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"Talk to me Cooper." C.D.'s voice is low, pitched deliberately so. Ramsey isn't even pretending to be not listening. What's there to say? "It's my gun." "The one you didn't have returned to you when you were released." "That's the one." "How'd it get here?" I let my hands fall away from my face and stare at her. She's crouched on the carpet in front of my position along the wall, her back to Ramsey and the photographer. "You're the lead investigator. Isn't that up to you to figure out?" C.D. glares at me and to my left Nate clears his throat. "Anytime you want to fill me in, C.D...." She sighs and scrubs at her face before shoving herself upright and speaking to him. "You get Jinny's statement?" "Got it." He glances pointedly at the blood soaked carpet and the Glock which has now been placed in a baggie and labeled by Ramsey, then slides his eyes back to C.D.'s. "She's making some weak noise about coming up here to see Sgt. Finn but I'm thinking it's better if she doesn't. Maybe Finn could go down there instead?" C.D. gazes down at me questioningly. I shake my head. "No. Tell her I'll see her at the hospital... and Nate? Make sure McCafferty or someone else is driving her there, okay?" He grins down at me crookedly. "C.D. hand over my leash to you or what? Sure. I'll be right back up and we can start processing the scene now that CSI is pretty much done with it~~ pretty cut and dried downstairs but I got the feeling we've got our hands full up here." He doesn't know the half of it. "Get up," C.D. orders me after he's gone. "What for?" "Because you're really annoying when you do that kicked puppy thing." She leans over and thumps me on the head for the second time in half an hour, then stands back, one hand on her hip. "Get up and let's talk this through. Tell me what you see." The noise I make is ugly. "What I see? I see my service weapon in a pool of congealed blood in the bedroom of my lover's ex-lover. That's what I see." "Your service weapon that was removed from you when you were arrested and not returned when you were released." "Ahh... but that's all a matter of paperwork, isn't it? And I don't think I'm the one in control of the paperwork at SFPD, do you C.D.? You know what I'm wondering?" I look up at her and grin, sickly. "I'm wondering how they'll tie me into Andrea Peyton's death. I mean, I see how they fit me in here but I never even set foot in the Porsche, so they won't even be able to put my prints in it~~" "Unless 'they'~~whoever 'they' are~~lift them with tape off something else and stick them on. It's best done with electrical tape but everyday Scotch tape will do it fine too. And of course there's tons of other DNA evidence available... hair, dead skin cells, fingernail parings~~" The tiny CSI's voice is clinical and eager, dark eyes very bright behind the lenses as she imparts her detailed knowledge on the subject. "Shut up, Ramsey," C.D. snaps warningly, but I laugh, a hateful sound, and point up at her, cocking my head to the side and grinning at C.D. "See? Straight from the mouth of the CSI herself. Piece of cake! And after all, my prints and my DNA are all over this fucking penthouse, right? Not like they even had to work to get it. Physical evidence, motive~~ I'm all over the place." "And quite busy too, sounds like," Ramsey chirps. "Shut up, Ramsey," C.D. repeats, then leans and hauls me forcibly to my feet; I don't miss she grasps my forearm and not my hand. I can't stop laughing. I can hear how hideous a sound it is, I'm totally aware of how it must look, but I can't stop. "Want to do the gun residue right now?" "Yes, actually." Her voice is grim. "Not because I think you have anything whatsoever to do with this crime scene but to prove for you that you did not. Nate!", she leans slightly forward and presumably makes eye contact with him downstairs. "Get the GSR kit out of the car." "...what? Gun residue kit?" The voice is small and rather hollow and I wish like hell C.D. had made certain Jinny and McCafferty were out of the penthouse before she'd yelled that. By the look on her face C.D. is wishing the same thing. She grimaces at me, apologetically. "Oops. She must be out in the entry hall still. I didn't see her, Coop. I'm sorry." I shake my head, moving away from the wall and out of eyesight from below. "Go down and get her out of here. I don't want her here for this." "Gotcha." When she's gone I move further away from the wall, then realize I am veering for the massive silk covered bed and jerk unsteadily right, towards the black marble and coral bathroom. Woops. Definitely don't even want to go anywhere near running water with a residue kit on the agenda and CSI glaring an amused