Author's Note: This chapter is a little more Piper-focused to try and chug the plot along. Don't worry, the fluff doesn't end here I swear. I'm a loyal LoVe fan and I absolutely positively intend to write that part along. I'm headed out of town so the next few days will be quiet from me, but definitely going to update this when I get back.
Chapter 7: Photographs & Memories
Piper sat on the sofa in her hotel room and ran her hands through her hair, staring at the floor. She had taken the liberty of printing out every document and photo she could find in the file this mystery sender had given to her, it had even contained copies of the recordings done with witnesses at the scene. She had loaded them onto her iPhone and was listening to one of the stranger statements now.
He just dropped her here, seriously. It was some guy in a blue car who pushed her out, why are they saying she collapsed there? That's not true!
Harvy Oldman was the man's name according to the corresponding document and his statement was completely unlike the others. Everyone else gave the same story, she stumbled from somewhere down the road and just collapsed. Harvy, though, claimed that she had been pushed from a car into the alley and lay where she was shoved. He didn't see the driver, he only got part of the license plate, but he knows she didn't die there in that spot.
The photos had been taped to the wall, the police report had been laid out - both versions of it - on the coffee table in front of her. Piper played the statement again, listening so intently that she didn't hear Veronica's knock on the door. Veronica used her spare key and opened it, carefully walking inside in case Piper was still asleep.
When Veronica saw the photos taped to the wall, she just stared at them open-mouthed. She looked over at Piper who had been watching her and noticed the police report. No, the two police reports spread out. Piper had headphones in and by the look on her face was not listening to music. She pulled one of the earbuds out and said nothing.
"Piper...what is all of this? What's going on?" Veronica had enough, she was going to find out what was with this case from the horse's mouth, "You have two complete case files on this girl. Who is she?"
"It's an old case, it's something I've been working on since I joined the FBI." Piper didn't hold back, she was too stuck in this case to try and keep going on her own, "It was ruled an accidental overdose after a few weeks of investigation, but originally opened as a murder file. Nothing in this thing adds up, it just got pushed aside and forgotten about." 'But I didn't forget,' Piper bit her lip, 'I never forgot for one day.'
Veronica sat on the couch beside her and shrugged off her wool jacket. She took one of the photos of the dead girl and stared at it, dead children always freaked Veronica out a little, "Why does it mean so much to you? Not that I think you're wrong to want justice, I just….I don't understand."
Piper sighed and wondered where to start, then she realized she didn't have to wonder. Veronica had been her friend, Piper had been shutting her out because she told herself she was too fragile to handle it, but really Piper had just been being stubborn. Now she was stuck, she couldn't link the Fitzpatricks to Angela's body completely, nor could she list a reason why. Veronica's case with Gregory Ford had started to open up a new window into Angela's murder - Piper still considered it a murder - and she began to explore other avenues, "She was my sister."
Veronica stared at the photo and back at Piper, "Your sister?"
"Yeah. She was younger than me by a year when she died." Piper didn't really want to explain everything right now, she just wanted a fresh set of eyes.
Veronica had left the door open and a gentle knocking on the door drew their attention, Piz leaned into the room sheepishly. Logan pushed past him and stopped in front of the coffee table, "I was waiting to see how long you'd- is that a picture of a body?!" Piper jumped.
Piz stepped into the room and looked apologetically at Piper, "I'm sorry, I was headed back to my room. Logan was just standing there in the hall. I guess we're on the same floor, I should have just closed the door or something. I just walked in and this looks like a crazy thing you're doing - not like that, not like crazy person crazy just like intense crazy."
He was rambling. Piper got to her feet and shook her head, holding up her hand for him to stop talking, "Can we all just stop for a second here? I'm really uncomfortable with this many people being all up in my business like this," she looked at Logan and took the photo from his hand, "Yes, that's a body. No it's not creepy. Can we just leave this alone?"
Piper gathered everything off the table and pulled the other pictures off the wall and rested them face down on the counter. She turned to look at the three of them, all staring at her while she shoved papers into a manila folder, "Can you stop staring at me now? Can we pretend this really personal thing didn't just happen?"
