Murder Fic Chapter 4/?

[pdglyph.livejournal.com]

Shine on You Crazy Diamond
By: PD
Pairing: for this chapter – none
Rating: R for language and disturbing scenes (also, what REALLY happened when Jeff told Chip) :(
Disclaimer: Don’t own, so don’t sue.
Summary: … if he’s noticed who feeds him everyday, then I’ll give you a better diagnosis.



Chapter 4: I’m Going Slightly Mad

Jeff padded barefoot into the kitchen, trying to ignore the sorrow and despair chasing through his brain as he fiddled with the refrigerator door dispenser for a glass of water. It felt sort of like when he’d slipped through the ice into the lake by his grandmothers house back when he was 10 years old. So cold he couldn’t draw breath, so dark and alone, his body instantaneously numb. Only it was all in his mind this time.

In a disturbing way it was peaceful, but not the buzzing-of-tired-limbs peaceful. This was like sitting in the middle of that lake on the frozen ice with no shores to go to.

Jeff shook his head and rose from the couch.

It was the middle of the night, 6 hours after that woman, whatever her name was, had dropped him off and got him settled in. She was nice, but that was about it. His computer buzzed at him expectantly to the side, half buried under random papers. It was probably stuffed full of fanmail crap. He looked at the fuzzy white screen, eyes dead and flat.

Who gave a damn anymore? He had no real life, he was gay, what family he had left hadn’t talked to him in years, and the only man who’d ever been worth anything in his eyes had crushed him. Utterly. Jeff hadn’t told the detective the whole truth, not all of what Chip had said.

“Chip? Can I talk to you in private?” he’d asked hesitantly.

“Yeah sure, what is it kid? Make it fast, ‘cause I got a hot date,” the man grinned, that beautiful smile.

When they were alone, Jeff chewed on his lower lip and his eyes filled with bright tears. Chip blinked at him, confused. “Chip?”

“Yeah, what is it kid?”

“I…I love you,” Jeff said.

Chip smirked.“Love you too kid but-”

“No!” Jeff said forcefully, “I love you, Chip. I have…since I saw you…” he said. There he said it. He’d hoped that Chip would have been shocked, then confess his own deep-seated desire for Jeff and they’d go off and make passionate love, or at least make out. Chip’s face was blank, then slowly revulsion, disgust and finally anger and fear. Chip was afraid of Jeff, just a little.

But…why?

“You…fucking little…queer!” he said, outraged. “Agh, that is just sick! Fucking fag, dammit!” Chip said, throwing his arms into the air, pacing. Jeff just stood and stared. Chip pointed his finger at him, “You come near me, and I’ll have to defend myself, you hear? Just stay away from me!” he said, voice ugly. Jeff nodded, shrinking away. Chip let himself out of the room and slammed the door. Jeff felt his back hit the wall, distantly, and slid down it until he curled his arms around his knees.

He didn’t feel the tears falling freely and soaking his collar, didn’t feel the coat rack digging into his side. He didn’t feel much of anything except his heart breaking over and over again as Chip’s voice screamed in his ear and bounced around his brain. The door opened suddenly and Jeff registered it, looking up. It was a janitor, the one with a big nose and the beautiful eyes.

“I sorry, I sorry… you okay?” the figure asked, peering down his impressive nose. Jeff just looked at him. The man shut the door behind him and set his mop down, “Mister Davis? You want me to get someone?” he asked, voice sounding strange and kind of far away. Jeff thought dimly this was what shock must be like, but shook his head. The man frowned down at him. “Well, I won’t allow you to sit on the floor, come on!” he said, taking Jeff’s hand. Jeff let himself be picked up and brought over to the couch. “Now, I want you to drink some of this water, it’s that stuff from the cooler, and take one of these. It’s one of the sleeping pills they have here. Knock ya right out!” the man said mildly.

Jeff nodded and took the pill, popped it and drank some water, letting the janitor lay him down and cover him with a blanket. The pill made everything fuzzy right away, tunneling his vision down to the janitor’s face, and finally to his eyes, his beautiful, beautiful eyes, then nothing. What a nice man he was.

Jeff blinked awake from his reverie. What had awoken him? A small knock on the door, at this hour? It could be the killer. Jeff looked out the window and saw the police car was still there, one of the men turned over to look at him. Jeff opened the door cautiously, accidentally hitting a small package placed on his doorstep. He glanced at it before waving to the cop. The cop waved back, apparently okay with the package. Jeff shrugged and took it inside.

