"What do you want?"
"Is that any way to greet a customer?" a bemused Watson said. On the way to the Station, she'd decided to take a little detour and catch Leah Poulos at work and it appeared that the Diner owner was less than thrilled to see her. Good.
"That depends. Are you here as a customer or is it about Brax?" she asked. "Because if it's the former, then please sit down and I'll serve you, but it it's the later, then fuck off because I have nothing to say to you, other than Brax has an alibi for yesterday."
"I'm not here about that."
"Then what are you here about?" Leah asked cautiously.
"To see if you're still prepared to stick with your alibiing of Brax for the brick throwing incident." Along with the threatening call, the brick was a minor offence in comparison to the attempted hit-and-run, but sometimes it was best to start with the small and then once armed with a bit more ammo to use against a suspect, you take another shot at the bigger crime.
"I told you then and I'll tell you again, Brax was at my place when that happened," replied Leah. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Watson. "You know, Brax is completely devastated over the losses he's had recently and it's really not fair for you to keep harassing him all the time."
"Imagine how Joey is feeling these days," Watson pointed out as she kept a careful watch on Leah's reactions. When she'd first spoken to Leah about the brick incident, she'd sensed that the woman had been a little unsure of herself over giving Brax an alibi, even more so after she had heard about Joey's injury. That glimmer of uncertainty was why Watson had suspected she'd been lying and so now, it was time to give Leah's conscience another prod. "Joey's life hasn't exactly been a bed of roses recently either. First she loses her lover and is placed under suspicion for that murder," Watson said. "Then she has to face the whispers of people behind her back and go home all alone to that big empty house, with its big, cold empty bed." Leah couldn't hold her gaze, which told Watson that her words were having some effect on the Diner owner. She tried not to let it show though as she continued on. "Can you imagine what it must be like for any woman in Summer Bay right now, to find yourself all alone at home while there is a cold blooded murderer on the loose?" She made no mention of the fact that Joey was no longer living alone. Watson was sure that titbit of information would be all over town soon enough without her having to say anything and at this moment, it really didn't suit her purposes for Leah to know. "And as if being alone isn't hard enough, Joey's also had to deal with threatening phone calls late at night and some heartless individual further terrorising her by throwing a brick through her window," Watson said and Leah's arms tightened around herself. "Now, to you, a scratch on the arm may not seem like much, but it could have been so much worse. What if Joey had been closer to the window and gotten hit in the eye by a piece of glass? And what about next time?" She sighed dramatically and shook her head. "What is the world coming to when women aren't even safe in their own home?"
"Look, Brax really had nothing to do with yesterday's car thingy," Leah said in response to Watson's manipulation of her conscience. "But he did throw the brick through Joey's window and I know that, because I was there with him when he did it."
"You were actually with him?" Watson said with some surprise. She had assumed that if Leah was lying, it was about Brax being with her, yet now it appeared that the lie was about their whereabouts. They were actually together, they just weren't at Leah's place as she'd originally claimed.
"I swear, I had no idea what he had planned to do," she said. "I'm not even sure he did. We were just passing by, then before I realised what was happening, he'd picked up a brick from one of the neighbour's yards and thrown it. He honestly never meant to hurt Joey though."
"Are you prepared to make a statement to what you've just said?" Watson thought for a moment that Leah would refuse, but she gave a slight nod. "And you still maintain Brax had no involvement in the attempted hit-and-run of Joey yesterday?"
"He didn't," she asserted. "I know I lied about one alibi, but I'm not lying about yesterday. He does have an alibi."
"And I am aware of that alibi Leah," she said. "But Brax could have arranged for one of his mates to do the deed for him."
"I realise my credibility sucks right now, but I tell you, I've barely left Brax's side since his brother died and not once in all that time, did I hear him tell anyone to go after Joey."
"He blames her though, doesn't he?"
"For Charlie, yeah," she admitted. "But it spread through town pretty quickly that Joey was in the clear for Heath's murder and once Brax had calmed down some, even he accepted that."
"Really?"
"He told me so."
"And he'd never lie, would he?"
"I trust Brax," was all Leah said.
