A Tangled Web (15)
Finding Rusty in a room alone with Officer Cooper two days in one week was a little more than Sharon wanted to handle.
Just like last time, they seemed to be having an enjoyable conversation, judging by their grins and snickers, and just like last time, that conversation died down the second she rounded the corner into their view. The only difference was that this time they were in Rusty's cubicle, rather than the break room.
Her foster son's books lay discarded to one side on the desk, and they both had soda cans in front of them. There were a couple of candy wrappers on the table, too. Their phones were out, and she could catch a glimpse of the same flash of color on both screens – maybe a game? Some music app? Who knew.
Sharon cleared her throat, responded to their greetings with a tight smile, and turned to the boy. "Lt. Tao told me you'd come in."
He squirmed a little in his seat. "Uh, yeah, you were like, in an interview or something."
"How did your test go?"
He flashed an almost uncomfortable look to the officer – what, now Algebra was embarrassing? She didn't miss this part of raising a teenager. "Fine," Rusty shrugged. "I think I got most of the stuff right."
"Good." She smiled. "You should go thank Buzz for all his help."
"Yeah… I will."
A brief silence settled between them; he didn't seem to want to say anything else, Sharon didn't know what else to say.
"I hated Algebra in high school," said Cooper. "Didn't see how all those functions and equations would help with anything in real life."
"Right?!" Rusty agreed wholeheartedly. "That's why I keep saying!"
Sharon cut a wry glare to the young cop.
She finally managed to get rid of Cooper by making him take his report to Lt. Provenza – and yes, she felt a little bad for saddling the lieutenant with it, but he'd been the one to suggest that they resort to the patrol officer on Tuesday night, so he deserved to deal with the aftermath.
"Do you have to keep doing that, Sharon? We were only talking!"
She had her own aftermath to deal with, anyway.
"Do what, exactly?"
Rusty scowled. "Don't give me that, okay – you know exactly what I'm talking about! Do you like, seriously not want me to have friends anymore!"
She hummed neutrally. "I didn't realize that Officer Cooper was your friend."
"So what if he is?" Rusty crossed his arms. "What's the problem with that? Why – what exactly did you think…" He clenched his jaw. "Why don't you just tell me what your problem is, Sharon?"
She pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes briefly. This was possibly going in new and unanticipated directions. "Rusty – I know Officer Cooper might look like he's your age, but honey, he's closer to twenty-three, and I'm not sure –"
"What, so now I can't be friends with people who aren't my age? Because I have news for you," he glowered, "none of you are my age, okay? So like, if you're just gonna decide who I can and can't hang out with based on that…"
Parts of this argument sounded vaguely familiar from her previous two teenagers; but there were extra stakes, and nuances, and complications...
"I'm not trying to decide who you can spend time with," Sharon said firmly. "You're misinterpreting things."
"Really? Because –"
"Yes," she spoke over him, a warning in her eyes, "really." She sighed, letting some of the tension roll off her, and adopted a softer tone again. "Rusty, it wasn't my intention to upset you. Of course I'm glad you're making friends. I'd just like you to… exercise your good judgment." Such as it was.
Along the same line of thought, the boy muttered resentfully, "Thought you didn't think I had any of that."
Sharon found the reproach a bit unfair, in view of the fact that the last person he'd 'made friends' with had nearly stabbed him to death in front of her eyes.
So she was a little edgy – was it that much to ask for a modicum of caution for the sake of her peace of mind?
"We were having a conversation, Sharon," Rusty continued his anxious protest, "like two normal people. If it bothers you so much…" He looked away again. "I don't know what you want me to do here, okay?"
"I don't want you to do anything," she assured him. "Rusty, I know you don't see it this way, but I'm just concerned about your safety. And I'd probably be less concerned," she raised a finger to preempt his next objection so she could finish, "if instead of getting mad, you'd show a little more consideration for my point of view."
"Show – seriously?" The boy stood up, threw his hands in the air. "What do you think I've been doing? I'm trying, Sharon," he pleaded, "but like, you're… you're… it's impossible! How am I supposed to show you anything if you don't trust me to do anything!"
"Rusty, that's not fair," she said quietly. "You have all the freedoms that you had before, and I'm trying –"
"No, you know what's not fair? You getting mad when I went for groceries the other day, okay? That is like, literally. crazy!" he exclaimed. "And – like, three days ago, you didn't even let me go to the mall…! How am I supposed to show 'consideration' ...?!"
His voice was rising in volume and pitch as he grew more incensed, and Sharon closed her eyes briefly; she didn't even want to start on the mall thing. Of course she'd said no, that was when they were all concerned about a bomb in a public place. But the way Rusty put things did make it sound as though she was unreasonable… but… she wasn't. Was she…?
