06.02 - On The Double
When high school pranks reveal something more insidious, it's a case for Major Crimes. With a little assist from ETF.
Stretching over the bed, Gail felt her lower back pop. Finally. She sighed and reached up to toy with Holly's hair. Her wife exhaled a soft laugh and nestled closer to Gail's shoulder.
In the past, Gail had worried when people didn't talk a little after sex. Not all the time, but when she'd been in serious relationships, she expected something. Maybe just a comment about how the sex had been good, about how they felt physically.
Things were different when it came to Holly, who admittedly had taught her quite a lot about her own body and sex. From their first time, Holly had demonstrated how a person properly cared for one's partner, focused on them, and didn't detract at all from one's own pleasure. Basically, lesbian sex was awesome.
Even now, after (cough) thirty odd years, the sex was still awesome. It wasn't always perfect, it was often messy and there were giggles and mistakes and once a bloody nose. But the sex was good because they were compatible, they tried, and they listened.
Compatibility was about so much more than just the instant meshing of bodies. It was about a groove people fell in when they just got each other. Holly got her, so so well. Holly understood what Gail meant when she said nothing, or something. And Gail found she could read Holly better than other people.
Maybe it was just because she wanted to. Maybe their connection was because they both wanted it so badly, they worked for it. Wasn't that how love was supposed to be? Wanting to be with a person enough that they were both willing to change and shape themselves into what the other needed? Not wanted. Needed.
"You're thinking very loud," mumbled Holly, her voice a little dreamy.
"I'm thinking you're awesome."
Her wife laughed a little and kissed Gail's collarbone. "Thank you." Then she pressed her cheek to Gail's shoulder and rubbed into it a little.
Holly nearly always did that. She smeared her face against Gail's skin after sex. Once Gail had asked why, curious, and Holly admitted she liked the smell of them. It was incredibly nerdy, a little gross, and completely Holly. Gail loved it.
"I'd do anything for you," said Gail softly.
"Hm. Quiet." Holly practically nestled down. She wouldn't sleep, not really, but she would relax and revel in the sensation of their closeness for a while.
Gail swept Holly's hair off the back of her neck, letting the fan cool them both off. "What time is it?"
"No glasses," said Holly, and she yawned.
Gail chuckled and craned her neck. Nope. Couldn't see it. She could see the window. The sun was still up, but in summer that could mean it was 8 at night. Well. Not like they had anywhere to be or anything to do.
The evening had been uneventful, in as much as watching rookies get initiated into Fifteen was a non-event. Vivian had been there, solo since Jamie was working, as had Traci. Solo for a different reason. Steve was absolutely avoiding her. She didn't blame him. He was still mad about the whole part where she told him to get his head on straight.
Thankfully, Traci agreed with her, and didn't press the matter. She just said Steve did need help. Gail did worry it meant her brother and best friend might divorce though. It was hard to tell how far those things went. Secrets and not dealing with shit was how their parents had ended. And then Bill had died alone, without even pictures of Gail or Steve in the house.
She had been so mad at him for that. God damned asshole. And then. Then she'd found his storage locker and there was an album of news clippings and photos. Of her. Just her. No Steve, no Holly, and god knew no Vivian. It freaked Gail the fuck out. Her father had known everything about her professional life and never said a word to her.
All because she married a woman.
"Stop thinking so loud," muttered Holly, and she reached up to press a finger to Gail's mouth.
"Sorry."
Sometimes turning her brain off was difficult. Once she was on the train of her idiot Peck family, it was impossible. Was treating her brother with tough love the same painful things her father had done all their life? God, she'd slapped Steve once, not knowing their grandfather had done the same.
"You're not your father," Holly said, punctuating it with a yawn.
And somehow Holly always knew where her brain had gone.
"What if it's not helping him?"
Holly sighed and rolled off Gail, stretching. "It's not like a math problem." With a deep yawn, Holly got out of bed. "You're doing the best you can. What we came up with in session, right?"
They had talked over the approach, with Vivian included, in a therapist session. Gail felt so far out of her depth that she knew she needed the help. The support of someone whose job it was to peal back the onion layers of the mind. Her daughter came along, explaining in broad terms that she'd talked to Jason about the matter.
Gail felt horrible about that. She'd not noticed the signs of Jason being abused by his wife. Neither had Holly, though the pathologist had pointed out it was so far outside of her wheelhouse, it was logical. And yet, Gail felt gutted.
"I don't like it," she complained.
"I'm just thankful I have a solid ego." Holly reached up and stretched, before strolling into the bathroom. Naked.
Gail rolled her eyes. After a quarter century, she could tell when Holly was actually hurt and when she was just poking Gail for fun. Still. "Clearly you need to deliver a better orgasm so I don't think about anything," she retorted.
"Challenge accepted. What are you wearing tomorrow?"
Tomorrow. Tomorrow was an date night. "The navy blue sheath dress."
Holly was silent for a moment, and then the shower turned on. "I'm gay, Gail."
And Gail laughed. Her wife was distracted just by thinking about Gail dressing up.
"Boom Peck, how fast can you break into a locker?"
Vivian blinked and looked up from her desk. She'd been filing a report on a petty theft she'd caught the day before. Catching the perp red-handed had made it easier, but she still had to file reports. That always took forever. So Sgt. Suan asking her a random question was a welcome respite.
"Do I get to drill a hole?"
"No." Sabrina smirked at her.
"One of ours? About 2 minutes."
Sabrina blinked. "Okay that is absolutely terrifying."
