Monday Morning

Rusty got ready for school. He spent all of Sunday doing homework because he didn't get any work done on Saturday.

Sharon looked like her normal self. She drove him to school and went on her way to work. She started with basic paperwork, but then, there was a stabbing at the mall. The security guard was critically injured trying to break up some sort of dispute. A bunch of people got injured when they all tried to flee the mall. Major Crimes responded. Buzz got the video feeds from the security office. Sykes went to the hospital to check on the guard. Sanchez checked the gang chatter to make sure they had nothing to do with the fray. This mall had been a known battleground between the LA Jokers and the East Side Catorces. Flynn and Provenza were trying to calm down the crowd and pick out the people who had actually seen anything.

Sharon was coordinating with Taylor and Central Division as they were the closest to the mall.

Central was searching the perimeter to see if the knife had been tossed.

Flynn and Provenza got a bunch of descriptions, which wasn't suprising since witness id's are often not reliable. They aren't paying close attention until something bad happens, and by that time, they panic. They were trying to get names of the people in the fight. Either no one knew or no one would say.

Raydor put all of the local hospital fights on notice that there may be a knife victim coming in and to call the police if one arrived to provide protection. The victim might be attacked again. She didn't tell them that they were looking for an assailant. She wanted to make sure the hospitals cooperated.

It was a local crime with no known federal implications, so Agent Howard was sitting this one out.

Buzz got the tape and ran it on his camera for the Captain to see. It showed a man and a woman walking. They got confronted by a man coming from the opposite direction. The two men fought, the man with the woman winning the fight. The loser retreated but came back with a knife and slashed the other guy. The two men wrestled on the ground. A guard tried to break it up. He got stabbed in the neck, and the woman ran away. It showed the crowd disbursing. A woman stopped to apply pressure to the guards neck.

That woman was Ms. Jacobs. She didn't see the fight. She just saw the man on the ground after the fracas. She stayed until the guard was taken by the paramedics. She left a statement with Central Division and went home.

The Hospital

Sykes and Sanchez waited for him to get out of surgery and to wake up, so they could ask him some questions.

They asked the doctor how he was doing. The surgery was successful, but he lost a lot of blood. They were going to give him a transfusion later that day.

The guard was unmarried, and lived alone. He was an immigrant from Ghana and had just gotten the job two weeks ago.

Sanchez asked him questions. "Did you see the face of the man who stabbed you?"

"Not really. I was facing the man he was trying to stab. That guy had a tattoo of a hummingbird on his neck, on his right side. I tried to grab the knife. The man with the tattoo hit the man with a knife, and the knife went into my neck. I tried to get help, but I just collapsed. I woke up here."

Sanchez called the sketch artist and told her of the tattoo. "Do you remember anything else about the man with a tattoo?"

The guard was quiet for a minute. "He had a scar on his cheek, on his right side. I didn't see too much of his left side."

"You've been very helpful," Sykes told him. "Get some rest."

They went back to the squad room. They didn't talk. Neither of them liked this case.

After watching a surveillance tape, Buzz found the knife. It had been tossed behind a décor wall in the mall. SID dusted it for prints. They also took the dna. Maybe the fighter's DNA would be on the knife. Tao took the best images they could get from the video of the fighters, the woman, and the closest people to the fight. He ran them all through facial recognition to see if they got any hits. There were none for the fighters or for the woman, but a boy watching the fight came up as a critical missing, being sought by the FBI. He called Fritz.

"Agent Howard, we got a hit on a critical missing child. He was at the mall during the stabbing." He sent Fritz an e-mail of the boy's name, Damien Cox, and the people who were closest to him. Agent Howard and a fellow agent were on their way.

The boy was the subject of a custody dispute between his paternal grandmother and his mother. The grandmother had custody, and the mother's boyfriend allegedly kidnapped the child a month ago. The mother claimed to know nothing. The boyfriend disappeared. They put a warrant out for his arrest, but he never resurfaced. The boy's father was dead. He was an FBI agent who got killed in the line of duty in Seattle, Washington. Apparently, his girlfriend, the boy's mother, was never the same after his death. She fell apart, got into drugs, in with the wrong crowd. The boy's grandmother took the child and called CPS.

Howard watched the surveillance tape. He saw a woman take the boy out the mall. There wasn't a good image of her face, but they could get her height, hair color, body type, etc. They started comparing the woman to known associates of the mother and her boyfriend. They didn't find a match. Fritz's heart was broken. He couldn't imagine what this boy had gone through. His father gone, his mother fell apart, he got taken from his grandmother and now, he witnessed a stabbing.

He punched the wall. They were so close to finding him and now, he's gone without a trace. Agent Jackson was just as mad. He felt like they all let Agent Morgan down. Captain Raydor came out. We put a bolo out for the boy. Every beat cop we have available is looking for a sign of him. We're checking red light cameras, traffic cameras, every publically accessible video feed, every train station, bus stop, etc.

Fritz sighed.

Prosecutor's Office

Gabriel had spent the weekend at Eliza's loft. He had to go home before work and change into a suit.

He came to work a little bit late, but the Chief didn't say anything.

Brenda was beginning to tie the threads together. Mikki told her that Sue was the officer from the restaurant, but she hadn't agreed to talk to her. Jackie found out that one of the officer's transferred because Branson propositioned his sister at a bar and tried to kiss her. When she turned him down, he got mad and started screaming at her. The brother got in between them and tried to get his sister out of there. Branson hit him from behind, causing him to crash into a barstool. His sister grabbed him and got out of there before he could retaliate. Jackie called the bar. The bartender remembered the whole thing. The bouncer who threw out Branson also remembered it. They both picked Branson out of a photo lineup.

