Mysteries of Love
Sequel of Puzzles of the Heart
A/N I really suggest that you read Puzzles of the Heart first since I wrote that first and have no way of gauging whether or not this one makes sense without Puzzle being read first. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, please read and review and let me know if you see any errors or mistakes or stupidity. :) This is basically the going over the same time period and events as my previous story but from Bobby's POV.
Chapter 1
Nelda Carlson. John Tagman. And Nicole Wallace. Nicole Wallace again.
I have been obsessed with my partner since we first met.
Initially, I didn't know what to make of my new partner. She was experienced, self-assured, by-the-book and she was tiny. I could see right away that she was intelligent and street smart. She was politically savvy too which was something that I envied. She could have the brass eating out of her hand and charm the DA without breaking a nail. She was also the most beautiful woman I have ever met.
In the past, my tastes had tended toward tall, leggy brunettes with smoky eyes and short attention spans. But Alex was this diminutive Goldilocks with a punch like a seasoned boxer and a pistol range score card that most cops would sell their mothers for. She could not only keep up with me on the job but she could follow my logic too. We became closer and meshed together like a well-oiled machine. We improvised well as we questioned witnesses. Interrogations were like enthralling tango dances, with the two of us flitting effortlessly back and forth, trading the good cop bad cop routine until our suspect broke.
Eames' sense of humor was ribald and sarcastic and she was constantly cracking me up. I think sometimes she was even doing it on purpose.
Everyday, I couldn't wait to get to work. I told myself that it was the job. Hey, Major Case right? Doing what I love doing, something I'm good at. Truth be told though, it wasn't the job that had me up early running to her favorite coffee shop. It wasn't the job that had me bribing other cops to hand over the last bag of Skittles that had slid down the chute of the vending machine. It wasn't the job anymore at all, it was my partner.
The worst of it all was that as time went on and she meant more and more to me and I tried less and less to get her to notice me romantically. Stupid huh? But I just couldn't risk seeing the empathy and sadness in her eyes if she ever knew how bad I had it for her. I became afraid.
When she first told me what she was going to do for her sister, I was really touched. I mean who does that for someone else? It really takes a special person. I thought it was great but I didn't think about all the contingencies. It surprised the hell out of me when Alex said that Deakins would assign me a temporary partner. It hadn't occurred to me that she wouldn't be there.
I tried the best I could to take good care of her while she was pregnant. Once, I noticed that she neglected to put her seat belt on when we were in hot pursuit. After that, whenever we were together, I put it on her myself.
It finally hit me when she started dating the accountant that she would never really be mine. I couldn't blame her. Being pregnant probably made it crystal clear to her that getting involved with another cop after Joe would be a mistake. An accountant keeps regular hours, an accountant always comes home at night. The accountant probably had less baggage that me to carry around.
Finally, when Alex was ready for maternity leave, I met my new partner. Bishop was young and eager and a little cocky. She was chomping at the bit, wanting to make sure she made the most of her shot in Major Case. She wasn't sure at all if I was going to help or hinder her with that. For myself, I enjoyed working with Bishop. It allowed me to be in charge, to call the shots. I even got to drive. But I missed Alex. There were times when I couldn't help pointing out things that Bishop missed that Eames would have picked up on. I now realized that Eames was the best partner I could ever have and the best friend I had in the world. I realized that not only was two out of three not bad but that I was a fool to think I, Bobby Goren would ever win the Trifecta and could never hope to have that amazing little woman's love also.
I resolved to distance myself as much as possible from her when she came back from having the baby. I was going to keep our relationship very business-like, professional. Our very first case together, however, found me dancing a mambo around Alex after the Merry Widow left the room. I was acting like a high school kid trying to impress the cute girl in chemistry class. I had told myself no more offers of lunch or drinks after a case but that didn't stop me from saying yes eagerly every time Alex ask me.
I also pretended not to notice how depressed she seemed after having the baby. Most of her friends and family noticed too and she was flooded with care and concern. Even though it killed me inside, I thought it best with my newly minted pragmatic attitude, to let everyone else try to comfort her during this problem.
Her post postpartum depression worried me less frankly, that the obsession she seemed to develop for regaining her figure after the baby. I watched helplessly as she lost all the weight and then some. I wondered if she ever caught on to the extra cream I put in her coffee or the increased number of bags of Skittles that ended up on her desk. I was just trying to say that she looked great the way she was. It was just trying to make her stop.
