Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: As requested by some of you, a little more case, a little more Stella, a little more Flack. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about D/L! It's just that everyone wants a turn on stage!
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 40: All Your Life
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
"So if Lindsay could identify both shooters, why didn't she?" Peyton asked logically.
"She says here that the one she saw was wearing a bandana over his face, like in a Western movie," Flack pointed out. "So she would have seen only eyes, maybe hair – which could be any colour at all. This happened fast…"
"According to the report files by Jeannette Turnbull, the investigator first on the scene, the one who processed Lindsay, Forbes was seen by a teacher entering the schoolyard at 3:10, when the final bell went. The first shots were heard at 3:12; the cops responded to 911 calls within 5 minutes; Forbes walked out into police fire at 3:29." Mac was flipping through the report, pulling information together.
"Where was that, Mac?" Stella quickly plotted into her simulation the schoolyard and the position of the police. "So Forbes had to have come out this door," she pointed to the classroom door that led to the lab prep room, "And through this hallway," a few taps on the keyboard and Stella had filled in the space between the classroom and the door to the courtyard, "Out this door where he's met by the police."
Dropping into a chair behind her, Flack leaned over her shoulder again to point at the computer screen, "So Number 2 goes back out through this outside door, around the corner of the building, and shoots his buddy in the back. Nice."
"But why?" Stella sat back in her chair, huffing in frustration, arms crossed and long fingers tapping on her arms. "Why would he try to kill his partner? The whole thing seemed to have been planned out. It certainly was efficient. Four dead in less than 15 minutes? I know SWAT teams that wouldn't work that fast."
Mac moved over to look at the diagram as well. "We can only help them with what happened, Stel. 'Why' is going to be someone else's job." He grinned at Stella's impatient little snort.
"And we are still missing too much information," Hawkes moved in as well to peer at the diagram. "Do we have a copy of Forbes' statement?"
"Just the original one, made after he had been operated on and was recovering in the hospital. It's not like they were too worried about catching the shooter – he ran right into them." Flack looked through the statement quickly, "Says here he was angry because they didn't pick him to be on the Science team; he was picked on and bullied through high school – no real surprise there. No mention anywhere of a partner, or of a plan. Just walked in, shot up the lab, walked out into the cops."
He scanned through another report that was clipped to the confession. "Hey, Mac?"
"Yeah?" Mac looked up from the screen.
"What's the name of the detective in charge in Bozeman? Evans?"
"Yeah, I think so. Yes, here it is – Carl Evans. How come?"
"He was on the scene in '95. Look, he was a Detective 3rd Grade. Must have been on the streets for a while before he moved out of uniform." Flack handed over the copy of Detective Evans' report to Mac.
"He says the suspect came running at the police cordon, yelling, with his gun pointed. The police opened fire to take him down."
Peyton had grabbed another medical report when Flack had mentioned Evans. "Forbes was shot five times: once in the left leg; twice on the right side – arm and shoulder; one hit him in the upper abdomen – some damage there, but mostly superficial. Fifth shot was the clincher: hit him in the spine, severing it. Well, there's no way any half decent ME could mistake that for a shot from the front!" She held up a photograph of the wound in Forbes' back. The wound pattern clearly showed that the flesh had been penetrated from the back, with an exit wound in the front.
"So, what did Evans have to say?" Stella held out a hand for the report.
"Pretty basic report from a peon," Flack said dismissively. "I only noticed because of the name."
"Wait a minute," Stella said. "He says he saw another person in a long black coat leave the scene."
"Where?" Flack sat forward and reached for the report.
"Here, just at the end of the report," she pointed it out to him.
"Suspect was down on the ground and secured. Several members of the squad were deployed around the perimeter of the scene while the SWAT team entered the building to secure and assess the situation. As I was mobilizing in accordance with my superiors' orders…"
"Cor, he don't half talk posh, do he?" Peyton interjected in her best Cockney accent, surprising a chuckle out of the rest of the team.
"As I was mobilizing in accordance with my superiors' orders," Flack went on with a bit of flair, "I observed a figure moving behind the building which appeared to be an adolescent dressed in a long black coat, similar to the one worn by the suspect on the ground. Upon further investigation, however, the figure had disappeared. I proceeded to follow the orders of my captain."
Flack's face registered his disapproval as he lowered the report. "So he went chasing after the glory shot instead of properly investigating a suspicious person? I wonder how he's got to where he is?"
"Be fair," Hawkes said, "Low-ranking, not sure of what he saw, following orders …"
"Wonder if he's ex-military? Could explain him following orders without question," Flack said.
"Run Evans when you run McKim, would you Hawkes? Let's find out where Bozeman is getting its officers," Mac said. "In fact, do a level one on everyone we have names for. Someone at that station is not right; let's see if we can find out who it is."
Hawkes nodded and made a note on his computer.
Stella had swung back to the computer diagram, "The second shooter only had to dump the coat and rifle and duck back into the building where he had come from to be completely invisible."
"What about blood? Wouldn't he be spattered as much as Justin Forbes?" Peyton objected. "When they processed his clothes, there were several different blood types. Not that they separated them out. Limited lab time and obvious suspect, I suppose."
"Probably not. If our plot is accurate at all, he would have been out of the spatter area for the most part." Stella pointed to the diagram.
