06.04 - Best Man
Preface: This story takes place in a universe where there was no COVID-19 pandemic, nor the Black Lives Matter protests that happened starting in May 2020. While this story is published during that time, it is not in our universe. Please do not leave comments against BLM - your review will be removed.
It's a killer wedding. Not a red wedding though.
If it had been a nightmare, it would have been easier.
But hauntings didn't come like nightmares, not always. Memories came on her in the night, sending her back to the days and times when she couldn't do anything. She'd been a witness to her own life once, and having it return a second (or third or fiftieth) time was unpleasant. They were only that, though. Unpleasant memories.
The past didn't scare her. It never really had. The past was what it was. It was been and gone and the scars it left on a soul were the remainder. The pain lingered, but like a broken bone, the ache was only annoying.
The ghosts, on the other hand, they sure as hell haunted. They lingered when they were least wanted. They sat on a person's chest and laughed and laughed. And tonight, they reminded her of a loss.
The loss of a parent was one thing. A grandparent was expected, it was their time after all. A parent was more disconcerting. They were a rock to be leaned on. Well. That was the theory at least. It was and it wasn't the truth.
The loss of a coworker was another thing. Those should be more expected. Even the office workers she knew had suffered through that at least once. Nurses, doctors, cops. Her line of work, that just was as reliable as taxes.
Still, there was one thing, one haunting, one ghost that set her well apart from her friends and family.
Vivian sighed and looked at the ceiling.
She'd killed a man, just under two years ago.
And that night, in the middle of what felt to have been a perfectly normal night, Vivian woke up thinking about it. Keith Dix was there in her mind. Not in a disturbing way, or one that scared her. He was just there, as omnipresent as her tongue or the hairs on her toes.
It was always going to be a part of her. At some point, she'd filed it with her biological father, remembering how they both jerked back. Their heads snapped. Different directions, of course, but still. The way they'd fallen was so, so similar. A marionette with the strings cut. Physics dictated the directional flow of their bodies, arms and legs slack, spine becoming fluid, and then the ground.
Vivian sighed and pressed the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. She didn't want to be visualizing all that at the moment, or at all. But in the case of Keith, it had been her job. Not happily, or even something she wanted to do. But she had to do it. Someone had to do it. There had to be someone.
The bed was empty that night. Jamie had a four on, which was probably good. Vivian's habit of abruptly waking up tended to wake Jamie up as well. She wondered if her limbs jerked or anything.
Hypnic jerk. That's what the medical term was. Holly had told her that when Steve had jerked himself awake, falling right out of the hammock. That was funny. Her own waking up, not so much. Though it now made her wonder why her mothers had never taken her off to have a sleep study done.
Certainly Vivian had a lot of dissociative sleep disorders. She'd even had something called 'Exploding Head Syndrome,' which sounded cool and was not. It had meant she woke up hearing imaginary explosions. Now that she remembered seeing her biological father shoot himself, it made sense. And actually that was probably why her parents hadn't worried.
It was a memory, not an unexplained night terror. In fact, none of the sleep issues that had been classified as night terrors, for her or Gail, were really that. They were nightmares. Fear and terror from reality and memory.
Like Keith Dix.
"Fuck." Vivian thumped her head on her pillow.
She rolled over and picked up her phone, checking the schedule for her next therapy appointment. Really, Vivian hated going. She hated being in her mid twenties and still being fucked up in the head. She hated not feeling in control of her feelings, or not understanding them.
There were things outside of her control. Vivian didn't have a choice about seeing death at a young age. That just happened. She didn't have a choice about the first six years of her life. And she was damned lucky to be in control of the next twenty. She was lucky to have her mothers.
But. Taking the job she had, and the role in ETF, certainly contributed to some of her issues. It was in early mornings, or late nights, when sleep eluded her, that she wondered if she'd had the wrong idea and taken the wrong job. Especially now that she was permanently in the hot seat for the duplicity that existed on the job.
That had been somewhat her own idea. She had felt certain that she could handle the stress. Pretend to maybe be evil, or to have an agenda, and continually ferret out people who actually were and did. Find the people who wanted to use their job and power for personal gain.
Naively, Vivian didn't think corruption went so deep or so twisted. It was always simpler than it looked.
Elaine probably would have had words, but Gail had been adamant to leave the former matron of all things Peck out of it. In no way would Vivian gainsay her mother there. And Gail was right, too. At this point in her life, Elaine had no business being involved. Vivian had taken the added step of removing all of Elaine's access.
Certainly Gail felt better. Vivian did not tell her mother than she herself had actually just changed the passwords and contact information to her own well secured network. Like as not, Gail would flip. Dodge knew, as did the Martlets. These days, Alice and Vivian worked together on cleaning house, quietly.
But the spectre of Keith Dix hovered that night.
All of the work she did from his death on would never bring him back. It never undid the fact that her own hand had ended his life. And while still, still, she knew it was the right thing to have done, Vivian hated it.
