"Where the hell have you been?" Straub snapped late the next morning, scrutinizing Eames closely and not bothering to disguise it as the two detectives made their first appearance in the squad room. "Fucking coffee's been cold for two damn hours."

"Play nice or you're going to find yourself eating a bar of soap for lunch," Eames told him coolly, dropping into her desk chair with a sigh. "For your information, Bobby and I have been out being productive all morning."

"Oh yeah?" Kratzer, a donut in one hand and a pen in the other, looked up from Goren's desk, where he had been sitting in the detectives' absence. "And what've you produced?"

She pulled a small tape recorder from her pocket and set it on the desk in front of him. "Robert Daugherty's alibi. Interested?"

He gave her a look of surprised approval and nodded.

"Thought so," she said with a smirk, then pressed the Play button on the device.

The group fell silent as Goren and Eames's interview with Daugherty began to play:

"Dr. Daugherty," said Eames. "Thank you for agreeing to talk to us. I'm Detective Eames, and this is Detective Goren. We're from Manhattan Major Case and we'd like to ask you a few questions about -"

"My girls," Daugherty finished before she could. His voice practically radiated confidence, and the FBI agents listening to it exchanged a curious look, then returned their eyes to the tape recorder as Daugherty continued speaking. "Hillary and Lili, I mean."

"Uh, yes," Goren said slowly. "You . . . you call them your 'girls' . . . is that a pet name you use for your female students?"

"No, no," Daugherty said, sounding alarmed by the implication in Goren's words. "Well, I mean, it's what I call them, yes, but not all my female students. Hillary and Lili were my advisees; I worked closely with them."

"Closely?" Eames broke in. "How closely, exactly?"

Daugherty sputtered for a few seconds before getting his verbal legs back under him: "Not that closely, madam. I assume that you are familiar with the past accusation of sexual harassment that was leveled against me by an old student; you can be sure I learned my lesson after that."

"You 'learned your lesson'?" Eames echoed. "You sexually harassed the girl - you offered to trade her grades for a date - and then, when she refused, you stalked her. Excuse us if we find it a little hard to believe you've wiped that slate clean."

"Are you sure you didn't have a crush on Hillary?" Goren asked. "Or maybe Liliana? They were attractive girls."

"They . . . they were half my age!" Daugherty snapped. "I have a daughter the same age as Lili!"

"Didn't stop you last time."

A hand slapped down loudly on a desktop. "If you're here to hurl accusations, Detectives, then I'm done with this conversation."

"Sorry, sir," Goren said on a placating laugh. "We tend to get, you know, caught up in our theories. Let's talk about 'your' girls, how's that?"

Daughterty's answer was a grunt.

"What . . . what was Hillary like? We know she was a - what is it called? - 'non-traditional' student?"

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Daugherty sighed. "Yes, that's what we call them. Hillary had recently gotten divorced and decided to go back to school. She was a promising researcher."

"How did you know she was divorced?" Goren asked. "I mean, did you discuss things like your personal lives, in passing?"

"I'm friendly with all my advisees. I regularly have the whole group over for dinner. We've discussed everything from the social implications of blogging to the pregnancy worries of the wife of one of my other students."

"Eclectic," Eames murmured.

"Yes. Hillary and Lili were both very good students, and personable colleagues. They put most of their energy into school. Hillary was divorced, like I said, and Lili . . . I don't think she even had a boyfriend."

"The clothes she was wearing the day she was killed," Eames said evenly, "don't seem to support that. They were very revealing. Stuff someone five years younger would be wearing."

"She always dressed appropriately for classes," Daugherty said. "I can't speak to what she wore on her off-time."

"Hmm."

"Doctor?" Goren spoke up. "We need to ask this - you know, just to keep away any loose ends - can you tell us your whereabouts late Sunday night and early Monday morning, when Hillary died? And Wednesday morning, for Liliana?"

"I . . . what? Am I . . . you think I did this?" Daugherty stammered. "That's ridiculous!"

"Well," Eames told him, "there's one easy way to clear it up: tell us where you were."

Daugherty cleared his throat, then sighed. "Sunday night, I was home with my wife. And no, I don't have any receipts or anything to prove it," he added before either detective could speak. "Wednesday, I would have been here, in my office."