"We have standard locks," explained Vivian. "They all have a master key in case one of us gets hurt and we have to pop a locker. That means the vulnerable access point would be where we insert the key. And I can pick most locks of that size in under 2 minutes."
Her friend and now boss laughed. "Okay. I actually was thinking high school locks."
"What like cheap padlocks? Gimme a soda can and sixty seconds. Bike locks too, just need a ballpoint pen." She shrugged. "Why?"
"We have a report of some kids doing it in under thirty seconds."
Vivian blinked and then nodded. "Oh sure, you can program a handheld computer, attach an old sewing machine motor, and run the numbers. I made one of those in junior high."
"I shudder to think what growing up Peck did for you," grumbled Sabrina. "How big are those?"
Vivian held her hands up, about the size of a pint of ice cream. "About like so when I was a kid. It's been fifteen years, though, so I bet we can make 'em smaller."
"Would ya?"
Would she? Vivian stared at Sabrina. "You want me to make a motorized combo solver? Not just use the ones we have?"
"We need a better idea of what a high schooler is capable of."
That was an interesting challenge. "Okay. Mission parameters?"
Sabrina smirked. "You're just a pest, aren't you? Check your email."
"Do I get to finish my report?"
Of course she did. And it was a day of collecting data before she was able to present herself to the crime lab with a list and a requisition order. To be honest, she was actually impressed with what people had access to in a school. When she'd been in high school, Gail had made her promise never to use her skills to gain access to places illegally.
That hadn't stopped her from a side gig of unlocking things for classmates. At $20 a popped lock, she was able to get her parents a nice Christmas gift that year, and not beg for gas money. Naturally Gail figured it out, but only checked that Vivian was restricting her unlocking antics to legit owners.
Sometimes Vivian wondered if Holly knew, or just thought Vivian had a very straight laced high school career. Well. Vivian did spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to draw attention to herself. So there was that.
People who broke into lockers in under half a second were an odd mix. No doubt they'd like to remain unknown. Vivian recalled the machines that had been built to autocrack locks, and how they were not particularly difficult to circumvent. Her current gym lock was, in fact, resistant to that specific attack.
A school locker, on the other hand, would not be. The school those kids went to did not spend a great deal of money on the privacy of the students. Truth told, no school did. If a student didn't want their personal effects stolen, they either didn't bring them to school or they didn't leave things in lockers.
So students who used school supplies and resources to crack into student lockers. The device would have to be small, and it wouldn't be able to hook into a loop like a master lock. It was the dial itself that was lifted up in that case. So the traditional device was no good. Vivian blew up the photos of the lock and locker, making notes of the scratches.
After all, she was going to have to give the lab some options if she expected this project to go smoothly.
"You're what?" Ananda eyed her curiously when she presented the list.
"Building an automated lock combination solver."
The scientist frowned. "Don't you have those?"
"A few," admitted Vivian. "But I'm meant to reproduce what a high schooler could do."
That won her an actual scowl. "How does using the resources of a crime lab do that?"
And Vivian grinned ear to ear. "I need a 3d printer, like they have at school."
"Oh." Ananda's eyes widened. "Dr. Stewart is going to be delighted."
They watched the printer slowly spool the thread, creating a cradle to hold the dial of a lock. "It's not strong enough," said Holly, sipping her tea. Also she didn't see how that particular shape would work.
"It's the only fibres the school has," replied Vivian.
Hrmph. "Wouldn't the school miss the supplies? It's not like they have a lot of cash."
"That's why we're making it with a bunch of little parts," explained the police officer. Vivian grinned. "See, I built this using parts the classes and labs and extra curriculars make for their projects. Including a few off cuts. This, for example, is based on the AP physics class project for the Bernoulli principal. The device itself isn't the goal, it's that inside bit."
Holly eyed her daughter and then tapped up the design again on the screen. Okay, she could visualize that. "This would take them months to do right."
"Not if they dumpster dived."
"Gross, but believable," she allowed. "You really thought all this through in 24 hours?"
"Closer to 36 but yes," said Vivian, sheepishly.
Holly hid her smile behind her tea mug. "It'll be the rest of today for this to print. You should go back to the station."
Vivian sighed deeply. "Alright. I know." But she still walked over to the lab tech and went over the orders of creation, and that each finished piece should be put in a box for Vivian to mess with.
It was adorable.
"My god, I forget she's yours too until she does that," grumbled Wayne from behind her.
"It's weird seeing a cop like that," agreed Pete. "I've only seen a couple cops act like that."
"Oh? Gail and who else?"
"Price. The little one?" Holly glanced over and saw Pete hold his hand out to Chloe's height. "She's incredibly weird, but brilliant. I quite like her."
Good. More people should like Chloe, in Holly's opinion. "If we are done remarking on how my daughter takes after me," she said, dryly, "maybe you can all get back to work?"
Pete looked chagrined, while Wayne looked impudent. "We finished the work on the dead bowler," explained Pete, holding out a tablet. "You'll want to read it."
That they'd come down looking for her was telling.
Holly sighed and put her tea down. The men said nothing and waited for her to read. It had seemed like a simple, innocuous case of accidental homicide. A drunk man broke into a bowling alley and was crushed by the pin setter in the morning. It was only noticed when the operator went to look at why it was stuck, and a hand fell on his face.
Privately Holly had enjoyed a good laugh at the mental image.
A person didn't survive near forty years in her job without developing a protective shield of morbid humour. And finding someone to laugh at the horrible things with was probably a large part of her longevity and relative sanity.
Holly blinked at the lab results. "He was sober?"
"All the alcohol was poured on him," said Pete.
