Thank you all for your comments :).
Guys, this is the Longest Chapter Ever. That's what happens when I don't update for twelve days, I guess? Speaking of twelve days, maybe get your Christmas shopping done, because it might be December by the time this chapter ends.
A Tangled Web (10)
No day that included a media circus before noon could be a good day.
" – construction crew, saying that they need the last of their equipment from the back parking lot –"
"And they can get it, as soon as we're done sweeping the place." Provenza pulled the rim of his white hat lower over his eyes, and waved a hand to the officer beside him. "We're keeping everyone out, what do they need, signs posted around here?"
Half a dozen uniformed policemen kept the crowd in check outside the yellow tape and roadblocks. Mall employees, frustrated would-be shoppers and curious stragglers alike had amassed in a wide circle around the evacuated shopping center; a handful of reporters and photographers from local tabloids were already snapping pictures. Sirens from half a dozen parked police cars flashed silently on the fringes of the perimeter.
"Tell them to go get lunch and come back when we're done," Provenza finished. Turning back to the Captain, he rolled his eyes: "Who ever heard of a construction crew in a hurry to get to their next job?"
Sharon's only response was a vague hum, her thoughts having been momentarily distracted by his mention of lunch. With the day they were having, she'd skipped breakfast, and the one overly sweetened cup of coffee she'd had had definitely worn off by now. She reached for one of the water bottles on the dinky plastic table.
"Bomb squad just finished sweeping the second floor, Ma'am." Sanchez was walking over to the command tent, a crackling radio in his hands. "They didn't find anything there, either. They're moving on to the food court areas and the roof terrace, next –"
"Of course they didn't find anything, I told you!" An irate voice erupted a few yards away, cutting him off. "Do you have any idea how much all of this is costing me? This is ridiculous! I bet it's a scheme by those assholes over at City…"
Provenza met the Captain's eyes with a wry look, and held out a hand in the direction of the speaker: a tall, well-built woman who may have been in her late thirties or early forties. Her chin-length hair was a deep burgundy color that could've only come from a bottle, and she wore a power suit and high-heeled shoes pointy enough to be used as weapons.
"Captain Raydor, meet Susan Crowley, owner and manager of 'Sun Plaza'," said Provenza. "Better you than me," he added in a low voice meant for Sharon's ears only. "She's been making a scandal and getting in everyone's way, and if I have to hear it for much longer I might explode. Mrs. Crowley – Captain Sharon Raydor," he finished in a louder tone.
"It's Ms. Crowley," the tall woman corrected, "I'm divorced."
"I'm surprised," the lieutenant muttered, but she didn't seem to hear his comment as she zeroed in on Sharon:
"Captain – finally! I assume you're in charge here, then?" She didn't even wait for a reply before demanding: "You have to tell your…your bomb squad to hurry up! And then I want a public statement that says this was all some big LAPD screw-up and that my shopping center is perfectly in order –"
" –can't go anywhere without our machines, what, are you not gettin' English or somethin'?" A dozen yards away, a man in a bright orange vest and a construction hat was arguing with a flushed Lt. Flynn, their voices loud enough to drown out even the indignant mall owner.
"Hey pal," the lieutenant roared back, "which part of 'bomb threat' are you not getting? Get the hell back on the other side of the yellow line until we finish clearing the whole place!"
The telltale click of cameras sprang to life from behind said yellow line, along with a few amused heckles.
The noon heat and tense atmosphere were definitely getting to everyone.
"Ms. Crowley." Ignoring the surrounding chaos, Sharon adopted her most diplomatic smile. With a couple of steps to the side, she effectively prevented the other woman from entering the command tent, where she didn't belong, anyway. "I understand that this is causing you some inconvenience, but –"
"Inconvenience? It's only our second day of operation, and you're shutting us down because of a bomb threat?" Susan Crowley threw her perfectly manicured hands up in the air. "Do you have any idea what that's going to do to my business? I make a commitment to the stores I lease to, and I can't afford to have this kind of bad publicity one day after opening! Oh, and this is just going to kill Saturday's St. Patrick's day celebration," she muttered angrily, "we'll never hit the estimated four thousand shoppers now…"
"Having a bomb go off while your shopping center is in business would make for even worse publicity," Sharon pointed out, "wouldn't you agree?"
