At the Corner of West 45th and 11th

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Glassy Polaroids surrounded by messy handwriting of varying colors glinted dully under the station's old fluorescent lights. She frowned at the whiteboard and leaned against the table behind her, biting her lip pensively. She unfolded her arms and pushed herself away from the table, and began to pull all the pieces of neatly organized paper off the shiny white surface.


"Oh my god, Natasha!" the man behind her said exasperatedly, putting his hand across his eyes and adjusting his feet on the wooden table, "You've re-arranged the board five times; I don't think it'll be speaking to you anytime soon; we need a break."


"Correction: you want a break." She retorted, never letting her eyes leave her work as she gently put them all back up in a different way. She heard him groan behind her but elected to ignore it. After she'd finished, she sighed and turned around, pulling off her gray blazer and rolling up the sleeves of her button down shirt.


She pressed her palms against the faux, wood table and looked over the crime scene photos and partial prints of the purple ink variety. She glanced up at the guy who sat across the table from her, "Tony, wake up."


"Urgh," he groaned as a second man came in the room and slapped one of his feet, which were crossed at the ankles while simultaneously passing Natasha a beer.


"Feet off the table." He said warningly.


"Thanks Steve." She said softly and then took a long sip, still staring at the photos.


"Tash, just admit it, your weird physic, crime-solving voodoo isn't working right now-" Tony said, pulling his feet off the table and trying not to yawn.


"-Do you take anything seriously?" Steve turned to him incredulously, and Tony turned to raise his eyebrows at the other detective.


"Both of you shut up." Natasha said before Tony could reply, "Steve, say it all again-slowly."


As Steve opened his mouth, Tony began to protest, "Natasha you've made him say it twenty-something times now, can't we just call it a night-?"


"You wanna talk, Tony? Then why don't you say it?" She snapped and Tony rolled his eyes, sighed and straightened up. She began pacing back and forth.


"As far as we can tell, the victim, Alexandra Morgenstern, left her apartment at about quarter past ten, and walked half way down the street before being brutally murdered at the hands of an unknown assailant."


"What else?" She said, furrowing her brow and pausing to take another sip of her beer.


Tony sat even farther forward on his chair, becoming more and more into telling the story and trying to fill in the blanks. He may be a snarky asshole, but he was a pretty good detective. "There was also a mysterious withdrawal from her bank account around the time of death, implicating either she was doing something suspicious or someone was doing something suspicious to or with her and/or her money."


"Who are the suspects?"


"Well first off there's her shady ex-boyfriend-" Steve said, beginning to count on his fingers and Tony nodded vigorously.

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