Her therapist pointed out that was a good thing. Intellectually, Vivian agreed. She knew it was good and right to be torn up over a death. It reminded her of her own humanity, her inherent goodness, and that she was a decent person.
Vivian sighed and dropped her phone back on her nightstand. She couldn't really call anyone in the middle of the night. Jamie was on call and needed the sleep. Her parents were asleep. And wasn't she a little old for that anyway? It wasn't an emergency of the level she felt necessary to call her therapist either. It just ... was.
She stared at the ceiling and watched the light from the cars on the street reflect off the glass.
Eventually it would be morning.
Eventually it would be another day, and maybe her haunts would fade in the light and the day would be normal.
Or whatever normal was these days.
The days she got out of the office and into the field were rare, but Holly revelled in them. That said, she greatly preferred them to be planned and organized, rather than thrust upon her. Her life was, with rare exceptions, quite well organized and planned. She did everything in an order, in its own time. Even raising a daughter hadn't disrupted that so much.
No, the biggest disruption wasn't even Gail. It was her job. And Holly did so love her work and what she did, but it could be damned inconvenient at times. Or it used to be. Now she was the head, the queen, of all she surveyed.
Which included Ruth, her front desk/secretary/administrative assistant. Who seemed to be having a bit of a panic attack about the scheduling snafu. Half of her staff was at a training class, being taught how to identify illegal actions. It was a type of class Gail had taught more than once at the Academy (she usually tried to make Steve do it). And it was Gail's recommendation that Holly have her staff take the class.
Try to prevent a second Ben from getting as far as he had, Gail had argued. Holly had agreed and asked Ruth to coordinate the classes. Like she always did. And she expected the schedule to be a little messy, but she didn't expect to walk in and have not a single pathologist available for field work.
Except, of course, herself.
"I'm really sorry," said Ruth, more stressed than Holly had ever seen her.
"I'm just surprised," said Holly, skimming over the calendar. She didn't really mind, but it was abnormal. And unexpected. Two things she had never come to see from Ruth. "Are you alright?"
There was a pause and a noise Holly hadn't heard in years. Not since Vivian had been a gangly teenager and tried to wrap her head around the death of her asshole grandparents.
A choked sob.
Oh dear.
Holly put down the tablet and moved around to Ruth's side of the desk. She didn't give a damn if it was inappropriate. Ruth was freaking out, and Holly went into Mom Mode. After all, she'd hugged Chloe and Andy ... and pretty much every one of her friends and coworkers before.
The hug calmed Ruth in seconds. Sometimes it made the other person cry, sometimes it made them relax. It was a mom super power.
"I'm sorry," said Ruth quietly.
"Everyone has a bad day."
"It's stupid. I just..." Ruth paused and leaned back, looking at the door. "I was thinking about last year."
Last year. When they were held hostage, albeit briefly. While Holly would hate to lose someone as excellent as Ruth, she was not so inhumane as to even consider forcing the woman to stay on at a job that traumatized her. "Ruth, if it's too much—"
"Oh no! No, not me. You."
Holly blinked. "Me?"
"How do you just ... go back out where it's dangerous?"
How odd. Wasn't this the conversation she'd had with Gail? That had just been from the other side. And how did she or Gail keeping going? "I don't know," Holly admitted.
Certainly she was scared about what was out there, and the idea that here were corrupt cops lingering did not fill her with joy. But ... Holly still loved her job. And she trusted her daughter. That was enough for now.
She wanted to keep solving crimes, and that meant Holly would have to go out into the dangerous world now and then. Which she was more than alright with. Maybe that was why she'd had such a visceral reaction to hospitals. She'd never liked that part of being a doctor, and now they just reminded her of her own mortality.
There had been a serious discussion with Gail about what to do if Holly needed to be long term hospitalized. She wanted to die with dignity, and not spend her final weeks (or months or years) in a damn hospital. But she accepted the fact that she would, one day, die. After all, they all would.
Ruth sighed. "I'm not thinking about quitting, Holly."
While Holly had wondered about that, she wasn't going to ask. "It's okay if you need more time off, Ruth."
Her assistant scoffed. "I took three months. Either I'm going to work through this or I won't." Ruth took a deep breath. "Okay. I fucked that schedule up. I'll fix it." She sounded firm and ready. "Today will suck though."
"Well, maybe there won't be a serious case," drawled Holly.
She could have kicked herself later on.
At least, as she pulled up to the church, she spotted Gail's car. That was always better. Holly loved working with her wife.
"Doc," said Rich Hanford. He held up the tape. "They're waiting for you in the, uh, east antechamber."
Holly arched an eyebrow. "Groom side?"
Rich did a double take. "Geeze, I don't know why the hell I'm surprised by you knowing weird stuff."
"It's my job," she said, amused, and walked in.
There was CSU checking all around, taking photos, looking for anything out of place. Detectives were talking to shellshocked members of the wedding party. Some of Gail's best detectives in fact. Like John Simmons talking to a sobbing bride.
