Watching Jake nervously fidget in the interrogation room, Deakins shook his head.
"I just can't see Mark Connelly doing this, sending Bobby, or any of his detectives, up the river like this."
"Not even for his own kid?" Logan asked.
"I don't know. But if he is, it's gonna be tough proving it."
"Why?" Alex demanded. "We've got his prints—"
"At the gym and in the elevator," Deakins said grimly. "There's nothing in the apartment. Whoever got there first conveniently did away with those."
"Well, we've still got the maid who can identify him being there…"
"Whether or not he was there is still up for grabs," Deakins said, frustrated, "Bobby was the one found over the body!"
Alex was angry. "So, what? We just give up on this guy, and let Bobby go down for this? Whose side are you on, anyway?"
Now Deakins was angry. "Of course I don't want Bobby going down for this! I'm just telling you—you need more! What you have now isn't enough!"
"Okay, 'Carver', " Alex said sarcastically.
Deakins sighed. "Alex…"
"Bottom line, Captain, is that that is all we've got for now. I…don't know how long Bobby is going to last in there…we have to have a go at this guy."
Deakins studied Jake a little longer. "Then step into him."
Logan and Alex walked back into the interrogation room. Alex looked at him.
"Jacob is it? They call you Jake?"
"Yeah," Jake said suspiciously, "my friends do."
"Well, we're your friends, Jake," Logan told him.
Seriously doubt that. "So is there something I can help you with, Officers?" He sounded bored.
"Yes," Alex said. "You can answer a few more questions for us. First do you know a Nicole Wallace?"
"Nicole…uh, Wallace? No, can't say that I do."
"No? Really? We seem to have a few witnesses who say they saw you coming out of her hotel room. They said they could identify you in a lineup."
This took Jake by surprise. I thought this was all taken care of? "Oh, that Nicole. I never knew her last name, I only knew her very casually. Hell, everybody did! She was a slut, a whore! Half the city was sleeping with her. Even that dumb cop who was stupid enough to kill her for it—"
Eames practically shot out of her chair, grabbing Jake by the front of his shirt. "That 'dumb cop' happens to be my partner, you fucker!" Logan had to pull her off of Jake to keep her from scratching his eyes out.
Eames was furious. "That 'dumb cop' just happens to be the smartest cop in the NYPD!"
"Well, if he's so smart, how come he's the one in jail?"
"It's just your dumb luck and his bad luck that he's sitting in that jail cell now, because if he wasn't he'd have nailed your ass to the wall a long time ago. As long as it took us to catch up with you, it would've taken him a third of the time!"
"I…I want a lawyer," Jake mumbled.
"A lawyer?" Logan asked sarcastically. "Why don't we just cut the middle man and call Daddy directly?"
"I want a lawyer. Now. I'm not saying nothin' else."
"You'll get your damn lawyer," Alex said. She got right in his face. "But I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. If anything happens to my partner while he's in custody—anything!—if they so much as touch a hair on his head, I'm personally coming after you for it, and by the time I'm finished with you you're gonna be talking in a falsetto. And you won't need a lawyer, you'll be needing an undertaker. And that is a promise."
Jake just stared at her. And after a while Jake got his phone call. Almost immediately after receiving his phone call, a lawyer seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and once again Jake was a free man.
Rikers, same day
They waited, watching silently while the guard uncuffed Bobby, and then left.
"Get me out of here." Bobby said it softly, but it came through like he'd never meant anything more in his entire life.
Both Alex and Joe stared at him. "We're trying, Bobby. We've got a pretty good lead—"
"No. Not in a few weeks, NOW!" He sat down heavily in a chair, totally exhausted. All his hyper vigilance and lack of sleep was finally getting to him. He put his elbows on the table, and rested his head wearily in his hands.
Alex looked at him suspiciously. "Bobby, did they do something to you?"
Bobby raised his eyes to look at her, then lowered them again.
"No," he said quietly. "If they did, I wouldn't be here to talk about it. But it is going to happen, and soon, probably tonight, or tomorrow. And when they do, it's going to be…rough."
"What's going on, Bobby?" Joe asked.
"They…told me what they were going to do…"
Alex and Joe both knew jailhouse threats had to be taken seriously
—particularly where a cop was concerned. It was the real thing.
"Bobby, tell me everything they said, verbatim," Joe said. "I'll go back to the judge today and try to get you moved."
Bobby looked at Alex. He would never want her to know how he'd been threatened, the horrible things they planned to do to him. But the thought of the pain and torture he would endure only to be killed in the end anyway far outweighed his initial reluctance to tell her. So still with that certain amount of reluctance he repeated what the guard had told him.
"He said that some time in the middle of the night, this week, for sure, they'd come to my cell and he'd happily unlock it for them."
"Did he say who?"
"No. No names, just that there would be more than a few of them, guys that I'd had a hand in putting in here in the first place, guys who had it in for me anyway."
He stopped, and Joe encouraged him to go on.
Bobby continued, his head once again in his hands, looking down. "For chrissake! They're gonna take a goddamn broomstick, break it in half and fuck me with the broken end!"
Alex closed her eyes, turning away. Bobby might occasionally go off verbally on a perp, but he was basically non-violent, even reluctant to use his gun if he didn't have to. The idea of anyone, let alone a gang of them, doing something this violent and depraved to her gentle partner was unfathomable.
She heard his voice, as he told the rest of his tale. "And that's just the start…"
Listening to him, Joe felt sick, but continued to question Bobby. "What about the guard? How did he figure they'd get away with it?"
Bobby laughed bitterly. "Oh, yeah. When it's all over, one of them will 'rough' him up a little, and cuff him, so it looks like he was overpowered."
All too soon, it was time for Bobby to go back. Although knew he had to go, he resisted, knowing he might never come back. This didn't go over well with the guards, who roughly snapped the cuffs back on him. Alex and Joe watched helplessly; as much as they wanted to help him there was nothing they could do, except assure him they'd get him out. And Bobby, having no choice, resisted no more as they pushed him out of the room.
Once Bobby was gone, Alex looked at Joe.
"You have got to get him out of here! Talk to that judge! Do something!"
Joe was already on his feet. "Let's go!"
Before long Alex and Joe were outside the Court House, where the judge who sentenced Bobby to Rikers had just emerged. Amazingly, the judge was reluctant to have Bobby moved.
"Isn't he already in protective custody?" he demanded.
"Yes, Your Honor, but—"Joe started.
"Then that's where he stays! I told you once I'm not giving special privileges to Goren just because he's a detective. If anything, he should be given less. He's supposed to be an example to the community, and frankly, right now I don't feel like he's much of an ideal example."
"Your Honor—"
"Another word and you'll both find yourselves joining him."
But Alex and Joe were adamant. At the moment Bobby's safety was all that mattered; what happened to them was inconsequential.
"Your Honor," Alex started again, getting really angry. "They're going to kill him! Probably tonight. And those so-called guards who are supposed to be protecting him are in on it!"
"Do you have any proof of this, Detective?"
Joe stared at him. "What kind of proof would you like, sir? His body delivered to your door?"
"Counselor…"
Alex jumped in again. "With all due respect, Sir, if you don't have him moved immediately, whatever happens to him will be on your head. And then we'll be arresting you."
The judge glared at them. "I'll look into it, Detective… Counselor. And I'll get back to you." He started to get into his waiting car.
"There's no time…!" Joe started.
"I said I'd get back to you." He settled himself in his car, and was driven off, leaving a very shocked Alex and Joe standing there looking at each other.
Alex was the first to recover. "What the hell?" was all she could manage.
tbc