Chapter 2

Before he could return home, however, Jay had a brief encounter with Phil Rodiger, who accused him of being responsible for his son's death. An encounter Jay would rather have avoided. He could understand perfectly well that the older Rodiger was Angry. He had lost his son. His son was a pedophile, but nevertheless it was his son. And Jay was known for accusing Lonnie, Jay was the reason Lonnie was dead – in Phil Rodiger's eyes anyway.

Back home he went back to his notes. Added a few bits, crossed out the parts about Danny Corson. He wanted to call Officer Upton, but he wasn't sure if that would be a good idea. He didn't want to impose on her. He should figure this out on his own, not with someone he hardly knew.

But then his phone rang. It was Upton.

"Hey," he said.

"I figured you'd want to do this on your own and might not call," she said, unknowingly vocalizing his thoughts.

Jay laughed briefly. "Right. But I haven't come far. Care to come over?" What did he say? Jay shook his head. Had he just invited her over? She would surely reject. A woman like Hailey surely had better things to do than spend the evening with someone as pathetic as today's version of Jay Halstead.

"Sure, give me 30 minutes."

What was happening here?

After exactly half an hour, Jay's doorbell rang. Hailey Upton was standing outside, looking a bit insecure, and shoved a six-pack of beer into Jay's hands.

"Beer delivery," she said with a tentative grin.

Jay smiled back at her, relieved somehow. Oh yes, she was as pretty as he remembered.

"Perfect. Just what I need. Come in."

Jay led her into his living room, handed her one beer, put a second one for himself on the table, and the rest into the fridge. Then sat down on the couch.

"I didn't expect you to come," he said after a while.

"I didn't expect to come," she replied.

They exchanged a smile.

"Thank you for offering your help," Jay said. "I don't know how I deserve it. I mean, we just met, and here you are, being more helpful than my own unit."

"Yeah, I'm bored anyway, and I like a good riddle," she shrugged it off, feeling a bit uncomfortable now. She wasn't sure why she wanted to help him so badly, either. They hardly knew each other. For all she knew, he could be a cold-blooded killer. But no, she was sure Jay was innocent, and she liked him. He was different from her colleagues in patrol, different in a good way.

"So, let's see. What have you got?" She grabbed the papers from the table and looked through them. "You have quite a file on this guy," Hailey remarked.

"I've been watching him since he killed Ben Corson," Jay explained. "I have wanted to get him behind bars, for Ben. And to make sure Lonnie doesn't do it again."

Jay gave her all the information he had on Lonnie Rodiger, from the investigation of the Ben Corson case to the surveillance data he had obtained from Jin, to his own photos and notes. And told her everything that he had done the night before.

"I can see that they think you're a suspect," Hailey concluded after going through all the information. "You are obsessed with this guy."

Jay swallowed hard. "So you think I killed him?"

Hailey put down the papers and looked into Jay's eyes. She hardly knew the guy, and still she felt a connection to him. His eyes were so sincere, so open, and scared. She could understand why he wouldn't let go of this case, why he was so obsessed with it. Slowly she shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

Jay exhaled, only now noticing that he had held his breath. "Thank you," he said earnestly. "It means a lot that someone believes me, that YOU believe me."

"So, let's think about what we can do to prove your innocence," she quickly tried to lighten the mood.

"And you are convinced that Ben Corson's father is innocent?" Hailey asked after a while.

"Yes, absolutely," Jay confirmed.

"Because apart from you he would be the obvious suspect."

"I know," Jay agreed. "There aren't any other suspects, I'm afraid."

"Not at first glance, no." Hailey looked down, thinking. "Frankly, you are still the most obvious lead. And without knowing you, I would completely agree with your bosses."

"There is nothing else," Jay added. "I think I would agree with them too."

"It's either a random murder or someone we haven't thought about yet. We need to dig deeper."

"But not tonight, it's late already."

"Right, I have to be at work early," Hailey said. "I think I'll go home now."

They stood up and Jay walked Hailey to the door.

"Thank you so much for helping, Hailey," he repeated.

"You're welcome, Jay," she smiled. "We'll get you out of this mess."

Another brief hug and she was gone.

Jay went back into his living room, mechanically cleaned up the table, brought some order to all his papers, and went to bed.

What a strange day it had been. After a terrible start he had met someone who was willing to help him. And she was not only helpful and clever, but very pretty, too. But he didn't want to follow up on that thought, quickly tried to brush it away. Now was not the time.

Needless to say, he didn't sleep well. He was up every hour, and when he slept, he had weird dreams and nightmares.

Jay was up very early in the morning; and despite having close to no sleep at all, he was wide awake, and he looked presentable, when he showed up in Stilwell's Office in Internal Affairs.

They man gave him the creeps, there was something about him that Jay disliked from the first second. This man was dangerous. He was too smooth, and it was obvious to Jay that he looked for a scapegoat. And Jay was the perfect scapegoat. Sure, Stilwell told Jay that he wanted to help, but Jay didn't buy it.

