Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Are you okay?” Malone helped her sit up, wincing when he took a closer look at her face.
That punch was gonna leave a mark.
“Jesus, Sam,” Farnsworth said. “Someone get some ice! Hurry!”
Sam sat in the middle of a sea of cops and let them tend to her. What choice did she have, surrounded as she was? Even Helen had come out to watch the show.
“Let me through,” Gonzo said testily, stopping short at the sight of Sam on the floor. “What. The. Hell.”
“Offenbach wasn’t happy to see me. Can you imagine anyone not being happy to see me?”
Gonzo rolled his eyes and reached out a hand to her.
Sam took it and let him haul her up. The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet, and only his arm around her kept her standing.
“Easy, tiger,” he said. “Get your bearings.”
An ice pack was produced and pressed against her face.
Sam winced from the pain and the cold. “I’m fine. Go about your lives, citizens.”
“We should probably take her in to be checked,” Farnsworth said. “She took a hell of a shot.”
“You’re not taking me anywhere but to the pit to resume the investigation.” Under her breath, she said to Gonzo, “Get me out of here.”
He took her by the arm and perp-walked her back to the pit.
“Conference room,” she said.
Gonzo plopped her into a chair. “He just coldcocked you?”
“Never saw it coming. I don’t even know who he is.” In a department of thousands, that wasn’t uncommon. She knew a lot of people but not everyone.
“Apparently, he knows who you are,” Gonzo said with a laugh. “Keep the ice on it. It’s gonna be a mess.”
“Great. Nick will freak out. I hope there’s not a state dinner or something I have to go to this week.”
“Thankfully, the president is too busy trying to stay in office to host a state dinner.”
Malone came into the conference room looking frazzled and furious. “Are you sure you’re okay? Let me see.”
“I’m fine.” Sam took the ice pack off her face to give him a better look.
His expression turned thunderous. “Gonzo, take some photos of her injury so we have them.”
“I don’t want to press charges,” Sam said.
“That’s not your call.”
“The hell it isn’t. The whole department will be talking about how I got a pass on punching Ramsey but went after Offenbach. I’m not doing it. I won’t cooperate.”
“You’ll do what you’re told, Lieutenant.”
“No charges, Captain. Do what you’ve got to from a disciplinary standpoint for the mess he made with his lies but no assault charges. Between Stahl, Ramsey, Conklin and now Offenbach, I’m not going to be able to show my swollen face around here before much longer.”
Cameron Green came into the pit, looking pressed and well rested, wearing another dress shirt and tie. He did a double take when he saw the ice pack pressed to her face. “What happened?”
Gonzo filled him in on the incident with Offenbach.
“Holy crap. He attacked you?” To Malone, he said, “He’ll be charged with assault, right?”
“The lieutenant tells me she won’t cooperate with assault charges,” Malone said, sarcasm dripping from his every word.
“Why the hell not?” Green asked. “He can’t go around punching people.”
“It’s like this,” Gonzo said. “Our lieutenant has done some punching of her own in the past, and she’d rather not press charges when she wasn’t charged with assault when she did it. You see?”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“One thing you’ll quickly learn,” Malone said to Green, “is your lieutenant likes to keep things interesting.”
“I already know that,” Green said with a grin. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“I like him,” Sam said. “I like him so much.”
Malone shook his head, uttered something under his breath about her being unmanageable and stormed off.
“Is he pissed?” Green asked.
“Nah,” Sam said. “He loves me.”
“Sure he does,” Gonzo said, chuckling.
It was nice to see him amused and making jokes the way he used to. If she had to take a punch to the face to make that happen, it was worth it.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked Green. “It’s not four yet.”
“I heard from Vega’s army buddy, and he was willing to meet with me.”
“Where’d this meeting take place?”
“At a coffee shop in Alexandria.”
“In the future,” Sam said, “please let us know when you’re meeting with someone so we’ll know where to look if you don’t come back.”
“Oh, right. Will do.”
“What’d you find out?”
“Vega is in rehab. Since he left the Army, he’s been spiraling with PTSD issues and alcoholism. A bunch of his buddies got together, held an intervention and got him into treatment about six weeks ago. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was, so they kept it quiet.”
“Were you able to confirm that he’s at the rehab?” Sam asked.
“The friend had the admissions paperwork to prove it. I called the facility, but due to patient privacy laws, they couldn’t confirm he was there.”
“Hmmm, I’d feel better if you had confirmation.”
“So would I, but there is one more thing his friend told me. While he was overseas, he was in a car accident that injured his shooting arm. He developed a tremor that he still has, which would make it impossible to shoot with any kind of accuracy. I guess that was a big part of the downward spiral, accepting that what made him special had been lost forever.”
“Wow, that’s too bad,” Gonzo said. “I feel for the guy.”
“So do I,” Sam said. “Let me ask you this… Did the friend tell you about the tremor voluntarily, or did he get a sense of why you were asking?”
“We didn’t talk about the shootings. I had told him we were interested in talking to Vega because of his expertise, not because we thought he was involved. When we couldn’t find him, we became concerned.” He rolled his hand. “Et cetera.”
“I think we can rule him out, then,” Sam said. “Well done, Detective. Thank you for following up.”
“No problem.”
As Sam began to update him on the latest developments and the plan to visit funeral homes, Freddie came rolling in.
“Couldn’t sleep, so here I am.”
“We need to get some lives around here,” Sam said.
He recoiled at the sight of her. “What the hell happened to you?”
She filled him in on the incident with Offenbach, updated him on Angel’s assault and told him and Green about the funeral home plan.
“Ah, God, poor Angel,” Freddie said. “And Roberto…”
“He’s with her, and they’ll get through this.
” Sam’s phone rang, and she took the call from Jeannie McBride, who’d been through an ordeal similar to Angel’s last year.
“Hey, Jeannie.” Sam told her what’d happened and asked if she’d be willing to go in to talk with Angel. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”
“I’d be happy to help. I know all too well what she’s feeling today. I’ll ask Michael to come with me so he can talk to Roberto.”
“That’d be amazing. Thank you both so much.”
“No problem. I’ll be in after I see her.”
“Take your time with her. We’ve got things covered here for now.”
“Will do.”
“That’s a great idea, Sam,” Freddie said after she ended the call.
“I have one every now and then. Speaking of my brilliant beyond brilliant ideas, let’s get busy combing the local funeral listings for women old enough to have a son, first initial D, in his twenties. I want the name of any woman thirty-five or older who has died in the last twelve hours.”
“If it’s that recent, it’s apt to be a while before the notices appear online,” Green said. After a pause, he added, “I worked at a funeral home in high school.”
All eyes landed on Green in stunned amazement.
“Who works at a funeral home in high school?” Sam asked.
Green laughed. “My parents own a bunch of them. Funerals are the Green family business.”
“And you ended up a Homicide detective,” Sam said. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
The others laughed.
“Not if I don’t suggest the families make use of the Greenlawn Funeral Homes.”
“Greenlawn?” Gonzo said, incredulous. “That’s your family?”
“That’d be us.”
“Holy shit. That’s only the biggest funeral operation in the Metro area. You guys own more than a few funeral homes.”
Green seemed uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. “Is that going to be a problem?” he asked his new partner.
“Not for me,” Gonzo said.
“It might be an asset,” Sam said. “How would you feel about accompanying Angel to a few wakes, to see if she can ID her attacker?”
“I’m happy to do whatever it takes to stop these guys.”
“So how come you didn’t go into the funeral business?” Gonzo asked.
“Too depressing.”
After a beat, they all cracked up laughing at the irony of him choosing Homicide over funerals.