Crimes & Punishment-(Closed)

[Roxanne Ballard (DELETED 7623)]

This is backdated to December 24th 2009. It will progress from that date forward.

REPORT ON POST MORTEM EXAMINATION NO. 76-W-043

NAME OF THE DECEASED: WATSON, Joseph Andrew AGE: 67

PATHOLOGIST: Roxanne V. Ballard M.D.

DATE: December 24, 2009

LOCATION: Harper Rock, Ontario

WITNESSED BY: Chief Deputy Coroner William S. Miles M.D.

SPECIMENS RETAINED: Wet tissue, vitreous fluid, DNA Blood Card, peripheral blood sample, urine, hair, fingernail clippings

MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION: Above

____________________________________________________________

GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The body of a tall male said to be in his late 60’s. Body presents brownish-white facial hair and eyebrows with brownish-white color. Scalp hair is short, thinning and receding at the forehead greyish white in color. Brownish-white body hair is present on the surface sparse on top half and more pronounced on lower extremities. Fingernails are long and chipped. Nail beds are of bluish-red discoloration. Toenails are long, chipped and there is the appearance of bluish-red cyanosis present. The back is covered by livores. Right gluteal area reveals 10 recent needle marks that are recognized of 5-8 cm. There are no abnormalities found on the back with further inspection. Body is clear of bruises, notable injuries or distinguishable palpable masses.

Further post mortem examination was refused by family for religious reasons. Toxicology results pending.

Roxanne V. Ballard M.D.

RVB
12-24-09

__________________________

________________________________

I push the document away and am left looking at my hand. The way my fingers press on the recorder in my grip reminds me of anything but what I am currently doing. In this particular instance I recall the weight of a cool bar glass of room temperature whiskey recently cradled in my hand. Less than twelve hours prior in fact. Too recent to forget and too vivid to recall without feeling like crawling into a deep hole would be wiser.

The first three drinks went down smoothly. The following two shots that served as chasers were not needed. Looking back I should have just left right then and there. Jack Daniel’s was never a friend of mine and my head still throbs to be a constant physical reference. Against my own judgement, which was intoxicated, I stayed. When I finally did leave the bar, where we had the office holiday party, I didn’t leave alone.

Just like every other night I regretted I had his *** in tow. He, of course, would be the one I have spent the better part of the last twenty years of my otherwise relatively short life trying to decide if still want to be married to or not. I don’t make decisions impulsively. I meant to marry the son of a *****. We have issues and spent this Christmas doing what we did the Christmas before and nearly every other. Once again our kid proves to be smarter than either of us are. She informed us that this fucked up cycle between us is never going to end. I wonder if it did would I finally lose this Lucas Ballard hang over I always end up with the morning after? I swear it’s trying to hit the New Year.

I set the recorder down once the record button is pressed to end the verbal account of the recent examination I have completed. I don’t need anymore reminders of what I did and I could really use a block of ice perched on the top of my head. I make my way to the office refrigerator that the staff is able to personally use. I pull it open and find leftover cheesecake from the holiday party which I ignore. My stomach wants to be the reason I don’t see the New Year arrive.

Hangovers are never pretty and this one is like it was spawned in hell and set my way. I wear it because I owned it the minute I woke within the tolerable confines of a hotel suite surrounding me. I was drunk enough to go there but still sober enough to know taking him back to my place was a bad idea. He would think it was time to move back in. Just as would be going to his hole he inhabited which I am pretty sure is no better shape than mine. I am a workaholic and my apartment looks like it. So does the dive he lives in.

Back to the night that should have never been. I know where he lives but I was not exactly in the shape to wake up looking at anymore of him than I had already seen. I didn’t want to smell his sheets when my eyes opened. I didn’t want to hang around long enough to see if he still leaves his clothes laying around or finally owns a hamper and figured out how to use it. I didn’t want to be in his chosen interior walls even if he banged the holy hell out of mine. It is amazing how much clarity I can keep hold of while I ingest more alcohol in four hours of his awkward company than I am known to consume in the span of an average year. Drunk or not I still know we are toxic.

