CHAPTER TWO: SMOKE AND MIRRORS
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[note: as with CH1, the italicized section comes largely from my one-shot "Burning Bridges."]
. . . .
. . .
Carlton's day had been bad.
It started out okay, with a relatively peaceful morning patrol, but then he came back to the station at lunch to find his 'friends' had thoughtfully rigged his locker door to dump bright red paint all over him.
He thought he'd made a pretty good speech about it, reminding them he hadn't become Head Detective so young without having some pretty good observational and memory skills. They already knew no one moved up into the detective squad without considerable talent… and it helped to have the respect of the Lead Dog. Since he fully intended to reclaim his position as said Lead Dog, they'd do well to remember this as the moment they'd all completely screwed themselves over. (It had earned him a satisfying round of silence and dawning recognition of idiocy on their parts.)
Then he went upstairs, inexplicably clashed with Juliet in a very big and very permanent way, and went down the hall to stomp on Trout's timer and quit his job.
Not how he expected the day to move along.
In his defense, he hadn't intended to stomp on the timer. Or quit.
But things had a way of making themselves clear where Trout was concerned.
. . . .
. . .
Trout slammed the office door shut behind him. "Care to explain the paint?"
"No."
"Ah. Then let me rephrase. Explain the paint."
Carlton looked at the man who held his professional fate in his hands—hell, had been playing with it. "No."
One eyebrow went up. "I see. Interesting. This would be my first opportunity to write you up for insubordination, but as you know, I hate paperwork. I'll just have to extend your time in the uniform. Maybe add foot patrol."
Count. One. Two. Three.
"That seems fair."
Trout laughed. "You're entertaining, I'll give you that."
"Delighted."
"But don't push it."
"Wouldn't matter if I did."
Trout let out a low whistle. "Nice. What else you got lined up in your cesspool of resentment and bitterness?"
"I won't know until you push the right buttons."
"Oh, I think I can push as many as you have, Lassie." He grinned. "Shouldn't you be calling me 'sir'?"
Carlton stared at him. "In what universe?"
"This one," he shot back. "The only one you know. The one in which if you play your cards right—and I do mean if—you get back your job in a few months. Maybe."
"Sounds like a crapshoot to me." Ma'am, he added silently.
With a grin, Trout settled into his chair. "It kind of is. Good call." He nudged the ever-present egg timer slightly.
"Is there anything else?"
"Stay away from the bullpen and O'Hara. She's not your partner anymore and won't ever be again if I have anything to say about it, which, may I remind you, I do."
Given that he'd just sliced at the very heart of that partnership himself, Carlton felt this was somewhat anticlimactic. He merely met Trout's gaze impassively. "I'm sure you'll continue to make decisions of stellar quality for the SBPD."
Trout's eyes narrowed. "Your days could well be numbered, Lassie. Hear that ticking? It could be for you."
Carlton leaned forward and in one move swept the timer off the desk savagely. It flew several feet and crashed into the wall, landing with a squelched 'ding' on the carpet.
On his feet at once, Trout started snapping but Carlton overrode him.
"I checked you out, you know. I found out you used to be a good cop and a good consultant. You fixed a lot of problems for a lot of police departments. But somewhere along the line you went insane. You started making changes based on your mood. On your diet. On that damned timer. And I don't know if you can come back from the insanity, but I do know this."
Trout eased back into his chair, radiating smugness, looking rather as if he were about to start watching a particularly amusing TV show.
"I screwed up with Spencer that day. We all screwed up, either in condoning his behavior or covering it up. But what you've done is beyond punitive. It's just assery. Suspending Karen Vick based on your snap judgment over a case it took you fifteen minutes to hear about, downgrading me, punishing O'Hara—that's all complete crap and you know it." He held up his hands. "But you've got all the power, Trout."
"Yes, I do." Smug. So smug.
"Yes, you do. And I know nothing would make you happier than for me to give you cause to fire me. Because that'll look good, won't it? Firing a twenty-year veteran of the force, one with multiple commendations, because he broke your little egg timer?"
Trout said coolly, "Your personnel folder isn't all commendations."
"No, but if you look at the write-ups, you'll see they're almost all about the alleged over-use of my service weapon. The rest are about Spencer, and your short time with that narcissistic whackaloon asshat should have made it perfectly clear why any semi-sane person would lose it now and then."
"Can't argue with you there. What's next in the big speech?"
Carlton went over to the egg timer and stomped on it, eliciting a genuine gasp from Trout.
"That's enough, you son of a bitch." He was on his feet again and pissed off, but kept his distance all the same.
