Wrong Time, Wrong Place

A/N: This will technically be the last chapter... phew! There may be a short epilogue type thing to follow. But either way I think I'm going to do a light-hearted Rush fic next! :D

Chapter Five

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Daylight was slowly filtering through the few windows that the TR station had in the building. Leon stretched his arms out and yawned rather loudly as he was still sitting in front of the computer, ten long hours after starting work. Lawson, who had got Josh to pick him up from Kerry's house at 4am, walked into the operation's room looking like he had been hit in the face with a brick, "What a long, horrible night," he said, more so to himself then Leon. He stopped suddenly and stared at the intelligence officer, who in that time had yawned again, "Shit Leon, did you stay sitting in front of that thing the whole night?"

"Uh huh," he replied with the slightest of grins.

"Do you get paid well for doing that?"

"I do."

Lawson stopped in his tracks again and frowned, "Well ... Not more than me I hope!"

Leon grinned again, as he shut down the computer, despite knowing that whoever was rostered on after him would probably be pissed off that the computer wasn't on, "How's Kerry?"

"When I was with her, she seemed to be holding it together okay," Lawson replied, "But it's hard to tell with Kerry. She's the bloody queen of hiding things."

Leon nodded in agreement before turning his attention momentarily back to his desk, "I printed this off for you to see as soon as I saw it come up about half an hour ago," he handed Lawson a couple of pieces of paper that were stapled together, "It's the police report on what happened last night."

"Oh good. Thank you," his eyes immediately looked down at the document in his hand, as he walked towards the locker room, without looking back up again.

Josh entered just as Leon was getting his stuff together to leave for the day. He stood up and put his bag over his back, "Hey!" he then noticed that it was only him standing there, "Where's Michael and Stell?"

"Gone home," Josh answered flatly as he too headed towards the locked room to change out of his police uniform. Stella in particular had pissed him off with her attitude all morning so he wasn't too enthusiastic about anything to do with her.

Lawson was so fixated on the police report he had in his hand, that he didn't hear Josh enter the room and only looked up when he heard him say his name, "Oh hey Josh," he said tiredly, not knowing how long he had actually been there for. Josh stood in front of his locker, getting out of his uniform and into casual clothes in silence. He wasn't quite sure what to say. Lawson was still reading the report, shaking his head every now and then. What he was reading was not what he had been told by the Inspector Chambers.

...The man in question, 19 year old James Hansen, had in his possession a knife, and had just pulled it out of his jacket pocket when Senior Constable Timothy Madden shot him three times in the chest. Mr Hansen was pronounced dead at the scene...

"What absolute bullshit!" Lawson 'slammed' the paper down on the bench next to him. Thankfully in some way for him, Josh had already left the room at that point. He got up and was dressed quicker then even he could blink. Just as he was leaving the room, he ran into Leon who was breathing in and out heavily, "Lawson, I think you should read this ..." he passed him the Herald Sun newspaper. On the front page was the headline in bold capital letters - 'Gunned down by Police'.

"Oh shit ... how'd the press get hold of this so soon?" Lawson shook his head a few times in disbelief, taking the paper from Leon's hand, "If it's anything like what the stupid police report says, I don't want to read it."

"Well, they know James is Kerry's son ... they said he had a knife on him ..." Leon told him the basic gist of the article.

"Yeah thanks. I was told James didn't have a weapon on him, by the officer in charge of the crime scene," Lawson was beginning to get more and more pissed off; lies were a part of life he hated. He suddenly thought of Kerry and hoped like hell anyone she knew outside of work hadn't read the paper. At least before her, "Leon, I gotta go. I'll see you ... tomorrow?"

"Sure will mate," he replied cheerily, "Bright and early at 7.30!"

And Lawson thought he was a workaholic ... it seemed someone has finally beaten him in that category after 14 years as a cop. He gave Leon a peculiar look before heading out the room.

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At Kerry's small but (surprisingly to her) neat house, she found herself standing in the doorway of what was her sons room. Everything was the way it was since he had left for New York at the end of 2006. At the time, Kerry thought she'd leave it like that just in case he came back home one day. Beginning to feel sad at that thought, she took a couple of steps into the room and stopped in front of the wooden chest at the end of his bed. An uncontrollable force made her open it even though she didn't want to. Inside was his old football guernsey and a red football sitting next to it, still inflated. She picked up the guernsey and held it up against her face, nuzzling it almost. There was the slightest smell to the soft material, and it took her a while to realise that this was probably the only real 'thing' she had left of him. His smell.

A knock at the door brought her back to the grim reality and she frowned, glaring bitterly towards the front of the house. Who the fuck could that be? she thought angrily, not wanting to be in the company of anyone else at that moment.

She peeked through the small peephole in the front door and swore again, this time though it was under her breath instead of in her head. It was Geoffrey. The last person she wanted to see right now. Or rather, the second to last person she wanted to see. If she saw the police officer who killed James she'd probably end up killing him herself. Kerry stood at the door for a while, wondering whether she should open it or not. In the end, she did, despite her body telling her not too.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, with a similar tone of voice that he had used to speak to her earlier that morning.

He simply held up the newspaper in his hand without saying a thing.

She read the main headline and found herself gasping for air, "What the hell?" Kerry took the paper from his hand; her eyes skimming over it as she read every line. She felt every part of her body beginning to turn into jelly when she finished reading the article, which had continued on page three of the paper. She glared back over at Geoffrey without moving her head, "You read this too?" when he nodded, she continued, "Well, half of this shit this isn't what I was told ... and there is no way James would do that ..."

