Steve headed back towards the precinct, dreading what he was going to find. The area for a block around the station was cordoned off, and Steve kept his light and siren on, and wound his window down so that the officers on duty could see who he was. He had his ID in his hand as he pulled up at a road block, and an officer who was not known to him indicated for him to stop.
"Sir, we aren't letting all officers in here, I'm sorry."
"My name is Lieutenant Steve Sloan; I was called back on duty to work on this."
The patrolman checked a list in front of him. "Yes, Sir, of course, Sir. I'll let you through. Sir, it's not pretty up there." The young man seemed to lose all colour as he spoke.
"I guessed as much." Steve put his window up, and stepping gently on the gas drove slowly towards the parking lot. There was no way that he could park inside, so he drew up just outside the entrance and, keeping his ID in his hand, began the walk towards a nightmare scene.
The area leading into the precinct was heavily splattered with blood, and Steve could see four bodies under sheets. He knew that whoever it was he would know them, at least by sight if not as a friend. Spotting Cheryl working quietly where he usually parked his car he moved over and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Cheryl, what can you tell me?"
Cheryl turned and Steve could see tears in her eyes. She took a deep breath and began to speak. "Four dead, five in the hospital, three looked real bad to me and God knows how many suffering from shock. This was timed for the end of a shift, people were coming to get their cars and … and then the world exploded around them." Cheryl shuddered, and Steve wrapped his arms around her for a moment, to pass a little strength over to her. "I saw it, Steve, I was just inside the doors and I saw it all."
Steve looked at her again, he could see that her clothes were covered in blood, and she had a haunted look in her eyes. He realised, rather belatedly, that she was one of those in shock. "I think the first thing we need to do is get you checked over. I'll take you to Community General and get someone to take a look at you. We can't do anything here for a while." Steve took his phone from his pocket and put a call through to the inside of the station, and explained to Captain Newman what he was doing. Once that was done he guided Cheryl out to his car and watched as she sat quietly and passively in the passenger seat.
Steve was just about to start the engine when he felt his phone vibrate and he picked it up. "Sloan here… Hi, Honey, no I wasn't at the station when it happened, I'm fine … no, I don't know who … who died … Jo, I can't come home right now, get Rae to come over if you want…I know, but she'll stay with you, and you need someone there… Ok, I love you too." Steve closed down his phone, and hoped that Jo would do as he suggested and call her friend.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rae had headed towards the family room and, sitting on the sofa, tried to work out just what Jesse was doing to her. He seemed determined to ruin everything she had that took her more than two minutes away from her front door. He wanted her to give up her job, stay with someone every time he left the house, and she knew that he had even thought about setting up a private practice and working from home himself just to keep an eye on her. Something had to give here, and it wasn't going to be her! She needed her freedom so that she could, however hesitantly, begin her walk back to some sort of normality. Rae picked up the remote control for the TV that was just in front of her, and began to channel surf. She came to a local news station and, recognising her own precinct house, began to listen. Two minutes later with tears running down her cheeks she was on her feet and calling for her husband.
"Jesse, Jess, where are you? Oh, God, Jesse." Rae couldn't take her eyes off the screen. She could see the blood on the walls and she knew that there were bodies on the ground. "Steve." The name of her partner escaped her lips without her even realising it as Jesse came into the room, and moved over towards her, and she grasped his hand as tightly as she could. Jesse watched the screen in disbelief, and then he headed towards the phone, which began to ring just as he was about to pick it up.
"Hello…? Jo, Oh, God, Jo, did you … you're sure?" Jesse leant back against the wall for a moment as he thought he was about to collapse. He saw Rae come slowly towards him and he shook his head. Rae misread the action and turned away, tears flooding her eyes. "No, of course … I need to get to the hospital … Yeah, they'll both come, Jo, I'll bring them now." Jesse put the phone down and moved over towards his wife. She was sobbing, and he put his arms round her. "Rae, no, Sweetheart, I shook my head because he wasn't there, Steve wasn't there, he's ok, he called Jo and he's ok."
"But … but some people aren't … they're my friends, Jesse, and some of them died." Rae cried on Jesse's shoulder for a few minutes, but gradually she began to get herself under control. "Was that Texas; does she want us to go see her?"
"Yeah, I'll drop you and Eliana off, and then I … I need to go to work, Rae, will you be all right?"
