X.
A ROLLING STONE
I can't get no satisfaction.
Rolling Stones
Captain McMullen had spent most of his life being bullied. For starters, his father had named him Caolan, after a very distant great-uncle who had served as an aid to George V. He had hoped the small link to a regal pastime would somehow rub off on their youngest child. Two sons and a daughter had come before Caolan, none of which had been bequeathed with a strong traditional Irish name.
James, Brandon, Sarah.
Standard, American, red-white-and-true-blue names to fit in with the other kids that dotted their suburban Ohio streets. Mr. McMullen must have been overcome with a sense of nostalgia for a lineage that he had lost contact with even before his own birth. Kids in primary school had giggled at Caolan's splay of beautiful orange hair, taunting him with words of "liar, liar, HAIR on FIRE!". Cute and seemingly harmless, but it had carried from primary school into his young adult years, less cute and much more harmful. Those same plain Janes and Johns had reverted to poking, prodding and pointing out every teenage fear and hangup that lived in Caolan, real or imagined. Even his time at basic training had been riddled with macho-chest-puffing soldiers giving him shitty nicknames like McFuckup, Fat Red and KKK-olan. He would squirm under their glimmering eyes, trying to laugh along as though he was in on the joke. Joining the force had been slightly better. For one, he had grown six inches while deployed during the Gulf War. He had boarded the plane with size thirty four tactical pants and had traded them up four sizes by the time he had come back home, filled with sand and a deep tan. He had joined the Ohio State Troopers at twenty-three, most of his time spent writing tickets to lead-footed tourists who were passing through his home state. A heart attack two decades later had convinced his wife that the dreary flatlands and cold winters were slowly killing him (and her) so she had insisted they pack up their sleepy lives in Ohio to go live near her sister in Santa Monica. The sunshine'll do you some good, she had said. Six years on the LAPD as a uniform then homicide detective and finally as a sergeant, had given him another major infarction. You'll be dead before you're sixty, the doctor had said, if the ulcers don't eat you alive first. But he had pushed on, popping sleeves of Rolaids as though they were candy, subbing out his six cups of coffee for green tea. Next came lieutenant. He had celebrated that promotion alone. His wife had already left him by then. He now sat as captain on the LAPD, an accomplishment he felt particularly proud of. Many sacrifices were made to be able to place his hefty ass into the seat. Many compromises. Caolan McMullen, for all his airs of power and position, still couldn't shake the little red-haired kid huddled inside the plastic playhouse, crying as other little terrors shook the hollow plastic roof and singsonged "Wailin' Caolan". It followed him around like a tiny terrible ghost. A constant reminder that he may be bigger now, older, but he was ultimately nothing more than a Midwest nobody with a dumb name and a pacemaker in his cavernous chest. So he lashed out quietly, secretly, in his deep dark mind. He stole things off of people's desks and threw them in the garbage. Wiped his balls with their sandwiches when no one was in the break room. He assigned cruel nicknames to the officers around him, especially the younger ones who would side eye him with their contempt. Like the one standing in the front of his desk now.
Pussy Pop, he had silently bequeathed her. Cause this bitch's pussy is probably as frosty as a popsicle on a summer day. On a few lonely nights he had definitely imagined that frigidity as he drunkenly stroked himself while the television blared a colorful infomercial.
He had initially liked Detective Decker. No nonsense, whip smart, good at follow through. She had always given him a quick hello in the mornings and kept him open on all ongoing investigations. He had liked her even after she had married that dolt Dan Espinoza, her work never wavering its course even as a newlywed and then, eventually, a new mother. But Palmetto…that had been the turning point for Captain McMullen's favorable outlook. All the traits that he had found commendable had compounded into an obsessive, dogged monster that had questioned his authority at every turn. It may have been old fashioned, but he believed that women, who fully had the right to be cops and detectives and whatever other feminist bullshit they were learning on their iPhones this day and age, were better suited to do tertiary police work like forensics or tech. Maybe even beat cops, if they were particularly robust. So he had hackled at Detective Decker's tone when she had suggested that members of the LAPD were impeding or directly involved with the Palmetto case. And she had kept pushing. Kept knocking on his door and annoying the everlasting shit out of him. From that moment, he had deemed her Pussy Pop and commemorated it by swiping a gold framed photo of her kid off of her desk and chucking it into the dumpster out back. The glass exploded in a paltry rain of shimmering cheap prisms and he had laughed maliciously, conjuring up images of boat captains smashing bottles of champagne against newly launching boats. I christen thee the SS Pussy Pop. Tears had sprang in the corners of his eyes as he doubled over, barking out laughter at his little inside joke.
