Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: The case is going to move front and centre for a while, because as long as Lindsay is stuck in Montana, Danny and she can't move forward. Besides, that gives me a chance to write about the whole team!
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.
It's A Long Journey Home
Chapter 19: Hard Day's Night
It's been a hard day's night,
And I've been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night,
I should be sleeping like a log
Flack picked up a french fry and bit it in half a little viciously. If there was one thing that really got up his nose, it was bad cops. Careless or dirty, it didn't matter much to him. Son of a cop, grandson of a cop, probably many times descendant of some ancient thief-taker, Flack had few cardinal rules in life, but number one would be "Do the Job."
"Okay," he sighed. "I'll play, but you're buying the next round, Messer. So we have a big case: high profile. What could make the cops screw it up?"
He finished off the beer in his glass, and put it down carefully in the precise centre of the paper coaster, then gave it a twist, frowning thoughtfully as he considered the options.
"Okay, one: they might have just missed it. If the bullets were the same calibre but from two different guns, they may not have tested all of them."
"Right," Hawkes agreed. "Poor procedure, but not unlikely. After all, they had a suspect in custody. You would think they would test the bullets from the d/b's, though. They should have checked to see that all the striations were similar."
"So add arrogance on the part of the investigators to carelessness on the part of the ME and lab rats. Still doesn't add up to anything but poor evidence collection and insufficient processing," Flack argued, needing to speak for the cops on the job. He would play this both ways if he had to.
He went on, "And we don't know what kind of expertise and equipment they had in Montana thirteen years ago. Even now, very few labs in the country are as well-equipped as the one here in New York."
"Shouldn't they have looked at placement at the crime scene, as well? The casings would have been thrown out at different directions, in different parts of the room, indicating more than one shooter. Why ignore that?" Stella objected.
"If they processed according to Lindsay's account, she only saw one shooter. They would just assume he kept moving through the room," Danny replied. "So that's one reason they may have missed something vital: just crappy procedure based on believing they knew what had happened. What else?"
Flack sighed and tried to think like an IAB officer. He hated doing that. It made him feel like someone had taken off his skin, then put it back on wrinkled and full of crumbs.
He risked a quick glance at Stella sitting beside him. He knew she had sat there so she could keep an eye on Messer: shit, that was one reason he had sat across the table too. Seeing Danny down two burgers and a huge plate of fries had been a comfort: Flack had enough peat-bog Irish in his veins to believe that any injury that couldn't be healed with food was probably fatal. So he was glad Danny was eating again.
But a small, mean part of him wished Stella was looking at him with those wide, worried eyes.
He picked up a spoon and started to draw on the table on front of him, trying to concentrate. "Two: they chose not to look any further than that initial evidence and the eyewitness. I did a quick check: this case was big in 1995. It was one of the first school shootings to hit national news. International, really, because it was picked up big time in Canada: Montana is just across the border from Alberta and they were in the middle of a big debate about gun control. The Canadian government was trying to bring in a gun registry – huge urban-rural split on the idea. Still is, in fact."
Flack looked up to see everyone staring at him with a tinge of shock again. "What? Now I'm not supposed to know anything about international politics either? Gun control is a huge border issue between Canada and New York State, too, you know."
At least Stella wasn't looking at him as if he'd suddenly sprouted horns on his head. Her sea-deep green eyes were smiling.
"We're going to have to upgrade you to honorary geek, Detective," Hawkes said with a grin.
Flack rolled his eyes as Danny laughed. "Anyway, assholes, it would be a huge feather in their cap if the brass could say they had the kid who did it, and everyone could sleep safely again within hours of the shooting."
Stella was nodding in agreement, "The gun lobbies on both sides would be following the story pretty closely. Politics would be a strong motivator for keeping any dissenting evidence under wraps."
"Or for just not digging deeper." A familiar voice invoked the lab mantra, and they looked up to greet Mac, moving to give him some room. Flack shivered involuntarily when Stella brushed against him moving her chair closer.
"So, we going cross-jurisdiction here?"
Danny shifted a little uneasily, "Just a little intellectual exercise, that's all, Mac. Keeping sharp. We're trying to figure out what might have kept the Montana State Police from realizing there were two shooters in 1995."
Flack noticed that Danny wouldn't look Mac in the eye. No wonder either; stupid idiot had to blurt out his deepest fears to Mac of all people. Flack couldn't even imagine how Danny was going to move on from that mistake.
Danny hadn't told Don about the night with Lindsay; Stella had let it slip when she was asking him to find Danny and try to make him talk. Flack had been flabbergasted; he'd known Messer a long time, and never known him to treat any woman badly, although he could be careless with their feelings. He had agreed with Stella that there must be more to the story.
The fact Danny was eating again indicated the story had been cleared up a little, at least. Lindsay must have talked him around.
"What have you got so far?" Mac signaled the waitress, and conversation stopped as everyone ordered fresh drinks. All but Flack switched to coffee; if he was going to keep digging in another cop's shit pile, he needed another beer.
They explained their current theories to Mac: sloppy investigation versus quick, politically expedient wrap-up.
"Hmmm. Motivation being the only real difference in those two theories," he commented.
Danny nodded, "And it may not have been as sloppy as we assume. Lindsay told me that they are examining the bullets from the second gun, but I'm betting that they'll be the same calibre for the same make of gun."
Mac nodded his head. "It would make sense. Chances are good, like in Columbine, that the guns were readily available to the boys in their homes, along with ammo."
"It would help to know what the guns were. Most of the ranchers would have at least one or two different types," Hawkes agreed. "They'd have hunting rifles, plus maybe handguns or long guns for protecting the stock. We are talking ranch country here."
The team continued to discuss ballistics, ranges, and the most likely weapons choices for homicidal maniacs to shoot up a school with. Flack wasn't really listening. Without evidence, this really was Sunday-afternoon couch coaching, after all. If they wanted to examine the case, they needed more information.
That didn't mean he had turned off his detective brain, though. He had been thinking while he drank his beer. The bits of the story they had from Lindsay made no sense. No cop worth the badge trusted the account of any eye-witness, especially a shocked teenager who had just seen her friends bleed out in front of her eyes. He had searched what records he could without getting authorization to go deeper from his captain; he knew that Lindsay had been found sitting in a pool of blood, covered in brain matter from one of the boys, Cameron Johnston, whom she was holding in her arms.
He didn't share that piece of information with Messer. Idly, he wondered if Lindsay had. He'd lay odds against it.
Point was, no half-way competent cop would take her statement as anything more than a collection of disjointed impressions.
Which meant the Bozeman police had ignored evidence, or not processed evidence, or …
He broke into the highly theoretical ballistics discussion that had been going on around him, and said grimly, "Reason three, of course, would be cover-up."
The other members of the team fell quiet. Danny looked down at the table. He knew how Flack felt about dirty cops.
So did Mac. It had taken weeks for Flack and him to get back on track after the black coke case, in which Mac had used information from Flack's notebook to take down a cop, one of Flack's own, who had stolen drugs from a scene and killed to cover up the crime.
Stella reached out and laid a hand on Don's arm, which was tense beneath her gentle touch.
He went on, "Someone knew something, or saw something, or suspected something, and tried to make sure that the Forbes kid wouldn't have a chance to turn on his partner. Once Lindsay had given her statement, that person would feel safe."
Danny could feel himself go cold again. He looked at Flack with a hint of panic in his eyes. "But now the case is being re-opened."
Flack regarded him steadily, "Yeah."
"And Lindsay isn't just the eyewitness this time. She's a trained crime scene investigator."
"Yeah."