Title: Criminal Acts (4/18)
Author: StargazerNataku
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama/Mystery
Characters: Detective Gerry Stephens, Renee Montoya, Jim Gordon, Batman
Summary: Even after twenty years in the Gotham City police department and there were some cases that never got easier. It began with an overdose…
Warnings:
Jim Gordon walked into his office and tossed his keys onto his desk, hanging his coat up on the hook on the wall. Another moment allowed him to cross the room and throw himself into his desk chair which creaked much like his back did as he leaned back and closed his eyes, ignoring the clock that showed 12:04 am. It had been a ridiculously long week, starting with his lunch with Garcia and the budget work, followed by several junkies and dealers found murdered in and around Crime Alley, and capped off by a six hour hostage-crisis after a would-be armed robber took twenty patrons and tellers captive at Gotham Central Bank. And now it was late Friday night, no early Saturday morning, and Gordon was exhausted, every muscle in his body aching with the stress of the week. He sighed, trying to find the energy to finish one or two last minute, small tasks, but found himself incapable of moving. Once he was, Gordon decided, he was going home and to hell with anything else. He would come in tomorrow and get everything done then.
He almost groaned at the knock on his half open door. He opened his eyes, his gaze falling on Gerry Stephens, standing in his door with a mixture of reluctance, anger, and resignation on his face. "Gerry," Gordon said, his voice tired and, he realized, old-sounding. "I have had my fill of bad news and shit situations for the week, so unless it's something that I either can or have to do something about, I don't want to know."
"Believe me," Gerry said, coming into the office and tossing himself into the chair opposite Gordon's. "I didn't want to know either. But it's something we need to manage."
"It usually is," Gordon said with a sigh. "What is it?"
"Broden's dead."
It took a long moment for Gordon's tired mind tried to figure out what Stephens was talking about. "The informant?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What?" Gordon demanded, sitting up straight, suddenly awake. "He was in protective custody."
"Yes, sir, he was, for all the good it did."
"What happened?"
"Death by typo, I believe Warden Bradbury called it. They got the wrong prisoner number on a set of paperwork. They were transferring him to another cell block, as the orders requested, at the same time members of the general population were being escorted back to their cells. When several other inmates recognized him, they went ballistic. Overcame Broden's guards, one of whom is dead, took the dead guard's weapon, and shot Broden in the temple. Twice."
"Christ," Gordon cursed, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand. "Bradbury's investigating?"
"He is, but you know this city, commish. No matter how far we've come, there are still people who can be bought off. Someone'll get disciplined, but there'll be no way to prove it was done with malicious intent. Hell, it may very well not have been. That's always been the trouble with Gotham. Can't prove it either way."
"And we lose a man who it was our responsibility to protect, plus the key witness in multiple trials."
"Essentially."
Gordon's head was now pounding, and he rubbed his temples tiredly. "There's nothing we can do tonight," he finally said, feeling the weight of personal responsibility falling squarely on his shoulders, now noting the calls he had missed on his cell phone while helping resolve the hostage situation. "It's too late to return phone calls, and what's done is done."
"Jim," Stephens said. "You look terrible." He stood. "Get your coat, I'm taking you home."
"I need…"
"Now, Jim," Stephens interrupted. Gordon met the other detective's eyes and held them for a long moment. He finally sighed and rose.
"All right. But I can drive myself."
"I'm sure you can, but you're not going to. You can call a squad to pick you up in the morning. Hell, I can pick you up."
"You're on tomorrow?"
"Start at noon, technically," Gerry said as they moved through the empty bullpen. "Aiming to be in about eleven. I'll pick you up on the way in."
Gordon nodded, and together they entered the basement parking garage. They were silent as they got into Stephens' car, and started making their way uptown through mostly deserted streets. Gordon leaned back against the headrest and shut his eyes, trying to force away the stress that had knotted his back and made his temples throb. "Gerry?" he finally asked, as Stephens turned onto Gordon's street.
"Yeah, Jim?"
"Was there anything else we could have done to avoid this?"
Stephens was quiet, pondering the question as he pulled over at the curb. "There are always things we could have done to better control the situation, Jim," he finally said. "I'm not sure what they are tonight, for sure, but I do know this. We didn't make him deal and we didn't make him turn snitch either."
"No, we didn't," Gordon finally said in answer, opening his eyes. "Thanks Gerry." He undid his seatbelt and opened the car door, stepping out into the brisk night air.