That was odd. Gail didn't pull out the big guns like that normally. Not for a death at a wedding. Part of Holly wanted to file it as death by misadventure. After all, every dead groom (or groomsmen) she'd come across had died following the last stag night.
This time, the groom was not dressed. He was in a T-shirt and boxers, black socks, and nothing more. A towel was over his face, and he was laying on the fainting couch.
"Rough night," said Holly as she put her kit down.
Gail did a double take. "You're not on the field today."
"Well, someone arrested my field head last year, so everyone has to go to training in bribery detection."
Her wife had the grace to look apologetic as she smirked. "Sorry/not sorry."
"Do I want to know why everyone beat me here?"
"Cops were called in for a fight. Apparently a groomsman on this side was banging one on the other, and the boyfriend found out."
Holly unpacked the sentence and blinked. "Wouldn't that be a bridesman?"
"Double wedding. A brother and sister on that side marrying a pair of brothers on this one."
"And now I'm thinking what would happen if Traci was my sister," she teased, and Gail made a face. "Okay, let's see the body."
Holly pealed off the towel and frowned. The man was dead, apparently by asphyxiation. She opened one eye and saw petechial hemorrhaging. Then she opened his mouth and saw white foam. Holly looked over her shoulder at Gail and raised one eyebrow.
Without turning a hair, Gail opened her notebook. "Yes, they wiped the body's face. The best man found the groom, thought he was maybe alive, wiped the face, tried to do CPR, but realized it was a lost cause. The towel is the one he used."
"Bag that," Holly told the crime tech. "How did he figure it was a lost cause?"
"He said the body, and I quote, felt dead." Gail sighed. "He's our number one suspect."
"Is he the one banging a groomsman on the other side?"
"Nope, Best Man straight." The detective grunted. "Choked on his own vomit, huh?"
Holly finished taking a sample from the man's mouth. "Do not prejudge my work, Detective Peck," she scolded. Holly didn't have to look to know Gail was rolling her eyes. "Anyone else present signs of illness?"
"The banging groomsman said that everyone who ate the nachos, which includes our dead groom, was blowing chunks."
There was a noise of disgust from somewhere in the room. Then John spoke up, "That's my boss. She's a fucking lady."
"Actually—"
Holly cut Gail off immediately, and loudly. "Thank you, Detective Simmons." While Gail muttered they spoiled her fun, Holly went on. "Was anyone else in this room ill?"
"A few," said John. "Want me to round 'em up for blood samples?"
"Please. And thank you, John."
The detectives, including Gail left Holly to her work which was, actually, pretty frustrating. Especially since she got a call for a second case as she was finishing up. It was just going to be one of those days. As it stood, she really had no idea why the fellow died.
At least not until the wave of nausea hit her around the time Gail wandered back in.
There were a number of odourless glasses that could kill a person. There was one that was incredibly common, to the point that legally all buildings had to be equipped with detectors. But churches were often exceptions to rules.
"Gail, do you have a headache?"
Her wife was silent. "Oh."
And Gail moved, throwing open the window and shouting for a CSU tech to get their ass in there with a carbon monoxide detector.
It wasn't often that Holly was the reason lives were saved, being that she was primarily a forensic pathologist. She spent her life understanding death. But once in a great while, Holly did something, or found something, that unraveled the secrets of the universe.
"Death by carbon monoxide?"
They had all been exposed to the gas and treated at the scene. Gail had ended up sucking down oxygen for a while until her headache receded. She'd thought she was just starving, and it was odd to have a headache vanish just with fresh air. Not that Holly didn't make her eat before running off to the next dead body.
Poor Holly. She was going to be wasted when she got home.
"That's the prelim," Gail told the Mayor's chief of staff. "Autopsy will be later this week."
"Can't speed it up?"
"That isn't how it works, Chad."
The man made a noise on the phone. "It's Chet."
"Potato, tomato."
Chip (Chet) paused and then pressed on. "Yes, but the head coroner is your wife."
Gail sighed. She hadn't told Holly that their dead man was the Mayor's first wife's cousin once removed. First of all, it didn't matter to Holly in the slightest. More importantly, it was a distraction, and Holly hated that. She didn't need to know or care. And that just meant Gail fielded dumb ass things like this.
"Look, we don't do favours. You know that. This is high profile. I made sure it's top of the pile. It's just going to take a couple days for the toxicology to come back anyway. Then they have to recheck everyone, make sure it wasn't the bad nachos plus some weird medicine. Or drugs. And then we'll know for sure."
Chet, or Chad, or Thad, or whatever grumbled. "It's just ... he's a Bit-coin Billionaire."
A what? Wait, no, Gail remembered the ecurrency craze from the late 2010s. People made up money on computers, and traded it like Pokémon or Beanie Babies or shit. Some of them cashed out and made it rich. That was when Vivian was barely a teen, so this kid would have been... "How old is— was this kid?"
