Chapter 37 Sticks and Stones
Rae had stayed in Jesse's arms, her head resting against his chest for a while, trying to get herself back under control. The shaking gradually stopped, but Jesse could tell that Rae was still extremely troubled and he didn't let go of her. Gently he ran his hand over her hair, wanting to be the one who was helping her to relax and maybe go back off to sleep.
"Jess, we need to talk, well, I need to talk, I can't carry on the way we are." Rae's voice was soft and he had trouble hearing her.
"About what?" Jesse worked out what she said and tried not to tense up as he answered her.
Rae carefully moved so that she could look into her husband's face. "Honey, I don't want to worry you, and I'm not about to shoo you out of the bedroom, or anything like that, but we really have to talk."
"You said that." Jesse felt himself relax a little bit and he too moved slightly until they were facing each other on the bed.
"We started to talk the other night, but then Anneya woke up, and we never got back to it. Jesse, why do I make you think of bad things?" Rae found that she was no longer sleepy, and she sincerely hoped that Jesse wasn't either, their lives were so full that, in bed, in the middle of the night, was about the only time they were alone.
"Because … because …" Jesse stopped talking, before, when he had spat out his accusations, he had wanted to hurt her, wanted to drive her away so that the pain would leave with her, but also he knew that he had wanted her out of harms way too although he hadn't said that to anyone, because if he did, then maybe the bad things would start up again. Now though, now he was home, and knew it was where he belonged, the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to upset her again.
"Because the bad things only happened because of me?" Rae tried to switch her mind to the matter at hand, and not linger on the fact that what she had just said was ungrammatical; she knew she was just avoiding the issue.
"Yes … no, there's more to it than that. You knew, every time you looked at me, you knew all the things that had happened, all … all the things, I made happen and then other things would go wrong, because I saw you." Jesse tried to turn away, he could feel the tears well up in his eyes, he was supposed to be the one reassuring Rae after her nightmare, and now he needed her instead.
"So if I wasn't here, if I had never come, then the bad things wouldn't have come either?" Rae's voice was almost non-existent, the hurt she felt inside almost overwhelming.
Jesse looked away; they were no longer touching, the gap between them on the bed seemingly growing by the second. "Yes, that's it, exactly." Jesse almost felt excited by what Rae was saying, but he could see the pain in her eyes and he tried to change the tone of his voice. "Rae, I'm sorry."
"I'm not sure that you are, and I don't want you to be sorry, I want you to tell me how I made these things happen. I have never done anything but my job, I don't even bring you into investigations like Steve does, Jesse, I don't want you in my work world, I never have. It's dangerous, people get hurt and killed all the time, and I don't want you to be one of them, but in my whole world, I have always wanted you there."
Rae paused, she had never voiced her thoughts about Jesse and the way he worked with Steve, and as she saw the anger cross his features she wished she had kept it that way.
"I don't work with Steve, not any more, not since you came, he hardly ever includes us any more, and that's your fault too!" Jesse's voice had become louder and louder and he stopped suddenly, the childishness of his words catching him by surprise, but he did find it unfair, and her fault. They had been a team, hadn't needed anyone else, and then she had come along.
"No, Jesse, and I would rather you didn't shout at me. It isn't my fault, if anything it is the fault of time; things change, circumstances, people, everything. I could even blame it on you, but I won't. Before I came Steve worked with Cheryl, he also had you, Amanda and Mark whom he chose to share things with. Then he met Texas, he had her to talk things through with, if he wanted to, but his home life altered, he had his relationship to work on, and then a wife, who used to be a cop remember, waiting for him. The need to discuss every little nuance of each case was gone, and so he gradually stopped doing it. Things don't stay the same and, thank goodness, we can't turn the clock back either. You have to accept that you, and all of those you care for the most, aren't the people they were five or six years ago, and they never will be again." Rae stopped talking, but she still kept her eyes on her husband. What she said was true, every word of it, but she wasn't sure how he would take it.
