Perception Deception Part 3 - Tuttle

by Rabid Raccoons

Chapter 29: Fog


"What's wrong with you?"

Don Eppes lay in his darkened room on the second floor of the hospital, and the words seemed to echo, although they came out as a whisper. Or maybe he hadn't even said them aloud – that thought, or a variation of it, had been bouncing off the confines of his skull since the night before.

It was now mid-morning; he'd endured breakfast because his nurse would give him no rest otherwise, but afterward he'd had her turn out the light and draw the shades, although a bit of daylight still filtered through. He lay there in a fog of despair, staring at the ceiling, although his eyes didn't register what they were seeing.

Instead, pictures flashed through his mind, more vivid than his surroundings – scenes from the past several months, starting with the day he'd first come to Charlie for help with an investigation that had led to an intrusion into his apartment by someone unknown, someone they found later to be Tuttle. Don had to face it, he'd been obsessed with bringing Tuttle in, ever since his first run-in with him a few years earlier – and he had let that obsession take him, lead him where it would. "And to hell with anyone else who got in the way," he muttered, his voice filled with self-loathing. He'd dragged them all into it – his family, Robin, his friends, his team, and others - Sherriff Sam Jarrett from Idaho, Rabbi Shulman and his son, Aaron, officer Scarpelli, who was in the hospital in critical condition, and most of all, Charlie – there wasn't one among them that hadn't paid a price, or who hadn't at least been jeopardized at some point by his single-minded, myopic attempts to bring Tuttle to justice.

At times during the last several months, even he had to admit, he was reacting in self-defense – but there were several points during that time where he could have ended it, could have walked away from the case, and it never would have come to this. Charlie was almost as bad as he was; he clamped onto the case like a pit bull once he realized that they were on to Tuttle – but if Don would have abandoned the case and insisted that Charlie abandon it also, Charlie might have dragged his feet a little, maybe run another search algorithm or two, but in the end, if Don insisted, he would have done it. Charlie had pretty much done everything that Don had ever asked him to do, at least when it came to helping him on cases. Certainly so when it had come to this case.

Don had thought that the day he found out that Charlie had been blinded by that fight at the warehouse in Chicago was the worst day of his life – or at least on par with the day he'd found out that Robin had been kidnapped by Tuttle. Well, he was wrong on both counts – the worst day of his life was imminent. Any minute now, the doctor could come in and tell him that his brother was dead – he was dead because he hadn't gotten care in time. Charlie had passed out two days ago, and what had Don done? Laid him on the sofa, and rationalized his way out of taking him to the hospital. He'd watched Charlie grow steadily sicker, steadily weaker, instead of making sure he got care, because he'd been too afraid of spooking Tuttle. If he'd gone ahead and gotten Charlie to a doctor, Charlie would be convalescing; maybe already out of the hospital. Tuttle would have waited for their meeting – he wouldn't have liked it, but he would have had to wait – because Don and Charlie were the targets, after all. Tuttle needed both of them to show up, so he would have waited. And that extra time would have played into the FBI's hands; they would likely have found where Tuttle was holding the girls long before Don and Charlie had to meet with him – they could have taken their time, come up with a real plan, instead of some half-assed rush job that had gotten both he and Charlie shot…

"Single-minded, stupid," he told himself, "– not just stupid, criminally stupid – you shouldn't even be in the FBI, much less as the SAC…"

"I beg to differ."

Don's head jerked up. A.D. Wright was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light in the hallway. "May I come in?"

Don sighed, hit the switch for the overhead light, winced as it came on, and waved Wright in.

Wright walked forward, pulled a chair closer to the bedside. "Being a little hard on yourself, aren't you?"

Don glanced at him. He tried to keep the twist of self-disgust from his mouth and failed, tried to hide it by looking away.

"I stopped upstairs, at the ICU. Your father is up with your brother, sitting in a wheelchair. He wouldn't let an injured knee keep him away. He's wondering what is keeping you."

Don ignored the gentle jab. "Anything from the coroner yet?"

Wright regarded him for a moment. "We got a warrant for Tuttle's house last night, got some DNA samples from his toothbrush, so the coroner had something to match. We put Murphy on it – he's our best. He won't be able to use dental records; the face and jaw were too destroyed. He found a few fillings – he might at least be able to match those. It wouldn't be conclusive, but it would give us an indication. He isn't done looking for some pockets of unburned tissue, but it isn't looking good. At best, he thinks he'll get some mitochondrial DNA from the bone marrow."

Don shook his head. "Not good enough. Mitochondrial DNA will only give us a partial. It'll be enough to say it could be him, but we won't know for sure."

