasy most."
"I'd say that's more creepy than anything," she commented with a shudder.
"Insecurity," Kratzer announced suddenly, causing all three of the others to look at him in search of further explanation. "Sexual insecurity. He's not just taking trophies that remind him of the kill," he went on. "He's taking trophies that he can use to remind himself of the kill and the sexuality. He has to have something tangible to bring him back to the sex . . ."
"Because he either can't or won't call it up for himself without the souvenir?" Straub finished, looking thoughtful. "It's twisted, Ted. I like it."