The icepack that settles on the top of my head is like a tiara of ice I will wear until it is reduced to being nothing more than a warm bag that will be useless...which ironically is how I feel. I finished up the reports and will get them sent out. I only hope my cell phone and pager do not go off. The more time that passes and I do not cross his path the better all the way around. I am sure he has the same feelings as well. I think I left the condom wrapper in the sink. Hopefully he’d leave and skipped the bathroom pit stop like I did. I should have just put in for vacation back in October and headed to Rio for the holidays on vacation like mom suggested. I could have done something fun like get a tan and a couple postcards. One day I will learn to take her advice. She told me this would be easily solved if I just sucked it up and divorced him.

The shrill of my pager calls to me from across the room. I don’t want to go after it but if I leave it I ignore my duties of my job as a lead medical examiner for the coroner’s office. Someone somewhere has been found a lot less merrier and bright than they were before I met up Jack Daniel’s and Mr. Wonderful. I save my head from spontaneous explosion due to the annoying sound and grip the small device in my hand. I was right. Another body needing a set of eyes to discover the reason it no longer has a pulse.

The joys of my chosen profession are 24/7. Death waits for no one. I put a call out to the team and tell them I am on my way. That is as soon as I locate another ice pack and brush my teeth for the millionth time since I left the hotel. I still feel like I am tongue ******* an ashtray. If only he would have stuck with one thing in his damned life. I spent enough on the cessation intervention. He just took it as an expensive hint to smoke away from the house and the kid.

[Lucas Ballard]

At least she’s fast. I lay there, looking at the snow falling outside the window. The frosty layer blurs the flakes and by the time they disappear behind the bottom of the sill they are nothing but blurred movement. I wait while she gathers her clothes. Skips the bathroom, thank God. That eliminates the longest part of her need to be here. It’s not long before the hotel door closes behind her. Gone.

My throat hurts. Smoked too many cigarettes last night. Stands to reason that drinking too many beers and too many shots of Crown is why my head feels four sizes bigger than it should. The headache is one of those throbbing ones that sit behind your eye hitting them with those bigass poles you use to ring gongs. At least these gongs are silent. Guess this might change the social dynamics again. Used to tell her to blow me when she pissed me off. She’s told me to eat her several times. Can’t really use em in disgust or anger once you have done it and liked it. ******* *****. Always was a hellcat in the sack.

Pardon the pun, right? How the **** did I end up taking home the chick that plays with dead guys? Easy. She’s my ex-wife. Really my still-is-wife though we’ve been going through a separation for about twenty years. Ugh. Stale beer breath, pain while moving. Yeah, this is a hangover. I reach for my phone. Missed a call. An hour ago. ****. That’ll be work. No one else calls people at 4:00am in the damned morning. Only work. My work. Or my daughter. That’s a different story though. She’s never quite managed to either figure out that there’s a time difference between England and Ontario or she just likes to torment me at all hours of the night. I don’t get mad when she does though. I love to hear from her whenever she gets the time to call with her busy schedule. I miss her. Miss her mom too. Except right now. Right now I don’t miss her mom at all. She just left.

Some people log out from the worksite at 5pm and then go home and sit down to a nice home cooked meal. Me? All hours of the day or night because death never rests. More to the point people causing each other’s death never rest. I’m a homicide detective for the beautiful city of Harper Rock. We aren’t as big as Toronto and there isn’t the same crime as across the lakes in the States, but we get our share.

I hit the call button twice and, sure as ****, there comes the number popping up on the screen as the phone dials out. The office.

“Homicide”

“Yeah, it’s Ballard.”

“Move your *** Ballard, we need you. 10-44. Chief is there. He’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Uh huh…”

“Ballard? Gargle some mouthwash before you go and at least rinse off.”

I hang up the phone. I wanted to say something smartass but he’s right. Ugh. He forgot the whole “down a bottle of Advil part”. The morning is shaping up to be crumby. It’s Christmas Eve. Roxanne just left… I fucked her. Pretty sure there’s gonna be fallout from that. Someone is dead and to make everything better, Roxanne of course is going to get a call to come look at the body too.

