To watch Sharon put the pieces together in her mind was extraordinary. There was a flash of surprise, followed by a look of excitement and then her eyes would dart back and forth before her lips pursed into a thin smile. Depending on the information, the dots that were connected, her lips would curl in the corner. Then she was ready for battle. She was ready to rip the suspect to pieces.
It was strange having his wife walk around his room controlling every aspect of it. From the officers to the evidence she was in charge and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. She walked in with her bag on her shoulder and as soon as she set it down, Andy's team started to rattle off information. They just knew. They sensed the power shift and it came in the form of Sharon Raydor.
For work purposes she kept her name. It was what was on all her paperwork, it was on her ID – to have it changed at work – it would give people a few coronaries if she did. It would be confusing to have two Flynns walking around. One with an impressive resume and the other with a not so impressive jacket.
When it was in relation to the kids, she was Mrs. Flynn. When it involved personal things, she was Mrs. Flynn. It was nice to be able to work for her and then work with her when the need came. Rarely did the two mix and when it did, he hunkered down and braced himself for the storm.
It was what he was witnessing now. The woman was embodying the role of a mother who was a cop. A kid, he was a kid, sat across from her in the interview room. They were staring at each other, the silence in the room thick with tension. He risked a glance at the monitors and then around to the other people who was standing behind him, watching the master build the kid up only to rip him to shreds on his way down.
"Where were you last night at ten p.m.?" Sharon asked, her voice thick and dark.
"At a friend's house," the boy shrugged.
"Do you know who Leslie Russell is?" Sharon asked, tapping her pen against her notepad. The boy shook his head. "She's a young woman we found earlier in the park. Your name was the last call placed from her phone. Care to explain to my why that is?"
Once again the boy shook his head and she let out a breath. She tilted her head at the boy before looking to her pad of paper. Mostly it was blank, a few scribbles, a couple of notes she had taken from the Team's initial analysis of the case.
The boy across from Sharon didn't need to know she fabricated the list of calls. She was going to implicate the boy for murder, scare the crap out of him and send him home to deal with his parents. It was not going to go over well, Andy figured.
"What else can you tell me about this outing with your friends?" Sharon questioned. "Drugs? Alcohol? Sex?"
The boy looked chastised as she rattled off the possibilities. He blinked a couple times, then looked down and then up again. His cheeks were red and his eyes beginning to water.
Flynn heard a couple people behind him exchanging bills, whispering their congratulations. He waited because he knew. He knew her better than anyone else. To get the boy to cry was part of her game. She was a vulture waiting to swoop down and take her prize. In this case it was a confession.
"Which was it?" Sharon asked, pressing the matter. "Drugs? Alcohol or Sex? Or all of the above?"
"All of the above," the boy said demurely. "But I didn't have sex. They wanted me to but I –"
Sharon raised her hand, instantly silencing the boy. She didn't have time for his excuses. She didn't have time for his lies especially when patrol brought the boy in, the contents of his pockets had been searched and an empty condom wrapper was tucked deep.
"You took drugs?" The boy nodded. "You drank alcohol?" The boy nodded again. "And yet you don't know who Leslie Russell is."
"No I told you –" the boy began only to stop when Sharon gave him a glare over the rim of her glasses.
Sharon straightened up in her chair and clasped her hands in front of her. "Leslie Russell was found dead this morning. The Coroner puts her time of death between 8:30 and 9:30 at night. Depending on when you were intoxicated, all evidence, cellphone records included gives you enough time to kill her, to go back to the party, get in the car with your friends who dropped you off at home."
She watched as the boy's eye's widened, surprise taking over. The water began to pool quicker and he roughly brushed away the tears.
"The drugs you took mixed with the alcohol would have killed you," Sharon continued on. "But you didn't take enough to do that. The alcohol in your system over stimulated the drugs which is why your memory is short, why your head is pounding, and why you're lying to me without knowing you are."
"I didn't kill her!" The boy let out, a choked sob bubbling up. "I don't even know her!"
