Bobby POV

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I mean with you and Liz."

"Yeah," Logan replied, looking at me questioningly. "It's great, actually. Why?"

"I was just wondering."

"Because…"

"Because this is the first day in nearly a month that you haven't come in smelling like smoke."

Logan started laughing as he maneuvered the car through Monday morning traffic.

He drove using only his left hand, while his right rested casually in his lap. I couldn't help but admire his determination to get back to full duty, but I was also a little concerned about his pain level.

"Chocolate," he stated after another minute.

"What?"

"Liz said we were smoking too much, so we switched to chocolate."

"Seriously?"

He cast me a sideways glance and flashed me a grin.

"Hey, it's cheaper and healthier and sometimes it gets us going again, because you know…"

"I think I'm going to have to stop you there," I interrupted.

"What?"

"I don't want to know what the two of you do with chocolate. But good. She's right about the smoking. Although you might have to start working out more."

He laughed again and said, "What do you think we're doing to earn the chocolate?"

"So how's the hand…really?" I asked after another minute.

"Sore as a son of a bitch, but I'm working it out."

I nodded thoughtfully as I opened up the scant file on our new case.

"Goren, I've got your back," he said seriously. "I wouldn't come back if I wasn't ready. I wouldn't put you at risk just to get my own rocks off, okay? If my reaction time was taking a hit, I'd still be scouring LUDs."

"I know," I agreed.

"Okay, so…what are you thinking about this case? Is it coincidence that one victim is the daughter of a public figure?"

"Or was she the prime target and the other two are cover-ups?" I posed.

"At this point, it's anybody's guess."

He was definitely right about that. We had a lot of fact-gathering to do before we could make any kind of intelligent supposition.

We started off by going to the 9th precinct to gather the file.

The homicide detective assigned to the case was only too happy to hand it off to us, since he'd had it for five days and still didn't have an ID.

"You canvassed the area where she was found?" I asked as I flipped through the surprisingly small file.

"Of course."

"And…nothing?" Logan asked. "You showed her picture around?"

"Yeah, I flashed the morgue shot. What am I…new?"

"No, it's just…no," I said as I chucked Logan in the side with my elbow.

It was time for us to go.

"Good luck," the detective said cynically as we left the squad room.

"You know what?" Logan muttered to me as we went back to the car. "The day I stop caring about the victims is the day I quit for good. Why do guys like him even stick around?"

"The paycheck, I guess."

"Yeah, well do me a favor and just shoot me if I ever turn into that guy."

"Sure," I agreed with a grin.

"How'd I know you'd like the sound of that?" he asked, his mood lightening with my attempt at humor.

"Let's go see what the 114th's file looks like. Or should we check out the scene while we're in the area?"

In the end, that's what we decided to do.

Jane Doe #1 had been found in the outside stairwell of a basement apartment. The tenants were out of state, and had been for more than two weeks, so they weren't on the suspect list, although we would still need to talk to them at some point.

Based on the blood stains still visible on the sidewalk, the victim had likely been pulled from a parked car and then tossed down the stairs.

According to the ME's report, cause of death was exsanguination, brought about by a gunshot to the abdomen.

"It doesn't say how long it took her to bleed out," I stated as I read over the report while we stood on the sidewalk.

"What about pre-mortem bruising?"

"Wrists and upper arms," I said.

"So he grabbed her, and maybe used something around her wrists to restrain her?"

"Maybe. Are we saying he for a reason?"

"No," he admitted. "No, I'd say we can't rule anyone out just yet."

"No sexual assault. The victim was fully dressed."

"In what?"

"Good…question," I replied as I scanned through the investigating officer's notes. There wasn't any mention of what she'd been wearing. "It doesn't say, and there's no photo."

"That's because he's a half-ass disgrace to the badge."

I couldn't argue with him on that one.

The crime scene didn't shed much light on things for us, so we got back in the car and headed for the 114th.

