Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Usual Suspects
Today was anything but a normal day at work. They had Dean Winchester in custody, and she was on her way to arrest Sam Winchester. She was with the SWAT team while her partner interviewed Dean. She had just gotten off the phone with Pete.
The SWAT team moved into position, putting the battering ram against the door. They busted the door in, so she went in with her gun raised. She was not expecting to see how young Sam looked, and she definitely hadn't been expecting a teenager in the room that looked just like Dean. She had no idea who this kid was.
Sam put his hands up in surrender. The kid looked to Sam for direction; he sighed, but he followed suit and put his hands up.
Sam didn't resist as she put the cuffs on him and read him his rights. But he did react when she went to the kid. "He's only 16. He's got nothing to do with this." The kid glared at Sam, but he didn't argue.
"Who's his guardian?" she asked.
"Dean," Sam said.
"He can either come with us, or I can get him in the foster care system," she said.
"I'm going with you," the kid stated.
"He's not under arrest though, right?" Sam asked.
"Right now he's not," she said.
She let the kid sit up front with her on the way back to the station. He didn't say a word. She would let him stew a little. She didn't even know his name yet, but she was guessing he wouldn't tell her right now even if she asked. That was ok. She would get him talking, and then maybe he would slip up and tell her something she needed to know.
She had Sam brought to an interrogation room, and she let him be uncuffed before she left him alone in the room. He shot the kid a look that she couldn't quite interpret before she shut the door.
"Want something to drink?" she asked, heading for her desk.
"Soda?" the kid asked. She grabbed him a Coke and had him sit in front of her desk. She surreptitiously kept an eye on him as she typed. He was incredibly calm for a 16-year-old kid in this situation. He didn't seem fazed at all. In fact, she almost laughed when she thought it, but it looked like he was casing the place. He was watching everything and everyone. Maybe she was reading too much into this.
"What's your name?" she asked as she typed.
"Alec Winchester," he replied. "Date of birth, September 18, 1989." She couldn't help her small smile as she typed. "What's your name?" he asked back.
"Diana Ballard," she said without missing a beat. "Your brother's in a lot of trouble," she said, trying to feel him out.
"Looks like both of them are," he said. "What did they do?"
He was good. She was almost convinced that he didn't know anything about what was going on. "Well, Dean's being held on suspicion of murder."
"Guess you think Sam's his accomplice then," Alec said before he took a big drink of his soda. "Who did they supposedly murder?"
"Karen Giles," she said.
Alec laughed, which was not what she was expecting. "That's kinda ridiculous, but ok," he said. She didn't say anything, which made him frown and lean forward slightly. "Wait…you're serious? Karen's dead?"
"So, you knew Karen?" she asked.
"Yeah, my Dad was friends with Tony from back in the day or something," he said.
"I see," she said, making a note of that in her report.
"Shouldn't I have a parent present or something if you're gonna question me," Alec asked. He didn't sound like it really mattered one way or the other.
"Well, your guardian is currently under suspicion of murder," she said. "I can still get you in the system for foster care if you don't want to stay here."
Alec shrugged, "I think I'm good."
She decided now would be a good time to talk to Sam again. She almost let Alec stay out here by himself, but then she thought better of it. The way he'd been watching everything was making her nervous. Yes, he was a kid, but he could just be acting causal to get her to drop her guard. He could cause a real mess if she left him alone.
"C'mon, let's go see your brother," she said, grabbing a file from her desk.
"Dean?" Alec asked hopefully. For some reason, that felt like the most honest reaction that she'd gotten from the kid yet. She immediately wanted to know why Dean was Alec's legal guardian. And if Dean was that good at taking care of someone, how could he murder someone else? It just didn't make sense. She could tell Dean took good care of Alec. The kid wouldn't have that reaction if his brother didn't take good care of him.
She felt bad when she said, "Sam."
Alec had an incredibly good poker face. He shrugged like that was no big deal and followed her to the room she'd left Sam in. She grabbed a cup of coffee on the way, and then went into the room. Sam was pacing in front of the window. She felt like he was pacing for her benefit. He could actually be nervous, but she didn't think he was as nervous as people normally were in this kind of situation.
"Thought you might be thirsty," she said, setting the cup of coffee on the table.
Sam glanced over at Alec and did a quick check to make sure he was ok. It looked like Alec didn't even notice his protective older brother as he dropped down into one of the chairs, looking at ease.
"Ok, so, you're the good cop," Sam said. "Where's the bad cop?"
"Oh, he's with your brother," she casually replied. Alec's gaze snapped over to her, and she thought she saw a hint of something dangerous before it disappeared again. It was so fast, she was pretty sure she'd imagined it. And she regretted saying it since she was going to needlessly worry Alec.
"Ok. And you're holding us why?" Sam asked.
"Well, he's being held on suspicion of murder. And you, we'll see," she said.
"Murder?!" Sam asked, shocked. She compared Sam's reaction to Alec's, and if she hadn't done this for years, she could have been convinced just by their reactions that they had the wrong guy. But the evidence was stacked against Dean.
"You sound genuinely surprised," she said. "Or are you that good of an actor?" She resisted the urge to glance over at Alec. She wanted to see his reaction, but she felt like it would be too telling if she did.
"Who was he supposed to have murdered?!" Sam asked.
"We'll get around to that," she said.
"Well, you can't just hold us here without formal charges," Sam said.
