But World Enough, and Time - NC-17 - Steve/Kono
Part III
PART THREE
Murder Most Foul
August 2nd, 2010: Steve is 33
When Steve's father dies, he's only a few miles away. He may as well be halfway around the world.
Steve's phone rings at precisely 6:43. He's already awake, listening to Kono take a shower in the tiny cubicle that they jokingly refer to as a master bathroom, the morning sun filtering in through the bare window that hasn't seen a drop of Windex or even a rag in a very long time. He reaches for the phone where it's buzzing loudly on the night table, feels his face pulling into a frown when he sees his father's name and number come up on the call display. As far as he knows, Dad hasn't touched a drink in well over ten years, but that doesn't mean he hasn't fallen off the wagon. Steve braces himself, tells himself not to be disappointed if Dad is drunk on the other end of the line.
"Dad."
"Hey, Champ," his father's voice is strained, but it's clear that, whatever the problem is, it's not alcohol. He's never called Steve 'Champ' in his life. Dad's never been one for useless terms of endearment.
Steve sits up, bedclothes spilling onto the floor. "You all right?"
"Steve, I don't have much time, I need you to listen to me."
There's a clamour of voices, scuffling sounds as though someone is trying to take the phone away. Another voice comes on the line, one Steve has never heard before. "Now I see where you get it from."
"Who is this?" Steve barks. Kono comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping onto her shoulders, wrapped in one of their ratty, dingy bath towels. She mouths something at him, but he's too busy straining to hear what this strange voice is telling him. "What do you want with my father?"
He reaches for the dog-eared pad of notepaper they keep by the phone, scribbles frantically on it, not knowing if Kono will even be able to read his handwriting, because his hands are shaking too hard to hold his pen steady. Send HPD to my father's house, ASAP.
"My name is Victor Hesse. You don't know me, but I have a feeling that in a different life, we might have been very good enemies," the man sneers. "Now listen to me very carefully, Steve. That is your name, isn't it? I'm offering you a trade: your father's life, for the information he hid away with you. All the evidence he's gathered, without holding back a single thing. All things considered, I'd say it's more than generous, wouldn't you? What's more important, a few pieces of paper, or a man's life?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The man named Victor Hesse clucks his tongue. "Steve, Steve, Steve. There is no use lying to me. I happen to know that what I'm looking for isn't here, and your father isn't one to trust just anyone with this sort of thing. I tell you what, it's possible you don't know you have it. He may have given you something―a box, a vase, I don't know, whatever it is loving-but-absent fathers give their sons to show them they still love them. I want you to bring it to me. We're here at your father's house. Bring it now, and I promise not to shoot him like a dog."
In the background Steve hears his father's voice, begging for the phone. Over his shoulder, pressed up against the far wall, Kono is talking urgently into her own cell phone, giving out the location and what few details she has in her possession. She doesn't even know that some crazy person has a gun stuck to John McGarrett's head.
"Look, Victor," he tries to sound reasonable even as his blood roars in his ears. "I don't have what you want. You should know this, you sound like a smart guy. Let my dad go, and we'll talk. I won't negotiate like this."
"Oh, are we negotiating?" Victor sneers. He has an accent, it sounds Irish or maybe Welsh, it's difficult to say over the line, and it doesn't match up with the Germanic-sounding last name, and all these tiny details slide to the back of Steve's mind as he tries desperately to figure out just how the hell he's going to get any of them out of this mess.
"Steve." It's his dad, phone pressed back to his ear. "Listen to me, Champ," he says ('Champ,' again). "I'm sorry, all right? You tell Mare―tell Mary I'm sorry, and that I love you both. I never told you enough. Whatever these people want, Champ, whatever they want, don't you give it to them, you hear?"
"Dad!" Steve jumps to his feet, both hands clamped over the phone as though he might just be able to anchor his father here in the world of the living if he just hangs on hard enough. "Dad!"
There are more scuffling sounds, the loud report of a gunshot far away from the phone, a man's voice cursing loudly. Victor Hesse is the one who picks up the line.
"You both want to play the hero, is that it, Steve?" he pants. "So be it. That was the last time you'll ever hear your father's voice."
There's another gunshot, and this time it's so close that it very nearly deafens him.
"No!"
But it's too late. His father is dead.
~*~
August 2nd, 2010: Steve is 34 and 33
Detective Danny Williams hates everything about Hawaii. He hates the fact that it's not New Jersey, he hates the fact that there's no snow in winter, and he hates pineapples in general. Mostly he hates the fact that he was all but forced to move here by his venom-spewing British cobra of an ex-wife, who re-married a guy with practically more money than Bill Gates and then proceeded to move Danny's baby girl fifteen thousand miles away from her real home in Newark. So, Hawaii? Definitely in Danny's black books for the foreseeable future.
He also hates most of the Honolulu Police Department, because apparently their motto is "Be as unprofessional as possible." Not a single tie to be found among the detectives, for one thing, and if that wasn't bad enough now they're all after him to not wear his own tie which, just no, thank you very much. The only person he doesn't hate right now is his new partner, Officer Kalakaua, but that's because she's already turning out to be pretty promising as a police officer, just so long as she doesn't pick up on any of their colleagues' bad habits along the way. Danny plans on making sure that never happens, not while she's partnered up with him, anyway.
Right now, though, he has bigger fish to fry. Like solving the McGarrett murder before he dies of old age. It was a brutal, execution-style murder, and there is nothing about this case that Danny likes, except maybe for the fact that it's going to take all his skills to solve. It's already a messy case, made messy not in the least because the victim is the father of Kono's current boyfriend. At least the boyfriend isn't on the suspect list, because Kono was with him not only when the murder took place, but can vouch that he was on the phone with his father when he was shot. Traumatising as hell, no doubt, but since the phone logs confirm all of it, it does mean that he's off the suspect list, which means that as long as Danny takes the lead on this case, there's very little chance of a conflict of interest. As far as he knows, father and son were estranged anyway, and Kono only ever met Lieutenant McGarrett a few times, strictly professionally.
Danny does like a good challenge, he's the first to admit that, but this case is promising to be more than that. And he hates the idea that whatever animal put a bullet in the back of a good cop's head right in his own home might well get away with it, the longer this investigation takes. That's why he's back here, less than two days after the call was put in.
He's already been over the scene, and the crime scene guys have gone over it with a fine-toothed comb as well, but he can't help but think that there's something here that he's missing, something he can't quite put his finger on. So he calls in his position to dispatch, gets out of the car, and lets himself into the house, heading right back for the dead cop's office, intending to sift through what little paperwork Jack McGarrett might have kept at home. There's nothing to suggest that any of that paperwork might lead to his killers, but then Jack McGarrett was an exemplary cop, one that everyone agreed was the best of the best, and it's hard to argue with that sort of consensus. So it stands to reason that he probably brought some of his work home with him, maybe some of the trickier cases, or maybe a couple of the ones who got away. Danny's never done it himself, but he knows a couple of guys back in Jersey who used to keep the names of the guys they couldn't convict written in a notebook or in a file somewhere at home.
