Spoilers 8x11-13. We got a lot of fluff in here between the crime scene tape. Hope y'all enjoy!
Chapter 6
"Out like a light," Lindsay said, coming out of Gus and Don's bedroom and joining Jo and Gus in the kitchen.
"Oh good, figured it was better in there for Lucy than the office by those clowns," Gus said, gesturing to the living room where Danny, Don, Sheldon and Adam were loudly coming up with the worst possible fake FBI agent names.
Lindsay shrugged, pulling out the snacks they had brought, "luckily, she inherited the ability to sleep through anything from Danny.
"Lord, I miss being able to sleep like that," Jo remarked, putting the finishing touches on a charcuterie board.
Gus nodded, pulling popcorn out of the microwave while saying, "that is too gorgeous, Jo, and it is going to be destroyed in about ten seconds. Flack missed lunch interviewing Jacob Williams."
"I'm taking a picture then," she replied with a tinkling laugh. "Now where on earth is Mac? He's the only one of us that has never seen this!" she implored, looking at her watch.
Gus rolled her eyes, carrying a tray out to the living room. "He was very evasive when I called him, said he had a meeting at a coffee house in Midtown."
"He's as bad a Sid has been," Jo remarked, following after her.
Gus set the tray on the coffee table, surveying the props to make sure no contraband had been included. She curled up on the sectional between Don's legs asking, "hey babe, did you frisk Adam to make sure he didn't sneak in a water gun?"
Adam pretended to look wounded until Flack sold him out. "As soon as he got here, I put 'em in the safe with our actual guns."
"Adam Ross! I conceded to confetti!" Gus chastised.
"Only because your place is always covered in glitter!" he argued.
"It's the herpes of Carnival, I can't help it," Gus glowered.
"Speaking of which, when are we taking our daughter to the greatest free show on earth, cowboy? Stella invited us," Lindsay asked, settling herself on a floor pillow in front of where Danny was sitting.
"How about never? I've seen the videos of those gone wild girls!" he glowered.
Gus let out a growl, "how many times do I have to tell you? Uptown is a completely different scene, it is all families in costumes with cookouts! It's a little like this ridiculous role playing thing except for free. I cannot believe people are laying to LARP these days!" She realized everyone was looking at her as she ended her rant.
They all burst out laughing as she blushed, Don pulling her into a kiss with a dimpled smile. "Only you could start a sentence with Mardi Gras and end with LARPing, sunshine!"
Sheldon added in on the ribbing, "you should have heard her take on the serial killer shop versus the museum of death earlier."
Gus buried her head in her hands, she had gotten a little overzealous about the study and ethics of serial killers. Relief washed over her as her uncle knocked on the door.
"Well look what the cat dragged in," Jo remarked opening the door, "about time, Mac Taylor, Rocky Horror doesn't wait for just anyone!"
"That was fun," Don remarked, tucked into bed much later. Gus nodded in agreement, setting her book down.
"It was, mostly, especially since I made Adam vacuum."
Don laughed, "I should have frisked him for toast too, apparently... and sorry about your lamp."
"It's just a lamp, babe, and worth it to see the austere Mac Taylor learning the time warp," she smiled.
"I wouldn't say he learned it," he chuckled, turning on his side to look at her more closely, "about Mardi Gras, do you wanna go? We have the vacation time."
Gus looked at him slightly surprised at the suggestion. "We were just in New Orleans, sugar, I thought you wanted our next vacation to involve drinks with umbrellas and me in a bikini?"
"That would be nice," Don replied, raising his eyebrows suggestively before turning serious, "but I know you miss it, Gus, especially since Stella moved and I want to make sure you and I have plenty of good memories there too."
She sat up slightly, resting her forehead again his. "This is my home, Don, you are my family, and we have plenty of time to make good memories here, there and everywhere!" she said, straddling him.
"In fact," she continued, placing his paperback on the nightstand and sliding her hands up his undershirt, "I think I'd like to take this moment to make you shiver with antici…pation," she grinned, trailing kisses up his torso as Don stuttered out, "damn it, Gussie, I love you!"
"I am eternally grateful our building has an elevator," Gus remarked as they climbed back up the stairs for the third time since arriving on scene.
"127, 128," Flack counted aloud, "129, 130!" he announced as they got to the top.
"Guess I can skip leg day," Gus mused, looking down the 187th Street stairs.
"Our vic rabbits up Fort Washington and takes a hard right on 187th because some guy is chasing him, but does he fall down the stairs or was he pushed?" Flack contemplated, feeling a bit dizzy as he looked all the way down. He caught Gus' expression. "What's the smile for, sunshine, you know something I don't?"
