Steve raised the fluted glass. "Jeannie, that was amazing, as usual. I thank you both for inviting me to join you tonight." His smiling eyes slid from the young woman to her father and back. "And I want to wish you all the best. This is extraordinary opportunity you've got in New York… and I don't know anybody who deserves it more." He lifted the glass a little higher.
Grinning, Jeannie picked up her champagne flute and held it up. Mike did the same. "Hear, hear," he intoned with feigned gravity as he beamed at his daughter, pride so evident in his sparkling eyes.
Nodding to both men with a soft chuckle, she clinked glasses with them before they all took a sip. Mike's eyes widened. "Whoa, that is very nice," he approved with a nod to his partner.
Steve's eyes flicked to the bottle of Veuve Clicquot in an ice bucket on the far side of the table. "Well, when you said it was going to be a celebration, I thought, 'What the hell…'" he laughed, "it's only money."
Mike looked at his daughter with a bogus frown and leaned towards her conspiratorially. "I don't know where he gets all the money," he whispered in a false sotto voce. "I think he might be getting paid more than I do. I mean, where's my Porsche?"
Steve began to smirk as Jeannie pretended to frown. "Hmmmm, well, you are putting me through university… and you do own this house. He just has an apartment…" she whispered loudly.
Pursing his lips, still staring at his partner accusingly, Mike nodded. "True… true…. But I'm gonna have to keep my eye on him, I think…. Don't you?"
Mirroring her father's look, Jeannie nodded as well. "Oh yeah, I'd keep an eye on him for sure."
Steve cleared his throat. "Are you two finished?"
Father and daughter straightened up simultaneously with feigned innocence. "Finished?" Mike echoed facetiously. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Whatever…?" Steve repeated, chuckling.
Pretending to look put upon, Mike turned to his daughter once again. "You see what I have to put up with? He makes fun of everything I do…"
Unable to resist the laugh that had been building at the back of her throat, Jeannie patted her father's forearm as she stood. "I think we'd better have dessert before this gets entirely out of hand," she chuckled as she reached for the empty plates.
Mike got to his feet quickly. "No no no," he said forcefully as he took the plates out of her hands, "you've done enough for tonight. It's time for the men to do some work," he gathered Steve in with a nod.
The younger man stood rapidly. "Of course, of course…"
Smiling, Jeannie sank back onto her chair. "Okay," she acquiesced with a tilt of her head, staring at her father with delight. With a wink, Mike took the dirty dishes to the counter, Steve in his wake.
# # # # #
It had turned out to be a perfect day. Father and daughter had spent the entire day together, a morning walk on Baker Beach was followed by a huge grocery shop, then he helped her prepare their dinner, all the while catching up on each others lives. They had always had a close relationship, able to talk to each other about just about everything, though Mike had always been circumspect about the grislier details of the job.
Steve was always amazed at how much his partner relaxed when his daughter was at home, and over the years her visits had become more and more important to them all. The time had become a respite for both partners, and this time was no exception.
As he helped Mike with the doling out of the hot, freshly made apple pie topped with generous scoops of vanilla ice cream, he realized that this unexpected but most welcome return was probably the most needed. The next several weeks were going to be an uncomfortable and trying time for them both, with no guarantee that things would return to normal when Mike's 'temporary transfer' was completed.
He watched as the older man covered the remaining pie with a piece of tin foil and slid it back in the still warm oven. As he put the plate of dessert on the table in front of Jeannie and sat, he realized she had been staring at him, frowning slightly. She looked like she wanted to ask him something, but he saw her eyes flick towards her father and back again then drop to the plate in front of her, picking up her fork.
Chuckling, Mike returned to the table and sat, putting his own dessert plate down. "Umh-umh, this smells amazing," he beamed at his daughter as he cut a piece of pie with his fork and put it in his mouth. He rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
Both younger people laughed, looking at each other and grinning. As Steve dropped his gaze to his own plate, he glanced at Jeannie and saw her eyes flick towards him. And he knew she was going to wait to get him alone, however long that took, to tell him what was on her mind.
# # # # #
They were lingering over freshly brewed coffee when Mike excused himself to make a trip to the bathroom. The second he left the kitchen, Jeannie's eyes spun to the young man across the table.
"What are you not telling him?" she asked accusingly and he sat back sharply, surprised.
"Wha- what are you talking about?" he managed to blurt out, trying to keep his voice down.
"Something's bothering you. I know you're trying to keep it from Mike, but I know you, I know you both." She continued to stare at him, not backing down.
He glanced down at the table, one hand around his coffee cup, and exhaled loudly. "It's… it's nothing serious, Jeannie, believe me…. It really isn't."
"Then what is it?" she persisted, her tone softening.
