Chapter 20: Points of Authority
There were dozens of times every year where Jo was consciously glad that she hadn't gotten her desire to be a cop from watching Police shows on TV. Each time the thought surfaced in her mind she had to giggle a little at how disillusioned those poor men and women who came to the force after a few too many episodes of NYPD Blue must be with the reality of a job that is 80% paperwork, 15% drunks doing things they shouldn't and only about .01% chasing down exciting bad guys. Thankfully, Jo became a cop because she liked solving puzzles, proving her work, and she was always a little too lax about rule following to have made it as a lawyer. If she had loved puzzles less, or loved walking the streets more, she never would have found it. Whoever had cleaned the files at the management company had been pretty thorough. But they'd missed one, literally one: a single line in a five page year-end inventory report from two years earlier. Sam had missed it too on his way through the files, Jo only found it because on her third time through the records she'd decided to try an old trick she used to use in University to proof read her papers, she'd read them backwards.
She read it over three times before she convinced herself it was more than a typo and a brain worn out from five hours of combing through carbon copies. Then she called Sam.
"I need another set of eyes." She said without even bothering with a hello. In brief, almost terse, sentences she outlined what she needed. She could tell from the speed of Sam's responses that he understood the potential importance of the find and she was briefly absurdly grateful that she had convinced Frank to let McNally's boyfriend work the case – conflict of interest by another name was excellent motivating factor.
"I'll call you if I find anything." Sam said, disconnecting the call before she could respond.
With Sam dispatched on his own research project, Jo returned to her own. She'd found the missing puzzle piece: both fires started with the same batch of 'faulty' ovens and the management company had known this. Now it was time to put all the little pieces together and look at the bigger picture.
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Sitting in front of a microfilm reader at the Toronto Public Library on what was supposed to be an afternoon on the streets, scrolling through reels of often badly copied newspaper pages was not what Sam had envisioned when he signed on with the Toronto Police Service. But even though his eyes stung and he was getting less hopeful and more frustrated with every hour that passed without his finding what they were looking for, Sam was thankful he had something to do.
He wished he could have included Andy, but they were too close to allow for even a hint of impropriety. Probably Sam shouldn't even be involved at this point, but since flipping through newspapers was the kind of work an unpaid intern could have done for them if they'd happened to have any at the time, Sam figured they were pretty safe. As long as nothing he handled could possibly be compromised by his handling of it, the lawyers could bitch and moan but at the end of the day, the evidence would still be admissible.
So here he was, hunched in an uncomfortable chair, wishing he were a faster reader, or that all this shit had been digitized so he could just punch in search terms. He forced himself to take a quick break around lunch time just to relieve his eyes but as soon as he'd downed a cup of coffee and a muffin he was back at it.
Two hours later, he found something.
"Did you find it?" Jo sounded exactly how Sam felt, exhausted to the point of almost manic productivity. He wondered if she had gone off shift at all in the seventeen hours since she'd placed Nellie Noble in a holding cell.
"What was the name of the maintenance guy?"
"Freddie? Er… Fredrick Walden-Cooper."
Sam smiled broadly and hit the print key. "I'll be there in an hour or so. Just want to check a few things, but I have something you're going to want to see."
It took Sam less time than he thought to pull the related stories from The Globe and Mail, the Star, and the Sun. In each article there was a nearly identical photo of Frederick Walden-Cooper, ash streaked and grinning, a smouldering building in the background. "Local Hero Saves A Hundred From Fire, But Loses Parents." Sam snorted. More like local arsonist gets away with parricide.
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Jo wasn't used to being nervous, at least not when it came to her work. But now, sitting outside Frank's office waiting for him to finish his phone call, Jo recognized the vague nausea and damp palms as exactly that: she was nervous – very nearly terrified. There was too much riding on this one meeting, on the admittedly circumstantial evidence contained in the thin folder she clutched tightly in trembling hands.
It was far from an air tight case, but she believed it would be enough. They needed it to be enough. In less than six hours they would have to let Nellie Noble walk unless they could find evidence to convince a judge to detain her.
"Rosati, please tell me you've got enough evidence to make some kind of arrest."
Holding her evidence firmly in both hands, Jo got up and walked into Frank's office. "I think, if we play our cards right, we'll have enough to arrest two."
"Tell me what you've found."
It took Jo nearly ten minutes to explain her theory of the case and another five before Frank stopped looking stressed.
"Let me get this straight," Frank said at last. "You're holding Nellie Noble right now, but the person who actually set the fires is her handyman, Freddie?"
"Yes. We believe Nellie and Freddie are working together, she picks the targets and pays for everything; he does the actual sabotage."
"So why aren't we just arresting this Freddie Cooper?"
"Because there's no way he acted alone, and the evidence against him is purely circumstantial unless we can match his prints to the ones on the fire two years ago, which is a long shot. Partial prints, lifted years ago, could well be from a previous tenant for all we know. Nellie Noble paid him to set those fires, I just need a little more time to prove it. If I get her I get him too, but if I go after him and lose, we don't get anyone."
"You have about three hours."
"Then I need to talk to her again. But I need leverage."
"I can send a couple uniforms to pick up Freddie. Time it right and we can make sure your girl Nellie sees him brought in. Could probably even make it look like he's cooperating if that would help."
