Who's Looking at me?
This case was getting strange, some guy in a coffee shop pimping out college girls to old men and called it a scholarship. Well, he would call it something else but that was just him. He turned to the corner of the hallway and spotted Baez stood looking at a file stirring a cup of the horrid coffee that they had to drink.
"Hey," He called as he got up to her, she turned, she had started to wonder where her partner had got to.
"Hey. I ran Milo Finley," She started holding the file so that Danny could see it also. But at the same time, she was trying to work out if this kid was a good suspect.
"Yeah, what'd you come up with?" Danny asked.
Maria picked up her coffee as they started to move towards the squad room still looking at the file in her hand and she quickly picked out the important information and relayed it to her partner.
"Twenty-three, college dropout. Let's see..." She started as she quickly scanned the file and started to look more closely at Finley's criminal record. "Jumped a turnstile, drunk and disorderly, public urination. You know, basic frat-boy crap."
Danny thought for a moment, he had heard worse but still, that didn't help them with their case. They needed more or at least more of a lead on what the hell was going on.
"No history of violence?" He asked, after not hearing anything about Finley losing his temper.
Maria looked down at the file and shook her head, "No, but the dump on Maggie's real phone said that Milo called her 108 times after she broke up with him."
Danny turned to face Baez with a shocked look on his face. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Maggie had told them that Milo had been obsessed with her and after they had ended it, he wouldn't leave her alone. Finley's motive for wanting the professor dead had only become stronger.
"You're kidding me." Danny cried out, he couldn't believe this kid. The guy was obsessed.
Baez just pulled a face and turned to head towards her desk, this case was making them run in circles. Danny went to follow her but then a voice called his name.
"Detective Reagan."
Danny turned to see one of the young officers stood behind him. He had met Officer Cosgrove a couple of times on cases but it wasn't her that caught his attention it was the man sat watching him.
"I'll catch up." He said to Maria who nodded and headed to her desk. Danny turned back to the officer and nodded telling her that she had his full attention.
"You got a visitor." She said nodding her head towards the man who had been sat watching him, but as the officer mentioned him he had gotten to his feet.
Danny knew the man well but didn't expect to see him on the streets for a couple of more weeks. Bobby Flores, he had made a deal with him to catch a bigger and worse criminal. Danny moved around the officer, he shook his head.
"Well, look who made bail," Danny said with a smile. Flores, he knew wouldn't be in prison very long not with his connections but it was a little odd that he would come and see the man who had sent him to prison. Danny slapped Flores on his arm and watched as the officer walked away.
Flores shrugged his shoulders and spoke, "I got a cousin who loves me."
It made sense to Danny, he knew that Flores came from a family of criminals and it was often the thing that a family member in the same line of business would bail them out. But at least he had been able to take a criminal off the streets for a couple of weeks.
"Good, I hope you love him back. What's up?" Danny said looking at Flores, he didn't know why the man would come to him after being released.
"I need to talk to you," Flores said pointing at Danny who moved forwards as another detective past him.
Danny was taken aback even more. He was use to criminals threatening to kill him before and after their release but this was a first when a criminal had come to him and wanted to just talk. His guard was up. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but his guard was up.
"All right, come on over to my desk," Danny suggested and pointed over to his desk, he thought that it might be a good idea if Baez could also hear what Bobby had to say. He wasn't really worried about his own safety but of those that he cared about. He knew that Bobby wouldn't try anything in the precinct but maybe he had heard something inside that had made him think that he could make another deal.
Flores shook his head, not wanting to go near the other cops. "Someplace private."
Danny looked Flores over but guessed he had nothing to lose by listening to Flores. But he wanted to make sure that other officers were around him, just in case Flores tried something.
"Okay…" Danny started and checked that one of the smaller officers off the squad room was free. "...we can talk over here. Come on." Danny said pointing towards the office. The sat next to the box and was mainly used when they needed to watch any footage from a scene or an interview.
He pushed Flores first, not trusting the con whatsoever to make sure that he didn't try anything. Danny quickly looked over to where Baez was hoping to catch her eye but to no luck. She was busy on the phone.
