The station was crowded with people as the two officers marched Julie inside. She walked with her arms crossed, hovering between the two, her face flushed with warmth from embarrassment. On one side of the spacious lobby, various other CSI's and lab techs who were coming and going for their shifts eyed her with interest. The receptionist at the desk was on the phone but paused to cover the mouthpiece and look at her as she walked by. In one of the detective's offices, she spotted Janet Warren's mother peering at her with tears in her eyes but Julie saw her nod once as a gesture of understanding. On the other side, in a separate detective's office, Tom Cooley and his lawyer were present in front of the desk. The lawyer was shouting at the detective while Cooley remained seated looking utterly unphased by the events until her gaze met his at the same time and he sneered. She felt her heart pound faster in her chest and she now had an idea what his victims saw before they died; that horrible smug look. The further into the station they walked, the more familiar faces she began to pick out from the crowd of onlookers. Kerry Torres and Daniel Shaw, her friends and partners, were leaning against their desks looking sad but avoiding eye contact with her. The officers stopped her and guided her into an interrogation room where DB Russell was seated along with a mystery woman wearing a blazer and slacks, looking very official. She knew this had to be an internal affairs investigator. The officers sat her down then backed out of the room, shutting the door gently behind them as they went.
Julie avoided looking at anyone until she was spoken to.
"CSI Finlay," the IA agent began "do you know why we called you in here today?'
"Yes," Julie mumbled, staring at a chunk of metal on the edge of the table that was peeling off.
"Please explain your whereabouts on Friday May 8th and how you came to obtain Mr. Cooley's DNA," the agent asked.
Julie hesitated now. She knew she was in such deep trouble but she didn't want the case to be tossed out and Janet Warren's mother or those other girls families to be forgotten.
"First tell me what will happen to the case," Julie piped up "will you keep investigating that bastard, you have to, Janet Warren's body is still out there somewhere along with who knows how many other women he went after!"
The internal affairs agent looked at Russell now.
"It's complicated," he said "you compromised everything we had, they are going to review it all from the beginning and we could lose the other leverage we had on him, his property, the other events he attended on the college campuses where the girls were staying, what were you thinking?"
She did not have an answer for him. Instead, she took a deep breath and said as quickly as possible, in flat monotone, "I went to his stupid charity thing last Friday, dressed up, took a taxi downtown, snuck inside, waited for him to eat or drink something, watched him leave the table, snuck over and took the glass he drank from, I snuck out, brought it home, swabbed it for DNA and brought it to the tech here, he thought I was running something else, it's not his fault, he didn't know anything until he gave me the results and, here we are."
The agent took notes on everything she said but Russell just stared at her in disbelief, disappointment, anger, mixtures of these emotions. Her face burned with shame now.
"All right," the agent said "I will conduct my investigation accordingly, until then, the Cooley case and all subsequent evidence is suspended, Ms. Finlay, stay in town, I will be speaking to you again."
She got up from the chair and left the room. Julie made a move to stand up and leave too but Russell's sharp voice snapped "Sit," and she sank back down into the chair.
"Did you really think you would get away that easily?" he demanded to know.
"No," she mumbled, staring at that metal piece again.
"This is a career killer Jules," Russell reminded her "it's going on your permanent record, you'll never be able to work in the field again."
She glanced up at him and asked "You're firing me?"
"I don't have a choice," Russell said "it's either I do it, or the sheriff hauls you in and tears you apart, do you want that?"
"No," she muttered, feeling defeated, hanging her head.
"Look at me," he ordered her, making her feel like a child in timeout.
Their eyes met in a painful awkward silence. She tried not to blink or stare at him for too long in case he saw the tears forming in her eyes.
"I thought I knew you better," he finally spoke, crushing her soul with those words before standing up from the table and leaving her alone with only her worst thoughts to sit with her.