He's in the process of pulling open the first drawer in the filing cabinet when he hears the sound of rustling coming from the garage. He freezes for a moment, then pulls his service weapon from its holster, strides purposefully to the inner door and pulls it open.
"HPD, freeze!" he bellows.
There's a figure in the far corner, half-concealed by the covered car in the middle of the garage, but the guy obediently raises both hands above his head. He's tall, Danny sees, coming around the car, his pistol trained on centre mass, a good inch or two over six feet. Blue eyes, dark brown or maybe even black hair, dressed in cargo pants that are a bit too big for him and a polo shirt that's a little too tight across the chest. The man turns slowly to face him, grins when he catches sight of Danny.
"Howzit, Danno?"
For a second Danny's nonplussed. "Do I know you, scumbag?"
The man shakes his head. "Not yet."
Danny jerks his head at the guy. "Okay, wise guy. Lace your fingers, put them behind your head. This is an active crime scene, and you are interfering with an official police investigation. You're going to come with me down to the precinct and answer some questions. Not least of which will be, 'What the hell are you doing here?' You got me?"
"Yeah, I don't think we'll be doing that," the man starts to put his hands down very slowly.
"Hey! Hands where I can see 'em, buddy!"
"The name's Steve, and this is my house. I have every right to be here."
The name rings a bell. "You're John McGarrett's son?"
"That's right," Steve nods. "So you can put your gun down."
"Not a chance. This might be your house, but it's my crime scene first, and I will thank you not to tamper with the evidence contained therein."
"Therein?" Steve repeats incredulously. "Whatever, I'm not tampering, I live here. I haven't touched anything."
"Bull. Shit," Danny spits, gesturing to the work bench next to Steve. "I can see the dust void where you've picked something up in order to move it. What did you take?"
Steve sighs. "I didn't take anything, Danno. I just moved it so I could look inside. It's going to be important for your case later on, but I needed to come back and see it."
Danny glances down at Steve's feet, blinks a little when he notices they're bare, but then it sort of makes sense in a twisted way that this guy would remove his shoes in his own house. Next to him on the ground there's a red tool box, covered in dust which has been recently disturbed by a fresh set of prints―doubtless Steve's.
"Don't call me 'Danno,'" he says instead. "I don't know where you heard that, but it's not a nickname anyone except my daughter gets to use."
He's beginning to think this guy isn't all there, anyway. How many people in their right minds just stand there and chat about popping into their dead father's garage while a cop has his gun pointed at their midsection.
"Come on," he says again. "Hands behind your head, and let's go. You don't do as I say, then that's resisting arrest that we're going to add to the very long list of charges that I plan to bring against you. For all I know, you're my number one suspect."
The statement appears to shock Steve a little bit, and to Danny's surprise his expression turns hurt. "I'm not the one who did this," he says softly. "I'm here to help you find out who did. The clues are in the box."
"You're a lunatic," Danny breathes. "That's the only logical explanation. I am pointing a gun at you and telling you, as an officer of the law, to comply with my orders, and yet you're standing there talking about clues like this is the freaking Hardy Boys!"
"It's okay. I'm not coming with you now, but we'll talk again in a few days. Don't be worried if I don't remember you," Steve says, like he's discussing the weather. "It's perfectly normal."
And with that he suddenly lunges to the side, hits the floor on the other side of the car. Danny loses sight of him, he could have sworn just for a couple of seconds, but by the time he gets there, there is no sign of the intruder whatsoever. All that's left of him are his cargo pants and his polo shirt, left in a crumpled heap on the floor just under the car. Danny crouches down in order to pick up the shirt with two fingers, and sighs.
"I cannot wait to explain this one to the Lieutenant."
~*~
August 5th, 2010: Steve is 33
"Witness is all yours," Meka comes by Danny's desk where he's been trying to compile his notes together. Danny glances up, gives him a smile.
"Detective Hanamoa. Long time no see. How's organised crime treating you?"
Meka grins. "Better now that I don't have a tiny, short-tempered haole cramping my style."
"Professional," Danny corrects him pointedly, but there's no heat in the words, just as there was no venom in Meka's use of the word 'haole', the way it does on the lips of so many other HPD officer. "What are you doing with my witness, anyway?"
"McGarrett was working in organised crime, in case you forgot," Meka shrugs. "Just making sure we're not leaving out any loose ends. He was one of ours, you know. The best."
Danny nods. One thing doesn't change, no matter where you're from, if you're a cop: you protect your own. "We'll get the son of a bitch, don't think for a second we won't. What do you make of the son?"
"I'll let you see for yourself, but he's not a suspect. If anything, he's been helpful, for a guy with no police training or any kind of background in law enforcement. The closest he's come to that is the kapu."
Danny blinks a little. "Kapu as in the local eco-vigilantes?"
Meka narrows his eyes. "Tread carefully with words like those, Danny. The Kapu, they're a force to be reckoned with on the island, and they're respected. They're not thugs and they're not vigilantes."
"So, what, they're more like a neighbourhood watch? Do they have safety orange vests?" Danny tugs at the shoulders of his shirt for emphasis, and Meka rolls his eyes, unable to entirely suppress a laugh.
"One of these days some islander is going to kick your pasty white ass for you, and you will have deserved every single kick, my friend. You go in there and antagonise a respected member of the kapu, even if he is junior, and you're going to attract a whole heap of extra problems on your head."
"Duly noted," Danny nods curtly, but the message has been received, loud and clear, and he's not an idiot, no matter what the local cops might think of him.
He gathers his notes into a manila file folder, tucks it under his arm, heads into the interview room and stops on the other side of the one-way mirror to watch how his witness is behaving. Sometimes leaving someone to their own devices and letting them stew in their own juices is worth hours of painstaking interrogation. Not knowing is the worst kind of torture, for some people. He stops short when he first sees the guy, realising that he has met him before―this is the guy he caught in John McGarrett's garage, or almost caught, anyway. At least Danny knows he was telling the truth, now, which means he's going to have a lot of answering to do in just a few minutes.
Danny opens the door, saunters into the room, drops the folder onto the table between them, then casually spins his chair around so he can straddle it. "Steven J. McGarrett. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you again, but..."
He gets a blank look in return. "Sorry, what?"
"So you're going to play the no memory card? Is that it? You interfere with my investigation, possibly tamper with evidence for all I know, and after pulling a truly impressive vanishing act―I totally have to hand that one to you―now you're pretending not to know anything about it?"
"Oh." The guy's a good actor, Danny will give him that. "No. I mean, yes. I mean, I get that we've met before, I just, I don't remember. It's a―a condition. A memory kind of thing. It's not personal, I swear, and I'm not doing it on purpose. I can't explain it better than that."
"A condition," Danny says flatly, and that gets him a fervent nod. Well, okay. Time will tell. "All right, then. We're going to go through your whole statement, and then we're going to talk about why you broke into your father's house two days ago―"
"I didn't!"
"You did. I don't care if he left it to you in his will, you cannot enter an active crime scene until the lead detective―that's me―gives you the green light. And I most certainly did nothing of the kind."
McGarrett shakes his head. "I don't remember doing that. I―did I tell you about the tool box?"
"Not as such, no, but you did hint that it might be important."
"Okay. You got my statement, right? About the phone call?"