As they entered the room, Flores turned to look directly at Danny who had joined him. But he left the door open, just in case.
"What's going on?" Danny asked. Looking Flores up and down just making sure that he wasn't going to try anything.
Flores took in a breath and then spoke. "Look, you were straight with me. So I'm going to give you a heads-up."
"Okay." Danny started, now very confused about what the hell was going on? And what did Flores mean by 'giving him a heads-up'? That comment only caused his guard to increase ten times. He stood and placed his hands on his hips and gave Flores a look that he wanted him to continue.
Bobby took another breath before telling him his story about why he was there. "Two days ago I got pulled out of my cell at Rikers by two detectives. Wanna interview me about you." He pointed directly at Danny.
This caused all the blood in Danny's body, someone was investigating him. But that didn't make sense, he hadn't done anything recently that would cause people to go after him. But also he could feel the anger start to build in his body, he hated the thought that he was under the microscope.
"What'd they wanna know?" Danny asked quickly, he needed to work out who was after him and more so why.
"Mostly they wanted to know how you got a statement out of me. If you hit me or violated my rights or whatever." Bobby reported.
Danny was now even more confused, what was the detectives looking for? He had been under an IA investigation before but they weren't interested in if he had violated a criminals' rights.
"So, what'd you tell them?" Danny asked.
Bobby looked Reagan at directly as he spoke, "I told them you asked questions and I didn't confess… and I gave you info on a guy in exchange for a break."
Danny listened careful to Flores report, it was right. It was very similar to what he had put in his report that he had handed into Gormley. So why would detectives need to check on his report if they weren't looking more closely at him?
But the information that Flores had given him only proved to him that someone was going for him full throttle if they had started to pull his old collars out of their cells to question them about him.
Before he spoke again, however, he quickly turned to check that no one was listening to them. Now that he knew someone was after him, he didn't know who to trust in the station. Were there cops in his own squad room reporting to IA about him?
"These guys say what unit they were with?" Danny asked. He needed to know who was coming after him if only to know where the rat was.
Flores thought for a moment and then spoke, "No."
Danny then added, "They have a pin on their lapel?"
It was one way to tell which unit an officer was with. He always wore his which had the number 54, and he knew that all detectives wore one if they had on a suit.
Bobby thought back, Danny could see the cogs working in Flores' mind. Like the man was trying to remember what the detectives looked like.
Bobby then looked at Danny and answered, "No, they were just suits with badges and haircuts."
Sadly that wouldn't help him find out who was after him, but he could guess that it could be someone in IA or higher up in the ranks. Danny sighed and guessed that he wasn't going to get anything else from Flores.
"Okay...all right," Danny started and quickly placed one hand on his hips. "Thanks, Bobby."
He needed to talk to his Sergeant, and now. He pushed Bobby towards the door, but before he left he turned to Danny and pointed at him, "Hey, don't forget I did this."
Danny looked at Flores like he was about to go off on him but knew better of it. He was just pissed that someone had personally gone after him. But then added. "I don't forget anything." After this Flores left him alone in the room.
Danny sighed and then thought back. He was now more annoyed that he couldn't recall any reason why someone would be after him. He kept his hands on his hips and felt like he was about to explode.
"Son of a bitch." He muttered before quickly headed to his sergeant office.
He didn't even look at Baez who looked up from her phone but she still clocked that something had happened to cause her partner to become so wound up. And she had a feeling that soon he would ever explode or lash out at anyone and everyone.
And dealing with an angry Reagan took a lot and she wasn't sure in how to handle him when she had no clue on what had pissed him off.
"Sarge?" Danny called as he entered Gormley's office.
Gormely had been only pretending to read the file in front of him, he had spent the last hour on the same page trying to work out what the PC had told him. It was the first time ever in his career that he had been called for an unofficial meeting with his boss to talk about one of his detectives and his boss' son at that.
He had however done as the PC had asked and had collected all of Danny's case files and quickly sent them up to 1 P.P. He still had no clue what the PC had been worried about. Reagan was an outstanding and determined detective. And sometimes that caused him to bend the rules but he never broke them. But he always got a result which helped the city.
"Everything ok?" Sid asked quickly dropping the file onto his desk. He had seen that look before and nothing ever good came out of it. And more so when he had to be the one filling in the incident reports for whatever scheme he had come up with to get that result.
"No. Who's investigating me and why?" Danny demanded, not caring if everyone in the squad room heard him. He made sure that he was close to Gormley as he asked his question until he was stood at the side of his boss' desk.
Sid looked away and leant back in his chair, trying to work out what to say. He had a feeling that with the PC words that someone was looking at Danny but at the same time he hoped that it was all in his head. And now Danny knew it too.
Quickly he ran his fingers down the length of his tie before speaking again. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Which in all fairness was partly true, he knew someone was checking up on his but that was all he thought it was. A father checking in on one of his kids, but now with Danny all hyped up he could only guess that it was more than a check-in.
Danny looked directly at his sergeant and watched every move he made, he had a feeling that someone was up with his sergeant as soon as he had gotten back from lunch but now he knew why.
As he watched Gormley run his fingers down his tie, he knew that he was being lied too. And that only angered him more. His own boss knew that someone was investigating him and hadn't told him.
"You're lying to me," Danny said pointing at his boss' tie.
Gormley turned to look at Danny in shock, how the hell did he know? Maybe his own detective knew him better than he thought, but then he quickly reminded himself that he was only partly lying.
"What?" Sid asked.
"You got tell Sarge. You run your fingers down your tie whenever you fib to your wife and say you're working overtime but you're really going out for beers. You do it all the time. You just did it now." Danny almost yelled, and he would have if not that he had left the door open and didn't want anyone coming in to see what was happening.
Sid looked down, 'crap' he thought. He had never thought that he had a tell, but at the same time, it explained why he never won at the poker table. Then again he did play with other cops.
"Don't know what you're talking about?" Sid said, hoping that Danny would drop the subject but at the same time knew that he wouldn't. He knew Reagan too well. And he quickly looked down.
"Sarge, who's looking at me?" Danny demanded.
All they could do was look at each other. Both knowing a little piece of information that the other wanted. All Sid wanted to do was to tell his detective not to worry, that it was just his case files being looked at, which was common. But he also had a feeling that wouldn't go down well with Reagan.
Sid sighed and knew that there was no way of telling Reagan to back off. It was too late for that, he could see the anger in his eyes. But at the same time, he was in a bind. Did he betray his boss or one of his men?
In the end, Gormley just looked at his detective. He needed to save whatever friendship he could have left with his detective. At the end of the day, he needed Danny to know that he could be trusted. Even if it meant that he would have to face his boss.
"Close the door," Sid asked, knowing that it would be nest if this stayed between them. No point letting the whole squad that the commissioner was looking into his own son.
Danny looked at his Sergeant and thought. He knew now that he wasn't going to like what his Sergeant had to tell him. He wasn't happy that he had to learn from one of his old collars that someone was looking into him. He nodded and quickly closed his Sergeant's door. Not bothering to look out in the squad where a couple of the other detectives had heard their argument.
He turned and moved back into the centre of the office, waited for his boss to tell him what he knew.
"Look, I don't know much. But I was asked to collect your case files." Gormley admitted, looking across his desk, and not at Danny.
Danny thought for a moment, he had an idea of who could have done this and sadly for him that thought was only getting stronger.
"For who?" Danny asked.
Gormley looked down before answering, "All I know is that I had to get them ready to be send to 1 P.P."
Danny froze, only one person could have the pull to do all of this without word getting out. He just couldn't believe it. The person who was intent on going through his cases, talking to his old collars and possibly destroying his career was his own father.
Or knew who was. But either of the ideas brought him much hope that his father wasn't involved. He was angry, if his father knew someone was after him why didn't he give him a heads up? He thought he would have. He guessed that he didn't know his father all that well.
He knew that he wasn't someone who would make it high up the ranks, or see himself one day sitting in the Commissioner's chair but he was a good cop. And once upon a time, that meant something.
Well it did where he came from.
Danny didn't utter another word, instead, he quickly left his boss' office and headed out of the squad. He needed a quiet word with his father and soon. He needed the truth and he knew who to get it from.