Roots and Seeds

a Law and Order: CI story

by RoadrunnerGER

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf still has not agreed to sell them, so they're not mine. This is just for fun and practice.

A/N: LOL My "Three Musketeers", so faithful. Thank you! :) We're getting deeper into the AU version now. Once more special thanks to Bammi1 for her help.

Chapter 12

The next morning saw Bobby arrive early at One Police Plaza. From CSU he got a box with Frankie's personal belongings. Up on the eleventh floor Bobby went into one of the task rooms to see what he would find in the cardboard box. In black letters the box was marked on the side with Frank Goren and the case identification number.

For a few seconds Bobby held the box and studied the words written on it. Then he put it down and opened the lid. He had already seen at the scene what the forensics packed and catalogued. Bobby could tell that one item was missing. He had noticed it before because it seemed to be kind of out of place.

Bobby sighed.

Guess they're still working on it, he thought.

He was still sitting and staring at the things in the box when Bishop came in. She got his attention quickly as she held up the item she had in hand.

"Where did you get it?" he asked. "I just was down at CSU, but it was not among Frank's other stuff."

"Taylor gave it to me. He did not notice that you were at the lab or he would have given it to you then. He had just finished his examinations."

Bobby took it from her and stared at it thoughtfully. It was a wooden, gold painted frame with an old picture in it, a picture of Frank and Bobby.

"Taylor said, they didn't find any prints other than yours."

Bobby accepted that statement without any noticeable reaction. He did not really expect the scientists to find any trace on the picture that lay open on the coffee table beside the crack pipe when he found his brother dead in his apartment.

"This frame," Bobby said thoughtfully. "It honors the picture, the memory. My brother's not thoughtful. He tacks his photos to the wall with pushpins."

In his left hand he held the frame, in his right the loose pictures. Some of them were quite old. He saw one where Frankie was on the road with some of his biker friends, one photo of their mom in her prime, another picture showed Donny's mother and one was taken at Bobby's graduation from the police academy. He had to smile to himself when he saw his younger self in uniform.

A high beeping sound alerted Bishop of an incoming message and she fumbled her cell phone out of her pocket quickly.

"The autopsy's back," she read from its display.

So Bobby put everything back into the box and left that on his desk on their way out and to the elevator that took them down to the morgue where the medical examiner greeted them tiredly. Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers led them to the autopsy room where Frank Goren lay on the cold steel examination table.

"We found sperm in his urethra," Rodgers told them, "and traces of saliva. We're running the DNA on that… good luck… and on the blond hair from the sink in his kitchen."

"So he wasn't alone when he overdosed," Bishop said.

"He didn't." Sighing Rodgers turned to Bobby. "Your brother was murdered. Besides crack, cocaine, there was succinylcholine in his system, a paralytic."

"Right, which makes you stop breathing," Bobby added.

Rodgers nodded. "There's an injection point in his side."

She lifted the blanket over him so that the detectives could have a look at what she meant and Bishop went around the examination table to do so. Bobby came over, too, and both took in the small reddened spot on Frank's pale skin.

"Frank… never used needles. He was afraid of them. Succhinylcholine. The blond hair in the sink."

Bishop knew what he was waiting for. He puzzled the pieces together in his head and he expected her to do the same, but she was at a loss.

"Nicole Wallace," he helped her out.

Once she heard the name Bishop could place her. She recalled the news in the papers and on TV as well as the rumors running the precincts back then when it seemed to be certain that Bobby Goren's unusual practices had driven an innocent man to commit suicide. Later Nicole Wallace turned out to have killed Daniel Croyden in order to discredit Goren's judgment and reputation.

"She came after my brother."

Bobby sounded agitated and Bishop could understand that. "We'll find her," she said, trying to put as much determination into her words as she could muster.

Raising his eyebrows he smiled a pained smile at her.

"I'll be a short moment," he said.

"Okay. I'll wait at the office."

As Bishop retreated from the autopsy room Bobby stood thoughtfully beside his brother's lifeless body.

Why didn't I call earlier, he thought. I could have prevented this. Frankie…

Rodgers watched him as he stood there, his eyes clouded with grief, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, and his lips trembling, his teeth trying to catch the bottom lip to chew on it. He pressed his eyes shut and opened them again, but there were no tears, though he obviously was grieving.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Rodgers said and knew how inadequate those words sounded.

"Thank you," he replied tonelessly. For another moment he stood and stared at his dead brother before he turned to her and wanted to know, "The other test I asked you to run?"

Rodgers needed a second to realize that he meant the paternity test.

"Congratulations. You have a daughter," she said, wondering why that news only made him look sadder than before.

"Thank you," was all he said before he left.

xXx

Bobby sighed as he approached his desk. He came from a talk with Detective Taylor from CSU. Before he went down there he had given Bishop the files about Nicole Wallace and asked her to look at them until he was back. Tiredly he smiled at his temporary partner who sat at Alex's work place, studying said files. Even though he had already worked for a few weeks with Lynn Bishop it still was an arrangement he had to get used to.

"We need to talk with Ross," he said. "Did you get yourself updated?"

"Yes," Bishop agreed. "I also think that we should talk about our next steps. Do you…? Or should I…?"

