Claimers and Disclaimers: The Due South characters, and premise were not thought up by me. Alliance can have them back when I'm done (If they can talk them into leaving...) Everything else is mine. (MINE, MINE, MINE!) Especially Benga & friends. And especially, ESPECIALLY the pictures. (MINE, MINE, MINE!) Oh, and I hereby forbid anyone, anywhere from calling Benny "Piaraq" execpt for with my express permission.
Here it comes...
Fraser was on guard duty, Dief at his feet, when the Riv pulled up at the curb. He had been stuck with the night shift all week... He had apparently upset Inspecter Thatcher in some way, though he hadn't the slightest idea of how.
In the darkness, he could just make out Ray's form as he leaned across the seat to unlock the passenger door, just as the bells began to chime out the shift change. The Mountie broke into a wide grin as he walked to his friend's car.
"Perfect timing, Ray," he said as he opened the door. Dief jumped to his accustomed place in the back seat, marked by an astonishing accumulation of wolf hair.
"Yeah, Benny, I thought you'd like that." Ray laughed, as he started the car. He looked up to see his friend staring at him, seemingly appalled. "What?"
"You're not buckled up... Do you have any idea how many automobile-related fatalities could have been prevented if..."
Ray cut him off, gruffly. "Okay, okay! Jeez, Benny, the littlest thing and off you go, spouting statistics."
"Well I'm sorry Ray, but it's just that I was concerned..."
Fraser broke off at the sight of a skirmish taking place in an alley to his right. Ray saw it just a moment after, and slammed on the brakes. Fraser had the door open before the Riv had stopped skidding.
"Hold on Benny, wait for me!" Ray shouted, wrestling his gun from its hoster on the way to join his friend. But Benny wasn't waiting. By the time Ray caught up with him, the fight was over. Fraser had one man by the collar, and two more lay slumped in suspiciously uncomfortabe positions. One with an obviously broken neck, the other... Ray couldn't really tell in the darkness.
Fraser stood, starring into the darkness of an old-Chicago style passage, narrower even than the alley they were in. "Take care of him, Ray," He said, almost negligently, as he shoved his captive towards the detective. Before Ray could respond, Fraser had disappeared into the shadows, his boot-steps ringing out on the pavement, seeming to echo on and on forever. Dief appeared from somewhere and gave chase.
"Benny!" Ray called out, but to late. "Well," he said, turning his attention to the man at his feet. "What do we have here?"
He placed his hand on the man's shoulder, meaning to pull him to his feet, but paused at the feel of viscous liquid against his fingertips. He lifted his hand. Blood.
The man was dead, throat slit. Only... he hadn't been dead before, had he? Ray could have sworn he had heard him cry out as Fraser collared him...
Ray turned to the other two men. Broken-neck was dead, as he had guessed. He pulled a penlight from his pocket and began to examine the second body.
A strangled sound issued forth from the slumped form. He was... 'god, he was alive!' The man sat up, leaning back against the wall, revealing for the first time the true extent of his injuries. His face had been torn off. Tatters of flesh and hair were all that remained. Both eyes were gone, and most of his teeth as well. His stomach had been sliced, no... ripped open, and his entrails were spilled out onto his lap.
As disgusted as he was, Ray still tried his best to help the man that lay before him. But all of his ministerings were in vain. A few moments later, Ray was kneeling next to three dead bodies, in a darkened alley. All alone.
"Benny!" he shouted again, but there was no reply. "Benny..." He cried, softer this time, his voice breaking with emotion. "Shit. Where'd you go this time."
Ray sat on the hood of the Riv, relating recent events to a very frightened Lt. Welsh. All around them, forensics teams were collecting samples. Blood. Ray had never seen so much blood in one place. Now the crime scene had been illuminated with almost blinding flood lights, bareing every gory detail to the discriminating eyes of "Chicago's finest". The boys in white.
Fraser had not been found yet... that was what had Welsh, and Ray, so scared. Uniforms had already combed the surrounding area, dogs and everything. Door-to-door. The works. And still, they had not found a single sign of the Mountie.
"Vecchio, why don't you go over to Constable Fraser's appartment... Check if maybe he went home. I'll have someone call you if anything comes up."