This is gonna be awkward.

Ain’t gonna get roped into another Department Christmas party ever again.

[Roxanne Ballard (DELETED 7623)]

“You on your way?” Tamara was at least kind about asking. Maybe it was the way I answered like I was growling. “You okay?”

Which I was. I had a bag of Funyuns pinched between my teeth as I closed the cooler in the room in the back of the office that is loaded with snacks and refreshments like a party was just waiting to happen. The waiting room or the place where hearts were broken and souls crushed. It was the point of entry for those who were brave enough to identify the body of a loved one or simply to ID the carcass of someone they would rather forget. Tamara caught on before I could pull the bag from my teeth as I opened the official unmarked car that would take me there. The windows were tinted. Thank ******* god for that.

“They are all on the scene and waiting for you and your bag to find some answers.” The sound of her voice seems painful to process.

“I still hurt so let’s keep this short and sweet shall we?” I toss the snack bag that will have to wait on the passenger’s seat next to my carry along baggage that is a mobile crime lab in itself. “The usual people?”

I ask without adding anything to tip off Tamara that I was less enthused than ever before of the possibility of running into my husband. She knows the deal. I say I hate him, he tells her that he hates me. I say I am finally going to file for divorce to which he never fails to be a prick and remind me that this is an odd year all twelve months long. That means I am the one covering the tuition for the overseas tuition.

To add to all of the above is the simple fact that the New Year is coming up and none of what we both have said will happen has been carried out. However, everything we swore wouldn’t happen in fact has. There has been speculation about us reconciling but anytime that begins one of us is tossing the other out the door. I am pretty sure we are one of those couples that get off making the other miserable.

The other night. It shouldn’t be anything different. I need to remember this. What draws us back to getting between the sheets despite the way we fight like cats and dogs after can mean only one thing. We are cursed to be together in some way, shape or form. The whole till death do us part stuck. I wince as the vehicle is rolling into the sunny side of the street. **** him.

“Yes, they are all there. I was told to call and make sure you weren’t drowning your sorrows in a bucket of icewater. Your ex-to-be is on it. Rumor is you had a rough night?”

“So help me…” I am cut off before I can finish. It hurts too much to deny it.

“I will take that as a yes. I will let them know you are walking in.”

Less than four minutes later I am doing exactly that. Of course he would be standing there when I walk into the room carrying my bags like a pack mule. The sunglasses on my face hardly help the situation as the eyes in the room turn on me. I need Rio really bad. Michael, the on and off again boyfriend, reminds me there is an open ticket to meet him there. He deserves better than what I have to offer and he just doesn’t get it. I groan and it makes my head hurt worse.

The truth hurts. I can feel it as I spot him as expected with a styrofoam cup in hand doing what he does best...well second best. Like a champ he is handing out orders like he was leading an invasion of some sort.

Maybe he could just go away? Probably not.

I don’t step any farther and wait while I slide the gas station shades to rest on the top of my head.

“What do we have?” I sigh and realize that a hint of Crest Winterfresh was chasing my words to make everything seem much less awkward than it really was.

Who was I kidding?

[Lucas Ballard]

Ok, so she left the condom wrapper in the sink. That was cute. It’s a little fucked up too, considering the trash can right at the side of the sink. Not as fucked up as the unused condom that I was sleeping on. Must not have been able to figure out how to put it on last night. I’m hoping to hell I don’t get a call from her in a couple months.