"You're supposed to be on medical leave for the day, Detective." McMullen peered up at her from the tops of his reading glasses, a pen hovering in one hand.
"Yes, well, Captain, it couldn't wait." Feet shuffled nervously on the concrete flooring. "I wanted to talk to you about the Delaney and Smith cases."
"Oh right, that shit show." He closed the folder he had been writing in and sat back in his squeaky office chair. "Last night was particularly one big pants load."
"Yes, sir. That's why I'm here. I want you to take me off the case. Both of them. The one in Rancho Park too."
Large, spotted hands folded over the swell of his belly, his thumbs pressed together like a sigul. "Why?"
"I've compromised them, sir. I've become too…entangled." Her voice broke at the last word.
"So I heard."
"I-I got a civilian involved. Recon and recording without a warrant." Don't forget to add possible murder to that list, babygirl.
"I read the report. Levy dropped it off late last night."
I bet he did, that fuckwad. "I'd like the case to be re-assigned while it's still intact, sir. I can act as facilitator, get them up to speed, connect them with forensics all while maintaining my workload. And if you feel…", she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment dreading the next words but knew that she had to say it aloud, "if you feel that I've crossed the line, I will voluntarily step down as detective and await further recompense."
McMullen continued to stare at her, his papery hands still folded over the small round balloon of his belly. A vacant, hazy look had bubbled over the long hairs of his brows that were starting to show more grey than orange. Years spent behind a desk had turned his large frame into pouches of comfort, his dress pants tight around the belly but loose in the hips. The only remainder of his youthfulness lay atop his head—the shocktop of coral hair that had earned him so much ridicule in his younger years. It sat as a testament and a reminder: some things stay with us whether we want them to or not.
"Captain?"
He seemed to thaw, slowly, as if coming out of a deep reverie. "Yes, um, Detective." The chair gave out another squawk as he sat forward, his elbows leaning on his desk for support. "I had an earnest conversation early this morning with the gentleman who was acting as your temporary civilian liaison. He shed some light on the situation."
She cocked an eyebrow. "Civilian liaison?"
"Yes." An annoyed scowl pulled at the corner of his thin lips, as if she were asking a particularly stupid question. "Morningstar?"
"Morningstar?"
"Are you sure you should be up on your feet, detective? You seem to be out of it."
"I—I guess I'm just, uh, a little lightheaded." She brought a hand up to her temple.
"You should get back home and into bed. You're no good to us with your head swimming 'round like that."
"I'm just…what exactly did Mr. Morningstar shed light on?"
"You know, the ongoing investigation. How colluding with a civilian liaison can help get law enforcement into corners where red tape can be…hampering." He waved the word away with a twirl of his hand, reaching for the manila folder he had been reading earlier. "Morningstar did a great job explaining it all to me."
"And you're okay with this?"
"Aren't you? You're the one who came up with it." The pen clicked noisily in the quiet room and he placed the tip down onto the paper. "Now go home and get some rest. If you're feeling up to it, you can report back for duty tomorrow and carry on with the investigation as is."
Chloe balked but the captain didn't raise his head from the folder. He was clearly done with her. She left the office, ears ringing in anger. What part of their interaction in the hallway last night had left room for interpretation? Had given Lucifer the gall to come into her precinct and…what…make a plea on her behalf? She doubted it. Whatever slick wiles he may have possessed wouldn't impress old school hardcases like McMullen. So, mojo? Most likely. This stank of Lucifer's parlor tricks.
Rage roiled inside her chest. For the past few months it had felt like things, situations, circumstances had just been happening to her. At her. Making her an unwilling passenger in her own life. If it was Fate, it was doing a piss poor job of showing her exactly where its road map was taking her. The control freak part of Chloe bristled. Lucifer had stolen the one thing that had felt completely of her own choice: her choice to step away. To bow out and take whatever punishments that needed to be shouldered. It was the only thing that had felt like a choice at all. She tampered down the urge to drive over to Lux and kick down his door, demanding to know why he had made such a huge overstep. No, that would play into the reaction he was hoping for. Bare teeth and boiling blood. No, if he was going to rob her of the one choice she had felt good about, she refused to give him this.