Ray started to protest. He wanted to be out looking, not waiting around for a phone call that might never... He shook his head to rid himself of his thoughts. "Yeah, sure, Luetenant." He turned and moved to the driver's side door of the Riv. "But, if anything... anything comes up. Anything..."
Welsh nodded as he stood. He gave the Riv a curt wave as it backed away. "Let's just hope he went home."
Ray opened the once-again-left-unlocked door to Fraser's appartment. He could tell right away that no one was there. It was a quality in the air, or something. The only sounds were the traffic outside, and the motion of some kind of rodent in the wall. Everything was neat and orderly, just as it always was. No Benny. Damn. It had been a long shot, he knew, but on the ride over his hopes had gone kite flying.
He wandered slowly around the kitchen, trying not to think. Benny was missing. He'd gone off, chasing someone from a crime scene, just like always... only this time he hadn't come back. Eventually, he drifted to the window. Ray opened the curtains, and was face to face with... a face.
It was a woman, with bright blue eyes. Starled eyes. Her mouth and chin were covered in something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Ray had only a brief moment to register this as she turned and lept off the fire excape. He quickly opened the window, and stepped out onto the creaking metal. But by the time he had, she had disapeared.
Ray laughed, though he couldn't think why. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Everybody was disapearing tonight. He wasn't chasing this one. No way. Phantom beauty, covered in blood. Definitely intrigueing, if you went for that type. Ray didn't go for that type. He laughed again.
He jumped when he heard a familliar voice from just behind him. "Ray, what's so funny?" Ray turned to see a perplexed Mountie looking at him from just inside the window. He laughed again, this time with a legitimate reason. His friend looked so XXXXing silly...
"Nothin', Benny. I'm just a little weirded out is all." Ray paused,"There was a woman out here. Scared me shitless. Where were you, anyway?"
"A woman?" Fraser's perplexed expression returned, briefly, to be replaced by... something that Ray couldn't quite read. "What did she look like?"
"I don't know, Benny. She had blood on her face... blue eyes, that's all I saw..." Ray faded out as his friend paled. Ray climbed back inside and shut the window as Fraser turned and walked to the chest next to his bed. He unlocked it, and began shifting through the contents to the very bottom of the chest. He pulled out a sketchbook and riffled through it quickly, slowing, and then finally turning the pages one at a time.
"Is this her?" he asked, tentitavely, as he held up a drawing. Oh, it was her alright, minus the blood, with a friendly smile instead of fear in her eyes. The drawing was perfect, captured every curve of her face, every line, with almost loving detail. She was beautiful.
"Who is she, Benny?" Ray asked. It seemed that all to often lately his friend was on a first name basis with someone involved in one of their cases. "Is that who you were chasing tonight?"
Fraser didn't answer. He shut the notebook and laid it onto the floor. He pulled several more from the bottom of the chest. He took out the box containing his father's pistol. Not the Mountie-issue .38 that his holster was built for, but an anchient revolver, with fine scrollwork along the barrel. The thing was a monster.
When Fraser pulled a weapon, it was time to worry. The last time he had seen a gun in his friend's hands was when he had almost shot his own wolf.
Ray looked anxiously around "Hey, Benny... Where's Dief? Wasn't he with you earlier?" Fraser said nothing. "Hello? Earth to Mountie?" The Mountie in question lifted his bedroll from the corner, sitting it next to the chest. He stood and removed his tunic, walking towards his closet as he undressed. "Benny?" Ray said, worriedly.
Fraser changed into his streetclothes, silent. He had a dark, determined expression on his face. Ray felt like he was going to burst. 'XXXX it.' He thought, and just let it wash over him.
"Benny, what the hell is goin on here? Why aren't you talking to me? I haven't seen you like this since... 'Since Victoria. Say it. Since Victoria. Since...' Since I don't know when!"
Fraser lifted his eyes, meeting Ray's and staring with a quiet intensity that Ray found a more than a bit distracting. Fraser had not yet put on the flannel shirt he had pulled from the closet, and Ray had to fight not to stare. Finally, Fraser spoke, his voice breaking with emotion.
"I... I can't tell you, Ray. I just..." He broke off, looking down at the floor. He finished dressing in silence, eyes lowered. Neither man spoke as Fraser collected seemingly random items from the closet: a tin box, a few more notebooks. He began loading his things into the duffle bag that had lain untouched in the bottom of his closet for so long. He filled an orange crate with the ragged notebooks he had collected from various places in the appartment. There had been three under the mattress, and more in the center of his bedroll.