The drive over to the location is fun. I’m not really sure if I am hungover or still drunk. I’m spewing Listerine into an empty McDonald's cup though repeatedly. Gonna smell like I was attacked by a toothpaste version of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man by the time I get to the scene. And so this is the season to be jolly. Fa la la la ******* la. Somewhere between my pad and Alpha Towers my brain turns to mush. I’m thinking of the way she moved while she was on top of me and it’s a fond memory. I’m feeling her skin under me while I’m kissing her, sliding into her and it’s a really fond memory. I’m missing that connection. Maybe that call in a couple months wouldn’t be so bad…

Snapping back to reality I realize what I’m thinking. Who I’m thinking it about. What the hell? Roxanne “Tag em and Bag em” Ballard? ****, I’m too lively for her tastes and she likes touching stiffs too much for mine. Maybe I should get a dog. Yeah, I need a dog. Not really got the time for one though. A cat? Yeah. I think I’ll get a cat. Not a woman, definitely not my probably-future-ex-wife. Definitely not Roxanne Ballard. That sex though… Haven’t had it like that since right before she took me to the cleaners over some ********. Said I was cheating on her, I was, but no more than she was cheating on me. It was only a couple times, this other detective, new girl at the time. She was ******* some international businessman or whatever he is. Nothing emotional there, just a physical thing I guess on both our parts. I was never abusive to Roxanne. Never laid a finger on her and was at work so damned often I barely had time to **** her let alone anyone else most of the time.

I guess she figured that being married to a hotshot top-of-his-class-at-the-Academy detective would be glamorous. Maybe it was just comfortable. We’d been together since we were in Junior High. We were always together. Kinda been that way our whole adult lives too on and off. This last time though, we swore we were done.

Then last night happened...

Finally I arrive, my thoughts are garbled inside my throbbing head and bits and pieces of my pathetic love life are floating in and out of it, but here I am reporting for duty like a good little worker bee. Only a few hours late. Not like the guy I’m here to see is going anywhere.

So here’s the thing. Being a homicide detective isn’t glamorous. People make it out to be ******* glamorous. People are ******* stupid. It’s not glamorous walking into a bloodbath, having to preserve a scene you can’t move around in cause ballistics will need to see every little bit of arterial spray that laced the walls, floor, staircase, table and front door with little red droplets. It’s not glamorous to arrive on the scene and take a look around while the smell is battling that of the smelling salts you had to sniff to make it in the front door. Respirators aren’t comfy either so don’t think that’s the catch-all solution.

This scene wasn’t as bad as all that. Looks like a 10-41 gone wrong. Perp was likely looking for some loot. Been a rash of this type of crime going on cause of the holidays. It’s cheaper to stock your kids tree with other people’s property. This one is different because of the pistol in the deceased hand. Different because the gun was fired. Perp might have been shot in the struggle. If so, first thing we’ll do is check the hospitals. This throbbing headache really makes me hope that’s all it’s gonna take, but my rotten luck tonight is telling me it ain’t gonna be that easy.

No witnesses. No home security system.Tells me something I don’t wanna know. This isn’t really a simple B&E gone wrong. This is a pro. No one heard the shots in an apartment with residents on both sides of the apartment I’m standing in looking down at this guy. Not many guys doing break-ins with silenced pistols. Not many doing break ins that could have point their first and only shot directly on the center of their targets forehead either.. One shot, one kill. This ain’t a local kid stealing T.V.s..

I’m lost in my own headache, dizziness and thoughts enough that the voice babbling behind me takes a moment to sink in. I look back at the uniform trying to talk to me. “Huh?”

“”No one checked into any of the local ER’s detective.”

“Oh.” I stare blankly at the patrolman and he shuffles his feet nervously. “That all?”

“No sign of forced entry either.”

“Yeah… I saw that.” I guess the annoyance shows in my voice, maybe on my face, I wouldn’t be surprised I likely look like the dude on the floor warmed over. “Thanks.” The officer heads out of the room, for a brief moment in time the scene is mine. I turn back to the corpse and kneel down, looking around the room.

This dude has, had money. There’s a lot of expensive things in here. That’s a problem with the whole 10-41 theory. Looks like the hacks over at the station are gonna have their work cut out for them going through bank records and this guy's personal life. Once they arm me with a ton of pointless information it’ll be my glamorous job to sift through it, pluck out one or two facts that will give us a real motive, a list of possible suspects and then hopefully, enough forensic evidence to link one of them to the events that created this mess.

Glamorous.

