Chapter 71

Alex stayed in the elevator as he left, only touching his hand again before the doors closed. She thought over what she would say to the captain.

"How is he?" Ross asked her as she entered his office.

Alex shrugged one shoulder. "Grieving."

With a sober glance, Ross offered her a chair. Alex closed the door behind her and walked closer to his desk, but she did not sit. "Captain, there are some things that don't add up. I wondered if we could take it, make sure the investigation is thorough."

"He's not just being…" he stopped before he said the word paranoid, but Eames knew what he meant.

"He was calm… and rational." She looked into the Captain's eyes a moment. "He said Frank would have never killed himself. He never blamed himself for anything. And they found him with $800. Frank was lucky to scrape two nickels together."

Ross sat down in his desk chair, considering her words.

"I can grab Jeffries or Winters…"

"No. You'll go with me."

A smile touched her face. "Thank you, Captain."

Frank's apartment was cluttered, messy. Ross checked the kitchen and called out to Eames what he found.

"Captain, I can handle it if you have to get back."

He joined her in other room, which served as both bedroom and living room. "No, I want to. First his mother, then his brother… it's a lot to lose."

"Well, I've got an NA meeting schedule," Alex said, fingering items on the end table. "Looks like Frank had a meeting yesterday."

Rose slid a gloved finger along the residue on the table. "Guess it didn't take," he said.

"Mmmm," Alex agreed with a frown. "Evelyn, coffee, 9:30. Port Authority. Maybe a program date?"

Ross lifted a hair from the bed. "Maybe more than that."

Bobby called when he arrived. He waited outside, and Alex came down to brief him. "CSU's bagging some effects." She handed him an evidence bag. "Frank's NA schedule. He might have set up coffee with someone after the meeting. Evelyn."

Bobby looked at the book, then stood straight. "That could be… Evelyn Carson, Donny's mother…"

They drove out to Pennsylvania to see her. "I came to the city because Frank called me. He told me my son needed money for a lawyer. I was hoping…" she paused and her eyes lifted to the sky for a moment. "I haven't seen Donny in almost a year." She directed her answers to Alex, and finally turned to Bobby. "I wish that you had taken more of an interest in your nephew."

"Interest?" Bobby said. He glanced over at Alex, wondering what in the world Evelyn had been told.

"Frank said he reached out to you for help, but you couldn't. Or wouldn't."

Bobby longed to set her straight, but it wouldn't have served any purpose. Not here. Not now. He turned his head to Alex once more.

"How much money did you give Frank?" She asked the woman.

She sighed heavily. "Eight hundred."

Quietly, Bobby spoke. His eyes were directed at the ground. "Frank always knew what to say when he wanted something." He lifted his eyes to Evelyn's at the very last.

She smiled. "Yeah. Sometimes he didn't even have to speak." She got up as she spoke. "There was this woman at the coffee shop? She left him her number. He didn't even speak to her." Evelyn crossed the porch and walked down the sidewalk towards the street. She paused at a shrub, picked at it, then turned back to the detectives. "He could still pull after all these years."

"A woman?" Alex stepped off the porch. "Can you describe her?"

"Blonde, average height… I didn't get a great look at her."

"After you had coffee…" Bobby was silent, letting Alex speak.

"Oh, he walked me to the bus, said he was going home. I guess he never figured out what to do for your mother."

"He left a picture at her grave," Bobby said.

She was pruning the shrub again. She looked up. "Oh. So he did get in touch with you."

Bobby shook his head.

"He said he didn't even know where she was buried."

A chill went through Bobby, and he hopped from one foot to the other before glancing over at his partner. Once more, he had the sense that something wasn't right.

"You didn't tell her," Alex said in the car.

Bobby shrugged and squirmed in the seat. "No point, was there?"

"Bobby… you didn't even know about Donny until…"

His eyes alighted on the road, then on Alex, then on the keyhole in the glove compartment. "She wouldn't have believed me. F-Frank told her lies, and she loved him, so…"

Alex frowned. She could see Bobby was right, but it bothered the hell out of her that anyone would think Bobby didn't 'take an interest' in his family. Especially after he almost died for the kid at Tates.

"I wonder who was the blonde..." Goren changed the subject.

"I don't know, Bobby. But I'll find out."