Time seemed to stand still, as cliché as it sounds, but Julie could not bring herself to move from that dark, isolated room. She didn't know what was waiting for her outside. She didn't know where to go after being unofficially let go from her job. What was she going to tell Mike? Tell her friends and colleagues? Would the media get a hold of this story? Would she be shunned for the rest of her life? What would happen to Mrs. Warren and the other girl's families now that she had compromised the case? The questions were overloading her mind. She had to escape but where to run? With all the strength she could muster, she lifted herself from the chair, opened the door and peered out into the hallway. No one was waiting to use the room, and no one seemed to be waiting for her, so she slipped out. She wandered down the hall where people seemed to keep going about their day. It occurred to her that she needed a ride home. She tried calling Mike on her cell phone, but he did not answer her. She knew better than to ask Russell for a ride, so she resorted to calling a cab.
As she waited on the curb outside of the police station, a voice right beside her startled her.
"Well done, you dug a deep hole for yourself,"
She spun around and was face to face with Tom Cooley.
"Doesn't matter," she snapped back quickly "that DNA doesn't lie, you killed those women and Janet Warren."
"I don't know why you insist on harassing me," Cooley continued "Janet and those women came to my events, they had a lot to offer the company, what happened to them was unfortunate coincidence."
"Sure," Julie said "whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, why don't you bother someone else, your charm doesn't work on me."
"Well I can see that," Cooley said "I simply came to give you this."
He handed her a sealed envelope before backing away as if he dared her to open it while he was still near her. Instead, she waited until Cooley was out of her sight before tearing into the envelope. She only needed to read the first line to know what was happening; he was suing her and the entire Seattle PD.
The drive home seemed to take only a few seconds to her numb mind. The letter was stuffed in her pocket, but it made her feel ten times heavier. That dead weight coupled with just being fired was creating a hole in her heart where all her confidence and security resided. Mikes car was in the driveway when the cab dropped her off and she knew he had been ignoring her on purpose. She dreaded what awaited her on the other side of the door as she stood on the porch debating what to say as she let herself in.
No sound could be heard as she entered. He didn't have the TV on, or laundry going or anything cooking. It was just silence. She turned the corner into the kitchen and found him standing at the counter, the bottle of good scotch open and his glass empty.
"Hey," she murmured to get his attention.
"Hey," was his only reply as he swirled the ice around in his glass.
"I couldn't find you at the station," she continued "you didn't answer your phone either."
"Why would I?" he snapped at her.
"So we could talk," she said, stepping closer to the counter.
"There's nothing to say," he said "except you screwed up, bad."
"But I got him," she insisted.
"No, what you got was all of our evidence under scrutiny and our entire case tossed aside like garbage," he said, voice growing louder "what about those girls? I thought you cared about them?"
"I do!" she insisted "that's why I had to get that DNA, there was no way they would get us a warrant."
"Obviously you don't care about anyone because you destroyed everything we had," he continued and now she wondered what he was really talking about.
"This will all blow over," she tried to reason "the day shift team will find the evidence they need and Cooley will go down for this."
"Right, sure," Mike beat back sarcastically "and until then, none of us can help and we get thrown under the bus."
"Money will be tight for a while," she admitted "but we have enough saved up."
"It's not about money Jules!" he had to shout again because she wasn't getting it "you're in trouble, IA is looking at me now, this could end us both!"
"But you didn't do anything!" she insisted "it was all me, I can vouch for you."
"IA doesn't give a crap," Mike said, pacing the floor now "they know we live and work together, they will insist I knew what you were up to, what the hell were you thinking?"
"I just wanted to get him," she concluded "for the girls, their families, I didn't think-
"That's exactly it, you didn't think about anyone but yourself," Mike cut her off "after all we worked for, I thought our life together meant more to you, but this case, it's messing with your head, you've been different for so long, I just, I don't think we can do this anymore."
"What are you saying?" she asked but her heart already knew the answer.
"I want a divorce," he dropped the bomb which exploded in their tiny kitchen, the worst emotional punch in the stomach she had received all day.
More to come…