"There is no bomb! I'm telling you – trace whoever called in the threat! I'll bet you that it's those jerks at City!"
It was the second time she mentioned the name; Sharon gave Provenza a questioning glance, to which he only shook his head. "Citadel Outlets," he clarified. "Another mall about fifteen minutes away. Apparently there's such a thing as mall rivalry," he added dryly.
"They're trying to sabotage me because they know I'll get all their business," Ms. Crowley continued, all indignation. "Their goddamn manager has been after me ever since I convinced a couple of their hotter stores move over to us instead. It's not 'poaching' when I can give them a better location, better exposure, lower rent –"
Privately, Sharon didn't see how 'Sun Plaza' could offer a better location or better exposure to anything, given that it was somewhat on the fringes of its neighborhood, close to a particularly poorly kept part of the LA river and surrounded mostly by concrete lots and a large field grown half-wild with weeds. If she'd been trying to build a successful shopping center, she wouldn't have picked that spot… but then again, she wasn't a businesswoman. And Susan Crowley at least looked like she was prospering, so maybe she knew what she was doing.
In any case, that was largely irrelevant at the moment.
"Ms. Crowley," Sharon tried again. "I assure you we're proceeding as fast as possible, and doing everything we can to ensure the safety of your shoppers. The best thing you can do right now is to cooperate with us and be patient."
"Okay, I don't know if you're using the public institution definition of 'as fast as possible'," the other woman retorted, "but it's been two hours since you evacuated everyone, and nothing's resolved yet! And you just keep bringing in more police! Can't you at least make them… I don't know, less visible or something?!"
Another long-suffering look from Provenza, who had obviously been through much of the same spiel with the irritated businesswoman.
"I told your people fifty times that there's no bomb!" Susan Crowley railed on. "There's nothing wrong with the building and I don't need dogs and cops sniffing through every corner! You didn't even show me a warrant! What gives you the right to disrupt my business like this?"
"We don't need a warrant when there is a demonstrated risk to public safety," Sharon explained succinctly. "If there is no bomb, then we should be out of here as soon as we've confirmed that," (her tone dropped a few notes) "and no sooner." Her affable smile was accompanied by a no-nonsense glint in her eyes, as she signalled one of the uniformed officers over with a quick hand gesture. "In the meantime, please wait outside the perimeter, in the designated safe zone, along with the rest of your employees."
Responding to her signal, the officer presented himself at Ms. Crowley's right shoulder in seconds, ready to escort her off the premises; the woman had to allow herself to be led away eventually, her pointy shoes clicking angrily on the sidewalk as she tossed impatient glares back over her shoulder and muttered warnings that included the words 'lawyer' and 'financial damages'.
Sharon sighed.
"Reminds me of ex number two," murmured Provenza.
"Isn't that the one you married twice, Sir?" Sanchez arched his eyebrows pointedly.
"Divorced twice."
"Bomb squad just got the parking garage cleared." Lt. Flynn joined them in the command tent, followed by Det. Sykes. "Let the dogs run through twice and came up empty. They're sweeping employee parking next... but I'm gonna be honest here, I don't think we're gonna find anything."
Sykes nodded in agreement. "If our guy had actually gotten around to placing a bomb, he would've put it inside the actual building, where it could do the most damage."
"They're still searching the food court and the roof," Sharon reminded them. Although she privately agreed that after a two hour fruitless search it was looking unlikely that they'd find anything, she wasn't planning to relax until every last corner of the shopping center had been checked.
"Yeah, but I still say we're in the clear," Andy opined. "Looks to me like if that little creep actually meant to blow up the mall, he didn't get to carry out his plan."
