Thank you for reading so far and I hope you'll enjoy the new chapter. :)
RIDDLE
Snapshots
So John McGarrett was working on some mysterious case that he couldn't tell anyone about and now Steve had some evidence in this case and he wanted Danny's help. All this smelled of conspiracy theory at best and of misdirection at worst. How simple it would be to give the detective some false evidence and send him on the wrong track?
Danny was driving through the Ford Island Bridge and cursing himself. He basically let McGarrett manipulate him. He'd agreed to play by his rules and right now it felt like he'd sold his soul to the devil.
Except not. Not really. McGarrett was not a devil and he had no way of knowing what the detective would do with the information he now possessed. Danny touched the shirt pocket on his chest where he hid a piece of paper with the case file number. McGarrett had no other entry into the precinct, whether because he couldn't trust anyone, or because no one would trust him. His father's former colleagues might have felt compassion, maybe pity, but no one would treat him seriously if he came in there with a tale like the one he'd just sold Danny.
Another surge of anger ran through him like a red-hot wave. He'd believed in a damn conspiracy theory. For a moment there, not brief at all, he'd actually bought it.
He didn't any more. Detective Daniel Williams gripped the steering wheel with determination that translated into a decision he just made. He would go straight to Chief Mahaka and he'd tell him all about the conversation he'd had and about the case file number and what McGarrett suspected. A mole in the precinct! That was impudent!
The gnawing feeling that he would be betraying someone's trust accompanied him for the rest of the drive to the precinct.
Once there, against his earlier decision, Danny didn't go to the Chief's office. He thought that perhaps he should first discuss it with his partner, because he needed another set of eyes on this. He didn't know right from wrong anymore. He also wanted to ask why he hadn't gotten any word regarding Meka's failed pursuit of McGarrett.
Meka wasn't at his desk. Danny sat, tapping his fingers on the surface and waited. Five minutes passed. Meka was still missing.
Danny stood up and took three steps toward the Chief's office.
Then he halted and returned to his chair.
Spilling it all out to the Chief would not be fair, plain and simple. Even if McGarrett was a dangerous manipulative criminalist - which seemed less and less probable the longer he thought about it - the detective could risk wasting a couple of more hours. On the other hand, if he was just someone who trusted a police officer with their secret, failing that trust would be against Danny Williams' principles.
"Something bothering you?" Detective Kaleo, a colleague, startled him. He sneaked close so silently Danny never noticed. "McGarrett's case?" He took a seat next to Danny's desk. "How's it going?"
Why was he asking? Danny glared at him for a moment. They'd never worked together and while Danny needed to talk to someone, Detective Kaleo was not on his list of trusted friends. His sudden concern certainly didn't serve to reduce Danny's qualms. Someone in the precinct could be a mole, he remembered and ... immediately wanted to clock himself in the head. He was giving in to McGarrett's paranoia.
That made up his mind.
"I gotta talk to the Chief!" he strode toward the office.
Which, to his utter surprise, he found closed. Blinds were shut and there were people inside, talking animatedly. Danny was not one to pry but one of the voices sounded suspiciously like Hanamoa's so he stole a peek through the gap between the blinds and the doorframe and indeed it was his very own partner, the Chief and one more man Danny didn't know. Now what was that about? And why now of all times?
Danny threw up his hands and returned to his desk. He checked if the forensics analysis from McGarrett's crime scene was ready; he sent a reminder about the ballistic report and skimmed through the notes on a minor theft case he had going but his mind was elsewhere. He briefly considered calling the Archives and decided against it. He would do it later, after he'd talked to Meka. No, not the Chief, he wasn't going to the Chief with this. Paranoia or not, really, the only person he was absolutely certain of in here was Detective Hanamoa.
"I'm going to the crime scene," he decided suddenly. Kaleo glared at him wide-eyed and tried to ask why and if he wanted company but Danny ignored him completely.
He wasn't sure what he wanted to find there. Perhaps some answer to the question if Steve McGarrett was really guilty. At least it was daytime.
