chapter 119

word count: 1517

it didn’t take long for news of the cell block altercation between simone and trudy hunt to make it from the bowels of the department of corrections into the homicide department's squad room..  still reeling from the news of simone’s having tried to poison detective gil bettencourt earlier in the week,, this most recent development eagerly spread like wild fire throughout the department.. 

detectives bowers and bettencourt had squirreled themselves away in a far corner of the squad room,, closest to the coffee pot.. hank beaming as he filled gil in on every delectable detail of his encounter with stephanie the night before.. so caught up in their own conversation were they,, that they didn’t even notice that the squad room was abuzz..  

when officer kevin maulkin finally sauntered over and broke the news to them,, gil just groaned in agony,, his head reverberating like a recently struck gong,, and hank bowers burst out in peels of laughter..

“you sure can pick ‘em, huh??” laughed hank as he slapped gil hard on the shoulder,, knowing doing so would only punctuate the agony gil was suffering as a result of his most recent roll in the hay with that mouthy blonde number from the night before.. 

“augh!!!” gil let out a painful moan.. “this is really more than i can take right now!!”

“yep buddy!! you sure can pick ‘em!!!”

“how do i get myself into these messes??” gil groaned..

“just might be that you let ‘the gil machine’ do all the thinkin’!!”  cackled hank,, as he reflected for a brief moment on the previous night he had spent in stephanie's company,, a real woman in every regard.. 

‘yep,’ he consoled himself, ‘there was definitely something to be said for his ‘old school’ approach…..’

“dare we?” proposed hank, out of the blue..

“dare we what?” gil reiterated as he held his throbbing head in both hands, elbows resting on his knees.. 

“give buzz a call so he can share in the agony and the ecstasy? after all he was the one that, shall we say, 'introduced' trudy hunt into the fold??”

“augh!!” gil groaned audibly yet again, never taking his head out of his hands.. 

“you do it.. i just don’t have the gonads to suffer through him laughing at me this morning, too.. you’re bad enough.”

hank flipped open his cell, and pressed  the #1, his speed dial for buzz.. strangely enough,, the call went straight to voice mail.. despite the fact that it was completely out of character for buzz to have his phone off,, hank left him a brief chortled message, advising buzz to get back to him asap..

“that’s funny.” he informed gil as he ended the call. “buzz has his phone off.. lemme try the house. this is just too good to leave as a voice mail!!”

“you’re like a freaking kid this morning!” gil chided hank. “i’m thinkin’ that stephanie woman you met up with last night came off with a little more than some endearing conversation…”

“i’ll thank you to keep your filthy thoughts to yourself where stephanie is concerned.” hank instructed gil as he punched buzz’s home number into his cell..

“i’ll have you know,, she was a perfect lady,, and if i do say so myself,, i was quite the gent!” hank beamed as he listened to the phone ring several times before it too went directly to the answering machine.. 

“huh.. no answer at home either??.. i would have thought i’d at least get the housekeeper. what the heck is going on with buzz? it’s just not like him to be out of pocket like this.” hank said,, a growing tone of concern taking over his voice.. 

gil lifted his head out of the cradle of his hands. “i thought you said he called mick last night?”

“i did.. but i also said mick told me he had tried to reach you first.. and yet you have no missed calls and no message from him this morning?? wouldn’t your phone have recorded the call even if you did have it powered down?? wouldn’t it have showed up when you turned it back on this morning??” asked hank, truly perplexed..

“yeah.” gil straightened up,, looking genuinely alert for the first time this morning.. 

“yeah it would, wouldn’t it??”

“something just ain’t right.” hank stated as the novelty of the events between simone and trudy visibly took to the back burner,, and his mind began to reel with gruesome possibilities as to buzz’s whereabouts.. 

“maybe i outta call mick.”

“better yet,” gil took to his feet, “maybe we better go over there.. my gut says there is something shady going on here and i wanna be able to look mick in the eye when we confront him with it.”

“let’s go!!” hank said, as he too jumped to his feet.. a fleeting thought of stephanie and how badly he wanted to call her,, to see her later on tonight crept in,, but was swiftly swept away by his genuine concern for buzz.. 

“somethin’ just ain’t right.” hank repeated as he and gil made their way across the squad room toward the elevator..

“somthin’ just ain’t right.”

***

as mrs. johnson went about preparing to dispose of the untouched chicken soup and sandwiches,, mark entered the kitchen..

“what the hell are you doing??” he yelled at his mother.. 

“don’t throw that stuff away!! they never even touched it!!”

he roughly pushed his aged mother to the side and took control of the luncheon tray. 

“what the hell are you thinking?? or more accurately,, are you just not thinking at all?? so maybe they didn’t eat it this time around.. eventually they will get hungry enough to eat it,, and when they do, it will be sitting right waiting for them!!”

“i’m sorry mark,, you are exactly right.. i just wasn’t thinking..” mrs. johnsons tone was sincerely  apologetic..

“sometimes my age just seems to get the better of me.”

“sometimes??” mark barked back at her.. “you are a walking accident waiting to happen. please tell me you replaced the tape over their mouths after they refused to eat?”

“well, um,, let me see..” mrs. johnson’s voice trailed off.. she truly couldn’t remember if she had or not.. 

“imbecile!!” mark yelled at her. “ i am surrounded by imbeciles!! i swear if you hadn’t endeared yourself so closely to tobin i would have taken you out the same way i took mickey out!! boom!! one fucking shot to the head!!!”

he raged out the kitchen door in a fury..  just as he reached the landing on the stairwell,,  the doorbell rang.. 

“fuck!!” he exclaimed out loud.. on one hand he needed to get that tape replaced post haste,, but on the other he had sincere doubts mother could be trusted to deal with whatever lay on the other side of that door.. 

“i’ve got the door mother!!” he yelled out as he bounded up the stairs, taking them two and three at a  time.. 

unfortunately, mrs. johnson misheard what mark had called out to her.. instead of hearing him admonish her to not answer the door,, she could have sworn she heard him say, “get the door mother!!” 

only too willing to oblige,, in hopes that it would stave off marks anger toward her for forgetting to replace the tape over the mouths of their “guests”,, she hustled to the door and swung it open with abandon.. 

there,, standing before her were two gentlemen that although she had never met either of them before,, she was immediately able to identify them as cops..

she squinted as she peered at them,, feigning that she was having trouble seeing them through the screen door in order to buy mark some time to get the tape over the mouths of detective miller and his pesky housekeeper.. 

“hello??” she greeted them timidly, as was befitting of a woman of her age,, especially one that had suffered the supreme loss of her own beloved son just the day before...

“mrs. johnson!!” hank said in a booming voice,, as certainly a woman of her age would be hard of hearing.. 

“mrs. johnson, i am detective hank bowers,” he bellowed, “and this here is my partner, detective gil bettencourt ,, we are friends of your son mick..”

“how do you do!” gil chimed in, following hanks lead and speaking in a tone much louder than necessary. 

“we’ve come to offer our condolences,, and see if there is anything we might be able to do for you and mick in this very difficult time.”  hank shouted through the still closed screen door.. 

“no need to shout, detectives,, my hearing is the one thing that still serves me well..” 

she paused as she slowly unlatched and pushed open the creaky metal screen door, acting as if it was taking all the energy she could muster just to do so. 

“please, come right in.. i’ll let mickey know you’re here..”