Thanks for all your lovely comments. Warning: another long chapter ahead!
A Tangled Web (12)
By that afternoon, the Major Crimes division did not want to arrest the assistant whom the Mayor had sent to look into the Donnell investigation.
They wanted to kill him.
" –can't believe this started out as a stoned jumper and now the local government's involved..." Standing near the back of the murder room, well out of hearing range of anyone but his partner, Lt. Flynn watched the short, balding assistant wave a pen in the Captain's face, as the two of them sat at the conference room table. She'd left the door open, so in addition to the expressive pantomime behind the glass walls, he and Provenza could make out most of the words that drifted out.
"And since you found traces of explosives on his hands and evidence of foul play, protocol dictated that you –"
"There was no evidence of foul play at the scene." It must've been Sharon's fifth time saying it, to Andy's count. He could hear the exasperation in her voice. "And we didn't find the traces of explosives until later."
" –and it took you almost entire day to ID him? Did you know that the Mayor authorized a mid-trimester budget increase this year, specifically for upgrading the facial and print search database?"
Provenza gave him a wry look. "And being their usual charming selves, I might add."
Beyond the glass, the Captain looked increasingly unhappy. Flynn scratched his neck. "Do you I think I should –"
"No."
He glowered at his partner. "You didn't even hear what I was gonna ask!"
Provenza adopted a serious mien. "You're right. Please," he waved a ceremonious hand, "ask away."
"Well now you're just gonna say 'no' anyway."
The older lieutenant rolled his eyes. "Flynn, would you quit acting like an idiot?"
"Me?"
"You know, I think those blood pressure meds are messing with your brain," Provenza grumbled. "Maybe you should go see another doctor."
"You're the one who insisted I started taking them in the first place! 'I take fifty pills a night with a glass of wine'", he mimicked with an eye roll of his own, "remember that?"
"Yeah, but they're not having any weird side effects on me. You, on the other hand –"
"I'm not seeing any side-effects."
"Well I'm seeing them, and I don't like them, so just… cut it out." Provenza glared.
Andy crossed his arms. "You know, I don't understand why you're so negative lately. Maybe you should get a dog – I hear they help with mood."
"Flynn –"
"Uhm, I don't mean to interrupt, but do you know when Captain Raydor and the Mayor's aide will be done…?"
The two lieutenants turned in unison to fix the person seated at the desk behind them with identical disgruntled glares.
They'd forgotten about him.
"Just wondering," said Officer Cooper, who was starting to look a little wary under their wry stares, "I mean my shift starts at four, but if I need to give my statement here I can push it back a little…"
Flynn and Provenza exchanged one of their 'can you believe this' looks.
Inside the conference room, the Captain was feeling a fair amount of disbelief, herself. The last vestiges of her patience were slipping away from her, fast. She narrowed her eyes at the irritating little man in front of her.
"We ran James Donnell's picture and prints through the 'upgraded database', and that is how long the ID took," she informed him. "If you have any suggestions for how to make that process go faster, Mr. Stanton, we'll be very grateful to hear them. Otherwise, you can read my team's report on –"
He interrupted her - again. "Captain Raydor, the Mayor sent me here to give him my own report on how this investigation was handled," he said self-importantly, "and so I'll be very grateful if you let me draw my own conclusions."
Sharon pressed her lips together.
It wasn't as though she didn't know how to deal with bureaucrats – for a good part of her career she'd essentially been a bureaucrat. She still had two rolls of literal red tape somewhere in the trunk of her car. However, precisely because of her vast experience with the administrative side of their work, she knew very well the difference between wanting to do a thorough job and being just plain obnoxious, and Mr-Stanton-from-the-Mayor's-office (literally how the man had introduced himself) definitely fell far at the latter end of the spectrum.
"Frankly, Mr. Stanton, I'm not sure how much more I can help you with your conclusions," she said smoothly. "I've already briefed you on yesterday's events, and made available our case files and initial report. The final report should be on Chief Taylor's desk by tomorrow." She smiled agreeably. "Is there any aspect in particular that the Mayor wanted you to focus on?"