He came through the door and looked at the trashed living room with blood stains on the wall. He tried to backtrack his reasoning. Steve McGarrett appearing at the crime scene and more importantly, stealing a property from there was iffy. Nonetheless it didn't flare the detective's suspicions. Back in New Jersey Danny used to trust his instincts.
Meka's rumors about the rift between John and Steve had made him doubt his initial judgment. He'd thought he'd found a probable motive. As for means, yes, Steve had a gun but the ballistic report was still in the woods. Why was it taking so long to get it done?
Why indeed?
Could someone tamper with it?
Since Danny had no way of analyzing the means at this moment he decided he would take a closer look at the motive. A father hates his son for not dying while the beloved wife died. As horrid as it sounded, such resentment was not impossible. This could skew the boy's psyche, especially if he had been, no matter how severely or slightly, injured too.
So, had John McGarrett hated his son? Meka's rumors were exactly that - rumors. Chin Ho Kelly's account didn't suggest any hatred.
The detective looked around the room. The reason he hadn't initially thought of John McGarrett as a family man was because there was not a single item in the main area of the house that would suggest he had a wife or kids. He had his passion - that was ships. There was a big model of a frigate, there were photographs of USS Arizona, of Pearl Harbor in the forties, before the bombing. Of a group of sailors. Danny came closer to the picture, pushed by intuition. He read the names and sure enough, he found 'Stephen McGarrett' there. The sailors from Arizona, those who went down with her. This Stephen McGarrett must have been John's father, Steve's grandfather the youngest of the clan was named after.
On the bureau, covered with streaks of dried blood, stood a photograph of a group of police officers, above it hung the diploma for John McGarrett for excellence in service he'd probably received on the day of his retirement. The man took pride in his job, in his heritage and that was what he was displaying for the visitors.
In the office at the back of the living room Danny found more framed photographs of colleagues from the Force and a few of the Navy team from Vietnam. That's right, he remembered from the victim's dossier. John McGarrett had gone into his father's footsteps and joined the Navy. He had been a Lieutenant upon transferring to Reserves.
His resentment toward Steve could have stemmed not so much from the boy not dying instead of his mother but from him coming out of the accident damaged. Danny swallowed bile when he thought about his greatest treasure, his beloved daughter, his Grace. He could never hate her. He had hopes for her alright, like any parent. He dreamt that she would become a dancer, or a singer, or a brilliant mathematician but if she hurt herself and she couldn't perform according to his ambitions, he would do everything in his power to make sure she was happy. That would ... That was his only purpose.
Profound dislike he suddenly felt for John McGarrett and compassion for Steve surprised him. Damn it, he wasn't supposed to understand and feel sorry for the killer! If Steve McGarrett was the killer, he reminded himself. God, he hoped he was not. Right now he wanted to find something - anything! - that would suggest that Steve was innocent, that he was right with all the paranoia, that all he wanted was to find out who'd killed his old man. That they had not been so much at odds with each other.
Danny opened a desk drawer, then another and another. There were some documents, bills, old prescriptions, more police photographs. Shells, seaweed and sand in one of them. And in the bottom drawer a couple of old photograph albums. Danny skimmed through them and saw a pretty woman with a baby, a toddler, then two laughing kids growing older and older as he flipped through the pages. A boy and a girl, happy, loving and loved. John was in some of those pictures as well but it was mostly the children, occasionally with Mom.
The pictures in the second album portrayed the kids aging much faster as pictures weren't taken so often anymore. Children turned into teenagers and Danny stopped, fascinated by a photograph of a lean, muscular boy with certainly Steve McGarrett's, only much younger face. The boy was standing next to a paper target with a nice bull's eye even Danny could envy, holding a rifle and smiling broadly, proudly. Short sleeves of his t-shirt revealed nicely sculpted arms of an athlete. This boy was a winner.
In his mind's eye Danny Williams saw the man this boy should have become and it was not the thin, tired-looking, slightly crooked person he'd spoken to this morning. There was still the same fire in his eyes but for the first time the detective realized how much this man lost. He still had no idea about the extent of his injuries but even if they had been minor, even if it had been merely a broken hand - this vision of what he could have achieved and what had been taken away from him was enough to understand the depth of despair he might have fallen into.