"Well, actually, we can, for 48 hours," she corrected. "But you being a pre-law student, would know that. I know all about you, Sam." She pulled out the file and opened it. "You're 23-years-old, no job, no home address. Your mother died when you were a baby, your father's whereabouts are unknown. And then there's the case of your brother Dean. Whose demise was, well, just a little bit exaggerated. Feel free to jump in whenever you like." Sam leaned against the wall and crossed him arms. She looked over at Alec, but he was leaning back in his chair now with his feet up on the table. He looked like he could take a nap at any moment. "Shy?" she said when Sam didn't say anything. "No problem, I'll keep going. Your family moved around a lot when you were a kid. Despite that, you were a straight-A student. Got into Stanford with a full ride." She closed the file, and then said, "Then about a year ago, there was a fire in your apartment. One fatality. Jessica Moor, your girlfriend. After she died, you fell off the grid. Left behind everything."
"I needed some time off. To deal," Sam said. "So, I'm taking a road trip with my brothers."
"How's that going for you?" she asked.
"Great. I mean…we saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental US. Awesome," Sam said with a smile. Alec smirked as he somehow got even more comfortable in his chair. Sam pulled out the chair on his side of the table, flipped it around, and then straddled it. These two were good.
"We ran Dean's fingerprints through AFIS," she said.
"Ok," Sam said with a shrug.
"Got over a dozen possible hits," she said.
"Possible hits, which makes them worthless," Sam pointed out.
"But it makes you wonder. What are we gonna find when we run your prints?" she said.
"Yeah, well, you be sure to let me know," Sam sarcastically replied. If she wasn't so focused on the two brothers, she probably would have missed the worried look that Sam shot Alec. He was trying to distract her from something, but she had no idea what it could be. "May I?" Sam asked, pointing to the coffee cup.
"Please," she said. Sam popped open the lid, sniffed it, and then took a sip. She stood up, and then leaned against the table in front of Sam. "Sam, you seem like a good kid. It's not your fault Dean's your brother. We can't pick our family." She felt a little bad saying this in front of Alec, but she needed information. "Right now, detectives in St. Louis are exhuming a corpse. They're trying to figure out how your brother faked his own death. After torturing all those young women. Dean's a bad guy. His life is over. Yours doesn't have to be." This would be the lowest blow, but it needed to be said. "And if that doesn't convince you, then think about Alec. He still needs a guardian, otherwise, he'll have to go into the foster care system."
Sam just looked at her incredulously, "You want me turn against my own brother?"
"No. We already caught him cold. Red-handed at the Karen Giles murder scene. We just need you to fill in some missing pieces," she said.
"Why would I do that?" Sam asked.
"Because I can talk to the DA. Make a deal for you," she said. "You can get on with your life and become Alec's legal guardian. Dean's as good as gone."
Sam didn't look happy. He and Alec shared a look, and she wished more than anything that she'd had Alec wait outside. But there was just something about him…she felt like he was only showing her what she wanted to see.
"My Dad and Tony Giles were old friends," Sam finally said. "They were in the service together. We've known him since we were kids, you know? So, we came as soon as we heard about his death." Sam told her how they had heard that Tony had died, when they'd gotten into town, and what they had done once they had gotten here. "Woulda been kinda hard for Dean to kill Tony, considering we weren't in town at the time," Sam said.
"So, tell me what happened next," she said, hoping to keep him talking.
"Ok, uh, that's when we went to see Karen. She was barely holding it together. We just wanted to be there for her, you know?" Sam said. He gave her a brief overview of the conversation they'd had when they visited Karen. "So, I gave Karen a hug, told her to call me if she needed anything, and that was it. End of story."
"Sam, I am trying to help you here," she said. "But you have got to be honest with me. Now, we have an eyewitness. Someone who saw two men fitting you and your brother's description breaking into Giles' office." It made her wonder where Alec had been during that. Since the eyewitness had only identified two men, she had no reason to suspect Alec of anything, but it was weird. This whole thing was weird. Something didn't add up.
"Ok, look, Karen called us later, said that there was some stuff that she wanted from Tony's office, but the police weren't letting her in…like, a picture of the two of them in Paris, and some other stuff," Sam said. "Look, it was wrong to enter a crime scene, but she gave us the key!" Sam took a deep breath, "Then Dean went back to Karen's place to check up on her. I mean, you know, she had been pretty upset earlier."
"So, why didn't you go with him?" she asked.
"I just went back to the motel," Sam said. Alec had been in the motel, so maybe they'd just left him there when they went to the office. "How'd you know we were there, by the way?"
"We found the motel matchbook on your brother when we arrested him," she said. "Let's quit fooling around. Now, you were with your brother the whole time you were in Baltimore. Why separate now?" She paused to see if Sam would say anything. He didn't. "Because your brother left you…to go murder Karen."
"He didn't kill anyone," Sam said.
"I heard the 911 call!" she yelled, hitting the table. "Karen was terrified. She said someone was in the house."
She sighed when Sam didn't say anything else. She'd hit a wall with him, and she couldn't say that she'd actually gotten any usable information. Sam's story matched Alec's and Dean's. But something with this case just wasn't right.
She wasn't sure what to do with Alec again. She needed to talk to Pete, but she didn't want Alec there for that conversation. But she still felt like she couldn't leave him on his own. And she definitely couldn't leave him with his brothers. These three guys…
She finally decided to just take Alec with her again. He didn't seem to mind getting dragged along, which was good. She went to the observation room, where she could see Dean, but he couldn't see them. He was handcuffed to the table, and he looked just as unconcerned as his brothers.
"You getting anywhere with him?" she asked Pete
Pete glanced over at Alec, but he was just looking at his brother. "No, just a lot of wise-ass remarks," Pete said, which made Alec smirk. "You?"
"Sam's story matches Dean's to the last detail," she said.
Pete hummed back, "Yeah, well, these guys are good. I'll give 'em that." Pete looked at Alec again, noticing for the first time that he looked nearly identical to Dean. "Who the hell is that?"