Again Sykes agreed. "I just heard back from the last lab at USC," she added, "no one else reported any missing supplies. Looks like the explosives we found in Donnell's locker were all there was." She gave a half-shrug of sorts. "Maybe he was planning to plant those, but he OD'ed on the frog venom and jumped off the bridge before he got a chance to figure out how do it."
"Guess he shouldn't have tried to celebrate before getting the job done," muttered Flynn.
Sharon watched two of the bomb squad members walk out a side exit at a relaxed pace, followed by a police dog. They waved the "all-clear" signal for whatever section of the mall they'd been sweeping.
She had to admit, all evidence was pointing to the same conclusion. Whatever James Donnell had intended to do, it seemed that he hadn't gone through with it. Had he changed his mind? Had he really just celebrated too early, as Lt. Flynn suggested? Or perhaps he'd never even had a fully formed plan because he just wasn't 'the type', as Det. Sanchez had put it.
It could be that they'd never know for sure.
Outside the police tape, the curious crowd was finally beginning to thin out after two hours of nothing happening, the heat and their own daily errands driving people away. Sharon couldn't blame them. She'd have loved to be out of the sun, herself: it was a little warm for mid-March, and the blazer she'd hastily thrown on at six a.m. that morning wasn't the most weather appropriate.
Of course, at six a.m. she hadn't anticipated spending two hours outdoors in the half-deserted, weed-infested riverside area, waiting to see if the dead man in the morgue had planted explosives in the middle of a shopping mall.
Even when the bomb squad lieutenant confirmed that the mall was clear, a small part of her was left wondering.
It was nothing she could put her finger on, not really. But there was something about the whole thing that was bothering her…
"Captain." The grave note in Provenza's quiet voice made her instantly wary; when she glanced up, there was a hint of sadness in his gaze. He held up his phone: "That was Tao. James Donnell's parents just arrived at the police building. They're asking about their son…"
Sharon averted her eyes for a brief moment. In the agitation of the last few hours, she hadn't had the chance to think about the notification. She wasn't ready to give those parents the news, she needed time to figure out what to say … but every minute she made them wait was an unnecessary cruelty.
She nodded. "Alright. Lieutenant, if you don't mind wrapping up here, I'll head back downtown now and meet Mr. and Mrs. Donnell."
"I'll come, too," Flynn offered. He shrugged at her slightly questioning look. "It doesn't take all four of us to finish here. I can help with the notification. Plus," he gave a crooked nod in the direction of his partner, "this way I don't have to listen to his radio station the whole way back."
Provenza grumbled some indistinct protest in reply, but Sharon just acknowledged the offer with a grateful smile.
" –end up being a killer. You know, for whatever that's worth…"
Wrapped in her own thoughts, it took Sharon a second to realize that she hadn't followed most of what Andy had just said. "…What?"
From the corner of her eye she saw the man give her a brief look, but he didn't miss a beat: "I was saying," he repeated, "that at least that kid's parents won't have to live with knowing he blew up a bunch of innocent people. Not much consolation… but at least he won't be labeled a killer."
She kept her eyes resolutely on the road; a few moments passed in silence. "It isn't much consolation," she agreed in a soft voice, "I don't imagine."
Andy conceded the point with a brief lopsided nod. "Yeah... guess nothing really is, for this kind of thing," he said in a quiet tone, and Sharon sighed.
They drove for another minute or so in pensive silence, before he turned his head to her again.
"Hey, I didn't get to say it yesterday with all the running around, but – thanks again. You know, for the brunch thing. I really owe you one there," he told her earnestly.
A small smile graced her lips. "I'm glad you could go. I hope Nicole and family are doing well?"
"They're all great. Everyone wanted me to say hello, give you their best." Andy pondered for a second whether to also convey the invitation they'd extended to her for the next brunch. Provenza's loudly protesting voice in his head won out, and he stayed silent.
With the delicate topic of his family's notions about Sharon off the table, he tried to think of something else to say that wasn't related to the case; she looked like she could use the distraction.
