Sergeant Schiff was worrying the visor of his dark blue service cap. "Well, ah, that is," he began again, "only if you're up to it. I mean, if you're too… tired, I understand –"
"That's okay, Barry," Mike interrupted him softly, "I can talk for a bit."
Swallowing heavily, the tall sergeant nodded with a small grateful smile.
"Have a seat." The homicide detective indicated the stool that Steve had set near the wall and Schiff turned to glance at it.
He looked back, shaking his head. "No, that's okay, I don't want to stay that long… you need to rest..." He dropped his eyes.
"Barry," Mike said as strongly as he could and Schiff's head came up, "I'm all right… and I'll tell you when I need to rest, okay…?"
Schiff studied the lieutenant for several long beats before he smiled slightly and nodded. "Okay, Mike… thanks…" He swallowed heavily again, looking down, as if not knowing how to start.
"I know it was your rookie, Barry," Mike said softly, not at all surprised when Schiff's head snapped up and their eyes met.
"You saw him?" the training sergeant asked quietly.
Mike shook his head. "No… no, but I remember you kneeling over me just after I was hit… and I guess I just put two-and-two together…" He smiled warmly. "I really owe you one, Barry…"
Schiff was shaking his head, looking down again. "No… no, Mike, all, ah, all I did was help but I wasn't the only one…"
"I know… but I can thank you, can't I?" Mike punctuated the request with raised eyebrows.
Almost reluctantly, Schiff bobbed his head. "You're, ah, you're welcome…" He cleared his throat self-consciously. "Look, ah, Mike, Adams… he's a good kid that just got way in over his head…"
"He almost shot Steve too, Barry."
"I know, I know," Schiff sighed loudly, looking down and shaking his head. "He shouldn't've been on the street again after that, at least not so soon, but we're so damn understaffed right now… the whole department." He raised his head and met Mike's intense stare. "You know that. I know you've been lobbying for more manpower up in Homicide."
Mike nodded.
"And he's a special case, Mike, he really is. He comes from a long line of cops – father, grandfather, great-grandfather. Not here, mind you," he continued quickly when Mike frowned, knowing the veteran detective hadn't recognized the name. "The Adams' are from up in Sacramento; his parents divorced and his mother brought him here about six years ago. He still wanted to become a cop…"
Mike was looking down, staring unfocused at the blanket, tugging at his bottom lip with his left thumb and forefinger.
"I gave him every break, Mike, every one…" Schiff shook his head slowly. "He's just not cut out to be a cop, no matter how much he wants it. And it's not that he's overly aggressive – just the opposite, actually. He's a big kid, like you saw in The Armory… but he's… he 's scared… He doesn't particularly like handling guns…" He sighed heavily and shrugged in chagrin. "He wanted so much to make his family proud, you know…"
Mike looked up, letting his hand drop to the bed. He was finding it harder and harder to concentrate but he knew he needed to finish this particular conversation now. "What happened yesterday?"
Schiff looked at him and shook his head slightly. "We got the call that there was a shooting on Grant. We must've gotten there just after you entered the grocery store 'cause we didn't see you… and we weren't looking for an unmarked parked anywhere… I was responding to dispatch and Adams was driving. He was out of the car and into the store before I finished the call and I just got to the front door when I heard the –" He stopped, caught his breath and swallowed. "When I heard the shot…" he finished quietly.
Mike dropped his head and took a deep breath, trying not to wince. He closed his eyes. After several seconds he said quietly, "It was hard to see in that alley… the sunlight was incredibly bright… He, ah… I was heading back to the door and putting my gun away…" He paused and took another deep breath. "He must've seen my gun…"
Schiff nodded. "That's what he said…" Mike looked up at him, frowning. "He said he saw a gun and he just… he panicked, Mike, that's all there is to it…"
The homicide lieutenant smiled slightly, ironically, shaking his head. "Well, at least he didn't shoot a civilian, hunh?"
Schiff frowned then slowly a grateful smile emerged.
"So what's going to happen to him?" Mike asked matter-of-factly, knowing the guilt the training sergeant was feeling ran very deep but also knowing that, as the officer in charge, he was ultimately responsible for what his trainees did on the street.
Schiff cleared his throat. "Well, he's been released from the department, of course, and I think the D.A.'s office is trying to figure out what, if any, charges to bring against him –"
"Charges?" Mike interrupted, alarmed. "No… no, I don't want him facing any charges." He tried to sit up further, wincing and gritting his teeth in pain and frustration.
Schiff took a step towards the bed and held his hands out to stop him. "Mike…"
"Barry, I already talked to IA first thing this morning… and I told them all I could remember, which wasn't too much…" He snorted mirthlessly. "I told them I don't remember seeing my shooter… but that I was walking back up the alley towards the door… and I was holstering my .38… And that I remember stepping into a bright shaft of sunlight… it was blinding… and then I got hit…" He closed his eyes and gently laid his head back onto the pillow.
Worried, Schiff took a step closer to the bed; he reached out to touch his injured colleague but stopped before his hand made contact with the lieutenant's arm. He watched for several very long moments until Mike's eyes slowly opened and his head turned.
"Adams couldn't have known he was firing at a cop… so I'll forgive him that. But he should've waited to see who he was actually firing at… and I can't forgive him for that… but I don't want him to face charges… Like I said, better me than some innocent civilian, right?" He blinked slowly then fixed the sergeant with a hard glare.
"It's been a very long day, Barry… I'm done," he said expressionlessly, his head rolling back on the pillow and his eyes closing.
# # # # #
"Hello?"
"Cathy? Hi, it's Steve, is Mel there?"