"This is Alec, Dean's other brother," she said.
"Are you serious?" Pete growled. "What is he doing here?"
"I can't exactly leave him on his own," she said. Pete got up and left the room, so she looked at Alec and said, "Stay here. I'm just going to be right outside."
"Ok," Alec easily replied.
She stepped out of the room with Pete and shut the door. Alec wouldn't be able to leave without her knowing, and he couldn't talk to Dean from in there, so it should be fine. It might make him feel better to just see his brother for a few minutes.
"If we don't get Sam to flip, we have nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence," she said.
"Hey, we've got Dean at the crime scene with blood on his hands. Juries have convicted for less," Pete said.
"Yeah, but, I mean, where's the murder weapon? What's the motive? You talk about reasonable doubt," she said. And she was stuck on Alec's hopeful look just at the thought of seeing his brother.
"Diana," Pete said, stroking her cheek. "Do you have reasonable doubt?" She did, but she didn't tell Pete that. "We keep leaning on these guys, one of them will tumble. I mean, surely that kid has some idea about what's going on. And don't forget about St. Louis. I'm telling you. This Dean guy is our guy."
She wasn't so sure. Pete hadn't talked to Alec or Sam. She'd barely talked to Dean, so maybe she was wrong. Maybe Dean was a killer. He could be a good big brother and a killer. "I know Tony was a friend of yours," she finally said.
"Yeah, he was. He was a good friend," Pete said with a nod.
"Look, and I know you want to clean this mess up quick, but come on, Tony knew a lot of criminal types," she said. "I mean, maybe we're just…"
"Criminal types? He was a defense lawyer for godsakes, of course he knew criminal types," Pete said.
"Alright, let's get back at 'em," she said.
"No, you know what? Let 'em stew in their juices for a bit," Pete said. "Come here." Pete kissed her before he let her go again.
She opened the door to the observation room to get Alec again. Alec was sitting on top of the desk, facing the door, and she got the impression that her private conversation wasn't nearly as private as she'd thought it had been. And she wondered if there was some way that Alec had been able to talk to Dean. He smiled when she walked in, so at least he seemed happier.
She went back to her desk with Alec, wondering what she was going to do with him. "Can I have a pen and a piece of paper?" Alec asked.
She thought about it for a minute, but she didn't think he could get a message to Dean somehow, so she gave him what he asked for. He immediately started to write on the paper. She watched him, trying not to be obvious about it, but she didn't really understand what he was doing.
DANA SHULPS
He'd written it a few times in all-caps. "Does this name sound familiar at all?" Alec asked her. She thought about it, but she didn't know anyone named Dana Shulps. She shook her head no, deciding to humor him since she couldn't figure out how this would help either of his brothers. Alec started writing different things on the paper, and it took her a few minutes, but then she realized he was using the same letters from DANA SHULPS to try to spell something else. "What do you think the motive was?" Alec asked, completely throwing her off.
"What?" she asked, looking away from his neat handwriting.
"You think Dean did it because of the evidence," Alec said, still writing. "But what's the motive?"
"I can't discuss that with you," she said. She couldn't admit to Alec that she didn't know what the motive would be. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know," Alec said, still writing. "I don't know if that's actually a name or if it's all mixed up, like an anagram or something."
"Why…" She didn't even know how to ask why Alec was doing this. What did it mean?
Alec didn't bother with an answer; he just kept writing different variations of DANA SHULPS. She went back to her computer, needing to catch up on some emails before she went back to questioning Sam. She would just let Alec work on his puzzle for now since she had no idea what it meant or why he was doing it.
She had just started typing up a reply when suddenly, text that she didn't write appeared on the screen. She gasped when she saw DANASHULPS repeated over and over again, scrolling as it filled the screen. Alec looked over when she gasped, and his eyes widened when he saw the text. She quickly shut off the computer, completely freaked out now.
She turned to start grilling Alec with questions when one of the other detectives walked up. "Your guy's gonna confess."
This day just kept getting crazier. She told Alec to stay put, refusing to take him with her this time. She went back to Sam's room to get the lawyer. Surely this was some kind of mistake, but Dean would need to talk to his lawyer if he was seriously going to confess.
She knocked on the door before she opened it, and then said, "We need you. With the other one." She noted that Sam didn't look surprised to see her, but she had more on her plate right then, so she couldn't really spend time trying to figure out Sam Winchester.
She walked the lawyer back to Dean's interrogation room, where a couple detectives were setting up a camera. Pete looked up when she walked in with the lawyer. "Counselor? Your boy decided to confess," Pete said. Dean was sitting there calmly, acting completely different than any other suspect she'd ever dealt with before.
"Mr. Winchester, I'd advise against that strongly," the lawyer stated. Dean didn't respond or even look over at the lawyer.
"Talk directly into the camera," Pete said. "First stating your name for the record."
Dean cleared his throat as he leaned forward, looking into the camera. "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm an Aquarius. I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women." She couldn't help but compare the little she knew about Alec just from being around him for a while, to Dean. Alec was quieter, and maybe a little more serious. But she could also see how Alec's personality matched Dean's, like he was trying to be like his big brother. She just hoped Alec wouldn't follow in his brother's footsteps and end up in jail for murder. "And I did not kill anyone," Dean continued. Her eyes widened in shock because that wasn't what she was expecting at all. "But I know who did." Ok…this just kept getting weirder. "Or rather, what did." Ok, what? "Of course, it can't be for sure, because our investigation was interrupted. But our working theory was that we're looking for some kind of vengeful spirit."
"Excuse me?" she finally asked, breaking her silence. This couldn't be for real.