"But I don't want it to change; I want it to be like it was." The words tore at Rae and she wanted to move closer to him but she restrained herself.
"Why? Is what we have so awful that you wish it away? Because if you do then Eliana and Anneya would go too, all the good times, and we have had some wonderful times, they would disappear as well. I thought … I thought you were here because what we had … have, is worth fighting for, maybe I was wrong."
"You know I wouldn't wish the girls away, but … I … I talked to Amanda, when Anneya was so sick, and she told me that nothing that had taken place was anyone's fault … but … but everything happened like they told me it would, every time."
"Who? Who told you?" Rae wasn't sure whether they were still talking about the same thing or not, so she waited, wanting to find out what was going on, but scared as well.
"It was a long time ago, before you came, Steve and I went away, together, for a weekend at a cabin in the hills, but he went back into town, I … I don't remember why, and I stayed."
"I know this, we talked about it, just before Levington …" Rae stopped; Levington had come, almost killed Jesse and taken her. Bad things happen. Jesse had said that, had said that if he told then bad things would happen just as they had warned him. "Jesse, it was coincidence, there is no way that anyone could have known that you had spoken to me about Tr … Tro … whatever his name was."
"So how did Werner know? Did you tell everyone at the station? Did you have a good laugh at my expense?"
"Jesse!" Rae was hurt again by his words. "I have never discussed anything that happens between us at the station, unless it was something nice that maybe the girls did, or general everyday things. Whatever it was that that creep Werner knew, he sure didn't get it from me."
"But he said the same things as … as whoever was with me the first time. Trask, I think it was Trask."
"Honey, if you told all this to Amanda then she probably tried to explain things too, but you have to realize that, in certain circumstances, good and bad, people say the same things." Rae paused for a moment. "If I was to kidnap you," Rae stopped talking as she saw the effect her words had on him, "Jesse, I'm sorry. Ok, if you were going to kidnap me, and you wanted to put the fear of God into me, how would you do it?"
"I … I don't know… I don't want to know." Jesse tried to move back away from Rae, but he could feel the side of the bed underneath him and so he had to stop.
Rae realised that Jesse wasn't just on the edge of the bed but also the edge of panic. "I need to go get a drink of water. Honey, I don't want to upset you, or scare you or anything, but we have to get this out into the open. I'm gonna check on the girls too, but then I will be back, try to relax while I'm gone, do all those things you and Mark are always telling me to do, ok?" She tried a smile, but only got a nod in return.
Jesse watched her put her robe on and leave their room; he moved slightly from the edge of the bed, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The scene that came up in his mind surprised him and he heard himself gasp. The garage was in rubble and burning around him, he could hear sounds, voices, and he was deeply scared and ashamed at the same time. They would find him, find out that he had let them all down, Steve, he had failed him because Werner mutilated his wife, and Rae, she would know that underneath it all he was a coward, Mark, Amanda, they would know too, that it was all a front, that when it came right down to it, he was helpless.
"Jess?" Rae had come quietly back into the room and found, to her dismay, that her absence hadn't seemed to help, but then, as she looked at her husband's anxious face, he smiled as if remembering something, it wasn't a grin or even a full smile, but there was something in it that she recognized, and loved.
"Jesse, can I get back into bed?" Rae didn't want to scare him, she wasn't even sure if he was fully awake, but as she spoke again his eyes opened and he looked up at her.
"You came, you found me, and you saved me." Jesse reached out his hand and Rae, puzzled again, but not about to turn down his offer, climbed in beside him.
"You mean at the garage? Of course, you would have looked for me; I just did the same for you. Jesse, I love you, I thought you knew that." Rae sandwiched his hand between her own, she didn't want him to pull away from her, but she knew that he might well have to.
"I … I do, and I wanted you to find me so badly, but I was ashamed, so very ashamed."
Rae's heart began to break all over again, and she tried to feel as Jesse had felt when she saw him amongst all the rubble. "You seemed relieved when I found you, just for the minute before you lost consciousness, but … you never seemed that way again."