It seemed to Ray like he had been hiding them. Why? every drawing he had ever seen Fraser do had been fantastic. If he could draw like that, no way he'd be a cop. Even a starving artist made more than the average cop. And how often were artists killed in the line of duty?
Ray causually reached for the book on the top of the stack, wanting to see what his friend had so carefully hidden. "No!" Fraser shouted, knocking his hand away, hard. Ray jumped back, more startled than hurt. After a moment, he looked up amazed. Fraser was seated on the edge of the bed now, looking painfully remorsful. "I'm sorry, Ray." he murmered, covering his face with his hand, briefly. "I can't let you see that. There are.. things... that I've kept from you. I didn't want to, but it isn't exactly my choice. I... I have to leave. Now."
Ray's heart jumped. 'Leave? Benny was leaving...' He felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped onto his head, and had decided to stay there. The unthinkable was happening. Benny was leaving...
"...Leaving? Where are you going?"
"I can't tell you that, either... I shouldn't even be telling you goodbye. I shouldn't be here at all. I have to move the books, though. So they won't find them."
"Benny, you're starting to sound like a... a schizophrenic, or something. Who's they?"
"I can't..."
"I know, I know. Can't tell me. Why the XXXX not, Ben? Why'd you get like this all of a..." Ray broke off. He knew the answer already. It was the woman. The one he had seen at the window almost half an hour before, startled and bloodstained.
"Ray, I have to leave, now." Fraser repeated, "You have to get out of here, too. Tell the Leftenant you waited for a while, but Frannie called you home, or something like that. You don't want to be here in the morning." Fraser picked up the duffel bag, and reached for the crate of notebooks. He paused. "Ray... hang on to these for me, please?" Fraser backed to the window and opened it. "Goodbye, Ray."
For a long time after he had gone, Ray stood staring at the open window, his mind numb. As dawn slowly broke above the Chicago skyline, Fraser's words echoed back into his mind. 'You don't want to be here in the morning.'
Still numb, Ray closed the window. Then he lifted the crate of notebooks and slowly made his way from the apartment, trying not to wake Fraser's neighbors. 'ex-neighbors,' he thought, then pushed away the burst of emotion that crowded into his head.
Upstairs, in apartment 3J the The only sounds were the motions of an anonymous rodent in the wall, and the muffled roar of a well kept '71 Buick Riviara as it pulled out into the street.
Ray found himself somehow unwilling to go home. He drove, instead to the precinct. The bullpen was a mass of frantic activity, something one usually didn't see at six-thirty in the morning. The moment he walked in, all was still. All eyes were on him, searching for any kind of sign... They all had all looked so helplessly optimistic, until they say the broken look on his face.
Everyone went back to whatever it was they had been doing before he walked in. Everyone except Elaine, who walked towards him and opened her arms. Ray hugged her tightly and rested his head on her shoulder, letting the tears come for the first time. The noise around them increased, making his head spin.
Elaine spoke comfortingly, and Ray was grateful. He knew she was every bit as frightened as he was, maybe more. He at least knew that Fraser was alive. Looking into her forlorn face, Ray had to fight to keep himself from relating what had taken place at Benny's apartment. It wasn't fair for her to suffer like this.
Ray looked up to see Huey and Dewey standing next to him, trying not to make the moment awkward. They failed miserably, but Ray was still grateful. For once, no one was cracking jokes about his "pet Mountie". For once, everyone was just as worried as he was.
Huey waited until Elaine and Ray had disengaged before he started talking. "Ray... They found a body..."
Before the Huey could finish his sentence, Ray found himself slumped against a desk, Elaine's arm around his back, supporting him. Unbidden images came to his mind, images of his best friend covered in his own blood, looking like the faceless man in the alley...
He came back to himself slowly, and realized that Huey was still talking. "It's not Fraser, Ray. It's not Fraser." Huey kept repeating himself until he saw coherence return to Ray's face. "It's not Fraser. It's a John Doe. They found him with his throat slit about a block from Fraser's apartment while they were out combing the neighborhood. They caught another man nearby, with a stab wound in his belly. Arresting officer said it looked like he'd been in a knife fight."
