"Steve!"
Mike saw his partner look back over his shoulder just long enough to see him point in the direction that Edwards had disappeared before Steve changed direction and ran towards the steps leading down to the partially built subway that ran below the city. Veering to the right, Mike headed to the other set of stairs. With his gun drawn Mike cautiously descended the stairs before hearing the sound of running feet reverberating through the semi-darkness as he reached the subway platform.
Pausing a heartbeat, Mike carefully peered around the corner of the partially built platform. Several bullets suddenly ricocheted against the wall only inches from his head, spraying his face with several small slivers of cement and causing him to duck back behind the safety of the cement wall. Clutching his gun, a little tighter, he heard Steve yell, "Hold it, Edwards!"
Stepping out from the stairway, he begun to run in the direction of the two sets of running footsteps along the rail tracks as they faded into the darkness of the tunnel. Jumping down onto the track, he stumbled but caught himself before he followed the two dark figures that he could just make out in the poorly lit the tunnel into which Steve had chased Edwards.
Following as quickly as he could, Mike heard Steve shout again for Edwards to drop his weapon before he heard the distinct sounds of a violent scuffle somewhere ahead. Suddenly two gunshots rang out, echoing through the tunnel. With an extra burst of speed, Mike rounded the curve in the tunnel and stopped when, in the small sliver of light given off by the small guidance light located in the ceiling above, he could make out the dark shape of someone laying, motionless, on the ground as a second figure crouched above them with what appeared to be a gun in his hand.
Yelling at the figure to drop his weapon, Mike only had enough time to fire his own gun when the dark figure spun around, the dim light reflecting off the metal barrel of the gun that he held in his hand. The impact of Mike's bullet threw the figure backwards onto the tracks where the figure crashed, heavily, onto his back and did not move.
Quickly crossing the few steps that separated them with his gun still trained on the unmoving suspect's chest, Mike leaned down to grab the gun from the suspect's lax hand. He momentarily froze with shock when he saw the suspect's face in the dim light before his eyes drifted across to the second body which was staring back at him with sightless eyes, only feet away, in the semidarkness before he looked back in horror and disbelief at the man he had just shot.
Dropping his own weapon to the ground, Mike dropped to his knees as he quickly felt for a pulse. He held his breath until he was certain he felt the weak, regular thump under his fingertips. Quickly reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his handkerchief and pressed it, with a shaking hand, against the small bloody hole in his unconscious partner's upper chest as he whispered, desperately, "Oh God, what have I done? ... Steve?... Steve?... Can you hear me, Buddy boy?...Steve?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Stepping across to where the body was laying as his partner hurried across to speak to the uniformed officers, Ray Vernon glanced around the now brightly lit tunnel. He paused and watched as one of the lab guys carefully maneuvered his tweezers into a small hole in the wall, just opposite of where he was standing before extracting the remains of what appeared to be a bullet and dropping it into a small plastic evidence bag.
Looking back at the body, he ignored the flash of the camera as the police photographer took photos of the discarded gun that lay near the body's outstretched hand as he knelt down beside the coroner and asked, "What have we got, Bernie?"
"He was killed by a single gunshot round, fired at close range, very close range, to the chest. There's gunshot powder stippling and burn marks around the entry wound. It entered the front of his chest, probably hit his heart on the way through before exiting out of the center of his back," the coroner told the IA officer as he dropped the sheet back over the body and nodded at his attendants that they could now remove the body, "I suspect that he was dead before he even hit the ground but I will be able to tell you more when I do the autopsy." Bernie continued as they rose to their feet, tilting his head in the general direction of the wall that Ray had just watched one of the lab guys remove the bullet, "I'm willing to bet the bullet the lab guys just dug out of the wall over there is the same one that killed him."
Ray nodded, "Thanks Bernie, Lou's gunna want the autopsy report on his desk as fast as you can."
"Of course," the coroner grumbled distractedly as he supervised the transfer of the body into the body bag.