Instead, Chloe collected a sleeve of papers from the top drawer of her desk, hoping that a few hours of working from home would calm her rattled nerves. The whole situation with Lucifer would never reach a peaceable compromise without a clear head; it was time to strategize a way to cut him out of the picture without jeopardizing an investigation that was still under her care. A few colored folders were piled on top of her "in" box. She carelessly flipped open the first one, expecting details on a new case that she was currently not prepared to take on. Instead, it was a report on a canvas one of the blues had undertaken at the Historical Society that morning, in light of the recent shooting that had taken place at their gala last night. She thumbed through the three page guest list littered with check marks from both the doorman who had undoubtedly taken stock of the night, as well as an officer who had meticulously rechecked the names. The next few sheets were a carefully typed up report of all the people that the uniforms had spoken with at the Historical Society's offices that morning. A lot of conjecture and hearsay. Eyewitness reports always had to be taken with a spoonful of salt, sometimes two if alcohol or drugs were involved. The human mind had the uncanny ability to fill in holes, allowing our imaginations to turn into realities. Just look at all the cases of the Mandela Effect that permeated large swatches of society, a collective false memory that we took as truths: The Berenstain Bears, Jif peanut butter (she still called it Jiffy, false memories be damned), Curious George's tail that had apparently never existed. For all the complex and phenomenal things that the brain could do, it was also the least reliable witness without evidence to back it up.
The two officers-Ledovska and Freeport-had been thorough, regardless of the quality of the sources. The typed report spanned eight pages from twelve staff member interviews, three of which were not present at the gala last night. The other nine had given long-winded accounts starting with the banalities of their evenings and ending in recounts of machine guns rattling or seeing a fight breakout in the hallway or fleeing figures of "rough looking" men peeling away in a getaway car like some 1940s wiseguys. The final two interviews had been short; one from the secretary and one from an intern.
Shelley Chatham, secretary, employed 3 years HistSoc, number listed in directory. Arrived at Gstone 5:00pm to help N. Holloway finish setup for gala. Had 2 drinks at party in the main room, spoke with colleagues (B. Smith, J. York). Got emergency call from accounting 6:46pm. Left Gstone 7:00pm. Uber pickup 7:08pm, drop off HistSoc offices 7:26pm.
Chloe had remembered the secretary at the gala, how she had pursed her lips at the recognition of the woman who had shown up more than an hour late to an evening meeting at Holloway's office. The detective had filed away the brief recognition last night and had moved on, not catching the dirty look Shelley Chatham had sent their way. Her sharp brown eyes had lingered on the tall, handsome figure of Lucifer for another moment and then had turned to the man standing next to her, whispering conspiratorially in his ear.
What could have been such a big emergency that Shelley had to leave the party? And what kind of emergency would an office administrator have to tend to after hours? It seemed inconsequential. Just another humdrum day in a humdrum life. Just another needy job taking over social obligations. Still, something about an emergency call on a Friday night, during a gala that the foundation had spent months planning, just didn't sit right with Chloe. The annoying, constantly questioning part of her demanded to know what the hell accounting wanted from their office administrator at 6:46pm last night. She thumbed back through the interviews but didn't see any accountants listed. No worries, she had nothing but time to burn and a directory of numbers attached to the report.
The line rang only once before Shelley Chatham picked up, her voice watery and tight. "Yes, hello?"
"Shelley Chatham?"
"Yes. May I ask who is calling?" Trepid. Suspicious.
Chloe tried to inject a cheeriness into her words. "This is Detective Chloe Decker from the LAPD, may I ask you a quick question about a statement you gave to Officer's Ledovska and Freeport earlier today?"
"This is a really bad time right now."
"I understand and I don't want to take up too much of your time. Just a really really quick question."
The administrator paused. "Okay…"
"Why did someone from marketing call you last night during the gala? You said it was an emergency and that's why you left the party." Chloe leaned her thigh against the corner of her desk, waiting.
"Oh. Um, yes, they were having trouble meeting some media deadlines and I had to let them into Mr. Holloway's office to use his computer." Shelley's voice trailed off, unconvinced.
"Shoot, I'm sorry I must have misread the report. It was actually accounting that called you, right?"
"No. Yes...I mean, I can't remember very well. I had a few drinks before they called so it's a little hazy. What does this have to do with the shooting from last night? I already told the police I wasn't there when it happened."