Beside him, Wayne continued. "Poured through the top of the pin setting machine."
She paused to visualize the words. "So while he was trapped, someone poured alcohol on him... but there was some in his stomach— Oh!"
That was a horrible mental image. The man's stomach had been cut open by the pin setter, which meant for any alcohol to be in his stomach, it would have to have been poured on him post mortem. Eww.
Still she asked to be certain, "There was nothing when you ran his gut?"
Both men shook their heads.
Alright. She tapped a finger on the edge of the tablet. "A cover up. Of what."
Holly scrolled down. No drugs or alcohol in his blood work. Pete had run that twice, just in case the first run had been contaminated. Either way, the alcohol found 'in' the blood was not as it would be when absorbed by ingestion anyway. Was it a cover up for a found dead body, or was the body stashed and covered up to hide the kill?
She looked at the wounds and the blood patterns. The body didn't bleed out in the pins, there wasn't enough seepage. However the body had bled out when crushed, which meant there had been enough blood left in the body. Okay. That made some sense.
However. If the body hadn't been ... opened until the pin setter crushed it. Then the alcohol would have been poured after the fact. After the employee screamed. And he hadn't smelled of alcohol. Which meant the body had been mostly damaged before.
Ah. There it was.
"What looks like the injuries?" She handed the tablet back.
Wayne looked confounded. "What looks like?"
"Yes," said Holly calmly. "What else causes injuries that would be similar in appearance to that of the pin crusher?"
"A trash compactor?" Wayne looked at Pete.
Pete grinned. "Too Zebra. A car accident. Look at his shins again."
Holding his hands up, Wayne shook his head. "I'm the lab guy, you're the cutting bodies open guy." But then. "It was a cover up for a car accident?"
"Probably." Holly shrugged. "Talk to the detectives about that. They'll want to know the height of impact, if his clothes were changed, etc. have fun." She waved a hand and smiled as her minions walked off.
Behind her, the printer tech giggled.
From that youngster's point of view, this all had to be hilarious. A silver haired chief of the building going from childlike delight to crime solving genius in the span of a half hour. Oh yes, Holly could see the amusement.
"Always love what you do," she advised the tech.
"Because you'll never work a day in your life?"
Holly snorted. "God no. This is work. But I love every bit of it. That's why I keep coming back."
And it was true.
Listening to the tale of how Holly had brainstormed the solution to the crime was delightful.
It said something about their relationship that Gail was not only willing to but wanted to listen to her wife go on and on about science. She'd always wanted to listen to Holly though, even way back when ... heh.
"Am I boring you, Mrs. Peck?" Holly sounded more amused than annoyed.
Gail shook her head and ran the last of the mushrooms through the mandolin. "Not at all, Holly. Not ever."
Holly snorted. "Never?"
"Not even when we were just friends," Gail said confidently. She carefully placed the mushrooms onto the chicken and covered the pan. Glancing in the window, she caught Holly's expression of disbelief. "Set the oven please."
Her wife rolled her eyes, but set the heat. "Really, Gail. I annoyed the hell out of you."
"No, you confused the hell out of me," corrected Gail. "I didn't know what to make of you, and the fact that I liked listening to you babble made it worse. Didn't know what the hell it meant."
Holly made a thoughtful noise and then held a hand out. Gail grinned and took the hand, pulling her wife towards her. "I can't ever tell when you're joking," murmured Holly, kissing Gail softly.
"About loving you? Very rarely." Gail closed her eyes and pulled Holly into a hug, holding her close. "You were really confusing, though."
Muffling a laugh into Gail's shoulder, Holly kissed her there. "Yeah? Because you liked my rambling."
"I liked all of you. And I was at that point where I hated everyone." Gail paused. "You know, I told the department shrink I wasn't changing teams."
That got a full laugh from Holly. "How'd that work out for you?"
"Meh. It's okay."
Holly laughed again and poked Gail's ribs. "You're an asshole."
"Your asshole." She startled as her wrist buzzed. "Crap." It was Trullijo.
"Go on, I'll put dinner in." Holly patted Gail's shoulders and let go.
Gail pecked Holly's cheek and schooled her phone up. "Make a salad please." She tapped the phone. "Peck. Whatcha got?"
With a brief hesitation, Trullijo cleared her throat. "You remember the lock mystery?"
Locks? Oh right, Holly and Vivian had been on about that. "Sure, ETF has one of their bomb idiots building a mechanical turk." From the fridge, she heard Holly's snort of a laugh. "But it's not done yet. They won't have the parts until day after tomorrow. Then they have to build based on the marks. They said Monday at the soonest."
"I think we can make their job easier."
Gail blinked. The only way that could be was if they found the device. At a private high school. At night. "Ah shit, who's dead?"
"Teacher."
That was somewhat better, though not by much. "And the teacher has the device?"
"It was in his office."
Gail pursed her lips. "It could just be like ETF's doing, making a similar one."
She could hear Trullijo's under the breath curse. "Right. Good point."
Gail smirked. It was safe, since Trullijo couldn't see her. "Dead teacher plus device. Loop in ETF. Is there anything else I should know?"
There was another hesitation. "Condom in the trash and a broken safe."
Okay, that was unexpected. "Romance gone wrong." Gail was already crafting a storyline. A teacher found the device, probably ironically in someone's locker. Male teacher. Maybe banged whomever was working with him. Lover turns traitor and kills. "What's the presumed COD?"
"Gunshot to the head."
"Huh." Again, not something Gail expected to hear. "And the gun?"
"In his car, of all places. Assuming the field GSR test was correct."