"The Mayor needs to know that the LAPD is following the new threat prevention agenda," he repeated the trite motto for what felt like the tenth time, "and he wanted me to report on your division's response to the potential crisis that arose Saturday night. So…" he flipped a couple of pages back on his clipboard, and read off some notes, "…you identified James Donnell shortly before one p.m. on Sunday…that is, over twelve hours from his death…"
Sharon hoped the warning look she sent him would be enough to prevent further commentary of the sort, although it hadn't worked too well so far.
Maybe Andrea was right. Maybe she should arrest this one, too. Maybe then the local government would learn not to send pompous bureaucrats to waste her time.
"…and then your Lts. Provenza and Flynn conducted a standard search of his home, and found no evidence of a threat… ah, yes… and then you decided to bring in Mr. Rojas' son for questioning. May I ask, what prompted that decision?"
Of course this was related to 'that decision'.
"We had no information on Donnell's personal life, and interviewing friends and family in the case of a suspicious death is standard protocol," she replied in a composed tone. "Danny Murray and Diego Rojas were both identified as having a personal connection to the victim, so we brought them in to see if they could give us more information on what James Donnell may have been planning."
"And did they?"
She had no idea how to even answer that question. Had they? Sort of. Somewhere the pile of goofy statements and inane questions and demands for fries, there had been some useful facts.
"They both indicated that Donnell planned to meet them around ten p.m. Saturday night, after finishing his rounds at the USC. He never showed – of course – and didn't let them know why he'd gone to the Sixth Street Bridge instead." Another question that she really wanted an answer to. "It also seemed from both their statements that he'd been hinting at some sort of plan, and he'd asked Murray to take the delivery minivan home from work that night."
The man hummed. "Ah… yes… and you thought his plan had to do with the shopping center…" He flipped another page in his clipboard, and Sharon absently wondered if Susan Crowley had also filed a complaint. If she had, he didn't mention it. "But there wasn't actually a bomb, was there?"
Was that a note of derision in his voice? Was he trying to live up to the detestable bureaucrat stereotype? If anyone in FID had ever acted that way while Sharon was in charge, she'd have stuck them in interpersonal skills training before they knew what hit them.
Apparently the Mayor's office had more lax standards for its employees.
"We didn't find a bomb at the mall," she confirmed. "There were, however, explosives found in James Donnell's locker at the Animal Care facilities building. Based on th –"
"Ah, yes, the explosives," he interrupted yet again. "How did James Donnell obtain those, did your team look into that? The university Provost contacted us, you know, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, they weren't happy with the negative publicity…"
Ugh.
Somehow, Sharon managed to find more resources of calm and patience. She was glad she'd switched to herbal tea instead of coffee after Hobbs' visit.
"We requested all the labs with access to the type of substances found in Donnell's locker to conduct an inventory on Sunday morning. One of the researchers in the geochemistry department reported missing supplies, and –"
"How did Donnell get access to those supplies?"
She narrowed her eyes and lowered her chin a fraction, letting a few seconds pass in silence as an indication that he was treading on very thin ice with all the obnoxiousness and the interruptions. Sharon could recognize power games when she saw them, and regardless of what Mr. Stanton thought, he didn't have the better position in their conversation and she wasn't in the mood to indulge whatever power trip he thought he was on.
He was the first to break eye contact, under the guise of flipping through his notes again.
"The supply cabinets were supposed to be locked," she replied eventually, "but they're shared between labs and the researcher who reported the theft thought that maybe the locking policy hadn't been strictly observed, or Donnell may have found a misplaced spare key."
"Did you find one at his house or in his locker?"
That might have been the first intelligent question he'd asked in three hours. "No," she acknowledged. "That was part of the reason why we notified university authorities to revise the safety protocols in their research labs."
"But no one else reported missing chemicals…?"
