Here we are, chapter eight. This one is the first of a series of lighter, more action-like updates that somehow counterbalance the previous drama mood. As always I would like to thank all my readers, let me know what you think of my work. More infos at the end of the chap.

VIII – Ducens Iter

(The Leading Way)

The rookie cleared his throat near the kitchenette.

-You. You want more coffee, Detective O'Hara?-

Officer Ramirez was standing stiffly with a pot of coffee in a hand. He had the scrawny, bird-like look of post-teen boys, and looked at her like all the good things of the world spread directly from her ears. Juliet had been pretty long enough to know a crush when she saw one.

-No, thanks, Arthur. I'm fine.-

She shut down the study's shutters and stretched down the shirt over her navel. She had finally managed to get a shower and put on some clean clothes Gus brought her, clothes that didn't smell of smoke or hospital, so it should feel better. It felt better. With Carlton there had been no real changes, but his heart was still going and she had gotten up from his side and stopped checking his face every three seconds. She did laid a kiss on his temple before coming here.

She pushed it back and gestured to Ramirez to sit down at the docs' desk. The gentle-eyed doctor, McCoy, she had remembered it, said they could use the relax room when it got obvious the rookies going around needed to talk cop-business.

Juliet sat on the other chair, pulling her hair up with an elastic.

–So. Any news from the precinct?-

-Ah, yeah. Actually, the Chief told me to bring you all the analysis we've got so far, on the bullet, the crime scene and such. She said maybe you could have some infos.-

-Sure.- It was a sneaky way to put her on the case, and they both knew it.

She gave a nod and the boy pulled out of his backpack a pile of photos. Juliet picked it up, began scrolling the snaps. Fuzzy images turning into hypothesis, doubts, answers. The right files unrolled in her mind.

A wretched wall .A close-up of the gas meter. Trails of blood stepping back along the parking. She half-remembered her and Shawn dragging Carlton away, flames roaring behind them and no fuckin' idea if the thing was going to explode again. Another photo. The bullet was funny-shaped, but she didn't know enough about that stuff to say anything. Footprints in the mud, the emergency door on the right side. Oh, wait.

-What are these?- She asked, pointing at the pneumatic trails on the blackened concrete. –Could be a truck? Pocofov's one?-

Ramirez nodded grimly. –Yep. They're still running interviews at the PD, but a lot of witnesses said they saw a truck leaving the place shortly after the explosion. The descriptions matched Pocofov's one. No officer noted it because, well, all the other stuff.-

The other stuff, sure. Juliet felt bile rising under the tongue. He was still alive. The man who had shot her partner was still alive. Her hands shook. It didn't change anything. It changed everything.

She talked softly.-Did you already broadcast his identikit to the hospitals?-

-Yes, ma'am.-

-Put under control other contacts? Family, older gangs?-

-We're looking on that, ma'am.-

-Good. He's a fugitive, but we can't let him die like this.-Liar liar liar. –Not before a trial, anyway.-

-Of course, ma'am.-

Juliet leaned back on the chair, scrubbing the side of her ear. The photos rested in front of her. She thought about turning over the desk right there.

Ramirez cleared his throat again.

-Ah, Detective. Maybe there's still a thing you should know.-

She gave him a crankier face than intended. He squirmed on his chair. –Well, it's something strange. When we got to the warehouse this morning with the sync guys, they, like, it looked like someone had been there.-

-Someone not of the PD, you mean?-

-Yeah. They had begun to map the area for the reenactment, and found some things out of place. Little things. And the gas meter was open.-

-You found any digits?-

-Yes. There was no match in the archive, though.-

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose until it ached. It was less strange than she would like to think, actually. Every showy case got his fair share of gross-suckers, and the docks weren't exactly a five-stars neighborhood. It could have been some junkies looking for sellable component, or some gang runners trying to wipe out evidence.

-Okay. Okay. They messed it badly?-

-Actually no, ma'am.-Ramirez said.-The cover is a bit torn, but from the way it's done it looks like they were trying to open the thing. The inside was not touched.-

An idea was rolling in Juliet's mind, still on the outskirts, drawing lines. She trusted it.

