Disclaimer: Nothing is mine except the idea. Thanks SWWoman for helping with fixing my mistakes.
Chapter 9 - Discussions
Lionel stood on the other side of the two way mirror, watching Carl Matheson while he was messing around with his phone. After getting back to the station, he was booked and his fingerprints were run through the system. He had quite the colorful record with a pretty long rap sheet. Seeing that he was using his phone, Lionel saw a good opportunity to blue jack the phone for Finch. Hopefully it would help them out in the situation with Carter and her case.
To his right, he heard the door open. Turning his attention to it, he saw the chief walk in with an obvious question written on his face.
"Detective Fusco, what do you think you are doing bringing this guy into the interrogation room?"
"Well Captain, I obviously have to ask him a couple of questions."
"I'm not aware of any ongoing cases that you are working on."
He tried his best to keep his smart mouth shut. Lionel knew that the captain was inept because he was on the take. He saw the signs all the time. He should know since he used to be the same way. He would have to be careful with his words.
"Well there was an attack on a fellow officer and when we got there, he was knocked out. We figured that the victim managed to get away."
"Oh?" he said reluctantly. "Where is the officer?"
"Well we'll just have to wait for them to contact us. Now if you're finished, I'm going to head in to question him about a few things regarding the incident."
Lionel maneuvered past him out the door, only to enter the room on the other side of the glass. He knew that the captain would be watching his every move at this point.
"Good to see that you're awake after such a long nap sunshine. How's your face?"
Carl snorted, not at all amused. "I don't have anything to say to you cop."
"Well Carl…" he said as he took a seat. "I was just curious as to why a man with as colorful a criminal background as yours would be doing at the park so late at night at the same time as an officer who was going there to look into a tip. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"
He just sat there defiantly, thinking that there wasn't any problem. Before Fusco's arrival, he told Cal through a text that the job was done. With how long she had been in the water, there was no way she would have survived even if that guy got her out. He left out his current predicament as he thought that he could resolve it quickly himself.
"So what about those nicks and cuts you got on your face Carl. You trip and fall or did someone beat you up?" The guy looked like he took his masculinity seriously so Fusco thought he would be antagonistic to get a reaction. It worked like a charm.
"Yeah right, no one could beat me in a fight, especially not you tubby."
He looked away in anger and that gave him the split second he needed to take his phone out. Looking at the screen, he saw the pairing process initiate. He would have to buy a bit more time.
"Well I know that you think no one can beat you man but I do know a few friends that might challenge that. There's this guy I know who is about six feet tall with graying brown hair that's pretty good himself."
Carl had to keep himself calm at the remarkably accurate description of the guy that managed to prevent his getaway. Then again it could have been a lucky guess to try to get a rise out of him. He instead continued to stay silent to try to not compromise himself.
Fusco glanced down to see that the pairing was a success.
"Well I guess I can only let you go. I must have made a mistake."
Carl was just confused at this cop's angle. He noticed that he wasn't moving and decided to just get the hell out of there. He stood up and just left the room. Fusco gave him a few minutes before leaving himself. He was confronted by the captain again.
"What was that all about?"
"I got what I needed Cap" he said simply before returning to his desk. He then began to send the information over to Finch to examine. Hopefully it would give them the answers they needed.
John was cleaning the dishes when he heard the front door open.
"Morning Finch" he greeted as the billionaire walked in with Bear. "You too Bear." He said as he scratched behind the enthusiastic dog's ear.
"Good morning to you as well Mr. Reese, I have managed to get some information from the blue jacking that Detective Fusco performed during the interrogation. I've come today to share the information with you and Detective Carter. Is she still around?"
"I'm right here Finch" she announced as she exited the bathroom in her work clothes that John cleaned up. She felt much better and was able to move normally again. She walked over to the table, being sure to greet Bear just as John did. "So what's the scoop on the guy?"
They got right down to business. "Well to be frank Detective, I've received a copy of everything on Carl Matheson's phone. Fusco mentioned to me that he had in fact been doing something before he entered the interrogation room." Finch pulled out the phone and placed it on the table for everyone to see.
"From everything that I have seen so far, our friend has made quite a bit of money by doing supposedly odd jobs around New York. I hacked into his bank account and have seen some big deposits over different periods of time."
"When we're talking about big, we're meaning how much?" she asked.
"Let's just say that it would be quite more than someone who would do things such as fixing pipes or doing delivery runs."
"So he's a hit man for sure then" Carter asked.
"It would seem so. He only ever received a payment of fifty thousand dollars which must have been his regular fee for each of his jobs. From the timeline of each deposit, he had received a payment of a hundred thousand dollars the day before you were attacked in the park."
"Why the increase?"
"Well maybe it's because of your job Carter" John chimed in. "I've met my share of these types of guys and they always take care to make you pay out more for getting rid of cops because of all the heat that could come from it."
