Busted (39 page)

When
morning finally came Joe woke up and felt like hell. His left arm was stiff, his shoulder hurt, and his whole body ached. The hotel bed had been fine as hotel beds went, but it wasn't his, and it wasn't Chris'. Not that he was going to end up in Chris' bed again. The closest he came was Snuffles. It wasn't the same. It was all he had, though.

Cursing whatever part of his ancestry that kept him from being able to take anything useful for pain, he walked carefully into the bathroom. That was another thing he wasn't looking forward to. He couldn't even shower for a few days. He was stuck with tylenol and a damp face cloth.

He wasn't too bad off, not yet at least. Some product in his hair got it in reasonable shape, and he was limber enough that he could wash most places. He had to be careful. It wasn't tough to stretch in ways that made his shoulder twinge.

Joe felt… adrift. It was seven thirty in the morning. Far too early to go out anywhere, even if he had anywhere to go. He didn't, though. He wasn't going back to his apartment again. He couldn't go to Chris'. And he was off work for the rest of the week.

Or so was the plan, but plans change. He was leaving, and to leave he had to find a place to go to, and settle up his affairs. He had everything that mattered with him. There wasn't any real reason he couldn't go into work. He could start things moving, hunt down a place to go. Someplace starting with 'S', he thought. Seattle, or Singapore, or San Francisco. He wondered idly if there were any of those in Hawai’i.

His decision made, Joe got ready for work. Dressing was a pain, literally, but there were images to be maintained, and button-down shirts were the easiest things he had to get into. The bandages over his wound would show through the light cotton shirt, but there was no helping it. He wasn't going to try and move things enough to slip on an undershirt. Doing the tie up nearly convinced him to stay in, but with gritted teeth and too much determination he managed.

He certainly surprised Carol when he walked into the building. He'd only taken a day off, but his life had changed so much it felt like forever since he'd been in. She eyed the empty left sleeve of his jacket, and the sling that was showing underneath.

"Good morning, Mister Hennessey," she said. "We heard you’d been hurt. I didn't expect you in the rest of the week."

"Didn't expect to be in," Joe said. "Plans change." He shrugged, then winced.

"What happened?" Carol asked.

"Just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Joe said. He didn't really feel like getting into a discussion about it. He probably should have shrugged it off as an accident, but didn't think about that in time. It was too late to do that now, and odds were that the news of his injury would make it back to his office before he did.

He was right, of course. It was only a three minute walk through the building, and that included stopping for coffee. Joan already knew.

"Should you be in with your injury, Joe?" she asked.

"Beats sitting around the hotel room," he said absently. He was having a hard time concentrating. His arm wasn't in screaming pain, but it was constant and very present.

Joan frowned. "Hotel?"

"Ah, forget I said that," Joe said. He knew full well she wouldn't.

Joan just gave him a look, and he relented.

"Okay. I got mugged in my apartment. Nasty slice, seventy-four stitches, the cops don't have him so I'm in a hotel for a little while. Anything else?"

"Should I call for a taxi for you tonight?"

"No, I'm fine. I drove this morning."

She gave him a disapproving frown. "Driving with the pain medication isn't safe."

Joe rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No pain meds, just some antibiotics and Tylenol. I can't take anything stronger. If I get snappish later today I'm sorry. And listen, can we just pretend I'm not here if anyone calls? Please?"

"Sure, Joe."

"Thanks," he said. He shut his office door.

While he was in the office, he had a hard time actually working. He spent the time instead surfing the web, looking at job postings and apartment listings. He found he was out of luck with Guam, but there were some things in Hawai’i. Boulder too, he remembered liking it when he'd vacationed there ages ago. He wondered if the Monterey Bay Aquarium needed an HR director. Or a zoo somewhere. That sort of thing didn't pay as well, but it'd be interesting to do something more relaxed.

Joe was somewhat surprised that afternoon when Bill Powell, the company owner, came wandering in. He and Bill spent half the week together in meetings some times, but Bill never just dropped by. Even after working for the man for nearly ten years, they really didn't socialize.

No surprise, Bill was twenty five years older than Joe, graying, and married three times. He'd started the business after the insurance company he'd worked for had been bought out. He'd used the golden parachute they'd offered to finance his startup, and had gotten a perverse joy out of providing services back to the company that had told him they didn't need him any more.

"Mister Powell," Joe said. "What can I do for you?"

