Elisa slept deeply for most of the day. She woke up stiff and sore, hungry and more than a little disoriented. Stumbling to the bathroom, Elisa vowed that she was not going to take the pain medication again. Liam would be home tonight, and she couldn't afford to be out of it when he was home.
Her injury really wasn't that bad, she told herself. Nothing a few over the counter pain relievers couldn't handle.
Elisa found her red leather coat where Goliath had hung it up the night before. Carefully, Elisa tried to clean the blood spots off with the aid of a leather cleaner that she had picked up on a whim a few weeks before, The coat would still need a professional cleaning, but it actually was not bad for now.
It was damp, but it would be wearable without scaring people.
Once she had run a brush through her hair and dressed for the day, she wrestled her way back into the sling and walked downstairs to the living room. Beside the sofa, next to her phone on a small table, her answering machine message light was blinking a steady rhythm.
Resigned, she hit the playback button. The first message was from Matt. He had wanted to check up on her when he was leaving the station last night from meeting with Captain Chavez on Elisa's behalf. Message two was from Captain Chavez, herself, this morning. She was letting Elisa know that the Internal Affairs and Conduct panel was meeting that evening in a special session to discuss the mess from the night before.
The third message made Elisa cringe. It was her father, and he was not a happy camper. He had been listening to the police radio out of habit, and guess what he had overheard?
Elisa groaned. Great. Just great.
Her father went on to tell her that he had gotten a hold of Officer Morgan who had filled him in on what had happened… or as much as he could without getting in any kind of trouble. What Morgan hadn't told him, he had browbeat out of Maria. While he sympathized, Elisa was to call her parents as soon as she could to let them know that she was alright.
Oh, and don't worry about Liam. Diane was only too happy to keep him for one more night so that Elisa could get an extra day to rest up.
With a sigh, Elisa picked up the phone and prepared for battle.
What she got, however, was her father giving her a pep talk and someone she could talk to who understood. He was a thirty year NYPD veteran, and had actually been through the proceedings that followed a fellow officer's death. It was a whole new ball game when it was an officer who shot another officer.
He understood Elisa's feelings completely.
He had some helpful advice about how to handle the following inquiry.
They ended their phone call by talking about Liam and his exploits at her parent's house. He had found the giant tub of sidewalk chalk that Diane had bought and decorated the house. Floors, walls and (eventually) the sidewalks were all decorated in the childish drawing and writings of her precocious little boy. Peter had delighted Liam in taking him on his first horseback ride that had him so hyper the rest of the day that he had completely crashed a little early and slept the whole night through.
Elisa found herself smiling at her son's exploits, and wishing she could have seen him on top of his first horse. There was plenty of time, however, to take him again.
For the moment, Peter urged his daughter to take her medications and rest up while she could.
When the call ended, Elisa sank onto the sofa. She missed Liam, but was almost thankful that he was going to be at her parent's house for one more night.
Elisa looked at the clock, realizing that she had three hours before the meeting at the station with the I.A. committee. She cooked herself a fried egg sandwich and took her antibiotic. She was in no way hurt enough to take the painkiller, opting for another round of Ibuprofen.
She dressed with care, in a pair of black dress pants and a button up red collared shirt. Before leaving, she wrote Goliath a note, letting him know where she would be, in case he rose before she got home. She also let him know that Liam would not be home until the following evening. If she was finished with the meeting after sunset, she would meet him at the castle.
Elisa was anxious to look in on the clan and see how they were doing. It was rare for her not to see at least a few other members of the clan on a nightly basis. Last night had been a special occasion, so they had probably stayed clear of Elisa's apartment.
Tonight, however, Elisa wanted to look in on Angela and the hatchlings. Since she had the night off, herself, she was thinking about giving Angela some time to herself without those two adorable little hellions running around.
Once she was finished, she grabbed her wallet and stuffed it in the pocket of her still damp red jacket . She dialed Matt and asked for a ride to the precinct. While she had not taken any more of the pain medication, the lingering woozy feeling made her nervous to drive.
Matt was there to pick her up 10 minutes later, taking her straight to the station.
Elisa and Matt usually had some sort of conversation going between them, no matter how insane , because neither liked silence while driving around for work.
Elisa could count on one hand the times that silence had been between them. It usually involved an argument.