Luckily, he didn't have much on Jay, only the photos of him driving his car behind Rodiger. Unless he had proof that Jay had killed Rodiger, it was nothing. Jay made that clear to Stilwell, and he left the office. Did that creep really think that he could force Jay to a confession with these photos and nothing else?

Still, Jay needed to find out who the actual killer was, because nobody else did. Everybody else was ready to blame it on Jay. He was alone, with a fellow female cop he had just met, and whom he trusted, for no reason at all. Jay cracked a smile when he left Stilwell's office.

If she was a good cop, she might actually be useful, together they might find the killer. Thank God for small favors.

On his way back to his car, Jay's phone rang. Antonio. Now that was a surprise. Antonio asked for a meeting. Jay wasn't sure if he should see that as a good sign, but the meeting was off the records. Nevertheless, he drove to the meeting point feeling a bit better. Perhaps someone else was on his side, someone from his unit.

When Antonio approached him, however, he punched Jay immediately, accused him of being an idiot. Jay defended himself, but before it turned into a heavy fistfight, both withdrew. And finally, Antonio asked Jay if he had killed Lonnie. Finally, someone from his unit bothered asking.

Jay told Antonio what he had told Hailey before, the truth. That he had wanted to kill him, back then, but hadn't. Antonio handed him the Rodiger homicide file and was gone again, leaving a stupefied Jay.

He didn't know what to think of it. Did Antonio help, against Voight's orders? If yes, why? To save his own skin, since he had brought Jay upstairs? If no, had Voight ordered Antonio to give him the file, but didn't want anyone to know? He knew that was a possibility. Intelligence often went against official orders. And you could never know what Voight really thought. Whatever it was, there was no use thinking about it too much. Now that he had the file, he might find something.

Back home he studied the homicide file thoroughly. It contained a lot of new information, all the details of when, where and how Lonnie had been found. He went through it bit by bit, comparing every piece of information with what he had collected before.

When he thought he found something, there was a knock on his door. Hailey?

Jay didn't know it was her for sure, therefore hid the pile of documents, so that not everything was visible to an accidental visitor.

When Jay opened the door, Al was standing outside. Jay had to admit, he was a bit disappointed. But of course, it was a nice surprise that his colleague dropped by.

"A man should not drink alone," Al just said and showed him a bottle of wine. With a grin, Jay stepped aside, and Al entered.

Jay produced two cheap glasses, which made Al smirk, and both had a sip of wine. When Jay tried to tell Al that he hadn't killed Lonnie, Al just shook his head. It didn't matter to him.

"While you're here, could I run something past you?" Jay asked.

Al sat down on the couch with him and looked at what Jay showed him. There were the surveillance photos showing Jay's car behind Lonnie Rodiger's car, a statement from Phil Rodiger, and photos Jay had taken.

Phil Rodiger had told the police that Lonnie hadn't come home the night before. But Jay had seen him enter the Rodiger house around 10pm.

Al nodded, but before he could say anything, there was another knock on the door. Jay flinched.

When he opened, Hailey stood there, smiling brightly. "Your personal police officer at your service, Detective Halstead."

Jay smiled involuntarily, but felt a bit awkward, when he let Hailey come inside. Al raised his eyebrows ever so slightly at their short hug and displayed an almost invisible grin.

"Hailey, that's Alvin Olinsky," he introduced the two, "Intelligence - Al, meet Patrol Officer Hailey Upton. She offered to help me with the investigation."

Al hardly reacted at all, briefly nodded at Hailey.

She decided to not make a big deal of the situation and sat down. "Got another glass, Jay?"

"Sure, if you don't mind trailer park style," Jay quickly produced a glass and poured Hailey some wine.

"We just met yesterday," he explained to Al, who waved his hands defensively.

"None of my business, kid."

"Nobody seemed to believe your colleague," Hailey said with a smile. "So I figured it's only fair if he got some help."

"Good," Al just said.

"Hey, I think we found something," Jay picked up the papers again, explained to Hailey what he had discovered. Phil Rodiger had lied about his son's whereabouts.

"He might know something," Hailey concluded. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Intelligence can hardly confront him with this, they don't know officially," Jay said.

"So we go and talk to him in the morning," Hailey concluded. "He knows more than he told the police so far."

"Are you sure you want to be in on this?" Jay asked. "It might get you into trouble."

"I can stay in the background," Hailey suggested. "Al, what do you think?"

Al nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Depending on what Rodiger says, we'll take it from there. I will make sure someone's in the office, in case you want to bring him in." With that Al excused himself and let Jay and Hailey alone.

"So, tomorrow your whole unit has something to gossip about?" Hailey said when Al was gone.

Jay shook his head. "Nah, I don't think so. Al keeps things to himself." Somehow, though, Jay liked the idea that there could be something worth gossiping about. Slowly, he relaxed a bit, leaned against the back of the couch.

Hailey smiled at him, he smiled back.

Not all was bad right now. He might get his badge back, and he was in great company.