December 1971, Wednesday 29th: Routine, Sweet Routine!

It was with a spring in his step that Mike walked into the office on Wednesday morning. All was well in the world, the only bitter drop in his sweet cup of life was the fact that Irene had prior commitments for the New Year and was actually going away for a few days.

At Rudy's desk his gaze fell on the folder containing the neatly typed end of year statistics. His hand patted the folder proudly. You can't beat buddy boy when it comes to stringing words together and adding up numbers. I can see a great future for the kid.

Rudy's secretary had been delighted too, that her in-tray had been worked clear. Then he noticed another folder and he stopped smiling. The disciplinary action on Larry Mullen… Steve had been the one who spoke up for his colleague and asked Mike to treat it as a silly prank. But Mike felt that a bully needed his comeuppance, although he had come to the conclusion of not passing the file higher up the line - yet. In some ways keeping it in his drawer gave him something to hang over Mullen's head which might turn out to be a better form of punishment than an official reprimand.

He certainly missed the action in the bull pen, but resigned himself for now to prepare for another meeting, when the phone rang.

"Hi Al, nice to hear from you. Have you fully recovered? Yeah, my lot too, all back doing their usual things. Not at all, we certainly enjoyed having you for Christmas dinner. You remembered WHAT?"

Mike grabbed pen and paper and started scribbling. "Thanks, Al, thanks, that might be the breakthrough we needed. Just go out there and don't let anyone near that car. We'll be over in a few minutes!"

He ran over to Homicide. "Steve! Get a forensic team to the Taylor place. Al just remembered that one of the guys he saw going into the house next door checked if Taylor's car was locked. Without gloves!"

Steve grabbed the phone. Norm went over to Mike and said. "It's okay, boss, my partner and I will take care of this, the case is in good hands, and you can concentrate on your next meeting."

Mike sighed and checked his watch. Yep, the next meeting was due - overdue…

Before he turned to leave he fired a parting shot at Steve: "Mind you buddy boy, don't pick up anything that is not yours, especially not another virus!"

Mike neither saw nor heard from Haseejian or Steve until late in the afternoon, when he could not contain his curiosity any longer and wandered over to the office in search of coffee and information. He felt a slight pang of envy when he saw Roy in the Lieutenant's office, at his desk, Norm on the visitor's chair and Steve leaning in the corner against the filing cabinet, chewing sunflower seeds and littering the top of the filing cabinet with the shells. Yes, all back to normal! All three appeared to be in a celebratory mood.

"Hi, Mike!" Roy greeted him. "We were actually going to see you, right after we finished our coffee. We have the breakthrough at last."

"Yes, Travis came up with the goods. We got some nice fingerprints and hit pay dirt. They belong to a guy called Jed Baxter," Norm explained.

"And Al identified him as one of the guys he saw hanging around Taylor's house. That was enough for Gerry to come up with the arrest warrant. Confronted with the evidence against him, Baxter started singing like a canary and put the blame on his crony," Steve added while chewing on some sunflower seeds.

Mike was at the point of adding a scathing remark about canary birds and seeds, but the trio didn't give him a chance to get a word in.

"But all of this is O'Brien's problem now. We've done our bit!" Roy concluded.

Steve slurped a mouthful of coffee to wash down the sunflower seeds and winced. His digestive system still wasn't really up to processing Haseejian coffee. He looked at Mike closely and tried to read the ever so slightly resentful expression on his face.

"But I think if you hadn't invited Al for Christmas dinner and told him all the stories about how often a crime is solved using small pieces of evidence, he may not have remembered the little details like the prints on the door handle."

Mike winked at him. At least someone appreciated his bit in solving the case! He decided to postpone the lecture on the proper disposal of sunflower seed debris for at least a day.