11

She was pulling up to the hospital and thinking through Hoyt's last comment before she told him she got what he was saying and would back off for now. She didn't want to argue all night. It was already 5pm and she needed to get a hold of Seth before he took off for the day.

It didn't take long for his office to get him on the phone and after a couple of minutes of chitchat, she told him about the case and how the father had heard from the Mexican government about her body.

Seth had hedged before she reminded him of her helping on the Newman case. "Ok, I'll see what I can do. I have a contact in the Federales and will see if he can send me their own file on it. I'm not promising anything though...Your husband there gonna be alright?"

C.J. answered, "Yes, he should be. When I left this morning they said they were moving him out of the ICU to a regular room and should be out by Friday."

He asked, "So how is he going to keep working on the case from in the hospital?" He was met with silence and he knew what that meant. He started nodding his head and took a deep breath when he said, "You plan to keep working on it, don't you?"

She just rolled her eyes, Seth would probably just give her the same lecture she just got from Hoyt. "Look, Seth, I know what I'm doing. There may not even be that big a case here. It could have been an accident..." she started hoping to just cut him off quickly so she could get inside to Matt.

"Really, that's why your husband was shot, because there wasn't anything to this case?" he countered with.

She took another deep breath herself and said, "That could have been unrelated..." she knew that was weak.

"Uhuh, probably, because we all know how frequently we find coincidences in cases like these. C.J. why don't you let the police handle this and you focus on another case. Go find some husband cheating on his wife or something." Seth tried to reason with her.

Another case...oh my g...C.J. thought...the Dalton case and the other missing graduate student. What if this wasn't just an issue with Gabrielle Aleman, but there were some sick person out there killing students at LASU, a serial killer. Ok, wait a minute, she was getting ahead of herself here. All she knew was that Hoyt told her Aleman and Henderson were working just off the coast and this Michael Tucker was being reported missing by a girlfriend, or fiancee or something. Now there was probably a connection, but if she told Seth that, he would probably threaten to take over or hand it all over to some police body before she could do anything about it at all and even though they might be connected, that didn't mean the person would strike again. She might send the FBI or Marshals or whoever out on a wild goose chase and then they wouldn't take the agency seriously again.

So, she decided to tell him she would focus on another case, this would work and she wouldn't be lying to anyone. "Ok Seth, I'll tell you what. You get me that file so I can hand it over to Lt. Hoyt and I'll focus on the new case Houston picked up before he got shot. Deal?"

Seth found her relinquishing a little too easy this time. He never knew her to just give up like that so he asked, "You're sure, you aren't going to be pressing this investigation?"

She knew she had to do just a little acting here so she said, "Seth, I've been up all night worrying about Matt. I'm tired. I might try to fight you on this tomorrow, but I just can't right now. I need to get inside here and make sure he's still ok, I can't really think about anything else right now. Just send over what you find to the office so I can put it in our files and I'll check with Hoyt tomorrow to make sure he doesn't need anything else from me."

He figured she was exhausted so he left her with, "Ok, well I'll probably be able to have it sent over in the morning. You take care of yourself and call if you need anything. Watch your back too, if you see anything suspicious, let me know, ok?"

She agreed and clicked off the phone to head inside.

Hoyt decided to head back to Fred Henderson's house. He still hadn't been able to go by and ask him much, the only contact he had was when he called last night to tell him the Coast Guard hadn't found the boat. He had spent most of his morning and afternoon at the courthouse testifying in a theft case. His Det. Warren and himself got to spend the entire day looking at two losers trying to argue their way out of a 5 year prison term. After testifying the defense counsel requested the right to recall both and that meant neither could leave. It wasn't even as though either defendant had a chance of being found not guilty and Warren whispered at one point to Hoyt, "You know they are only doing this to ruin our day." Hoyt nodded and this really was ruining his day because he had a shooting case to investigate and didn't need to spend all day listening to this.

After hearing from C.J. and knowing the Mexican authorities had found the body of Gabrielle Aleman, he just knew Michelle Henderson was probably dead too. In fact, the husband should have been notified by now if Walter Aleman was and he told that man to contact him when or if he heard from her. So he headed in that direction.

He pulled up and went right up to the door. Before he could knock he heard something break inside and thought that perhaps the shooter had come back so he drew his gun and called out, "Mr. Henderson...This is Lt. Hoyt, LAPD. Open up." He then moved to the side when he heard footsteps approach the door and open it slowly. Fred Henderson carefully looked out with what looked like a dustpan full of broken glass.

Fred looked out at Hoyt and asked, "What's going on here? What are you doing with that gun?"

Hoyt sighed and put the gun away, "I thought I heard a struggle inside, Mr. Henderson. You remember a man was just shot in your house yesterday. May I come in?"

Fred opened the door further and let him in. Hoyt noticed right away that everything had been cleaned and as he walked through the living room, his trained eye took mental notes. When he looked down the hallway, he could see into the master bedroom. What struck him was the open suitcase on the bed.

Hoyt gestured toward the bedroom and asked, "Planning on going somewhere?"

Fred came back around the corner from the kitchen where he had gone to throw away the broken glass and said, "I have to go to Tijuana to claim my wife's remains thank you very much."

Hoyt noticed Fred seemed more irritated than grieving. So he said , "I am sorry for your loss. I thought we agreed that you were going to contact me if you heard anything."

Fred started walking back to the bedroom and kept packing as Hoyt followed him. "What was I supposed to say exactly. My wife's body was found with her RAs, slaughtered on their boat. The Mexican Federales are telling me..." His movements becoming more angry and sharp, "that they think pirates attacked them. That everything Michelle had found, and it appears she found something, is missing." Then he turned to Hoyt, "You know that find could have made us wealthy beyond belief?" He turned back to his bag, "Now I have to go claim her body and figure out where exactly I want her buried, instead of celebrating the biggest achievement of both our lives."

Hoyt then asked, "Well, if I didn't know any better I'd say you are mourning the loss of this big find more than the loss of your wife."

Fred stopped in his tracks and looked coldly at Hoyt and said, "How dare you? I loved my wife. Just because I'm not crying right now doesn't lessen that. It doesn't mean I'm not mourning."

Hoyt digested that and pushed further, "You said RAs, that sounds plural to me. I thought your wife only had one RA, Gabrielle Aleman."

Fred took a deep breath, "She only had one, but the colleague she was partnering with loaned her his. His name is...was Michael Tucker. I'm sure he's dead too. They didn't tell me, but I met him a couple of times. He actually came to see me about some crazy ex girlfriend of his a few months ago. He was definitely the alpha male type that would try to protect someone in trouble."

Hoyt nodded and then knew what he had to tell Mr. Henderson here and knew what kind of reaction he would get. Didn't matter though because it still had to be said, "Well, I understand you have to travel into Mexico to claim the body and I am sorry for your loss. However, I will need to talk to you again and I need to inform you that if you stay away for too long, we will be forced to issue a warrant for you. If the Mexican officials are claiming this is a homicide and it occurred just off our coast line, that puts it in US jurisdiction." He could see the anger in Henderson's eyes and kept going, "We are not accusing you of anything, its standard procedure. If you really want your wife's killer captured, you shouldn't have a problem talking to us." With that last warning Hoyt left.