Gail smirked again. "I'll tell Wanda you doubted her genius." Five or six years ago, Wanda had improved a field test to a 75% accuracy rate, matching the chemical signature on a gun with that of the residue on the victim. "Wait, there's GSR on the vic?"
"Stippling and everything. Someone held a gun to his head. Trace is checking the barrel for trace."
"Good old Locard and his snarky Principal." Gail sighed. "Alright. Keep me in the loop. And tell the Ds this is ours."
"Price is gonna be pissed."
"Hey, it's a weird crime. It's us. Try to get some rest tonight, Mari."
They hung up and Gail frowned.
The case had been amusing more than annoying up until now. She had presumed that the perpetrators were students, popping lockers for fun. After all, Gail and Steve had done that while growing up. Gail in particular had picked locks and taken photos of the interiors, slipping them back to the owners.
Okay, she'd been a little shit at fourteen through twenty four. The point, however, was that kids got into kind of crap all the damn time. They poked their noses where they didn't belong. A kid would build a device to unlock lockers in 90 seconds because they wouldn't have the leisure time of after school at night.
No, Gail was certain it was students. Which tweaked her theory. A teacher caught the student? Or found the device. Then had sex with someone, possibly a student (please, please not), and was murdered (maybe by a parent). Ugh.
A pair of hands touched her back and then oozed around, pulling her into a hug. Holly didn't say anything, just rested her cheek on Gail's shoulder. Gail sighed and covered Holly's hands with one of her own.
"The lock breaking case is now a murder."
Her wife made an unhappy noise. "Well shit." Holly's weight leaned pleasantly against Gail's back. "Kid or adult?"
"Adult, thank god."
"Has it ever occurred to you that we might be too inured to this life?"
"Only days that start with a sunrise or end with a sunset," admitted Gail. "Sex was involved."
Her wife tensed a little. "I hate people."
"Me too."
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, as they so often did. Holly wasn't people. She wasn't a normal person. She was Gail's person, though. She understood Gail's moods, put up with some and pushed back on others. And she had the same disdain for people.
Holly squeezed her gently. "Do you need to go in?"
"No. It's major, but not critical."
"How about I distract you with food and that new musical series." Holly kissed her shoulder again and nudged Gail towards the food. "You think that alto is cute."
Gail smirked. "She looks like you, only more curvy."
"I'll take that as a compliment," said Holly with a laugh.
"It's over engineered," Vivian complained.
The device would certainly work, though. It was just far, far more complicated then it needed to be, in any sense of the word. It was clunky and the program was rough. While the system worked, it was incredibly inefficient. There were microseconds of lost time in the calculations as well as the delay of execution. Which in turn was caused by the extra hardware that made the dial spin slower than it could.
It was amateurish.
But to be fair, at fourteen she would not have been clever enough to automate it.
"That means she's impressed," said Sabrina, knowingly.
Vivian rolled her eyes and turned the device over. "We can get the number of times it's run, probably. If we're lucky, they had it save all the combinations, and we could reverse engineer that to figure out what locks they broke into."
Behind her, Mel made a confused noise. "Is there a camera or something? How would you know what lockers?"
"I wouldn't, not by computer at least." She turned the device around and looked up at Wayne. "I'm good to disassemble?"
The lab head nodded. "It's EDU land so knock yourself out. Just don't blow my lab up."
"Hah, your boss would never let me live it down." Vivian easily removed the computer from the motor and put it to the side.
Mel cleared her throat. "If not by computer, then how?"
It took a second for Vivian to rewind the conversation. "Oh, Mechanical Turk."
Before Mel could ask for an elaboration, Wayne helpfully explained. "There was an old chess playing 'computer' called the Turk. It was a wooden model of a Turkish man, installed in a giant cabinet filled with a computer."
"Wooden? Computer?" Mel sounded very confused. "When the hell was this?"
"1770."
The room went quiet. Or at least Vivian's half did. She grinned. "It was a fake, Mel. There was a chess master on the inside."
"Jesus crap," Mel swore inelegantly. "They shoved a guy inside a cabinet to ... what, fool people at chess?"
"More or less," replied Wayne. "No one knows for certain the real motivations, or precisely how it was done. The Turk was lost in a fire in ... 1850 something. It's one of the best kept con-jobs out there."
Mel was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, "So what's that to do with Vivian's Mechanical Turk? Is it a con job?"
"Other way," said Vivian, and she gently removed the spinner from the motor.
"The concept is pretend computers," Wayne explained. "A Mechanical Turk is the concept of humans doing the work of computers, for tasks that aren't sufficiently automated yet. I'm guessing Peck wants to hand over all the combinations to a bunch of rookies and make them test all of the lockers?"
"That's evil," said Mel.
"That's brilliant," said Sue.
Vivian snorted. "I'm not that much of an ass, Wayne." She held up the lock. "See the scarring? It's caused by this gripper on the spinner." She picked up the spinner with her other hand. "Just like marks from a barrel."
"How unique?" Wayne pulled on gloves and sat across from her, taking the two items to inspect under his microscope.
"My samples are uploaded. I used the same grade of thread they did, but our printer is miles better, and it's well maintained. There are obvious discrepancies." Vivian carefully disassembled the next piece, the arm of the rotating engine. She put it under the box camera, which dear god, saved so much time. It automagically took a photo, date and time stamped it, and used the specs for meta data she'd already entered at the beginning.
How she loved technology.
Science, practical, physical, ephemeral, theoretical, or what ever else a person could have, was fun. It challenged the mind, twisted the strings of logic, and made its adherents question everything. The answers to everything were found in science, in never ending, always progressing, steps of theory and experiment and lessons and documentation. What was truth two hundred years ago was no longer.
