Let Us Give Thanks
Part Three
By Gator_xx
Gee looked over the crowded desks in the office and felt an the electric thrill of pride in his heart. So many of the detectives that had once worked under him in this department had returned to help out with the Falsone redball. Stan "The Man" Bolander was one of the easiest to convince. Stan had retired after he had been suspended for bad behavior (streaking of all things!) at a police convention in Washington D.C. Only thing Stan left behind to return were reruns of the talk shows and an empty house in Burtonsville, Md.
Kay Howard had jumped at the chance to come back to her old stomping grounds. Driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, she realized how deadly dull her life on the Eastern Shore had been and that her job with the State Police boring and unfulfilling. She did feel bad that she had placed her father in nursing home but she was not cut out to be a caregiver. Carrie and her brother were not interested in helping out and Kay was still a young woman. It wasn't really fair to ask her to sacrifice her entire life to care for him and be shackled to a life with little promise.
Now Frank Pembleton took some persuading. Only after Gee had pulled all his punches and reminded Frank that Tim now sat in a mental institution locked in a world of his own, had Frank decided to return to Homicide. Frank grumbled about leaving his company in the uncaring hands of his employees but Mary promised to oversee his security firm while he was back.
When Laura Ballard heard that the victim in the redball was Paul Falsone's beloved only son, she was overcome with feelings of sorrow and that she should be there for Paul, at least as a friend. The best gift she could give him was to find the murderer of his child.
Kellerman had been secretly wanting to come back to the squad and be "murder po-leeec" as Meldrick so poetically put it, ever since he had been forced to quit the force. Felt like some strange deja-vu being there again.
John Munch had been the hardest nut to crack. He left Baltimore swearing that he would NEVER return, regardless of what happened. Only after Gee had assured him that Stuart Gharty and Billie Lou weren't within a thousand miles of Charm City and that the victim was a child, did Munch feel like it was possible that he might return.
"First of all, I wish to thank all of the returning detectives for being willing to assist the dept. in this case." Gee said as his gaze drifted from familiar face to face. " We have on our hands the murder of a young boy, son of a member of this very squad. Very little usable evidence has been found. Here is what we do know.
"1. The boys mother called Baltimore P.D. at 9:00am on Thanksgiving morning after finding him missing from his room and finding a "ransom" note on the front steps of her home. 2. Baltimore P.D. responded to the call and dispatched several officers to the home. A complete search was done, including in the crawlspace area underneath the home. No sign of Paul Falsone Jr. was found anywhere, no sign of forced entry, only piece of evidence found was the ransom note which read..... "We have the boy. If you wish to see him alive again wait for our call at noon today. Don't call the police or attempt to outsmart us or we do the boy and you will only get him back in tiny pieces" .....
"3. Several officers remained at the home thru-out the day and no calls were received from the kidnappers. Only after the step-father went outside to feed his hunting dogs was the body discovered. Why the step-father went under the house, we do not know. 4. The boy had a ligature around his neck and the body showed signs of sexual molestation. He did NOT die of strangulation. He was killed by a single blow to the head. 5. All the materials used in his death, the baseball bat that was used in the fatal blow, the duct tape over his mouth, the wood and string of the ligature and the pad of paper and pen used to write the ransom note where found in the kitchen of the home. 6. The mother and step-father of the boy only gave a initial report to the first officers on the scene. They have refused to give us an official statement and have hired attorneys to represent them. What I need you to do is to determine if there ever was an intruder, find additional evidence that leads us to the killer or see who would want this boy dead.
"Stivers, you and Mike go canvass the neighbors. See if you can find anyone that saw or heard anything unusual at the home. Lewis and Kellerman see what you can find out about Janine Dodson, Randy Dodson and Paul Falsone. Enemies, police records, anything that might lead you to the killer. Bolander and Munch, bring Paul Falsone here and sweat him in the box. He once threatened to kill the boy rather than let Janine have custody of him. Howard and Ballard, go to the boys school and interview anyone that knew him or the family. After that check social services for any abuse reports on the family.
"Pembleton and I will go to the home with a search warrant and look for additional clues. This case takes top priority. Do not comment to the press about this case at all! Do I make myself perfectly clear? Good, lets get to work people."
************
Tim lay on his side on the hard hospital bed. His room was bleak and cheerless, all institutional gray and functionality. It was enough to depress you even if you were the most maniacally happy person on earth. He felt safe laying on this bed in this room. It was his cocoon that protected him from everything and everyone.
Suddenly the door swung open and he heard gentle footsteps. "Great" Tim thought, "All I want is to be left alone and here they come again with their pills and talk, talk, talk. Fuck those headshrinkers, I still ain't saying a thing. Tired, so tired." He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. His mother had been visiting him just before and he felt so tired from the effort of resisting her flustered attempts to reach him and her constant tears.
Two sets of footsteps crossed the room and came to stand at the foot of his bed. " Mr. Bayliss, we have someone here that would like to meet you. This is your new therapist, Anne Hall. I will leave you two alone to get better acquainted" said Dr. Kinneman. And with that he left the room. Minutes passed and nothing happened, not a word was spoken. Bayliss started to fall asleep only to be jolted awake by a soft hand on his arm. He opened his eyes to see a lady kneeling at his bedside, looking deeply into his eyes. He found himself staring into a pair of deep brown eyes flecked with gold, startling eyes with such a look of calm that he almost started to weep.
"Tim, I know you have experienced such deep pain that it seems like there could never be a end to it. But I am here to tell you I understand that pain and if you'll let me, I want to ease it and help you move back into the sunlight of life again. I know there is no way that you could possibly trust someone you just met so I am going to visit you every day till you feel comfortable enough to let me help you." she said with a soft smile.
Tim was intrigued by this woman and took a closer look. She was average height with long, soft black hair falling almost to her waist, with just a touch of silver near the temples. Her heart-shaped face was finely featured, she was attractive in an unconventional way. Dressed modestly in a black wool skirt and soft sweater with unusual silver jewelry, a prominent large silver locket ornately carved. She began to talk to him about simple things, the smell of a beautiful fall day like today, the beauty of the Canadian geese flying high over the city and many other subjects.
He could feel himself relaxing at the sound of her deep and silky voice and he knew that one day he would feel like returning to this world again..............