"I was, I saw your face, and I … I," Jesse paused, this was hard, this was stuff he'd not even thought about since he had come home, and now he had to talk about it. "He mutilated her, Rae, cut off her finger, and there was nothing I could do," Jesse pulled his hand free from Rae's grasp and touched his neck and she knew what he was thinking.
"Jesse, I know, you don't have to say." Rae could understand, could empathize with him totally, because she had already been there, and for a second her own fear of having anything around her neck threatened to overwhelm her.
"They chained me up, and then used the chain to … to pull me about, I … I tried to get to her, I really did, but … they made me watch, they made me watch as they cut her finger off. And each time I saw you, I remembered the feelings, the relief, but even more, the failure, and I had to get away, don't you see? It was your fault I felt that way, and that was why … why I couldn't be with you any longer." Jesse felt exhausted, he knew he had probably hurt her again, but he also felt better for having finally told her.
For a long while the room was totally silent, Rae laid, the picture of her husband, bloodied and bleeding in the rubble, staying stubbornly in the front of her mind, trying to marry his feelings with her own when she had been in similar situations. Jesse had closed his eyes, he wanted to think of happy things, but there had been precious few of them lately and his mind returned to the thoughts and fears that almost constantly seemed to batter at him.
The shame had, in many ways, seemed secondary to his other feelings, the fear, the anger, but he realised now, for the first time, that everything was linked together, that the need to apportion blame was a way to push that shame and failure onto others. But he also realised that neither of the people he had used felt he had failed them in any way and that realization would, he knew, help him exorcise his other demons too if only he would let it.
ooo
The Sunday dawned, as most days in Los Angeles did, bright and clear. It was chilly, or at least chilly for Southern California, but it was only a few days to Thanksgiving and, at just after eight in the morning, it was a little over 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The walk from the airport to the waiting taxis made the Chief shiver a little, he had enjoyed the balmy temperatures of Barbados, and knew that in the next hour or two he would no longer feel the cold, but right at this moment he hoped that there wouldn't be too long a wait for transportation.
Callum Edwards and his wife had smiled at him as they boarded the plane, not recognizing him as anyone other than a guest at the same hotel. He had been three or four rows behind them on the flight, but had heard them check with the steward where they needed to go at LAX to fly on to Santa Barbara. Knowing that they were heading home John Masters had decided to do the same thing himself. He felt vaguely voyeuristic following around a young couple as they spent their vacation together, and he needed to get back to his own home with his own things around him so that he could rid himself of that uneasy sensation.
The Chief hadn't expected to relax while he had been away, but the resort, and the fact that he couldn't follow the Edwards's the entire time, had seen to it that he had indeed had a very pleasant time. The golf had been wonderful; nine holes which, bearing in mind how rarely he got to play these days, had stretched him considerably. The swimming too had made him feel alive in a way that hadn't happened for a while. The only thing to mar the time was the arguments that the Edwards's had on a regular basis. Callum seemed to be quite laid back, happy to kick off his shoes, get down in the sand and knock around with his son, but Mrs Edwards had appeared to want nothing more than to cause friction, forever criticizing both her husband and just about anything else she could think of, and in the end getting her way when Callum flared up and let her know just how he felt.
"Do you want that taxi, or can I take it?" The voice cut into his memories and the Chief jolted back to reality.
"I'm sorry?"
"The cab, do you want it, because otherwise I will use it?" The woman beside him looked up and up, and he tried not to stare, which was difficult as she had blue hair, and her glasses were rimmed with gold to match an almost bewildering array of expensive looking chains, brooches and rings.
"No, Ma'am, you go right ahead, I'll take the next one." John was sure that if she waited any longer he would have at least a mugging on his hands, and he just wasn't in the mood to be too much of a good citizen.
