FIC: CSI Sunnydale (BtVS, Giles/Xander, FRAO) 3/3
CSI SUNNYDALE: THE ONE WHERE THE REPORTER SOLVES THE CRIME, 3/3
FRAO, Giles/Xander, AU
PART ONE | PART TWO
*
The first thing Rupert was aware of upon waking was the arm draped over his torso. The second was the warm heat against his side, suffusing his body. The third -- and he let out a soft moan then -- was the mouth, sucking softly at the skin below his collarbone. Then it stopped.
"Morning," Xander said sleepily.
Rupert felt the grin widening on his face, and turned to look at Xander, head now pillowed on Rupert's shoulder. "Good morning."
"I think I gave you a hickey," Xander murmured, nuzzling at the skin he'd been sucking a minute before.
"You might have." Rupert wouldn't mind at all. He cupped Xander's cheek and caressed the skin there softly. "Perhaps I should give you--"
He was interrupted by the shrill ring of a phone that wasn't his, and Xander swore, pulled back from Rupert with a really disappointed look in his eyes, and fetched his phone from within his pant pockets.
Rupert sighed and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He left the sheet covering his midsection, and shivered at the loss of heat. He pointedly didn't listen to Xander's phone conversation. He'd expect the same courtesy of Xander in this case, so it wasn't all that difficult to clench his curiosity and focus on the room; on the clothes scattered across the floor, the condom thrown haphazardly somewhat in the direction of the bin, the tube of lubricant on the nightstand still opened.
He didn't hear Xander hang up the phone; one moment he wasn't in the room, and the next he was climbing behind Rupert and wrapping himself over Rupert's back, chin tucked against Rupert's shoulders, and hands sliding over Rupert's torso.
"I have to go," Xander whispered, sounding a little upset. "One of my contacts got a lead, and I need to get on it before it goes away."
Rupert twined the fingers of one hand with Xander's on his chest, and turned his head slightly to the side, so he could look into Xander's face. "It's quite all right," he murmured.
"No, it's not. I had this plan for this morning, to make sure you weren't going to freak out and go hide in your bathroom, and it involved my mouth on your dick and a bunch of other things."
A shot of arousal went through him, and Rupert shivered. "You can make it up to me."
"Tonight?"
There was uncertainty in Xander's voice and Rupert squeezed his hand tightly. "Tonight would be perfect."
Xander curled his hand around Rupert's neck, and tilted his head. "I'll hold you to that."
"Shouldn't that be my line?" Rupert asked, his free hand coming up to cup Xander's cheek.
There was no answer from Xander; just a much too short kiss and a smile.
*
Rupert had been at work less than half an hour -- and had spent all that time resolutely not thinking about Xander at all -- when Willow knocked quietly on his doorframe and walked in. "DNA matches," she said with a nervous looking smile, and handed him the results. "Mr. George Henry Patton did donate half of Ms. Hilary Lambert's DNA."
"Well, that is not surprising at all," Rupert said. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. "We have five bodies, three of which are Patton's children, one is a mistress, and one seems to be completely unconnected." Then he added, "Thank you, Willow; that was quick work."
"Yeah, as soon as we figured out why the machine wasn't working last night, things went smooth," she explained, bowing slightly at the waist.
He eyed her carefully for a moment, and then said, "Thank you." He paused before adding, "for your message."
The smile she gave him was shy and maybe a little guilty. "I know it's none of my business and all--"
"No," Rupert interrupted her quickly, standing up and coming to lean against the desk next to her. "Xander is your friend, and that makes it your business. I'm aware of that, and while I may not be thrilled that people who work for me might know more about my personal life than even I do, it is a drawback I can learn to live with."
"Do you want to?" Willow seemed uncertain, as if she'd been expecting him to bolt. And really, she hadn't been wrong to expect it; in any other case Rupert would have let whoever it was down gently; he'd done it before, almost too many times to count.
"Yes," Rupert replied. He crossed his arms over his chest, and he looked straight at her. He didn't want her to have any doubts about this. As much as Rupert was still berating himself for falling into bed with Xander, he wasn't so sure about it being a mistake anymore. Waking up next to him, feeling warm skin against his own, and the way Xander had wrapped himself over Rupert's back after the phone call had forced them both to sit up; it had all added up to Rupert wanting this to last.
Perhaps even needing it.
He'd tried once, when he'd been a young police officer in London, before he'd become a homicide detective, to have a long term relationship. To say it had turned sour was to underestimate the amount of pain the relationship had caused both Ethan and himself. The fact that it had officially ended the day Rupert and his partner had caught up with Ethan's drug smuggling operation, and had had to put manacles on him, definitely didn't even start to lessen Rupert's guilt.
Something told him, though, that this was different. Xander not only knew about the job, he worked the job. He would never blame Rupert for spending more time at the precinct than at home. He'd never blame Rupert for his illegal dealings.
Not that Xander was caught in any sort of illegal act.
"Yes, Willow, I do," he repeated again.
She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Okay," she said. "After my shift, I need to give you the shovel speech, but until then, you're off the hook. And I better get back, because I can almost feel Snyder walking towards my lab to see what progress I've made since ten minutes ago, and I really don't want to have to talk to him."
Rupert smiled at her and wondered if he should be frightened. He watched her walk down the hallway and a second later, Snyder passed by with a resolute look on his face. Oh poor girl, Rupert thought.
He sat down at his desk again and didn't even have time to resume his thoughts when his phone started to ring. Rupert reached for it and said, "Rupert Giles."
"Hey, absolutely hottest man on Earth," Xander replied. Rupert shook his head and grinned. "I got some stuff for you that I'm faxing over right now. I'll bring you the originals in a couple of hours, but I have to meet with another informant first, and I thought you'd be interested in having those right away."
"Thank you." Rupert refrained from adding "Xander" on the off chance that Snyder was still within earshot, and calling him "Harris" now felt so-- so wrong and impersonal.
"I'll give you the gist," Xander continued. "Holloway's ex-military, army. Guess what he used to do in the field?"
Oh. Oh. Rupert sat up straighter in his chair and picked up his pen and paper. "Sniper?" he hazarded.
"Got it in one," Xander answered. "I'll give you a prize later tonight."
"Oh, what kind of prize?" Rupert lowered his voice, and then bit his lips, unable to believe just how unprofessional he was being. Perhaps this really was a bad idea after all; if he couldn’t act like a skilled detective when Xander was around, what would that do to his work?
"Hey, no sex talk while we're discussing business, okay?" Rupert could almost see Xander shaking his head.
"You're the one who brought it up."
"And you're the one who had to not let it go," Xander retorted with a laugh. "Anyway, I'll tell you about that later. So, Stephen Ormond Holloway served with the army for four years and was discharged just about three years ago for being just a little too trigger happy."
"Bloody hell," Rupert sighed, index rubbing the skin under his eyebrow. "I can see where you're going with this, but how in hell did you get your hands on this information?"
"A good reporter doesn't give away his secrets," Xander said, sounding just a little too smug. "Besides, I'm just putting you on the right track; you should have the papers now."
"Thank you." Rupert hung up the phone before he could give in to the ridiculous urge he had to make small talk; though the fact that he'd managed to hang up at all was a point in the "I might still be able to work properly" column. The papers were indeed being printed by the fax machine when Rupert crossed the corridor into the room where it was stored. Rupert waited until they were all there, and went back, leaving his door opened into the hallway.
"I don't know how I missed that," Spike muttered, walking into Rupert's office unannounced just a few minutes later.
Rupert looked up from the document he'd just picked up and asked, "Missed what?"
"I looked at the bullets again when I got in; something just rubbed me the wrong way, you know. And look at all this." Spike put down the pictures he'd been holding on Rupert's desk.
There were four images; four different bullets all with the same striation marks. Rupert looked closer and frowned. "Is that a military issue?"
"Yeah! Beretta!" Spike exclaimed. He brought a finger down and pointed at lines on all four pictures. "Those marks come from the barrel of an M9. I shot my own gun to get a confirmation; not exact match, but close enough."
"You have got to be kidding me," Rupert muttered under his breath. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, and looked more closely at one of the pictures. "But what about the other striations?"
