Teen Wolf Fic: Absolution (1/2)
Absolution - Teen Wolf - Gen (Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles, Scott, Isaac) - Words: 17,376
Written for Teen Wolf Big Bang, Round 2.
Summary: It'd been six months since Matt Daehler attacked the Sheriff's Department. Six months since the series of murders finally ended. Six months and Sheriff Stilinski had finally started to come to peace with it all, until he overheard a conversation that brought a new question and a series of answers he wasn't prepared to hear.
Content Notes: Sexual abuse of children (in the past, non-graphic description/discussion), physical abuse of children (in the past, non-graphic description/discussion), canon typical physical violence, victim blaming (not from a main character), homosexual slur (not from a main character), grieving/focus on minor canon character deaths, obsessive thoughts regarding past trauma. R.
Author Notes: A million and one thanks to emeraldsnakes for being such a fabulous beta and putting up with my endless thoughts and ramblings.
On AO3: Absolution
On DW: Absolution
He didn't make the connection until the third time Stiles had Isaac over for dinner, not until he was watching Stiles take the last piece of chicken and then looking to Isaac and cutting it in half to share. Isaac smiled at Stiles, a full out goofy grin, which was what triggered the memory of a much younger Stiles and Isaac sitting together and sharing a snack. "Isaac, did you and Stiles used to have swimming lessons together?" he asked, his mind working to fill in the vague memories he had of Stiles splashing around in the community pool with Scott and a horde of other children so many years ago.
Isaac's eyes went wide and he looked to Stiles before looking back at the Sheriff. "I think so," he said, staring for a moment before ducking his head down to peer at his nearly empty plate. The smile that had been so bright before was completely gone.
"Isaac's dad taught swimming lessons. We were on the kids swim team together for, what, two years?" Stiles said, his voice pitched slightly too loud for the now quiet kitchen.
"Right," he said, feeling guilty now that the topic had come up. He hadn't realized that Mr. Lahey had taught the kids swimming lessons as well as the high school swim team. Stiles had stopped swimming the year his mom had died, and he hadn't questioned that, nor the fact that Stiles took up lacrosse the fall after. At the time he'd just been glad that Stiles was getting out of the house and doing something with his friends.
"Uh, so Isaac and I have a history project we've got to work on, so we'll be in the living room for a while," Stiles said, standing and collecting his plate from the table. Isaac followed suit, almost too quickly to be seen, and they both disappeared into the living room with Stiles chattering away about something, his words forcibly upbeat.
The Sheriff sighed and finished clearing the table, wondering if he maybe shouldn't try to talk to Isaac later and check in on how he was doing. Every time he'd seen Isaac around the kid had been a little skittish, but that wasn't entirely unexpected and he was glad to see that Stiles and Scott had befriended him. He knew that all three were hoping to be first line this year on the lacrosse team and he felt that would actually be a good thing for all of them, regardless of how rough the sport could get.
After spending some time working in his home office he stood and stretched, ready to take a break from the budget files and maybe get a drink before he took another shot at his spreadsheet. He paused in the hallway, his ears catching the sound of a low conversation coming from the living room, and he glanced down at his watch. It was past ten on a school night and while Stiles routinely stayed up later than that, it was time for them to wrap up so Isaac could go home. He made it as far as the entryway before he stopped, a question catching his attention.
"So, you never told him?" Isaac asked, his voice not quite casual.
There was a silence and then the sound of someone shuffling around. "No. Course not. We made a pact, remember? Me, you, Scott, and Matt. Though, after all that I kind of wonder, you know?"
He frowned, Matt's name a red flag if there ever was one. Stiles didn't talk much about Matt. After all the funerals for the deputies that had died, neither of them had the heart to say much about the string of murders that had led to that disaster. He hadn't gotten the impression that Stiles and Scott had known Matt well. But, a pact; that implied something shared, like friendship.
Isaac huffed with unamused laughter. "Yeah. Six years later and it didn't exactly come out for the better on our end. Not that I expected it to, but I never thought it would be like this either."
"Right? I mean, there's you and Scott, which I still say is awesome by the way - most of the time. And there's Matt, the less said the better, probably," Stiles said, his voice losing conviction.
"And Jackson," Isaac said quickly.
"Jackson too?" Stiles asked, sounding surprised.
"Yeah. Jackson lived across the street from me, how could he resist?" Isaac drawled. "I never understood how Jackson joined the swim team in high school. Different coach, but still."
Stiles sighed. "Well, it makes sense. I suppose we should just be glad you and Scott didn't grow scales too."
"But you seriously never told him?" Isaac asked again.
The Sheriff blinked, having completely lost the thread of conversation without ever finding it. It felt important, like he was listening to something that he should have already known, and he was almost positive that the 'him' Isaac had asked about meant him. Isaac was asking if Stiles had ever told his dad about something, something involving Matt and Jackson.
"Dude, no," Stiles repeated. "I couldn't have then and what would be the point now? He doesn't need to know."
"And you think Scott never told his mom either?" Isaac pressed.
Stiles snorted. "Are you kidding me? Your dad would have been dead way before last spring if he had. Mrs. McCall is fierce and I know for a fact that she has a baseball bat and isn't afraid to use it. Why? Did you tell anyone?"
"Who would I have told?" Isaac asked quietly.
"Yeah, guess so," Stiles agreed. "Okay, I give up. Let's finish this tomorrow?"
The sound of papers rustling and books closing followed. "Yeah, we have a pack meeting, but we can do it after. Maybe we can get Lydia to help us."
"Are you kidding me? She'll just list all the reasons we should have started this last month and then mock our feeble attempts to finish on time," Stiles said. "But I bet Peter will help if you ask him. If I ask he'll just say that I could be using my talents for so much more."
"He's right. See you tomorrow," Isaac said.
The Sheriff took his cue to smoothly step into the bathroom so that he wasn't seen, and then a few moments later the front door opened and then shut. He stood, his mind racing as he mulled over the conversation, and a minute later he heard Stiles climbing up the stairs. He left the bathroom and walked into the living room where the boys had been working. The space was relatively clean, though the coffee table had been dragged up to the couch to be used as a workspace, and the only thing that had been left behind was a spiral notebook on the floor that had haphazard history notes in what he would guess was Isaac's handwriting.
He flipped through the pages, smiling a little at the places where thoughts dropped off incomplete and lines arched all over the margins to connect different pieces of information. He held the notebook in his hands and mentally went through what he'd just overheard and tried to sense why he'd been left so uneasy. Parts of the conversation were simply nonsense, like they'd been talking in some kind of code, and yet other parts were astonishingly clear. His initial question about swimming lessons, and Isaac's father, had clearly been the trigger for the discussion, but there was more to it than that. Something that the boys had been keeping secret for years and evidently attributed to Matt's psychotic break. Mr. Lahey had been Matt's first kill, and the first murder in a serial spree was usually the most important. He sighed, not wanting to close his eyes and see Matt holding a gun on Stiles because those dreams had finally tapered off during the summer months. Whatever this was, whatever secret Stiles was keeping, once again it all seemed to lead back to the swim team, if maybe not the members of the swim team that Matt had murdered.
Standing, he went into the kitchen and left Isaac's notebook on the table where Stiles would see it before school the next morning. After making sure all the doors and windows were locked, he went upstairs and poked his head in Stiles' room. Stiles was sitting at his desk, his fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard to his laptop, and his lips were pressed in a tight line as he worked.
He knocked on the doorframe and tried to smile when Stiles looked over. "Everything alright?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound as weary as he felt.
"Yeah, just killer homework," Stiles said with a glance back to his computer. "I'll go to bed in an hour or two. You're working a double tomorrow, right?"
"I am, though you can come by the station for dinner with your old man, if you want," he offered, hoping that his son would take him up on it.