Finally, Brenda had a whole story and independent witnesses.

Bobby's Work

They were having issues with the beams. The measurments weren't as specified by the manufacturer. Bobby spent his time yelling on the phone, trying to figure out if they could some how make this work. He had an angry client who didn't like the sound of delays, a board that didn't want to get stiffed on the bill and a flustered crew that didn't know what to do.

Bobby needed to get a grip. "Either you sent the wrong beams or your measurments on your website are off. We need these beams like yesterday, so if you don't get them here this week, we will replace you and you'll be paying all our expenses." He hung up the phone. He then started to delegate. He got one guy to look for a replacement, one person on the phone with the architect to see if anything could be done with these beams and someone in charge of scheduling to see how much it would cost and how long it would take to make up lost time.

He went to go kiss the client's ass and then to calm down the board. Who was going to calm him down?

Major Crimes.

Sharon was having a terrible day. She had to explain to an eldery couple in Ghana why their son was in critical condition at a hospital, when he just got the US to pursue a new life. He was an engineer in Ghana and was trying to save money to take the certificaiton test, so he could work in the States. She heard his whole life story. He was an award winning soccer player, helped develop a better well system so people could get clean water to their homes and promised his cousin that he could come visit him in LA when he got settled. She never felt so awful.

Fritz wasn't doing any better. He had to explain to a distraught grandmother that her boy had been seen, but no one knew he was missing until he was already gone. She didn't know how he got to LA. His mother had never been there before, and neither had his father.

Fritz worked all day, but he didn't get any new leads. They sent the photos to every store owner in the mall, hoping someone had seen them and could say who she was. Hobbes was working on a warrant to get the credit card transactions from every female that had been in the mall for the day of the shooting. She was having some trouble. The warrant would involve the information of hundreds of people and it would be hard to figure out which woman was who. They would have to look up everyone. The warrant might be denied and even if approved it might lead no where.

She called an old friend, a former classmate in law school, for advice

"Hey, Johnny. It's Andrea. I'm in a bind, and I was wondering if I could get some advice."

"Hey girl. I can try. Let me hear it."

Andrea told him the sordid story starting with the stabbing and ending with the missing boy.

"Every woman that day is probably overbroad. Why don't you start with an age estimate and within an hour of the stabbing and the stores that were around the fight. You need a warrant to compell the credit card companies, but the stores might cooperate with you."

"That's a great idea. You're the best."

"I try. Good luck finding that kid."

Andrea got to work. She called the mall manager. They sent the employees home and closed the mall after the stabbing, but he said he could get the credit card information now. He e-mailed a list of every woman who bought anything with a credit card in the hour before the stabbing. They had a lot of names but these could be cross-checked

Sanchez went through the gang photos. No one had a hummingbird tattoo. No one came into to hospital with stab wounds, which meant either they didn't get seriously hurt or they were hiding out. Sykes stayed in contact with the hospital. The guard went in for his blood transfusion.

Tao found images of the fighters and sent them to all of the local high schools, community colleges and universities. One of the boys looked to be about 19. Tao was hoping he was a student or a former one and someone could id him.

Flynn and Provenza worked with Central Division chasing down tips. Buzz was studying the tape over and over looking for something. He was great at working the videos, but he wasn't a detective. He didn't know how to find the suttle details that turned a case.

Brenda and Fritz's place.

Bobby called, saying he would be running late. He had a rough day at work. Brenda took it upon herself to make linguini and clams. She even washed the clams before she cooked them this time. She made a butter, garlic sauce and paid attention. She knew Bobby had a bad day and wanted to brighten his mood.

Fritz came home and threw his stuff down. He was beat and angry.

"Dinner's almost ready, Honey."

Fritz sat down, not saying a word.

"Honey?" She turned around. He looked grumpy. She knew he didn't like to share things when he was upset. She turned the food on low and came into the living room.

"What's wrong, Fritzi?"

He looked at her and wanted to speak but he was just red in the face. She sat down beside him and took his hand. "Is it work?"

He sighed. There was a stabbing at the mall, and the guard was fighting for his life in the hospital.

"That's awful." Brenda didn't know why a mall stabbing was FBI territory, but she didn't want to pry.

"That's not the worst of it. In the surveillance video was a boy who is a critical missing."

"What?"

"He was kidnapped a month ago. By the time the police recognized him, he was long gone, without a trace."

"Oh God! And to make things even better, his father was an agent, killed about 18 months ago in shootout. Poor guy didn't see it coming. Got out of his car and bam, he was gone."

Brenda could see the pain in his face. She took his hands in hers. She wanted to promise they would find the boy, and he would be safe but she couldn't. She had her fair share of missing children with Major Crimes. None of them made it back alive, killed by strangers or even their own parents. So much evil in the world. "If there's anything I or my team can do, you have us."

Fritz just fell into her arms.

Bobby came home. He smelled food and it was just like Brenda to put it on the stove and forget about it. He went to check on it and took out the clams. He turned and saw her consoling Fritz. He must have had a worse day than he did. Bobby set the table and finished making dinner.

Joel and Hunter could feel the anguish in the room. They just rested on the floor, feeling the feeling of defeat in the air.