A/N: The B & C Delivery company is for Miss Mila who brought it to my attention that a lot of the businesses our intrepid two visit on the show are call B & C something; B & C Fast Credit, B & C Brokers, B & C Copier Systems.
Staying with the Russian theme, Bobby is humming the tune from a famous Russian Ballet
I think all of us would have loved more information on Frances Goren prior to her cancer, this is my take.
I have no idea how much Major Case detectives might make but I do know how costly in-patient long-term hospice care is and how little medicare would pay. I have always believed that our detective lives hand-to-mouth because in so many of the episodes you can see his appreciation of other people's hobbies but we never hear about his. I figure suits and books are his major expenses.
Please read, review and enjoy!
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Chapter 4 Deceptions and Angel Food Cake
The damn thing had arrived shortly after she had left for the day. Bobby leaned back in his chair and studied the outside of the box. Barely an inch tall, it was square, white and tied with a red ribbon. There was a card attached but the envelope was sealed tightly. He sighed.
The captain had told him to take off, too but he didn't have anywhere he wanted to go. Well, that wasn't strictly true. He had a lot of ideas, a great many ideas where he wished he could be. All of them included his partner and some exotic location far from One PP.
He came to a decision to start acting like a cop and cops investigated things. He grabbed his binder and coat and went downstairs to reception.
The female officer working the reception desk was one of the oldest employees on the city payroll. Bobby hesitated trying to think of a strategy.
"Hi Deloris, how's the front line?" He leaned on the desk and gave the woman a disarming smile.
"What do you want, Goren? I'm busy." The woman said with a voice that sounded like she was gargling gravel.
"You just accepted a delivery for my partner, didn't you?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"Well, this is kind of embarrassing, but……." He pretended to falter.
"Spit it out, Stretch." Deloris guffawed at her own joke.
"Well, Eames doesn't know who it's from." He dropped his voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. "The card isn't signed. You know, she's been dating a couple of guys and well, it could have been from either one of them. She wanted to know if you happened to notice the sender name when you signed the form."
"Why isn't she asking for herself?" Deloris resumed stapling her papers.
"Captain called her in his office." Bobby lied smoothly.
"Let me see it was Dan, Daniel, no Dante. Dante something, that was it."
Bobby nodded silently with his chin thrust out. "What delivery service was that?"
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He walked into the B and C Delivery company. There was one clerk working behind the desk and ten people waiting in line. He stood off to the side waiting for the employee to finish with his customer. When he had finished, Bobby stepped swiftly in front of the woman who was next. She started to protest, but he flashed his badge behind his back at her as he moved up to the window.
"Hey, you have to wait your turn." The clerk said.
Bobby laid his badge down on the counter. "Kevin, your badge says Kevin?"
"Yeah?"
"Well Kevin, I need you to look through your requests for a delivery to One Police Plaza for today from a guy with the name Dante."
"Don't you need some kind of warrant?" Said the kid with a cocky attitude, he looked at the other people in line for confirmation.
"Well, we could do that but that means, I'm gonna stand here holding up this line until it gets here." Bobby said loudly for the other customers to hear. There were groans and grumblings heard from the crowd.
Kevin took a minute too long to think about the options. Bobby opened his phone and pretended to call for a warrant. "Yeah, that possible anthrax package, the guy here is giving me grief. I need a warrant and I need a squad car to come and bring the clerk downtown."
"Wait, hold on." Kevin squeaked. "I'll look it up for you now." Here it is, I'll make a copy for you.
Bobby closed his phone, took the copy, smiled at the clerk, thanked the other customers for their patience and left the building whistling the tune to The March of the Sugar Plumb Fairy from The Nutcracker.
A half hour later, he was back from the delivery service plugging the info from the delivery slip into the computer. As he did so, he told himself he was only watching out for his partner's best interest.
Another hour later, he reached back and scratched his neck, a bit flummoxed by the lack of information he had found. One Dante Taylor-Barnes held a New York State driver's license but no car registration. There was no record of a marriage for the guy or a divorce, for that matter. He had no record of any outstanding warrants, not even a traffic ticket, which made sense if he had no car. His name was not listed in any legal or civil actions in the court files for the last ten years. His employee ID for NYU was in order and up to date, the same with his library card. The guy was as clean as a whistle. Bobby didn't like it.
He stared at the guy's picture trying to fathom who Dante Taylor-Barnes was with so little information. NYU had a small bio on him but it was the type of thing written to impress without imparting much information.
What was Eames doing with a Russian Lit professor? She wasn't of Russian ancestry. She had told him told him her family was Welsh and Irish. She didn't speak Russian and had never, as far as he knew, been to the country. He looked Dante's name up on line and came across a couple of books the man had written, about Russia, with a promise from the publisher of another book due out soon. More importantly, how would she have met this guy? They wouldn't exactly have traveled in the same spheres.
He exited the screen and then cleared his browser history for good measure. After all, he worked with a detective, if he wanted to cover his tracks he needed to erase the evidence. The question was, was he done snooping? He rubbed his face in indecision. He hadn't learned anything important, the guy was still as vaporous as ever. If Eames finds out I was checking the guy out she might not like it. And that was the understatement of the year. He decided to leave things well enough alone, for now. He would talk to her about it tomorrow, see if he couldn't get her to give him some details.