Stiles shook his head. "Thanks, but Isaac and I really have to finish this. I'll eat dinner with him while we're working. I'll text you when I get back home though."
"Thanks," he said dryly, and then watched his son for a long moment as he considered outright asking what the conversation with Isaac had been all about.
"Night, dad," Stiles said, smiling and then returning his attention to his computer and starting to type quickly once more.
"Goodnight, son," he said and backed away and then into his own room. When he was finally in bed, looking up at the ceiling, he found himself wondering if Beacon Hills had always been this confusing and he just hadn't noticed until now.
*****
He was in the kitchen refreshing his cup of coffee when he heard the front door open and the sound of heavy footsteps and excited chatter. Stiles' voice wasn't unexpected, nor Scott's, and by this point he was getting used to Isaac trailing along behind them. To hear Jackson talk about Stiles' potential as a midfielder and constructively critique Stiles' stick handling, and to hear Stiles respond positively and request that Jackson show him next time they were on the field was completely unexpected. To hear Jackson say yes, like it wasn't a big deal at all, was utterly mind-blowing. Early in the summer Jackson had requested that the restraining order be removed, the Sheriff had taken it as a sign that the boys had all worked something out and weren't at each other's throats any longer. But this was far closer to friendship than he'd anticipated in such a short amount of time, particularly since Stiles used to come home in middle school and complain about Jackson picking on him and Scott.
"Hey, do you have that book you were going to lend me?" Jackson asked, his voice ringing clear in the hallway.
"Yeah, upstairs, come on," Stiles said, and the stairs creaked as all four boys hurried up the steps.
In anticipation of feeding three or four teenaged boys, the Sheriff moved to start dinner. He and Stiles tried to trade back and forth on the nights they cooked, though they wound up with take-out more often than was probably healthy. After pre-heating the oven and locating an already thawing vegetable lasagna, he sat back down at the kitchen table and flipped through the case file once again. This particular file was intensely familiar to him, though he'd been keeping it in his bedroom instead of his office since he knew all too well that Stiles was both incorrigibly curious and knew how to pick the lock to his home office. This was the final file he'd compiled for the series of murders that had led to the massacre at the Sheriff's Department.
When he'd first put together the file he'd still been reeling from that terrifying night and he'd wanted everything to fit together neatly. And now that he was looking through the file again, with some time and distance from the actual event, it still did fit together neatly. Almost. He could accept that Matt had been unstable enough to murder ten people, he had certainly witnessed that firsthand. All of the murders were neatly connected through the 2006 BHHS Swim Team or because they'd been deputies working the night Matt had attacked the Sheriff's Department. He could even believe that Matt had showed up to destroy evidence linking him to the series of murders, with Matt hoping that it was before they'd made a positive ID, because it had been so very clear that Matt wasn't able to think rationally at the time of the attack. But, something was off about the whole picture and ever since he'd overheard Stiles and Isaac's discussion he'd been going over the details of the case trying to figure out what he'd missed.
The sound of feet thumping down the stairs was enough warning for him to close the file and slip it back into the back of the box where he kept case files he was actively working on.
"Are you staying for dinner?" Stiles asked.
It was Jackson who answered. "I'm supposed to meet up with Lydia in thirty minutes. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
The boys all said goodbye to Jackson and the front door shut. "I smell dinner," Scott said, and then paused. "Lasagna with vegetables."
"Good, that means he didn't find the deluxe cheese and meat lasagna I hid in the back of the freezer behind the frozen veggies," Stiles said.
That was good information and the Sheriff rolled his eyes to himself as he checked on the lasagna and decided that it wasn't eavesdropping if Stiles didn't know how to keep his voice down. "Dinner will be ready in ten minutes," he called and then added, "go wash up if you've just come in from lacrosse practice." The sound of feet thundering back up the stairs told him he'd made the right assumption.
Twenty minutes later, when his plate was cleared and the boys were all on their second helpings, they started talking about school and lacrosse, and he learned far more than he would have by directly questioning Stiles. Isaac and Stiles had gotten their history project finished on time, all thanks to someone named Peter who was evidently a friend of Isaac's, though Peter purportedly wasn't going to help them again if they left a project to the last minute. Scott was doing better in school this year, which would be a huge relief to his mother, and he was positive that they would all make first line in lacrosse. Stiles was less optimistic but committed to practicing, and the conversation devolved into lacrosse talk until the end of the meal.
"It sounds like you're getting along better with Jackson this year?" he asked after Scott had spent a few minutes on his and Jackson's thoughts about the team and Stiles and Isaac had been nodding along eagerly.
Stiles and Scott looked at each other for a long moment and he didn't have to see Stiles' face to know that his son was coming up with a quick explanation that probably wasn't anywhere close to the truth. "I think nearly dying changed a few things for Jackson," Stiles said finally, which actually probably was at least part of the truth.
"He's still a dick, but at least now he's not a dick to us," Scott added. "Small steps."
"It helps that he's back on Lydia's leash," Stiles added, and both Scott and Isaac groaned dramatically.
"Still not funny, won't ever be funny," Scott said.
Stiles only grinned. "It will always be funny."
"To you," Isaac pointed out.
And once again the Sheriff had completely lost part of the conversation, a double meaning that he wasn't quite getting, and he thought that the next time he saw Melissa McCall he would ask her if she felt the same way around the boys. Then again, with teenage boys, it probably wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Isaac suddenly reached over and poked Scott on the shoulder. "The time, we should go soon."
Scott looked at the clock on the wall. "Oh yeah. Stiles, are you coming?"
"You mean, will I give you a ride?" Stiles asked, but he was already standing to clear the table and Scott and Isaac leapt in to help.
The Sheriff sat back and watched as his kitchen was cleaned up and then vacated, and despite the lack of leftovers he figured that he had it pretty good. It helped that the last few months had been quiet and he hadn't found Stiles lurking outside of a single crime scene.
"I'll be back in thirty minutes or so," Stiles said, popping back into the kitchen to grab his keys from where he'd abandoned them on the counter.
"Drive safe," he replied, deciding that it was best not to ask what they were running off to do at seven o'clock on a Thursday night. "Be home before I have to leave."
Stiles looked back. "Night shift? You're leaving just before nine?"
"Mhmm," he said and tapped his watch.
"Have you ever known me to be late?" Stiles asked and then darted out of the kitchen before he could respond.
The Sheriff refilled his cup of coffee again and wandered out into the living room just in time to watch Stiles' jeep pull out of the driveway - then he nearly fell over the set of lacrosse sticks that had been left behind on the floor. He checked for any stray practice balls that had rolled free from the nets and with a shake of his head set all of three sticks upright in the corner created by the front bookcase against the wall. He was just propping up the stick that read 'LAHEY' in block letters when his gaze caught on the bottom shelves. This particular bookcase wasn't used much, all of the books on it had belonged to his wife and while he hadn't the heart to remove the books he didn't tend to linger on them either. Every once in a while he would see Stiles with one of the books from the shelf and he was glad that he'd left the shelves as they were so that Stiles had the opportunity to read his mother's favorite authors with the same books she had held in her hands. The various books, fiction and non-fiction intermingled in a system he had never understood, weren't what held his attention, but instead the grouping of photo albums that lined the bottom shelf.
Again, these were places he tried not to dwell, the reminder that she was gone like a punch to the gut every single time. His fingers reverently traced across the mismatched covers until he found the one labeled 2004 -. All the rest of the albums had a second year, indicating where they had ended, but this one had been left unfinished. He gently pulled it from the shelf and made the few steps to the couch before he sat with the album heavy in his lap. In the slowly fading light from the front windows he started to look through the pages, the only saving grace being that for the most part his wife had been holding the camera and wasn't in most of the pictures.