Carlton reached for his weapon, and Trout's eyes widened. But all he did was lay it on the desk, along with his badge. "You win. I've been valuable to the department and I've done damned good work, but I'm not hanging around to be your punching bag, because I deserve better and the city deserves better. In the morning I'll start the retirement paperwork, and if you screw with me on that, I will involve the media. I'm sure they'll love hearing about how the mayor's special consultant is forcing experienced and dedicated police officers out."
Trout hesitated only a moment. "You don't have that many friends in the outside world, and the media's had fun with you before."
"Yeah? I also have copies of my performance reviews as well as all those commendations, and I'm told my pretty blue eyes can be a real asset when I smile big and play nice," he added acidly. "Just stay out of my way and no one has to know you teared up over the egg timer."
At the door, with Trout still agape, he turned to add one more word.
"Sir."
. . . .
. . .
He didn't want to replay the conversation with Juliet.
He did anyway, but he didn't want to.
She was…
He sighed, rolling over in bed and punching the pillow hard.
She was lost to him.
But then again, she'd been lost to him for a long time.
He had some hope—a renewal of faith in their friendship and partnership—during Spencer's idiotic Bigfoot farce, but it faded even before Trout's reign of terror began. His time away from work while he healed had been time mostly spent alone, because Juliet pretty much had to sneak her visits in to stop Spencer from tagging along, and Carlton didn't want the gelhead in his condo any more than necessary.
Really, it was just as well he'd gone off on Juliet and quit in the same day. Cleanest break of all.
Now he just had to figure out what the hell to do for the rest of his life… and how to do it without Juliet.
. . . .
. . .
Juliet didn't say anything to Shawn or Gus about Trout's call. She had to mull it over, and she needed to talk to the pushy son of a bitch to figure out the real situation.
Certainly this 'promotion' had nothing to do with her actual abilities. It was a game. Everything was a game with Trout.
She just wanted to hear him admit it.
In the morning, leaving Shawn snoring in their tousled bed (occasionally murmuring about spring rolls), she went to the station, stopping automatically at the Starbucks on the way and hating the instant pang she felt that Carlton wasn't with her.
Carlton, she was not thinking about. He was still a bastard who'd tossed her friendship aside because of his own selfish petty upsets, and she was done with him.
Yes. Done.
Out of the corner of her eye, a tall, black-haired man moved toward the sugar and sweetener and she started because it was… no, idiot. It is not Carlton.
Taking her coffee from the barista with a snarl her ex-friend would have been proud of, she stomped back out to the car and downed half the scalding elixir before she even got the engine started.
At the station, she went first to Miller and apologized for snapping at him yesterday. She asked what else he knew about Carlton's rapid exit and learned his intention was to retire. (Apparently someone passing by Trout's office while they were 'talking' managed to move very slowly and listen very closely… and it helped that the entire bullpen had gone silent the minute the door was closed between them and their former Head Detective, a man Miller cheerfully admitted they missed like hell.)
(Juliet did not admit to missing him. She would have yesterday morning, but that was a lifetime ago.)
Trout was eating one of his twenty daily power bars (while smiling very oddly at a stack of case files on his desk) when she rapped on his office door.
"Detective O'Hara!" he said brightly, brushing crumbs from his jacket. "Delighted you could make it in." He glanced at his watch.
She wasn't late, so she ignored the implied snark. "I have some questions about your phone call last night."
"Really? I'm surprised. I thought it was all very clear."
"Actually, it's not. I'd like to know why you made this assignment now. I've been in Cold Cases for two months and—"
"Where you've done well, and now it's time for a change. Besides, Lassiter's off the force so it's not like he's waiting to reclaim the job." He rolled his eyes. "As if he ever could have."
Steady, girl.
"Nonetheless, the timing—"
"Well, of course it's because he quit." He got up, moving around the desk to stand in front of her, arms folded. "Of course it is. A big duh for you, O'Hara. See, now that I've dealt with the first half of the problem, I'm free to see about the second half."
Juliet drew herself in, keeping her expression absolutely neutral, although she was sure he could read the dislike in her eyes. "Pardon me. I was under the impression I was a good detective, not a 'problem.'"
He chuckled. "You need to be careful about trusting 'impressions,' darlin'."
Son of a …
"You need to be careful how you address a female officer," she retorted.
"Touché." He smirked. "Anyway, I do have one adjustment to your assignment. I've decided to be lenient with the psycho boys."
Stay cool.
"Are you referring to Psych?"
"Bonus points for you, swee—Detective. It goes like this. I say whether they get hired. They piss me off one time, they get a warning. A second time, you get a warning and their fee is docked. A third time, they're off the case and you get a write-up. If I approve them being called in on a second case, the first offense lands them in jail and you on suspension."
Nothing would have pleased her more than to slap his smug-ass face hard enough to send it into the next zip code.