He looked up and smiled softly, shaking his head slightly with the inevitability. She was so very much like her father. "Ever since I joined Homicide four years ago, I've worked with your Dad. I think I know him almost better than he knows himself sometimes," he snorted warmly, a smile briefly lighting his face, and he heard her soft chuckle. "You don't know how important that is… knowing that someone has your back, someone who knows you better than anybody else…And now I don't have that anymore, for the time being anyway… And he's gonna go through that too." He looked down at the table again. "And the whole Internal Affairs thing…" He exhaled loudly. "Jeannie, the guys from IA, they have an important job to do, there's no disputing that… but you know as well as I do that they are the most despised members of any police force…"
He felt Jeannie's hand wrap around his forearm and squeeze. "You're worried about him?" she asked quietly.
He nodded gently. "Yeah…. He's gonna have to do things I know he's not gonna want to do…"
He looked up at her and smiled mirthlessly with a small, helpless shrug.
"But he's going to be coming at all this from the perspective of a cop who's spent his entire career on the streets… won't that make him a more compassionate Internal Affairs investigator?" she asked with a gentle smile.
He stared at her for several long silent seconds, frowning. They heard the sound of Mike coming back down the stairs and he smiled at her, awed and grateful for the surprisingly encouraging perspective. She squeezed his arm once more before removing her hand and picking up her coffee cup.
"So what did you talk about you didn't want me to hear while I was gone?" Mike asked with a laugh as he strode back into the room and dropped into his chair. Both younger people stared at him under raised eyebrows.
# # # # #
The week had gone by much too fast and it was with great reluctance that Mike drove his daughter to the airport to see her off on her Big Apple adventure. It had been a wonderful break for them both, and neither wanted to see it end.
They were both facing the next six weeks with different points of view, Jeannie with excitement, Mike with dread. He had managed to delay his secondment to IA as long as he could but his two-week respite was rapidly coming to an end.
He managed to conceal his trepidation as he saw her off, waiting in the airport terminal for her plane to disappear from sight. He drove back home slowly.
The Goodman investigation had ground to a halt; he had managed to find a few hours here and there over the past week to continue to work on the case but to no avail. Every possibility had been examined and nothing had yielded a lead that could be followed. It had become an exercise in frustration and he knew his time was running out. The colder the case became the less likely it would ever be solved.
Steve had managed to solve the case of the murdered Chinese diplomat; he had been shot by a hooker he had stiffed. And Steve and Tanner had, with the help of some initially reluctant but eventually compliant street-walkers who knew they would be harassed until they cooperated, tracked down the distraught young woman, who surrendered without resistance.
It had been a satisfying arrest for both inspectors, and even though Steve liked working with Tanner, it was not the same as working with Mike.
It was early on Monday morning when Mike reported to Captain George Cassidy in Internal Affairs. They were old friends, and Cassidy knew just how difficult this temporary transfer was going to be for the veteran homicide detective.
Mike spent his first day just going over some IA files and getting a taste of some of the cases that needed to be investigated. Cassidy had decided not to give Mike any of the most controversial ones; he would let him handle the somewhat straightforward cases, like complaints from the public about police brutality or conduct unbecoming.
Mike was at home, boiling spaghetti for dinner, when the phone rang. It was Steve.
"So, how was your first day?"
The older man chuckled as he slumped into a kitchen chair. "Better than I thought it would be."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Well, George took pity on me. He's, ah, he's decided to give me the 'easier' cases while I'm on his roster."
"'Easier'? What does that mean?"
"Oh, you know, things like 'that cop cursed at me' or 'that cop ignored me when I complained about my neighbour'. That kinda thing."
"Seriously?"
"Well, I sorta think that's really not the kinda thing they usually investigate. I have a sneaking suspicion that George has just made my job up out of thin air, to keep me out of the really controversial stuff, you know. But hey, if I can smooth over some ruffled feathers with the public, and not get painted with that IA brush, I'll be more than grateful, believe me. Besides, he's letting me work on my own and set my own hours, so that's another plus too." He chuckled dryly. "I actually think I might be able to survive the next ten weeks with my reputation intact."
"That would be nice," Steve chuckled over the line.
"Yeah. So, ah, so what's new with you?"
"Well, we picked up a new one today. I'm working with Roy on this one."
"Oh, yeah, what is it?"
Steve could hear the excitement in his former partner's voice. "A young guy, a lawyer, beaten to death in an alley off California. It's still early and so far we have no leads. We're still at it. It's gonna be a tough one, Mike…" His voice trailed off.
A brief silence floated over the line. "Yeah, well, ah, good luck. Let me know how you're doing with it, okay? And, ah, be careful, you hear?"
"Oh, I will, don't worry. You too, hunh?"
Mike chuckled. "Yeah, right. I need a lot of back-up from all those little old lead-footed ladies complaining about that mean cop that gave them a speeding ticket or ignored their complaints about their loud neighbors."
"Hey, you never know," Steve laughed. "Okay, gotta go, Roy's waving at me again. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"You bet." Mike hung up the receiver, staring at the phone for several long seconds before, with a heavy sigh, turning his attention back to the stove.
