The kid running the night desk at the Motel 6 was edgy. A little stoned. Crews could smell it from the door, but smiled. His name tag was crooked, hair tousled and a little greasy. He was scrawny, starving for something more, something he couldn't find. It wouldn't be in drugs. Benny. Benjamin, probably. Reese was pissed off, he could hear the edge in her voice as she leaned in and extracted the room number by exploiting the one word that kid didn't want to hear.

Weed.

She moved like a shark, direct for the kill, and he moved with her with a wink at the kid, who looked suitably chastised. Not appropriately sorry, though. Reese was pissed about that, too. Her fist hit door 109 hard enough to rattle it.

"Robert Fendine, LAPD. Open up," she snapped.

There was a muffled response, then another. She waited, almost jiggling as the chain finally came off the door. Crews wanted to tell her he wasn't going to bolt and watched her fingers brush her gun. Reese wanted a fight, but she wasn't going to get it here. The door opened awkwardly, bumped against rubber wheels. This wasn't their killer. He could tell from the atrophy in Fendine's legs and watched Reese's lips tighten. She knew it, too.

Fendine peered up at them.

"You're late," he said and wheeled back so they could come in. Reese scowled and nudged a can of Sprite with the toe of her boot and she holstered her gun with a hard look at Fendine. "Not much space to sit." He gestured and worked his way up onto the bed.

"That's okay," Reese said, "we're not staying for the pajama party."

"We caught you running a red right outside of a crime scene," Crews said, more curious than anything. "A homicide, actually. Cop got killed, Patrick Ballantine. What my partner and I would like to know is what you were doing there."

"I'm a P.I.," Fendine drawled, gesturing at his wallet. Reese kept her eyes on the man. "Retired Denver PD." One of his arms hung limply at his side as he finished pulling himself back onto the bed. "I was hired to track Ballantine, not to kill him. My ride was trashed by a buncha punks up in Eureka. Didn't have much of a choice when Ballantine was booking it down here like he had demons up his ass. The guy that pieca shit car," Crews's eyebrows arched slight, "belongs to woulda got it back. I left the fucker $500, with a note, too." Fendine frowned and tugged on a pair of latex gloves.

"So, I tail this Ballantine guy in to L.A., and he's running scared as fuck, right?" Fendine shoved a few pillows behind him. "Then he stops and goes into your building. I'm sitting there for like...three hours. The guy never comes out. Some other bastard comes ripping out of there, shoving something in a bag, looking damn hungry. He's got a hoodie on, pulled up, but I can tell he's blond. Fit, too, maybe about six-one, six-two. On the thin side, but wiry. Like you, Detective Crews, but a little more meat. No prison-hunger on him."

Fendine sidled a glance at Crews.

"Best I can do on an ident."

This guy? He had asshole written all over him and Crews didn't like him. Not when he was digging at sore spots. Prison-hunger got a sharp look that said Fendine ought to watch himself. He had a feeling Reese was glaring daggers, too, as she flipped through the man's wallet to confirm his P.I. story. Crews did his best not to rise to the bait and threw a small, tight, grimace in another direction. No sleep was making it harder to resist that urge to tell Fendine to, as Reese might put it, cram it.

"Who hired you to tail Ballantine?" Crews asked, his voice clipped and professional.

"You know the answer to that, Detective," Fendine said with a sharp smile.

"Joseph Blank," Reese said in a soft voice and he watched the way her eyes settled on the man. The anger was there, bubbling, because as Fendine had sat in his stolen car, a former partner of hers had been murdered. Fendine didn't deny it, but he didn't really confirm it, either.

"Three more questions," Crews said. Fendine nodded, waiting. "How long was it after Ballantine went in before that blond man came out? Do you know anything about a William Blank?" He was too tired to do much more than ask pointed, quick questions, and Reese was too tired to interject. She also had a headache if the way she was half squinting told it right.