"No. And we couldn't find other evidence that Donnell would have purchased or obtained more of the same elsewhere. Our preliminary conclusion was that the explosives we found in his locker were the only ones he had access to." A reasonable conclusion, based on their facts, but it still felt like it didn't fit somehow. Really, all the pieces of this puzzle fit just slightly wrong.
"In that case, could you explain to me what was the need for –"
A sudden cacophony of noises from the murder room interrupted whatever criticism the Mayor's man was planning to make, and he and Sharon both looked over, searching for the source of the commotion.
In the doorway to the murder room, two people were picking themselves up from the floor.
"Sorry! I didn't see you…!" Rusty took a cautious step around the upturned cart and tried to help Buzz replace the rolls of film, cables and other equipment that had scattered all over the floor. "This thing needs like, better steering."
Buzz's lips pursed and he gave the boy a warning glare, which Rusty completely missed.
"Or like, airbags or something," he finished, replacing the last stack of DVDs on the rolling table and checking the floor to make sure they hadn't missed anything.
"I don't think it's the table that needs better steering," Buzz said pointedly, but the boy's attention was already wandering, and as such the arch comment passed him completely by.
"Where's Sharon?"
Even as he asked, he spotted her in the conference room, sitting at the table with some boring-looking guy in a suit. She was looking in his direction, and despite the distance and the glass walls and the blinds, he could make out that half-amused, half-exasperated look that she gave him sometimes.
He found himself shrugging involuntarily in response. What? It wasn't his fault that the cart had turned over.
Sharon sighed.
"Excuse me for a moment," she said with a diplomatic smile, and pushed her chair back.
Rusty began to make his way over as soon as he saw her get up, and met her right outside the conference room. "Hi."
Her first instinct was to give him a quick once-over to make sure he'd emerged unscathed from his battle with Buzz's rolling table. "Rusty," she greeted with a smile. "What are you doing here? I thought you had chess club after school today."
"Uh, yeah, it got cancelled because of some fire drill thing. And I have an Algebra test on Thursday, so I figured I could do my help session with Buzz today." He trailed off, suddenly in doubt. "I mean, if you guys are busy or whatever, I can go home and –"
"No, no," Sharon hurried to assure him, and caught herself taking an involuntary step to literally stand between him and the door. "Buzz isn't busy at all, I'm sure he'll be happy to help you. Just… go ahead." She waved a hand in the direction of his cubicle and tried not to look too eager. "Did you eat?"
Rusty rolled his eyes. "You do realize I can feed myself, Sharon, right?"
She matched his expression with a wry look. "I'm not sold on your understanding of the food pyramid."
Which only earned her another prototypical teenage eyeroll. "I'm just gonna go find Buzz, okay?"
Sharon nodded her acknowledgment with a small smile, and watched him as he walked away; even though he was being impossibly flip, she couldn't help but find it endearing. And – no point in lying to herself, she was thrilled to have him in the cubicle ten steps away. Surrounded by officers.
Speaking of–
"Hi, Rusty."
She could tell from the confused expression on her teenager's face that he hadn't even noticed someone sitting at the desk he'd just walked past. So much for his promises to be more aware of his surroundings…
He stared at officer Cooper, as though almost surprised that the man was talking to him. "Uh, hey… Narc guy…"
Sharon managed to suppress a grimace at what was clearly his attempt to be civil and return the greeting. A paragon of social grace, that was her foster son.
Not that she felt particular sympathy for the young officer (was he really still there? Dear God. The boy was relentless!). Still, maybe she needed to have a talk with Rusty about the proper way to address people whose names you don't know or can't remember.
The sound of a pointedly cleared throat came behind her."Captain – if you're done, do you think we can resume our discussion?" Mr. Stanton stood in the doorway behind her, arms crossed expectantly over his clipboard. "I do need to finish this by five, you know."
And since she was considerably more socially apt than Rusty, she even managed to give the man an almost genuine-looking smile as she followed him back into the conference room.
"Cooper."
Rusty blinked. "…what?"
"My name," the officer supplied. "Andrew Cooper. And I'm not a 'narc guy' anymore," he added almost regretfully, and pointed to his uniform. "This means patrol."