The voices in the hallway alert me to the fact my morning is about to get awkward again. **** me running.

I decide to take the valiant path. You know, Face the music, man up, lie in the bed I made. Then I change my mind. I slip out the front door, leaving the other shields in there and head toward the lobby to get a coffee while the coroner does her thing. What can I say? I hate awkward meetings.

[Roxanne Ballard (DELETED 7623)]

I do what is expected as soon as my crew is behind me and suited up. The badges are escorted out and the professional required for the crime scene kicks in. Everything is subject to inspection. By the time my team is done we have a pretty good guess when he last flossed, how many hairs are on the back of his *** and what likely hit him hard enough to knock his lights out permanently. I label the last samples from the crime scene and package them up appropriately.

“Tag it and bag it, boys.”

I say it without thinking about it. By now I have seen it all and I have only been out of med school and on the job five years. I can't say it is ever boring but it does desensitize me to the world. I see the results of how sick and cruel the inhabitants truly are.

The black body size bag strapped securely to to the gurney rolls by me and eventually out the door. My work in the apartment is done. An intern has already asked all the right questions and recorded the answers. The real meat and bones of my job will be carried out in a sterile stainless surgical steel adorned room that has drains in the floor tile.

I peel off my surgical gloves and the crime scene garb that will be bagged once I am free of it thanks to yet another helpful and motivated intern. I always get the young and ambitious fresh grads. I like the energy. It works out. Once I have pulled off the disposable booties covering my shoes I give a nod of direction that it is time to head out.

With relief I find Lucas nowhere in my sight. I can only hope for a clean getaway while I pick up my gear and make quick tracks towards the hallway outside the apartment. If I am lucky I can avoid that morning after awkward “can't-believe-we-did-that-again” moment.

While I do what it is that i do to clear out I am pretty sure I will get a call later. Much later. Usually arrives when I am half asleep between calls from work. All the money invested in the kid’s education and she still has no concept of the hours between Ontario and Europe. It doesn’t help that her Dad tells her nearly everything. Perhaps he and I would have worked out better if he had talked to me instead.

[Lucas Ballard]

The crowd of cops is still mulling about. A murder like this, high profile. I wonder about that. Why would a professional hitter do it like a smash ‘n’ grab? Only reason is to make it public. The silencer would have made it quiet enough that the kill could have gone unnoticed and there are always better ways than this. Better times, better places, better methods. I think this might be the beginning of a bigger issue than the murder itself.

Coffee isn’t helping the hang-over. Not feeling any better. It’s not making up for the sleep lost last night either. That’s Mrs. Ballard’s fault. If it wasn’t for her I would have been doing great this morning. I’d be well rested and on point. Instead I spent the night doing things to a beautiful woman I’m pretty sure are illegal in 49 states. Fun doesn’t begin to cover it, but the reality is it was a mistake. I hear her customary “tag it and bag it” line from the room up ahead. I should have taken longer getting the coffee but there’s only so long you can stare and pretend like you are torn between powdered creamer or liquid, aspartame or sugar packs like you are trying to decide. So here I am entering the scene again just as she’s leaving. Just in time for that whole “Oh how are you chick I don’t like but went balls deep in last night” moment.

I turn to make my way down to the lobby again to dodge her once more and that’s when my buddy, Scott Ward, a junior detective calls to me. From the other end of the hall. Just in time for me to have to turn around and see Roxanne coming out of the apartment.

Lovely.

[Roxanne Ballard (DELETED 7623)]

“What are you doing for New Year’s, Roxanne?”

I hear the question and the voice sending it out but I am easily distracted. It isn’t the informality in which I am addressed but perhaps I should be concerned. It is a red flag on the job when I am being called by my first name and my title is left out. It will have to wait. I am always quick to jump on those first flags. For the moment I am caught more off-guard than I ever have been before by the face that comes to view. Lucas Ballard. I wasn’t as lucky as I first hoped to be.

My feet stop as the one asking for my plans for the next holiday literally runs into me from behind.

