You always heard that being a cop, being a detective, was just like working a puzzle, you had to take a bunch of little pieces and figure out how they all fit together. Easier said than done. Tom and Doug had come to this school looking to find out what they could about a gang of students who spent the nights terrorizing people and vandalizing anything that didn't hit back. And they'd especially set their sights on a senior named Mark Pembleton, 18 years old, 6'3, 180 pounds, amazingly too violent for any place on the wrestling team so he was the odd man out. Which didn't seem to slow him down any because Hanson and Penhall had him pegged not only as being a member of the gang, but the actual leader of the pack, of course right now it was still just only theory and speculation, no hard evidence, nothing they could prove in a court of law. That's why they were here, to get in close with him and find out what his game was, they hadn't made any further progress on it yet and already it was getting old for both of them.

"I hate jigsaw puzzles," Tom murmured under his breath, this one felt like a 1,000 piece puzzle of a leaf pile.

Out of nowhere he felt somebody kick his seat from behind, he turned in his chair and scowled at Doug, who just smirked and waved mischievously. Not wanting to get the teacher involved in this by having her hear anything that was going on, Hanson settled for talking with his hands before he realized he didn't know anything about sign language, and he didn't know any gestures that weren't obscene, and because what he was doing wasn't obscene, Doug wouldn't understand him anyway, so frustrated, he gave up and turned back in his seat to face front. He listened to the teacher droll on and on about aspects of literature and this and that and the other, and his eyelids grew heavy and he bent his head down to rest on his desk for a second, and closed his eyes and breathed hard and fast for a few seconds before he felt somebody kick his seat again, and was jerked awake, though he was so groggy everything just felt like he was in a dream right now. He felt like he was still asleep even though he knew he was awake.

This was one part of his job he really hated, almost more than actually having to acknowledge that teenagers were capable of being armed home invaders and rapists and murderers; actually having to go back to school and participate and do the work. Even though in the long run it would be all for nothing and he'd never finish these projects anyway, he still had to maintain his cover and in spite of his cover as a tough kid about two steps away from being kicked out or thrown out, he still had to put some effort into the curriculum to maintain believability. He shook his head and forced himself awake and alert and tried putting his attention back into the book he was supposed to be reading for English class. It wasn't any he'd read when he actually was in high school, and it wasn't one he'd ever heard of before, some dumb murder mystery, exactly what the hell were they even supposed to be learning from this anyway? That's what he wanted to know. Four chapters in and he couldn't pretend he gave a single damn about the story. More murder, more death, well that was just fabulous, like there wasn't enough of that going around already. Actually given the recent events of the past couple weeks Tom was surprised they hadn't pulled this from the class, one of those self righteous parental groups that wanted to censor everything they deemed offensive or destructive or damaging or…

"'Unique criminal - long baffled the police - record of his crimes shows him to be endowed with an almost diabolical ingenuity - so far there is no clue to his identity - '"

Hmmm, that got his attention…maybe there was something worth reading in here after all. Tom read to the bottom and turned the page to see what was next.

"'We must cease combing the criminal world for the Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant - a lawyer - a Doctor - honored in his community by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin - '" The print blurred before her eyes, she could read no more for the moment.

And neither could Tom. That idea again, that whoever was out there doing this, could be anybody, could be somebody in a high position, of power, of authority, could be someone he even knew, and would never suspect. Could be somebody the victims had known, somebody they trusted, somebody they'd known for years and were convinced they could trust. Suddenly feeling sick he slammed his book shut, a little too loudly, getting everybody's attention, including the teacher, a woman in her 40s who looked a good 20 years older than that, Mrs. Schmauss, the name made her sound easier on the eyes than she actually was.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Bower?" she asked conceitedly.

"Uh…uh…uh," Hanson's head was spinning and he couldn't think straight, he tried to answer but instead he just got up from his desk and said to the teacher, "I think I'm going to throw up," and headed for the door already working on the deep throat retching and gagging.

To the other students it was a hilarious sight, Penhall watched with the rest before pushing his chair back and adding to the teacher, "Must be contagious, I think I'll go puke too. Let me know if anything exciting happens while I'm gone," earning a few chuckles on his way out.

Once out of the classroom, Doug ran down the hall to the bathroom and found Hanson with his head in the sink, not throwing up, not moving, not doing anything, just standing there hunched over with his head in the sink as the water ran out of the faucet. Doug stepped up to Tom and said, "You know to do a swirly right, you have to stick your head in the toilet…I could help you with that!"

Tom reached up and shut off the faucet and slowly pulled himself up straight and looked at his reflection in the mirror.

"Doug," he said weakly, "I don't think I can do this."

"Do what?" Penhall asked.

Tom slowly turned around and leaned back against the sink counter and said, "I can't stay here, I think I'm going nuts."

"You've always been nuts," Doug told him, "That's one of your more endearing qualities, Tommy my boy."

Tom readjusted his hold on the counter to keep from falling straight to the floor and said shakily, "I want to go home…"

Doug cut out the joking and looked at his partner questioningly. He and Hanson had done several assignments together so far, and in that time he'd gotten to know a lot of things about Tom, a few he had wanted to, and plenty he hadn't, he'd also seen a lot of different sides of this man, but never this, and he didn't know what to make of it.