"Can anyone confirm that?" Eames asked. "Maybe a student came to see you, or you had coffee with a co-worker?" There were a few seconds of silence, and then she said, "You're shaking your head 'no'?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. I didn't see anyone." He groaned. "Damn it, there's almost never anyone around on Wednesday mornings! Wednesday mornings are the time slot we purposely leave empty, for office hours and faculty meetings!"

Eames sighed. "And I suppose the only person who saw you Sunday night was your wife? No visitors, no pizza delivery?"

"No. Listen, Sara - my wife - she's a trustworthy woman. She wouldn't lie to the police. You can go ask her if I was home, and she'll say yes, because it's true."

"Right," Eames said dryly. "Well, you can rest assured we'll be talking to her soon. But for now . . ."

"Thank you for your time, sir," Goren finished for her.

Neither Kratzer nor Straub said anything as Eames picked up the recorder and hit the Rewind button, then returned it to her pocket. "Guys?" she finally said, giving them an expectant look. "Opinions?"

"Squirrel," Kratzer said shortly.

"Learned his lesson, my ass," Straub agreed. "Only lesson those guys learn is to kill the girls when they're done with them, to keep from being identified."

Alex nodded. "Well, his alibi's useless. No matter what he says about what a saint she is, we can't take the wife's word for it."

"A blood sample would be the best thing we could get from him," Kratzer said, "to compare to the semen the M.E. found on the last girl."

"No probable cause, no blood sample," Goren said with a shake of his head. "The DA would laugh at us."

"So . . . what?" Straub asked. "Me, I'd say we pull his phone records and see if he took any calls Wednesday morning. If he did, that'd exclude him from the Zamora death, and by probable extension, the other three. If he didn't, then we've shown that he has no alibi for at least two of the killings."

"We can do phone dumps," Eames said, reaching for her phone. "You three, talk amongst yourselves while the woman does the work."


"So, what do you think?" Straub asked over the rim of his coffee mug as he, Kratzer, and the prodigal D'Argenzio watched Goren and Eames head for the elevators that evening.

"No bruises in two whole days," Kratzer said with a grin. "Things are looking up."

"Bruises?" D'Argenzio asked incredulously. "On who? What the hell did I miss?"

"A lot." Kratzer raised his eyebrows and grinned. "I hope you at least got a date out of all that mooning you've been doing over Barek, because you've been missing a hell of a soap opera over on this side of the room."

Straub chuckled. "You could call it that. Or you could call it an epic girlfight. But Ted's right, I want to hear about the black hole of a detective you disappeared into for the last week. She's cute."

D'Argenzio swallowed uncomfortably and looked away from the two men. "She's none of your business."

"Not a chance, Junior," Straub grinned, giving D'Argenzio a friendly slap on the back. "Tell us on your own or we'll drag it out of you. Did you get her to go with you?"

He scowled, crossing his arms defensively. "Who says I even asked her to go out with me?"

Ignoring that, Straub just repeated the question. "Did you get her to go out with you?"

"No," D'Argenzio snapped. "There, happy?"

"Why? She shoot you down?" Kratzer persisted.

D'Argenzio looked away and mumbled something unintelligible.

"Come again?" Straub leaned closer, making a show of cupping a hand around his ear.

"I said, her partner shot me down."

"Her partner?" Kratzer and Straub exchanged looks of confusion. "What's he got to do with it?"

D'Argenzio coughed and, in spite of himself, cracked a smile. "Judging by what they were doing when I walked in on them in an interview room this afternoon, a lot."

"You shittin' me?" Straub asked, wide-eyed. Then, meeting Kratzer's eyes, he burst out laughing. "This place is a fucking no-tell motel! I swear to god, I'm switching agencies. Get myself a desk here and hope they give me a cute partner so I can follow the trend."

"Trend?" D'Argenzio asked blankly.

"Yeah, trend. On this squad, it's starting to look like everyone dates their partner."

"Or," Kratzer interjected, "at least tries to. You think they got it worked out, Eddie?"

Straub shrugged. "Well, like you said, no new bruises. And she didn't look pissed at him this morning. That's a change."

"Hmm." Kratzer gave that a second's thought, then grinned and looked over his shoulder at the elevators the two detectives had disappeared into a few minutes ago. "Come to think of it, they did seem kind of in a hurry to get out of here tonight . . ."

Straub smirked. "I'll keep my eyes open for hickeys in the morning instead of bruises."