"I'm just following up. Keeping track of where everyone from the Society happened to be during the altercation. So you can't remember if it was marketing or accounting that had called you at 6:46pm, is that correct?"
"I think you're right, it was accounting. I kind of remember now." A high tremble weaved its way into her voice. "Something about files they needed from Mr. Holloway's office. Tax deadlines." She tried to laugh but it came out as a breathy sigh.
"So you kind of remember, or you do remember?" Chloe leaned forward, her thigh still pressed against the top of the desk, her other leg tracing the cracks on the linoleum floor.
"I-it's all so blurry. I'm sorry." Shallow, hard breathing pulsed on the other end of the line. People who didn't interact regularly with the law often found panic in having to answer questions from the police. The societal power of authority figures made soft, sweet women like Shelley Chatham sweat buckets at the prospect of being caught in a lie.
"Ms. Chatham." Here some of the steel came forward. "You wouldn't happen to be lying to the police, would you?"
"I'm not...I'm not trying to." She sounded on the verge of tears. Good.
"Shelley. Even if you're trying to protect someone or something, it's still an obstruction of justice, even if that someone is you." Back down to the subdued hues of honey. "If something is wrong, I can help you. But you have to be honest with me."
"He told me I couldn't tell anyone." Shelley Chatham had burst into tears then. Muffled sobs echoing over the line. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to, but Bono said I had to keep us a secret."
"Bono? Jacob Holloway?" The detective perked up. "Keep the two of you a secret?"
"Yes. He said Nicole could never find out or else she would ice him out of the Historical Society. She's a vindictive little witch."
"So you had left the gala to meet with Mr. Holloway." The boss-secretary trope...oldie but goodie.
A low sniffle. "Yeah. He had made the rounds then slipped out a little bit before I did. Nicole didn't even notice. No one did. They were all too busy getting sloshed and stroking each other's egos." Shelley blew her nose, a sickly baby elephant's trumpet. "He wants to divorce her, you know."
"Oh really?"
"He's just waiting on a big acquisition to go through and then he said that he'd have enough of his own capital to divorce that rotten shrew without losing half of everything. She's only married to him for the free ride, you know? Forced him to get married without a pre-nup."
"That's terrible." Chloe rolled her eyes but tried to keep her tone sympathetic. She somehow doubted that Shelley Chatham was sleeping with Holloway out of pure love. "Money makes everything complicated."
"Bono just needs to close out this Fifth Trumpet deal and I can finally leave this shitty job and he can leave his shitty wife." Some control came back into her voice. "Maybe move to Italy when this is all over."
"Lovely place. Modena is one of my favorites." Fifth Trumpet. She wrote it on the edge of the folder and underlined it. "How is this deal going to help you get there?"
"Is this...part of the investigation?" Again, that creeping suspicion.
Chloe chose to play politician. "I'm curious for curiosity's sake." For a detective, curiosity was never for the sake of itself. But what Shelley didn't know wouldn't hurt her. If anything, it may save her from the cross-country heartbreak of looking at Jacob Holloway's saggy balls for the rest of her life.
"He doesn't say much about it, just that he's had his eye on a historical site for many years and Fifth Trumpet was his way of acquiring it without the song and dance of asking Nicole for permission."
Chloe thought of Lux and the hungry way the old man's eyes had shone at the mention of it. "Well, thank you, Ms. Chatham, for clearing up this part of the interviews. You've been a great help."
"You won't report me for lying to those police officers earlier today, will you?"
"No, of course not. I'll update the report to reflect your new statements. Thank you very much." Chloe hung up before the woman on the other line could respond. She thought to call Jacob right away but paused. Strategized. Shifty-eyed trolls like Holloway weren't easily manipulated through the fear of getting caught in a lie. Hell, they may even thrive in the sport. What she needed was the thread. The dangling, barely perceptible start that would eventually unravel both the investigation and everyone involved. A tickling sense of bloodlust scratched the back of her throat. This is where she felt most at home: on the hunt, on the case, the whiff of metallic wounds etching the air in vaporous clouds. If she had looked into the mirror just then, she would have recognized the face of a black wolf in sheep's clothing. She would have seen the face of the Devil.