"Of course, you go, those cops, they'll need a friendly face to help them come to terms with this. I must have gotten it wrong, I would never have thought of a police station getting hit." Rae's voice faded away, and then she straightened up a little and watched as Jesse went to get Eliana out of bed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
George and Joseph had watched Steve drive away and then they shut the door and just hugged each other. There were no words that Joseph could say to help his partner, and George was beyond speech. In the end they had sat, the television on the same local station as half of LA, and watched the pictures over and over again as the special team that was reporting from the precinct kept repeating the dreadful figures and showing the pictures of bodies lying on the ground, covered hastily with blankets.
Finally, unable to bear it any longer George had got up and walked down towards the bedroom. Once in there he had shut the door and sitting on the bed had begun to sob. It hadn't occurred to him, when Rae had made her announcement the other night that the station would be targeted, but now it seemed so obvious. After about a half hour he managed to pull himself together a little and he got undressed and climbed into bed. He knew that once Steve came back to see him, or worse he was called in to see the Captain, he would have little time to rest. Then, trying not to see the images from the television in his mind he shut his eyes and prayed for sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Steve arrived at the hospital, and once he had parked, got out of the driver's seat and moved round to the passenger side of the car. Cheryl hadn't said a word for the entire journey, and he was getting very concerned about her. He eased her out and then placing his arm around her directed her towards the entrance to the hospital.
The ER was still in turmoil. Steve had known that all the trauma suites would probably be occupied, and so he gently sat Cheryl down in the nearest empty seat to the entrance and then headed over towards the desk to let the nurse know that she was there. The atmosphere was about the tensest that Steve could ever remember at Community General since the Sweeney's had bombed the old building. As they sat there, Steve with his arm around Cheryl, they heard the sound of alarms going off in one of the trauma suites and knew that another of their colleagues could be fighting for his or her life. It was about five minutes later that a set of doors opened and a gurney was pushed out and down the hallway, the patient on it surrounded by hospital personnel doing their utmost to keep him or her alive. Steve tried to work out the identity of the officer but he wasn't able to before the double doors swung open and closed and the moment was lost to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jesse had driven to the hospital as fast as common sense would allow, and raced into the ER to come face to face with Steve and Cheryl. He signed in at the desk, checked the admissions book, and then he moved over to his friends and crouched down in front of them.
"Cheryl, Steve, you need to tell me what you want me to do." Jesse knew that either or both of them could be suffering from shock and he wanted to see what their initial response would be. From just his first glance at them Jesse could see that Steve seemed to be holding up pretty well, but Cheryl seemed to be far more withdrawn than usual.
"Jesse, did you hear what happened? At the station?" Steve looked at his friend; they had spoken more to each other in the last two sentences than in the last two months. He saw Jesse nod and then he began to speak again. "I wasn't there, but Cheryl, she saw it all, was just inside the doors when the shooting start… steady, it's gonna be all right, let Jesse just examine you."
Cheryl had begun to shake as Steve started his description of where she had been, and Jesse summing up the situation decided it was time to intervene. "Cheryl, I think we need to get you looked over and maybe admit you, just overnight so that we can assess how you are feeling."
"No, no, I have to get back, I have things that I need to do, and … and there will be people that I should go see." Cheryl was trying to get out of her seat as she spoke, and Steve gave a pleading look at his friend, and was relieved to see Jesse place his arm round her shoulders and guide her towards a now empty trauma suite.
As they did so Martin came out of the next room along on a gurney, his face was ashen and he had obviously been shot and seriously injured. He was conscious though, and as he saw Jesse and his patient he tried to get up and in a weak voice called out. "Cheryl, Honey, are you alright?"
"Martin? Oh, God, Martin…" She wriggled out of Jesse's grasp and moved over to the gurney and flung herself at its occupant. "I thought you were dead, I heard someone flat line, and I didn't know where you were, and ..." Cheryl couldn't continue to speak and both Steve and Jesse could see her shoulders heave. They could also see that Martin was in great pain, and so carefully Jesse eased the sobbing officer away from her partner, and then they watched as he was pushed away towards the OR. "Jesse, please, find out what is the matter with him, please, I need to know how badly he has been hurt."
"I'll find out, when I've looked at you, but not before. He has been taken off where I can't get to him for a while, so let me spend that time looking after you, ok?"
"Cheryl, I'm gonna find out all I can about what has happened. Jesse, can you get someone to page me when she's been admitted and I'll come back to see her?" Steve placed his hand on her arm. "Is that ok with you?"