hole in my back. "So..." Ramsey says, coming up behind me to my right and beaming at me from the bank of Sylvie's self-infatuated mirrors, "The bedroom of your lover's ex-lover, huh? And your gun. Interesting." I turn and lean back against the wall surrounding Sylvie's inset vanity table and force the corners of my mouth to jerk upwards. "I can definitely multi-task." "So I've heard, Sgt. Finn. So I've heard." She winks at me as she says it, then turns and joins the second CSI who is busily harvesting fibers and matter from the bulk of the silk pillow, face utterly beatific with concentrated glee. I don't miss that she hunkers down and whispers to him or that he glances up at me, face blank, eyes carefully vacant. I shriek slightly when C.D. suddenly looms up in my vision carrying a Sandia GSR field kit. "Jeez... jumpy much?" "Wouldn't you be?" I demand, irritably and she grins at me, rather bleakly. "Yep. Guess so. Let's get this done. If it's okay with you, I want to do it right here, right now." "Witnesses?" "Always a good thing," she puts in and I nod, looking up first at Nate who's joined us and then past the two of them where Ramsey and Roy have paused to study us. I wish I could read Ramsey better. I can't decide if she is just the typical CSI goon who gets so hot over fibers and blood types and hexagonal twists she's forgotten how to converse with normal people, or if she's truly a grade A bitch. "Bitch," C.D. assures me. "Definitely a bitch. She come over and bully you while I was gone?" I might as well give up ever having a single unspoken thought in my head again. "Yeah, sort of." And I relay our brief mostly one-sided conversation and eye C.D.'s face worriedly as she pops the latch on the tiny kit, then pauses, eyeing me. "I want the photographer to come shoot us doing this, right here, with a time stamp. This is the newest of the new in GSRs, I'll swab you down and your clothing and we'll have results in forty to sixty seconds. You up for that?" "Let's do it." "Great." She pauses and grips my shoulder, shaking me slightly until I actually manage to focus on her for a second. I watch her arm and body tremor and shake before I realize it's my own spasms causing it, traveling up her arm. Her fingers grip so tight they hurt and I glance at them and try to still myself. "You need to remember that I am also your alibi for the first half of the day, Cooper. I have a taped conversation verifying you were with me earlier." "Yeah. And my gun is over there in an evidence baggie and there's enough blood in here to mean some serious damage to somebody. And I don't even know who. That's what's eating me alive right now, C.D. I don't even know who. My gun. But who?" "Stop it. Stop it. You had nothing to do with this or what happened here today," C.D. says emphatically, shaking me again. "Nothing. Not with what happened up here or down there." "Bullshit," I whisper back, grinning sickly. "I have everything to do with what happened here today. Everything. You couldn't have missed the breaking news, C.D., it's all over the television, all over the radio, all over the AP wire~~ hell, it's probably all over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by now. I have everything to do with everything that happened here today." She looks ready to argue with me, slap me if necessary, face white and set and furious. Poor Nate's eyes are round and wide and bewildered. Ramsey saves us all from some embarrassing display of unprofessional sentiment by introducing a huge pair of tweezers and a cotton swab into the mix. "Since we're taking evidence and we're both here, could I have some DNA, Sgt. Finn? A saliva swab, couple of strands of hair, some skin? Just, you know, to save us all time later?" C.D. looks ready to explode. I watch Nate lay a hand on her shoulder and observe her eyes lower ominously and slide smoothly into the Best of H. Cooper Finn, Live! "Pretty please?" I quip, batting lashes and everything. Dark eyes blink a baffled rhythm behind thick lens before she lowers her head slightly and peers at me over the top of her glasses, confused. "With sugar on top?" "I beg your pardon?" Her voice is husky and rapid, her mystification so evident it disarms the entire situation and C.D. is suddenly braying laughter so hard she's bent double and Nate is emitting giggles worthy of a thirteen year old girl. Ramsey blinks at the two of them blankly, tiny ridges of skin bumping up in comical irritation between her brows. "I fail to see how the gathering of evidence can possibly be so amusing," she announces passionately and looks ready to begin spouting some sort of data detailing exactly how many crimes would to date remain unsolved had CSI failed to do their job and it's just too hard to tease someone who has no idea they are even being mocked in the first place. "Here," I say, bending my head towards her. "Knock yourself out." She looks as if I've just offered her a diamond engagement ring and begins immediately avidly plucking through my unruly head of hair presumably for the perfect specimen. "Hmm. Dyed." "The red part, yeah." To my left C.D. has withdrawn a small plastic cube and a fiberglass swab. She glances up at me as she deftly shoves the swab into the cube, then pushes the plunger button down on the lid. The vial inside breaks easily and she holds the cube up, eyeing it as the clear liquid surrounds and soaks the swab, then steps away slightly and crooks her finger at the photographer. "Date and time stamp it," she tells him brusquely. "You want me to take pictures?" "Yeah. Get me swabbing her, get Ramsey doing... whatever it is Ramsey does. Date and time stamp on it." "Ow," I wince as Ramsey yanks what feels like half my scalp off. She goes cross eyed peering at it before she dexterously inserts it into a plastic bag, then balances the bag on the palm of her hand as she presumably scrawls something legible on the white tape already placed there. "You know how this works, right?" C.D. asks me as she holds a hand out for mine. "We'll do your hands first but then I want to swab your arms and your clothing too, which, by the way, I will verify is the same clothing you were wearing earlier today during our interview." She pauses briefly, eyeing me and then asks, voice steady, "You haven't fired a gun today, have you Cooper? I mean any gun for any reason?" I shake my head and she nods glancing at the photographer who obediently snaps the first shot. I blink at the flash and eye the progress of the white swab as it's drawn carefully along the skin of first my right hand, and then my left. There's a second flash to grimace through when she holds the swab up for perusal a few seconds later, before placing it in a baggie she hands to Nate to label. It is still a breathtaking, ass-saving white. "Sgt. Finn?" It's Ramsey, poised intently at my elbow with a large cotton swab at the ready. It's humiliating; standing there being swabbed for gunpowder, having my hair plucked out, bagged and tagged and all of it recorded on film. And now I am going to open my mouth and let CSI run a piece of cotton on a stick around inside. "Jinny's gone, right?" I ask C.D. "Shut the door behind her," she assures me, soaking a second swab and using another cube of solution to do so. It's a boon for mankind that Ramsey did not enter the oral hygiene health field; I get the feeling that if she could slice off a piece of my tongue she'd be a really happy little goon. She takes three different swabs although I can't imagine anything in my mouth being that criminal. I gag slightly on the last one and she peers at me as if stunned, brows crashing to a point above her nose. "Jesus," I get out, lowering my hand once the initial panic of I-think-I'm-about-to-vomit-on-C.D.'s-head has passed. "You want a fucking tooth, or what?" Dark eyes fly wide open, intrigued. "Do you have one loose by chance?" "Ramsey!" C.D. hisses in exasperated outrage, then stops at the shrill chirp of her cell phone. She hands the latest bagged swab to Nate after cocking an eye at the camera and holding it up to display it's snowy whiteness, then spins away slightly to answer it. Ramsey's asking if I have a problem with her taking samples of whatever is currently beneath my nails. I reply I do not and then watch in amusement as she frowns sternly at the ragged, ripped cuticle existence of my manicure. "Nail biter," she announces loudly, apparently to Roy who rolls his eyes and expresses the sour opinion of CSIs everywhere in regards to such persons who deliberately remove viable evidence... with their teeth. It would be funny under other circumstances, but at the moment I am riveted to C.D.'s conversation, or the half of it audible to me. "He what? And you've got him there with you? You page the Captain and fill her in? Ok, ok~~ Hold him there and don't let anyone talk to him or get near him, Magda, especially not Internal Affairs, not 'til McCafferty's on site. Yeah. See you in ten, fifteen minutes tops. Jesus," she breathes out, flipping the phone closed, eyeing both Nate and I, shaking her head. "The shit has hit the fan now. We got a uniform at the ER with a gunshot wound to the abdomen and his rookie's at the Division wanting to confess to the shooting. And take a wild guess where he says all this took place?" "Oh shit," Nate and I say in stereo. "Yeah, and I don't want anyone getting to that kid before we do. Cooper? You up for this?" "Oh yeah. Unless Ramsey wants some bone marrow or something." Ramsey blinks at me, considering. "I don't feel that's necessary." For the first time her partner speaks up. "We got names on the uniforms involved?" "Van Zandt and Mennie," I drawl, interrupting C.D. "And at least the right one's in the hospital." "He don't look so good." Magda glances up at me as she exits the interrogation room, then stands with me looking through the two way glass, arms crossed. Mennie's seated inside across the table from McCafferty, Captain Dunlap, C.D. and Nate. There's a suit beside him I don't recognize but who I assume is someone Legal has assigned to represent him. He's spilling his guts all over the place and it's not pretty. The suit can't get him to shut up. I've heard my name tossed out repeatedly. "You getting all this?" I ask Sarge who is in uniform and propping up the wall opposite mine. He grinds his teeth in response and I take that as a yes and decide to not push it; I can't tell if he's angrier at SFPD's crap-fest or at me for not just flying home when he told me to. Van Zandt's not expected to live; the contents of one's intestines tend to wreak havoc when doled out to other body parts and Van Zandt's have been blasted into introduction with parts of him never meant to meet. Too bad Vodka doesn't work as an internal antiseptic. It's painful to listen to. The poor kid doesn't even try to dodge the shit that's been flung at him. He's started with the events earlier today and is now scrambling backwards trying to piece together for them, and no doubt himself, exactly when and how and where everything began to go horribly wrong. It's disconcerting to listen to him describe what took place at the accident scene; when he details the groping Van Zandt did during his pat down of me, Sarge's teeth literally squeak as he grinds them. I dart tentative and careful looks in his direction as I chew my non-existent thumb nails and pace as I listen, trying to gauge the level of anger and how much of it is directed at me. "Anyone been able to find Massey yet?" I ask Magda who shrugs, shaking her head. "I'm thinking the Bay would be a good place to start looking." "And Chandler?" "He's retreated into his castle. All his PR girl will say is 'no comment'." There's a minute or two of silence broken only by Mennie's voice, tinny and canned sounding as it exits the speaker mounted to the wall, then Magda catches me as I spin, glaring at me in silence. "What?" I demand, jerking my arm loose and glancing surreptitiously at Sarge who's eyeing us from beneath the brim of his hat, one brow lifted. "What do you mean, 'what'? You've asked me about Massey, you've asked me about Chandler~~" "Okay, okay." I cut her tirade short and sigh hard, jamming my hands in the pockets of my jeans as I scowl at her. "How is she?" "Asking for you, that's how she is." I blink, genuinely puzzled. "She's conscious and talking already? Ow!" I squeal when she whacks me with the open palm of her hand. "Hey!" I yell again when she pulls it back and looks ready to slap me for real this time. "What the fuck?" "You idiot," she seethes furiously, stomping one booted foot on the floor in outrage, turning to look at Sarge who appears to be in agreement with her. "Jinny. Jinny has been asking for you. Sylvie's in a fucking coma and Jinny's there with her and she's asking for you. And you stand here and ask me about Massey and about Chandler and then you think I'm talking about Sylvie? What's wrong with you?" "They think she'll live?" I turn away when I ask it; let her hit me if she feels like it. Behind the glass Mennie has leaned far forward to put his head in his hands. He scrubs at his face wearily and the rasp of palm on stubble is audible, but the exhausted sigh he heaves before he continues is louder. "He got a call on his cell phone at... I don't know, must have been close to noon? Yeah, because he sent me up to Vicolo's for some pizza and he was on the phone when I got back to the car~~ and I knew it was Lt. Massey he was talking to~~" "How?" Dunlap interrupts. "How did you know it was Massey?" "Yeah," Magda says flatly at my elbow. "Because that's Jin's luck, isn't it? It's too soon to know what exact type of vegetable she'll be, but yeah... they think she'll live." I nod still staring at the glass. Behind it Mennie has looked up and is gazing at me, for all the world as if he can see me. It's unnerving. "I hate when they do that." "Live?" I snort and glance at her and am startled to see her half-grinning at me. "Yeah, actually. In this case. That too. Or..." I hesitate, and look away again. "I don't know," she answers, sighing, and when I look at her sharply she shrugs. "I don't know if it's better for Jinny that she lives. I just don't know. That was what you were