"What can you tell me about Ginn McNiven?" Camile asked Young.
"Nice girl." Young said. "Shame she hooked up with Simeon. He was pretty psycho, much older than her." He poured coffee into his mug and sat down at the table. "They were already together when they arrived. Moved into a motel, I have to admit I thought they were drifters but she wanted to settle down by all accounts. He got jobs working in construction and logging, she ended up with a job at the Icarus Plant as housekeeper. They keep some accommodation on site like Rush said, and a couple of hospitality suites, but I think she also managed the canteen staff as well." Young blew on the coffee and took a sip. "So, she did well for herself and he managed, had a hell of a temper on him, always getting into trouble at work, and she was always bailing him out of my drunk tank, but he was a hard worker, always got the job done, would work the most god-awful shifts and not complain, until some poor bastard got on the wrong side of him, so he kept getting hired again, particularly by the logging companies."
Camile sipped her own coffee before she spoke.
"But he was beating her?"
Young shrugged.
"Not that anyone knew until she wound up in the hospital, and of course the Armstrong helped her out. They wanted him to be charged with second degree murder and rape, but I knew I couldn't make that stick so we went with aggravated assault. Better chance of getting a conviction. He made bail but the judge slapped a restraining order on him." Young looked up at her. "At least so far he'd kept to it, it was that or break his bail. We're about 3 weeks from his court date. To be honest, I thought he'd get a jail sentence, but you never know in domestic crimes."
Camile nodded.
"Okay, I'm assuming he's Simeon McGiven?"
Young nodded.
"I'll run him through the database again." She said. "See what I can turn up."
Young shrugged.
"We didn't find much, history of public order offences over the last six years, nothing serious before that."
Camile looked up.
"Don't you find that strange?" She asked. "If he was such a violent man?"
Young looked at her.
"To be honest we weren't looking too hard Camile. It was a domestic, we had a straightforward case against the guy, there wasn't anyone else that could have done it."
"You've got prints. Have you got any DNA evidence from the first case?"
"Of his?" Young thought for a moment. "We didn't need it, but they took a rape kit from her at the hospital, including swabs and fingernail scrapings, we know she fought back. We didn't use it in the case, he was the only suspect, but it's got to be on file at the county evidence locker."
Camile nodded grimly.
"I'll need the case number. Something's not adding up here."
They'd put out a countywide APB on both Simeon's car and Ginn's but as yet neither had appeared. Simeon's logging company employer, Dann Inc, reported he'd not shown up for work that morning, but Scott had interviewed his co-workers and got nothing apart from the fact that most of them hated they guy and the rest were scared of him.
Camile was on the phone to the county crime lab getting a rush on the DNA results, but four days was still likely to be the best they could expect. Brody had taken the print cards to scan and run through AFIS and Young went back to the evidence from Telford's shooting, thin though it was. Things were getting all too complicated.
A day passed with no real results. Vince Morrison from the crime lab had called to confirm that the shoe print was too partial for a full ID but was almost certainly some sort of women's outdoor hiking boot, size 8 or 9. This was the part that Young hated. The endless teasing through the evidence, no new leads, no changes to the case.
He never felt he was any good at this side of it; the constant criminal investigations over the last few weeks had him struggling with a constant feeling of incompetence. He was good at being a small town sheriff, good at the day to day business of keeping the town running in an orderly fashion, minor crimes and misdemeanours, negotiating between rowing neighbours, keeping the kids in line with out being too much of an ass about it. The science and forensics and the sheer quantity of detail oriented investigatory stuff felt so way out of his league he felt he was floundering, and there were times he felt so damn grateful for Camile and Brody he could have kissed them.
The only real lead was from AFIS. Simeon McNiven was showing up under his prints with about 6 different aliases tagged to the record. Brody was tracking down the records for each name and it held the promise of possible movement on tracking the bastard down. Finally a break.
And then it was Saturday. After a morning in the office, Everett made the call to TJ early afternoon, pleased she picked up so quickly and arranged to come and pick her up at seven. He spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on housework, food shopping and essentials, before getting himself as tidied up as possible ready to go and collect her.
Everett pulled up outside TJ's house. It was a small duplex set a good way back off the road and he pulled up the drive, stopping by the car port. He'd been in his patrol car so much recently it felt weird driving the SUV as if everything was at the wrong angle when he looked at the road, but he managed to park it straight at least. He grabbed the plant from the passenger set.
