Chapter 4 - Open and Shut
The next morning Ray picked up Fraser and drove him to the station. The two FBI agents were waiting in an interview room. Agents Whitman and Thoreau could have been extruded from the same factory mold. Their suits were black and their demeanors grey and cold. Their questioning of Fraser started on a hostile note and never warmed from it.
"Okay." Thoreau said, "Now, you claim that during the drive by incident you saw the car's number plate. But the plate number you gave Detective Vecchio belonged to a different car. Were you mistaken in thinking you remembered it correctly?"
"No, sir." Fraser replied. "I believe it was surmised that it was a forged-"
"Never mind what was surmised! Just answer the questions." Whitman snapped. "You had a bare split second when you claimed to notice the silencer to push your superior out of the way. Are we really supposed to buy that your reflexes and eyesight are that sharp?"
"Yes, sir." Fraser got the general idea of what Whitman was driving at, which was reinforced by Thoreau's next questions.
"Would you say you would be better qualified to serve in Inspector Thatcher's position? Do you have a problem dealing with women in positions of authority?"
"No, sir, I would not say that, and no, sir, I do not have a problem with women being in charge."
In the absence of other leads on Loman, the agents were apparently trying to make any connection, however absurd, between Fraser and the crime, even though he was the reason Thatcher was still alive. That explained something Ray had said, about one of the agents reviewing his statements about the case obsessively.
Thoreau in particular kept harping back to Fraser's relationship with Thatcher. Apparently he'd picked up gossip to the effect that she had been seen reprimanding him publicly on more than one occasion. That he could take that as an indication that Fraser might cooperate with a criminal to have her killed suggested strongly to Fraser that the agents were desperate at this point, completely floundering in their case, no doubt under pressure from the US and Ecuadorian Governments.
The interview went on in this vein for two hours. The agents were asking the same questions over and over, phrased in different ways to try to get him to contradict himself. At eleven o'clock, a worried Ray and Lieutenant Welsh went into the viewing room to watch through the two way mirror. Fraser was sitting rigidly upright, answering the questions straightforwardly and without a hint of anger.
Fraser wished he'd taken a painkiller with breakfast. Sitting in one position for so long was taking a toll on the muscles of his side. Everything was stiffening up and sending alarm signals screaming through his body. Yet he kept answering quietly and politely, refusing to show these men any sort of weakness.
"You can't keep stonewalling us forever, Constable." Thoreau said. He had come around to squat beside Fraser's chair, leaning on the side of it and talking intimately in Fraser's ear.
"We've heard plenty about you. You like making trouble, is that it? Agent Borland didn't have a lot good to say about your record of cooperating with the Bureau. Neither did Ford and Deeter. Do you think you're some kind of renegade? Vigilante? Is that why Thatcher was in the way?"
Thoreau made to stand up, and "accidentally" fell sideways, his elbow launching into Fraser's injured side in a blow calculated to hit where it would cause the most pain with the least visible motion. "We can keep talking all day, if that's what it takes, Constable." he said, menace clear in his voice.
Fraser swallowed hard and blinked, clamping his teeth shut to hold back a groan, not wanting Thoreau to see how much the "accidental" blow had hurt him. There'd be more of that, he knew, if the interview-turned-interrogation continued. He'd seen bad cops at work before, knew that the skilled ones could take their intimidation to a physical level in a way that would never be detected, that their suspects could never call them out for. He resigned himself to a rough morning.
Thoreau was good at what he did. Whitman looked the other way, used to his partner's tactics, and from behind the two-way mirror, the unwarranted contact looked like Thoreau had just slipped and steadied himself. Still, even the verbal badgering and harassment was too much for Ray to stand for.
"They can't be serious!" Ray exploded behind the glass. "We gotta call them off."
Welsh agreed. "Get Constable Fraser out of there. I'll have a word with those two."
Ray pushed open the door to the interview room. "All right, you two." he snarled, "Interview's over. Welsh wants to see you." Thoreau and Whitman started to protest, but Ray was already at Fraser's side.
"How about we get some lunch?" he said, his tone changing immediately from the vitriolic one in which he'd addressed the two agents.
Fraser nodded, passing his hand over his face as if to wipe the strain off it. Ray attributed his pallor and the tension around his eyes and mouth to mental fatigue.
The two agents entered Welsh's office.
"Ray, I just need to..." Fraser indicated that he was stepping into the men's room with a jerk of his head. He had to go splash some cold water over his face and pull himself together. If he told Ray about what Thoreau did, Ray would be incandescent with fury, and Welsh would be paternal and overbearing. As touching as their protective attitudes toward him were, he didn't think he had the energy left to deal with the conflict that it would spark off between the 27th and the Bureau men. He ran some water and splashed it over his face, then cupped his hands and drank from them. He had a sour taste in his mouth.