There were pictures of the house, of the yard, and of the barely tamed cat his wife had loved so much, but most of the pictures were of Stiles. He paused to chuckle at a picture of Stiles and Scott in their planet costumes for a school assembly, Stiles' arms stretched out to hold the rings of Saturn at a tilt while Scott was cradling a pile of Jupiter's moons against his chest. He continued through the pages, flipping past Halloween costumes, a Christmas tree, and messily painted Easter eggs until he reached what was clearly the summer, with messy ice cream faces and Stiles using his beach towel as a cape.
He looked closer at these pictures; kids running around in their bathing suits at the poolside, Stiles waving dramatically from the high dive, Scott and Stiles sharing a towel as they sat at the pool's edge, and then finally he caught a glimpse of Mr. Lahey in the background of one of the photographs. The next page over he found exactly what he'd been looking for, though he hadn't realized it until he saw it. The picture was of four boys. Stiles was in the middle, grinning broadly, Scott to his left. To Stiles' right was a boy that he recognized as a much younger Isaac, his curls damp and flattened against his head. And, at the far edge of the picture was another boy that he thought he recognized. The writing under the picture in his wife's neat hand read: Scott, Stiles, Isaac, and Matt. Beacon Hills Elementary Summer Swim Team, June 2004. Maybe it was just his knowledge of what was to come, but he thought that the young Matt in the picture looked a little lost, his smile not quite full.
By the time the front door opened to signal Stiles' return home, he had made it through another year and was examining the swimming pictures from the summer of 2005. He had turned a lamp on when it had gotten too dark to clearly make out the pictures and he looked up when a shadow fell across the pages.
"What are you looking at?" Stiles asked, leaning over the back of the couch.
"Old pictures," he said and patted the cushion next to him. When Stiles was seated he adjusted the album so it was on both of their laps. "The other day you mentioned the swim team you were on when you were younger. I thought I'd take a look."
Stiles didn't touch the pages as he stared down, his expression blank for a long moment before he blinked rapidly and pointed to one of the pictures. "Yeah, look. I was taller than Isaac there. That didn't last long."
He looked at the picture Stiles was pointing to and smiled because Stiles, Scott, and Isaac were all three hamming it up for the camera, pulling faces and holding their hands behind each other's heads. "You'll catch up. Stilinski men have late growth spurts," he assured, his eyes drifting over the rest of the page. The picture at the bottom was of a group of children swimming across the pool, Stiles having angled off course into the dark-haired boy next to him.
Stiles reached over and turned the page, the pictures from the pool leading into what was clearly the Fourth of July, Stiles making exaggerated motions with a pair of sparklers while the Sheriff stood in the background of the picture with a fire extinguisher next to him and a wry, fond smile. It was a good picture of them, and he knew if he closed his eyes he would be able to see his wife grinning wickedly as she took the photo. He realized that Stiles had gone still next to him and he followed Stiles' gaze back to the pictures of the pool, noticing that Stiles' fingers were resting on the edge and his fingernails were slightly denting the paper below the picture.
"I still have homework to finish," Stiles said suddenly, pushing the book back into his father's hands and standing. "You'd think the coach actually wants to throw half off us off the team with the assignments he's been giving us. On second thought, that's probably exactly what he wants. Goodnight, dad."
"Goodnight," he said, checking the time on his watch and then turning to see Stiles clatter up the stairs. He wondered if the abrupt departure was because Stiles had been remembering all these pictures being taken, and all of the moments after that she hadn't been there to document. He looked down at the page, smoothing his finger over the small dents Stiles had left behind, and considered the picture. Stiles and Scott were sitting on the edge of the pool, their feet dangling in, Mr. Lahey was visible at the edge of the picture kneeling down to talk with a group of kids, and in the water next to Stiles and Scott was a boy in his teens. It took him a moment to make the connection between the boy in the pool and Camden Lahey, who looked a year or so younger than the picture included in the military service file that had been forwarded to him during the investigation in the spring. He tapped the photo with his finger and then closed the album and stood to return it to the shelf.
He spent half of the night on patrol, and the other half back at the Sheriff's Department as he went through the backlog of paperwork. The entire time there was something pulling at the edge of his mind, an uneasy insistence that there was an inconsistency if only he would look at the right piece of evidence. After running through the open cases he knew it was the serial murders in the spring and he found himself standing in the empty holding area and staring at where he'd been left handcuffed and helpless to do anything. He touched the back of his head, the wound having long since healed even though he found himself touching it when he was worried, and wondered if this all wasn't some kind of a delayed trauma reaction. Maybe his mind was insisting that he knew something because he was desperate for the facts to be different. Like if he could change what he knew about the case, it would change how many people were buried in the cemetery and how many grieving families had been left behind.
He returned home just after ten in the morning. Stiles was already gone for school - the pile of lacrosse sticks gone from where he'd propped them up the night before. With the newspaper, a plate of toast, and a glass of orange juice, he sat down to breakfast, intending to sleep for a few hours before he worked a double and switched back onto a day schedule. It was on the second page of the paper that it struck him suddenly, and he quickly pushed aside the glass of orange juice as he spread the paper flat on the table. The story was about a nine year old boy, two counties to the south, who had fallen into a creek and drowned - he didn't know how to swim and he'd been out playing by himself. No one had reported him missing until after nightfall.
Abandoning his breakfast, he dug into the box of files and pulled out the same worn file he'd had out the evening before. He flipped through the pages until he found Scott's statement, skimming until he reached where Scott recounted what Matt had told him regarding the incident at the Lahey house where Matt had nearly drowned. Where Matt had nearly drowned because Camden Lahey had thrown him into the swimming pool and Matt couldn't swim. After rereading the section twice, even though he could quite clearly recall Scott relaying the story and sounding shaken as he did so, he stood and walked back into the living room. He found the page easily and the photo where Stiles had veered off course and swam into another boy. Underneath the picture was written: Stiles and Matt, Swim Team, July 2005.
On its own, it didn't mean much of anything. Matt clearly knew how to swim, the boys were in the deep end of the pool and Matt, at nine years old or so, didn't look at all troubled to be in the water. But still, it changed what had been fairly clear motivation for the murders Matt committed into something murkier and uncertain. He had never thought to question what Scott had told him about what Matt had disclosed, it had seemed insignificant overall and fit with what he knew of Matt and of Mr. Lahey.
He leaned back and stared at the page, trying to decide if this changed anything, and he found his eyes resting on a blank white space. A space where there had clearly been a photograph on the page previously. The caption at the bottom of the space only read Elementary Swim Team, June 2005, without listing the specific people who had been in the picture. He turned the page and found another empty space, though this time he recalled which picture went there. There were still two small marks where Stiles had dented the page. Why Stiles had taken those two photos - for who else could it have been? - he hadn't the slightest idea, but it reaffirmed that all of this wasn't only in his mind. He turned back to the picture of Matt and Stiles in the pool and slid it out of the protective sleeve that held it to the page. This could go into his file until he decided what it meant, because clearly it did mean something.
*****
After taking the weekend to mull over the information, the dreams of Matt's attack on the Sheriff's Department coming back in full force, he came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be able to set aside the case file until he could explain the inconsistency. He still had the list of the 2006 BHHS Swim Team members, though they hadn't identified Matt in time to be able to contact them to warn them of the danger, and when he got to work on Monday morning he made sure all of his deputies were settled and then shut himself inside his office and started to search for phone numbers and addresses.
