Broken Roots
Chapter Four: Scattered as They Fall
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,008
Disclaimer: I own Crossing Jordan. Um, right. That was a lie. I don't own anything. Except my own insanity. I can't even claim to own DVDs for Crossing Jordan. Okay, I can, but only season 1.
Summary: Sins of the father are passed onto the son. Sins of the mother to the daughter. And somewhere in the middle of all of that lies the truth.
Pairing: Woody/Jordan (kind of sort of... ok...eventually :) )

Author's Note: So I lost my copies of Crossing Jordan, couldn't find the episodes I needed to reference. And then, low and behold, they didn't tell me much. The rest I made up. Thus, I own the mistakes. Not sure I should be proud of that. :P

Scattered as They Fall

"Is that what I think it is?" Nigel asked, hovering over Jordan's shoulder as she signed for the package. She shoved him away, but he came right back. Bug was with him, both of them crowding her as she tried to get away from them, heading down the corridor to her office. She wanted to open this in private. She hadn't expected the files to get here so soon, but she wanted to go over them by herself first.

"Come on, Jordan," Nigel said as she tried to shut the door to her office on them. "You can't honestly expect us to just sit this out, can you? Woody needs my expert assistance."

"He needs our help," Bug corrected, elbowing Nigel, who cursed in the best of British slang for a minute. She wasn't in the mood to laugh.

Jordan shook her head. "This is my box. It has my name on it. And that means you two have to stay out of it. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."

"Yeah, right," Nigel scoffed. "Come on, love, let us help. You know we can."

"Guys, these files may be public record, but they're Woody's past. Think about it for a second. He wouldn't want you to dig into it without his permission, okay? I'm going to lock this box up, take it home, and give it to him," she told them. She set it under her desk and folded her arms over her chest, preventing them from coming any closer to it.

"You expect us to believe that?" Nigel demanded. "You want to solve this thing for him, and you know it, Jordan. Let us help."

"Guys, I mean it," she insisted, pushing her hair behind her ear. She should be crossing her fingers, too. "The box is staying right here, locked in my office, until after work is done. When it is, I'm taking it to Woody. He should look at it first—if he can."

"And if he can't?" Bug asked, watching her very carefully.

"Then we open it up for him," she said. "But not now. Okay? He needs that chance. And he'll never forgive us if we don't give it to him."

"Nigel!" Garret's voice barked out across the morgue. "Where are those results for the Horn case?"

"Damn," Nigel whispered. "Duty calls. Buggles, if she opens that box—"

"Nigel!" Garret was really impatient. He sounded pissed. Nigel lowered his head as he walked over to where Garret waited. Jordan closed the door and locked it behind her. She looked at Bug, who shook his head, his disbelief all over his face. She didn't care. They were not looking at those files before she did.

Bug left for his desk, muttering to himself. Jordan looked down at her keys, a faint smile coming over her face. She knew what she could do. She knew what she was going to do. She waited for Nigel to go back to work and went to the still fuming Garret.

"Don't start," Garret warned, "I know you owe me over two week's worth of paperwork, and you're not leaving this office until you get it done. No pickups, no autopsies, no trace. Do you understand?"

"Gee, thanks," she muttered. "Look, Garret, the files from Woody's dad's murder came. Bug and Nigel are dying to get a peek. I've got them locked in my office, but I'd rather put them in Woody's hands sooner rather than later. He has the right to see them first."

Garret folded his arms over his chest. "He's willing to look at them?"

"He took it pretty well, actually, Garret," Jordan admitted. "Locked himself in a room for a while, but then he actually slept for a change, and in the morning, he said he would look at them."

"It won't be easy for him. Even without Cal's accusations, looking at those files, especially the pictures, is going to be harder than hell for him. Didn't he say his father died in his arms?" Garret shook his head. "Bastard didn't deserve those kids."

"Yeah," Jordan agreed. She wondered what the files would say about Woody's father. Warren Harding Hoyt. A theme, a cruel one, in Jordan's opinion. But that was one man that she'd like to meet. She'd give him a piece of her mind and then some for what he'd done. She wanted him to pay, and he'd gotten away with it.

"Go," Garret told her. "Take Woody the files now. The sooner he looks at them, the sooner he can get past this."

"Yeah," Jordan agreed guiltily. She swallowed hard as she headed back to her office. She shouldn't lie. She should do what she said. But she wouldn't.

She wanted to see those files first.

"You know, that's a hell of a way to treat someone else's property," Max observed.

Woody lifted his head from his knees and looked up to see the older man picking up the box he'd thrown across the room earlier. The film had come out of the box, and Max was turning it over in his hands with quiet fascination. He seemed puzzled to find it, as if he had not expected that from the old box. Mementos,letters, maybe, but a film?

"You broke in," Woody observed dryly. "That makes your rights forfeit."

Max sighed. "I just needed some place to store it for a few days."

