At your door
Chapter 9
"Ah Mac" Sid Hammerback unsnapped his glasses in greeting, smiling at Mac as he entered autopsy.
"What have you got for me Sid?" he asked.
"I was just going to call you" The glasses were snapped back into place earnestly "This one's different"
"How so?" Mac peered at the body.
"Well, for a start, she was shot after being beaten, the beating did plenty of damage, but it didn't kill her" Sid regarded Mac solemnly "And this woman has never been pregnant. I will send the bullet up to the lab, along with some prints I found and some red powdery trace on her clothes"
"Brick dust" Mac allowed himself a smile "Danny will be pleased"
"Excuse me?" Sid asked, ever polite.
Mac laughed, a low sound "We keep finding this brick dust at each scene we have connected to Lewes" he explained "Danny is having a hard time with it. Actually, I was sdoubting if this was the work of Lewes after your autopsy, but the brick dust is too much of a coincidence"
"I didn't think there were any coincidences in crime" the glasses were unsnapped again, to accentuate the slight change of tone in Sid.
"I'm glad that someone listens to me" Mac gave him a genuine smile.
"As you well know" Sid leaned on the table returning Mac's smile "Everyone listens to you, except kids, and you don't have any of those to try your patience"
Mac laughed "Not of my own maybe" he said "But Jo is fond of calling me the 'father' figure around here"
Sid shrugged "She may be right, although, that could make me grand pa"
Mac chuckled at Sid's expression "Grandparents are cool these days Sid"
"That makes me feel slightly better" Sid returned, before handing Mac an evidence bag "I found this pressed into a contusion on her torso" he held it up to the light, both men studying it "Some kind of plastic, maybe melted?"
"Thanks Sid" Mac took what he offered, leaving without a backward glance.
"There is a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders" Sid sighed to himself.
…...
"Hey Danny!" Hawkes skipped across the building foyer, Danny stuck an irritated hand out to hold the elevator, he noticed Adam trailing along behind him, his ever present bag seeming to weigh him down.
"How far you get?" Adam grunted at Danny as the doors slid closed silently.
"Garage" he replied sullenly "You?"
"Almost to the subway" Adam sighed "So close"
They both turned to Hawkes, two pairs of eyes, heavy with lack of the promised rest pressed into him.
"What?"
"You" Danny snorted "Do you not need sleep?"
"Or caffeine?" Adam added, then more quietly to himself "Caffeine, good idea, need caffeine"
"I learned to do without as an intern" Sheldon winked back "And caffeine is bad for you"
"Yeah well" Danny folded his arms "My lack of caffeine may be bad for you. You're not normal"
"But what is normal?" Sheldon chirped back "Answer me that Danny"
"Not you" Danny muttered back.
Even Adam laughed "What's so urgent?" he asked "I thought we had done the urgent stuff, that we got sent home. Did I dream that?"
"No" Danny sighed as the elevator doors opened "You didn't, Sid did the autopsy, more evidence "
Mac came out of his office as they wandered along the hallway, a look halfway between apology and irritation on his face.
"I know we're all tired" he began "But I wouldn't have called you back if it weren't important"
"We know that boss" Danny said flatly.
"Danny. Sid pulled what I believe is brick dust from the vic's clothes, it's in trace ready for you" Mac said.
"Oh, wonderful" Danny's shoulders dropped.
"It may hold the key" Mac encouraged.
"I'm on it" he huffed, heading for his locker again.
"Adam, I need you to go through the footage collected from the area, try and find out when this woman was picked up, and by who, and put me a time line together" Mac spoke to him, noticing that Adam's nerves were heightened, probably through lack of sleep and Mac's own determination "I also need to know what this is" he handed Adam an evidence bag with a mangled piece of plastic in it.
Adam merely nodded and trudged towards the locker room, Mac and Sheldon watched him go.
"What are you thinking?" Sheldon asked "That it's not Lewes? That this Forrest Gump character is the killer? A bad copy cat?"