"So in this case it was because I got too involved in trying to find out what happened with Bill and now someone wants me quiet. Story of my life" she uttered ironically.
"My condolences for Detective Szymanski by the way. My reliable source gave us his information but only after his death so there was nothing we could have done.
"It's alright Finch. John already told me everything. I just want to catch the bastard that is responsible for all this."
"Well I actually wanted to ask you something." He began searching his phone until he brought up the list of recent calls. Once he scrolled to the latest call, he showed it to her. "Do you recognize the number?"
Joss looked at the digits, knowing exactly who it was. "It's Cal's number" she responded. She looked over at John, whose face became dark. She recognized the look quickly, he tried to control himself as Finch continued on.
"This call was made yesterday a few hours before your 'accident'. The reason why I ask is because this message was sent by the man while he was in the interrogation room." He repeated the same actions and showed her a different screen.
The message was viewed as follow Yo Cal, that girl you were worried about is taken care of. She is sitting at the bottom of the lake as we speak. Go ahead and enjoy things and get back to me if you need more clean-up or something else done. She felt her heart drop and felt her stomach begin to bubble up. The reality of the situation hit her hard since she didn't really remember anything about what he did to her before she had black out. To find out that Cal was responsible for what had happened in a way sickened her to no end.
She trusted this man. She had allowed him to get close out of sheer loneliness; she admitted that to herself now. She couldn't believe that she almost introduced him to her own son.
"So we know that Cal called this guy to kill me because I was digging too deep into the case. Maybe I was making more progress than I thought" she stated. She worried because John hadn't said anything for quite a bit.
"We believed that the whole thing was a setup and Mr. Reese sent me some things to look into to confirm the theory. Once everything is looked at, I will let you know. Regardless, what about the situation with Detective Beecher? Both Mr. Beecher and Mr. Matheson believe that you are dead. What is your plan?"
She couldn't help the mischievous smile on her face and John immediately knew what she was thinking. "No way Carter" he intervened.
"Why not? If they think I'm dead then I just show up out of the blue, it'll throw them off their game and they'll make mistakes in the future. Besides, I have to go back and get some paperwork from the case anyway."
John clearly was not convinced. "Carter, I had to pull you out of freezing water and give you CPR. These guys are serious."
"Did you forget that I'm a cop?"
"If I may intervene?" Finch asked, grabbing both of their attention. "Detective Carter may have a plausible way of approaching the situation. It's true that her sudden appearance may fluster Detective Beecher, causing him to make a move he doesn't want. If you are worried for her, we can monitor the calls now that Detective Fusco has blue jacked his phone."
He didn't respond so Joss decided to ask Finch something. "So how about Taylor? How is he?"
"Well Mr. Carter seems to understand that you are in a predicament and went to your mother's with no resistance."
"That's how I raised him" she said proudly.
"Well I have to be getting back to the library. Please update me on what happens."
"Sure will" she said as Finch made his exit.
When the door shut, Joss continued. "You worry too much. They won't try anything like that again so soon."
"It's just…" he seemed to falter which threw her off. She had never seen him act like this before. It was out of character for him. "I don't know if I'll be in time if something happens again."
"It's not your fault for what happened you know. I'm just glad you got there when you did. How about this…" she decided to compromise. "If you are so worried, then how about I stay with you until this is all over and done with?"
"Do you want to? I don't want you to do something you don't want to do."
"Yeah sure, besides you have a huge, nice place here so I'm sure that I wouldn't get in the way. Actually, I was hoping we could talk a bit more about what happened between us."
John thought about it for a moment and finally accepted it. "Okay" he said simply.
Looking at the time, Carter got up and grabbed her coat, intent on making her way to the station. "Joss wait" he said. The use of her first name stopped her heart as well as her feet. He never really used it often and it was like music to her ears when he said it. Only he could make it sound so beautiful.
She watched and waited as he went over to a nearby drawer. After fussing around and searching through a few things, he closed it and walked back to her. "If you must insist on heading back out into trouble, at least wear this for me." He opened his hand to reveal a silver pendant on a matching colored chain.
"What's this? My birthday isn't for a few months."
"With this, I can know where you are because there's a tiny tracker inside." He came up to her and then proceeded to put it around her neck. With his proximity, she became engulfed in his woodsy scent. It seemed to cloud her mind and she closed her eyes to feel it more. Once the clasp was locked and he separated, the spell was broken. She offered him a grateful smile as he looked into her eyes.
"Thanks, I'll be back later after I get a couple of things from my apartment."
"Okay, just be careful alright?" He just studied her face.
She nodded and then made her way out the door after saying goodbye. Since there weren't really any leads on the case, he found that he couldn't do anything but wait for her to come back so they could go over her reports.
Now there was just a matter of how he would pass the time until then.
A/N: Well there's another one down for you. Thank you a ton SWWoman for the betaing and I hope everyone enjoyed it.