Cheryl just nodded and then Jesse led her into the trauma suite and closed the door after him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After Jesse had dropped Eliana and Rae off at Jo's house he had sped off, leaving her to wait for the door to be opened on her own. With her daughter strapped into the wheelchair with her, she had sat, trying to compose herself before Michael came to take her inside. But as soon as the door opened she felt the emotions welling up, and seeing Texas standing waiting for her in the hallway was just too much and the tears started again before she was off the step and into the warmth.
"Oh, Texas, how could that have happened? I thought that I had it sorted out, but I would never have thought that the precinct would be hit. I had it wrong, and now people are dead, people that I know, even if it's only by sight, I will know them." Rae took in a deep breath. "Did you speak with Steve? He really is all right isn't he?"
"Rae, I have no idea what you are talkin' about, now shhh, yes, he really is alright, but I don't know about anybody else yet. There have been no details released on the news, an' Steve hasn't phoned to say anythin'. An' now I think that you need to come an' make yourself comfortable in the mornin' room an' we can wait in there until we hear somethin'. Mark is already in there."
Michael had heard what his employer said, and opening the door made room for Rae and Jo to enter. Rae smiled as she passed him, although she couldn't look up at him. "Thank you, Michael, I am sorry about the chair, but in the circumstances it seemed the best way to arrive."
"Madam, that is not a problem, now would Miss Eliana wish to come and sit in the kitchen with me for a while? I have just made some butter cookies and I think that she could probably handle one." Michael was crouched down by the chair as he spoke, and Rae could see and feel her daughter bouncing up and down on her lap.
"I think I will be in trouble if I say no, so yes, Michael, you may take her into the kitchen. We didn't bring the stroller but you have a bouncy chair don't you?"
"Yes, Madam, I will leave her with you while I go and get it." Michael stood up and headed for the stairs, and Rae felt Jo move her chair so that she was nearer to Mark.
"Rae, Honey, I am sorry that you had to come under such sad circumstances."
"Mark, I know, but it is good to see you under any circumstances." Rae smiled at her friend, and slowly moved her hand so that she could touch his. "It is such an awful feeling. When I saw the newscast I was just so worried that Steve would have been hurt … or worse. But now … now I know that he is ok, but others aren't. People have died, and been hurt, and I feel so helpless."
"Honey, there is no way that you could go there, but Steve will need you, maybe in some ways more than Jo, because you work there, they were, are your friends, you will understand exactly what he is going through."
"Part of me wishes that I didn't. How could anyone do that? Oh, Mark, talk to me about something else, anything else, it just makes me so mad."
"Well, I know that Jo has some news, but it is happy news and she may not wish to discuss it today." Mark said nothing else, and Rae thought for a moment about the child growing inside her. No one apart from Jesse, Wil and herself knew about it, and she could understand exactly what Mark meant. Today wasn't the day to be sharing such joyous information. The room descended into a sad but comfortable silence. The three friends knew that Steve would need their support, and Rae, now that she was in the company of people who understood her desperate need to return to work, felt able to sit and think through her future in a rational manner.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Steve had watched Martin being wheeled away in horror. When Cheryl had said that cops were changing shifts he had automatically thought about uniformed men and women who tended to work more routine hours than the plainclothes officers. He hadn't missed the way that Cheryl and Martin had reacted to each other, and he knew that if things stayed that way then both of them would be looking for new partners. Steve shuddered, Martin had looked so ill that Cheryl might almost have been looking for a new partner right now. He saw Wil Collins coming out of a trauma room and moved across to speak with him. As far as Steve was aware he was the investigating officer, and so he would need to know anything that Wil could tell him.
Wil looked up and saw Steve Sloan moving towards him and running a hand through his hair began to speak. "Lieutenant, I'm glad to see that you are still in one piece."
"Yeah, but others weren't so lucky, were they? What can you tell me?"
"Not a lot. You just saw Martin Robertson, well, he regained consciousness in the trauma suite, his left shoulder has been badly damaged. He is on his way to x-ray, but there was a lot of muscle damage, and he lost a lot of blood. We lost a young guy, the first one in here, he didn't stand a chance, in fact I'm surprised he made it to the hospital, he took bullets to the chest."
"Do you know his name?" Steve shook his head, that made five dead, the worst drive by shooting of the lot, and he had a feeling that it all had to do with George Bannister and whatever it was he hadn't finished telling him yet.