"So how are things at home with you?" Wait, did that sound too nosy? "You know, with the kid and stuff I mean – not you, you." Wait, that didn't sound right either. "I mean – with you, too..."
Sharon gave him a funny sideways glance.
The lieutenant cleared his throat. "How's Rusty?" he rephrased with as much dignity as he could recover. "Don't catch him around the murder room much these days. Guess he's enjoying his freedom…?"
But that had somehow been the wrong thing to say, because her expression went from being slightly sad to closing up entirely. For a moment, Andy didn't know what to make of it, or how to react.
"Everything okay? He's not in trouble, is he?"
Sharon shook her head. "No. No, he's fine," she assured. "Caught up on his classes. Reconnected with friends at school. He's back on the chess team…" A hint of a smile played on her lips, though there was still a note of wistfulness to it. "He's doing well. Thank you for asking."
"Okay… good." He wasn't sure what else to say, mostly because he wasn't sure what was causing her to react like that in the first place. He'd just seen the kid the day before, and granted, it had been for a grand total of about three minutes but he'd looked fine, delivering everyone's lunch, and he and Sharon had acted totally normal… "You know that if you two are having any problems, you can count on me, right?"
That elicited another vague smile from her. "I appreciate that Andy, thank you."
Right. "Yeah…I mean, I owe you about five hundred favors, so really it's just…" He couldn't think of a single good word. "…Math."
She gave him another bemused glance from the corner of her eye, and he couldn't blame her, because 'math'? Really?
It was probably a good thing that she pulled into the garage of the police administration building soon after that, and there was no more time for conversation.
It was this conversation that Sharon would never get used to.
Even after nearly two years in Major Crimes, and having seen more deaths than she could count, talking to the families never got easier. It was the one thing, the one thing about moving from internal affairs to solving murders, that she hadn't managed to learn her way around. The one aspect she hated about a job she loved.
And she really did hate it, dreaded it, and too often there was no way around it. And it never. got. easier.
Most of her team were more experienced with this, and after letting her struggle through it for the first couple of months, they'd begun to occasionally volunteer to notify the families. Sometimes, she let them – if it made sense for the case, usually, on which occasions the victims' next of kin were either not too surprised at the news, or not too heartbroken, and then the whole thing was sad for an entirely different set of reasons.
Most times, though, she forced herself to be part of the notification, because at the end of the day, she had a responsibility to the family as much as to the victim, and knowing that she'd fulfilled that responsibility was one of the more rewarding parts of her job.
She still dreaded those conversations.
And when it came to notifying parents that their children were dead, that dread seeped through her down to her bones.
"Are you sure? It - it - it can't…" James Donnell's mother Sylvia huddled against her husband in the dimly lit elevator, her entire frame shaking. "Are you sure it's not some - some mistake?"
It was the tenth time she'd asked, and each time Sharon wished she'd been able to give her a different answer.
Whatever she said, though, wouldn't fully break through to the young man's parents. Even after seeing his body they wouldn't fully grasp it; right now, they clung on to whatever desperate hope they could, that somehow this was all some terrible misunderstanding, because their son couldn't be dead, because that just didn't make any sense…
"Jimmy never did drugs…"
The conviction in the woman's voice was heartrending. The way she held so fervently onto the image she had of her son.
What had Chief Taylor called it, once? 'The fiction parents fall back on'.
Sharon swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.
"W-we just talked to him Friday…" Mrs. Donnell's voice broke, and she cast a supplicating look to her husband, who nodded stoically to confirm her words.
"Jimmy's a good boy," he said quietly, and his wife only sobbed harder.
"He's doing just fine… I don't understand…"
The old elevator jolted to a stop, and when the doors opened the temperature dropped considerably. Mrs. Donnell let out another strangled sob at the desolate sight of the grey walls in the morgue area.
