Author: Nelle Donaghue
Title: Recovery
Rating: PG-13 for issues.
Characters: Bayliss, Munch, Sheppard.
Disclaimer: NBC owns all characters of Homicide: Life on the Streets, I just borrow 'em. Unbeta'd.
Spoilers: Double Blind, Fallen Heros 1 and 2.
Tim Bayliss walked into the squad room, seeing for the first time the changes that the bosses made after Junior Bunk had shot up the room, killing three uniforms and hitting two detectives. The two detectives hit, Stu Gharty and Laura Ballard, were back on the job as well, neither having been hit as badly as he had been. Bayliss wished that he had been hit in the squad room as opposed to when they were looking for Georgia Rae Mahoney. Then maybe Frank Pembleton would still be a detective. He walked over to his desk, reminded of his first day in Homicide. When his first case didn't go down, he was sure that most of the squad thought that he wouldn't last more than a year, that was six years ago. He draped his coat over his chair and sat down, wondering if he should have asked to have his desk moved. He started to read the Baltimore Sun. He looked up to see a woman standing by the side of his desk, looking expectantly at him, like she was questioning who he was and what he was doing here.
"Detective Rene Sheppard. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to move. We're expecting the desk's owner back today." She said as she tried to give him a stern look.
Bayliss tried not to burst out laughing at her comment. "So who is this desk's owner?"
"Tim Bayliss."
"Ah, good. Looks like I'm still in the right place. Detective Tim Bayliss." He says as he shows her his badge.
Sheppard's mouth dropped open, she felt like a fool. "Sorry." She murmured, and then walked away, embarrassed and not likely Bayliss for stringing her along. The rest of the day was quiet. almost too quiet for Baltimore, home of the misdemeanor homicide. At three o'clock, an hour before their shift was supposed to end, Sheppard and John Munch got a call to a dead body in an alleyway with Sheppard as primary. It was a stone cold whodunit. The body had been robbed, all forms of ID taken. The body in question was that of a man who was about 70 years old and in poor health, both Sheppard and Munch guessed that the robber hadn't gotten more than a few dollars from the wallet. The body was turned over to the morgue, and with no witnesses at all, Sheppard and Munch went home for the day with the hope that the ME would turn something up.
The next morning, Sheppard was rewarded by finding a note on her desk telling her to call the ME about the John Doe from yesterday. She called up the ME and asked what they had found out. They had found out that the body was one George Bayliss, whose nephew, coincidentally, was a Homicide cop. Sheppard always hated this part of the job, telling the relatives of the deceased that their loved one had been murdered. She had expected more from Bayliss than the, "Oh really, he got murdered?" that he gave her. THEN he went back to reading his paper. She stormed out into the break room to find Munch seated at one of the tables sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. "Munch, we know who our John Doe is."
Munch perks up at this comment, it was always easier to solve cases when you knew who your dead guy was. "Really, who was he?"
"You're going to love this. His name was George Bayliss, our Tim Bayliss' uncle." Munch sets his cup of coffee down none to steadily, "Our Bayliss? How is he taking it?" Munch worried about Bayliss, sometimes the boy was too sensitive for his own good, especially in this job.
"I'd be surprised if Bayliss ever felt anything. I tell him that his uncle died, and he just stares at me and says, 'Oh really, he got murdered?', and then starts reading his paper again. The man is an emotional ice block. And I don't care that he was one half of the legendary Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss interrogation team, I want him in the box. He knows something, probably who the killer is." The, "He might be the killer," went unsaid, although it was going through Sheppard's mind.
"*Bayliss* an emotional ice block?? Yeah, right, and the government always tells the truth."
"I am the primary on this case, and I want him in the box." With that, she storms out of the break room over to Bayliss' desk. "Bayliss, you have the right to remain silent..."
Bayliss interrupts her, "Am I being *arrested* Sheppard?"
"For the murder of George Bayliss."
"I didn't kill him!"
"But just because you didn't pull the trigger didn't mean that you could have contracted it out."
Just then Munch walks over to Bayliss' desk. "Sheppard, what the hell are you doing?"
"Arresting him, what does it look like?"
Munch just stares at her. "You couldn't just ask what he knew?" God, Sheppard could be so stupid sometimes. He thought to himself.
"I'll talk to you, just don't arrest me!" Bayliss says.
"Fine, in the box." They all go to the box. "So, why did you act the way you did when I told you about your uncle?" Sheppard demands.
"I have no tears left for him." Bayliss replies coldly.
"I bet that your family had a nice big life insurance policy out on him. Didn't they?"
"Sheppard, cut it out! He didn't do it. Get that damn chip off of your shoulder."
"We're not leaving until you tell me why you are such a heartless bastard towards your family." Sheppard says as she sits down in a chair opposite of Bayliss.
"One question, is there anyone behind the one way mirror?" Bayliss asks Sheppard.
"No, why?"
"Because what I am going to tell you doesn't leave this room. It's not something that I want floating around the squad room. The only other person that I told is Pembleton."
Sheppard misses the haunted look that darts across Bayliss' eyes, but Munch doesn't. He wonders what the hell Bayliss was going to tell them. "You have my promise, Timmy. And if Sheppard tells anyone, I'll help you hunt her down."
Bayliss gives a feeble laugh before speaking. "Thanks Munch." He closes his eyes and places his forehead in his hands. "When I was five, my uncle followed me into the bathroom at a family function. I tried to tell my father what he had done to me, but he told me that I was lying and doing it for attention. I dreaded going to family functions after that. For the next five years he followed me into the bathroom and made me touch him." Bayliss says in a near whisper.
Munch looks in shock at Bayliss, he would have never guessed that he had been sexually abused as a child. "Go home Bayliss. I won't tell anyone." Munch says, and for once his voice isn't filled with sarcasm.
Bayliss gets up and walks out of the box and goes home. He pulls out a bottle of Scotch and pours himself a drink then sits down, puts his feet up and turns on the TV.
(Fade to black)
~finis~