Ray screwed up another bit of paper and threw it in his rubbish bin. Jesus, even his aim was falling to pieces. It was this damn case— The hard part was supposed to be over; they'd solved the unsolvable mystery. How come this report was giving him so much trouble?
But there wasn't anything to *report*. Solved the case, caught the bad guys, watched Fraser almost get himself killed again. He could hear Welsh's response to that in his head; "If I'd wanted a checklist, Detective, I'd have asked for one."
Watched Fraser lick impossible clue - check.
Tracked psychotic serial arsonist by a thread of charred cotton - check.
Fraser almost got his head shot off talking the guy down - check.
"Hey, Ray--"
Ray flinched and slammed a hand down on his desk. "Whaddaya want, Frannie? I'm trying to think."
"Don't hurt yourself," she muttered. "Here's the sheet on that Valois kid."
Ray leaned over to snag the paper from her hand, still scowling. "For once, Frannie, would you give me a break? I mean, okay, Fraser does this every week; every week he goes after some guy with a gun and just about gets himself shot in the head in fronta me and you'd think you'd get used to that kind of thing but--" He shook his head. "He's my best *friend*, Frannie, and half the time he doesn't even realise how much danger he's in. It's like, he's standing there, and the guy's pointing this gun at him, and he actually seriously believes he can talk this psycho into turning over his weapon and confessing everything, and it's always on *me* to protect him-- If I'm late, if I'm slow, if I can't get a clean shot, if I spook the collar... All the pressure's on *me*. And every time I'm thinking, this is it, this is the week he finally bites it, the week I get him killed. Me. If he dies it'll be because I couldn't protect him, because I let him down, because *I* *screwed* *up*."
Frannie opened and closed her mouth several times, obviously trying to figure out what to say. Ray closed his eyes, a little out of breath after getting all that out. It felt better, though.
At least until Frannie finally ventured, "Is Fraser-- Is he okay?"
Ray's eyes snapped open, all of his roiling feelings expressed in that one explosive movement. He glared at her for several seconds, then pulled his gun out and dumped it on his desk dramatically. "I'm going to lunch. I'd take that, but then I'd probably *shoot* somebody."
Still glaring, to show who he'd really love to put a cap into, Ray grabbed his coat and headed for the door.
--
Driving around town gave him time to cool off. Ray was beginning to feel a little embarrassed about his melodramatic outburst. Okay, Frannie was a bit insensitive, but behind her blatant come-ons he knew she had real feelings for Fraser. Of course she'd be worried about him.
The problem was that Ray was worried about him too. All the time. And eventually the pressure would eat away at him til he snapped completely. Today was a warning, a sign that he really needed to talk with Fraser about this, get everything hashed out.
Get the guy a goddamned gun licence.
This was a sucky way to spend a Saturday. Ray found the nearest mall and drove round looking for a car park - really sucky way to spend a Saturday; he should've gone to one of the cafes near the station. Finally he found a park and headed into the mall.
He went into the first bakery he saw, next to a sports store and right opposite a jewellery store and a toy store. Maybe after this he'd buy a cool little robot or something, make himself feel better.
He grabbed some sugary-looking things and dumped them on a tray, looking around for a seat as he paid for them. Then he did a double-take of sorts, staring at the woman in the red baseball cap in the corner.
Could his life get any weirder? Ray made his way over, but didn't sit down in case she was gonna tell him to leave her the hell alone. "Didn't know you ate here."
Thatcher just about choked on her pastry, then licked her lips to clean them and looked up at him. "I could say the same to you, Detective." She leaned back ever so slightly and nodded at the free seat.
Coolness. Ray sat down and poked at his custard square. "I don't, usually. I was just driving around and I figured I should eat."
She nodded, accepting his explanation. Or at least most of it. "Driving around for any particular reason?"
Ray grimaced, holding back a full-fledged groan. The day thinking about his partner and best friend made him groan was not a good day. He and Fraser really needed to talk. "Fraser."
"Oh." Thatcher rolled her eyes as if that one name explained everything, and maybe it did. She was Fraser's boss, after all, she probably knew as well as Ray just what a maroon the guy could be.
"Did he do his report yet?"
She looked halfway between wryly amused and nervous. "Which one?"
"Uh... shoot-out yesterday."
Thatcher nodded. "I always have the feeling Fraser only reports the incidents he thinks I'll find out about."
"That would be dishonest," Ray pointed out, although he had the feeling it wasn't ordinary dishonest but that special sort of Frasery dishonest that Fraser could get away with because he looked so pure and innocent.
"Hmm," said Thatcher, in a tone that meant she probably agreed with his feeling. "In any case, I wouldn't mind hearing your version of events."