Gus let out a little laugh, "no, I was just thinking it was kind of ironic that we are trying to figure out if he was murdered or not."
Flack looked at her, catching her drift as she pointed toward the sign. "187, got it, good one, you know that's just the California penal code, right?"
"How long have I had my shield, Flack? Who does all the paperwork? I am perfectly aware it is PEN 125.25 or .27 depending on the-" she was cut off by Flack excitedly waving to Mac and Jo.
"Over here, by the detective that looks like my wife but is sounding like one of your lab nerds."
"I may push you down the stairs," Gus retorted.
"I know I wanted a break from rich people cases, but if I get one more unwelcome invitation or door slammed in my face," Gus grumbled as the pair continued their canvassing; trying to figure out where the victim, Greg Barbera, had come from.
"At least the corgi didn't start humping your leg," Flack grimaced, "though I thought his owner was going to."
A flush creeped up Gus' face,"you could have told me I missed a couple of buttons, babe."
"Why take away my fun?" he countered with a devilish grin, pausing to stop her as she tried to read a text and go down the stairs at the same time. "Nope, I am not going to be able to get those guy's bones sticking through his skin out of my head for a while. Yous just stand still and read your phone," he said, clutching her jacket.
"Fair," she agreed, thinking it was a minor miracle she hadn't tumbled down the 187th street stairs. "According to Jo, Sid is MIA again," she groaned, "no preliminary autopsy report, Greg was a bike messenger without a bike and Danny is sending you something now."
"Boom," Flack said, taking out his buzzing phone.
"You don't have to use his line just because it is from him," she teased.
"No, literally, he said 'boom' in the text," Flack retorted, showing her the screen.
"Of course he did," she sighed.
"Got an id on the guy in red chasing Greg, Scott Perfito, he's got a couple of outstanding warrants. We'll meet the uniforms there."
They both heard the unmistakable sound of a window sash being thrown open and fire escape being deployed as soon as Flack's knock landed on Scott's door. Gus turned to run back down the building stairs while Flack took the fire escape.
Gus turned the corner just as Scott tripped and fell down the last half a flight. "Oh poor Humpty Dumpty," she remarked, as Flack peered down at them with a smirk, "karma's a bitch!"
"We got another DB up at Inwood Hill. Goody, more stairs! You got this?" Gus asked, her phone buzzing from dispatch.
"Yeah, Mac wants to do his science thing with the fake drugs anyway. But we are taking a 7 when you get back."
"We prefer the term 'nature enthusiasts', miss," the elderly gentleman sneered at Gus when she asked how the tree huggers came across the body.
"Detective, sir," she stressed, trying to not roll her eyes, she didn't need any complains in her file this soon after her promotion.
"I know nothing should shock me, but how is this not the first case I've worked where a guy has been killed by a bow and arrow in the middle of Manhattan?" Gus remarked as Danny and Jo inspected the body.
"May not be the case, Gus," Jo said, pointing to the man's neck, "it looks like he was also strangled."
"COD overkill?" Danny said as both women groaned.
"Four is definitely a crowd," Gus quipped as she saw Lindsay coming up, "I'm going to make sure Flack eats before he gets grumpy."
"Which one of us is it that has a toddler again," Lindsay remarked by way of greeting.
"I have one, Linds, you have two," she said with a wink in Danny's direction.
"Thanks for the tip on not calling them tree huggers, Broussard," Danny said to Gus as they pulled up to the condemned artist's building.
"Yeah you right," Gus said, shaking her head.
"Wait, babe, you called the nature people 'tree huggers'?" Flack laughed.
"I think your'e rubbing off a little too much on her, Flack," Danny said.
"Very funny, Danno."
The trio were led through the historic hotel toward the Super's office. "Did we make a wrong turn and end up in the Bywater?" Gus said, taking in the horn player, tattoo artist and hipsters playing board games.
"Just as long as you don't get distracted by the millwork again, babe," Flack said, though he was impressed with it himself.
"Aw, I'm rubbing off on you too," she smiled.
Danny was oblivious to their entire exchange, entranced at the woman getting a full back tattoo. "Lindsay is never getting a tattoo, Messer," Gus said, snapping her fingers in front of him.
"They even allow tattoos in Montana?" Flack teased.
"What, it's art," Danny protested, following after the pair.
Gus immediately spied the many unstable shelves of fragile glass in the super's tiny office, most of it filled with a glass kiln. "Nope, I am too much of a bull in a china shop, y'all have fun," she said to the guys with a little salute, proving her point as her elbow hit a vase that Flack deftly caught.