-Your guys noted something remarkable in the meter?-

-Uh, remarkable in what way?-

-Clues. Suspicious details. That way.-

The pimpled face turned vaguely purple. -Oh. Err, no, no strange things, apart from the obvious damages caused by the shot. We found the levers already on the on, but it could be a consequence of the shortcut.-

Juliet straightened. The idea was surfacing, closer and closer, and yeah, now she could feel it. She took the photo of the gas meter again, looking hard. Here, the levers were all up. So the thing was turned on. What about if it was on before the shooting? It was possible. It changed everything.

Oh, Carlton, it changes everything.

Juliet put the snap on the table and got up. There should be something scary in her moves, because Ramirez cringed on his chair.

-Uh, e-everything all right, Detective O'Hara?-

She grabbed the red rain jacket Gus brought for her and put it on.

-I need to go to the precinct.-

-Like, now?-

-Yes, Ramirez, now. And stop saying "like" like a damn teen girl.-

When he got up she was already half out of the door. Her heart was beating so fast.

The girl tapped again on the steering wheel.

-So, what happened?-

-What do you mean?-

-You're awfully silent. Has happened something wrong?-

Carlton gave her a look. She cleared her throat.- Okay, sad choice of words. I was just wandering if I did something bad. I mean, we were getting along so well. I think we were getting a bit more laid back. You got terribly gloomy since we left again.-

-I'm positive this is nothing of your business, girl.-

It stung and it was meant to. Francesca tightened her lips and looked back at the road, not saying anything else. He was definitively better at the sulking thing however, because she got back on the track after less than a minute.

-It was about the guy? The one at the warehouse?-

Carlton's head snapped up. Like he had just been punched. -How-

-I was there from the explosion, detective. I saw the guy and the cute blonde detective, when you tried to talk with them. He had those absurd spiky hair. I saw him going away.-

Carlton clacked weakly, because a joke on Spencer's hair was funny no matter what.

-Oh, sure. I know him. It's Spencer. We collaborated at some cases, he's a sort of P.I., even if I doubt he has any real certification. We were currently trying to...-

-I don't think he left because he doesn't care, detective.-

He didn't watch her after that. Better looking at the window, brushing the glass. There was no reflection. He hadn't seen, he'd come to the window.

Talking was the hardest thing Carlton had ever done.

-Turn to left at the crossroads.-

-I'm very sorry, detective.-

They stopped in front of Carlton's house shortly after. Francesca turned off the radio on some Spice Girl-esque piece while Carlton peered at his house through the windshield. It was everything as he left it the morning before. The garage was locked, his room's window sealed, even the pack from "Sniper's Digest"rested where he left it on the porch chair. He got out of the car and walked to the fence gate. He felt better. He didn't feel as concrete as at the PD, but a bit yes.

Francesca closed her car door with a evaluating look.

-So Yankees do have copycat homes.-

She strolled across the sidewalk and climbed over his fence. Carlton flinched at the streaks of mud on spotless white wood.

-You say it like we're Cartoon people. And use the damn gate, please.-

-Ops. My fault.-

She didn't look particulary guilty. She thrust her hands in the jumpsuit's pockets, moving to examine his bird seeds hanging from the apple tree. -Just like Desperate Housewives. Cavolo. So, we go in now?-

-Certainly.-

-Good.-

And with that the girl crouched by his porch stairs and began rummaging in the Camelias pot.

He stared in horror. -What are you doing?-

She looked up innocently. -The second key. All American families have one in the movies.-

-Well, not this one. It would be utterly dumb and a grotesque lack of any sensibility. In fact the only key of the house is...-

Carlton froze with a hand half-way to his rear pocket. The keys were in his trousers. The trousers on his real self.

The trousers currently neatly folded in a hospital drawer half across the city.

-Crap.-

Francesca got up, eyes wide. -Oh no. Oh no. Tell me they weren't in your pocket.-

-It's, the safest place I could think of.-

-So you don't have the keys?- The scowl deepened. -We're closed out of your house?-

Carlton vaguely remembered a day far in the past, O'Hara wishing him to "find himself on the wrong side of a scowl". He talked through gritted teeth.

