We should be drinkin' alone together
Drownin' the pain is better
With somebody else who got problems
We ain't gonna solve 'em
The misery loves company
Drinking Alone, Carrie Underwood
Z
"Man, I can't believe you ran from me. You weren't in trouble, all I wanted was to ask you a few questions. If you had said you didn't want to talk to me, I couldn't have made you." Brian turned around in his seat to talk to Eddy like they were old friends being driven to the bar. I watched Eddy shift uncomfortably in the back in his handcuffs.
"Man, I can't believe they gave you a partner." Eddy jerked his chin to me. O'Conner shrugged amicably.
I pulled into the FBI lot and put the car in park. O'Conner kept chatting with Eddy as he got him in the car and walked him in. I waited until they were almost at the door, before I pulled off my shoes and started walking. The heels were tiny little kitten heels and I had worn them for years at homicide. I was cursing myself for remembering I was actually doing physical police work again and not just talking to someone across a desk and staring at crime scenes.
O'Conner and I had had the agreement that I was going to watch this first interview, so I made sure they were far enough ahead that Eddy wouldn't see me run in behind them barefoot and slipped into the building, heading in to watch the interview on the camera.
"Why do you even care about stolen cars?" Eddy was asking O'Conner as the latter took a seat in his chair.
He was the stillest I'd ever seen him, zeroed in on the target, focused and serious. Eddy had started looking uncomfortable in the car, but now he looked downright scared.
"The real answer is because they crossed state lines." O'Conner shrugged. "Give me a name, Eddy. All I want is a name or a location."
"I can't, O'Conner." Eddy was looking paler by the second.
We were tracking bigger players than they thought when they put us on this case. I started searching the database for homicides at car lots and expanded the search for a few years rather than just a few months. One of the results was from Portland.
I clicked open the file, and read the name of an unsolved homicide that had been driving me crazy since I was a rookie patrol officer. I'd worked the cold case as a homicide detective, but wasn't able to find anything. I quickly hit print so that O'Conner could see what I was seeing.
Now, it made sense. I couldn't find anything because they had no ties to Portland. The crime was not nearly as sophisticated and smooth as now, probably because it was at the beginning of their career. Some pieces fit though: the smashed window in someone's office, the damage to the lockbox that held the keys, there had even been the top to a can of spray paint found. The one thing that was different was the elderly janitor's cleaning schedule.
I stuffed the printed crime scene photos in a file for O'Conner and knocked on the door. I heard the movement on the other side stop and the sound of a chair pushing back on the hard tile floor. Without waiting for him to open it, I pushed in and handed him the file.
He looked at me quizzically, but I nodded vigorously, and stepped back outside, closing the door so he could get back to work.
On the monitor screens, I saw his eyebrows raise as he looked at the grainy photographs before he looked at the camera. He took a deep breath before dropping the pictures in front of Eddy. The man shivered at the sight. O'Conner gave him a long few minutes of silence to look through them.
"You've been very helpful, Eddy. Thank you for your time. I'll take you back and let you out at home." O'Conner straightened his tie and reached in his pocket for the handcuff key.
I frowned deeply. That was a valid interrogation technique, but there was no way it would work here.
"Alberto Guadarrama!" Eddy barked in a panic. "No, you can't do that! I gave you the name, so you can't do that!"
O'Conner clapped him on the shoulder as Eddy broke down, muttering about how they would kill him and his baby son if they knew that he talked. He whimpered that he wanted out of this and had for a long time, but was afraid they'd go for his kid if he tried to leave.
"I'm not going to let them do that to you. You're going to be safe, just tell me what we're keeping you safe from."
And Eddy did.
Z
It was well past midnight by the time Eddy was booked into jail on charges that weren't at all chop shop related and wouldn't stick at all. He was tucked in safe and would remain there until tomorrow night when we raided the chop shop that was expecting four more cars coming in from Arizona. After we moved on the chop shop, Eddy could take his kid and go upstate where they'd never look for him.
