This story was written for the fourth round of the Talk CSI Nick Fic Song Challenge. The inspiration was the song, "The Eleventh Commandment" performed by Collin Raye. Word limit was 2,500. Warnings for suggestions of child abuse.
Still Smoldering
Did God overlook it?
What ought have been written?
The eleventh commandment,
Honor thy children.
Arson is a passive aggressive crime.
Sneaking around unseen, lighting a match, tossing it, and running. Coming back and watching the havoc that's been caused. Watching the results the actions have on the victim. Having satisfaction but never having to face up to it. Or to the victim of the crime.
The fire rages like the anger rages inside of them.
Nick could sense the fire in the young boy. It was smoldering now, not raging, but soon it would flare up again. The child sat across the table from Brass, next to his mother. His sandy brown hair was a bit too long, covering the tops of his small ears. The sleeves of his blue and red Superman jacket came down over his hands, leaving just his fingers exposed. Just beneath the questions Brass was asking, Nick could hear a dull thunk, thunk, thunk. From his position standing behind the boy, he cocked his head and looked under the table to see the boy's feet swinging just above the floor, his SpongeBob sneakers knocking against the chair legs.
"Honey," his mother said, putting her hand on his leg to stop the swinging.
The child jerked away from the touch, and Nick's tongue made a brief appearance between his lips as he cocked his head in the other direction now, observing the behavior.
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Benson said to Captain Brass. "He seems really…nervous lately." She cast her teary eyes back toward her son who was now resting his chin on his arms that were folded on the table in front of him.
"He has good reason to be," Brass answered. "Don't you, Michael?" When the child did not answer, he persisted. "Son, we already know that you did it. The matches, the footprints, the gum wrapper…they tell us that you set the fire." He leaned over the table toward the boy. "What they don't tell us…is why."
The child buried his face in his folded arms and mumbled something.
"Michael," his mother prodded, "answer the man."
The seven year old lifted his head and repeated, "He was mean." He then put his head back down.
"Michael, sit up!" His mother put her hand on his shoulder and tried to get him to rise up, but again he pulled away and put his face in his arms.
Nick walked over to the table and sat down next to Brass. He folded his hands in front of him and studied the youngster. "A lot of people are mean, Michael. But we don't try to kill them."
Michael raised one eye enough to look at Nick and then muttered into his arms, "I just wanted to hurt him."
The adults all looked at one another, then Brass asked, "Why?"
"'Cause he…" the boy stopped short and then said, "'Cause he's mean."
"What were you going to say, Michael? Because he what?" asked Nick.
The child cast his eyes up at Nick again, then flitted them toward his mother before responding, "Nothing."
"How is he mean?" Nick asked.
Michael buried his face in his arms again and mumbled, "Just is."
"Did he hurt you, Michael?" Nick persisted.
The boy kept his face in his arms and shrugged.
Brass sighed. "Well, okay. Mrs. Benson, we're going to need to take his clothes into evidence. If you want to…"
Michael jerked his head up and exclaimed, "No!"
"You can call someone to bring him a change of clothes," Brass continued.
Now the child was crying, pulling his jacket around him tighter and looking up at his mother, pleading, "I don't want to."
"Honey, they'll give them back. Come on," she said as she reached to take the Superman jacket by the shoulders.
"No! It's mine!" the boy shouted as he clutched the jacket against his chest. "I don't want to take it off!" he cried as his mother stood up and tried again to take it off of him. Her son struggled to get away from her, and Brass went to try to help her control him, but the child only fought harder.
Nick watched the scene escalating, feeling his own heart starting to beat faster. Finally he could take no more. "Hey, hey, hey!" he said, standing up. "Just…just let him alone a minute."
Brass and Mrs. Benson stopped their efforts and looked at him.
"Just let him alone a minute," Nick repeated.
The two adults let go of the child, and Michael hid his face in his arms on the table once more, his little body now shaking with his quiet sobs. "It's mine," he mumbled again softly.