Danny is under the very uncomfortable impression that he's not entirely in charge of this interrogation. "I read it over, yeah. You want to walk me through it one more time there, champ?"
"That's exactly it," Steve leans forward, hands on the table. "That was what's on the box. My dad never called me 'champ,' not once in my entire life. He wasn't―he didn't use pet names. He'd call me Steve, or maybe son sometimes, but never 'champ.' He was trying to draw my attention to the box, because that's where he hid the clues of his investigation."
"What investigation? I've gone through all his files, and there's no mention of anything like that."
Steve gives him a slightly pained look. "Can I talk off the record for a minute?"
"No."
"Please?" The tone is desperate, now, and it doesn't jive with what Danny knows of this guy. He's nothing like the self-possessed man he met a couple of days before. "If I have to, I'll repeat it on the record, but I think once you hear it, you won't want to. Come on, what will it hurt?"
"Are you schizophrenic or something?"
Steve shakes his head. "No. People thought that at one point, but I'm not. Totally cleared by several psychiatrists," he adds with a rueful smile.
"I am going to regret this for the rest of my life," Danny mutters, then reaches over and switches off the tape. "Okay, shoot. What have you got?"
Steve drums his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. "My dad was looking into my mother's death. Our car blew up when I was a kid, and she―uh, she died. They thought something went wrong with, God, I don't remember what. But there were things that never added up, and he started to figure it out. He was investigating the expansion of the Yakuza in Hawaii, and it sounded to me like he was meant to be in the car when it blew up."
Danny's heart has speeded up in his chest in the way it does only when he knows he's onto something big. He remembers the day he and the other detectives cracked their big RICO case back in '03, having the exact same feeling of blood rushing through his veins and roaring in his ears.
"I read that report, there was no evidence of foul play. The brakes failed, coupled with some sort of technical gibberish about fuel injection gone wrong."
Steve gives him a flat look, and even Danny has to admit that it doesn't really add up. The car was a charred ruin, and unlike in the movies cars don't actually explode on impact unless they're encouraged to do so by outside intervention.
"You're saying there was a bomb."
"I'm saying there was a bomb. They wanted my father off the case and―and they killed my mother instead."
Danny blows out his cheeks in a slow exhale. "Okay. We'll look into it." He reaches over, flicks the switch on the recording again. "Now, let's go back over your statement, shall we?"
~*~
August 6th, 2010: Steve is 33, Kono is 26
"Where were you?" Kono asks, trying hard to focus on her question even though Steve has her crowded up against the wall of their tiny hallway, one hand sliding past the elastic waistband of her panties.
She's supposed to be getting ready for work, but he's been gone for hours, since he got home from the police station where she knows he talked for hours with her partner about the case. She should recuse herself, she knows, but Danny's not pushing it as long as there's no direct conflict of interest, and Steve isn't a suspect, just a witness. He's kissing her now like his life depends on it, free hand roaming along her waist, up over the silk of her bra and lingering there as her nipple hardens under his touch.
"Went back to the car accident," he says shortly, and leaves it there, and she knows better than to push it. Instead she rubs up against him, tilts her head so he'll kiss her, and then curses loudly when the doorbell rings.
Steve huffs impatiently. "Think we can ignore it?" he asks.
Danny's voice comes through the door, accompanied by pounding. "Hey, Kalakaua! We are burning daylight, here! You decent? You have thirty seconds before I come in anyway!"
She rolls her eyes, gives Steve a shove. "You're wearing pants, go open the door. Danny's a nice guy, but I'm not giving him a show."
She's pulling on her pants, shirt half-buttoned, by the time Danny is sauntering into their apartment, tie firmly knotted, shoes newly-shined. "Nice place. Nicer than mine, anyway. Why is everything in Hawaii tiny?" he asks, as though he's not expecting an answer.
"Your place is a shithole, that's why," she tells him amiably, buttoning her shirt. It's her favourite purple one with darts and three-quarter sleeves, the one that makes Steve's eyes spark whenever he looks at her. "And we're trying to live off my income and the interest from our capital. Around here, that doesn't amount to much."
Danny perches on a chair in the kitchenette. "A couple more days and the house will be free and clear. You sure you want to move in there, though?"
She glances at Steve, but he doesn't look like he's insulted by the implication that it's strange that he would want to live in the house where his father was murdered. Kono gets it―she understands about family, about ohana, about how that house is where so many of Steve's good memories are, like the inlet is where so many of her good memories are, of her and him together. Steve's got his back turned, fussing with the coffee pot, and when he turns around again he's got three cups filled.
"You, my friend, are a prince among men," Danny accepts a cup, lifts it in appreciation. "I cannot tell you just how happy I am that I don't actually have to investigate you any further as a murder suspect. You would not believe how messy that sort of thing can be. I'd be morally and legally obligated to report the conflict of interest, and then I'd lose my extremely competent and, dare I say it, talented partner, here."
Steve sips at his coffee. "This isn't a social call, then?"
"Nope. I need to borrow my partner, take her with me right to the Governor's office."
"What's going on, Danny?" Kono ignores her coffee in favour of strapping on her belt and badge, making sure her gun is secure. "It has to be important or you'd have waited until I got into the office."
"Observant as well as badass," Danny points a finger at her like his hand is a gun. "Someone's stealing our evidence right out of lock-up. That tool box?" he looks over at Steve, who's now entirely focused on him. "The one you said contained all the evidence from your father's little unofficial investigation? It's gone. Vanished into thin air, not a trace of it, including the paperwork."
"Oh my God." Kono stares at him, glances at Steve, whose face has drained of colour.
"Right." Danny stands up, jerks his head toward the door. "That's why I need you to come with me. Not you, big guy. You're going to do whatever it is you usually do with your days―you still with the kapu?"
Steve shakes his head. "Not for a couple of years now. I still have some connections, if you need them, but they don't have anything to with organised crime."
"Noted. Okay, let's go," Danny all but shoves Kono out of her own front door and ushers her into the passenger seat of his Camaro, barely leaving her the time to give Steve a kiss goodbye. "You are not driving. I know you like to drive my car, you weirdo control freak, but not this time."
"Where are we going?" Kono asks, when it's obvious they're not heading back to HPD.
"You and I, partner, have an appointment with the Governor."
"Governor Jameson?"
Danny twists in his seat to give her an incredulous look. "How many Governors does Hawaii have? Yes, Governor Jameson. She and I had a long chat over a secure line about our mysterious disappearing evidence and what that might mean," he pauses while he pulls the car into a parking spot with a screech of tires, "and that is what has led us here. Come on, time's a-wastin', here. The Governor awaits."
"Slow down, Danny," she balks, half-laughing, half-nervous. "What's going on?"
He allows her to stop them in the doorway, and puts both hands on her shoulders. He's shorter than she is, and it should feel ridiculous, except that her palms are sweaty and it feels anything but.
