Another night and here we are again
All our faults laid out ahead
Let it out, then let it right back in
All those voices in your head
And we both know everything,
but we can't learn to leave
So I'll tell you what you need
The next morning, Rori pulled up outside the house dispatch had directed her to. APD had already stretched crime scene tape around the perimeter and, somehow, Steve and John had beaten them there, despite leaving the house after her and Danny. They hadn't talked much, they'd mostly sat in the living room and stared at each other for most the night. All four of the guys had strongly urged her to stay home but she'd insisted that she needed to work.
"How'd they get here first? You drove like a maniac," Danny asked from the passenger seat.
"They must of cheated," Rori replied with a playful wink. She stepped out of the Mustang and ignored the wave of nausea that washed over her. She hoped it was just morning sickness, but it didn't feel like it. Rori had mild morning sickness with her first two pregnancies and it didn't feel like this, but then again she hadn't always been smelling dead bodies and other – odors.
"What took you so long?" Steve called playfully as she and Danny joined them. They had all agreed that it was best if they tried to go on normally and waited to see what Jennifer had to say, so they were trying to be normal, It felt forced.
"Got stopped at a light," Rori replied. Danny shook his head, she hadn't stopped at a single light. "You get a rundown yet?"
"We barely pulled in before you," Steve admitted.
"You sure you're going to be okay, we can handle this if you want to go back to the office, or better yet, home," John said.
"I'm fine," Rori said in a warning tone. "Chavez!" she called to get the young officer's attention as he came out the door. "What do we have today?"
He looked green as he walked over to them and held up a finger that he needed a second. He finally steadied himself. "It's bad," he said.
"We got that," Steve said.
"There's a woman dead on the couch. She's been there for a while. Then there's a guy on the kitchen floor, maybe a murder suicide, but the guy hasn't been there very long," he said.
"So, she's been dead longer than him?" Rori asked.
"Definitely," Chavez replied.
"Okay, I'm going to call Hank," Rori said. "CSU on the way?"
"Yes ma'am," Chavez replied. She nodded, pulled out her phone as she stepped away and dialed Hank's number.
"Hey, how you feeling?" Hank asked as he answered.
"I'm okay, seriously, I am," she said. "We have two bodies, need you to examine and do autopsies."
"Text me the address and I'll be right over," he said.
"Thank you," she said. She hung up and texted the address.
Danny was coming out of the house when she headed back. She didn't want to go inside, on account of the smell, which she could already smell all the way out by the road and it was already churning her stomach. Also, she'd never seen Danny quite as green as he looked just then.
"That bad?" she asked as he leaned his hands on his knee's and put his head down like he was trying not to lose his breakfast.
"You do not need to go in there," he said. He stood up to meet her eyes. "I have seen, and smelled, a lot in my years as a cop. Steve and I once had a case where a guy's flesh was dissolved in acid. We had a case where pigs literally ate the face off our victim. I've seen bodies in the ocean, hanging from trees. I've drug a body, against my will, through the jungle."
"Danny, I get the point," she said.
"This smells a lot worse than any of that," Danny said. Now she really didn't want to go in.
"Okay, you think Chavez is right?" she asked.
"No," Danny said. "Murder suicide happens all at once, I bet that lady has been there at least a couple weeks."
"Yeah, I can smell that all the way out here, someone must of saw something or smelled something. Let's get a picture of what's been going on here. Ready to do some canvassing?" she asked.
"Steve and John already started," he said. He pointed off down the road.
"How'd you draw the short stick to go inside?" she asked.
"You don't want to know," he said. "Actually, you probably would like to know…" He winked and headed off in the direction opposite where John and Steve had gone. She jogged to catch up to him.
"Who's offering you shenanigans in trade for dirty work?" she asked. They had agreed to go on as normal…
"Steven," Danny said.
"Don't worry, I'll give you shenanigans no matter how much dirty work you do or don't do," she whispered in his ear as she passed him to up the path that lead to the door of the first house. She knocked firmly on the door and stepped back. After a moment with no answer Danny rang the doorbell. A little old lady finally came to the door when Rori was just about to give up and move on. The woman worked hard to open the door around her walker and Rori felt bad for making her get up.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked when she finally got the door maneuvered open.