"Well, there are worse times of year to have to head there, dawlin'," Gus was saying to a pair of early twenty somethings as Flack and Messer left the office. Flack looked at her curiously. "Indigo and Tann were just telling me once the eviction happens they are heading to New Orleans," she explained, turning to the couple, "I'm telling you, Bywater or Marigny, you'll love it, and check out the St. Claude corridor…"
"If you are done playing Big Easy Ambassador," Danny said, the lab has an update on Philbrook."
"They give you anything useful while you were giving real estate tips, sunshine?" Flack asked as they settled back in the truck.
"Apparently Philbrook and Delafont used to get into it on a weekly or more basis. Apparently Delafont threatened to stick his head in the kiln a couple of weeks ago."
"That sound like the artistic non-violent type to you?" Danny said, giving Don a look.
"Anybody that plays with molten glass for a living ain't entirely a kitten," Flack replied.
"An orange zip tie? Well that will be easy to track down," Gus sighed as they got the info from the lab.
"At least we don't have to risk getting bird flu like Jo and Mac," Flack said, putting out an intranet bulletin about the zip ties.
"I can only imagine what kind of commentary you're going to get on this," Gus said as she read it.
"It'll be good, I'm sure, but that is a tomorrow problem, because you and I are going home before Parker snitches on us," Flack said, gathering their coats.
"No arguments here, blue eyes," Gus said, slipping into the offered garment.
"Oh really, that's interesting. The whole thing? Okay, yeah, we're on it, thanks Collins," Flack said into his phone.
"Movement on the zip ties?" Gus asked, moving her wedding ring from her finger to the chain around her neck.
"Yep, finally something other than a witty comment. Too many of which involved you for my liking, babe," he said, shaking his head, "some art installation made entirely of zip ties, all colors, all sizes."
"Anything really is art these days," Gus said, cocking her head to the side taking in all the zip ties.
"At least it isn't performance art," Flack remarked with a shudder.
"Is that supposed to be a cactus?" Gus cocked her head at the tall structure made of green zip ties. "Call me old fashioned, but I don't get modern art."
"Well, save your one star review for Yelp because that's the 'artist'", Flack said with air quotes, "right there."
Gus took in the tiny young woman in sneakers and shook her head. "That teeny thing, no way she strangled anyone!"
"No kidding, the best she could do would be to teenage girl noise someone to death," Flack replied after getting the artist's fingerprints and attitude. "But I find it most interesting that Patty Leonard's address on the permit for this," he gestured is the Cragston hotel."
Gus smiled, "well well well, that is a nice little coincidence."
"No such thing, Detective Broussard," Mac said walking up to him.
Gus rolled her eyes, "I know, I saw you coming up, that's why I said it."
"Amusing, Gussie," he said, the barest of upturns in the corner of his mouth before turning to Flack to get the update.
"Told you nobody that played with lava was an innocent kitten," Flack said as Danny filled them in on the partial prints likely belonging to Toby Delafont.
"I'll get pre-approval on a warrant pending print confirmation," Gus said, working her judicial contacts.
"What, no boom?" Flack teased as Messer showed them the confirmation from Hawkes that the prints he pulled from the office door were a match.
"Very funny, Flack. Broussard, take the back, I don't trust this guy not to run," he said, pointing.
Gus flung open the fire door as she heard the crash of glass, glad she hadn't been the one to take out the shelves. Toby was brandishing a hot glob of molten glass in Danny's direction as Flack picked himself up off the floor. Both of them had their guns drawn on the man from side and back screaming at him until he dropped the glowing orb into a water bucket.
Gus stood beside Jo, observing as Mac and Don questioning Toby. The man didn't try to feign innocence, he more was protesting the injustice of the artists being kicked out of their home after scraping up fifteen grand as a bribe.
Gus jumped as Jo exclaimed beside her, "That's it!" as Toby protested, "he killed us! None of this would have happened if he would have delivered what he promised!"
"What's it?" Gus called to Jo's retreating figure. "Oh, that's what they mean about making it look like magic," she said finally getting it.
Gus was infinitely curious about what Jo had to show them when she requested all of them up to the lab. "Sugar, did you save any post it notes for anyone else?" she remarked, taking in the scene.
