Hello all! Hard to believe we're already at the Christmas break for season 4! And yea! One more episode ordered! As per usual, I own nothing, including the lines of dialogue from s2's 'Sucker Punch' in here. Also, see if you can spot the 'Twin Peaks' reference!

'Whoa.'

Ryan let the single word hang and speak for them all. He didn't have to look at their faces to know their expressions mirrored his own, one of round, abject horror. This job could put dents in a person, toughen their outward sensibilities but reading this phone transcript and seeing a man tell his friend that his daughter deserved the death she got touched a part of them even deeper.

'Keep reading it through, Ryan,' Beckett instructed him. 'We need to hear the rest.'

How the fuck am I supposed to get at my accounts in here

Your wife, your ass, your problem Mike

Goddamn it, John, my files are monitored and if I ask Christine to do it, you know she'll be up here with more fire than either of us can afford to take

Like I said, your wife, your ass, your problem

What if I gave you my codes, you can get the money yourself, take a little extra for your troubles

Could work. Because we're friends let's make it twenty-nine

Twenty-nine

Yeah, fifteen for Cowlan not to visit Christine anymore, twelve for your good faith to me, and two grand for the troubles you're handing me on a plate

Thank you, John

Codes

You want Cayman, Swiss or Singapore

Which gets the least amount of attention

Singapore, it filters the interest into my pocket account

Then let's go Swiss, they won't care about your moving money around to your other accounts. They may be a bunch of wine-drinking pussies but they sure know their numbers I need the codes

Account Foxtrot-Alpha-two-one-two-Delta-seven-seven-Sierra-Romeo-eight-nine-Echo-Charlie passcode Romeo-Alpha-India-November-Yankee-Delta-Alpha-Yankee-four-Mike Echo

You've never been a good man Mike but you're an excellent weasel I'll be in touch

'Jesus, Kate,' Ryan puffed out; he had a sudden overwhelming urge to hold his kids close, breathe deep the scent of his wife's skin.

'We need to find out who this Cowlan is,' Beckett said, though she already had one in mind. 'Is there anyway to reverse engineer the phone numbers, Adam?'

'Yeah, that's easy to do since I've got the records. I can do that mostly without a warrant.'

'Good, we need to see every overlapping number Doran and Raglan called.'

Esposito saw the punched-out look in Beckett's eyes, and while the friend felt sympathy, the cop's instincts were humming. 'You got a bone, Kate?'

'Yeah, and not just some poor cow, either. If I am thinking right, we've found some big damn dinosaurs bones.'

'Why's that?'

'Because the commanding officer of the Narcotics bureau at the Seventy-Second before Iron-Mike Doran was Captain Francis Cowlan.'

Everyone in the room froze as Beckett let the thought hang, marinate in their brains. It was hard enough when everyone had learned that Mike Doran had gone down for racketeering and his involvement in a drug ring, but to think that it was inherited rather than founded was positively soul-chilling. Because where there was one rat bastard dirty cop with a taste for money, there was sure to be another.

'It makes sense,' Ryan said sadly, shaking his head. 'We know Dick Coonan was a big-time drug-runner, we know Brennan confirmed Rathbone was Dick Coonan, and we know Mike was up to his neck in dirty deeds.'

'Uh-huh.' Beckett could hear Dick Coonan's voice in her mind, those final exchanges with him before Montgomery had drawn his weapon, before she herself ensured that the murderous fucker had left the building wrapped in plastic.

It wasn't personal she was just a job

She was my mother. Who hired you to kill her?

Forget it, you'll never touch him, he'll bury you

Tell me who-

'Detective Beckett?'

Adam's voice brought her back into the present, and she looked at him. 'We need more dots, Ryan. And that's what we're going to get. C-L Brennan, you are on the phone records, keep going with them. Esposito, you are going to Fuqua to make your case for a warrant for the prison roster.'

'Prison roster?'