"Yeah, Carter, Jared Carter." Wil checked his list. "Two others weren't so badly hurt, one took a bullet to the thigh, which bled and looked really serious, but once we had cleaned him up it didn't look as if it had caused too much damage, the bullets went straight through, missed the bone completely, he was incredibly lucky.
"They were all shot more than once?" Steve knew what weapon should have been used, but an independent analysis never hurt.
"Oh yeah, they were machine gun bullets from the information that I got from the paramedic that came in with the first victim. One young woman was shot in the arm, she was hit just the once, almost as if she was the person on the end of the arc of bullets, if you see what I mean."
"Yes I do, I guess someone has to be in that position. How about the other victim you haven't mentioned him or her yet."
"He was an older guy, uniformed, Bob something… Lieutenant?" Wil stopped as he saw Steve's face lose some of its colour. "Do you know him?"
"Yeah, everybody does, he practically runs the station single handed, he is the desk sergeant, well, one of them, but everything is always much more organised when he is on duty … What happened to him?"
"He was shot in the chest, twice. He coded in the trauma suite, I thought I saw you and one of your colleagues as he was rushed to the OR. I don't know if he will make it, it was a terrible injury."
For a moment Steve was taken back to the day when, just for an instant, he had felt two similar bullets slam into his chest and another to his stomach. He had known nothing else for a very long time after that, and he knew that the desk sergeant was going to have an extremely rough road ahead of him. "Were the bodies taken down to Doctor Bentley?" Steve saw the doctor nod his answer and so he took the offered hand to shake and then he turned and headed towards the elevator, not really wanting to go and get the next set of statistics.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was almost midnight before Steve got home from the hospital, but everybody except Eliana was still up and waiting for him. He had called a couple of times, but he hadn't given any details to anyone, he needed to do it face to face. Rae and Mark had left Jo to go and welcome him home, and they could hear the two of them talking quietly in the hallway for a long time. Steve had then gone into the breakfast room to grab some food and Jo had come back and sat, without a word, in her recently vacated chair. Finally she began to speak. "He said he would have somethin' to eat an' then come talk to us. He told me a few things, but not who was hurt or killed. But it has affected him; there is no doubt about that."
"Did he see Jesse?" Rae had spoken quietly, and had received just a nod in reply. She had managed to keep the panic she had felt just below the surface. It was selfish to give into her own fears right now, and she had been pleased that her body and mind had responded to her. Neither woman had anything more to say, so Jo had sat silently, and Rae who was sitting in her wheelchair along side her had placed her hand over that of her friend's and they had just waited for Steve to come and share his dreadful news knowing that he wouldn't want to talk about anything until he had some food inside him.
Because he had been so busy Jesse had only called his wife the once, to say that he was going to work through and grab a couple of hours in the sleep room. Despite the seriousness of the situation and her own worries Rae had been delighted, that was more like the Jesse she knew and loved.
Michael had placed a bowl of Scotch broth on the table in front of Steve, a side plate with two rolls and some butter was also there. Slowly Steve began to eat, grateful for the warmth that seemed to work through his body as he did so. He wasn't really a soup man, but he had to admit that, once again, Michael had known just what to serve him to suit the occasion.
Finally Steve came into the morning room and sat, with a sigh, in one of the chairs by the window and looked at his friends and family, he didn't really know where to start but he knew that he needed to tell them what had happened, and he needed to do it now.
"Steve, Son, we can't make this any easier for you, but you just take all the time you need to tell us." Mark wanted to hug his son and, as he had felt so many times in the past, he just wanted to take the pain away for him, but once again he was unable to do that. So, with a heavy heart he sat and waited to hear what had happened, and what, if anything he could do to help.
"I guess you have seen the news reports on the TV?" They all nodded, and waited in silence. "We haven't released any names of the deceased to the press yet, I have spoken to internal affairs, the Captain and the Chief tonight, and it has been decided that no further information will be given out until tomorrow, but it's bad, real bad, and there will be a lot of flak from this. Rae, we lost two people from our department, and Martin was badly hurt." Steve waited while she digested this first piece of information.
"Who?" Her voice was very quiet, but everyone could hear the fear in just that one word.
"Honey, one of those killed was Walter Bickerstaff, I don't think you knew him, except by sight, but Dennis Campbell was killed too." Steve had moved across towards her as he spoke, and he saw the tears fill her eyes.