Wright smiled ruefully. "You won't give it up, will you?"

Unknowingly, he touched a nerve, and grief and anger flared. Don glared at him, his voice shaking despite his best effort. "My brother is dying because of Tuttle, because of this case – the least I can do for him is be sure we get the bastard."

"The least you could do for your brother is be with him – and your father," said Wright mildly, seemingly unperturbed by Don's outburst.

"He's not even conscious," Don muttered, dropping his eyes to his hands, which were curled in fists in his lap. He relaxed them with an effort. "He wouldn't know if I was there or not."

"Don't sell him short – his eyes were open when I was up there – they say that is the first time he opened them since last evening."

Don looked up in surprise, and studied Wright's face – for what, he wasn't sure. Wright wouldn't lie to him, he knew that. He also knew that his boss was absolutely correct – he should be up there, especially if Charlie didn't have long. He just needed to bring himself to go – to get past the crushing guilt, and the overwhelming fear of what he would see. He wasn't sure he wanted his last memories of Charlie to be this way, to be of him on his death bed. But if Wright was correct and Charlie's eyes were open – maybe he was improving. Maybe there was hope… Don caught a glimpse of possible resurrection, and he took it.

"Okay," he grumbled. "I'll call the nurse and have her bring a wheelchair."

Wright nodded. "Not walking yet?"

Don grimaced. "Short distances only, and with crutches – but the crutches are hard on the stitches in my arm. They told me I'm in a chair for anything further than the bathroom."

Wright pursed his lips and nodded, and rose, heading for the doorway. "I'm on my way out. I'll get someone to bring one." He paused at the door. "And Agent?" He met Don's eyes. "You did a hell of a job on this one – you did everything you could, and then some – under extraordinary circumstances. Cut yourself a break."

And so Don did – at least, temporarily. He pushed back the overwhelming, almost debilitating sense of guilt and fear, and made arrangements to be wheeled up to Charlie's room. When he got up to the ICU floor, he had to wrangle with the staff for a few minutes – it seemed that they were reluctant to allow two people in wheelchairs in an intensive care room at the same time, for fear that Don and his father would be in the way in the event of an emergency. A tall gray-haired doctor named Forster – one of the specialists, as it turned out, intervened, and eventually Don was pushed into Charlie's room, and situated next to his father – both of them safely out of the pathway from the doorway to Charlie's bed.

Alan's eyes met his when he came in. Don could read the fear and concern in them – but there was relief also. Don wasn't sure if that was due to his arrival, or maybe – based on Wright's comments – due to the hope that Charlie was improving. His father's face was bruised, and his knee held straight in front of him in plastic brace, and Don couldn't help but think, 'I caused that.'

"I was wondering where you were," was all that Alan said, and he turned his eyes back toward Charlie.

"How's he doing?" murmured Don, as he scanned his brother's face, offering no explanation for his late arrival. His father would see through any excuse, anyway.

In spite of what Wright had said about Charlie being conscious, he now seemed to be out again. He looked terrible – pale and drawn, and his breathing sounded labored under his oxygen mask. Dark matted curls and dark stubble on his face only accentuated the paleness; to Don, it seemed as though his skin had a bluish cast. He was wearing no gown, just a sheet pulled up to his chest, and the bandage on his shoulder was in plain view, as if it had been purposely placed to exacerbate Don's remorse.

"He's been in and out of consciousness since this morning," said Alan. "He woke up at one point and had a coughing fit, which they said was a good thing, but…" his voice trailed off, and when Don looked at him closely, he could see the anxiety in his eyes.

His father changed the subject. "Amita showed up as early this morning as they would allow visitors, but she wasn't feeling well, and the nurse overheard her mention it to me. They shooed her out – said they didn't want anyone in here with anything contagious – that Charlie couldn't fight anything else off. She tried to protest, and they ended up taking her temperature – it was a little high, so they banned her from the ICU – she was devastated." He sighed. "I hope she's not coming down with the stuff. I have to attest, it's pretty nasty." He shot a worried glance at Don. "You feel okay, right?"

"Yeah, great," growled Don. "I think I already had it, anyway – a milder case." He sat there, his eyes on Charlie, stewing silently, 'I've been shot up, I might have lost my suspect, and oh, by the way, it wasn't enough to push my brother hard enough to kill him – I had to shoot him, too.'

"Amita told me what happened at the warehouse," said Alan, gently, as if reading his thoughts. "She said that Charlie jumped from a concealed spot right into your line of fire – she said it wasn't your fault. And the injury wasn't serious, anyway."

