Title: Good Enough

Chapter 15

-----

"C'mon Molly," Brass coaxes, half-smiling, "Tell us what happened the night Danny died."

Molly is a nervous wreck. She's twisting a tissue into a mangled mess, and she keeps glancing at her mother. "I don't know what happened," she croaks.

"Molly," Mrs. Cooper says firmly. From the look she's had plastered on her face since I walked in here, Mrs. Cooper was floored by the knowledge that her daughter was in Danny Kincaid's house the night he died.

Tugging at her bottom lip, Molly says, "I don't know, Mom. He was fine when I left."

"What were you doing there anyway?"

A short, impatient sigh escapes Molly's lips. "He was my boyfriend."

"You said you were at the library."

I decide to intervene before this becomes a mother-daughter fight. "Molly," I say. "When did you leave Danny's house?"

She looks startled. "After Cody. Right after."

"What time exactly?" Brass asks.

"I don't know. Six?"

Brass raises his eyebrows. Cody didn't leave anywhere near that early.

She tries again. "Seven?"

Brass glances at me. I ignore him and lean forward in my chair. "Molly," I say gently, "tell us what happened."

"We hung out," she shrugs, trying to be casual, but failing miserably.

""Who?"

"Mmm....Me, Cody, and Danny."

"Anybody else? Or just the three of you?"

"Just us," she says.

"Molly," I say. "Why didn't you just tell us you were there?" Actually, why didn't Cody tell us she was there?

"I don't know," she mutters.

"You don't know?" Brass asks suspiciously. Brass has a way of asking a question…I don't know how people are dumb enough to think they can possibly get away with lying to him.

Molly glances at her mother, then she looks at Brass. "Look, Cody and I had a blowout, y'know?"

"Enlighten us," Brass says.

Molly frowns. "I don't know what happened to Cody," she snaps.

Brass plunges on. "What did you and Cody fight about?"

"It's personal," she says.

"This is a murder investigation," Brass says. "Your personal matters are my business."

All the color drains from Molly's face. She takes a labored breath, and then says in a monotone voice, "Danny wasn't murdered."

"Molly," I say. "Did you drive you car to Danny's?"

"No," she says. "I walked."

"From our house?" Mrs. Cooper asks incredulously.

"From IHOP," Molly says irately. "The one two blocks from Danny's house,"

"How did you get to IHOP?" I press.

She lets out a long-suffering breath. "My friend Emma dropped me off."

"What's Emma's last name?" I ask.

"Miller."

"Okay. Did Emma stay at IHOP with you?"

"No," Molly says. "She just dropped me off on the way to her dad's house."

"Did you meet anyone at the restaurant?"

She frowns. Licking her lips, she says, "I met a lot of people. We hang out there. Y'know, I talked to a lot of kids."

"Anyone in particular?" Brass asks.

"I said lots of kids," Molly snaps. "I didn't write down their names."

The sweet girl Brass and I talked to in Mrs. Ling's office is long gone, replaced by a snotty teenager who won't give a straight answer. My minds resonates with Garret Ames' sarcastic description of Molly—"Sweet, porcelain Molly Cooper."

"Look," I say. "Let's go step by step. Where were you and Emma before you wound up at IHOP?"

"The library," she answers.

"What time did you arrive at Danny's?"

"5 or something."

"Was Cody already there?"

"Yeah."

"What did the three of you do?"

Molly shoots me an acidic glare. "We hung out. Talked. Stuff."

"What did you talk about?" I ask.

She shifts in her chair and squares her jaw. She wads up the mangled tissue and tosses it on the table. "The weather."

Okay, so she's playing the tough girl. "Molly," I say. "Did Danny ever hit you?"

"Whoa," Mrs. Cooper says. "What?"

"He wouldn't hit me," Molly says defensively.

"C'mon," Brass says. "Maybe he had a few, pushed you."

Molly stares at the table. After a minute, her hand snakes out to grab the abandoned tissue. "He didn't mean anything by it."

Mrs. Cooper covers her mouth with her hand. "Oh my God. Molly." She turns her daughters face until Molly is looking directly at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You would've made me stop seeing him," she says, her voice two octaves higher than normal.

"Mrs. Cooper?" I say solemnly. "What time did Molly get home that night?"

Mrs. Cooper looks stunned. "I don't know," she says. "I was on a date." She looks guiltily at her daughter. "I'm recently divorced." She shrugs helplessly, pulls off her jacket, and then runs a trembling hand through her hair. "I didn't get back until 1. She was in her bedroom then."

Handing Molly another tissue, I say, "Why don't we take a break? Okay? You want a soda?"

Molly shrugs, so I get out of my chair and head for the door. "We'll be back. Jim?"

-----

Once outside, I turn to Brass. "Well, this puts things in a whole 'nother light."

"Do you like her for it?" Brass asks.

"I don't know, man." I look through the window at the Coopers. "I don't think we've gotten the truth from any of these kids. Or most of their parents."

"Mrs. Cooper seemed sincere."

I narrow my eyes and cross my arms. "Yeah, but…She seemed pretty chummy with Mr. Ames. That was news."

Brass cocks his head. "Didn't Molly say Natalie Ames wasn't in her social circle?"

"Yeah. And when we went to the hospital after Cody's suicide attempt, the Ames and the Coopers didn't acknowledge each other. But out in the lobby, they were on a first name basis, and it seemed as though they were having a pretty intimate conversation. Before we interrupted it."

Brass futilely tries to straighten his tie. "Well, you can always tell when two people are treading personal territory."

"Yeah. Okay, Molly's hiding something," I mumble. "And I think Mr. Ames and Mrs. Cooper are hiding something."

"There's a lot of that going on around here," Brass says.

I feel my mouth go dry.

Before I can say anything, Grissom walks up. "How did it go?"

"It's still going," I say. "But she has no alibi for the time of the murder, and she was being battered by Daniel Kincaid."

"Okay," Grissom says as he turns to leave. "Good work."

Grissom's been handling me with kid gloves ever since I went nuclear on him in the hall.

"Grissom," I say. "Something else. Garret Ames stopped by and gave me these." I hand Grissom the letters. "They're notes from the vic to the Ames girl. Ames said they were disturbing."

"Disturbing for the father of a teenaged daughter, or disturbing for anyone?"

"I don't know," I say. "He gave them to me right before I went in to question Molly."

Grissom clutches the letters in his hand, looking for all the world like I've just given him a prize. "Come find me when you finish with Molly. In the meantime, I have a little reading."

-----

After the Coopers leave, I head toward Grissom's office to fill him in on everything. As I walk past Greg's lab, I pause. Greg's hunched over the table, looking into a microscope. I don't know why, but I'm seized by a sudden urge to rush into his lab, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him breathless. That can't happen, though. Not here.

I start to walk away, but Greg looks up and sees me. Catching my gaze, he waves me over.

"Hey," I say, as I walk into the room. I'm surprised Greg wants to talk to me at all after our argument—lover's spat?—today.

"Hey," he says. "You coming over tonight?"

"Am I welcome?"

He grins. "Well, if you bring those muscles and that Texan charm."

I feel my body begin to relax. "Greg, I'm sorry about today."

"Me too." Greg props his elbows up on the counter. "You're coming from a different place than I am. I'm comfortable with my sexuality. You aren't." He nods, as if that settles the matter. Then he says, "I can't keep this a secret forever."

I struggle to say something, but nothing comes out. Finally, I reach behind the counter and squeeze his hand, hoping that the physical connection says what I can't.