The Answers Just Beg More Questions

Aug 1st, 2011 12:26 PM

Derevko was early to work the following morning. He grumbled under his breath as he filled out the incident paperwork in the office he shared with Dullahan and Fletcher. Around him, the smell of lemons lingered in the air. He supposed on some level, he was lucky that he hadn't been seriously burned by the soup of broken down human tissue and whatever the fuck that caustic crap had been. He knew that one of the HazMat team had told him what they thought it was, but he'd been marginally distracted.

No, that wasn't really right. He'd been wrestling with his temper. The fact that he'd screwed up so badly, the fact that he'd just wanted to cave Donaldson's face in. It would have been satisfying. Talking about that wouldn't have been a fucking good idea though. He was on edge, and it boiled underneath the surface, making him want to smash the shit out of something. Or someone. His fingers flexed as he tried to concentrate on the Goddamn writing.

When the other two got there, they'd be able to check the fucking perp out, but until then, he wasn't going to trust himself talking to Donaldson.

The scarred agent thought there was a very real possibility that he'd lose his cool. And when he lost his cool, things got really, really fucked up.

Well, at least after the corpse juice yesterday, nothing could make this fucking week worse.

Aug 2nd, 2011 06:53 AM

Jake arrives at the office silently and mumbles something that might pass for "good morning" to Derevko. He throws his bag on his desk, then just sits there with his head low for a while. Only after some minutes he speaks again.

"I guess Fletcher will want to question Donaldson, won't she? Her kind of psycho, I guess." He straightens up and turns to Jonathan, purses under his eyes. "You OK?"

**Cayce** · Aug 3rd, 2011 02:19 PM

Beatrix Fletcher walked through the office doors exactly five minutes early, laptop case and coffee in hand. She wore a smart-looking, charcoal pant suit that looked freshly pressed, but no matter how precise her timing or how meticulous her ensemble was, she still looked like she hadn't slept in the last 24 hours. She maneuvered around the closely packed jumble of desks until she folded into her seat, stifling a yawn while placing her computer on the desk.

"Morning Derevko; Dullahan," she offered, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "I've been checking through the DHS, FBI, and local police databases for anything that could remotely resemble the calling card left at Hertz's place. So far I haven't found anything but there's still a lot of digital ground yet to cover. How are things on your fronts?"

Aug 3rd, 2011 05:23 PM

Jake chuckles a bit, then he shakes his head and looks at Fletcher. "Hertz is dead, by the gardener. He confessed. Oh, he also killed other two or three or ten people, bathed the bodies in acid or something and hid them behind a plaster wall at his office. How does that sound?" He stares bluntly at Beatrix for a few seconds, still grinning, and then the smile fades along with the general hostility. He looks away from the other agent. "Sorry... I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to be... Yesterday, I don't... Too much to swallow in only a day." He breathes deeply before he continues. "We went to Donaldson's office hoping to get, I don't know, a word or two that would put us on the right track, on any track, then the man simply crumbled and admitted killing him. We, Derevko found the bodies and he admitted killing them too. We don't know who they are... Were... Or why Donaldson killed them. He had to, he said. No ID's, the bodies might be too disfigured, decomposed, corroded, I don't know, to identify them or maybe even to determine cause and time of death. We have no answers about it from forensics yet."

"Donaldson is in custody since yesterday. We didn't question him further. I... I don't know if he has a lawyer already. I don't know if he's fit to answer anything, he clearly wasn't yesterday. From the look of it, he might not even go to a court, maybe straight to an asylum or something. We... I simpoly don't know how to talk to him, how to reach him. I've used all I had yesterday, I just... Can't. We figured we could ride along if you wished to do it, though." Jake's tiredness is very clear right now; he opens his bag and reaches for a flask of pills. He swallows one without water.

**Cayce** · Aug 3rd, 2011 06:06 PM

Beatrix listened intently as Dullahan spoke, her eye's returning his gaze flatly, her face impassive until he finished speaking. Then, with exaggerated and methodical care, Fletcher slid her lap top case to the side of her desk and leaned forward on her elbows. For several seconds she stared at Jake, unblinking, and then replied in a voice both measured and flat.

"To reply to your question, Agent Dullahan, that sounds like excellent progress on the case."

She paused, giving the statement time to sink in, before continuing in the same manner. "It's easy to see that you experienced something truly horrific, something that your not used to, and its weighing on you. I congratulate you for pulling through while you were still in the field. I know from experience that situations like that are few and that no one can really hope to be calm during or after them. Now, I also understand how things can be in the field and I don't begrudge you or Derevko for not contacting me with the news. However, in the future, I trust that you won't create an imagined enemy in me by misplacing whatever stress your under."