He climbed out and went to knock at the door. Almost no sooner had he knocked she was there opening it. She stepped back to let him in. Awkwardly he held out the Poinsettia, wrapped with a big red ribbon bow.
"Wrong time of year for flowers." He said apologetically, "but I thought as you hadn't been here long you might like something bright…"
He tailed off feeling awkward. It had seemed much less embarrassing when he had bought it that afternoon. She smiled and her smile seemed genuine, then took the poinsettia from him, admired it and put it down carefully on a side table before leaning in and kissing his cheek, a light brush of her lips across his cheekbone that made him want to shiver and made him glad he'd shaved carefully before coming out.
"It's lovely Everett." She said. "I like live plants much better than cut flowers anyway."
She was wearing another skirt, calf length again in a dusky rose wool, with a cream blouse and a lacey knitted cardigan in a mossy green. It was very feminine, very pretty and he wondered if she did it deliberately as a reaction to wearing the decidedly masculine paramedics uniform at work all the time. He wasn't complaining, some how it brought out the strong woman in her by it's very contrast and he found himself smiling as she gave her understated make up a last check in the mirror. She was so pretty.
The weather report wasn't to bad so he had decided to chance a trip to Novus, the next town along. The town had a large lake and was set up for outdoor sports and such like and with it's tourist population actually had a half decent restaurant which he was fairly certain TJ wouldn't have been to. It felt a bit more like a real date than an evening in Becker's which was the other option.
"Oh!" said TJ when they pulled up. "Am I dressed up enough?"
Young nodded.
"You'll be fine. Most of the visitors to Novus are here for the countryside and scenery, it's pretty low key on the fashion stakes."
She smiled at him and he held the door for her.
The meal was perfect in his opinion. They'd talked cars over starters, movies over the main course and she'd a little flirtatiously, a little laughingly, offered to share a desert with him to save her waistline, so they'd shared a stupidly large chocolate fudge sundae with two spoons and talked music. Their tastes diverged wildly in some respects but there was enough cross over that he was certain they'd be able to meet in the middle if they wanted to see a movie or chill out to music.
He let her scrape the last of the chocolate syrup out of the bowl, expecting her to lick the spoon clean, for someone watching her waistline her appreciation for chocolate fudge was almost orgasmic. She watched him for a moment, then proffered the spoon.
"Here," she said. "You can have the last taste."
She fed him the last of the chocolate sauce, and he realised he had a stupid dumb grin plastered right across his face.
Back in the car he thumbed through the music to find something they had both agreed on, and Tori Amos floated quietly through the speakers, ever sad but beautiful none the less. The poor conditions made concentration on the road a necessity, but he let his eyes flick briefly sideways to where she sat in the passenger seat, and could see she was relaxed, watching the road and she caught his eye and smiled.
He pulled up outside her house.
"Would you like coffee?" she asked.
"I'd love coffee," he said.
They sat in her lounge listening to something he didn't know, something bluesy with a female vocalist, and drinking coffee and eating biscotti she had found in the cupboard. Talking music again and totally lost in talking with her he hadn't realised where the time was going until he looked up and saw it was twenty past two in the morning.
She followed his gaze.
"Wow." She said.
He nodded.
"I'd better go." He said. "Things have been…well, I'll be working tomorrow."
She nodded with a sympathetic look.
"I'd like to do this again." She said. "This was nice."
He smiled what must have been a pathetically pleased grin at her and she laughed.
"What say I cook you dinner." He said. "I'm no Cordon Bleu chef, but I can manage a decent lasagne."
"That'd be great. I'll check my shift pattern and let you know when I'm free."
She showed him to the door, getting his coat for him from the hall closet.
"I had a great night Everett." She said.
"Me too."
She leant in and kissed him, sliding hands onto his hips and flickering her tongue over his lips till he opened his mouth and let her in. She tasted of coffee and almond sweet taste of biscotti and he wasn't sure how long they kissed before he pulled away.
"I got to go." He said.
She nodded.
"I don't want to." He said. "But…"
"I know," she said, "work…but there's next time."
"Yeah, next time. Bye TJ."
"Sleep well."
He leaned forward for another brief kiss, a press of warm lips in farewell and he slipped out of the door and into the SUV before his willpower broke.