As he waited for the next vacant cab, which he fully intended to use, he went over what he needed to do when he got home. Rae, he would have to contact Rae first, she would need to know that their number one suspect was on the way home, in fact was probably almost home right now, he had checked, and it only took forty minutes to fly from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. He would have to get back into work mode, and surprisingly that was, he felt, going to be harder than he had imagined it would be.
ooo
Breakfast in the Travis household was its usual slightly chaotic weekend self. Jesse wasn't working and Rae didn't plan to go in until about eleven, preferring to work into the evening and spend the morning with her family. The following day the Captain would be back and she would have to adhere to her shift patterns a little more strictly, but for today she had no intention of working any longer than necessary. She knew that Jesse had more to tell her, she could see it in his eyes, but they had both fallen back to sleep after he had begun to open up, the rest more pressing than the discussion.
Sunday mornings, when they were together, which hadn't happened for a while, were spent doing things that the girls wanted to do. It hadn't always been so, but as Eliana had begun to grow and her personality started to shine through both Rae and Jesse found that they wanted to do what she did, wanted to share the special formative years with her and then Anneya as much as they could. What Eliana wanted to do this Sunday morning was watch her new film. So far, Rae thought, she had watched 'Finding Nemo' more times than the entire West coast of America, but if it kept her quiet and amused then at least she and Jesse could carry on talking.
To their surprise Anneya had found the cartoon totally fascinating as well, and would sit next to her sister, wide eyed and absorbed as she watched the fast moving animation. Rae tried not to think about the fact that none of the sound was getting through, she also tried to enjoy the moment with her youngest child, but she found it incredibly difficult.
Once they were all seated in the playroom, a bowl of Sunday sweets for the girls on the table, Rae and Jesse started to talk.
"I know you want to carry on from what we said this morning, I … I don't know where to start, so maybe," Jesse paused, he wanted to talk finally, after all this time, it felt good to be able to share things with Rae, even though he knew she was finding it difficult. "Maybe you should ask me a question."
"Ok, if that's the best way of doing it, hold on." Rae smiled, and then she leant over picked up a sweet from the bowl. She tried to keep her daughters away from the candy that they loved, and so Sunday was the only day they were allowed it. Eliana, who was a generous and kind child just smiled as she saw her mommy take a jellybean. "Thanks, Sweetheart, now, Daddy and I have to talk, so you enjoy your movie, ok?"
"K, Mommy." She smiled and then her attention was instantly diverted back to the screen.
Rae had been searching her mind as she used the moment, and now she remembered where they had got to when Jesse had become upset. "I said to you about people using similar words in similar circumstances." Rae stopped, she didn't know what question to ask, and so she waited.
"I don't know what you mean, how do we use similar words?" Jesse had a feeling he sounded a bit dense, and he knew if he thought about it he would probably understand just fine, but he wanted her to take the lead, to show him where the conversation should go.
"I think you do know, but I'll try to explain. When you have bad news to tell a patient, or good for that matter, do you say things the same or do you do it differently each time?"
Jesse thought, for a moment he couldn't remember what he did say, but gradually he could picture himself either standing by the bedside of someone, or sitting in one of the small offices attached to different areas of the hospital and he realised that he did use similar words each time, that they became a crutch as he told difficult news, and a habit if they were used for happier reasons.
"I guess, I guess I do use the same words, it helps, y'know, to do it that way." He tried a small smile; maybe they were getting somewhere right away.
"I do it too, when I have to go see someone to break the news of the death of a loved one, I have set things I say, or do." Rae paused; the smile he had just given her had encouraged her to carry on. "Ok, now, put yourself in the position of say Alex, or Mark, have you heard them do the same things you do?" Rae saw Jesse nod and so she continued, "And do they use the same words?" Again, after a pause, Jesse nodded his head. "So, I know this scared you before, but try and put yourself in the place of a kidnapper, if you wanted them to think that you were gonna let your victim go, there are only a few things you can say. And one of those is," Rae paused as Jesse cut across her.
"That if you tell anyone then either your friends and family or you will be hurt." Jesse began to think, rationally, about what had happened to him in the past. When he had spoken with Amanda he had begun to see things more clearly, but he hadn't been able to get any further along his recovery road since then, maybe because he hadn't spoken to Rae.