"Jared's — Jared was thirty."
Okay. Old enough. "You didn't mention that before," Gail pointed out, and opened up her document. "Which currency did he use?"
Now the man was silent and confused. She could literally hear the hamster in his head whirring on that damn wheel, trying to understand her question. "Uh. Why?"
"Motive," Gail said, slowly, trying to make sure he understand that it meant the word 'moron.'
Based on the shuffling over the phone, it worked. "I'll get all that and send it in to you tomorrow."
"End of day would be great," said Gail in a slow drawl. "Seeing as this is an important case."
"Oh. Right." He mumbled an understanding and hung up.
Gail rolled her eyes and tossed her phone down. "Fuck, I hate politics." How the hell had Elaine ever had such aspirations? She was insane.
A nice murder was so much simpler. Gail got up, trying to ignore the twinges and aches and pains in her body, and brought the case up on her wall. Okay, time for some work.
Money was always so pedestrian, but it was common for a reason. Everyone needed money, or thought they did. When their perceived due was taken from them, or they were prevented from acquiring it, humans reacted poorly. This was a very regular occurrence was when money laundering was involved.
Ah. Gail tapped her watch. "Call Traci."
A moment later, her sister in law's voice came out of the speaker. "You rang?"
"Hey. You worked that money laundering angle real good with the Mounties."
Traci laughed. "What do you need?"
"Bit-coin investor turned millionaire turned dead by probably CO poisoning."
"Sounds straight forward," Traci mused. "What's the catch?"
"First, I'm not convinced he's the target. Double wedding, he was sharing it with another groom. That one is gay."
"Hate crimes are even more passé than money. What else?"
"Autopsy isn't done yet.
Traci made a scoffing noise. "I feel like there's a build up."
"Mayor's former cousin in law."
Traci was silent for a long moment. "Oh, his first wife. Okay, that makes... yech. Okay, I'm on it. Bit-coin research until the autopsy."
As she hung up, Gail wondered how the carbon monoxide leak had happened anyway. The church should have had a detector. But even more important, where the hell had the leak come from in the first place?
"He owed money to whom?" Vivian tilted her head and eyed her aunt.
"The North Koreans."
Vivian snorted. She'd known bit-coin and most virtual currencies were little more than an embezzlement and money laundering hack, but the idea that a stupid billionaire who had, effectively, Short Sold the stuff a decade ago, then turned around to owe the North Koreans even more...
Well.
"This sounds like a shitty episode of The Twilight Zone," opined Mel. "Or that creepy Canadian series."
"Black Mirror," replied Vivian. "It was British."
Traci eyed them both. "You two are creepy. How long've you been partners?"
"Year and change." Vivian pulled out her computer.
Her partner sighed. "I don't get why we're here, though. Except for nepotism."
That part, Vivian understood. "We don't have a terrorist task force," she said. "So here's a dead guy from carbon monoxide poisoning who owed North Korea a ton of money." Vivian paused and looked at Traci. "How much?"
Traci looked highly amused. "He owned a loan shark just shy of a mill."
"Oh, perfect. Now it's not international terror, just standard thuggery." Vivian put on her HUD glasses. "Though technically CSU can do this."
Her aunt laughed. "They can. But we're a bit strapped for techno nerds who have experience hacking networks like you."
"You break into one little forensics building," muttered Vivian. But it was a valid point. CSU had collected all the relevant data. It was the job of a detective, or a pugnaciously minded individual in ERD, to put it all together in the right way.
And there were precious few detectives who were also technology geeks quite like she was.
Ugh. Her mothers were going to make noises about her considering a gold badge again. But damn it, it was all crime. And detectives didn't get to scale buildings or run in with the battering ram. Which was totally as cool as it looked.
Vivian sighed and pulled up the list of everything connected to the internet. She'd gone over the list before, but now she ran the scanner built into her system to match the list up to what she found and label where it was. Over that, she mapped the results from the Cyranose odour scanner, highlighting the pockets of where the gas was densest. Finally she placed the virtual dead body on the couch.
And it made absolutely no sense.
"Hey, Detective, did CSU already swear at you?"
With a rueful laugh, Traci confirmed the fear. "They have no idea how it happened."
"Care to fill me it?" Mel sounded annoyed.
"Well. Based on the scans, the heaviest pocket of exposure would have been over by the vents." Vivian pointed at the baseboard near the door to ... some room. "What's that room?"
"Priest closet," replied Traci.
While Vivian had no idea what that meant, Mel did. "Oh a Priest Hole?" When both Vivian and Traci turned to stare, Mel beamed. "They were popular in Elizabethan England, when Protestantism was on the rise. Catholic priests hid in Priest Holes to avoid arrest. Didn't know we had any in Canada."
Traci shook her head. "This Church is modelled after some family place in England."
"Gotta love attention to detail." Vivian waved a hand. "They checked it out?"
"Totally empty."
