Disclaimer: "Diagnosis Murder" and the characters in it are owned by CBS and Viacom and are merely being borrowed for recreational and non-profit purposes. I promise to return them unhar... OK, mostly unharmed.
Rating: T
Summary: In the aftermath of Carol's death, Steve regrets involving Mark in one of his cases.
Author's Note: I was really hoping to start posting this at the beginning of the fall since I actually started it the summer before last in the Lake District, but my writing is slow to the point of atrophy. However, it is now complete and new chapters will be posted as quickly as I can edit them.
I never really liked "Town Without Pity" so no one could be more surprised than me when this turned into a...well, sequel is too strong a word, perhaps a followup to that episode. If you aren't a fan of that episode or haven't watched it, please don't let that put you off. It is relevant only in that Carol has died.
Nonny knows why this one is for her!
Regrets
Chapter 1
Steve crouched down to inspect a glint in the shag carpet, doing his best to ignore the bare, size 7 feet with chipped, crimson nail polish that dangled in his peripheral vision. The scrap of paper that had caught his attention probably meant nothing, just an insignificant part of the general detritus of life, but he called over a member of the CSU to have it bagged anyway.
Serena Trenton was no housekeeper, although it was rumoured she had a brilliant mind, and the general state of disarray in the room would make gathering meaningful evidence harder. But, whatever her strengths and shortcomings when alive, she was now indisputably dead, her lifeless body a ghastly centerpiece to the disorganised room.
It seemed callous in the extreme to leave her hanging, but crime scene protocol dictated that, unless there was a chance of resuscitation, a body could not be cut down until the CSU and medical examiner had completed their necessary investigations. Photographs had been taken, and diagrams and measurements of articles on the floor nearby were almost completed, so now there was a general lull in activity as everyone waited for the arrival of the ME and the consultant Steve had called in.
They arrived together, a study in contrasts, chatting amiably and Steve strode to greet them. Although the detective was long inured to the grisly presence of death, the pitiful corpse cast a long shadow in the subdued atmosphere thus imbuing Steve's welcome with more than typical warmth. "Dad, Amanda, thanks for coming."
He caught the identical, and almost synchronous, grimaces as they took in the situation, an expression not of distaste or revulsion, but of sorrow, the instinctive regret of people who valued life and fought everyday to preserve it.
As Amanda moved to talk to the photographer, Mark skirted the room to join his son.
"Who is she?" His eyes roamed the scene, assessing and cataloging the surroundings automatically.
"Serena Trenton, only daughter and eldest child of Maxwell Trenton."
The name caught Mark's attention and he looked back alertly from his clinical appraisal of the body. "The 'Pharmaceutical King'?"
"That's the one." Steve kept his voice studiously neutral, but Mark had no difficulty picking up on the undercurrents of that observation. He knew that Steve worked each homicide case allocated to him with equal tenacity and purpose, believing in justice for the victim irrespective of wealth and fame. Yet, he was not so naive as to suppose that political pressure from above did not increase exponentially with the income level of the deceased's family.
He met his son's eyes with a commiserating nod. "So, what do you think - murder or suicide?"
Steve cocked his head slightly to one side, his grim expression melting into a mischievous smile like a ray of sunshine breaking through the dark clouds. The twinkle in his eyes was a duplicate of his father's trademark grin.
"Why do you think I asked you here?"
"My good looks and inestimable charm?" Mark hazarded brightly.
"Oh, that too," Steve amended hastily.
Mark quirked an eyebrow in appreciation of the patently spurious agreement. Little escaped his father, but Steve hoped that the familiar byplay had disguised his ulterior motive for inviting Mark to join the investigation. His father had always seemed to have a light inside, that sparkled from his eyes and glowed in his smile, but Steve hadn't seen that light very often in the last few months, not since Carol had died. Mark put on a good show that fooled nearly everybody, but Steve could sense the extinguishing of his father's special energy. Compared to his normal self, Mark was bereft of enthusiasm, empty and dull. Through accident or design, he had also avoided involvement in his son's work, but Steve was hoping that an intriguing mystery might kick-start his father's love of a challenge and pull him out of his inertia.
Mark was surveying the scene again with a professional eye.
"No suicide note?" he queried.
"We haven't found one yet. You think that's significant?" Steve asked dubiously.
Mark shrugged. "Statistically, people who hang themselves are more likely to leave a suicide note than people who use other methods." He threw Steve an apologetic smile. "Not exactly definitive, I'm afraid. Keep looking; often they're found in unexpected places, like the glove compartment of a car or a coat pocket."