"I did think that" Mac told him "Until Sid found brick dust. The MO is different, but I think there's a reason for that. Right now, Gump, or whoever he is, is looking more like a witness, and to that end, Don is on his way back to sort that out. I need you to take the prints we found on the body and match them to Lewes, or Gump. I need something solid here Sheldon"
"OK" Sheldon spoke slowly "When d'you last sleep Mac?"
"Probably when the rest of you last slept" Mac said dismissively.
"You're right" Sheldon laughed "Sleep is overrated"
Mac gave a smile and nodded before heading back for the elevator.
…...
"Oh so you want my co-operation now?" Gump sat back in his chair, Flack resisted the urge to punch the smug straight off his face.
"That's the idea" Flack replied in a tight voice.
"Do I get an apology for you accusing me of givin' a false name?" Gump toyed.
Flack swallowed "Your name is Forrest – er" he pointed out "You weren't entirely truthful now were you?"
"But I wasn't lyin' now was I?" Gump pushed his luck, it ran out.
Flack launched across the room, spinning the chair on it's back legs he got in the man's face "We got your fingerprints on a dead girl" he snarled "And your DNA in a dead girl. We found money on you that has said dead girls blood on it. I got enough here to wake up an ADA for solicitation and for robbery. Maybe even necrophilia if he's in a bad mood, so you crack on and piss me off buddy"
"All right man!" Gump leaned away from the sheer anger on Flack's face "But I tell you. That hoe was alive when we had sex!"
"So you had sex with her?" Flack stalked around the table, cracking his knuckles. As intended his suspect eyed him nervously.
"Yes!" Gump replied "But she was alive! I hung around, after, didn' have nowhere special to be. Saw her go off with that guy and then heard a shot. When he was clear, I went to see"
"And what did you see?" Mac cut in, he'd sat back and let Don lead, let him work his way into 'bad cop' mode. It may be corny, but good cop/bad cop worked some of the time.
Gump looked nervously from one to the other "She was beat up, bad" he stuttered "And dead, I checked, then I noticed the hole in her head"
"And took your money back?" Mac asked mildly, flicking a glance at Flack's snort of disgust.
Gump shrugged "She wadn't gonna need it now was she?" he replied.
"So that's why you ran when the officers arrived?" Mac ignored his last statement.
"Yeah an' I knew I'd get fixed for killin' her" he muttered.
"Well luckily for you" Mac confided "We have evidence that says you didn't kill her, but what we do need, is to know exactly what you saw after the shot"
"The guy" Gump shrugged "He ran off, but I seen him around, you lookin' for him?"
"Where?" Don asked through gritted teeth "Where's around?"
"You gonna drop the charges against me?" he asked.
"I'll see what I can do" Mac offered "Depends how good your information is"
"I think I'll wait for my lawyer" Gump replied.
Mac stood as Don wrenched the door open violently "We'll be back" he promised.
Don clenched his fists outside the door, looking at Mac "He's playing us" he growled.
"He knows something" Mac assured him.
"Yeah and wants to save his own ass!" Don fumed "He gets a lawyer in there, we'll lose the chance. You do know that?"
"Not necessarily" Mac spoke quietly "He thinks what he knows is worth something, so he will tell us, he just wants to make sure that he gets the best out of it"
"And if it's useless?" Don asked "What then?"
"My gut tells me it's not" Mac said "This guy has something to say, he'll say it"
"And while we wait, women are at risk" Don sighed "It ain't right Mac"
"None of this is right" Mac replied "But it's all we have"
"Huh" Don glared at the wall over Mac's shoulder.
"Drop the murder charge" Mac said "Then re arrest him for taking the money and solicitation, by that time the lawyer should be here"
"Ya know somethin' that really pisses me off Mac?" Don made eye contact "I work my ass off, you do, we all do, and pay our taxes, that go towards providing legal defence for assholes like that"
…...