"You know, Casper the bloodthirsty ghost," Dean said. "Tony Giles saw it. I'll bet you cash money Karen did too. But see, the interesting thing is the word it leaves behind. For some reason, it's trying to tell us something. But communicating across the veil, it ain't easy. You know, sometimes the spirits, they get things jumbled. You remember 'REDRUM'. Same concept. You know, it's, uh, maybe word fragments…other times, it's anagrams." She nearly gasped; Alec had been talking about the same thing. DANASHULPS. She wasn't as surprised when Dean continued, "See, at first we thought this was a name, Dana Shulps. But now we think it's a street. Ashland." It was telling how messed up this entire thing was that her first instinct hearing that was to go to Alec and tell him that it was Ashland. This case made no sense. "Whatever's going on, I'll bet you it started there."
Dean smiled once he was done, like he was really proud of himself for that whole speech. "You arrogant bastard," Pete growled. "Tony and Karen were good people, and you're making jokes."
"I'm not joking, Ponch," Dean replied. And she could tell that he was being serious. He really believed that a ghost had killed Tony and Karen.
"You murdered them in cold blood just like that girl in St. Louis," Pete accused.
"Oh, yeah. That wasn't me either," Dean casually replied. "That was a shapeshifter creature that only looked like me." Or maybe Dean was insane. Dean smiled again, which was the last straw for Pete. He hauled Dean up by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall.
"Pete, that's enough!" she yelled. Pete was going to get himself in trouble doing that, especially on camera.
"You asked for the truth," Dean said.
"Lock his ass up," Pete snapped. One of the other cops in the room pushed Dean against the wall and handcuffed him again before they took him away.
She followed Pete out of the room, pretty sure he was wanting to talk to Sam now. She peeked into the main room with her desk to check on Alec. He was still there, just sitting, waiting for her to come back. They walked to the interrogation room that she'd put Sam in, but she froze when Pete opened the door to an empty room. The coffee cup was still on the table, but there was a note there now too.
"What the hell? Where is he?" Pete asked, running over to the window. The window was open, but there was no way Sam could have left from the window. They were too high up for that to work.
She walked over to the note and picked it up.
Hilts-
It's a street
ASHLAND.
-McQueen
"What'd he do? The fire escape's way over…what?" Pete asked.
"These two guys," she said, shaking her head. She handed Pete the note so he could read it.
"Hilts and McQueen?" Pete asked.
"Hilts is Steve McQueen's character in the Great Escape," she said. Dean had passed a code to Sam, telling him to escape. But what about Alec? Did Sam and Dean know that Alec wasn't in trouble? Should he be in trouble? From the way Sam and Dean acted, she expected Alec knew what was going on, so why didn't he escape too?
She shook her head and left the room. She needed a minute to decide how to bring up Sam's escape and Dean's theories with Alec so he'd actually answer her. She went to the bathroom to give herself a couple minutes by herself.
The lights flickered when she walked into the bathroom. She sighed since this place was falling apart. The higher-ups needed to spend some money to get this place up to date. She walked over to the sink but jumped when the faucet turned on by itself. Then all the faucets turned on, streaming hot water. Steam fogged up the mirror, and then DANASHULPS appeared, letter by letter, in the mirror. She quickly wiped them away, but gasped when she saw a woman behind her. The woman's throat was slit, and her eyes were red. She turned around, but then the woman disappeared.
She practically ran out of the bathroom and back to her desk. She was so freaked out it took her a good minute before she realized something very important. Alec wasn't here. Her first thought was that Alec did get some kind of note or something, and he'd followed in Sam's footsteps and escaped. But then she had another thought. A much scarier thought. Maybe Alec had stayed behind to get Dean out after they put him back in lockup…The way he'd been watching people, the way he'd looked around the entire room, seemingly noting every detail, the way Sam had looked at him back in the room. There was something different about him. He wasn't just some teenager. How could she be so stupid?
She went to lockup as fast as she could without drawing attention. Even though she'd thought maybe Alec had gone to breakout his brother, she was still shocked when she caught Alec in the room, unlocking Dean's cuffs.
"Shit," Dean breathed.
Alec looked up, but then dropped his head back in defeat when he saw it was her. She got the impression that he would have knocked out anyone else. "You figured it out," Alec said.
"It didn't make any sense for Sam to leave you behind," she said. "Until I realized that he left you behind for a reason."
"Technically, he hasn't done anything wrong yet," Dean quickly defended. "He's just in a room that he's not supposed to be in. He hasn't done anything."
"I can still get you out of here," Alec said.
"I'm staying," Dean whispered back.
She had an internal argument with herself about what she should do, but then the girl from the bathroom flashed in her memory. Maybe Dean wasn't insane. Maybe what he'd been talking about in the interrogation room was real. She couldn't explain the woman in the bathroom, so she needed to know as much as she could.
"I want to know more about that stuff you were talking about earlier," she said, interrupting the two brothers in their argument.
"Time Life. Mysteries of the Unknown. Look it up," Dean replied shortly.
"Dean, her computer did the Dana Shulps thing," Alec said.
Dean slowly looked over at Alec, like he couldn't believe what he was saying. "And you thought now would be the best time to bring that up?" Dean asked.
"I was a little busy trying to get you out of here," Alec hissed.
"Let's pretend for the moment you're not entirely insane," she said to stop the argument again. She chose to ignore Alec's admission that he was trying to break Dean out. She didn't miss the glare that Dean shot his brother, and then the grateful look he shot her when she changed the subject. "What would one of these things be doing here?"
"A vengeful spirit? Well, they're created by violent deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like revenge on the people that hurt 'em," Dean explained.
"And, uh, these things, they're capable of killing people?" she asked, thinking back to Dean's 'confession'. She rubbed her neck, trying to wrap her head around all this. She stopped though when Dean frowned.