"Ma'am, I'm Director Rorianna Rivera of the Five-O Task Force, this is Detective Danny Williams. We'd like to ask you a few questions about your neighbor," Rori said.
"Which one?" the woman asked.
"Right next door," Danny said, pointing in the direction of the crime scene.
"Mandy? Did she have the baby?" the woman asked.
Rori's heart skipped and she shared a look with Danny. He slightly shook his head, telling her that there was no baby in the house.
"Would you like to sit down, ma'am?" Rori asked.
"I'm fine," the woman said.
"When was the last time you saw Mandy?" Danny asked.
"It's been a few weeks. She said she was going to her mom's when the baby was born, but I thought she still had some time," the woman said. She peered around them to see what was going on. Her eyes widened at the sight of the cop cars and crime scene tape. "Has something happened?"
"We found some bodies in your neighbor's home. We don't have IDs yet, so we can't say rather or not Mandy is one of them," Rori said.
"Oh god damnit! I knew that guy was not good for her!" she exclaimed. Rori was shocked to hear such language from an older lady.
"Guy?" Danny questioned.
"Not the baby's father, another one, started coming around about a month ago. Tattoos everywhere and a fancy car he didn't look like he could afford," she said.
"Do you know what kind?" Rori asked.
"It was real fancy, I got pictures," the woman said.
Rori caught Hank's Jeep pulling up out of the corner of her eye just then. "Get those pictures and update the guys. I'm gonna prepare Hank for what he's walking in on," Rori said. Danny nodded as Rori jogged to catch up with Hank. She couldn't help but think maybe she should pass this one on to APD or the FBI. It was very close to home for all of them if there was a baby involved. She reached Hank's Jeep as he was getting out.
"Hey, police scanner said murder suicide?" he asked. She'd told him to stop listening to that thing, they never gave accurate details.
"Danny doesn't think so," she said. "He said the woman has been dead a lot longer than the man."
"Okay, cause that's not creepy," he said.
"It gets worse," she said. "The neighbor said the woman that lives in this house is pregnant." Hank sighed. "What?"
"I became a doctor to help people, to save lives. I feel so helpless," he said. His eyes fluttered down to her stomach and back to her eyes.
Rori was searching for some kind of words that would make him feel better, but she couldn't think of any as a car pulled up next to them. It was a beat up, old Buick. The right, back window was busted out with a trash bag in it's place. A scraggly looking man in baggy, faded jeans and a loose wife-beater tank stepped out.
"I'll meet you inside, Henry," she said. It wasn't an order, but it was a strong suggestion. She wanted to protect him as much as she could from the horrors of what happened at crime scenes. He hesitated but went anyway, she was the boss, after all.
"What's going on here?" the man demanded as Rori turned to him. He seemed angry. Very angry.
"Sir, this is an active crime scene," she said.
"My baby mamma lives here, please tell me she's okay," he said, panicked now.
"I can't tell you that, sir," she replied softly.
"Is she dead?" he asked. "What about the baby?"
"We really don't know anything at this point," Rori said. "Let's sit down and calm down for just a minute."
"Who are you, anyways?" he asked as Rori led him to the curb.
"Director Rorianna Rivera, Five-O," she introduced herself. "And you?"
"Brandon Montoya," he said. "I don't have a fancy title or anything, Mandy's just pregnant with my kid."
"Dad is a pretty fancy title," she commented.
"Is she dead?" he asked again, calmer this time.
"Why do you instantly go to asking if she's dead?" Rori asked.
"You've got crime scene tape everywhere, there's a crime scene investigator van, there's cops everywhere. Something is wrong," he said. "And we don't get lucky."
"We don't know that it's her. We did find two bodies inside," she said. A little compassion goes a long way. "When was the last time you saw her?"
"A couple weeks ago, I went to the sonogram appointment," he said.
"Was it normal for her to not contact you for that long?" Rori asked. Danny came over to join them.
"Not really, but I thought she was mad at me. We got in a fight because she wanted me to sign away my paternal rights," he said.
"Any idea why she would do that?" Rori asked.
"Maybe a rich boyfriend she'd rather put on the birth certificate?" Danny asked.
"No, she didn't have a boyfriend," Brandon replied.
The look on Danny's face made Rori think maybe Mandy wasn't sharing everything with the baby daddy. "Brandon, did she have any identifying marks that might help us confirm if the body we found is or is not her?" Rori asked.
