My sincerest apologies for having taken so long to return to this story. The past year
has been incredibly busy to the point where I had no time to devote to the completion
of this story. Thanks to everyone who will hang in there while I finally finish it.
I can't promise to publish every day, but I do promise the get it finished, sooner than later.
The next morning was quiet in the De Haro house. Both of them had slept until almost noon; Mike from sheer exhaustion and Steve because sleep hadn't come until the sun was well and truly up. As optimistic as his partner seemed, he was having a hard time believing that all the grief and heartache that Nicole Sanderson had caused him over the past year, and especially the last couple of months, could be gone so easily.
As if whistling past a graveyard, they had both, unbeknownst to each other, decided to refrain from mentioning the elephant in the room as Mike, shaved and dressed, finally joined his partner in kitchen, crinkling his nose with a smile as he looked pointedly at the percolator. "That smells great," he chuckled as he crossed to the counter, opening the cupboard above it and taking out a blue ceramic mug.
His own nose buried in the morning paper he had retrieved from midway up the steep front staircase, Steve snorted. "It's your coffee. Isn't it the same smell you smell every day?"
The older man shot him a peeved look as he picked up the percolator and began to pour. "Well, if you're going to be like that, I might just rescind my offer of whipping us up a batch of my famous Mike Stone pancakes with butter and real maple syrup and a generous side of bacon."
With a soft chuckle, Steve turned a page of the Examiner with a snap. "You have real maple syrup? From Canada?" His eyes never left the paper, though his attention had definitely refocused.
Taking the milk carton out of the fridge, Mike huffed. "Not all maple syrup comes from Canada, you know. Jeannie picked me up a pint that was… imported from Vermont." He poured some milk into his cup, deliberately keeping his back to the table. It had been awhile since they had bantered like this and he didn't want to break the mood.
"Imported…?" Steve guffawed. "You know Vermont is a part of the United States, right?"
Mike stiffened, still facing the counter, and the younger man could see him take a slow deep breath. "And it's all the way on the other side of the country. They have to get it out here somehow. So what would you call it?" He sounded annoyed but from long experience, Steve knew it was all bluff.
Starting to laugh, his shoulders shaking in an effort to not make a sound, Steve cleared his throat. "How about ship? As in 'ship across country…. How about -?"
The telephone in the living room rang and both men froze, their heads turning towards the phone on the wall between them. Mike took a step towards it and grabbed the receiver before it had a chance to ring again. "Hello?"
Staring into space, he listened intently for a couple of seconds before his eyes found Steve's and he nodded once, sharply. "I see…. Yeah, okay. I'll tell him. Thanks for letting us know, Martin. I appreciate it… Yeah, I will. Goodbye." He stared at the receiver for a beat or two after he hung up then turned towards the table.
"So it seems Gerry is tied up in court today and they aren't going to get in to see him till first thing tomorrow morning." He shrugged.
Steve, who had been staring at his partner with a worried frown, closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "Well, I guess we shouldn't really be surprised," he exhaled softly as he opened his eyes and stared at the floor.
"Hey, it's only till tomorrow morning, right? After all this time, we can wait a few hours longer, right?" Mike tried to sound encouraging. The decision to talk to Gerry O'Brien instead of Paul Coffey, the ADA of record in Steve's case, had not been made lightly. As optimistic as they, as well as Pollard, Budzinski, Healey and Haseejian had been the night before when the 'blooper' in Nicole's phone call had been revealed, they all fully realized that they had to convince the prosecuting district attorney in a very high profile case that it was enough to throw the entire thing out. And that was no mean feat.
So the idea to run it past O'Brien, who in actuality had no skin in the game despite his friendly relationship with the detectives, seemed a practical and rational one. If O'Brien agreed that it was enough to at least throw a monkey wrench into the allegations again Steve, then Pollard would take their argument to Coffey and plead their case.
Steve exhaled loudly and nodded. "Sure, why not…?" he breathed softly, not sounding convinced in the least.
"Listen, uh," Mike said quickly, trying to break the suddenly sombre mood, "why don't you give me a hand with the bacon while I whip us up those pancakes I just promised?"
After a beat, Steve looked up and smiled. "Sure." As he got slowly to his feet and stepped towards the fridge, Mike eyed him worriedly. It was going to be a long day.
# # # # #
The afternoon seemed to crawl. Neither of them interested in watching soap operas, after the filling and very delicious late breakfast they had retired to separate rooms. Mike had stretched out on his bed, trying to work his way through one of the many paperback books that he'd always promised himself he'd start, if not finish, while Steve whiled away his time working on the crossword puzzles from both the Chronicles and the Examiners that had accumulated in the Stone household over the past few days. But neither man could concentrate.