Steve never tired of watching his father investigate a crime scene. In his mind, it could almost be labeled a spectator sport and he joined Amanda for better enjoyment of the proceedings. It contained similar elements to the magic shows which Mark loved to frequent - surprise results after incomprehensible actions, genuine thaumaturgics.
"Who found her?" Amanda's mellifluous tones distracted Steve from his alarmed contemplation of his father's ascent onto a rickety-looking table, for what purpose Steve wasn't entirely sure.
"When she didn't show up at an important meeting first thing in the morning, Trenton sent someone to fetch her." Steve half-rose in alarm as Mark teetered uncertainly on the table then sank back as his father gained the security of the floor.
"She looks so young," Amanda commented sadly.
"Twenty-eight," Steve returned briefly, not sure how she could tell from the distorted features, and preferring to keep his gaze on Mark instead of the corpse.
"What on earth could be so tragic at that age that could have impelled her to commit suicide?" Amanda wondered.
"Maybe nothing." Not wanting to prejudice his father's findings, Steve had not mentioned that his own instincts insisted that this was not a suicide. He could find nothing to substantiate that gut feeling, but the lingering atmosphere somehow spoke to him more of violence than despair. He could feel Amanda's gaze on him, but chose not to elaborate on his comment, and at that point Mark returned, dusting his hands off thoughtfully.
"Anything?" Amanda asked hopefully.
"Not a thing - literally," Mark answered emphatically. "And that very lack of evidence is making me uneasy. There are no drag marks that would lead to the assumption of murder, but nor are there any foot prints at all. You'd expect at least a visible mark from the ball of her foot as she pushed off to stand on the chair, but there's nothing. It's as if the carpet has been smoothed clean."
He gazed around pensively. "You know, if you subscribe to the theory that a clean desk denotes a sick mind, and if the converse is true, then this lady was eminently sane. Yet this death was obsessively tidy, almost textbook immaculate, and it's raising the hackles on my neck. Have you finished with the photographs?"
At Steve's nod of assent, Mark continued, "Then I'd like to look at that chair." He moved over to the finely carved, oak kitchen chair from which Serena had presumably launched herself to her death, and lifted it carefully, studying the indentations it had left in the carpet. Meticulously, he marked the depths on a piece of paper before shifting the chair to an adjacent space and asking Amanda if she would mind climbing on board.
Quickly catching on to his intent, she accepted the hand Steve gallantly offered and clambered up, moving around as if throwing a rope over the beam and eventually jumping off. Mark measured the results on the same piece of paper and held it up to show the discrepancy. He raised his eyebrows but made no comment. Although appearing to be of a comparable weight to the dead woman, Amanda's efforts had not caused the chair to bite nearly so deeply into the pile.
It wasn't particularly scientific, and wouldn't hold up in a court, but it was enough to increase suspicion. If a killer had lifted Serena onto the chair, it was the one indication that he couldn't erase.
"Let's bring her down, but don't cut through the knot," Mark instructed. "The best place is on the back of the beam."
They laid her in a body bag gently, both out of respect, and also so as not to dislodge or destroy trace evidence. Additional marks and injuries at this stage would merely confuse the autopsy.
"Is there any chance she was strangled and then hung up?" Steve hazarded.
"Almost none. Look here." Mark pointed to a white furrow around the neck with a congested looking red rim. "This inverted V, which moves upwards towards the point of the knot, is a dead giveaway - no pun intended."
Amanda joined the discussion. "You see these tiny, ruptured blood vessels here on the skin? They mean she was alive at the time of the hanging."
Steve winced at that clinical piece of information.
"She was definitely hanged," Mark confirmed. "But what is suspicious to me is the lack of violence at the scene. Her feet were in easy reach of the chair, but there are no signs she kicked it. There are no scratches on her neck."
Steve stared, puzzled. "But if it was suicide...?"
"Grabbing at the ligature is entirely involuntary, an instinctive move that can even happen after the loss of consciousness. I think the greatest likelihood is that she was drugged to keep her pliant."
"That should show up in the tox screen," Amanda announced briskly.
"How soon can you have some results?" Steve asked with his most hopeful expression.
"I can have a preliminary report by this evening, but it'll take longer for the official lab results to come in."
Amanda departed with the coroner's wagon, leaving the two Sloans to search through the house for any clues that would shed light on the fate of its occupant.
Mark investigated the bathroom to rule out the possibility of self-medication with tranquilizers. He found no prescription medicines, only over-the-counter analgesics and cold remedies. Foraging through the trash can, however, he uncovered an interesting item in the form of an empty pregnancy kit, but he was unable to find the urine stick itself and, try as he might, he could find no trace of the man who might have necessitated the use of such a procedure. He rejoined Steve who, after a search of the kitchen, reported only that Serena was a health food nut.
