"How can you not know who hired you?"

The air in the inner office was becoming so thick you could cut it with a knife- as was the tension between an irritated Harris and a stubborn Mike, who was growing tired of the one-line answers he'd been given so far.

Holding onto the man's R&I file with one hand, Steve stayed out of it for the longest time, leaning against the gray file cabinet while using his time to take in as much information as he could gather about the African American P.I.

It was obvious from his body language and crude behavior that Harris was used to bossing people around- an undesirable trait at best, and even more ill-timed when confronted with a certain stern lieutenant who wasn't having any of it.

Five more minutes into the same question, the conversation ahead turned into a tennis match of Mike asking direct questions, just to have Harris detour the answer and offer bits and pieces of his version of events, none of them leading the detectives any closer to the truth.

So far, Steve had only been able to discern that somebody had contacted Harris for his services, then, using a sob story underlining Joe's bad character as a motive to start the phone campaign. The clandestine client had been adamant that Harris reference the protest in Mississippi and Thompson's name here and there, pretending to be the retired cop.

When it came to the compensation for his services, the money on Mike's desk was the down payment in the form of half the steep fee, due now and the other half when Joplin had lost all credibility and would be ran out of town.

Even after Mike repeatedly questioned how Harris could have thought that any of this was legit, he was presented with more half-truths and changes of topic.

By now Steve could see the veins on the side of his partner's neck appear, the even-tempered lieutenant slowly reaching the end of his patience when it came to his difficult conversation partner.

"Well, I just don't know…directly."

Ah! There it was. And Steve could see the spark return to Mike's eyes the instance Harris has said it.

"What about indirectly?"

Fidgeting with the buttons of his wool vest now, the other man seemed to ponder the answer again, once more trying to come up with a creative way to lead the two detectives down a rabbit hole. When nothing seemed to come to mind, he shrugged dismissively, then pointed toward the water carafe sitting on Mike's large file cabinet.

"Could I have a drink please? My throat feels so dry. I don't know how you guys can work in this stale environment."

With a smiling headshake, Mike leaned across his desk, then pointed a stern finger at Harris's chest.

"You get your water when you tell me who put you up to this?"

"Very well then lieutenant, have it your way. I don't know what all you want to pound out of a parched body like mine though. I just know her last name. And that she's local."

"Her?", they replied simultaneously, causing Mike to share a brief glance with his partner that conveyed the same surprise, before the lieutenant focused back on their suspect.

"Yes. Her. She. Hers. Female pronoun."

"What's her name?", Mike tried again, his impatience boiling to the surface. From his position by the file cabinet, Steve swore he could see his best friend's body tremble from restraint.

The authority in the lieutenant's eyes must have finally made it through Harris's thick skull and he blew out a deep breath, mouthing something they couldn't understand, before looking back at them.

"It's Cazol or something like that. Yeah…Cazol…", he explained and licked his lips nervously, "She called me a few times to set things up, told me she was doing it on behalf of somebody dear to her who used to live in the neighborhood."

Harris had barely finished the sentence when both detectives looked at each other in undisguised dread, putting together the pieces to a puzzle that led them to the most unexpected sources of all.