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Sins of the Father
Chapter Four: Cracked, Not Broken
Grace closed her cell phone and breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was for Goren and Eames to find out she was at the homeless shelter. She looked at her watch. She had an hour and a half to finish this and get back to office. Opening the door, she made her way to the receptionist. Pulling the old, dog-eared photo out of her jacket pocket, Grace showed it to the worn looking woman behind the counter.
"I'm looking for this man, he goes by the name of Charlie."
"Yes, I know him. He's in the main hall, I think. Dinner's being served."
"Thank you," Grace pocketed the photo and headed towards to the main hall. The hall was filled with people, close to two hundred at least. It didn't take her long to find Charlie and make a beeline for him. He caught sight of her when she was just a couple rows away from him and stood up, spreading his arms wide.
"Gracie! What are you doing here? Thanksgiving already?"
She brushed off his intent to hug her. "I'm not here for fun, I just need your permission for something."
"Sure, Gracie, anything. What do you need?"
She pulled a form out of her leather backpack and put it on the table with a pen. "I need you to sign this form so I can exhume my mother's body for another autopsy."
Charlie gave her a confused look. "Exhume? What does that mean?"
Grace rubbed her forehead. "It means to dig up the body so I can look at it again."
"Look at it again? What would you want to do that for?"
"I think it's possible that Mom was killed instead of killing herself. I need your permission to dig up her body."
Charlie looked at the papers and then back at Grace. Finally, he just laid a hand on Grace's arm. "Gracie, she's gone. It doesn't really matter whether she was killed or took her own life. It's not going to bring her back."
"But she might have been killed for a reason. Other people might have died the same way."
"Then they're dead too, Gracie. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry. I'm not signing these papers."
Grace felt the heat rise to her face. "What about me, then? What about giving me closure on this?"
Charlie sighed wearily. "If you haven't dealt with your mother's death yet, Gracie, you never will."
Grace ground her teeth together, fighting the urge to cry. "It's one thing you don't care that she's dead, it's another for stopping me from finding the truth."
Charlie looked at her with open-mouth shock. She knew he was stuttering to find something to say to counter what her accusation but she grabbed the paper off the table and turned to leave before he could say anything. She had a fifteen minute walk back to the ME's office to cool down before facing the two Detective's and their murder weapon.
Goren paced up and down the hallway outside of the door marked "Dr. G. Harris." Eames had dropped him off twenty minutes ago and he still had another fifteen minutes left before eight o'clock. He had tried to focus on the case, he really did. He had read over his notes, ran through conspiracy theories and started working on a list of suspects for the interviewing process that was to start tomorrow morning. But every time he left his mind wander, it always went to that moment when those green eyes dropped their defense.
He rubbed a hand over his face. He couldn't afford this right now. His mother was still in a cationic state, no sign of her coming out of it any time soon. Eames was still walking on eggshells around him even though he had assured her nothing had changed. On the surface, nothing had changed but he saw that silent apology every time she looked at him. And now, this ME had his mind upside down and inside out because of her personal defenses. The fact that he couldn't profile her didn't bother him anymore; it was more of the realization that there was someone else like him in this world.
"Where's your partner?"
He looked up to see Grace hurrying down the hall. Her face was flushed and she was out of breath. At first he thought it was just from the brisk air outside but she refused to look at him and instead swiped at her eyes.
"My partner?" he asked, following her into her office.
Grace threw her leather knapsack into a chair in the corner. "Your partner. Where is she?"
"She, uh, had to watch her nephew. I'm afraid you're stuck with me."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. She looked very worn, physically and emotionally.
"Are you alright, Dr. Harris?"
"Yeah," her eyes finally snapped open and she gave him a strained smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. What do you have?"
Goren pulled the knife out of his binder and handed the evidence bag to Grace. "We found this in a dumpster one block from the crime scene. It was wrapped in a hand towel."
"This is a craft knife."
"You scrapbook?"
Grace looked at him slightly surprised. "You know about scrapbooking?"
Goren shifted on his feet. "I, uh, read a lot."
