"John," Toni followed Munch and Fin out into the hall, "When Bayliss gets out of prison are you going to see him?"
"I don't know," he replied, "I haven't seen him since he went to prison, I don't think he'd appreciate seeing me now."
"If not you, who will?" Toni asked, "Not Pembleton, that's for damn sure."
"What're the odds that there is a connection to all this?" Fin asked Munch.
"I don't know," Munch replied, "But it looks like I'm going to have to do what I always swore I'd die before I ever did again, and go back to Baltimore…the first place I can think to start checking is with my old squad unit."
"What the hell? I'll come too," Toni said.
"Oh no you don't," Munch told her, "You stay here with Mike."
"What am I, his babysitter?" she asked.
"I'd think you'd enjoy that," Fin said.
"Funny," Toni dryly responded, "By the way, Munch, have you guys found a bar to buy yet?"
"I had a couple in mind, but the asking prices are a bit above what Fin and I can pool together," John told her.
"Have you considered asking Olivia to partner with you guys?" she asked.
"No I haven't," he answered.
"Why not?" Toni asked.
"That's a good point," Munch looked to Fin, "I ought to ask her whenever she gets back, she took a few days off and nobody's seen her since…she cashed in her vacation days last week, around the same time your father went off to Jersey."
Toni quickly changed the subject, "So how long will you be in Baltimore?"
"From the sounds of the newspaper, not long I don't think," Munch said, "With Gee gone, and Beau, and Felton suspended and Ballard in Bellevue."
"I don't know her but I feel sorry for anybody who has to eat the food there," Toni commented, "I know it didn't do me any favors when I was there."
"So let's see, I'll have to track down Kay Howard, Terri Stivers, Gharty, maybe see if I can get in touch with Bolander, and Lewis…Shepherd, and of course there's Frank if he can actually talk after this last stroke."
"Talk about your old home week," Toni said.
"More like old hell week," Munch replied.
"This is a surprise, John," Kay Howard said when he dropped in on her at home that afternoon, "I never would've figured you'd come back here again after Gee died."
"I wouldn't have if I could've helped it," he replied, "The word going around is you finally settled down."
The curly haired redhead in her early 50s snorted and looked down at the ground as she answered, "Yeah, typical nuclear family with a husband, a wife, and 2.5 kids, go figure. So what're you in town for?"
"Mike Kellerman," Munch answered.
"Kellerman?" Kay repeated, "What about him?"
"He came to New York last night, smashed into another car on the road, was rushed to Mercy General."
"Is he alive?"
"He survived, so did the other driver," Munch said, "A little banged up, but upon further examination the doctors found out somebody had sodomized him and he had a knockout drug in his system."
"My God," she said as her eyes widened.
"He was coming to New York to inform me that our old buddy Bayliss is getting paroled…now, the driver of the other car is a friend of mine named Toni Keller, and she thinks his attack is somehow related to his coming to see me, and I happen to think so too, on the grounds of I can't think of any other explanation, and Mike's memory is fogged from the drugs so he can't tell me where he lost the time when he was attacked, let alone by who. Did you know he was coming to see me?"
"Me? No," she shook her head, "Mike and I, we haven't talked in years."
"Have you spoken to anybody who was in contact with him?" John asked.
"Sorry, I wish I could help," she said.
"Can you think of anyone who would want to see this happen to him?" Munch asked.
"Uh, Felton maybe, but he's got his own problems these days," Kay answered, "He got suspended for a hit and run and is currently under investigation, word going round is he might go to jail."
"Yeah, I heard…what about Lewis, or Stivers?"
She shook her head, "Sorry John, we went our own ways a long time ago. What about Shepherd? She used to know him from when he was in arson, didn't she?"
"I'd forgotten about that," he said, "Do you know where she is these days?"
"Mike?" Rene Shepherd, a tall, thin, black woman somewhere in her 40s with her long hair pulled back in a tight braid, asked when Munch strolled into the homicide precinct to speak to her, "I haven't seen him in months, he never talked to me about coming to see you. Is he going to be alright?"
"There are at least two schools of thought about that," Munch said, "Pertaining to if victims of rape are ever alright again."
Shepherd sat down at her desk and hit her fists against it, "Damn it, why Mike?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," John told her, "You know anybody who had it in for him?"
Rene nodded, "Lewis, Stivers, and Felton, the whole time they were here, they never told me what the whole deal was with Mahoney, and neither would Mike."
"It's a long, ugly story," Munch said, "But then again, so's homicide, and so's life."
"Amen to that, brother," she dryly remarked.