"Why are you telling me this, Huey?" Ray muttered, irritated. "Do you think I really give a XXXX right now about two punks in a knife fight?"
Huey leaned back, lowering his eyes. Ray could tell he was bracing himself for something. "The man that they caught hadn't just been stabbed. He'd been attacked by an animal, something to big to be a dog. It left white hairs all over his clothes.
Ray felt himself retreating into numbness again. 'Dief had attacked someone? Why?' Diefenbaker was one animal he just couldn't picture actually attacking someone, at least not without a good reason. "Has forensics been over the scene yet?" He heard himself say.
"Yeah, but the results won't be back until later. We put this one on top priority. The fight earlier, too." Huey started to babble. Ray could still hardly hear him. He still couldn't clear his mind of the image of Benny, lying slumped against the wall of the alley, his blood covering the ground.Ray felt helpless.
"Elaine, could you give us a hand over here? We're having trouble with the computer again." Elaine looked up, and Ray's eyes followed her gaze. There was a man Ray didn't know seated at Elaine's desk, staring confusedly at an "error" message that had popped up onto the screen. Elaine removed her arm from around Ray's shoulders.
"I'll be back in a sec," she said, and sighed. Ray laughed. 'Why do I keep laughing? There's nothing funny about this. Guess it's one of those "defensive reactions".'
Ray heard a gasp. He turned to see Elaine, now seated in her own chair, staring at the screen in confusion.He walked over to see what it was they had found out. He casually noted the forensics badge on the other man's lapel, before he looked at the screen. He was a bit startled to see a bad photo of Fraser looking back at him. 'as if any photo of Benny can really be called a bad photo' He was still trying to figure out what had made Elaine gasp, when the forensics man turned and noticed him.
"Detective Vecchio?" he ask. Ray looked up and studied the man in front of him. He was rather small, and balding. He looked like your typical egghead, glasses and all. Ray nodded and held out his hand. "I'm Frank Groiler, from forensics. I was running a finger print check. Our computers all went down last night and we still haven't gotten them running again." Groiler grimaced. "Ah, the wonders of technology. Detective...?"
Ray was starring confusedly at the screen. 'Fingerprint check? Why had Benny's file come up on a fingerprint check? Where had they gotten the prints?'
"Where did you get the prints?" Ray blinked, started. Had Elaine read his mind? He glanced up. Elaine was looking at Groiler, expectantly. His face darkened for a moment, as if unsure how to phrase his answer.
"We lifted the prints off of that John Doe they found. The one near your friend's apartment." Groiler hesitated a moment. Ray's heart caught in his throat. "From the position of the fingerprints, I'd say your friend was taking his pulse. He must have touched the wound first, to get the blood on his hands."
"So he was trying to help him." Elaine said, a little more matter-of-factly than was really necessary. Then she began to look unsure. " ...But Fraser would have called us, wouldn't he? If he found a body...?
Ray didn't like the look of doubt on her face. "He was probably still trying to catch the other guy..."
"But he didn't catch the other guy... We did!" Elaine's careful mask of composure began to crack. Tears had filled her eyes. "Unless he did find him and he.. he..." The mask shattered, and a torrent of emotion was poured into her eyes and her voice. It was Ray's turn to offer a comforting embrace.
Ray felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Huey. "I was just about to go talk to that guy we brought in. Do you want to come with me?
Ray sighed. "Yeah." He kissed the top of Elaine's head as he gave her one last squeeze. As he left the bullpen, he glanced back at her. Groiler offered her a tissue and then his hands. 'Good. I didn't want to leave her alone like that...' Ray gave her a small smile and walked out the door.
"I... Hey, thanks, Huey. For letting me sit in. Means alot." The two detectives were walking down the hospital corridor, toward the uniform posted in the hallway.
"Hey, no problem, Vecchio. But, if you so much as look like your gonna get rough on this guy, I'm throwing you out. You ready for this?" Ray looked at him, puzzled. Huey sighed. "You didn't see him when they brought him in. I've never seen a man with so much blood on him." 'I bet I have.' Ray thought to himself. The image of the faceless man came to him. He quickly buried it again, deep in that "Deal with it later" file that was now nearing overflow.