There had only been fifteen members on the Swim Team in 2006 and six of those were dead along with their coach, Mr. Lahey. He organized the remaining names in alphabetical order and took notes as he made phone calls and discovered that most of the students had not remained in Beacon Hills. That had probably saved some of their lives. After leaving many messages asking for return phone calls, he stood and went to get a mug of coffee and to check in with the front desk to make sure that everything was still quiet. Beacon Hills was usually a quiet town, nothing serious with a few exceptions over the years. Those exceptions, like the series of murders in the late winter and spring of this year, and the Hale fire, tended to be particularly violent and deadly. He was finding it difficult to trust the quiet now, to not expect to be called out at any moment to another blood bath.
He had just finished checking in with the pair of deputies gathered in the bullpen when the deputy at the front desk flagged him down. "You have a call, line four," he said, and the Sheriff waved for him to transfer it down to his office.
"Sheriff Stilinski speaking," he answered and waited while the person on the other end of the line breathed.
"My name is TJ Cannon. You asked me to call you back." The man's voice sounded hesitant, almost frightened.
The Sheriff sat behind his desk and reached for his notes. TJ Cannon was one of the only 2006 swim team members who had stayed in Beacon Hills and was still alive. "Yes, thank you."
"Is this about Jessica? I went to her funeral, and to Tucker's funeral. They took Sean's body back to his parents in Washington," TJ said, dropping off at the end.
He stifled a sigh. It had only been six months since the deaths, which as he knew too well wasn't much time at all under the circumstances. "I'm sorry for intruding," he said, which was the absolute truth, "but I had some questions concerning some of the activities of the swim team in 2006."
TJ's laugh was short and harsh over the speaker on the phone. "You mean, you want to know what they did to deserve to be murdered?"
"Not at all," he said quickly. "But there is a particular party that might have played into later events, and I'm trying to track down anyone who was present who might be able to tell me more about it. It would have been in May 2006. Shortly after the swim team won the state championship."
"You're looking for Coach Lahey's inner circle," TJ said. "You know, I actually used to be jealous of Coach Lahey's favorites, but not making that list might have saved my life. The only person who was at that party who isn't dead is Ashley, and that's probably because she's at San Francisco State working on her Masters degree."
"Alright," he said, because that made his investigation far simpler. "Thank you for your time."
There was a pause on the line. "I can tell you one thing about that party though," TJ said, the conviction from his previous statement lost.
"I'm listening," he said, tapping his pen against the list after circling 'Ashley Cook'.
"Now, I don't know what happened. None of them would talk about it. But, whatever it was it must have been bad because Coach Lahey kicked Camden out of the house that night. We had three weeks left in school before we graduated, and Camden spent a week of that staying on my parent's couch. Coach Lahey didn't even come to the graduation ceremony, and right after that Camden left to go join the Marines, even though he'd already been accepted at the University of California in Sacramento," TJ said and then fell silent for another long moment. "And that's all I know. Whatever happened though, whatever it was, it shouldn't have ended like this."
"You're right," he agreed, because nothing should have ended like that had. "Thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."
TJ hung up without saying anything more and after a moment of listening to the dead line the Sheriff hung up as well and looked back at his haphazard notes. He made a note next to Camden's name, Camden who was supposed to be the one who had thrown Matt into the pool, according to what Scott had related. Would Lahey have kicked his son out of the house for that? It was hard to say, especially with the knowledge of the abuse Lahey had inflicted on Isaac weighing at the back of his mind. However, since Matt knew how to swim, that left a hole in the space of what had actually happened. He tapped his pen next to Ashely Cook's name and then turned to his computer to pull up the directory of students at San Francisco State University.
*****
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," he said adjusting the hot cup of coffee in front of him and looking at the young woman in the opposite seat. They had met halfway between Beacon Hills and San Francisco, Ashley Cook suggesting a quiet, small town diner that was almost completely vacant in the early afternoon. It was a Thursday, his first day off in over two weeks, and apparently he had nothing better to do than to drive out to the middle of nowhere trying to solve a case that was already solved.
Ashley looked up from her tea, the small spoon clattering against the edge of the mug as she met his gaze. "Well, after TJ said that you were asking about the State Championship party, I couldn't really say no. Especially not with everyone gone. We were close, you know? Coach Lahey worked us hard; before school, after school, on weekends. The swim team was basically our lives outside of school and we were really close."
He nodded knowingly; Stiles had formed bonds with some of the other lacrosse players that he hadn't even fathomed, Jackson for one, and he knew that working as a team for long periods of times tended to deepen friendships. "Was that party in particular significant? Was it different in some way?" he asked. He wanted to get as much of an unbiased version of events as possible, uncolored by the fear and horror that clouded that night at the Sheriff's Department.
"You could say that," Ashley said and abruptly picked up her tea. She avoided the Sheriff's eyes, staring out into the empty parking lot with her shoulders tense. After a minute she put down her cup and looked at the Sheriff again. "I'm sorry. It's just hard to talk about, for a lot of reasons really."
"That's okay, take your time," he said, picking up his coffee and sipping casually to demonstrate that he wasn't in a rush. Which he wasn't, because Stiles had lacrosse practice after school and then was meeting with some friends to work on a group project and had planned to stay with those same friends for dinner. Things had even relaxed enough between them that he actually believed his son was working on school projects with friends.
Ashley sighed and looked down into her tea. "I guess it started like any other party. We were at the coach's house and hanging around the pool. Drinking," she added, and looked up nervously.
The Sheriff nodded and motioned for her to continue, already aware that there had been alcohol at that specific party and all too aware that there was alcohol and pot at a lot of the high school parties.
"Anyway, we were just hanging around, playing, and so happy that we'd won state and that we would be graduating in a few weeks. Most of us had acceptance letters into universities and it was like the future had just opened up for all of us," Ashley said, and then shook her head. "I didn't notice when Coach Lahey left. I was sitting at the edge of the pool, talking to Kara about whatever, and suddenly I hear someone yelling. I turn around and it's the coach, and he's screaming at some little kid. I couldn't even make out what he was saying. The coach has this kid by the collar of his shirt and is dragging him out of the house, and the rest of us, we're all just frozen and watching. Maybe it was the beer or the pot, but it felt like everything had condensed into a bubble where we're seeing this happen but it almost didn't seem real."
After Ashley was silent for a long time, her hands clutched around her cup like it's an anchor, the Sheriff cleared his throat. "What happened after that?" he asked.
She let out a long breath. "The kid managed to get free, or maybe the coach let him go, but he's stumbling away and he's not looking where he's going. He falls into the pool, and we're still all sitting there staring. None of us move. The coach kneels down at the side of the pool and at first I think he's pulling the kid out, right? That's what it looked like. But, and I was life guard certified and had been for two years already, I realized it was taking too long, longer then it should. And then I see that he's holding this kid under water and the kid is struggling, but the coach has his head held down. And the kid just stops moving." Ashley blinked and her eyes were noticeably watering.
He's about to interrupt when she took another breath and started again. "Coach Lahey finally pulls him out, gets him to cough up water, and starts yelling at him again. Now he's screaming at him not to tell anyone, and then the coach just walks away, like nothing even happened. Someone, Tucker maybe, started laughing. And it's not because it was funny, it wasn't, but he was drunk and a little high, and we're all super freaked out, and we all laugh. I can't even explain it, couldn't then either. The kid ran off, out of the side gate in the yard, and we all left a little bit later when the coach didn't come back out. Sean and I were sober enough to drive, and we all went back to Jessica's because her parents weren't home. And after that we never talked about it. After that I could barely even look at myself, not for a long time." She was visibly shaking now, one hand holding tightly to the edge of the table.
