Wednesday 23rd June
Major Case Squad Room
Captain Danny Ross tossed a sheet of paper on Logan's desk. "Mike? Do you have a calculator?"
"Sure boss? Want to borrow it?" he began to search on his desk and open a couple of drawers.
"No. Do you know how to use it? Only I just wondered. Your expenses claim form was wrong. Again"
Logan looked up. "Certain it was a genuine mistake Captain"
"Certain it was. You were robbing yourself of eight dollars and twenty-three cents" Ross almost smiled. "You can buy me a drink on what I just saved for you sometime"
"Will do. Thanks"
"Where are they?"
"Who boss?"
"Eight dollars and twenty-three cents doesn't buy you a seat at the smart-ass table Logan"
"Doing some more follow up on that architect's murder, I think" said Mike, who knew very well where Eames and Goren were.
"I thought they cleared that yesterday? Spoke with the wife and that Parker guy's sister again when they got back?" Ross frowned.
"Wouldn't know sir" said Logan which was pretty close to the truth.
The next sound from Ross was a "hmm" noise before he went to the door to respond to a messenger had something for either Detectives Goren or Eames. Logan watched him sign for the envelope, pause by the nearby desks, then decide take it with him into his office at the far end of the room.
"Explain this to me Megan. You're the one understands how people think. Why does a man who wants T's crossing and I's dotting not look happy when that's just what Bobby and Alex are doing?"
His partner looked up from some papers she was reading.
"Because he suspects they won't do it the way he wants it doing" Wheeler replied. "And judging from a few things Alex was telling me in the locker room earlier he's probably right"
"Looks like we might have a good ringside seat for when he finds that out" grinned Logan.
"Voyeur" she muttered.
St. Vartan Park, Lower Midtown
Goren set Poochy back down on the ground, grateful for the light grey suit wouldn't show the white hairs so much and for the blue striped tie he made sure he was wearing that day. The two of them were now the best of friends and at least the hairy creature hadn't had the urge to demonstrate it the way he had with Logan last week.
"You take care Miss Ringwald" said Eames "And you Poochy"
"We will dear"
The old lady walked away towards the little bandstand rather quicker than the dog Goren had realised was a lot older than he seemed the other day. But circumstances hadn't given him a lot of chance to form a considered view when the instinct for self-preservation had kicked in as the dog flew at him. Ask anyone with a scrotum and they would tell you the same.
"You know I can imagine her as a showgirl can't you Goren? A rather naughty one too"
"Yeah" he shifted on the park bench. "What I can't do is imagine her as a credible witness on the stand Eames. Even to seeing John Parker in the area around Macy's. Imagine what someone from Kessler, Franks and Winthrop would make of her statement 'yes I saw him use my favourite telephones'. And that's assuming she doesn't wander off into a story about the size of Sinatra's penis"
"That would add to her credibility" shrugged his partner. "Well known fact apart from the voice, that was his biggest asset"
Eames sensed Goren's head snap around from watching the retreat of Miss Marjorie Ringwald, eccentric of the parish and her dog. Returning to the nearby brownstone where she lived with a niece. Whose "custody" Marge frequently "escaped" when she was pre-occupied with three small children.
"I'll take your word for that"
"You're right though Goren and so far Marge is the only person can make a connection between Parker and Elizabeth Huntingdon. If she's right it was them she saw coming out of that coffee shop" sighed Eames. "Unless her phone records turn up something after all"
"The modern day curse I expect" Goren murmured writing some notes in his folder. "Untraceable, pre-paid cell phones"
"We did find some of the money though. That might please Ross. Maybe we should tell him that after you give him that list of yours?"
"Mmm?"
Eames decided to use one of the more successful methods of re-gaining Goren's attention when his head was elsewhere.
"Boy the Mets stunk last night"
"I wouldn't know" he said shutting the folder and standing up. "I was too busy writing my list. You ready to go Eames?"
Goren knew Alex was rolling her eyes behind her shades as she reached in her jacket for the car keys.
Writing what was more"their" list than"his" was not the only thing he'd done last evening. For some reason he'd finally sorted out all but one of the boxes of his Mom's things that had sat in the hall of his apartment for months. Items his partner…his friend...had helped a nurse at Carmel Ridge pack away, while he dealt with the final papers and formalities that followed her death. Which seemed to consist of signing his name dozens of times on lots of pieces of paper helpfully marked with an"X".
It was Alex helped him carry them to his car and then into his hallway. Where they stayed deliberately ignored, apart from him stumbling over them several times when he was out of his head on some combination of substances and emotional turmoil. Only in recent weeks did they move a little. So he could clean around them and the mere fact he was cleaning again was progress.
Why he had not tackled their contents before Goren didn't really know. Perhaps fear? That inside he'd uncover some other dark secret about his family, himself and his life he'd prefer to remain in ignorance about.
A lack of courage? To face the bad memories he knew that certain things inside would provoke. Of the man who was notionally supposed to raise him and of the brother, who once again had done one of his vanishing acts. And of times when his Mom was in the worst and most painful episodes of her life, her mental illness and the physical one eventually killed her. Or perhaps it was what "vox-pop" psychology would call an inability "to let her go"?
Let go by trashing or giving away the clothes, the personnel possessions of the one person who brought most of the good things to his life. Who had loved him and cared for him as child. Most of the time exactly the same way other Moms did in a practical sense. Who encouraged his love of books and learning, who realised she had an embarrassingly smart little boy on her hands and who protected him from the occasional sneers of Frank, his father and the bullies at school. Until he reached High School, began to grow and discovered that paid off in basketball. Meant he didn't stand out quite so much as "different and geeky" and began to develop some self-confidence.
And it was Mom, when she was in her right mind, who was very determined on his behalf. That"her Bobby" should try to have a life of his own and not be tied to her, obligated and options stifled, when his father went off and it was becoming clearer Frank would be a weak vessel to rely on. A weaker one than she could ever bring herself to admit and more than she would ever know.
But he got through it. Sorting the clothes, making sure those he intended to drop off at a project for the homeless on his way to work, were clean and pressed. Whilst others, along with a lot of the "junk" she'd hoarded, went into black sacks and then to the dumpster. Something of a catharsis to do and not a painful one. Though the box, which Goren knew contained her more personal things like photographs still awaited his attention. The hallway suddenly seeming much larger and it sat lonely now under the coat rack.
Writing the list of"problems" he and his partner still had with this case served as a helpful distraction between the tasks of emptying the boxes. It had crossed Goren's mind that at some point John Parker must have had to do the same thing twice over. With his daughter's room and that of his grandson. When they were at his house with Grady, both were remarkably bare of any evidence of the people who once occupied them. What that "told you" Goren wasn't sure or that it mattered.
Two things did. That he and Eames still hadn't scratched their shared "itch" so it no longer bothered them and somehow they had to convince Danny Ross to let them go on scratching it a bit longer.
To be continued…