"Hm. Well, let's go the lab and see if anything can be pulled from this." Grace headed out of the office with Goren on her heels. He had tried to gather any personal information from her office but found nothing personal there.
"Do you have any family in the city?" he asked her.
"Some."
"Siblings?"
"Two sisters."
Realizing she wasn't willing to talk at all, Goren gave up the discussion. He sat back in the lab and watched her handle the craft knife with steady handed proficiency. It was odd to see the tension and weariness melt away as she examined the knife and realized he probably came across the same way during an interrogation. She sprayed and scraped the blade, looking at the scrapings under a very hi-tech looking microscope. Stepping back she reached into a filing cabinet and pulled out another petri dish, sliding it under another microscope.
"Detective, I believe we have a match."
"Any fingerprints on the handle?"
She put the knife in a tray and used a large brush to go over the handle. "Sorry, no fingerprints. It was wiped clean."
"Handle was wiped clean but the blood remained on the blade."
"Probably a novice," Grace answered.
Goren nodded thoughtfully. "Could be a drug related killing."
"Could be a husband covering up his wife's drug problem."
"Could be a message to the husband."
Grace slammed the petri dish draw shut causing Goren to jump. The tense shoulders showed through the red-gold curls and he knew her relaxation from the investigation was gone. He was back to the bothered ME that he hardly knew.
"I, uh, have to call Eames and tell her the blood was a match."
"Fine," she mumbled as she brushed past him out in the hallway.
He didn't know what was driving him to reach out to this woman but he had come to trust his instincts and sent out a flailing invitation.
"Do you want to come with me for a drink?"
Grace stopped mid-stride and turned to look at him. "What?"
"For bringing you back to the office so late. Would you allow me to take you out for a drink." He realized she didn't look like convinced. "We could go to your Uncle's bar, if you want." He swore he could see the gears turning in her head. After thirty seconds of deliberation, she finally gave him a half shrug.
"Let me go lock my office then."
It was a small victory but at least he had a few hours to find out what was going on with Grace. He dialed Eames' number to give her an update on the finding and hoped he could pacify Grace.
Grace stared into her cosmopolitan trying to come up with something, anything, civil to the man hunkered down next to her. What she couldn't wrap her mind around was why she had accepted his offer if she wasn't going to speak to him at all. She had to hand it to him, he was taking her silence very well.
"Do you have any family living in the city?" she finally asked him and realized it might not have been the best question to start with. She watched his reflection in the mirror that was behind the bar. He looked like a boy trying to figure out how to get out of an unpleasant chore. Grace figured she shouldn't let him flounder any more. "Sorry. I guess that was kind of personal."
He shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I asked you. Turn-around is fair game." He took a swig of his scotch. "My mother lives in the city."
Grace nodded, realizing that admittance had cost him a degree of personal liability. She decided not to press the issue of family. God knows she didn't feel like talking about her family right now. "My mother died when I was seven. Now we're even so no more family talk."
"Good." He tapped her cosmo glass with his scotch glass. "What do you do when you're not cutting up dead bodies?"
Grace had to tell herself that he was only trying to be polite and it would be best if she was polite back. Who knew? Maybe she could actually forget about her family for a couple hours. Besides, Goren seemed like a nice guy. He definitely wasn't unpleasant to look at. What would it hurt to play nice? "I like to read. I do scrapbook and I play a musical instrument and give lessons at a local community center."
"When do you find the time to fit all that in?"
Grace shrugged. "I don't have many friends but I do have insomnia. What about you?"
"I read, a lot. I have a friend who rebuilds classic cars so on the weekends I go out there and help him. What do you read?"
Grace smirked and looked down into her glass. "I have the complete collection of Gary Larson's The Far Side."
Goren let out a genuine laugh. "I thought I was the only one that had all the Far Side books."
Grace found herself laughing with him and couldn't figure out what they were laughing at. And for the first time in a very long time, she couldn't have cared less.
Larry stepped over to the two with a wide grin himself. "You two better keep it down over here or I might have to throw you out. You guys need refills?"