He stared across the table at Ashley, trying to reason out what he'd just been told. In his line of work he gets lied to a lot and he's seen a lot of good actors too, but this seemed real. As real as what Scott had told him. At the very least it explained why Matt, who could swim, had nearly drowned. "And none of you ever said anything about this?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Ashley shook her head. "Not even to each other. I think we all felt guilty that we didn't do anything. I felt guilty at least. I have a little brother, Jamie, and he's a bit younger than that kid. And after that, I just kept thinking what if that had been Jamie? What if someone was hurting my little brother and people just sat there and watched? What if Coach Lahey had killed that kid, and we hadn't done a thing to stop him? None of us wanted to talk about that," she said and looked up. "I do get that we should have said something, I really do, and I wish we had. And not just because that little kid was the one who killed the coach and Jessica and everyone. Right? It was him?"
He nodded regretfully. They had kept as much of the case quiet as they could, which was helped by the fact that there were so many minors involved, and the papers had wound up only printing the bare facts about the case. "Yes, I believe it was."
"I was going to go back for Tucker's funeral, but I had midterms that week. If I had gone, he would have found me too, right?" Ashley asked.
"It's possible," he agreed, though he did think that being out of Beacon Hills had probably saved her life. "Where was Camden Lahey while all of this was happening at the party?"
Ashley shook her head. "I don't know. I saw him at the start of the party, but he slipped away to go do something. I didn't see him again until almost a week later and he had bruises all over his arms and on his neck. He wouldn't say how he got them, not even when Kara asked." She raised her eyebrows significantly. "The coach was always harder on Camden than he was on the rest of us. With the rest of the team, he would yell and make us do laps and dives over and over, but it was always because he wanted us to do better, to be the best. With Camden, the coach always said it was about being the best, but it didn't look that way most of the time."
That directly contradicted what Scott related about Camden throwing Matt into the pool, though it seemed the only points the stories did agree on were that Coach Lahey had pulled Matt from the pool and had threatened him. "What about Isaac Lahey, Camden's younger brother? Was he there?"
"He was in the house somewhere, but I didn't see him for more than a second or two," Ashley said. She looked down at her tea again. "Camden kinda took care of Isaac, you know? I don't think the coach paid much attention to him. Isaac would come to the high school in the afternoon while we had swimming practice. He'd watch from the bleachers, do his homework while he waited, that sort of thing. Some days after practice Camden would swim with Isaac, even though the coach would leave without them."
The Sheriff nodded and considered the young woman sitting across from him, adding it all together in his mind. Ashley's hair was shorter than in the 2006 BHHS Swim Team photos, cut above her shoulders now, and the lines around her eyes seemed wearied. He'd done his research, not willing to trust his first impression of her when so much about this case had twisted around on itself. She had excellent grades and was working on a Masters degree in social work. Her younger brother was a freshman at Beacon Hills High, and she traveled back to Beacon Hills during school breaks. He had seen nothing to indicate that she'd been lying to him or withholding information and nothing she said had contradicted any of the absolute facts about the case. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" he asked finally, hoping for some passing thought that would make everything fall into place.
"The kid, he's dead, right? My mom said that he committed suicide?" Ashley asked, staring past the Sheriff with an almost haunted expression.
"He did," the Sheriff affirmed and waited, watching her expression closely.
Ashley's eyes closed and her head bowed. "My mom says that everything comes full circle, that there are no loose ends and nothing unconnected. If she's right, then why am I still here?"
He wanted to tell her that there was no rhyme or reason to who was buried in a graveyard and who lived to tell the tale. He had experienced death often enough in his own time to know the truth of that, but he also understood the strength that came from believing that there was a reason behind everything. "Do you still swim?" he asked, instead of telling her that it was luck or chance that she had survived.
"Yeah," she said, blinking a few times and then looking up. "I had a scholarship during my undergraduate degree for being on the swim team. Even though I'm not on the team now, I still swim almost every day."
"Good," he told her. "That's good. Keep doing that." He pulled out enough money to cover both of their drinks and a tip and stood. "Thank you for your time, Ashley."
He took a single step before she spoke. "Did it help? Did any of that help?"
"It did," he said, entirely truthfully. He nodded once more and then walked away, his mind occupied with the conflicting tales the entire drive back to Beacon Hills.
Part Two
Written for Teen Wolf Big Bang, Round 2.
Summary: It'd been six months since Matt Daehler attacked the Sheriff's Department. Six months since the series of murders finally ended. Six months and Sheriff Stilinski had finally started to come to peace with it all, until he overheard a conversation that brought a new question and a series of answers he wasn't prepared to hear.
Content Notes: Sexual abuse of children (in the past, non-graphic description/discussion), physical abuse of children (in the past, non-graphic description/discussion), canon typical physical violence, victim blaming (not from a main character), homosexual slur (not from a main character), grieving/focus on minor canon character deaths, obsessive thoughts regarding past trauma. R.
Author Notes: A million and one thanks to emeraldsnakes for being such a fabulous beta and putting up with my endless thoughts and ramblings.
On AO3: Absolution
On DW: Absolution
He didn't make the connection until the third time Stiles had Isaac over for dinner, not until he was watching Stiles take the last piece of chicken and then looking to Isaac and cutting it in half to share. Isaac smiled at Stiles, a full out goofy grin, which was what triggered the memory of a much younger Stiles and Isaac sitting together and sharing a snack. "Isaac, did you and Stiles used to have swimming lessons together?" he asked, his mind working to fill in the vague memories he had of Stiles splashing around in the community pool with Scott and a horde of other children so many years ago.
Isaac's eyes went wide and he looked to Stiles before looking back at the Sheriff. "I think so," he said, staring for a moment before ducking his head down to peer at his nearly empty plate. The smile that had been so bright before was completely gone.
"Isaac's dad taught swimming lessons. We were on the kids swim team together for, what, two years?" Stiles said, his voice pitched slightly too loud for the now quiet kitchen.
"Right," he said, feeling guilty now that the topic had come up. He hadn't realized that Mr. Lahey had taught the kids swimming lessons as well as the high school swim team. Stiles had stopped swimming the year his mom had died, and he hadn't questioned that, nor the fact that Stiles took up lacrosse the fall after. At the time he'd just been glad that Stiles was getting out of the house and doing something with his friends.
"Uh, so Isaac and I have a history project we've got to work on, so we'll be in the living room for a while," Stiles said, standing and collecting his plate from the table. Isaac followed suit, almost too quickly to be seen, and they both disappeared into the living room with Stiles chattering away about something, his words forcibly upbeat.
The Sheriff sighed and finished clearing the table, wondering if he maybe shouldn't try to talk to Isaac later and check in on how he was doing. Every time he'd seen Isaac around the kid had been a little skittish, but that wasn't entirely unexpected and he was glad to see that Stiles and Scott had befriended him. He knew that all three were hoping to be first line this year on the lacrosse team and he felt that would actually be a good thing for all of them, regardless of how rough the sport could get.
After spending some time working in his home office he stood and stretched, ready to take a break from the budget files and maybe get a drink before he took another shot at his spreadsheet. He paused in the hallway, his ears catching the sound of a low conversation coming from the living room, and he glanced down at his watch. It was past ten on a school night and while Stiles routinely stayed up later than that, it was time for them to wrap up so Isaac could go home. He made it as far as the entryway before he stopped, a question catching his attention.
"So, you never told him?" Isaac asked, his voice not quite casual.
There was a silence and then the sound of someone shuffling around. "No. Course not. We made a pact, remember? Me, you, Scott, and Matt. Though, after all that I kind of wonder, you know?"
He frowned, Matt's name a red flag if there ever was one. Stiles didn't talk much about Matt. After all the funerals for the deputies that had died, neither of them had the heart to say much about the string of murders that had led to that disaster. He hadn't gotten the impression that Stiles and Scott had known Matt well. But, a pact; that implied something shared, like friendship.
Isaac huffed with unamused laughter. "Yeah. Six years later and it didn't exactly come out for the better on our end. Not that I expected it to, but I never thought it would be like this either."