"I'm thinking it was tricked out," Spike answer, slumping down on a chair.
"Tricked out?" Rupert repeated, curious. Spike looked almost awed, and that so rarely happened this pistol must certainly be a completely new challenge for him.
"Yeah, into some kind of sniper riffle. Just, without the rifle part."
Rupert looked up from the pictures and gave Spike a dubious look. "Is that even possible?"
"I have no bloody idea," Spike said earnestly with a hint of awe in his voice. "I guess with the right kinda tool, and if you knew your gun in and out, it could be, yeah. I really want to get my hands on that gun. It must be something."
Rupert had absolutely no doubt about that. Spike's love affair with guns was almost as frightening as Cordelia's with bank accounts. "Once we find it, I promise you'll be the first one who gets to dismantle it."
"Thanks, mate." Spike grunted his approval and gave him a salute on his way out. He was halfway to his lab when he yelled back at Rupert, "Hey, do I get to shoot it?"
Rupert shook his head; of course Spike would want to shoot it, and it was a good thing that they'd need a reference bullet to compare these to, otherwise they might have to forcefully pry Spike away from the gun whenever they had their hands on it. Although they might still have to do that.
It was definitely starting to look more than possible that Holloway was the killer. But how and why-- If the Fergusons had been executed first, before the heist, Holloway didn't have a motive for their murder. Henry Patton, yes, if Holloway had been in the vicinity of the heist and had seen him pull the trigger on Jessa -- that was assuming Warren was saying the truth -- but none of the others.
Perhaps it was time to brief the whole team on these new findings.
Rupert grabbed all the files on his desk that pertained to the case, and walked out. "In the evidence room, now," he told everyone as he passed by their labs, and the break room. He found Gunn and Riley hunched over the evidence already, and then everyone piled in.
"What have you got for us, boss?" Cordelia asked, taking a stool and sitting down.
"A theory that we need to find evidence for," Rupert answered.
"Mmm, boss?" Andrew asked shyly from the side. "I thought it worked the other way around?"
"Usually, yes," Rupert said. "Usually we have evidence and we build the case from there, but here, this particular serial is rather complicated. That is why I want all of you here, and not only the CSIs."
He set down his papers and pulled out the sketch first, pinning it to the wall behind him. "This is the only face we have for our suspect; I know each and every one of you have looked at it already, and I know that all of you, just like myself, have had the same reaction: this man is familiar, and yet not."
Everyone nodded. Rupert picked up another folder and opened it to reveal the picture in it. It was definitely not the best quality, as faxes never were, but he still pinned it next to the sketch. Dear Lord, he hadn't seen the resemblance before now. It was rather uncanny in a very vague way.
"Oh, man, that's him," Gunn exclaimed. "Same lines on the face and that ear, right there." He point at a scar on Holloway's ear that Mrs. Strumer had been very precise about to the sketch artist.
"Who's the bloke?" Spike asked.
"Stephen Ormond Holloway," Rupert answered, gaze sweeping over his crew.
"Giles? Not to be a mood killer or anything, but he's the DB's husband," Buffy said, clearly confused, from where she stood just a few feet next to Rupert.
"I'm more than well aware of this, and I'm going over all this information with you all so as to make sure I'm not simply jumping to conclusions that have no evidence except for a vague sketch." And a rather prominent scar.
"Okay, so what else have you got?" Cordelia asked.
Rupert told them all that Xander had reported to him, and then added the information from Spike's findings. "We're looking for someone with military or police training, who has an uncanny ability with guns, and who wouldn't be scared to kill."
"So some kind of PTSD?" Riley said. "War can make you kinda crazy."
"Perhaps," Giles pointed out, "he might have simply been looking for a way to make extra income when he came home."
"So he'd be some kind of mercenary. Killer for hire." Riley stood up and grabbed Holloway's military file. "I can check see if any unsolved cases match the MO."
"Already ran the bullets through NIBIN," Spike said, shaking his head and glaring quite unprofessionally at Riley. Rupert made a mental note to have a chat with him after the case was closed. "Turned up squat. If there were unsolved with the same bullets, they'd be in there."
"Not unless they didn't find the bullets on site," Riley retorted back. "And if the guy's mercenary, he'd know to clean up the mess before he left. I'm on it."
"Thank you, Riley," Rupert said, nodding at him. "Buffy, I want you to go with him. Dig up the addresses where Holloway lived and traveled in the past three years and try to look these areas for unsolved murders."
"Sure thing, boss," she said, following Riley out of the room.
"Andrew, anything with that videotape?"
"I have a partial audio feed, but I think I can still enhance it; there's some words I can't make out, and I looked on the net last night and they had this really cool article on a new technique I want to try--"
"All right," Rupert interrupted him sternly. Andrew was good, he was actually the best in his field that Rupert had had to work with, but he did have a habit of talking too much. "You have an hour, and then I want to listen to what you have ready." He turned to the others when Andrew left, settling his gaze on Willow. "Do we have a DNA sample from Holloway?" Rupert knew there was little hope of that, even though it usually was standard procedure to get a DNA sample from everyone related to any case they worked. It wasn't always a procedure they applied to families of victims unless they volunteered it.
"No, we don't," she answered with a shake of her head.
"All right, we'll get one when we bring him in for questioning." Rupert turned to Gunn. "Did Jessa Holloway have a--"
Cellphone, he was going to say cellphone, then his own rang. "Rupert Giles speaking."
"Detective, we have another dead body. Offices of Gunther, Thurman & Associates, downtown. Third floor," Officer Doyle said, sounding a little agitated.
"All right, I'll send someone in," Rupert replied with a sigh. He didn't need yet another crime scene.
"It's your killer again."
"Oh, Bloody--" Rupert rubbed the bridge of his nose and hung up. "Cordelia, you and Angel head downtown," he said, repeating the address. "Another body killed with the same MO."
"This guy needs to be stopped," he heard Angel mutter on the way out, and Rupert couldn't agree more.
"All right, Gunn, did Jessa Holloway have a cellphone?"
"Yeah, she did," Gunn said, digging through the contents of their victim's purse. "Want me to dig up phone records?"
"Yes, and we'll be concentrating on any exchange she had with her husband within an hour of the heist." It felt good to be on a track; whether it was the right track remained to be seen, but it was a track. "Everyone else, back to work, I'll call you if there's anything."
Rupert was halfway to his office when his phone rang again.
"Hey, very lickable detective Giles," Xander said before Rupert could even greet him.
"You should be more careful."
"Why, you planning on letting anyone else answer your phone?"
"Mmm, not as such, no." Rupert grinned, closing the door behind him. "What have you got for me now?"
"The Patton rape charges, from twenty-seven years ago. That's what I was looking up on this morning before I got the phone call about Holloway's military past," Xander said quickly. "Anyway, so the victim? Catherine Ormond. Making the connection yet?"
"Are you quite certain you don't want a job here?" That was what efficacy was. Rupert was floored.
"Nope, it's iffy to date one's boss anyway. Not that I wouldn't do it; we can even play sometimes if you want, but iffy."
"Oh, now I see why you didn't take me up on my offer last time," Rupert teased him. It did make perfect sense to him after the last night.
"Exactly," Xander replied cheerfully. "So the info I got told me a lot. Catherine, now Mrs. Zachary Holloway, was eighteen when she was allegedly raped," he continued, "and about an hour after she dropped the charges, hers and her parents' bank accounts received a substantial -- and when I say this, I mean a lot -- amount of money. The prosecutor managed to get the court to rule that it was dodgy, and the evidence wasn't destroyed despite the charges being dropped. It should still be in your vault."
"Wonderful," Rupert said, leaning against the wall. "Thank you, very much, I think you may have solved our case."
"Gave you a motive, didn't I?" Xander asked, smugly.
"You just might have."
"Yeah, I figured. If the Patton patriarch raped his mom, Holloway could be on a revenge kick."
"Or," Rupert added, "he could be the result of that alleged rape, and have had wind of the will. In which case, murdering the siblings could be both revenge, and a sure way to get access to all of the Patton money."