Dan Espinoza had been prepared for a stonewalling. That was where his ex-wife's comforts lay after all. Whenever tumultuous circumstances had stomped their chaotic feet into her carefully laid plans, she would automatically flip the switches down and spend long stretches of time in quiet rumination. He had held back from sending any probing texts about her well-being on the night after everything went to shit. Instead, he had gone to his mom's house and laid next to the sleeping form of his daughter, finding comfort in the rise and fall of her skinny chest. It had occurred to him in that dark room with the kaleidoscope night light, its rays of weak rainbow painting the corner of the room he used to share with his younger brother, that he had briefly imagined a future without Chloe. His legs had been pumping furiously up the perfectly manicured lawn of the Greystone Mansion but his mind had been quietly shuffling through scenarios of a potentially new life. One without Trixie's mother. It had been a shocking and wildly scary thought but, deep down, he knew that their new life as a twosome family would have been okay. Eventually. It would survive. Hell, it would maybe one day even thrive. It had felt like a selfish, terrible thought. What kind of asshole would contemplate the joyful life after the death of their child's mother? One that loved and cared for their daughter as much as Chloe did for Trixie. Beatrice Espinoza was her beacon. Her joy. Her first and last thought everyday. But…
But what?
Her job. Her fucking job.
Where did that fall on Chloe's scale of obsession? What would she be willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of the truth?
Her daughter's life? No. Definitely not.
Her daughter's happiness? Maybe.
Chloe had inherited the same wet, dark compulsion that her father had suffered. Daddy Decker had bestowed upon her the need to seek justice at all costs. No matter the costs. It was a self-serving motivation disguised as selfless servitude, given to her through blood and molded to perfection through the rigid structures of law enforcement. Dan had a little bit of that in him too. They all did. Sometimes it was all they had left to hold on to.
So he had backed off. Given her the room to cycle through her emotions in the comforts of her walled city. He had expected the cold shoulder when he waved to her from his desk as they locked eyes from across the precinct. Instead, she had smiled. Not a true-blue Chloe Decker smile, but a try anyways. It had felt like an olive branch.
"Hey, Dan." She tried another one but it failed to reach her eyes. "Thank you for...last night. Is Trixie all right?"
He nodded and sat back in his chair. "We made chocolate chip pancakes this morning so she'll be sitting on cloud nine for a few hours. She asked about you."
A hurt look passed over the detective's face. "I'll pick her up and take her to Luci's for lunch. You know how much we both love a greasy down-the-chin burger."
"How're you feeling?" He tried to say this with as much nonchalance as possible-How's the weather? How do you feel about the Lakers this year? How's the near-death experience going?-bracing himself for the emotional box-out.
"I-", invisible strings seemed to pull at her face, "I think I really fucked it up, Dan. Big time. All of it."
"I heard McMullen is keeping you as lead so it's not all lost, Chlo."
"It's not just the investigation. I'm really fucking it up across the board. With you, with Trixie, with the department…"
"I know."
Chloe snapped a hand to her mouth at his admission and pressed her eyes shut. "God, Dan. What am I doing?"
Seeing the deepening red of her cheeks and the imminent overspill, he rushed her into one of the storage rooms and quietly closed the door behind them. Greyness swam under her large eyes as she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. The urge to cry had passed but a pit of unease had filled its place. Everything she had felt within her grasp...the few things that remained...had dissipated at Dan's words.
"Chlo." Dan rested a gentle hand on her arm. "You have to let it go. This pressure of being the perfect cop, the perfect parent. Trixie doesn't need the perfect mother, she just needs her mom. I need her too."
"How?"
Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. He held it against his chest for a moment, contemplating, before placing it into her hand. "I know how you feel about this stuff. How much it scares you. But its helped me a ton and maybe, it can help you a little bit too."
She turned the paper over. Dr. Linda Martin. Therapist.
She had the thought to crumple it up and roll her eyes but stopped herself. Outside of the mandated psych evaluations given to officers to determine fitness for duty, Chloe had pushed away the idea of seeing a professional on her own. Words like psychiatrist and therapist had carried deeply negative connotations both in her family and in the force. Mental fortitude was considered a necessity to operate; emotions were processed alone and typically with your coping mechanism of choice. Chloe had considered herself to be an empathetic and warm soul, some would even say a romantic given her positive outlook despite the scuminess involved in her line of work. Wasn't that enough? The Chloe from a few months ago would have answered yes. Good cops were good people, end of story. Good people did good deeds, end of story.
Now?
Maybe there wasn't such a thing as good or bad people. There were just...people.