Vivian sighed. "Well. That would have been the best place to kill someone."
"So," Mel said thoughtfully. "The question is how did it get ... there." And she pointed at the couch. "And are we sure it was CO2?"
"CO," corrected Traci. "CO2 is carbon dioxide, this is monoxide." When Vivian looked amused, Traci rolled her eyes. "Your mother lectures when drunk."
That was true. Vivian smirked. "It's a fair question, though. There are a lot of gasses that can kill."
"Bloodwork suggests," Traci stressed the word. "But Dr. Stewart pointed out a number of gasses could cause the body to stop processing oxygen. She said her own ... uh... "
"Her carboxyhemoglobin level?"
Traci shot Vivian a glare. "Yes. That. Her's was at 8% and Inspector Peck's was 10.3%."
"Uh. Is that high?" Mel half raised a hand.
Vivian knew that one. "A smoker's would be 8. Holl— Dr. Stewart has had a cigar once a decade." And Gail never smoked. "Normal people have a 4%."
Gesturing her acknowledgment, Traci went on. "So yes, it could be something else, but whatever it was, it was mixed with carbon monoxide. What are you thinking?"
Mel hesitated. "Well. There are heavy vapours, right? Like, gases that settle low?"
"There are. But they usually have an odour." Vivian looked at the couch. It was a low couch, and if the gas was well planned, it could have made the victim more likely to be impacted. "Cyanide. But the 'Nose would have caught that."
"Is that the almond one?" Mel looked amused. "I dunno. I'm more practical. I'd probably just pipe in something to kill him and then a low level of carbon monoxide to cover it up."
Vivian and Traci shared a look. It wasn't a bad idea. In fact, it was a good one. And it could be used to cover up one killer gas with another.
Traci spoke first, and she did not seem to agree with Vivian. "How the hell is that practical?"
"Carbon monoxide is common," said Mel, a little weakly.
"Convoluted as hell, don't you know criminals are lazy?"
That's what Gail always said, too. She was lazy. Everyone was lazy. They did the bare minimum, even when it came to crime. Especially when it came to Crime. But that wasn't what Holly said. Holly always said that it was a classic case of Occam's Razor. That is, the simplest solution was likely the correct one.
The two theories of laziness and simplicity worked well together. It wasn't necessarily that people were lazy, but that easier things took less time. When killing someone, time was of the essence. Kill, cover it up or not, leave. Or not.
Motive aside, the first question was if the lab had confirmed, via blood work, that there was an excess of carbon monoxide in the man. There was in Gail and Holly, but that didn't mean their victim died of it. Assuming their was, and it was a fair assumption, how would someone get a high enough level in their system to kill, while only sickening Gail and Holly?
Think.
Carbon dioxide would be easier. Dry ice plus a towel over the head could do it, it arranged right. Self erasing too. But that left different traces in the blood, and Holly wasn't the sort to mess that up.
Plus, whatever caused the CO did it in enough volume that, hours later, people still got sick.
So it was probably still leaking.
Vivian pulled up the crime scene pictures and overlaid them on the room she was in. Damn, if the future wasn't cool sometimes.
Gail was there. Holly was there. Gail had been in the room for about an hour longer than Holly, who was there for half an hour or so... ninety minutes. The air samples didn't show anything untoward, and yet CO being lighter than air would make it rise... she looked up at the vaulted ceiling and exposed beams.
What if it wasn't ...
"I need a ladder," Vivian said abruptly.
"It wasn't murder." Holly tossed the report on Gail's desk.
Her wife slowly looked up, glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Gail looked adorably bad ass. Everyone else would call it threatening, but Holly just wanted to kiss the cute little nose.
"Accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, due to a long, ongoing leak, that normally collected in the top corner of the ceiling, but, in certain weather conditions, could be forced lower down. Because of the balloons used and stored for the wedding, as well as the dry ice, it created a perfect storm."
Holly narrowed her eyes. "What's the fun on bringing you a report if you're just going to read the email before I get here?"
Gail smirked. "Oh is that fun? I thought it was the other reason." She waggled her eyebrows and took off her glasses. "Hi."
With an eye roll, Holly leaned across the table to kiss Gail's nose. "Ass."
"You're gonna hate me more," warned Gail.
"Oh? This sounds interesting." Holly leaned back and crossed her arms.
"The death wasn't an accident."
She blinked. She stared at Gail. "What the what?"
Gail gestured to her wall and tapped on her phone. "The kid figured out the air displacement from the balloons and helium."
Turning to look at Gail's wall, Holly nodded. "She did. The math was a stretch, but if the leak had been ongoing for a month, and windows were closed, it could work."
The theory Vivian had was that the leak was higher up and the gas had collected in the eaves of the vaulted ceiling. All the subsequent gasses brought into the room had forced the CO down, killing the person napping on the couch.
Speaking of the couch, the photo on Gail's wall had the couch in a different location.
"Wait..." Holly frowned.
