Ben Kokua sighed deeply as he studied the lighting in the car park. From where he stood, he had an uninterrupted view of where the attack had taken place. The only witnesses to the assault, a married couple who had called HPD and given Danny first aid until help had arrived, insisted that it had been too dark to see the attacker well enough to give any sort of description. Ben sighed again. The lighting in the parking lot was dim but he was still able to identify Che and the HPD officers standing near Danny's LTD. He could understand the couple being frightened after the attacker had fired at them but didn't the realize the attacker knew he had left witnesses, their own safety was now in jeopardy.
Che glanced up at Duke after examining the area where Danny had fallen. "Danny's wallet is empty, no cash, no cards but I think we have a good chance of lifting the mugger's fingerprints from it if he wasn't wearing gloves."
"I hope so, Che. Whoever did this was vicious, we need to get them off the streets before he can do this again!" Duke stared down at the pool of blood at his feet. "The witnesses said Danny was shot as he lay on the ground. He didn't have a chance."
H5O H5O H5O
It had been over an hour since the nurse had ushered Steve from the examination room and Chin had managed to sequester him in the waiting room, Steve paced back and forth in the small room. A young man dressed in a dark, conservative suit who occupied one of the other chairs in the room, looked up from the newspaper he was reading and watched him pace for a minute before returning his attention back to the paper.
Casting his own quick glance at the young man as he paced by, he contemplated briefly if the young man was in the military or worked in some sort of government organization, his clean-cut features and closely cropped hair were indicative of both types of jobs. Their waiting room companion also appeared to be waiting for word about a patient being treated in the busy emergency rooms.
He spun around as the door to the waiting room opened and the nurse who had so successfully ejected him from the Emergency Room entered, carrying Danny's bloodied, folded clothes and his small .22 holster on top of the small pile that had been packed into a transparent plastic bag.
"Mr McGarrett, here's Detective Williams's belongings," she announced quietly as she crossed the room and handed the bag to Steve. "I'm afraid that his clothes are ruined. We had to cut them off him when he arrived at the ER."
Steve nodded silently, swallowing hard as he accepted the bag. Staring at the bloodied clothes and the empty holster, he had quickly snapped his attention back to the nurse, "Excuse me, Nurse…" He glanced down at her name tag before he looked back up at her and continued, "Nurse Peck, is this all of Detective Williams's belongings?"
The nurse nodded, "That's all his clothing and the belongings he was carrying. There was no wallet or ID found in his possession. Detective Williams has been taken into surgery. Doctor Bergman instructed me to tell you that both DR Killen and he will speak to you after the surgery."
"Dr Killen?" Steve frowned.
"Dr Killen is our hospital's finest Thoracic surgeon; Detective Williams could not be in any better hands." the nurse smiled reassuringly, "Now if you will excuse me…."
Reaching out and gently grabbing the nurse's arm as she turned to leave, Steve waited until she paused and turned back towards him before he asked, "Please can you tell me how Danny is doing? How seriously was he injured?"
She cast a side-wards glance towards Chin before returning her attention back to the man whom so obviously cared about the injured detective. "I'm sorry," she answered, "all I can tell you is Detective Williams's condition is presently listed as extremely critical. As for his injuries, I'm afraid you will need to discuss those with his doctors. Now please excuse me, but I really have to go."
"Thank you." Steve said softly as he turned and watched her leave the room, the door closing softly behind her.
Waiting until the nurse left the room, Steve turned and questioned Chin over the whereabouts of Danny's missing .22 weapon but the older detective was uncertain if the gun had been retained by HPD at the scene. For the first time since the initial phone call from Duke, Steve received his first report about the attack from Chin. The initial investigation indicated that Danny had tried to resist during a mugging and was shot by his assailant, who had then shot at the witnesses before fleeing in a car.
Handing Chin the bag containing Danny's belongings, he tersely ordered Chin to get Danny's clothes and holster over to the lab for Che to go over then and then to oversee the progress of the investigation. He nodded as Chin acknowledged his order and hurried out of the room before he began to pace again.
His gut instincts screamed at him that this was far more than a mugging turned sour. He had to admit Danny's temper, when pushed into a corner, could be explosive. Danno's temper and his resistance could have possibly been the catalyst that turned a violent mugging into a shooting. But it was a theory that he rejected. Danny was too good a cop not to know the risks of resisting a mugging. If his theory was right and this was indeed more than a mugging gone wrong, Danno could still be in danger from and unknown assailant.
Turning, he hurried out of the waiting room and hurried across to the nurse's desk. Apologizing to the young nurse for his earlier behavior, he requested to use the phone for official police business. Appeased by his apology, she handed him before rising from her chair and walking away for a moment to allow him to make the call.
Contacting the night desk sergeant at HPD, he ordered an officer to be sent to the hospital to guard Danny after he was transferred to a room after surgery.
H5O H5O H5O
Ben spoke quietly to the bartender who remembered serving Danny in the bar. The barman told him that Danny appeared to be waiting for a man who arrived a few minutes after Danny's arrival and he thought the two of them had left the bar together a brief time later. The bartender proved to be more helpful than the two witnesses, giving Ben a detailed description of the scruffy, thin man Danny had met with. The barman reluctantly agreed to accompany a HPD officer back to HPD to look through mugshots.
Entering the bar, Duke slowly approached the tall Five-O detective, "We're getting the names, addresses and statements from everyone in the bar, Ben, but most of the customers are claiming they saw or noticed anything unusual but I am still hoping that someone might have seen something."
"Thanks Duke," Ben said quietly as the two men walked slowly out of the smoke-filled bar. Pausing at the door, Ben stared angrily out into the parking lot that now seemed crowded with police, lab techs and curious spectators, "I don't understand what Danny was doing here, Duke, He was exhausted when he left the Palace tonight. I suggested that we go for a couple of drinks to unwind but he decided he just wanted to go home to sleep. It just doesn't make any sense."
Duke lightly patted the younger man's back, "That's something only Danny can tell us, Bruddah, so until he is able to, how about we concentrate on finding who did this."
Ben nodded and walked with the Hawaiian HPD sergeant across to where Danny's car was parked.
Both men silently watched as Chin eased his LTD into the parking lot and stopped as close to Danny's car as he could without disturbing the crime scene before he opened the door and climbed out. He stood for a moment, observing the scene, before he slowly walked towards them.
"How's Danny?" Ben asked anxiously as Chin joined them.
Chin shook his head sadly, "Not good. They had just taken him to the OR when I left. Steve's taking it hard."
Ben and Duke nodded in silent agreement. Although the normally aloof boss regarded his entire small group of detectives and their families as ohana, a deeper, brotherly relationship had developed between him and the youngest member of their team. It hurt Steve deeply to see any of his detectives injured but the three men knew that such a brutal and senseless attack on Danny would be tearing Steve apart.
Returning their attention back to the investigation, Chin asked if anyone had recovered Danny's gun. Receiving a negative response to his question, he ordered a grid search to be carried out for the missing weapon. After being brought up to date with the investigation, Chin placed the scene investigation and clean up into Duke's capable hands. He then accompanied Ben to meet with the witnesses before the two Five-O detectives escorted them back to the Palace to take their formal interviews and statements.