It was roughly the same size as a box from Penny’s holding a shirt like the ones his grandmother used to buy for him. He brought it into the bedroom and sat it on the chair in front of his bed. I’m tired, he reasoned I’ll open it tomorrow. He clambered in the bed and was just drifting off when a weird smell drifted by his nose. He looked around and switched on the light. His phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Davis are you alright?” it was the cop outside.

“Yeah, I just gotta pee.”

“Very good sir, goodnight.” The voice sounded sleepy, too. He hung up the phone and strode over to the package. The smell was coming from it. He unlaced the lovely ribbon and opened it. Whatever was in it was covered in rainbow crinkle paper. It was probably from Greg, a congrats on his coming out. A small letter was in it with beautiful cursive handwriting on it.

It read:
‘Dear Jeff,
My darling, in lieu of his horrible attitude yesterday morning, Chip wanted me to give you this as a token of his affection.
Most sincerely yours.
An admirer…
PS,
You lucky devil, you’

The paper stuck to the present as he peeled it off, wrinkling his nose. It was flesh colored, and felt deliciously smooth. He lifted it out. It was an animal skin. Finding a cut of the still slightly wet skin he lifted it, feeling the downy hair. It was human. His hand shook as he turned it upright and looked at Chip’s old face, staring at him without eyes, lips almost pulled back in that beautiful smile.

Outside, the older cop had left his partner to ask a favor of another squad car when he heard something. He signaled to the rest of his men and they stepped out of their cars. Hands nervously hovering near the butt of their guns, they strained to hear…screams, coming from the house.

“Dammit!” the older cop shouted, “Radio the guys, we’ve got trouble!” he said drawing his gun and running up the house, keeping to the deepest shadows. The door crashed down as cops flooded in, clearing all of the rooms until they burst in to his bedroom. Jeff was huddled in a corner, eyes staring of at some distant point in space, holding the skin tightly to him. “Jesus…” the older cop whispered.

----

“He’ll be fine. He’s stopped trying to kill himself, but he still won’t acknowledge anything other than his hands.” The head doctor at the psych ward said, looking at Jeff Davis through the shatterproof glass. Detective Glass looked on as well. It used to be Jeff, now it was…well…an it. An empty shell that used to be so handsome, vibrant and alive. Shit… Glass almost let loose a stream of particularly unprofessional words. “Is there nothing to be done for him?” he asked, not even hopeful.

The doctor shook his head, “No, total brainlock. Come back in a couple years and if he’s noticed who feeds him everyday, then I’ll give you a better diagnosis.”

“Great. Thanks a lot doctor,” he said, moving off. The doctor nodded and took a last glance at Jeff, staring at his hands.

“What a waste,” the doctor muttered.

Glass was walking back to the lobby with the doctor in tow when Colin, Ryan, Greg and Drew came out of nowhere. Cops materialized to stand shoulder to shoulder with Glass, blocking the way.

“Let us go! We gotta see him!” Greg said.

Glass shook his head. “I can’t allow that,” he said firmly.

“Abe, please.” Colin said softly. Glass looked at him, feeling the cops behind him tense, feeling discomfort begin to radiate off of them.

Abe shook his head again, “I can’t Colin, I can’t let any of you see him. My orders stand, no one is allowed near him. He’s safe.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said when he first went home god dammit!” Drew shouted, face beat red. Glass watched the larger man loom and felt his men behind him tense again, readying for battle. The others caught the looks the cops were giving Drew and quickly took a hold of Drew’s arms.

“Drew, please calm down, you don’t need to get arrested.”

“Why not?” he spat, “I’d probably be safer in jail with the criminals than in my own home!”

Glass looked down and sighed. “Look let’s go somewhere. Doctor, is there someplace we can talk without being interrupted?” The doctor nodded, glancing nervously between the two groups of very upset men, and led the way.

They were led to a small interrogation room, white and sterile with a pane of one way glass showing off the entire room in its face. Drew immediately went over to the far end of the room and glared at the dirty wire window. “Mr. Carey, I understand you have some questions, you all do, and I will answer as best as I can, but there are some things I cannot tell you,” Glass said, sitting down in one of the chairs. None of the men looked at each other, or even acknowledged the uniformed cop that had insisted on entering the room with Glass.

“Fine, answer us this, how did this even happen to Jeff?” Greg demanded, “Wasn’t he under police protection?”

“Yes-”

“If that’s your idea of police protection I’d rather take my chances-” Drew said derisively,

“Drew, shut up!” Colin shouted. Everyone stared at the normally meek man. He was standing, hands balled into fists, face flushed and eyes flashing. “Let him speak,” he said, voice steady and quiet once more.