"Yeah, exactly. Jesse, I love you, I don't want you to suffer like you have been, but bottling things up, or not talking about them, well that is just going to make things worse. I don't know what to say to help, but I will listen, whenever you want to tell me things."
"But if I tell you things …" Jesse trailed off, he had to get past the fear that bad things would happen, and when he was alone, when he wasn't telling anyone anything then it wasn't as hard any more, but when he had to confront his memories and share them then the fears all rushed back to the surface.
"Jesse, look at me, and listen." Rae waited, he seemed calmer than he had in the night, the scenario she had painted hadn't scared him this time and as he turned slightly on the sofa and looked into her eyes she smiled at him again. "Whatever you say or do, no one, other that those you say it to, is going to know, at least not in the situations you're talking about. Werner didn't know what went on with Trask, but he used the same type of words. You were scared, and rightly so, and they had more of an effect on you than they would otherwise have done."
"I want to believe you, I really do, but I … I love you so much, and that scares me. We talked before and that, that animal took you, he almost killed you, I couldn't save you from that, and when you found me, in the garage, you knew that I hadn't saved Jo either. Whenever it's mattered I've failed you, or Steve." Tears had begun to gather in Jesse's eyes, and Rae realised that they had moved on to another problem.
"Oh, Honey, no one could have saved me from Levington, he was going to get me no matter what anyone said or did. And you did save Texas, you were there, in that awful place with her, you gave her the medical attention she needed, but more than that, you never left her alone."
"I did … don't you see? He gave me the option to leave; he said I could come home, to you, but that if I did then Jo would surely die." Jesse sniffed, he didn't want to cry, not in front of his children, but it would be so easy to just let it all fall apart right now.
"And you stayed, and I know you, you would never have left her, it isn't in your nature. Jesse, I wish I could make you see that you haven't failed, not in any way, shape or form, you couldn't save Jo's finger, but you treated her, and you kept her sane in that place, he hurt you so badly, but you never complained, you … you are beating yourself up for nothing, oh, God, Jesse, please, Honey, don't, don't cry." Rae saw the tears as they began to fall and she couldn't stop her own from falling too. She reached over and touched Jesse on the shoulder and he moved over and against her and, with the movie playing in the background, their tears mingled as, together, they cried.
ooo
Jo had sat up in bed and slowly eaten a dry cracker and drunk a little water. It was a new thing she was trying in the hope that while Miss Prissy Knickers was staying she wouldn't feel the need to throw up each morning. But she had an idea that feeling sick and having Debs to stay probably went hand in hand.
"How are you feeling now?" Steve put his head round the doorframe of their room and looked with concern at his wife.
"I don't know, better I think, can't we just call David an' tell him that now is not a good time to have her come stay?" Jo turned to face her husband, and he shook his head.
"Ah, no, 'fraid not. Did you hear the phone ring just now?" Jo nodded, she'd had a mouthful of cracker and not wanting to spray it across the room had left it for someone else to answer. "Well, that was David, apparently Debs decided she wanted to get here early and so she left Texas at about midnight, and has been sleeping in the plane at LAX. I'm just going to pick her up."
"Oh great, just what I need an entire extra day with her, you couldn't get lost between here an' there, could you?" Jo tried to look hopeful, but had to grin when she saw the look of disgust on her husband's face. "Ok, ok, you like her, an' I don't, go, go, I'll be nice, I promise."
Steve shook his head, it wasn't that he liked her exactly, although he didn't dislike her, he just wanted to make her feel welcome. He didn't know what it was about Debs that had his wife so resolutely against her, but he had a feeling that he may be on damage control for the next seven days.
ooo
Rae arrived at the station a little after eleven thirty to find Cheryl working hard on some of the latest Red Rose Killing details, and for a while they sat together trying to get some information on Dominic Little. Nothing very much had happened however, and finally they had agreed that, however much they wanted to avoid it, they were going to have to start contacting hairdressers.
