Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: Well, I don't know. After being called rude, mean, evil, and cruel, I'm not sure I want to play any more. Any death threats after this chapter and I'm taking my ball and going home. I mean it! Don't MAKE me come out there! :-)
On the other hand, over 900 reviews? Changed my mind: you guys can say what ever you like. As long as you review! Stick with me, kids – it'll all end soon!
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 57: I Knew the Answer
And though she thought I knew the answer
Well I knew what I could not say.
And so I quit the police department
And got myself a steady job
And though she tried her best to help me
She could steal but she could not rob
Didn't anybody tell her?
Didn't anybody see?
Sunday's on the phone to Monday,
Tuesday's on the phone to me
The alarm rang, startling Sheldon from a sound sleep. Groaning, he rolled over in bed and slapped at the offending clock, knocking it to the ground. He swore, but without any real fire to it, and rolled out of bed.
After a cold shower and a hot coffee, he was able to open his eyes. Damn, he should be used to this by now. After all, he basically gave up sleeping when he went into med school.
He wandered into the bedroom and pulled out his jogging clothes. He had a blessed eight hours all to himself, and he was going to do whatever he felt like. The day was just beginning, a cold, sunny New York morning, and he had nothing to do and no one to please but himself.
Automatically, Shel checked both his land line and cell phone for messages while he booted up his computer to double check for email alerts. It wouldn't matter, he assured himself; the last thing he was interested in doing today was work.
He had no messages on his home number; the only one who used that was his mother in Harlem, and she only called when something was wrong, preferring to keep him up to date with his widely spread family at a weekly dinner meeting. He would see her in a couple days and catch up.
His cell phone had messages from Sid, from Mac, and from John Monroe. He ignored the messages from Sid and Mac: work-related but not emergencies, he diagnosed by their voices. Time enough to deal with those issues when he actually got to work.
The one from John Monroe was quite intriguing, though. He recognized the voice right off, but Monroe had left nothing to chance, automatically leaving his full name and title before telling Hawkes that he had emailed him video clips of the Montana shooting in 1995, as well as some other details Monroe had dug out of various files.
Hawkes checked his watch; it was only 6 am in Montana. Probably phoning now was not a good idea. He opened his email account and clicked on the first of the files Monroe had sent him.
An hour later, Hawkes sat back in his chair, stunned. No one – no one – could have watched this video and not known there was a gunman behind the Forbes boy. He had watched over and over, from several different angles: Monroe had managed to get tapes from four different sources, all positioned slightly differently. In every case, the body of the teenager told the story.
"First hit," Hawkes murmured as he replayed the sharpest of the four versions. "Forbes takes one in the left leg: stops him cold. He raises his rifle. Two hits from the right," he drew an imaginary line from two different police officers to Forbes' right side, "Shoulder and upper arm." Had Forbes still been moving, those shots could have spun him back and around, making the final shot in the spine more possible. The cameras clearly showed him jerk, dropping his weapon, but not spin.
"Fourth shot, in the abdomen, doubles him over," Hawkes advanced the footage frame by frame and froze on the final shot, "and fifth takes him out."
The young boy in the frame threw his arms up, arching his back, but continued to fall forward as Hawkes let the video run to its conclusion.
Hawkes read through the information Agent Monroe had sent again. There were media statements from Sheriff Graham, and from the parents of two of the students. The Collins, the Sorensens, and the Monroes, Hawkes was unsurprised to see, had refused to give statements. The mayor and city council, however, had been all over the media; it must have been an election year, Hawkes thought cynically.
He looked at the phone again. "Is nearly 7:30 in the morning too early to phone Montana?" he wondered. Then he shrugged. "Only one way to find out."
He dialed the number Agent Monroe had left on, and on the other end, the phone was picked up before he even heard it ring.
"Lindsay? Danny?" The woman's voice was strained, but not quite hysterical.
"No, ma'am. I'm sorry to disturb you so early. This is Sheldon Hawkes from the New York …"
"…Crime Lab, and you were a doctor, then an ME and now a CSI, isn't that right? I'm Diane Monroe. Have you heard anything from Lindsay or Danny?"
He found himself shaking his head as if she could see him. "No, ma'am. I'm sorry. I was hoping to talk to John Monroe?"
"Oh." He could hear the deflation in her voice, but it lasted only a moment before her voice brightened again. He found himself seeing Lindsay in his mind's eye: her 'brave smile' he thought of it – the one which did not reach her eyes, but may fool some into thinking everything was fine. Now he knew where she got that habit from, he thought.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Hawkes, he has already left to drive into Bozeman. I'll give you his cell number; he has one of those hands-free phones so I don't have to worry about him on the road. Just a moment, and I'll get it for you."
Sheldon heard the phone rattle as Lindsay's mother put it down; then a few minutes later, she came back to the phone, and read out the cell number. "He only left about fifteen minutes ago, which means he won't make it to Bozeman for about half an hour. You should have time to talk to him."
He said gently, "Mrs. Monroe, how are you holding up?"
There was perfect silence on the other end of the phone, and suddenly Sheldon realized she was sobbing.
"Mrs. Monroe? Is there anything …?" He stopped in dismay. What on earth could he do from New York?
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I feel like a perfect fool. But we haven't heard anything from them since they left yesterday morning, and I knew we wouldn't – I mean, I'm not stupid – but I just didn't know what this would feel like and I'm not used to not knowing." The distraught woman took a deep breath, then murmured another apology.