"It's unlikely if anybody from our old squad was involved that it would've been done directly, do you think Falsone could have made any friends to sic on Mike?" he asked.
"I guess it's possible," she said, "But your best bet would probably be to start with Lewis and Stivers."
"What are they up to these days?" Munch asked.
"Kellerman?" Meldrick Lewis, a tall and well built black man in a trench coat and bad hat asked as he and Munch cut across the street in the rain, and he laughed without humor, "I ain't seen him in years."
"What was the deal with you guys?" Munch asked, "He saved your life, why'd you throw him to the wolves?"
"Hey man, that was a long time ago," Lewis said.
"Well Mike being attacked was only last night, and if it's somehow connected to our old squad, I want to know," Munch told him, "You know, Meldrick, you're a real son of a bitch. Mahoney was holding a gun to your head, Mike takes him out, saves your life and when the shooting's called into question, you put it all on Mike, when you were the one too stupid to have your gun stolen and held on you by a drug lord in the first place."
"Watch it, Munch," Lewis said with a low growl in his voice as he turned and looked at the man.
"And if my memory serves me correctly, later that year when his nephew Junior Bunk shot up our squad room, injured Ballard and Gharty, and killed three uniforms, it was your gun he stole right out of your unlocked desk drawer and he was handcuffed to a chair!" Munch reminded him, "Are you seeing a pattern here or is it just me?"
"Oh, so this is all on me now?" Lewis asked.
"It's about time it was, you were just as responsible for what happened with Mahoney but you ducked out of it with your tail between your legs and let Mike take the heap but you and Stivers, he got thrown out of homicide while you two got to keep your cozy jobs even though it was your fault the whole mess started anyway. Did you know he was coming to see me? Did you send somebody after him to attack him as payback for something?" Munch asked.
"I washed my hands of him a long time ago," Lewis told John.
"Nice way to thank the guy who saves your life," Munch replied, "Maybe you really wanted Luther to pull that trigger and blow your brains out."
Lewis stopped in his tracks, turned around and got in Munch's face, "You know something, John? You're the son of a bitch, you think everything is a big joke for your own telling."
"I never said I was a nice guy, I never lived under any false pretenses that I was," Munch told him, "But you know what, Lewis? If somebody had saved my life like Mike did, I would've been grateful for it, you avoid him like the plague as soon as Luther's body was cold."
"Suicide by cop wasn't a term in existence when we were working," Meldrick said, "Today if the same situation played out there would be no question about it."
"Luther lowered the gun but was still holding onto it, he was still a threat," Munch said, "We don't just tell people to lower their weapons, we tell them to drop it, he didn't, so there shouldn't have been any problem. But instead of you standing up to Gee and the other big men upstairs and telling them that, you duck out and save your own ass; but, also if my memory is serving me correct, you were the one who went out and got the other members of the Mahoney organization to kill each other off, and you also broke his sister's nose which led her to sue the entire department, but when our own bodies start dropping, suddenly that's all Kellerman's fault for executing Luther, you want to explain how that works?"
"I can't believe this," Terri Stivers, a shorter black woman in her 40s with black curly hair chopped short, laughed as she stood by the side of her car talking to John, "You're still bringing up the past."
"You brought it up first, with Gee," Munch reminded her, "After the Junior Bunk fiasco in our squad room, you couldn't keep your mouth shut."
"People died because of the Mahoney shooting," Terri told him.
"Luther Mahoney died because of the Mahoney shooting," John corrected her, "Meldrick was using informants to start a war between the other members long before they ever hauled Junior in a third time."
"And I blew the whistle on them because it had to stop," Terri said.
"Yeah, but I notice you got to keep your badge and your cozy position in homicide, and so did Lewis, it was only Mike that got thrown out of the unit, why is that?" Munch asked.
"He confessed to shooting Luther."
"He did that after he shot Luther, you told them that it was a dirty shooting."
"It was!"
"No it wasn't. A dangerous drug lord responsible for the deaths of dozens of people is beating the crap out of a detective, steals his gun, holds it on him, and doesn't drop it when ordered to by police, what should Mike have done, let Luther kill Lewis? Would that have made you feel better?"
"The whole thing was a mistake," Terri said, "And that was years ago, times change, people change…"
"If they did, you wouldn't still be mad at Mike for shooting Mahoney," Munch told her, "But you are, and I'm starting to wonder if you're still angry enough that you would hire somebody to attack him."
"You can't be serious!"
"Well that's the thing about my sense of humor, nobody can ever tell," John replied, "The day Mike finds out Tim Bayliss is being paroled, he comes from Maryland to New York to see me, that same day, somebody drugs him and rapes him, and him in his drug-infested state almost kills himself and an innocent woman on the road, and I want to know why, and I want to know who…now, this doesn't reek of a random attack at all, it had to be personal, meaning somebody from Baltimore was after him because nobody knows him in New York."