For once, however, they made the drive in a silence that didn't involve one being angry at the other.
Both knew the reason that she was being called in to this meeting.
Elisa was being called before the committee as a witness to the actions of a fellow police officer. While the officer in question was guilty of the act itself, it was hard for an officer to have to go before the committee. To be a witness against another officer when it meant not only their livelihood, but possible jail time or worse...
Matt dropped her off in front of the station house. He had to go train a new group of the Gargoyle Task Force that night, otherwise he would have stayed with her.
"I will be back as soon as I can break away so that I can give you a ride home after you're done." He promised before leaving.
Elisa stood outside the station, her eyes looking up at the impressive building. Out of an old habit, her eyes found their way to the very top where the old clock tower had once been. She missed it sometimes, knowing that the clan would be there where she could just pop up there and visit.
She took a steadying breath before beginning to climb the stairs up to the main entrance. Her eyes involuntarily found the American flag that had been lowered to half mast. It would have been that way since the report of Officer Carver's passing, Elisa knew. Elisa forced her eyes away and opened the door to the station with more force than was necessary.
There is a phrase within the law enforcement community about a "Blue Wall". It is a phrase that refers to the large group of officers, fire and rescue personnel who will show up in uniform when one of their own has been injured. Doctors and Nurses refer to this as the Blue Wall, because when an officer is down, the sheer number of people in blue uniforms create an almost impassable roadblock in the waiting areas and hallways.
It was a show of support. Of community and an elite "brotherhood" of those who have dedicated their lives to the welfare of those around them and justice for those who can't get it for themselves.
Elisa had been part of the wall before, but never the recipient of such support.
Until now.
Elisa entered the noisy squad room to find it wall to wall officers in their blue dress uniforms. Quite a few of those who were there were like Elisa, plainclothes officers and investigators. People who didn't wear their Dress Blues until they were ordered to.
On this night, everyone was pressed and dressed.
The moment Elisa walked into the squadroom, silence began taking over the once noisey scene. Almost as if one mind, the officers stopped whatever task they were doing and got to their feet. There were a lot of familiar faces there, some not so familiar who were actually there from other precincts, and some who Elisa could swear that she had never seen before.
Elisa was the recipient of back slaps, handshakes and condolences. Some thanked her for working so hard to try to save a fallen officer, and some were there to simply wish her a speedy recovery.
Elisa forced a smile and accepted the good wishes. They all meant well she knew, but all the attention was really making her uneasy. She had been called before IA before, mostly at the beginning of the Gargoyles helping her with her cases, before they had come into the public eye… But that had been pretty informal things, done out of sheer curiosity more than anything else.
Unlike those previous meetings, this was going to be the full Internal Affairs team.
A thought occurred to her, and she called Officer Morgan over to her. Officer Morgan was one of the more senior officers on the force. He had become a mentor of sorts, and Elisa trusted him to give it to her straight with no BS.
"Hey, Morgan." She greeted.
"Elisa," he nodded. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Elisa acknowledged absently. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
He looked surprised. "Sure."
"Has anyone been to see the officer who did the shooting?"
Morgan blinked and seemed to flinch guiltily. "Honestly, Elisa, I don't know. He'd only been here a few days, so none of us really knew him that well. I know quite a few stayed to help Officer Carver's family and fiancee, but I'm not sure about Boyd."
Elisa thought it was pretty telling that it was "Officer Carver" and just plain "Boyd". Not only that, but Officer Boyd was being spoken of in the past tense. It was as if Officer Boyd, himself, no longer existed.
Even if Boyd had made a mistake, he had lost the respect of his fellow officers, having shot and killed a fellow officer, and injuring another in the process.
Elisa sighed, running a hand through her hair. While she didn't understand Boyd's recklessness, she had a nagging sense of guilt that everyone was here to support her and seemed to have abandoned him.
"Morgan," Elisa said quietly. "Can you see if some of these guys could just stop and talk with Boyd. I don't know why or how it happened, but I do know that it was an accident. You can't fake the kind of shock that was in his eyes. He has to be in a special kind of hell right now."
Morgan had been listening and watching Elisa steadily. A new light of respect lit his face, and he placed a strong hand on her good shoulder. "I'll take care of it. In the meantime, you have an appointment to get to."
Elisa nodded her thanks, and made her way through the open squad room towards the rear conference rooms.