She sat back, breaking the look of challenge, and took a drink of coffee, letting the bitter drink sit in her mouth while she checked her emotions. She would Dullahan this favor, once, and not make things harder for him. If it happened again, though, his chances would be all used up.

The female agent looked to both of her partners, and set the coffee down. "All of that said, we need to continue the investigation and question Donaldson. It can be an effective tactic to switch interrogators so I would like to spend time questioning him... When should we leave?"

Aug 4th, 2011 01:52 PM

"Actually, I didn't contact you because I was in a chemical decontamination shower," Derevko said, not looking up from his paperwork. "Then I had to go scrub every inch of myself down with lemons to get the smell of decomp off my body. Put my fist through the cavity with the bodies in and got hosed. I'm surprised. Donaldson was puking like a bitch. It's been bugging me ever since, how the fuck he managed to liquidate them without heaving his guts every time." The scarred agent looked up, scowled at the tension, and shook his head. Fucking kids.

"Dullahan, play nice with the new Fed. She's as much your partner as I am. You went through shit, but that doesn't mean you get to take it out on her for not being there. Fletcher, you sound like you've got a stick up your ass with this 'Imagined enemy' garbage. Knock it off; he's on this team too, and that means you don't get to talk down to him," Derevko snapped. "We work together or not at all. I won't have you two sniping at each other, regardless of what a bad fucking day we all might have had."

"So, let's go play with Donaldson."

Aug 5th, 2011 05:18 AM

Ok, he had said some harsh stuff to people that shouldn't have heard it, but did he really deserve that epic patronizing because of that? He thinks of something to say back to Fletcher and Derevko... But if it wasn't for my smart remarks already, I would not have heard these nice remarks from boss slash shrink slash mom, would I?

Crap, she's right, I'm overreacting. Jake takes a deep breath, catches his stuff and gets up. "Let's go then."

**Cayce** · Aug 5th, 2011 02:20 PM

"Fair enough," Fletcher said, quirking her mouth. She stood up, downing the rest of her morning's IQ concoction, and pulled a notepad and pencil from her laptop case. Derevko wasn't far off the mark, she ruminated. They were both acting childish, but unlike Dullahan, she didn't really have an excuse.

"I'm ready to go," Beatrix affirmed, the weight of her pistol and cuffs an obvious assurance of their presence.

Following behind the two she thought about why she'd reacted so hostilely to Dullahan how apparent it was that he was just coping with the case. Her eyes flicked back and forth as she performed a few psychological gymnastics and finally came to the conclusion that it was because Jake had brought up, and taunted her with, the very thing which was secretly pissing her off. She hadn't been present when her team had made the bust, the big break in the case, and she hadn't even been told about it until the day after; it was almost like being kicked from regular duty all over again. She grimaced briefly, chiding herself, and then focused on the task at hand.

"So, what points do we really want to address with Donaldson? Obviously we want to cover the motive for the killings as well as the details of said killings, but is there anything else you two would like to cover?"

Aug 6th, 2011 03:19 AM

"I know I want details of his movements after he murdered Hertz. Motive'd be nice. How he did it'd be nice. What he meant by 'I had to kill them' would be pretty fucking nice," Derevko said, shaking his head. "In short, I just wanna get this guy's confession then pack him in the slammer with the other lunatics. Those drawings of his were fucked up, all the dimensions were all screwy. His brain's busted." Derevko was clearly always an eloquent analyser of human emotion and motive.

Aug 6th, 2011 02:32 PM

"Also, there's the whole security angle we need to cover - if it was him who ransacked Hertz' house and why, if he found something and what, if he found the underground lab, if he was exposed to any of Hertz' research, if he shared it with anyone..." Something on the way Hertz had acted the day before didn't quite add up on Jake's head; the ransacked house led them to believe a kidnapping, then a convenient suspect confesses his murder, apparently having nothing to do with the stashed lab. And...

"And there's that chess piece and note. The one I.. We" - he looked at Fletcher, remembering she sort of shared his thoughts on this - "thought could be a signature."

Jake slows his steps a little. "Derevko, we had no time to talk yesterday after... After that. But... Didn't Donaldson's behavior strike you as... Odd? Do you think it matches the crime scene at Hertz' house? Fletcher, you'll see what it is when you see the man."

The Answers Just Beg More Questions

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