"She has a mole on her left earlobe," he replied.
Rori nodded to Danny who headed for the house in response to her silent command. She sat in silence with Brandon for a moment until her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was a text from Danny. Their vic had a mole on her left ear.
"I'm so sorry, Brandon, but it looks like the victim inside is Mandy," she said.
"Was she murdered? Did she die because the baby? What happened?" he asked.
"I don't have any answers for you, I'm sorry," she said. "Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt her?"
"Everyone loved Mandy," he said. "What about the baby?"
"I don't have those answers either," she said. She texted Danny to have him send a picture of the man in the kitchen. It came through pretty quick. "Do you recognize this man?" she asked as she showed him the picture. He shook his head. "Okay, where can I reach you if I have any information?"
"My cell phone," he said. He rattled off the number and Rori sent it in the group message she kept with the guys so they all had his name, relation to the victim, and contact info.
"Okay, Brandon, you can leave now. Please call me if you think of anything that might help with our investigation," she said as she handed him her card. "I'll contact you as soon as I have any information about the baby."
"Thank you," he said.
Rori walked him to the car. It was definitely a craptastic car, but it was clean both inside and out. When he started the engine there was a distinctive squeal from the serpentine belt being too loose. She watched him pull away from the crime scene and breathed in a bit of fresh air to prepare herself to go inside. She thought the smell was bad outside, but once she was inside it took all her willpower not to chunk it.
"The smell is quite pleasant, isn't it?" Danny asked when he met her by the entry for the kitchen.
"Yeah, we'll call it that," she said sarcastically with a hand over her mouth as if it would help.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Just catch me up," she said.
"Male vic in the kitchen has two gunshots to the chest, gun on the floor. Hank says about two hours ago which lines up with the 9-1-1 call. Female vic is in the living room," he said. He pointed to the French doors that clearly separated the living room and entry. "Hank said she isn't currently pregnant, but he thinks she died during childbirth. At least ten days ago."
"Any sign of the baby?" she asked.
"None," he shook his head and his eyes fluttered down to her stomach. It was very clear to her that they were thinking of their own baby just as much as she was. "And no baby equipment," he added.
"What do you mean?" Rori questioned.
"The first thing Rachel did when we found out about Grace is go out and start buying all the little things she thought we might need for the baby. Diapers, clothes, crib, carseat," he said. "I don't see any of that here. There's an extra room, but its empty and not painted for a baby."
"Maybe she had doubts about keeping the baby," Hank weighed in as he joined them. He brought a strong whiff of the decaying smell with him through the living room door and she couldn't hold it in anymore. She darted out the front door and chunked it over the side of the porch. "I got it," she heard Hank say before he appeared at her side. He pulled her hair back while she finished. The taste left in her mouth made her want to vomit again. "You okay?" he asked. She nodded. "Have you been having much morning sickness?"
"Not really," she said. "Just this morning, started at the house and then this is just… It's a lot. I'm sorry."
"Don't be, I have some stuff in the car that might help," he said.
"Thank you, but I don't really want to take anything, I have crackers at the office," she said. John and Steve came up the front walkway as Danny came out of the house. "Welcome back. I'm going to guess your canvass went about the same as ours," she said.
"Yeah, neighbors say she was pregnant, close to due. New guy started coming around. Fancy car, tattoos," John said. He regarded her curiously but didn't say anything as he continued his report. "The guy across the street said the baby daddy was pretty low end too."
"I met him. Something doesn't sit right," she said.
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"The car was clean, immaculately clean, but it ran like shit," she said.
"You have a funny feeling based off the way the guy cared for his car?" Hank asked.
"Guys that kill their girlfriends and babies don't come back to the crime scene while the cops are there," Steve said.
"The baby is gone," Danny updated them. "And there's the matter of Mr. Tattoo in the kitchen who isn't Mr. Fancy Car and Tattoo."
"Okay, Hank, get the bodies to the morgue and start the autopsies. I need a firm timeline on their deaths. Steve and Danny, find out if anyone brought in an abandoned baby. Check hospitals, fire houses, police stations. John and I will go back to the office and try to ID both tattoo guys."
"On it, boss," Danny said. "You should rest and hydrate too."
"Danny, I'm fine, really," she said. She headed for the car with John in tow.