When Vivian had been a girl, Holly had told her about the people who learned to print the inside of nitrile gloves. First doctors had used them for protection, and forensic scientists like herself for lowering the risk of cross contamination. Then the powder on the gloves had destroyed a case, so they moved to new gloves.
But in the meantime, criminals had caught on to the use and adopted it themselves. Since so had many normal civilians, any minute trace had to be brand matched to the lab processing the scene and the ones processing the evidence. Cases took longer, and often viable paths of conjecture had to be dismissed because of reasonable doubt.
Then it finally happened. Criminals left gloves that matched, exactly, the ones used by the crime scene forensics teams, in the locations of the crimes. The material didn't retain enough epithelial trace to produce reliable DNA results, but the group involved were certain it wasn't their mistake.
An entire case, a series of assaults, hinged on a pair of gloves that didn't make any sense. A pair of purple, nitrile, gloves that had clearly been left intentionally. The police were resigned to having to give up, no evidence at all. The lab too was crippled, shouldering the guilt and agony of the assumption of this all being their fault.
It wasn't. An old lab tech, a man a million years old, and his intern saved them all. They'd gone out to drink their sorrows down, swallow the depression of failure with the acrid bite of cheap whisky. Between rounds, the intern had postulated that all they needed to do was prove the glove wasn't theirs. Of course that had proven impossible thus far. It matched the sort their lab used, down to the batch of material. It was a common size many of the techs used. It was a lost cause.
But then the old man, who had seen the progression of gloves first hand, remembered something. The gloves stretched, but they always left evidence of stretching. Stretch marks. And those gloves had borne those marks. Which meant someone had worn too-small gloves. A tech would never. That would risk a split, which could cross-contaminate evidence. Or worse. But a criminal may not have those options. And a tight glove would push more on the finger tips. And cause the hand to sweat off precious oils.
The next morning, sober as a judge, the old man meticulously flipped the glove inside out, placed it on a sanitized dummy's hand, and lifted prints.
Advances in both glove material and processing had turned that risky move into a commonplace one. But at the time, what if he'd destroyed the only evidence they'd had? What if he'd been wrong and there were no prints? What if the prints had not been in the system?
It was in those leaps of inspiration that geniuses were made.
And it was in learned about the past, understanding the history of science and technology, that a person gained the experience to recognize the next moment.
"I have a probable print and a, ah, reddish brown stain," said Vivian, as she looked at the jigsaw puzzle of a piece.
Wayne reached over. "Print please."
She handed over the item. "I speculate someone picked up the plastic before it fully cooled, removing the extra stabilizing pieces."
"Yeah, that looks about right," said Wayne, and he slid the piece under his microscope. "Does that school print all the students?"
Vivian shrugged. "Dunno. It's not en vogue at the moment." Printing kids went in and out of style fairly regularly. Gail likened it to bell bottoms.
"It's probably useless," Wayne pointed out. "I'll run it, but don't expect to find your Moriarty."
"Please," said Vivian with a laugh. "This isn't even my Piccadilly."
"I'll pretend I understood any of that," muttered Sabrina.
"Moriarty is Sherlock Holmes' arch nemesis. Though I'd argue it's Irene Adler," said Mel. "Piccadilly is from that awesome series from the UK a couple years back, where they were tracking down a serial killer, caught a creeper by accident who called himself the Great Piccadilly. He thought he was the hero's nemesis, but he wasn't."
Vivian looked up. "It was a really great series," she remarked. "The Circus. You can catch it on streaming."
Sabrina looked from Mel to Vivian and back again. "I take back everything I said about you two not being good partners." Then she pointed at Vivian. "You don't watch TV!"
"You've met my mothers," she drawled in reply. "Gail thinks those are comedies." From the other side of the room, someone snickered. "Anyway, I don't watch TV that doesn't have decent representation. Or kills off queers."
"Specific and yet astoundingly apropos for you," Sabrina said, decisively. "What about the blood?"
Vivian smirked. "It looks like a palm or finger got pinched putting the device together. Pretty common occurrence."
"Sure it's not just a cut from separating?"
"Yeah, it's on both sides, with clear blood flow patterns." She glanced at Wayne who was waiting, expectantly. Vivian handed the items over and he placed them under his 'scope again. "Dr. Davies, that's the last for me. May I copy the software off the drive?"
It took a moment for Wayne to look up at her. "Yeah. Yeah, Archie in the AV lab can help. Well. Supervise. You're probably better than he is."
"All this time and you still don't have a permanent computer forensics expert?" Vivian smirked. Since Holly had worked for both city and territory for, basically, forever, Toronto had simply made use of the territory expert. That meant anything beyond basic copying had to be done under the auspices of the Territory. It was always a pain, if on listened to Gail tell about it.
"Dr. Celeste Alcock starts next month," replied Wayne, and the room went silent.
Finally Mel said what they were all thinking. "That's a hell of a name."
Wayne chuckled. "Be that as it may. No more time sharing with the Territory."
"Dr. Stewart must be ecstatic."
"Eh, it means we don't get a replacement for Kincaid," said Wayne, a little ruefully. "Can't have everything."
Both Sabrina and Mel shifted their weight, clearly uncomfortable. Vivian had already talked about it, a lot, with her mothers. The issue was, per usual, budget. An unavoidable issue. "But hey you all passed your lie detector tests," she quipped.
That broke the tension as most everyone in the room laughed. Between cops and scientists, they all knew how much hokum a lie detector was.