'There's no way after four years of careful living Mike Doran was suddenly jumped in the prison yard. It was a hit so wheels had to be greased. No, no.' She cut herself off, shook her head. 'Stay here with Adam, going over the phone records, and tap Fuqua to get a secondary warrant for them if necessary. Ryan, you're with me.'

'Okay.'

Ryan wanted to make a neener-neener face at his paperwork-loathing partner, but he'd heard the tightness in Beckett's voice and knew it could wait. He followed her out and wasn't surprised they were going to the captain's office; Ryan had had wits enough to grab the phone transcript to show to the captain and he had a feeling the man would be far less silent in his shock.

His prediction was dead accurate, as Beckett informed him of their quick work which the captain deemed impressive yet unsurprising but when she passed him the, Montgomery let fly a couple of curses that had even Ryan's seasoned ears burning a tad.

'That low-lying two-faced fucking shithole! Goddammit, I fucking recommended Mike to Frank Cowlan for the narc bureau after we were promoted to captaincy over two decades ago. Fuck!'

'I take it then you agree my inference the Cowlan mentioned here is the now-retired Captain Franklin Cowlan of the NYPD's Seventy-Second Narcotics Bureau.'

'Damn right I do.' Montgomery sat down heavily in his chair, scrubbed his hands over his face. 'If you want, you can read me my rights.'

'Sir?' Beckett's eyes went round.

'Since you could technically use what I'm going to say as leverage for an avenue of your investigation, you could read me my rights as an informant to make sure my ass is protected.'

Ryan looked at Beckett, and with amazing fortitude watched as she cleared her throat and calmly read Roy Montgomery his rights. When she'd finished, she sat down in front of him, switched into survivor mode.

'Tell me why you think Frank Cowlan is the man in the conversation.'

'About two years before Mike was made captain at the bureau, when Cowlan was still running the show, one of his weasels was found guilty of murder.' Montgomery slid his gaze over to Ryan. 'I'm sure you heard about that one.'

'I did, it was just after I moved from Narco to Homicide. It was hard not to hear about it when an undercover cop was killed by a weasel.'

'I don't remember the name of the weasel, but I remember the cop's name. Matthew Montrose.' Montgomery got the glaze of remembrance in his eyes, mixed with grief that any cop felt when one of their own went down.

'Did you know him personally sir?'

'By reputation only. It's hard to be friends with the under-covers, you know? From what I do know about him, he was very good at mixing with the criminal underworld. He was a straight cop, no question, but he always knew the tricks to pull to make sure he kept off the radar. Montrose was the kind of cop who saw the work as the reward, not the shiny bits of metal pinned on a ribbon to his dress blues.'

'How did he die?'

'That's what part of the inquiry was into Cowlan's command. After the initial investigation, things started looking a little sketchy, that it was far too neat for this weasel to be wrapped up in murder. IAB set the dogs on Cowlan, who turned it back on the, saying they were being racist, that there'd never been an inquiry into a Narco captain until a black man was in the chair.'

'Was that true, sir?' Ryan asked.

'It didn't matter if it was or not, all someone has to do is say it and people make their own conclusions.' The captain reached for the bottle of iced tea by his desk lamp; both the detectives recognized Meredeth's home-brew. 'IAB gave him the hard eye, but they never found anything they could suspend him on. After that, Timo Ross came over from the Twenty-Third and suddenly, he's Mister Big-Shot so people were focusing more on that than the lost officer. Looking forward, carrying on the job just like he would have wanted.'

'Okay. So how do we play it, how do we get Cowlan into interview?' Beckett jumped in.'

'We'll need more than a single phone call, that's for sure Kate,' Montgomery told her. 'You're going to need solid proof.'

'I know sir, and how are we going to get that if we can't interview him? We can't go looking into Matthew Montrose's murder, we'll be putting ourselves up for duck hunt if we do.'

'You'll figure it out, Beckett.'

She nodded briskly, then stood up once more. 'Come on, Ryan, we've got an ME to goose.'