The moment she steps on the crime scene Sharon knows her lightheadedness is only going to get worse. The dealership's lot is bad enough, but her heart drops with one look at the showroom. She has never dealt well with the poignant odors of gasoline nor the overwhelming new car smell — even without the annoying buzz of a headache she's been nursing all through the night. On top of it all, the morning rush hour has done neither her mood nor the lightheadedness any favors. She suspects the LAPD's floodlights inside the showroom will not turn the trend. Stalling, her eyes roam the rows of shiny cars. The search for a delay, any delay, comes up fruitless. She resigns to her fate: she has to get in there. Sharon sighs and poises to slam her car door shut. She rubs her temples and wills the headache to pass.
"Captain! Over here!" Tao interrupts her silent suffering as chipper as ever. Sharon glances over her shoulder and acknowledges him with a miniscule wave before locking the door and reluctantly making her way over.
"Good morning, Mike. What do we have?"
"Morning, Ma'am. The victim is a mister Anton Martin. Owner of this dealership," he gestures bringing together the lot and the building two rows behind him. "Found about two hours ago by the cleaner."
"And why are we here, exactly?" Sharon asks. Giving in to her discomfort she pinches the bridge of her nose.
"Well, the cleaner called the press. And then the police."
"And the press called Chief Taylor," Sharon defeatedly fills in the blanks. "I understood there was something about torture and mutilation?"
"Yes, Ma'am." He smiles, a little inappropriately given the subject matter. "About a hundred dollars worth. The cleaner made it up, Captain, to get better tip from the tabloid," he clears. "Follow me."
Tao starts leading her towards the showroom. Sharon follows relaxing her eyes for a step or two. She thinks the headache would ease if she knew how to release the tension. The mental anguish has weaved itself into physical discomfort: she's been on the edge for most of last night and now she is certainly paying for her restless ways. She misses Mike looking behind himself and raising a brow at his Captain walking with her eyes closed.
"And there is already an arrest?" Sharon states opening her eyes.
"Yes, Ma'am," Tao confirms and opens the showroom for her. Sharon falters at the doorstep, it is worse than she expected. The smell is like a hospital on acid, like vintage hand disinfectant that skips past her nose and straight into her already suffering brain. It is vile and disgusting and potent enough to make her swoon. The effect is not lessened by the too bright lights in a white room. She swallows and mentally chants herself to calm down. Mike steps behind her, cueing Sharon to move before she has to answer uncomfortable questions. She bites her lower lip for strength. "One Kevin Anderson, 'Crusher', came knocking around a little over an hour ago," he reports evenly. "About fifteen minutes after the scene was taped up. Carried a .38 and refused to answer any questions. Vocally."
She is almost afraid to ask. "What does 'vocally' entail?"
Tao directed her along a row of cars. "A lot of shouting expletives, obstruction of justice and resisting an arrest."
"So he will be staying with us for a while. That's good, at least," Sharon nods and skips over what looks like an oil stain.
"Look here!" Mike shouts stopping to point at something on the ground between two new Dodges. "A drop of blood! It's perfectly round, a little closer to the driver's door of the black Charger."
Sharon nods and steps around it. When you have seen thousands of blood marks, one smallish and perfectly round one is hard to get excited over. Especially when you wish to be almost anywhere else. Sharon knows her concentration and attitude will be tested today but there's nothing for it. Already she has forgotten the name of the victim. Was it Martens? No, Martinez? Something. She sniffs and wishes she dared to rub her temples again.
Hiding her discomfort, she turns around and spots a what looks like an office door 8 yards in front and 2 feet from her. The door is blue and flanked with two plastic looking palms. A frosted window takes most of the door. The larger windows with their vertical blinds beside it remind Sharon of her own office. She does a mental groan thinking of how many hours of her office she has to look forward to tonight. At least she can shut the door and be alone.