Vivian grinned. Good. Now to play with technology.
Holly mulled the question over for a long time. At least, it felt like a long time. "No," she finally said.
Her therapist looked surprised. "No?"
"No." Holly smiled. "I don't think Vivian's wasting her potential at all. In fact, maybe she's the future I always wanted."
The other doctor laughed softly. "A science cop?"
"Why not? Isn't it just another specialist?"
"I think it more likely she's an aberration."
"Ah well," said Holly and she sighed deeply. "She's happy. She's excelling at her work. She likes it. I think in a lot of ways, she's finally figured out how to be the her she wanted to be."
The therapist smiled. "That sounds nice. So the whole birthday incident seems to have blown over?"
Now she winced. "Well. That depends on how you view systemic emotional domestic abuse by ones wife."
"Oh." That was all he said. Just the word, expressing his shock. "Well. Do I need to file anything for you?"
"No. Thank you." Holly leaned back. The case, such as it was, was Vivian's and hers alone at the moment.
As a family they'd talked about the situation, in full, and the available, acceptable, approaches, with Jamie present. Gail, a realist and someone who'd seen a million problems like that, was adamant that the only way it would work was if the victim was willing to leave. It was clear Jason was not. He stoically shouldered the burden of his wife and did his best to help her.
If it had been Holly and Gail, she'd had checked Gail into a clinic in ten minutes. Then again, Gail would have done it herself. She was too self aware and concerned with the way Holly felt. And Vivian, well, she did have a tendency to push people away when she hurt. That wasn't at all the same thing. Jamie ... to be fair, Holly had never actually seen Jamie angry and had no idea. But if she had to trust anyone to protect themselves from a violent or emotionally abusive partner, it would be Vivian.
And that in and of itself was tragic.
Finally, Jamie had explained why she'd moved out as a teen. Her mother's unpredictable nature was too much to bear. And yes, she knew her mother screamed at her father, called him names, but there had never been an inkling of violence except twice.
Once, when Jamie was a baby, her father slapped her mother, and Angela broke his leg in retaliation. The second time, though, was the moment Jamie realized there was something wrong with her mother. That Angela was unbalanced. That she couldn't control herself.
That was after Jason's jail stay. Before then, there had been no signs that anyone seemed to be aware of. But now there was, and if Angela stayed on her medication, she did better. It wasn't perfect, a fact Holly understood too clearly. Science of the mind wasn't like science of the body, even though it should be. It was all chemicals and neurotransmitters and why the hell didn't it play by the same rules as everything else?
Well. Neither did the rest of science, to be honest. It wasn't a perfect system. That's why experimenting was a thing. It was just harder to convince humans they should be experimented on in order to survive.
Holly looked up at the ceiling. "He won't leave her, and she won't get the help she needs. Most of the time, she's fine, but ..."
"Just emotional?"
"Apparently. The one time she hit him, it was retaliation for him hitting her. He wasn't ... he was not a good man when he was younger."
"But you think he is now?"
"I think he understands what he can lose."
"And he's decided the pain of caring for someone he loves, who hurts herself and those she loves, is worth it?"
"Apparently."
The therapist was silent for a moment. "You were prepared to lose Gail. More than once. Because of who she is."
Holly flinched. "Worrying my wife will die at the hands of a bomber or terrorists or anti-royalists or some nutjob with a gun and a vendetta is not the same thing."
"And yet, she knows it hurts you. And she's somewhat incapable of being anything other than this."
"I'm aware of the parallels," said Holly, peevishly. "Gail is too, though. And she tries."
"And she still steps in front of danger to protect people."
Ugh. "I hate when you're smart."
"Thank you."
She closed her eyes. "Gail doesn't do it to hurt, or because she can't control herself. She does it because she hurts, because she can't not help. Because she cares so damn much she has to. Angela... Angela lashes out because she's unbalanced, and there really is a difference. Gail knows exactly what she's doing, and she's willing to take the risks because someone has to."
Holly sighed and opened her eyes. "And yes, I do love her because she does that. It's the part I love most of all. That she ... she just does."
It was difficult not to giggle as Vivian popped the locker faster than the devices on either side of her.
The student beside Gail gaped. "Holy crap, you're amazing!"
"Practice, kid." Vivian smirked and opened the door.
"Don't give them ideas," warned Gail. Vivian rolled her eyes, but stepped back to allow the crime scene photographer to take a picture. "You're that sure it's not rigged?"
Her daughter nodded. "Now that we know what Gilkey here was after, yes. The only thing I might worry about is a pipe bomb or a smoking bong."
The student paled. "Uh. My name is Wu, ma'am."
Taking pity, Gail explained. "Gilkey is John Charles Gilkey. A prolific book and document thief. He stole over $200k worth, served 18 months in San Quentin in the States. Got out and did it again 6 years later."
"Wow. What was he doing it for?"
"Stupid personal ones," said Vivian. "Thought it made him seem better off."
The kid's face fell. "Really? But you can find out anything over the Internet."
The Pecks shared a look of amusement. "It was about the possession, not the information," Gail said. "What was, ah, your excuse again?"
Wu blushed. "Because ... I could?"
"Mallory," said Vivian and Gail as one, thinking of the book Mallory's Oracle. The rest of the series never held up to the start, which was so often the case. The Primal Fear series was a great example of that.
"How much does blackmail like that go for anyway?" Gail canted her head and looked at the student.
Because that had been the end goal. At first, Wu had been popping lockers to see if it was possible. Then there was automation, which Vivian was faster than, but she was a Peck and that was expected. From automation, Wu had gone into a self-imposed challenge. How many lockers could a person pop in the time it took a teacher to walk rounds.
