Welcome to the my latest fic. This is a case fic, written more like an episode of the show from season 1 or 2, and, of course, it's Careese. It's not a Wolf fic, but don't worry, I have another story about the Wolves that is close to being done.
Many thanks to wolfmusic218 for the beta! You rock!
Normally I would post my chapter 3 times a week on Mon, Wed and Fri, but I've rather busy lately so I'll be posting twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays.
I should also say that I don't own Person of Interest, or any of the characters from the show. I don't make any money from this, I play in this sandbox for fun only.
The New Number
"Come on Taylor, MOVE! You're going to be late! You going to make me late!" Joss Carter yelled down the hall towards Taylor's room. "That boy slept through his alarm again!" She groused.
A showered, shaved, and dressed John Reese leaned against the kitchen counter sipping his first cup of coffee. "Teenaged boys can sleep through anything," he remarked idly.
"Tell me about. Here it is seven a.m. and I already have a headache trying to get that kid moving." She rubbed her temples.
John handed her a commuter mug full of hot coffee. "You go ahead. I'll take care of this."
Joss looked up at him in surprise. "Won't you be late?"
John shrugged. "The nice thing about being a vigilante is that there's no clock to punch. Finch will understand."
Joss stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips. "Thanks. Love you."
John returned her kiss. "Love you, too. Stay safe."
As soon as Joss was out the door, John walked down the hall to Taylor's room. Standing in the doorway, he saw that Taylor was still cocooned in a giant lump of blankets in the middle of the bed; all of his mother's yelling hadn't moved him a bit. With a smile, John took a deep breath and launched into a perfect imitation of his boot camp drill sergeant.
"ALRIGHT MAGGOTS!" His normally soft voice boomed. "It's time to get your lazy butts out of bed! You have fifteen minutes to shower and shine before the five mile run!"
Taylor's response was immediate; he tumbled out of bed onto the floor in a tangle of blankets and boy. His head popped up from the tangle, his eyes wide, and his afro flat on one side from his pillow.
"Oh good, you're up," John smirked, his voice returning to its normally quiet tone. "If you hurry and get dressed we'll still have time to stop at the doughnut shop." Then he turned and walked down the hallway, grinning as he heard Taylor scrambling to get ready. Lifting his eyes to heaven, he whispered, "Thanks Sergeant Griffin!"
An hour later, having deposited Taylor at school with an apple fritter and a cup of coffee, John Reese strolled into the library carrying his usual box of doughnuts and a drink carrier with two coffees and one Sencha green tea. As usual, his partner in mayhem, Sameen Shaw, pounced on the box like a famine survivor, even though John was pretty sure she'd eaten breakfast already that morning. Finch greeted him and politely thanked him for the tea. Bear greeted him with a cheerful yip and a furiously wagging tail.
John noticed that Finch had already taped a picture of a middle-aged black woman to the wall of glass where he posted their numbers. John stepped in to take a closer and realized that it was a mug shot. "Who's the perp?"
Finch raised an eyebrow. "We don't know if she is victim or perpetrator yet, Mr. Reese. This is Sh'Linda Moore, our new number."
"That's a mug shot Finch, what was she accused of?"
Finch stepped over to his computer and pulled up more information. "Killing her husband, Roger Jimenez. Ms. Moore grew up on the mean streets of Watts but apparently had extraordinary talent and drive. Despite her impoverished beginnings, she won a full academic scholarship to USC. Go Trojans."
Finch glanced up to see how his little joke was received only to find that Shaw was stone faced. He sighed.
Shaw shrugged. "When you say Trojans I think condoms, Finch."
Finch blinked while Reese rolled his eyes. "TMI, Ms. Shaw," Finch sighed. He turned to his computer and tapped a few keys bringing up a wedding announcement featuring Sh'Linda with a handsome Hispanic man of medium height. "While at USC she changed her name to Linda, supposedly to fit in better with her somewhat conservative business school classmates. She also met and married Mr. Jimenez. They graduated with their degrees in accounting, got their CPAs, and started a small accounting firm in San Diego, Mr. Jimenez's home town. They were wildly successful and their firm grew steadily. At their peak they had over one hundred employees."
"That's impressive," Shaw said as she chomped down on her second doughnut.
"Yes it is," Finch agreed. "Do you remember Kling Associates, the large accounting firm that failed nearly fifteen years ago?"
John shook his head no. "I was out of the country."
Shaw nodded. "I remember it; they were huge. But they got caught cheating on audits of publicly traded companies and they went down in flames. Their CEO is in prison and thousands of people lost their jobs."
Finch nodded. "Jimenez & Moore were able to pick up several of Kling's large clients in the San Diego area and became a multi-million dollar company overnight. In an ironic twist, it turned out to be the worst thing that could have happened to them"
"How so?" John asked.
"Apparently, they took on more work than they could handle and they found themselves under investigation for falsifying several important audits and tax records. It seems they simply could not keep up the huge amount of work they took on and lied about conducting several crucial audits. From what I have read, it took it's toll on the marriage. During Ms. Moore's murder trial her sister Shanika testified that she thought that Mr. Jimenez was having an affair."
"So she killed him." Shaw noisily bit into another doughnut, her third. John rolled his eyes, he was never able to understand how Shaw could be such a good operative when she was so noisy doing the most mundane things. How the heck did one make so much noise chewing a doughnut?