"She's a hooker," the detective said firmly as she searched through the stack of files on her desk in search of our Jane Doe #2.

"How do you know that?"

"I'll show you," she said, finally putting her hands on the right file and flipping it open on her desk. She rummaged through it until she got to the crime scene photos.

Logan caught my eye and I knew what he was thinking.

At least this one had crime scene photos.

"There you go," she said at last, slapping down one of the pictures. "Isn't it obvious?"

Our victim was lying on the ground amidst dumpster overflow in a darkened alley. She was wearing a short skirt, high heeled shoes, and some sort of sparkly sleeveless shirt. She appeared to have once been very pretty.

"So…what, she's a hooker because of the way she's dressed? She looks about eighteen. Have you seen the way eighteen year old girls dress these days?" Logan asked her skeptically.

"Seen it? I used to be one," she retorted dismissively. "And I'm telling you, this ain't a normal teenager. She was a pro."

"Okay, well, if you don't mind, we'll just take this off your hands," I said diplomatically, thinking about how proud Alex would be of me for not saying what I really thought about the detective's presumptuousness and ineptness.

Not to mention the fact that I'd spoken up quickly in an effort to keep Logan from commenting on exactly how long it'd been since the detective was eighteen.

"Mind? Please. I tried to hand it off to the 9th when the ME matched up the post-mortem mutilation, but Decker over there wouldn't have any part of it."

"Wait, so the haggling over the file was about not wanting the case?" Logan questioned.

"Yeah," she shrugged and then gestured toward the stack of files. "You see my caseload. What's one less dead hooker to worry about?"

This time, I had to give Logan a shove in order to get him out of the squad room without causing a scene, and herding him worked as a nice distraction for me so that I didn't cause a scene.

"What happened to the department?" he asked. "It used to be filled with good cops like Phil and Lennie and Jimmy Deakins…now we've got Dumb and Dumber carrying shields."

"There are still a few good ones out in the field."

"Yeah? Like who?"

"Me and you," I said firmly. "Now forget about them and let's see what we can find out about these girls. We really need to identify them if we want to piece together what happened to them and how they relate to each other and to Sally."

Alex called as we were driving to the crime scene.

"How's it coming?" she asked when I answered.

"Slowly. We picked up the file from the 9th and checked out the scene, but we don't know anything more than we did before we got there. The file from the 114th is a little bigger, but not much. We're heading to that scene now."

"I don't want you to feel rushed or anything, but…"

"What's going on?"

"Zaring's got me on media duty," she said, and the statement was made with such disgust that I almost laughed.

"That's because you're smarter than anyone in the department and you're so beautiful that the camera will love you."

I ignored Logan's good-natured eye-rolling, choosing instead to listen to Alex as she sighed into the phone.

"Yeah, but you're biased," she replied. "And I hate the press. And it's not like I'm not busy enough, especially after all that time we spent working the Hassan case."

"You'll be great. So I guess you're hoping we'll find something for you to talk about, huh? When's your first press conference?"

"The commissioner's going on in a few minutes to announce me as the point of contact. Maas thinks I can get away with waiting until tomorrow, but I guess I'll have to see how many calls come in. And how many leads you two find."

"No pressure or anything," I teased.

"Of course not."

"You know the 9th and the 114th weren't haggling to get the case. They were haggling to dump it."

"Really? That's not how it was presented to me by their captains. Interesting."

"Just thought you should know. And Decker from the 9th didn't even have crime scene photos in the file. He didn't make note of how the victim was dressed."

"The ME's notes should have that."

"Yeah, but…"

"I know. It doesn't excuse him from being incompetent. I'll place a call to his captain. Oh, and Liz called and said she's requested the bodies. She'll be doing a second pass on all of them, and she said you should check with her in a few hours if you want her preliminary findings."

"Preliminary from her is better than comprehensive from just about anyone else."

"That's pretty much what I said," she agreed on a chuckle. "Okay, so you're in Queens, and you still have to go down to the 7th, right?"