"I guess we go through the yellow pages, find all the salons and send them a standard letter. There is no way we can visit them all." Rae knew that almost every street and definitely every mall had a hairdressing business, she had hoped to evade the time consuming and brain-numbing job, but there seemed no other way to find this guy.
"Yep, I guess we do, but before that Amanda called for you, and just to make your Sunday so did the Chief." Cheryl looked at her friend, she seemed a little tired and knowing how exhausted she had been just a week earlier was concerned. "Rae, are you ok? You look tired."
"Yeah, I'm fine, I am tired, but Jesse and I talked last night, and I mean really talked, and then again this morning, I think we'll be ok."
Cheryl smiled, although Rae had never said anything she knew that Jesse and Rae had been having trouble, and was delighted that things were getting easier, she was about to speak when Rae carried on talking.
"How about you and Martin? I should have asked before, I'm sorry."
"Rae, your life is never anything but hectic, I know you will ask when you think of it, and if I need to talk I know you will always listen, but he does miss you, a lot. And I don't want you to feel guilty, but when people don't visit he blames it on the way he is, he can't see past that right now." Cheryl felt her throat constrict and she stopped talking. The injuries that Martin had received when Werner was captured had been the worst of anyone, at least in terms of future recovery. He was now in a residential home, paid for by the police federation and the insurance he had taken out, until he and Cheryl could find a house to adapt to his needs.
"I am so sorry, Cheryl, I will make time this week, I promise, he can come over to the house, the girls will be delighted to see him, we can have a barbeque, maybe Friday or Saturday? After Thanksgiving, unless you would like to spend it with us? You would be more than welcome."
"Rae, that would be lovely, and if you really wouldn't mind, we don't have anywhere to go, and, well, something as special as that, he would feel really wanted."
"Cheryl, I don't know what to say, of course he's wanted and you too, any time. I know what it's like to feel the way he does, different, stupid, not as quick as you used to be. I will try to include him in my life as much as I used to."
"Thanks, I …" Cheryl's phone rang as she began to speak and Rae indicated that she would get on with her own work. She moved back towards her desk, taking the long route via the coffee machine.
Once Rae had settled herself with her cup of herbal tea she let her mind float back to when she had last seen Martin in the hospital. He had been in the rehab unit, going out at weekends, and returning to the centre for the week. Anneya was almost well and Rae had felt confident enough to leave her for a while and visit with an old friend. But it had been a traumatic time for both Martin and her, and she hadn't seen him since.
Rae had needed to take a walk, but when she arrived in the lobby of the hospital she realised that she had absolutely no idea where to go next. Suddenly she had an idea and, walking down one of the long hallways, she headed for the rehab clinic.
Rae had pulled the sign-in chart at the front desk towards her and waited for the nurse to call through to Martin; as she did so she heard a loud crash coming from the direction of his room, and glancing momentarily at the young woman beside her had rushed towards the noise.
The nurse and an orderly, who was collecting linens, arrived at the door with Rae, and she took a step back to let them go in first, but when she saw Martin sitting on his bed with tears on his cheeks she'd manoeuvred her way into the room and crouched down in front of him.
"Martin? Martin, what's wrong?" The sound of her voice, obviously one he hadn't expected to hear, seemed to get through to the man in front of her and he looked up. There was silence for a minute but then, slowly, he spoke.
"Rae … wh … ou do … here?"
Rae looked at the nurse, who smiled and began to speak. "I'll sign you in, Ma'am; can you let me know when you leave … If that's alright, Martin?"
"Es … Rae my … frien …" The tears were still on his cheeks and in his voice, but the nurse was rewarded with a lopsided smile.
The room was neat and compact. Martin had a bed, a desk, and a small table. There was a door leading through to a shower room and toilet as well as another one which went out onto a balcony and overlooked the gardens that had been planted to give those patients in long term care something nice to look at. There was a TV, a video player, and Rae could see a pile of the historical books that Martin favoured on a nightstand by the bed. As the door closed behind the two members of staff Rae pulled the chair from its place underneath the desk and sat down opposite Martin. As she did so Rae saw a broken picture frame on the floor at the end of the bed and a golf club resting in the shattered glass.
