A Final Session

Chapter Eleven

Karen felt as though her head would explode if she drank any more coffee. She'd had more than she cared to remember at the hospital and then had nervously been refilling her cup back at the squad every fifteen minutes or so. Sitting at her desk she rocked back in her chair slightly, her eyes sliding from her desk phone to her cell, which she had carefully placed in front of her.

"Looking at them won't make either of them ring." Tom said.

She hadn't even realised he was there. Looking up at him she gave him a tight smile.

"How long has the chief been in there?" He jerked his head toward Fisk's office door.

"I didn't even notice he was in there." She answered. "I'm getting coffee. You want some?" She asked.

"Sit. I'll get it."

Tom rose and made his way down the corridor to the locker room, nodding as Marty passed him in the opposite direction.

"You hittin' the coffee too?" Karen asked as she watched Marty set an overfull mug next to his laptop. "That's your third in an hour."

"Still less than you." He replied as he wheeled his chair over to her desk. "Why don't you head home? Get some rest, you've had what, three hours sleep at the most last night?"

"Nah, I couldn't. I'm better here or you know, if anyone rings…."

"Karen, if we get a call you'll get a call." He assured her.

She shook her head tersely and swallowed, afraid the ache in her throat would transform itself into tears that she knew she would not be able to stop. "I want to be here when you do the interview." She stated looking away from his face.

"This nut has to calm down first." Marty huffed, settling back at his desk. "Last report was he was still crying like a baby and keeping everyone in the tombs awake. He's one popular guy down there."

"He'll be one popular guy when he gets up here too." Karen muttered as she watched Marty fiddling with the plastic evidence bag containing the tape recorder he had taken from Edward Mellor's pocket. The thought of what might be on that tape made Karen's skin crawl. She looked up and caught Marty staring at her.

"What?" She demanded.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing." He replied evenly.

"I don't know what you mean." She took a swallow of lukewarm coffee and wondered where Tom had gotten to with her fresh cup. She desperately tried to avoid Marty's gaze.

"It's not the same is it?" He asked.

"What?"

"It's not the same as seeing a vic who you don't know from Adam." He stated, his voice level.

She shook her head and looked away. "I don't know what happened Marty. I just.. I was just so scared that he was dead and when I saw all the blood… I think I'm gonna have to tell the boss. I mean if I don't have your backs then what good am I to you …."

Marty cut in. "Karen, you have our backs. I've seen you in those kinds of situations and you definitely got it covered, but you can't expect to go into a scene like the one we've just been in, which involves someone you know, and not be affected. Especially the first time."

Karen rolled her eyes dismissively and looked over to Fisk's office. "I've seen stuff before Marty. I should have known better, I'm not straight out of the Academy." She snapped.

"You've seen 'stuff' Karen, 'other people stuff'. You know, you're moving up pretty fast. You're no slouch but you're young for a detective and you haven't seen everything." He said kindly, looking over at her, feeling she still wasn't cutting herself any slack.

He pressed on, determined to get her to listen to him. "When I first made the grade we were called to a warehouse where these guys had been trading guns. We knew about it cause we had a man inside. I knew him to say hi to around the precinct and my partner and I once played him and his partner in some pool doubles thing some of the guys had going on. Anyway, we go to this warehouse to close it down only they've gotten wind about our guy and they've cleaned up and gotten the hell out. All we find is a few empty crates and our guy on the floor almost cut in half by god knows how many rounds from what was probably an assault rifle." Karen looked up at him as he continued. "I did nothing. I just stood there staring at this pool of blood while my partner shouted me to move my ass and I did nothing. I just couldn't move and when I finally did I threw up. You know what I did after you left in the bus Karen? I did everything that was needed and then, before Tom and I got in the car to follow you to the hospital, I had to take a moment and stop myself from throwing up. You learn through experience kid, like I have, like Jim has. You'll learn through experience and you'll be ok."