"Or he was hired by someone to kill the Patton siblings without knowing he was a Patton himself."
"I suppose we will see." Rupert saw Snyder heading this way through the glass window wall and he cringed. "I'll make sure to have someone check on the evidence from that case. I have to go."
"Okay, I'll see you soon."
*
Thankfully, Snyder had only asked Rupert for the latest developments on the case, and hadn't tried to insinuate himself into their investigation any further. As soon as the man was out of sight, Rupert put back his glasses on his nose and went out.
"Fred," he said, walking into the Trace lab. "Do you have a minute?"
"Oh, yes, sure, boss, it's not like you need me much on this case or anything. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just feeling kind of -- useless?" She was sitting on her stool, hands with fingers crossed over her knees, and her glasses perched on the very tip of her nose.
"I may have something for you," Rupert told her, indulgently. "I'd like you to dig up an old box of evidence from the vault."
"Oh, yeah, I can do that!" She perked up visibly and scrambled to her feet excitedly. "Do you have the case number? I can probably dig it up if you don't."
Rupert nodded at her. "You will have to, as I don't have it. The name is Catherine Ormond, and the case file would date from nineteen eighty."
Fred noted the information down and smiled at him. "I'm on it. Thanks. I'll tell you as soon as I got it."
That left Rupert with not much else to do but wait for everyone else to bring their findings to him, and he ended up in the evidence room, looking over everything. They'd need a print of Holloway's shoe, and as soon as they had their hands on a warrant, they would need to search the man's home for his gun. Perhaps another pair of shoes.
Gunn found him there a short while later. "Hey, Giles, got the info you wanted. No phone calls between them for at least twenty-four hours prior to the robbery, but this you might be interested in." He put the cellphone activity report down and pointed at the lowest entry.
"A text message?" Rupert frowned. Nineteen thirty two. That was at least five minutes into the heist, possibly more; Andrew would be able to confirm that with the tapes.
"Yeah, right to husband dearest's phone."
"I'll have Andrew right on it," Rupert said. With this evidence, they had enough for a warrant. Nothing they'd had beforehand had been enough on its own, but everything combined now meant the judge would have no other choice. And a chance to walk into Holloway's home meant possibly finding the murder weapon that would lead to an arrest.
*
Angel called to confirm the new victim -- a man in his mid-twenties by the name of Patrick Russell -- had indeed been killed in exactly the same way as the others, while Rupert and Gunn were on their way to Holloway's house. The bullet wasn't recovered from the scene, and it seemed that the man had been killed several hours before that, at the beginning of the evening.
"Anything else of note?" Rupert asked, pulling into an empty parking spot next to Holloway's home. Officers Forrest and Miller had beaten them to the address, and they came to meet Rupert and Gunn when they got out of the SUV.
"Not so much," Angel replied. "The place's a bit ransacked, and Cordelia's still looking around the guy's office; no one here's seen anything."
"All right, thank you for the update."
As soon as Rupert's phone was flipped off, Gunn said, "Anne should be there any second."
Oh, Lord, Rupert had completely forgotten about the child. It was a wonderful advantage to their team that Gunn never did forget the children of any case they ever worked on. And he never forgot to call Social Services either. As if on cue, Anne Steele's car turned the street corner and she parked right next to them.
They walked up in formation, and Rupert knocked on the door, Gunn next to him, the officers behind them, and Anne a few feet back. "Mr. Holloway?" Rupert asked when the door opened. "We have a warrant to search your home."
"My home?" The man was holding his child, and he looked not only surprised, but livid. "I'm a victim here, not a killer!"
"That remains to be proven," Rupert said. Gunn held out his arms and took the child from Holloway's arms, cooing at her and handing her to Anne.
Forrest and Miller called the house clear in seconds, and Rupert and Gunn walked in, under the indignant cries of Holloway.
"My wife was killed and now you're taking my daughter? What in the hell do you think you're doing. I'm calling my lawyer!"
"Have him meet you at the precinct," Rupert said without letting his voice show any of the irritation he felt. "I'm pretty certain that's where you'll be spending a lot of your time in the next twenty-four hours." Not to mention where he'd most definitely be spending the rest of his life, if the papers Rupert found, in plain view, on the man's dinner table were any indication.
Names, a list of names, all seemingly interconnected. There were checks in any of three columns besides the names, "Yes, no, maybe." Rupert read the names again. There were well over twenty of them, their mother's names in smaller print below each and a different date on every line. Mistresses, perhaps in some cases, one night stands in others. In the "yes" column: Gerry, Warren, and Henry were the first ones, followed by Mika Ferguson, Hilary Lambert--
Patrick Russell.
All of them decreasing in age to the youngest one: Daria, three years old. A hit list, a bloody hit list.
Less than five minutes afterwards, Gunn was coming back into the living room, a strange, heavy looking pistol in his hands. "Giles, look at this thing; pretty sure we have our murder weapon."
Rupert looked at Miller. "Do it," and the officer put the cuffs on Holloway, who suddenly turned silent. "Who hired you?" Rupert asked, face and tone cold. Three years old; if they hadn't found him, if they--
"You think I'm telling you anything?" Holloway sneered. "They killed my wife."
"After you executed Mika Ferguson and his mother, so I am not feeling any pity for you at all," Rupert replied. For their child, he had pity -- the poor little girl -- but not for Holloway. He gave the officers a nod. "Take him."
"Shit, man, what's that?" Gunn took the list with a gloved hand, and stuffed it into a transparent evidence bag before looking at it. Then his face turned to disgust. "Shit, shit, shit."
"Quite." Rupert pushed his glasses up on his nose, and stepped out of the peaceful, inviting house to breathe.
*
When they finally made it back to the precinct, Rupert gave Gunn an hour to pull the evidence together. He closed the door to his office and sighed. This case was taking its toll on him. Perhaps he'd ask for a few days off once all the paperwork was done.
A knock on his door made him look up, and he smiled and waved at Xander to enter.
"Hey, boss," Xander said, careful to shut the door completely behind him.
"Hey," Rupert replied, feeling his mouth curl up into a wide grin. Besotted fool, he scolded himself.
"I have the originals for you, and I heard about the arrest. Good job!" Xander sat down on the chair, and put the papers on Rupert's desk. The brush of their fingers, innocuous if anyone was to witness it, was completely non-accidental.
"Thank you, it was your lead that helped us make the connection." They really never would have thought to look at Holloway for these murders if it hadn't been for Xander's observational skills. They'd have ended up at a dead end, and the case would have gone unsolved, with dead bodies turning up everywhere. Until the end of the list.
"Yeah, well, don't mention it, my ego's big enough," Xander joked.
Rupert smiled and shook his head. "I quite enjoy your ego, actually."
"Points for me!" Xander mockingly put his hands in the air in a sign of victory. He brought his arms down suddenly and stood up. "Anyway, that's all the info I got on Holloway, and I'm picking you up tonight after work, so give me a call when you're done."
There was barely time for Rupert to agree before Xander was running out. Rupert knew why when Snyder appeared at his door, glaring at the hallway where Xander had just disappeared. "I want this reporter off the premises, detective, is that clear?"
Rupert sighed and took a deep breath. "Perhaps you've forgotten that we're in fact working with him?"
"No one works with an investigative reporter, Mr. Giles. They are only there to hinder the investigation, not help it."
Rupert did not point out that Xander had been the one to solve this case. The fact would be completely lost on Snyder anyway. "How may I help you, sir?"
Snyder gave him a disapproving look and said, "Mr. Holloway has hired a lawyer from Wolfram & Hart; McDonald is here. They've already been waiting in that room for over an hour. This is unacceptable."
"We'll interrogate him as soon as we have all the evidence together," Rupert replied, irritated.
"I don't know how things were done before I came here, but this is completely unprofessional. If your staff can't conduct their operations faster than this, I'll have to take actions accordingly, am I making myself clear?"
"Quite clear." Rupert wasn't even the slightest bit scared for anyone on his team. They all worked very diligently and had a very high success rate. Snyder was only talking out of his arse.
At least, Rupert hoped he was.
*
Rupert had all the CSIs meet him in the evidence room again as soon as Gunn confirmed he had all he was going to get out of the evidence from Holloway's home. Rupert turned to Angel and nodded.