"Would you go?" Bobby asked. "I'd like to check something."

"Sure." With a small encouraging smile at him she got up and strolled over to Captain Ross's office.

Out of the corner of his eye Bobby saw her step in and talk with Ross. Then she went over to a task room and Bobby joined her there. While Bishop started to put up pictures and prints on the two pin boards Bobby sat down at the table. Opening his binder he looked at his notes again. Bishop used the left board for the pictures and results of the autopsy on the current case, Frank Goren, and the right one for the collected information about Nicole's old cases. When Ross entered he looked intently at both boards before he tapped the Australian's mug shot.

"Nicole Wallace," he said to Bobby, "I'm told she's your white whale?"

"When… she was a literature professor… she lectured on Melville."

Memories rose of that first time he and Alex met Nicole. After killing her Nicole had adopted the identity of Elizabeth Hitchens, a literature professor from Australia, too, who had embezzled money from the university. She used Hitchens's visa to achieve right of residence in the USA. Back then Nicole also had seduced a female professor who was responsible for employment to make sure that she could stay and teach at the university.

Bobby was startled out of his thoughts by Ross.

"Either way, what makes you think she killed your brother?" The captain still was skeptical.

Thinking of the numerous victims Nicole had lured into her death trap Bobby told him, "That's what she does, Captain. She seduces, then kills… usually with poison."

"She killed Mark Bailey," Bishop took her clue from him, pointing at the respective picture, "grad student, by spiking his gum. Larry Chapel," she showed the captain the next photo, "a health inspector, injected under his tongue with potassium chloride." She pointed out one more picture, "And Zack Thaler, a diamond thief, succinylcholine injected in his side."

"And she used the same method on my brother." Bobby's voice was hoarse with suppressed grief and anger. "She knew… that I would remember."

Ross still was not convinced. He queried, "But the last time you saw her was what? Two years ago?"

"Three years ago," Bobby specified. "I convinced her to give up the only person that she ever loved, a little sick girl named Gwen Chapel."

Ross looked at him skeptically.

Bobby wondered what else he should tell his commanding officer. It was so obvious that Nicole was behind the murder of his brother. She must have done it not long before she went into labor. He could hardly believe it, but that was how it must have happened.

"Gwen… was all that she had." He paused, thoughtfully, remembering how Nicole had wormed her way into Gwen's family, killed her uncle and framed her father. She had hoped to take Gwen and live with her, but then she brought her to Phoenix, Arizona, to her aunt and uncle. "She thinks that Frank is… all I have."

"I'm not doubting you, Detective," Ross said, eyeing Bobby intently. He could not quite hide his compassion for his detective. He had learned to trust and to respect the unconventional investigator. Still he had to keep up his tough façade. "But now that your brother's death has been ruled a murder it doesn't matter if Nicole was involved. Neither of you can go near this."

A slight frown creased Bishop's forehead. Why should she not be included in the investigation? She did not know Nicole and Bobby was not her dedicated partner. She could be objective. Still she decided to support Bobby.

"Then forget this case," she told Ross. "Nicole jumped bail on a murder charge three years ago."

Ross did not answer at once. He was not sure just how much leeway he should give Goren. Only one thing was sure, he could not allow him to work his brother's case. Taking a deep breath he made his decision.

"Okay. Try to track her down before the M.E. matches her DNA to your brother's room."

Nodding Bobby turned to leave and Bishop followed him. Bobby already was out of the door when Ross said, "Bishop?"

She stopped just under the doorframe and turned to Ross attentively. Bobby just noted it peripherally. He had spotted something on his desk that made him curious. While they had been talking with their captain someone had delivered a flower bouquet. Red gerbera and yellow roses were arranged to form a big globe, based in a plastic pot hidden in a white cardboard box. A card stuck between the flowers and Bobby picked it up.

Bishop walked past him on her way to her desk and stopped midstride when she noticed the flowers.

"What was that?" Bobby wanted to know before she could ask anything.

"Captain wanted to make sure you're not being paranoid." She shrugged. "I said that I checked the information and would agree with your assessment."

While she answered his query he read the card. In reply to her questioning gaze he gave her the note. "It's from her," he said.

"Oh, this is the poison of deep grief?" she read. Confused she looked up at him.

"Hamlet," he told her as if that would answer her implied question of what Nicole wanted to tell him with that quote.

Bobby remembered that the King had been speaking about Ophelia's madness that haunted her after her father died. So Shakespeare was not only speaking about the poison as actual means of killing someone, but also meant it figuratively. Deception, betrayal and manipulation were other poisons he showed in his play as well as madness, murder and justice. So he tied the word poison to actions and words indicating death to apply it to deceptive acts of the living next. In the end justice was served as all who were touched by the different forms of poison found death.

"Hey, Goren!" another colleague tried to get Bobby's attention.

But Bobby still was caught in his thoughts. He tried to draw the conclusion Nicole wanted him to find. Suddenly he said, "My nephew."

"We've got a call for you from the hospital," the other detective told him, now having Bobby's interest. "You're listed as someone's next of kin. They wouldn't tell me who."

"Well…" Bobby grabbed his coat. "That's my nephew. That's Donny. She found him."

With Bishop in his wake he left the office.

tbc…