Russo's Lumber Mill

Trina woke up, confused and scared. She was lying on a small bed in a dark room. She could hear lots of noise from machines, and everything felt shaky. She opened her eyes, but it was too dark to see anything. She sat up, leaned against the wall, and pulled her legs in tight, hugging her knees. She started to cry, soft whimpers at first, but it grew into cries for her parents. She knew it was just a bad dream, and mommy would come and lay down with her, and hold her.

She cried out again for her mommy, but she didn't come. Then the door opened, and a bright light flooded in, and then a shadow came in with the light. She was terrified, and closed her eyes again, and tried not to cry so the monster wouldn't hear her.

"Okay, now Trina, you don't need to cry, I am not going to hurt you." Trina realized it wasn't a monster, the voice sounded too nice to be a monster.

"I want my mommy!" She said, sniffling, not wanting to cry again.

"I know darlin', but she is not here right now. We will take you back to your mommy soon, but we need to do a few things first, okay?" His voice was soft and comforting, she thought she knew the voice, but wasn't sure. She tried to see him, but he was still just a shadow. He never came close enough for her to see his face.

"Are you a stranger? I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." She was trying so hard to be brave, like her mom taught her.

"Well, you can call me Frank, okay? Now you know my name and I am not a stranger anymore. I need you to stay here, and I will bring you some food. There is a bathroom over there," he pointed to a door on the right side of the room. "I have to keep the lights off in here, sorry darlin', but you will be able to find it, if you feel around. Now, I am gonna need you to try to stay quiet, too. I'm your friend here, but the others, they aren't so nice, and if they see you or hear you, they will hurt you, understand?" His voice was not so calm and comforting anymore.

"O...Okay." She barely whispered, and she was scared all over again, silent tears rolling down her face. "What happened to my daddy, he was driving me home, then we crashed."

"Well, darlin', the others hurt him, so you have to listen or they will hurt you too. I gotta go now." He walked out, closed the door, and the light went away with him.

Trina, cried to herself, and tried to think about her mommy and daddy, and tried to see them happy, and that everything was okay.

Greene Residence

"Hi Detectives, thank you for coming." June welcomed Detectives Alvarez and Cohen inside.

"Yes, Hi Mrs. Greene, we received a message from Officer McGovern, we got over here as soon as we could, can you please tell us the information you have, and we will do what we can with it." And what the hell was McGovern doing here, thought Detective George Alvarez.

"Um...please sit down," she motioned them to the blue and white checkered couch. "Umm...Matt, I mean Officer McGovern stopped by this morning to see how I was doing, and we got to talking. You see...I didn't understand why you had to trace the license plate to find Garrett's address, then Matt explained that there was no I.D. or wallet. So that got me thinking, because he never, NEVER leaves home without it, he always has at least his I.D. on him, and he has an employee I.D. card he needs for work. Also, it seems his briefcase was missing from the scene, he always had that with him too."

She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, not wanting to break down again. She just had to spit it out, so they can get to work.

"What if somebody came by before the police got there, and took his wallet, briefcase, and..." She just couldn't bring herself to say Trina's name, afraid that if she said it aloud, it might be true.

"Okay, ma'am, it's okay." Detective Barry Cohen jumped in, looking at his partner, who just seemed to be lost in thought. "Alright, Mrs. Greene. I understand what you are telling us, we will definitely take this information and run with it. We can put a check out to see if anyone has used any of his credit cards, then that might lead us to someone, who, if he doesn't have your daughter, maybe he saw someone or something, and can give us a lead. Thanks for calling us, we will find your daughter, ma'am. Don't worry. If you think of anything else, call us back immediately." Detective Alvarez stood up, shook her hand and headed out the door, with Cohen following.

After the front door had closed behind them, Cohen approached his partner.

"Hey George, what the hell was that all about?" George kept walking, and Barry pulled his arm back to get his attention.

"Let go of me." George continued on and climbed in the driver's seat of the brown Volvo.

After Barry climbed in the passenger seat, he looked over at his partner of fifteen years, and said, "I have never known you to sit quiet through an interview like that, you didn't even seem to be there. What's up?"

"Look, man, I got three weeks until I retire, I was hoping to ride the desk smoothly until then, now this crap. Man, I don't want to spend this time looking for every pedophile opportunist in this city." He banged his fist on the steering wheel, than started to drive.

"Come on, George, what better way to go out, then with one last win, reuniting one more family, and all that hero stuff you spout on T.V. after we close a case?" Barry still had about five more years on the force, and he still loved it. But he has seen several good cops burn out, and it looked like it was happening to George now. He never would have thought it would hit him of all cops. But then again, the last case they worked was a really hard one.

Missing twelve year old boy, single mom, worked two jobs, and was hardly ever home in the evening. She came home one night to find her son's bed empty, and figured he was sleeping at a friend's house, as he often did. The next day she still hadn't seen him, called Missing Person's. But his body was found, floating in a pond just outside of town. He appeared to have been brutally beaten and raped. All the evidence was washed away from the pond water, and no witnesses had come forward yet.