Maybe Chief Taylor was right, and she was letting her personal life seep into her work… and the other way around.
"Please lower your tone," she said automatically.
Rusty did, but making his words less loud didn't make them less heated. "And – I know you say that I have all the freedom and whatever, but – like, that I can do all the things I did before the threat letters started to come in, but Sharon that's not true!" His voice was trembling with frustration. "Because whatever I do, you – you… you're always worried about everything and… all that 'freedom' feels like it's only on the surface, okay?"
She clasped her hands together, taking a step toward him. "Rusty…"
"That's what's not fair," he told her tearfully. "And you know what? I can take care of myself just. fine. I don't need you to – to…" he crossed his arms, and retreated to the far end of the cubicle. "Just… leave me alone, Sharon."
She opened her mouth to inform him that that wasn't an acceptable contribution to their conversation, when there was a quiet rap on the cubicle wall.
"Sorry to interrupt..." Lt. Flynn poked his head in, the hint of commiseration in his gaze indicating that he'd caught at least the tail end of the argument. "Taylor's looking for you. Says it can't wait."
Of course he was.
Sharon sighed, and turned back to Rusty. "Why don't you get started on your homework for tomorrow," she suggested softly. "I'll come back to check on you in a bit."
"I'll try to keep the building standing and not talk to anyone until then," he muttered darkly, taking out a book from his schoolbag.
She shot him another warning glance, and he just pulled the textbook closer and pointedly did not look at her again.
Chief Taylor, it turned out, had not wanted to see her for another lecture on how to properly conduct investigations within the specific agendas of local politicians. That much was a relief, because Sharon had expended most of her reserves of patience dealing with her unreasonable teenager, and she wasn't sure how well she'd have responded to more verbal jabs from Taylor. However, he'd only wanted a brief update on the Robbery-Homicide case that they'd just closed, and to haggle with her over the team's overtime sheets that she'd dropped on his desk earlier that morning.
Finally she got him to sign off on the papers and forward them to Payroll, and came back to the murder room just in time to hear Lt. Tao caught up in a diatribe on the price of land and real estate, expounding on things like acreage, price gradients and agglomeration effects to a very bored-looking Sanchez.
" – but with a polycentric city like LA, my guess is that the location actually counts as pretty well positioned relative to business districts. Of course, not the business district," the lieutenant gave a lopsided nod, "not with where it is in Compton, but with the river and Long Beach Freeway, it's got access to a good transit corridor, and if you take into account that the availability of unconstructed land isn't that high in the city, pricing should've been pretty competitive…"
Julio scratched his neck. "Sir, I just asked if the shopping center was insured against damage."
"Oh – that's right. Yes."
Sanchez gave the Captain a long-suffering look.
"We were trying to look some more into why Donnell would pick "Sun Plaza" as his target," Tao explained to her. "The connection with that old irrigation project isn't going anywhere until we get the files from City archives, but Julio suggested checking whether the mall owner has any sort of high-return insurance policy."
The detective in question looked a little sorry to have asked, given the subsequent dissertation he'd had to listen to.
"And…?" asked Sharon.
"The place is insured," Tao confirmed, "but I don't think Susan Crowley would have a reason to blow up her own business. She's actually making good money, and income projections for the year look very promising. Even with the lower lease prices she's offering the stores – and the bad publicity she thinks we gave her – according to these financial records she's got most of her initial investment back already."
Sharon's eyebrows arched. "The mall hasn't even been open for a week."
"Yeah, I'm not using any customer transactions or anything," he said. "Just the rent collected from the stores for the first six months actually covers about seventy percent of the invested capital. And that's because the price she paid for the land is extremely low for the location and acreage… a little under three hundred thousand dollars. If you ask me," the lieutenant glanced at the map on his screen, "the land should be worth several times that at least."
That, at least, explained the conversation she'd walked in on.
"So how come she paid so little for it?" asked Flynn, and Tao only shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe she got lucky? Maybe the owners were in a hurry to sell? Although – I think that bit of land was actually city-owned," he remembered, "so maybe not. Could be that the city was holding some sort of auction or something. In any case… she's got no motive to want to blow up her own shopping center."
"So we're back to having no idea why Donnell would target the place," Andy summarized.
"Uh… yeah."
"Or why he'd want to blow anything up at all," added Sykes.
"Or why," Julio put in, "he was at the Sixth Street Bridge the night he died."
Sharon sighed. Perhaps it was her bleak mood, but the case was looking more and more like a dead end, no matter which way they turned it. Maybe Chief Taylor had been right to tell her that there were no more pieces to fall into place. It might have been time to stop grasping at straws and accept that some things, she just couldn't get to work out the way she wanted to.