Piper didn't like people she wasn't completely familiar with knowing her personal shit. Veronica was one thing, she was an extension of Piper's own self. She deserved to know. Piz Piper barely knew except for a few long conversations, Logan was Veronica's...something or other who she kind of knew, but not well enough to start passing off her own drama.
Logan looked at Veronica and she looked back at him, "Yeah...whatever you say I guess."
"Sure." Piz chimed in. He jerked his thumb at the door, "I'm sorry for barging in, I'm just going to head back to my room and get some sleep."
Something about the whole situation had lit Piper on fire, she was defensive like a dog backed into a corner. Unfairly, she thought in retrospect, she snapped at Piz, "Piz what are you even doing here? Didn't your conference end yesterday?!"
He took a step back, surprised, "Yeah, I'm taking some time off work for a while though. I wanted to stick around Neptune." He took another step back, "I should really just go."
Piper sighed heavily and covered her face with her hand, "No, no. I'm being a bitch. I'm sorry, you don't have to leave," she turned to Veronica and Logan, "What did you guys want?"
Piz stood in limbo, she had said not to leave but this was really tense and he wasn't sure what to do. So he took another slow step backwards and waited for Piper to dismiss him.
"W-we're going to get dinner and wanted you to come," Veronica's expression was sad, she almost didn't want to make Piper leave the room at this point, "but you don't have to."
"No I should take a break. Let me get changed." Piper left the living room with Piz standing there, still awkward, and Veronica and Logan saying nothing to him. Piper came back out of the bedroom after a few minutes, jeans tucked into flat gray boots and a loose gray button up half done over a deep scarlet t-shirt. She pulled her hair to the side and tied an elastic around it to keep it there, loose and curly, over her shoulder. She looked from one person to the other, still uncomfortable that they were in her room.
Piz took another step back and she caught him with her eyes, "Is he coming, too?" Piper asked.
He shook his head, "No, no. I don't want to be a fourth wheel, I'll just go back to my room." 'Fourth wheel? What the fuck is wrong with me.' he thought, turning around and leaving the room before they had a chance to change their minds.
Piper looked back at Veronica and Logan and motioned for them to leave first. She grabbed her purse and followed them downstairs. Logan drove them to a small Chinese place downtown and Piper noticed his hand at the small of Veronica's back while they walked inside. She also noticed how much of a third wheel she had started to feel like.
They say down inside and ordered their food, nothing exotic or out of the ordinary. Piper started the conversation first, still burning from all of these people have knowledge of her current personal task in some degree, "So, Logan. You produce movies and you throw kick-ass barbecues. What else do you do?"
"I surf," he told her between mouthfuls, "That's about it actually."
"Well that's pretty cool. I don't think I have the balance to get up on one foot in the morning."
"Let's talk about something interesting, though. Talk about this cold case thing, Veronica's been bugging me to talk to you about it." Piper was surprised Veronica had told him so much, she was coming back from Josh it seemed. It shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, though. Veronica had avoided the papers, the case proceedings, the investigation notes, the coroner's report. None of it had passed by Veronica's eyes in days. Piper was okay with that.
She swallowed hard and pushed the food on her plate around, "I'm just...having trouble connecting some people. I've got this girl who was obviously murdered and the police department let it be covered up for whatever reason. I've got a prominent drug dealer, but nothing linking the two of them together. She was diagnosed as an accidental overdose despite the obvious injection sites occurring post-mortem. I know this drug dealer is involved, but I can't really figure out how."
"Do you know who was dealing for him? Did she get mixed up in something like that?"
"No," Piper shook her head, "she wasn't that kind of girl."
Logan gave her a cynical smile, "Nobody is ever that kind of girl, but somebody always turns out to be."
Piper nodded slowly and appreciated Veronica changing the subject. She talked about helping Keith with some surveillance tonight, "Some guy cheating on his wife, blah blah blah. You know, important P.I. stuff."
Logan nodded and glanced at Piper who had stopped eating, "Do you want some company? Or is that against the P.I. rules?" he looked back at Veronica.
She pushed against him with her elbow, "No rules I don't establish for my own stakeouts."