"The body is through there," Tao says rounding Sharon and starting towards the office. She follows him through the office door, nods to a couple of uniforms, straightens her jacket. Her heels clack against the smooth concrete flooring that stretches all through the showroom and into the office. No carpets, anywhere. She misses a tacky red carpet. Stepping into the office, the only warm things are the two ficuses, otherwise the decor is crisp and clinical with metal legs and no personal effects. Sharon assumes the personnel have no assigned desks. "In here", Tao repeats as they arrive at a nondescript white door in the corner, behind the three desks.
He opens the door. The small space behind crawls with people, so as the door pushes open, it hits Lieutenant Flynn squarely in the back. He turns with a scowl and a biting remark on his tongue which only die as he comes face to face with Captain Raydor. Sharon. He tries to smile a bit.
"Cap—"
"Morning, Lieutenant," Sharon says immediately and pulls the door letting it close with a click. Studying the handle, she slowly breathes in and out. "Mike, why did you say 'the door was locked from the inside'?"
Tao shifts on his feet awkwardly. He gauges the situation, what's actually happening here. The Captain stares at the closed door, the white surface that is as nondescript as can be. She looks up and down, taking her time, then turns to wait for an answer.
"Because," he starts slowly, because something is off, he can sense, "the door was, uh, locked and the key was, well, found inside." He winces internally. Try as he might, that didn't sound one bit less patronizing than it did in his head.
"I'm aware of that," the Captain says a little short, "but what I fail to see is the connection here. We have a locked door with a body and a key inside, yet we also have a cleaner who could actually see that body. What I am presuming here, is that the cleaner did so on the other side of this door."
"Ah," the Lieutenant catches on and lets his smile reappear, "that would be a no." He steps forward and gestures the Captain to step aside. "See this thing here?" Mike says pointing to a small box above the lock and handle. "That is an electronic access system. It works on the principle of converting —"
"The short version, please, Mike."
"Yes, of course," he says somewhat disappointed. One of his fingers touches the box fondly. "It controls the primary lock. It's all electronic and works with a tag. Besides giving access to a tag, it can be programmed to give access to a certain tag only during certain days or times."
"And the cleaner has a tag?"
"Yes, that's correct. It only works from 5.30 am to 7.30 am, Monday through Friday. The tag was shown to the machine, and it opened the electronic lock, but the mechanic lock kept the door closed. That's when our cleaner crouched down and called the press."
Sharon raises a brow. "Crouched down?" Mike nods and gestures to follow him as he kneels on the floor. She gives him a cautious look and checks the surroundings. Great, this was only going to get better. As if the smell wasn't bad enough now. As if the buzz in her head wasn't bad enough. But she knows the sooner she checks whatever it is she needs to check, the sooner she can leave.
The concrete is cold and gritty against her bare knees. It looks reasonably clean however. She assumes she only imagines the increasing fumes. One last smoothing of her skirt later Sharon takes a breath and leans over to all fours. Tao directs her to look under the door. There is a gap through which she gets a glimpse of Flynn's shoes before the door starts receding. She doesn't bother moving, not even when she hears his gasp for breath.
"Can you shut the door, Lieutenant? I would rather not be down here any longer than I have to."
"Uh, well, yes, of course." Andy's eyes linger on her ass for a second. This certainly is not what he was expecting when he decided to open the door. Not a bad sight, though. Not bad at all. She clears her throat and he gets to moving. "Sorry, Captain."
The door closes again and this time Sharon and Mike observe, beside Flynn's shoes just inches away on the left, a key about two feet away to the right and about six feet beyond a body lying behind someone in a dark navy windbreaker crouching beside it. A dark wooden desk stands by the body's head. Multiple filing cabinets line the far wall.
"As you can see, Captain," Tao summarizes as they both lean back on their haunches in preparation to stand up, "the victim is clearly visible. If Kendall wasn't on the way, you would see the blood from the gunshot wound as well from here." He points in the middle of his forehead. Sharon nods her thanks and Mike gives her a hand up. She quickly brushes her knees and hands despite them being surprisingly clean. "There are only two keys in known existence. One never leaves the safe, the other never leaves the victim's presence. Both accounted for."
"Who has access to the safe?"
