Seeing the fear and anger in Jeannie's eyes as she skirted around the desks to reach him, Mike asked weakly, already knowing the answer, "Sweetheart, what are you doing here?"
"Lee called me and told me what happened, and I caught the first plane that I could to get here as fast as I could," she told him the hurt and anger evident on her face.
"Lessing shouldn't have…" Mike began.
"No, you're right, Mike, Lee shouldn't have called me because it should have been you who called!" Jeannie snapped a little more harsher than she meant to. Taking a deep breath, to cool her temper, she admitted, "I went straight to the hospital because I thought you would be there, but the nurse said you had already left." She shook her head, "They wouldn't even tell me how just how badly Steve was hurt, all they would tell me was that his condition is critical. They wouldn't even let me see him, Mike!"
"I know, Sweetheart," Mike told her as he wrapped her arms around him and pulled her a little closer, "They are not allowing anyone, not even me, to see Steve tonight."
"What happened Mike? Lee said that Steve was shot in the head while trying to make some sort of an arrest." Jeannie asked, pulling away from Mike slightly as she looked up at his face, "Just how badly is he hurt?"
Mike swallowed hard, unable to answer her question, as the memory of hearing the gunshot and then finding Steve motionless on the ground in that alleyway, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his head, slammed back into his mind.
"Mike?" Jeannie asked again, unable to stop the fear she was feeling from leaking into her voice.
Swallowing hard again, Mike looked down at the frightened and expectant look on Jeannie's face. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to tell her the barest details of what had happened only hours before. "Steve got a lead to where a suspect was hiding, and we went to try and make the arrest. I took the stairs while Steve took the alleyway. The suspect panicked and escaped out the window and went down the fire escape…"
"And he shot Steve…" Jeannie finished softly.
Mike nodded, "And Steve was shot…"
"How… how bad?" Jeannie whispered, not certain that she really wanted to know.
"The bullet struck the left side of Steve's head. The doctor says that he was lucky; the bullet didn't penetrate his skull but it did cause a depressed skull fracture as it gouged along the outside of his skull, which caused a couple large bone fragments to break away and press down against his brain The fragments caused some bleeding and his brain to swell. They were able to stop the bleeding and remove the bone fragments before wiring the pieces of bone back into place."
"But he's going to be okay?" Jeannie asked, almost pleading with her father to tell her that Steve was going to be okay.
Hugging Jeannie a little closer, Mike found himself unable to answer as a large lump formed in his throat.
"Mike, he is going to be okay, isn't he?" Jeannie asked again as she felt her father's breath hitch a little.
"I …I don't know, Sweetheart, I just don't know." He whispered into her hair.
"Ohh, Mike!" Jeannie sobbed as Mike held her tighter and kissed the top of her hair.
"Let's go home," he murmured, "There's nothing else we can do for Steve, tonight."
Attempting to wipe away some of the tears that now ran freely down her face, Jeannie could only nod as Mike released her and quickly entered his office to grab his coat and fedora before he returned. Placing his arm protectively around her shoulders, he silently led her past Steve's desk and out of the now empty bullpen.
OoOoOoOoOoO
"Hey, John, Randy, hold up for a sec."
The two SFPD officers stopped and turned around as they waited for their colleague to jog across the garage parking lot to where they had parked their squad car at the end of their shift.
"Did ya hear?" Charlie asked excitedly as he reached them.
"Hear what?" Randy frowned tiredly, not in the mood for guessing games after a long tiring nightshift and a distracted partner who seemed to have spent the whole shift in his own head than on patrol in the squad car.
"About Henderson!" Charlie grinned as the trio began to walk towards the garage doors that lead into the station.
"What about Henderson?" Randy stopped looked across at Charlie, his hand resting on the door leading into the building.
"We got the bastard!"
"When?" John demanded, surprising Randy that his partner was even listening to the conversation.
"Late last night, Stone and Tanner arrested him after they found him hiding out at an old girlfriend's apartment. I heard that he gave up without a fight." Charlie answered as he reached across and pushed open the door, waiting until the two other officers followed him and the door closed behind them, before he rushed on. "But get this, he's screaming that he is innocent, that he didn't murder that businessman and that he didn't shoot Keller either."
Randy snorted in disgust, like many other guilty men before him, Henderson was now screaming that he was innocent. "So, just who is he trying to say shot Keller in the head at close range while he was escaping? Those two little kids the witness saw running out of the alleyway after she heard the gunshot?"
"Yeah," Charlie shook his head in disbelief, "can you believe that? Man, I thought I heard it all but to blame two little kids of trying to murder a police officer while you are trying to escape, that has to take the cake. Hell, he even told Stone that he thought Keller knew the boys, he claims he heard one of the boys call Keller - Officer Keller."
"He did?" John asked softly, his face losing all color as he stared, wide eyed, at Charlie.
"Yeah, said Keller was talking to them like he knew both of them well. How desperate is that?" Charlie breathed as he looked over John's shoulder, eager to share the news of the arrest of Keller's shooter with the other officers who were just arriving for the change of shift.
"Did … um … did Stone believe him?" John asked.
"Are you kidding?" Charlie laughed as he turned his attention back to John and Randy, "Of course he didn't, he had most of us most of the night searching for the weapon that Henderson had used in the shooting and even had us turn over Henderson's girlfriend's apartment to look for it."
"And they didn't find it?" Randy asked.