Turning around, Ray watched his partner look up at the tunnel's ceiling before looking back towards the body as the forensic scientist was explaining something to him. He saw Lou nod and lightly slap the forensic expert on the shoulder before Lou walked back across to where he was waiting.
"So, what did Bernie have to say?" the senior IA officer asked, joining Ray as the coroner's attendants carried the stretcher past before they turned and followed them through poorly lit tunnel.
"Edwards was killed instantly. Bernie thinks the bullet went through the heart, he will be able to confirm that after the autopsy. But whatever happened, Bernie said the gun was fired at close range, there's gunshot stippling around the entry wound. The bullet went right through and lodged in the wall behind him."
"Makes sense with what Charlie thinks initially happened here. There's signs of a struggle and a bullet lodged in the roof directly over the body." Lou told his younger partner.
"So, what do you think happened?"
"I think Keller and Stone chased Edwards into the subway, Charlie said that Keller's and Edwards's guns both have two bullets missing from the chambers. We know that two bullets were fired on the platform, I suspect that two the bullets found there will match the bullets in Edwards's gun. I think Keller caught up with Edwards here in the tunnel. I'm not sure why but I suspect after Keller caught up with Edwards, there was some sort of a struggle between them."
"And Edwards lost his gun." Ray nodded in agreement of his partner's scenario as he remembered the gun on the ground next to the body.
"Edwards probably then tried to grab for Keller's gun, the gun went off, one bullet lodged in the ceiling-" Lou continued.
"And the other bullet hit Edwards in the chest." Ray finished for him before frowning. "But that doesn't explain how Stone came to shoot his partner."
"That, my young friend, is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question."
"So, what do you think happened?" Ray's frown deepened.
"Stone's got a daughter, Jeannie. She must be about eighteen years old now." Lou began to muse as they walked along the subway track back towards the platform.
Ray nodded.
"Well, maybe something was going on between Keller and his kid, something Stone wasn't happy about. After all, Keller's a young buck, and young bucks like to spread their oats, plus I heard that Keller has a bit of a playboy reputation with a different girl on his arm every week."
"Lou, you don't honestly think?" Ray looked at his partner in surprise, "Oh, come on, Lou, I know it's the station in- house joke about how Mike feels about cops dating his daughter, but that's all it is, a joke, and I am sure that every cop who has a daughter has at one time or another said the same thing, even you… and this is Mike Stone we are talking about-"
"It might be Mike Stone whom we are talking about but think about it for a second, Ray, what we have here is a cop and not just any cop, but a well-seasoned Homicide lieutenant who has been on the job for more than twenty years who just shot his young partner. An experienced cop who, after the shooting, did not follow correct protocol. Instead of staying at the scene as Stone knows he should, he ignored the first officers' on the scene requests that he remain on the scene, instead he insisted… no, not just insisted, the officers told me Stone pulled rank on them and told them that he was riding in the back of the ambulance with the man he had just shot. Which leaves me asking myself, did Stone break protocol because he was worried about his partner, or did he break it because he was worried that Keller might regain consciousness in the ambulance and tell someone that his partner shot him?
This could simply be, just like Stone told the responding officers, just a tragic accident and Stone did, in fact, accidentally shoot his partner, thinking that Keller was Edwards and that Edwards was about to shoot him after killing his partner. Or maybe, this is something else entirely. Maybe, Stone saw it a means to an end. But whatever happened, it's our job to find out!"
Stepping back into the Montgomery Station, Lou climbed back up onto the platform before turning and waiting for his younger partner to scramble up beside him before he turned and walked towards the stairs that led up to the street above, "So, let's start doing our job by finding out if there was something going on between Stone's kid and Keller, something that Stone decided to put a stop to, or if the actual partnership between Stone and Keller is really as close as everyone believes."
"So where do you want to start, Lou?"
"Let's start with Stone at the hospital. I want to know just what happened between him and his partner down here this afternoon and why he ignored protocol and left the scene before we arrived."