"And you could have asked," Woody muttered. He got to his feet and went to his desk. His back hurt, and so did his legs. How long had he sat there, anyway? He looked at his wrist. Right, no watch. He looked at the window, but it was no way to judge anything, as dirty as it was. Maybe he was better off not knowing. Yeah, probably.

"You were with Jordan. I told you, I'm not ready for her to know I'm here," Max said. "You're a mess. What the hell have you done to yourself, Hoyt?"

"You really expect me to believe you don't know what happened, Max? You want to lie, do it to Jordan. The sad thing is, she'll still believe you," Woody muttered as he opened his desk drawer. Great, so Max had done more than leave that box here.

"That was low, Woody."

"And so was breaking in," Woody shot back. "Look, I agreed to help you. I'm not even sure why I did, but if you want my help, then you stay the hell out of my stuff and my life. I didn't ask you for help, and I'm not going to, do you understand that?"

Max took a deep breath. "Fine, if that's the way you want it. But I am here, if you need me."

"I'd just as soon not need anyone," Woody muttered. "So, what do you think is on that film?"

Max looked down at the case in his hand. "Assuming there's anything left, Woody, I believe that this... this could tell me why Emily was killed. After all these years, we'd finally know..."

"So, the first step is finding someone to process it, right?" Woody asked. He shrugged, his shoulder aching badly. He rolled it a bit, trying to lessen the pain. "Nigel could probably do it, but I'm assuming that you don't want him involved."

"Not yet," Max admitted. "I'd like to keep everyone else out of this, Woody. I've got a friend who has this kind of equipment. If he can't do it, then we'll get Nigel to do it."

"Sounds good," Woody agreed. "You have a car?"

Max nodded. "I've got one. Don't you?"

"Nope. Not since last year. I actually prefer walking, especially in Boston," Woody admitted. "I lost a lot of cars in the last three years. The Chevelle, the Charger, the department one that got bombed.... No, I'm done with cars for a while."

Max didn't understand, but then, Woody didn't expect him to. Not much that he did anymore made sense to anyone, least of all him. He grabbed his coat again, pulling it on as he followed Max out the door.

Jordan pushed her furniture around, up against the wall so that she could lay out all of the papers inside her very big box. Warren Harding Hoyt's death had been a big matter back in Kewaunee. And she was looking at the evidence right here. She'd taken the top of the box with a shiver, and opened the first file like a guilty school girl. She knew that she should be letting Woody do this, but she wasn't sure that he could.

She knew that he didn't want to face this. It was his past, but he'd have to remember. Remember all of it. And she knew that was the last thing that he wanted. He had repeated that over and over. He wanted to forget. Forgetting was his only way of coping. And she didn't want him to forget, not when it meant giving up on everything. On them.

She looked down at the folder. This was Warren's personnel file. He'd joined the sheriff's department at age eighteen, left to do his tour of duty in Vietnam, and returned after that, a Kinks fan that later betrayed his son in the worst way possible. She frowned, wondering how Woody had managed to idealize the bastard.

Hoyt was described as a good officer, loyal to the law, devoted to his family. He'd had some difficulty readjusting to life after Vietnam, but if he wanted to use that or his wife's death as an excuse for what he'd done to his son, it didn't fly with Jordan. Her father had raised her alone, done some things that he wasn't proud of, but he'd never turned on her, not like Warren had done Woody.

Five years before his death, Warren had been elected sheriff, and reelected every time after that. No one in Kewaunee had any complaints, at least not official ones. He'd been commended by the mayor three times, and there was a picture there of him with his "future deputies." Seeing his hand on Woody's shoulder, a normal, possessive and fatherly gesture, made her feel sick.

She set the folder aside. It wasn't very helpful. The last note was on his death, and it just noted the day and that he'd died in the line of duty. That was all. She still felt the bastard had gotten off too easily.

She picked up another folder and studied it. This one was the crime scene. A small convenience store, right on the main road in and out of town. The photos were black and white, but still stark and horrible. Blood was pooled out across the floor, right in the doorway. Woody's father had just gone in for a pack of cigarettes and some beer... He'd been shot in the back while one of the robbers held up the clerk. The photo showed his body lying right next to the door. Oh, God, Jordan thought. Woody and Cal had been waiting in the car. They could have seen that happen...Could that be why they had such skewed memories of it?

Or was it because Woody had gotten out of the car, taken his father's service revolver and killed him with it? And Cal knew?

She shook her head, not believing that she'd let herself think that, even for a moment. Woody was not like that. He had not killed his father. And she was going to prove it. She was. Here and now, she would prove it. She had the evidence. She could do this.

She took out another photo. This one was in color, taken by someone other than the department, and in it, Woody was holding his father and crying, Cal next to him looking helpless. She swallowed hard. This was probably the hardest thing to see.

The boys loved their father. In spite of everything he'd done to them, they cared about him. It just seemed so wrong. So very wrong...