"Yeah, it was moved two days prior to the wedding, after the window on the left there was fixed." The indicated window lit up in red.
It was the window Gail had been unable to open.
"Fixed. Fixed shut? So it's the maintenance crew?"
"Four of them were bribed," said Gail with a sigh.
"One to do the window. One to move the couch..."
"One to make the leak and one to increase the flow."
Okay, that was pretty clever. "How ... over orchestrated."
"Given that you thought it was accidental, it's fucking brilliant," Gail admitted, sounding rueful.
Holly huffed. "Fine, fair point." She hated that Gail was right about that. Maybe she hated being wrong. "This is why I should keep my nose out of motive," she added.
Her wife, miraculously, did not gloat. "Would you like to know the motive?"
"If it was bit-coin, I'm going to laugh."
And Gail just smirked.
When Holly reported on the case to her team leads later, they laughed. Even Pete, though he was a bit shocked. "So they killed him at his wedding because he owed them fake money?"
"Bit-coin's great for money laundering," said Ananda, picking at her salad. "Use money to buy a fake, invisible, thing. Sell the thing for more money. Boom."
Wanda shook her head. "Money laundering is so weird. You have to hide where the money came from, so you use it to buy things or give to people. They give it back. How is that not obvious?"
"They use multiple layers of anonymity and obfuscation," explained Ananda. "If Holly steals $10k, and give each of us... 2. Then we give $500 to four people. They each buy a $400 item, and give it to, say, Pete. He sells those and buy a $1500 item and gives it to Gail. Now Holly has her ... Er $7500 or so back."
Holly snorted. "An over simplification, But sure. I like how I'm a criminal mastermind for ten grand."
"I'm not sure I like being your middle man," objected Pete, good natured. "But how does that work? Don't the police follow that trail?"
"It goes further," said Ananda. "Put into things that are cash only, like drugs or food trucks or small businesses, and it's harder to follow the trail."
The group dwelled on that. "So," began Wanda. "Was he evil or ...?"
"You mean was our dead man laundering money? No. He took out a starter loan and blew it. The second loan covered the first, and he made a profit, but the first loan wanted more when they saw he'd made it." Holly shrugged. "Greed."
"And a complicated murder," muttered Wayne. "Hey, speaking of. ETF is really on the ball these days with solving that shit."
"About that," said Holly. "We should have investigated more fully. Which is, in part, my fault for jumping to a conclusion. And our staff issues. Which is why we are having a working lunch."
The leads all shared looks. "I think," Wayne said slowly. "We aren't going to get more people."
Surprisingly, Wanda asked, "Why not?"
Everyone looked at her. Holly put down her fork. "Wanda Ury, what do you know." Holly did not phrase it as a question.
Without changing her facial expression, Wanda tapped on her phone. "Check your email."
Holly sighed and picked her phone up. Three emails about cases. Some internal messages. Alerts about meetings... there was Wanda's. Holly adjusted her bifocals. "Dr. Ury, blah blah greetings. Blah blah introductions ... funding from — Oh my god." Holly felt her jaw drop as she read the email top to bottom. Carefully.
The work Wanda had done on the art theft cases had, finally, paid off.
Four separate independent companies wanted to invest in the lab. The document lab.
"I think Ananda and me are gonna need staff," said Wanda in her best insouciant tone. "And if these guys are willing to pay for it, that should free up some money for the rest of you losers."
And with that, Wanda made an L with her index finger and thumb, holding it up to her forehead.
Frankly, Holly would forgive her that. Especially since she would get the last word. "You still have to write that paper for the American Journal of Forensics," she reminded, in her best mom voice.
The other leads erupted in laughter.
What comes next.
That was an interesting, beguiling, and frustrating question.
"Is there a word for 'really interesting but pisses me off?' Because that's what's going on now," Gail said to her therapist.
He smiled. "If there is, is probably German."
That actually gave Gail her answer. "Torschlusspanik."
The therapist eyed her. "Panic I know."
"Gate End panic," explained Gail. "That feeling of deep and harrowing panic at being at the end of something."
"And are you at an end?"
Gail exhaled deeply. "I'm getting there. I'm on my last legs at all this." She leaned back and stretched her arms along the back of the couch. "I used to think of my ... career, I guess. In decades, y'know? I'll graduate, I'll go to the academy. And in 10 or 20 or 40 years, I'll retire in a White Shirt with a boring husband and bland kids."
The doctor quirked a smile. "You've been a police officer for, what. Twenty five years?"
"Closer to thirty," admitted Gail. "Long time."
"Do you want to retire?"
"I don't know that it's optional," she replied, dryly. "Retire or die. And I gotta be honest, dying in uniform isn't appealing." She huffed. "I'm too old for all this. We all are."
"You're older than your classmates."
"God. Yeah." Gail made a face.
