"How about tomorrow at 2pm, Doug. Let's try that and see if it works out. I have a meeting with Rudy at 3pm, so make sure you guys aren't late."
"No problem at all, Mike. I so appreciate this. I will let Andre know right away. You are one special guy, thank you!"
It was long past sundown when Mike hung up the phone after countless hours of doing office catch-up work. Most of the bullpen was empty by now and even his partner was still painfully absent- mostly by choice; that much he surmised.
Snacking on the last piece of cookie from this morning, Mike made a few notes on his calendar about meetings for the upcoming days, before leaning back in his chair, his mind wandering back to their latest case and their foul-smelling suspect.
He agreed with Steve that this guy had to be the runner. It explained his knowledge of the city and its back roads; it even explained why their initial psychological profile hadn't fit his actions. Whoever was behind the killing and possible sex crimes going on, was a completely different person, and quite possibly female.
The phone ringing pulled him out of his thoughts and Mike reached forward to grab the receiver.
"Homicide. Stone."
"Mike, it's Bernie."
Leaning forward and growing intrigued immediately, he reached for a pen and his notepaper, as he took a sip of water to clear his dry throat.
"Bernie, great to hear from you. How did the autopsy go?"
"As we expected, the pattern remains the same. Cause of death is asphyxia caused by a wire garroted around the victim's neck. Steve was right, the man was lying on the ground already when he was killed. I found more traces of CPZ in his system, along with four injection marks in his right thigh. Two things that are noteworthy for you guys are that I found the actual act of killing to be more violent this time. With the last three victims, the pressure applied to the wire seemed pretty steady. With this one, like you saw, the wire actually cut into the skin. Any deeper and he would have severed the carotid artery or his interior jugular and the victim would have bled out long before he ever suffocated."
"This goes along with Lenny's hypothesis.", Mike mumbled and made a few notes of the ME's findings on his paper, "He believes the killer is becoming more…compulsive. He even thinks he or she might strike more frequently now."
"I think he's right, Mike."
Bernie's voice on the other end sounded tired, making him wonder just how long the ME had been awake already.
"The other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that contrary to the previous victims, I found traces of A.C.E. in the airways of this one."
"ACE?"
"Stands for Alcohol-Chloroform-Ether. It's an old mixture used in different ratios to render somebody unconscious. Anything from light sedation to near-comatose condition depending on the mixture. In our case, your killer used the common ratio of 1 parts reduced alcohol, 2 parts chloroform and 3 parts ether. It would explain why the victim was lying down when he was killed."
Taking more notes, Mike absent-mindedly shook his head, deeply worried about the latest developments in their case.
"How easy would it be to obtain these…these ingredients, Bernie?"
"Very easy unfortunately. There are so many versions of Ether and Alcohol out there that you could use, and chloroform could be easily attained as a cleaning and disinfecting agent. You could probably go through your house and medicine cabinet and make up a mixture yourself."
Exhaling slowly, Mike rested his forehead on the palm of his hand, before running his thumb over his neatly trimmed brows.
"He's stepping it up a notch again. I am not liking this one bit…I'll get a hold of Lenny and see what he thinks. Thank you, Bernie."
Hanging up the phone that seemed to have become a body part of his over the past three hours, Mike turned around and looked through his large double-pane window at the city that was lying at his feet.
And somewhere in between all those lights, all those families spending an evening together before going to sleep, somewhere out there was a sick killer torturing his latest victim.
And after all their usual approaches had failed, Mike didn't have a clue where to start looking next.