"Right? I mean, there's you and Scott, which I still say is awesome by the way - most of the time. And there's Matt, the less said the better, probably," Stiles said, his voice losing conviction.
"And Jackson," Isaac said quickly.
"Jackson too?" Stiles asked, sounding surprised.
"Yeah. Jackson lived across the street from me, how could he resist?" Isaac drawled. "I never understood how Jackson joined the swim team in high school. Different coach, but still."
Stiles sighed. "Well, it makes sense. I suppose we should just be glad you and Scott didn't grow scales too."
"But you seriously never told him?" Isaac asked again.
The Sheriff blinked, having completely lost the thread of conversation without ever finding it. It felt important, like he was listening to something that he should have already known, and he was almost positive that the 'him' Isaac had asked about meant him. Isaac was asking if Stiles had ever told his dad about something, something involving Matt and Jackson.
"Dude, no," Stiles repeated. "I couldn't have then and what would be the point now? He doesn't need to know."
"And you think Scott never told his mom either?" Isaac pressed.
Stiles snorted. "Are you kidding me? Your dad would have been dead way before last spring if he had. Mrs. McCall is fierce and I know for a fact that she has a baseball bat and isn't afraid to use it. Why? Did you tell anyone?"
"Who would I have told?" Isaac asked quietly.
"Yeah, guess so," Stiles agreed. "Okay, I give up. Let's finish this tomorrow?"
The sound of papers rustling and books closing followed. "Yeah, we have a pack meeting, but we can do it after. Maybe we can get Lydia to help us."
"Are you kidding me? She'll just list all the reasons we should have started this last month and then mock our feeble attempts to finish on time," Stiles said. "But I bet Peter will help if you ask him. If I ask he'll just say that I could be using my talents for so much more."
"He's right. See you tomorrow," Isaac said.
The Sheriff took his cue to smoothly step into the bathroom so that he wasn't seen, and then a few moments later the front door opened and then shut. He stood, his mind racing as he mulled over the conversation, and a minute later he heard Stiles climbing up the stairs. He left the bathroom and walked into the living room where the boys had been working. The space was relatively clean, though the coffee table had been dragged up to the couch to be used as a workspace, and the only thing that had been left behind was a spiral notebook on the floor that had haphazard history notes in what he would guess was Isaac's handwriting.
He flipped through the pages, smiling a little at the places where thoughts dropped off incomplete and lines arched all over the margins to connect different pieces of information. He held the notebook in his hands and mentally went through what he'd just overheard and tried to sense why he'd been left so uneasy. Parts of the conversation were simply nonsense, like they'd been talking in some kind of code, and yet other parts were astonishingly clear. His initial question about swimming lessons, and Isaac's father, had clearly been the trigger for the discussion, but there was more to it than that. Something that the boys had been keeping secret for years and evidently attributed to Matt's psychotic break. Mr. Lahey had been Matt's first kill, and the first murder in a serial spree was usually the most important. He sighed, not wanting to close his eyes and see Matt holding a gun on Stiles because those dreams had finally tapered off during the summer months. Whatever this was, whatever secret Stiles was keeping, once again it all seemed to lead back to the swim team, if maybe not the members of the swim team that Matt had murdered.
Standing, he went into the kitchen and left Isaac's notebook on the table where Stiles would see it before school the next morning. After making sure all the doors and windows were locked, he went upstairs and poked his head in Stiles' room. Stiles was sitting at his desk, his fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard to his laptop, and his lips were pressed in a tight line as he worked.
He knocked on the doorframe and tried to smile when Stiles looked over. "Everything alright?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound as weary as he felt.
"Yeah, just killer homework," Stiles said with a glance back to his computer. "I'll go to bed in an hour or two. You're working a double tomorrow, right?"
"I am, though you can come by the station for dinner with your old man, if you want," he offered, hoping that his son would take him up on it.
Stiles shook his head. "Thanks, but Isaac and I really have to finish this. I'll eat dinner with him while we're working. I'll text you when I get back home though."
"Thanks," he said dryly, and then watched his son for a long moment as he considered outright asking what the conversation with Isaac had been all about.
"Night, dad," Stiles said, smiling and then returning his attention to his computer and starting to type quickly once more.
"Goodnight, son," he said and backed away and then into his own room. When he was finally in bed, looking up at the ceiling, he found himself wondering if Beacon Hills had always been this confusing and he just hadn't noticed until now.
*****
He was in the kitchen refreshing his cup of coffee when he heard the front door open and the sound of heavy footsteps and excited chatter. Stiles' voice wasn't unexpected, nor Scott's, and by this point he was getting used to Isaac trailing along behind them. To hear Jackson talk about Stiles' potential as a midfielder and constructively critique Stiles' stick handling, and to hear Stiles respond positively and request that Jackson show him next time they were on the field was completely unexpected. To hear Jackson say yes, like it wasn't a big deal at all, was utterly mind-blowing. Early in the summer Jackson had requested that the restraining order be removed, the Sheriff had taken it as a sign that the boys had all worked something out and weren't at each other's throats any longer. But this was far closer to friendship than he'd anticipated in such a short amount of time, particularly since Stiles used to come home in middle school and complain about Jackson picking on him and Scott.
"Hey, do you have that book you were going to lend me?" Jackson asked, his voice ringing clear in the hallway.
"Yeah, upstairs, come on," Stiles said, and the stairs creaked as all four boys hurried up the steps.
In anticipation of feeding three or four teenaged boys, the Sheriff moved to start dinner. He and Stiles tried to trade back and forth on the nights they cooked, though they wound up with take-out more often than was probably healthy. After pre-heating the oven and locating an already thawing vegetable lasagna, he sat back down at the kitchen table and flipped through the case file once again. This particular file was intensely familiar to him, though he'd been keeping it in his bedroom instead of his office since he knew all too well that Stiles was both incorrigibly curious and knew how to pick the lock to his home office. This was the final file he'd compiled for the series of murders that had led to the massacre at the Sheriff's Department.
When he'd first put together the file he'd still been reeling from that terrifying night and he'd wanted everything to fit together neatly. And now that he was looking through the file again, with some time and distance from the actual event, it still did fit together neatly. Almost. He could accept that Matt had been unstable enough to murder ten people, he had certainly witnessed that firsthand. All of the murders were neatly connected through the 2006 BHHS Swim Team or because they'd been deputies working the night Matt had attacked the Sheriff's Department. He could even believe that Matt had showed up to destroy evidence linking him to the series of murders, with Matt hoping that it was before they'd made a positive ID, because it had been so very clear that Matt wasn't able to think rationally at the time of the attack. But, something was off about the whole picture and ever since he'd overheard Stiles and Isaac's discussion he'd been going over the details of the case trying to figure out what he'd missed.
The sound of feet thumping down the stairs was enough warning for him to close the file and slip it back into the back of the box where he kept case files he was actively working on.
"Are you staying for dinner?" Stiles asked.
It was Jackson who answered. "I'm supposed to meet up with Lydia in thirty minutes. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
The boys all said goodbye to Jackson and the front door shut. "I smell dinner," Scott said, and then paused. "Lasagna with vegetables."
"Good, that means he didn't find the deluxe cheese and meat lasagna I hid in the back of the freezer behind the frozen veggies," Stiles said.
That was good information and the Sheriff rolled his eyes to himself as he checked on the lasagna and decided that it wasn't eavesdropping if Stiles didn't know how to keep his voice down. "Dinner will be ready in ten minutes," he called and then added, "go wash up if you've just come in from lacrosse practice." The sound of feet thundering back up the stairs told him he'd made the right assumption.
