Part 17
Gail almost bumped into Steve as she left the locker room in her uniform on her way to the parade room. "Yeah?" She asked him as he followed beside her.
"See, mom's called me three times in the last two days, which is a lot even by her standards," He began, giving her a puzzled look. "But see, the thing is, is she's asking if you've talked to me yet?" He pulled his sister to a stop and gave her look. "So what exactly does she think you need to talk to me about?"
Gail gave him a blank look. "How would I know Steve, your choice of aftershave?" She said leaning over and sniffing. "It could use work."
Steve rolled his eyes. "So you have no idea what she's talking about?" He asked her again watching her reaction carefully.
"Nooo."
"You know you can talk to me right?" Steve continued.
Gail gave her brother a smile and patted him on the shoulder. "I'll keep that in mind." She told him with a grin before heading for the parade room again.
Steve chuckled. "Okay, well if there is anything you want to talk about, girlfriends, living situations," He gave her a pointed look letting her know he'd found out she now lived with Holly. "Anything, you know where to find me." He said then walked away.
Gail shook her head and went to find an empty desk. She sat down with a sigh, glad that the room hadn't filled yet, it gave her some thinking time.
She knew exactly what her mother was trying to find out from Steve. She wanted to know if she'd gone to him after Frank had pulled her ETF application. She hadn't told anyone yet, and she wasn't sure if she should.
What good would it do to complain about Frank following her mother's orders or going above him to get back in? Obviously Elaine Peck was under the assumption Gail hadn't worked out she was behind Frank's decision. Gail shook her head thinking that her mother had once again assumed it was beyond her to make the connection between the comments she'd made to her at dinner and Frank's sudden actions against her.
She dismissed the subject from her thoughts as Frank entered and there was a rush of bodies into the room.
xxxxxx
Andy glanced at Gail before looking back to the road. It was strange for the blonde to let her drive, Gail almost never did that unless she was riding with Shaw.
"Everything okay?" Andy asked, bracing herself for Gail's come back.
Gail shrugged. "How'd it go with Marlo showing up?" She deflected, she knew she'd been quiet all morning but she didn't want to talk about it, especially to Andy.
"Oh! Uh," Andy blinked and paid attention to the road for a bit before continuing. "They broke up and ugh, she, she has her interview with the Board on Friday."
The breakup had been coming but the meeting? That was quick, Gail knew investigations into the conduct of officers could take months. And apart from this one incident Marlo Cruz had an impeccable record with SWAT before her transfer to 15. The fact that the Ford brothers were either dead or awaiting trial for the abduction and death of a child, meant Marlo had that going for her. But her mental illness and the fact that Sam, Andy and Nick were involved in covering up her actions meant keeping her badge was going to be tough.
"What about you and Sam?" Gail asked, it was easy to ignore the cover up when Sam had almost been killed, but Gail felt a little angry that Marlo's actions had resulted in Chloe being shot, her and Oliver being shot at and Sam almost dying. Not to mention Oliver's abduction, every time Gail thought about that she felt guilty for staying back at the station to do her paperwork but it had been all hands on deck at the time and most officers had gone out solo.
Still.
Andy gave the blonde a surprised look. "Nothing. Nothing's been said about…"
Gail held back a snort. Of course it'd be brushed under the carpet, how many times had other officers or Frank or Jerry covered for the way Sam policed. By the book was a very flexible term for the guy and it seemed like his training was rubbing off on Andy too.
So Marlo was being hung out to dry because she went about her investigation into Ford on her own, and being off her medication meant she took things a little too far and Ford was assaulted by his neighbours.
"Well, isn't that great." She muttered keeping her eyes directed away from Andy. As they passed an intersection she spotted a car do an illegal U-turn. "Let's see what they're up to." She told Andy as she pointed the car out and flipped on the siren and lit the car up.
Maybe a couple of arrests will cheer her up.
xxxxxx
Gail was humming to herself as she wandered around the morgue in her search for Holly and Elizabeth, the only thing that would put a bigger smile on her face right now would be finding the pair working on that floater she had threatened Elizabeth with.
