You will find me adding a middle name to Steve in this chapter. This comes from the episode "Flags of Terror", as the terrorist reaches for Steve's badge, then reads out the name. I always felt that he said either "Jay" or J, maybe even Jake. I liked the idea of Jake, and Jacob, so I stuck with it.
"Sixty-three people are confirmed dead so far."
Mike barely managed to get the words off his tongue, his voice quivering when he said them.
Like a guardian shadow, Steve stood next to him, both detectives silently watching the coroner's team remove body after body from the stricken nightclub, the effort being slowed down due to a lack of resources in a city that wasn't quite equipped for a massacre on such a large scale.
Despite their deeply shell-shocked state, they'd spent the past couple of hours acting as authority figures, coordinating the recovery efforts, calling in extra detective teams to interview the small amount of witnesses who lived to tell the tale of horror and worst of all, extra manpower to keep away the gapers.
Both Conden and Olsen had arrived a little while ago, meeting with department heads on-site, trying to get a handle on the situation and form a special crisis task force between active and seasoned detectives in hopes of finding the killer before he could strike again.
The mayor and several deeply distressed council members wandered back and forth between the cordoned off area, their anxious pace suggesting that they were as overwhelmed with the situation as everybody else.
A police helicopter ordered within an hour of the shooting hadn't been able to locate the assailant, and thus far, neither had any of the patrol teams Mike had sent out in all directions and given strict orders to call in every five minutes to ensure each officers' safety.
It had been an excruciating task that wore on their hearts and minds alike, a scale of death so large that it became impossible to comprehend, even for a team of experienced professionals who dealt with murder on a daily basis.
A couple of hours after the shooting, another heart-wrenching problem began to unfold.
It was that of relatives arriving at the scene after receiving word about the attack, desperately looking for their spouses, siblings, cousins, friends and other loved ones. Even though most of their victims had ID's on them, Mike had strict orders to withhold names pending a formal identification by a trained medical professional, an overzealous emergency procedure created on the spot that only caused more insecurity, panic and fury at a scene of the horrific crime.
And worst of all, it caused next of kin to learn about a loved ones' death through hearsay and unreliable public information, provided by untrained people who had no grasp what receiving such news could do to the human psyche.
"Who in their right mind does something like that?"
Steve's voice was hoarse, his eyes staring blankly ahead, his face paler than it had ever been. And yet, the young Inspector fought hard to regain his composure, biting the inside of his lip or clenching his fists to keep his emotions at bay, as the gentle breeze coming off the bay blew his hair all over the place.
"Somebody who doesn't have anything right in their mind.", Mike answered with a slight headshake, as a team of Bernie's men brought out another body covered in a white sheet, some of the crimson stains showing through, causing a collective gasp from the prying audience of gapers.
"Listen ehm…Buddyboy…looking at those victims and the way there were dressed…was this some sort of a…a gay bar?"
Acknowledging Mike's question with a slow nod, Steve clenched his jaws and drew in a deep breath, holding it for several long moments, as he shoved his hands in the pocket of his beige overcoat. From his distance, the Lieutenant could see his young partner shake, and knowing well enough it wasn't from the cold of the night.
"For the most part yes, but anybody was welcome. It wasn't some extreme atmosphere like many politicians like to make it out to be. Great place to meet interesting people, music was good too."
"Sounds like you've been here before?"
"A couple of times yeah, mostly during my time in Vice. Made some friends too. They always treated us courteous even though they knew we were cops. Owners are fantastic people."
Mike was about to dig deeper into the matter, when a commotion off to the right disrupted him.
A frantic man dressed in a black and white striped sweater and skintight jeans had jumped the police barrier and was running toward them, his moans audible from across the street.
"Stephen Jacob!"
Nearly tripping over some coroner's equipment stored behind a squad car, the man was halfway toward them, when one of the patrol officers grabbed his arm and violently jerked him back.
"You know him?"
The desperate cry caused Steve to turn a shade paler, and he nodded, before bridging the distance at a rapid pace, followed by his partner.
"I sure do. He's part owner, Mike."
It would be the only information he'd receive for a while, as Steve gestured for the patrolman to release the intruder, the agony in the young Inspector's face vanishing for a moment as he tried to maintain a professional façade.
With his back rigidly straight and his eyes completely unreadable, he approached the sobbing man and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
"I am so sorry that this happened, Hank. We tried to get a hold of you, but nobody answered the phone at your apartment."
In a valiant effort to contain his emotions, the other man put a hand in front of his mouth, taking a few deep breaths before speaking again. Judging by the small drips of sweat on the edges of his short black hair, he'd been running toward the crime scene for quite a while.
"I…I have no words, Stephen Jacob. What…why did this happen?"
Ignoring the odd way in which he addressed his partner for the time being, Mike let his eyes drift over the petite man, his taste in clothes both expensive and extravagant, his footwear something between dress shoes and medium-high heels, decidedly too feminine in his opinion.
"That's what we are trying to find out. Have you or Barry received any threats lately? Phone calls? Letters? Anything like that? Has there been any unruly customers, anybody who'd hold a grudge?"
With a defeated headshake, Hank reached forward, putting both hands on Steve's shoulders, squeezing them as if it would somehow help his pain.
"Just the usual types…as you very well know."
"We're going to dig into those from now on, Hank.", the young Inspector mumbled quietly, using his back to act as a shield to prevent the other man from seeing the stricken nightclub.
After a few moments of tense silence, the bar owner pointed toward Mike with shaking fingers, tears streaming freely from his tormented brown eyes.
"This is your partner, isn't he? I recognize him from the news. I am sorry to meet under such…devastating circumstances."
Accepting the outstretched hand and shaking it, Mike reduced his reaction to a partial nod, allowing Steve to handle the conversation with a man he apparently knew a lot more than he'd initially admitted.
"How many…how many people got killed? Can you tell me that?"
It was a question they'd both been dreading to answer and yet were forced to multiple times already. And no matter how often the number rolled off their tongue, it never became easier to say it.
With his eyes lowered to the ground, Steve clenched his jaws again, requiring several attempts to speak up.
"Sixty-three, Hank. Barry is one of them. I…I found him behind the bar. It was a positive ID. I am so sorry."
Mike pursed his lips at the overstepping of bounds, even if it involved a rule he disagreed with himself.
"Sixty-three? And…and Barry is one of them?"
Mouthing the words in utter shock, Hank looked back at the young Inspector incredulously, before succumbing to another round of sobs.
"Sixty-three souls, Stephen Jacob! What monster does something like that...?"
When he lost control of his emotions, Hank threw himself at Steve's chest, burying his head deeply into the young Inspector's maroon tie; an unusually intimate gesture Mike sensed was not expected but quietly tolerated considering the circumstances.
Mumbling a few words of consolation in a crisis that offered little room for it, Steve wrapped his arms around the other man, staring blankly ahead, as if the encounter had drained the last of his energy.
When it became obvious that it would take Hank quite a bit longer to regain his composure, Mike carefully tapped his partner's shoulder and gestured toward the Comm Van, where both Olsen and Conden were gathered, mouthing a quiet "take your time", before walking over to his superiors.
Deep inside, he hoped they'd be able to give him a direction amidst a chaos he wasn't quite prepared to deal with.