Lilly gave the teenage boy sitting in the living room a nod and smile as she entered the house with a small grocery bag.
“Hey.” She said. “Is Dad around? I stopped by that market he likes. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to go there for a while.”
Finn Cooper look at Lilly uneasily without smiling back. “He’s just getting ready. We were goin’ out somewhere.”
“Yeah? Where?” Lilly asked, still smiling.
Finn paused for a moment, before shaking his head. “Nowhere important.”
Both of them looked over at the older man emerging from down the hall.
“Lilly.” Paul Cooper said, looking surprised to see her. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”
Lilly set the bag down on the kitchen counter. “I just stopped by the market, thought I’d get a few things.”
“Well we were just heading over to see Christina.” Paul said. “Celeste is going to meet us there with the baby. You’re welcome to join us, obviously.”
Lilly glanced at Finn for a moment after hearing this. Finn returned a cool gaze, before she turned back to her father. “Actually, I’ve got to get back. I’ve got work.”
Paul nodded evenly at this. “I thought you’d be done by now.”
Lilly shrugged. “Just working one last case.”
“Told you she didn’t wanna come.” Finn muttered under his breath.
“Finn.” Paul said, frowning at his son.
“Sorry.” Finn said, curtly. “Can I wait in the car?”
Paul sighed and handed the keys to Finn, who walked out, giving Lilly a glance as he did.
Paul walked over to the bag on the counter and started taking things out, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Lilly. I’ll talk to him. He’s just not taking this well. I guess he’s gotten a little more attached than I thought.”
Lilly attempted a smile. “I’m just taking a job in New York. It’s not like you’re never gonna see me.”
Paul gave her daughter a solemn look. “We both know that’s not the kind of job that gives any more free time than your last one.”
The two said nothing for a moment.
“So where’s Celeste?” Lilly said.
“She was just taking Ellie to park for a bit.” Paul smiled. “It’s starting to be a regular thing.”
“So things are working out well?” Lilly asked, slightly anxious.
“With Ellie? Sure, Celeste is crazy about her. She loves having a baby in the house again.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve changed a few diapers in my time. It’s fine.” Paul chuckled slightly. “Actually a part of me’s still surprised Chris was the first one to make me a grandfather.”
“How is she anyway?”
Paul nodded. “Good. The rehab doctors say she’s doing really well. Maggie’s coming home from Cornell for a visit in a few weeks. She was asking about her.” Paul said, then turned to Lilly. “And about you. She still wants to meet you.”
“I know.” Lilly said, nodding quickly. “I just don’t know what kind of time I’d have in New York. Once I know that, I can figure things out.”
“Okay.”
Lilly looked at her father a moment. “Dad, do you think I should take this job?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Lilly.” Paul said, calmly. “It’s your life.”
“It’s just, an opportunity like this doesn’t–”
“I know.” Paul said. “Look, I’m the last person to give advice on this. I’ll say this much; whatever you decide, you have to live with the choices you make.”
Lilly nodded solemnly.
***
Scotty frowned at the text message on his phone as he walked into Homicide. Pausing for a moment, he opened it and looked at the message.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, SCOTTY VALENS
Scotty narrowed his eyes in disgust and hit DELETE.
“What, you got some junk mail or something?” Lilly smiled as she walked in a few steps behind.
Scotty nodded quickly. “Yeah, somethin’ like that. Uhhh, did a bit of digging on Roberto. Tried to get Jeff kicked out of his neighborhood. A couple of neighbors said he started passing out flyers about it.” He handed Lilly a folded, faded orange paper. On it was a black and white photo of Jeff with a caption that read KEEP THIS MURDERER OUT OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
“Sounds like Roberto meant business.” Lilly said.
“He had some sort of beef with the CIA. Got arrested in Miami in 1990 for harassing agents outside a field office down there.”
“I wonder what the professor’s got to say for himself today.”
“Will’s bringin’ him in now.”
Lilly and Scotty looked over to see Jeffries sitting with a delicate-looking Hispanic woman in her late sixties. The woman immediately looked up at Lilly when Kat gestured to her.
“Lil, this is Maria Trejo.” Jeffries said. “She wanted to talk to you about a case.”
Lilly looked at Scotty, then took the woman’s tand.
“Someone told me you solve cases that are old.” Maria said in a soft, accented voice. Before Lilly could respond, the woman pulled a photo, that of a teenage girl, out of her purse. “This is my daughter, Rosita. She was killed in 1979. Someone pushed her from a balcony at the house where I was working at the time. I… I was told you solve cases like this.”
Lilly looked at the woman uneasily. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trejo, I’m working another case right now, and I won’t be available here after that. Detective Miller here should be able to help you if you have any information.”
Mrs. Trejo looked confused for a moment. “I… I was told you solve old cases here. Do you not do that here anymore?”
Lilly looked at the woman, unable to find an answer.
***
Scotty ignored the bored look Roberto Sanchez was giving him and Stillman as he sat at the interview room table. Instead Scotty gave the sheets of paper in his hand a second look.