Andy had dropped her off and would be back to pick her up in an hour, which gave her time to catch lunch with the Stewart sisters if she could find them.
"Ah," Gail stuck her head into one of the labs and found them both standing over a body. "Lunch?" She asked, not bothered by the blood splattered protective gowns both women wore. "I'm starved." She added with a wicked grin as she looked back and forth between the two women.
Elizabeth scowled at the blonde resting casually against the door jamb of the room. She was currently holding the dead males liver in her gloved hands.
Holly grinned at Gail, grateful for the break. "Give me ten." She said as she gestured for Elizabeth to take the organ over to the weighing scale.
"You have five, so hurry it up." Gail replied turning and walking away.
"Ugh." Elizabeth moaned as she pulled off her stained gloves to note the weight. She then gloved up again to return the liver back to the body.
"You can't seriously want to eat right now?" She asked her sister who was stripping out of her gloves and gown and hanging her lab coat up in the corner of the room.
"Just put that towel over the incision and we can finish this when we get back." Holly told her sister, watching as she covered the open cavity and pulled the sheet up over the dead man's head.
"Feel like sushi?" Holly asked with a grin as her sister stripped off and joined her at the door.
"I'll be lucky if I can manage a salad."
Holly chuckled. While her sister had worked on cadavers and had assisted in various operations during her medical training she hadn't had quite so much contact with the recently dead. The man they were currently working on had died in an industrial accident involving a metal pole connecting with force to the back of his head.
While the cause of death seemed to be obvious to all, Holly's job was to show that the injury wasn't used to cover up anything more sinister. It was a sad indictment that it was Holly's first instinct to ignore the obvious until it was all that was left. Greed, love, jealousy, were all emotions that could drive a person to cover up acts of murder.
"Let's go, we'll walk over to Charlie's and get you a nice rare steak." Holly offered only to receive a push from her sister who walked off in front of her as they headed up to her office to grab their jackets.
Gail was resting against the wall of the forensics building as she waited on Holly appearing.
The sun was actually shining, and although it was still fairly cold out, it was nice weather to just stand out in.
"Hey, no loitering!" Holly said as she spotted Gail and came over.
Gail grinned and caught Holly's hand as the older woman offered it when she was within reach and quickly leaned in for a kiss. "Where to?" She asked as they broke apart.
Holly shrugged, giving Gail a tug with her hand and starting back over to where Elizabeth was stood waiting. "I told Elizabeth we'd get her a rare steak over at Charlie's." She giggled as she spotted the scowl still on her sister's face. "She's feeling a little delicate right now."
"Really?" Gail frowned, Elizabeth had to have been around dead bodies before so she didn't really understand why she'd be feeling ill after spending the morning helping Holly out. "That's not really a good sign for a doctor is it?" She asked her girlfriend quietly just before they joined Elizabeth on the sidewalk.
Holly just shrugged. Dead bodies did smell, or so she'd been told by interns whenever there was a new one helping out at the lab. She'd gotten used to it and now it was only when it was a half decomposed body or one that had been out in the sun for a long time, or when she had a floater that she made herself breath through her mouth while she worked.
"You okay?" Gail asked Elizabeth with a touch of concern. A steak for lunch sounded great to her but she wasn't in a rush to see Holly's sister lose it while she was trying to eat.
"No sushi."
Gail grinned and together the three of them headed across the street to the restaurant but just as they reached the other side Gail's name was called out from behind.
Gail and Holly turned to see Traci and a very reluctant looking Andy cutting across the road towards them.
"Hey," Traci said as she stopped in front of them. "I thought that it was you guys." She smiled at the three women as Andy lagged behind and tried to avoid Gail's eyes. "I have to hang around for some trace samples to come back, so do you guys mind if we join you for lunch?" She asked hopefully.
Gail pouted internally as Holly quickly agreed and they entered the restaurant together and were soon shown to a table. Gail quickly sat down beside Holly who sat next to Elizabeth, slightly relieved that Traci and not Andy sat on the other side of her.
The waiter came for drink orders as they looked through the menu.
But just as they were giving their orders Dov and Chris walked over to the table.