These were bad guys and we couldn't do anything that would lose them or let them hurt our witness. If we screwed up, they'd be back in the wind to hurt more people and Eddy and his kid would definitely be dead.
I was sitting at my desk staring into space when O'Conner finished the last of the report and powered down his computer. He stopped awkwardly when I didn't move to get up with him. His shifty, restless stance returned now that he wasn't chasing someone.
"I thought you left half an hour ago." He finally broke the silence. I sighed deeply.
"My car won't start. I tried to jump it off and it didn't work. It's been having problems, but the shop just keeps sending it back without fixing it." I told him slowly as I played with a pen.
"Someone coming to get you?"
"Nope. I'm trying to figure out if I want to call a taxi or sleep on Penning's couch." He snorted.
"Are those your only two options?" His voice had an edge I hadn't heard before.
"No. I'm just not sure I want to go home tonight," I answered honestly.
He motioned me out the door.
I was expecting him to lead me to my car, pop the hood, work some magic, and have me on my way home, but instead, he led me to his Taurus and opened the passenger door. I thought he was about to get in and hand me the keys, especially after I almost threw up on him earlier when he was driving, but he walked around to the driver's side and started readjusting his seat.
He asked me where he was dropping me off, and then the car was eerily silent. I found myself dying for some small talk to fill the spaces. The silence gave me time to think about how much of a jerk I'd been and it didn't feel great.
The streetlights were illuminating a much more serious O'Conner. I'd seen traces of the thoughts running through his head, but it was painfully obvious now he was buried in his own head. I knew I needed to reach out to him if I wanted to save this working relationship, but I didn't know how.
"That was quite a confession." I finally choked out some words three blocks from home. O'Conner made a noise in the back of his throat. "How did you know that would work?"
"Easy. You treat them like people, they respond to you." He answered as he fixed me in a stare that was almost icy for him.
"I deserved that," I muttered as my heart twisted in my chest. I didn't think I'd ever been so uncomfortable. I started to open my mouth to tell him about what a day I'd had and how I was upset about so many things, but then I realized how small and petty it all was. He'd been treated terribly since he came home to LA and that won out.
"This is you, right?" He asked as he pulled up at my deary apartment building.
It was a seven-floor number over a laundromat, a burger place, and a dry cleaner with peeling paint and garbage all over the street. I hated this place and the thought of going in to stare at the four empty walls was not appealing to me at the moment, especially since I knew I wasn't going to sleep.
"Yeah," I answered, but I made no move to get out. "Do you want to go to a bar?" I finally blurted.
Z
"But like, really, Stasiak is nothing but a little Napoleon troll," I told him emphatically as I choked down the rest of my vodka cran.
He laughed and took a swig of his own beer. He was really letting loose this time. His smile reached his eyes and they had a new twinkle in them that was growing with every drink. I had forgotten that I hadn't eaten since breakfast and was very gone quickly.
He took me to a dive bar not too far from my place. The bartender knew him by name and brought his beer out to him without having to ask. I never would have walked in here by myself, but not that I was here, I didn't mind it.
"Napoleon troll?" He questioned.
"He's short and square and he has that raging Napoleon complex. If troll dolls had short hair, it would be him!"
"He's not that bad." O'Conner signaled the bartender to refill my glass. I should have told him no, that I was done, but I didn't. This was the first time I had cut loose in a really really long time.
"He is though, O'Conner. He hates you so much." I blurted without realizing that I should probably not bring up office politics. He grimaced at my words and downed the rest of his beer.
"Call me Brian, Beck."
"Brian," I repeated slowly. It sounded so much more personal. "I think he hates you because he's jealous."
He shrugged and we descended into awkward silence again. Eager for it to stop, I chugged more of my drink.
"Sorry. Office gossip should be forbidden in bars, but I really don't have anything else to talk about."
"What's the best thing you've done since you've moved to LA?" He took the bait and changed the subject.
