Chapter 51

They tracked down the counterfeit Snomint, and went to the FDA with the info. It looked like the FDA knew about the poisonous mouthwash before there were any victims. Leslie, in her cubicle, was more than helpful, giving them the information they needed about Jim Kettle.

She slipped Bobby her card a second time, which made him pause. Alex didn't seem to notice the exchange.

It wasn't strange for a woman to prefer to talk to him rather than his partner. That kind of thing happened often. People naturally gravitated to whichever detective they felt more comfortable with. But this... Leslie was purposeful about it. It almost seemed like she was coming on to him.

Kettle was dead, and now there was more suspicion that someone at the FDA was involved, and in cahoots with Schorr labs. Both detectives were convinced it was a cover-up, but the Captain wanted more. They set out to find out more about Kettle.

"He was a straight arrow, and highly allergic to cats," Alex said as they rode the elevator back up to the squad. "Think it's enough for Ross?"

Bobby shrugged and bit his lip. "I've gotta... I have something I... Look I'll meet you back here after lunch?"

She searched his eyes, but he had his poker face on. "Sure, Bobby. See you later."

She seemed eager to meet with him on the phone, and again, this gave him pause. He honestly couldn't tell if she was only interested in getting the truth out about the Snomint or if she was interested in him.

Bobby stood as she entered the restaurant, and held her chair for her as she joined him at the table. Once they were settled, they placed their orders. The place was popular for lunch because of their fast service.

"Sorry, it took a while to get out of there," she said.

"It's okay," he said. He didn't quite smile at her. If this was some kind of date he wasn't sure he wanted to lead her on. Thoughts of Alex filtered through, and he wasn't sure what to make of that relationship, either. Inwardly, he decided to treat this lunch as an investigation, to find out what Leslie's motives were, and to just take it all from there.

"You like... Mexican?" He asked, making small talk.

"Now and then," she replied, giving him a smile.

They learned a little about each other, about her steps up the corporate ladder, and his years on the force. Nothing too revealing, but enough to pass the time. They each managed to eat about half of what was on the plates, and then the conversation turned to the investigation.

"Did you know about his asthma?"

"Sure. You couldn't smoke around him or wear perfume. The guy drove everybody crazy with his allergies."

Quietly, Bobby decided to find out her intentions. "You gave me your card...twice." He drew a deep breath, and glanced up for a moment. Without giving away the slightest hint of emotion, he asked, "Why?"

She looked down and swallowed before speaking. "When Palin said he didn't know about the mouthwash... It wasn't true."

A slight feeling of disappointment coursed through him, but Bobby kept up his poker face. "Jim Kettle told him?"

"Jim wrote a memo to Palin, cc'd me." She cocked her head. "It wasn't in his files?" She asked.

Bobby gave her an ever so slight shake of his head.

She turned and glanced around the dining room before reaching into her purse. "Then here. My copy." She pressed the folded paper against the table too. Bobby slipped it from the table and put it in the inner pocket of his suit coat. "I'm trusting you," she said.

"Yeah," Bobby whispered with a hint of a smile. She looked into his eyes, then, and he realized he still wasn't sure if she was interested in him or not. Bobby kept his hands in his pockets when he said his goodbye.

By the next morning, Alex had done all the digging she needed to do. Bobby had bailed on her, made some excuse to stay away from the office the day before, and she wondered if he was still mad about the hostage incident.

There were more victims now, more schoolchildren hospitalized. She filled in the Captain over coffee and donuts, and Bobby joined them, happily handing over a file that contained a memo which seemed to prove Palin knew about the tainted mouthwash.

"The smoking gun. You found this in Kettle's files?" The captain asked.

Bobby shook his head. "No, Leslie LeZard. She slipped me her copy."

Alex stared at Bobby, trying to quell the anger that was threatening to bubble up inside her. Finally, she turned her head, drank a sip of coffee, and feigned deep interest in the Captain's words.

They drove out to the FDA next, and Alex simmered, truly torn about what to say to her partner. As she thought, she let out a sigh.