"Who knows what effect it had?" Don shot back, bitterly. "The loss of blood – the effort it's taking for his body to heal that injury on top of the pneumonia – maybe it's enough to push him over the edge, for all we know. As if I didn't do a good enough job setting him up for this to begin with – he was so sick he's barely been functioning the last few days, and all I did was push him. He passed out two days ago – I should have sent him to the hospital then." The words spewed out, full of self-hatred and almost unbidden; and Don had to catch his breath at the end of them. There was a twisted sense of satisfaction in the pain they caused him, though, and oddly, a sense of relief. There it was – his guilt, his fear, his stupidity – all hanging in the wind in front of the person whose opinion mattered most in the world to him. He'd reached rock bottom – it was a relief to know that at least he couldn't go any further.

"Don, Charlie's a grown man – he doesn't need you to tell him to go to the hospital, and even if you did, I know how stubborn he is," said his father, shaking his head. "Do you think he would listen -," but before he could continue, Charlie suddenly stirred and opened his eyes. Alan stopped mid-sentence, and they both stared at him.

Charlie didn't stare back, in fact, he didn't seem to focus on anything – rather, his face contorted and his eyes wandered the room – as if he were desperately searching for help. His breathing deepened, and then he began to cough – a horrible choking that convulsed his entire body.

Alan immediately hit the button for the ICU desk, his hand shaking. "He did this earlier," he said, and the agitation in his voice made Don wonder. Surely coughing was a good thing for someone with pneumonia…

The coughing deepened, and in between coughs Charlie began to gasp for breath, each gasp an awful ragged vocal noise. His dark eyes found Don's and grew wide with panic under the oxygen mask, and his skin began to darken as the staff rushed in, pulled him on his side, and pulled away the mask – just in time – Charlie choked again and vomited into a bedpan, then choked some more. The horrible gasping was gone – which was even more terrifying; Charlie now was not breathing at all; just gurgling, staring at Don as if beseeching him to help. The panic was fading in his eyes, fading to nothingness, and then he collapsed in an intern's arms, unconscious again.

Don could feel nausea of his own building, as someone shouted for suction. He either had just watched his brother die – or at the least, experienced a heartbreaking episode that was sure to be repeated on Charlie's way to a horrible death – and either way, Don couldn't take any more. He fumbled for the wheels of his wheelchair, and pushed blindly out of the room.

Outside in the hallway, he stopped, head bowed, nearly overcome. He could hear the sharp commands in the room behind him, the sound of suctioning air, a beep that was probably Charlie's heart monitor – and kept waiting for that beep to stop pulsing, waiting for the horrible flat whine, that meant his brother was gone. It didn't come – instead, the voices calmed, the beep grew steady, and eventually he sensed footsteps around him. One nurse stooped to look into his face to make sure he was okay, and he finally raised his head. Satisfied, she moved on down the hallway. He still had no strength to move, however – all he could see was the horrible panicked look on Charlie's face as he desperately tried to bring in air – those dark eyes locked on his.

There was movement beside him – his father, looking pale and shaken himself – had wheeled himself next to him. "He's okay," Alan said. "He's okay, Don. He's sleeping again."

Don shook his head, and forced words out through a tight throat. "He's not okay, Dad – you saw it. He's slowly suffocating – when he's awake, he's terrified because he can't breathe. We'd better pray to God that he doesn't wake up again – that he goes peacefully."

"Bite your tongue!" retorted Alan. His voice shook with anger. "He's fighting this – and you're giving up on him! He deserves a little better than that, don't you think?" He took a breath, and tried to speak more calmly. "I know this is hard, and I know you're blaming yourself. I'll say it again, Donny, it's not your fault. Look, they're going to MRI my knee later today, and then they will probably discharge me, and refer me to an orthopedic doctor. Once I'm out of here, it is not going to be easy for me to get back and forth. I'm going to spend as much time with him as I can, but when I'm not here – you need to be. I know it's a tall order, and that you're recuperating, yourself -,"

"It's not that, Dad," said Don miserably. Did his father really think that all he was concerned about were his own injuries? "It's just - ,"

"He needs to have someone here who is fighting for him," Alan went on, as if Don hadn't spoken, although his voice softened, became more soothing. "Amita can't be – they won't let her – so it's me and you. I think you ought to go back downstairs now, and get some rest, because later, you may need to be here."