"Okay. Here's what's happening. There's a conspiracy, Kono, a big one. Right up until yesterday I didn't really believe it. I thought your boyfriend was certifiable, and I was this close," he makes a pinching motion with his thumb and forefinger, "to recommending that you both get help―him for his delusions and you for dating a guy with delusions. Except that then that toolbox went missing, and the more I asked around, the more I got stonewalled. Do you know how I feel about being stonewalled? I think you do. So I got on the phone with the Governor's assistant, because I know when I need to start going over people's heads, and as it turns out, the Governor and John McGarrett go way back, so she wanted to talk to the man investigating his death. As it happens, she agrees with me about this whole thing having a really nasty smell about it, and that, my friend, is why we are here."
"How about the short version?" Kono manages after a few seconds of trying to figure out just what Danny told her.
He throws up his hands in a gesture of exasperated surrender. "The Governor is putting a task force. Organised crime is out of hand on this island, and she wants it gone. She's asked me to head it up, but it's going to be a hard sell, PR-wise, given that I'm new and white and foreign. So I'm dragging you down with me," he grins at her, unrepentant. "You get a raise and something that's not quite a promotion but should feel like one anyway. We get to hand-pick the rest of our team, see this thing through to the end, minus a whole bunch of red tape."
Kono isn't sure she remembers how to breathe. "A task force?"
"I'm glad to see that you have at least captured the essence of what I was saying. Now come on," Danny takes her by the elbow and steers her through the door. "Ready or not, we're about to go get sworn in."
~*~
April 7th, 2010: Steve is 11
Sometimes the only good thing about Hawaii is how much Grace likes it here, is Danny's private opinion. He's trying―with varying levels of success―to keep most of his negative opinions to himself, especially when Grace is nearby. It's not hard when his daughter's around, mind you. Grace is the light of his life, and the way she beams from ear to ear the minute she sees him is enough to banish even the darkest of thoughts that might try to cling to his mind. Right now she's playing what looks like a simple game with complicated rules that involves getting as close to the water as possible when the waves recede and then running back up the beach with a happy shriek in an effort to keep just ahead of the waves, but not running so fast that she's ever more than a few inches from the water.
Danny turns aside for a minute to arrange the towel he's sitting on, and when he looks up, Grace is gone. He scrambles to his feet, heart leaping into his mouth, already feeling a cold sweat break out on his brow, when he hears her voice from somewhere to his left, chirping happily.
"Danno!"
She's got a little boy in tow with an oversized towel tied around his waist. The boy looks sheepish, the tips of his ears red from a blush rather than a sunburn, but he lets Grace pull him along by the hand over the hot sand and present him to Danny for inspection.
"Danno, Steve lost his bathing suit, but I told him you'd be able to help."
Danny eyes the boy critically. He doesn't seem like he's trying to pull anything shady with Grace, and, okay, maybe he's overreacting a bit. Eleven-year-old boys aren't quite the raging ball of hormones that they get to be after they hit puberty, after all, and this skinny little kid who's blushing so hard it looks like his head might catch fire doesn't seem to present much of a threat of any kind. Grace is looking up at him expectantly, and he is forcibly reminded that, right now, she still believes that he's omnipotent, that he can fix anything. Danno, father extraordinaire and purveyor of miracles, rescuer of little boys who've lost their swimming trunks.
"Of course, Monkey. Well," he gives Steve another once-over, "it just so happens that I have an extra pair of trunks. They'll be big on you, but they have a drawstring, so if you tie them tight enough, you probably won't lose them."
Grace beams. "Don't worry," she turns to the boy and puts a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, "no one will be able to tell they're not really yours."
"Here you go, Steve," Danny hands over the requested article of clothing. "How about I hold up this towel like this," he stands in front of Steve and uses the towel to provide a makeshift screen so he can change, "and you go ahead and get dressed. You wearing any sunblock? Tsk," he clucks his tongue disapprovingly when Steve shakes his head. "All right, both of you, on the towel, now. Double-time, sit."
"Aw, Danno," Grace whines, but he doesn't let her finish.
"You want to get sunburned? Sunburns hurt, and too much exposure without sunblock leads to cancer. You don't want cancer, it sucks. You have to go through chemo and throw up and lose your hair and―and all sorts of other terrible things," Danny concludes hastily, suddenly irrationally worried that he's jinxed everything by mentioning the 'c' word in front of his daughter.
He tries to cover up his small slip by vigorously slathering Grace's shoulders and back with sunblock while she puts some on her legs, then turns his attention to the boy. Obviously if he's not being supervised well enough to keep hold of his swimsuit, he's not being supervised well enough to have enough sunblock.
"Your parents here with you, Steve?"
The boy shakes his head. "No, sir."
He's polite, at least. "You're a bit young to be by yourself on the beach, don't you think?"
The boy turns his head to look up at him, squinting in the bright sun. "We live really close by. My sister and I come here all the time. I'll probably have to go soon, anyway."
"You have somewhere to be?" Danny asks, amused in spite of himself, and Steve nods.
"My Mom's funeral is today."
Grace's face falls at that, and Danny is willing to bet his own expression is very similar to hers. "I'm real sorry to hear that, sport. You sure you want to be here? You should be home with your sister and your dad. They'll want to be with you, you know."
The boy digs a toe experimentally into the sand and won't meet his eyes. "I don't want to watch when they bury her. Dad says it's not really her, anyway, that she's already gone."
Danny eases himself down to sit on the towel next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Well, that's true, but that's not what this is about." He's notified next-of-kin so many times in his career as a cop, but somehow the part of comforting the bereaved never gets any easier. Then again, the day it's easy is the day he hands in his badge and his gun, is what he tells himself. "Funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living. You need to say goodbye to your mom, and so do your dad and your sister and everyone else who loved her. This is your chance to do that."
That gets him a nod, but he's really not sure that he's gotten his message across this time. He ruffles the kid's hair, and that's when Gracie steps in and saves them both.
"We could build a sand castle until it's time for you to go home, if you want. I have plenty of buckets, and I have some plastic shapes so we can really make it look like a castle, with battlements and everything!"
Steve looks up at that and smiles a little much to Danny's surprise. "Okay," he says softly.
Danny helps them build the biggest sandcastle he and Grace have ever managed on their own. Steve quickly gets absorbed in the task, carefully filling pail after pail with wet sand―far preferable for building castles according to Grace―and following all of Grace's peremptory instructions with good enough humour that Danny concludes that the sister he mentioned must be younger than him by a few years, at least.
"Danno," Grace sidles over to him later with a calculating look on her face that he's learning to dread, "do you think Steve could maybe come to dinner?"
"Not today, Monkey," he starts to tell her, and she shakes her head.
"I know. Today is important, but I was thinking maybe another time. I think he's lonely."
"You think so, eh?"
She nods. Her hair has been bleached blond by the sun and is clinging to her face in thin, wind-swept tendrils, and there is sand stuck to both arms and legs, there's a red patch on the tip of her nose where her sunblock wore off, and Danny thinks that his little girl has never looked more beautiful than she does now, except for maybe the day she was born.
"Okay, why don't you find out his last name and where he lives, and next time we can invite him?"
She throws her arms around him in a hug so tight it nearly cuts off his air. "Thank you, Danno!"
But when they turn around, Steve is gone. A couple of minutes later Danny finds his swim trunks lying in a crumpled heap next to his towel, but he never does manage to find the little boy again that day, and not for a very long time after that.