"Ok…?" What was he supposed to say to that? "Cool...?" Rusty made a move to continue on toward his cubicle, but…
"So how you doing?"
He paused again, and couldn't help a crooked look. Why was this guy talking to him?
"Nice to see the security detail's gone," Cooper continued. "Heard they caught the guy who was threatening you."
"Uh. Yeah."
"And you got to go back to school," he nodded to Rusty's St. Joe's uniform. "Bet you're happy about that, last time you seemed pretty eager to go back."
Yeah, well… that was last time. The boy shrugged. "It's fine."
"How long 'til you graduate?"
Rusty was still giving him a weird look. "May – no offense dude but, what's with the third degree? Is this like, a police thing, like you can't help yourself or something?"
The officer arched his eyebrows drolly. "Yeah, it's a police thing," he said. "We like to call it 'making polite conversation'."
Huh?
Whatever. "Yeah, listen… I got like, homework and stuff, so… what are you even doing here, anyway?" he thought to ask after a second.
"I was part of this case that Major Crimes is working on right now," Cooper replied. "They might need my statement, so I'm hanging around in case I can help."
Privately, Rusty doubted that Sharon needed this guy's help, but hey, what did he know? He shrugged again. "Cool. Uh, anyway… I should like, go find Buzz so…yeah."
He waved a vague hand toward the supercubicle at the far end of the room and marched off without further commentary, leaving the young cop to roll his eyes a little, behind him:
"…aaand nice seeing you, too…" Cooper shrugged to himself, and resumed watching Captain Raydor and the Mayor's office guy through the conference room glass.
" –and you thought he was targeting 'Sun Plaza' because of a flier found at his house, and his … blog entries?"
"His friend Danny Murray confirmed it for us, too," Sharon added, "but yes."
"But there wasn't a bomb there." Restating the same thing over and over seemed to be a hobby for Mr. Stanton.
"No."
More flipping through the notes. "You also closed down traffic on the Sixth Street Bridge to have a bomb squad check it. Why, if Donnell's friend said he was planning to bomb the mall?"
At least he wasn't running her through the calculations of how much it had cost to close the bridge. Yet.
"Danny didn't mention a bomb," Sharon corrected, "he only said that James Donnell had talked about plans related to the opening shopping center, and that those plans were supposed to be executed Saturday night."
At least, that's what she'd gotten from the young man's convoluted statements; there may have been more useful information in there, but between his inability to articulate his thoughts, and his conviction that 'Jimmy was a good guy' who wanted to help people, it had been difficult to get much more out of their discussion.
"But that wasn't until after I'd sent a bomb squad to search the bridge," she carried on her explanation. "It was the site of Donnell's death, and we still didn't know why he was there. He also mentioned the bridge twice in his blog; it could have plausibly been a target."
"Mentioned it in his blog…? That's not in here."
"We're still putting together the final report," she reminded him. "I can ask Lt. Tao to pull up the relevant blog entries, if you'd like to look them over."
The man cleared his throat. "Uh, yes… of course. Right. What did those entries say?"
Maybe not the most relevant question, but fair enough. "One was in relation to the city's growing water problem –"
"The Mayor's upgraded environmental policies project a reduction in water consumption of nine percent over the next five years."
Sharon stared at him.
The man cleared his throat again. "Please, Captain – go on."
Biting her lips, she managed a smile that hopefully didn't look too sarcastic. "The first entry was from about a year ago," she resumed in a calm tone, "and it mentioned an old project designed to filter and distribute water from the LA river more efficiently… I believe the Sixth Street Aqueduct was mentioned as one of the key points in the proposed water distribution network."
"I never heard of such a project."
Sharon shrugged. "The blog said it had been abandoned due to financial and logistic complications, about five years ago. I don't believe it's actually in effect right now; Lt. Tao found no records of the aqueduct currently being used in any major water supply or irrigation systems."
"So why was this guy there, then?"