The answer was 17, and it might have been more, but Wu stumbled across a love letter. Thank god from one student to another. That birthed the brilliant idea to steal secrets.
Gail felt there had to be a cadre of students involved, but so far Wu wasn't giving anyone up. It didn't really matter to Gail all that much. Wu was the one who'd found the teacher, the dead one, was embezzling, after all.
"Not that much," admitted Wu. "It was mostly for, y'know, prestige? And to get the jocks off my back."
"Heard that," muttered Haversham, the trace tech. Gail still thought of him as Holly's baby lab guy, but he was rising to the challenge of the whole Ben Kincaid incident.
Vivian snorted. "Some things never change." Then she gestured for Gail. "Kid's spot on, though. Check it out."
Gail leaned and frowned. "This is just dumb." It was, too. Who the hell used an empty locker to store embezzlement papers? "Why the hell didn't he move it after you caught him?"
Young Wu looked perplexed. "I don't know, ma'am?"
Sotto voce, Vivian offered advice. "Never phrase that as a question."
Wu startled. "Oh. I. Ah. I don't know."
"Really? You're coaching the kid for court already?" Gail was amused, though, and Vivian just smiled. "Tell me again what happened the night you were caught?"
Wu nodded. "It was during the lower school dance. I went to pop these lockers, and Mr. Lorick caught me. He took the, um, device, made me demonstrate, and then told me to go back to the dance and he'd call my parents on Monday." Wu paused. "And then, y'know, nothing happened."
Nothing because Chuck Lorick was dead on Tuesday night. Though that didn't explain why he'd not called anyone on Monday.
Chuck. What grown ass man went by Chuck? Also why was Chuck a diminutive of Charles? Language was weird.
Gail didn't ask that. Instead, she asked, "What was your history with Lorick?"
"Nothing? I have Ms. Gallagher for math."
Gail smirked a little. Kids could be so direct sometimes. People came in two flavours when questioned by the police. Either they blabbed everything or they were deucedly literal. Well. Gail's gut said this kid was innocent. "And how many lockers did you get through?"
Wu pointed to the one Vivian had opened. "That was the last."
Speaking up, Vivian gestured with Wu's device. "No one used this after nine PM Sunday."
That surprised the kid. "You can tell that? I disabled logging."
"System logs," explained Vivian. "Also this locker was definitely opened by the other device."
Other. Gail eyed her daughter. They had the one device that had been found in the office with the dead teacher. Chuck. What 'other' device was Vivian talking about? Well. Gail was not about to reveal she had no idea what the kid was on about. "How can you tell?"
"The marks on the dial and the locker door. See?" Vivian pointed at the locker and a pair of infinitesimal scratches.
Gail had to squint to see anything at all, and even then it just looked like normal scuffing. "Are you sure?" Perhaps taking pity on her, Haversham turned his camera to Gail and showed a zoomed in photo of the marks. "Oh. Okay."
At least Vivian didn't rub it in. "It's probably a refined version of this, closer to the one I made," explained the ETF officer. "Not used a lot, as it still has some rough edges. You have it at home?"
The youthful Wu turned a new colour. Gail would have laughed if it wasn't so obvious. "Kid, we found you pretty fast," pointed out Gail, dryly.
That had been the easiest part. The teacher had actually documented who he took the device from. They checked with the teachers who had access to the printer and matched the indicated students to the report and the other reports of locker breaking.
Stupid easy.
Wu sighed. "In my backpack."
Vivian beamed, triumphantly. "I'll need that. Thank you."
"Am I going to be arrested?" Wu's voice was small and scared.
"Did you kill Mr. Lorick?" Gail canted her head to the side. She already knew that Wu hadn't. But it was still a little perverse fun.
"No!"
"There you go," said Gail, smiling. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Vivian's droll expression. "Fish, take Wu back to the station. The parents will meet you there."
"Uh, my name is St. James, ma'am," said the officer.
"Front seat, Fish," ordered Gail and waved him off.
After the officer and Wu were gone, Vivian laughed. "Fish, seriously?"
"He looks like a Fish," Gail shrugged. "Nice catch with the second device."
Vivian nodded. "The lab would have cottoned on soon enough. What the hell was the kid after?"
"You mean why did someone kill Lorick over this? Coincidence." Gail smirked as Vivian glared. "Wu Tang Clan must have found something incriminating about the teachers. In this locker set." She gestured to the trio of lockers.
"S'why I'm still here," said Haversham. "My turn, Boom Peck." And he stepped up to the locker.
Vivian shrugged and shifted her stance into guard, as expected. After all, evidence collection should be the lab's job. Technically Gail didn't need to stick around, and of course Vivian only did because Gail did. But Gail hated leaving the lab alone. Especially after the shit that had happened in the past. If Gail could make sure no one ever suffered as Holly had, exposed and subjected to watching friends die, she would.
Not that this was risky. Not that they'd thought the situation when Andrea had died was risky. It was, as many things, unexpected. Life was perpetually filled with unexpected events that had unforeseen consequences. Perhaps that was the definition of life, then.
"Something's wrong," said Haversham, abruptly.
Both Vivian and Gail leaned to look at the lockers. "How so?" Gail asked.
"There's ... nothing."
Vivian faux innocently asked, "The absence of something?"
"Smart ass," said Haversham. "The lockers are real. Books for classes."
Gail pulled a glove on and reached in, picking up a book. "These aren't on the curriculum," she said softly.
