Disclaimer: Note to self, I do not own CSI.
Someone's finally going to get it.
CSI NY
Ch.7
The smugness had gone from Tom. He sat tersely across from Flack, Alecson, and Stella who stood at the back as though waiting in the shadows to pounce. Stella had witnessed Tom's self-certainty start its decline the other day when she had given him the warrant for his coat, backed by Alecson. Now Detective Ryan was where he was supposed to be, and where Danny had been not too long ago.
" … You have a pretty bad track record with Bruno and his boys," Alecson said. He had the files concerning the Bruno cases that Tom had handled. " And to think I was accusing Messer of having a grudge. You seem to have good reason for carrying around a pretty big one yourself."
Tom was pale, and his hands folded on the table clenched until they were white.
" Who doesn't have something against these guys?" he asked irritably. " I'm not the only one…"
" Yet gun residue was found inside your coat as well as on your gloves, while at the same time none was found anywhere on Danny Messer's coat, or jacket, or shirt. The clothes he wore that day were clean. Yours tell a different story."
Tom could go no paler than he already was. They pretty much had him, but that did not mean he would not stop trying to defend himself.
" No one witnessed me setting the gun down…" he started in lamely.
" Oh come on, detective. Were you being watched every second? Was someone observing your every move? I hear tell you're a good slight of hand. Of course it doesn't take a magician to let a gun slip out of a sleeve the brief second all eyes are turned away."
Tom's eyes darted about nervously as he thought fast, with nothing apparently coming.
Watching him, Stella became infuriated. The guy was law enforcement, trained to face the possibility of death, and this guy didn't even have the guts to face up to his stupidity.
She had an idea why this was, however. He was scared, not simply of losing his job, the possibility of going to jail, and having a tainted career for the rest of his life, but also of the prospect of having to face up to Bruno and his gang. They would learn of this, just as they had learned of Danny, and they would want their own confession.
This made Stella's blood boil and heart beat fast in anger.
" Come on man," Alecson continued. " I mean what were you thinking? The punk wasn't even worth it."
Tom opted to remain mute.
Stella rolled her eyes and strode stiffly forward. She reached beneath the files and pulled the pictures of Danny's injuries, tossing them across the table for Tom to see.
" Is that what you're afraid of?" She asked harshly. Tom tried not to look at the pictures, but his eyes flickered to them all the same.
" You afraid of Bruno, Ryan?" Alecson asked.
" Yeah, Tom," Flack added. " You afraid of a little confession beating? Hey, it's not like they really kill you. Danny survived it, so I bet you won't have a problem."
Stella leaned on the table with arms stiff and fingers spread. " Actually, they won't even touch him. He'll have protection, probably be in jail. We know what Bruno and his boys are capable of, and we can't have that happening again. It should though. You're the one who deserves it Tom. You let this happen to Danny. I mean, crap, you might as well have been the one to throw the first punch. You know, if I didn't know any better, I say you were working with that gang. I mean you both seemed to have it in for Danny and all he did was his job."
Tom still did not respond, though his face twitched and his eyes began to narrow with anger.
Stella still had plenty of aces. She reached back under the files and pulled out another picture, this one obtained as a favor. It was an X-ray of Danny's arm, the ghostly image of the bone split in two and disaligned. She stalked over to Tom and held the picture up to the light.
" Look at it Tom," she demanded. He hesitated.
" Now!" She snapped. Tom slowly turned his head to look up at the picture, then quickly looked down at the table.
" This supposed to send me on some kind of guilt trip or something?" he asked petulantly. Stella set the X-ray down.
" Whatever works, right?" she said. " You know, as far as I'm concerned, you're the one who did this, so you should be the one going to jail. You're no better than Bruno, no better than his lackeys. You're a coward and a creep, and if I had my way I'd leave you to Bruno. Hey, maybe he'll do us all a favor and kill you."
Flack shook his head. " You planted evidence, Ryan. And to get who, Ricky? Some snot-nosed relative? Don't you have any freakin' pride?"
Tom rolled his eyes and mumbled a curse.
" I doubt it," Alecson said. " He's jealous of Danny. That's why he let him take the heat, and why he was so happy about it. You're jealous of Danny, aren't you Tommy."
