[short, but it seems important. Not sure why. This, for the record, is the spot where I had to stop and make a note of all the characters that had shown up so far and what they did...]

Thursday morning Joe was digging through quarterly employee reviews. His office door was closed and his desk was piled with papers and empty coffee cups. Dave Brubeck was playing softly on the stereo in the corner. The electronic twiddle of his phone caught him by surprise. He'd told his assistant he wasn't supposed to be disturbed. She knew how much he hated handling the paperwork.

"Hi Joan," he said absently. "What's up?"

"You've got a call from Detective Russell," Joan said.

"Oh, great. Can you ask him if I'm under arrest again?"

"I don't think they can arrest you over the phone," Joan said.

"Maybe. Wouldn't put it past him."

"He's on three," she said.

"Hey Steve," Joe said as he took the call. "This isn't a great time."

"Sorry, Joe," Steve said. "I wouldn't normally call you, but it's that Jane Doe you found last week."

"She okay?" Joe asked.

"You're kidding, right? She's a mess. We need to talk to her, though. She liked you. D'you think you can come by and maybe keep her calm enough to get us some answers?"

"Do you think it's a good idea to put her through that after what happened?" Joe wasn't actually sure what happened, but nobody ended up with that much blood on them because of something good.

"It's a crap idea, Joe", Steve said. His voice sounded tired. "But some nutcase sliced up her mom, brother, and sister. He's still out there somewhere, and odds are he'll do this again."

Joe understood, but he wasn't comfortable being involved in questioning her. It was probably going to be traumatic, and he didn't want to be responsible for that. "Don't you have psychologists for this?"

"And social workers, and Chris who's usually good with kids, but she goes into a shrieking fit when we try. I know it isn't fun, but we don't have anything else to go on yet. Please?"

Joe sighed. He knew Steve was right. "Fine," he agreed. "I'll come help, but no promises."

"Not asking for one," Steve said. He sounded a lot happier. "We'll take anything at this point."

"Where should I meet you?"

"Group home. 415 Maple, a few streets down from the restaurant we had lunch at last week."

Joe shuddered at the memory. "If I could survive that, this ought to be a piece of cake."

"That's the spirit," Steve said.

Joe hung up the phone. He grabbed his suit jacket and took one last swig of his cold coffee.

"I've gotta go," he told Joan as he let his office. "Probably won't be back."

"Guess they can arrest you over the phone," she asked with a smirk.

"Don't start," he said. "Just