“Never seen a college professor with a rap sheet this long.” Scotty said with a smirk. “Trespassing, vandalism, harassment, resisting arrest.”
Roberto gave him a defiant stare. “I speak up for oppressed peoples. I consider every one of those charges a badge of honor.”
“That include those three drunk and disorderlies and a DUI?” Stillman asked.
Roberto frowned and said nothing.
“How about murder?” Scotty added. “That a badge of honor too?”
Roberto’s eyes narrowed. “Murder?”
“You remember a guy who moved into your neighborhood in ‘93?” Scotty continued. “Jeff Royce?”
“That was a mugging in the park.” Roberto said, confused.
Stillman nodded. “Same park where you organized rallies, protested him moving in. You didn’t want a CIA agent living there, did you?”
“Why should I?” Roberto answered with a glare. “Do you have any idea how much suffering the Central Intelligence Agency has caused all over the world? They spent the entire Cold War overthrowing democratic governments. Iran in 1953, The Congo in 1960, Brazil in 1964, Argentina in 1976, even my own country of Chile in 1973. It didn’t matter how repressive or barbaric the new regime was. As long as they weren’t communist, they could do whatever they wanted.”
“It was a little more personal than that, though, wasn’t it?” Stillman said, sitting next to him. “We did a little digging into your background. Your parents opposed the Pinochet regime, and ended up being executed. That was your real beef with Jeff, wasn’t it? As far as you were concerned, your parents’ blood was on his hands.”
Scotty noticed a hint of pain in Roberto’s eyes as he looked at Stillman.
“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even in town when that happened. You can check.”
“Don’t worry.” Scotty said. “We will.”
“Fine.” Roberto said, condescendingly. “And while you’re at it, maybe you should look into what Jeff was doing after he moved into the neighborhood.”
“What he was doing?” Stillman asked.
“Let’s just say your CIA man wasn’t as retired as people thought…”
***
(“Driver 8”)
Roberto stuffed the pamphlet into the last mailbox on the street. The last batch hadn’t garnered any positive responses, but maybe these ones would.
He heard the faint noise of someone’s footsteps and instinctively ducked behind a hedge. A few neighbors hadn’t appreciated his mailings, and Roberto wasn’t eager for another confrontation on the street in the middle of the night.
He peered over the top of the hedge, able to make out Jeff walking out of his driveway, a large garbage bag in hand, onto the street as a car approached. Jeff plopped the bag into a garbage can and walked towards the car. The driver pulled a stop, and lowered his window, while Jeff leaned on the car.”I thought there were supposed to be apple trees.” Ethan said with a smirk, inspecting Jeff front yard. “Isn’t that what they used to put in the ads?”
Jeff gave Ethan a dull look. “I think they took those out a few years ago. People probably got sick of cleaning rotten apples off their lawn. You didn’t come here to talk about apples. You checking up on me?”
“Hell yeah, I am. I’m your partner. It’s my job. So you met him yet?”
Jeff nodded solemnly. “Yeah, not really what I expected.”
“Well that’s kinda the idea. You’re not goin’ soft on me, are you?”
Jeff fixed Ethan with a steely gaze. “Don’t tell me how to my job, all right? And don’t come around here again unless I call you first.”
Ethan leaned back in his seat. “Fine. Just don’t get too comfy in suburbia, and don’t start thinking that retirement party back in Langley was anything but a show for the rookies. We both know you’re a lot of things, but nine to five and picket fences, you aren’t.”
Jeff leaned into the car. “Don’t think you know everything about me.”
Ethan smirked at this. “Twenty years working together, yeah, I do.” Jeff recoiled as Ethan put up the windows and drove away.
Still crouching behind the hedge, Roberto glared at Jeff and shook his head…
***
“He didn’t need any trouble from me.” Roberto said, looking stoic. “He brought plenty of it with him.”
“When was this?” Stillman asked.
Roberto shrugged. “Early in the year. Few months before he was killed.”
“And you were out of town when that happened.” Scotty said, giving Roberto a condescending look.
He nodded. “There are police who can verify that.”
“Another ‘badge of honor’?” Scotty asked.
Roberto nodded evenly.
***
“Yeah, okay.” Lilly said, before hanging up the phone and turning to Scotty, who was walking over.
“Roberto’s alibi checks out.” Scotty said. “He was arrested at a protest in Seattle the day of Jeff’s murder”
“I just talked to Vera,” she said. “Still haven’t been able to get a hold of Jeff’s boss there.”
“CIA’s giving them the runaround?” Scotty asked.
“Starting to look that way, and if Jeff was on some sort of secret assignment, that might be why.”
“Well, maybe we’ll have better luck with Jeff’s old partner.” Scotty handed her a file. “Ethan Moore retired in ‘04, moved back to Philly, worked on and off ever since, divorced last year, last known address was a room at the Starlight Motel.”
Lilly smiled. “So you wanna take a ride?”