She was, by four years, the oldest of their little cadre. She was the only one with a degree before getting into the Force. Mind, she had bullied Traci into a follow up degree, explaining it would bump her pay. But still. Being in ones fifties was wildly different than the forties or, god help her, the twenties.
Gail was old. She hadn't slipped off her game, yet, when it came to solving crimes. But that day would come, sooner rather than later. She'd miss something huge, it would cost someone their life. Again.
"When I was in my, uh, third year on the force. I took the fall for a guy we had to shoot in the division."
Her therapist blinked. "That's new."
"It's old history. And it's fucked up, and it wasn't really my fault. We were at a football game, there was a fight. Dov and Andy and I all had arrests. Mine was pretty tractable, Dov's wasn't. Dov needed backup, so I asked my guy if he had any weapons on his person. He said no, so I tossed him in the back without searching him."
"Is this why you were suspended?"
Gail nodded. "Yeah. He had a gun. Held a guy as hostage. We shot him. I told SIU it was my fault for not searching him, figuring that my name would protect me."
"You mean it would protect everyone."
"Mhhh. Yeah. Yeah." Gail closed her eyes. "The only reason I kept my badge is because of the Perik case."
There was a protracted silence. "Well that's a shit kicker. Why didn't we ever talk about this before?"
"It doesn't bother me anymore," confessed Gail. "It did, years and years ago. But I figured out it wasn't my fault. Not alone. It was a systematic failure of us as Team, as a division, and as a unit. Andy failed as a leader to monitor us all, Dov failed to control his subject, I failed to properly search and detain mine. It's ... y'know, it was a series of bad decisions."
"So you think it doesn't affect you considering last year?"
Her lips quirked into a smirk. "That is why I brought it up."
"Do you still think the death was your failing?"
"No." And that was true. She didn't think that it was her own failing. The shit show had been left in her hands to save, and she'd done an admirable job of bailing the Mounties' collective ass from the fire. But Keith had killed himself, by cop, because he couldn't see a way out.
And Gail had tried. She'd tried and failed him, but he'd been failed before by everyone else. The Martlets shouldered the blame and they knew it. Alice was cleaning the house on her side, Vivian was on theirs. And Gail...
"My kid is cleaning up the mess."
"Passing the torch?"
Gail made a face. "The torch got yanked out of my hands."
"Are you worried about her?"
Good question. Gail mulled it over. "No. I think... Vivian reads people well. Just not on a personal level."
God help her, Vivian was thick as a plank when people hit on her. And she wasn't able to emotionally tie herself to people easily. Even her relationship with Jamie, even living with her, was a bit at arms' length. Vivian always kept herself, her heart, guarded.
"But you think professionally she's fine?"
"Better than me," admitted Gail. "She can separate her lives. I've been ... I mean, Jesus, I met my wife at work."
"She met her girlfriend."
Gail pursed her lips. "I think they met running."
The doctor smiled at her. "The question at hand, though, is what's next for you."
"Not a fucking clue," she replied. "Unless you have a magic way to tell me if I'm losing my edge or not."
Waving a hand, as if to cast a spell, her doctor shook his head. "Do you feel like you are?"
"No." The answer was honest and simple. She didn't. "I'm tired, no lie, and some of this is wearing me down. Kids mostly. But ... I think I'm still doing this right, and I should be."
"Well, then there's your answer for now, Gail. Next is this. This job, this life. And after that, it's time to start thinking about what you want to be."
What did she want to be? It was a question no one asked of a Peck. They were cops. She was a Peck. She was a cop. Even Steve was arguably still a cop. A rent a cop, private security for their family, but ... Gail knew she didn't want that. She had no interest in that work, and when she was done, she wanted to be done.
In and of itself, that was a new thought. She didn't want to do SIU either, when Gail put serious thought to it all.
"Is being retired so bad?"
Her doctor blinked. "I caution you, Gail, you have some of the lowest capacity for boredom I've ever seen."
"Some of?"
"I have other patients," he pointed out dryly.
"Touché." Gail smiled. "Okay, then, what should I do to get better at enjoying boredom?"
To his credit, the man took that question with the utmost sincerity and thoughtfulness. "You've been not working on weekends for, what is it now, 12 years?"
Gail winced. "Mostly."
"Gail," he sighed, and sounded just like Holly. Did they learn that at doctor school. "I want you to start there. If the case isn't pressing, and be realistic here, make yourself take a break. No laptop, no phone. If you daydream up a clever solution, fine, but don't try. Okay? Garden with Holly. Go for a walk. Try something sporty. Or not. There are thousands of museums in the area."
She sighed. "Right. Operation Gail, Chill The Fuck Out has begun."
Hopefully Holly wouldn't strangle her.
"What am I doing?"
Vivian sighed and looked in the window.
There she was sitting and reading a book, just as expected. Just as normal.
This was normal, right? It was totally normal. People met up with old friends all the time and went out for a quick cup of coffee. To catch up. To talk about their lives. Hell, Vivian did that with a lot of old college friends.