It was a kind dismissal, but it was a dismissal. Don got the message. If he was going to be pessimistic over Charlie's chances, his father really didn't want him around. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he went back downstairs… "Yeah, okay," he said heavily. Instead of wheeling for the central ICU desk to have them call for an orderly, however, he turned his chair around and wheeled it back to the entrance to Charlie's room, and stared at his brother. Charlie was sleeping peacefully again, but Don had a horrible premonition that this would be the last time he saw him alive. He took one long last look at his brother's face, and wheeled around, down the hall to the ICU desk.

Charlie stirred, and his breathing quickened. A vague sense of panic started in his gut – there wasn't enough air in the room, not enough air… His eyes flew open, and roved around the room. His brain seemed to be sluggish, floating in a fog, and without his contact lens or glasses, his vision was just as blurry. He didn't realize it, but low oxygen levels were compromising clear thought – he couldn't quite grasp where he was, or what was happening. Two figures sat across from him, and they were close enough and familiar enough that he could make them out – his father, and Don. He was aware that no one else was there – but thought vaguely that someone else should be there - Amita. Disjointed scenes from the warehouse came to his mind – he was sure he had seen her there. Had she gotten out okay? Why wasn't she with Don and his father?

They were staring at him, just sitting there, and he wanted to ask them about Amita, ask them to help him, but he couldn't talk – God, he couldn't even breathe, and oh, no, please no - he had to cough. Dim memory of an earlier episode made him realize that above all, he did not want to start coughing, because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop. The hacking, the choking thickness in his throat would come… He coughed, he couldn't help it; and panic flared in earnest. He tried to sit up, but couldn't… his eyes found Don's as the choking deepened. Phlegm forced into his throat was making him gag – he couldn't breathe at all now – why was Don just sitting there? Why weren't they helping? Figures in blue rushed in around him, and the room began to darken. Can't breathe - God, I'm dying…

Colby, Liz, Sam Jarrett and Nikki sat huddled around the conference table, with all eyes on David, who had just hung up the phone with the coroner, Dr. Murphy. "What'd he say?" prompted Nikki impatiently.

David shook his head. "Nothing good," he said, his voice thick with disappointment. "He doesn't even think he can get a reliable test from the bone marrow to get MT DNA – and even if he could, that wouldn't get us full results. There's no way to know if it's Tuttle or not."

"The guy had the right number of fillings in his head," protested Nikki, unwilling to concede defeat.

"That and a buck will get you a cheap cigar," muttered Colby, although he wasn't willing to give up the fight either. There had to be something

"What about the guy in the Lexus?" asked Sam Jarrett.

"What about him?" said Liz, eying him curiously.

"Maybe we can get a line on him somehow," said Sam, "even if we don't have a license plate."

"You're right," responded Colby. "Think about it – if Charlie were here, he'd write a search algorithm that would cross-check silver Lexus owners against possible connections to Tuttle. At the very least, we could look for silver Lexus owners that have been reported missing – if they switched cars and the dead guy was the Lexus owner, maybe someone would have missed him by now."

David nodded. "Good thinking. It'll take us a little while to do it manually, but we can run a list with the DMV and divide it up. Let's get on it."

It actually took less time than Colby would have thought – only a couple of hours, before Liz said, "Here's something."

They all looked up at her from their computers, to see rising excitement dawning on her face. "This guy – Connor Mason – he's a pilot – he has a charter flight business. He flies out of Burbank – which is close to the gas station Tuttle stopped at. We know that Scarpelli told his partner, Meese, that Tuttle was headed for an airport. What if Tuttle was having this Mason guy fly him out of the country?"

David nodded, approvingly, rising as he said, "Good work. Keep digging, but while you do, Colby and I will follow that one up. Address?"

Liz rattled it off – his home was also a Burbank address – apparently Connor Mason liked to be close to his planes. Colby rose and headed out on David's heels. He was bone tired, but the fatigue dissipated as anticipation rose, and he and David strode through the parking garage with renewed purpose. Maybe they were finally getting somewhere.

That thought lasted about an hour. Connor Mason was home, and answered the door, with a smile that looked a bit forced. He was of medium build, thirties, with sharp gray eyes, medium brown hair and about three days growth of beard to match.

David flashed his ID. "Mr. Mason – FBI. Mind if we come in?"

Mason's grin faltered a bit, but he kept it firmly plastered in place, trying to look pleasant. "What's this about?"

"We have reason to believe that you were at a gas station in North Hollywood last night," said David. "We followed a suspect out of that gas station – we would like to know what you saw."

Mason flicked a nervous glance away from them, and then back. Colby silently applauded David's choice of words – without actually saying so, he implied that someone had actually seen Mason at the gas station. His statement had a definite effect.

