21 Weeks: Weeks 8-14

WEEK 8

…

R.A. LaShea

1 - Metro Homicide Murder Room - Monday, 8:30 a.m.

Short on gratitude over the last few days of her life, Beck was, at least, grateful for paper files. Technology was a godsend for running queries, and Beck would never say it hadn’t improved the field of police work, or that she would have wanted to be a cop before computers made the administrative part of the job ten times easier. When it came to comparing case to case, though, there was still nothing as effective as putting paper side by side and searching for commonalities. 

Most of the past week spent pulling and printing them herself, Beck had needed somewhere to invest her energy, and, six days later, she was deep in the process. Though it was hardly the same as chasing a drug dealer across the grounds of The Las Vegas Country Club and tackling him into a sandpit, this particular brand of paper-pulling did have its own reward. At least, this time.

Morning.

Looking to the partially-ajar door, Beck watched Williams poke his head inside.

Hey, she said.

Did you go home this weekend?

Some, Beck answered. Though, it had been sporadic.

A lot of cases to go through, more than Bishop came close to thinking, she was elbows-deep in files, divided up into four stacks - cases she knew by location were connected to their current killer, cases she knew were definitely not murder, cases she was fairly certain were murder, and those she got that feeling about, the one that said something important had been missed between the moment a body was discovered and the moment the case was filed into oblivion.

Just couldn’t part with the paperwork, huh? Williams uttered.

It is why I became a cop, Beck said, and, laughing as he sat down across the table from her, Williams glanced to his watch. Realizing he didn’t, technically, have to be there yet, he threaded his fingers on top of his head to watch Beck work.

You know Bishop wants you on this because he thinks you’ll find whatever it is he’s looking for, right? And you did prove him right already. So, did you? Find anything else?

Pushing one stack of files - the important stack - across the table, Beck settled back in her chair as Williams reached for the folder on top. Anxious to get back to what she was doing before he walked into the room, she knew she needed to settle her shit down. They were not going to solve this thing in a day. They were not going to solve it in a week. Or even in seven. Apparently.

These our cases? Williams asked.

I don’t know, Beck said. I still don’t entirely know what I’m looking for.

Please, Williams returned. You’ve probably got this whole thing figured out already.

Hardly. 

Even if she did, Beck didn’t know how much use it would be. If they really wanted to catch this killer, their best bet was to deputize the entire city and release the sketch of the man wider than they already had. Image put out there in connection with Amanda Reed’s murder, the only case they could officially tie it to, Beck had lobbied Bishop and Martinez to tie it to Ty Langdon’s death as well.

But the public would want to know why. They would want to know how the police knew their victims had a killer in common. No connection between Amanda Reed and Ty Langdon, aside from the city they lived in and the man who murdered them, there was also no good lie that would serve as adequate explanation. If they went public, they had to go public with the truth, and Bishop and Martinez weren’t ready. Not to tell their fellow detectives and officers. Not to tell the public. While the decision wasn’t necessarily wrong - panic had a way of bringing in thousands of false sightings, fearful reports that depleted their resources while getting them no closer to finding an actual suspect - it also wasn’t right. As much as she was a part of it, tagged and numbered by the badge on her hip, there would always be a part of Beck that rebelled against the bureaucracy of the system, and the fact that a small group of individuals got to control everyone else’s access to information.

Have you heard from your brother?

Looking across the table at Williams, Beck swallowed the small lump that lodged in her throat. No. Not yet. I don’t really expect to for a while.

But you think he’s okay?

Yeah. She did, at least, have some faith in that. Leo can take care of himself.

Marine Scout, I imagine he can, Williams said.

He just doesn’t always do a very good job of it, Beck returned.

Nodding, as if he had some grasp of the concept, Williams returned to the open file before him, and Beck tried to get her mind back on-point, in the hopes she might get some real answers in the coming days.

Morning.

Not looking up again until Bishop entered at ten ’til nine, Beck watched his gaze fall to the files on the table between Williams and her and could tell he was contemplating it.

Heard you were here most of the weekend, Bishop said.

Well, there’s only one of me, and, apparently, that’s deserving of punishment. Beck drew a laugh out of Williams and a move out of Bishop.

Is this what you found?

Springing across the table, Beck slapped her hand on top of the stack of files she’d given Williams to look at before Bishop could stick his meddlesome nose into her system. I’m not ready for you to look at them. I want to go through them again first.

Maybe I can help, Bishop tried.

You wanted me to do it. Let me do it my way.

How long is that going to take?

Probably too long for you. Beck was certain. But I’m getting through them as fast as I can. The fewer interruptions, the faster that will be.

Good to see you two getting along. Williams kicked back in his chair with a grin, and Bishop paused to send a less than amused look his way.