Nick walked over near the door and asked Brass to come over as well. "Let me talk to him," Nick said in a low voice to the captain.
"You think you can get him to give up the clothes?" Brass asked.
Nick sighed and rolled his eyes upward. "I don't know," he said, obviously frustrated. "Look, you don't even need them, do you? You have enough to prove he did it. You told him so yourself." Nick glanced over at the boy who now had the blue and red jacket pulled up over his head on the table, but it could not contain the sound of his weeping. Nick looked back at Brass. "He as much as admitted it already. Just let him keep his damn clothes."
"Nick…" Brass began.
"You know this isn't even going to trial!" Nick raised his voice, then lowered it again. "Jesus, Brass…he's just a kid. The guy's gonna be okay, and the damage wasn't that bad. The judge is gonna order counseling and some kind of probation, you know that." He stopped talking and looked Brass in the eye. "You don't need anything else," he said evenly. "Just leave it at that."
"Well," Brass said, showing his annoyance, "you're the evidence guy. We'll leave it at that then."
Nick nodded. "Thanks. Now…let me talk to him?"
"What for? You said we don't need anything else," Brass said sarcastically, still upset at the criminalist's intervention in the process.
"Because I want to," Nick replied without looking at the captain, and he headed back over to the table. "Mrs. Benson, if you and Captain Brass wouldn't mind leaving for just a bit, I'd like to talk to Michael." The little boy stirred at the words, and Nick saw him peek out from under the jacket. "Would that be okay with you, Michael?"
The child raised his head up a bit to look at Nick, then at his mother. He used his sleeve to wipe the tears away from his face and then put his head down again and nodded.
"Come on, Mrs. Benson," Brass said as he opened the door to the interrogation room.
She looked down at her son, then at Nick as he stood waiting. "All right," she said. "Michael, honey…I'll be right outside." Getting no response from him, she sighed and left the room.
Before Brass left with her, he looked at Nick and said, "We'll both be right outside," gesturing with his head toward the two way mirrored window in the room. He turned and left, closing the door behind him, then led the distraught mother into the observation room.
Nick studied Michael for a moment as the boy sat with his face still hidden. He walked around to that side of the table and sat down in the chair that the boy's mother had occupied, turning it so it faced the child. "Hey, Michael," he began softly. "Do you want to talk?"
One eye stole a quick look at the CSI, then hid again as Michael mumbled, "About what?"
Nick leaned over closer. "About why you set those rags on fire in the maintenance room. About why you wanted to hurt the janitor."
"Told you. He was mean."
"Michael, sit up and look at me. Please," Nick asked.
The youngster hesitated, then finally raised his head up, but his eyes were still lowered. His small hands shook as he fingered the zipper on his jacket.
"Look at me, Michael," Nick said again. "You're okay. No one's going to hurt you here or do anything to you. You can tell me what happened."
Michael slowly raised his eyes up to meet Nick's. They were full of fresh tears that were threatening to spill over. His lower lip trembled as he whispered, "He said he'd kill my mom."
Nick's heart froze, then began to burn with anger. He fought it down, trying to remain a steady presence for the little boy, but his own hands were starting to shake now. "Your mom is safe, Michael. He was just trying to scare you. He can't hurt her."
The child looked up at Nick and this time the tears did fall as he asked quietly, "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Nick nodded. "I'm sure." He pulled a tissue from a box on the table and handed it to the boy who took it and blew his nose into it, wadded it up, and then handed it back to Nick. Nick couldn't help but smile a little at that, but he quickly got back to the business at hand. "So, Michael…why did Mr. Aldon threaten your mom? So you wouldn't tell?"
Michael jerked his head up quickly to face Nick and he shouted, "Tell what?! Nothing happened!" His small, round face fell as the tears came again. His voice broke as he whimpered, "How do you know? Nothing happened…how…nothing happened."
"It's okay, Michael. You didn't do anything wrong. He did."