Steve's mind kept drifting back to Linda, and the almost overwhelming guilt that had seeped into his soul, leaving a permanent heartache that he knew would never go away, no matter how long he lived. And no matter what anyone said or how many times he was reassured that he was not responsible for what Nicole Sanderson had done to the innocent young woman, he couldn't ignore the simple fact that none of this would've happened if she had not become a part of his life.
As he stared sightlessly into space, the crossword puzzle forgotten, his thoughts turned once again to Linda's family, and what he would say when he was finally able to meet with them. It was not something he was looking forward to, but it was something he knew he had to do, for their sake as well as his own.
Mike had just gotten up to wander down to the living room to inquire about what they should do about dinner when he heard the phone in the living room ring. He stepped out into the hall in time to hear the receiver being picked up and Steve's "Hello?" He was halfway down the stairs when he heard a sharp, "What?" and he paused briefly on the step before charging as quickly as he could the rest of the way down.
Sitting in the recliner, a frowning Steve looked up briefly when he felt his partner's presence and raised his left hand, as if to forestall the interrogation he knew would be coming. "Okay… You're kidding, right?…. Holy shit… Okay, so what do you want us to do?…"
Mike took a step deeper into the room and Steve shot him another brow-furrowed glance and raised his left hand even higher. The older man halted but he was clearly irritated and, watching intently as his partner's full attention returned to the voice in his ear, he resisted the temptation to pointedly clear his throat.
"Okay, yeah," Steve said after several long silent beats, "that sounds like a good idea… How?… I see… But what about-… Okay… Uh, yeah, probably." He glanced quickly up at Mike, the look conveying absolutely nothing. "Okay, great, I'll wait for your call…. Yeah… Yeah, thanks… Okay, thanks." He carefully placed the receiver back on the cradle before turning to look at the older man, who had taken another couple of steps into the living room.
"Well…?" Mike prompted anxiously as he moved even closer to the recliner. "What was that all about?"
Steve took a deep breath before he looked up, his eyebrows elevated. "That was Rudy. Seems they got a call from the Seattle PD. Seems they saw the APB that we sent out about Nicole-slash-Mary after our little…" He shrugged, letting the end of the sentence hang. "Anyway, they, ah, they have a woman in custody for trying to cash a forged cheque and they think it might be her."
"What do you mean 'they think it might be her'?"
"Well, she looks a little different from the photo in the APB and they can't compare fingerprints because, well, you know, we never got any… well, any usable ones… but they seem to think it could be her."
"And she's not cooperating, I take it?"
"Ah, no…" Steve snorted dryly.
"Okay…" Mike said slowly, trying to figure out where his partner was going with all this. "So what do they want us to do?"
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Steve flashed a brief smile at the older man's use of the term 'we'. "Ah, well, Rudy seems to think a photo isn't going to do the trick." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Mike's head went back slightly and his own eyebrows snapped up. "He wants you to go up there?"
Steve shrugged. "Yeah…"
"When? How?"
"Tomorrow. They're still working on the how… but he seems to think flying would be the quickest and easiest way."
"But you're not allowed to leave the state, let alone the jurisdiction."
Steve inhaled deeply and shrugged. "Yeah, I know." He cleared his throat. "That's something Rudy says he's working on. He's gonna talk to Conden and have Conden take it to the D.A."
Mike frowned, looking down and raising his right hand to rub his forehead. He took a deep breath and raised his head. "That's a lot of things the D.A. is going to have to consider in regards to your case, don't you think? I know we want to get Nicole Sanderson behind bars but I don't want it to jeopardize your case being thrown out. I mean the D.A. might grant one of these concessions but with all the publicity this case has generated, I really don't see him granting two. And if this Seattle lead turns out to be a bust, and word leaks out that you were allowed to travel out of state on the q.t.… well, you can kiss a fair trial goodbye 'cause the press is gonna say the D.A.'s office has been bending over backwards to get you exonerated. And we all know that's a lie, right, but who's the public gonna believe?"
The younger man swallowed heavily and nodded slightly. "So, ah, so what do you think we should do?"
Now it was Mike's turn to briefly smile at the use of the inclusive pronoun. "Rudy's gonna call back after he's had a chance to talk to Conden, right?"
"Right."
"Well, let's jump off that bridge when we get there, all right? There's no point worrying ourselves into a corner when we don't have all the facts yet."
Steve snorted. "That's a good point."
"Did Rudy say what our timeline is?"
The younger man nodded. "They picked her up for kiting this morning. It's a misdemeanor, so she can only be held for 48 unless they charge her with something more substantial."
"Like murder?" Mike postulated with a frustrated snort. "Great. That doesn't give us much time. So if we go, it'll have to be tomorrow."
"Yeah."
They both looked at the phone.
"Well, let's hope Rudy has a golden tongue."