The lab team was busy reading a variety of evidence on the table and for Jo's big reveal. Jimmy Philbrook hired Greg Barbera as the bike courier to bring the bribe money to his contact at the Department of Planning, I found the address in the list from his company, a little bistro that had," she pointed, "violet gum by the register. I took another look at the fancy surveillance footage and discovered a guy took a chainsaw to the tree in front of Scott Profito's place to steal Greg's bike, hence why he had to flee on foot."
"And so Greg falls down the stairs, doesn't deliver the money and Toby goes after Jimmy in a rage after the condemned stickers are posted," Danny added, nodding.
Lindsay picked up, "strangling him with the zip tie but Philbrook has enough life left in him to get to the tree where he was accidentally shot by the arrow."
Don shook his head bemusedly, "that's the craziest thing I've ever heard, but it makes sense."
Mac sighed, "one crime leads to another and another and another."
"The ripple effect," Jo ended, looking pleased with herself.
"As long as the next ripples don't have stairs, I'm all good," Gus said with a grin.
As Gus and Don made it back to the pit, he stopped her from diving back into paperwork. "Come on sunshine, we've got a dinner date," he said, catching her arm.
Gus looked up at him, confused, "what are you talking about, Don? Look at me, do I look like I'm date ready?" She started to scroll through her phone to see how she could have forgotten such a rare occurrence.
Don grabbed her phone, sensing her panic. "Mac got us reservations at some hot little Italian joint and I know you got plenty squirreled away in your locker, and I've seen you do more with less," he finished, thinking of that time years ago when Grams sent him on a blind date and he got stood up, Gus showing up for him and making a much better dining companion.
Gus was already heading to the locker room, thoughts of the same night flitting through her mind. She paused with her hand on the locker room door, "my uncle knew about a hot restaurant?" she asked with astonishment.
Flack shrugged, "dunno but he said it was his treat, so shake a leg!"
Gus paused as Don opened the door for her, taking in the standing room only crowd, made up mostly of law enforcement. "Well I guess this is how Mac knew about it," she said, taking a big sniff of the delicious smelling air.
The harried looking bartender pointed to a small table slightly tucked out of the way, though maneuvering through the crowd was difficult. "I suppose I didn't have to change," Gus remarked, tugging down her skirt as she moved past plenty of polyester suits and uniforms.
"Glad you did," Don said huskily in her ear, pulling out her chair for her. "Maybe you should put your badge back on," he said, glaring at the staring man at the table behind her.
"This is generally enough, blue eyes," she said gesturing with her left hand, having already caught the reflection of the leering man in the window, though she still did up a couple of more buttons on her blouse. She gave Flack a look as he started to pout. "You get to take it off of me later, Don, stop that!" she countered.
"Fair enough and I think I could eat the whole menu," he remarked, taking it all in.
"What else is new?" Gus grinned, taking in the attractive woman in a stained apron coming up to their table.
"Any questions?" she asked.
Flack quipped, "you give a big NYPD discount or something?"
The woman leaned in and said, "not for these lugs, but I heard you two were friends of Mac Taylor, so this is on the house," she said, placing a bottle of wine of their table.
"Friends, something like that," Gus replied softly but infinitely curious about her uncle's connection to this vibrant woman. She covered it with, "any recommendations?"
The woman laughed heartily, "I own the place and I am the chef, so I am a little biased and think it is all delicious."
Gus couldn't help but laugh back, "alright then, Chef, I will eat whatever you bring me."
"Excellent choice," she replied, "and you, detective?"
Flack resisted the urge to say 'one of everything'. "I'll do chef's choice too, but different than hers because she like to steal off my plate," he finished with a dimpled smile.
"You must really love her then," the woman said, taking in their wedding rings, "because I know how much cops hate to share food. I used to have to pack three lunches for my brother…" she trailed off as the bartender yelled at her, "hey, Christine, table 4 needs their check, they got called out!"
They were halfway through eating, and as promised, delicious when Mac entered the restaurant, looking a little taken aback by there crowd. Gus saw him out of the corner of her eye, similarly taken aback by the smile that spread across his face. They made eye contact and he made his way over to them.
"You crashing our date, Mac?" Flack asked, mock glowering,"we ain't coming back in tonight."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Don," he said.
Gus couldn't help but press, though she kept her tone light, "how did you know about this place, Uncle Mac?"
"The owner," he said pointing towards Christine, who raised a bottle in greeting to him with a smile. "She's an old friend."
Gus smirked, "old friend, huh? Something tells me you and I need a dinner of our own."
"Sure thing Gussie," he said, somewhat distracted. "Enjoy your date, you two," he said, walking over to where the chef was.
Gus and Don looked at each other for a long beat before both shrugging and digging into the rest of their meal.