December 1971, Saturday 25th: Turkey Soup and Tea

Mike felt fairly confident that his three housemates would still be alive and in reasonably good Christmas cheer by the time he returned from doing his shift in the office. Over soft boiled eggs and dry toast he had laid down some ground rules to make sure the cabin fever wouldn't break out again during his absence. He had left a list of chores and suggested some games appropriate for the season that did not include Monopoly. Steve had volunteered to go over the statistics again and type up the hopefully final version.

The office was blessedly quiet. To Mike's great relief nobody had been strangled with fairy lights or clobbered with a Christmas tree. All incidents had been straightforward with immediate arrests and plenty of witnesses.

Mike enjoyed his first cup of coffee of the day - Steve's system still couldn't cope with the smell of coffee, so the banned substance tasted all the better now.

Mike picked up the report that Steve had written the night before and skimmed through it, then started again and studied it carefully. Something wasn't right there. Okay, Steve certainly wasn't at his best, but the transcript of the interview with the elderly neighbor had more holes than Swiss cheese. Or had the neighbor been too poorly for a proper interview? Mike looked out of the window - the day was lovely and bright. Why not pay the old gentleman a visit on Christmas Day and plug some of the holes?


The grateful smile on the old man's face almost made working on Christmas Day worthwhile for Mike. After his horrible experience with the unmentionable bug, Mr Travis had been reluctant to accept any invitation for Christmas, as he wasn't sure if he was still infectious. Mike put him at ease. "Don't worry about me; I'm immune to it, honestly!" They chatted over a cup of tea - like Steve Mr Travis seemed unable to bear the smell of coffee - before Mike took the transcript out of his briefcase. "I would like to go over your testimony with you again, if you don't mind?"

A clearer picture of the victim emerged. A nice and friendly neighbor, but unfortunately very fond of fast women and slow horses. Every so often Travis had helped out in an acute emergency and always got his money back, even if it took a long time. The way it looked someone else didn't have the patience of the old neighbor. "He was a good chap, but weak, very weak. Every time he was in trouble he swore he'd give up gambling, but the resolution never lasted long." Travis sighed. "I will miss him; he was a great for helping me out with yard work and little repairs. I wonder if he would still be alive if I had been around to help him out?" The old man seemed genuinely sad about the violent end of his neighbor. Mike kept questioning him about visitors and unusual happenings next door. In the end he decided to bring the old man to the bureau to browse mug shots of moneylenders and their heavies.

After Al Travis had flicked through five hefty volumes and identified a few possible suspects, Mike finally managed to prise Gerry O'Brien, the Assistant DA away from his Christmas dinner.

"Oh no, Mike, at this stage we just suspect a homicide. There is not much we can do unless we have the results of the post-mortem. I thought it was a break in gone bad?"

"According to the neighbor our victim was into gambling."

"Yeah, yeah, or he just tripped and fell when he tried to accost a burglar. I need more, Mike, and you know it!" O'Brien scoffed. "Since when is it the job of the Captain to organize an arrest warrant?"

"Isn't the Captain always the last man standing?" Mike joked and ended the phone call.

Lessing had come in to take over the shift and the Captain was free to leave the sinking ship.

"Now, Al, would you like to join me and my family for Christmas Dinner? You can be sure you won't infect anyone and it will be right up your alley! Last update on the menu I got was Turkey soup, crackers and tea. There is even a possibility of Jell-O for dessert, but there was no majority vote on the flavor so far. How does that sound?"

December 1971, Sunday 26th: The Return of the Vomiting Victims

After a surprisingly nice and fun filled evening with the promised Turkey soup - Irene's idea of using at least some of the Christmas turkey - and games, they all had been sorry to see Al leave. While Jeannie and Irene settled down for a last game of Monopoly, Steve proudly presented the neatly typed statistics.

"Actually, I had a great idea about simplifying the process." He started to explain.

"No, buddy boy, don't go overboard now or Rudy will never buy it that I had put it together!" Mike cautioned. Then he patted Steve's arm. "But I won't let you die of boredom tomorrow; you can type up the notes of the interview I did this afternoon with Al."

Mike chuckled at the memory and he wondered how long his partner would be so obliging. He secretly hoped that Jeannie and Irene's craze for Monopoly would at least last for another day.


Mike had arrived early at the Bureau, as he wasn't sure what the staffing situation might be like and he had let the convalescents sleep in. He was just at the point of putting on a pot of coffee when Haseejian and Tanner walked in. He held up the pot questioningly and saw two heads shaking simultaneously. He sighed and settled for a glass of water from the water cooler in the corner. Haseejian was simply overjoyed to get out of the confines of his apartment. Mike came to the conclusion that cabin fever didn't necessarily require cabin mates.

Tanner, on the other hand, saw going back to work as a lucky break. In spite of his best efforts his wife and young son had caught it too and so his mother in law had to be called in to help them out. He considered her home cures to be worse than the disease itself.

The next pleasant surprise was that the sick count in Robbery had come to a standstill as well.

By ten o'clock most of the Homicide Inspectors had arrived at the bureau. Mike was touched by the dedication of his team. He called a quick meeting and assigned the two fittest detectives for questioning the possible suspects that Al had identified. Then he asked for two reasonably healthy men to staff the office for the rest of the day. He sincerely thanked everybody else for coming in and asked them to report back for normal duty on Monday.

After a quick stop in the Captain's office to go through the most urgent documents, Mike decided to go home himself and enjoy an afternoon in the company of his nearest and dearest. He didn't dare to hope for a quiet glass of something or other - even herbal tea - alone with Irene, but a man can dream, he thought. He knew that a nap on the sofa would be more realistic, if he could move Steve away from his favourite haunt for an hour or two…

With this thought he went back to his temporary office and picked up a folder with drafts of letters that Janet had meant to type up before she got sick.