Would he?

That question whirled around her head.

No. NO BLOODY WAY!

She answered herself quickly.

Geoffrey was shaking his head in agreement, and answered the question that was in her head as well, "No Kerry. He wouldn't," and with that, he turned around and walked to his car.

Kerry starred at the man she was once married to; dumbfounded as to why he actually came over to her house in the first place, when a phone call would have been sufficient enough. She went back inside and found herself heading towards the pantry. Staring at the bottle of whiskey that was sitting on the bottom shelf, Kerry took it out, grabbed a glass and sat down on the couch.

Alcohol was her demon.

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Not knowing that Geoffrey had already taken the newspaper over to Kerry's house, Lawson parked his car out the front and got out. He walked towards the front door, with both the newspaper and the police report in one hand, and knocked a couple of times.

Inside, Kerry thought that it was probably Geoffrey at the door again and decided not to get up off the couch. Instead she continued to slowly drink the whiskey in front of her.

After a short while, Lawson called out her name. He knew that she was most likely home, as her car was parked just in front of his.

Kerry closed her eyes, recognising his voice. She wasn't too sure if she wanted to see Lawson either. He had been quite supportive of her throughout the night, and almost as a result of that, she felt embarrassed. Crying in front of him didn't help the embarrassment either, although he had seen her cry once before.

Unfortunately.

She went and answered the door, still so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't realise she had the glass of whiskey in her hand, "Seriously Lawson, you are the ... third last person I want to see right now."

He raised an eyebrow, "Third last?"

She rolled her eyes and with a shrug, opened the door a little more, "What are you doing here?"

Lawson glanced quickly down at the glass in her hand, before holding the newspaper up in front of her. She nodded, "I've seen it. Geoffrey brought it over here not too long ago," there was a slight pause before she continued, "God knows why."

"Maybe he was worried that someone else you knew would ring you up before you had seen it," when Kerry gave him an odd look, he changed the subject slightly, "I also wanted you to read the police report ..."

"Oh?" she looked at the paper in his hand as he passed it over to her.

"Read it with an open mind though," Lawson then told her, "It's similar crap to the newspaper," he turned around to head back to his car, "And don't drink too much Kerry!" he added.

She turned her eyes up towards the bleak looking sky; smartarse.

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Lawson had just started the engine of his car and watched Kerry go back inside, when his phone rang. He struggled to pull it out of his pocket now that he was sitting down in the car, "Hello?" he said when he finally got to it.

"Lawson, it's Josh," came the voice on the other end of the phone.

The words 'double shift' entered Lawson's mind as soon as he heard his mates voice, "Yeah Josh. What's up?"

"You know that cop who shot Kerry's son last night?" Josh asked, and didn't wait for Lawson to answer, "He's in hospital. Psych Ward."

"What?" a word finally escaped his mouth after what seemed like a very long silence, "What happened? Did he just lose it or something?"

"Something like that," Josh replied with no tone in his voice, "Apparently a few hours ago, he tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. He was taken to hospital in a stable condition, and now he's been transferred to the Psych. Where are you now?"

"Oh I'm parked outside Kerry's house ... was about to go home," Lawson was struggling to put his sentences together, "I just went over to show her the police report on what happened last night," the phone conversation with Josh ended a few minutes later. Unlike Josh, who was going home to bed, Lawson no longer felt tired. Psych Ward? The guy is in a bloody psych ward? God if Kerry found out, she'd kill him for sure.

Lawson kept his mobile phone out, attached the blue tooth piece to his ear and dialled in the number for the St Kilda police station. When someone answered the phone, he said, "Ah yes hi, I was wondering if Inspector Greg Chambers was there, please?"

"Yes he is," replied the professional sounding female voice, "May I ask who's calling?"

"My name is Senior Sergeant Lawson Blake, with Tactical Response."

"Okay I'll put you through to him Mr Blake."

"Thanks," Lawson replied, and was next listening to some classical music while he was being transferred to the Inspector. He didn't mind though. He hated most music with lyrics anyway. Too 'hip' for him.

"Inspector Chambers speaking," came the man's voice after about a minute, "Senior Sergeant Blake, what can I do for you?"

Cocky little - "Hi Inspector Chambers," Lawson said as politely as he could, "I wanted to talk to you about the Senior Constable who sh-"

"You've heard," the Inspector interrupted him, "Look, I can't really talk about any of this at the moment."

"Oh I think you can," Lawson told him firmly, "You're his boss. What happened to him?"

"He's not very well, okay? Schizophrenia."

"So he wasn't well enough to do his job last night?"

"I don't have time for this Senior Sergeant Blake."

Lawson changed the subject, "Okay. Look. You're the one who told me that James Hansen didn't have a knife on him and yet -"

"He didn't," Greg knew that he was probably getting himself into deep shit with Lawson, and probably the whole of Tactical Response.

"So why did the police report and the bloody newspaper for that matter, say otherwise?" Lawson asked a little angrily. He was waiting rather patiently for a reply, when the next thing he heard was beep, beep, beep. Followed by a lengthy dial tone. He had been hung up on.

Charming fella.

Lawson thought that some of the cops at the St Kilda station seemed to covering for the Senior Constable who shot James. And while he understood somewhat why they would do such a thing (he had done it before for Josh), an innocent life had been lost as a result of an unfit cop. It could have been anyone who was killed. It was only a matter of time. James was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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