"I'll be back about ten-thirty tomorrow morning, all right, Jim?" The commissioner inclined his head. They wished each other goodnight and Gordon turned away from the vehicle, putting all of his effort into putting one foot in front of the other as he crossed the small lawn and went up the front porch stairs. He grabbed the mail and tossed it onto the couch without looking at it, going instead to the kitchen where he turned the light on and pulled a clean tumbler out of the dish rack in the sink. He glanced at the refrigerator before bending down to retrieve the bottle of whiskey he stored in the lower cupboard. As he leaned over, however, there was the sound of glass shattering as the window above the sink exploded inward. Gordon hit the floor instinctually, his hands moving automatically to cover his head as shards of glass rained down upon him. His hand then went instantly to the gun in the holster at his side as he glanced upward, first to the window, then to the opposite wall. It was scarred now with two deep indentations he recognized as bullet holes, causing his heart to pound with how close he had come to potentially lethal injuries. He did not give himself time to think about that; he was in motion almost immediately, crawling through the kitchen and the living room, his heart pounding in his chest.
Wide awake with adrenaline, intuition sent him quickly up the stairs and into his bedroom where he knelt behind the cover of the bed, gun in one hand and trained on the doorway, cell phone in the other as he dialed 9-1-1.
Forcing his breathing to steady, Gordon listened for the sound of anyone entering the house as he quickly relayed to the dispatcher what had happened, his gun clenched in a sweaty palm, his heart pounding in his chest. His ears strained into the darkness, listening for the slightest sound, but heard none, no tell-tale sound of glass breaking or a door being kicked in, not even the creaks of weight falling onto the old staircase that Gordon knew intimately. Nothing except the pounding of his heart and, in the distance, sirens.
All the same, he did not relax until he heard his officers clearly identifying themselves as they pounded on the door. He moved slowly into the hallway, gun at the ready, moving down the stairs steadily to open the front door and let two patrolmen in as a few more squads pulled up to the curb. "You all right, Commissioner?" the officer asked.
"Thankfully," Gordon answered, stepping aside. Both men came in, completing a quick search of the house to be sure it was empty as other officers began a search of the neighborhood just as a car Gordon recognized as Montoya's pulled up to the curb.
"I'm fine, Renee," he said preemptively as she came striding into the room, Harvey Bullock a step behind.
"Like hell," she responded, glaring at him. "Mind telling me what happened?"
"As it's your job to ask," Gordon said, "I imagine I wouldn't."
"Cute," she told him. "Real cute."
"It's simple, Renee. Stephens dropped me off, and when I came in I went to the kitchen to get a drink. Seconds after I started bending over to get the whiskey out of the lower cabinet, the window exploded and I hit the deck. I stayed low, got upstairs, and called it in."
"So, who'd you piss off lately?" she demanded.
"Isn't the right question who haven't I pissed off since taking this job?" Gordon asked tiredly. "You know that as well as I do, Montoya."
"I do," she answered, jotting down some notes before looking back up at him. "You look like death warmed over."
"Thank you, I appreciate the compliment," he said dryly, the weight of exhaustion again settling over him.
"I already called Stephens. He wanted to come over, but I told him that Bullock and I were still at the office. He's getting their guest room ready for you instead. We've two units scouting the neighborhood, and there'll be a unit posted outside their house. Come on, I'm taking you over there. Bullock'll finish up here."
"Renee…"
"No buts, Commish. It's already arranged. Go get your things together."
Gordon pondered arguing but decided against it, knowing it would do him no good and that he would not sleep with investigators going over his kitchen. Instead he rose, went upstairs, and grabbed a change of clothes from the closet before throwing his toothbrush and a few other toiletries into a plastic bag. When he came downstairs, Montoya was waiting at the door, shoving a SWAT helmet and a bulletproof vest at him. "Is that really necessary?" he asked.
"Considering the circumstances, yes," she informed him. Again, he decided it was easier not to argue and put both on. Only when that was done did Montoya swing open the door and go out, Gordon a pace behind. Neither spoke on the short drive to the Stephens' home, Montoya deep in her own thoughts, while Gordon tried not to think about how close he had come to a far different ending. He remembered Barbara's harsh, accusatory words during one of their last arguments. This city's going to be the death of you, Jim, and here you are, digging the grave she'll throw you into without a damned care that it's your own!
Gordon sighed. "Do you ever wish it was easy, Renee?" he asked.
"Easy? Gotham? Never going to happen, Commish."
"I know. That's not what I asked." She pulled into the Stephens' driveway, and glanced up to where Gerry was already opening the door.
"Sure I wish it was easy. I also wish you'd have more sense so you'd avoid getting this close to having your head blown off." She looked at him, her eyes hard. "We've come too far to let Gotham go back to the way it was, and it's already halfway backwards. You're the first good thing to happen to this department since I was a rookie, and I'll be damned if I let you get yourself killed. Now go in and get some sleep. You look like shit."
"You always know what to say to make a man feel better, Montoya," Gordon said as he undid his seatbelt, and despite his dry tone he meant it. "I'll see you in the morning."
"If I see you before you've gotten at least eight hours of sleep, I'm going to kick your ass, commissioner or no, sir."
"I'd have to fire you."
"I'd chance it. Now out." He gave her a mock salute and exited the car, grabbing the small bag from the backseat and going up the stairs to where Stephens was already holding open the door. He tossed a wave back at Montoya before together they went in and shut the door.