"Where did you get that?" Dean asked. She pulled up her sleeve to reveal deep bruises on her wrists. Dean and Alec shared a look, which was concerning.
"I don't know. It, it wasn't there before," she admitted.
"You've seen it, haven't you?" Alec asked. "The spirit?"
"How did you know?" she asked.
"Because Karen had the same bruises on her wrists," Dean said. "And I'm willing to bet that if you look at Giles' autopsy photos, he's got 'em too. It's got something to do with this spirit. I…I don't know what." She turned away, actually wishing these two were insane instead of thinking maybe she was the crazy one. "I know. You think you're going crazy," Dean said. "But let's skip that part, shall we? Because the last two people who saw this thing? Died pretty soon after. You hear me?"
"You think I'm going to die," she said.
"You need to go to Sam. He'll help," Dean stated.
"You're giving your brother up," she said, surprised.
Dean rolled his eyes, "Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford-it's how we find each other when we're separated. Now, you can arrest him if you want. Or you can let him save your life." Dean looked over at Alec and said, "You go with her."
"I should stay here," Alec said.
She shook her head no, "If you want to stay out of cuffs, then you'll come with me."
"Go," Dean urged his brother.
Alec clenched his jaw, but he left with her. She let him ride up front again, although now she was pretty sure he had a much bigger role in all this than she'd previously thought.
"The whole time, you just went along with everything to get Dean out," she said. "I'm curious, how were you planning on getting out?"
"Easy," Alec said. She got the impression that he liked her, otherwise he would have just remained silent. "The guy watching lockup actually believed me when I said there was an emergency in one of the interrogation rooms. I told him that they'd brought in a psycho that rivaled Dean, so the guy went to help. He thought I was some kind of intern or something. So, that was clear. My first choice would've been the west office, which was on the same side as the room Sam was being held in, and the guy that works in that office was out, since there wasn't a light on in the office. We would've gone out his window and down the fire escape. My second choice was down the emergency stairs on the south side. We would've had to go past a lot more detectives to get to them, but once we were in the stairwell, we would've had a pretty easy time of it until we got to the bottom. The alarm at the bottom would've sounded when we left, but we would've been long gone by the time someone got there to check it out. We would've gone through back alleys once we were out, or if we had to, we would've gone down into the sewers. The smell is horrible, but you can get pretty much anywhere once you're in the sewers."
"You're really not just some teenager, are you?" she asked.
"Definitely not, but the cover typically works," he said. "Dean says I have a baby-face, so I can still pass for 16. I think I'm actually 17 or 18, especially now, but you thought I was 16. But you figured out the plan faster than I thought you would. You're more observant than most cops."
"I didn't catch it before, but your date of birth would've put you at 17 now…" she said.
"Guess I better change the date then if I'm gonna stick with 16," he muttered.
"What would I find if I ran your prints?" she asked.
"Nothing," he stated. "I don't technically exist. But if you did run my prints, then that would throw up a flag with some bad people in the government. I would probably have 24 hours to get out of town and disappear again. That's why Sam looked freaked when you brought up running his prints. It'd be a big problem if my prints were run. At least, that's what I think will happen. I don't know for sure, but I'm not gonna take any chances."
"So, if it had been anyone that caught you but me, what would you have done?" she asked.
"If I answer that, you'll change your mind and arrest me," he said.
He was quiet after that, so she didn't question him anymore. She was surprised he'd told her that much, but he did like her, at least enough to be honest with her. She liked him too, at least enough to not arrest him for trying to break his brother out.
She found the motel Sam was in, and it was almost funny how little Alec had been willing to help with that. She knocked on the door to the room Sam was in, not sure why she was still going along with this. Her head was a little clearer now, so she could almost convince herself that she'd imagined the whole thing.
"Sam, it's me," Alec said.
Sam opened the door but frowned when he saw her instead of Dean. "What happened?" Sam asked.
"I don't wanna talk about it," Alec grumbled as he walked inside. She followed after him, forcing herself to not smile. She was proud of herself for figuring out what Alec was doing and stopping him before he could finish. She got the feeling that he was rarely stopped from doing what he'd planned. Sam looked pretty surprised that Dean wasn't out, which meant he'd been counting on Alec getting Dean out. She wondered what plan B was.
She pulled her sleeves up to show Sam her bruised wrists. "These showed up after you saw it?" Sam asked, already connecting the dots.
"Yeah, I guess," she said.
"Alright…you're going to have to tell me exactly what you saw," Sam said.
"You know, I must be losing my mind," she said, shaking her head as she walked further into the room. "You're a fugitive. I should be arresting you."
"Alright. Well, you know what? You can arrest me later, alright?" Sam said. He immediately held up a finger to Alec, telling him to wait. Alec glared at Sam, having obviously been planning on saying something. It was a little amazing how well the three brothers knew each other. The note, the plan to break Dean out, the stories matching, and even this. Sam knew Alec was going to say something because that was how well he knew him. "After you live through this. But right now, you've gotta talk to me. Ok?" She nodded. She'd already decided to trust them. "Ok, great. Now, this spirit. What did it look like?"
"She was, um, really pale, and her throat was cut," she said. "And her eyes, they were like, this deep, dark red? It appeared like she was trying to talk to me. But she couldn't. It was just…a lot of blood."
"You know what? Here. I've been researching every girl that's ever died or gone missing from Ashland Street," Sam said. He walked over to the small table in the room, and then gathered up a pile of crime scene pictures.
"How'd you get those?" she asked. "Those are from crime scenes and booking photos." Nothing should surprise her at this point, but seriously, what was with these guys?