"Still figuring that out. The victim and the manager, that we know of." Tao opens the door and ushers her inside. "We are actually really behind on background," he says apologetically.
Sharon leads them in. Provenza stands in one corner with a uniform from Hollywood, their eyes on the floor where Kendall is working the body. Amy stands behind the body, in front of the filing cabinets, taking notes. Two uniforms stand behind the desk, going through the papers in view. Buzz monitors the progress over their shoulders. Sanchez is nowhere to be seen. Sharon finishes her round of the room by meeting Flynn's eyes for long enough to receive a nod in greeting. She merely looks back towards the end of the room and goes to crouch beside Kendall.
"Single gunshot to the head, looks like close contact, execution style."
Crouching down Sharon listens through the few details they have. There is not much, but she feels like she misses half of it. Like she has trouble understanding English. She is glad for Amy's note taking. It will be very in-depth. Sometimes Sharon wonders whether Amy records everything because of perfectionism or inexperience. At least she is a quick writer. When Provenza steps behind her and starts rattling off his notes, which no one else will never ever be allowed to see, she prays Amy won't fail her now.
"There's a wife and a kid somewhere and manager's outside waiting for a ride to the station," Provenza grumbles on background. "The goon is already on his way courtesy of Hollywood." Sharon straightens and faces her second in command. He reads more, "Nice boss, asshole when stressed, amazing lack of personal skills, probably not had a mistress. Yada yada yada, the usual stuff." He looks up from the notebook. "I'm going to say the wife did it."
"Where is the wife?"
Provenza shrugs. "On a trip with the kid," Sanchez supplies from the doorway. "Somewhere."
Sharon puts her weight on one leg and sighs. "We really need more details." She rubs her temples. "I think I've seen everything here. Now we need information."
"You can make a start with Flynn," Provenza offers. Andy joins the group at the body and Provenza gestures at him with his notebook. "He needs a ride anyway."
Out of the corner of her eye Sharon glances at the man now standing beside her. Oh God. Anything but; she feels suffocated enough with the unrelenting buzz in her head. "I, uh, well, I need to..." One of her hands searches for something in that pongy air but comes up empty. "I have a meeting. And I need to pick something up. On the way," she adds with a little desperate hum. "It's all good. Lieutenant Flynn can give you a hand here until you're done. Or something," she finishes before nodding to the others and hurrying out of the room. She stops barely beyond the door at the office, hears Flynn sigh an "okay". It sounds like a stage whisper, designed to be just loud enough for her to hear.
Sharon shakes her head and acknowledges the young officer standing between two of the desks filling the impersonal space. "Great work, Officer," she says. He only nods, a little quizzically. "I, uh, have a meeting. Yes," she adds and tries a smile before realizing the rookie probably won't care. He quirks a brow while she fiddles with her hands. "Well, uhm..." She doesn't know why she's still standing right there trying to engage someone that doesn't matter, someone that probably doesn't even know who she is. The too familiar set of footsteps from behind her back spook her into moving on. "Well, nice work," she says and runs away in case she is followed by a certain Lieutenant.
Through the lot she scuttles over to her car, beeps the doors unlocked, then fights her purse's tangled handles off her arm and into the back seat. Jumping on the driver's seat one of her heels bumps the floor almost bouncing on the concrete outside. She takes a moment to find her equilibrium. With deep breaths she feels her cheeks flush. Embarrassment is a familiar condition to her but the unraveling of her steely work persona is more foreign. What's wrong with her? She rests her forearms on the steering wheel and her face on them. The horn beeps, she startles but resumes. Her focus is shot. Her ears ring with the bounding of her blood. The smell of petrol permeates the small space and breathing through her nose disgusts her — the reliving of her eloquence in the past couple of minutes anchors the disgust deep in her gut. And she can't stop rubbing her temples, the bridge of her nose. What's wrong with her! Besides the way she insists on making a fool of herself. Besides the way her ability to make smart choices has all but crumbled in the past day. Besides that, ultimately, there's certainly something wrong with her head.