This was not the answer Danny needed.
He flipped the next few pages and after three or four more, there were no other pictures of Steve in there. The blonde girl grew older but she stopped smiling and all the pictures were official, from ceremonies or with relatives, posed and stiff. She graduated high school, then college. The next picture was a total surprise - it was John McGarrett's daughter in a Navy uniform. Danny was so startled he took the picture out and turned it around as if he thought there was someone else on the flip side. There was a note instead.
Greetings from Annapolis, Dad!
Your little girl,
Mary
Danny put it back and wondered what it meant, how it all fitted into the puzzle that was the McGarrett family. No pictures of Steve after the accident, Mary dedicating the photograph to her father and not her brother. None of it bode well to his theory that Steve didn't have a reason for revenge and took things a little too far.
His head hurt. He wanted to throw the damn album across the room and trash everything in vicinity. They had no right to be so cruel to a boy who lost his mother and his future! If, for some reason - damn, maybe Steve was driving that day, who knew - even if it really was his fault, he had paid enough.
Damn.
Danny took a few deep breaths to control his anger and put the album away where it belonged. He still would not leave the house. He wandered through the office some more, glared at the blood stains. Rummaged through the kitchen, glanced into the garage and peeked into the bedroom upstairs. Another photograph caught his eye. A family portrait stood on the nightstand. Mary, he now knew the sister's name, could be about eight, about Grace's age now. Steve was maybe twelve. Mom and Dad had arms thrown around each other, their heads were touching. A caldera in the background must have been some Hawaiian volcano.
A sudden thought occurred to the detective. John McGarrett had pictures related to his job on a public display but private family albums were hidden in the drawer. Maybe...
Danny yanked the nightstand drawer and found only sleeping pills and dried leaves in it. He looked around and when his gaze fell on the closet taking up the side wall of the room. He opened it and started rummaging through the clothes, the drawers, the folded bedclothes. When he didn't find anything out of place he felt more disappointed than he thought he would. But then, what was he really expecting? He wanted to laugh at himself.
In a final impulse of stupidity he squatted on his knees and looked under the bed.
There was an old shoe box tucked deep in the corner.
Danny gasped with surprise and crawled under the bed. He grabbed the box and crawled back, hitting his head in a hurry. He massaged the aching spot with one hand, the other one fumbling with the lid. All he found were old newspaper pages, crumpled, torn. He started unfolding them, wondering what articles there were, but then he saw an envelope underneath. Hidden. The newspapers were irrelevant. He took the envelope out with trembling hands and his heart in his throat.
This was it, he knew it. This was his answer.
When he opened it he caught a glimpse of a photograph of lots and lots of medical equipment one may only see at the hospital and whiteness of the sheets. What caught his attention, though, was a folded piece of paper sticking out in front.
Perhaps he shouldn't have taken it out, he shouldn't have unfolded it and most importantly he shouldn't have read it, but Danny did, his breathing becoming more and more strained.
Steve, the letter begun,
If you ever find those pictures, please don't be angry that I kept them. I know you wanted me to burn them; you didn't want any reminder of how it was, but I couldn't. You know why I took them. I needed one last thing that would remind me of you in case you didn't survive. Even if you think they are ugly, at the time I thought they were beautiful because there was you in them.
Danny felt tears prickle at his eyes and he thought he should put the letter away; it was too intimate, he had no right! But he couldn't stop. This could be what he was looking for, this could be his 'proof'.
I kept them all those years to remind myself what I had, what I needed to protect at all cost. You. Always my brave, strong son. Do you realize how far you've come? Do you realize you are the strongest person I know? I want you to realize that, I want you to believe-
Danny folded the letter and closed the envelope without taking out any of the pictures. He didn't want to know, not this way. He knew enough and it was that John McGarrett loved his son. He was sure Steve loved his old man right back and he knew now what he had to do. Find the real killer and help the boy from the picture at least get one thing right in his life.
t.b.c.
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