"Great work this morning, Watson," Holmes quietly said as they watched a despondent Leah leave the Station.
"At least now she'll see Brax for the insensitive prick he is," murmured Watson, feeling just a tad bad that the woman had had her heart stomped on so thoroughly. After Leah had made her statement, Watson had sent a couple of uniforms to bring Brax in. When he'd heard that Leah had recanted her alibi and told the truth, he'd launched into a tirade at her about what a useless bitch and lousy root she was. Poor Leah had fled the room in tears and Fitzy had spent the best part of an hour trying to comfort her. Leah had made a mistake in lying to protect Brax, yet at the end of the day, she was just a lonely love struck woman who'd latched onto a man she'd foolishly convinced herself was the one, only now, she knew differently. "I just hope Brax leaves her alone."
"He's got other worries to deal with," said Holmes.
Both women looked around when more of Brax's loud protestations could be heard from the next room. "What do you want to do with him?" asked Watson. Once Brax had realised the predicament he'd found himself in, he'd had his own quick change of heart and confessed to making the phone call and throwing the brick.
Holmes winced at the commotion Brax was making. "Charge the bastard with threatening behaviour, assaulting Joey and causing damage to private property and if he keeps this up, then add on a charge of public disturbance."
Watson nodded. "It's just a shame he still denies having any involvement in the attempted hit-and-run."
"You believed his denials though, right?" She hadn't been in there with Watson during the interview. Since Watson had been the one to follow up on the case and then get Leah to talk, Holmes had let her take the lead with Brax while she had been stuck in another meeting with Robertson.
"Yeah, as much as I don't want to, I am inclined to believe him when he said he had nothing to do with it," Watson said. "Brax is usually full of bluster and innuendos with me and even as he was confessing to the rest, he was still making suggestible comments to me, yet he was genuinely freaked out at the idea of being accused of attempted murder. Plus, this is the one thing he does have an airtight alibi for and since you told me that you didn't find anything when you checked in with his known associates, then it does seem like he's in the clear for this."
"His buddies all seemed to have alibis that are pretty firm," conceded Holmes. "So I agree, Brax isn't the one behind this."
It was too bad the media had already lost interest in camping out on Joey's doorstep, thought Watson. They might have had a couple of witnesses if they'd still been hanging around and now that Brax was seemingly in the clear, it meant the driver had most likely been their killer. That didn't please Watson at all, because the killer was unpredictable, even more after yesterday's risky venture. It still didn't feel like something their meticulous killer would do, unless it truly was just all about scaring Joey. But why? Three people had been killed, so why resort to scare tactics now? And why Joey? She shook her head. There was still so much unknown with this case and despite how uncomfortable Joey's place had become, she now believed more than ever, it was a good thing she was going to be there to protect her. From the killer at least.
"By the way, I also caught up with our two love birds yesterday evening," Holmes was saying and Watson let her attention focus back on her.
"Let me guess, they're each other's alibis?"
Holmes nodded. "Claim they never left Angelo's house," she said. "Not sure if I believe them or not, but one thing is certain, they're together in every way, so if one is lying, I'm almost certain the other will be as well."
"Just to make things a little easier for us," Watson muttered sarcastically. It was hard enough getting to the truth without having people lying to them and she still couldn't believe Martha's behaviour with Angelo. It was like she was a completely different woman to the one she'd seen with Jack. Guess it just goes to show how deceptive appearances could be.
"Not so sure them sticking so tightly together is going to be easier for them either," Holmes said. "Word is buzzing all around town that Martha has pretty much moved in with Angelo and has been quite vocal about it, according to the neighbours and not many are happy about it, especially her mother."
"You spoke to Roo Stewart?"
"I bumped into her when I went to get some food last night. She acted like it wasn't all that big of a deal, but I could tell she wasn't too enthused about her daughter hooking up with her lover so soon after her husband's death and she was kind of snappish when I congratulated her on her impending grandmotherhood," she told Watson. "Still, despite her obvious dislike of her daughter's situation, Miss Stewart did manage to provide a time of departure from Jack's wake, that would have left Martha free to spend those hours having sex with Angelo at his place, just as both she and Angelo had claimed."
