"Anything back from R&I yet?"

He could have saved himself the question, knowing the answer well enough.

His reasons for doing so had a lot more to do with gauging his partner's feelings regarding the situation at hand, rather than expecting any sort of progress.

The last time they crossed paths with Joe Joplin; it had been obvious that Steve still had a strong fondness for the man, eagerly defending him even when confronted with proof of the opposite.

Now they were in a similar predicament once again, being pulled into the crosshairs of a bizarre phone call/ harassment case that wasn't part of their job description, doing so for the sake of an old friendship and an awful lot of faith in humanity.

Thankfully for Joplin, their current workload was light enough to allow some room for extracurricular activity from sides of the two detectives.

Unfortunately, though, the next call for a homicide would be their turn again, and Mike wasn't exactly sure just how his partner would handle a situation that would put that much pressure on an old friendship.

"Nothing yet.", Steve muttered from his desk, his expression strained as he glanced up from the DiBarolo file as though he'd hoped reading through it front to back once again might solve the case.

Not liking the downtrodden undertone in his partner's voice, Mike motioned for the young Inspector to join him in his office, which he hesitantly did.

He waited until Steve closed the door behind him and leaned against the grey file cabinet, before turning around in his chair and resting his hands in his lap.

"I understand that Joe is an old friend and that you want to tackle his case as soon as possible. Sometimes those…personal ties don't mix well with police work. They tend to make things complicated…cause ruffled feathers. I guess…I guess I just want to make sure you are not trying to rush through the DiBarolo case for the sake of making room for Joe. Because no matter what happens, his case will be the low end of the totem pole."

He knew he'd hit gold when Steve became tense right away, torn between arguing his point and respecting the advice from somebody nearly twice his age, who'd proven time and time again to have his best interest in mind.

When that inner struggle turned into clenched jaws and awkward silence, Mike cleared his throat once more.

"Buddy boy, we have nothing to go on with this phone call so far.", he explained evenly, seeing his partner draw in a deep breath to rebut and silencing him with a raised hand, "And I know we told Joe to call us with any concerns to keep him off the streets. But I just want you to remember that all we have is his statement on this call. We don't have any idea just where this is going to lead. This could be some sick joke for all we know. So if this…this R&I request on Warren Thompson comes back clean and if the phone trace doesn't lead to anything, we are…"

"…in a tough position to move forward with this case."

Despite the disappointment in his voice, Steve seemed to be painfully aware of the conundrum, those green eyes busy scanning his calendar off to the left, swallowing his earlier misgivings and yet unable to meet the lieutenant's genuine glance.

"At least in our department. There are other departments we can refer him to that can do some follow-up work. I know you want to handle this because he's your friend, but we have our own list of cases to worry about."

Nodding obediently, the young Inspector exhaled slowly, his long fingers grasping the metal corners of the file cabinet with a death grip.

"Michael, I just...I just hope that this doesn't become our case real soon."