Ray went to his desk and called Inspector Thatcher while Fraser was in the men's room. He was worried about Fraser, but he didn't have time to do more than stop for lunch before he got back to work on finding Loman.
"You want to come downtown and meet us for lunch? Things didn't go too well this morning. Benny looks like hell."
He arranged that they'd meet her at a small Italian restaurant he knew.
Inside Welsh's office, the two agents were under heavy fire.
"What the hell did you think you were playing at? That man put his life on the line twice for Inspector Thatcher's sake. How could you possibly think he was involved in the scheme?"
"Well..." Whitman blustered, "The first time could have been a set up to make it look like he was trying to save her, and then the second time he could have been in on the plan. According to all the statements, Thatcher would have been history if Vecchio hadn't coincidentally returned to the scene. Constable Fraser could have been planning on merely being knocked out for show while the killers took her. Everyone seems to know that the two of them just do not get on. He has every reason to want her out of the way."
Thoreau added, "Don't act like he's some innocent. We've read all the files. This guy is a lone wolf. He's not going to let someone push him around. He's more than capable of being involved in this, more than capable of doing what he has to, to get what he wants. We know how he held out in the Gerard case. He was in that up to his neck."
Welsh scowled. He leaned forward on his desk, his hands forming two fists, the knuckles white against the wood.
"Stay away from Constable Fraser. If I hear that either of you has so much as breathed in his vicinity, I'll personally see to it that he sues you and the Bureau for harassment. Now get out of my office."
Thatcher arrived at the restaurant shortly after Ray and Fraser had been seated. She walked across to the table. Ray had a look on his face that she was unfortunately familiar with. He was explosively angry about something.
Fraser stood up to greet Meg, kissing her on the cheek politely. She noticed that he looked pinched around the eyes. They sat back down.
"Hello, Ray." she ventured.
"Inspector." Ray said, shortly. He was mustering his temper. Fraser had been trying to persuade him not to bother Meg with the details of his interview. Ray was unconvinced. Thatcher needed to know what was going on, so she could watch Fraser's back too, in his opinion. Both as Fraser's lover, and his superior officer.
After the waiter took their drink order, Ray cleared his throat.
"Listen, about this morning."
Fraser shrunk back in his chair. Oh well, there was nothing for it.
"I take it that the interview was trying." Meg said.
"Those bastards are out on a limb. There's all kinds of political fuss about this case. But they have no right to try to hang Benny out to dry." Ray said.
"What?!" Meg leaned across the table. "What happened?"
"They were getting pretty nasty, insinuating that because sometimes you let Benny have it in public," (at which Meg winced, had she really been so awful to her subordinate?) "he has some kind of grudge and was working with Loman."
The waiter returned to take their food order which gave Meg just enough time to calm down to the extent that she didn't yell her reply to that piece of information.
"How dare they!?" she said, still loudly enough to draw attention from the nearby tables.
Fraser shifted uneasily. "It's all right." he said. "We all know that I wasn't involved, and they really can't do anything more than question me. I don't want to cause any difficulties. Apparently I haven't made a lot of friends at the Bureau, but I don't want to make a fuss."
Meg and Ray exchanged glances. For Fraser's sake they'd drop it for the moment, but neither of them was happy. The meal was conducted mostly in silence.
"Benny, you've hardly touched your plate. Not lovesick this time, right?" Ray teased. He was concerned, though.
"Are you all right, Ben?" Meg said, leaning close to him. She had been brooding angrily on the injustice against him, thinking about what she'd do to sort out the two agents, and she really hadn't been paying much attention to how he was right then.
"I'm fine." Fraser murmured. "Just not terribly hungry."
Ray rolled his eyes, and set his napkin down on the table. "You're not fine." he said. He turned to Meg.
"You mind taking him back to your place, look after him for the rest of the day?" He continued in the take-charge vein, "Don't worry, Benny, I'll go feed Dief, take him for his walk."
"That's really not necessary." Fraser protested.
"Listen, Benny, I don't think you get the option of toughing it out any more." Ray smirked. Thatcher was practically burning holes in the tablecloth with the intensity of her gaze.
"Only if it wouldn't be too much trouble." Fraser said.
As if looking after the man she cared so much for was trouble at all. Meg sighed impatiently. Her impatience turned to worry as she watched how awkwardly he moved as he got out of his seat and pushed it under the table.
"Are you sure you're all right?" she said, giving him her arm to lean on. He smiled and shifted his weight, letting her support him.
"I'm a bit stiff from sitting in one position for too long. I think I just need to rest." He was careful not to mention Thoreau's elbow to the ribs.
Ray shook his head, glowering. He was surprised to find himself glad that Fraser was off the Loman case. There was no point having Fraser subjected to the attentions of the two morons from the FBI any more than necessary.