Twenty minutes later, when his plate was cleared and the boys were all on their second helpings, they started talking about school and lacrosse, and he learned far more than he would have by directly questioning Stiles. Isaac and Stiles had gotten their history project finished on time, all thanks to someone named Peter who was evidently a friend of Isaac's, though Peter purportedly wasn't going to help them again if they left a project to the last minute. Scott was doing better in school this year, which would be a huge relief to his mother, and he was positive that they would all make first line in lacrosse. Stiles was less optimistic but committed to practicing, and the conversation devolved into lacrosse talk until the end of the meal.
"It sounds like you're getting along better with Jackson this year?" he asked after Scott had spent a few minutes on his and Jackson's thoughts about the team and Stiles and Isaac had been nodding along eagerly.
Stiles and Scott looked at each other for a long moment and he didn't have to see Stiles' face to know that his son was coming up with a quick explanation that probably wasn't anywhere close to the truth. "I think nearly dying changed a few things for Jackson," Stiles said finally, which actually probably was at least part of the truth.
"He's still a dick, but at least now he's not a dick to us," Scott added. "Small steps."
"It helps that he's back on Lydia's leash," Stiles added, and both Scott and Isaac groaned dramatically.
"Still not funny, won't ever be funny," Scott said.
Stiles only grinned. "It will always be funny."
"To you," Isaac pointed out.
And once again the Sheriff had completely lost part of the conversation, a double meaning that he wasn't quite getting, and he thought that the next time he saw Melissa McCall he would ask her if she felt the same way around the boys. Then again, with teenage boys, it probably wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Isaac suddenly reached over and poked Scott on the shoulder. "The time, we should go soon."
Scott looked at the clock on the wall. "Oh yeah. Stiles, are you coming?"
"You mean, will I give you a ride?" Stiles asked, but he was already standing to clear the table and Scott and Isaac leapt in to help.
The Sheriff sat back and watched as his kitchen was cleaned up and then vacated, and despite the lack of leftovers he figured that he had it pretty good. It helped that the last few months had been quiet and he hadn't found Stiles lurking outside of a single crime scene.
"I'll be back in thirty minutes or so," Stiles said, popping back into the kitchen to grab his keys from where he'd abandoned them on the counter.
"Drive safe," he replied, deciding that it was best not to ask what they were running off to do at seven o'clock on a Thursday night. "Be home before I have to leave."
Stiles looked back. "Night shift? You're leaving just before nine?"
"Mhmm," he said and tapped his watch.
"Have you ever known me to be late?" Stiles asked and then darted out of the kitchen before he could respond.
The Sheriff refilled his cup of coffee again and wandered out into the living room just in time to watch Stiles' jeep pull out of the driveway - then he nearly fell over the set of lacrosse sticks that had been left behind on the floor. He checked for any stray practice balls that had rolled free from the nets and with a shake of his head set all of three sticks upright in the corner created by the front bookcase against the wall. He was just propping up the stick that read 'LAHEY' in block letters when his gaze caught on the bottom shelves. This particular bookcase wasn't used much, all of the books on it had belonged to his wife and while he hadn't the heart to remove the books he didn't tend to linger on them either. Every once in a while he would see Stiles with one of the books from the shelf and he was glad that he'd left the shelves as they were so that Stiles had the opportunity to read his mother's favorite authors with the same books she had held in her hands. The various books, fiction and non-fiction intermingled in a system he had never understood, weren't what held his attention, but instead the grouping of photo albums that lined the bottom shelf.
Again, these were places he tried not to dwell, the reminder that she was gone like a punch to the gut every single time. His fingers reverently traced across the mismatched covers until he found the one labeled 2004 -. All the rest of the albums had a second year, indicating where they had ended, but this one had been left unfinished. He gently pulled it from the shelf and made the few steps to the couch before he sat with the album heavy in his lap. In the slowly fading light from the front windows he started to look through the pages, the only saving grace being that for the most part his wife had been holding the camera and wasn't in most of the pictures.
There were pictures of the house, of the yard, and of the barely tamed cat his wife had loved so much, but most of the pictures were of Stiles. He paused to chuckle at a picture of Stiles and Scott in their planet costumes for a school assembly, Stiles' arms stretched out to hold the rings of Saturn at a tilt while Scott was cradling a pile of Jupiter's moons against his chest. He continued through the pages, flipping past Halloween costumes, a Christmas tree, and messily painted Easter eggs until he reached what was clearly the summer, with messy ice cream faces and Stiles using his beach towel as a cape.
He looked closer at these pictures; kids running around in their bathing suits at the poolside, Stiles waving dramatically from the high dive, Scott and Stiles sharing a towel as they sat at the pool's edge, and then finally he caught a glimpse of Mr. Lahey in the background of one of the photographs. The next page over he found exactly what he'd been looking for, though he hadn't realized it until he saw it. The picture was of four boys. Stiles was in the middle, grinning broadly, Scott to his left. To Stiles' right was a boy that he recognized as a much younger Isaac, his curls damp and flattened against his head. And, at the far edge of the picture was another boy that he thought he recognized. The writing under the picture in his wife's neat hand read: Scott, Stiles, Isaac, and Matt. Beacon Hills Elementary Summer Swim Team, June 2004. Maybe it was just his knowledge of what was to come, but he thought that the young Matt in the picture looked a little lost, his smile not quite full.
By the time the front door opened to signal Stiles' return home, he had made it through another year and was examining the swimming pictures from the summer of 2005. He had turned a lamp on when it had gotten too dark to clearly make out the pictures and he looked up when a shadow fell across the pages.
"What are you looking at?" Stiles asked, leaning over the back of the couch.
"Old pictures," he said and patted the cushion next to him. When Stiles was seated he adjusted the album so it was on both of their laps. "The other day you mentioned the swim team you were on when you were younger. I thought I'd take a look."
Stiles didn't touch the pages as he stared down, his expression blank for a long moment before he blinked rapidly and pointed to one of the pictures. "Yeah, look. I was taller than Isaac there. That didn't last long."
He looked at the picture Stiles was pointing to and smiled because Stiles, Scott, and Isaac were all three hamming it up for the camera, pulling faces and holding their hands behind each other's heads. "You'll catch up. Stilinski men have late growth spurts," he assured, his eyes drifting over the rest of the page. The picture at the bottom was of a group of children swimming across the pool, Stiles having angled off course into the dark-haired boy next to him.
Stiles reached over and turned the page, the pictures from the pool leading into what was clearly the Fourth of July, Stiles making exaggerated motions with a pair of sparklers while the Sheriff stood in the background of the picture with a fire extinguisher next to him and a wry, fond smile. It was a good picture of them, and he knew if he closed his eyes he would be able to see his wife grinning wickedly as she took the photo. He realized that Stiles had gone still next to him and he followed Stiles' gaze back to the pictures of the pool, noticing that Stiles' fingers were resting on the edge and his fingernails were slightly denting the paper below the picture.
"I still have homework to finish," Stiles said suddenly, pushing the book back into his father's hands and standing. "You'd think the coach actually wants to throw half off us off the team with the assignments he's been giving us. On second thought, that's probably exactly what he wants. Goodnight, dad."
"Goodnight," he said, checking the time on his watch and then turning to see Stiles clatter up the stairs. He wondered if the abrupt departure was because Stiles had been remembering all these pictures being taken, and all of the moments after that she hadn't been there to document. He looked down at the page, smoothing his finger over the small dents Stiles had left behind, and considered the picture. Stiles and Scott were sitting on the edge of the pool, their feet dangling in, Mr. Lahey was visible at the edge of the picture kneeling down to talk with a group of kids, and in the water next to Stiles and Scott was a boy in his teens. It took him a moment to make the connection between the boy in the pool and Camden Lahey, who looked a year or so younger than the picture included in the military service file that had been forwarded to him during the investigation in the spring. He tapped the photo with his finger and then closed the album and stood to return it to the shelf.