A knock came at the interview room door and Sharon looked up. Mike Tao entered, a grim look on his face.
"Ma'am, we found something," he said, nodding his head towards the room. She nodded, giving him a single finger, wanting a second.
Sharon took a deep breath and raised herself out of her chair. "You are going to sit here until I come back. When I do, I will have the DDA with me, you will be properly charged on first degree murder and then we'll see if your memory has changed."
Flynn met her in the hallway. The kid was only 17, old enough to be tried as an adult, a mistake gone haywire. At least that's how she was presenting it to him.
It was interesting to watch the woman who once upon a time wanted to be a lawyer. She wanted to fight the people who wronged others, defend the good and battle the evil. She wasn't able to and was forced to bid farewell to that girl. She became the cop instead. She became a mother instead.
It was still fascinating to watch her slip into that persona. Not perfected, not like the woman who was in the box with the kid, but she was still on par. She paced as she rattled off statutes. She pointed out facts instead of fiction, brought up the opposing counsel's argument and negated the side the LAPD would be on. It made the team work harder, faster, and more efficiently.
"He's not going to tell you anymore," Andy said when she ordered the rest of the team to serve the search warrant to the fiancé of their victim. "He didn't do it and I believe him."
"He didn't murder anyone," Sharon sighed. "That much I know. The drugs and alcohol? I have a problem with. The lack of communication with his parents? I have a problem with."
Andy nodded. He watched as she went to the office she claimed while she temporarily took over. It had a window that overlooked the city, and a window that looked into the murder room. It was how she found out that Patrol hauled the kid in.
It was nearly twenty minutes of answering phone calls, replying to messages, and finding out which District Attorney was able to cross the street to scare a teenage kid. Andy grinned into his coffee cup, cold from the morning, as Andrea Hobbs came into the room.
A single raised eyebrow asked the question as to where their suspect was. He pointed down the hall, indicating the interview room. She nodded and Andy went, snapping his fingers as his colleagues. It was bad enough to have a seasoned cop on the side of the table, but a lawyer who could make your life hell on a dime was another story.
It was a magic show, really. They had the boy confessing in seconds. Andy had good fortune to lean back in his chair, whistling at his wife.
"Flynn, get in here," Sharon snapped.
Flynn hesitated for a moment to watch the boy's reaction. The kid was stone cold on the other side. He was being charged for murder as an adult. Flynn, who roughed him up when he first got there, was now going to haul him out.
Flynn swung the door open with a bang. He reached over in a quick stride and pulled the kid up by the shoulder. With a firm grip on the shoulder, Andy hauled him back, having the kid stumble into him. It wasn't fair, was going to be the cries when Flynn put him in the back seat of the car that was going to take him away.
"Where to Captain?" Flynn questioned.
"Just get him out of here."
Flynn nodded and practically dragged the boy out kicking. He couldn't find his footing. Good. It meant that the kid was either still partially high, or still partially drunk. Either way, a recovering alcoholic and a teenage drunk was not a good combination.
In the middle of the murder room, the kid had an audience. It was worse than being torn down. It was a familiar setting, the watchful eyes of cops surrounding him. It made the kid swallow hard. He stumbled a foot away from Flynn when the older man finally released him.
"You are going to sit your ass in that seat," Flynn said, pointing to Sharon's office. "You so much as move and I'm going to make sure you spend the night in lock-up instead of in your bed."
"Dad I-"
"Go," Flynn said darkly. "Now."
It was a matter of minutes before Sharon came out of the interview room. They really didn't have any evidence to implicate anyone for murder. They just had a dead body on their hands, with scratch marks as defensive wounds, a thin line across her neck, which indicated partial strangulation, but nothing more and nothing less.
Sharon had gone into her office and packed her bags. She hadn't spoken to her son and was not going to until she was calm enough to do it rationally. His siblings were made aware of the situation, since the patrol officers yanked him out of bed per his mother's instructions. His brother and sister were there to witness.
