Stuck in the Middle

“I literally am going to fall asleep right here,” Brendon complains.

Gerard checks his watch to see that it’s almost seven in the morning. They’ve been there all night, just looking through files.

“Yeah,” Gerard nods. “Brendon, you can go home but I’m expecting you back before five.”

“Oh, he gets to go home,” Frank mutters.

“Take Frank with you,” Gerard says.

“No,” Brendon says, but he doesn’t argue in the slightest at getting to leave. Actually he looks like Christmas has come early. Sleep is the best sounding thing in the world to all of them right about now though.

“I’ve been looking through the statements for the past hour or so,” Patrick says, “and there are some varying accounts.”

“Like what?”

“Just some little things,” Patrick says, “just think you might want to clear a few of these things up. I’ve got some witnesses describing guns that do not match the bullet casings left at the scene.”

“Who has the file on the bullet casings?” Gerard asks. He watches Brendon enviously as he grabs his jacket from the back of his chair, and waves a slow goodbye to them before he leaves the room.

“I do,” Frank says, holding it up.

“Three dead, do the bullets all match to the same gun?”

Frank sighs and looks down at his file, “two of them match. The second and third victim match, but the first victim was killed with a different gun.”

“What does that mean?” Patrick asks.

“No clue right now. Might have been two different killers, or it may not have been,” Gerard replies, “so, basically we’ve got four guys, one of them is a woman, and none of our witnesses can tell us anything about the robbers other than their ski masks?”

“Uh,” Patrick looks at his file. He’s got all the information on the witness statements, so he’s got all the descriptions given to them by people in the restaurants.

“I feel like we should have some sort of information on voices. Accents, tone, anything. I don’t care if all we have is something as minimal as having scratchy voices like they smoke, I just want some information on who we’re dealing with.”

“Well most of them say that it all happened so fast that they didn’t really think to check. A lot of these are faulty as well, they’re just making things up because they want to be helpful but don’t remember enough to actually be of any help.”

“Give me an example,” Gerard says.

Patrick nods, and picks out one statement, “One person recalls that the first one who walked in was wearing a red sweatshirt. It had a sports team logo on it, they’re positive that this was the first person. The other statements all say differently. Most of them only got a good look of the red sweatshirt, because the other three were wearing black. I can confirm that the red sweatshirt was a universal recollection, but only one person says it was for a sports team. Most of these people are saying that the red sweatshirt was a maroon color, and had no affiliation on it.”

“Great so all we have is a red fucking sweatshirt,” Frank says, sounding bored.

Gerard rolls his eyes, “I asked for the security footage from the most recent robbery, as it’s the only one that had real surveillance. The first one had dummy cameras, and the other only had cameras in the parking lot, but the robbers parked in a blind spot. The footage should be here soon, because it’s morning and people will be working on it now. Maybe we’ll get somewhere with that.”

“Great,” Patrick says, because he knows he’s going to be the one who has to look through that.

“Maybe we’ll be able to find out what brand of sweatshirt that was,” Frank says condescendingly, “I really need to know. My own red sweatshirt is getting kind of old, I can buy a new one.”

“Shut up,” Gerard says standing up.

“Whoa, where are you going?” Frank asks.

“I’m going to visit the first two crime scenes,” Gerard says, “it’s my case now and I haven’t even seen where the first two bodies were.”

“I’m coming with you then,” Frank says, jumping up.

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re not going to stop me,” Frank says.

“You are not going to come with me,” Gerard says firmly.

“He really should,” Patrick says, “we’ve all looked through the files for the past eight hours. I think it’s safe to say that we know what we’re dealing with, but we haven’t actually seen the place for real.”

“Why does Frank have to come with me?” Gerard says, questioning for a moment whether he is or is not, in fact, the boss. He is, he’s in charge. He doesn’t have to take Frank with him.

“Because he still isn’t acquainted with this job,” Patrick says, “listen, if he stays here, he’s only going to get in my way. I’m the one who has to look at all the security footage, I don’t need him distracting me, and I don’t mean that in a rude way, but I really don’t want him here.”

“But he’s going to get in my way,” Gerard says.

“Just, ugh, you’re going to have to get along sooner or later,” Patrick points out.

“Fine, jeez,” Gerard says, stomping his foot. Frank looks at him with a triumphant grin that Gerard really wants to slap off his face. What he wouldn’t give to hit this guy in the stomach or something. He’s literally a federal officer though, there’s no way he would be able to do that without getting into trouble. He does really want to hurt Frank though. Gerard kind of wants to avoid hurting Frank’s face, because he does have nice face but at the same time, his face is the only thing Frank’s got going for him so punching him would screw up his only worth.