"Did you throw that?" Rae crouched down again and began to carefully pick up the shards and put them into the wastebasket that was nearby.
"Es … Sorreee." Martin had looked down at his hands, Rae knew that the right one still didn't work properly and she watched as he tried to flex the fingers of it without very much success.
"I don't play golf myself, but I do know that the bedroom isn't a real good place to practice. Things tend to get broken."
Martin smiled. "Stoopid game."
"Yeah, a good walk spoilt, isn't that what they say? If you want to practice you can come and do so at my house. I have a large garden; you know that, and no picture frames out there!"
"Now? I come now?" Martin's face lit up and he tried to get to his feet.
"Hey, steady, you need these remember?" Rae picked up the pair of crutches that were at the end of the bed and handed them carefully to her friend. "I have to go back to Anneya in a while, but when she is better, how about you and Cheryl come over for the day if she isn't working? The girls would love to see you both, and … well, I could do with some company sometimes." Rae had known that Cheryl had told Martin about Anneya, and she had mentioned to him, in passing, the problems that she and Jesse were having, he was a good listener, and right now she was glad, it meant that she didn't have to explain it all again.
"Rae?" Martin's voice was compassionate and as he carefully sat down again she moved back to her chair and took his hands in her own.
"I could really do with someone, right now, could that be you?"
"Sure … friens member?"
Rae felt Martin's hand as it grasped her own and with a deep breath she began to talk.
Rae brought herself back to the present; although she had told Jesse that she didn't discuss her home life at work she sometimes needed to unburden herself. Cheryl and Martin were the friends she chose on those occasions when Steve or Texas weren't available or couldn't help, and so she had talked with Martin for a long time that day, not just about Anneya, or Jesse, but all sorts of things, and it had helped, both of them, at least she hoped it had. With a heavy heart though she realised that she hadn't seen or even spoken to him since, and so she scribbled a note on a piece of paper, moved across the room and held it under Cheryl's face as she spoke on the phone. Her reply was a nod and a smile, and so Rae went back to her desk, picked up the phone and called her friend to invite him to dinner.
ooo
Steve opened the front door only to hear raised voices coming from the morning room, and his heart sank. Daniel knew that Jo wasn't looking forward to the visit with Debs, and he had hoped that the boy would have kept their problems locked away out of sight until she left, that obviously wasn't going to be the case though, and so with a deep sigh he put down the two large suitcases, from a total of ten, in the hallway and called out in a loud and exaggerated way to his wife.
"Honey, we're back. Come say hi to Debs."
"Where did you say that Michael was?" Debbie looked around her, the house was beautiful, and she would love to live in it.
"He had to go to London, his mother is very ill, he has been gone a few days, and the last we heard he would be at least another week maybe more."
"Oh, I see, an' what have you done, hired a butler from an agency? Because, darlin', if you have he sure isn't doin' his duty." She continued to look around; there was a film of dust on the banister leading to the second floor and two pieces of paper just beside the wastebasket under the telephone table.
"No, we didn't hire anyone, we're happy to do it ourselves." Steve didn't say that none of them was up to facing Michael's wrath if he came back to find that someone other than the family had been using his kitchen. As he finished speaking Jo and Daniel, both of them looking like thunder came out of the morning room and walked over to them.
"Debs, you are looking wonderful." Jo tried to sound like she meant it, and in a way she did, the pregnancy was obviously suiting Debbie far more than it was her at the moment. The gently swelling stomach of last time had been replaced with a very definite bump. It was about four months since she had found out that Debbie was pregnant, and at the time it had hurt her deeply. In fact she and Jesse had been on the way to the hospital so that he could check her over when they had been taken.
"Thank you, I have to admit, I never thought bein' fat could be so much fun, but I am really enjoyin' this, an' now I get to share it all with you. So, Honey, how are you feelin' with the mornin' sickness an' all?" Debbie moved closer to where Jo was standing and put her hand on her arm.
