Steve heard the phone while attempting to unlock the front door. He dropped the keys and cursed in his haste to get inside and answer it. The phone stopped its incessant clamoring just as he put a hand on the receiver.
Picking it up anyway, he dialed Mike's number.
"Where the hell have you been, I've been trying to call for over an hour?" Mike sounded tired and perturbed.
"I helped the Grisko girl pick up her place. Why so impatient?" Steve expected a snide remark about hanging around the young woman's apartment, he wasn't disappointed.
"Really, I thought you were going right home to your bed.
"Give me a break, Mike, you would have done the same thing and you know it. You got anything."
"True," Mike paused as Steve's impatience grew. "Might have a new angle."
"What?" Exhaustion never improved Steve's phone manners.
Mike called him on it. "Gee, Mike that's great. "What did you find out?" While lack of sleep made Steve short and irritable, it totally incapacitated Mike's sarcasm filter.
"OK, OK I get it. Can you please tell me what you found out so I can go collapse?"
"That's better. Well, I actually found out two things. First, As far as the gal on the front door knows, Woodward never turned up at the opening."
"That explains the time of death, but I think it also puts our suspects in question." He chose not to cover his line of thinking again. "What else?"
"I followed Walters from the gallery down to an apartment in the Tenderloin; Gary Kohler's apartment."
The revelation got Steve's attention. "What the heck was he doing there? Walters said he didn't know him."
"I have no idea…"
"You followed him up, didn't you? What if he was destroying evidence?"
"Unlike what you would have done, hotshot, I thought it out before I went charging up there."
Steve huffed loudly into the phone.
Mike smiled, knowing he had hit a true chord with his partner. "The crime lab had already been there, so there was nothing left to hide. We can go back in the morning and check it out."
Steve rubbed his chin, he needed a shave, and ten hours of sleep. As snarky as Mike was being, Steve knew his partner needed the same. Steve had to admit, Mike made the right call on following Walters up to the apartment, but he wasn't going to tell him that. "Ok, it will be our second stop."
Now it was Mikes turn to ask questions, "What do you have?"
"Key to Pam's locker at the institute. She left it for Lizzy. Said she had something to tell her, but never got a chance. Grisko says the roommate never used the locker. We don't have the number, but with 4 people dead, getting it from the powers that be at the Institute shouldn't be too hard." He momentarily thought about Dean Stein, and his less then helpful attitude, but dismissed it.
They both were quite for a moment. Mike finally spoke up. "You think maybe we got the motive on this one all wrong?"
"Maybe, I don't know. At this point I'm have trouble stringing two thoughts end to end. Hopefully we'll get some help from the lab tomorrow and we can figure this out."
"You know we still need to interview Molinaro tomorrow, too. On top of that, from what Olsen told me when we met, there better be some progress by Monday morning or the Mayor's gonna turn the whole mess over to the Feds. Another busy fun filled day tomorrow, buddy boy, you'd better get some sleep."
"That's the plan." Steve desperately hoped for a quiet night. "Just one more thing, Mike. How much do you want to tell Grisko?"
"That's a good question, but until we have a good answer, I'm thinking not much more than she already knows. I'll meet you at the office at 7:00."
"Ah, Mike really, How about 8:00?"
"7:00"
Steve hung up the phone and slumped up the stairs. He looked at the clock. It was past 11pm. I need different job. He dropped down on the bed, not even bothering to undress. He looked at the phone, toying with the idea of calling Lizzy, to make sure she was settled. His last conscious thought was the debatable wisdom of his decision to leave her at the apartment alone.
00000
Lizzy flopped back down on the couch after locking the door, looking around the freshly reorganized apartment. The room was dark, save for the pale golden tint filtering through the window from the streetlight on the corner. Surprisingly calm in the apartment, in spite of the break-in, she sat with her eyes closed.
Sleep eluded her. A full shift at the restaurant was in store tomorrow, but her mind refused to turn off. Pam was dead. Other than when she broke down at the police station, and that had as much to do with the initial shock as grief, she really hadn't thought a lot about it. Now with nothing to do and nobody to talk to, she could think of nothing else. Lizzy wept again.
She shivered and opened her eyes. At some point, sleep had overcome her. She rubbed her face and stood, trying to read the time on her wrist watch in the dim light. Damn, 1 am. Stretching the kinks out of her neck and back, she padded to the sink and poured a glass of water, wondering what had awoken her so suddenly.
Lizzy pushed aside the curtain covering the window above the kitchen sink, trying to focus. The glass slipped from her hand and smashed on the counter when she saw someone staring up at the window, at her. Stepping to the right, out of eyeline, she tried to calm her suddenly pounding heart. She looked again, careful not to be seen, and panicked. No mistake, some was definitely there. She pawed the counter, in search of the scrap of paper with Steve's phone number, slicing her left index finger on a shard of glass. She swore and put her finger in her mouth, trying to keep the blood from baptizing the counter and floor, all the while continuing her hunt for the number, finally locating the paper scrap.
Unwilling to turn on the light, she dialed the phone in the darkened room, keeping well away from the window. Her hand was shaking so badly, she nearly misdialed the number. Answer, answer, answer, she pleaded silently as the phone rang again and again. When the call was answered, it seemed no one was on the other end of the line. Lizzy shouted for help into the receiver.
