Chapter 47

Bobby was starting to stir at 5 a.m. He lay listening to Alex's quiet breathing beside him and thought over the events of the day before. Alex had needed him yesterday. She'd told him a lot about time and change and death and how she'd managed to move through it. And she'd told him about Joe. Lying in Bobby's arms, she'd told him about the man she'd loved enough to promise him the rest of her life.

Bobby hadn't told her much about the encounter with Copa. He hadn't breathed a word about his conversation with Kevin Quinn's little boy. Moran had it out for him; that was nothing new. Thinking of it now, Bobby sighed and turned over. He was just thinking of getting to his feet when his cell phone rang.

"Goren." Though he spoke quietly, Alex was already stirring. There was only one reason for a 5 a.m. phone call. "Okay. We'll be there." He hung up. "Daniels had a call out. He thinks there's a link to Quinn's killer."

She was already up and moving. Bobby watched her walk to the bathroom and shook his head. Two cops in a relationship. Instead of "good morning," they greeted each other with news of death.

"Same M.O. as Quinn," Daniels explained, "Right down to the shot in the eye."

The sun wasn't even fully up yet as the Detectives marched down the street to stand over the body.

"I know him," Alex said. "That's Alfred Minaya. He testified against the shooter in my husband's murder case."

Bobby couldn't help but connect the dots. Both murders linked to Joe Dutton. Maybe this wasn't about Quinn's case after all. Maybe it was about Alex's husband. He glanced her way with concern and saw her gulp in a couple of breaths. After last night, he knew there was nothing he could do to make this any easier for her. Alex was grieving, and he couldn't confront her with that on the cold city streets in front of the CSU team. He squatted down to examine the body more closely.

Alex was quiet in the car, and Bobby finally broached the subject. "You have to fill him in… Captain Ross…" He said it with a knowing nod of the head.

"It's not about Joe."

"Still, there are links between these murders and your husband. Ross needs to know that."

Alex sighed. "And what if he wants to take us off this, Bobby?"

Bobby scratched her head and then gave her a smile. "You'll think of something. You always do. Tell him… I don't know… how I don't like change or something…"

She was quiet again. "I want to see this through, Bobby. I want to give Theresa… what the others gave me…"

He nodded again. "Closure."

"Yeah. Closure."

She stood in Ross' office with her back to him as she tried to muster up the strength to tell the story of her husband's death. She took one last deep breath and began, "My husband was working undercover…" Alex turned back to face Ross and scratched at her eyebrow. "A big buy… alone with two dealers." She paced across the room as she sadly spoke. "He was wired up, the techs lost transmission. Quinn rushed the building. By the time he found Joe, the dealers were gone, and Joe had been shot in the stomach."

She closed her eyes a moment. "He never fully regained consciousness. He died a day later."

"And Minaya?" Ross asked.

"One of the two sellers. When they caught up to him, he cooperated. He ID'd Ray Delgado as Joe's killer. Minaya testified he saw Ray fire. Quinn testified he saw Ray fleeing the scene."

"And suddenly, they're shot within 4 days of each other." Alex frowned while her Captain took a deep breath and looked away. "You know I'm gonna have to take you off this."

"This isn't about Joe's murder. That's been solved! This is about Kevin Quinn's murder."

"It's also about appearances," Ross explained. "We don't want to catch this guy and have his lawyers say it's a trumped up bag of charges because the lead detective is out for revenge."

"I kept my maiden name," she countered. "My husband's name was Joe Dutton. No one is ever gonna make the connection."

"Eames, it has to come out."

"Someone new is gonna waste time getting up to speed." Suddenly she was very glad she'd had that talk with Bobby in the car. "And my partner," she added, "he doesn't adapt well to change."

Ross spared a glance through the glass wall of his office, and saw Goren pacing on the phone by his desk. "Okay, I'll try to keep you on for as long as I can, but as it becomes clear that what you're working on involves your husband's case…"

"I understand."

The man nodded and looked through the glass again. "Tell him he can stop pacing and join us."

Bobby hung up the phone and looked in on Eames, then resumed his nervous pacing.

