cracking the case becomes the responsibility, and borderline obsession of veteran detectives eric mcdaniel and brian hughes. >> there's a digital signature in every one of these. >> reporter: starsky and hutch they're not. mcdaniel drives a kia four-door and hughes usually has his trigger finger on a computer mouse. >> i mean, we're talking property crimes here. they don't make a lot of news stories about property crime investigations. >> reporter: but make no mistake, these are straight-shooting investigators. highly trained, highly motivated. arriving on-scene to find a curious set of circumstances. >> we have a lot of police officers that work in our downtown core and for the person to get away that quick was unusual. >> reporter: property crimes around here usually involve someone looking to make a quick score for drug money. but detectives feel the tale of the tape tells them otherwise. >> we were under the impression by the way the fella carried himself, he wasn't local, he seemed like he was squared away and had a plan. >> reporter: and they have another hunch. they don't think that