Tom shook his head from side to side. " We weren't going to get these guys…"
" But you were working with Danny," Stella said. " He knew these guys. He always got one of them every case he worked. If you'd just waited…"
Tom's annoyed gaze shot up at her. " Waited? I waited with those other CSI you sent me, and they didn't find jack. They're always getting away, always…" he trailed off, and did not speak again for a moment. He had yet to ask for a lawyer, and most likely wouldn't out of pride. Stella found it both odd and rather amusing that a man with this much egotism would risk his career, yet be too afraid to face up to it when the time came. It made her wonder if the real reason Detective Ryan did not do well on Bruno gang cases was not because of the CSI, but because of his own lack of courage. She would have to pick Mac's brain about that later.
" They're screw-ups," he murmured at last. " They don't get it right."
Stella began gathering up the pictures, feeling as though Tom did not have the right to look at them, though he deserved the guilt of them.
" Well, at least we do our job right," Stella said.
NYNYNYNY
It was a quiet ride from the hospital with Danny sitting hunched in the passenger seat, staring with vacant weariness out the window. He was wearing fresher clothes, including pants, with one arm of his jacket hanging empty and waving slightly to the movements of the car. Danny was still heavily medicated, so his awareness was cut in half, but only half. He was still coherent.
Finally, Mac decided to break the silence. " I don't know when you'll be able to return home. We'll have officers there waiting to see if any of Bruno's men stop by to see if you're around."
Danny turned his head, letting it rest against the window. The bruised eye was still swollen so that the eyelid could not fully open. " I've got fish to feed," he said. " And there's this cat that kind of hangs around the fire escape outside my window. He's not really an official pet. But I let him come in sometimes, and I feed him. He likes raw beef."
Mac grinned at this. He had never quite imagined Danny as a cat person, let alone an animal person. He wasn't much of either himself.
" So who's stuck with me?" he asked. " Or is it a hotel I'll be staying at."
" No hotel," Mac replied. " I have a guest room, so might as well let someone use it."
Danny grimaced slightly but managed a brief smile. " Dang. I was hoping for a hotel, one of those nice ones that cost too much."
Mac glanced over at Danny, and saw discomfort in his features. It wasn't the discomfort of pain, not with the medicines he'd been injected with. Right now he probably didn't feel much of his body below his neck, or maybe even higher.
" No offense Mac," he said. " But I really just wanna go home."
Mac sighed. " Sorry Danny, not until we're certain. Just a few days, I promise. You know Bruno. He may decide he's not done with you, and he knows where you live. We just need to play it safe."
Danny moved his head some in a nod, but was still apparently unhappy about the whole matter. Mac understood. It was another humiliation for Danny. Not only had Bruno made him an invalid but had driven him from his home as well. It was as though Bruno was taking hold of every aspect of Danny's life, something Danny was all too familiar with. It was something he had thought he'd escaped. Now it was being shoved back in his face.
They fell back into silence, with Danny rolling his head to the side to look miserably out the window like a prisoner being dragged off to jail. It made the silence uncomfortable, even to Mac who had become somewhat used to silence (though never fully).
" So - this cat - you have a name for him?"
" Fish breath."
" I thought you said you fed him beef?"
" Doesn't stop his breath from smelling like fish."
Mac couldn't help a quiet chuckle at this.
" You're never gonna catch these guys," Danny suddenly said.
" Hey, you never know. Everyone makes a mistake eventually."
Danny lifted his head off the window. " Not Bruno. You got that footprint off my back. Okay, that might catch one of 'em. But that's all we ever get is one. They were wearing gloves when they hit me; I felt it. They've probably burned them by now, along with the stuff they hit me with. They know how to get rid of evidence. They know how to make what they did disappear."
Mac did not like where Danny was going with this. " You're not giving up already, are you?" But when he glanced at Danny, he saw on the CSI's face a thoughtful expression.
" No, just considering something."
" What?"
Danny turned his head more to look directly at Mac. " A possibility."
Mac wrinkled his brow. " What do you mean?"
Danny looked away again, the unease returning. " Can't turn your back on your past forever."
This statement made Mac suddenly nervous. " You plan on testifying against Bruno, of what he did to you when you were a kid? You know what that means…"
Danny shook his head. " No. Bruno gave the order, not the beating. Even with the beating now, I never saw his face, and juries are into vocal recognition much."
" Then what are you thinking?"
Danny looked down at his arm cradled in the sling and encased in the cast.
" Tennessee."
Mac gave Danny a perplexed look. " The State?"
Danny smiled. " The snake from the south."
End of Part 1
New chapters will come, but it may be some time. I'm still working out a few things and deciding what I want to happen next. So please be patient with me if it seems to be taking forever for another chapter to come in.
Just who is this snake? What is Danny talking about? Answers will come I promise.