~*~
Part V
PART THREE
Murder Most Foul
August 2nd, 2010: Steve is 33
When Steve's father dies, he's only a few miles away. He may as well be halfway around the world.
Steve's phone rings at precisely 6:43. He's already awake, listening to Kono take a shower in the tiny cubicle that they jokingly refer to as a master bathroom, the morning sun filtering in through the bare window that hasn't seen a drop of Windex or even a rag in a very long time. He reaches for the phone where it's buzzing loudly on the night table, feels his face pulling into a frown when he sees his father's name and number come up on the call display. As far as he knows, Dad hasn't touched a drink in well over ten years, but that doesn't mean he hasn't fallen off the wagon. Steve braces himself, tells himself not to be disappointed if Dad is drunk on the other end of the line.
"Dad."
"Hey, Champ," his father's voice is strained, but it's clear that, whatever the problem is, it's not alcohol. He's never called Steve 'Champ' in his life. Dad's never been one for useless terms of endearment.
Steve sits up, bedclothes spilling onto the floor. "You all right?"
"Steve, I don't have much time, I need you to listen to me."
There's a clamour of voices, scuffling sounds as though someone is trying to take the phone away. Another voice comes on the line, one Steve has never heard before. "Now I see where you get it from."
"Who is this?" Steve barks. Kono comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping onto her shoulders, wrapped in one of their ratty, dingy bath towels. She mouths something at him, but he's too busy straining to hear what this strange voice is telling him. "What do you want with my father?"
He reaches for the dog-eared pad of notepaper they keep by the phone, scribbles frantically on it, not knowing if Kono will even be able to read his handwriting, because his hands are shaking too hard to hold his pen steady. Send HPD to my father's house, ASAP.
"My name is Victor Hesse. You don't know me, but I have a feeling that in a different life, we might have been very good enemies," the man sneers. "Now listen to me very carefully, Steve. That is your name, isn't it? I'm offering you a trade: your father's life, for the information he hid away with you. All the evidence he's gathered, without holding back a single thing. All things considered, I'd say it's more than generous, wouldn't you? What's more important, a few pieces of paper, or a man's life?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The man named Victor Hesse clucks his tongue. "Steve, Steve, Steve. There is no use lying to me. I happen to know that what I'm looking for isn't here, and your father isn't one to trust just anyone with this sort of thing. I tell you what, it's possible you don't know you have it. He may have given you something―a box, a vase, I don't know, whatever it is loving-but-absent fathers give their sons to show them they still love them. I want you to bring it to me. We're here at your father's house. Bring it now, and I promise not to shoot him like a dog."
In the background Steve hears his father's voice, begging for the phone. Over his shoulder, pressed up against the far wall, Kono is talking urgently into her own cell phone, giving out the location and what few details she has in her possession. She doesn't even know that some crazy person has a gun stuck to John McGarrett's head.
"Look, Victor," he tries to sound reasonable even as his blood roars in his ears. "I don't have what you want. You should know this, you sound like a smart guy. Let my dad go, and we'll talk. I won't negotiate like this."
"Oh, are we negotiating?" Victor sneers. He has an accent, it sounds Irish or maybe Welsh, it's difficult to say over the line, and it doesn't match up with the Germanic-sounding last name, and all these tiny details slide to the back of Steve's mind as he tries desperately to figure out just how the hell he's going to get any of them out of this mess.
"Steve." It's his dad, phone pressed back to his ear. "Listen to me, Champ," he says ('Champ,' again). "I'm sorry, all right? You tell Mare―tell Mary I'm sorry, and that I love you both. I never told you enough. Whatever these people want, Champ, whatever they want, don't you give it to them, you hear?"
"Dad!" Steve jumps to his feet, both hands clamped over the phone as though he might just be able to anchor his father here in the world of the living if he just hangs on hard enough. "Dad!"
There are more scuffling sounds, the loud report of a gunshot far away from the phone, a man's voice cursing loudly. Victor Hesse is the one who picks up the line.
"You both want to play the hero, is that it, Steve?" he pants. "So be it. That was the last time you'll ever hear your father's voice."
There's another gunshot, and this time it's so close that it very nearly deafens him.
"No!"
But it's too late. His father is dead.
~*~
August 2nd, 2010: Steve is 34 and 33
Detective Danny Williams hates everything about Hawaii. He hates the fact that it's not New Jersey, he hates the fact that there's no snow in winter, and he hates pineapples in general. Mostly he hates the fact that he was all but forced to move here by his venom-spewing British cobra of an ex-wife, who re-married a guy with practically more money than Bill Gates and then proceeded to move Danny's baby girl fifteen thousand miles away from her real home in Newark. So, Hawaii? Definitely in Danny's black books for the foreseeable future.
He also hates most of the Honolulu Police Department, because apparently their motto is "Be as unprofessional as possible." Not a single tie to be found among the detectives, for one thing, and if that wasn't bad enough now they're all after him to not wear his own tie which, just no, thank you very much. The only person he doesn't hate right now is his new partner, Officer Kalakaua, but that's because she's already turning out to be pretty promising as a police officer, just so long as she doesn't pick up on any of their colleagues' bad habits along the way. Danny plans on making sure that never happens, not while she's partnered up with him, anyway.
Right now, though, he has bigger fish to fry. Like solving the McGarrett murder before he dies of old age. It was a brutal, execution-style murder, and there is nothing about this case that Danny likes, except maybe for the fact that it's going to take all his skills to solve. It's already a messy case, made messy not in the least because the victim is the father of Kono's current boyfriend. At least the boyfriend isn't on the suspect list, because Kono was with him not only when the murder took place, but can vouch that he was on the phone with his father when he was shot. Traumatising as hell, no doubt, but since the phone logs confirm all of it, it does mean that he's off the suspect list, which means that as long as Danny takes the lead on this case, there's very little chance of a conflict of interest. As far as he knows, father and son were estranged anyway, and Kono only ever met Lieutenant McGarrett a few times, strictly professionally.
Danny does like a good challenge, he's the first to admit that, but this case is promising to be more than that. And he hates the idea that whatever animal put a bullet in the back of a good cop's head right in his own home might well get away with it, the longer this investigation takes. That's why he's back here, less than two days after the call was put in.
He's already been over the scene, and the crime scene guys have gone over it with a fine-toothed comb as well, but he can't help but think that there's something here that he's missing, something he can't quite put his finger on. So he calls in his position to dispatch, gets out of the car, and lets himself into the house, heading right back for the dead cop's office, intending to sift through what little paperwork Jack McGarrett might have kept at home. There's nothing to suggest that any of that paperwork might lead to his killers, but then Jack McGarrett was an exemplary cop, one that everyone agreed was the best of the best, and it's hard to argue with that sort of consensus. So it stands to reason that he probably brought some of his work home with him, maybe some of the trickier cases, or maybe a couple of the ones who got away. Danny's never done it himself, but he knows a couple of guys back in Jersey who used to keep the names of the guys they couldn't convict written in a notebook or in a file somewhere at home.
He's in the process of pulling open the first drawer in the filing cabinet when he hears the sound of rustling coming from the garage. He freezes for a moment, then pulls his service weapon from its holster, strides purposefully to the inner door and pulls it open.