-It seems so.-

-Oh, cazzo. Wait, can't you, uh, I don't know, teleport inside?-

Carlton swung from a foot to the other. -Can I?-

-I'm asking it to you. Oh, that's brilliant. I'm in a stranger's garden talking alone and can't even go in. I could wear as well a damn billboard saying "C'mon call the police".-

Carlton tuned her out, focusing. It was just a matter of patience. Of method. He mentally scrolled the way outs of his house. Door, sealed, rear door, never used, windows, sealed and. Oh.

-Follow me. I think I've got a solution.-

Francesca stopped mid-rant, watching him rushing past her to the house's side. She grudgingly followed around the corner and down the side-walk, until Carlton gesyured her to stop. They were standing in front of a tiny window, stuck barely over ground level and looking down in the basement shadows. The frost glass was thick, but a crack of dark peered from the upper side.

The girl considered it with distrust. -This is your solution?-

-Yes.-

-Can you please explain me the sense to put bulletproof doors and then leaving open the windows to your cellar?- She offered. -Anyway, it wouldn't trigger the alarm?-

-I don't have an alarm.- Carlton lifted his chin. -The only alarm I need is me.-

Francesca blinked slowly.

-You've seriously said it?-

She began to giggle again, but all the same she crouched and followed his orders more or less dutifully. The window was stiff from lack of use, but with a bit of shoving it clacked open. The floor was not seven feet down. The girl held on a tight mantra of "Damn damn damn" while slipping her legs in the hole and hanging there, but in the end she got to the ground. Thud.

-You okay there?-

He listened carefully and caught a shuffle of clothes against stones. She was panting a bit.

-Yeah, peachy. But get here now.-

So Carlton slipped. Just that, in a way that had lot more to do with light and dust than people and brought him by the girl's side in the time of a breath. She flinched with a muffled curse while he took a first look.

His basement was quiet. A cone of light streaked the concrete all the way to the inside door on the other side. Carlton checked the corners without even willing it, the conformation of the single pile of Victoria's boxes by the tool desk. Clear. He nodded to the girl, heading for the stairs.

-Okay, let's go. But be careful.-

-Mh. You think someone entered before us?-

He shushed her, listening hard to the upper floor. The fact was, he felt blinded, and so he felt nervous. He actually could see perfectly, everything brighter and dimmer and lighter at one time, but for a cop it was not enough. He ached for touching, smelling, nerves. His hand ran to his shoulder out of use.

–I don't want ugly surprises. I go first.-

-That's sure, detective.-

They began to climb up the stairs. The inner door was not locked, and it took just a shove to crack it open. Carlton made her sign to step back, counted to ten and peered through, looking down the grey-moquetted, smooth-walled corridor, all the way to the bathroom door and the living room corner.

Despite her hilarity, he had not lied about the alarm thing. He didn't love that house but he knew it perfectly. He could say by a simple glance if something was off, and how people and loneliness looked onto it. After less than a minute in, he knew there was no one.

-Okay. All clear, we can get in.-

They slipped past the door and Francesca's steps echoed inside like grenades. He did a vague gesture to the right end of the corridor.

–The closet is there, past the living room. There are probably all the relevant files of my career.-

-You have an archive?-

-Sure.-

-Oh. Yes. So you live here?-

Francesca brushed a door, eying the supermarket's calendar over her head. She looked exceedingly ruffled and young against that house. - It's, large. Very tidy.-

He groaned in agreement. -Go there. I'm checking the Mercury.-

He went to his bedroom, but of course, nothing was out of place. He just knew the wooden pack stuffed with soft cloths where his vintage guns rested was still safely in the manhole under the bed. He checked the way back to the living room. Somehow he found himself looking at it too.