Sheldon took a deep breath, and offered the comfort that he could, "Mrs. Monroe, Lindsay is one of the bravest, smartest people I know. So is Danny Messer. Together, they make a great team. If there is any way for them to keep each other safe, believe me, they will."
"Thank you, Dr. Hawkes. I hope, when this is all over, I'll get to meet to some of Lindsay's friends in New York. I am glad that she has such good people in her life."
Sheldon made some other comforting remarks, and hung up as soon as he reasonably could. He ran a shaking hand over his face; families were one reason he had left the hospital. Dealing with the emotions and struggles of people broken by death had been increasingly difficult for the young man he had been when he started in medicine.
Death. He stopped dialing the number given to him by Diane Monroe and counseled himself out of that mindset before talking to Lindsay's brother. He couldn't help the sense of foreboding, though. Last night, when Mac had put a time limit on the investigation, Shel had understood, even to some degree agreed with the decision.
Now he was just glad that he had no plans to ever again be in the position to make those kinds of life and death choices.
He hit the last number and waited for John Monroe's crisp response.
"Agent Monroe, FBI."
"Monroe, Sheldon Hawkes here. I got your message and have reviewed the clips." Hawkes automatically used his professional demeanour to push back some of his concerns.
"Doctor! Thanks for calling. I'm on my way in to meet with the Bozeman police; anything you can give me would be a help."
"You already know most of it if you watched these clips before sending them to me," Hawkes continued to watch the last clip run as he talked; the one he had analysed had finished while he talked to Lindsay's mother, but the next one had started running automatically.
"I did, yes. Give me your impressions to add to my own," Monroe's voice matched Hawkes' in professional tone.
Quickly, Hawkes ran through the sequence of shots and actions. He continued to watch the footage rather idly as Monroe clarified the points he would need to use with the Bozeman force.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Monroe, did you watch all the footage from," Hawkes checked the tag on the clip, "from KXLF in Butte?" He sat forward, peering closely at the screen on his computer, tapping at keys to zoom in.
"Most of it, I think. Why? What did you find?" Monroe's voice sharpened.
"After Forbes was down, the camera man kept rolling tape. He followed a detective who was going in a different direction than the others. Shit!"
"What? What? Fuck, Hawkes, you nearly made me go off the road! What do you see?" Monroe's FBI voice slipped a bit.
"There he is. The other kid in the black coat. Come on, man, just turn a bit more, a little more: Got him!" Hawkes yelled triumphantly. "Monroe? You still on the road?"
"Hell! Just barely!" the agent growled. "Who is it?"
"Well, that will be up to you to figure out, but I am sending you the capture now. You should have it in your inbox by the time you roll into the station."
"Roger that, Hawkes. And hey, Doc? Thanks. From all of us." Monroe hung up before Hawkes could answer him.
Sheldon leapt up from the cramped position he had been holding over the computer for the past – he checked the clock – nearly two hours. He stretched and groaned: so much for not working.
As he went into the kitchen to make fresh coffee, he heard a message being delivered to his email. He still had some deep searches out on the Bozeman police roster, so he wandered back, coffee cup in hand, and clicked on New Message.
What he saw had him reaching for his cell phone so fast, he nearly ended up with a lapful of coffee.
Without thinking, he hit speed dial for Stella's home number. Still, he was a little surprised to hear her voice answer the phone.
"Hi Stel, it's Hawkes. I have some new information about the second shooter in Montana. Is Flack there?"
There was a deathly silence on the other end of the line, just long enough for Sheldon to curse. Got a little ahead of himself, hadn't he?
"What exactly makes you think Don Flack would be here?" Her voice was cold and imperious: Empress Stella, he thought to himself. A little less dangerous than Hurricane Stella, but only briefly. The force of nature could kill you in a minute; the politician would plot your demise while carrying on a pleasant conversation.
"Umm – nothing?"
"Shel!" The warning in her voice was not lost on Sheldon.
"Would you believe extra-sensory perception?" he asked. "Look, Stella, can you yell at me about this later? I really need to talk to Flack. Are you going to force me to hang up and phone his cell phone and pretend I don't know he's at your place?"
Stella huffed into the phone, but a moment later, Flack's crisp voice was asking, "What's up, Doc?"
"Ha ha. Wait all year to use that one?"
"Most of my life, actually. What've you got?"
"Do you have access to a computer?" Hawkes was downloading information as he spoke.
"If Stella ever speaks to me again after you pissed her off, probably. Did you find something?"
"Not something, someone. Check your mail, then call me back. I'm going to call Mac."
He hung up on Flack, who was still sputtering, and speed dialed Mac's cell, determined not to make the same mistake twice.
"Taylor." Mac's voice was decisive, "What do you need, Hawkes?"
"Check your email, Mac. I sent you, Flack, and Agent Monroe some info. I need your confirmation; I've been staring at this so long I may be seeing things."
He could hear Mac moving across the room, but his phone beeped with an incoming call. "Mac, I'm putting you on hold; Flack is on the line."
He switched to Flack's call, "What do you think?"
Flack whistled, "Holy shit, Doc. It looks to me like you got him."
"Hold that thought," Hawkes switched back to Mac. "Well?"
Mac's voice, unlike Flack's, held little emotion, "You contacted Monroe?"
"Sent him the picture while I talked to him, then copied him on all the info I just sent you and Flack. He should be getting it any minute; he was on the road into Bozeman when I talked to him. You think it's solid enough?"
This time, Hawkes heard the crack in Mac's cool demeanour, "Nice job, Shel. I think you've done it."
"Let's hope the Bozeman boys can finish it," Hawkes said, a little grimly