Bobby shook his head and turned to face his window a little more. "You don't own me, Eames." He said quietly.

His words surprised her, and she smiled. Another sigh. "What?!"

"You're mad... Because I saw Leslie."

"I'm upset... Because you were working the case without me."

"I wasn't... working. The memo... It just came up."

"Oh, so it was a date?"

Hearing her say that made him happy and sad all at once. He was aggravated with her lately. It seemed she was always criticizing how he did the job, and it felt good to punch past the professionalism and scrape her heart a little.

But it felt bad, too. He could see how she was hardening her face, trying to hide the pain that he might have decided to date someone else. Bobby spoke to try and keep the guilt at bay. "Not exactly a date."

Alex sighed. "Whatever, Bobby." She took a deep breath before she spoke again. "Whatever it is, you tread carefully. She may not be the saint she appears to be."

"I'm aware of that." He looked around at the traffic. "But then, what if she is?"

Alex pressed her lips together and repeated his question. "Yeah. What if..."

They didn't speak another word. As she finished the drive, she was looking back over the course of their relationship, and Alex realized it had been doomed from the start. They were just two broken and lonely people, trying to keep each other afloat. Maybe it was a good thing he was interested in LeZard. Maybe it was time they moved on.

They confronted Palin, who denied knowledge of the memo. Alex confiscated his shredder and they took it back to 1PP.

Leslie called and invited him onto a dinner boat for a nightcap. He waited on the deck, looking out at the lights of the City from the water. He heard the door open and turned. Leslie wore a bright red jacket, which gave her skin a beautiful glow.

"Nice idea, to meet on the water," Bobby told her.

She came closer and tilted her head against the wind. "I saw you talking with Marty. You don't... Think he killed Jim Kettle?"

Bobby was disappointed again. He looked down a moment, and answered her question. "I'm not sure Marty would do that to protect the agency's rep."

"It's not the agency."

"Bing Schorr?" Bobby asked. "They're old friends?"

"Bing got Marty tapped for Skull and Bones. That's... a big deal in our world... at Yale. Then he got Mary his first job, trade association lobbyist."

"So he went from lobbyist to agency watchdog?"

"More like Bing's watchdog," she said, wiping a stray hair away from her eye.

Bobby nodded. "So... Kettle's memo. Palin showed a privileged FDA document to his old pal."

She paused and stared at him. "A piece of paper is not privileged. Marty and Bing, they're the ones who are privileged."

She made an excuse and skipped the drink, leaving Bobby to stare at the water a while longer. He was relieved to see her go back inside to the crowded bar. She wasn't interested, and Bobby wondered now about her true motivation. Maybe she was in on it, looking for a scapegoat. Maybe she was behind it, looking for a promotion.

Then again, maybe she was innocent, and just found it easier to talk to him.

Bobby stared at the water and thought about Alex. She was the best friend he'd ever had, and he hoped they still had that. He knew he'd hurt her. He cursed himself a moment, and wondered if something like this was how it began for Mark Ford Brady.
Bobby shivered, folded his arms and turned his back to the wind. He couldn't afford to think like that. Thinking like that would surely kill him.

With a heavy heart, he thought of Alex, the unspoken apology on his lips.

He wasn't asleep when the call came in. Bobby's mind was juggling thoughts of the case and of relationship and of Alex and of his own family and he couldn't get any of it to stop. When he saw Toby's sister dead on the table, that anger rose up once again. He didn't speak a word, but when they brought in Palin for interrogation, Bobby was ready.

He still denied seeing the memo, even though CSU had taped the shredded strips back together. He did, however, admit that Leslie had informed him.

Alex couldn't hide her feelings. She confronted Palin. "So you knew about the counterfeit Snomint before we did... And you didn't have it tested?"

He made some excuse about products in China never hurting anyone. Alex asked about when Bing found out, and Bobby connected the dots to Kettle's death.

They all agreed that Palin wasn't smart enough to pull it off on his own. After a visit with Stacey, Palin's secretary, the suspicion fell onto Leslie.