Angel pulled a picture up and pinned it to the wall next to the other victims. "Patrick Russell, twenty-four years old, an intern at the firm downtown. He was killed with a single bullet wound to the head; the bullet wasn't at the scene, but Dr. Wesley's sure the wound's consistent with the other murders."
"One of the cabinets on the scene had a drawer opened when it should have been locked tight," Cordelia continued. "According to one of the senior lawyers, there was a file missing."
"And we got that file from Holloway's house," Gunn pointed out, pushing the evidence bag containing the list, and another with the rest of the papers from Holloway's table, further onto the table. "It's a hit list."
Gunn put another bag on the table. "Holloway's shoes. Match the first couple prints, and these ones," he pulled another bag, "match the third one."
"No shoe prints at the attorney's office." Cordelia shook her head. "The place was wiped clean except for that drawer."
"Did you get a fingerprint?" Riley asked.
"Not on the drawer, but the papers were at Holloway's so that puts him there, right?" Cordelia answered, pointing at the list and the other set of papers. "And we can dust those for prints; Russell's should be on there."
Rupert opened his mouth to speak when Fred came barging in. "Hey, boss," she said. "There was DNA evidence on a shirt in that box you asked me to find, and it's a match to George Henry Patton. I thought you should know. I know we can't do anything for the victim because she dropped the charges, so I don't know what you're going to do with this, but I have everything here, and there was evidence of assault and I found some trace of what used to be a version of GHB."
Rupert put his hand on her arm and thanked her. "It's just one more confirmation, and we have more than enough circumstantial evidence to ask for a DNA sample from Holloway. Angel," Rupert turned to him, "I want you to conduct the interrogation. Holloway's hired McDonald as his lawyer and we all know how much you enjoy dealing with the man."
"Oh yeah," Angel said with a feral grin. "Lindsey and I go way back."
"I want the DNA sample sent to Willow immediately, and then I want this case closed."
Everyone cheered him, and they piled out, leaving Rupert and Gunn alone again. "You need some time off, boss," Gunn said looking up at him with a worried expression on his face. "This is like, the biggest case we got since that child killer two years ago. You got two weeks paid after that one."
Rupert snorted. "So did you. And pretty much everyone else who'd been working the case at the time."
"Hey, we got time stored up, if we all take it now, Snyder can't say a word. B'sides, I heard you got yourself a date." Gunn grinned and ducked his head when Rupert glared at him.
"My personal life is none of anyone's business but my own," Rupert replied tersely. Truth was, Xander would be busy writing for the next week or so and Rupert wouldn't be seeing much of him anyway.
*
The interrogation took several hours. Rupert stood in the small room just off the one Angel and Cordelia were grilling Holloway in, and listened in the whole time. There was a beauty to watching Angel and Lindsey McDonald face off on opposite sides of that table. There'd been a time when they'd been friends, before both of them had taken the case they were working much too seriously, and their falling out had been bloody -- come to think of it, that seemed to be a pattern with Angel.
Lindsey had won that case, and Angel hadn't ever forgiven himself for letting it go down the way it had. He hadn't let Lindsey win any other case since unless the lack of evidence was dire enough that he'd had no choice.
The gist of the affair was, as Rupert managed to pull together from the half truths and bouts of shouting: Holloway had been contacted by Warren Patton for a hit job. Two people, no more, no less. He'd found out the Pattons were planning a heist from overhearing one of their conversations during the contract negotiations on the hit, and he'd volunteered the information about his wife's place of employment. He'd assured them complete cooperation from her, for a higher pay. Twice their original offer. The three brothers had agreed.
And then halfway through cleaning the Ferguson's murder scene, Holloway had received a message from his wife, telling him that things weren't going as expected. He'd left in a hurry, arrived at the jewellery store just in time to see Henry shoot Jessa, and Holloway hadn't wasted a second and he'd shot him. In his anger, he even admitted to wanting to shoot the other two, but they'd run away too fast for him to track them. He then went back to the Ferguson's -- thus explaining the traces of dirt in the shoe print they'd found.
He was interrupted by a neighbour coming home, and had left the scene without finishing the cleaning.
Early the next morning, Holloway had received yet another phone call. This time, it was from Patrick Russell -- one of the attorneys hired as executor of Patton Sr.'s will -- telling him that they needed to meet. Holloway agreed on a time in the evening. He'd gone home to his daughter, and spent the day acting like a properly grieving widower. That evening, Russell had told Holloway about the will, Catherine Ormond's rape, and the DNA test Holloway would have to go through if he wanted any part of the money.
The other hits, he'd done on his own. The fewer Pattons, the more money for him; and after all, he now had twice the cause for revenge. He'd gleaned Ms. Lambert's name from the list on Russell's desk, and after killing her, he'd come back for more. Russell had put up a fight.
Once Holloway had forced open the drawer and gotten his hands on the list, he'd found out why, and killed the man without any other thoughts.
"He was one of them," Holloway spit. "A bunch of fucking rapists and murderers, and I wasn't going to let any of them get close to my daughter."
The look on Angel's face turned to disbelief. "And killing her relatives is really that much better, right?"
"I did it for her, for her mother."
Rupert shook his head and straightened up, rubbing his knee absently. Holloway was going to prison for a very long time. His daughter would be safe in her mother's family. No one else on that list would turn up dead.
All in all, a good day, no, week's work.
*
Once he finally made his way to his office, after Holloway had been taken away and Angel was left arguing with McDonald, Rupert found reports from Willow and Spike waiting for him on his desk. Willow confirmed that Holloway was Patton's son and so was Russell, and Spike that Holloway's gun really had fired the bullets that had killed all their victims but Jessa Holloway.
Andrew had also left a transcript of that audio feed he'd managed to glean from the surveillance tapes. There were shouts from Jessa, from Henry, and from his brothers. And listening closely at how it all played out, Rupert could almost see exactly what had happened that night. Henry had found out about the hit on the Fergusons. He'd found out and confronted his brothers right there, in front of Jessa, and it was in a scuffle with Warren that he'd fired the gun.
Rupert took off his glasses and rubbed his eyelids tiredly.
"Hiya, boss," Buffy cheered from the doorway. "We're off for a beer, you in?"
He could see the rest of them behind her and he smiled. "No, thank you." He knew that having a superior there tended to subdue the celebration, and there was nothing he hated more than tension when you were supposed to have fun and relax.
"Rather wait for you know who?" She winked irritatingly at him, and he scowled. "You know he's invited too if he wants to come. He's kind of our hero right now."
Rupert snorted and waved them off. "Please go, get drunk in my honour, and don't tell me in the morning."
"Sure thing!"
Oz and Faith came by to announce that they were in, and that usually was Rupert's cue to leave. He sighed into his paperwork. Almost done, and then he'd go. He signed the last two pages, made sure there were no errors anywhere in the document, and stuffed it into the envelope. He was sealing it when his phone rang. This time, he looked at the display and smiled. "Hey, Xander."
"Hey," Xander said. "Harmony says that Snyder said that I'm not even allowed in the building anymore, so I'm waiting outside."
"I'll be out in just a few minutes," Rupert told him, picking up his jacket.
"Oh, and hey, that thing you said about liking my ego? If I told you that you owed me for solving your case for you, what would you do?"
Rupert grinned, and grabbed his keys and briefcase. "I can think of something."
"Yeah, I'm looking forward to that," Xander said, voice low and a little throaty. "So I'll see you in a minute."
Xander Harris would always be an annoying pain in the arse; a brilliant, thorough, effective, very attractive pain in Rupert's arse. And he found, right there, less than a day after their first time together, that he too was very much looking forward to the challenge.
THE END
A/N: Holloway's handgun is a Beretta M9 pistol -- it is the same handgun the officers and detectives use; it is also widely used in US Army forces. I don't know if it's possible to do what Holloway does to the gun in this fic, but at this point, I claim ignorance and artistic license. *g*
The Pattons' handguns are Glocks 36 with .45in cartridges; a popular gun in US civilian population.
NIBIN is a real ballistics database.