"HPD, freeze!" he bellows.
There's a figure in the far corner, half-concealed by the covered car in the middle of the garage, but the guy obediently raises both hands above his head. He's tall, Danny sees, coming around the car, his pistol trained on centre mass, a good inch or two over six feet. Blue eyes, dark brown or maybe even black hair, dressed in cargo pants that are a bit too big for him and a polo shirt that's a little too tight across the chest. The man turns slowly to face him, grins when he catches sight of Danny.
"Howzit, Danno?"
For a second Danny's nonplussed. "Do I know you, scumbag?"
The man shakes his head. "Not yet."
Danny jerks his head at the guy. "Okay, wise guy. Lace your fingers, put them behind your head. This is an active crime scene, and you are interfering with an official police investigation. You're going to come with me down to the precinct and answer some questions. Not least of which will be, 'What the hell are you doing here?' You got me?"
"Yeah, I don't think we'll be doing that," the man starts to put his hands down very slowly.
"Hey! Hands where I can see 'em, buddy!"
"The name's Steve, and this is my house. I have every right to be here."
The name rings a bell. "You're John McGarrett's son?"
"That's right," Steve nods. "So you can put your gun down."
"Not a chance. This might be your house, but it's my crime scene first, and I will thank you not to tamper with the evidence contained therein."
"Therein?" Steve repeats incredulously. "Whatever, I'm not tampering, I live here. I haven't touched anything."
"Bull. Shit," Danny spits, gesturing to the work bench next to Steve. "I can see the dust void where you've picked something up in order to move it. What did you take?"
Steve sighs. "I didn't take anything, Danno. I just moved it so I could look inside. It's going to be important for your case later on, but I needed to come back and see it."
Danny glances down at Steve's feet, blinks a little when he notices they're bare, but then it sort of makes sense in a twisted way that this guy would remove his shoes in his own house. Next to him on the ground there's a red tool box, covered in dust which has been recently disturbed by a fresh set of prints―doubtless Steve's.
"Don't call me 'Danno,'" he says instead. "I don't know where you heard that, but it's not a nickname anyone except my daughter gets to use."
He's beginning to think this guy isn't all there, anyway. How many people in their right minds just stand there and chat about popping into their dead father's garage while a cop has his gun pointed at their midsection.
"Come on," he says again. "Hands behind your head, and let's go. You don't do as I say, then that's resisting arrest that we're going to add to the very long list of charges that I plan to bring against you. For all I know, you're my number one suspect."
The statement appears to shock Steve a little bit, and to Danny's surprise his expression turns hurt. "I'm not the one who did this," he says softly. "I'm here to help you find out who did. The clues are in the box."
"You're a lunatic," Danny breathes. "That's the only logical explanation. I am pointing a gun at you and telling you, as an officer of the law, to comply with my orders, and yet you're standing there talking about clues like this is the freaking Hardy Boys!"
"It's okay. I'm not coming with you now, but we'll talk again in a few days. Don't be worried if I don't remember you," Steve says, like he's discussing the weather. "It's perfectly normal."
And with that he suddenly lunges to the side, hits the floor on the other side of the car. Danny loses sight of him, he could have sworn just for a couple of seconds, but by the time he gets there, there is no sign of the intruder whatsoever. All that's left of him are his cargo pants and his polo shirt, left in a crumpled heap on the floor just under the car. Danny crouches down in order to pick up the shirt with two fingers, and sighs.
"I cannot wait to explain this one to the Lieutenant."
~*~
August 5th, 2010: Steve is 33
"Witness is all yours," Meka comes by Danny's desk where he's been trying to compile his notes together. Danny glances up, gives him a smile.
"Detective Hanamoa. Long time no see. How's organised crime treating you?"
Meka grins. "Better now that I don't have a tiny, short-tempered haole cramping my style."
"Professional," Danny corrects him pointedly, but there's no heat in the words, just as there was no venom in Meka's use of the word 'haole', the way it does on the lips of so many other HPD officer. "What are you doing with my witness, anyway?"
"McGarrett was working in organised crime, in case you forgot," Meka shrugs. "Just making sure we're not leaving out any loose ends. He was one of ours, you know. The best."
Danny nods. One thing doesn't change, no matter where you're from, if you're a cop: you protect your own. "We'll get the son of a bitch, don't think for a second we won't. What do you make of the son?"
"I'll let you see for yourself, but he's not a suspect. If anything, he's been helpful, for a guy with no police training or any kind of background in law enforcement. The closest he's come to that is the kapu."
Danny blinks a little. "Kapu as in the local eco-vigilantes?"
Meka narrows his eyes. "Tread carefully with words like those, Danny. The Kapu, they're a force to be reckoned with on the island, and they're respected. They're not thugs and they're not vigilantes."
"So, what, they're more like a neighbourhood watch? Do they have safety orange vests?" Danny tugs at the shoulders of his shirt for emphasis, and Meka rolls his eyes, unable to entirely suppress a laugh.
"One of these days some islander is going to kick your pasty white ass for you, and you will have deserved every single kick, my friend. You go in there and antagonise a respected member of the kapu, even if he is junior, and you're going to attract a whole heap of extra problems on your head."
"Duly noted," Danny nods curtly, but the message has been received, loud and clear, and he's not an idiot, no matter what the local cops might think of him.
He gathers his notes into a manila file folder, tucks it under his arm, heads into the interview room and stops on the other side of the one-way mirror to watch how his witness is behaving. Sometimes leaving someone to their own devices and letting them stew in their own juices is worth hours of painstaking interrogation. Not knowing is the worst kind of torture, for some people. He stops short when he first sees the guy, realising that he has met him before―this is the guy he caught in John McGarrett's garage, or almost caught, anyway. At least Danny knows he was telling the truth, now, which means he's going to have a lot of answering to do in just a few minutes.
Danny opens the door, saunters into the room, drops the folder onto the table between them, then casually spins his chair around so he can straddle it. "Steven J. McGarrett. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you again, but..."
He gets a blank look in return. "Sorry, what?"
"So you're going to play the no memory card? Is that it? You interfere with my investigation, possibly tamper with evidence for all I know, and after pulling a truly impressive vanishing act―I totally have to hand that one to you―now you're pretending not to know anything about it?"
"Oh." The guy's a good actor, Danny will give him that. "No. I mean, yes. I mean, I get that we've met before, I just, I don't remember. It's a―a condition. A memory kind of thing. It's not personal, I swear, and I'm not doing it on purpose. I can't explain it better than that."
"A condition," Danny says flatly, and that gets him a fervent nod. Well, okay. Time will tell. "All right, then. We're going to go through your whole statement, and then we're going to talk about why you broke into your father's house two days ago―"
"I didn't!"
"You did. I don't care if he left it to you in his will, you cannot enter an active crime scene until the lead detective―that's me―gives you the green light. And I most certainly did nothing of the kind."
McGarrett shakes his head. "I don't remember doing that. I―did I tell you about the tool box?"
"Not as such, no, but you did hint that it might be important."
"Okay. You got my statement, right? About the phone call?"