They finished dinner uneventfully, Piper was quieter than she normally was when they dropped her off at the hotel. She pushed the button to get in the elevator and prepared to hit her button.
"Hold it!" someone shouted.
She held it and let Piz charge into the elevator like a bull in a China shop. He was out of breath, "Thank you- Piper! Hey. Thanks for...holding it for me….nobody ever does."
Piper smiled and nodded, still feeling pensive. He watched her and pushed the button for their floor, "Everything all right?"
Finally someone asked her about herself. Not the case, not her work, not her past, but about Piper. Present and here, bogged down and under stress. She shook her head violently, "Not even a little. Weren't you going to sleep like two hours ago?"
He put his hands in his pockets, pushing aside the casual black blazer he was wearing, "I lied, deal with it. You need to talk or something?"
For some reason, she was blinking away tears, "I probably do, but it's really a matter of if I want to. I do want to, but I just feel like I can't."
Words just poured out of her mouth, "This was supposed to be a vacation for Veronica so I can't talk to her about some stuff, I don't want to push this off on her or make her have to deal with my emotional crises as well as hers. I just feel like I'm dealing with this whole thing on my own."
They got off the elevator together and he walked with her to her room, not talking and just letting Piper pour her heart out, "Everything is wrong and it was so obvious then and it's even more obvious now. I want to help people, I joined the FBI to help people, why don't I feel like I'm helping anyone? I feel useless and superfluous, I'm extraneous. I have been designated redundant, I can't even solve a basic case in a small town. This is such bullshit."
Piz didn't exactly follow what she meant, but he knew she had been keeping these words inside for a while now. They stood in front of Piper's door while she wiped tears away before they fell. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it, "I'll be honest, I have no idea what you're crying about. Do you want to go sit down inside? They've got a mini fridge full of liquid courage. God knows I don't have anywhere to be tomorrow, I can hang out with you if you want."
Piper did want company tonight, she had been isolated and alone almost since the third day she and Veronica had been in Neptune. Veronica was distracted and she was allowed to be, she was so absorbed in 'mending bridges' with Logan that she had put Piper on the back burner. Veronica meant well, but she was trying to move on from everything that happened in New York in her own way. Piper didn't hold it against her, she just wished someone would be there for her, too. Josh had been her friend, he had been her companion as much as Veronica's boyfriend and it seemed like nobody cared.
Piz followed her into the room and opened the mini fridge while she went into her room to change. By the time Piper came back in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a tank top, Piz had started shaking together some sort of juice and vodka concoction. She pulled the elastic from her hair and re-tied it up in a ponytail, taking the glass he extended to her. They sat down on the balcony, enjoying the night as they drank.
Veronica sat in the car with Logan, her eyes and camera lens fixed on an office building in front of them.
"I forgot how boring your stakeouts are. They look more exciting in movies." He chewed absently on a piece of licorice.
Veronica made a face at him, "This is most of the job, just sitting and biding your time." Lights in the building came inside and she started snapping photos. Logan watched her fondly while she worked, he liked watching Veronica survey someone. It brought back memories of their early, electric days when they first started dating.
"Bingo," she said, taking a shot of a man in a suit pulling a woman in a skirt in for a hard, unabashed kiss, "Money shot."
Logan laughed and shook his head, "I don't get it, how can people stay in relationships they're so unhappy in? Why not just leave?"
"Some people don't have the stomach to leave, they think they need to stay for whatever reason. Usually rich married guys don't want to give up half their shit to their unhappier wives." Veronica packed up her camera and they sat in the Land Rover.
"Were we ever like that? To the point of unhappiness that we would just stay together for the sake of it?" Logan stared at the lit up office now.
Veronica was almost shocked that he had said something like that, "What? Of course not! We were never like that, that kind of unhappy. We just...we kept getting smacked in the face with circumstance, it drove us in different directions. Everything got so fragile and then the Madison thing," she trailed off and swallowed hard at the bitter memory. Even now it left a foul taste in her mouth.
"Yeah, the Madison thing," Logan's old regret washed over him again now, "I wish I had been smarter, hadn't been such an immature jackass."
