One Short
Doug walked into the Jump Street Chapel with his helmet under one arm and a paper bag in the other. He nodded to a few people along the way, but didn't say much. Judy and Ioki were chatting about a case they had been working on, Booker was snoring at his desk and the place that had always been Tom's was empty. Doug had cleaned it out yesterday and put it in storage with the rest of the stuff Mrs. Hanson was putting away because she couldn't keep Tom's apartment.
Doug had kept some things, Tom's do-rag that he liked to wear as McQuaid. A model of the blue mustang that was still impounded. Doug was trying to get it so that Mrs. Hanson could keep it for Tom. At least he hoped so, everyone knew how much that car meant to Tom.
Doug sat down at his desk, he made some room by clearing some of the nick-knacks off and putting them in the drawers. From the paper bag he brought out a small wooden box, it had two mounts covered in green grass and two tomb stones. On them were the legends of Tommy and Doug McQuaid respectively. Doug had put the cover to rest. Never would he be under the guise of McQuaid unless he had Tommy there with him. Behind the tomb stones was a picture of Doug and Tommy McQuaid in the middle of one of their silly salutes.
Doug sighed as he went to work on the papers that had suddenly taken up residence on his desk. Some of them had been stuff that Tom hadn't handled before he'd foolishly entered the dirty cop's house without a search warrant. Doug recognized his partners hand writing, it was chicken scratch but he could read it as if Tom had typed it. Doug knew that there was only a little bit of work to do that included Tom's memory. Tom was always up on paper work. He actually enjoyed it. Though, Doug did have Tom's dictionary by the stack. It comforted him that the habit that had always gotten Tom flack from everyone else, was something he was picking up.
"Okay…lets see what we have here…" Doug told himself as he looked through the papers. It was their last case as the McQuaids. The one that got them into the stupid Juvenile Hall and he'd gotten crazy because of his claustrophobia. That wasn't a happy memory for Doug because a) they were supposed to be this colossus thing! The McQuaid brothers never did anything without the other. And b) he had always hated small places, he just didn't think it would be that bad! But it was, and he'd been taken out by Fuller (after a quick trip to the mental hospital that Tom had also ended up in during that case that wasn't a case…) and that left Tom along. Without Booker or Ioki to help him. He'd never talked about it. Doug just hoped that Tom could handle being in an adult prison. He wasn't a wimp, but he was kinda good looking.
"Booker! Penhall!" Fuller yelled from his office. The Officer's concerned made it to the office at the same time but Penhall pushed forwards.
"Yo, Coach!"
"Okay you two, your going into a school n the projects. This is a tough school, lots of dope dealers and gun toting idiots," Fuller said.
"What's our cover?" Booker asked.
"I think the McQuaid…"
"No! no! no!" Penhall rejected the idea right off.
"Penhall…?!" Fuller started.
"No way! We are one Tommy short of a McQuaid!" Doug explained.
"Oh, is that what those tomb stones on your desk are for?" Booker asked.
"May they rest in peace forever!" Doug crossed himself.
"Okay, fine, come up with something and let me know. Someone had to be in jail," Fuller said.
"Why?"
"Respect," Fuller replied simply.
--
A/N – Okay, I don't know what this is but I thought it would be all right. Kinda amusing and kinda sad because we no longer have the McQuaids. The line "We are one Tommy short of a McQuaid," was some stupid shit I came up in the bathroom after I read that one by Random Insights. Not to mention that now I know why Tom went to Jail…yeah…it's kinda sad.