"And I'm the most likely suspect?" Terri asked.
"You're on the list, you had motive, you wanted Mike to suffer for getting Ballard and Gharty and those three uniforms shot, you had means, cops knows plenty of people they can hire under the table for dirty deeds, and as for opportunity, I'm still putting the pieces together on that one, but the picture's coming in clear and it's not a pretty one, Terri."
"You're crazy," she scoffed.
"Oh gee, I've never been told that one before," he sarcastically replied, "Can you account for your whereabouts yesterday?"
"I don't have to answer that," Terri said.
"I've used that one myself a few times, it usually means you have something to hide," he reminded her.
"It means I'm done bringing up the past," Terri told him.
"K-Kellerman?" said Frank Pembleton, a bald black man in his 50s who ordinarily looked like he was weaned on a pickle, but now looked very confused as he tried to answer Munch's questions, "Y-You're asking me about M-ike Kellerman?"
"John, I don't think this is a good idea," Frank's wife, Mary told Munch, "Frank's still…"
"I I'm still rec-c-cuperating from this s-second stroke," Frank explained, "L-earning to talk for a third time, it'sssssss getting very o-o-old."
"I can understand that, Frank, but this is important, somebody drugged and attacked Mike last night when he was coming to see me in New York, now nobody in New York knew he was coming, if anybody would know it would be somebody here in Baltimore, have you spoken to him lately?"
"Mike? N-no," Frank shook his head, "I 'ave not."
"Know anybody who was?"
"N-noooo."
"Know anybody who'd like to see this happen to him?" When Frank opened his mouth to respond, Munch cut him off, "Other than Stivers, Falsone, or Lewis?"
"Ah then no," Frank said.
"Okay, I'll be on my way then," Munch headed for the door, stopped and turned around, "Oh by the way, Frank, did you see that Tim's getting paroled soon?"
"Tim?" Frank repeated, "No, I did…didn'…did not, know that."
"Looks like I'm not the only one who forgets about my partners once I leave them," Munch said, intending for that comment to sting a bit for Frank as he left.
Toni had found the clothes she'd been wearing the other night when she was brought to the hospital and stole them back from the orderly and discarded her sheet and gown for her jeans, T-shirt and dirty sneakers.
"I hate wearing hospital gowns," she said, "I hate being in hospitals, I'm getting to be an expert on them, like a restaurant critic."
"Sorry to hear that," Mike said from where he lay in his bed.
"Next I'll have to find your clothes and see if they're in any condition to wear out of here," Toni told him, "Wouldn't you like to get out of here and get an ice cold beer?"
"Sounds good," Mike groaned as he moved in the bed and stretched.
"You know, Mike, my place isn't too far away from here, and my father is shacked up in some hotel somewhere with one of the detectives, we could go there and be alone."
"The raging nymphomaniac strikes again," Mike laughed as he tried to sit up.
"Well, it's more private than the hospital, that's for damn sure," she said.
Toni picked up Mike's cell phone that was in his bag and she dialed Fin's cell number.
"Tutuola."
"Fin, do you know where John is?" Toni asked.
"What's going on?"
"I've tried calling him three times and he's not answering his phone, I don't know if he came back from Baltimore or not. Did he tell you anything?"
"No he didn't," Fin replied.
"Here's a stupid question, why didn't you go with him?" Toni asked.
"He said this was something he had to do himself," Fin answered.
"Uh oh," Toni said, "That sounds ominous, maybe you should go out there and make sure he's even still alive."
"Any idea where in Baltimore he'd be?"
"In between questioning everyone?" Toni asked, "He wouldn't still be at the precinct…I have a few thoughts on where he might be, don't know if you'd be able to find them though…the grave of Al Giardello for one, also, that bar he owned, the Waterfront, it's been closed and gathering dust for years but you never know, he might have felt drawn back there for some stupid sentimental reason…I'd go out there and check on him myself if I could, but as you well know, my car's been totaled and I have to baby sit the private dick."
It was after 9 o' clock when Fin got into Baltimore, and going on 10 when he found the Waterfront. Indeed the building hadn't been used for anything since the bar closed its doors back in 2000, but it was still there, with the same sign and the same everything, at least he guessed it was all the same. Fin got out of the car and looked around, drawing out a flashlight and checking the windows; they were intact, but the window in the front door had been smashed and the door was open. Fin drew his gun out and cautiously headed in, calling out, "Munch, you in here?"