The guys would call Flynn if anything came up that needed the Captain's attention. Otherwise, they weren't to be disturbed since they had to deal with this family issue. Provenza would take lead and the other four would manage without them if necessary.
The car ride home was silent. Sharon drove – it calmed her nerves. The vibration of the engine in the wheel, the bumpy road under her tires – it calmed her. It gave her control of a situation. What happened with her son was not in her control. He was too relaxed and slipped right out of it, hurting him, and as she implicated earlier, hurt others.
"Go to your room," she ordered before he was even out of the car.
The front door opened and the siblings came stumbling out. Emily first, with worried wide eyes and Rusty who was looking as confused as everyone felt.
The boys knew Dad didn't drink. It was just a rule. Emily knew why Dad didn't drink and accepted it. When Mom got home from work, after a particular long day or a rough day she would settle down with a glass of white wine. It was always one. Never two. The boys never questioned why.
Sharon shook her head at her children and they both moved out of the way as their brother was brought home. Until Sharon stepped up to the front door, she was in cop mode. She brought her son up to the door and pushed him through it, before taking moment.
A parent had called her, one of Ricky's friend's saying that she found alcohol bottles in the trash. Her son had admitted to her that they had done drugs and some of them had gone up to the boy's room to have sex. It was a party. They were teenagers. Sharon understood that they did things, but she never expected her son to do those types of things. Not with the knowledge of what his parents did for a living.
Then again, she thought, as she collected herself at the front door. Ricky acted out because of what his parent's did. His parent's were cops. They knew the law better than anyone else, because they saved people. They upheld the law to a certain point and ridded the streets of evildoers who broke the law. If he broke the law, his parent's would deal with it. That maybe, because they were his parents, they'd give him a break.
She shook her head. Not a chance. It was why she hauled him out of bed. It was why she made such a spectacle of bringing him downtown, through the murder room and had him sit in the interview room for nearly half an hour before talking to him, because she was cop. She was also his mother. As his mother she wanted him to be safe. So? The best way to do that was to put him someplace where she could watch him. He wasn't seven anymore, he didn't come to her with a skinned knee that he cried about and wanted her to make it better. He was seventeen. He could clean up his own injuries. Like his wounded ego.
Flynn had ordered Ricky to his room and the boy was slipping down the hallway when Sharon came into the house. Emily was at the table, her schoolwork displayed in front of her and Rusty was lounging on the couch with his legs up in the air. Sharon knocked them off the back of the couch and the boy sat up. Andy bit back a grin. No one was in the mood to deal with a pissed off Mom.
"Is Ricky going to jail?" Rusty asked.
"No," Sharon said quickly. "He's not. He should, but he's not."
Sharon squeezed her husband's hand in passing. She wanted to change out of her work clothes, into something more comfortable.
Dinner would be a quiet affair, Flynn knew. He had made up a simple dish, chicken and rice, pasta and salad on the side. The children, dutifully sat quietly, ate their dinner and politely asked to be excused. Emily had to finish her work; she was working on transferring out of her school and moving. Rusty wanted to play some sort of computer game and Ricky was sent back to his room.
Over the years they added onto the house. When the boys became of a certain age when sharing a room was just not wise, they contracted a deal for more space added onto the house. They opened up the kitchen, added another bedroom, and bought the property next to them.
On a cop salary, they couldn't afford it. Unbeknownst to the kids, Jack left Ricky and Emily a good chunk of change to play with. Emily got her first cut when she turned 18. She offered to pay for part of the refurbishment as long as she got herself a small studio. That became her bedroom. The rest was put away for college, which she was using as tuition and payment for transferring across the country. She was smart. She was awarded scholarships. It was going to be an easy move for her, but not her mother.
"Are you ever going to talk to him?" Andy questioned his wife. "Because I'd like to tell him a thing or two."