"Oh, Steve, he's married, he has kids, I was wrong, I would never have thought she would target the station. Oh, God, Steve, it was his case and she killed him."
Steve took her into his arms and felt her carefully rest her head on his chest. He didn't want to move her, but he had to keep talking. "No, you weren't wrong, this is linked to the drive bys, and it was a date gone bad. Rae, Bob was shot too; he isn't expected to make it through the night." That was just too much for Rae, she liked and admired the friendly desk sergeant and Steve could feel her as she cried against him, and he felt two tears slide down his own cheeks as finally he let some of the feelings for his fallen colleagues escape him.
Mark and Jo had sat close together, hand in hand, as they had watched Rae and Steve try to get their feelings and emotions under control. Steve had regained a certain amount of composure first and had just held his partner and stroked her hair and waited for the tears to stop. When finally that had happened he had moved back from her and begun to talk again. "Rae, I have to go and see someone, now, tonight, and I want you to come with me."
"Ok, but what can I do?" Rae looked confused. She had thought that Steve was home for the night.
"I'll tell you in the car, we have to go to Van Nuys, and I need someone with me, and I know that the person I have to interview will open up to you, and I need this tied up, tonight."
"You mean the drive bys? You know who committed them?" Rae wished that she could just stand up and run to the car like she used to, but instead she got slowly to her feet, the inactivity of the last few hours causing her to gasp as she did so.
"Honey, are you sure you are up to this?" Jo was over to her friend's side quickly to give her a hand.
"Texas, even if I wasn't, I would still go. Steve needs me … It feels like I haven't been needed in a long time."
Steve put his arm round his partner and slowly guided her to the front door, then he turned to Jo and smiled. "I have no idea how long this is gonna take, whether I'll bring Rae home and then head off again to make an arrest, or even if we will get to see this guy. What I'm saying, Jo, is don't wait up for me, go to bed now, there is nothing you or Dad can do tonight, but tomorrow I will need to talk this all through, and I would really like it to be the two of you that do the listening.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
By the time Rae had got into Steve's car she had started to formulate a few ideas in her head. First of all, Steve hadn't said the name of the person they were going to see, which meant that either they didn't have enough proof for an arrest, or they weren't going to see the suspect. This led her to realise that in her present condition taking her within about five miles of a suspect was a very bad idea, and so they were obviously going to see an informant. The previous evening she had told three people her ideas. For a moment she had to stop thinking, one of those people was now dead, and George, Steve hadn't mentioned George at all. He had gone very white when she had made her announcement, they had thought he just felt ill, but what if that hadn't been it? "Steve, was George at the station when the shooting occurred?"
Steve shook his head; "No, no he wasn't at work today."
"That's who we're going to see isn't it?" Rae got a nod this time, and realising that Steve didn't want to talk she returned to her thoughts. George had lost all his colour when she had said that the drive bys were linked by location and it looked to her like a date gone bad, a special date. But George was gay, nobody had ever told her that, she just knew, so why would there be a dress shop in the equation? Rae began to go over and over what she had read, the shooter had to be a woman, in her mind there was no other option, but George was gay, he was a cop, the world didn't smile on gay cops. Slowly Rae began to get a glimmer of an idea, she shut her eyes, and for the rest of the journey to Van Nuys she let it roam unhindered around her brain and, as Steve drew up at their destination, she had a good idea of some of what she was going to hear.
The lights were still on in the front rooms of George Bannister's house and Steve waited and walked slowly up the path with Rae. The door opened as they arrived on the step and Joseph indicated for them to come straight in. Rae had seen George's partner before, but she had never spoken to him. She smiled now and then looked in horror at the three sofas in front of her. She knew without a doubt that if she sat on one of them she would never be able to get up again. "Ah, do you have a dining chair that I could sit on?" Rae could see the length of the extremely tidy room, but although she could see a dining table there didn't appear to be any chairs.
"Of course, hold on and I'll get you one. I'll call George too." Rae smiled and watched as the man went up to the dining table and opened a door in one end of it. Inside she could see shapes that she thought were the tops of chairs. She was proved correct as Joseph pulled at one and a dining chair appeared in his hand. He leant it up against the table and then carried on down and out of the room.
Rae and Steve stood, a little awkwardly, in silence, as they waited for either Joseph, George or both of them to return. "Are you alright, Rae?" Steve looked at his partner, maybe it had been a mistake to bring her, already she looked tired and drawn.