“Patrick, while we’re out, and while you wait for the footage, I want you to get those cases on B and E’s. I want to figure out who our dead woman is.”

“Got it,” Patrick nods.

“By the way, if you cross me I’ll cut off your ear and feed it to a pigeon,” Gerard says to Frank before exiting the room.

“Strangest threat I’ve ever received,” Frank says, but he follows behind Gerard.

Gerard doesn’t talk to Frank, or even look at him along the whole trip down the elevator. He just stares at the opposite wall and tries to pretend that Frank doesn’t exist. He’s hoping that if he wishes hard enough, Frank might just pop out of existence. It’s not working.

“You going to ignore me the whole way there?”

“Pretty much,” Gerard says when the doors open. Frank has to hurry behind Gerard to catch up to him. Gerard is walking quickly on purpose, Frank can tell, because the guy likes making short jokes. Really though, Gerard is not that much taller than Frank. Maybe a few inches, but it’s not like there’s a really huge difference.

About the time when Gerard and Frank are entering the parking garage is when Gerard’s phone rings. He groans and pulls out the phone, assuming it’s someone calling to tell him more about his case. Instead, he sees Mikey’s name in the caller ID.

“Why are you calling me so early?” Gerard asks as a greeting. Frank gives him a funny look, not knowing who’s on the other end, as they make their way to Gerard’s car. Frank and Gerard are not very good at coordinating, so Frank’s motorcycle is still parked where it was last night. They are going to have to get better at hiding these things, because they work with a bunch of detectives. Literally they work with people who solve mysteries for a living, and they’re not hiding their ‘relationship’ very well.

“Don’t try to pretend that you’re not awake,” Mikey replies.

“Alright, I won’t. How’d you know I was awake?”

“Well I was just eating breakfast and I see your face shooing away a journalist on my TV,” Mikey says.

“Fuck,” Gerard groans, “well that’s just fantastic.”

“It didn’t say anything more than just that you were heading the investigation,” Mikey says, “didn’t even say your name.”

“How’d they even know I’m the lead investigator?” Gerard says, “This wasn’t even my case until last night. Journalists are vultures. No consideration for the fact that a woman is dead.”

“Three people.”

“Don’t correct me on my own case,” Gerard says. He stops when they’re in front of his car but he doesn’t get in just yet. Gerard hears Frank groan loudly to annoy him which he is successful in accomplishing.

“I just thought you should know that you were on the news,” Mikey says, “so was Frank.”

“Frank was too?”

“What about me?” Frank asks, trying to look at Gerard from over the car, but just as he does so, Gerard opens his door and steps in. He doesn’t want to be in an enclosed space with Frank, but he’d rather not be here where everyone can eavesdrop on him.

“Just his face,” Mikey says.

“Frank, you didn’t say anything to the reporters did you?” Gerard asks when Frank steps into the car.

“No,” Frank says, looking confused by the question.

“Are you sure, because you do realize it’s illegal to talk about an ongoing investigation to the media. It’s called obstruction and I’m not afraid to charge someone on my own team with it.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Frank insists. Gerard sometimes hates that he’s good at profiling people, because he wants to believe Frank is lying so much, but he doesn’t see any amount of dishonesty in Frank’s face whatsoever. That’s a bummer because Gerard would love to get Frank suspended for a week or two.

“Whatever,” Gerard says, “I wish people in news were smart enough to realize that broadcasting my face doesn’t get me anywhere closer to finding my serial robbery ring.”

Mikey doesn’t have a proper response, he just says, “So if you’re working this case then does that mean you’re going to be busy?”

“When am I not busy?” Gerard asks.

“I don’t know, but we haven’t talked in a while. Basically ever since Frank joined your team,” Mikey says.

“Well that’s because I’ve been too busy focusing all my energy on not murdering Frank to talk to you. As soon as this case is over though, or maybe if we hit a dead end. Sorry, Mikey, this isn’t an easy job to maintain a social life with.”

“Yeah whatever,” Mikey says, “just go catch a murderer or whatever you’re doing.”

“Even more exciting than that,” Gerard replies sarcastically, “We’re going to go canvas an old crime scene so that we can split up and search for clues.”

“We? I’m assuming since I heard Frank’s voice, ‘we’ is you and him.”

“Cut it out, Mikey. We both know I hate Frank.”

“Excuse you,” Frank says.

“I’m a federal agent, I don’t lie,” Gerard says, “Just, um, Mikey, I’ll talk to you later. I want to get away from Frank as soon as I possibly can, and talking to you will prolong that.”

“Fine,” Mikey says, “But I’m going to avoid fancy restaurants until you find these guys.”

“Maybe not a bad idea,” Gerard says.