"Alright, I give up."
Steve hadn't seen Forester in the far corner of Mike's office when he barged in, arms up in the air in sheer defeat. Four hours of relentless research, countless phone calls and even more dead ends had put a serious damper into his day that had barely even started.
Cursing himself for not seeing the Captain when he should have known that he'd be around, he lowered his arms again, then leaned against the small file cabinet in Mike's office, before rubbing his chin.
"You were gone for so long; we figured you'd made lots of headway downstairs, Barney."
With a theatrical eye roll, Steve shook his head, glancing back and forth between Mike and the Captain.
"Please just tell me that I wasn't your last hope, because if I am, we're in big trouble."
"Not quite, Buddyboy.", Mike chimed in and took a sip of coffee, "I take it there was nothing on the accounting end?"
"Nothing. Almost all transactions were cash, nothing out of the ordinary. The bigger payments were verified by his suppliers, so if he paid somebody to attack the bar, he didn't do it out of the bar's account, or his private one. Unless he has some money stashed away in a mattress someplace, we're out of luck on proving anything that way."
"No, we already know what he was hiding in his mattress, and it wasn't cash. Here, we've got another angle."
Handing over a piece of paper, Mike pointed at Forester with a wily smile.
"The ehm…Captain over here was able to use his credentials to get us a list of all the guys who spent the weekend with Carigio, along with anybody else who was camping there. It might give us an idea on who stole the gun."
Sharing the smile, Steve read through the list containing only fifteen names, scrambling through his mental archive hoping to recognize any but didn't.
"We could run them through R&I and cross reference any images against that of our shooter, check their height and weight against what we have. It would narrow this list down even more."
"Mhm hm. We were thinking the same thing, so we did you a huge favor and called the guys downstairs to get started. Now all they need is for you to stop on by and help them out if there're any questions."
"Aw come on Mike…why me? I just came from downstairs."
The protest, no matter how vocal, did nothing to sway the Lieutenant's determined expression. And perhaps there was a grander reason why Mike didn't want him by his side, something he wasn't entirely aware of at the moment.
With a resigned headshake, Steve succumbed to his fate and was ready to walk out the door, when his best friend cleared his throat.
"Let us know if you find anything as soon as possible. And maybe all that research work will help you sleep a bit better tonight, Buddyboy."