He heard movement from inside and made his way in, shining his light over everything, trying to see who was in there. He made his way to the back of the bar and found Munch huddled on the floor, leaning against the wall, quietly murmuring to himself, "Gee, they got their blood on my shoes", he sounded like he was crying and he seemed almost delirious.
"John, you alright?" he asked as he put his gun away and moved towards his partner.
Munch didn't seem to hear him, instead his balled one hand into a fist and repeated, "They got their blood on my shoes."
"John!" Fin said louder as he knelt down and got in his partner's face, "Can you hear me?"
Munch didn't answer him, Fin kept one hand on the flashlight so he could see to get them out without bumping into anything and he slipped his other arm around Munch's back and helped him get to his feet to get him out of there.
Once they were out of the bar, Munch seemed to become aware of his surroundings again. The first thing he said to Fin was, "I hate Baltimore."
"Yeah I hate it too," Fin said as he led Munch over to the car, "Come on."
"I mean I really hate it," he said as he broke away from his partner, "That's why I left in the first place, I was born and raised here, got my ass kicked every day, went into the police force, joined homicide, had four failed marriages here…and when the hell did we all get so old? Kay Howard, my former partner and sergeant, she's married with two kids, I remember when I burnt my nose on the grindstone trying to find out who her mystery boyfriend was and I never found out through all the strategies I tried. Frank Pembleton is an old man with two teenaged kids and he's trying to rebuild his ability to talk without sounding like Porky Pig."
"I take it you didn't get anywhere with them," Fin said.
"The only thing proven today is that time is not healing the wounds Stivers and Lewis are still wearing," Munch said, "Still mad as hell at Mike for his involvement in the Mahoney shooting, as if the whole damn thing was his fault alone, never mind the fact that Lewis had his own gun turned against him twice and he was getting the family to kill each other left and right and he can't control his temper enough not to break the nose of Luther's highly powerful sister Georgia Rae. Never mind the fact that Terri can watch the witness standing a few inches away from her take a bullet in the head that was meant for Stivers herself, and she has no emotion whatsoever but the day after Mahoney's shot she's complaining about being sick to her stomach from the shooting. Noooo, they put it all off on Mike, just like they did almost 10 years ago."
"People around here have a hard time moving on," Fin said.
"No kidding…and on top of it all, out of everybody I do come out and see and talk to, it never once occurs to me to look up my own damn brother, Bernard, and see how he's doing, if he's even still alive, if our mother is still alive…man, when I left this place there wasn't any looking back."
"Maybe with good reason," Fin replied, "You alright now?"
"I guess," Munch said with a sigh, "I have to be, not that it would matter if I wasn't. I stopped by the graveyard."
"Your old commander?" Fin asked.
Munch shook his head, "Luther Mahoney, the origin of all this trouble…he was popular at his funeral but his popularity has severely dwindled over the years, somebody knocked his tombstone out of the ground and smashed it to pieces…smashed all the bottles of wine and everything else that had been left there, once upon a time he got more gifts at his grave than Al Capone. Now it looks like his specific grave has its own caretaker and he's been dead for over a year. I still spat on it for good measure."
Out of nowhere, he hit his arm against the window of the car and yelled, "Damn him! Damn all of them! Luther, Georgia Rae, Junior Bunk, Gordon Pratt!"
"Take it easy, John!" the next thing Fin said came to him as an afterthought, "Who's Gordon Pratt?"
Munch forced himself to calm down and he brushed it off, "It doesn't matter, not anymore."
"So you tried to kill yourself, eh?" Toni asked Mike as they lay side by side in his hospital bed, "Doesn't sound like something an innocent person does."
"You weren't there," he said.
"No but then you weren't at Bellevue either."
"What happened at Bellevue?" Mike asked.
"I tried to kill myself," Toni told him.
Mike turned his head and looked over at her in disbelief.
"Oh yeah, everybody knows that story, and I'm getting tired of telling it, I had to tell it in court a couple years back, the defense attorney was trying to say I wasn't a credible witness because I'd attempted suicide…I still fail to see the connection between the two. Hell, even the damn doctor said normal people off themselves all the time. How'd you try it?"
"I've tried to forget," Mike said, "Think I was going to shoot myself."
"Not very original but if it works," Toni said.
"What'd you try?" he asked.
"I got a folding knife and I opened it up, stuck it in the mattress of that poor excuse of a hospital bed, and threw myself back on it, stabbed myself in the back." Toni sat up in the bed and took off her shirt and turned her back to him, "Should still have a scar from it and the surgery, course I can't see it, do I?"
"A little one," Mike said, "Some people think scars give people character."