"You have your job, I have mine," Sam said with a shrug. "Here, I need you to look through these, tell me if you recognize anyone."
She sat down at the table and started going through the pictures. She stopped though when she saw the woman from the bathroom. "This is her. I'm sure of it," she said.
"Claire Becker? 28 years old. Disappeared about eight or nine months ago," Sam said.
"But I don't even know her. I mean, why would she come after me?" she asked, confused.
"Well, before her death, she was arrested twice," Sam said, looking at a file. "For dealing heroin. You ever work narcotics?"
"Yeah, Pete and I did. Before Homicide," she said.
"You ever bust her?" Alec asked from across the room.
"Not that I remember," she said.
"It says that she was last seen entering 2911 Ashland Street," Sam said. "Police searched the place, didn't find anything. Guess we gotta check it out ourselves. See if we can find her body."
"What?" she asked. How was it possible that things kept getting weirder?
"Well, we gotta salt and burn her bones. It's the only way to put her spirit to rest," Sam said.
"Of course it is," she muttered.
"Aren't you glad you busted me breaking Dean out?" Alec asked with a smirk.
She had to admit things would be simpler if she just had three fugitives on her hands instead of this. How messed up was that?
They drove down to Ashland Street where Claire had last been seen. It was probably the creepiest warehouse she'd ever been to, and she'd been to some pretty horrible places for investigations. But there had always been a lot of people around when she was on an investigation. Now, she just had two guys who were possibly insane, looking for a dead girl who was haunting her.
"So, what exactly are we looking for?" she asked. She had a flashlight, and so did Sam, but Alec was just walking around like they were in broad daylight.
"I'll let you know when we find it," Sam said. Which really meant, he would let her know when he or Alec found whatever it was.
They all split up in the large room. She didn't know what she was looking for, so she just wandered around. Sam went up some stairs, but she saw him motion to Alec to stay down there with her. She turned toward the window but jumped when she saw Claire standing there. She tried to talk again, but nothing came out because of her throat.
"Sam? Alec?!" she called out.
She could have sworn that Alec was all the way across the room, but then suddenly he was there next to her. He was looking at Claire, so at least she wasn't the only one seeing her now. Well, she thought he was looking at Claire. It looked like he was seeing her for a second, but then it was like maybe he couldn't quite see her again.
"Hey! Hey, I'm here, what is it?" Sam asked in a rush. "What happened?"
"Claire…" she said.
"Where?" Sam asked. She looked back to where she'd seen the ghost, but she was gone.
"She, she was here," she said. Sam wasn't going to believe her, but at least Alec had seen the ghost.
"Did she attack you?" Sam asked.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, she was just like, reaching out to me. She was over there by the window." There was a shelf blocking the window where Claire had been. "Can you two move that?"
Alec and Sam easily moved the shelf to the side, revealing the rest of the window, which said ASHLAND SUP.
"DANA SHULPS," Alec said.
"Now the extra letters make sense," Sam said.
They looked to the opposite wall where the shadow from the window was, and where the letters were clearer. Sam got a little electronic device out and flipped it on. "What is that?" she asked.
"Spirits and certain remains give off electromagnetic frequencies," Sam explained.
"So, if Claire's body was here, that would indicate that?" she asked, trying to keep up with all of this. Yesterday, all of this was just stories that kids told to try to scare each other. Now, she was living a scary story.
"Yeah. Well, that's the theory," Sam said. The device made a noise and lit up, so Sam nodded over to Alec. The young man smiled widely as he went to get the sledgehammer. He hit the wall hard, and she was afraid that the whole building would come down, but it didn't. Alec kept hitting the brick wall with the sledgehammer until there was a pretty good-sized hole in it. Sam looked inside, and then nodded, "Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something in there." Alec broke out more of the wall, dropping the sledgehammer and instead knocked out some smaller pieces with his shoulder. "You know? This is bothering me…" Sam said.
"Well, you are digging up a corpse," she pointed out.
"No, not that," Sam said, acting like digging up a corpse was normal. "That's, uh, that's pretty par for the course, actually."
"Then what?" she asked.
"It's just, I mean, no vengeful spirit I've ever tussled with wanted to be wasted, so why the hell would Claire lead us to her remains? It doesn't make any sense," Sam said.
"Maybe it's not a vengeful spirit," Alec said with a grunt. She smiled just a little when Alec suddenly yelped in surprise, breaking through a bigger chunk of wall than he'd been expecting. He fell into the hole, cursing and coughing as dust rained down on him.
"You ok?" Sam asked with a laugh as he helped Alec up again. Alec nodded, and then shook his head to try to get the dust out of his hair.
Sam and Alec reached into the hole in the wall, and then pulled out what was obviously a body. They put it on the ground, and she saw that whoever had killed Claire had wrapped her body up in a cloth. Sam got a pocketknife out and cut the ropes holding the cloth together.
She held out her wrist to see if Sam could find marks on the corpse. "Her wrists," Sam said. "Yeah, they'd be bruised just like yours."
She frowned and her heart sank when she noticed a necklace. She carefully picked up the locket just to make sure, but she already knew. Alec looked up at her in surprise, but she couldn't figure out how he'd put the pieces together unless he'd caught sight of her necklace before.
"That necklace mean something to you?" Sam asked.
"I've seen it before," she said. "It's rare. It was custom made over on Carson Street." She got her necklace out and showed it to Sam. "I have one just like it. Pete gave it to me."
"Now this all makes perfect sense," Sam said.
"Really?" Alec asked. "Because it looks like Pete killed Claire, so who- Oh, ok, I get it."
"I don't," she said.
"You see, Claire is not a vengeful spirit," Sam explained. "She's a death omen."
"That doesn't explain it," she said.