Fraser hadn't seen the inside of Meg's apartment before. He was not surprised to find the furnishing spare but elegant, the decor a minimal palate of blues, creams and touches of gunmetal. It was very much a place that spoke of her, and he felt immediately comfortable. It was feminine, but not ostentatious.
"This is the bedroom." Meg said, as she led the way through the moderately sized apartment. "And, ah, this is the bed." She managed to blush, to her surprise. It was one thing to make love in his narrow bed, but it seemed entirely more intimate to imagine it in her own home. Not that there was going to be any hanky-panky today.
Meg sat down on the bed, and patted it. "You really do look tired. I'll call Turnbull and let him know I won't be back in this afternoon, and we can rest." She tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. "I mean, if you want..."
Fraser sat beside her. He smiled, a hint of mischief on his face. "I can't imagine kicking you out of your own bed." he said. "That would hardly be courteous."
By the time Meg returned from phoning the Consulate, Fraser had his shoes and socks off and was asleep under the covers. Pain was exhausting, and he'd been hiding it carefully for days.
Meg watched him sleep for a few moments before she slipped her own shoes off, and the skirt and jacket of her suit, and climbed in beside him. He was lying on his good side, and no sooner was she in the bed than he had reached around to pull her close to him. Meg was not by nature a day time napper, but she had a feeling that she could get used to this.
Fraser woke to the aroma of coffee. Meg had left the bed at some time. He sat up and ran his hands through his hair. Once again the light in the room suggested late afternoon. He seemed to be getting into the habit of sleeping afternoons away.
It was the price for pushing his body to keep going through whatever happened. Fraser knew that Meg was safe now, that he could slow down and not drive himself to stay constantly on guard, constantly ready for action. But a primitive part of his brain hadn't got that message, so he was vacillating between toughing out pain that wouldn't go away, and collapsing for long, unprecedented naps. He didn't think he'd slept this much since he'd been in hospital with a bullet in his spine.
Meg came in with a mug of coffee. She handed him the mug and sat beside him on the bed.
"You look a lot better." she said as he sipped the hot coffee. "Why didn't you say that you were in pain?"
Fraser shrugged slightly, noncommittal. "I don't know, it wasn't a big deal."
"It's a big deal to me." Meg said. She had done her best not to be frustrated or upset that he'd been keeping it from her, but on top of that, his obvious unwillingness in the restaurant to have her find out about the ordeal the FBI agents put him through made her feel like he was shutting her out.
"If you can't even let me know when something happens - when something that affects both of us is bothering you-" she stood up from the bed and paced the room. Fraser put down his mug on her bedside table and stood up too.
Meg kept talking, her voice growing sharp and heated. She hated that, but she hated even more feeling like she had no idea what was going on with him.
"You just close everyone out, push everyone away, pretend you don't care. Do you really not care that people were accusing you of trying to hurt me? Can you really tell me it didn't hurt you, make you angry?"
Fraser closed his eyes. Now this was about more than just hiding that his recovery from the bullet wound was going more slowly than he'd like. He'd heard this before, not from her, but from others. Why don't you stand up for yourself? Ironically, he'd heard it from Ray talking about standing up to her, most recently. There were too many things to say about it and none of them that he wanted to, or felt able to say.
She kept going. "Sometimes it's like talking to a brick wall! Let me in, god damn it. Let me into your life. I don't know how you do it, but I can't take it, it's like beating my head on a wall to try to get through to you." she was raging at him, feeling like a small bird throwing itself against a mountainside for all the heat of her anger could touch him.
"You just stand there, looking like that-!"
Meg realized that he had indeed shut down once more, dropping that mask across his face. Sometimes it was courage, sometimes in the face of danger he really was amazingly calm and together. But sometimes it was something else. She almost thought it was fear. Like he was afraid of what would happen if he responded emotionally instead of coldly and rationally. This was one of these times.
Meg stopped talking, her breath coming out fast, through clenched teeth, as she pushed her fiery temper back down, finding her own steel core of control. He was afraid, and she thought, hurting. It was funny, but even with the brick wall face up, she could still feel that coming off him in waves. Relenting, she stepped closer to him, put her arms up to stroke his shoulders, touch his face. She took one more deep breath to get herself back in order before she spoke much more softly than before. "I just need you to trust me." she said. She pulled him down to sit on the bed and put her arms around him. His heart was beating wildly under the dead calm exterior.
The room was growing dim as daylight faded, and it was almost so dark that she couldn't see his face by the time Fraser started to talk, his voice flat.
"After my mother died, when I was very young, I went to live with my grandparents. My grandmother didn't believe in what she called 'moping about.' My father had something of a breakdown, and I think she wanted to make my world normal again. But you know a child's logic. I came to believe that my mother had died because of something I had done, because I hadn't been brave enough or strong enough."