Ordinarily, the job would come first, but Doug realized that this was not any degree of normal for Hanson, and that the man might actually just be on the verge of a breakdown: nervous, psychotic or otherwise.

"Alright, Tom, let's get out of here," he said, already figuring some way they could walk out early without getting their butts handed to them about it.

Unexpectedly, Hanson lunged forward and grabbed two handfuls of Doug's jacket, dangerously close to his neck, and said, sounding almost desperate about something, "Doug, you know me, I'm a good cop."

"I know that, Hanson," Doug tried to sound nonchalant, "Get your hands off my neck." It took a couple tries to actually break the grip Tom had on his jacket, the guy might be scrawny but he was deceivingly strong.

"I'm a good cop, I can do my job, but this one…" Tom left off somewhere in the middle, apparently unable to finish what he was trying to say.

"Yeah I know," Doug tried to keep things moving, "I'll get this cleared with Jenk, and then we'll get you back to your apartment and you can fall to pieces there. You'll like that, get back to your own place and you can have a nervous breakdown all you want, crawl under the bed, climb the walls, walk around in your underwear and talk to pigeons that aren't even there, whatever makes you tick, okay?"

Doug felt like a puppeteer trying to wrangle the strings on a life sized marionette as he half walked, half pushed Hanson out of the boys' room. They'd just cleared the swinging door when Hanson struggled with him, then broke away from Doug and started yelling something and running down the hall like he was chasing somebody.

"Tom!" Doug took off running after his partner and wondered what the hell was going on now.

When you were trying to chase somebody down, the school became a labyrinth of stairs and lockers and winding turns and twists. The corridors seemed to go on forever like a cartoon background, all the lockers looked the same, in fact it looked like there were about 5,000 lockers spread throughout the first floor alone right now. Doug lost sight of Tom a couple of times around turns and corners, the second time he heard a commotion up ahead that sounded like two people literally running into each other. He was right, by the time he'd caught up he saw Hanson had run into and knocked the hall monitor on the floor and continued running. Doug would've apologized but for one he didn't have the time and two, he had a reputation to maintain at this school, apologizing wasn't in his character's nature, so he skidded around the teenager with the…bloody scratches on his face that Doug didn't want to know how he got, and continued chasing after Hanson, hoping he caught the other cop before Tom did something he'd regret.

Penhall finally caught up with Hanson just before Tom managed to get the doors open for the school's basement where the old boiler and stuff were kept. What in the hell Tom thought he was doing by going down there, Doug was sure he'd never know, but he had to wrestle Tom away from the door and practically sit on the smaller man to finally restrain him.

"Hanson, what the hell is the matter with you?" Doug flat out asked him.

Tom was still clawing at the tiled floor, trying to get away from the heavier man on top of him, murmuring, "I saw, Doug…I saw…I saw…"

Somehow Doug got the idea it would be better not to ask what Hanson saw or thought he saw, instead he remained cool and said, "Okay, you saw it, I got that, but we're in trouble now, so you better let me do the talking, you got it?"

It wasn't more than a few seconds before they were caught and sent directly to the principal's office to explain what had happened, and advised that it had better be good. Doug's plan to do all the talking went off without a hitch because as soon as they were seated across the desk from the principal, Hanson pulled his feet up onto the chair, pulled his knees against his chest, slumped forward in half a ball and presumably fell asleep. Well, at least he'd be quiet for a while, he couldn't possibly make this any worse than it already was.

"My brother's sick, I need to take him home," he insisted before the principal could say anything.

"He doesn't look sick to me," the principal replied as he observed the more or less unconscious Tom 'Bower', "Looks drunk to me, or high off something."

"Yeah well he ain't," Doug replied sharply, "You can bring the nurse in to take a look at him, he's sick."

The principal glared at him and asked, "What's wrong with him?"

"He hasn't slept in two days, who wouldn't be sick after that?" Doug wanted to know, and moved forward in his chair as he said defensively to the principal, "You wanna know why he hasn't slept in two days? Because some psycho is out running around bumping off people our age and the stupid cops ain't ever gonna catch him, so any of us could be next: him, me, any of our friends, anybody at the school here, whole city's scared out of their minds, and you're gonna punish us for the police's failure to apprehend this nut job?" Doug stood up from his chair, leaned over the desk and asked the principal, "What's the matter with you, pal? Aren't you man enough to scare anybody but the kids around here?"

The principal seemed unfazed by Doug's outburst, very calmly and firmly he reached for the phone and asked, "What's your father's number? I want him to come down here so I can talk to him."

Doug pressed his hand down on the principal's, forcing him to hang the phone back up and said, "That would be a big mistake, Princey, see my old man is at work right now and he doesn't appreciate being interrupted, if you call him, he's going to have to take off work, meaning his pay gets docked, meaning also his boss probably decides to fire him for taking the time off, in which case my old man's gonna kick his tail, the boss is gonna kick my old man's tail, then he's going to come down here, kick my tail and yours both, and while he's kicking your tail I'm gonna charge admission for everybody to watch the fight."

