Chapter 18

Eames covered for him again, and it was quite late when he got the call from Ross. Bobby glanced at his mother, blissfully asleep for the last ten minutes, and stepped into the hall to answer his phone.

"Yeah, Captain?" he said.

"What the hell, Goren?" Ross snapped. "You know this is an important case, and every time I turn around, you're either chained to your phone or nowhere in sight."

"Yeah, sir… I've been meaning to…"

"What the hell is going on, Detective?"

Bobby sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It's my mother, Captain. She's… she's in cancer treatment, and I'm all she's got. I'm sorry, but I… I have to be here for her. I'm doing the best I can."

"It would have been nice to know-"

"I know, sir, and I'm sorry for that. It's just all… piling up on me at once."

"You could take leave."

"N-no, sir. I… I can… I'll figure it out. I'll do better, I'm sorry."

Ross sighed into the phone. "I'm sorry, too, Goren. Look. Keep me posted, will you? I'll try to make sure you've got some room, but I can't have you disappearing on me without any explanation."

"O-okay. Yes, okay."

"You'll be back tomorrow?"

"Y-yes. Tonight, it… it was a bad night for her. Thank you, Captain."

"I'm sorry, Goren."

"Thank you." Bobby hung up his phone and breathed a long sigh. He'd been dreading telling Ross, but now that he had, he was relieved.

He thought of something else that might bring him relief. Bobby pushed the numbers for the speed dial.

"Bobby?" she asked, picking up right away.

He sighed, and allowed himself a slight smile at the sound of her voice. "Hi."

"Everything okay?" she asked, truly concerned.

"Yeah, she's, uh… she's sleeping now. She was just, you know… it's hard, all this… She was scared."

"I'm glad you're there for her," Alex said, her voice softening. "Bobby… I'm afraid Ross isn't too happy—"

"I just told him," Bobby said. "It was, you know, I had to… to tell him."

"Good. Are you okay?" she asked.

It took him a lot longer to answer than it should have. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Yeah."

"You… you'll be back tomorrow?" She wanted to ask if he needed anything, but that was a ridiculous question at best.

"Yeah, Eames. Sure."

"Bobby?"

"Yeah."

"Take care."

"Okay… A-Alex. Okay."

They were running over the details again, when Bobby had to take another call. He disappeared into an interview room, and Eames continued working it with Ross.

"If she left the country, she used fake ID, different name," Alex said, and was surprised to see Bobby join them again. He wore the same clothes as the day before. After staying with his mother all night, he'd come straight to 1PP.

"What about her bank account?" Bobby asked, immediately all business.

"How is she?" Alex asked, but he didn't give her an inkling of an answer.

"I'll have you out of here as soon as I can," Ross said, apologetically.

Bobby ignored their concern. He simply couldn't decompartmentalize everything in his brain. And he didn't want sympathy. He didn't want anyone to think he couldn't handle it. He shook his head. "Amanda have any ATM withdrawals?"

"200 dollars before she got to the club. That's it." Alex gave him his space. If he couldn't talk about it now, here, in front of the Captain, that was okay.

Ross sent them to pick up Amanda's fiancé at JFK. For one short moment, she thought Bobby might talk, but he just blinked and gave her a half tilt of his head.

They headed down to the garage. Even in the car, he didn't speak. Alex slipped her hand over his, and he entertained that for as long as it took to cross the bridge.

"Eames, look, I…" he began, but his words failed him.

"It's okay," she said. "It's okay, Bobby." She put both hands on the steering wheel and simply drove the car.

Bobby glanced sideways at her. Even as he told himself that no one understood, Alex did. Alex Eames understood him better than anyone. He stared at her, and he was grateful. Bobby cleared his throat and looked back out the passenger window. "Thanks," he whispered.

They learned a little more about what it was like for female soldiers in combat. The old saying "all's fair in love and war" seemed to have applied itself again.

"I told Amanda what goes on TDY… stays TDY."

Goren and Eames both prodded, trying to see just how true the sentiment was. He stuck to it. "When Amanda's in uniform, she's a soldier first."

"And soldiers have sex with each other?" Alex asked.

"It has nothing to do with the real world," Carl explained. "She might have slept with this guy, but it meant nothing. The only thing that matters over there is surviving…doing whatever you have to do to make sure you and your buddies get home in one piece."

Bobby dug up a name for them, Wesley Burkhartz. He fit the description and the timeline surrounding Amanda's tour of duty and her survival fling. He'd been a squad leader over there.

They headed over to interview him. Bobby listened to his answers, but he also heard the distracting chatter over the radio in the bus cockpit. Burkhartz was cocky and given that Bobby hadn't slept much, there was only so far he would go to entertain the man's story. At the sound of a fire call, Bobby dashed for the driver's seat and slid inside.