Danny is under the very uncomfortable impression that he's not entirely in charge of this interrogation. "I read it over, yeah. You want to walk me through it one more time there, champ?"
"That's exactly it," Steve leans forward, hands on the table. "That was what's on the box. My dad never called me 'champ,' not once in my entire life. He wasn't―he didn't use pet names. He'd call me Steve, or maybe son sometimes, but never 'champ.' He was trying to draw my attention to the box, because that's where he hid the clues of his investigation."
"What investigation? I've gone through all his files, and there's no mention of anything like that."
Steve gives him a slightly pained look. "Can I talk off the record for a minute?"
"No."
"Please?" The tone is desperate, now, and it doesn't jive with what Danny knows of this guy. He's nothing like the self-possessed man he met a couple of days before. "If I have to, I'll repeat it on the record, but I think once you hear it, you won't want to. Come on, what will it hurt?"
"Are you schizophrenic or something?"
Steve shakes his head. "No. People thought that at one point, but I'm not. Totally cleared by several psychiatrists," he adds with a rueful smile.
"I am going to regret this for the rest of my life," Danny mutters, then reaches over and switches off the tape. "Okay, shoot. What have you got?"
Steve drums his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. "My dad was looking into my mother's death. Our car blew up when I was a kid, and she―uh, she died. They thought something went wrong with, God, I don't remember what. But there were things that never added up, and he started to figure it out. He was investigating the expansion of the Yakuza in Hawaii, and it sounded to me like he was meant to be in the car when it blew up."
Danny's heart has speeded up in his chest in the way it does only when he knows he's onto something big. He remembers the day he and the other detectives cracked their big RICO case back in '03, having the exact same feeling of blood rushing through his veins and roaring in his ears.
"I read that report, there was no evidence of foul play. The brakes failed, coupled with some sort of technical gibberish about fuel injection gone wrong."
Steve gives him a flat look, and even Danny has to admit that it doesn't really add up. The car was a charred ruin, and unlike in the movies cars don't actually explode on impact unless they're encouraged to do so by outside intervention.
"You're saying there was a bomb."
"I'm saying there was a bomb. They wanted my father off the case and―and they killed my mother instead."
Danny blows out his cheeks in a slow exhale. "Okay. We'll look into it." He reaches over, flicks the switch on the recording again. "Now, let's go back over your statement, shall we?"
~*~
August 6th, 2010: Steve is 33, Kono is 26
"Where were you?" Kono asks, trying hard to focus on her question even though Steve has her crowded up against the wall of their tiny hallway, one hand sliding past the elastic waistband of her panties.
She's supposed to be getting ready for work, but he's been gone for hours, since he got home from the police station where she knows he talked for hours with her partner about the case. She should recuse herself, she knows, but Danny's not pushing it as long as there's no direct conflict of interest, and Steve isn't a suspect, just a witness. He's kissing her now like his life depends on it, free hand roaming along her waist, up over the silk of her bra and lingering there as her nipple hardens under his touch.
"Went back to the car accident," he says shortly, and leaves it there, and she knows better than to push it. Instead she rubs up against him, tilts her head so he'll kiss her, and then curses loudly when the doorbell rings.
Steve huffs impatiently. "Think we can ignore it?" he asks.
Danny's voice comes through the door, accompanied by pounding. "Hey, Kalakaua! We are burning daylight, here! You decent? You have thirty seconds before I come in anyway!"
She rolls her eyes, gives Steve a shove. "You're wearing pants, go open the door. Danny's a nice guy, but I'm not giving him a show."
She's pulling on her pants, shirt half-buttoned, by the time Danny is sauntering into their apartment, tie firmly knotted, shoes newly-shined. "Nice place. Nicer than mine, anyway. Why is everything in Hawaii tiny?" he asks, as though he's not expecting an answer.
"Your place is a shithole, that's why," she tells him amiably, buttoning her shirt. It's her favourite purple one with darts and three-quarter sleeves, the one that makes Steve's eyes spark whenever he looks at her. "And we're trying to live off my income and the interest from our capital. Around here, that doesn't amount to much."
Danny perches on a chair in the kitchenette. "A couple more days and the house will be free and clear. You sure you want to move in there, though?"
She glances at Steve, but he doesn't look like he's insulted by the implication that it's strange that he would want to live in the house where his father was murdered. Kono gets it―she understands about family, about ohana, about how that house is where so many of Steve's good memories are, like the inlet is where so many of her good memories are, of her and him together. Steve's got his back turned, fussing with the coffee pot, and when he turns around again he's got three cups filled.
"You, my friend, are a prince among men," Danny accepts a cup, lifts it in appreciation. "I cannot tell you just how happy I am that I don't actually have to investigate you any further as a murder suspect. You would not believe how messy that sort of thing can be. I'd be morally and legally obligated to report the conflict of interest, and then I'd lose my extremely competent and, dare I say it, talented partner, here."
Steve sips at his coffee. "This isn't a social call, then?"
"Nope. I need to borrow my partner, take her with me right to the Governor's office."
"What's going on, Danny?" Kono ignores her coffee in favour of strapping on her belt and badge, making sure her gun is secure. "It has to be important or you'd have waited until I got into the office."
"Observant as well as badass," Danny points a finger at her like his hand is a gun. "Someone's stealing our evidence right out of lock-up. That tool box?" he looks over at Steve, who's now entirely focused on him. "The one you said contained all the evidence from your father's little unofficial investigation? It's gone. Vanished into thin air, not a trace of it, including the paperwork."
"Oh my God." Kono stares at him, glances at Steve, whose face has drained of colour.
"Right." Danny stands up, jerks his head toward the door. "That's why I need you to come with me. Not you, big guy. You're going to do whatever it is you usually do with your days―you still with the kapu?"
Steve shakes his head. "Not for a couple of years now. I still have some connections, if you need them, but they don't have anything to with organised crime."
"Noted. Okay, let's go," Danny all but shoves Kono out of her own front door and ushers her into the passenger seat of his Camaro, barely leaving her the time to give Steve a kiss goodbye. "You are not driving. I know you like to drive my car, you weirdo control freak, but not this time."
"Where are we going?" Kono asks, when it's obvious they're not heading back to HPD.
"You and I, partner, have an appointment with the Governor."
"Governor Jameson?"
Danny twists in his seat to give her an incredulous look. "How many Governors does Hawaii have? Yes, Governor Jameson. She and I had a long chat over a secure line about our mysterious disappearing evidence and what that might mean," he pauses while he pulls the car into a parking spot with a screech of tires, "and that is what has led us here. Come on, time's a-wastin', here. The Governor awaits."
"Slow down, Danny," she balks, half-laughing, half-nervous. "What's going on?"
He allows her to stop them in the doorway, and puts both hands on her shoulders. He's shorter than she is, and it should feel ridiculous, except that her palms are sweaty and it feels anything but.