He gestured to the pile of folders on his desk. "That's just a fraction of the cases they've worked on. Officially everything looks okay, but I'm focusing on the witness statements and interview transcripts. That's where the meat of the details about Spencer's idiotic behavior can be found, and sister, there is so much meat. So much."
Juliet stared at him.
Trout smiled… like a shark. "It's a veritable smorgasbord of carnivorous delight."
In slow motion, but with perfect clarity, Juliet finally understood his plan. He already knew Shawn was irrepressible. He knew no one could control him.
He was counting on Shawn being the catalyst for her downfall and eventual departure—or ouster—from the department.
And here she'd thought Carlton was the worst bastard she knew right now.
But she would give Trout nothing for his megalomaniacal enjoyment. Moving to the door, she only said, "I'll start reviewing the squad's active cases as soon as I familiarize myself with the current job description for Head Detective."
Trout laughed. "Right. It's not as if you ever expected to be in that position. Oh," he added, once she was out in the hall. "One more thing."
Instead of telling her, he joined her and gestured for her to head through the bullpen toward her workstation. Stopping in front of it, he pointed over at Carlton's two-months' empty desk.
"Sir?"
"You need to move over there."
Hell no. Not Carlton's desk.
She reminded herself yet again to feign calm. "Why?"
"It's the Head Detective's desk," he said as if she were a simpleton.
"Actually, I have a pretty good view of the bullpen from my desk, which might serve me better as I'm learning—"
He interrupted with a brisk, "Don't care. Move your crap to Lassiter's desk. Make it snappy." Whistling merrily, he meandered away and back to his office.
Juliet didn't know what she hated more: him, or having to play his petty little psychological games. Trout might have told her it was so he could keep an eye on her—since his office windows were a straight line from Carlton's desk—but she knew it was more than that. She knew he wanted her to feel guilty about taking over the workspace of her former partner.
Well, she didn't. She didn't feel guilty at all. She was going to be much too busy trying to keep her job to worry about the 'feelings' of her ex-friend.
Whom she dearly wished she could talk to right now, dammit to hell and Detroit and back.
. . . .
. . .
Carlton got up, had coffee and toast, read the paper without reading it at all, and then opened his laptop so he could file the retirement papers online. He could print them and go drop them off at City Hall, but he didn't feel like going down there today. It was too close to the police station, and he needed a bit of distance if he was going to seriously contemplate a life after SBPD.
An hour after he clicked on the final 'submit' button, his phone rang.
It was the DA, and in the few seconds before Carlton answered, he wondered if there was a setback in the trial he was scheduled to testify in next month.
"Lassiter," Clark said almost cautiously. "How you doing?"
Why would he care? They weren't friends. Clark had tried to have him censured at least once.
"What do you need? Has the Raleigh trial been postponed?"
"No, everything's fine. I… uh… heard a rumor about you retiring."
Ahhhh. Word did get around fast. "Yeah. Is that a problem?"
"It's unthinkable, is what it is. Aren't you, like, in your early forties?"
"Forty-four in February. Got my twenty years in before that."
Clark sighed. "Look, I heard this Trout's a real ass. Do I need to have a word with the mayor?"
"Over me? You'd be wasting your breath."
"Yeah, over you. You're an ass too, Lassiter, but you're top drawer when it comes to cops and no fishface should be allowed to run you off."
Carlton took a moment to register this was actually a compliment. "Thanks. But like I said, the mayor would tell you to save your breath. Trout's his golden boy these days."
An un-muffled curse came through the phone. "Well… what are your plans? You can't exactly shuffle off into the old cops' retirement home just yet."
"I don't know what I'm going to do," he admitted. "I'd like to stay in law enforcement but I know it can't be in Santa Barbara."
"Don't assume. There's a few people around here who might be willing to pull strings."
He knew better. "If so, it's only because they hate Trout more."
Clark laughed. "Take what you can get, bud. And you're still testifying at my Raleigh trial."
"Of course. Anything to get that low-life, scum-sucking piece of crap off the streets."
"Uh, he's a school principal who skimmed lunch money from rich kids."
"Potayto, tomahto," he retorted. "All criminals are low-life, scum-sucking crap."
"And that's what I like about you, Lassiter. It's all black and white."
"That's right. Because gray sucks."
Gray did suck, which is why he valued black and white so much: clarity. Order. Sense.
None of which he'd demonstrated yesterday, although he would never in a quadrillion years regret offing the damned egg timer.
The phone rang quite a bit more as the morning progressed; he took some of the calls, noting that none of them were from Juliet, which was no surprise.
He'd made that a black-and-white situation too yesterday.
Mostly… hell, all black.
. . . .
. . .
Juliet reluctantly moved her work paraphernalia over to Carlton's desk—no, your desk. YOUR desk—and started going through the active cases and assignments to see what was going on in the department. Trout had handled some of Carlton's duties, but not enough of them.