Dr. Morales was waiting for them in the corridor, his expression entirely devoid of its usual note of sarcasm. He nodded imperceptibly to Sharon to indicate that he'd done his best to make the young man's body look more presentable, then he led the shaken couple down the hall. The Captain and Lt. Flynn followed in silence, a few steps behind; when the ME let the Donnells into the actual autopsy room, they stopped outside to give the bereaved parents the privacy they needed.
The walls weren't thick enough to block out the keening sounds of grief from James' mother.
Sharon sighed, unconsciously rubbing her arms to fight the icy chill running down her spine. A few moments later, Dr. Morales left the room as well, closing the door behind him with deliberate slowness. He wore a grim expression as he joined them.
"Those poor people. I can't even imagine…"
Sharon lowered her chin, a quiet agreement.
"They never believe it," Morales remarked somberly. "You know? Even when they see the body." He shook his head. "They asked me again about cause of death. What did you tell them?"
"Accident," Flynn supplied when the Captain remained quiet. "Drug overdose caused him to step off the bridge."
The doctor sighed. "Close enough, I suppose. None of the unnecessary depressing details." He shook his head again. "What about the whole bomb thing?"
"They didn't know anything about that. Didn't buy that he'd do it, their son wasn't like that, there must be some mistake…" Andy pursed his lips in a humorless grimace. "The usual."
"Yeah… well," Morales shrugged, "you didn't find a bomb at the mall, so maybe he wasn't planning to do it."
The lieutenant scoffed doubtfully. "Yeah, and those stolen explosives in his locker were for a home improvement project. Plus," he pointed out, arching his eyebrows, "his idiot buddy basically told us that Donnell was planning to blow up the mall."
"He also said that 'Jimmy' wouldn't hurt anyone," Sharon added in a quiet tone. She was still rubbing a little absently at her arms.
"What, you think he wasn't going to plant those explosives at 'Sun Plaza'?" Andy sounded a little surprised at her comment. "He even asked Danny to borrow the delivery minivan from work. Plus we've got him pretty much admitting to his intentions, right before he jumped…"
She conceded both points with a wordless nod. He was right – they had ample evidence that James Donnell had planned to be at that mall on Saturday night, and between the traces of explosives on his hands, what they'd found in his locker, and his own intoxicated rant, it was clear that he'd meant to plant a bomb, too. He might even have intended to ask for his friends' help, if he'd actually gotten to meet them that night.
But he'd done none of it, because just hours before he would've presumably gone through with his plan, he'd instead accidentally exposed himself to a fatal dose of tree frog poison, and in the throes of a hallucination, jumped off the Sixth Street bridge – at the same time leaving behind a convoluted trail that Major Crimes had spent two chaotic days piecing back together.
Now she was left trying to explain all of it to his grieving parents. To his mother, who thought her loving son could do no wrong. To his father, who swore they'd raised Jimmy to be a good person. Sharon couldn't blame them for not being able to accept her patchwork story of their son's life. No matter what, they'd always wonder what had happened, how things had gone wrong, what they could've done. Above all, they'd always wonder why.
It was the first word out of Sylvia Donnell's mouth when she and her husband finally found their way back out into the corridor. Just that. Just 'why', in a heartbroken sob, her red eyes searching Sharon's, desperate for an answer.
"Our son never hurt anyone," was all Mr. Donnell said.
And that much was true. For all he'd had planned, James Donnell hadn't actually gotten around to hurting anyone. Anyone but himself.
But 'why'?
Sharon couldn't answer that for them. No one could.
"I want to talk to Donnell's friends again," Sharon said the second she walked back into the murder room. Something in her tone must've been off; Provenza glanced up from his desk with a searching expression.
"Oh?"
"I just have a few more questions."
He lowered the page he'd been reading. "Captain's prerogative," he conceded, before adding, "but I'd like it noted on record that if I have to wake up at six a.m. for the third day in a row tomorrow," (he pulled a displeased grimace) "I'm filing a protest with the union."
She dipped her head, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Consider it noted, Lieutenant. Mike – do we still have Danny and Diego in the interview rooms?"