And they lived in the open expanse between good and bad deeds. They lived to make choices that impacted the world around them in good or bad ways. So...where did that put her? What did it mean for her identity as a self-proclaimed good cop, good mother and all-around good human?
She squeezed her eyes shut again to block out the train of thought she was headed down.
That was too much right now.
Too...painful.
Instead, she folded the paper back in half and placed it into the pocket of her windbreaker. Better to ponder the questions it brought up at another time when she wasn't in a mentally fragile state.
"What did McMullen have to say?" Dan's eyes lingered for a moment on the pocket the paper had slipped into before turning his attention back to Chloe.
"Apparently he had an enlightening conversation with our civilian liaison. Convinced him that what we were doing was okay."
"Civilian liaison? You mean, Morningstar?"
She nodded. "He couldn't even let me have the dignity of owning up to my mistakes."
"So that's why you're still on the case."
"I'm surprised I still have a goddamn job."
"Yeah, well, there's no such thing as a perfect cop, Chloe. We're all going to make mistakes, make bad choices. What matters is that this psycho gets caught and these families find some justice."
Chloe flinched at the last word. Justice. What did that even mean anymore? It had felt so cut-and-dry not too long ago but the last few weeks had placed undue strain on her ability to clearly define her lawful duty. "There's something I could use some help on. Fifth Trumpet. Can you do some digging to see what it means? I don't know what it's supposed to be but Shelley Chatham at the Historical Society mentioned it when I called her this morning."
"Yeah, I can get the preliminary search started. By the way, the bloodwork for Gio Arretxea should be coming in sometime tomorrow if you wanna take a look at it. According to blood spatter, they think you got him in the shoulder or at the very least clipped him a good one. We're checking all hospital intakes within a 20 mile radius for gunshot wounds and there's a citywide APB out with his info. Big motherfucker like that, he'd be hard to miss."
"Working for Bernard (or was it with him, or against him?) he'd probably steer clear of hospitals. I'm sure they've got a good private setup in-house. Has anyone interviewed Joel or Robbie Bernard yet?"
Dan shook his head. "No one answered when a couple of blues went out to their place. Wouldn't be surprised if they tried to book town, what with all the commotion going on right now."
She nodded absently, already lost in her thought process. Where was the weak point? Where was the fabric of lies the thinnest? Who would unravel the fastest? She smiled. Maybe Lucifer still had some usefulness after all.
Ella Lopez had been daydreaming again. Not out of boredom. Not out of necessity.
Lately she had found herself chasing ideas through the thicket of her imagination at the most inopportune times. Part of it was her way of dealing with the explosively inconsistent nature of her work. When things started to feel a little too tangled, she would step away from the lab to pickup a snack from the vending machine-White Cheddar Cheez-Its were her favorite-and while the metal prongs would make their slow rotation around the bright red bag, her mind would sort of wander away. A few times she had stood staring vacantly at slot B6, her body leaning quietly against the plastic call buttons while the inside of her brain was riding the lightning a million miles away. Thankfully the upstairs break room, with its thirty year old chairs and sticky linoleum flooring, was not as well-used as the newer rooms downstairs which saved Ella the embarrassment of awkward throat clearing as her co-workers walked in on her space cadeting through the cosmos.
Imagination had been a strong suit in the young scientist. A gift that made her particularly adept at conceptualizing alternatives to the unexplainable. Made her more likely to accept the unusual and, more importantly, accept it as real. Religion had a hand in fostering that as well. What was faith if not the unfaltering belief in that which cannot be seen or explained? Her forensics professor had balked at her seemingly clashing identities as both a scientist and a Catholic. He had tried to convince her that religion and science lived on two opposing ends of a spectrum, one rooted in conjecture and another in facts. Ella never understood his hostility towards her religious beliefs, especially seeing that she never brought it up in class or otherwise. To her, the relationship she had with God was just that-between her and God. Outside of mass on Sundays and Wednesdays, she didn't practice publicly, unless wearing the symbol of Christ around her neck had somehow become a sigul of religious fanaticism.
In actuality, she thought it only made her a better theorist and observer of nature-both of the world and of mankind. The numbers didn't lie but humans sure did. But sometimes, the numbers did lie and humans told nothing but the truth. To codify everyone and everything into pinpoints of percentages and scales didn't draw the complete picture of the most important question: why. Her job as a forensic scientist was mainly to figure out the how, but the human side of her always wanted to know the reason behind the how. The reason for their choices. Religion provided Ella with moral boundaries dictated by an all-knowing Father; it also provided her with her own reasons for the choices that she made throughout her life. But for others...well, that tickled the back of her mind constantly.