"How the hell does she know that?" Haversham was dumbfounded.
"She looked it up on the way here," replied Vivian.
The kid knew her too well. "Peck," said Gail, putting the book back. "Do the locker dimensions look weird to you?"
"No, they measure right." Vivian swapped positions with Gail and stuck her arm in as if to prove her comment. Instead she laughed. "Oh. That's clever. Check this out." She pushed and the back swung out. "Haversham, got a scope cam?"
He did and a moment later, they were all looking at a stash behind the lockers. It was barely two inches. And it held papers. "How old school," muttered Haversham. "How do you get them out?"
Vivian put her hands on her hips for a moment, just like Gail did. But her face looked exactly like Holly thinking through a problem. Gail's heart tripped in a way she'd not really felt before. Gail was well acquainted with the feeling of loving her wife. She knew the sensation of adoration that ran through her when just looking at Holly. This, though, this was different.
This was maternal.
God, she loved her daughter. What an amazing girl they'd raised.
"Ah," said Vivian, her face lifting up in delight. "Look at the location! It hangs and..." She turned the camera to the centre and there was a rope. "Ba Boom. Evidence."
Gail smiled so much it hurt.
The face Jamie made was hilarious. "Embezzlement? It was just money?"
"Most things are," admitted Vivian, sipping her beer.
"That's stupid."
Vivian grinned. "I really like that about you, Jamie."
Her girlfriend blushed. "Shut up," she muttered and put a lid on the pan. "How long do I cook it for?"
"From frozen? 18 minutes on setting 2." Vivian watched her girlfriend carefully adjust the temperature. "You can let the mushrooms and onions cook on the same temp. Just stir them now and then."
"Thanks." Jamie chewed her lower lip. She was adorable when concentrating. "Hey," said Jamie after a moment. "Thank you."
Vivian blinked. "For the cooking advice?"
"For Dad."
Ah. Vivian nodded and looked at her hands. "He's your dad, y'know?"
"I know," Jamie said in a small voice. "But. You ... you have all these totally practical, understandable, reasons to never trust a man. And you still, you believed when you saw something. And when he told you things."
Rolling the beer bottle between her palms, Vivian wondered how to address it fairly. There were multiple, complicated, aspects to belief like this. There were facts in opposition. There were no saints, only humans.
In his past, Jason McGann had not been a good man.
That wasn't rare. Most people Vivian knew, with the possible exceptions of Holly and Oliver, had not been good people all their lives. People did terrible things to each other, they lied and betrayed and cheated. In the case of Jason, they hurt.
And maybe there was an element of guilt that talked Jason into staying with a woman who hurt him back. Guilt for hitting her, once. Guilt for his other less than kind actions and words. Guilt for not being there for her and Jamie when they needed him.
Or maybe it was something even simpler for him. Maybe he just loved his wife, and would suffer gladly for the moments when she was the woman he married. Because even Vivian had seen those glimpses of Angela. Angela could be decent and kind, caring and comforting. Not for long, and not to the depth of Vivian's own parents.
Well that was an unfair comparison. Though it was a comparison that made her who she was. Knowing what she did of human nature, of her experiences with people and the things they did, had left her with a few unshakable truths.
"I'm not very trusting," said Vivian. "But I believe people."
Jamie frowned. "Don't you mean you believe in people?"
Vivian shook her head. "I don't. People are assholes. And they lie. A lot. But there are some things people do or say that can be believed."
"What? Like .." Jamie waved the spatula a little. "Like abuse?"
"No, not always. It's ... It's complicated. But I just... I know. Y'know?"
Jamie's brown eyes narrowed, confused and not entirely happy. "Are you trying to tell me you, of all people, can tell when someone's lying?"
"Of course not. But I can tell when they believe what they're doing or saying."
Her girlfriend took that in seriously.
It was a pretty arrogant thing to say, Vivian knew. Yet it was true. She couldn't divine what kind of person anyone was, not like Gail could. She couldn't see the good in people, not like Holly. And she sure as hell couldn't manipulate anyone half as good as Elaine on a bad day, let alone a good one.
Vivian felt her gifts were few. Raw athleticism. Fine. The ability to smell more than the average human. Okay, that was cool. Her intellect, that she wasn't sure if it was nature or nurture. Vivian sure spent a lot of time reading and studying though. It took work to keep up with Holly.
She'd joked about that once, and Gail (predictably) had complained. But keeping up with Gail didn't require intelligence. It helped, no lies, but really a person needed wit and speed and a tough skin. Gail was, after all, a force of nature. Holly was a much more gentle wind of change.
The confluence of those people, their behaviours, had given Vivian one more, huge, gift. A present not even they really understood.
When a person believed a thing, of themselves or otherwise, Vivian could tell.
Not a belief like god. That was a matter of faith. A person had to have faith in a god to believe in one. And believing in humanity was also a matter of faith. Believing in science, well, that wasn't a belief at all, that was acceptance. Science just was. A person didn't have to believe in it, but science wouldn't change. It was irrefutable if often misunderstood.
People though, people believed.
That kid, Wu, believed there was a truth to be found in people's lockers.
The dead teacher, Lorick, believed that money would bring him happiness.
Jason believed there was a reason to stay with Angela.
He believed her. Not in her. Just her.
Vivian saw that.
Finally Jamie sighed. "Do you believe me if I say I love you? Because you are fucking weird, Viv, but god help me, I do."
Vivian smiled. That wasn't the kind of belief she'd meant, but it didn't matter. "I believe you," she replied.
Because she did.
A little crime, a little drama, and a lot of questions, I imagine!