"Claire's not killing anyone. She's trying to warn them," Sam said. "You see, sometimes spirits, they don't want vengeance, they want justice. Which is why she led us here in the first place. She wants us to know who her killer is."
"Pete," Alec said.
"Oh my God," she breathed.
"What?" Sam asked.
"About a year ago, some heroin went missing from lockup," she said. "Obviously it was a cop. We never found out who did it. But whoever did it would need someone to fence their product."
"Someone like a heroin dealer. Somebody like Claire," Sam said.
"Dean's stuck with him at the police station," Alec said.
Alec started moving, but Sam ran in front of him to stop him. "We'll go get him. We have a plan B, remember?" Sam said lowly.
"Sam, that guy was planning on pinning this all on Dean," Alec said. The only way Alec could know that was if he'd heard their conversation in the hall while he'd been in the observation room. She understood very clearly now that she barely knew anything about Alec.
"Alright, let's go," Sam agreed.
They got back on the road, but she got a call before they could get far. Things had definitely taken a turn, and Sam and Alec were not going to like this. "Alright, thanks," she said.
"What is it?" Sam asked from the backseat.
"Definitely not good. I shoulda just gotten him out when I had the chance," Alec muttered. He'd heard the other end of the phone call somehow.
"Pete just left the precinct," she said. "With Dean."
"What?" Sam asked in alarm.
"He said the prisoner had to be transferred, and he just took him," she said. "Dispatch has been calling, but he won't answer the radio."
"Radio?" Sam asked. "He took a county vehicle?"
"Yeah," she said.
"Well, then they should have a lo-jack, you've just gotta get it turned on," Sam said.
She made a few calls, pulled some strings, and then got the information they needed. She put the lights on, knowing this really was an emergency. Alec's casual front was gone now. His leg was bouncing up and down nervously, and he barely said two words the entire way. Sam, on the other hand, was asking more questions than she'd thought were possible. His investigative skills rivaled even the best detectives. These boys were quite the detectives, and if she hadn't just found out that they weren't completely nuts, she'd want them working cases with her. But as it was, she was glad they were out there doing what they were doing, even if they weren't thanked for it and people thought they were insane.
She couldn't believe Pete had done all of this. He'd stolen drugs, and then he'd killed Claire because of it. And if that wasn't enough, it looked like he'd killed Tony and Karen too. She didn't want to think about how she'd not only failed to uncover him as a detective, but she'd been dating the man. Her instincts were shot apparently.
"You didn't know," Alec said, suddenly breaking the silence. She glanced over at him and actually entertained the thought that he'd read her mind. How could he have known she was thinking about that? "I mean, we thought it was a ghost that killed 'em," Alec said with a shrug. "And no one else at the station suspected him either."
"How did you know?" she asked, leaving it up to him if he wanted to tell her how he knew she was thinking about how it could be Pete and she'd missed it, or how he knew it was Pete before she'd said anything about her necklace.
Alec thought about it for a moment, and then said, "I could hear you when you had me stay in the observation room." She looked over, but then caught Sam's look of surprise. Sam hadn't been expecting Alec to admit that, which meant she'd been right; he shouldn't have been able to hear her conversation. "I knew you two were together and I saw the chain around your neck. When you saw the other necklace, I figured it matched the one you were wearing, which had to be from Pete, which meant Pete killed Clair, Tony, and Karen."
"You really didn't know Tony or Karen," she said. "You almost had me convinced."
"No, we didn't know Tony or Karen," Alec agreed, looking out the window again. "We saw the article about a guy whose throat was slit, with the doors and windows locked, no sign of a break-in. We split up after breaking into the office because Dean was bored and didn't want to stay to try to hack into Tony's computer."
"And you were there at Tony's office?" she asked. "The description…"
"I hacked into his computer," Alec said, glancing over at her again. He knew he was implicating himself in criminal activity, but she had no idea why he was telling her all of this. "And I'm pretty good at not being seen. The eyewitness probably did see me, but I also look like Dean, so they probably thought their eyes were playing tricks on them when they saw me."
"Why didn't you run at the motel?" she asked. She smiled a little since he finally looked surprised. "You heard my conversation with Pete…I'm guessing you heard us coming as soon as we pulled in."
It took a long time for him to answer this time, to the point where she thought he wasn't going to say anything. "I heard you coming," he finally said. "And we would've had time to leave, but we knew that if you were there, then Dean was at the police station. So, we had to get taken in to try to get him out."
"Why are you answering all my questions suddenly?" she asked.
Alec shrugged and looked back out the window before he simply replied, "I trust you."
She glanced back at Sam, who was smiling softly now, so she knew that was a big deal. She just hoped she could give him back his brother. They had to make it in time to stop Pete from killing Dean. She didn't know about what happened in St. Louis, but she'd thought from the start that they had the wrong man. And she'd thought he was a good man.
It was a chilling sight that greeted them when they finally caught up to Pete. Dean was handcuffed, kneeling on the ground out of the truck, with Pete standing with his gun pointed at Dean's head.
She slammed on the brakes when the front and back doors both opened while the car was still moving. Alec had gotten out as soon as he saw his brother in trouble, but Sam had gotten out just a split second before Alec, knowing his brother so well, that he was able to grab him around his waist and drag him back, keeping him at a safe distance.
"Pete! Put the gun down," she yelled, pointing her gun at him, ready to shoot if she had to.
Pete looked up in shock, "Diana? How'd you find me?"
"I know about Claire," she said. She was trying to get Pete's attention off Dean, but Pete had a scary look in his eyes. She had to keep his attention on her. Pete couldn't kill Dean.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Pete said, keeping up with his charade.
"Put the gun down!" she ordered.
