Notes: Thank you to everyone for all your comments. I have found the variety of reactions to the case and Sgt. Kelly really interesting. I love hearing your thoughts and reactions!
CH 6: A Divided Blue Line
Lt. Cavanaugh sat at his desk; it was early, too early. He had half-way expected the call he received late in the evening the previous day but his team was stressed and frustrated and he made the decision to spare them the additional burden, at least for the night. The sun had barely been up when he walked through the front doors of headquarters, the bleary eyed officers from the night shifts nodding as they passed. His pencil drummed nervously on his desk. It was part of the job. Sometimes you had to make a call. There was never a perfect situation when it came to fellow officers risking their lives. But, it was part of the job. Sometimes you had to make a call, and he had. He looked at his watch and took another bitter draw off the stale coffee that had sat in the pot all night.
You can't order me to send the dog.
No, but I can.
Through the half-drawn blinds of his office door window he saw Jane, Korsak and Frost enter the bullpen, they all looked like they were running high on caffeine and low on patience. He glanced down at his desk calendar and circled the late morning appointment with Internal Affairs. He had made the call. That was all that mattered.
And I'd make the same one again.
Cavanaugh cracked his neck and squared his shoulders as he walked to his door, opening it to a surprised team who thought they'd be the only ones in that early, "I need you three in my office."
They walked warily in and took a seat in chairs while Cavanaugh sat on the front edge of his desk.
"Last night I got a call from Internal Affairs, I have a debriefing with them at 10am this morning on the Gerard Williams fiasco from yesterday and the loss of the K-9…" he tried with difficulty to keep his voice steady, frank and unalarming.
"Wait, Sgt. Kelly file a complaint or something?" Jane's eyes flashed with anger as she thought about her throbbing lip and her refusal to file a complaint against Kelly the previous day.
Cavanaugh held up his hand, "Easy Rizzoli, no, Sgt. Kelly didn't file a complaint. The department treats the loss of a canine officer the same as if it were any one of you. For us it may seem like just a dog, but he was on officer, with every bit as much money and time invested into his training and employment on the force as a human officer. Dual-purpose K-9s like that one can cost as much a patrol officer's yearly salary, factor in training costs and everything else and having to replace him…they'll investigate and make sure that everything was done by the book."
"It was the right call, Lt.," Korsak offered.
The older man nodded, "I've gone over it in my head all night. I wouldn't do anything different and I think IA will see it that way too. But, the reason I called you in here is because you were the lead officers and first on scene so IA may call you for an interview. I want you all to remember, I made that call; do you understand me? I ordered Sgt. Kelly to deploy the K-9. It was my call." Cavanaugh looked sternly from Korsak to Frost to Jane, holding her eye a little longer than the others. They were his team, and they were a good one and if anyone was going to catch hell for the K-9's death, Cavanaugh was willing to step up and take it.
They all nodded silently.
"Ok," he sighed with an air of relief, "get back to work, you've still got a missing girl to find."
Precious seconds became minutes and soon hours and Jane found herself on the verge of yanking out her hair as she twisted it tightly around her fingers and pulled until a sharp pain shot through her scalp, "What'd you do with her you bastard," she mumbled under her breath.
Cavanaugh cleared his throat in an attention-grabbing manner from behind her. Jane looked up to see Frost staring somewhat slackjawed and she turned, following his gaze to Cavanaugh, Cpt. Petrovski from the K-9 unit and Sgt. Kelly. Sgt. Kelly wore a perfectly tailored basic navy blue pantsuit with a white dress shirt that held a faint blue pin stripe and sensible yet stylish navy pumps. Her straight red hair cascaded in long layers, the front falling to sit on her shoulders and the back hanging just a little below them. The freckles that had been visible on her face the day before with only a slight dusting of powder were muted by the foundation she wore and her blue eyes seemed somehow more piercing perfectly accentuated by a shimmering neutral shaded eyeshadow and mascara that made naturally strawberry-blond eyelashes visible. She was standing there a stark contrast to the form Jane had the seen the previous day in full SWAT gear. Here she was feminine, all in all, quite attractive and it made Jane burn even more knowing that the…very much a woman, standing in front of her was the same person that had gotten the step on her yesterday and damn near knocked her out.
