Hohenbruck Army Base
Day 3
09:00 hrs, Wednesday
"Oh, boy, here she comes." Bruce straightened his tie, nodding to Charlie as he came in the back door.
Frost came storming through the front door.
"Where are we?" Jo did not bother to look up, despite the roar. She flipped through the folder, checking to make sure all witness statements, evidence logs, interview transcripts were in order before dropping it into the box by her feet for storage. She pulled the next file from the mountain on her desk, idly noting that the rest of the team was gathering around the incident board. Frost had apparently given up the pretense of having Jo sit in on the briefings. "Do we have anything? Anything at all? Well, what have you been doing?"
"Well, ma'am," Bruce said gently, "it appears we've crossed the path of a pair of masterminds." Jo looked over. Frost glared at Bruce, who, disaffected, continued. "That bit with the showers is the trick. The dogs can't track and they don't appear to actually reside in the barracks they slip through. Same with the assault last night."
"Last night? What happened last night?" Angie asked.
"A colonel this time." Bruce muttered. "They painted him pink." Snickers broke out through the room.
Jo kept her eyes on the folders, only half listening.
"Enough of that." Frost snapped.
"Will someone please explain to me what happened?" Howard ordered.
"Sir," Jo looked up just as Frost spread a furious glare around the room, silencing the snickers, "another officer was attacked last night. It appears to be the same attackers as the previous attack."
"And he was painted pink?" Howard asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"Where are we on this? We can't have officers being targeted on this base."
"I was just getting to that, Sir." Jo went back to her files.
"We haven't gotten anything on the assailants. They covered their tracks. We're bringing in everyone from the barracks. Initial interviews came up with nothing unusual. No one had recently showered, as the evidence shows that the two showered. It was late enough that most of the lads were in bed." Bruce put in.
"They stopped to shower?" Howard asked in disbelief.
"Sir, probably to get rid of the black face and any paint. Both victims statements say that they were attacked by soldiers in black face."
"Do we have any suspects identified?"
"No, Sir."
"Do we have a line of investigation?" Bruce shrugged.
"We can try tracking down the paint."
"Sgt. Hornsby." Frost snapped. "Sir, we'll have more once we get the soldiers from the barracks in. I will be overseeing the interviews personally, Sir." Jo watched as Howard turned away, looking less than confident.
"Very well." He walked out.
"SSgt. McDonagh." Jo looked up, surprised to be addressed. "You will stand at attention when an officer is in the room." Jo frowned. She had never forgotten to do that before.
"Ma'am," was all she said.
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am." Jo said without getting up. Frost turned her anger on the rest of them, leaving Jo to her file checking.
Jo did not even look up for the next string of soldiers filing in, waiting for their interviews. She had two boxes of files for storage. The pile on her desk had dwindled to one more file. She looked through it quickly, finding the interview notes out of order and passed it over to the files not ready for storage. She got up to start on the next file drawer, having to wind around several slouching soldiers.
"We're not going to get anything from these lads." Bruce was grumbling as he and Charlie came in. "The whole point of going through the barracks that late at night is that everyone is asleep. No one to see, even Mr. Vicary could tell that."
"Well, you have a better plan?" Charlie snickered.
"Yeah. I do. The officers couldn't identify their assailants. We can't track them. There are no witnesses. They were smart enough to stay out of the way of any of the CCTV cameras. The only thing that we have is the forensics."
"The paint? You were serious about that?"
Jo sluffed the next pile of folders to her desk.
"Jo never questions my investigative theories." Jo ignored him.
"Jo is an intelligent woman. She probably questions your investigative theories all the time. You just aren't bright enough to notice."
"Jo knows that if Frost continues on this line, our closure rate in going to go-"
"Next." Frost nearly tossed her latest victim out of the interview room. A soldier, barely out of his teens, stared at her, terrified. She ushered him into the interview room.
"You've been quiet." Jo jumped at Bruce's touch on her shoulder. She stared at his hand, the very touch of it seemed a horrible invasion. He finally took it away. Jo took a breath, unaware she had been she had been holding it.
"What?" She pretended to look back through the files to avoid the odd looks on both Bruce and Charlie's face.
"Jo-" She looked up.
"What?"
"Can you give us a minute?" he asked Charlie. He waited until Charlie was away. "You know, if there's anything, anything I can do, you just need to ask."
"Bruce. I'm fine."
"Okay. Okay." Jo continued to stare at him to make sure that he got the point.
"Josey!" Forney swaggered in. "Well, don't you look lovely."
"Ah, sir, really." Bruce protested as Forney patted Jo's head. She pushed him away.
"I see the knock on your head didn't help your eye sight." Forney remarked, settling himself on the corner of her desk. She was not in the mood for his flirting.
"What are you talking about?"
"You still don't see my fulfilling potential." He flashed her his toothy grin.
"Did you want something, sir?" Jo asked, ignoring him.
"Brucie called me."
"I was going to come over to see you." Bruce protested.
"Well, I've come to you. What do you need?"
"Ah, right, paint."
"Paint?"
"Pink paint." Neither of them could stop snickering.
"Jo!" She did not turn around or stop walking. "Jo!"
She nearly came off her feet when Roper grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him.
"What?" She snapped at him.
"Why won't you talk to me?"
"I don't have anything to say." The truth was she could not think of anything to say.
"So that's it?" Roper's expression turned from anticipation to anger. So quick he could be angered, she remembered.
"What did you think was going to happen?"
"I don't know. Maybe at least we could talk like adults." She folded her arms over her chest, leaning back, not wanting to get too close to him. Part of her wanted to crawl into his arms and sap some kind of strength from him, tell him that she could not go on like this. The other part of her wanted escape, escape as fast as possible. If she allowed herself to break down now, she knew, she would never be able to get herself back.
Jo remained silent. His expression went from anger to soften concerned.
"How are you doing?" It was a struggle to not soften herself.
"Fine."
"How is Frost treating you?"
"Look, Roper, I have things to do."
"You're going to keep this up?"
"Keep what up?
"Jo. Why can't we talk like we used to? I can help."
"Help with what?"
"With what you are going through."
"And what am I going through?"
"Jo. Look." He did not know what to say.
"You're not good at this whole counsellor thing, Roper. Trust me. I had to spend hours with them. There isn't anything more to talk about between us." She stared him down. Roper stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking like a naughty school boy. "Anything else?"
"You think this is fair, leaving me out in the dark like this?"
"This is the army. It isn't supposed to be fair. And this isn't about you. It isn't all about you, you know." She let in that last little jab to keep him from prowling about her and walked away, not looking back.
Jo could not get up from the cold stone floor. She tried to will herself to move, to get up, but she was frozen. The RMP's dead eyes stared at her. Those lifeless greying lips moved, whispering the throes of death.
Jo started out of sleep. She sat up, blinking, peering about her dark room, remembering then that it was all a dream, nothing but a dream. She took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes.
Exhaustion hung heavily on her. She looked over at the clock, eleven-forty-five.