GARGOYLES: Re-Awakening

Suspicion: 1

Elisa was looking at the bruise on the side of Matt's face. He'd taken a nasty shot to the back of the head in that alley and then slammed his cheek on the pavement. He probably shouldn't have been at his desk again so soon. On the other hand, Elisa knew that having kept him away for nearly twelve hours was a lucky victory.

After Matt had regained his wits in the alley, he had wanted to head back to the precinct right there on the spot. He'd wanted to be in on the interrogation of the subway perp. Elisa knew why. He'd run alone down a subway shaft, barged into an alley, and then been caught flat footed. Matt's pride had been wounded and he wanted to get some of it back.

Ordinarily, all of that alone would have been enough to spur Elisa to step in and make sure her partner didn't do anything stupid. Normally, she would first have told him there was no way he was getting near that interrogation. Then Matt would have pushed back hard, probably suggesting that she was accusing him of not knowing how to handle himself, maybe even that she suspected he would lose control and break the law. At that point, Elisa would have budged a little and told him that he could watch the interrogation from the observation room, giving his bruised ego a minor victory. Normally, all of that would have de-fused the situation. It would have been a well-played psychological maneuver.

But this case was not normal. This case was much more complicated because Elisa had motives of her own. When she had come into that alley she should have found a dead partner. Instead, she had found one slowly regaining consciousness while the perp he'd been chasing was found flat on the ground at the far end of the alley. That was a new mystery, one that everyone at the precinct would soon be looking into.

Except Elisa already knew the answer to that mystery, and the answer was crazy. So here she was, staring at a big bruise on the side of her partner's face and wondering just how the hell she was going to handle all of this.

"Bluestone, Maza, my office," Captain Chavez said, pulling Elisa back into the real world.

They both rose and headed in. Matt closed the door. The first thing Captain Chavez did was sigh. Both Matt and Elisa shifted subtly, uncomfortably.

"Why is it that I find myself consistently amazed at the two of you and your ability to ruin my day?" Chavez asked, her voice starting out low and crescendoing to a near-shout.

Neither detective responded. Chavez pursed her lips in a frustrated expression.

"Bluestone, if not for the fact that you should be dead right now, I think I'd shoot you myself. What were you doing running alone into a subway tunnel?!"

Matt's eyes darted back and forth, as if the answer would be written on the wall somewhere. Finally, he straightened a little in an attempt to project confidence.

"At the time, I was unsure if the next subway station was secure, Captain. I had to assume that he would take another hostage and, given the clear escalation of the situation, that he would kill that one. I felt it my duty to override protocol and intervene."

Chavez sat up a bit in her seat. Her face was going from frustration to incredulence.

"Override protocol!" she said, flabbergasted. "Since when is 'override protocol' a thing, detective?!"

"Captain," Elisa started, but couldn't finish.

"And where the hell were you Maza?! And don't give me any bull. Bluestone said you'd be on your way. He assured me as much when we responded. But you didn't show until he was already face down in an alley. Just what exactly were you doing while this entire squad was responding to a possible terrorist situation?!"

Elisa was in a tight spot now. She hadn't had the time she needed to work out how she was going to make all the pieces fit together. Now she was going to have to make it up as she went along.

"I had a personal situation, Captain," she said. "My father is not doing well."

Matt's eyes shifted in his skull to give her a sideways glance. He'd expected her to be vague. He had not expected an outright lie. He was disturbed, but he kept his composure.

Chavez sat back in her chair.

"Unacceptable," she said. "If your father is ill I'm sorry about that, but your partner was nearly killed. And if you needed to check in with your father why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you just put in for a few hours of lost time? Then I'd have partnered Bluestone up before sending him out there. Dammit Maza, what is going on?"

"Captain, I have to ask you for a favor. A personal one." Elisa's sentence floated in the room, hanging in the air like a cloud of smoke.

"I need you to trust me," she said.

Chavez's face now showed total astonishment. "Excuse me?" She said.

This was not going well, Elisa thought. Her desperation was showing, big time.

"I saw my father, but only because it was near another lead I was following on the armored car heist. I hadn't expected it all to take as long as it did."

Now Elisa was telling half-truths laced with full lies. She'd done what suspects do, she realized. They start with a lie and then, as the pressure mounts, have to start telling the truth but in a way that also incorporates the original lie. It's one of the ways that a detective knows they are on the right track. Facts, true and untrue, start getting lumped in together like a stew that doesn't mix well. A good detective can tell. Great one, Elisa thought to herself, you saw your dad because he happened to be near a lead on the case you're not really supposed to be investigating. That makes perfect sense.

Chavez sat silently.

"Elisa, go sit at your desk and don't leave it until you hear otherwise from me," she finally said.

On any other day, Elisa would have protested with all her might, but she was already in a bad spot, so she did what she was told.

Back in the office, Captain Chavez closed the blinds. She then positioned herself directly in front of Matt.

"I'm going to make this simple, Bluestone," she said. "Normally, your explanation for why you nearly got yourself killed would be enough to bust you back down to beat-cop. The only reason I don't do that right this second is because I need to know what the hell is going on with Maza. So here's the deal. If you want to keep your shield, you are going to find out what she's doing."

"You want me to spy on my partner?" Bluestone asked. His heart was dropping into his feet. This was the worst thing you could ask a cop to do—to investigate a fellow cop. Actually, that was second worst. The worst was to investigate your partner.

"I don't want you to, Bluestone. I'm ordering you to," Chavez said.