"Convenient." Of course, once Roo had left her alone, that didn't mean that Martha had rushed straight to Angelo's side. Both could still have been lying about how much time they'd actually spent together and so either of them could have killed Heath, before meeting up at Angelo's place for their latest sex session, but with no one seeing them coming or going, it would be extremely hard to break their alibis.
"Let me the fuck out of here," Brax shouted from his room.
"Guess I should go and charge him now," Watson said.
"Leave that to me," Holmes said. "Since we already have him here, I might take this opportunity to have another little chat with him and see if his memory is any clearer about Heath and the drugs."
"Good luck with that," Watson said. She wouldn't hold her breath on Brax talking though. While Brax was desperate to have his brother's killer caught, he'd so far been unwilling to tell them anything that might reflect badly on Heath, such as whether Heath had made any mention to him about his recent drug theft or not.
"Watson, I wanted to thank you for yesterday," Fitzy said as she handed the young Detective her coffee cup. "If not for you having me take Darcy to Bianca's place, then I'd still be miserable and pining for her from afar."
"I take it things went well then?" Watson said with a smirk. They hadn't had any chance to discuss much beyond work that morning, but she had had a fair idea at what had put that smile on Fitzy's face.
"More than well," she replied. "It was tense to begin with, we barely even spoke to each other," Fitzy said. "But after Tegan and her minders came and took Darcy away, Bianca and Rocco were pretty upset, since with Tegan going into witness protection, they're unlikely to see Darcy ever again and so I stuck around for a bit."
Watson hadn't been surprised when she'd heard that the Drug Squad had swooped in last night, taken all the evidence and Tegan and then left just as quickly. Stevenson they didn't bother about, because Tegan was the one with the information they needed to bring down a major drug dealer.
"We still weren't saying much, so I started to get up to leave, but then Bianca stopped me and we ended up talking, I mean, really talking," she said. "It was amazing. We really opened up to each other and then she said it." Fitzy was smiling so broadly Watson could just about count all her teeth. "Watson, she finally said those actual words, I love you Lara, to me." There was almost an air of disbelief in her words, as if she still couldn't quite believe it had happened. "And now she wants to be with me and really make this work for us."
Well there goes that avenue for sexual release and with Robertson snooping around, seeking out Holmes was out of the question, not to mention a bad idea. She'd ended that relationship for a reason. Now, she just had to hope that last night was a once off and she wouldn't be put into another position that left her sexually frustrated again. Watson was pleased for Fitzy though, because it'd been pretty obvious to her, how deeply she loved Bianca. "That's great news, Fitzy," she said.
"Yeah. Bianca's not quite ready to make any public announcement about us just yet and so it's likely to be baby steps from the closet for her, but she really does want to do this," explained Fitzy. "It seems like Heath's death really shook her up and made her look hard at how she'd lived her life and at the mistakes she'd made. She said that ending it with me had been one of those mistakes and now she's decided that life is too short to continue living a lie and she wants to be happy," she said. "And she's happiest when she is with me."
"I'm almost jealous," Watson murmured softly. And she was. She had yet to find that one person who set her heart alight, who made her so happy she'd bounce around like a giddy teenager as Fitzy had been today. "The best of luck to you and Bianca," she said. "I hope you're very happy together."
"We will be," Fitzy assured her. "So thanks again for sending me there and for turning me down yesterday. I'm sure we could have had a great time in bed together, but you were right, sex wouldn't have been the right answer for me and I'd have only ended up feeling guilty." She walked over to Watson and kissed her softly on the cheek. "Thank you for being a friend."
"Glad I could help."
With her coffee in hand, Watson headed back to her office. Holmes was still in with Brax, so she took the opportunity to peruse her emails. Her eyes lit up when she saw a familiar name amongst the senders. With a sense of nervous anticipation, she opened the email and its attachment.
Her excitement grew as she read the conclusions he'd reached about the photos she'd sent to him the other day. His report was by no means absolute proof, but it should certainly paint a new light on some aspects of the investigation, at least where Joey's role in it was concerned.