Thanks a million to mireille719 for the help in researching what the hell that database that wasn't AFIS or CODIS was. :)
FRAO, Giles/Xander, AU
PART ONE | PART TWO
*
The first thing Rupert was aware of upon waking was the arm draped over his torso. The second was the warm heat against his side, suffusing his body. The third -- and he let out a soft moan then -- was the mouth, sucking softly at the skin below his collarbone. Then it stopped.
"Morning," Xander said sleepily.
Rupert felt the grin widening on his face, and turned to look at Xander, head now pillowed on Rupert's shoulder. "Good morning."
"I think I gave you a hickey," Xander murmured, nuzzling at the skin he'd been sucking a minute before.
"You might have." Rupert wouldn't mind at all. He cupped Xander's cheek and caressed the skin there softly. "Perhaps I should give you--"
He was interrupted by the shrill ring of a phone that wasn't his, and Xander swore, pulled back from Rupert with a really disappointed look in his eyes, and fetched his phone from within his pant pockets.
Rupert sighed and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He left the sheet covering his midsection, and shivered at the loss of heat. He pointedly didn't listen to Xander's phone conversation. He'd expect the same courtesy of Xander in this case, so it wasn't all that difficult to clench his curiosity and focus on the room; on the clothes scattered across the floor, the condom thrown haphazardly somewhat in the direction of the bin, the tube of lubricant on the nightstand still opened.
He didn't hear Xander hang up the phone; one moment he wasn't in the room, and the next he was climbing behind Rupert and wrapping himself over Rupert's back, chin tucked against Rupert's shoulders, and hands sliding over Rupert's torso.
"I have to go," Xander whispered, sounding a little upset. "One of my contacts got a lead, and I need to get on it before it goes away."
Rupert twined the fingers of one hand with Xander's on his chest, and turned his head slightly to the side, so he could look into Xander's face. "It's quite all right," he murmured.
"No, it's not. I had this plan for this morning, to make sure you weren't going to freak out and go hide in your bathroom, and it involved my mouth on your dick and a bunch of other things."
A shot of arousal went through him, and Rupert shivered. "You can make it up to me."
"Tonight?"
There was uncertainty in Xander's voice and Rupert squeezed his hand tightly. "Tonight would be perfect."
Xander curled his hand around Rupert's neck, and tilted his head. "I'll hold you to that."
"Shouldn't that be my line?" Rupert asked, his free hand coming up to cup Xander's cheek.
There was no answer from Xander; just a much too short kiss and a smile.
*
Rupert had been at work less than half an hour -- and had spent all that time resolutely not thinking about Xander at all -- when Willow knocked quietly on his doorframe and walked in. "DNA matches," she said with a nervous looking smile, and handed him the results. "Mr. George Henry Patton did donate half of Ms. Hilary Lambert's DNA."
"Well, that is not surprising at all," Rupert said. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. "We have five bodies, three of which are Patton's children, one is a mistress, and one seems to be completely unconnected." Then he added, "Thank you, Willow; that was quick work."
"Yeah, as soon as we figured out why the machine wasn't working last night, things went smooth," she explained, bowing slightly at the waist.
He eyed her carefully for a moment, and then said, "Thank you." He paused before adding, "for your message."
The smile she gave him was shy and maybe a little guilty. "I know it's none of my business and all--"
"No," Rupert interrupted her quickly, standing up and coming to lean against the desk next to her. "Xander is your friend, and that makes it your business. I'm aware of that, and while I may not be thrilled that people who work for me might know more about my personal life than even I do, it is a drawback I can learn to live with."
"Do you want to?" Willow seemed uncertain, as if she'd been expecting him to bolt. And really, she hadn't been wrong to expect it; in any other case Rupert would have let whoever it was down gently; he'd done it before, almost too many times to count.
"Yes," Rupert replied. He crossed his arms over his chest, and he looked straight at her. He didn't want her to have any doubts about this. As much as Rupert was still berating himself for falling into bed with Xander, he wasn't so sure about it being a mistake anymore. Waking up next to him, feeling warm skin against his own, and the way Xander had wrapped himself over Rupert's back after the phone call had forced them both to sit up; it had all added up to Rupert wanting this to last.
Perhaps even needing it.
He'd tried once, when he'd been a young police officer in London, before he'd become a homicide detective, to have a long term relationship. To say it had turned sour was to underestimate the amount of pain the relationship had caused both Ethan and himself. The fact that it had officially ended the day Rupert and his partner had caught up with Ethan's drug smuggling operation, and had had to put manacles on him, definitely didn't even start to lessen Rupert's guilt.
Something told him, though, that this was different. Xander not only knew about the job, he worked the job. He would never blame Rupert for spending more time at the precinct than at home. He'd never blame Rupert for his illegal dealings.
Not that Xander was caught in any sort of illegal act.
"Yes, Willow, I do," he repeated again.
She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Okay," she said. "After my shift, I need to give you the shovel speech, but until then, you're off the hook. And I better get back, because I can almost feel Snyder walking towards my lab to see what progress I've made since ten minutes ago, and I really don't want to have to talk to him."
Rupert smiled at her and wondered if he should be frightened. He watched her walk down the hallway and a second later, Snyder passed by with a resolute look on his face. Oh poor girl, Rupert thought.
He sat down at his desk again and didn't even have time to resume his thoughts when his phone started to ring. Rupert reached for it and said, "Rupert Giles."
"Hey, absolutely hottest man on Earth," Xander replied. Rupert shook his head and grinned. "I got some stuff for you that I'm faxing over right now. I'll bring you the originals in a couple of hours, but I have to meet with another informant first, and I thought you'd be interested in having those right away."
"Thank you." Rupert refrained from adding "Xander" on the off chance that Snyder was still within earshot, and calling him "Harris" now felt so-- so wrong and impersonal.
"I'll give you the gist," Xander continued. "Holloway's ex-military, army. Guess what he used to do in the field?"
Oh. Oh. Rupert sat up straighter in his chair and picked up his pen and paper. "Sniper?" he hazarded.
"Got it in one," Xander answered. "I'll give you a prize later tonight."
"Oh, what kind of prize?" Rupert lowered his voice, and then bit his lips, unable to believe just how unprofessional he was being. Perhaps this really was a bad idea after all; if he couldn’t act like a skilled detective when Xander was around, what would that do to his work?
"Hey, no sex talk while we're discussing business, okay?" Rupert could almost see Xander shaking his head.
"You're the one who brought it up."
"And you're the one who had to not let it go," Xander retorted with a laugh. "Anyway, I'll tell you about that later. So, Stephen Ormond Holloway served with the army for four years and was discharged just about three years ago for being just a little too trigger happy."
"Bloody hell," Rupert sighed, index rubbing the skin under his eyebrow. "I can see where you're going with this, but how in hell did you get your hands on this information?"
"A good reporter doesn't give away his secrets," Xander said, sounding just a little too smug. "Besides, I'm just putting you on the right track; you should have the papers now."
"Thank you." Rupert hung up the phone before he could give in to the ridiculous urge he had to make small talk; though the fact that he'd managed to hang up at all was a point in the "I might still be able to work properly" column. The papers were indeed being printed by the fax machine when Rupert crossed the corridor into the room where it was stored. Rupert waited until they were all there, and went back, leaving his door opened into the hallway.
"I don't know how I missed that," Spike muttered, walking into Rupert's office unannounced just a few minutes later.
Rupert looked up from the document he'd just picked up and asked, "Missed what?"
"I looked at the bullets again when I got in; something just rubbed me the wrong way, you know. And look at all this." Spike put down the pictures he'd been holding on Rupert's desk.
There were four images; four different bullets all with the same striation marks. Rupert looked closer and frowned. "Is that a military issue?"
"Yeah! Beretta!" Spike exclaimed. He brought a finger down and pointed at lines on all four pictures. "Those marks come from the barrel of an M9. I shot my own gun to get a confirmation; not exact match, but close enough."
"You have got to be kidding me," Rupert muttered under his breath. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, and looked more closely at one of the pictures. "But what about the other striations?"
"I'm thinking it was tricked out," Spike answer, slumping down on a chair.