"Looks like you got a fire radio up here. Look at that! Police and fire! You like to buff calls, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah. Do you mind stepping out of my bus?"

He bent his head down, and Bobby saw the sloppy stitches on the crown of his head. He asked, and got a pseudo-plausible story about cracking his head on a table coming up from giving mouth to mouth. Bobby and Alex found out not only had Burkhartz done the stitches himself, he also hadn't filled out a worker's comp form.

He got a legit call, then, and Bobby got out of the bus, allowing the man to do his job.

At last, they caught a break. They traced her cell signal all the way to Shea Stadium. Even though the phone was found in Rockford, the detectives all sensed that Amanda's body would surely be near Shea Stadium.

Goren and Eames went straight out to Willet's point. The sun was beginning to set, and there was a steady breeze that would prove to get stronger as the night blew in. Bobby found blood on the side of an oil container. He called out to Eames, and they got it open. The body of Amanda Dockerty was tucked inside, with the evidence of an executioner's bullet at the base of her skull.

Alex's brow furrowed. For a moment, she thought of another girl named Amanda, another victim. "The fog of war followed her home," she said, coming back to the task at hand.

They called it in, and Rodgers was able to give them the details they needed on the scene. Aside from a toxicology report, they had everything they might need.

The Commissioner, his wife, and Captain Ross arrived. Dockerty's knees buckled, and Bobby and the Captain had to hold him up to keep him on his feet. The man was devastated, as was his wife. As Dockerty got his feet back under him, his wife attacked.

"How did you let this happen?!" she demanded. "How could you?!"

Bobby's earlier judgment of the man resurfaced, but out of respect, he said nothing until they were out of earshot.

"You think you can protect your own, but you can't," Ross said simply.

Bobby couldn't contain it any more. "Captain, Dockerty didn't try to protect his daughter. His expectations pushed her into this." He didn't notice how his words struck Alex. She slowed and fell slightly behind the men.

"Not ours to say, Detective," Ross reminded him. Then he told them Wesley was gone when he tried to pick him up for questioning.

"That doesn't make him look guilty," Alex snarked.

Bobby's phone chirped and he studied the display as Alex and the Captain talked.

She saw a flash on the screen, but not fast enough to read it. "Your brother?" she asked him. Bobby had told her he was trying to find his brother, that his Mom was asking for Frank.

Again, Bobby avoided the question. He closed his phone and went back to discussing the case. He dismissed the idea that Wesley was a jealous boyfriend. He worked it as a profiler, stating in clearest terms: "It was cold. It was impersonal. It was planned in advance."

Their conversation revealed that the killer was familiar with the area, knew the schedule for movement of the oil barrels. Then they tried to connect Wesley to the location, but the only clue they had was what the man had said about his Uncle being a metal worker.

Goren and Eames spent the next hour and a half walking the neighborhood separately, looking for any signs that would connect Burkhartz or his uncle to the area. Bobby was the one who found it. A bumper sticker that clearly read "My son is defending our freedom," and a broken sign that read "Engineering and Machinery." The name was no longer legible, but the phone number was. Eames dialed it.

"B & B Engineering and Machinery will reopen on Monday," she called out.

"Burkhartz and Burkhartz," Bobby said.

Satisfied, the two headed back to the SUV, glad to get out of the chilly wind. She drove a few blocks in silence, then decided to try and get through to him. "So was that your brother?" she asked again.

"N-no, it was Lewis," Bobby said. "I, uh, I haven't had any word on my brother."

She frowned and sincerely wished that somebody would cut Bobby a break. "You wanna… come over?" she asked him. It had been weeks since they had been together overnight, and she wanted him to know he was still welcome.

Bobby sighed, and glanced around. "Look, Alex, I… I'm not up for it. I just can't," and there was a sincere apology in his eyes.

"It's okay, Bobby," she said again, the same way she had before.

He nodded, but he stared at the floorboard. He didn't believe her. As simple as it had all seemed when they'd agreed to move forward with the relationship, it was beyond complex now. He was disappointing her, and he knew it.

"Bobby," she said quietly. "It's okay."

"You don't mean that," he said with a scoff.

"Yeah… yeah I do. This is a tough time for you, Bobby, and I just want you to remember that I'm here for you."

He shook his head and sighed heavily. "I know that."

"Do you, Bobby? Because it seems like I have to pull teeth to get anything out of you."

"I'm sorry. I… I told you, it wouldn't be easy."

"I know, and I'm sorry, too. Just, Bobby? You don't have to go through this alone. You don't."

He nodded and chewed on his bottom lip as she pulled the car to a stop in front of his building.

He didn't believe her. Alex could read him like a book sometimes, and tonight was one of those times. "I love you," she whispered, too quiet for him to hear as he said goodnight and stepped out of the seat.