After the positive responses to my author's note I managed to slowly coax my muse back a little bit at the urging that I wasn't allowed to start another fic I'd been wanting to do since last spring unless I proved to myself that I was able to finish projects. As for establishing facts I know I got a review on the last real chapter I posted stating that they thought permanent blindness would be too hard for Tara to overcome (debating over that was another reason I didn't update). However, the woman who watches my dog (who's so much a part of the family she probably doesn't even know she's a dog/wouldn't be placed in the care of just anybody) when we're on vacation is legally blind so even though said person has low level vision and has been this way since birth I decided to respectfully disagree and keep the plot as I'd been planning it for a while.
"Did you miss me already?"
Being that she'd been in Charming for less than a week, Jarry had know way of knowing if the joy in Dr. Gwen Reaser's voice was normal or fake friendliness, but it felt so misplaced for the profession of medical examiner and the presence of Juan Carlos Ortiz's nude, opened corpse that she felt almost lost by the tease. Reaser was the exact opposite of what Jarry had expected to find in the morgue. The medical examiners she had worked with before had been mostly men, and even outside of that mold Reaser was the exact opposite of what it seemed a town such as Charming would spit out. Even in her work she appeared feminine and if the expensive glasses she was wearing were any indication, she liked to indulge herself.
Rather than respond in kind to the tease, Jarry found herself responding coldly. "You said you had something that might help the case."
The cheer in Reaser's voice disappeared, but rather than look offended she walked over to where an evidence bag sat on a table. "I found a hair on the victim that might belong to the woman you arrested in connection with the Tara Knowles case."
A DNA test on the hair sample could take days, if not weeks, time that Charming didn't have to stop the growing conflict in their city, but for now, a long kinky black hair with grey roots felt like enough evidence to use against a woman who was probably little more than a violent biker whore. Of course, the hair only showed that Fiona Larkin had touched Juice Ortiz at some point, but with evidence mounted against them, in an attempt to appear innocent biker types either gave too little information or too much information and despite how cold Larkin had acted during the early morning interview she was bound to give away something that put her and her husband away.
xxx
The new sheriff walked into the holding area practically foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog as if she had found the one piece of evidence that she was sure would solve Tara's murder and Fiona silently almost prayed that whatever supposed evidence had been found was more worthy of her questions than those of her husband.
She didn't think he would spill some juicy secret that would land both of them permanently in jail for Tara's murder, that wasn't his style and there was nothing to spill. However, sometime between when they were thrown in jail that morning and the sheriff's return, a persistent problem that had plagued him since boyhood had developed. The headaches came on randomly, but stress and lack of sleep could certainly intensify them. Now, he was in the throes of what looked to be one of his worse ones. The officers had accepted her explanation that it was only a migraine. Or maybe they'd decided they didn't care if one of "Charming's finest" died in a jail cell. Either way, they'd only allowed her to watch helplessly from across the aisle while he curled into a ball on the floor of his own cell and their daughter paced terrified across the room.
Now, although she knew it was the exact opposite of productive, she wished she could punch the new sheriff in the face for callously hauling them in and putting her husband and daughter in a position to be terrified and humiliated especially while there was so much to do outside the jail walls.
Almost as if she'd heard her thoughts, the lady sheriff stopped outside her cell. "So, what offense did your husband commit that caused you to poison him? Did you slip something in that tea you gave him before we arrested you two?"
Although the sheriff had no idea about the incident only a few years earlier where she'd held a gun to Gemma Teller's head after Gemma had tried to shoot Jimmy O'Phelan, Fiona had a feeling the other woman was looking to incite the same emotion in her that had boiled to the surface then or at least some version of that emotion, something that would make her raw and stupid enough to blurt out some useful tidbit.
Instead of taking the bait, she returned to the cold steely tone that she'd taken during the morning showdown with the deputy. "He suffers from migraines, afraid he has his whole life, but that's not why you're talking to me again. If you think you have something that requires you to talk to me again, take me to the interrogation room and let my daughter get something to drink. Filip needs silence and darkness."
Almost as if to confirm her statement, Chibs sat up and vomited once, all over himself as Jarry opened up her cell and began to lead her to the other room.
As soon as Fiona was seated, the sheriff began to pull out a file folder only to have several pictures tumble out of it and land unceremoniously on the table in front of her. Fiona almost didn't care to look until she saw the other woman's face betraying an emotion that could best be described as a darker version of the child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Whatever was in the spilled file wasn't even supposed to be in the same room with her.
In response to the look, Fiona glanced at the table as Jarry hurriedly gathered up the photos back into the file. From what she was able to see, she could tell the contents were hospital photos, of a woman who had brown hair. Before Jarry could hide all the photos safely back in their folder, she snatched one away to get a closer look at it.
The photo Fiona held in her hands wasn't a hospital photo, but one of a woman's coat, covered in blood. It was the same coat she'd bought almost a year earlier and only the previous day given to Filip to help cover Tara Knowles after they'd found her in her living room.
A few chapter notes. Kerrianne isn't under arrest, she just stayed at the jail because she's terrified that if she were to stay at the house alone, Jimmy would show up and rape and/or murder her. Jarry was supposed to have the file for Juice's case, the deputy accidentally handed her Tara's file which obviously means she can't do the whole faking Tara being dead thing for Fiona and Chibs anymore.
Also "fun" fact: The original plot my mind mapped for this chapter involved Jarry asking the club questions and Tig using marathoning Leverage as his alibi then specifically mentioning a favorite episode of mine by description as "proof" that he'd been doing so. This fell through when I realized that he'd probably identify strongly with the mark in said episode (which probably says some questionable things about me considering seeing a gif set of said mark is literally the reason I finally started Leverage) so I combined a few ideas I had for later and used another fandom's character for inspiration on the medical examiner instead.