Huey opened the door, and walked to side of the bed. Laying in it was perhaps the most pathetic figure Ray had ever seen. The man looked tiny and dark against the white sheets of the hospital bed, thin to the point of emaciation. His entire face was covered in gauze bandages, and there was a brace around his neck. His right arm was in a plaster cast all the way up to his shoulder. The rest of him was covered in the thin hospital sheet. Ray tried to immagine what he might look like under the bandages, then decided that he wished he hadn't.
The man on the bed tilted his head as they entered, obviously listening to their approach. He said nothing as Ray shut the door behind himself.
"I'm Detective Huey. I've been assigned to your case, to try and find out who did this to you. What's your name, son? The man on the bed stiffened noticably. He muttered something unintellegable, and reached up to rest his hand against the bandages. Before either cop could do anything, he had pulled the gauze away.
Ray's eyes nearly lept from their sockets. The man's face was a ruin... not as bad as the guy in the alley, but this one wasn't covered in blood. Somehow, that made it all the more terrible. Ray could see every detail of the dammage done to his face.
Like the dead man in the alley, he was blind. Claws 'or fingernails,' Ray thought, had been forced into his eyes, not only to gauge at the tender organs, but also to splinter the bone around them. Trailing down from the empty sockets were twin rows of stitched-over gashes, four on a side. He was smiling a toothless smile, and Ray realized why he had been so hard to understand. He had no tongue. Only a ragged stump in the back of his throat.
Ray went weak. The man on the bed continued to remove layers of gauze, then unsnapped the neckbrace, one handed. There was a ragged wound on the front of his throat, just where his voicebox should have been. He gave a harsh, whistling sound that was obviously ment as laughter, hearing the dry retching sounds that came from Huey's direction. Ray wouldn't give him the same satisfaction.
"Okay, kid. Cut it out!" Ray muttered sharply, as he reached blindly for the button that would summon the nurses and the uniform outside. He felt proud of himself for his restraint as he helped the heaving detective to his feet and into the bathroom. He left Huey there and walked back into the room just as the nurses appeared and sedated the wayward patient. He fell back onto the pillow almost instantly, as the drug took effect.
Ray left the room, knowing very well that he would have to hold off on the interigation until dear Johnny Doe was off the serious painkillers. Some people just had bad reactions to morphine. 'Never seen anybody do that, though!'
After stopping off at the front desk to check for six foot, brown haired, blue eyed John Does, Ray Vecchio climbed into the Riv, this time with every intention of going home. He felt a raw ache behind his eyes that he recognised as a need for sleep and solace. 'Maybe, if I'm lucky, only Ma would be home'
Ray opened the door to the Vecchio house. Frannie tackled him, knocking him to the floor. She started asking questions before he had fully registered the fact that he was horizontal. "Is he okay? Did they find him? How much do you know? Do you know where he is?" Ray had felt a little shaken before, but being assaulted by his frantic sister put him over the edge.
"Get off me, Frannie! I don't know anything! Get off of me and leave me alone!" Ray picked himself up and bolted up the stairs, followed closely by his mother. "So much for luck," he muttered to himself as he floped onto the bed. The whole Vecchio clan had been waiting to ambush him. Someone '...probably Elaine' had obviously called ahead. 'At least I didn't have to tell them..."
"Raymundo, do you want to talk?" Ray looked up to see his mother's form siluetted in the doorway. He sighed.
"Not yet, Ma... I still need to get all of this straight in my mind."
His mother nodded. "I'll bring you up some soup. You just try and get a little sleep, caro. I'll wake you if they call." As she closed the door behind her, Ray heard her speaking in an undertone. "Leave him be, Franchesca. He needs his rest."
'Thanks, Ma' Ray smiled, and laid back down to sleep. As he drifted off, exhausted, he thought that he heard Frannie crying in the hall. 'Poor Fran. If I could just tell her what I saw... Of all the secrets I have kept, this one has got to be the hardest.
End Where the hell has Benny gone? Who is the
mysterious blood drenched beauty? What about the sketchbooks? Stay
tuned for the next episode (Secret II: Secrets of Death) to find out.
Oh, andmail me,
please? If I get no mail, I'll assume nobody read it, and that means I
have no reason to finish. "I will weave planetary nouns with
constellation participals, and link the subject and predicate woth verbs
of a Jungian and archetypal flavor.