"To boldly go where no one has gone before."
Ella felt the elastic cord of reality pull tight against the lightning and she was hurtling back into the smell of stale coffee and chip crumbs. "Space is the final frontier, David."
The man who had rudely interrupted her offered a crooked grin. "Space cadet Ella Lopez reporting in for duty." He saluted her with a comical twist of his hand. "Just here to grab a Snickers, if that's okay."
Pushing off of the warm vending machine, Ella motioned to the streaky window lined with cascading rows of colorful snacks. It was honestly the only colorful, or daresay, tasteful thing in the room. "All yours, Officer Ruiz."
A wrinkly dollar bill emerged from his vest and he attempted to smooth it out against the corner of the machine, his eyes scanning the aisles of sweets before his eyes hit on his prize. "You feeling okay, Lopez?"
"Yeah. Just working over a case in my head."
"The Delaney-Smith one?"
She nodded.
"Did you hear that they kept Decker on as lead?" He scoffed and inserted the limp bill into the plastic slot. It took it halfway and spit it back out. "Shit. I hate these old machines."
Ella looked at the faded dollar dangling from the black plastic opening but didn't say anything. David Ruiz never participated in conversations. Instead, he spat out his half-witted opinions at anyone who happened to be caught in his line of sight. The thankful aspect of being in forensics was that she mostly worked alone and didn't have to put up with bullshit from people like Ruiz on a regular basis.
"McMullen's slipping, you know? Got more soft spots than a week old avocado." His bony finger tried to smush the bill back into the machine and after a bit of back and forth, begrudgingly snatched the almost cloth-like dollar and pulled out four quarters instead. "She lets some dumbass playboy tag along for a ride, shoots someone in the process and gets to walk on like nothing's the matter. I mean, talk about favoritism, right?" He pushed the quarters into the coin slot and gave Ella a side glance. "You know I applied for that detective job before she did."
"So?" Ellla rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're going to say you deserved it more than her."
David Ruiz, with his closely cropped hair and cop trope mustache, shrugged. The man who had indeed applied multiple times for a chance to make detective but had consistently been turned down due to his poor performance as both a cop and a working partner, who felt that Chloe Decker had been given the job over him because of affirmative action and not because of his own shortcomings. "I'm not saying that, but I'm also not not saying it either."
"You're a pig." She turned to leave the room.
"Don't you want your Cheez-Its, cadet?" Officer Ruiz lifted the red bag in front of his face. "Or do you not want it cause my pig ass hands have been all over it?"
"You know what, keep it. I lost my appetite."
Ruiz chuckled and threw the bag, landing on the formica tabletop closest to her. "Real cute, Lopez. You know, you don't have to defend Decker just cause she's a woman. Solidarity and whatever. Use that big science brain of yours and ask yourself why she'd be given a pass when anyone else in that situation would've gotten their asses handed to 'em."
"Whatever, David." Her hand snatched the small snack bag and she gave him one last roll of her eyes before leaving the break room. A few stray squares fell onto the hallway as she tore open the packaging, the smell of processed cheese and salt filling her nostrils. As shitty as Ruiz' demeanor and words had been, she had been wondering the exact same thing not too long ago: why had McMullen kept Chloe as lead when the detective herself had admitted wrongdoing? Had Ella fed the flames by helping Detective Decker get ready for a party that would eventually lead to a life-or-death standoff? Chloe had told her the gala was solely for intel and observation so how did it get so out of hand?
Ella thought again about the idea of faith. In believing the things one couldn't see. The complete trust necessary to keep believing amidst that which could not be explained. Was this an instance where her religious faith was clouding her pragmatism? Was her blind faith in the unfaltering goodness of Chloe Decker causing her to turn a blind eye? The lab was quiet upon her return, everything shrouded in the soft blue hues of monitors and stark spotlights from the crooked scope lamps along the scattered tables. The other forensologist had already left for the night, their starchy lab coat hanging from the metal hook by the door. It was just Ella and the evidence. Ella and the hows. What she really wanted to know was the whys.
A padded orange envelope sat at the edge of the desk that spanned the middle of the room. It was the table they used to showcase completed analyses and organized evidence for inspection, which typically sat empty until the detectives were ready to collaborate. She wiped her dusty cheese fingers on the front of her jeans and carefully turned the envelope over and recognized the Labcorp logo. Bloodwork. She placed the half-eaten bag of crackers on the lab bench behind her and cut the yellow tape that ran along the lip of the envelope.