She clasped her hands above the table and admitted, "We don't know for sure."
"But you didn't find a bomb, or anything else suspicious around the bridge."
"No."
"Or at the new shopping center. Or the university."
She just shook her head in reply. The man lowered his clipboard.
"You'll want to include that when you make your statement to the press."
Sharon closed her eyes briefly. Civility, she reminded herself. Plus, a murdered local government employee in her conference room might look bad.
Still, it was a relief when Mr. Stanton asked to talk to other members of her team. Not that she wanted to inflict the man on any of them – but she really needed a break.
Only her trip to the break room turned out a little different from the relaxing breather she was expecting.
She'd been too preoccupied, walking down the corridor, to pay much attention to whatever snippets of voices drifted down to her, so it was a mild surprise to enter the break room to the sound of laughter.
It was even more surprising to notice Rusty and Officer Cooper sitting across from each other at the table, the traces of mirth still on both their faces.
Hadn't she just seen her foster son walk over to his cubicle? Well, no, now that she thought about it, that had been at least half hour before. She'd assumed he'd be there doing his homework... but maybe he'd felt like taking a break too, nothing wrong with that, he could get a soda if he wanted to…
The two of them looked really chummy.
Sharon opened her mouth, and paused.
A sudden vague unease stirred up in her, though she couldn't tell exactly why. They weren't doing anything wrong, right? What were they even talking about? Whatever conversation they'd been having, it had ceased when she'd walked in, and now Rusty was looking a little uncomfortable under what must have been her unintentionally intense stare. The young cop was just watching her expectantly, with a polite smile.
Well she had to say something now…
"Officer Cooper. I thought Lt. Provenza explained that we didn't need another statement from you."
"Yes Ma'am," he nodded. "But my shift doesn't start for another…twenty minutes, so I wasn't in a hurry. Thought I'd hang around, see if I could help you with anything during the audit from the Mayor's office."
"It's not an audit." She gave him a restrained smile. "And that's very considerate of you, but there's no need to spend your free time on this. You can go get ready for your shift."
"I don't mind," he assured. "Plus, I heard you were still looking into the Donnell case –"
That surprised Sharon a little, because how would he even have heard about that? Then she remembered the big 'Do Not Erase' sign on the murder board, and realized that that must've been how.
" –if you need some extra manpower to tie up the loose ends, I'm already familiar with the case, and Officer Ramirez and I were first at the scene, so if you want…"
Sharon sighed, half-tuning him out. She'd possibly never met someone so singularly determined to get out of patrol duty. "Thank you," she said eventually, "but that's not necessary." What she wanted most at the moment, actually, was for him to get out of her break room, off her floor, and away from – just… away.
Instead, the young officer continued to just sit there, making no move whatsoever to leave, despite a number of what Sharon considered very plain hints to do so. What else did he need, floor arrows lighting up all the way to the door?
She pressed her lips together and turned to Rusty to ask pointedly:
"Did you finish your homework?"
The boy looked profoundly disgruntled with her (but then he usually looked that way when she asked him about homework) as he mumbled a 'no' and pulled his soda can closer.
Sharon hummed, "Isn't Buzz waiting for you to work on your algebra questions?"
Another vaguely confirmatory mumble, accompanied by a look of sulky embarrassment. (Oh. Oh, well she wasn't trying to embarrass him…! Wait, why would he be embarrassed?)
There were another few seconds of awkward silence, during which Sharon turned her pointed gaze on Cooper once more. Finally, finally the young man seemed to get the hint, as he pushed his chair back and got up, with some comment about having to get ready for his shift. It was about time, too…
He grabbed his coffee cup from the table, and nodded at her foster son. "See you around, Rusty."
…what?
What…?
Sharon could feel her cheeks getting a little warmer.
She stuck her hands in her pockets, and smiled tightly and followed the young officer with a keen gaze as he walked around the break room table toward the door. He nodded to her on his way out ("Ma'am."), and she returned the nod, serenely, and didn't let even the slightest flash of emotion show on her face as he finally walked out.