Meg held back a sob in her throat as she heard him say this.
"Of course, I understand now that... it wasn't the case. But my father was away a lot on patrols in areas where I knew he was in great danger. And I believed that if I could just be brave enough, stoic enough, that I could keep him safe. But if I let anyone know how much I missed him, and how scared I was for him, I'd lose him. Like I lost my mother. And my grandparents' behavior did nothing to dispel that belief. So I learned never to show those things. I did my best to teach myself not to feel them.
"When my grandparents praised me for being brave about my father being away, I felt like a fraud, a hypocrite. So I did what I could to lie even to myself about what I felt. I got so good at it that it wasn't until my father was killed that I realized that," he paused, searching for words that came out in short, hesitant bursts, "the scared little boy was right to grieve for his mother, right to be afraid of what could happen. But I can't change overnight. Part of me is still afraid that if I let you see the weak parts of me, I'll lose you too."
Meg was learning quickly that sometimes he needed silence, needed to be allowed to speak without being answered or challenged. She gave him space, let him continue or not continue just as it suited him. He had already shown her his soft underbelly, shown her that he did trust her with some of the darkest places of his heart and soul.
He leaned into her for a while, and his heartbeat became regular and steady again, matching hers. That steadiness seemed like something he mustered deliberately, through force of will.
"I also see that I will lose you if I don't learn to let you in." he said. His voice finally registered emotion, a soft supplication. "All I can do is ask for you to be patient, please."
Meg bowed her head, leaning it on his shoulder. "It's hard some times." she admitted. "I don't think either of us is particularly easy to get to know, not really well. But I will try to be patient."
"I'm hardly perfect either. I don't need to tell you that my temper is often short. You've probably already discerned a certain defensiveness to it." Meg added.
Fraser made a sound that was half gentle laugh and half sigh. "Yes, I had noticed." he said.
"It's hard, when I get angry and you don't seem to care or be affected. I don't know what to think and I just get worse. And then I get scared that that will drive you away, and somehow it makes me even angrier." The irrational cycle of hurt wasn't an excuse for yelling at him, but she needed him to know why.
"I don't mind you losing your temper. It would be nice if you could try not to direct it at me when it's something else you're angry at." Fraser said.
"But I know it's not all defensiveness. Some of it is just who you are. Look at Ray, he yells at me all the time, and we're still friends. You're not going to get rid of me that easily. We can both try to be better for each other. I want to be with you. I want to be good for you. I know we're going to be all right." He took her hand and squeezed it in reassurance. He felt on much firmer ground assuaging her insecurities than in examining the root causes of his own difficulties in confiding in people.
Meg exhaled, a sound of deep relief. Was that their first fight? If so, it hadn't gone so badly. Not that he was going to suddenly pour his heart out about every little trouble, but then, she wouldn't want that anyway, would she? Part of his appeal was that he knew how to be a man when he needed to, the kind she'd grown up with, the kind who kept a stiff upper lip and did what had to be done. And not that she was going to suddenly turn into a Victorian angel on the hearth, a paragon of patience and saintliness. He was right, she'd always had a hot temper. But at least now they knew where they stood.
"How are your ribs feeling?" she asked, changing the subject, giving him an opportunity to be open with her about a pain that was at least merely physical. "Do they still hurt?"
"Only when I breathe." Fraser said wryly. It was time for him to disclose something to Meg, to stop lying by omission about how he was doing. "I don't want Ray to know, because he'd overreact, but one of the agents got somewhat aggressive during the interrogation. That's why I was feeling particularly unwell at lunch."
Meg exclaimed, then held back further expressions of anger. He'd told her, knowing that she'd probably react as badly as Ray would, and obviously it was something he didn't want turned into a big deal. It was a step toward trusting her.
"What do you want to do about it?" she asked once she'd got the fire of her fury at the agents under control.
"Just keep an eye on them." Fraser said. "The important thing is catching Loman, and I worry that if they are focussing on me, they aren't doing everything necessary to find him."
"You don't want a doctor to take a look at your side?"
"I'd rather not. It's really not that bad, Meg." His voice lightened to a teasing tone, with a distinct purr to it. "And besides, I found something that seems to do quite well at distracting me from it."
Meg let out a small gasp as she felt a touch. His hand was on her thigh, the way he was stroking it with his long, strong fingers made his intentions very clear. Honorable, decent Constable Fraser had hidden depths of roguishness under the starched boxers. Her lips curving into a smile unseen in the darkness, Meg replied, "I'm sure I can think of a few things that will help."
Author's Note: This is probably my favourite chapter from a deep emotional connection point of view. The next is my favourite chapter from a fluffy relationship building point of view, although it's also leading up to a spot of danger! Stick around :) Thanks for reading and please let me know what you thought.