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He had just put his key in the door of his apartment, when his cell phone rang. It was the special ring tone he had assigned to his mother's hospital.
"Detective Goren?"
"I'm here, is she okay?" Bobby answered, fighting to get his gloves off without dropping the phone. It was one of his mother's nurses, Amy. She was a kindly person who always called before things got out of hand with her patient.
"She had a really good day today but this evening she's starting to get upset like she did last time. I think its because they are putting up the Christmas decorations in the common room and in the hall to her room."
"Yeah, I remember." He told the nurse. He remembered last year, he also remembered all the holidays that led up to the time when he had placed her in the hospital. "Do you think it would be best if I talk to her or should I just come out?"
"You could try talking to her, your going to be here day after tomorrow anyway. I'll hang up and call you back from her room." Amy said and hung up.
Bobby put his coat, gloves and scarf down on the back of couch. No sense putting everything away if he was going to have to leave again. The phone hadn't rang so he went in the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge for the rest of his deli sandwich from the night before. He waited a few seconds before taking a bite to see if the phone would ring but it sat silently on the table next to him. Three bites in and the instrument began to ring.
"Hrrmph"
Amy giggled, "Are you eating?"
"Yeah sorry."
"Here she is."
"Frank, is that you?" Said a commanding voice that was only starting to have a frantic edge.
"Mom, its Bobby. How was your day today?" He spoke as pleasantly and as even toned as possible.
"Those people are at it again, Bobby. I don't know why you refuse to do anything about it!"
"What are they doing, Mom?" He already knew but this was the dance they went through almost every time she became upset.
"They are putting the Christmas decorations up. I keep telling them its too early. I know its not Christmas yet, not even close. Frank hasn't sent me my Birthday card yet so its not Christmas."
"Maybe Frank forgot…"
"You need to come out here and show them your badge and make them take these ridiculous things down!" Her voice was getting shrill.
Bobby dropped the remains of his sandwich in the trash. He should just drive out there. "Mom, remember I got you the pillow with Pooh Bear's face on it for your birthday? It's sitting on your bed. Do you see it?"
"Yeah, its here. I forgot about it." Her voice was softer.
"I think Frank's card got lost in the mail, Mom. You know how bad the mail delivery is these days." She made a small noise. "I'm coming to see you day after tomorrow. I miss you Mom."
"I miss you too, son." He could hear the tears in her voice.
"What do you want me to bring you for a treat?" He knew what her answer would be, it was always the same.
"I want Angel food cake, that's what I like."
"Okay, that's what I'll bring. Can I speak to Amy again?"
Francis Goren did not say good bye but handed the phone over to the nurse.
"I don't know how you do that? I really thought she was gonna get real worked up this time." Amy laughed and Bobby could hear the relief in her voice.
"Lot's of practice." He said with feeling, knowing the nurse didn't know the half of it.
"You are a good son. You deserve a medal or something. See you later."
He let out the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding as he put the phone down. The crisis had been avoided, the hurricane had blown itself out with any damage, this time. Next time it could be different. It had been different in the past. Don't go there he told himself, don't think about things you can't change.
His eyes wandered around the room in search of distraction, anything to waylay the worry and anxiety that his concern for his mother's condition brought on.
Two of the walls in his living room were covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves, there were more in the hallway and second bedroom. They covered as wide a range of subjects and authors as anyone could imagine. There were books on Chinese calligraphy and cooking with Emeril and lost treasures of the Incas. There were sections on psychology, genealogy, and magic. He had arranged them all, not by the Dewey Decimal System, but by the categories that made the most sense in his mind.
He went unerringly to the book he had been thinking of. It wasn't one written by Dante Taylor-Barnes, but it was a book of Russian history. Specifically, about the House of the last Tsar Nicholas II. He settled himself under the reading lamp set next to his leather recliner and began to read.
The windows of the apartment were covered in frost and the morning light only shone through opaquely. He woke with a start with the book sitting open on his chest. The lamp was still glowing brightly. He didn't sleep with a nightlight, there was no need if you just fell asleep reading. As he got up from the chair, he realized it was freezing in the apartment, the heat had apparently gone out in the building again. Living here was the best he could do. It was close to work, was big enough for all his books and didn't cost the earth. Medicare paid for very little of the care his mother required. A night or two without heat was the price he paid.
The clock said 5am. The idea of climbing in his cold bed did not appeal to him. He thought about Alex, wondering if he would be able to retreat back from the disastrous step of asking her why she had kissed his cheek. It had been an exercise in fatalism. He had known it was a bad idea to ask, but, like buying a lottery ticket, he had told himself nothing ventured, nothing gained. And that was what he had gained, nothing.
He thought about the reading he had done last night. The love and happiness the Romanova family had shared, the illness and madness they had endured and the tragic execution of the Tsar and his family. The wife of Tsar Nicholas was none other than the Tsaritsa Alexandra. Bobby knew this had been the man's opening line with Eames as sure as if he had been there to heard it himself.
He hurried to take a shower and get ready for work. He wanted to make sure he beat Alex to the office, he wanted to make sure he was there when she opened that package.