Fine, Bishop said. Give me an update -

Just as soon as I’m done, Beck preempted him before Bishop could impose some impossible timeframe upon her, and, not liking her answer, Bishop went back out the door with a shake of his head.

So, that was fun, Williams uttered.

What does he do all day anyway? Beck asked. Because I know he’s not rappelling into grain bins, and I know he’s not doing this.

I’m not asking. Returning to the file, Williams flipped the next one in the pile open beside it, gaze furrowing as he glanced between the two. You all right?

Beck only realized she’d let out a sigh as she tossed another file into the definitely not a murder pile when Williams looked up at her again, and she tried to figure out why everything felt so unbearably heavy. She’d been a cop more than a decade. She’d had some difficult cases. Those that seemed unsolvable. Those where people died. It had never felt like this before.

Yeah. It’s just… I know this sounds stupid, but, when I signed up for this gig, I don’t think I ever really thought about the fact we would only be getting to victims after they were already dead.

That is the downside of Homicide, Williams declared, staring across the table for a prolonged moment, before leaping suddenly to his feet. I’m going to get you real coffee.

No. Beck laughed at her partner’s evident fix for everything. You don’t have to. I’m fine.

I already said it, Williams returned, as if it was a binding verbal agreement. I want one too.

You know, you keep doing this every week, it’s going to become a habit, Beck said.

What’s wrong with that?

Stopping to squeeze her shoulder, Williams went on his errand, and Beck realized her partner was one more thing she could be infinitely grateful for as she pulled the pile of files she’d given him back across the table and started, once again, from the top.

2 - Stephanie Ferris’ Home - Wednesday, 2:30 p.m.

What in the hell is this place? Bishop edged forward toward the plexiglass wall. Curved just slightly at both ends, the balcony they stood on provided an unobstructed view through the heavy partition that divided the viewing area from the exhibition area, like a barrier at a zoo.

A realm of nightmare, Williams said, as he too stared out at the man-made swamp twelve feet below.

Wednesday afternoon when the call came in, it was so utterly bizarre, Williams couldn’t help but laugh about it as he came into the murder room to tell Beck they had a victim.

Where? she asked in return.

Anthem Hills.

What’s the address?

Blue Diamond Road.

Eleven sixty-two? Beck provided before Williams could tell her.

How did you know that? Her partner’s amusement came to an abrupt, and puzzled, end.

Digging through the pile of likelies on her right, Beck found the file in question, pushing it across the table and watching Williams flip it open to find the same address listed as the scene of a suspicious death that took place nearly thirty years before.

You did say the killer was using old crime scenes, he uttered as he made the connection.

Crap way to verify it. Elbows on the table, one hand resting on top of the other, Beck leaned her cheek against them. Pressure building inside of her, it tightened in her chest as she realized she knew where the killer was going, could have known at least, but was too slow to sound the alarm.

Was there any other way? Williams reasonably asked.

I guess not. Beck accepted the reality, though it failed to entirely alleviate the guilt as she got to her feet.

An hour later, her gaze swept around the massive room, built to resemble a cave, or a grotto. Twenty feet high from the swampy floor to the black ceiling that hung over the fake rock wall, the connected balcony housed a plexiglass door to the pit below on one wall and the only door that led in and out of the attached two-story house on the other. 

I assume everything I see is real. Gaze moving over the cobweb-covered plants boasting eight-legged inhabitants as big as Beck’s hand, it lingered on the eyes and snout that rose just above the swamp’s water line, before coming to rest on the cage, the size of a small car, that dangled five feet from the ceiling over the center of the swampy pit. Empty. Its bottom hanging wide.

I think that’s a safe assumption, Williams uttered.

Scorpion! Scorpion! 

Animal Control at work in the swamp pit with CSU, they were keeping the biggest threat under close observation, as they worked to gather the smaller, more immediate ones all around them.

No indication their potential murder scene would be cleared to investigate any time in the immediate future, Bishop turned from the plexiglass barrier to the man who had found their victim. Or, at least, what there was of their victim to find.

Joshua Scott? 

The tan-haired man in the Giants baseball shirt pushing off the wall by the door to the main house, he nodded in confirmation.

I’m Sergeant Bishop. We were told you discovered the… scene.

Yeah, Scott uttered.

Wasn’t much to find, Bishop said. How did you know Ms. Ferris wasn’t just out?

Because Stephanie doesn’t leave, Scott responded. She’s working on a show, hoping to get on the bill at one of the casinos. All she does is work. Plus, her car was here, so when she didn’t answer the door, I let myself in.

You have a key? Beck asked.

Stephanie gave it to me. She said it was just in case.

In case of what?