When the Ray Garnet case came along, I was struggling. My mother's illness was getting worse. Her medications caused her to be restless and irritable. She was calling me at all hours demanding I fire her doctors or produce Frank immediately. One night she got a hold of some poor nurses cell phone and called me at three in the morning. She begged me come and make her Zabaione, her favorite dessert. She had taught me to make this when I was nine years old. it's a custard-like dessert served with figs. Its made with eggs, sugar and wine and it has to be whipped for what seems like hours. She would whip for a while and then hand the whisk and bowl to me when her hand got tired. She always thought it tasted better when I made it. She said it was because I whipped left handed. Interestingly, Zabaione is the dessert an Italian bride is supposed to serve to her groom on the wedding night to give him enough energy to conceive lots of children. All that sugar and wine is probably why it was Mom's favorite.
Then during the course of our investigation, our attention turned to Nelda Carlson. My mother taught me to be a gentleman. Once Frank and I were taller than her, she would whack us upside the head if we didn't open the door for her. As a child I learned how to gauge my mother's moods. What set her off and what and who she responded favorably to. I became a student of the art of charm and flirtation. In my case, they became just more tools in my arsenal of survival. As I got older, of course, I figured out that these techniques could be applied to others, especially girls.
I hadn't been kidding when I told Elizabeth Hitchens AKA Nicole Wallace that I had spent time chasing coeds. I had been pretty focused on girls in the Army as well. Not much else caught my attention in those days until my unit was ask to investigate the murders in Korea that led me to working with Declan Gage. He became my mentor and showed me that it was possible to take a crime; or any set of circumstances and turn them on their edge, look at them from a different perspective. He taught me that putting a case together by following the clues could only take you so far. If you ran out of clues, you ran out of case but by psycho-analysis you could jump ahead and anticipate the next clue. You could get inside the perpetrator's head and then it was possible to not only figure out why he had committed the crime but what his next move would be and where he would hide the evidence.
Needless to say, this set me on fire and once back in the states, I joined New York's Finest and quickly made a name for myself in Narcotics. I had good reason to join the Narc squad; drugs had already stolen my brother's career and, even at that time, the shit was keeping him from helping me with our Mom too.
When we began to question Nelda Carlson, she merely struck me as a nice soft-spoken young woman and seemed very direct with her answers. All that changed when Alex left the room to take a call. She asked about my knowledge of the drugs prescribed for depression, she offered to help do some research for my mother's case and she tried to stroke my ego by implying that Eames might be inept and inefficient. I saw through her technique and tested it out by leaving Alex and the woman together as I left the room to make a call. Sure enough, Nelda was busy while I was gone trying to sow seeds of doubt and suspicion in Alex's mind about my future sanity. The bright smile and conspiratorial look on Alex's face when I told her that Nelda had been trying to pit us against one another literally made my heart do a flip in my chest. It felt so wonderful knowing that she was completely on my side.
What most people don't realize about murder is first of all, most of time its done by someone the victim knows. Secondly, you gather evidence and figure out what sort of knowledge the killer had to possess to commit the crime. When you start looking at who in their circle of acquaintances may have that knowledge or ability, the list can get very short, sometimes it only leads to one person.
By the time we made it back to One PP, I had already decided it was worth the time to find out more about Nelda Carlson.
Spending time with Nelda was an experience. And not one that I would care to repeat. The experience taught me something about myself and it wasn't a pleasant lesson.
I have always found it effective to get close to a suspect. I look for ways to invade their physical space and also to find a window into their emotions. Nicole had taught me that getting that close also meant the suspect could then see the chinks in my own armor as well. She was as adept at pushing my buttons as I was at triggering hers.
With Nelda, I could see that she was using my weaknesses against me and I allowed her to do that to trap her. What I didn't anticipate was being blind to the moment that feigned interest began to spill over into real regard. I found out that it wasn't possible to allow a suspect to get that close to me without risking getting too attached myself. Having someone to talk to about my mother; someone to pay a compliment to; these were things I had lived without since that very first day in Major Case.
Once I put the cuffs on her, Nelda pleaded with me to let her go to Barry. She asked me how I could do this to her when she knew I cared for her. She said she had seen it. I told her, I hadn't meant for her to see it, but I had. It had been my plan all along.
I lifted my gaze over to where Alex stood. Her mouth was open and she was staring at me. There was no hope that she hadn't heard or had not understood what was said. I could clearly see now that I had acted in a way that was beneath me. I felt ashamed. I had hurt this woman who was sick and needed help and by getting too close I had hurt myself as well. It made it worse knowing that Alex saw it too.
Once back at One PP, I looked for Alex but her purse was not hanging from the back of her chair and her coat was gone from its hook. I had lost the chance to try to explain. As I grabbed my coat to leave, I knew deep down that even if I had found her, I would have never had the guts to tell her how much I appreciated how different she was from Nelda, how much I loved her integrity and honesty, how much it meant to me to live up to her example. There was a reason that she was senior partner and this case was an example of why.
One of our next cases brought us even farther apart and I wasn't sure we would ever find our way back.