The principal was stern as he replied, "I refuse to be threatened by some snot nosed punk senior piece of trash."

"Oh yeah?" Doug very calmly and very collectively pulled the cord out of the phone's receiver and bit off the plastic connector at the end, "How about now? What're you going to do now?"

Suddenly, Hanson's eyes flew open and he came out of the ball he'd hunched himself into and he started screaming in a panic, and did a fine job of sounding like he was being horribly murdered. Both Doug and the principal looked at him in an absolutely stupor and watched to see what happened. Tom barely contained himself in the chair by gripping the arms in a death clinch as he writhed around like he was being electrocuted, and screamed without pause for close to a good 30 seconds before the sound cut off abruptly and he collapsed in his chair and started breathing heavily to catch his breath. Almost deadpanned, Doug turned to the principal and said, "How about it, can I take him home now?"

"Incidentally, Penhall, were you ever in drama club when you were in high school?" Jenko asked as he held the door while Doug helped Tom walk out to the school parking lot.

"Who me?" Doug asked, "Me with a bunch of guys parading around in tights? I don't think so, Jenk."

"Well whatever you did back there, sure seemed to convince the principal," Jenko told him.

"Somehow I don't think that was my doing," Doug replied, "I think Hanson here was the one that finally sealed the deal. Though if he could've just gone the extra mile and actually thrown up on that guy, I'd be happy. All the same, thanks for coming down and clearing everything, 'Dad'."

"Just don't make me do that again," Jenko warned Doug, "I didn't think I'd ever convince him that you two could possibly be mine."

Tom was all but asleep on his feet and actually had his head down and eyes closed as they walked to Doug's car, suddenly he lifted his head and started mumbling something as he tried looking around.

"Get him home and get him in bed," Jenko told Penhall, "He can't go anywhere like this, he'll get himself killed."

"Yeah, I kind of figured as much," Doug replied as he less than subtly shoved Tom into the passenger side of his car.

Doug got in the car and drove out of the parking lot and headed off to Hanson's apartment complex. He managed to wrangle the keys out of the other cop's pockets, and then was faced with the task of walking Hanson into the building and up to the right floor, and then getting him in through the door. By now Hanson had given in to fits of delirium from exhaustion, though Doug couldn't make out what the hell Tom was thinking he was seeing because he mumbled incoherently.

"Come on, Tommy, just a few steps more and," Doug walked Tom over to his bed and let gravity take its course as Hanson collapsed on top of it, "Good, now maybe you can get some sleep and you'll stop seeing green canaries and stuff like that, how 'bout it?"

Tom mumbled into his pillow in response.

"Terrific," Doug replied.

Of course it occurred to Doug that he couldn't very well leave his partner like that funny though it was. Reluctantly, he turned Tom over onto his back and saw Hanson already had his eyes closed again. Fine, let them stay closed this time, maybe he'd finally shut up for a while. Realizing it could be several hours before Hanson regained consciousness, Doug reached down and grabbed one of the steel toed boots Hanson was wearing and started undoing the knots in the laces to get them off his feet. He must've jammed his feet in pretty hard because no matter how much Doug loosened them, he couldn't get them off, he tried giving one of them a hard yank and it just pulled Hanson along with it, not that he was aware of it. Finally the damn things came off, there was his good deed for the century.

Before Doug even knew it, Hanson had woken up again, and shot up on the bed and grabbed Doug by the arm and had it in a vise grip.

"Doug," he gasped for breath, his eyes wide but not quite all there, which said to Doug that his partner was only half awake right now, but that did little to diminish the sickening feeling he got as he partner said to him, "Doug—Doug…don't go, don't leave me alone here."

Doug could feel five sharp pinpricks jabbing into his arm, so he tried subtly prying Hanson's grip off him as he responded, "Okay, Tommy, you got it, I'll stay right here, alright?"

Tom didn't respond, he fell flat back against the pillows and was suddenly out like a light.

Doug pulled his arm out of the sleeve of his shirt and saw five little crescent shaped red marks dug into his skin. Sheesh, he thought to himself as he put his shirt back on, he'd never seen someone so afraid of going to sleep.

"Hey Tommy," Doug couldn't resist saying to the unconscious man, "Did you ever see 'Nightmare on Elm Street'?"

No response, for which he was glad. Maybe now that Tom was asleep, and they didn't have to go back to school, maybe he could get some sleep too, he wasn't stark raving mad like Hanson but he was about dead from exhaustion too. Doug showed himself into the living room and promptly collapsed on the couch, kicked his feet up, rested his head on the sofa's arm, looked up at the ceiling, and then closed his eyes. All the same, even sheer exhaustion couldn't silence that nagging voice in the back of his head, that unidentifiable voice that ran a thousand words a minute, bringing up all sorts of things imaginable, of which that now included the question, where was the killer? He was out there, in the city somewhere, just waiting to strike again, where would that be? And who would it be next time? Would they catch him? He didn't know.

Author's note: The excerpts from the book Tom is reading is The Bat written by Mary Roberts Rinehart, originally written as a mystery/comedy play in 1920 and then as a novel in 1926.