"We do, Buzz has been keeping an eye on them from electronics. But, uh – there's a small problem…"
Of course there was. "What's wrong?"
"Well, it turns out that Diego still lives with his parents," Tao provided, "so when Flynn and Provenza executed the search warrant on his house this morning, someone must've called his dad to let him know, and…"
The end to that story presented itself with impeccable timing, in the form of a middle-aged, well-dressed man who marched into the murder room with a thundering scowl. " –no right to question my son without a lawyer present! Let me just say, Chief Taylor, that the Mayor will be hearing about this…"
"Captain Raydor." An irritated-looking Taylor had followed the man in, and he stepped forward to make the introductions: "This is Roberto Rojas… I understand you brought his son in to help with your ongoing case?"
It was not a good sign that the man's name elicited some vague sense of recognition. Between that, the look on the Chief's face and the casual dropping of the Mayor's name, it wasn't hard to infer that Roberto Rojas was someone who required tiptoeing around. And using overly diplomatic language such as 'help with the case'.
Well, after being woken up at six a.m. and spending the intervening hours chasing down a potential bomb around three different public sites, while trying to read the mind of a dead man, her resources of diplomacy were running a little low.
"We had some questions to ask Diego, yes," she confirmed, managing a neutral tone despite her growing sense of annoyance.
"You had no right to ask him any questions without his lawyer! And why wasn't I informed of this immediately?" the man demanded. "Do I need to teach you how to do your jobs?"
Sharon's eyebrows arched pointedly.
It was probably for the best that Taylor decided to wisely cut in before further words were spoken.
"Captain, can we talk for a moment in your office? If you don't mind waiting, Roberto," he said to the man in a honeyed voice, "this will only be a minute, and then I'm convinced we can resolve things to everyone's satisfaction."
Privately, Sharon did not share the Chief's conviction.
"Captain..." It was a small consolation that he looked as hassled as she felt. "When I gave your division this case on Saturday, I wanted you to make sure that there won't be any public incident –" he gave her a wry look, " – not to go ahead and create one."
"To my understanding Chief, you gave us this case to make sure there was no threat to public safety," Sharon returned, "and that is exactly what we're doing."
Taylor sighed. "Yes, Captain, I get it...and I'm not saying your team did anything wrong here, but not only did you deploy the bomb squad to three different sites in the last six hours – do you have any idea what that's costing us, by the way?"
Did he have any idea what working at five a.m. on a Sunday had cost them?
" –but I've also had two deans from USC call me already complaining about the disruption and the bad publicity to their university," the Chief groaned, "the owner of the shopping center is accusing us of trying to sabotage her business… and now one of the Mayor's friends thinks we're violating his son's civil rights!"
"Diego Rojas is twenty-four years old," Sharon pointed out, "legally, an adult, and as such we have no obligation to inform his father of anything. He's not under arrest, and since we didn't find anything at his house, as soon as he's done answering my questions he'll be free to go."
Another sigh. "What questions? Didn't you already establish how his friend died?"
"We did," she had to acknowledge, "but –"
"And didn't you already find all the missing chemical supplies in that locker? Checked the mall and the aqueduct and the USC research facilities? Confirmed that the bomb threat was not realized? Captain…"
"I still have questions about what happened to James Donnell the night he died," she said. "We don't know what he was doing at the Sixth Street bridge, for one."
"He was high out of his mind," Taylor made a dismissive gesture, "I'm not sure he could've told you why he was there."
"We don't know how he got there, either. He didn't own a car and we didn't find his bike at the scene."
"He could've walked."
Sharon exhaled a brief displeased breath. "It's just not clear to me, Chief, why Donnell would've chosen to place a bomb at the mall in the first place."
"You saw his blog entries on the negative effects of shopping centers. 'Sun Plaza' was just about to open… he thought it a good time to make a statement against an 'overly mercantile society'..." The Chief shook his head. "That sounds like enough motive to me."