He had bought the cottage with its furniture, but had always kept it cleaned and presentable. He used no more than three rooms at time. He chose a new fridge last week. In the past months Spencer things had pushed back a lot of beige and brought in a lot of crap, but that morning no. They had not seen the night before the warehouse. No real reason, but Spencer had a movie night with Guster and he was up his neck in delayed paperwork and they were not yet in the phase when you can stay at home without doing anything fancy. They had set it back to the next evening. Seriously, why not, what's the problem, what can happen? So now you could see no shirt tossed on his armchair, no half-filled juice glass left on the kitchen isle, no green post-it pinned on the microwave the morning after. It was annoying. Right now there was nothing, nothing saying that house didn't belong to a single man, or that something had changed since one, two, four years ago. Carlton stopped by the couch. He thought about people walking in to wrap his things, packing furniture, what they could see. They wouldn't see anything. It was tidy, and refined, and absolutely nothing said one night Shawn Spencer had walked in from pouring rain and kissed him on that carpet.

-So detective, can I look inside?-

He turned. The girl was standing by the closet door. He folded his arms, holding the pieces together.

–Sure. It's what we're here for.-

-I suppose so.- Francesca twisted back and stepped in the door. The closet was long and narrow, barely large enough to accommodate a metal drawer full of fishing baits and a cabinet against the back wall. In full light the surfaces looked dull with dust.

-Whoa. It's, impressive. I thought it would be bigger, though.-

-Yes.- Me too. –However, look for Pocofov's files. They're in alphabetical order.-

-Gotcha.- She crouched by the drawers, giving him a thumb-up. He was suddenly happy not to be alone. Francesca pulled out a thick envelope of files and he began to measure the rug back and forth.

-So? What's the first document?-

The girl leaned against the bar, pinning the folders against her elbow. –Uh, a mug shot I think. Very old, it looked like Nineties. And behind, err, a correlated folder.-

-Read it aloud. And, girl, sit down properly. This is going to be a long thing.-

She scowled behind the papers, but dropped down on the carpet cross-legged. It must feel more dramatic than the couch.

-Okay. Alexander Pocofov, sixteen years. Probably militating in the Chicken Paws, found in possession of eight pounds of rough heroine. Reference officer Det. Lassiter, arrest accomplished by Det. Lassiter.– She paused for a moment, probably translating. –So, you arrested him the first time too? You should have been young. -

-First year as a detective.- Back and forth. –Go ahead. It's useful, but not what we're looking for.-

-You could be a bit more specific.-

-You youngsters have no discipline at all?-

-Basically this youngster does not have time. We can't stay here forever.-

She had a point. Carlton closed his eyes, tapping a temple. He mapped the last days in his mind, scanning clues, patterns. Drugs, that was obvious. Basis of every gang, a gang, yes, Eastern Europe. There was a memory itching at the edge. Let's give it a try.

-Try looking at the Gang files. 2000-2002, I think.-

Francesca put the pile down with a thud, going over it.

She didn't do much else for the next two hours.

They ran through almost any files in the folder, and discovered things. They discovered that Pocofov was a immigrstes' son that he had followed several pretty big bosses of Santa Barbara and that he had been used as a gang sniper, but just that. That was the problem: it was not different than ten other cases Carlton alone had followed through years. He was unremarkable. The two of them could have exchange less than ten words in all those years. No other connections.

The sun became a fat ball up over the roofs. The outer world was humming by the shutters with a low buzz of bees. Carlton kept pacing back and forth. At some point the girl stood to sneak a chocolate bar from her haversack, but after his glare she nibbled at it at safe distant from his papers.

The carpet around her was a flood of papers. There were photocopies, notes, snapshots neatly pinned on the inside of folders. The wall behind them was covered in newspaper articles and photo portraits, everything hanging from metal pins. Everyone was hemmed with tidy comments in red felt pen. Under it, at the exact center of the wall were four little photos that had nothing to do with crime scenes, but that was not the moment.

-Nothing. There's nothing.-

The rhythm of the strides had increased steadily with each file.