"Tricked out?" Rupert repeated, curious. Spike looked almost awed, and that so rarely happened this pistol must certainly be a completely new challenge for him.
"Yeah, into some kind of sniper riffle. Just, without the rifle part."
Rupert looked up from the pictures and gave Spike a dubious look. "Is that even possible?"
"I have no bloody idea," Spike said earnestly with a hint of awe in his voice. "I guess with the right kinda tool, and if you knew your gun in and out, it could be, yeah. I really want to get my hands on that gun. It must be something."
Rupert had absolutely no doubt about that. Spike's love affair with guns was almost as frightening as Cordelia's with bank accounts. "Once we find it, I promise you'll be the first one who gets to dismantle it."
"Thanks, mate." Spike grunted his approval and gave him a salute on his way out. He was halfway to his lab when he yelled back at Rupert, "Hey, do I get to shoot it?"
Rupert shook his head; of course Spike would want to shoot it, and it was a good thing that they'd need a reference bullet to compare these to, otherwise they might have to forcefully pry Spike away from the gun whenever they had their hands on it. Although they might still have to do that.
It was definitely starting to look more than possible that Holloway was the killer. But how and why-- If the Fergusons had been executed first, before the heist, Holloway didn't have a motive for their murder. Henry Patton, yes, if Holloway had been in the vicinity of the heist and had seen him pull the trigger on Jessa -- that was assuming Warren was saying the truth -- but none of the others.
Perhaps it was time to brief the whole team on these new findings.
Rupert grabbed all the files on his desk that pertained to the case, and walked out. "In the evidence room, now," he told everyone as he passed by their labs, and the break room. He found Gunn and Riley hunched over the evidence already, and then everyone piled in.
"What have you got for us, boss?" Cordelia asked, taking a stool and sitting down.
"A theory that we need to find evidence for," Rupert answered.
"Mmm, boss?" Andrew asked shyly from the side. "I thought it worked the other way around?"
"Usually, yes," Rupert said. "Usually we have evidence and we build the case from there, but here, this particular serial is rather complicated. That is why I want all of you here, and not only the CSIs."
He set down his papers and pulled out the sketch first, pinning it to the wall behind him. "This is the only face we have for our suspect; I know each and every one of you have looked at it already, and I know that all of you, just like myself, have had the same reaction: this man is familiar, and yet not."
Everyone nodded. Rupert picked up another folder and opened it to reveal the picture in it. It was definitely not the best quality, as faxes never were, but he still pinned it next to the sketch. Dear Lord, he hadn't seen the resemblance before now. It was rather uncanny in a very vague way.
"Oh, man, that's him," Gunn exclaimed. "Same lines on the face and that ear, right there." He point at a scar on Holloway's ear that Mrs. Strumer had been very precise about to the sketch artist.
"Who's the bloke?" Spike asked.
"Stephen Ormond Holloway," Rupert answered, gaze sweeping over his crew.
"Giles? Not to be a mood killer or anything, but he's the DB's husband," Buffy said, clearly confused, from where she stood just a few feet next to Rupert.
"I'm more than well aware of this, and I'm going over all this information with you all so as to make sure I'm not simply jumping to conclusions that have no evidence except for a vague sketch." And a rather prominent scar.
"Okay, so what else have you got?" Cordelia asked.
Rupert told them all that Xander had reported to him, and then added the information from Spike's findings. "We're looking for someone with military or police training, who has an uncanny ability with guns, and who wouldn't be scared to kill."
"So some kind of PTSD?" Riley said. "War can make you kinda crazy."
"Perhaps," Giles pointed out, "he might have simply been looking for a way to make extra income when he came home."
"So he'd be some kind of mercenary. Killer for hire." Riley stood up and grabbed Holloway's military file. "I can check see if any unsolved cases match the MO."
"Already ran the bullets through NIBIN," Spike said, shaking his head and glaring quite unprofessionally at Riley. Rupert made a mental note to have a chat with him after the case was closed. "Turned up squat. If there were unsolved with the same bullets, they'd be in there."
"Not unless they didn't find the bullets on site," Riley retorted back. "And if the guy's mercenary, he'd know to clean up the mess before he left. I'm on it."
"Thank you, Riley," Rupert said, nodding at him. "Buffy, I want you to go with him. Dig up the addresses where Holloway lived and traveled in the past three years and try to look these areas for unsolved murders."
"Sure thing, boss," she said, following Riley out of the room.
"Andrew, anything with that videotape?"
"I have a partial audio feed, but I think I can still enhance it; there's some words I can't make out, and I looked on the net last night and they had this really cool article on a new technique I want to try--"
"All right," Rupert interrupted him sternly. Andrew was good, he was actually the best in his field that Rupert had had to work with, but he did have a habit of talking too much. "You have an hour, and then I want to listen to what you have ready." He turned to the others when Andrew left, settling his gaze on Willow. "Do we have a DNA sample from Holloway?" Rupert knew there was little hope of that, even though it usually was standard procedure to get a DNA sample from everyone related to any case they worked. It wasn't always a procedure they applied to families of victims unless they volunteered it.
"No, we don't," she answered with a shake of her head.
"All right, we'll get one when we bring him in for questioning." Rupert turned to Gunn. "Did Jessa Holloway have a--"
Cellphone, he was going to say cellphone, then his own rang. "Rupert Giles speaking."
"Detective, we have another dead body. Offices of Gunther, Thurman & Associates, downtown. Third floor," Officer Doyle said, sounding a little agitated.
"All right, I'll send someone in," Rupert replied with a sigh. He didn't need yet another crime scene.
"It's your killer again."
"Oh, Bloody--" Rupert rubbed the bridge of his nose and hung up. "Cordelia, you and Angel head downtown," he said, repeating the address. "Another body killed with the same MO."
"This guy needs to be stopped," he heard Angel mutter on the way out, and Rupert couldn't agree more.
"All right, Gunn, did Jessa Holloway have a cellphone?"
"Yeah, she did," Gunn said, digging through the contents of their victim's purse. "Want me to dig up phone records?"
"Yes, and we'll be concentrating on any exchange she had with her husband within an hour of the heist." It felt good to be on a track; whether it was the right track remained to be seen, but it was a track. "Everyone else, back to work, I'll call you if there's anything."
Rupert was halfway to his office when his phone rang again.
"Hey, very lickable detective Giles," Xander said before Rupert could even greet him.
"You should be more careful."
"Why, you planning on letting anyone else answer your phone?"
"Mmm, not as such, no." Rupert grinned, closing the door behind him. "What have you got for me now?"
"The Patton rape charges, from twenty-seven years ago. That's what I was looking up on this morning before I got the phone call about Holloway's military past," Xander said quickly. "Anyway, so the victim? Catherine Ormond. Making the connection yet?"
"Are you quite certain you don't want a job here?" That was what efficacy was. Rupert was floored.
"Nope, it's iffy to date one's boss anyway. Not that I wouldn't do it; we can even play sometimes if you want, but iffy."
"Oh, now I see why you didn't take me up on my offer last time," Rupert teased him. It did make perfect sense to him after the last night.
"Exactly," Xander replied cheerfully. "So the info I got told me a lot. Catherine, now Mrs. Zachary Holloway, was eighteen when she was allegedly raped," he continued, "and about an hour after she dropped the charges, hers and her parents' bank accounts received a substantial -- and when I say this, I mean a lot -- amount of money. The prosecutor managed to get the court to rule that it was dodgy, and the evidence wasn't destroyed despite the charges being dropped. It should still be in your vault."
"Wonderful," Rupert said, leaning against the wall. "Thank you, very much, I think you may have solved our case."
"Gave you a motive, didn't I?" Xander asked, smugly.
"You just might have."
"Yeah, I figured. If the Patton patriarch raped his mom, Holloway could be on a revenge kick."
"Or," Rupert added, "he could be the result of that alleged rape, and have had wind of the will. In which case, murdering the siblings could be both revenge, and a sure way to get access to all of the Patton money."
"Or he was hired by someone to kill the Patton siblings without knowing he was a Patton himself."