"But hurting all those people goes completely against his established character –"
"You're only basing that on the testimony of his best friend and his parents," he returned patiently. "Hardly objective sources, either of them. Look, Captain…Sharon…" Taylor's voice took on an almost compassionate note, which she might have appreciated, had she not recognized it as a persuasion method. "I understand that you're… sympathetic, to the plight of this young man's parents. But their tragedy doesn't make a case for Major Crimes."
"You told us to look into his death," she reminded him.
"And now I'm telling you to close it." The understanding note in his voice was gone. "Unless you have new evidence that I haven't heard of, this case is over, Captain. Please release Diego Rojas and his friend."
"We have Danny Murray on charges of possession," she argued. "He was growing marijuana on his roof!"
"Then arrest him and pass him on to Narcotics," Taylor returned. "Either way, Major Crimes' involvement in this case is done."
"Chief –"
"Captain." He gave her a warning look, then sighed at her expression. "Do you genuinely believe that there's any chance that Donnell may have placed a bomb somewhere else?"
Sharon paused for a moment, then had to admit, "No."
"Or that he may have been working with a radical group, or in any other way still pose a threat to public safety even after his death?"
Another pause. "No."
"Is there any reason why you'd like to keep this investigation open – other than to give that young man's parents more answers?"
This time, she frowned. "Yes. I want more answers, Chief," she said firmly. "Give me until the end of the day. Please. I just want to wrap up a few things, and talk to Donnell's two friends again."
Taylor's lips pursed in displeasure. "Roberto Rojas is one of the Mayor's good friends," he emphasized for her benefit, "and his brother in law is on the Board of Commissioners. Captain, this is not a man we want to cross for no reason."
Just the idea of having to do the politics dance at the moment made Sharon want to shoot someone. Maybe it was the low blood sugar making her irritable.
"I'll be careful," she promised eventually. "Diego's father can observe the interview from electronics. And then we'll let his son go home."
Taylor gave her another dark look. "Be very careful," he requested.
Unfortunately, Sharon's satisfaction from winning her argument was short-lived; interviewing Diego Rojas didn't give her any more useful information. He didn't know why Jimmy would've wanted to blow up a mall. Jimmy hadn't asked for his help in doing so. He didn't remember what they'd talked about in relation to shopping centers. Jimmy was a chill dude.
Were they going to get him a proper lunch?
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose. She had the distinct impression that the young man wasn't being intentionally uncooperative (not that he was going out of his way to help her, either, but it didn't seem that he was holding anything back maliciously), but she may have been missing the right line of questions. Much as she tried, however, she couldn't think of anything other relevant things to ask.
"Did you, Jimmy and Danny spend a lot of time around the Sixth Street Bridge?"
He looked at her like she was speaking Greek. "What? Why would we hang around there?"
"That's where Jimmy was on the night he died," she said tiredly; she was pretty sure she'd told him that before. "Do you have any idea why he might've gone there?"
Diego thought for a second, making her hope for a good answer.
"Nope."
Her breath came out sounding more exasperated than she'd intended. Julio gave her a sympathetic glance.
"Hey can I like, go to the bathroom?"
Their third time talking with Danny didn't go much better. The young man mainly repeated what he'd told them before, insisting once again that 'Jimmy' was only trying to help. Clearly, he'd bought into his friend's 'Zero Footprint' ideas a little more than Diego (whose interests in the friendship seemed to lie more along the direction of exotic psychoactive substances and weed), but he was also proportionally less articulate than the latter, as such making for an equally uninformative conversation.
" –don't remember why he was at the bridge…like, maybe something to do with water…?"
Sharon's tension headache was coming back.
"Alright… Danny, you said Jimmy wanted to help people…?"
He looked almost happy to confirm: "Yeah! He was like, real into that stuff. Wanted to make the city better..."
"Okay, then can you tell me why Jimmy would think that planting explosives at the mall would help people?"
He scratched his ear. "Uh, I don't know…"
"Think." God. "Do you remember him telling you anything about that?"
"Uh… maybe? I don't know, okay? Jimmy talked about all sorts of stuff… maybe Diego remembers…?"