"Would you imagine that?" Dov said with a grin as he pulled out a chair and sat down without waiting for an invite. "We thought we saw you guys as we drove by." He commented.
"Yeah, hey, Oliver's going to be jealous." Chris said taking his jacket off and joining the group.
Gail glared at them, she knew for a fact Dov was riding with Nick and Chris was supposed to be with Oliver, so why in the hell was she suddenly having lunch with half of the division.
Chris froze as Gail caught him in a glare.
Gail knew he was the weakest link and wouldn't be hard to break.
"Andy called us." He told Gail quickly before reaching for his water glass.
Andy snorted beside Traci and threw her hands up. "Sure let's all just blame me." She muttered causing Gail to grin. She loved winding Andy up and the fact that she'd be riding with her after this meant she'd be able to exact her revenge for hours.
"Hey, the more the merrier." Holly said as the waiter returned and she gave her order over which was quickly followed by the rest of the occupants at the table.
Gail eyed her girlfriend then looked pointedly to the door, half expecting more of her colleagues to suddenly turn up. She faked wiping sweat from her brow when the door remained closed which earned her a shake of the head from Holly and a giggle from Elizabeth.
She supposed there was nothing much she could do about the situation now and might as well just accept that her lunch with Holly had been taken over by her so-called friends, she just wasn't sure why.
"So, how was dinner last night, my brother order in?" Gail asked Traci as Chris tried to talk to Elizabeth about something that had Holly leaning in to listen.
Traci grinned as she buttered some bread. "It was actually really nice." She admitted although her tone clearly reflected her surprise at the fact. "And Leo had a great day, they went karting then Steve took him to the Aquarium centre. He talked about sharks all night." Traci told her with a happy grin.
Gail smiled back at her friend, pleased that her brother had managed to pull it off. "That's great."
"Yeah, they seemed to get on really well together so that was good." Traci continued, she'd been a little reluctant at letting Steve take her son for the full day but Leo had raved about the trip and had told her Steve had even forced him to eat the lunch she'd packed him for school. Her son had even finished off some of his school work before she had arrived at Steve's house for dinner with the pair.
The conversations around the table were light and jokey with Elizabeth talking about her medical training and mentioning that she'd lived with Holly for a year before her sister had left Boston for her current job, and Chris and Dov had traded that with stories of each other at the Academy messing up during training exercises.
Gail thought it was going fairly well until Andy opened her mouth.
"So are you all applying to the ETF?" She asked taking a mouthful of her food and eyeing the rest of the officers at the table.
Dov and Chris both replied that they were then eyed each other, wondering if it went down to the two of them which would get the position.
"What about you Gail?" Andy asked leaning around Traci to see the blonde's response.
Gail bites her lip, trying to buy herself some time to think of how to answer that.
"Let me guess, you've already got a spot." Dov snorted and shook his head. "Must be great to be a Peck, get into anything you want." He muttered to himself half-jokingly.
"Actually I haven't applied yet, I'm not sure I will." Gail replied, her appetite leaving her.
Andy's eyebrows shot up. "I thought you would have been one of the first to apply."
Gail shrugged. "Nope."
Holly frowned as she looked around at everyone. She then leaned on the table, ducking her head to catch her girlfriends gaze. "That's a lie and we both know it." She said evenly.
Gail's eyes widened, she forgot she'd talked to Holly about her application and what it would mean for them if she got in.
"Told you!" Dov called out, having heard Holly. "You're already in aren't you? Man, we've got no chance." He grumbled to Chris.
Gail scrambled up from the table and darted off towards the restrooms leaving a stunned group of friends behind her.
"Way to call your girlfriend out Hol." Elizabeth said with a shake of her head, hardly believing her sister had done that to Gail in front of her colleagues.
"Man, I wish I was a Peck." Dov said although this time he got reproachful looks from the rest of the table, none more so than from Holly.
"I swear Dov, you insinuate one more time that Gail gets everything handed to her and so help me!" She warned him as she stood and went after her girlfriend.
"What?" Dov asked, looking at his friends innocently.
Traci shook her head at him but her eyes followed Holly, wondering what on earth was going on with Gail now.