It was just ... Skye was the only one of those whom Vivian had dated.
And her attempts at friendship post relationship with anyone had been, historically, shit. Worse still, Jamie was not particularly thrilled about this whole 'friends with exes' thing at all. Though that may have just been Olivia in particular. Liv could be hard to get on with.
Not like Vivian was doing great at the friends thing either. Liv was still mad Vivian had finally sorted shit out and talked to Jamie about the things that Vivian had never told her. Which, okay, totally fair. Vivian had even managed to talk to Matty a little more about them.
No. Their decades long friendship had been seriously changed by them dating. And when they'd broken up, or rather, when Vivian hadn't slept for days while staying with Olivia in Montréal, well.
Vivian still couldn't blame Olivia at all. That was mostly all on Vivian, though not of her own fault either. It was just one of those complicated, messy, painful parts of life. Maybe one day she'd stop getting so mad about it, but ...
In a twisted way, she was relieved to know that part of the reason her brain put a lock down on the subject of her family's murder/suicide was that she couldn't cope. That everything still hurt so much her only outlet was anger. Depression.
What were the stages of grief again? Denial, which she didn't remember. Anger, check. Bargaining... how did a person bargain against death? Depression. Acceptance. Vivian had done them out of order. And if she substituted denial for memory block, then she was clearly still hovering around the anger zone.
How long was she going to be mad about it, Vivian wondered sometimes. Her therapist implied it was actually a failing. That Vivian's lack of ability to forgive her biological parents, or at least her biological mother, was not healthy or right.
Not that Dr. Cooper said 'right.' She was very judicious about her word choice, and she never told Vivian if she was wrong or right. Because absolutes were not really a thing with ongoing therapy for emotional trauma. There was just a thing. In Vivian's case, it was anger, PTSD, and a bit of dissociative anxiety brought on by very specific triggers.
Truth, Vivian did like having a name for what was wrong in her head. Understanding that part of her trouble was that she didn't actually feel the feelings as herself, and that was preventing her from moving on, was important. Dr. Cooper was the first doctor who'd put a name to it. She had listened to Vivian explain how she felt when she tried to sleep outside the home.
Every time, Vivian had a nightmare she didn't fully remember. Every time, her body did that stupid hypnic jerk and she was awake again. When Vivian described her panic type symptoms upon waking up, Dr. Cooper asked her about the dream. It was the same dream, as it happened. The jerk was timed to a gunshot that haunted her.
Weirdly, other gunshots did not. They didn't bother her, and those other ghosts just lingered in heir own ways. But Vivian suspected she would always be able to recognize that particular sound. The sound of the gun, the bullet, and the brain...
Thanks, asshole birth family, she thought.
And there, again, was that other damn problem.
Vivian knew, she knew that her biological father had serious issues. He had trauma and anger and went off his meds and he killed her sister and her mother. They would never know completely why. And there left Vivian with a shitty tonne of traumatic memories and survivor's guilt. Yaaaay.
None of that was even remotely related to why she stood outside the coffee shop.
None of it was close to the reason why she pushed the door and walked in, waving at Skye.
The other woman's smile lit up. She signed a hello and told Vivian to get her coffee first.
Fair enough. But that was still only a few minutes before they, exes, were seated at a table.
"I had a really bad date here once," said Vivian, signing as she talked.
"Most of your dates seemed to end badly." Skye grinned. "But you had that fling with the art student."
"Pia. She went back to Germany."
"And now that cute shortie."
"Jamie." Vivian felt herself blush. "We live together."
Skye startled and didn't speak, she just signed "You?" with a great deal of shock and empathetic 'what the fuck' as Gail would say.
Vivian rolled her eyes. "Yes," she signed back. "And you?"
Her friend (friend?) shook her head. "Single. Your sign language is better."
"I've been practicing," admitted Vivian. "For work."
"Run into a lot of deaf victims?"
"I work in ETF," she spelled the word and then paused. "Okay, I don't know the sign for that."
Skye laughed. "I don't either. Is there even one?"
"Gail would probably know." She sign-spelled Gail's name, and Skye was quick to reply with Gail's sign name. Vivian rolled her eyes and Skye laughed again.
"What does ETF do?"
So Vivian explained, haltingly as her vocabulary hadn't quite expanded to some of the things she did for work, what ETF was about. Skye was shocked to hear Vivian's primary job was defusing bombs and breaking electronics. It was, Vivian agreed, not usually what people thought of when they met her.
"But you were in uniform with that tool!"
Vivian laughed. "Rich isn't that bad."
"He looks like a bro."
"We call him Abercrombie."
Skye cracked up.
It was nice to just have a friend, someone who knew her enough to tease her, but hadn't been all up in Vivian's life for the last year or so.
And maybe it was against her better judgement, but she did like talking with Skye. Maybe Jamie would be okay with her having a friend who was a girl.
Some people can be friends with exes. My wife can, and I'm not always okay with it. Jamie? We'll see.