"I read once when you die, God doesn't look you over for medals or diplomas or degrees, but for scars…if that's true, when my time comes He's going to have plenty look me over for," Toni said, "Scars from that, scars under this plastic surgery on my cheek, on my legs, I'm getting scars all over."
"Sounds like you've had a pretty brutal life," Mike commented.
"I find all life is brutal, we can kid ourselves all we want," she said as she put her shirt back on again, "Everybody has traumas starting from birth that will stay with them until they die, and then the dying is brutal too."
"Are you sure you're not related to Munch?" Mike asked her.
Toni evaded the comment and changed the subject, "So tell me about Tim Bayliss, you work with him?"
"Eh, a little."
"What was he like?" Toni asked, "From the newspaper reports he doesn't sound like the kind of guy who would kill someone."
"Nobody thought that, he was…I don't know, so naïve, so…"
"Innocent?" Toni suggested.
"I guess so."
"And that doesn't work well in an extremist environment like a homicide squad, he probably got crap for it every day until he finally snapped, most likely from his co-workers for the most part."
"From what I remember, they didn't help," Mike said.
"Nice guys should never get pushed," Toni said, "The outcome's never pretty, you should know, look at yourself."
Mike snorted, "Thanks a lot."
"I mean it, I like you, Mike," she said, "And that's no easy feat because I don't like anybody, except Munch."
"I find that hard to believe," he told her.
"Well it's true," she said, "I'm not a nice person and I'm not nice to anybody, everybody knows it, that's why the only person I'll let myself get attached to is Munch, because we're alike."
"But you know Munch isn't really like that."
"Of course not, it's just his defense, he pretends he doesn't care, and that gets easier all the time, but he does, you can tell," she said, "He's got a good heart, even if he'll never admit it. Now if anybody's life sucks, I'd say it's him, his father blew his brains out, he's not on good terms with his mother or his brother, he's been married four times, all busts, no kids, his partners drop like flies, what more, the only woman he cares about these days is one of the detectives he works with, Olivia Benson, but she's in Jersey with my father, and most likely in bed currently…but you can't tell John that, he'd go through the roof. And I'm more than a coconspirator on that last charge because I'm the one who brought him and her together. I feel bad for John and his lack of a love life but he had four shots at it, my father's been by himself since he was widowed 18 years ago, and Olivia's never even been married, so I took the two nearest points and drove them both together. Now I've just got to find somebody to put off on Munch, he used to have this other partner, another woman, Monique Jeffries, but she's been gone for several years, I never even met her."
The occupant on the other side of the bed started to laugh and Toni looked over at him, "What is it?"
"I was just thinking," Mike said, "There's always you."
Toni laughed and replied, "Not me."
"Why not, because of his age?" Mike asked.
"That doesn't bother me," Toni said, "No, because two poisons don't equal a cure, I'm arsenic, he needs an antidote..."
"Know anybody for that position?" he asked her.
"For him, no, but for myself," Toni looked him up and down once again, "I think we ought to check out of this roach motel."
Mike laughed and threw his head back against the pillow, "And where would you have me listed, among the best or worst?"
"Couldn't tell until I look under the hood," Toni told him jokingly, "But if first impressions are worth anything, I'd say near the top."
"You know, Toni," Mike said, inching away from her, "I think I know somebody we could try pawning off on John, if I could find her again."
"Who?"
"Julie Cox, she was our medical examiner when I worked homicide..." he winked at her, "And I happen to know she wasn't bad in bed either. And it's to my understanding that Munch has a thing for women M.E.'s."
"Now that'd be a first for John," Toni said, "He'd be taking somebody else's girl for a change instead of somebody taking his. What do you mean if you could find her again? She get lost?"
"She was fired from the medical examiner's office after she refused to alter records to say that a hit and run man was drunk when his blood alcohol level was not as high as she was told to make it. After that, she left Baltimore, came back when Gee was shot..."
"She just left?" Toni asked, "For something like that? Why didn't she take it to the press? That would give them a heyday, wouldn't it?"
"I don't know, I didn't ask her," Mike said, "I never thought of it, she probably didn't either."
"Well why not? She was already fired, what more could they do to her?" Toni asked, "She'd get to go on TV, tell her story, sell the rights and retire a rich woman."
Mike laughed, "Do you always look at things with a bright side like that?"
"Why not? Life's bleak enough as it is, why encourage the bleakness?" she replied, "I've had enough of it to last me the rest of my life, if I didn't have a bright side to look on, I would perfect my knife act."
"Hmmm, never thought of it like that," Mike said.
"You're young," Toni told him, "You'll learn...now if only Munch could."