"You weren't a jackass, you just didn't think."
"Yeah, I also forgot I was dating someone who is embittered against the world and felt like everything had a meaning." Logan smiled at her to let her know he meant it fondly.
He started the car and began to drive Veronica home, "I don't regret it, our relationship. I don't regret it at all. I just wish everything had gone differently, the drama and bullshit had just left us alone."
Veronica looked at her hands sadly, "Me, too. I wish things had happened differently, but at the same time I really don't," she turned slightly in her seat to face him, "If none of it had happened, we wouldn't have been who we were. I don't regret a second of what we were. That kind of feeling comes along once in a lifetime and we both let it slip out of our hands, that's the only part of it I regret."
They were quiet for the rest of the ride back. Logan walked Veronica to her door and kissed the top of her head goodnight. She waited at the door and watched him walk away for a few seconds before looking down at her keys, trying to find the right one.
"Veronica?" Logan stood at the end of the hallway.
Veronica looked up at him and he started walking towards her quickly, she dropped her keys and ran towards him. Veronica threw her arms around him, letting him lift her up in his arms and pull her tightly against him. His lips were on hers, like fire against her as he kissed her deeply, passionately, with wanton abandon. Logan's hand grabbed the back of her head and she pressed her palms to his cheeks, kissing him back again and again. Logan stumbled backwards into the wall and held Veronica against him, breathless when he pulled back. He stared directly into her eyes, searching her for something.
Veronica breathed heavily and put her hands on his, moving them away from her gently. She tilted her face up and kissed him again, wordlessly turning and walking back to the door. Veronica bent to get her keys and stared back at Logan, still leaned against the wall, keeping her eyes on him while she unlocked the door. She smiled at him and he smiled back, finally turning and walking back down the stairs.
Nothing would ever compare to the rush, the electricity, the static and fire that coursed through his veins. Veronica collapsed onto her bed and touched her lips lightly, curling up around a pillow to try and contain the thrumming of her heart in her ears. For the first time in a long while, Veronica felt alive. She felt the blood in her veins coming to life, like every fiber of her was coming awake.
Back at the Neptune Grand, Piz and Piper sat on the floor, backs against the couch. Small liquor bottles lay empty along the countertop and they shared their second bottle of champagne that room service had been kind enough to bring to them. Piz had abandoned his blazer and undone the first few buttons of his shirt.
"Seriously? An overdose?," he gave an exasperated sigh and took a swig from the bottle, "Cops are so annoying. You know what?" he shook his finger in the air, "Private Investigators are annoying. Making you fall in love with them like it's nothing. Assholes."
Piper nodded and snatched the bottle from him, "No, no, seriously. An overdose. I can't hardly deal with it. I don't even, Piz. I just don't even. PIs are the shit, they're so chill. They find shit and people and whatever. That's a chill job, that's cool," she pointed at him with the bottle, "Veronica loved you back, she just...I don't know. She got too Veronica for her own good."
"Bah, I know she probably did, but not the same way. Not like Logan Echolls," Piz added a bitter inflection when he said the name, "I'm sorry I am an Oregon-born radio host from the bitter warlands of the northwest. Not quite enough money in my pockets to be a badass Hollywood has-been's son. Fuck that guy, he's the asshole."
Piper laughed, "It's not about money, stop making it about that. You're a good guy, Piznarsky. Veronica and Logan just...are. I can't even explain it, it's just weird like that."
"Maybe I should get a tattoo or something, prove my badass...nes." Piz drank again.
"Only if it's a fucking sweet wolf tattoo."
"On my face."
"You're too cool."
They sat there on the floor and complained about the world around them, Piper eventually stumbled to her feet and cleared the couch off. Piz flopped down on it and she pulled a blanket over him. He had already rolled over, partially passed out, and mumbled a thank you. She patted his head and walked into the bedroom, laying down on top of the covers. Piznarsky was a good guy, he was good enough to hang out with a sad FBI agent and talk about how cruel life was to both of them.
'Pretty cool guy after all. Veronica didn't emphasize that enough.' Piper remembered thinking right before being hit with the urge to sleep like a sack of bricks.