He spent half of the night on patrol, and the other half back at the Sheriff's Department as he went through the backlog of paperwork. The entire time there was something pulling at the edge of his mind, an uneasy insistence that there was an inconsistency if only he would look at the right piece of evidence. After running through the open cases he knew it was the serial murders in the spring and he found himself standing in the empty holding area and staring at where he'd been left handcuffed and helpless to do anything. He touched the back of his head, the wound having long since healed even though he found himself touching it when he was worried, and wondered if this all wasn't some kind of a delayed trauma reaction. Maybe his mind was insisting that he knew something because he was desperate for the facts to be different. Like if he could change what he knew about the case, it would change how many people were buried in the cemetery and how many grieving families had been left behind.
He returned home just after ten in the morning. Stiles was already gone for school - the pile of lacrosse sticks gone from where he'd propped them up the night before. With the newspaper, a plate of toast, and a glass of orange juice, he sat down to breakfast, intending to sleep for a few hours before he worked a double and switched back onto a day schedule. It was on the second page of the paper that it struck him suddenly, and he quickly pushed aside the glass of orange juice as he spread the paper flat on the table. The story was about a nine year old boy, two counties to the south, who had fallen into a creek and drowned - he didn't know how to swim and he'd been out playing by himself. No one had reported him missing until after nightfall.
Abandoning his breakfast, he dug into the box of files and pulled out the same worn file he'd had out the evening before. He flipped through the pages until he found Scott's statement, skimming until he reached where Scott recounted what Matt had told him regarding the incident at the Lahey house where Matt had nearly drowned. Where Matt had nearly drowned because Camden Lahey had thrown him into the swimming pool and Matt couldn't swim. After rereading the section twice, even though he could quite clearly recall Scott relaying the story and sounding shaken as he did so, he stood and walked back into the living room. He found the page easily and the photo where Stiles had veered off course and swam into another boy. Underneath the picture was written: Stiles and Matt, Swim Team, July 2005.
On its own, it didn't mean much of anything. Matt clearly knew how to swim, the boys were in the deep end of the pool and Matt, at nine years old or so, didn't look at all troubled to be in the water. But still, it changed what had been fairly clear motivation for the murders Matt committed into something murkier and uncertain. He had never thought to question what Scott had told him about what Matt had disclosed, it had seemed insignificant overall and fit with what he knew of Matt and of Mr. Lahey.
He leaned back and stared at the page, trying to decide if this changed anything, and he found his eyes resting on a blank white space. A space where there had clearly been a photograph on the page previously. The caption at the bottom of the space only read Elementary Swim Team, June 2005, without listing the specific people who had been in the picture. He turned the page and found another empty space, though this time he recalled which picture went there. There were still two small marks where Stiles had dented the page. Why Stiles had taken those two photos - for who else could it have been? - he hadn't the slightest idea, but it reaffirmed that all of this wasn't only in his mind. He turned back to the picture of Matt and Stiles in the pool and slid it out of the protective sleeve that held it to the page. This could go into his file until he decided what it meant, because clearly it did mean something.
*****
After taking the weekend to mull over the information, the dreams of Matt's attack on the Sheriff's Department coming back in full force, he came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be able to set aside the case file until he could explain the inconsistency. He still had the list of the 2006 BHHS Swim Team members, though they hadn't identified Matt in time to be able to contact them to warn them of the danger, and when he got to work on Monday morning he made sure all of his deputies were settled and then shut himself inside his office and started to search for phone numbers and addresses.
There had only been fifteen members on the Swim Team in 2006 and six of those were dead along with their coach, Mr. Lahey. He organized the remaining names in alphabetical order and took notes as he made phone calls and discovered that most of the students had not remained in Beacon Hills. That had probably saved some of their lives. After leaving many messages asking for return phone calls, he stood and went to get a mug of coffee and to check in with the front desk to make sure that everything was still quiet. Beacon Hills was usually a quiet town, nothing serious with a few exceptions over the years. Those exceptions, like the series of murders in the late winter and spring of this year, and the Hale fire, tended to be particularly violent and deadly. He was finding it difficult to trust the quiet now, to not expect to be called out at any moment to another blood bath.
He had just finished checking in with the pair of deputies gathered in the bullpen when the deputy at the front desk flagged him down. "You have a call, line four," he said, and the Sheriff waved for him to transfer it down to his office.
"Sheriff Stilinski speaking," he answered and waited while the person on the other end of the line breathed.
"My name is TJ Cannon. You asked me to call you back." The man's voice sounded hesitant, almost frightened.
The Sheriff sat behind his desk and reached for his notes. TJ Cannon was one of the only 2006 swim team members who had stayed in Beacon Hills and was still alive. "Yes, thank you."
"Is this about Jessica? I went to her funeral, and to Tucker's funeral. They took Sean's body back to his parents in Washington," TJ said, dropping off at the end.
He stifled a sigh. It had only been six months since the deaths, which as he knew too well wasn't much time at all under the circumstances. "I'm sorry for intruding," he said, which was the absolute truth, "but I had some questions concerning some of the activities of the swim team in 2006."
TJ's laugh was short and harsh over the speaker on the phone. "You mean, you want to know what they did to deserve to be murdered?"
"Not at all," he said quickly. "But there is a particular party that might have played into later events, and I'm trying to track down anyone who was present who might be able to tell me more about it. It would have been in May 2006. Shortly after the swim team won the state championship."
"You're looking for Coach Lahey's inner circle," TJ said. "You know, I actually used to be jealous of Coach Lahey's favorites, but not making that list might have saved my life. The only person who was at that party who isn't dead is Ashley, and that's probably because she's at San Francisco State working on her Masters degree."
"Alright," he said, because that made his investigation far simpler. "Thank you for your time."
There was a pause on the line. "I can tell you one thing about that party though," TJ said, the conviction from his previous statement lost.
"I'm listening," he said, tapping his pen against the list after circling 'Ashley Cook'.
"Now, I don't know what happened. None of them would talk about it. But, whatever it was it must have been bad because Coach Lahey kicked Camden out of the house that night. We had three weeks left in school before we graduated, and Camden spent a week of that staying on my parent's couch. Coach Lahey didn't even come to the graduation ceremony, and right after that Camden left to go join the Marines, even though he'd already been accepted at the University of California in Sacramento," TJ said and then fell silent for another long moment. "And that's all I know. Whatever happened though, whatever it was, it shouldn't have ended like this."
"You're right," he agreed, because nothing should have ended like that had. "Thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."
TJ hung up without saying anything more and after a moment of listening to the dead line the Sheriff hung up as well and looked back at his haphazard notes. He made a note next to Camden's name, Camden who was supposed to be the one who had thrown Matt into the pool, according to what Scott had related. Would Lahey have kicked his son out of the house for that? It was hard to say, especially with the knowledge of the abuse Lahey had inflicted on Isaac weighing at the back of his mind. However, since Matt knew how to swim, that left a hole in the space of what had actually happened. He tapped his pen next to Ashely Cook's name and then turned to his computer to pull up the directory of students at San Francisco State University.
*****
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," he said adjusting the hot cup of coffee in front of him and looking at the young woman in the opposite seat. They had met halfway between Beacon Hills and San Francisco, Ashley Cook suggesting a quiet, small town diner that was almost completely vacant in the early afternoon. It was a Thursday, his first day off in over two weeks, and apparently he had nothing better to do than to drive out to the middle of nowhere trying to solve a case that was already solved.
Ashley looked up from her tea, the small spoon clattering against the edge of the mug as she met his gaze. "Well, after TJ said that you were asking about the State Championship party, I couldn't really say no. Especially not with everyone gone. We were close, you know? