A/N: Yeah, I think we can safely label this AU. Usually, Goren's the one who gets to be all dark and secretly homicidal (Seriously, I totally love Purplecleric's evil!Goren fics; if you haven't read them, you should.), but I thought my girl Eames deserved a little action. Spoilers for "Blind Spot" and "Framed."
Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY
Three years ago
If the windows hadn't been left down, the blue Honda might have sat there, unnoticed, for days.
But the open windows had been too tempting for Ricardo Jennings to pass up, and while cleaning out the CDs, laptop and cell phone he'd found in the ten-year-old Civic, the 19-year-old decided to pop the trunk as well.
So much for temptation, Detective Alexandra Eames thought, looking down at the bloated, gray corpse left to rot in the trunk. Black male, wearing a dark gray suit with a big bloodstain across the chest. He looked to be in his 50s, Eames thought, though under the circumstances, it was hard to be sure.
She really hated Mondays, Eames thought, and glanced around the neighborhood, looking for possible witnesses or maybe – please, please, please, God – surveillance cameras.
It took a minute before she realized where she was, but the neighborhood hadn't really changed much, and once she spied the alley, a familiar mix of triumph, nausea and cold determination made itself felt in the pit of her stomach.
Right there in the alley, she thought, she'd lost her innocence, but found her calling.
Found herself, her truest self.
"That's an expensive suit," her partner, Robert Goren, said, and she barely managed not to jump when he spoke. "And look at his watch. That's gotta be, what, thirty grand?"
"The car doesn't go with the watch and the suit," Eames said.
"The bullet holes don't really go with the suit, either."
Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY
Twenty years ago
After the first one, she was certain she was dying.
Heart pounding, stomach churning, Patrolman Eames half-crouched, half-crawled through an alley in Brooklyn until the nausea eased enough that she could stand again.
A few hundred yards back, Anthony Peralta, late of East Flatbush, lay sprawled across a half-dozen bags of garbage (fitting, some part of her mused), two .45-caliber slugs having torn through his throat.
If he wasn't dead at that particular second, he would be soon enough, she thought, and wondered if she should bother calling her PBA rep. She'd memorized the number when she started stalking Peralta.
Peralta was beyond scum, she thought; he'd traded his girlfriend's four-year-old son for a few keys of heroin. She and her partner had been first on the scene, had come running in response to the screams of the woman who'd found him stuffed in a clothes dryer in the basement of her apartment building.
But Peralta had given up the names of the dealers he'd traded the boy to, and the ADA had agreed to let him plead to a lesser charge, and the idiot judge had granted him bail.
A little boy was dead, and that scum was out walking around.
But not for long, Eames thought, enjoying the slow burn of triumphant, righteous anger. She'd found him, staggering drunkenly in the alley behind his favorite bar, taunted him about what happened to child killers in prison. When he came at her with the .45, it hadn't taken much effort to wrestle it away from him. When he came at her again, she'd fired twice.
Eames was a very good shot. When she took the detective's exam in two months, she knew that would be weighed into her score.
When she got her gold shield, she'd be able to save her city from the rest of the predators walking around out in broad daylight, Eames thought. She wiped the .45 clean with her shirt and dropped it next to Peralta's body.
Then she walked to the subway station and never looked back.
Long Island City, Queens, NY
18 months ago
Eames could not for the life of her remember the name of the Queens homicide detective who greeted them, but she recognized the look. The "This is a shit-storm and I'm so glad you're taking it over" look that managed to be smug and sympathetic and relieved all at once. "Hey, Eames," he said.
Three bodies awaited them in the cheap hotel room: A 50-something white male in his tighty whities and a black leather dog collar; a 30-something Hispanic female in a black latex catsuit and lace-up boots – Jesus, those heels had to be five inches high, Eames thought – and a nude teen male who didn't look old enough to drive yet.
All bore the same wounds – two large-caliber bullet wounds, one each to the forehead and chest.
"May I introduce the Right Revered Edward Thomas Markham, pastor of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church and deputy borough president of Queens. Next to him is one Mistress Maria, also known, according to her Web site, as Our Lady of the Night, but her driver's license says she's Anita
Valdez of Staten Island. No ID yet on the kid, but his picture is all over the Right Reverend's cell phone and Mistress Maria's Web page, on which he is identified only as Jaime."
The Queens detective – Flaherty? Flynn? Flanagan? – checked his notebook. "Desk clerk says the Right Reverend and Mistress Maria showed up every Wednesday at 10 a.m., always joined about an hour later by a younger playmate. Sometimes male. Sometimes female. Always out of the room by 1 p.m. Always paid cash."
"Time of death looks to be between 11 a.m. and noon," the coroner's assistant, a blonde woman in her 40s, said. Eames thought her name was Aaronson. "Pretty sure we can guess the cause of death, but the doc'll have the final say. Also, we found this in the reverend's mouth." She held up what looked like a playing card that had been folded five or six times into a triangle. Like those notes she and her friends always passed back and forth in high school, Eames thought. "Looks like a standard playing card, but we'll have to send it to the lab to be sure."
"Any sign they were restrained or any other injuries?" Goren asked. He was almost twitching with eagerness to get up close and personal with the victims. At least he wasn't sniffing the bodies, Eames thought.
Yet.
"Nothing visible. From the looks of it, your killer came into the room, stood about 10 feet away and shot each of them in the chest from there. Then he or she came in close to finish the job. You can see the contact burns on the foreheads, but not on their chests," the coroner's assistant said.
"And there's the video camera," the Queens detective – Fahey, Eames thought; Brian Fahey; worked with Joe when they were both on patrol in Hell's Kitchen – said. The camera was easy to miss, tucked away in the farthest corner of the room and facing the bed. It was almost hidden by the hideous floral curtains. "The memory card is missing. Techies are on their way to collect it. We're also canvassing for witnesses and any surveillance video, though the hotel doesn't have any, inside or out."
"Would you want to be seen in this place?" Eames asked.
August 15
Sugar Hill, Manhattan, NY
Eighteen years ago
The second time, she didn't even blink.
Some of Manhattan's more entrepreneurial residents smuggled drugs; some weapons. Nicholas Fodor (Immigration would later identify him as Nikolai Fedorovsky, in New York illegally after his Belarusian visa expired) smuggled women.
The younger, the better.
It was easy for law enforcement around the world to ignore the Fodors of the world. But when the girls started turning up dead, the NYPD couldn't play dumb any longer.
Eames, loaned to Vice for what was supposed to be a short-term undercover gig, was a little too old to suit Fodor's loyal clientele, Fodor himself told her when she met him in a warehouse so far Uptown it was about three feet from the Bronx borough limits. Her backup was still en route. She should have waited for Pruitt, but she didn't want to be late for the meet.
Fodor expected to be compensated for his time, regardless of whether Eames met his merchandise standards. He made a move for her, and she stepped back quickly. "If we're doing business, I need to see the cash first, baby," she told him.
"You should be paying me, bitch," he snarled. He grabbed her by the throat and forced her back against the wall, lifting her off her feet with one hand as he forced her skirt up with the other.
Eames kicked out, knocking one of his legs out from under him. When he wobbled backwards, she reached around back to the waistband of her skirt and pulled out the ice pick. Aim for center mass, she thought, and thrust at an upward angle, right into his heart. A nice, clean kill, an ME had said once, showing her the injury during a post-mortem on a Salvadoran gun runner.
Fodor kind of wheezed, then coughed and let her go, astonishment creeping into his eyes even as the light slipped out He staggered back and Eames watched, not quite numb, as he collapsed.
His blood was on the black silky tank she wore and her hands, too, so she pulled the top off and quickly wiped her hands, then the handle of the ice pick, with it. She dropped the ice pick next to Fodor's body, pulled on her coat and exited the warehouse. She walked two blocks to her car and tossed her bloody top into the trunk. Then she got into the car and quickly pulled a clean top out of the duffle bag she kept in the back seat pulled it on.
Then she called Pruitt. "Where the hell are you? Do you know how late we are?"
"There's a wreck on the bridge," Pruitt said. "I'll be there in five minutes. Are you at your car?"
"Yeah. Morton Street between Floral and Forsythe."
She was still scrubbing at her hands with a Wet Wipes when Pruitt pulled up.
Bloomfield, Staten Island, NY
One year ago
Staten Island stunk, even without rotting corpses stuffed into a non-functional industrial freezer.
The breeze from the landfill was almost a pleasant distraction from the horror to which she and Goren had been summoned.
"So far, we've identified at least eight complete corpses," Elizabeth Rogers told Goren. "We've got almost enough bits and pieces to add up to another full body, but I don't think they're all from the same person. And no, I can't tell you who they are, how they died or when they died. But I'm willing to bet they didn't all die at the same time, because some have what might be signs of freezer burn and some don't. I'll call you when I have more."
Eames let Goren fidget for a minute or two while they watched the crime scene techs swarm over the freezer unit. The power had failed in this part of town two days ago, and still wasn't back on after a nasty ice storm. A janitor noticed the smell and called the local precinct, who took one look at the bodies and called 1 PP.
The call had interrupted Goren's newest rant. He'd been almost incoherent with indignant amusement as he'd described his friend Lewis's latest DVD discovery, a cable series about a forensics technician who was really a serial killer. But all the victims were really killers themselves who'd somehow managed to get away with their crimes.
"He's surrounded by homicide detectives, and they're all too stupid to figure out what's going on," Goren had said. "How realistic is that?"
Eames had just shaken her head. "Good to know the public values us."
Now, they had bodies to talk about.
"The property manager says this unit is leased to a Carlyle Enterprises, LLC, with an address in Manhattan. The phone number is out of service. Rent paid by money order mailed in on the first of every month," she told him.
"And he's never seen the leaseholder," Goren said.
"You've been practicing your psychic powers. I'm so proud of you."
"So, are we looking at a professional or a nut job?" he asked.
"A pro wouldn't hang onto the bodies," Eames said. "Or the ….parts. Would he?"
"A nut job. We haven't had one of those in a while," Goren said. He didn't sound too thrilled by the challenge. "What's that TV show where the local cops just call in those people from the FBI and they do all the work? Can we just call them?"
"Now what fun would that be?"
Twelve years ago
The George Washington Bridge
New York/New Jersey State Line
The third time, New Jersey got there first, a fact that would rankle for years to come.
Joey Maldonado, once a respected leg breaker for the Santucci family, fell on hard times when the head of the family went off to federal prison on racketeering charges. He'd started freelancing, then discovered meth.
And then he'd discovered revenge, which led to a string of shotgun slayings that led straight to him.
Now he was blocking traffic on the George Washington Bridge, holding old man Santucci's bookkeeper at the end of his favorite 12-gauge.
Jurisdictional lines were a little unclear. It was hotter than hell, and drivers on both sides of the state line were growing impatient.
Someone honked just as Eames lined up a clean shot; one of the Jersey snipers twitched and Maldonado collapsed, half of his head disappearing in a red mist.
Eames was livid, and the knowledge that she should have been relieved that someone else pulled the trigger only pissed her off more.
Her new partner, Robert Goren, shook his head as SWAT personnel from both states swarmed around Maldonado's hostage.
"That was a close one," he said. "You got lucky, Eames."
When she got back to the precinct, she vowed, she was marching into Deakins' office to demand a new partner.
Present day
Attica Correctional Facility-Hospital Unit
Attica, NY
Declan Gage was officially dying.
Eames wasn't sure why that necessitated them driving way the hell up to Attica for this visit, but Goren had insisted, and Captain Hanna had insisted she accompany Goren.
Who was now seated at Gage's bedside, holding his hand as Gage expounded on…whatever.
Probably more justification of why he'd murdered two of the most important people in Goren's life – his loyal nemesis Nicole Wallace and loser brother Frank – and why, exactly, Goren should be grateful.
And Eames could just hear him arguing that, no, of course it wasn't any kind of payback for Goren exposing Jo Gage as a serial killer.
The conversation was destroying Goren. She couldn't hear the particulars, but she could see Goren crumbling with each word that dribbled from Gage's mouth.
Considering they were in a maximum security prison that housed the worst of New York's worst, security was pretty lax here in the hospital unit, she mused, watching her partner wither a little more. Wait til he's asleep, cover his face with a pillow….He was too weak to make much noise.
And he was officially dying, she thought. All these years as a loyal civil servant, she was good at official.
Goren, his back to Eames, said something that struck a nerve. She watched Gage almost flinch, then a syrupy smile came over his too-thin face.
"But, Bobby, I did it for you. All of it, Bobby. You're free now," he said, and something in Goren seemed to collapse.
And Eames felt the slow burn begin again in the pit of her stomach. It really wouldn't take much.
"They do say the fourth time's the charm," she said under her breath, and watched her partner turn his back, again, on his former mentor.
"I'm sorry I dragged you up here," Goren said as they headed toward the security desk. "I don't know what I expect from him."
"It's not a problem if I have to come back," Eames said.
It would be worth the drive, she thought.