The Hopkins Case – Chapter Ten
Rachel dropped Tim off at home sometime before the sun had a chance to show itself and cheer either of them up. He waved a sullen and silent thank you, walked straight through to his kitchen and poured himself a drink. Standing sipping it under a hot shower, he let the past 24 hours run down the drain, flopped exhausted onto his bed and slept where he landed for an hour or two. His shoulder woke him and he sat up abruptly looking for the time, groaned. So this is what it felt like to be one of those balls spinning in a lottery cage. Not a career goal, he decided.
The routine of fixing a pot of coffee was manageable. Then afterward he slouched at the kitchen table in a haze of insecurities and indecision, aches and pains, listening to the water drip, savoring the aroma of brewing coffee, staring at the small bottle of codeine tablets resting in the palm of his hand. It was prescribed to help him sleep through the pain from his shoulder, only to be used as necessary. Tim read the label three times, his thoughts hung up on one word – opiate.
He set the bottle in the cupboard when he took out a mug for his coffee then pulled it out again and stepped over to the sink and tossed the bottle underneath into the garbage. One, two sips of coffee and still not satisfied, so he fished the bottle out of the garbage, strode into the bathroom and dumped the pills in the toilet, flushed it angrily.
The office was buzzing when Tim appeared and pushed open the door late in the morning. He was supposed to take the day and relax at home but he was restless, too sore to stay in any one position for too long. He had tried to reach Miljana, messages left, no call back yet, then he went by her apartment, no answer there either. He didn't feel up to confronting her at the VA center where she worked part time, so instead, for want of somewhere to go other than home alone, he pulled into the courthouse lot and went upstairs to work.
The teasing was rampant.
"Hey, it's the hero – I mean heroin."
"Drug testing this afternoon, Gutterson," accompanied by a good-natured punch to the shoulder, the left one, the sore one.
Garcia blocked his way to add her motherly humor, pretended to lick a tissue and wiped at his chin. "You missed some, sweetie."
He swatted her hand away and glared. She just laughed.
Rachel snorted at the antics and Tim threw her an accusing look. The lines of fatigue on her face melted under the warmth of a mischievous grin which didn't falter when Tim's expression promised revenge. He took a step toward her desk but Art's voice delayed the confrontation.
"Tim!" He waved him into his office without looking up.
Throwing a scowl at Rachel and then his jacket in a heap on his chair, Tim bowed backward out of the bullpen, calling out peevishly, "I hate you people," before closing the glass door on the laughter, turning his back on them and flipping them all the finger. He flopped into a chair in front of Art's desk.
"What are you doing here?" Art still hadn't looked up. "You know, I've had my head buried in paperwork since 8am dealing with all the shit that went down last night. Maybe I lost track of time. Is it tomorrow already?"
Tim answered the sarcasm first. "No, pretty sure it's still today, unless I slept long. I figured I'd help Rachel with the reports."
"You have a concussion, Tim. And I'm pretty sure your shoulder's hurting – go home and get some rest."
Art still didn't look up, pen moving over another page of bureaucratic lubricant, but when he didn't hear any noises that might indicate a deputy obeying his orders he sighed and peered over his glasses.
"How many times do you have to get knocked on the head before some sense shakes loose and starts to circulate? Go home."
A lip twitched down; Tim fidgeted.
"What?" Art demanded.
"I was supposed to meet my girlfriend at the airport last night." Tim looked off to the right out the window, embarrassed.
Art took off his glasses and tossed them on his desk. Every once in a while, out of the blue, Tim would come out with something personal and catch him off guard – a sneak attack. Art had to wrestle down a strong urge to play Dad. "You want me to write you a note?"
Tim glared, allowed a single syllable through clenched teeth. "No."
"Well, Tim, I'd say you got a hell of a good excuse for not showing up. Go talk to her."
"She's at the VA today," he mumbled.
Art considered Tim's reply – something personal again, though obliquely stated. He thought he understood his deputy's reluctance to go into that building for any reason. It'd be like visiting a grave yard, holding a mirror up that reflected back every what if that lingered long after the war ended. Tim would definitely be at a disadvantage emotionally. He then put two and two together and figured out who the girlfriend likely was. He wasn't surprised, maybe even a bit pleased. "When's she done?"
"Five."
"Go help Rachel with the reports. Do not leave your chair. Long lunch, out the door at 4:30."
Tim could work with that. He stood to go, hesitated.
"What now? You want me to go talk to her for you?"
A sneer, "No," then Tim wiped a hand nervously across his lips, "Uh, when is the next drug test?"
"Oh, shit, Tim, you're fine." Art waved away that worry. "Go on."
One hand on the door, he stopped again. "Boss?"
"Uh-huh."
"I need a new phone."
"Okay, go get one. I'll approve it."
"Did the memory card survive from my last one?"
"Ask Rachel."
"Okay."
"And Tim," Art stopped him leaving this time, "that was quite a haul last night."
"TAUFU."
"Tofu?"
"Totally and utterly…"
Art put the pieces together, laughed out loud, drawing out a smile from Tim. "Do you boys in fatigues have nothing better to do than sit around making up crude acronyms?"
"Hurry up and wait, and mostly the wait part. I could give you one a day till you retire."
"TAUFU. That is an inexcusable understatement for what happened yesterday. What a haul," Art repeated, still elated even under the crushing paperwork. "I think this one's going down in the US Marshal history books as one of the weirdest yet most productive sequence of events ever." Art rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. "I have to call van Hassel around four, have a conference with him and the Vegas Bureau Chief. You could sit in on it if you want – just to listen, mind you. It could be fun. Apparently van Hassel wants to talk to you but I told him you were off for the week with injuries."