If only.
"I think it had something to do with like, melting things…?"
Sharon and Julio exchanged a glance. That was something new.
Danny leaned against the back of his chair, until he was balancing it on the two back legs; it reminded Sharon of something Ricky used to do, and she couldn't help admonishing the young man to sit in the chair properly. Danny and Julio both gave her funny looks, at that.
"What did Jimmy say?" she repeated. "What about melting things?"
"Uh, maybe it was like… melting rocks…? No, wait… actually, I think maybe I thought the couch was melting… it was from the frog thing, you know? Man… that was some good stuff."
Sharon was losing her patience. "Danny, Jimmy's parents are here, and they want to know what happened to their son. You can help me tell them the whole story. Think."
He stared at her, disbelieving. "Oh, man… you told his parents?"
"You look like you could use a coffee, Ma'am."
At this point, she could have probably used something a little stronger. Like rocket fuel.
Julio made sure the interview room was properly closed, before following her down the corridor. "Should I notify Narcotics about Danny?"
But Sharon shook her head. "He's got no prior arrests, he has a marijuana card and we can't prove intent to sell or distribute what he was growing on his roof." She gave the detective a tired look. "He probably didn't mean to distribute it. Let's just get him an attorney and work out some sort of deal that involves our right to bring him back for questioning, if necessary."
"I'll get on that, Ma'am."
They ran into Diego and his father right outside the murder room; Chief Taylor was just making his last assurances that the young man was a great help and in no trouble whatsoever, while Mr. Rojas looked on with a stony glare. Diego gave an unsure sort of handwave to Sharon and Julio as they walked by.
Lt. Flynn had the Donnells in the conference room, going over the paperwork necessary to release their son's body to them. Sharon found herself unable to tear her gaze away; a pang of unease ran through her at the thought that she'd failed to get them any more answers. But the truth was, there may not have been more answers to be had. Maybe Taylor was right; maybe she was looking too hard into the whole thing…
" –my regards to the Mayor, will you?"
The Chief's voice still drifted to her from the doorway; she glanced back over to catch one last glimpse of Diego and his father. The sudden parallel struck her, then. Roberto Rojas, marching his son to the elevator, while only a dozen yards away James Donnell's parents were signing the documents that would get them their child's body. An vague sort of sorrow coiled briefly in Sharon's stomach; there was something tremendously sad about the contrast.
Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her blazer. For a second, seeing Rusty's name at the top of the text message notification only added a new layer to her momentary anxieties. But she knew that everything was fine; it was just past three p.m., and he was texting to let her know he was home. She typed back a quick reply promising a home-made dinner later, and put the phone away.
Provenza had pulled down two of the pictures from the murder board and put them into a folder. He reached for the third…
"Leave it."
The lieutenant turned to give her a silent look, eyebrows arching questioningly.
Sharon sighed. "Until we get a new case," she amended. "Leave this one up."
The request didn't really make any sense, but to her surprise Provenza didn't comment, putting the folder back on his desk instead. Her eyes wandered over the details on the murder board. The photos of the bridge scene and Donnell's DMV photo; the words "Zero Footprint" and Provenza's stylized frog drawing; the USC logo and the photo of the explosives from the locker, and the gleaming pamphlet advertising the grand 'Sun Plaza' opening. Together, they told a sad story.
She glanced over to the conference room again; Mrs. Donnell was leaning into her husband's shoulder, crying.
Sharon shook her head, her lips pressing together in painful empathy for the couple.
Apologies again for the gargantuan length of this: please don't send me your optometrist bill! (but do send me your thoughts!)
I know all the things happened and we didn't even get to properly see Rusty – but to quote another famous fictional employee of our justice system, 'I have a point, I promise!'. All this was necessary to advance the plot. Next time, we'll be back to more normal word counts and Sharon will finally get to go home. We'll also be getting a guest appearance from everyone's favorite DDA! Or maybe from Emma.
Thank you for reading!