"You're a genius, Frank." Jo could have kissed him, but she settled for a big smile and then getting her butt out of his office so he could get to work bringing in Frederick Cooper without arousing the man's suspicions.
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"Alright, we're just pulling in to the barn." Gail's voice was so calm she sounded bored.
Jo smiled. She hadn't really worked a lot with the other blonde at fifteen, but she admired Gail's style. She was a perfect choice for this assignment. Everything about her blasé approach and petite, beautiful person seemed designed to get people to underestimate her. With any luck, Freddie wasn't any smarter than your average arsonist for hire and he would buy the "We just need to clear your finger prints since we know you did some maintenance not long before the blaze, need to rule out the non-suspects, you understand" spiel until the moment he saw his accomplice in handcuffs with a full escort between her holding cell and the interrogation room.
"Thanks, Peck. See you outside holding room two in about three minutes."
"Roger that." There was a smile in the words. From the sound Jo figured Gail was enjoying this as much as she was.
Acting on instinct rather than strategy Jo's second call – after she instructed Diaz and Sanders to bring Nellie to interrogation room one, but to take their time walking the hall "If you need to, pretend you forgot your keys. Do not put her in the room until she sees the man Peck is bringing in, got it?" – was to Frank: "I want Peck to interview Freddie Cooper."
"Peck?"
Jo rolled her eyes at the skepticism in his voice. "You can sit in the observation room and babysit if you like, but she's got the right energy. Besides, she's just on shift, last thing I need is to have to full out paperwork for overtime after the last twenty hours."
Frank sighed. "It's your call. But I'd feel better if Nash was doing it."
"Nash is good, but I don't need good. I need patient, observant, and underestimated. Besides, if you make Nash work overtime the night you tell McNally she can come back to work I'm betting you'll get some ex-lax brownies or something one of these days." Jo knew Frank believed that about as much as she did, but the idea make him chuckle a bit and she knew she had won. "Look, if Peck screws this up and we can't make the charges stick you can say I told you so."
"And charge my next night at the Penny to your credit card."
Jo laughed. If they were taking bets now she knew she had won him over. "You're on. Loser buys drinks tonight."
"I'll buy you a drink. If you pull this off before ten I'll make it a triple."
"Deal."
Jo tucked her phone in her pocket, wiped the smile off her face, and headed for interrogation one.
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Sam had been gone forever. At least, that was how it felt to Andy when he walked in the door. She waited only long enough for him to sit down in one of her newly acquired chairs in the kitchen area of her tiny apartment before standing over him, one leg on either side of his, taking his face in her hands and kissing him. There was a part of her that was desperately curious about what he and Jo had found, but the rest of her was too afraid to get her hopes up. At this point either they had enough or they didn't and until Frank called to tell her to come back to work, or Jo showed up in a squad car to arrest her again, she wanted to forget all about it.
Sam seemed to be of the same mind. His hands immediately went to her belt and then her fly. Once her pants were in a puddle around her ankles there was a brief awkward moment as Sam shed his own pants and shirt before pulling Andy into his lap. The thin fabric of their underwear dulled the sensation, but only enough to prolong it.
Sam took his time with Andy's shirt. He opened it one button at a time, laving each inch of newly exposed skin with his tongue before moving to the next button. Andy anchored herself by holding his shoulders and rocked gently in his lap.
When her shirt fell away it was her turn. She kissed her way along his neck, suckling hard enough to leave a distinct bruise just below his regulation t-shirt's collar, where he would feel it but no one would see. He groaned and she twisted his nipples until he bucked up against her and then soothed them one by one with her tongue while Sam worked the clasp of her bra open.
Andy's phone rang as her bra his the floor. "Ignore it." She gasped, tilting her hips forward and grinding her panty-covered clit against Sam's erection and at the same time bringing her breasts close enough for him to suck without straining his neck down too far.
"It might be important." Sam released his hold on her to grab for the phone. A wicked half smile on his face he pressed talk and held it against her face at the same moment he pulled her tight against him and licked a tight circle around one nipple.
"Hello?" She answered in a slightly breathless voice. Sam had both hands on her hips and was rocking her against him with just enough pressure to be maddening. It was all she could do not to moan into the phone that they were both still wearing too many clothes.
"McNally!" Frank's voice was ebullient. "You had enough vacation yet?"
She placed a hand on Sam's chest, pushing him far enough away that she could actually focus on Frank's voice. "Is that what we're calling it now?" Andy half-joked-half-griped.
"Well whatever it is, it's over. You're back on duty tomorrow, think you can manage that?"
"Oh my God, are you serious?"
Sam smiled and leaned in, flicking his tongue against one pebbled nipple. Andy pushed him away again, an answering smile on her lips.
"Yes. We've missed you around here."
"See you at parade!" Andy disconnected the call and set the phone back on the table. "I'm back!" She bounced a little on Sam's lap in excitement until he grasped her hips and pulled her firmly against him, igniting a different kind of excitement altogether.
A/N: I want to extend a massive thank you to the people who have come back to this fic. I am delighted to say that there will be no more long waits. There are two chapters to come, they're both written and will be up some time in the next week. Please review :D