The Next Day

"Hey Stella!" Danny called out from his lab when he saw her pass by in the hall and she changed course and entered his lab "Did you find that Hobbs guy yesterday?"

"No, we went by his apartment last night but no one was home" Stella shook her head "We asked the neighbors but no one has seen him. Flack is putting out an APB and he's going to try his office a little later. Did you get anything off the documents in her locker?"

"Well, something Montana said yesterday kind of stuck with me… you see this file and these crime scene photos?" He indicated to a stack of documents sitting in front of him on the desk and she nodded "These are official police records, and not copies either, these are the real shebang, the real deal. So I'm thinking how could this girl get her hands on this stuff? I mean, this is a closed case so it's going to be stored in the archives, but even then, it's not open to the public, and unless our vic staged a robbery of the ppolice archives that I haven't heard about…"

"Then how did she get her hands on this kind of material?" Stella completed his train of thought

The two of them pondered the issue for a moment before Danny suggested "Maybe I should just run the prints on this file – maybe that would tell us how is ended up in Jessica Bancroft's hands…"

"Danny, this file has been handled by tons of people: detectives, coroners, clerks down in archives…"

"Yeah but most of them handled this file a long time ago…" Danny finally had a plan starting to form in his head "If I can check and compare the degradation of the oils in each one of the finger prints I might be able to figure out who, besides Jessica Bancroft, handled this file last…"

"It's still a lot of work, Danny. And even then, there's nothing to say she didn't just steal this file somehow…" Stella was still skeptical

"Yeah, but it's a start…" Danny insisted.

Stella gave him a little pat on his shoulder and a sympathetic look and left him to his work.

He took the folder and removed the papers that it contained then started dusting the surface for prints and lifting the ones he found using the adhesive tape. After each time he lifted a print he swabbed the print to analyze the oils in the print. By the time he was done he had more than 30 different prints on the table in front of him.

"This is gonna be one long day!"

He loaded several samples into the mass-spectrometer and decided to use the time while the machine was doing it's magic to head out to the break room and get himself a fresh cup of coffee. He made his way down the hall but stopped just outside the door to the break room when he saw Lindsey sitting at one of the tables, a cup of coffee in front of her, and a faraway look on her face. He recognized that look - he'd seen it before, when things were bothering her, when the case back in Montana was starting to get to her… that look did not mean good things.

"Hey Linds'" he said softly as he came in and took a seat next to her "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing Danny, I'm fine!" she lied, but by now he knew her well enough to tell when she was lying.

"No, no, no. Don't do that. I've seen that look before, the one that says you're a thousand miles away. I woke up this morning and you were already gone… what's bothering you?" He insisted.

She sighed and pushed the folder that was sitting on the desk in front of her towards Danny "I just keep thinking about Jessie Bancroft… We found these letters in the lock box in Jessie's locker…"

"Dear Sir. In regards to the case file no. 38325 dash 97, the findings of the police department in that investigation were incorrect. I believe that a further examination of the case and the evidence will show that the death of Hanna Danvers which had been ruled a suicide, had in fact been a murder. I'm asking for your help in seeing justice done. Mrs. Hanna Danvers was a prominent and beloved member of the New York community and her death should not be allowed to go unpunished…" Danny flipped open the folder and read of the first sheet of paper in it.

"There are over 50 of these letters here… addressed to the detectives on the case, the police commissioner, the district attorney… She wrote a letter to anyone she thought might be able to help her" Lindsey informed him, her expression a mixture of sadness and anger. "No one listened to her."

"In the end she just went and did it herself" Danny realized

"Danny, the first letter is dated from 1999. She was only 14 years old."

Hospital

Mac and Stella made their way to the front doors of the hospital in a hurry and joined Flack just inside the doors in the hall.

"I went by Michael Hobbs' office this morning, He wasn't there but a co-worker told me he arrived this morning and left in a hurry a few minutes later saying he had to go to the hospital" Flack informed them as they made their way up to Jessica Bancroft's room "I already notified hospital security. They're keeping an eye on him but keeping their distance…So far he hadn't made a move against her…"

Mac nodded as the three of them got off the elevator and headed down the hall. They could see Michael Hobbs through the glass window, his head was in his hands and it looked as if he was crying. The three of them drew their weapons and slowly made their way into the room, coming up behind Hobbs.

"Michael Hobbs?" Flack asked once the guy was surrounded

He lifted his head and looked at them with a confused look on his face "What's going on?" he stammered

"Mr. Hobbs we need to ask you a few questions about what happened to Jessica Bancroft…" Mac explained, not moving his gun away from his target.

"Wait..Wait…you think I did this?" Hobbs looked genuinely shocked, but all three of them had already seen suspects who turned to be guilty as hell feigning shock and confusion in so convincingly that they'd be eligible for an Emmy nomination.

"How about you just come with us quietly and we'll all just have a nice little chat down in the station…" Flack suggested.

Hobbs took a slow look around him to assess his situation then his shoulders slumped and he nodded his head, agreeing to come quietly.