"Yeah, that's next, after this scene. It won't take us long here, but hopefully the one in the lower East side is still roped off."

"It is. I made sure they kept it secure for you."

"Thanks. I'll owe you."

"I'm counting on it."

An hour later, we were at the7th precinct. The crime scene in Queens wasn't any more helpful than the one SoHo, and so now we were hoping like hell that we'd get something good from the detectives assigned to the Sally O'Hara case.

"Detective Mike Logan," said one detective enthusiastically as she got up from her desk. She offered her hand and acted as though Logan should know her, and then she confirmed my suspicion by adding, "I was wondering when our paths might cross again."

"Detective Coleman," she stated encouragingly when Logan didn't respond. "Michelle?"

"Oh, um…Michelle," Logan said with a nod as he held up his hand to show her the bandage as an excuse for begging off the hand-shaking.

He cast me a nervous sideways glance as he continued to look clueless, and I could tell he was sweating it out.

Was this a previous conquest?

Admittedly, she was extremely attractive. Not my type, but I could see why she might be his.

Or might have been his in the past anyway.

Now his type was just Liz.

Period.

But if she was a former lover, he'd obviously left on good terms, because she seemed happy to see him.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" she asked with a broad smile.

"Um…I'm sorry," he admitted.

"We met last year. I was interviewing for that Nassau County job, too."

"Oh. Okay, yeah. Michelle. How've you been?"

"Good. Although I didn't get the job, obviously. You either."

"No, I'm with Major Case. Oh, um…my partner, Bobby Goren."

I shook her hand, but completely felt like a third wheel as Coleman blatantly looked Logan up and down. He just stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and he seemed to be wilting under her gaze.

"The infamous Detective Goren," she said, finally tearing her eyes away from Logan to look at me. "I've heard about you."

"Only good stuff, I hope."

"What else would it be?" she replied ambiguously before moving her focus back to Logan. "So you two are here to take Sally O'Hara off my hands, huh? The vic turns out to be someone related to someone famous and in swoops Major Case."

"It's not our call," Logan told her.

"I know," she said with a wave of her hand. "Ignore my bitterness. I actually applied to get into Major Case, too, but I'm still stuck down here in the 7th. Although I'm hoping it won't be too much longer before I get the nod. If you don't mind me asking, what do you think of the new captain up there?"

"They don't come any better than Captain Eames," Logan answered.

"What he said," I added. "So, I know you've only had this case for about eight hours, but what've you got?"

Coleman picked up the file and was suddenly all business.

"Initially a Jane Doe. The body was found around two o'clock this morning under a bench in Corlears."

"Our boss said the scene's still secure?"

"That's right. Although I've got pictures from every angle and CSU was out there for three hours combing the park. I don't know what you think you'll find that we missed."

"It's nothing personal. We just have to get up to speed. So before you got the pop on the ID, did you pull missing persons reports for comparison?"

"Of course. SOP, right?"

Exactly.

Except that Decker didn't do it, and neither did Vinley from the 114th.

"Right," Logan answered, catching my eye and obviously thinking the same thing. "Since you've already got them, we'd like to take those, too. We've still got two more girls to ID."

"Sure," she agreed.

She turned around and bent over her desk, reaching for the stack of printouts on missing girls in the range of sixteen to twenty-one. I glanced at Logan and caught him looking at her backside, so I cleared my throat and he quickly brought his eyes to mine.

He gave me a questioning look and I furrowed my brow at him, and then he shrugged me off.

"Here you go," Coleman said as she turned around and held out the information. "I hope this helps. If you don't mind, keep me posted on how it goes, okay?"

A cop who felt invested in her case.

How refreshing.

"Sure," I agreed.

"Good, so…you'll call me, Mike?"

"Um, yeah…um…either Detective Goren or I will give you a call when something breaks."

She handed him a business card and flashed him a smile and then sat down at her desk as we turned to leave.