"I suppose we will see." Rupert saw Snyder heading this way through the glass window wall and he cringed. "I'll make sure to have someone check on the evidence from that case. I have to go."
"Okay, I'll see you soon."
*
Thankfully, Snyder had only asked Rupert for the latest developments on the case, and hadn't tried to insinuate himself into their investigation any further. As soon as the man was out of sight, Rupert put back his glasses on his nose and went out.
"Fred," he said, walking into the Trace lab. "Do you have a minute?"
"Oh, yes, sure, boss, it's not like you need me much on this case or anything. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just feeling kind of -- useless?" She was sitting on her stool, hands with fingers crossed over her knees, and her glasses perched on the very tip of her nose.
"I may have something for you," Rupert told her, indulgently. "I'd like you to dig up an old box of evidence from the vault."
"Oh, yeah, I can do that!" She perked up visibly and scrambled to her feet excitedly. "Do you have the case number? I can probably dig it up if you don't."
Rupert nodded at her. "You will have to, as I don't have it. The name is Catherine Ormond, and the case file would date from nineteen eighty."
Fred noted the information down and smiled at him. "I'm on it. Thanks. I'll tell you as soon as I got it."
That left Rupert with not much else to do but wait for everyone else to bring their findings to him, and he ended up in the evidence room, looking over everything. They'd need a print of Holloway's shoe, and as soon as they had their hands on a warrant, they would need to search the man's home for his gun. Perhaps another pair of shoes.
Gunn found him there a short while later. "Hey, Giles, got the info you wanted. No phone calls between them for at least twenty-four hours prior to the robbery, but this you might be interested in." He put the cellphone activity report down and pointed at the lowest entry.
"A text message?" Rupert frowned. Nineteen thirty two. That was at least five minutes into the heist, possibly more; Andrew would be able to confirm that with the tapes.
"Yeah, right to husband dearest's phone."
"I'll have Andrew right on it," Rupert said. With this evidence, they had enough for a warrant. Nothing they'd had beforehand had been enough on its own, but everything combined now meant the judge would have no other choice. And a chance to walk into Holloway's home meant possibly finding the murder weapon that would lead to an arrest.
*
Angel called to confirm the new victim -- a man in his mid-twenties by the name of Patrick Russell -- had indeed been killed in exactly the same way as the others, while Rupert and Gunn were on their way to Holloway's house. The bullet wasn't recovered from the scene, and it seemed that the man had been killed several hours before that, at the beginning of the evening.
"Anything else of note?" Rupert asked, pulling into an empty parking spot next to Holloway's home. Officers Forrest and Miller had beaten them to the address, and they came to meet Rupert and Gunn when they got out of the SUV.
"Not so much," Angel replied. "The place's a bit ransacked, and Cordelia's still looking around the guy's office; no one here's seen anything."
"All right, thank you for the update."
As soon as Rupert's phone was flipped off, Gunn said, "Anne should be there any second."
Oh, Lord, Rupert had completely forgotten about the child. It was a wonderful advantage to their team that Gunn never did forget the children of any case they ever worked on. And he never forgot to call Social Services either. As if on cue, Anne Steele's car turned the street corner and she parked right next to them.
They walked up in formation, and Rupert knocked on the door, Gunn next to him, the officers behind them, and Anne a few feet back. "Mr. Holloway?" Rupert asked when the door opened. "We have a warrant to search your home."
"My home?" The man was holding his child, and he looked not only surprised, but livid. "I'm a victim here, not a killer!"
"That remains to be proven," Rupert said. Gunn held out his arms and took the child from Holloway's arms, cooing at her and handing her to Anne.
Forrest and Miller called the house clear in seconds, and Rupert and Gunn walked in, under the indignant cries of Holloway.
"My wife was killed and now you're taking my daughter? What in the hell do you think you're doing. I'm calling my lawyer!"
"Have him meet you at the precinct," Rupert said without letting his voice show any of the irritation he felt. "I'm pretty certain that's where you'll be spending a lot of your time in the next twenty-four hours." Not to mention where he'd most definitely be spending the rest of his life, if the papers Rupert found, in plain view, on the man's dinner table were any indication.
Names, a list of names, all seemingly interconnected. There were checks in any of three columns besides the names, "Yes, no, maybe." Rupert read the names again. There were well over twenty of them, their mother's names in smaller print below each and a different date on every line. Mistresses, perhaps in some cases, one night stands in others. In the "yes" column: Gerry, Warren, and Henry were the first ones, followed by Mika Ferguson, Hilary Lambert--
Patrick Russell.
All of them decreasing in age to the youngest one: Daria, three years old. A hit list, a bloody hit list.
Less than five minutes afterwards, Gunn was coming back into the living room, a strange, heavy looking pistol in his hands. "Giles, look at this thing; pretty sure we have our murder weapon."
Rupert looked at Miller. "Do it," and the officer put the cuffs on Holloway, who suddenly turned silent. "Who hired you?" Rupert asked, face and tone cold. Three years old; if they hadn't found him, if they--
"You think I'm telling you anything?" Holloway sneered. "They killed my wife."
"After you executed Mika Ferguson and his mother, so I am not feeling any pity for you at all," Rupert replied. For their child, he had pity -- the poor little girl -- but not for Holloway. He gave the officers a nod. "Take him."
"Shit, man, what's that?" Gunn took the list with a gloved hand, and stuffed it into a transparent evidence bag before looking at it. Then his face turned to disgust. "Shit, shit, shit."
"Quite." Rupert pushed his glasses up on his nose, and stepped out of the peaceful, inviting house to breathe.
*
When they finally made it back to the precinct, Rupert gave Gunn an hour to pull the evidence together. He closed the door to his office and sighed. This case was taking its toll on him. Perhaps he'd ask for a few days off once all the paperwork was done.
A knock on his door made him look up, and he smiled and waved at Xander to enter.
"Hey, boss," Xander said, careful to shut the door completely behind him.
"Hey," Rupert replied, feeling his mouth curl up into a wide grin. Besotted fool, he scolded himself.
"I have the originals for you, and I heard about the arrest. Good job!" Xander sat down on the chair, and put the papers on Rupert's desk. The brush of their fingers, innocuous if anyone was to witness it, was completely non-accidental.
"Thank you, it was your lead that helped us make the connection." They really never would have thought to look at Holloway for these murders if it hadn't been for Xander's observational skills. They'd have ended up at a dead end, and the case would have gone unsolved, with dead bodies turning up everywhere. Until the end of the list.
"Yeah, well, don't mention it, my ego's big enough," Xander joked.
Rupert smiled and shook his head. "I quite enjoy your ego, actually."
"Points for me!" Xander mockingly put his hands in the air in a sign of victory. He brought his arms down suddenly and stood up. "Anyway, that's all the info I got on Holloway, and I'm picking you up tonight after work, so give me a call when you're done."
There was barely time for Rupert to agree before Xander was running out. Rupert knew why when Snyder appeared at his door, glaring at the hallway where Xander had just disappeared. "I want this reporter off the premises, detective, is that clear?"
Rupert sighed and took a deep breath. "Perhaps you've forgotten that we're in fact working with him?"
"No one works with an investigative reporter, Mr. Giles. They are only there to hinder the investigation, not help it."
Rupert did not point out that Xander had been the one to solve this case. The fact would be completely lost on Snyder anyway. "How may I help you, sir?"
Snyder gave him a disapproving look and said, "Mr. Holloway has hired a lawyer from Wolfram & Hart; McDonald is here. They've already been waiting in that room for over an hour. This is unacceptable."
"We'll interrogate him as soon as we have all the evidence together," Rupert replied, irritated.
"I don't know how things were done before I came here, but this is completely unprofessional. If your staff can't conduct their operations faster than this, I'll have to take actions accordingly, am I making myself clear?"
"Quite clear." Rupert wasn't even the slightest bit scared for anyone on his team. They all worked very diligently and had a very high success rate. Snyder was only talking out of his arse.
At least, Rupert hoped he was.
*
Rupert had all the CSIs meet him in the evidence room again as soon as Gunn confirmed he had all he was going to get out of the evidence from Holloway's home. Rupert turned to Angel and nodded.
