Gravely's head shot up as Sheriff Blue Backstrom stormed into the Special Crimes Unit offices. There was practically steam coming from his ears.
"Where is he?" he snarled, the shout ringing through the office like a gunshot. Four more heads popped over the partition as Moto, Niedermeyer, Almond and Paquet looked up from there various workspaces.
Nadia's board was clear, the detritus form their latest case had been packed away into boxes the day before. Coincidentally, the day that Rocha had finally been released from the hospital and the day that Blue had officially been cleared of murder. A charge that his son had laid against him a few months previously. This curious circumstance simultaneously explained what Blue was doing in their office and what Lieutenant Backstrom was doing out of it.
The first words out of Gravely's boss' mouth when he had heard the news had been, "God, I need a drink." That had been at 2'o'clock yesterday afternoon and she hadn't seen him since. In her more cynical moments she imagined that she'd get a call soon to come and pick him up, either from the drunk tank or the morgue. But, the dwindling optimistic part of her imagined that he'd somehow managed to resist the siren call of hard liquor and was just spending the day on his boat building kites.
The look on his face had been mingled regret and relief, reflecting the nature of his relationship with his father. Love and hate mixed together so completely that you could no longer tell one from the other. Although, in Backstrom's case it was perhaps a little light on the love. But then that didn't really surprise Gravely, until she'd met Valentine she hadn't thought the Lieutenant capable of anything so human as love and even that relationship was too screwy to even really contemplate.
"Where's my son?" Blue's gravelly drawl pulled her from her thoughts and she found herself staring up into a pair of steely eyes. "The Lieutenant isn't here Blue." Almond's reassuring bass rumble replied as he rolled his chair over. Irritation flittered across Blue's face, "I can see that John. Where can I find him?"
An eloquent shrug was his only reply as the five SCU members closed ranks. Nothing could put Backstrom in a bad mood faster than seeing his father. Blue sighed, "What about the other one? Lou's boy?" Except possibly that. There was no way that Backstrom was going to let Blue anywhere near the half-brother he'd only recently found out about.
"Lou's boy?" Neidermeyer stalked over and perched on Gravely's desk, his three-piece suit still miraculously crease free despite ten hours at work. "You don't even know his name do you?" The look Blue gave him had curdled the blood of hardened criminals but it only raised an eyebrow from Peter, whose face had hardened once he saw the truth of his statement. "Well I would if Everett would pick up his damned phone!" Almond sighed, disappointment in his eyes, "Valentine," He said, seemingly ready to take pity on Blue, "His name is Gregory Valentine."
Those five words were enough to take all the steam out Blue, he deflated like a popped balloon. "I was afraid of that." He said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. He handed it to Almond.
The black man's face paled as he read the note. He tossed it onto the table and pulled out his phone, "I'll call Backstrom."
Gravely leant over the desk, pulling the paper towards her. There it was in black and white and…was that? Yuck, blood.
The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children
GREGORY