Beth paced the well-lit interview room with her arms crossed over her chest. Occasionally she would stop and wipe a tear off her cheek, trying her best to hold her emotions in check as she played the last few hours over and over in her spinning mind. Her stomach was in knots, her intestines knotting tighter with each passing minute as she thought about what exactly to say to Brandon's parents when they would surely call her. There was nothing she could say, Beth told her herself, she obviously hadn't done her best work to save his life or else he would be in a bed recovering from surgery rather than on a cold, metal slab at the Medical Examiner's office.
The two detectives had left Beth alone for several minutes as they strategized from the room on the other side of the one way mirror. Beth hated the feeling of knowing they were watching her. It made her feel like a zoo animal. Checking the time on the watch she always wore on her left wrist, the sight of the bloodstained white wristband made her stomach even sicker, leaving her more disgusted knowing she was still wearing the uniform which too was stained with the blood of her partner.
"How do we do this?" Eames turned her back from the window unable to continue to watch Beth in her distressed emotional state.
Goren, however, continued to observe Beth, trying to learn everything he could about her from her body language. With his head cocked to the side, he picked up on something more than grief but he couldn't exactly put his finger on it. Nervousness, perhaps.
"She may not be one of our own but she is still a sister in uniform." Captain Hannah proceeded. "We treat this no differently as if he were an officer. The FD is looking for answers and they deserve them. Catch the spineless bastard who gunned down a defenseless paramedic."
Leaving the observation room, Joseph Hannah returned to his office where he would call both the Fire Commissioner and head of Emergency Medical Services to extend his own condolences as well as the condolences of One PP.
Emotions from her own personal tragedy of losing her husband in the line of duty were stirred deep inside Eames. She knew how difficult it would be to sit and question Beth McFadden without causing more turmoil then she was already feeling.
"I'll go find her clothes to wear before we collect her uniform." Alex scratched a non-existent itch on the side of her mouth before heading for the day. "You start in the interview."
Goren waited several seconds after Eames left room as he tried to find the courage to go in there and confront her with questions he knew were going to be personal and uneasy. He needed to know everything and until they could zero in on a suspect, she was the only source that could give them in the information they needed.
Grabbing a cup of coffee, Goren entered the interview room almost startling Beth. She looked at him apathetically, like a deer in headlights. He took mental note of her big doe eyes; they were the clearest, brightest shade of blue he had ever seen still despite her several hours of crying.
"I brought you a cup of coffee." Goren gently placed the paper cup on the metal table opposite to where he dropped his leather blinder in the same placid manner.
Before she took a seat, Beth, dropped her arms to her side before more tears flowed down her red and raw cheeks. "He was supposed to take this shift off. It's…it's his girlfriend's birthday. I was selfish and talked him out of calling out because I didn't want to work with another partner. We know—knew—each other so well, we were always on the same beat; thought the same things."
To gain her trust and get her to calm down, Goren knew now was the time to sympathize even though he knew exactly where she was coming from. He felt the same about Eames. "It's not selfish to want to work with your partner. If the two of you aren't on the same page, that's how mistakes are made."
Beth pulled the chair away from the table where she took a seat and pulled one knee up to her chest. The latter part of his statement seemed to strike a nerve in her that Goren didn't mean or think he would hit.
"I didn't make a mistake. I did everything by the book and by protocol and he still died."
"I'm not saying you made a mistake." He made note of what he took to be her defense mechanism. He guessed she was the best at what she did and she knew it.
Beth took the cup of coffee between her hands. She hadn't noticed she was still shaking until she saw the ripples at the surface of the black coffee. "How am I supposed to look Amanda in the face? She'll blame me for what happened…she blames me for everything."
He made another note. That was a topic for another time. He needed her to be clear minded and it was obvious Brandon's personal life was something that made Beth rather cross.
"Why don't you take me through everything that happened since the start of your shift." Goren looked up at Beth from his notes. "No detail is too small."
Beth took a deep breath as she closed her eyes as pinched the bridge of her nose. Those details seemed lifetimes ago and she wracked her brain to make sure she could get everything right.
Their shift had started at 7pm where Beth met Brandon in the ambulance bay as they began checking their equipment. Making sure the backboard was where it should be, the cardiac monitors were working, AED had working batteries, jump bags were fully supplied.
"Was he acting out of the ordinary?"
"My partner is dead!" Beth outburst. "Why are you busy sitting here asking me about whether he was acting out of the ordinary when you should be out there looking for the son-of-a-bitch who shot at us?"
Goren ignored it. He was used to.
Letting her calm down, he switched to another topic. "When you arrived at the scene for the call you responded to, did anything seem…odd? Out of place; any people around?"
"Not that I saw." Beth took a sip of the coffee. "It was your guys who were supposed to clear the scene and keep it cleared while we worked."
"Do you suffer from anxiety issues, Miss. McFadden?"
Robert had noticed the open sores on her fingers around her nail beds from where she picked at the skin and how she was unable to sit still without bouncing her legs or moving in the chair.
"No, I don't. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Perhaps you were anxious at the scene and it caused you to miss something that compromised scene safety or patient care?"
"I told you! There was no one else that I saw at the scene and I did not screw up trying to save Brandon's life. I didn't kill him…" Beth trailed off. "I didn't kill him."
Goren didn't know who she was trying to convince that she made no mistake. Him or herself?
The interview was interrupted when Eames entered the room with an arm full of sweatpants, a sweatshirt and an assortment of bags to bag her belongings for evidence. "I'll make this quick, Beth."
Closing his binder, Goren left the room to give the woman a little privacy so she could strip from her blood soaked clothing. Instead of going back to his computer to pull up anything he could find on Beth McFadden, he found himself back in the observation room watching her closely. May be she would confined in Eames and give what they needed up to her. At first it was nonsense information; Eames asked Beth about her career as she unbuttoned her blue uniform shirt and put in an evidence bag. It was no information that he wouldn't be able to figure out on his own from asking around the FD.
He did, however watch closely as Beth carefully pulled the Velcro straps of her bulletproof vest which would be one key piece of evidence as it held the bullet from the gun used in the shooting. The white wife beater Beth wore under the vest was tight and extenuated her ample assets. Time seemed to slow for Goren as Beth unbuckled her duty belt, unbuttoned and pulled down the zipper of her navy Dickies. When she shimmied the tight fabric off her wide, child baring hips to reveal white, bikini, cotton panties was when he had to turn away. Her measurements weren't something he would be able to find on any database. Heading back to his desk, Goren carelessly tossed his suite jacket over his chair before sitting down to begin digging into the background of Beth McFadden.
After all her clothes were bagged and tagged, Eames and Beth exited the interview room where Beth was greeted by a swarm of off duty firefighters and other EMS members to take her home. Beth refused to make eye contact with Robert Goren as she passed his desk leaving him to realize Beth McFadden was about to make not only his job, but his life more difficult than it already was.