Ray squidged his custard square viciously, making a white and yellow mess of artificial sweetness on his plate. He wiped his poking finger on a napkin, knowing instinctively that licking his fingers in front of Thatcher would probably send the wrong signals. Whichever signals they were, they'd be the wrong ones. "We were tracking the Sunset Arsonist. You seen it in the news?" She nodded. "So, we corner the guy, and Fraser's standing there completely unarmed trying to talk down the psychopath with the gun; I mean, how smart is that? But he doesn't even think about it, he just *does* it, and expects me to be there to back him up. Every time, he does that every time."
Thatcher rested her arms on the table, looking at him with a carefully neutral face. "That sounds like a lot of pressure."
What was she, a shrink-in-training? "Yeah," he said tersely. "It is. I'm gonna talk to him-- Tell him that, next time you see him, ask him if I've talked to him yet. Then if I haven't he'll come find me to see what I wanted to talk about and I'll have to do it."
Thatcher nodded in agreement, then shook her head sympathetically. "Fraser is the most frustrating..."
"Irritating..."
"Annoying..."
Ray sighed. "I don't even wanna talk about it. What have you been, uh, doing?"
Thatcher honest-to-god smiled. "Playing baseball with the children of one of my friends. They're getting quite good."
"You play baseball?" Ray said, leaning forward in surprise. Cool.
Maybe the baseball relaxed her or something, 'cause she was still smiling. "I guess there's a lot you don't know about me, Detective."
"Guess so." Ray grinned. "So, what's your favourite colour?"
She laughed. "Hmm... Blue. You?"
"That's not an answer, Thatcher; there are fifty kinds of blue."
"Turqoise, then. Greeny-blue," she added, like he didn't know what turqoise was.
Still, getting annoyed would ruin it. This was good, he liked having the Ice Queen not hating him. "Me, uh... anything neon. I used to like green..." Like Stella's eyes. "Now, I think red."
"Red," Thatcher repeated. She seemed to think that was funny. "Any particular reason?"
Ray frowned; he hated feeling like he didn't know something everyone else knew. "No, I just like it."
"All right." Thatcher rested her chin on her hand. "Favourite music. Baroque, classical, romantic, modern?"
"Eclectic," he said, not even needing to think about that one. "Anything I can dance to." She looked surprised - surprised he didn't just like modern, or surprised he knew a word like 'eclectic'? "You?" he asked.
"Um... classical."
No surprise there. Ray grinned, thinking of a new question. "If you were an animal, what would you be?"
"Pink Panther," Thatcher said drily.
Ray laughed, and moved on before he had to think of an animal himself. "If you were an element?"
She had to think longer for that one. "Magnesium."
What--? No. "Earth, air, fire, water," Ray said impatiently. Duh.
"Oh... Water, flowing water." She straightened and laid her arm along the edge of the table. "I suppose you'd be fire?"
He probably would be, Ray realised. "Yeah, but a sort of earthy fire."
Thatcher nodded thoughtfully. "Which season would you be?"
"Summer."
"Fall."
Yeah, she was fall. Red-gold leaves and changeable weather. And no one would actually say winter, would they?
"Which sense would you be?" Thatcher asked, before he could say anything.
"ESP."
"Smartass."
He grinned and spent a little longer thinking about it. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. Well, he sure wasn't sight, with his lousy eyes. "Uh..." Something to do with dancing. Eyes closed, melting into the music. Hearing? No... the rhythm throbbed through him, pulsing through his veins and across his skin. "Touch."
"Mm," she agreed. "Sight."
"Bor-ing," he teased. "Okay, I've got one. If you were a weapon, what kind would you be?"
"A weapon? Interesting." Thatcher leaned back in her chair, considering that. "Possibly a guillotine. What about you?"
Weapon. Ray thought hard. Any kind of gun was just too obvious. Crossbow? Dagger? Maybe a kind of bomb... "Tripwire."
"That's not a weapon."
She was as bad as Fraser, always crossing her 'i's and dotting her 't's and getting everything dictionary-perfect. Ray let out a breath of irritation. "Whatever it sets off is a weapon. Bomb, grenade - guillotine. Whatever. Okay?"
"All right," she said mildly. "I was only saying-- Actually, I think you're right. Tripwire suits you."
Okay. No big deal; he was just too used to fighting with her for his own good. "Thanks," he said awkwardly, deciding he kinda liked the idea of being a tripwire.
Thatcher started to smile, then narrowed her eyes at something across the promenade. "Hmm. That's odd."
Ray turned to look. "What?"