"If I could have everyone's attention," Cavanaugh started, "In light of yesterday's events, Sgt. Kelly was given her choice of temporary reassignment and has chosen Homicide. She will join us in working the Washington case, I trust you all will be able to brief her and bring her up to speed on the investigation." Cavanaugh shook Cpt. Petrovski's hand as the Captain exited and he showed Kelly to an empty desk.
"Sgt. Korsak," Cavanaugh turned as he headed towards his office, "I'm off to my meeting; if there are any breaks in the case you can alert me on my cell."
Korsak nodded and they all watched as the Lieutenant walked away, unsuccessfully hiding how hard he had to force himself to walk with confidence, without regret, an awkward silence fell over them.
"We, umm, have coffee…over there," Frost pointed to a coffee pot on a table in the corner, "if you need any."
"Thank you but I don't drink coffee," Sgt. Kelly replied, "but I will avail myself of your cream and sugar for me tea." She pulled a handful of tea bags from her briefcase and dropped them in the top desk drawer.
"Don't drink coffee?" Korsak's voice sounded almost personally offended as if he'd harvested the rejected beans himself, "Next you'll tell us you don't eat donuts."
Kelly smiled and nodded, "Rarely, not much of a sweet tooth."
Jane tilted her empty cup towards herself and then made her way over to the coffee pot.
No time like the present, Kelly thought, as she grabbed her own mug and a tea bag and made her way over to the table as well. She walked up next to Jane, who glanced down at her quickly before tending to the black liquid.
"Could we have a word?" Kelly asked as she dunked her tea bag into the water-filled mug and popped it in the microwave.
Jane nodded and walked out of the bullpen into the hallway. She leaned against the wall as Kelly stepped in front of her and stood somewhat rigidly with her hands clasped behind her back, a hold over from her days in the army.
"I owe you an apology," Kelly started, "punching you was uncalled for."
"Yeah, it was," Jane replied, somewhat indignantly.
Kelly nodded, "Fair enough," she turned to walk back to the bullpen.
"K-9 is stationed with and works with SWAT you could have transferred there, why…why homicide?" Jane asked.
Kelly paused at the door, "Because K-9 is stationed with SWAT. And…because you didn't find that little girl in the house…I owe it to him…that he didn't die for nothing."
Maura made her way up to Homicide around 1pm. She hadn't seen Jane since she'd left her apartment early that morning. Talking the previous night had lifted some burdens but further weighted others. Words that just a few short years ago would have been music to her ears coming from another human being's lips now felt like painful daggers. You're my friend, Maura. My best friend. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe her observations over the past months had been just wishful thinking. Maybe when I thought Jane was looking at me, the same way I was looking at her I was just seeing what I wanted to see.
Jane smiled and turned towards the door as she heard the clip clop of Maura's heels signal her arrival. But it wasn't Jane's smile that caught Maura's attention when she walked through the doors, but rather the unfamiliar redhead with her back turned a few desks away.
Sgt. Kelly looked up and over her shoulder, meeting the Medical Examiner's curious gaze with a warm smile. She stood and approached Maura, noting the way the ME's eyes traveled down the length of her body and then back up, "Doctor, I just wanted to thank you again for your help yesterday. It was very much appreciated."
"You're welcome, I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more, and please, call me Maura."
Kelly nodded and feeling the heated stare from Jane returned to her desk.
Maura pulled up a chair and sat at Jane's side, "I thought you might work through lunch so I brought you a sandwich."
"Mmm, starving," she mumbled taking a bite.
Maura lowered her voice and swiped her finger over her own lip, "How's?"
Jane shrugged, "It's fine."