Steve knocked the phone off the nightstand in his zombie-like attempt to pick up the handset. He could hear the near hysterical voice loud and clear, but his sleep dulled limbs were not responding to the urgent instructions from his brain. He finally righted the phone.
"Hello?"
"Steve, it's Lizzy. Someone is outside my apartment, please help me." Her voice sounded like a terrified child.
"Ok, you need to hang up the phone. I'll call dispatch and send a cruiser, then I'll call you right back. Get away from the window." Steve knew it would be a couple of minutes before he was awake enough to drive, a black and white would be there in half the time.
Lizzy hung up the phone and sat on the floor, back to the wall. Trying to still her panted breath and shaking hands, she nearly levitated off the floor when the phone rang out minutes later.
"Lizzy?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"I'll stay on the phone until the patrol car gets there. Then I'll head over. Are you out of sight?"
"Uh hun"
Steve was desperately trying to engage her in conversation to help her calm down, but his mind and mouth refused to cooperate. He could hear her labored breaths clearly through the line. Finally he was able to form a coherent sentence. "Can you tell me what you saw?"
Lizzy continued to take deep breaths, calming slightly. "I'm sorry." She finally whispered.
"Sorry for what, that's why I left my number. Tell me what happened."
"I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I went to get a drink of water and thought I saw someone looking up at the window." She put her finger back I her mouth and cleaned off the latest leakage. "It scared me, so I stepped away from the window and peeked again. There was somebody there, but, uh. Oh man, now a feel stupid. It might have been just uh, I don't know… and now I've gone and woken you up."
"Don't feel silly. With what has gone on today, you need to trust your instincts. If you felt threated or scared, that was a perfect reason to call." Steve paused for a moment, adding, "You know, sleep is really overrated."
His flip remark made her breath easier.
"Guess I should have stayed with Nonna after all. I'm such an idiot."
"Would you just stop? It's no problem, really."
Lizzy looked up at the sight of a red and white strobe painting her apartment. "I think the cops are here."
"Good. Stay on the line with me. They will take a look around and then come up to the door. Don't take the chain off until you see their ID's. Once someone is with you, I'll be right over."
They chatted a few minutes about nothing until Steve heard a loud rapping on the door. Lizzy put down the phone.
"It's ok Steve, they didn't see anything." She was now calm and felt foolish. "You don't need to come over here. I'm acting like a scared rabbit."
"Hey, it's alright, I'm already up and no you're not. I'll be there in 15 minutes." He hung up the phone.
Steve considered calling Mike, but decided against it. At least somebody would get a good night's sleep. It was his own fault that she was there alone. He should have insisted on other arrangements. Hindsight. He slipped on his boots, took a few aspirin for his aching jaw and brushed his teeth, praying a shower would be in his future sometime in the next 24 hours.
00000
Lizzy was drinking tea with her eyes at half mast when Steve entered the apartment. He spoke quietly with the uniforms before they departed, then locked and chained the door.
"How are you holding up?"
She put down her cup on the small kitchen table and said nothing. Steve walked into the kitchen and picked up the kettle. It was still warm. He opened the cupboard and found some instant coffee. Although he knew it was vile, he made a cup anyway and joined the young woman at the table, grimacing after the first sip.
Lizzy finally acknowledged his presence and fully opened her eyes.
"OK, I guess, I don't know. Do you have any idea why is this happening?"
Steve knew this question was coming. Even after his conversation with Mike, he was tempted to tell her their original obsession theory. Instead, he played it by the book.
"We're not sure. Everything seems to be centered on the institute. Hopefully we will find out more tomorrow, when we look in Pam's locker and get lab results." Lizzy stared blankly and yawned. Steve wasn't sure she was processing anything he was saying.
"Glad my riveting conversation is keeping you engaged," he said with mock sarcasm.
She turned to him and smiled. "Sorry, you must think I'm schizoid, terrified one minute, comatose the next."
"No, I think you're someone who has pegged out on the crisis-meter for the day, hell for a lifetime. Why don't you try to get some sleep? I'll sit up out here and then tomorrow we will try to find some safer digs for you."
"You can't do that, you look like hell…"
"Gee, thanks." Steve smiled at her faux pas.
"That's not what I meant, you just look really, really tired."
"I know, but I'm fine." He took another swig of coffee, "That is, if this stuff doesn't kill me." He got up and dumped the balance of the cup in the sink.
"Sure?"
"Sure."
00000
Sunday Morning dawned clear and chilly. Steve had spent most of the early morning hours paging through Lizzy's copy of Gardiner's Art Through the Ages.* He lingered on the plates depicting the artworks profaned by the Da Vinci Killer, revolted by the senseless brutality he'd seen in the last few days. He dozed off at some point after six and awoke to the sound of a running shower. He looked at the kitchen clock.
"Crap, Mike's gonna kill me," he said to no one. It was 8:15. Grabbing the phone, he dialed Bryant Street.
"Stone, Homicide."
"Mike, it's…"
"Well, good morning Sleeping Beauty, nice of you to check in. Where the heck are you? I've been calling your place for an hour." Steve felt a strong surge of déjà vu. He had this same conversation with Mike less than 10 hours ago.
"Sorry, but…"
"I don't care what excuse you have this time, get your tail down here, pronto. We've got some interesting lab results."
*Gardener's is the gold stander of art history text books. Most art student to this day own a copy. I still have my beloved, battered edition from the 70's.