Once he was gone, she turned to Rusty with the same composed visage, and was not entirely surprised to find him giving her an unhappy look.
Was Sharon for real? Had she seriously just – just… was she serious?!
And to make it all worse, she was obviously trying to wear her 'I'm fine with everything' face, when in fact she looked impossibly twitchy, and she was actually. turning. red.
He'd seen it on her face, that moment when she'd gone from being slightly surprised to find him in the break room with Cooper, to thinking… whatever she was thinking that had caused her expression to grow alarmed the way it had. Maybe the officer hadn't noticed, but Rusty knew people, and he especially knew Sharon, and who did she even think she was fooling, with the tense smile and the too-smooth tone and the hands in her pockets? That was like, her way of broadcasting to the world that she was the exact opposite of fine, basically!
And seeing it caused an uncomfortable sort of anxiety to roll around in his stomach, and Rusty wasn't even sure why. Also, he was mad, because had she seriously just scared Cooper away and asked Rusty about homework, really?! What the hell!
"So am I like, not allowed to have friends now? 'cause whatever, I mean if that's like, a new rule or something…"
He didn't feel even a little bad to see Sharon's shoulders slump. "Rusty. Of course I'm happy to see you making new friends…"
He glowered at her. "Yeah, you looked real happy just now, Sharon." It was hard to hold anything in. "What the hell!"
"Rusty, language –"
"Seriously?!"
" –and don't yell, please."
He crossed his arms so tight his ribs started to hurt. "Fine," he said resentfully, "fine, Sharon, well if I'm not allowed to yell then you're not allowed to treat me like a stupid kid! What the – what were you… I have enough time to do my homework! I was just talking, okay? God, Sharon."
"Okay, I can see that you're upset –"
"I," he railed, "am not 'upset', okay? You just need to like – chill. I wasn't even doing anything!"
"I know –"
"Like – I get it, Sharon. I know you're like… whatever you're thinking," he didn't even know what to call it, "but I wasn't doing anything, and it's not fair that I can't even have a normal conversation in the break room without you thinking that I'm like, doing something wrong!"
"Rusty," she adopted that quiet tone she used in their arguments sometimes, the one he hated because it made him feel bad about getting so worked up, which was totally unfair... "I didn't think that you were doing anything wrong."
"What was all of that about then?" he waved an angry hand at the door.
Good question.
Sharon bit her lips.
Fortunately, she was saved from having to think too hard about a reasonable reply by the sound of the opening door.
"Oh – excuse me."
The two of them turned to glance toward the source of the voice, only to find the Mayor's aide in the doorway, wearing a look far more curious than would've been appropriate.
"We were just looking for you, Captain…" (behind him, Provenza rolled his eyes and gave her a half-apologetic shrug), "didn't realize you were... otherwise occupied."
Rusty grabbed his soda and stood up. "I'm just gonna go do homework," he told Sharon.
"Oh, don't leave on my account, young man," said Mr. Stanton, waving a hand. "Captain, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation, I only wanted to ask you for a few more clarifications"
Great. Still, she gave the man a polite smile. "Just a moment, please. I'll be right with you." Then she nodded for the teenager to step out of break room and followed right after; she stopped him a few steps down the corridor, where they were afforded a little privacy. "Rusty, if you're upset about something, we can discuss it – calmly and with civility."
He hunched his shoulders and shrugged. "Whatever…I'm not upset, Sharon, just… if you have a problem, you should just tell me. Not like… scare off people I'm trying to have conversations with and treat me like I'm twelve."
Sharon sighed. So much for civility, but at least he was trying. "That wasn't my intention."
Another gloomy shrug.
"And honey, I don't have a problem." Well – she had a lot of problems, but he wasn't the cause of any of them. He was the object of a fair amount of them, but that was another issue entirely.
"Fine," Rusty muttered, completely unconvinced, and she let out a second sigh.
This was definitely not turning out to be the relaxing break she'd been hoping for.