Alex waved to him, welcoming him in. With a little nod of the head, he strode forward. "So I just heard from ballistics." He was talking about the case, but the penetrating look he gave his partner betrayed his concern for her. Minaya and Quinn were killed with the same gun." Alex looked away quickly with a tough nod of her head.

"What do we have on Minaya?" asked the Captain.

"Deals heroin and crack in the parks… multiple arrests. Six eyewitnesses. Six different descriptions, but they all agree that the shooter came out of nowhere."

"There were some skateboarders in the park nearby," Bobby offered. It was a notion he was entertaining, that the killer may not have been on foot.

"So our killer uses antique ammo and seems to be avenging a nine year old crime. Delgado, the shooter in your husband's case… where is he?"

"Upstate. Dannemora, life sentence. This could be revenge."

"Yeah, but why now?" Ross asked with a sour expression.

"What I heard from the PBA," Alex said, "Two months ago, Delgado lost his last appeal."

The Captain warned Eames once again, and in front of her partner, to take the back seat whenever things got close to her husband's case.

The drive to Dannemora was distinctly unpleasant. Eames was determined to go in with Bobby, and he was determined that she follow the Captain's orders. Finally, she reminded Bobby of her rank and he convinced her to compromise by at least hanging back and letting him do most of the talking.

If Bobby had known the kind of thoughts going through her mind, he would have willingly given the case to someone else.

I loved Joe, and he killed him. I love you. Do you really think I'd leave you alone in a room with him?

Bobby walked in and sat across from Delgado while Alex hung back by the doorway. Delgado saw her immediately. "You're the last person I expected to see on a visitation."

"Ray, you know why we're here," Bobby said, trying to put himself between the two, to deflect the man's attention from Alex, to protect her.

"Yeah," the convict said. "You're pissed I'm reopening my case." His eyes never left Eames, in spite of Bobby's efforts.

"Your last appeal was denied," she said coldly.

"Project Innocence might take it on."

With a sick feeling in her gut, Alex looked away.

"You're innocent?" Bobby asked, as if he was genuinely surprised by the comment.

"Hey look, I might have done a lot of things, but I didn't kill your husband," Ray said. He still kept his eyes on Detective Eames.

Both Detectives were quiet. To Delgado, it was obvious they didn't believe him. "Two witnesses put you there," Bobby finally said. "You're saying that they lied? Must make you angry."

"Yeah. It does," Delgado replied, glancing down to rub the fingers of one hand.

"Angry enough to have them killed," Alex spouted from her corner. "We're going through your visitor logs and your cellmate records."

"Go ahead," he told her firmly. "You know how guards treat a cop killer here in prison? They're on me 24/7. I got no time to arrange a hit or afford one."

"So," Bobby said quietly. "You're innocent now. You were innocent then. So why did Quinn and Minaya ID you?"

"Minaya and I were in the same posse. Whoever was with him that night might have outranked me."

It was a reasonable answer. Bobby looked back to his partner, wondering if she could handle his next topic. Turning back to Delgado, he continued. "The night Joe Dutton was killed?"

"I was at work."

"Dealing," Alex interjected angrily.

"Yeah," the man told her. "Tompkins Square."

"Too bad. If you had a real job, you'd have a real alibi!" Angrily, she paced away from them. After a moment, Bobby got up and followed.

They were quiet until they hit the pavement outside, and then it all erupted in a new argument. "Look, he didn't even seem to get a charge out of talking to you." Bobby was convinced that somehow, Alex could be reasonable about it all. "You're the widow! I didn't even see a hint of him asking for forgiveness."

"So you think he's innocent because he didn't say 'sorry?!'"

"No. The pressure that we got to nail Sang… in Joe's case, they probably got the same—"

"Bobby! Delgado killed my husband! He is angry because his appeal was denied. So he put a hit out on the two people who put him away!" Her words were clipped and punctuated with rigid waves of her hand.

Bobby rubbed his head with one hand. He wanted to keep trying, to talk some sense to her, but she was simply too angry. He mashed his mouth shut, nodded, and walked a few steps toward the SUV. With some effort, he tried to maintain a quiet voice as he spoke again. "Project Innocence is not gonna take on a cop killer… unless there are red flags."

"I'm sure he lied about that, too," she snapped back. She yanked the door open, got in, and slammed it shut.