Bobby's questions gave her the benefit of the doubt, but Stacey made it clear that Leslie was no saint. She even made a comment about how she wears her red power suit when she is going after something she wants. Bobby held his tongue, but he heard it all.

Alex didn't say a word about it, and he wondered if that was out of friendship or because she was still angry with him.

By the time they'd uncovered everything on LeZard, she'd already taken over as Deputy Director. She'd moved in, and decorated the office with evidence of her fraudulent career. Everything about her was a lie.

"When did you decide?" Bobby asked her, effectively convinced that Schorr was innocent. He repeated the question. "When did you decide? You know... that the Snomint, and Toby Borden's death, that it, you know... wasn't a crisis? That it was... you know... your moment?"

She tried to paint herself as the whistleblower, and Schorr called her out. "You wanna know while you'll always be a number two? Marty may have gone too far, but he gets loyalty. You don't."

"Loyalty? Loyalty. I carried that idiot's water for seven years, I..."

Bobby interrupted. "She did...she... You did, didn't you?" She looked up at him. "Marty can hardly speak English, right? You sutured yourself with him, and somewhere along the line you decided that he was dead weight, and that this office... that you deserved it, not him." One by one, Bobby confronted her with her lies: the marathons she never finished, never attending Yale. He collected evidence of cat hair from the jacket, told her how she framed Marty Palin.

Alex caught her in a lie, and brought in Stacey to verify the truth with the car service expenses.

"C'mon, you said it yourself, Marty's an idiot." Bobby jumped in. "The guy would never ever think of killing Jim Kettle with cat dander."

"How would that kill him?" She countered. "Jim carries an inhaler."

Bobby reached down and took the inhaler out of the glass case on her desk. "What a nice gift to give his whole team," Bobby said.

"We did our job well," LeZard said. "We covered Mr. Schorr's ass."

Bobby held out the device, looking at it. "Yep. You got all the defective, counterfeit inhalers off the shelves, protected the public and Schorr Labs." He stepped closer to Leslie. "You know Marty, he used the defective inhalers in the keepsake." Bobby popped the cap off and tossed it onto the desktop, where it bounced and rolled to a stop. He stared at the girl. "This one works," he told her. He leaned in very close, close enough to kiss her and pumped the inhaler into his own mouth. It did work. She was speechless. "You took the defective inhaler and you brought it to Jim's. And you triggered his attack And you gave him an inhaler that you knew would not work."

She scoffed. "Triggered The attack? Y-y-you're saying Kettle was allergic to me?"

"No, not to you," Alex said. "To the jacket. You wore it in his apartment, and your DNA must be all over it."

She tried to blame the victims next. The children, they were stupid to drink mouthwash.

Bobby was disgusted. He wagged his head as he repeated her words. "Those kids were stupid." His face colored with emotion. "Toby Borden is dead! His little sister, Lissa, she's dead! DeSean Colt... Jim Kettle anticipated it. He told you that people could die! And you saw it as a career opportunity. You killed Jim, and you set up Marty... And you positioned yourself as the whistleblower." Bobby took her by the hands and stretched them around behind her back,where Alex cuffed her and placed her under arrest.

"Good research," Leslie said to Bobby, with attitude in her voice. "I researched you, too. You think you're brilliant. You will never make senior partner."

"You could be right," Bobby replied.

"And you'll never make Captain, either!" LeZard told Alex. "You'll be tainted by him. He's insubordinate, unstable... How long before he loses it and takes you down with him?"

The detectives watched as she was escorted outside. Alex opened the file in her hands, and Bobby stood behind her. He quietly spoke. "You worried about what she said? That your career is tainted by me?"

Alex closed the file and tapped the sides of her fingers together. "I used to," she said.

"Now?" Bobby asked.

Alex lowered her head and shrugged. "It's too late," she said. She looked back at him, and then walked out of the office.

Goren's mind kept replaying what Schorr had said about loyalty. Only when Schorr said it, LeZard's lack of loyalty was an example of why she would never reach the top. For Alex, her steadfast loyalty was the thing that would keep her from the top.

He sipped the whiskey in front of him. He didn't deserve a friend like her.