“Trying to forget Christmas Eve…” I lower my voice to a near whisper. The one behind me doesn’t miss the signal and I hear a sigh. Dillion. Of course it has to be him.
“Serious?” His shoulder that brushes across mine does little to turn my attention on him. “What do you say?”

What do I say?

This is a thought so loud racking my brain that I wonder if it is enough that Dillon, forensics intern extraordinaire can hear it. I am like a deer in headlights still as can be. The guy might as well be a ghost. My mind is spinning and soon the taste of the figure I slept with too many times to count surfaces in my mouth, dangling on the tip of my tongue as a reminder that my ex was in fact there. He was everywhere. For a moment it feels like he hasn’t left...or that I was still there hours back. Neither made any sense so I pull my tongue to the roof of my mouth and hope to wipe the reference clean from my mouth and mind but I fail as I remember the way he used his. He has a few talents. I will give him credit for that.

“Roxanne?” I am reminded to get it together as my head starts pounding for entirely different reasons.
“Dillon, let’s get this clear now just so things don’t get anymore fucked up than they are.” I squeeze my eyelids shut as soon as I realize I have dropped the f-bomb on one of my interns in the heat of the moment. “I apologize. Had a long night.” My eyes find his as I offer him one of my bags to carry to feel important. “I don’t go there with colleagues. No exceptions. I am flattered.”

As I lie through my teeth with proof not too far away as a witness I try to finish up the awkward moment of turning down a date for New Year’s Eve. I feel a little cool thinking about it. Dillion is hot if that term applies to anyone in my book. He is young and probably is more fun than Netflix and the bottle of wine waiting at home for me. If it wasn’t for that after taste lingering in my mind that is. Yes, I am almost smug and about to turn around but then Dillion unexpectedly starts chuckling.

“Yeah, sorry, Dr. Ballard.” He pauses to bite his bottom lip like he was about to deliver a punchline on a joke I was missing. “I didn’t mean me and you know...you for New Year’s.” He rubbed the hardline of his lower jaw. “My sister. She saw you the other day when she stopped by to drop off some paperwork and well…” He stepped in a little closer and I am more confused than ever. “This is really odd but I owe her so I said I would do this...not sure if you are up for it but she liked what she was looking at. She wanted to know if you were interested in meeting up with her and starting the New Year off right. Not that I wouldn’t be asking if I really thought I had a chance and you were a little younger. Well, that and my girlfriend would be certain I was in your hands for totally different reasons than internship. She is off the charts not having that freaky swing time. The woman is nuts but a keeper if you know what I mean.”

I hear enough and feel my brow lift painfully slow. Just to make sure he doesn’t miss the message being delivered so my lips didn’t have to waste energy moving I let a few dead silent seconds pass. That and really I think Lucas has heard enough and I am giving him a few moments to disappear.

“Dillion...See you back at the office?” I can’t imagine how much more my luck could actually go in the negative. I pray that while Dillion walks away I am left standing alone in the hallway. “Drop the bag in the lab.”

[Lucas Ballard]

Wow, the woman you just pulled your **** out of, your wife, being asked out in front of you... maybe by a lesbian ~if~ the kid isn't playing off the rejection (I think he is, that's just me). Yeah, Fun ******* times. It’s a good thing over the years I’ve learned to shut my mouth and listen. Should have decked the kid’s *** as soon as he mentioned New Year’s Eve. Wouldn’t be the first time I reacted that way. Didn’t work out so well before though.. Not that I got some type of claim on Roxanne or anything but really, too soon, divorce papers aren’t even written up let alone filed. I give the young buck the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he doesn’t know about me and her. She don’t wear the ring I slipped on her finger all those years ago. She doesn’t know I still have the one she put on mine on my chain. I never let her see it. Come to think of it she likely does know. Woman has intuition for days.

I watch the kid retreat down the hall and I consider giving Roxanne a clean getaway. I get to watch that *** as she walks away, she gets to avoid the whole morning after thing, I get to not get bitched at, she gets a good start on her day. It’s the way to do things right? The professional, adult way to do things. It’s the right thing to do.