going to ask me, right? Because if it wasn't this is a dangerous time to tell me." "Should I go?" I've decided to pretend Sarge isn't in the room at all. By the look on his face he's decided to indulge in the same fantasy. "No~" I say, lifting a hand before she can sputter out some fierce emotional tirade about how of course I should go, what's wrong with me, how can I even ask that question~~ "I mean, honestly, Magda... Should I go? Because you were right, you know. I'm leaving. I won't be here. I'm not who or what she thought I was, I'm not good for her~~ God, I'm not good for anybody. I've got to leave and take care of stuff at home and I don't know what's going to happen there and..." I let my head fall forward and rest against the glass and close my eyes briefly. "If I went... wouldn't it just be for me? So I can look back and know I went and said shit that didn't change anything and that I can't even know right now if I mean or not... Wouldn't it just be for me?" I swallow during the silence and then swivel my head, grinding my forehead against the glass, to look at her. Whatever I expected from her, it was not tears. I blink, startled and watch her do the same, head ducked, the toe of one boot raking at the carpet underfoot as she recovers. "You know," I whisper roughly, "Everything after this will be a whole lot easier if you just keep hating my guts, Ramirez." "Fuck you," she hisses heatedly, blinking and actually kicks me once. I laugh and put both hands on the sill and lean onto them, trying to breathe without sobbing. On the other side of the glass Mennie is enduring a similar psychotic episode. "~~and... and he was taking too long, he said he was just going to deliver a message to her but it was taking too long and he got something out of the trunk~~it was in a brown paper sack, you know, like a grocery bag? But I could tell, the way he handled it, the way he gripped it, I knew it was a gun and then he was taking too long~~" "Look at me," she orders, voice low and I dig my nails into my palms, fight for control, and do it steeling myself. She gazes at me wide eyed, expression at first dubious and then stunned and then stricken. "Oh God," she whispers to me, voice small and hoarse, eyes wounded and wet. "You really love her. You really do care." "~~door was open and I could hear them both and she... Oh God, she was crying, just begging him, screaming, 'no, no please, don't do this, I'll pay you~~' oh Jesus, she was begging him~~" "I can't listen to this," I murmur, my voice breaking and I know she knows I don't mean just Mennie's gut-wrenching admission of guilt. I shove myself away from the wall and the window and exit the observing room into the hall. There's a crowd of uniforms and suits both in the squad room but no one even looks at me as I make my way to the counter where the Mr. Coffee is half full and surrounded by pink and yellow packets of artificial sweetener in various stages of shred. No one looks at me or even notices my arrival because they are riveted to the wall-mounted television in the corner. Take a wild guess what's playing non-stop? "I can't fucking believe this..." one of them mutters and someone flips the channels via remote as they gape at the monitor and in turn at one another. "Ever fucking channel! CNN, Headline News, NBC, ABC, Fox~~ Look! It's on goddamn MTV!" "Holy crap! Check this out!" someone yells from a desk and there's a general stampede which I meander along behind, sipping my coffee from a tiny Styrofoam cup. "What the hell is that?" someone demands, voice awe-struck, pointing at that pop-up advertisement which has over-ridden the laptop's browser preferences and is now playing in a constant flashing loop of color and music; I grin and nearly put coffee on the uniform in front of me when I realize S'Phear's chosen Inner Circle's "Bad Boys" as his sound track. I refrain from mentioning I think the object in question is a toe. "Oh my God..." someone else breathes, voice shaky with disbelief and barely-contained laughter, "... is that Lieutenant Massey?" S'Phear's graphics programs have worked miracles on the shot; Massey's big, beefy, blonde toothiness is clear in the mirror shot now. I note he's considerately blurred out Sylvie's face and pertinent nude areas. There's a split second of the shot and then it's spun off to the side of the monitor as if chunked before being replaced by the same shot blown up several hundred times and zoomed in to exclude Sylvie. You could count the links of metal on the harness contraption he's wearing, if you so felt like it. Maybe even his nose hairs. It's that good There's an immediate, deafening roar surrounding me; it's a testosterone gasp of male shock following instantly by