The hated sensation of failure curdled bitterly in her veins.
Flynn looked for the Captain in the break room again. After her meeting with Taylor and the brief and unsatisfying stocktaking on the Donnell case in the murder room, he'd assumed that she'd go back to the cubicle to talk to the kid. Instead, she'd hesitated for a moment, then sighed and walked back out into the corridor, and it hadn't taken a lot of brainpower to figure out where she was headed. So, ignoring yet another profoundly disapproving look from Provenza (what was his problem, anyway? What was wrong with wanting to talk to Sharon?!), Andy had gone after her.
She was leaning against the side of one of the cabinets when he walked in, eyes closed while she waited for the coffee to brew. At nearly five-thirty p.m. and with the day they'd been having, Andy hoped it was decaf.
Her eyes opened at the sound of his footsteps, and she straightened slightly.
"Mind if I steal some of that when it's done?" he nodded to the slowly filling carafe.
A vague smile flitted across the Captain's lips. "It's a twelve-cup coffee maker, lieutenant," she murmured. "Do you think I plan to have all of it, myself?"
At least she still had her sense of humor. He smirked. "Yeah… well, it's been a long day."
Sharon conceded with a slow nod, an almost imperceptible sigh escaping her. For a moment, Andy considered not saying anything about what he'd overheard earlier, but she looked preoccupied enough that it must've been on her mind anyway, and there was no point pretending not to notice.
He gave her a supportive look instead. "So… things a little tough with Rusty?"
Her mouth twitched in an unhappy grimace.
"One could say that, yes."
A few moments passed in silence, as she rubbed absently at her arms. "We seem to be running a little short on patience with each other, these days."
Andy nodded in understanding. "Who's ever heard of a patient teenager…? "
"I'm not a teenager," she said frustratedly. "I should…"
"Hey." He gave her an earnest look. "You're doing great, Sharon. None of us could've done what you did with the kid, you know that. He knows that, too."
But she just shook her head.
"Sharon…"
"I'm not trying to minimize how far Rusty and I have come, Andy," she said before he could tell her more of the same. "I know that. I'm immensely grateful for that. But… lately, I feel that he's pulling away."
"He's not going anywhere."
"I don't know what he wants."
The coffee machine croaked loudly, as it squeezed the last drops into the carafe. Silently, Sharon pulled another mug from the cabinet for him and set it down on the counter.
"It's decaf," she mentioned belatedly. "I hope you don't mind."
"Was kinda hoping for it, actually."
She nodded and carefully grabbed the glass handle to pour the coffee, while Andy got the milk from the fridge, and a couple of wooden stir sticks.
"Did you talk to Rusty about it yet? About what happens when he turns eighteen?" He wasn't all that surprised when Sharon shook her head.
"I… don't want to push him into a decision. I… it's his right to choose what he wants to do with his life, but…" She looked conflicted. "I have a very strong opinion about what the right decision is in this case. I don't think that he's … he shouldn't…" She sighed, tiredly pressing a finger between her eyebrows. "It's his choice," she said finally. "What I want isn't a factor…and at the moment, I'm not sure he's particularly interested in my opinion, anyway."
Andy tapped the stir stick against the rim of his cup. "Look, I know no one's asking for my opinion here," he said honestly, "but you should talk to him about this."
Sharon looked away. "I'm going to have to, eventually," she acknowledged. "This isn't something either of us can ignore forever."
Unfortunately, it was difficult for her to focus on how to best approach that topic with Rusty, when she spent most of their time together trying to convince him to look after himself better.
He hadn't brought it up, either – except for those couple of times he'd informed her that he was 'almost eighteen' and as such would soon be able to do whatever he wanted. To which she'd returned the 'while you're under my roof' spiel that she'd served her older children in their time, and the discussion had inevitably ended.
Like she'd said, though, that couldn't go on forever. But how was she supposed to convince Rusty that it was in his best interest to stay with her, when almost every single day he found new ways to accuse her of unreasonably restricting his freedom? Yet, the alternative was constantly worrying that he'd go out and put himself in danger, because God damn it, trouble seemed to find him like a magnet andhe could be so...young, sometimes, and yet he still seemed incapable of listening to her, even though she clearly knew best and...
She loved the boy with all her heart, but sometimes she was so frustrated with him that she wanted to scream.
Sooo, I'm never letting Sharon be happy again, basically. Yup. That is what is happening here.
I'm trying to speed up my updates a little, in an attempt to get through at least most of this story before June 9 (JUST OVER A MONTH AWAY! *hyperventilates*). It probably won't be fully done by then, but I'll try to get through the main heavy plot points.
In the meantime, thank you all for reading, and continuing to follow this story. It's lovely to hear from you :)