Goren sat in the interview room, a small box of evidence from Frank's place in front of him on the table. He picked it up as Eames came in the door.

"Coffee shop remembered the blonde. Ordered tea, paid cash. Cashier's working with a sketch artist." She looked down at the framed photograph in her hand and showed it to him. "And latent didn't find any prints other than yours."

Bobby took the picture from her and stared at it again. Frank, with that arm protectively around him. As much as Frank had been absent in Bobby's adult life, he had been his savior when they were kids. He thought back to horrific nights with their drunken father, those early days of his mother's illness. Frankie had done his best to take care of Bobby.

He directed his thoughts back to the mystery at hand. "This, uh… frame. It honors the picture, the memory." He shook his head. "My brother… he's not thoughtful. He tacks his photos to the wall with push pins."

Alex's phone beeped and she retrieved it from her pocket. Bobby compared the framed picture to the ones from the evidence box, torn, cracked, and abused from Frank's lack of care. "The autopsy's back," she told him.

His head snapped in her direction, and Bobby, for a moment, felt that pain in his heart again. His body stiffened and he looked to her for support.

"You don't have to go down there," Alex told him.

Bobby was quiet a moment, but took a deep breath and got to his feet. "I'll go," was all he said before he walked out the door.

He held his body stiffly, but he walked with his head down. Alex frowned after him. He had the weight of the world on him, and this time, he'd had no warning. With a sigh, she followed him to the elevator and down to the morgue.

Frank's body was on the table, still staring up blankly. He now had the stitches from the Y incision glaring out from his chest. Alex noticed right away how Bobby gulped a breath and moved to the corner. Her partner only glanced at his dead brother, then looked at the floor. Alex walked over to Frank's side, listening to Rodgers.

"Lacerations are from the fall. We found sperm in his urethra and trace saliva. We're running the DNA on that."

Bobby's hand went to the counter. He looked like it was all he could do to hold himself upright.

"Good luck," Rodgers said quietly. DNA results, like fingerprints, only scored a hit if the person was in the system. There were millions of people who had never been arrested and had never worked in a job which required a background check. The chances that Frank's date would turn up anything were slim.

"And… on the blonde hair from his bed," she continued.

"So he wasn't alone when he fell out the window," Alex said.

"He didn't fall," Rodgers said. She took a long, slow breath, and looked over at Bobby. "Your brother was murdered."

Goren made eye contact with her. He looked as if he was somewhere between collapsing and flying into a rage. He shook slightly against the hand that was holding him up. Slowly, he glanced over at Eames, who now had a look of horror on her face.

"Besides crack cocaine, there was succinylcholine in his system. A paralytic."

Bobby stared at his partner, then shifted as he spoke. "Uh, which makes you… stop breathing." He ducked his head down in a nod.

Rodgers didn't tell him he was right. She could see how upset Goren was. She glanced down at the floor, then turned her head back to Frank's body. "There's an injection point in his side."

Alex walked around the table to have a look, and as Rodgers lifted the sheet away, Bobby was compelled forward. The ME stepped out of the way, and Bobby stood with Eames at his brother's side. He summoned his strength and bent over to look at the needle prick in his brother's side. Bobby straightened right away, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, and turned away quickly. He turned back only to talk to Alex, avoiding a look at his brother's face.

"Uh, Frank never used needles, he was- he was afraid of them." He held out one hand in gesture and stepped away. Alex nodded quietly, and Bobby turned and stepped back, his hands on his hips. "Succinylcholine. Blonde at the coffee shop." He gave his partner a knowing look.

Alex nodded sadly and whispered, "Nicole Wallace."

He took a breath and glanced around, finally letting his eyes drift across Frank's face. He looked back at Alex just as quickly. "She came after my brother." His expression fell, and he stood in thought until Alex's hand touched his arm.

"C'mon," she whispered. "Let's go."

Alex stayed with him, and though he remained quiet, calm… there was a rage boiling underneath. She didn't try to talk to him about that. She couldn't blame him for feeling that way. She made him dinner, she helped him go through the motions: a shower, a change of clothes, a call to a funeral home.

She couldn't stop the memories from flooding Bobby's mind. She couldn't stop him from tossing in the bed, from thinking back on how Wallace had killed so easily, and even right in front of him.

All she could really do for Bobby was be there. All she could do was remind him that he wasn't alone.