Finch ignored the interruption and continued with his story. "According to trial testimony, in an effort to rekindle their marriage, Ms. Moore and her husband rented a sailboat and sailed to Catalina Island. They anchored off the coast, had a romantic dinner at one of the high end restaurants on the island, and returned to the boat. Ms. Moore claimed to have blacked out after drinking several glasses of wine. When she woke up, she and the boat were covered in blood and Mr. Jimenez was missing. His body was never found despite an extensive search by the Coast Guard."
"She blacked out? A likely story," Shaw snorted with her mouth full of doughnut.
John looked at Sh'Linda's picture thoughtfully. "Was she ever tested for drugs in her system? Rohypnol, GHB, anything that would make her blackout?"
Sameen rolled her eyes and took another noisy bite. "You don't believe that B.S. story, do you?" She chewed with her mouth open, much to Finch's disgust.
John didn't even glance at his partner in chaos, he merely continued to look at Sh'Linda's picture. "She grew up on the streets of Watts and she had a degree from a prestigious university in a difficult major. She had both street smarts and book smarts, that's a rare combination. If she was going to kill her husband, she would have been a lot smarter about it."
Finch nodded his head. "I agree with Mr. Reese. Looking through the police files, the investigation immediately focused on Ms. Moore and never looked into any other possibilities for Mr. Jimenez's disappearance. She may well be innocent - and the victim."
Shaw rolled her eyes again. "Whatever." She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Why isn't she in prison now?"
"She took a plea deal, pleading guilty to manslaughter to avoid a murder charge," Finch explained. "She was paroled four months ago. According to prison records, she was a model prisoner and got the maximum time off for good behavior. She was diligent about making her appointments with her parole officer, until about a month ago when she vanished."
"We'll need to get eyes on her. Do you know where she is?" John asked.
Finch tapped his keyboard. "She's staying in a house on Bedford Street in the Bronx. The lease was signed with the name Sh'Linda with a fake last name, so she appears to be back to using her birth name." A map popped up and Shaw and Reese both looked over his shoulder.
"That's a rough neighborhood," Shaw grumbled.
"We can't get all our numbers from the Upper East Side," John smirked at his partner. "She's from Watts, she can handle herself."
"I'm not worried about her," Shaw snapped irritably.
"I'll protect you, don't worry." John's blue eyes were twinkling.
Shaw responded by angrily stomping out of the room.
Finch looked over at John. "Did you have to do that?"
John smirked at his employer. "She made fun of my arsenal, so yes." Finch glared at him but John kept his smirk in place. "I'll let her drive, that'll cheer her up.
"Call Joss. Ask her to talk to Sh'Linda's warden and her parole officer." And then John followed his partner out of the room.
Shaw and Reese found Sh'Linda's address easily enough. It was a tiny, dilapidated house in a neighborhood made up of tiny, dilapidated houses. Just about every house on the block had anti-theft bars on the windows and the ones that didn't had at least one window that was boarded up. A disturbing number of homes had both. Many of the houses were surrounded by cyclone fencing with locked gates. It was the kind of neighborhood that made Reese glad he had the Glock stuck in his waistband nestled against the small of his back.
The house was located on a side street only a few blocks from a busy thoroughfare. No one paid them any mind as they parked their non-descript Toyota a couple of doors down from Sh'Linda's rental.
They didn't have long to wait before Sh'Linda opened her door and stepped outside wearing a light jacket and carrying a purse. She paused to lock the door and then strode with purposeful strides down the street. Reese and Shaw got out of the car and followed discreetly, but Sh'Linda wasn't looking for anyone following her.
Sh'Linda seemed to be in a hurry as she walked down the street. Even with his long legs, Reese was hard pressed to keep up with her and the much shorter Shaw was practically galloping.
They caught up to her as she waited for the light to cross the street several blocks later. Sh'Linda shifted her weight from side to side impatiently as she waited for the light to change. A small crowd was gathered on the corner waiting for the light with her, but she took no notice of anyone; her attention was fully focused on the light as if she was willing it to change. Reese took advantage of her inattention to blue jack her phone.
Finally the light changed and she stepped off the curb. John heard the screech of tires and was in motion even before he saw the car. Sh'Linda froze in the middle of the street staring at the large late 80s Buick bearing down on her. John pushed her safely out of the way and leapt in the air, rolling on his shoulder over the hood of the car and off to one side, covering his head with his arms. He crashed to the asphalt by the driver's side door of the car as it rushed on past him. The driver never applied the brakes.
John took a moment to catch his breath as he lay on the ground taking inventory of all his extremities. To his relief, everything was still attached and seemed to be in working order. Aside from having the breath knocked out him when he hit the ground and some nasty bruises, he appeared to be fine.
A crowd was gathering around him as he sat up. "Did you see that?" one woman wearing a garish fur coat screeched. "The car didn't even slow down!"
Shaw squatted down next to him. "You OK?"
John glared at her. "You should have stayed with Sh'Linda."
"Sorry I was concerned for you," Shaw grumbled. "She's gone already. She didn't even stop to check to see if you were alright after you pushed her out of the way." Shaw helped him to his feet with a grunt. "You need to lose weight, Joss is feeding you too good. Lay off the lasagna."
"You would know it's impossible to stay away from Joss's lasagna if you'd had it." John took a few tentative steps and nodded with satisfaction that everything was working as expected. "I'll return to HQ in case Finch has a lead for us. He can probably track Sh'Linda's phone. You should check out her house for clues."
Shaw grunted her approval. "I'll catch up to you when I finish up at the house." She reached up and tapped her earpiece. "Hey Finch, we lost Sh'Linda and we need to you start looking for a car with a Reese-shaped dent on the hood."