“Shortly after Mr. Davis was discovered, we found one of our men, who was watching the front door, had fallen asleep,” Glass began. Everyone made a small noise, but he ignored it. “He had been drugged by nitrous oxide through a small tube slipped into his car through the air conditioning unit.”

“Laughing gas?” Ryan said. “Your man was taken out by laughing gas?”

“The drug affects some people stronger than it does others,” the cop behind Glass said a little defensively.

“It was you who fell asleep?”

“No, it was my partner, I was out talking to McKinnon in the next car over when I heard the scream,” he said, eyes quiet and flat.

“You found Jeff,” Colin said softly. The old cop nodded. The room fell silent, all anger forgotten until Colin spoke up. “Well, Detective Glass, tell us what to do,” he said. All eyes, green, blue, and brown turned to him. He rose and paced, speaking quietly to the older cop. The man’s face softened and he left.

“In order to keep all of you men safe, I’m going to give you some very personal, and unprofessional advice that has saved more lives than any other methods I’ve heard of.”

“What the buddy system?” Drew snorted derisively. Glass didn’t laugh. “I was joking…”

“I’m not.”

“The buddy system?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, it’s the one where you’re never alone. You stay over at a friend’s house, drive together, sleep in the same room together, work together. Everything,” Greg said, eyeing the detective.

“This will work?” Colin asked.

“This killer prefers one on one contact, very personal stuff, so we simply deny that particular type of contact,” Glass said.

“Just like that?” Drew said flatly.

“You’re all grown men, and dealing with two is enough to give any killer pause, contrary to popular Hollywood myths,” he said. He didn’t add that if this killer was genuinely insane, two men probably wouldn’t stop this guy. “That with the addition of police protection. We won’t be stretched between so many people, thus giving us more men to put on not as many houses.” The men looked at each other. “While you all decide living arrangements, I have a phone call to make. If you’ll excuse me.” he said, rising and leaving the room.

“Okay, well Ryan can come to my place, it’ll be safer there anyway, you guys wanna come too?” Colin asked.

“Nah, we should be fine at my place, it’s too out in the open,” Drew said, patting Greg on the shoulder.

Greg snorted, then looked worried. “Shit, I gotta call Wayne. And someone’s gonna have to call Brad!” he said. He whipped out his cell and was already dialing when he turned to Drew. “You don’t mind a little more company do you?” he asked.

“Nah, the more the merrier,” he turned to Ryan and Colin, “You guys sure you don’t want to come over to my house instead?”

“Yeah we’re sure, you only have 3 bedrooms anyway,” Ryan said, picking up his coat.

Colin followed suit. “Besides we have a cop next door!” Colin said brightly. Drew glanced at the door uneasily and shrugged.

----

Glass dialed up his first number, the crime lab and got the lab head. “Hey there Mike, what do you have for me?”

“You know you’re supposed to go file Mary’s paperwork, right?”

He sighed. “Yes I know, but I want answers now, not paperwork, so please just tell me.”

“Alright, but she’s gonna be pissed,” the voice wheedled.

“I don’t care, blame it on me, now what do you have on the Davis letter?”

The voice sighed now, shuffling some papers. “This is some sick individual, you know that?”

Glass held the phone back and studied it for a second. “Yeah, I knew that already, now tell me what I don’t know.”

“Well, this person’s handwriting is as neat, precise and as void of humanity as say, the cursive font on a word document.” the voice said, getting more and more nervous sounding.

“Mike? You alright?”

“Yeah, but this person is scaring me. It’s a female, we think, and-”

“You think? You don’t know?”

“Well we got some skin cells that are female, no fingerprints, the saliva though is male,” he said quietly.

“Okay…”

“And none of them have a match on AFIS. However, the DNA from the saliva did match the vic’s.”

“Shit. The bitch is using them to cover her tracks.” Glass growled. “Anything about the DNA from Scotland Yard?”

“Nope, your buddies have plenty of DNA of their own, none of it on their records. This dirtbag is thumbing her nose at us in an incredibly annoying fashion.”

“It’s not annoying to the soon to be victims. Give me something, anything so I can peg this nutter.” Glass said.

“Will do, boss man.”

They rang off, neither saying any form of goodbye. Cops don’t really do that after a certain period of time. Must be part of the cop code.

He rested his head against the metal shell of the phone box for a moment before dialing a second number. His answering machine message picked up the call instead. After the beep sounded, “Hey Izzy, you’re probably in the shower right about now, um, it looks like there’s gonna be more overtime, and I want you to keep a lookout on the Mochrie house, nothing obvious just…keep an eye out and be safe, kay? Love ya babe,” he finished.

She was probably showering, or reporting, whatever it was she did these days.