"But…but he said…he said it was my fault," the boy said, barely audible, his head bowed.
Nick felt the anger rising again. "Look at me, Michael. Look at me." He shook his head as the child looked up. "It was not…NOT…your fault. Do you understand? He's a sick, horrible person and he had no right to hurt you. Do you understand?!"
Michael looked at Nick and nodded unconvincingly.
Nick sighed, running his hand over his face. "Look, Michael…you need to talk to your mom about this. You need to tell her what happened."
"No," he responded, his lip trembling again.
"You have to tell her. She needs to know. She needs to be able to help you with this. She loves you, Michael. She's not going to be mad at you. She loves you and would do anything to protect you. You need to tell her."
Michael lowered his head and mumbled something that Nick was sure he misheard. "What did you say, Michael?"
The child looked up and asked again quietly, "Did you tell your mom?"
Nick leaned back in the chair, feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to rid his mind of the thoughts that were racing forward and demanding to be heard. He opened his eyes to find that the boy was still looking at him expectantly. He cast a quick glance toward the mirrored window before leaning forward again and looking the boy in the eye. "No…no, I didn't."
"Why not?"
Nick sighed. "I just…I was scared. Like you. But I should have told. The person who did it…should have been punished…should have been stopped. Like Mr. Aldon. You didn't want to kill him, did you, Michael? You didn't even want to hurt him. You just wanted him to stop."
"Yeah."
"Yeah," Nick replied back with a deep sigh. "Just wanted him to stop."
In the observation room, Mrs. Benson was being consoled and counseled by Brass. Although she had missed some of the conversation…the parts that were whispered or mumbled…she understood exactly what had happened to make her little boy transform from a happy, sweet, outgoing child to a sad, withdrawn shell of himself. She looked up as Nick entered the room. "How is he?"
"He's ready to see you," Nick answered.
Mrs. Benson looked at Brass and he nodded. She left and then entered the interrogation room where her son ran to her, letting her scoop him up into her arms. She held him tightly, swaying back and forth with him before sitting down with him on her lap. Nick and Brass watched through the window as she wiped his tears away and he began to tell her his story.
"I assume you'll be sending officers to the hospital to arrest Jerry Aldon?" Nick asked as he continued to stare through the window.
"Already on their way."
"Good." Nick turned and walked away, but stopped as Brass called out.
"Hey, Nick?"
Nick put his hands on his hips, bowed his head, and sighed. "Yeah?" he answered without looking around.
"Was that…did you really…is that…true?"
Taking a deep breath, Nick turned to face the captain. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
Brass looked at him, thinking and feeling a hundred different things but only coming up with one thing to say. "I'm sorry."
Nick nodded in acknowledgment. "Thanks," he said, then turned and resumed walking down the hall.
"You did a good job!" Brass called after him.
Nick held up a hand in a half-hearted wave in response as he kept walking. When he reached the end of the hall, he turned and entered the men's room, happy to find it empty as he barely made it into a stall before retching up the contents of his stomach. It took three attempts before he finally felt like he was finished. He went to the sink and turned on the cold water, splashing it onto his face over and over again until he could no longer tell the difference between it and his tears.
Once home, Nick entered the house and went straight to the kitchen, opening up the refrigerator and grabbing a bottle of beer. He popped the cap off and drank a third of the cold liquid in one guzzle. He leaned against the counter and sighed, then drank another third, grabbed a bag of pretzels, and headed to the living room. He flopped down on the couch and picked up the TV remote. He aimed it at the television, turning it on, and then put the remote down, content to watch whatever happened to be on that channel at that moment. But he wasn't really watching…just staring at the screen.
Finally, he gave in and switched off the TV. He leaned back into the cushions of the couch, closing his eyes briefly before sighing and sitting up. He drained the last of his beer, then put the cold bottle to his forehead for a moment before setting it on the coffee table and picking up the phone. He punched in the numbers that he knew so well.
"Hi, mom. It's Nick."