"Ugh, step off, Barry! I'm fine, it's fine!" George felt a twinge of regret for snapping at his partner, who had been more of a brother to him in all these years. "Let's go talk to this McGovern, and find out what is going on, and if he is somehow connected to this case."

1:40 PM

Cohen and Alvarez pulled up to Matt McGovern's house, got out of the car and, with Alvarez taking the lead, pounded on his door.

They heard a grumble, and a man's voice shout that he would be right there.

Matt climbed out of bed, and rubbed his eyes, pulled on some jeans and headed to the door. He looked at the clock, wow, he actually managed to sleep for a couple of hours. He opened the door, and then straightened himself, and tried to smile.

"Hi Detectives, come on in. Did Mrs. Greene fill you in?" He tried to seem as if it were normal that the MP detectives were at his door. He hadn't met them before, but he just knew it was coming.

"McGovern, we need you to answer some questions for us." Alvarez pushed past him and headed to the living room. "Like, first of all, what the hell were you doing at the Greene residence?"

"Well...yesterday, my partner, Lindon and I, were ordered to deliver the news of the death of Garrett Greene, to his wife. You see...it was my first time, and it hit me hard. I know I can't let it get to me, it's the job and there will be thousands of others, I understand that, but it was...the first..." He was confident now, confident that he was going to be eating a pile of crap from these guys.

"Yeah, I get that, but toughen up, or you're not going to make it as a cop, that doesn't explain why you were there this morning." He was losing what little patience he had left.

"Well, it wasn't just the dead husband thing, but then when she mentioned the girl, I uh, well, I hurt for her. I was thinking about it all night, and today is my day off... look I know, I screwed up, I went over the line. I'm sorry. Anyway, it was after we got to talking, that we thought about what might have happened, I'm sure she told you."

"Yes, and we would have gotten there! We don't take our jobs lightly. You stay out of this, out of the Greene residence, unless it is a direct order from your CO." Alvarez was now standing with his finger in Matt's face. "You invite yourself into this investigation again, you might screw the case up. You are just a beat cop, too green to be doing detective work, so back off!" His face was getting red, and Cohen tapped his shoulder, and whispered something to him, and they turned and left.

"Okay, Cohen, what have you got on McGovern, besides his bleeding heart, are there any connections here, that he didn't mentioned?" Alvarez asked him, once they had gotten back to Central.

"Okay, Sheila, down in personnel, she is totally hot for me. She knows I am married, but she is convinced that when the time is right I'm gonna leave wifey for her."

"Oh, yeah, and how ever did she get that idea in her head?" George grinned, his partner was ever-faithful to his wife, but had no hesitations about flirting with anything in a skirt.

Barry grinned, and pulled that cool guy look, "Oh, maybe some little birdie told her, anyway, it certainly doesn't hurt when it comes to needing favors, she was able to pull McGovern's deets from personnel records."

"Okay, spill it already, I'm not getting any younger." He smiled, this, he was going to miss, while he and Cohen were tight as brothers and their kids had grown up together, he was definitely going to miss the joking with each other, and working a case together.

"Okay, age twenty six, single, never married. Parents were killed during a robbery at age twenty one, took in his younger brother. Brother killed in a drive-by last year, joined the force 6 months ago, and partnered with one cold hearted son of a...oh sorry...sometimes I just can't help myself." He grinned, Cohen tended to have a really bad cussing problem, but George has weaned him off of it. He always claimed that cops got too little respect as it was, and they certainly didn't need to add to it by running their mouths off all the time.

"Partner is Brenda Lindon. Ouch, poor kid."

"Yeah, I've had a few run-ins with her, and always came out bow-legged and cross-eyed. I'm surprised she didn't kick his butt to China yesterday for going all soft at the Greene's. It's a wonder he's still standing. But nothing jumps out at you, connected to the case?"

"Nope, not a thing, those two are from different worlds, she is the housewife of Suburbia, USA, and he is practically fresh from the ghetto." Cohen slurped down the rest of his coffee noisily, because he knew it just drove George crazy.

George glared at him, then said, "Okay, so it sounds like it's just a case of green rookie meets devastated housewife, and wants desperately to 'help her,' catch her while she's vulnerable. Sound about right?"

"Yeah, I would say so, let's hope you made him nervous enough to stay out of it."

"Uh, huh, that's just the first step, anyway, you better talk to Lindon and tell her to keep an eye on her partner, make sure he sticks to his duties and doesn't step on our toes."

"Oh no, no way, man, you talk to her, you the one gonna be leavin' and won't be around for her to bust your balls." Cohen actually looked a little frightened as he thought about it.

"Fine, I'll get a cup on, and talk to Lindon, you go do a run for Garrett Greene's credit cards, see if there have been any hits." George sent Cohen back to his desk to run the cards, and picked up his phone and took a deep breath, and asked for Officer Lindon.