“So, that’s the second stiff one you’ve handled since midnight. What’s your record?”

**** being professional. **** being adult. She coulda made breakfast. Maybe said good morning at least. You know, like she used to.

I hold up the wrapper she left in my sink in my left and the unused condom in my right. Yeah, I give her a kinda of cheesy ****-eating fake grin. “We tagged, forgot to bag though.”

[Roxanne Ballard (DELETED 7623)]

I hear his voice, his words and watch his hands like he is about to attempt the work of a second rate magician. By the time he finishes I almost can understand why some people feel inclined to pull a gun on someone else and squeeze the trigger. I admit I have thought about pulling his weapon on him while I am dreaming and he is asleep. If it was anyone else they would be packing their box in a couple hours and fighting their way through a messy hearing or two to reserve their right to work as a professional. Lucas is a special breed altogether. It is one of the reasons I married him. I look at him while my head throbs and my jaw is clenched so tight I think visible knots have formed just beneath my ears and skin. I step a few feet closer to him fully prepared to clobber him with one of the heavy lab bags in my possession for suggesting what he was when I hear footsteps quickly coming up on the possible future crime scene.

“Dr. Ballard…” Dillion is back once again. “Got a call. Seems there is a special running today. Another body on the west side. Not even cold yet.”

I feel my head incline as I turn away from Lucas. He is a lucky son of a *****. And very soon it would be an even year.

“We are on our way.”

I nod to the elevator. The intern seems more ambitious than curious and that I am grateful for.Once Dillion is gone I spin on my heels. Lucas is on my **** list once again. He has top billing. Always has and always will. He earned it.

“You are so ******* dead when I get five minutes to make it happen.”

I am a ***** on a mission back out the door. A hot fresh dead body always comes first. Lucas lives by this rule so he will understand his *** whooping comes second. Admittedly I want to drop kick his **** into retirement as well as our fucked up, off the charts dysfunctional history we share but it will wait. He knows it. If I ever end up behind bars it may just be because of him. Who would find that funny? Lucas Ballard. That is who. I sometimes wonder if that is exactly what he is setting me up for.

As for the whole suggestion he pulled a fast one on me...well I am ninety-nine point nine percent sure he is full of **** and just trying to rub it in. I feel like **** and he knows I am hung over. Still there is that questionable miniscule amount left that has me thinking more than I want to. I don’t want another kid with him. We did one thing right and that kid got the only decent parts of each of us plus brought its own perfection to the mix. I know my limits. Being stuck more than I am with Lucas is pushing it for both of us.

[Lucas Ballard]

“I’ll just tag and bag this evidence I guess.” I shove the wrapper and condom back into the depths of the abyss that are my pockets. It sometimes amazes me what I end up emptying onto my living room table at the end of the day. Most of the time I have to end up checking it into evidence the next morning. Not this time. This time it’ll got the way of the Burger King bag from the meal I pick up on the way home. Thing is, a detective’s life sometimes has odd hours.

For the moment though the condom and wrapper are out of sight and out of… sight. I’m still thinking about it, she likely is too. She’s headed to an area I don’t work. I don’t have to deal with her for the moment. Thank God for small miracles.

Second thought… watching her walk away after getting ~the look~ is kind of satisfying. She was pissed. Can’t do **** about it though. The childish side of me is all gleeful even while the adult me is thinking up 37 different ways I could have fun with that *** swaying as it recedes down the hallway.

I lean against the wall, close my eyes and picture the crime scene. The man was shot head-on. The spray patterns tell me that. He had his gun in his hand walking down the stairs. No… he had it in his hand when he got to the bottom of the stairs. The gun was in front of him. Like he had raised it and then got shot. I lose the scene in my head. ****. Roxanne, why you gotta work your way back into my life again? How do you manage to get so deep into my thoughts?

****. My head’s swamped with thoughts unrelated to the case and likely still swimming in Crown Royal. Time to hit Rotten Ronnie’s Restaurant for a cup of Joe and a Sausage Egg McMuffin to clear the head a little.