"Kids, right?" the Mayor's aide uninvitedly commiserated as they walked back into the murder room a minute later. "I'm sure your son will come around, Captain."
A millisecond later, she noticed Rusty standing by Buzz's desk – well within earshot, and she wished she could've gagged the inopportune Mr. Stanton, because the last thing they needed was more fuel added to the fire, and of course Rusty had looked up, indignation all over his face –
"I'm not a kid!" he retorted loudly, before grabbing his notebook and soda off Buzz's desk and stalking off toward his cubicle.
Sharon couldn't decide how to feel about that reaction.
"Okay – but Captain, I'm afraid I still don't understand why this case isn't properly closed yet." Mr. Stanton pointed to the murder board with an obstinate expression. "The Mayor needs the LAPD to make a statement to the press about all of this – the sooner the better –, you found the explosives, there was no bomb, the guy's dead, his parents took his body away this morning… what's the delay?"
Sharon gave him another restrained smile. "I just have a few more questions," she said for the hundredth time.
"Well, it's..." Stanton checked his watch, "almost five o'clock now, and like I said this needs to be over… and you should really be getting that statement ready for the media," he hummed thoughtfully, "nothing big, just a two-minute version of all this, that makes it clear there was no one else involved in this young man's plot, not the USC, not the mall and definitely not Roberto Rojas' son… It's too late for the six o'clock news," he mused, "but if you hurry you can probably make it in time for the later evening editions…"
Sharon pressed her lips together. "Mr. Stanton, that's not going to happen."
"Captain, I don't think you understand, this is a very sensitive situation. This case is right on the verge of degenerating into a publicity nightmare, and the Mayor needs –"
"I understand the Mayor's concerns very well," she assured. "And we'll be making a discrete press release tomorrow, if that's what he wants. However, that can't happen before the final report is written on this case, with all the details included –"
"The details aren't what's important here…!"
"Generally, in our cases, the details are exactly what's important," she explained with more patience than she was feeling.
"This case is obviously over," the man stated, and Sharon crossed her arms with deliberate slowness.
"I'm afraid that's my call," she said in a smooth, low voice, "not yours, Mr. Stanton. Now, if you –"
"Captain Raydor," he protested, "this young man's hare-brained scheme could become a PR disaster for our office, if we don't smooth down all the feathers you've ruffled searching for nonexistent bombs all over the place!"
"Next time, we'll make sure to be appropriately less thorough," drawled Provenza from his desk. "We'll only search some of the places where we think a nutcase might've hidden a bomb."
The short man only bristled further. "Chief Taylor promised full cooperation –"
"And I'm sure that's exactly what you're getting." With his usual uncanny timing, the Assistant Chief walked into the murder room, taking in everyone's expressions at a glance. He smiled pleasantly. "What seems to be the problem here, Mr. Stanton?"
"Chief, I don't think I'm making myself understood here. The Mayor appreciates the efforts of the Major Crimes division in establishing that James Donnell wasn't a threat to public safety," he said with a pointed look to Sharon, "but now that that question's been answered, the priority is to avoid any publicity backlash that could affect our campaign efforts."
"Oh, and here I thought that was the priority all along," muttered Flynn, earning himself a warning glare from Taylor.
"All I'm asking for," Mr. Stanton continued, "is a little diplomacy."
Sharon thought she was exercising a great deal of diplomacy in not rolling her eyes.
"Of course," the Chief agreed. "I assure you that there is no need for concern, and you can tell the Mayor that, too. Captain Raydor – may we speak in your office for a moment?"
This was quickly promising to be a repeat of the previous day's scene with Diego's father.
"Chief …"
"Captain," he didn't even let her protest, "you told me you needed another couple of hours to wrap up all your questions. That was yesterday."
"It's true," she acknowledged, "but –"
"Have you discovered anything that might suggest anything, in the meantime?"
Sharon knew where the discussion was going. "No."
"Then you'll understand why I'm telling you now that your grace period has expired," he said firmly. "The case is over. Close it. I want the final report, on my desk, by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, Captain," he reiterated when she looked ready to argue further. "End of discussion."