"Um, I think I will leave you two ladies and Daniel alone, I have to get to work. Jo, I have no idea when I'll be home, but it shouldn't be late." Steve kissed her gently on the cheek and smiled as he heard her talk in his ear.
"If you are late tonight, Cowboy, just don't bother climbin' the stairs, you'll be sleepin' with the dirty laundry!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Steve whispered back before moving away, a smile on his face. "Debbie, I'm sorry, but I really need to get to work, I can't let Rae do it all herself."
"An' you have to go in on a Sunday? I thought you were one of the higher ranked policemen." Debbie looked as if Sunday working was for a lower species than she.
"I am, but I still have to do shifts just like all the other cops, and now I really have to go. Daniel, be good for your mom and your aunt ok?"
The face that the boy pulled made Steve want to laugh all over again. He knew that neither Daniel nor Jo really wanted to spend the day with Debbie, in fact the only person in the house who could face it was him and he was leaving. The irony of the situation amused him, but he kept a straight face. "Bye all."
Jo watched her husband as he waved and walked across the hallway, and as he moved further away she wished with all her heart that she could go with him.
ooo
Rae finished speaking to the Chief, put the phone down and tried to ignore the fact that she had to go to Santa Barbara the next day. She had locked herself away in one of the viewing rooms to go through the security film showing Elizabeth Masters' murder again. There was something about it, she couldn't put her finger on it, but as she had watched it Rae knew, and not for the first time, that she was missing a vital piece of information. The murderer, as he stood there, moved in a strange way, the problem was she still couldn't work out from the back what he was doing. Steve had told her that the man was clicking his neck, which, until he had explained it a little more, hadn't helped at all. The idea of anyone doing that voluntarily had given her the whim whams, and if she was honest it made her feel quite ill. Now though she put her feelings to one side and over and over wound back the vital piece of film, watching as the figure made his strange movement, paused and then pulled the trigger and again and again the wife of the Chief of Police died in front of her. She zoomed in until the killer was just a screen of blurry coloured squares, and still the facts escaped her. Finally with a groan of despair she ran the entire tape back to the beginning, watched it through one more time and then ejected it from the machine. Maybe, when they had met with the Edwards family, something would click into place, bit like that neck then, she shuddered at her irreverent thought, and hoped that later in the week she would be able to watch it with fresh eyes. For now though she felt anything but fresh, and she still had another unpleasant duty to perform.
Once she had made her way back to the squad room Rae looked at the information in front of her on the desk. The murder from the previous Friday had gone out of her mind whilst she was at home, but now, as she read through Amanda's autopsy results, and the report from the officers at the scene the sheer brutality of it came rushing back to her.
The two adults had, according to Amanda, died in the way that they had both surmised. From that point of view it was an open and shut case, but murder never was that simple, and suicide was almost too terrible to contemplate, at least for those left behind and this time that included two young children, not much older than Eliana and Anneya. Two senior uniformed officers together with a chaplain from the Wendell's church had undertaken the job of breaking the news to the grandparents who were looking after the children. Rae hadn't envied them that task, but she didn't envy herself her job either.
The addresses for both sets of parents were in the report from the officer who had responded to the call and, with the prospect of searching for hairdressing salons suddenly seeming like a desirable option, she pulled her jacket on and left the station.
The journey to a very neat condo on the edge of Griffith Park didn't take long in the light Sunday afternoon traffic and Rae found herself wishing for the jams which usually dogged her every journey. Pulling in to the side of the road Rae carefully locked her car and then smoothed down her jeans and white top. She knew that she was delaying things, and in the end, with a heavy feeling that she thought would stay with her all day Rae began to walk up the path.
ooo
Steve had just arrived in the squad room when Cheryl indicated for him to come over to her desk. "Hi, Steve, Rae had to go and follow up on a murder-suicide she picked up on Friday, and I just got off the phone, we have another Red Rose victim, and according to what the officers at the scene told dispatch it's bad, real bad."