Karen nodded but Marty could see she still wasn't convinced. "Thanks Marty." She shrugged. "I'm gonna go change." She gestured to the front of her t-shirt that was spotted with blood and stood up making her way to the locker room. Once there she flung open her locker door and grabbed a sweat top from one of the shelves. She'd probably be sweltering in it but it was all she had.

As she pulled her t-shirt over her head she breathed in the faint antiseptic odour of the hospital and her head swam. The hospital, the ambulance, the last couple of hours danced through her head alarmingly.

She'd lost her cool in the apartment and she knew it, right up until Marty had told her to come and sit on the floor. She'd moved automatically, slipping a little as she made to kneel down next to Jim. Listening as the wail of sirens grew she reached down and lay her hand on top of his, all the while keeping her eyes from his bloodied face. "Bus is on its way partner." She said quietly.

Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, everything seemed to snap back into place. Partner. Partner! The word stuck in her throat and started to ring through her head like an alarm. This was her partner and he needed her, needed her to do more than sit and mutter platitudes while she avoided looking at him. Grabbing Jim's hand up she sandwiched it between her palms and started to rub small circles on the back of it. "Jim." She called to him, bending forwards to draw her face close to his so she could speak directly into his ear. She settled her hand gently onto the side of his head. "Jimmy, the bus is coming. Can you hear it? I know you can hear it, just stay with me. I'm here and I'm not gonna let you out of my sight. Ok? Just stay with me." That was when she felt his fingers curl slightly in hers. Her heart raced, adrenalin coursing round her body making her stomach fizz. "That's it, I knew you could hear me. Come on Jim, open your eyes and I'll ask you if you're ok and you can tell me your fine." She forced a small laugh, pulling his hand up close to her body as his fingers curled again.

She kept hold of his hand whilst the paramedics did their job only releasing it momentarily whenever they asked her to. She kept hold of it in the ambulance, watching as the paramedic leaned over Jim fixing a plastic peg like device onto one of his fingers on his other hand. She held on tight to him as they cleared his airway, her eyes squeezed shut, her stomach lurching as she listened to the wet rattle of the tube the paramedic had put into her partners mouth.

When the noise stopped Karen opened her eyes again. The paramedic had slipped an oxygen mask over Jim's nose and mouth and was gently lifting his swollen right eyelid so he could shine a penlight into his eye. A worried look passed over his face as he repeated the exercise with Jim's left eye. Karen leaned forward and put a hand onto the paramedics arm.

"You OK?" He asked.

"Yeah." She nodded towards the penlight. "His eyes … my partner, he's blind."

"Ah. That would explain the limited response then." He smiled over to Karen as he leaned back to shout to his partner to step on it. "Anything else I should know?" He asked.

"Apart from what we already told you, I don't know." She shrugged. "He was shot in the head about two years ago. That's how he lost his sight."

"OK. It's best we know these things." He replied, his tone casual as he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Jims upper arm, pulling it tight and squeezing the pump.

The next thing Karen knew she was clambering out of the back of the ambulance following the paramedics and the gurney at a half run. One of the paramedics ran through a string of words, which she didn't understand, with a doctor who was now racing along side them through the emergency room of Belleview. They came to an abrupt stop as the gurney banged through a set of double doors that separated one of the trauma rooms from the corridor. Karen stepped forward to follow but a firm hand on her shoulder held her back.

"We've got him. You have to stay out here." A nurse dressed in lilac scrubs stared at her. "You can wait right here." She indicated to a row of chairs near the wall adjacent to the room they'd wheeled Jim into. Karen nodded and was about to move over to the chairs when she turned back and grabbed the nurses sleeve, "My partner is blind so if he wakes up he won't know where he is," She fixed the nurse with a no nonsense stare, "so you come get me ok? He doesn't like hospitals so you have to come get me." She nodded to herself as the nurse pushed back through the doors.


Karen shifted uncomfortably. She felt like she'd been sitting on this plastic chair for an age but she knew it hadn't been long at all. Every now and then she got up to look through the glass panels in the doors to the trauma room. It didn't help. She couldn't tell what was happening. All she could see was doctors and nurses stepping around the gurney and each other, rushing back and forth with pieces of medical equipment that meant nothing to her. Occasionally she'd have to step back hurriedly as someone barged their way through the doors and rushed down the hall.