"Yeah, just so sad, and angry. I guess we aren't saying anything about the fatalities until he has told us his story, otherwise he will clam up."
"I agree, I'll tell him at the end. He'll already know people have died, but no more than that, we have to get all the information now, this stinks, and the person responsible deserves to rot."
"Her name is Sandra Breth, when I was a patrolman over at Rampart she worked there as a civilian assistant. I was engaged to her."
Neither Steve nor Rae had heard George come into the room, and they turned in surprise at the sound of his voice. It was obvious that he had been sleeping, his hair was all mussed up and he sounded tired.
"I think you need to start at the beginning of all this, but first, I need to get on to Rampart. If she hit us, she might do the same there." Steve moved over towards the doorway again and began to make his call. The dining chair was now unfolded and as she sat down Rae looked over at George and Joseph sitting together on one of the sofas and waited for them to speak.
"Rae, how are you feeling? Are you back on duty yet?" George didn't want to make anything but small talk until Steve returned.
"No, and to be honest, I don't know if I will ever be, but Steve asked me to come with him tonight and so that is why I am here. George, why didn't you say something last night? Maybe this could have been avoided." Rae wasn't sure if that was the case, unless he knew where this woman lived. "Did you know she would target the station?"
"No, no, don't you think that I would have said something? She had only hit on stores, stores that had something to do with her and me, I thought she had finished."
"George, you know that people like that are never finished. There is always one more place to aim for, one more person who pisses you off." Rae tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, but she knew she wasn't succeeding.
"Yeah, I guess so… Did you get through?" George looked up at Steve as he came back to sit down.
"Well, all stations are on high alert anyway, but Rampart is gonna be especially vigilant. Now, George, you have got to tell us everything, and I mean everything. If I can save your job, well, I will try, but I need to know."
"It goes back to the beginning of my career; I was partnered with a guy called Jim Smith. He was a nice enough guy, bit of a fuss pot, had the tidiest locker in the precinct, used to polish his own desk, I guess it made him a bit of a target for the wisecracks and jokes." George paused for a moment and looked at Joseph. "Could you get me a drink of water? Guys, would you like anything?" Steve shook his head, and Rae mouthed 'no' and then they watched as Joseph left the room.
"He knows all of this, I just want you to realise that. Last night, after I got home I told him everything, and I mean everything, I just wish I had been man enough to tell you too. Guess that is what all of this stems from… me, not being man enough."
"George…" Rae began to speak but George shook his head.
"No, Rae, leave it. There is nothing that you can say that will change what I have and haven't done, so just listen, and try to keep an open mind." George looked round and gratefully took the proffered glass of water from his partner, after drinking a few mouthfuls he handed it back and began to speak once again.
"I wish I could say that I never joined in the jokes, but I can't. Oh, I wasn't as bad as the others, and I never ever cracked them when we were alone, or in the squad car, but if there was a group of guys, then I was determined to be one of them. It didn't seem to bother Jim, not at first anyway, but gradually it became clear that it was eating away at him. Then someone, I don't know who, started a rumour that he was gay. I didn't know if he was or not, and I didn't ask. Well, then the jokes started in earnest. If Jim thought he had it bad before, it was a picnic compared to what happened after that. He had a week of opening his locker and finding pink scarves and cravats in there. Another time every surface had been covered with pictures of naked ladies, and there was a big notice saying 'this is what real men like' or something like that, I can't remember exactly, it was a long time ago." George stopped again and looked for the glass of water. Once he had quenched his thirst again he took a deep breath and started to talk.
"We had a set of murders over there, three gay men were found, stabbed, and they had been mutilated around … well, I guess you know where. Some of the clues from those murders were never released to the public, and the mutilations came under that category."
Rae looked at George, he was beginning to talk like a police evidence handbook, and she knew that he was getting to a difficult part of his tale.
"Jim got a letter, at home, and in it were all the details about what had been done to these guys, and I mean all the details, there were pictures as well, and it was obvious that whoever sent it knew all of the information relating to the case, which meant it was someone he worked with. Well, he freaked out, he came into the station, and I thought he was gonna rip somebody's head off. He was hell to work with for a while, but things seemed to quiet down, and after a while, I sort of forgot about it. Then one day he came in and he was different, haunted, almost empty in one way, but … yeah, haunted in another. It was as if he had nothing left to live for, but was watching over his shoulder the whole time … I'm not making much sense I know."