"Hi, Steve. Sorry, Mel's working a double today – somebody called in sick, I guess."
"Oh, okay, thanks, Cathy."
"No problem. See ya!"
Steve let the receiver dangle in his hand before slowly placing it on the cradle. Exhaling slowly, he toyed with the idea of calling her at the restaurant but thought better of it; what he needed to tell her he wanted to do in private, face to face.
"Hey, Steve!"
He looked up; Tanner, his own phone to his ear, was beckoning from his desk. Steve got up and crossed the bullpen. Tanner waved him into his guest chair, picking up a photocopy of a sketch artist's conception and tossing it towards his colleague. He put his hand over the receiver and mouthed, "Dorothy came in." He looked down pointedly at the drawing.
Steve gave it a good look. It was a very detailed rendering of a large white man with a military buzzcut, beefy checks, small ears and an unremarkable nose. He was smiling, which was unusual in a police sketch.
"Yeah… Okay… Okay, thanks. I appreciate your help." Hanging up, Tanner turned to his colleague, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He pointed at the drawing. "Good, hunh? I told her he shouldn't be smiling but she said she couldn't picture him any other way."
Steve looked up and snorted, tossing the sketch back on the desk. "So, what've you got?"
"Well, I think I might have this 'Lennie' guy identified." He glanced down at the pad on his desk. "Charles Arthur Cambridge…"
Frowning with a confused smile, Steve leaned forward. "How the hell…?"
Tanner bounced his eyebrows, continuing to smile. "I did a little digging. When Dorothy said he was a little slow, and she told us she thought he was about thirty years old, I thought I'd check with all the schools in town. Well, not all the schools…" he chuckled.
"Anyway, if he is retarded, chances are he might not've made it to high school, so I got ahold of the Board of Education and got a list of all the Elementary and Middle Schools around town… and I've had a busy couple of hours, let me tell you," he chuckled, still grinning. "But I managed to hit it out of the park, as Mike would say, within my first five calls."
With a skeptical frown, Steve picked up the notepad, turned it around and looked at the name. "You do know there are, oh, I don't know, about, what, thirty, forty elementary and middle schools in The City? So what makes you think this…" he glanced at the pad again, "Charles Arthur Cambridge is our guy?"
Looking just a little bit affronted, Tanner pulled his head back and his smile wavered. "Intuition. But just in case, I am going to call the rest of the schools tomorrow." He snatched the notepad back and dropped it on the desk, looking miffed that Steve had taken the wind from his sails so quickly. "But my gut tells me this is the guy." He emphasized his point by tapping his forefinger on the name.
Steve looked at him soberly for a couple of seconds then started to laugh and smile, shaking his head. He leaned back and glanced at his watch. "It's too late to call any more schools today, that's for sure. Look, ah, why don't you give me half the list you got left and I'll start first thing in the morning."
The smile returning, Tanner took the photocopied list on his desk and tore it in half from top to bottom. He picked up his pen and drew a line through the top three. Handing it over, he pointed to the fourth school name and phone number on the list. "Start there."
Laughing, Steve got up. "If you're right about Cambridge," he said with a chuckle, "I'll buy you lunch." With a wink, he started back to his desk.
# # # # #
It was after ten when he got off the elevator and started down the darkened hall. It was well after visiting hours, he knew, but he was hoping his natural charm, and the gold star in his pocket, would open doors for him.
He had to see Mel tonight, he knew; there was too much being bottled up inside him. But he also knew he had to wait until she was finished her shift, sometime between midnight and one.
He didn't want to go home right now either; he just couldn't face sitting alone in the dark again tonight, fighting off the demons that were threatening to overwhelm him. The long talk about the Petrou case with Mike this afternoon had gone a long way in helping tamper down the guilt, but it couldn't erase it completely. They still needed to talk about yesterday… and about so much more.
He had been running on almost pure adrenaline since listening to the answering machine message, he knew, and his hand shook when he slipped the star and I.D. out of his pocket and showed it to the night duty nurse. She looked at it, then up at him and smiled, nodding and telling him the lieutenant was asleep and probably wouldn't wake up.
He didn't mind, he told her, and she smiled again, understanding. He pushed the door open slowly; the room was eerily dim, the green glow from the heart monitor the only light in the room.
Slowly and silently he moved the stool from against the wall close to the bed and sat. He stared at his sleeping partner for a long time before he reached out and carefully picked up his hand. Mike moved slightly at the touch but his eyes didn't open.
It was well over an hour later before Steve slipped silently from the room.
# # # # #
The battered light blue '66 Toyota Corolla pulled into a parking space down the street. The sole occupant got out and slammed the door, locking it before slinging the large macramé handbag over her shoulder and crossing the street, her keys still in her hand.
She pulled up short when she got to the wrought-iron door. The overhead light was out and there was a man leaning against the wall several feet from the door. She caught her breath in alarm.
"Hi," Steve Keller said softly, "sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He stepped quickly towards her as he heard her exhale loudly in relief, her hand over her heart.
"Jeez, sorry… I just wasn't expecting to see you here." Her face lit up and she tilted her head, her eyes warm and welcoming.
He was smiling as he stepped closer, reaching out to put his hands on her upper arms, staring into her suddenly worried blue eyes.
She cocked her head slightly. "Are you okay?" she asked, sensing something different about him.
"I have to talk to you, Mel…" he said softly, swallowing and shaking his head sadly.
She could feel him trembling. "Okay," she said quietly, nodding gently. He followed her through the wrought-iron gate, waiting while she unlocked the front door. Then, tenderly, knowing that for some reason he needed her right now more than he'd ever needed her before, she took his hand and led him up the stairs to her apartment.