"You two were starting to worry me…"
The underlined reprimand made both Junior Inspectors glance up as they entered the bullpen, unusually stern-faced, Tanner immediately returning to his work area as if to consider it a safe haven from every-day struggles, while Steve casually walked toward his desk, dropping off his beige overcoat before entering Mike's office with a slight smile that didn't match the concern in his eyes.
"So, what went wrong that you missed to check in for almost two hours?", the Lieutenant asked knowingly, drinking a sip of coffee, his eyes peeking out above the rim of the black cup.
"A couple things, actually…", Steve said, stumbling around the 800-pound gorilla in the room as he closed the door to the inner office and leaned his thin frame against it, "And to be honest, I am not sure which one worries me more…"
"What do you mean?"
With his voice stripped of any emotion, Mike set the cup down, stern eyes staring back at his partner, hoping to take in any iota of his body language that would explain the cryptic words.
Steve hesitated, one hand shoved into the pocket of his gray dress pants, the other one nervously fidgeting with his azure tie.
"So we came across a group of homeless people who seemed to know Reverend Joe quite well. I've got some info on him, stuff they gave me to help track down his last whereabouts. Turns out that he did spend quite a bit of time not just in the Mission District and the Tenderloin, but also up by the Wharf. By the sound of it, right before his disappearance; he was working on some…humanitarian projects up there. If I can trust the information we received, Vice might have a jacket on him. The woman we met said he was caught a couple of times carrying weed in his pocket. He always claimed that he'd taken it from kids off the streets but…well…you know how well that would go."
"Not well at all. Which means they would have booked him a time or two."
"And when they did, it was probably under a different name."
"You better believe it."
With a deep frown, Mike shrugged.
"So what has you worried about this?"
"Two things…", Steve argued and pointed outside Mike's window overlooking downtown, "So, once we told this…this group that his body had been found and that we suspected murder…well…let's just say they got aggravated."
"Aggravated…how?"
"As in…wanting to find the killer. I gave them our usual spiel, telling them to let us handle the investigation, but it became pretty apparent that they weren't going to listen. By then, Bill and I had given them a lot of information in order to track down his last known whereabouts, as well as our presumed method of murder. So, it seems as though…as though they're getting ready to hit up the streets to find the killer in some obscure form of revenge…to…you know…make things right for the local Saint, so to speak."
They both fell quiet for a moment, considering the worrisome implications of that development and what it meant for their ongoing case.
"Geez…you mean to tell me the homeless groups are about to clash in some…some neighborhood feud about who exactly killed him?"
"Pretty much. And there's something else…"
Upon his foreboding words, Steve clenched his jaws, struggling to find the right words as his eyes left his partner for a brief second to trace the outline of downtown.
"What else can there be?"
"They said he had a guy hanging around with him at times, kind of like a protégé. Also wore a cassock.", the young Inspector explained and gestured toward the map of San Francisco in his partner's office, "Now, our group was convinced that Reverend Joe had gone to Chicago and well…without much info on his protégé…it's just as possible that this guy was killed instead and Reverend Joe is still alive…and half the city's homeless population is about to go to war over the murder of a man who might be living in Chicago now. I would say the sooner identify our body, the better."