That was as close to a direct order as things came, and there was nothing to be gained by insisting further. Sharon conceded with a silent nod, and assured him that he would have the report in the morning, as requested.
But after the Chief had left her office, and he and the Mayor's aide had both walked out of the murder room, Provenza showed up in her doorway.
"So, I suppose we've been officially told to drop it and make nice."
Sharon let a few seconds pass in thoughtful silence, then leaned back slightly in her chair. "Do you think Chief Taylor's right? Am I just pushing for more answers because I feel bad for that young man's parents?"
The lieutenant took a couple of steps inside the office, then shrugged in response."Probably. Sure doesn't seem to be because of the evidence… unless you've been looking at a different murder board than the rest of us."
"You also told Stanton that there were more outstanding questions," she pointed out dryly.
"Yes, but I only said it because he kept trying to get me to say the opposite. On principle," he smirked, "I try to avoid being helpful to the local bureaucrats at all costs."
Sharon grimaced, not a doubt in her mind that he was actually serious. He would. Then she shook her head:
"Maybe you're right," she admitted. "But I still feel like we might be missing something. I don't know... I suppose I thought that spending more time looking things over might give us some more answers…"
"Look, Captain… you and I both know there's no such thing as a case where we get all the answers we'd like. Sooner or later you just have to take what you've got and stop thinking about the rest."
With a quiet sigh, she nodded.
"That being said…"
Sharon looked at him again, tilting her head a little curiously.
"Nearly forty years on this job, you learn how to trust your gut every now and then."
Her eyebrows arched a fraction. "Lieutenant," she murmured, "are you suggesting that I disregard the evidence, and everyone else's opinions…?"
Provenza shrugged again. "Evidence is only as good as the people looking at it. As for our opinions, well – I suppose there are some who might say that you're 'in charge' around here," he accompanied the words with air quotes and an eye roll, "so technically, it could be argued that your opinion also carries a certain weight. Not that I agree, mind you," he clarified, "but lesser folk than I have been known to think that way."
Sharon's lips curled into an amused smirk. "I see. Thank you, Lieutenant, that's a very… enlightening perspective."
He inclined his head and acknowledged gravely, "Well I have been called that, by some."
She thought for another few moments, then nodded, and got up from her desk.
"Just to make clear," Provenza added as an afterthought, "all of what I just said applies to regular work hours only. None of it was meant as a message that I'd like to spend another night chasing down Kermit's wacky plans... so that look on your face better not signify any intention of making us see sundown – or god-forbid sunrise – in this building again."
The Captain spared him one last smile over her shoulder, before walking out of her office without an actual reply. He groaned under his breath and followed her into the murder room.
"Chief Taylor wants the final report by tomorrow morning. I'd like to give this one last run, before we consider the case officially closed and I sit down to write that report."
It had taken Sharon less than a minute to briefly outline the situation for all of them; she'd also had to explain that she couldn't file any more overtime for the Donnell case, and even so no one had batted an eye.
"I didn't have anything better to do tonight, anyway," said Lt. Flynn.
Tao shrugged, brushing the dust from his keyboard. "Kathy's out of town for a seminar, I was going to stay after hours and clean up my desk."
"Ma'am, can we order dinner?" asked Sanchez.
Provenza rolled his eyes, and picked up his crossword puzzle in silent protest, and no one was the least bit fazed.
"What's still bothering you about the case, Captain?" Amy asked.
Sharon glanced again at the murder board, and brought up her mental list of questions.
"I want to know why James Donnell was at that bridge," she said determinedly. "I want to know why he took those explosives when he did and why they were still in his locker. And I want to know how he got to the bridge, too," she added as an afterthought, "and why we didn't find his bike at the scene, or his wallet. Let's start with these… we'll work our way out from there."
I may have had a little too much fun with grumpy Provenza in this chapter. Next up, we're building serious momentum toward finally solving the mystery of the case! (but don't worry, the answers aren't coming yet.)