She glowered at anyone who approached.
She continued not telling Shawn, who'd texted numerous times. To get through to him about Trout's evil intentions, she'd have to talk to him face-to-face. Most likely with her weapon drawn.
Trout strode out of his office mid-afternoon and barked her name.
Juliet got up—not scurrying, which she was sure he'd prefer—and followed him toward the main entrance. About to ask what he wanted, she was distracted by the sight of reporters and cameras outside at the bottom of the steps.
Stopping just short of the doors, Trout turned and gave her that shark-like smile. "The news got out about Lassiter's retirement. They want a statement."
"I'm sure you'll do fine," she said stiffly.
"Not me, sister. I'll do the hors d'oeuvres, but you're providing the main course. Come on!"
He had the nerve to grasp her arm and drag her a foot until she jerked free, but by then the doors were open and he was smiling magnanimously at the assembled media folk.
Questions came fast and furious, and he ignored them all, raising his hands to say only, "Former Head Detective Carlton Lassiter chose to end his career yesterday, but the Santa Barbara Police Department will nonetheless go on, and most likely perfectly well. This is new Head Detective Juliet O'Hara, who has assumed Lassiter's duties. Detective?"
It was one of those slow-motion moments.
Carlton had gladly done all their public speaking. Juliet hated the cameras and was generally short with anyone holding a notebook, pen or recorder.
And Trout knew this. Somehow, he knew this.
What is Trout's game… what is the game….
He wants me to look bad? He wants me to follow his lead and make neutral remarks about Carlton, which in itself will raise more questions?
What is the GAME!?
"I'm not sure anyone can properly fill Detective Lassiter's shoes," she said abruptly. "He was the best of the best and I'm extremely fortunate to have been his partner for eight years."
Even if he's a pain in the ass I may never speak to again.
Someone yelled, "Wasn't he demoted recently?"
Juliet stared.
Beside her, she could feel Trout's smirk.
This was what he wanted.
"That had nothing to do with his skills as the head detective," she managed.
"Then why was he demoted? Did it have anything to do with Chief Vick's suspension?"
"You'll have to ask Interim Chief Trout. He made all those decisions."
Trout's smirk faded, but not for long, and she knew she might pay for this later but what the hell did he expect? She hadn't demoted Carlton or suspended Vick or fired Buzz. He did all that, and he should be held accountable.
"I'm afraid personnel matters are confidential," he said with snake-oil smoothness. "Suffice to say we expect great, great things from Detective O'Hara."
"What's Lassiter doing next?"
The question was aimed at Juliet. They didn't care about her; she was nothing to them yet. They wanted to know why Lassiter was out and what the real story was.
Another voice a second later: "Have you spoken to him about taking his job?"
She was stung. "I didn't take his job. Interim Chief Trout gave it to me this morning. It's been vacant for two months."
"Have you spoken to Lassiter?" the voice pressed.
"No, but everything I know about being a good detective, I learned from Carlton Lassiter, and when I do talk to him, I'll remind him how much I valued being his partner and that the SBPD will never be the same without him. Thank you." She turned and walked inside, ignoring further questions along with Trout's hiss that she could come back.
Pretty nice speech about someone you claim to be 'done' with.
She mentally shrugged that off: she had learned everything from him, and she did value their partnership. But it was over, and boo frickin' hoo.
Trout found her at her new desk a few minutes later, and his scowl was deep. "In case you were wondering, Detective, it is never permissible for you to walk away from a press conference."
"That wasn't a press conference. That was an ambush." She opened the desk drawer to retrieve a pen, wondering if she could use it to stab him without anyone else noticing.
Who are you worried about? Most of the squad would help you cover it up, maybe with a story about Trout slipping on the ruins of his egg timer and falling eye-first into a loaded pen.
His annoyance faded. "Yeah—wasn't it great?"
Juliet glared. "No."
"We're going to get along just fine, O'Hara," he said with a grin.
"Are we?" Because she didn't think so.
"Sure." He fiddled with his tie and grinned again. "If you last the week."
In the moments before he turned and strode away again, she noted the coldness of his pale blue eyes.
She'd often seen such coldness in Carlton's eyes, but it was different. His gaze could be steely, often icy—but behind it there was always such heat. Carlton was so alive, and so much was going on behind the blue. As still and quiet as he could be, he was always, always almost thrumming with intensity and emotion and his own internal struggle for control. It made those rare revelations of sweetness ten times sweeter, and his genuine laughter ten times more endearing.
Trout was just cold. No life inside. Just whirring gears and programming designed to screw with people for his own amusement.
The road ahead was going to be very difficult.
And this time, when the little voice said I wish I could talk to Carlton right now, she didn't even tell it to shut up.
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