Uniformed officers were canvassing neighbours for information and, until the autopsy results were out, it was unclear how much else could be accomplished at their present location, so, by mutual agreement, they left the house.
Emerging from the warmth of the building, they paused, hit by the cool blast of wet air that had characterised the recent winter weather. The clouds did little to help dispel the gloomy aura of premature death that clung to them.
"Lunch?" Steve suggested with forced brightness.
"You buying?"
Steve affected a hurt expression at the amicable skepticism in his father's voice. "Sure I am. I know this great little place called Bob's that..."
"I'll tell you what," Mark interrupted him hastily. "It's my treat."
Steve knew that Mark's reluctance to dine at Bob's was no slur on the establishment that they co-owned with Jesse, but merely a reflection of the fact that they'd dined there three times already that week, and Mark's palate, more refined than his own, was yearning for more sophisticated cuisine, so he took no offense. "I know a pretty good seafood place nearby," he offered helpfully.
Mark brightened. "Seafood, that sounds just right."
Steve smiled mischievously. "They also do great ribs."
The level of conversation during the meal ranged from comfortable silence to intense discussion as to the relative merits of river fishing versus ocean fishing with the fluidity of two people totally at ease in each other's company. Neither wanted to mar the enjoyment of good food and companionship by introducing the topic of the investigation, so it wasn't until after they'd finished eating and Mark was trying to flag down their bustling waitress that he asked. "So what's your next move?"
Steve toyed with his water glass, the flaw in his plans suddenly apparent, and he felt an unexpected urge to prevaricate. "I need to talk to Maxwell Trenton," he replied eventually, hoping his father would put his palpable reluctance to answer down to the unpleasantness of the task.
The detective watched one cool trickle of condensation race another down the glass before meeting together and speeding down to be lost in the coaster. But despite his fascination with the laws of physics, he could still feel the intensity of Mark's gaze on him and the sheer force of that regard drew his eyes up to meet his father's.
"Would you like me to come with you?" Mark's voice was gentle, but Steve could not sense any emotion, although he searched his father's face desperately for some clue as to how to proceed.
Despite anticipating the question, Steve was at a loss as to how best to answer, impaled on the horns of a dilemma. He would like Mark's assistance in the forthcoming interview, knowing that his father could contribute considerably to a case that was politically sensitive and criminally complex, but Steve was also concerned that it would be personally distressing for Mark. Moreover, the concept of questioning the father of a murdered daughter in the presence of his own bereaved father made him queasy, a hard knot of tension coiling uncomfortably in his stomach.
It had been nearly four months since Carol had died, but the memory still festered, an aching sense of loss compounded by a profound sense of failure. Perhaps because she had played little part in their lives in the decade before her death, this grief did not intrude now on a daily basis, but boiled up unexpectedly catching him by surprise.
Since scattering Carol's ashes, Mark had never mentioned his daughter's name or the circumstances surrounding her death and, unsure of the reasons for this reticence, but presuming the memories were too difficult for his father to revisit, Steve had followed his lead. A silence had built up between them on this issue, brick by brick, becoming an almost tangible presence, a wall by now impossible to breach.
The resulting completeness with which she'd vanished from their lives made her death seem even more cruel, yet Steve felt incapable of protesting, partly out of respect for his father's grief and partly out of his own sense of guilt.
He knew that logically he was not to blame, but he still felt he had failed his sister and by extension his father. Even as a young child, his protective instincts had enshrouded Carol, shielding her from bullying and the natural hazards of childhood. Yet Carol had been killed while he celebrated his birthday and commented sarcastically on her failure to commit, and he couldn't forgive himself for that.
He could no longer help Carol, but he could shield his father from the gruesome reminder of her death. However, he had left his response too late as Mark took advantage of the delay and inserted a slightly more assertive opinion.
"I'd like to come," he commented softly, dropping his gaze to the plastic, checkered tablecloth.
"OK," Steve accepted with resignation, offering his father a tentative smile in the hopes of dispelling the unaccustomed awkwardness that suddenly sat between them, and ignoring the misgivings in his gut that swelled uncomfortably to apprehension. He wasn't sure why but, with that simple decision, he felt as if he'd stepped off familiar ground and was sliding inexorably down a precarious slope towards an uncertain and uncharted future. With an effort, he attempted to shovel all his negative thoughts to the back of his mind, burying them deep and dismissing them with a final pat of the spade.
Wiping his mouth with the napkin, he got to his feet briskly. "Let's go."