"Hey" She looked down the hallway to see Tom and Marty rushing towards her. "What's happening?" Marty asked.

"I don't know." She shrugged impatiently. "They took him in and left me here. I've heard nothing since. Where's Christie?"

"They just brought her in. Paramedics couldn't see anything wrong but she musta had a recent dose of chloroform because she's still fast asleep." Tom said, "She's in a room down the corridor sleeping it off. We left a uniformed officer with her. They'll give us a shout when she wakes up."

Marty sat next to Karen while Tom paced up and down in front of the chairs.

"We look great." Karen commented. She'd not really noticed before but Marty was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that was liberally smeared with blood, she was dressed in old sweat pants and bloody t-shirt whilst Tom was dressed unusually smart in designer jeans and what she guessed to be a designer shirt.

"I know I do." Tom tried to joke.

"Boss." Marty nodded down the hall at the lieutenant as he strode towards them.

"Someone care to fill me in?" He snapped, running his hand over the top of his head. They were all quiet.

The silence was broken abruptly by the swish of the double doors being pushed open by the doctor. Karen jumped out of the chair like she was on springs and pushed past Tom as the doctor walked towards them.

"Are you here for Detective Dunbar?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm his lieutenant. How is he?" Fisk asked frowning.

"He's stable. We've pumped his stomach just to make sure nothing was left in there and we're keeping him monitored to make sure there's no organ damage. From what you told us it doesn't sound like he had time to ingest much before he was sick so we're not too concerned at this stage. He has a broken nose, fractured cheekbone and severe bruising to the right side of his face. He also has a couple of deep cuts, which we've stitched. He is still unconscious though and that's giving us cause for concern so we're gonna send him up for a CT scan, just to make sure nothing's going on that we don't know about and then we'll move him upstairs." He clarified.

"I need to stay with him." Karen asserted.

"Sure." The doctor nodded. "I'll get someone to take you up."

"Karen." Tom's voice sailed over to her, breaking her out of her thoughts, as she stood leaning on her locker door. "They're bringing him up."


Karen and Fisk settled into the observation room as Marty and Tom strode into the interview room where Edward Mellor sat, his pale hands flat on the table in front of him, his dark eyes watery with tears.

"So, Edward," Marty began, dropping the plastic evidence bag containing the tape recorder and another bag full of papers lightly onto the table in front of them both. "You wanna run me through your thoughts on this evening or shall we just listen to this tape you made for us?"

Edward was silent as he looked sullenly down at the table.

Tom shifted against the wall. "You might want to think about getting a bit smart here Edward. It isn't like we don't know that it was you. After all you were caught, quite literally, red handed." Tom said. "We'd just like to know what you thought you were doing and then we might like a little chat about three other victims we got spread over this city!" Tom finished with a shout making Edward jump, the tears starting up again.

"Geez, Eddie. Don't start with that again!" Marty ordered. "You're not a kid. You haven't gotten grounded for leaving your toys out and you can't cry your way outta this!"

Edwards face became sullen again and the tears stopped almost as if they were on tap. "You wouldn't understand." He muttered. "And my name is Edward."

"Well why don't you try us?" Marty leaned over him, fixing his eyes with his. "Why don't you try to help us understand, Ed?"

"I help people." He said quietly. "They want help. That's why they come to the practice, but they don't get what they really need. Only I give them what they really need."

"I'm struggling Edward, I gotta be honest, I'm struggling to see how drugging someone, tying them up, beating them and pouring sleeping tablets down their throat is helpful." Marty replied.

"He needed someone to show him how he was holding her back, how he was making her unhappy."

"Making who unhappy?"

"Her! His wife. Have you seen her? She's like so many of them. They're too good for these men. They put up with so much because they have good hearts and it sucks them dry. They waste their lives on men who just take and take and take."

"Were Anna Flannery and Elise Robson wasting their lives? Is that why you had to help them?" Tom asked.

