21 Weeks: Week 1

missing stuff?” Williams questioned. “The way the cash register was positioned? None of that was there when the clerk went down.”

  “Do you really want to know?” Beck asked, and, though he nodded, Beck suspected Williams really didn’t.

  Nodding him back over, she pulled up the video again, fast-forwarding to Mr. Basu’s dramatic exit from the world. Twenty minutes before he would be found by Ms. Cain, it took only two for the next customer to come in. Grabbing the candy bar she’d come in after, the teen girl looked around in confusion at the unmanned store, waiting for someone to check her out. When no one came, she stopped back by the candy rack, contemplating for a moment, as if she might put the bar back, before grabbing the entire box and taking it with her.

  “What?” Williams uttered.

  More customers streaming in and out, it was the same basic routine. Finding the store without anyone in charge, they took off with a few boxes of condoms, a pair of sunglasses, a case of beer from the back cooler.

  “People were stealing from him while he was lying there bleeding to death?”

  “To be fair,” Beck said. “They didn’t know he was there.”

  A last customer entering the store, baseball cap pulled low, it cloaked the man’s face in shadow. Walking the empty aisles several times, he even appeared to call out at one point. When he got no response, the man rushed to the counter, lunging across it for the cash register, fingers frantically pressing buttons in an effort to get the drawer open.

  Eyes catching on something on the floor, the would-be thief jerked backward, and the poorly-secured register slid with him, scratching the deep grooves they had seen in the counter. His foot catching a silver rack, it disconnected as the man made it back to the floor, and he ran over a bag of errant chips in his effort to flee, popping it open and crushing its contents.

  It was a moment later that Ms. Cain walked in, calling out for Mr. Basu when she didn’t see him anywhere. Moving off toward the back room, she turned at the door and spotted Mr. Basu’s body behind the counter. As the woman’s hand flew to her mouth in horror, Beck stopped the video again.

  “Well, that’s no great statement on humanity.”

  “Most thefts are crimes of opportunity,” Beck uttered. “None of these people would have taken anything if they had to hurt someone.”

  Dropping back into his chair, Williams looked ten times heavier than before. “And you came to this theory because the mess wasn’t messy enough for you?”

  “Pretty much,” Beck said.

  “Did you consider some people just keep a cool head no matter what?”

  “Clearly, you’ve never been terrified.”

  When Williams’ gaze grew more intent, Beck cursed the slip and looked to her desk for reprieve.

  “You should tell Martinez what you just told me,” Williams said. “You don’t have to mention the video. Just walk him through your theory, let him know why we’re sitting here, instead of out looking for possible suspects.”

  “No.” Beck shook her head.

  “Nash, you didn’t exactly have the best introduction into this department. If you tell him what happened before anyone else, it could seriously save your ass.”

  “Martinez wanted me here,” Beck responded. “He’ll decide whether or not he still wants me. I’m not going to beg for my job, because, regardless of what anyone thinks, I did earn it and I do deserve it.”

  “I’m not saying you don’t.” Williams argued no further. Though, it was clear he wanted to.

  At least, he seemed to believe her. As for everyone else, who thought she was more concerned with her own advancement than being a team player, there wasn’t a damn thing Beck could do about that.

  6 - Williams’ Household - Thursday, 7:20 p.m.

  She’d made it most of the way through the week without being fired. Beck supposed that was a good sign. Case closed before it began, the days had been mostly policy and procedure, utterly mundane by comparison. In Vice, there was always someone they could be out chasing. It wasn’t a bad thing murders weren’t in as ample supply as drugs and prostitution in their fair city, but there was a question as to whether or not she could make the adjustment, or if she would go stir-crazy waiting for someone to go after.

  Bishop returned Wednesday morning, looking no worse for wear. Meeting her gaze as he stepped through the door, he was ecstatic to see Beck still there. Or, at least, that was how Beck chose to interpret the fleeting glance he passed over her before ignoring her presence completely.

  No excuse that wasn’t just that - an excuse - Beck accepted the dinner invitation from Kevin’s wife. If it was inevitable, it was better to just get it over with, she decided, which was how she found herself sitting at the Williams’ dining room table Thursday night with a plate of fettuccine and two kids - ages ten and fifteen - looking at her as if she might perform tricks.

  “So, Beck, Kevin tells me this is your first time working Homicide.”

  Not a term she would use under most circumstances, Kevin’s wife, Sandra, was the actual definition of the word “lovely.” Gorgeous and unrelentingly charming, the woman hugged Beck as soon as she walked through the door - like a genuine hug, not one of those air-kiss embraces women liked to give each other to demonstrate their friendship while secretly sleeping with each other’s husbands.

  “Yes.” Beck nodded.

  “What did you do before?”

  “I worked Vice.”

  “What’s that?” Williams’ son, Curtis, asked, and, glancing across the table at the kid, Beck tried to think of a way to make porn and bootlegging kid-friendly.

  “You know how I find people who hurt other people?” Williams intercepted. “Beck chased down all the other bad guys.”

  “Not all of them,” Beck said.

  “Did you ever shoot anyone?”

  “Curtis.”

  “No. I never had to,” Beck responded.

  “Well, that’s a good thing.” Sandra glanced appreciatively her way.

  It was also a lie. Though, to be fair, Beck did most of her shooting in SWAT gear, and not in Vice.

  Scooting his chair up to the table, Curtis bumped hard against the leg. Entire surface quaking, Beck grabbed her glass as it teetered, watching that of Williams’ daughter, Adreene, tip before she could catch it, the soda inside splashing over the table’s edge and into her lap.

  “Curtis!” Adreene jumped to her feet, and, panic she hadn’t had cause to feel in some time flooding through her, Beck looked to her new partner, who, apparently, could no longer withhold his laughter. “Dad! It’s not funny!”

  “It’ll come out.” Williams clearly disagreed. “I’m the one your Mom’s going to make scrub that out of the carpet later.”

  “Sorry.” Curtis looked to his mother.

  “It’s all right.” Doing a much better job of keeping a straight face, Sandra reached out to pat her son on the arm. “Go get a towel.”

  Curtis rushing off, Adreene continued her colorful cursing of her brother’s existence until Williams got up to switch out her wet chair with the one at the head of the table.

  “Go change your clothes,” he said, and, with a last growl of adolescent fury, Adreene stomped out of the room. “Did it get you?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Heart belying the statement, Beck was grateful for the biological fact she was the only one who could feel it as she watched Williams take the towel to clean up the mess when Curtis made it back.

  “Sorry. We have a lot of spills around here.” Sandra smiled, and Beck realized they weren’t just faking it for the company. Tongue pressing into Williams’ cheek, he was still humored by his daughter’s overdramatic departure, and there was no pretense in Sandra’s hand as she passed it over their son’s head as he sat back in his seat beside her.

  No one was angry.