Maura took a bite of the sandwich she had brought up for herself and watched as Jane ravenously inhaled the last of the first half of hers, "So, I know it's been a rough week. I thought if you weren't busy Friday night you'd let me cook dinner for you? Your mother has given me some recipes I'd like to try and you'd be the perfect rat to try them out on."
Jane snorted, "I think you mean guinea pig."
Maura quirked her eyebrows, "Well that hardly makes sense, rats and mice are by far the preferred rodents for various types of testing."
Jane shook her head as she chuckled, "No can do anyway, I have a date."
"Oh," Maura's heart sank as she tried to mask the disappointment on her face.
Jane seemed oblivious as she dove into the next half of her sandwich, "That new Assistant District Attorney that assisted on the case I testified in a few weeks ago, Brad Morgan, asked me out. Seems nice, he's pretty cute…plays on a league Hockey Team in the winter. Can't be worse than the losers Ma tries to set me up with."
Sgt. Kelly tucked her hair behind her right ear so she could eavesdrop on the conversation with more accuracy.
"That's…that's great Jane, I hope you have a wonderful time. Well, I better get back downstairs, I have some lab results that should be back soon," Maura dropped the remainder of her sandwich back in the Ziploc bag as she stood and then looked at Jane who licked a little bit of mustard off her thumb, "I'm not as hungry as I thought, would you like the rest of my sandwich?" She held the bag out.
"Yeah, thanks Maura. Call me if the lab results shed any light on the case," Jane pulled out the uneaten sandwich and went back to her files.
Sgt. Kelly had never been to the morgue, hell there were plenty of places in Headquarters she hadn't been, like the Homicide bullpen, before today. The K-9 unit wasn't stationed at Headquarters; they used an offsite location where they had room to run training scenarios. It was quiet, in the lower bowels of the building and noticeably cooler, which made sense. A few lab techs worked studiously at their stations, the primary sound pervading the otherwise stark silence being the gentle hum and whir of lab equipment. She saw Maura in her office and gently knocked on the slightly ajar door.
Maura looked up, "Sergeant, I sent trace results upstairs a few hours ago, is there something I can help you with?"
"Christine, Chris actually, you can call me Chris," she paused to examine the array of tribal masks hanging on the wall, "These are exquisite."
Maura walked towards her, "Thank you, most of the officers find them a little weird."
Kelly chuckled under her breath, "Not surprising. I did two tours in Iraq, when I had leave opportunities I traveled around North Africa. I picked up primarily small daggers from some of the Berber and Taureg tribes. I looked for tribal masks, but I never got into the areas where ceremonial masks, at least of the carved variety are more prolific. Some of the Taureg people still hunt with sight hounds, they use a breed of dog we in the West call the Azawakh; it looks a lot like a greyhound. I helped deliver a litter in southern Algeria. It was the tribal leader's favorite bitch and she had a puppy turned sideways and it was blocking the birth canal, so I reached in and righted the pup and helped her deliver it. They tried to give me a dog as thanks but I was going back to Iraq in a week and had to decline so they gave me a woman's headdress and veil decorated with beads and silver coins instead. Not exactly a carved mask, but beautiful craftsmanship nonetheless."
Maura was enthralled, "What a fascinating experience, though something tells me given the opportunity, you would have taken the dog. I was in Medecins Sans Frontiers in Western Africa. We should exchange Africa stories."
Kelly smiled at the ME's correct assumption regarding the dog, "We should. Would you let me take you to dinner Friday night?"
The question took Maura by surprise, "Dinner? Like a…"
The redhead laughed nervously and ran a quick hand through her hair, "Like a date, yes. Unless I've made an embarrassingly incorrect presumption…"
Maura smiled, "No, you haven't. It's not something many people pick up on though."
"Well I always prided myself on possessing a finely tuned sense of gaydar," Kelly joked.
"Very finely tuned," Maura joked back, "Perhaps you'll enlighten me at dinner."
"May I pick you up seven?" Kelly handed Maura her card with her cell number on it.
"It's a date," Maura replied sliding the card into her blazer pocket.