“So, uhh, how long you planning on stickin’ around?” Scotty asked.
“Let’s just go talk to the guy.” Lilly answered, giving him a cool smile.
Scotty just shrugged and followed her out.
***
Scotty wrinkled his nose at the beer bottles strewn around the motel room.
“Not exactly livin’ like James Bond, are you, Ethan?”
Looking up from his chair, Ethan frowned. “I just had a little falling out with the old lady. It’s a temporary thing.”
“You were Jeff’s partner before he retired.” Lilly said.
“Five years,” Ethan said with a nod. “But we went back way further than that. Got recruited into the Company at the same time.”
“Probably have some interesting stories workin’ with Jeff before he retired.” Scotty said.
“Maybe.” Ethan said uneasily.
“How about after he retired?” Lilly asked, eyeing him. “Is there a reason Jeff moved into that neighborhood?”
“Is there a reason you came all the way to Philly to drive by his house and talk in the middle of the night?” Scotty added.
Ethan’s eyes widened slightly at this, before he lowered them again. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was checking up because he was my partner. The less you know about what your partner’s thinking and doing, the more nervous you get.”
Lilly and Scotty looked at each other as he continued.
“Our boss had one last assignment for Jeff, something off the record. They went so far to put on a big retirement party for him, so everyone we worked with would think he was done.”
“Pretty long ways to go to cover up an assignment.” Scotty said.
“Yeah, it was.” Ethan said. “Even I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but he filled me in a bit. There was some guy in the neighborhood he was supposed to watch, something about him being a possible threat. It all turned out to be for nothing. The guy died in an accident a few months later. I never got any details beyond that.”
“So who was the guy Jeff was supposed to watch?” Lilly asked.
Ethan shook his head. “Never got a name, and don’t think I didn’t try and find out. I told Jeff keeping me out of the loop like that was a bad idea. I think he took his eye off the ball.”
“What, was he settlin’ into suburban life too much?” Scotty asked.
“No, but he did make one colossally dumb move…”
***
(“Monty Got a Raw Deal”)
Sitting on the park bench, Ethan smirked at the various people relaxing or walking through the park, as if he was in on some joke than none of them were.
He looked up as he saw Jeff approaching, and his smirk widened slightly.
“I thought you said you were hanging out with the kid today.” Ethan said.
“I had to put that on hold” Jeff said, sitting down, without a smile.
“Oh, I bet he’s thrilled about that, huh?” Ethan chuckled. “The more things change, the more they stay the same, right”
“You got a guy for me or not?”
Ethan pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket with a phone number on it and handed it to Jeff. “I told him to expect a call from you. What exactly do you want him for anyway? You can’t find any good dentists here in Philly yourself?”
“You let me worry about that.” Jeff said, getting up from the bench. “I’ll call you if I need anything else.”
Ethan sat there for a few minutes, than got up and headed after Jeff.
“Hey, hey.” Ethan said, catching up with Jeff at the parking lot. “Look, man, I know I’ve been riding you a bit lately. I just…” He trailed off as he noticed the large, weathered-looking man leaning on Jeff’s car. Ethan’s face immediately went slack. “What the hell is he doing here?”
The large man gave Ethan a smug look. “Good to see you too, Ethan.”
Ethan looked at Jeff incredulously. “You actually brought this son of a bitch in?”
Jeff’s face remained impassive. “Look, I needed someone who wasn’t with the Company anymore, somebody who can do things quietly.”
Ethan glared. “Oh, is that what Prague was, ‘quiet’? You know, I’m the one who had to tell Martin’s wife.”
“I’m not interested in drudging up history.” Jeff said. “Look, we all started at the same time.”
“Yeah, well we sure didn’t finish at the same time.” Ethan said. “I’m not working with him.”
The large man folded his arms. “Gee, that’s a damn shame.” He said, condescendingly.
Ethan looked at the man, then back at Jeff. “And neither are you.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do.” Jeff said, his eyes narrowed.
“I’m not gonna be the one to give your wife the news. You either cut him loose, or I tell Garrison. It’s your call.” Ethan gave Jeff one last look, before turning around and walking away…
***
“Jeff told me later on he got rid of him, but I don’t know whether he was telling the truth.” Ethan shook his head. “To this day, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking.”
“So who was the guy?” Lilly asked.
“Steve Mitchum, got recruited into the agency the same time as me and Jeff. He was Jeff’s first partner. In ‘87, he was meeting some informants in Prague with another agent. Steve botched the whole damn thing, somebody got spooked, and three people ended up dying, including that other agent. They sacked him after that. If you ask me, he’s lucky that’s all they did.”
Scotty frowned. “And you didn’t think this was worth mentioning when Jeff got killed?”
Ethan looked up at Scotty. “This whole operation was supposed to be a secret from everyone. That includes cops.”
“So you think he might’ve botched this job too?” Lilly asked.
Ethan sighed. “All I know is agents who trust Steve Mitchum with their lives tend to wind up dead.”
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