He was still angry. She felt it. She could sense it. It was why she didn't send him in there with Ricky when they first got home. There would have been yelling, screaming, cursing and someone storming out. She had a long day and she didn't feel like dealing with it.
"I will in a moment," she said, with a smile.
Sharon knocked on her son's door some time later. When there was no answer, she turned the knob and let herself in. Her son was lying down, with his hand clasped over his chest. It was a posture her husband took up quite often. It made her smile a little but she quickly put that away and schooled her expressions.
Ricky immediately sat up, on the edge of his bed and waited for the lashing. He knew it was coming. He expected it. It was why he just laid there for hours since he got home, waiting for it.
"I come in peace," Sharon said, holding up her hands.
She took his desk chair, turned it around and straddled it, leaning against the back of it. She took in her son who looked horrible. He looked like the little boy who got hurt on the playground. He looked like the little boy who was told that Dad had gotten shot. Again. He looked scared and worried.
"One question." She said. "Why drugs and alcohol?"
She wasn't going to touch the subject of the open condom wrapper. She was going to let her husband take the reigns of that horse.
Ricky shrugged and looked at her. "I don't know."
"Richard," Sharon said. "You do know. Why did you do it?"
"I wanted to know, I guess," he shrugged again. "Dad doesn't drink I want to know why. They told me the drugs wouldn't do anything so I figured why not?"
"If I tell you to jump off the Los Feliz Bridge would you?" Sharon questioned. "If I gave you my gun and told you to shoot whoever came through the door next, would you?"
Ricky shook his head. "No."
"No," she repeated. "You wouldn't because you thought why not. Dad doesn't drink because he's an alcoholic, sweetheart. Just like Jack was. Dad doesn't drink because he could die if he took another sip. He knows that. You Richard William, can have one drink and be fine. You're young, you're clean, but Dad is not."
Ricky never asked why. He found no need to. He accepted it and moved on. He knew his father had problems. He knew that Jack wasn't the greatest guy and when he asked about it, when he was like eight or nine, she explained what happened to him. The memory of the event was vague and murky.
"You are 17," Sharon went on. "I could have tried you as an adult for doing drugs and under age drinking. Andrea could have thrown you in jail for at least five years because why not?"
Sharon leaned forward and took his son's bowed head in her hand. She raised it to look at him.
"I've told you to be safe and to be kind," Sharon said. "Over and over again. Being safe is not going to parties and doing things you shouldn't. Being kind is not going to parties and doing things that could harm you or others. Do you understand me?"
Ricky nodded. "How pissed is Dad?"
"Sweetheart," Sharon sighed. "He's ready to kill you."
It was said with a hint of humor. They both knew that Andy would never lay a hand on any of them. Pissed off, the man could be and got to that point very quickly. Toe to toe Ricky had gone a few times. Ricky always lost, but learned a lesson every time.
Sharon let her son be. She wasn't going to be the hard ass parents who drilled rule and regulation into their brains. He understood her rules, he lived by them every day. She couldn't fault him for being a child. She could though fault him for being incredibly stupid.
In the hallway she smiled. She never had thought that she would be the type of mother to be calm and rational. When she first started she thought her work would travel with her home. That the hard ass cop she became at work would be inflicted on her children. She said goodbye to that woman when she separated from Jack.
She said goodbye to the woman who had to be alone the day Andy proposed. They were partners. She didn't have to run anymore. She didn't have to move heaven and earth to take care of her children while she also tried to take care of herself. She had someone else to do that.
It was a Friday. Ricky would have the weekend to think about his actions, to think about the definition of the word 'Friends' and hopefully would make better life choices. He would help Andy with the yard, he would catch up on the missing work his teachers called Sharon about from time to time, and he would hopefully say goodbye to the boy who was in her interview room.
Thank you for those who have been reading! This is the chapter that was supposed to be posted today so ya'll get double today! To clarify, Sharon was remembering the fight she had with Andy before they broke up. The letter she had in the end was from Jack who also left her that night. She's just remembering.
Let me know what you think of this chapter!