horrified, appalled guffaws of laughter. And once they start they can't stop and the loop just keeps playing. There's the obligatory suit glancing guiltily over his shoulder trying to hush everyone, ordering the owner of the computer to shut it down, turn it off~~ "Get that goddamn thing off there!" but it's useless; one of the mightiest has fallen and fallen hard. There's no stopping it now. Literally. The scroll of white letters across the bottom of CNN tells me the White House Press Secretary is expected to speak at an unscheduled press conference this evening and the brunette on screen is currently informing me and the rest of the world one cannot help but assume that this conference will deal with the 'devastating' news releases in regards to Senator Max Chandler of California. "Do we have any idea where these releases of information came from, Suzanne?" "Well, Chuck, that's a huge part of the mystery right now, absolutely. The theories surrounding this unprecedented release to every local and national news organization, every branch of media are approaching the level of a conspiracy theory... I've heard talk about computer hackers, the Mafia, the CIA... rumors are just running rampant at this point. I've been told by several sources that the same information released to the media earlier today was also received in email by every member of Congress and the House of Representatives~~" "And Suzanne, if I may interrupt you just briefly~~ I've just had one of the production assistants hand me a laptop and there's a... Well, we can't show it to you due to the nature of the clip, but I can tell you that it's a very slick bit of flash macromedia seeming to show what a subject which has tentatively been identified as Senator Chandler's brother-in-law, Robert Massey who is an officer with the San Francisco Police Department in what can only be described as~~" "He wants to talk to you." I jump, startled, splashing coffee over onto my hand, then blink at McCafferty as I shakily wipe it off on my jeans. Sarge is with her looking stern and grumpy and I clear my throat uneasily. "He who?" "Mennie. Officer Mennie. We're done with him for the moment and he's asking to speak to you minus counsel and off the record. Can you handle that?" What I think is that I can't handle anything else again ever. But of course what croaks out of m mouth is, "sure" accompanied by a no doubt shaky nod. He's alone in the little room now and looks particularly forlorn and abandoned and very, very young. He looks up when the door opens and I hesitate, then half turn away to shut it. I see his throat work slightly as he swallows, hard, then mops at his face briefly before he gestures at the window across from the table. "I asked them to let me talk to you privately. Anyone in there?" "No," I tell him truthfully. "They're out in the hallway. I turned the speaker in there off myself." I lay the cup of coffee I've brought him within reach and he glances at it, then up at me smiling sickly. "Thanks." He lowers his head into his hands and rakes hard fingers through his short and bristly hair, breathing hard and I sink into the chair his attorney had been occupying and wait. "I wanted to tell you... I'm sorry," he finally gets out, voice shaking and rough. He pauses and peers at me over the knot of fingers clasping the bridge of his nose. His eyes are very blue and very blood shot and utterly miserable. "It's okay," I tell him and he shakes his head, snorting laughter, then pushes the cup away as he leans forward and lays his head and shoulders on the table. "No, it's not," he assures me. "It's not okay." "Well, let me amend that." I clear my throat and plunge forward when he peeks at me over the top of one bicep. "The part to do with me~~ I'd appreciate it if you'd let that part be okay because I am. Okay." "I shot my FTO," he says, stressing each word of it and I shake my head in response. "No. You struggled with a man with a gun who was going to murder another human being and the gun discharged. I know. I listened." "I didn't do my job," he says, voice thick and very young and I lean forward and put my nose inches from the smooth skin of his forearm and gaze intently into the one blue eye I can see. "You struggled with a man with a gun who was going to murder another human being and you prevented that murder. I say you did your job." I don't know if he knows that after he carried Van Zandt out Sylvie decided to hang herself and it doesn't matter really, does it? For once in my life I don't find it hard at all to comfort someone; when the sobs begin in earnest I just wrap my arms around him and hold on as he shakes and shudders through it.
END OF SEVENTY EIGHT
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