"Their husbands were the worst kind." Edward muttered, his voice hard. "Those men had everything. Good homes, good wives and it still wasn't enough!" He spat "They had to ruin it all! Drinking, gambling. They had no idea how much pain they caused those women! They didn't deserve them, they didn't deserve the lives they had been given and those women didn't deserve to be dragged down by them!" Edward was shaking with rage, his pale face now red with anger. "Those men never did anything nice for them!"

"Is that what this sick shit is all about?" Tom asked as he leaned forward and scooped up the plastic bag of papers. "What is this? Sightseeing holiday brochures, Gallery invites what's all that about? You're idea of something nice? You think cause this guy can't see he doesn't go nowhere, he doesn't do things with his wife if he can't benefit from it?" Edward was silent as Tom finished. "You were gonna leave this out for his wife with, let me guess, a pot of coffee?" Tom tossed the bag back on the table.

"They deserve someone who thinks about them first." Edward muttered, avoiding Tom's glare.

"Ok. So you're the hero of put upon wives everywhere." Marty snapped sarcastically. "I get that. But what about Michael Goldberg and Jim Dunbar? How do they fit into this game of yours?" Marty pushed what Karen had said about Jim being unfaithful to the back of his mind. Edward hadn't used a knife on Jim so it stood to reason that he didn't know. Taking a deep breath Marty pressed on. "They hadn't let their wives down. They weren't drinking or gambling. What did they do that was so bad Edward?" Marty pulled one of the chairs up next to Edward and sat down. "I'm getting comfy Eddie cause I really wanna understand this."

Edward scowled at Marty. "I didn't want to hurt Michael Goldberg, he wasn't like the others, but you should have seen his wife! She wanted a family so bad and he couldn't give it to her! I know it wasn't his fault but they were trapped, don't you see that? They were trapped. He knew he should leave her to let her have a full life but he couldn't and she knew she wouldn't leave him. How would it look? Leaving him because he couldn't have children. She couldn't do it; she was just too good, too kind hearted! I had to help them out of their situation! You must see that? They needed a help!"

"And Jim Dunbar?" Tom asked.

In the observation room Karen shifted position and glanced over at Fisk. His face was as angry as she'd ever seen it.

"James was like Michael. I didn't want to hurt him either but I saw how she led him around, how he relied on her and I felt sorry for her and for him."

"You condescending son of a bitch." Marty snapped. "You ever consider he might not need anyone feeling sorry for him, huh?"

"You didn't see him!" Edward snapped back. "He needed my help to let go. Let go of his wife so she could live properly, let go of his own life so he could be free and if you listen to the tape, just listen to it, you'll see that in the end he agreed with me, he swallowed the tablets of his own free will and I just helped him!"

Marty stood up and grabbed up the evidence bags from the table.

"You wanna know something Eddie? I have seen him. I see him everyday cause believe it or not that guy who you think needs your pity, whom you assume has his wife do everything for him, that guy is a cop, a detective who works here. Now, I'm gonna suggest you dry your eyes and keep your mouth shut and hope that you don't get a visit from some pretty pissed off colleagues of his while your down in the tombs, cause Edward, I gotta tell ya, they might just decide to come and help you!"

With that Marty banged the chair onto the floor and strode out of the interview room with Tom following.


Fisk sat on the edge of Jim's desk as the others settled back into their chairs.

"We got an address on this guy yet?"

"Yeah, Dr Wilson just sent over the address they have on file for him so we'll get over there and see if we can find any tapes or notes on the other three vics." Tom replied. "We also got records back from the name check. Nothing on him but plenty on the dad. An alcoholic. Seems he was in and out of prison for various things, the main being assault and battery against his wife a one Jenny Mellor."

"So little Edward spends his time watching daddy drinking and beating on mom and not being able to stop it so when he grows up he decides to re-address the balance." Karen suggested.

Fisk stood up. "Let's go over his apartment and see if we can find any tapes. It's pretty open and shut though. It's definitely one for psych."

"What do we do about this one?" Marty asked, holding the tape recorder up.