"The jewellery store. Those three men--"
"I see it," he said quietly. They didn't move like they were shopping for jewellery. They moved like they were casing the place. Jesus, he couldn't even have lunch without something happening. He reached towards his shoulder holster automatically, then made a face. "Left my gun at the station."
"Dare I ask why?" she murmured, keeping an eye on the men in the jewellery store.
"So I didn't shoot Frannie." He pulled his boot gun out and shoved it into the shoulder rig. It was too small, but it was in there.
"Personally, I'd probably have chosen to shoot her," Thatcher said dryly. "Be careful."
"I didn't know you cared," Ray said lightly, rising to his feet. "Won't be long."
He strolled across the promenade and into the jewellery store, acting casual. He hoped it wouldn't take long. Just flash the colours, let the goons ease off without losing face. He didn't think he could take any more paperwork, not with that damn Fraser report still to do.
There were two clerks; one male, one female, both nervous. Looked like they smelled something fishy, too. Ray gave his best calming smile, letting small talk spill off his lips while his higher brain made and tested strategies. Hopefully he wouldn't need to use any of them. This place was too open, there were too many civilians about; a gunfight would not be pretty.
The male clerk - young, dark hair, intelligent eyes, sort of a teenaged version of Fraser - was relaxing a little, asking Ray about his imaginary fiancee-to-be. The girl - woman, really - was older, red-russet hair that probably came out of a bottle, grey eyes that flickered around the store anxiously. She'd get the kid to the ground if the shooting started.
"I hope so," Ray said, responding to the latest comment of the kid in question. "She doesn't like cops... hates them, really," he put a little laugh into his voice. "I can only imagine what she'd think of becoming a cop's wife. But hey, sometimes you just gotta chance it."
"You're a cop, then?" the woman asked, too loud for the casual effect she was obviously aiming for.
"Licensed professional," Ray said cheerfully. Flashing the colours, waving the flags, whatever other metaphors he needed to forestall any violence. "Save a fortune on parking tickets."
His ears had gone nervous and hypersensitive, and were getting even more nervous by the fact that he couldn't hear the goons moving away. He resisted the urge to reach for his gun. He didn't want to get anyone killed. It was eerie to be doing this without Fraser, like driving a car for the first time without his dad supervising. Tightrope walking without a safety net. He looked down, metaphorically, and it was a *long* fall.
"What's she like?" the teenaged Fraser asked. He was picking too many vibes off his - boss? - to be completely at ease, but he was definitely a lot less edgy.
"Perfect," Ray said softly, not even needing to make this part up. He could remember vividly every detail of the woman in his mind, the woman he could only dream of buying this ring for. After all, it was not so long ago he'd been looking right at her. "She's tough, you know, independant, but she's got this softer side that melts its way into your heart and stays there. Got a good job, but she works more than she should. She won't admit it, but she needs someone to take care of her. She needs me. She's got a killer body, too; you know... the legs that go all the way up, the curves in the right places... eyes that look right into you and tear you apart if she's in a foul mood." Which she was more often than not, it seemed. At least around him, and he bet even Fraser would back him up. "And this soft, gorgeous hair that just begs you to run your fingers through it. Short hair, used to be long, but there's nothing boyish about it. No, she is..." he shook his head slightly, "*all* woman."
"She got a sister?" the kid said with a grin.
Ray shook his head firmly. That had been their joke, when they were still married. Stella and her imaginary sister Blanche. Straight out of the movie. Christ, he hated that movie. "Nope. No sister." Two brothers, though. "Just me and Stella." Stella... stellar... because she was out of this world. Out of *his* world, anyway.
Then there was cold steel pressing into his neck. Ray swore at himself furiously. Jesus *Christ*, this was what happened when you obsessed over your ex; couldn't admit it was over, got distracted, got people killed. "You don't want to be doing this," he said calmly. "Back off now and nothing needs to happen. I'm a cop, I can show you my badge."
"I'm a crook, I can show you my gun," the man sneered.
Ray looked for the other two out of the corners of his eyes. One of them had a gun trained on the staff behind the counter; the other was tossing over a bag. "Fill this."
"Do what he says," Ray said softly. He stood still, not letting himself reach for his gun. Did not want a shootout. It would've been great if he could've stopped this before it started, but it didn't work, so he'd just have to play along. This would be a good time for Fraser to show up with one of his dramatic expositions.
The kid stood still, looking scared shitless. The woman had gone suddenly calm now that her fears were realised, and started cleaning out the nearest display case. Ray concentrated on breathing steadily and not making any sudden movements. "It's okay," he told the kid. "Just be cool and nothing will go wrong."