"George, just tell us what happened." Steve had sat in silence for the whole of George's story so far, but he was getting a bit itchy, he wanted to get on, get moving on this case and get this woman before she struck again.
"I knew by then that Jim wasn't gay, but he wasn't married either, and he still lived with his mother. Her name was Janice, and I remember him telling me that she was getting old and a little frail, and he was worried about her living on her own. Well, one morning a parcel arrived addressed to J. Smith, and so she opened it. It exploded in her face. It was one of those party popper things, and all the streamers just went bang as the lid was taken off. Jim got home from work to find the box still in her hands, his mother dead on the hallway carpet. He said that his mom had probably died of fright." George shuddered then and steadied himself.
"I tried to help him, but the fact that this had happened to him because people thought he was gay, well it put me off. He tried to get some sort of justice for his mom, but he never did, and gradually he just faded away, he had been a good, conscientious cop, his reports were always meticulously done, he had a reasonable clear up record, if you wanted something done properly you asked Jim Smith. Or you did until he lost his mother. He got sloppy; he did just enough to get by and nothing more. I found I was carrying him sometimes, and he was my superior. Then one day he came into work drunk. I saw him weave his way up the steps as I crossed the reception area, and I managed to turn him round and drive him home. Well, his house was like a condemned building. I put him to bed to sleep it off and I cleaned house for him, then I went back to work and lied for him, too. He never came back. Last I heard he was a security guard at one of those computer software places out in Silicone Valley, everything gone because some wise guy decided he was gay."
"George, I am really sorry about what happened to your partner, but what does it have to do with now, with what happened tonight?" Steve had been taking down the odd note, but so far he didn't have anything relevant staring back at him from the page.
"If that was what they did to someone they only thought was gay, can you imagine what they would have done if they had actual proof? So I did what any self respecting, terrified gay guy would do … I got myself a girlfriend. Sandy, Sandra Breth, she had smiled at me a few times when I had taken her work to file away, and even though I'm gay, I know a pretty girl when I see one, they don't bother me, excite me or interest me, but I know they are pretty, and she was that. So I asked her out, and she said yes. I thought I would date her for a month or two and then wave bye bye, and everybody would know I was straight and my problems would never materialise. It worked, except that twelve months later we were still together, and Sandy was dropping big hints about getting married. I should have ended it there and then, told her no, I didn't love her enough to marry her, it was the truth after all, but I couldn't. I didn't have the nerve, I was just plain chicken."
"George, stop it. Just stick to the story." It was Joseph who spoke, and his tone was stern and strong.
"We had been engaged for three months before I finally plucked up the courage to tell her. Unfortunately I chose the day that she had booked the church."
"A church, oh, God, Steve, she hasn't hit a church yet, George, which one was it?" Rae realised as George spoke that it wasn't, even now, over.
"I don't know which church it was, she didn't say, Saint … Saint something..."
"Most churches are, George, we need more information." Steve's voice was raised. He didn't want to have to deal with another drive by, and hitting a church would be almost too terrible to contemplate.
"I don't know, she didn't tell me. I wanted to speak, to tell her what I had to and then just leave, so I said that I couldn't go through with it, I wanted to stay single… I hurt her, real bad, I knew that then, and I know it still, but I didn't care, the relief when she said she never wanted to see me again was so overwhelming that I just knew I had done the right thing. She gave up her job at the station, I got promoted to Detective a few months after she left and I moved over here. I couldn't work with the jerks who had cost Jim his job and his sanity, and so I upped sticks and transferred to North Hollywood."
"And then what, George? So far, nothing you have told us ties in with this case. How did you know that my theory of a special date gone bad linked these killings to you?" Rae had been sitting on her hard chair for too long, and she tried to get to her feet as she spoke. "Sorry, Steve, could you help me, I just need to move for a little while."