"Besides, he had the coat to cover him. Dump the evidence and he'd have been safe enough, unless he transferred blood on his shoes or the leg of his trousers." Hawkes completed the thought.
Everyone sat for a few minutes looking at the diagram. There were still too many holes in the evidence to do much more tonight, but they were reluctant to just walk away. Illogical though it was, it felt like walking away from Lindsay and Danny, and so they stayed, arguing, discussing, examining the documents and evidence they had until Hawkes finally fell asleep in a chair.
"This is ridiculous," Stella said, stretching. "Don, are you going to send Danny what we've got so far?"
"I'll do that; I have Lindsay's parents' fax number," Mac said.
"Fax? On a farm?" Don's eyebrows rose.
"Modern ranching life, I guess," Mac shrugged. "Anyway, my shift starts in an hour, so I'll put this together and send it off first. You guys, go home." He looked over at Hawkes, who was, remarkably, still upright in the chair, though sound asleep. "I guess it's true, what they say about medical residents."
Peyton shot him a smile, "If you don't learn to sleep where you drop, you have to learn to give up sleep altogether. I'll take him home, if I can borrow your car. I'll come pick you up when your shift is over."
Mac handed her the keys, and pulled her close for a minute. Don and Stella quickly found something more interesting to look at in the file at the other end of the conference room, but Stella could see the couple sharing a kiss goodbye, and she stifled a quick sigh.
"Come on, Sheldon, let's get you home." Peyton put a hand under Hawkes' arm and he rose, following her without appearing to even open his eyes.
" 'Night, Peyton. 'Night, Hawkes," Stella said quietly, then turned to Mac. "You sure you okay to do this? I could stay and help."
"Take her home, Flack. Stel, you have the day off. Take it. I'll take care of them, I promise." Mac's normally stern look had been softened by his goodbye with Peyton, and Stella smiled to see him looking more relaxed and content than she had seen him for a long time.
"Come on, Stella. I'll walk you to your car," Flack said coolly.
"I didn't drive," Stella replied absently.
"Then I'll take you home," he said, holding the door open for her and waiting for her to say goodnight.
"Tell them we're thinking of them, would you, Mac? And that we aren't giving up. We'll do our best to figure this out for them. Promise them that, would you?" Stella wrung her hands, her eyes not leaving the picture of Lindsay which Mac had placed in the centre of the incident board, and which she had successfully avoided most of the night.
"Don't worry, Stella. Go, get some sleep," Mac's voice was soft, but the look he shot Don Flack was clear. "Get her home safely," it said.
Flack put an arm around her gently, "Let's go, Stel."
Subdued, she allowed him to lead her down the hall to the elevator. He tried to step away once they were traveling down, but she rested her head against his shoulder and sighed, and he froze, hardly daring to breathe, in case she realized how close to him she was, and moved.
She smelled clean, he thought. Not of any specific scent, just something clean, like laundry on a clothesline. He closed his eyes and tried not to tighten his arm around her, the way his body was screaming at him to do.
He moved them through the parking lot quickly – there was no such thing as a completely safe place in New York's night – and installed Stella in the front seat of the car. He got in the driver's side and turned on the heat as soon as the engine was on.
"It'll be warm in a minute," he offered quietly.
"I'm okay."
"You're shaking," he pointed out.
"That's rage. I am so angry with this person, whoever did this. I know it happened years ago, but the ripples – all the people affected." She shook her head, remembering her conversations with Diane Monroe. Now she fully understood the depth of Lindsay's mother's anger.
"We're going to help find him, Stel. And Danny, Lindsay, Agent Monroe: they all have good reason to find him too. Even the Bozeman cops – they'll need to find him as well. It's stayed quiet for a long time, but it can't stay quiet now." Don wanted to reach out and hold Stella's hand or rub her shoulder, anything to show her some support, but he didn't dare.
To his great surprise, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. "You almost make me believe it."
"Trust me." Their hands remained clasped as he drove competently through the early morning streets.
He made it to her neighbourhood in under half an hour, and found a parking place only a few doors down from her apartment. He got out and opened her door for her, "Come on, Stella, home."
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Walking you to the door?"
"You are sweet, Don," she said with a smile.
"Ouch," he thought.
He walked with her up the block, and stopped at the door of her security-controlled apartment.
"Come up with me. I'll make you coffee," she offered.
"Umm, that's okay, Stella. I'll pick some up on my way home." He could not go up to her home right now.
"Mine's better. Please, Don? I need to talk to you. I was going to do this before we met with the rest of the team, but then you had Hawkes with you..."
"Shit. Here it comes. What's the betting on the 'not ready for a relationship' speech? Or could it be the ever-popular 'it's not you; it's me' speech?" Don thought with an inward groan. No help for it though; he knew Stella well enough to know she was not going to take no for an answer. He nodded a little glumly.
They didn't speak as they rode up in the elevator, or as they walked down the hallway, or as Stella unlocked the door to her apartment. She didn't say anything as she took his coat and hung it up beside hers in the closet. She didn't say anything when she took his hand and led him to the living room and offered him a seat on the couch.
And she didn't say anything when she sat down on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and lay her mouth gently on his before deepening the kiss until his arms were tight around her, pulling her closer.
"Don," she whispered in his ear, when they broke the kiss for a breath.
"Yeah?" he mumbled, in delighted shock.
"Fuck going slow," and she swept him under again.