David asked again, with an overly pleasant smile. "May we come in?"

Mason sighed, shrugged one shoulder. "Sure. I guess." He turned, and they followed him into the house.

It was a nice home, easily worth a couple of million at LA real estate prices. It was tastefully decorated, but was lacking any female touches – Mason was apparently single, and had undoubtedly hired an interior decorator. There was money here, to be sure – more money than the average charter pilot would make, Colby guessed. He made a mental note to dig into Mason's business dealings if he refused to cooperate. Maybe he could unearth a little leverage.

It turned out, they didn't need leverage. Mason deferred at first, saying he didn't know anyone named Tuttle when David brought up the name, but then David turned it up a notch.

"It would be an easy matter to see if you had made any last minute arrangements to fly out of Burbank last night," he said. "Not to mention checking your phone records to see if you made any calls last evening – more than likely to a prepaid cell phone – which, by the way, we will have no problem tracing to Tuttle." That last statement was true – and in fact was in progress – they had apprehended Tuttle's driver last evening in order to do the setup, and had confiscated the man's phone – which would undoubtedly have calls on it from Tuttle's cell phone, so they could get the number – even if it was a burner. LAPD was working on it as they spoke.

The last statement did the trick. Mason's shoulders sagged. "All right," he said, wearily. "Yes, Mr. Tuttle called me last evening, asked me to make a last minute trip – he wanted me to fly him to Barbados. I didn't ask why. I filed a last minute flight plan to Barbados, with a stop in Miami – using his private jet – you can check it out with Burbank. He told me he would meet me at the airport, but then he called me again en route and told me to meet him at the gas station you mentioned – he said we would take my car to the airport and that he would have a friend pick up his Maserati at the gas station."

David frowned. "We had people check – there's only one jet registered in Tuttle's name, and it's down at Long Beach."

Mason appeared undeterred. "This one's not registered in his name. He has it registered under a one of his businesses."

Colby almost said, "We checked that out too," because they had – there were no jets registered under Tuttle's known businesses. It was possible Tuttle had registered it under a fake corporation name, however. Mason could be telling the truth – as far as he knew it.

David's smile had turned unpleasant. "And you just jumped through hoops – it was already nighttime when he called you and told you what – that you had to fly out within an hour or two – and you didn't think that it all seemed a little shady?"

Mason sighed. "Look, I'm a charter pilot, and I specialize in last minute flights. People decide to fly places – all kinds of places – at the drop of a hat. It might be business emergencies, love-life crises, surprise birthday presents – I don't ask, okay? They pay me, I fly 'em – I make sure they aren't carrying drugs or anything, and I fly 'em. It's all legit." His voice had risen righteously during his little speech, and Colby could see they were losing ground.

David did too, and he got to the point. "Okay, then, you were supposed to meet him at the gas station. Alone? Was there anyone else with you – or with him?"

Mason's face had gone stony. "No. At least there was no one with me – I'm not sure about him. I pulled into the gas station and he was already there. He pulled out right away – real fast. At least, I think it was him. I didn't get a good look – it was dark, I was coming in pretty quick, and he suddenly backed out and peeled out of there. It was his car – he told me he was driving the red Maserati – I assume it was him in it."

David stared at him, and then looked at Colby, and Colby knew what he was thinking – was there someone else? Maybe Tuttle had asked someone besides Mason to meet him at the gas station – just in case things went bad. Or maybe he handed the keys off to some random street punk, and told him he could have the car if he could outrun the cops. Anything could have happened – none of it was very likely in the few seconds that Tuttle was out of their sight – but until they could rule out the remotest possibilities, they couldn't say for sure that it was Tuttle lying in that morgue.

Mason was eyeing them curiously. "There was an article in the paper this morning about a bad wreck up on Mulholland – a red Maserati. The paper said there was one unconfirmed fatality. That's what you're trying to find out, isn't it? Whether it's Tuttle or not."

David looked back at him. "That's confidential information. Don't go spreading it around – we'll know you leaked it. If anyone else contacts you about this we need to know right away." He handed Mason his card. "Call us immediately if you hear anything related to what happened last night. Make sure you don't hide anything – or we'll make sure your license gets reviewed."

Mason nodded, unimpressed. "Yeah, I got it. Look, if you guys are done, I gotta get over to the field. I've got a meeting with the maintenance crew – you can check that out too, if you want."

He saw them to the door. On the drive back downtown they were silent, and Colby stared out the window. A fog had settled in the valleys, seeping among the hills. Colby felt as though the mist, cold and gray, had settled on his soul.

End, Chapter 29