"Oh, I don't think so. You're fast. I'm pretty sure I'm faster," Pete said. She didn't want to do this, but Pete wasn't giving her much of a choice. She could still try to talk him out of this. She didn't want to kill him.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"I didn't do anything, Diana," Pete said.
She huffed, "It's a little late for that."
"It wasn't my fault," Pete said desperately. "Claire was trying to turn me in. I had no choice."
She hadn't expected him to actually confess. She'd thought he would refuse to admit it until his dying breath. "And Tony? Karen?" she asked.
"Same thing!" Pete yelled. "Tony scrubbed the money, he got skittish, and then he wanted to come clean. I'm sure he told Karen everything." Pete took a breath to try to get himself back together. "It was a mess. I had to clean it up. I just panicked."
"How many more people are gonna die over this, Pete?" she asked, hoping there was a part of him that knew this was wrong.
"There's a way out," Pete said. "This Dean kid's a freakin' gift. We could pin the whole thing on him. Right? No trial, nothing. Just…just one more dead scumbag."
"Hey!" Dean yelled, affronted. Pete raised his gun at Dean again, who held his hands up in surrender.
"You'd have to kill his brothers too," she said. "And I won't let you do that." Dean gave her a grateful look. The man was one twitch from being killed, but he was more worried about Sam and Alec than his own safety. If she'd had any reservations about Dean Winchester, that alone would have cleared him of all doubt.
"No one will question it," Pete said. "Diana, please. I still love you." It disgusted her now. How could she have missed all the signs? What had she seen in him before? She lowered her gun to catch him off guard. He took that to mean her acceptance of him killing Dean and his brothers. He couldn't be more wrong. "Thank you. Thank you," Pete said.
Pete turned back to Dean, ready to kill him. She brought her gun up as soon as he turned away from her and fired, hitting Pete in the stomach. He went down as Dean rolled out of the way. "Then why don't you buy me another necklace, you ass," she said.
Pete reached for her, surprising her since she'd thought he'd be down from that wound. She wasn't going to back away in time. She went down as he grabbed her legs and her gun fell from her hand. She and Pete grappled for the gun. She saw Sam and Alec run forward, but Pete grabbed her gun before they could get there.
Pete stood up and aimed at her, but she was looking behind Pete now. Claire was behind him, smiling. Pete turned to see Clair, which gave her enough time to grab his fallen gun. She shot Pete in the back while he was distracted. He went down again, this time, dead.
She sighed and shook her head as she checked to make sure he was dead. Sam and Alec got Dean out of the cuffs while she checked, but then they stood and waited for her.
"You doin' alright?" Sam asked.
"Not really," she admitted. "The death omen, Claire. What happens to her now?"
"Should be over. She should be at rest," Sam said. Good. Claire's body would help clear Dean, plus Pete confessed to murdering Claire, Tony, and Karen.
"So, uh, what now, officer?" Dean asked. Maybe Alec's mind-reading skills were hereditary. She was going nuts. She used to need facts and proof; now she thought two men could actually read her mind.
"Pete did confess to me," she said. "He screwed up both your cases royally. I'd say that there's a good chance that we could get your cases dismissed."
"You'd take care of that for us?" Sam asked, surprised.
"I hope so," she said. Alec gave her a smile, a real smile, which lit up his entire face and made him look like a 16-year-old kid. She didn't want to ruin his good mood, but she wasn't going to spin a fairytale that he wouldn't believe. "But the St. Louis murder charges? That's another story. I can't help you." But she could do something. She'd never thought she'd break the law and let fugitives escape, but she had to admit they were right about the ghost, so maybe Dean was telling the truth about St. Louis too. "Unless…I just happened to turn my back, and you walked away. I could just tell them that the suspects escaped." It wasn't that hard to believe anyway since Sam had escaped police custody on the fourth floor of the police station.
"Wait, are you sure?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, she's sure, Sam," Dean said, probably afraid she'd change her mind. But her mind had been made up as soon as she'd left the station with Alec to go find Sam.
"No, it's just, I mean, you could lose your job over something like that," Sam said.
"Look, I just want you guys out there doing what you do best," she said. "Trust me, I'll sleep better at night." She started to turn away, but stopped, "Listen, you need to watch your back. They're gonna be looking for you now. Get out of here. I gotta radio this in."
"Hey, uh, you wouldn't happen to know where my car is, by chance?" Dean asked.
"It's at the impound yard down on Robertson," she said without thinking. As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Dean was thinking about getting his car, and Alec's smirk was enough to confirm that they weren't leaving without the car. "Don't even think about," she warned.
"It's ok, it's alright," Sam quickly reassured, pushing on Alec's shoulder to get him to turn away. Alec laughed, throwing a wink over at her before he started walking with Dean back the way they'd come. "Don't worry. We'll, uh, we'll just improvise. I mean, we're pretty good at that."
"Yeah. I've noticed," she said, shaking her head in amusement.
Sam quickly caught up with his brothers and said, "Nice lady."
"Yeah, for a cop," Dean shot back. "Did she look familiar to you?"
"No, why?" Sam asked.
Sam pushed Dean, who bumped into Alec. "I don't know," Dean said with a laugh. "Anyway, are you hungry?"
"I'm hungry," Alec said.
"You're always hungry," Sam and Dean said at the same time.
"For some reason, I could really go for some pea soup," Dean said. Alec started making gagging noises, so Dean pushed him as they walked.
She smiled to herself as she watched the three of them walk away. Everything was different now. She knew things were out there that shouldn't exist, Pete had killed people, and she'd just let three fugitives go. But she knew they were good men, and she'd done the right thing. But no matter how much she'd enjoyed getting to know Alec, she had to admit, she hoped the Winchesters would never cross her path again.