"It was about thirty minutes, maybe forty-five, give or take," Fendine said, then blinked. "Blank? Sure. I remember a Blank. He was that murderer what killed all those girls and the cops. Piece of work. Ballantine was raising some fuss about him going missing. Threatened to got to the FBI with some heavy evidence. He had IAD up his ass pretty hard. Him and Blank. That was just getting interesting. All sorts of threats coming down. Couldn't figure out from who, though. I watched him damn good, too, didn't see jack."

Reese sat on the edge of the table, quiet, listening, absorbing the information like a sponge. She didn't feel like talking anymore, instead, she remained cool and silently menacing, as if that would help. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, then frowned.

Tidwell.

The annoyance in her face said as much as she arched a brow and gestured. Crews offered her a smile and nodded before turning his attention back to Fendine. He could hear her voice, muffled as she talked, and heard the whoosh of cars passing by on the street.

"Did you ever come across the name of Tomas Harriman in connection with Ballantine?" It was worth a shot. Definitely worth a shot. Crews took out an apple (a Pink Lady, which was actually pinkish, though there were some bits of green) and took a bite.

"Harriman? Once or twice, nothing specific," Fendine said. "There was some sort of vague connection between the two. Ballantine met with someone who knew someone who knew Harriman. He was trying to dig more information up on the man. To my knowledge, he kept hitting walls. There were alotta those. Dummy corporations, legit inside legit, names and numbers that didn't follow through."

He glanced at the door Reese had gone through.

"She tell you about Ballantine, yet?" he asked. "Seems like she's taking it pretty hard." He flashed a smile that was neither pleasant nor reassuring. Fendine had been places after his stint with the PD and they weren't exactly nice. The ooze of it leaked around him, like a blurring outline of something wrong.

Crews frowned, eying Fendine with something that could only be called disgust (as soon as he got away from here, the first thing he'd do was wash his hands, though a shower might be in order). The guy oozed weird right alongside not being particularly helpful. There was more buried somewhere and it was prickling at him like an itch he couldn't quite reach.

He glanced at the man, his face unreadable.

"April 12, 2003," Fendine said. "Undercover, seedy motel, the kind where you're not even sure if those damn sheets were changed." There was a gleam of a smile again that never really surfaced, not really. "How did that mobster put it? Did he say Little Dani Reese, maybe? She and Ballantine got themselves locked in thanks to some particularly nasty situation. From what I can tell, thin walls were interesting that night. Had a guy tell me some fascinating things."

Charlie Crews's face mirrored Fendine's smile, only his was sharper, darker. Thin ice wasn't a phrase good enough for what Fendine was walking. The implications the man was getting at weren't exactly made of gold and his attitude was acidic now that Reese was out of the room. Crews didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. Her blinked slowly, the curl of his lips slight and disgusted. He fixed his eyes on Fendine's and the cop receded just enough.

"If you have something to say about my partner," he began, his voice smooth and light, "I'd love to hear it. I would." His fingers tightened against the apple. "But before you do, Mr. Fendine, I think you ought to know that I don't like to play games with men like you. Wrap it up or you're going to find out that the woman out there?"

He jerked a thumb at the door, his smile a little wider.

"She's not the bad cop."

"Maybe you ought to ask her what went down," Fendine hummed, his laugh light. "I bet that'd be an interesting conversation." From the cracked door, Reese's voice was waspish, sharp and agitated before it abruptly cut off. Her fist hit the door.

"Crews," she called. "Tell Chatty Cathy to shut up if he's not giving you anything useful. Shit's in from CSU." She poked her head in, scowling. "And you, don't go anywhere or I'll hunt your ass down, wheelchair or not."

Fendine shot her a brilliant smile.

Reese looked like she wanted to shoot him. He wouldn't have minded, save for the fact that it would give them both way too much paperwork to do and Tidwell would suspend her. Crews took another bite from his apple, his free fingers squeezing into a tight fist. The relief that came with leaving Robert Fendine behind was welcome. He left the door wide open, too, and heard the man cuss after them.

"Fendine's an asshole," she muttered as she pulled the driver's side door open.

"Yes," Crews said in a soft, smooth voice, "Yes he is."