"Work." He picked at his bottom lip while he thought of how to reply. "What about you? I don't think I ever would have left Miami. If I'm going to be somewhere warm and crowded I'd at least want to be on Florida beaches."
He shrugged and looked around like he was trying to find a way to answer.
"You don't have to answer that. You don't know me; I'm just drunk and talking because I haven't been drunk and with anyone to talk to in a while. Do you know what it's like-" My phone buzzed and I flipped it over to see Marcus on my caller ID. I dropped my phone on the bar. "My ex-fiance is drunk calling to tell me he has a new girlfriend so I 'don't have to find out on social media' like I care."
"Fiance?" Brian grinned, looking much more comfortable now that the conversation had shifted to my woes instead of his.
"He wouldn't move with me. He was tired of my career being the focus which is bullshit because I put up with him and his work through med school, which was terrible, by the way. He was never home and if he was, he was talking about how he was God's gift to the people he was working on. I think he was upset that I had a dream that wasn't him." Brian nodded sagely, twirling my buzzing phone around the table with his finger. "I grew up with nothing and nobody and had to work my way up from nothing and I don't think he ever respected me for it. That makes that whole phone call thing so much worse. I thought I did this on my own."
"Fiance's a trust fund baby." Brian filled in.
"Trust fund baby," I confirmed. "His family freaking hated me. They had a problem with my cop salary mingling with his old money. They were always calling me impersonal and aggressive and fussing about my masculine job and clothes."
Brian smile got a little thin as he stared at one of the neon signs hanging on the wall of the dark bar. He took a big, deep steadying breath and I knew I wasn't going to like what he had to say. I motioned for him to continue anyway.
"You are a little aggressive, which can be a good thing, but you need to step back. A lot." He looked sheepishly at the table, and then back up at me. "Your planner looks like it belongs to a serial killer."
I was prepared to be upset about the criticism, but that made me laugh. It made me laugh so hard that the bartender looked up from cutting lemons and I knew I had just been cut off.
"Fucking seriously, Brian? I invite you into my home and you dig through all my shit. It took me less than three minutes to change, what else did you find?" I had wanted to sound threatening, but everything was wavy and I knew I was too far gone to be any kind of angry.
"God, those words don't sound right in your mouth. It was open!" He defended. "You have your daily workouts blocked off along with how much you have budgeted to spend on lunch that day. Like, that's insane. You also didn't have anything that wasn't work-related on it. You can't do that in this profession. If you don't build something in your life that isn't work, you will be in so much mental trouble later."
"You're not telling me anything I'm not starting to realize myself." I tossed back the last of my vodka cran. "I hate this place so much I haven't tried to branch out. And I think I fucked things up at work by going in trying to be a bigshot right off the bat, especially when I everybody knew I didn't get the job on my own. And everyone-absolutely everyone knew that but me; I asked around. Also, I'll have you know that I'm being such a tightwad because I'm trying to buy a car."
"You can get past it. You just need to tone it down and offer some olive branches, shit like that." He chided gently. I was beginning to like his dad advice when it wasn't covering pity.
"What do you think I'm doing now?" I blurted, not realizing the gravity of my words.
We fell into a silence that for once, was easy. The bartender came over offered Brian one more before last call, but he waved him off. Instead, we handed over the cash to settle up.
"What kind of car?" Brian asked.
"I don't know yet. I've been drooling over some classic cars on eBay, but I can't drive a stick and I can't keep up with maintenance." He laughed heartily.
"You can't work with me and not be able to drive. The second this case is over, we are fixing that." His fingers drummed the table excitedly.
"First we need to have them fix my FBI car so I can get to work." I reminded.
"I'll pick you up tomorrow." He offered. "It'll be easier anyway. We need to talk about how to handle investigations. I'm not trusting Stasiak's teaching skills."
"You know, Brian," I told him as I got my change back from the bartender. "I think I'd like that."