"You're a dead man," I muttered to him.

"What?"

"What? Really? Liz is a medical examiner. How hard do you think it'll be for her to hide your body?"

"I can't help it if I ran into someone I knew from before," he said, although I noticed that his face paled slightly. "You really think she'll be mad?"

"That you have her business card in your pocket? Or that you were checking out her ass?"

"I wasn't," he argued as he shoved the card into my hand. "I was…I was just trying to remember, and…I was looking down and then that's when she turned around, and…"

He trailed off and then looked at me with worry etched across his face.

"I was not looking at her ass. And you can call her if we get a lead, okay?"

"Sure. So you really don't remember her?"

"Yeah," he said on a sigh. "I do now. But I didn't at first. She looks different now. She changed her hair or something. But yeah, it finally hit me."

"And you…slept with her?"

He ran his right hand through his hair and then winced from the action.

"It was when she said…we met when we were both doing the Nassau County interview."

"That was the same day that Alex and I ran into you."

"Right. Only I didn't hook up with her then. I got called back for a second interview, and she was there. I guess we both made the short list. Anyway, after I finished, I came outside and she was waiting for me. It was after one of those weekends that you and Alex had one of your marathon sessions in my spare room, and I was…I don't know. Lonely, I guess. Shit, Goren, this isn't good, is it?"

"It'll be fine. You just need to tell Liz that you ran into her."

"I should've told Michelle that I'm in a relationship. I didn't say anything."

"We were there professionally," I reminded him. "It would've seemed weird."

"I don't care. It doesn't matter who thinks I'm weird as long as I don't come across as still being interested in anyone other than Liz, because I'm not. You know I'm not."

"I know that."

We got into the car and he started it up, but then turned to look at me.

"What do you think she's going to say? I told you I'm not good at this relationship stuff. I knew I was going to screw this up," he said, now completely frustrated with himself.

Then to my surprise, he slammed his fist down on the console, and then cursed a blue streak as the pain shot through his hand.

"Logan, what the hell are you doing?"

"I just…God damn that hurt," he ground out.

"When we get to the morgue, you need to let Liz check that out."

"The stitches are out."

"Doesn't mean you didn't mess something up."

"Yeah, well that sounds about right, doesn't it? Mike Logan messes something up."

"Logan…"

"No, it's fine. The story of my life."

He fell quiet and I left him to his own thoughts while he drove us to Corlears Hook Park.

"Take a minute and give her a quick call," I suggested when we arrived at the scene, hoping that clearing the air with Liz might help him get his head back in the game.

And really, I felt a little bad, too, because I was mostly only teasing him about Liz getting upset. She's a smart woman, and she knows he has a past. She wasn't going to blame him for today.

And once he told me he hadn't been checking her out, well…I believed him. In fact, I'd been surprised to see that it looked like he'd been staring at her, because as much as he likes to call himself a screw-up, he would never cheat on Liz. And I know that looking isn't cheating, but still...he was too invested in Liz to even do that.

"Sorry to unload on you," he said, taking a deep breath. "I'm just…she really threw me for a loop. I've never been in a situation like that before. I mean, obviously I've run into previous…women before, but I've never been in a relationship when it happened. I didn't want to be rude to Michelle, but that doesn't mean I'm interested in her or anything. Man, do you think she thinks I'm interested?"

"Relax," I told him. "Call Liz, and when we need to deal with Detective Coleman, I'll handle it."

"Okay. But we're going to the morgue next. I'll just talk to her then."

So we got out and badged the officer on duty at the scene and then ducked under the tape.

My phone rang just as we approached the blood-stained grass where Sally O'Hara had been found.

"Goren," I answered without looking.

I crouched down and did a visual sweep of the area while Logan wandered around the vicinity, his eyes to the ground in search of…anything out of the ordinary.

"You know how I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…"

It was Alex.

"Yeah?"

"There's another one. The call just came in, so you guys'll get first crack at it."

TBC...