Gio Arretxea.
Why Detective Levy had insisted on running the suspect's blood through forensics was beyond her. Was it because they wanted to corroborate that the shooter had indeed been Gio? Were they looking for signs of drug use, hereditary markers, DNA matches? What were they hoping to find in the spattering of blood that clung to the wallpaper in a huge mansion off of Loma Vista? Where was the "why" in that?
The envelope contained a small folder in the same muted shade of orange as its package. An errant hand reached into the crumpled snack bag as she flipped to the first page and scanned the readings. Potassium levels are kinda low, buddy. The salty sting of a white flaky cracker split between her teeth. Healthy counts all the way down otherwise. She absently turned to the second page as she popped another few Cheez-its into her mouth. A line caught her eye and she stopped to wonder why her brain pulled at the number. They were completely normal. She slowed down and scanned the next few: red blood count, viscosity. Nope nothing amiss. Another set of crackers disappeared into her mouth but she chewed them slowly, thoughtfully. She felt the familiar weight of that space cadet's harness slip over her shoulders as she prepared to launch into another cosmic bout of unfocused daydreaming. Up, up and away we go. Except this time she didn't rocket towards incomprehensible dreamscapes of a wandering mind. There was no listless keel of exploring the many doors where her mind liked to jump in and out. She boarded the ship and it led her directly to a long-forgotten memory of her university days.
It had been a particularly hard first year at UCLA. There had been a housing mix-up that had stuffed her into a quad with a group of business grad students that couldn't care less about the young, bubbly Chemistry major. It had hurt Ella to see the roll of their eyes as she tried to strike up conversations with them. Had tried to figure out their favorite shows and books and places to hang so that she could connect with them in some way. Instead, they would shut their doors or leave the shared living room, leaving her alone with her dejection. She had found solace in the workload of her studies, packing her schedule with as many classes as her academic advisor would allow. It had overjoyed her parents to see their daughter on the weekends, gaunt and dark-eyed, as she recounted the immense amount of schoolwork she was undertaking. Ella Lopez had been their oldest child and the first to go to college in their family. She had always been studious and smart, but her dedication to college had sown the parental dreams of a comfortable life for their daughter.
Physiology had been a particularly engaging course for the young woman. Learning about the hows but also the whys. Why do our bodies operate the way they do? Why do we react to certain stimuli without even thinking about its effects? Why why why why.
Someone had raised their hands during a lecture about the cardiovascular system. They had asked why men were more likely to suffer from heart attacks than women.
A Brad at the back of the room had shouted, "cause broads are the ones who give em!"
Hyuck hyuck hyuck.
After a moment of silence, their physiology professor had pulled up a sheet with the rheological differences in the properties of blood by gender. She had listened with fervor, having never been aware that differences existed in the first place. She had learned in church that Eve had been created from Adam who had been created in the image of God, therefore solidifying the idea that we're all somehow the same-same on the inside.
The Ella Lopez of the present, the one who was standing in a darkened lab with a mouthful of soggy cheese crackers, scanned the numbers again. The levels were still normal but she saw now that they were normal for a biological female. So, there was the how. But where was the why? The scientist quickly swallowed the mushy mass in her mouth and walked over to the open laptop on her work station. A quick pull-up of the case file showed that a warrant had been secured for access to Gio's medical records. They were sparse, the most recent one dating back to almost a decade ago, but her initial perusal didn't indicate that Gio Arretxea had been born biologically female. It wasn't unheard of for men to have cytological anomalies through initial blood analysis and there was a likelihood that this Gio fella just happened to have really high red blood cell counts and sluggish viscosity. They'd have to deep dive into some chromosome analysis or better yet, DNA analysis at the federal lab. She pulled out her cell phone from her coat pocket and dialed Detective Decker's number but hung up before it could connect. David Ruiz' words clung to her eardrums like annoying wax, muffling the sounds of her long-standing friendship and work relationship with Chloe. Was this the right thing to do? Her finger hesitated for another moment before dialing the number to the regional crime laboratory instead. Better to be sure. Better to be vigilant with her hypotheses than pull Chloe into something that just might be nothing. Ella needed time. For both the evidence and for herself. For the hows and for the whys.