"Well, it seems all that alcohol consumption hasn't impaired your motor skills just yet, Kiddo. But you have to take care of your dendrites, they don't take kindly to mass quantities of German booze."
Grunting at the psychiatrist in unmasked annoyance, Steve bent over his desk once again, careful not to have his purple tie end up in his coffee cup, as he dug out the remaining files Lessing had dropped off this morning.
Arriving earlier than expected due to an overfilled schedule at the clinic later that day, and with Mike still in session with the kids, it was left to him to get the groundwork on their latest case started.
"You know us cops, Lenny. We do what the hour demands.", he mumbled absent-mindedly, as the psychiatrist sat down in the guest chair by his desk, before playing with his stapler.
"Did you even realize you don't have a single personal item on your desk? Not even a picture frame. Seems pretty sterile, considering your flamboyant nature. You're not turning into a nomad on me, are you, Stephen? All non-committal…not leaving any ties behind? Ready to move on whenever you get bored…you aren't leaving, are you?"
Lenny's incessant nagging could only mean that he hadn't been to the mental hospital yet to get rid of his excess energy through in-patient therapy. Ignoring the remark altogether, even though it had hit a lot closer to home than he cared to admit, Steve focused back on their case, hoping that a thorough discussion could take the edge off.
"We've got four homicides. All males. Strangled with a wire garroted around their necks. Bernie thinks the same weapon was used every single time. Victims are between…eh…twenty-seven and forty-five years old. First homicide happened six weeks ago, there's been one in fairly regular order since then. Last victim was found down on Bay Street and the Embarcadero four days ago."
Handing over the coroner's file of all the victim information, Steve took a nervous sip of coffee, hating the way Lenny would stare at them quietly for many long moments, before focusing his attention back on the file.
"Were all these men found in the same area?"
"No, not really. I tried to come up with a perimeter but it doesn't add up. These men were killed offsite and then dumped seemingly arbitrarily. There's no connection between the dumping spot and the last-seen location either. We're talking an area from Lincoln Boulevard over to the Embarcadero, Hunter's Point and back up to Geary. It's bizarre. I am starting to look into their social circles but haven't found any indication of a connection there either. All bodies show signs of restraints on their wrists, possibly handcuffs. And Bernie wants you to look at the drug cocktail found in the two latest victim's systems. Injected into the thigh, multiple times. He felt that the combination of drugs was odd. Beyond that, the only common denominator seems to be gender and method of murder."
"Mhm."
Studying the images from the morgue intently, Lenny fell quiet before running a hand across his clean-shaven face.
"Your timeframe suggests a certain amount of urgency, a compulsive behavior. Somebody or something triggered your killer."
Steve nodded, sliding his left hand into the pocket of his black dress slacks and holding onto his coffee cup with the other.
"Maybe a fight? Breakup? Unreturned romantic advance?"
"It's possible…", Lenny answered, his eyes running over the toxicology report, "You said these drugs just appeared in the latest two victims? That's interesting. He's upping his game a bit."
Steve waited until Lenny was done reading, before pointing his chin at the file.
"What do you make off these drugs?"
"It's quite the interesting mixture, Bernie was right about that. He lists Chlorpromazine as one of the main ingredients and small amounts of diazepam. Your killer is smart."
"What are these used for?"
"It's not so much what CPZ is used for, as it is what our killer uses it for…", Lenny answered cryptically, causing Steve to glare at the psychiatrist in growing impatience.
"Okay, relax, will you?", Lenny countered and gestured around the bullpen, "You guys really need to learn to be more patient around here. Anyways, the diazepam is a sedative, but the dose is small enough that it would barely get you sleepily, probably just supposed to get these victims to relax. CPZ on the other hand is a primary drug used to treat mental patients. It helps with everything from schizophrenia, to bi-polar disorder, paranoia, heck even hiccups. Because it's so widely used, it's relatively easy to obtain- and it's fairly cheap."
"But he's not using it to treat a mental disorder obviously. So what does he use it for?"
Lenny grimaced, before leaning back in the guest chair, absent-mindedly staring at the interrogation room with Mike and the teenagers in it.
"Well Wonderboy, I think that your killer is using CPZ to physically subdue these victims. And I also think that he is actually a she."