Both shook their heads and Larry moved off again. Goren fiddled with his glass and rubbed his face with his hands. He noticed Grace watching him in the mirror with a look of curiosity.
"I need, to uh," he fumbled around for words, "ask you something."
She finished her cosmopolitan. "Okay."
"Yesterday in the morgue, you referred to Sophie Kapirelli as 'your body.' Why?" He watched her reaction carefully, not just from the mirror but up close. Eames was always getting on his case for invading people's personal space but his argument each time was that you never saw the details unless you did invade that space. And right now he saw a very disturbed young woman who was searching for words herself.
"Did you know Sophie Kapirelli, Dr. Harris?"
She shook her head and looked away. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes.
"Why does that interest you, Detective? It was merely a slip of the tongue."
His interrogation skills were kicking in and he couldn't keep stop himself. Words were coming out faster than he could process them. He wasn't in a bar anymore. He was 1 Police Plaza, Eleventh Floor in a stark interrogation room. The crime: a verbal slip.
"See, I don't think it was," he leaned forward, even closer to her. "You were embarrassed by your actions which means you think you did something wrong. Normally, you don't get that over protective of the bodies but you did this time. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
The snappishness of her answer didn't faze him. Instead, he merely plowed on with single minded determination. "It matters to you. Did she remind you of someone? A friend, perhaps, that had died in a similar way?"
Grace's head swung back to face him. Her green eyes shimmering with unshed tears were now ablaze with a well-checked fury. "You're pushing your luck now, Detective. I'm not some suspect in a crime. I'm definitely not here for you to interrogate."
Goren sat back on the barstool. He was so close to finding out the answer, so close he practical taste it. "Maybe it was a family member then?"
It happened in a split second and it took him a full minute to realize what exactly had happened. His right cheek was still stinging when the event had finally been processed. She had slapped across the face and promptly left the bar. At least, he didn't see her anywhere.
"Detective Goren?"
Abashed by his actions he found he couldn't even look Larry in the face. "I'm sorry. I guess I asked too many questions."
The older man sighed, like he was laying down a heavy burden. "No, don't be sorry. Grace has always been…touchy when it comes to her mother's death. She, uh, found her mother…in the bathtub…when she was seven years old."
Goren covered his face with his hands. Her mother. He, more than anyone else, should know how it feels to be exploited because of your mother. For some reason those were the wounds that never healed. He was surprised she had just slapped him. The emotions of when he found out what had happened to his mother came flooding back in waves of anger and helplessness. He deserved much worse than a slap.
"716."
Goren looked up at Larry. "What?"
"716 is Grace's apartment number."
"I can't...not after-"
"Please," Larry leaned across the bar with genuine concern in his eyes, "you're the only person who has ever gotten a reaction out her over her mother."
"The only reaction?"
Larry looked around before dropping his eyes to the bar. "I didn't know my sister had died until two weeks after the fact. She was buried somewhere on the edge of the city limits in a potter's field. But Grace and her sisters were already in foster care. My wife and I tried for years to get the girls. But when Grace turned fifteen, she took her sisters and we couldn't track them down after that. She didn't show up on our doorstep until her eighteenth birthday and that was to ask if we could keep watch over her sisters while she went to NYU.
"Her youngest sister, Sara, was still very upset over the loss of their mother and then with Grace leaving for college on top of that. Sara had a nightmare one night, woke up screaming for Grace. She told my wife that in the dream Grace jumped onto their mother's pine box and was buried with it. She asked her why in the world she would think that Grace would do such thing. She said that Grace had done just that.
"The middle girl, Angela, told the story of how the graveyard crew were just going to bury the pine box but that Grace wasn't ready to leave yet so she jumped into the shallow grave and laid down on the top of the box. And that was all. The girls said that after that day Grace carried on as normal. No tears, no depression, nothing."
"Survival kicked in," Goren murmured. He knew that feeling all too well. He and Grace were more alike than he originally thought. "716?"
Larry nodded and Goren headed out of the bar and across the street to the apartment building.