"I just came to check on how you were doing, Joe," he said. Bill lowered himself into one of the chairs in Joe's office.

"The last time you dropped in to check up on things was six years ago, and your second ex-wife had just served you with papers."

"Yes, well," Bill said. "Word of the… incident has made its way around the office, as I'm sure you expected. I do realize that this sort of thing can leave people uncomfortable, make them consider a… change of scenery."

Joe's eyes widened just a tiny bit. Someone in IT must've noticed him searching for apartments. It was probably a good thing he'd never gone surfing for porn at work. For a moment he considered trying to brush it off, but there didn't seem like a whole lot of point. He was looking to move on, and strictly speaking it wasn't an actionable offense this time. He knew, he'd written the internet usage policy. No sense burning bridges, and a lot of people did bolt in these circumstances.

"It has gotten me fairly shaken up," Joe admitted. "I'm pretty sure it was the same guy who slashed my tires in the lot here a couple of weeks ago, and they haven't caught him"

Bill's mouth hardened. "I'll talk to the police, and security. Joe," he continued, his voice softening as much as it ever did, "I do realize how much you've contributed to the growth of the company."

Joe didn't let it show, but it was true. Powell had a 20% lower turnover rate than its competitors did. A lot of that was because Joe tended to sit in the interviews with people. Weeding out the people who lied in their interviews up front helped a lot, even if did leave Joe with a migraine at the end of most interview days.

"You've been with us for ten years. It's not quite your anniversary, but under the circumstances, I don't mind telling you we'd decided on a fifteen percent raise this year, plus an addition to your incentive package. Perhaps that might help your feelings of security?"

Joe was surprised at the blatant lie. He was probably up for the regular numbers, but Bill had decided to try throwing some cash at him to keep him around. He must have realized Joe was more important than he'd ever let on. Under other circumstances he'd have tried to negotiate more, but getting more and bailing anyway wasn't a good idea. Word of that got around.

"I… haven't made any final decisions," Joe said. "It depends a lot on the police." Or at least one detective, though he tried not to think about that. It hurt enough as it is, and one more disappointment was more than he was willing to entertain.

"I'll have a word with the chief, then," Bill declared. "Think it over, Joe."

* * *

Wednesday morning Chris was in a foul mood. He'd half-hoped that Joe would be at the house when he got home the night before. Maybe Joe would bitch him out the way he deserved, and they could work something out. Chris wasn’t sure exactly what, but something.

Joe hadn't been there, of course. Toby had cheerfully let him know that he and Aunt Mary had made cookies, then asked whether Uncle Joe was going to be home. It was the closest Chris had come to snapping at Toby since the boy had been born. He'd asked again at breakfast, though Chris couldn't quite bring himself to tell him that Joe might not come back. That wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to.

Steve was sitting at his desk when Chris got in. He was holding a baggie with the harlequin mask. There was an envelope and a DVD on the desk in front of him.

"Morning, Chris," Steve said. His tone was carefully neutral.

"Morning," Chris replied. He was feeling cautious. This wasn't Steve's normal behavior.

"The rookie dropped off some stuff," he said, waving at the collection of things on his desk.

"And it is…?"

"And Mary called. She wanted me to make sure to invite you and Joe over for dinner tomorrow night."

"Oh. Um."

"Yeah. Um,” Steve said.

"I don't think…" Chris trailed off, not quite able to say Joe was gone for real.

Steve let the uncomfortable silence hang between them for a long moment. "Yeah. I thought so," he finally said

"So you'll tell her?" Chris asked.

Steve just looked at Joe for a moment. "No, sorry," though he clearly wasn't.

Chris fidgeted as the seconds ticked by. "What's in the stuff?"

Steve sighed and shook his head. Chris was being intentionally obtuse, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He just hoped Joe would be more sensible when he finally calmed down about whatever had set him off. "Footage from the security cameras in Joe's building around the time of the attack. Hopefully better than the crap from his office parking lot. The mask has some blood on it that may be from our perp. Joe caught him good in the side of the head, according to the report. And he sent a note."

"A what?"

Steve pushed the envelope across the desk. It had ‘Det. Russell’ scrawled across the front. When Chris picked it up it was heavier than he'd expected. He opened it up, dumping out the key and note that were inside.

Steve,

Here's a key to the apartment in case management gives you a hard time. Lease runs to the end of the month, after that everything will probably all go to Goodwill. Grab what you like – Chris can have the couch but only if he promises to burn his.