"Okay. Here's what's happening. There's a conspiracy, Kono, a big one. Right up until yesterday I didn't really believe it. I thought your boyfriend was certifiable, and I was this close," he makes a pinching motion with his thumb and forefinger, "to recommending that you both get help―him for his delusions and you for dating a guy with delusions. Except that then that toolbox went missing, and the more I asked around, the more I got stonewalled. Do you know how I feel about being stonewalled? I think you do. So I got on the phone with the Governor's assistant, because I know when I need to start going over people's heads, and as it turns out, the Governor and John McGarrett go way back, so she wanted to talk to the man investigating his death. As it happens, she agrees with me about this whole thing having a really nasty smell about it, and that, my friend, is why we are here."
"How about the short version?" Kono manages after a few seconds of trying to figure out just what Danny told her.
He throws up his hands in a gesture of exasperated surrender. "The Governor is putting a task force. Organised crime is out of hand on this island, and she wants it gone. She's asked me to head it up, but it's going to be a hard sell, PR-wise, given that I'm new and white and foreign. So I'm dragging you down with me," he grins at her, unrepentant. "You get a raise and something that's not quite a promotion but should feel like one anyway. We get to hand-pick the rest of our team, see this thing through to the end, minus a whole bunch of red tape."
Kono isn't sure she remembers how to breathe. "A task force?"
"I'm glad to see that you have at least captured the essence of what I was saying. Now come on," Danny takes her by the elbow and steers her through the door. "Ready or not, we're about to go get sworn in."
~*~
April 7th, 2010: Steve is 11
Sometimes the only good thing about Hawaii is how much Grace likes it here, is Danny's private opinion. He's trying―with varying levels of success―to keep most of his negative opinions to himself, especially when Grace is nearby. It's not hard when his daughter's around, mind you. Grace is the light of his life, and the way she beams from ear to ear the minute she sees him is enough to banish even the darkest of thoughts that might try to cling to his mind. Right now she's playing what looks like a simple game with complicated rules that involves getting as close to the water as possible when the waves recede and then running back up the beach with a happy shriek in an effort to keep just ahead of the waves, but not running so fast that she's ever more than a few inches from the water.
Danny turns aside for a minute to arrange the towel he's sitting on, and when he looks up, Grace is gone. He scrambles to his feet, heart leaping into his mouth, already feeling a cold sweat break out on his brow, when he hears her voice from somewhere to his left, chirping happily.
"Danno!"
She's got a little boy in tow with an oversized towel tied around his waist. The boy looks sheepish, the tips of his ears red from a blush rather than a sunburn, but he lets Grace pull him along by the hand over the hot sand and present him to Danny for inspection.
"Danno, Steve lost his bathing suit, but I told him you'd be able to help."
Danny eyes the boy critically. He doesn't seem like he's trying to pull anything shady with Grace, and, okay, maybe he's overreacting a bit. Eleven-year-old boys aren't quite the raging ball of hormones that they get to be after they hit puberty, after all, and this skinny little kid who's blushing so hard it looks like his head might catch fire doesn't seem to present much of a threat of any kind. Grace is looking up at him expectantly, and he is forcibly reminded that, right now, she still believes that he's omnipotent, that he can fix anything. Danno, father extraordinaire and purveyor of miracles, rescuer of little boys who've lost their swimming trunks.
"Of course, Monkey. Well," he gives Steve another once-over, "it just so happens that I have an extra pair of trunks. They'll be big on you, but they have a drawstring, so if you tie them tight enough, you probably won't lose them."
Grace beams. "Don't worry," she turns to the boy and puts a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, "no one will be able to tell they're not really yours."
"Here you go, Steve," Danny hands over the requested article of clothing. "How about I hold up this towel like this," he stands in front of Steve and uses the towel to provide a makeshift screen so he can change, "and you go ahead and get dressed. You wearing any sunblock? Tsk," he clucks his tongue disapprovingly when Steve shakes his head. "All right, both of you, on the towel, now. Double-time, sit."
"Aw, Danno," Grace whines, but he doesn't let her finish.
"You want to get sunburned? Sunburns hurt, and too much exposure without sunblock leads to cancer. You don't want cancer, it sucks. You have to go through chemo and throw up and lose your hair and―and all sorts of other terrible things," Danny concludes hastily, suddenly irrationally worried that he's jinxed everything by mentioning the 'c' word in front of his daughter.
He tries to cover up his small slip by vigorously slathering Grace's shoulders and back with sunblock while she puts some on her legs, then turns his attention to the boy. Obviously if he's not being supervised well enough to keep hold of his swimsuit, he's not being supervised well enough to have enough sunblock.
"Your parents here with you, Steve?"
The boy shakes his head. "No, sir."
He's polite, at least. "You're a bit young to be by yourself on the beach, don't you think?"
The boy turns his head to look up at him, squinting in the bright sun. "We live really close by. My sister and I come here all the time. I'll probably have to go soon, anyway."
"You have somewhere to be?" Danny asks, amused in spite of himself, and Steve nods.
"My Mom's funeral is today."
Grace's face falls at that, and Danny is willing to bet his own expression is very similar to hers. "I'm real sorry to hear that, sport. You sure you want to be here? You should be home with your sister and your dad. They'll want to be with you, you know."
The boy digs a toe experimentally into the sand and won't meet his eyes. "I don't want to watch when they bury her. Dad says it's not really her, anyway, that she's already gone."
Danny eases himself down to sit on the towel next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Well, that's true, but that's not what this is about." He's notified next-of-kin so many times in his career as a cop, but somehow the part of comforting the bereaved never gets any easier. Then again, the day it's easy is the day he hands in his badge and his gun, is what he tells himself. "Funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living. You need to say goodbye to your mom, and so do your dad and your sister and everyone else who loved her. This is your chance to do that."
That gets him a nod, but he's really not sure that he's gotten his message across this time. He ruffles the kid's hair, and that's when Gracie steps in and saves them both.
"We could build a sand castle until it's time for you to go home, if you want. I have plenty of buckets, and I have some plastic shapes so we can really make it look like a castle, with battlements and everything!"
Steve looks up at that and smiles a little much to Danny's surprise. "Okay," he says softly.
Danny helps them build the biggest sandcastle he and Grace have ever managed on their own. Steve quickly gets absorbed in the task, carefully filling pail after pail with wet sand―far preferable for building castles according to Grace―and following all of Grace's peremptory instructions with good enough humour that Danny concludes that the sister he mentioned must be younger than him by a few years, at least.
"Danno," Grace sidles over to him later with a calculating look on her face that he's learning to dread, "do you think Steve could maybe come to dinner?"
"Not today, Monkey," he starts to tell her, and she shakes her head.
"I know. Today is important, but I was thinking maybe another time. I think he's lonely."
"You think so, eh?"
She nods. Her hair has been bleached blond by the sun and is clinging to her face in thin, wind-swept tendrils, and there is sand stuck to both arms and legs, there's a red patch on the tip of her nose where her sunblock wore off, and Danny thinks that his little girl has never looked more beautiful than she does now, except for maybe the day she was born.
"Okay, why don't you find out his last name and where he lives, and next time we can invite him?"
She throws her arms around him in a hug so tight it nearly cuts off his air. "Thank you, Danno!"
But when they turn around, Steve is gone. A couple of minutes later Danny finds his swim trunks lying in a crumpled heap next to his towel, but he never does manage to find the little boy again that day, and not for a very long time after that.
~*~
Part V