"Like the cop says," said Bozo One, jabbing his gun more firmly against Ray's skin.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Do not clock the jerk. Memorise these guys' faces to haul them in later. Edgy and frustrated, Ray couldn't help getting smart. "You make it your usual practise to knock over stores with cops in 'em?"
"Yeah," the guy spat sarcastically - actually spat, getting the back of Ray's neck wet. Ughh. "Every day of the week, twice on Tuesdays. Shuddup."
Okay. Okay. Be cool. The bag was full, they were gonna go in a minute. Don't get anyone shot.
"All right," Bozo One said, making gestures at the other two that Ray could only hear by the sound of cloth rubbing against itself. "I'm gonna back away. Kneel on the floor, put your hands on the back of your head. No sudden movements."
"No sudden movements," Ray promised. He felt the gun leave his neck, heard slow footsteps. Slowly he dropped to his knees, locking his hands together just above the glob of spit. He watched the scared and skittish teenage Fraser.
"You shouldn't have come in here, cop," said the Bozo.
The kid's eyes flew open, and there was a metallic sound that Ray half-registered as a gun on something. "Down!" he yelled, diving behind the solid bottom half of a display case before the first shot shattered the top. He landed heavily on his shoulder, hard enough to knock all feeling out of his left arm. Holy *shit*. He fumbled for his gun and held his breath, listening hard as he absently wiped dry the back of his neck.
From this angle the robbers would be shooting into the shop, at him and the woman and the kid. If Ray shot, and missed, his bullet would be heading straight out into the mall where hundreds of innocent bystanders were probably gathered around watching from the relative safety of the other shops. Shit, shit, shit. He tried to stick his head out, then quickly ducked back when one of them shot at him.
"Are you fast enough?" Wait, no, that was-- Thatcher. What the hell was she doing? "You could gamble that I won't get off a shot before I die. You might even be right. But I have to say, my money's not on you."
*Die*? Now Ray really wanted to know what she was doing. He looked around the corner of his case.
Thatcher and one of the goombahs were staring each other down, goombah aiming for her chest, her aiming for the goombah's head. And since when did Thatcher have a gun, anyway? At least she was smarter than Fraser. Sorta. She was still standing there with no cover trying to talk down the crooks. But she did think to take off her way-less-than-threatening baseball cap.
Well, hell, he might as well do his gun-toting American thing. Ray crept out, trying to minimise the crunching of glass under his shoes, and quietly disarmed Bozo One. It was a lot easier when they were all staring at Thatcher.
The third guy turned around at the sound, and Ray jabbed his gun meaningfully at the perp he was handcuffing. "You have the right to remain silent..." he waited patiently and both the other guys tossed down their weapons. "Thank you kindly." He tossed Thatcher a pair of cuffs and settled for keeping his gun firmly trained on the third one. "You all have the right to remain silent; anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney--" Oh, sure, *now* store security showed up. He rolled his eyes and jerked Bozo One to his feet. "--one will be appointed to you. Nice work, Inspector."
She coughed slightly and looked uncomfortable. "Uh, about that..."
"What?" Ray frowned at her, confused.
"You're not going to like it."
"What?" he repeated. He followed her gaze, narrowing his eyes slightly. Christ, were all Canadians born with some sort of stupidity gene? "That's not a real gun, is it?"
"Starter's pistol." She nodded at the sports store. "Sorry."
"I hate you." He gave his goombah a firm push. "I really hate you. Jesus, is this some sort of requirement for being a Canadian? You all gotta do this to me? You could have been killed!"
Thatcher bit her lip, but couldn't quite hide a wicked smile. "I guess I'm just used to faking it," she said innocently.
Ray tried to keep glaring at her, then gave up and let himself laugh. "You're obviously seeing the wrong person," he said with a leer.
She groaned slightly, shaking her head. "Detective, the day was going so well; please don't spoil it by trying to pick me up."
The bagman seemed to take that as an invitation. "Hey, baby, have we met before?"
"Yes, I'm the receptionist in your V.D. clinic," Thatcher shot back, without even looking at him. "I suppose I have to come down to the station and give a statement?"
"Yeah, that-- something like that." A dull ache in his stomach reminded Ray that he hadn't gotten to eat his lunch yet. He grimaced a little and scratched the back of his neck.
She rubbed her forehead, nodding tiredly. "I'll get my things."
"I'll call for a squad car," he said, getting out his cellphone. Or maybe two; as well as ferrying the thieves around, someone would have to take statements from the shop workers. As he spoke into the phone he watched Thatcher through the cafe window; smiled as she put the baseball cap back on. She looked like a little kid in that thing, it was cute.
Now, if only he could get cases with Fraser to be like this...