"Not yet, but Stone will probably have the guys on the day shift searching for it as well." Charlie answered, "But we're sure to find it somewhere between Mission Street and where the girlfriend lives unless someone else has picked it up and decided to pocket it. Not that it matters, from what I heard the case against Henderson is strong, even without the gun, and if Keller dies, he's facing the gas chamber."
"Any updates on Steve?" John asked, desperate to change the conversation.
"Last update I heard, he's still critical and hasn't regained consciousness." Charlie answered distractedly before he suddenly excused himself and hurried away, calling out to two more officers who had just entered the foyer, "Hey Gary, Jim, hold up for a sec, did ya hear the news…"
Randy waited until the excited officer moved away before he grabbed his partner's arm and pulled him back out into the garage parking lot. Spinning John around to face him, he demanded, "Okay, John, spill man, just what the Hell is going on with you?"
"Nothing, I'm fine!" John snapped guiltily as he tried to pull his arm free of his partner's firm hold.
"Ohh come on, man, I'm your partner, don't you dare lie to me!" Randy growled, pushing John up against the wall as he released John's arm and leaned closer with his hand pressed against the wall next to John's shoulder, preventing his partner from ignoring him or walking away as he dropped his voice to just above a harsh, annoyed whisper, "You were jumpy when you came on duty yesterday and then after you heard about Steve's shooting.
And just now you just turned as white as a ghost after Charlie told us that Henderson was caught last night and is now trying to claim that Keller got shot by one of the two little boys in the alleyway. Hell, Dude, you're still shaking like a leaf. You're not thinking this kid who Henderson claimed Steve knew could have been…" He stopped as he found himself staring at the look of fear and desperation in his partner's eyes that he had seen there only once before after he had insisted on taking John out for a few drinks to try and help him unwind, just a few weeks after Jamie's death. John had become quite inebriated and had tearfully admitted that despite the coroner's ruling, he knew that Jamie's death was not natural, that he had found Sammy standing proudly next to the cot, where Jamie was lying dead, with the pillow still clutched in his hands.
John had begged him to keep the true circumstances surrounding Jamie's death a secret and he had seen no point in sharing what he had been told. John and Janey had already lost one child, he could not put them through the heart rendering ordeal of possibly losing the second, but he had made John promise to try and get his son some help and he knew that John had kept that promise but even with the therapy, he had still seen an icy coldness in the little boy's eyes that he kept telling himself was just his own active imagination after being told what Sammy had done.
"Ohh, Man, you do think it was him, don't you?" he whispered softly as he dropped his arm.
John nodded before he quietly admitted, "The description of the two boys match Sammy and his friend, Tommy down to a tee, even down to the clothes they were wearing yesterday. And Janey can't say for sure that they were playing in the street around the time when Steve was shot, she got wrapped up in her soapies."
"But that doesn't mean…" Randy began.
"There's more," John confessed brokenheartedly, looking past Randy's shoulder, unable to look his partner in the eye as his guilt about what his own son had done threatened to overwhelm him.
Randy waited a minute as two officers who glanced curiously at them as they walked past had moved far enough away that they could not be overheard before he asked cautiously, "Go on."
"Remember how Sarge said that Steve was shot with a .38 calibar weapon." John murmured.
"Yeah…"
"Well, when I went to bed yesterday I placed my service weapon in its holster with the safety clip on in the drawer beside the bed but when I got up and went to get my weapon, it was laying on top of the holster."
"Did you ask Sammy about it?" Randy asked softly, aware that the boy had been found playing with the gun and punished on previous occasions.
John nodded, "He said that he didn't touch it." Looking back at Randy, John's could not hold back the tears that began to trickle down his face as he rushed on, "He lied straight to my face, Randy, like it was nothing. Then after Sarge told us about Steve's shooting, I checked my gun … God, I hated myself for even doing it, but I had to check."
"And?" Randy asked slowly, already knowing the answer.
"There was one round missing from the chamber, my gun has been fired recently but not by me."
"Are you sure?" Randy frowned.
John nodded and swallowed, "I cleaned the gun and made sure it was fully loaded before I placed it in the drawer yesterday morning and now there is a bullet missing and it's been recently fired."
"Oh shit!" Randy breathed. "That explains why you have been distracted all shift and wanted to talk to Janey and the boys alone last night. And why you were so jumpy after I told you that a neighbour thought she saw Sammy and Tommy riding their bikes back from the direction of Mission Street about the time of Steve's shooting."
"Oh God, Randy, I don't know what I am going to do. This is Sammy we are talking about and we both know that Janey is never going to cope if we lose him as well. And to be honest, I am not sure if I can cope if we lose him either."
"Easy, Buddy, easy, let's take this thing one step at a time. Now you said that Tommy is staying with you and Janey for the week? Where are they now, at home?"
John shook his head as he took a deep breath and desperately tried to wipe the tears from his face with the back of his hand, "No," his voice hitched a little as he answered, "I sent her and the kids down to spend a few days at Disneyland last night. I didn't want anyone deciding they wanted to question Sammy or Tommy about where they were yesterday afternoon."
"Good, good," Randy nodded as he reached up and gave his partner's arm a reassuring squeeze, "Listen, we can fix this so nobody will ever know what happened."
"How?" John asked desperately.
"First, we just need to make sure that the evidence against Henderson is airtight, so he goes down for Keller's shooting…"
"But what about Steve? What if he regains consciousness and remembers what happened…"
"Hey, I've got your back, partner, you just do whatever you have to do to protect Janey and Sammy and let me worry about Steve."