-What is the sense of an archive if there's nothing vaguely useful in it? This bloody Russian-ish punkish rascal didn't do anything remarkable in his entire career, and we don't find anything, and it is so not useful.-

He did and undid his jacket's botton for the seventh time. Oh, c'mon c'mon. He was good at it. He solved crimes, even before Spencer, even before O'Hara. They believed in him. They were missing him. He was still himself. It was important.

Francesca took a chunk of chocolate. -What are you exactly angry at?-

-Shh. I'm working.-

-Mh. You want to recapitulate?- She offered, voice begging for pity.

He had none. –Yes. Okay, facts so far. Pocofov got arrested three times, two he was still a juvenile and therefore was not gravely persecuted, one he spent two years in prison for drug dealing but got out for good behavior. Probable involvement in three other cases but just as a secondary actor. For a good seventy percent of the cases involving him I was the detective in charge.-

-Ah, yes.-

-He used a rare gun linked with personal matters to shoot a public officer.-

-Yes.-

-He caused an explosion to cover clues and maybe attempt at my team's lives. The likely charge is attempted homicide. It could become homicide.-

-Yes.-

She cleared her throat. Gulped down the chocolate. Back and forth, back and forth.

-Detective. Who has the other old gun?-

-Mh?-

-Back at the warehouse, you said only two people in town had a gun like this. Yours is still here, but they used a bullet that doesn't work with any other pistol. So I wonder, who has the other old gun?-

He stopped midstep. He looked at his foot, blinked, put it slowly back on the carpet. His Cop Sense tingled again.

–The other gun, sure. Sure.-

-I mean, it was just an idea, I-

-The other person is Macom Roday. - He said fast. –He's a detective. The former police chief of Santa Barbara.-

-You know each other?-

-Yes. He was Head Detective when I was just out of the Academy.- He smiled weakly. -He taught me not to throw up on my shoes at crime scenes.-

-Uh.I suppose it's a, bonding experience. You think there could be a link?-

Carlton frowned, dashing around again. He hadn't taken information about Detective Roday in several months, one year maybe. In effect he had lived in Santa Barbara for ages but had now moved farer, down in Cambria. It could make sense Carlton didn't get notified if he had been robbed. Or maybe he sold the Mercury for some reason. So yeah, there could be a big damn link.

-Actually yes. More than yes.- He said. -Pocofov's activities are linked with greater matters. Maybe the crime range was larger than we had thought. And the gun, ah, that could not be mistaken. Maybe it is a revenge, maybe all is connected with Roday's cases.- He ran to her, crouched among the files. -Even if there is no direct involvement, he could however have some other information. The gun, sure.-

A big plan. Pocofov, his teacher, his mentor, implicated, oh damn oh yes. The girl looked up at him.

-That's a good, uh, trail detective?-

-That's definitively a good trail.-

She smiled. Hell, he smiled.

They didn't bother to put everything back at place. He knew the rules, and they were in war, so there were other rules. He even let the girl snatch a fruit juice from his fridge, and then they were running along the corridor and down the stairs and to the basement window, because going out from the front door would be really too suspect. He thought about it, and was out on the grass. For the first time he actually thought how incredibly handy could that thing be.

-You, you stay there, okay? Don't let me here, okay?-

-Don't say nonsense, girl. And move.- He bit his lip, feeling almost like laughing. They had a trail. A trail was everything. A trail was things to do and words to speak and above all to keep going. It would all go well. Francesca was already half way out of the trap. It would all go well.

The girl squirmed out of the hole and froze.

She was looking at some point behind him. Carlton frowned, and when he was about to ask what was wrong someone called behind them.

-Ehy! What the Hell are ya doing here?-

He turned. Guster was standing at the house's corner, holding a plastic bag and staring right at the girl stuck in his basement window.

-Fuck.- Francesca said.

-Fuck.- Carlton said.

Ah, never trust Lassie's gut feelings. However, some trivia: I called Pocofov's fictional gang Chicken Paws thinking about a Russian fairytale about a witch going around on a chicken-pawed house. It seemed fitting and I can't resist these things. The chapter title just popped up in my mind all of a sudden, and it sounds so well I couldn't resist. Next chap already half-done, see you.