Angel pulled a picture up and pinned it to the wall next to the other victims. "Patrick Russell, twenty-four years old, an intern at the firm downtown. He was killed with a single bullet wound to the head; the bullet wasn't at the scene, but Dr. Wesley's sure the wound's consistent with the other murders."
"One of the cabinets on the scene had a drawer opened when it should have been locked tight," Cordelia continued. "According to one of the senior lawyers, there was a file missing."
"And we got that file from Holloway's house," Gunn pointed out, pushing the evidence bag containing the list, and another with the rest of the papers from Holloway's table, further onto the table. "It's a hit list."
Gunn put another bag on the table. "Holloway's shoes. Match the first couple prints, and these ones," he pulled another bag, "match the third one."
"No shoe prints at the attorney's office." Cordelia shook her head. "The place was wiped clean except for that drawer."
"Did you get a fingerprint?" Riley asked.
"Not on the drawer, but the papers were at Holloway's so that puts him there, right?" Cordelia answered, pointing at the list and the other set of papers. "And we can dust those for prints; Russell's should be on there."
Rupert opened his mouth to speak when Fred came barging in. "Hey, boss," she said. "There was DNA evidence on a shirt in that box you asked me to find, and it's a match to George Henry Patton. I thought you should know. I know we can't do anything for the victim because she dropped the charges, so I don't know what you're going to do with this, but I have everything here, and there was evidence of assault and I found some trace of what used to be a version of GHB."
Rupert put his hand on her arm and thanked her. "It's just one more confirmation, and we have more than enough circumstantial evidence to ask for a DNA sample from Holloway. Angel," Rupert turned to him, "I want you to conduct the interrogation. Holloway's hired McDonald as his lawyer and we all know how much you enjoy dealing with the man."
"Oh yeah," Angel said with a feral grin. "Lindsey and I go way back."
"I want the DNA sample sent to Willow immediately, and then I want this case closed."
Everyone cheered him, and they piled out, leaving Rupert and Gunn alone again. "You need some time off, boss," Gunn said looking up at him with a worried expression on his face. "This is like, the biggest case we got since that child killer two years ago. You got two weeks paid after that one."
Rupert snorted. "So did you. And pretty much everyone else who'd been working the case at the time."
"Hey, we got time stored up, if we all take it now, Snyder can't say a word. B'sides, I heard you got yourself a date." Gunn grinned and ducked his head when Rupert glared at him.
"My personal life is none of anyone's business but my own," Rupert replied tersely. Truth was, Xander would be busy writing for the next week or so and Rupert wouldn't be seeing much of him anyway.
*
The interrogation took several hours. Rupert stood in the small room just off the one Angel and Cordelia were grilling Holloway in, and listened in the whole time. There was a beauty to watching Angel and Lindsey McDonald face off on opposite sides of that table. There'd been a time when they'd been friends, before both of them had taken the case they were working much too seriously, and their falling out had been bloody -- come to think of it, that seemed to be a pattern with Angel.
Lindsey had won that case, and Angel hadn't ever forgiven himself for letting it go down the way it had. He hadn't let Lindsey win any other case since unless the lack of evidence was dire enough that he'd had no choice.
The gist of the affair was, as Rupert managed to pull together from the half truths and bouts of shouting: Holloway had been contacted by Warren Patton for a hit job. Two people, no more, no less. He'd found out the Pattons were planning a heist from overhearing one of their conversations during the contract negotiations on the hit, and he'd volunteered the information about his wife's place of employment. He'd assured them complete cooperation from her, for a higher pay. Twice their original offer. The three brothers had agreed.
And then halfway through cleaning the Ferguson's murder scene, Holloway had received a message from his wife, telling him that things weren't going as expected. He'd left in a hurry, arrived at the jewellery store just in time to see Henry shoot Jessa, and Holloway hadn't wasted a second and he'd shot him. In his anger, he even admitted to wanting to shoot the other two, but they'd run away too fast for him to track them. He then went back to the Ferguson's -- thus explaining the traces of dirt in the shoe print they'd found.
He was interrupted by a neighbour coming home, and had left the scene without finishing the cleaning.
Early the next morning, Holloway had received yet another phone call. This time, it was from Patrick Russell -- one of the attorneys hired as executor of Patton Sr.'s will -- telling him that they needed to meet. Holloway agreed on a time in the evening. He'd gone home to his daughter, and spent the day acting like a properly grieving widower. That evening, Russell had told Holloway about the will, Catherine Ormond's rape, and the DNA test Holloway would have to go through if he wanted any part of the money.
The other hits, he'd done on his own. The fewer Pattons, the more money for him; and after all, he now had twice the cause for revenge. He'd gleaned Ms. Lambert's name from the list on Russell's desk, and after killing her, he'd come back for more. Russell had put up a fight.
Once Holloway had forced open the drawer and gotten his hands on the list, he'd found out why, and killed the man without any other thoughts.
"He was one of them," Holloway spit. "A bunch of fucking rapists and murderers, and I wasn't going to let any of them get close to my daughter."
The look on Angel's face turned to disbelief. "And killing her relatives is really that much better, right?"
"I did it for her, for her mother."
Rupert shook his head and straightened up, rubbing his knee absently. Holloway was going to prison for a very long time. His daughter would be safe in her mother's family. No one else on that list would turn up dead.
All in all, a good day, no, week's work.
*
Once he finally made his way to his office, after Holloway had been taken away and Angel was left arguing with McDonald, Rupert found reports from Willow and Spike waiting for him on his desk. Willow confirmed that Holloway was Patton's son and so was Russell, and Spike that Holloway's gun really had fired the bullets that had killed all their victims but Jessa Holloway.
Andrew had also left a transcript of that audio feed he'd managed to glean from the surveillance tapes. There were shouts from Jessa, from Henry, and from his brothers. And listening closely at how it all played out, Rupert could almost see exactly what had happened that night. Henry had found out about the hit on the Fergusons. He'd found out and confronted his brothers right there, in front of Jessa, and it was in a scuffle with Warren that he'd fired the gun.
Rupert took off his glasses and rubbed his eyelids tiredly.
"Hiya, boss," Buffy cheered from the doorway. "We're off for a beer, you in?"
He could see the rest of them behind her and he smiled. "No, thank you." He knew that having a superior there tended to subdue the celebration, and there was nothing he hated more than tension when you were supposed to have fun and relax.
"Rather wait for you know who?" She winked irritatingly at him, and he scowled. "You know he's invited too if he wants to come. He's kind of our hero right now."
Rupert snorted and waved them off. "Please go, get drunk in my honour, and don't tell me in the morning."
"Sure thing!"
Oz and Faith came by to announce that they were in, and that usually was Rupert's cue to leave. He sighed into his paperwork. Almost done, and then he'd go. He signed the last two pages, made sure there were no errors anywhere in the document, and stuffed it into the envelope. He was sealing it when his phone rang. This time, he looked at the display and smiled. "Hey, Xander."
"Hey," Xander said. "Harmony says that Snyder said that I'm not even allowed in the building anymore, so I'm waiting outside."
"I'll be out in just a few minutes," Rupert told him, picking up his jacket.
"Oh, and hey, that thing you said about liking my ego? If I told you that you owed me for solving your case for you, what would you do?"
Rupert grinned, and grabbed his keys and briefcase. "I can think of something."
"Yeah, I'm looking forward to that," Xander said, voice low and a little throaty. "So I'll see you in a minute."
Xander Harris would always be an annoying pain in the arse; a brilliant, thorough, effective, very attractive pain in Rupert's arse. And he found, right there, less than a day after their first time together, that he too was very much looking forward to the challenge.
THE END
A/N: Holloway's handgun is a Beretta M9 pistol -- it is the same handgun the officers and detectives use; it is also widely used in US Army forces. I don't know if it's possible to do what Holloway does to the gun in this fic, but at this point, I claim ignorance and artistic license. *g*
The Pattons' handguns are Glocks 36 with .45in cartridges; a popular gun in US civilian population.
NIBIN is a real ballistics database.
Thanks a million to mireille719 for the help in researching what the hell that database that wasn't AFIS or CODIS was. :)