The two Marshals shared evil thoughts and matching grins.
"Let me know when," said Tim.
"But you've got to promise to keep your mouth shut, no matter how badly the sarcasm wants out. Don't make a liar of me."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Did you really think I was going to keep last night to myself?" said Rachel when Tim reappeared.
"Well, I was hoping you might play down certain parts."
"I omitted the runny nose."
Tim crossed his arms, huffed, "Wow, so kind."
"Why are you even here today?" Rachel indicated Raylan's chair and Tim gladly accepted, scooted up beside her desk, leaned on it and dumped his head in his hands.
"She won't return my calls," he said sadly. "What do I do?"
"You go see her. She obviously wants to talk face to face, not over the phone."
"How do you know?"
"Tcha." She looked at him smugly.
And Tim was no wiser. He changed the topic. "You still got my phone?"
Rachel reached into a box behind her and pulled out a bag containing the pieces. Tim fished around in it, retrieved the SIM and memory cards and headed off to find himself a tech guy.
Later that afternoon, Tim growled and rubbed at his eyes. His head was pounding now and his shoulder was screaming at him. He dug around in his knapsack for a sling and a bottle of ibuprofen, downed a handful then tried Miljana's number again. When it went to voice mail he set the phone back in its cradle and started looking around the office for something to do that would keep him from wading uselessly in a swamp of self-pity. He got up and stole a newspaper from Garcia's desk and played at arts and crafts for a while, cutting out pictures and unimportant newspaper articles and taping them up along the divider between his desk and Raylan's. He then wandered around the room and collected as many different colored post-it pads as he could find, sat back down and scribbled happy faces on them and added them to his collage.
"Gutterson, heads up."
Tim looked up in time to catch a memory stick lobbed in the air toward him, a techie giving him the thumbs up behind the throw. "Your SIM card's toast, but your memory card survived. I transferred your stuff onto that."
"Thanks, man."
"No problem."
He opened the file and clicked through the photos, remembering. The grave stone with S. Tislow carved on it came up on his screen and Tim grinned. It was a good picture. He attached it to an email and sent it to Art then printed a copy for himself and gave it pride of place on the divider. By now, he'd completely covered the plexiglass, a solid wall of primary school art between him and Raylan. It made him happy.
Raylan stormed through half an hour later, a quick meeting with Art and AUSA Vasquez. He didn't look happy and Tim wondered if he was having any luck burying his big-toothed, albino-looking, son-of-a-bitch, Detroit thug, Robert Quarles. Raylan stopped at his desk, scrunched a face at the wall paper.
"Gosh, Tim, if you need privacy to pick your nose, just say so. I'll turn my back."
"This is art therapy, Raylan. I haven't heard a word from my friend at the FBI since I called to apologize for you last week. This is my way of getting over being pissed, keep from shooting you or rigging your chair."
"Should I tell Art how bored you are?"
"Yeah, you go right ahead. I cleared enough warrants yesterday, I got permission to fuck off for the rest of the month."
Raylan turned a puzzled look on Rachel. She shrugged – a confirmation of sorts.
"What happened to your arm?" Raylan was beginning to get the feeling there was a story here.
"Ask her," Tim said pointing at Rachel. "Apparently she's told everybody else."
Art barked out a laugh from his office and everyone in the bullpen turned to see what was so funny. "Oh my God, Tim, where did you find this? That's hilarious," he called out. "I'm going to frame a copy and send it to Las Vegas."
"Tim," Rachel was at his desk, frowning. "I'm just going over your report. I didn't play that big a part. You can't put us down as 'co' on this."
"How's your neck today?"
She refused to walk into that trap, stared at him stonily.
"What?" he said, "And my part was any bigger?" Tim waved at the reports spread out, still not sure exactly how he'd managed to get his name on the arrests of four fugitives when he was only looking for one. "I tripped and fell into them."
"No. You were working a case."
"I'm not arguing with you and I'm not signing it if you change it."
"Well at least change Tislow and Hopkins."
Tim leaned back to see her better, grimaced. "Three of the four of them are dead. If your name's on there too, then I don't have to take all the blame."
"Nice try. None of their deaths are on you and you know it. They were killed while in the process of committing a crime."
"Yeah, bad driving."
Rachel snorted. "Not bad driving, try kidnapping and threatening a federal officer…and possession."
"Threatening a federal officer," Tim sneered. "That is so done. Don't you get tired of hearing it?"
"I get tired of dealing with it."
Tim looked back at his work. "Leave it how it is."
"Tim…"
"Leave it."
Rachel frowned. "Okay."
"Okay."
Art poured while Tim made himself comfortable on the couch. He handed Tim a glass, sat behind his desk, leaned back and propped his feet up. They raised their drinks in a toast. Then Art hit the conference call button.
"Deputy van Hassel," he greeted cheerfully, "Art Mullen here…"
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Author's Note – 10 chapters too late: I have to apologize. I've been writing these stories in random timeline order, using recurring O/Cs because they're fun to explore, and not giving any thought at all to the confusion this might cause. So, to clarify, let's say this story sits somewhere between Aimpoint and Roll to Your Rifle though you can put it any time you want really. And if you haven't read those then you probably won't be confused or maybe you'll be more confused. Suspension of disbelief, as always, required in mass doses.
Author's Other Note: Do not flush prescription drugs down the toilet. They end up in the sewer system and in the lakes and oceans and then we have a lot of hallucinating fish. Bad Tim.