George guessed correctly that Rae wouldn't want him to take any notice of her condition, and so he carried on talking. "Because, the evening I proposed to her we went to Mario's. The ring came from Rings 'n' Things, and I had sent her a dress special delivery during the day that she had admired in Dolly's Dresses, it was red, it swung out when she walked, and she looked stunning in it. She came and went in a cab, and she had new shoes to match her dress. But I didn't link it all together because until recently I hadn't seen her since the day I … dumped her … and she walked out of my life. I don't even know if she stayed in L.A. But she came back into my life, with a bang. I got a letter, this is the house I lived in when I worked in Rampart, and the letter said she was back and wanted to see me, I have no idea why, and I thought that if I didn't say anything, didn't do anything, then neither would she. I didn't even tell Joseph. When we got engaged she persuaded me to give her a key to my house. She still had it. About a week before the shootings started, Joe and I were home one night, we were just … just snuggled up on the sofa watching a movie, well, actually we weren't watching the movie at all, and she let herself in. She saw us kissing, and that was it. She just lost it. She yelled and screamed at me, and as for Joseph, well let's just say that if I didn't know how to restrain a suspect she would have really hurt him. She called us freaks, perverts, and other things that I don't even want to think about. She still had the ring, it was on a chain around her neck and she pulled it off and threw it at me. Told me that I had been so pathetic in bed she should have guessed I was queer!" George stopped talking then, and Joseph began to speak.
"She looked round the room; we have some nice things, not as many as we did, because she just swept them down off the shelves onto the floor. If she saw anything that she recognised from her time with George she put it in her purse. Finally, she got to the dining table, it isn't here now, it was beautiful, solid teak, a wonderful golden colour and she picked up the candelabra that sat in the middle of it, turned it upside down and gouged out great lines across it. I tried to stop her but she was like a woman possessed and she just shrugged me off. Then she picked up a vase of flowers threw it at the wall and left."
"It was quiet for a couple of days after that," George had taken up the tale again. "We painted the wall, bought a new table, a few new ornaments and tried to forget it had happened. Then we got a package in the mail, I wasn't here when it arrived, but when Joe opened it, the box was full of the things she had taken, but every item had been smashed into little pieces. There was a note in with it which said, 'This is what I will do to you.' It wasn't signed, but I knew who it was from."
"And then the shootings started."
"And then the shootings started." George repeated Rae's statement word for word.
"And you didn't connect the places on the list with the places that you had been?"
"No, I swear, not until you said about it the other night. I wasn't looking for that type of link, once Steve worked out the time line; I was searching for a disgruntled customer, or a creditor, something like that. I never gave her a thought."
"And you are certain that it is her, this Sandra Breth?"
"It has to be, the co-incidences are too big for it to be anybody else. Steve, I love being a cop, I don't want to have to stop just because I'm gay, that's discrimination, but I'm not strong enough to fight it, and I shouldn't have to.
"No, you shouldn't, but it isn't an ideal world, George, it is full of intolerant bigots. At least there are more fair and compassionate people, or I hope there are, or we are in trouble. The fanatical always make more noise than the law abiding, fair minded members of society, and unless you want this woman to get away with murder then what you have told us will, in some shape or form, have to be disclosed." Steve tried to sound fair, but he wasn't sure if he succeeded.
"I know, I just want you to leave out the bit about me being gay. I won't last five minutes as a cop once that gets out."
"Ok, say that I do agree to that, and I manage to get an arrest and a trial set up without mentioning it. Do you really think that she is gonna sit in court and not say why she did this? She's trying to ruin you, I have to say I can think of all sorts of things she could have done that she hasn't, she's setting you up gradually. I don't think the major payoff has happened yet."
George blanched a little at his superior officer's words, but he just nodded mutely.
"I need to go and set the wheels in motion to arrest this woman. Do you have an address for her, or where she was working, anything like that?"
"No, she walked out of my life like I told you and I haven't seen her since."
"We'll find her, but George, you need to know that five people so far have died from the station." He paused for a moment, but then, knowing that there was no gentle way of breaking the news, he just carried on talking, "and Dennis was one of them." Steve watched as the man in front of him crumbled. The tears started and he turned his head towards Joseph and the older man just held him while he cried.
Steve knew that nothing he could say would help but he knew he had to try. "Do you want me to get you moved to a safe house?"
Joseph shook his head, "No, thank you, I don't think she will kill us, like you said, she is setting George up, we will stay here, Lieutenant, this is home."
"Ok, but Joseph, I really think that George, and maybe you too, should go see someone to talk about all of this. I can give you some names from outside the department, or at least my dad can. I'll let you have them tomorrow or the next day, ok?" Steve saw the man nod and then his phone began to ring, and Steve moved away to answer it. "Sloan here, oh, hi, Jesse… no, I guess I'm not … yeah, I'll do that … and Jess…? Thanks." Steve put the phone in his pocket and moved back over to Rae. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked up into his eyes and she could see the sadness there.
"Rae, George, Bob just died."