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Part 3
"So I'll have to approach the judge, first thing tomorrow in court to let him know that my clients have decided to change their plea to guilty," Elaine told Sturgis Turner, ruefully.
They were just two of several people who had turned up for an informal get together at Benzinger's.
Sturgis mistook Elaine's mood for disappointment caused by losing a case to her partner.
"Never mind, Lieutenant," he consoled her, "we don't have the luxury of being able to chose only innocent parties to defend and guilty parties to prosecute. We all lose a case at some point, even if it is a highly contested one."
But Sturgis knew nothing about the potential evidence that Elaine had. He didn't realize that she wasn't disappointed because she was losing to Andrew, but rather that she knew that her two clients were going to be punished to a far greater extreme than they deserved.
Things went further downhill between the two partners that evening when word got back to Andrew (innocently enough) that her client's guilty pleas were the cause of Elaine's off mood. Assuming that she'd been playing a game of one-upmanship, he had shook his head discretely but testily when he overheard others talking. Tonight, Andrew James became as ticked off as kicked dog.
Before they all decided to call it a night, Sturgis decided to buy the last round. However, in Lainey's absence, he consulted the other officers as to what to order for her.
"She'd probably take an ice-tea," Andy couldn't help himself from speaking up.
Many lunches and working dinners together had ingrained certain information in him and he'd noticed that her last drink had been non-alcoholic (Incidentally, only her first drink had been alcoholic, that night. She'd been feeling unwell towards the end of the day.) An ice tea would probably be the way to go.
"Would you give me a hand with the drinks?" Sturgis requested, since the young Lieutenant was making himself available.
"Sure," Andy got up from his seat.
When Sturgis put his order in at the bar, neither of them thought anything when no sugar syrup was given in a small container alongside Elaine's ice tea. They just presumed that the barman had remembered that she never took sugar in her ice tea due to the fact that she suffered from type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes. In fact, the barman, not wanting to wash up any more than he really had to after closing time, had actually added a liberal amount of sugar to the drink and sent it along with the others. He didn't know anything about how the young woman took her ice tea, because she'd actually been sipping on fruit juice most of the night.
Sturgis let Lainey know which drink was hers, once she returned from the bathroom and she unthinkingly took a large sip from it. Most of the syrup had pooled at the bottom and it was only when she was half-way through it that she began to really taste the sweetness. The thought registered vaguely with her mind, so she carefully tasted it again, then took a closer look at the base of the glass. Sure enough, she realized that she had indeed been consuming a sweetened beverage for some time now and that she'd need to haul ass to the ladies to administer some insulin, fast, as her blood sugar levels had been unsteady enough that day. She quickly set her glass down on the table and hurried back to the lady's room. By the time she returned, she was starting to feel bad and found to her dismay that only Andrew still remained at the bar. He had bought himself another drink, before he planned to hit the road. Quickly trying to focus on the bar scene before her and finding her vision was blurred, Elaine surmised that the last thing she wanted to do was to was get behind the wheel of her car. She then pulled her cellphone out of her handbag and shakily dialed for a cab, but the numbers she knew by memory or had stored in her phone were all engaged. With no other option, she finally turned to Andy, who was just getting up to leave.
"Andy, could I possibly get a ride home, please?" she asked, softly, sucking up her pride and disregarding all thoughts of the way he'd publicly insulted her, that day.
Maybe she'd usually be more reluctant to give up her stand, but she knew full and well how much danger her high blood sugar level had exposed her to. She knew the effects this could have on her health. Now was the time to put her health above any silly argument.
But Andrew James was far less forgiving.
"Don't think you're up to driving, huh?" he got out, tersely, "Well, don't think you can tattle on me for what happens out of hours…Call a cab like the rest of us."
With that, he left a stunned and frustrated Elaine in his wake as he powered past her to the door. Elaine thought about pursuing him, but knowing her luck, she'd trip over something and end up hurting herself. She didn't trust herself when she got hyperglycemic, previous experience had told her that she could not rely on her body in this state.
So she did the only thing she could, she took a seat and continued to try to order a cab on her cellphone, struggling to press the right buttons, sometimes.
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It was late when the General showed up for the weekly staff meeting, the next day, but nobody thought anything of Elaine's absence, because she was due in court. But the General's foul mood told everybody that something wasn't right, that morning.
"Would anybody care to enlighten me as to the whereabouts of one Lieutenant jg Elaine Hodge, please!" the irritated man bellowed.
When nobody answered his question, he turned his focus to individuals.
"Commander? Colonel? She is under your joint supervision, after all…No?"
Harm and Mac could only shake their heads, they'd seen nothing of Lainey this morning.
"How about you, Lieutenant?" Cresswell turned to Andrew, who had just arrived back from court, "She is you damn 'buddy', after all!"
He was quickly running out of patience and Andrew had no answer for him.
"I received a ticked-off phone call from the chambers of Judge Harkness two minutes ago, informing me that the Lieutenant never showed up…Is that what I expect from my officers? Hmmm? Being nearly an hour late for the first court session of the day?"
Everybody uniformly shook their heads. It was gravely apparent to all of them that this was a serious situation, especially as it involved a judge with little patience for junior officers. Amongst many of the younger staff members, the man was know as 'Judge Darkness.'
"I should damn well hope not," Cresswell bellowed again, "Now, Coates, you go and try her home number again and she'd better hope I find her within the next ten minutes, otherwise she's in for a whole world of pain, dealing with Harkness and me!"
The meeting ended soon afterwards, when it became apparent that the search for Elaine was getting nowhere. The General stalked off to his office to make some calls himself, while the rest of the staff were left to either contemplate the strange occurrence or (as Harm and Mac did) make some calls of their own.
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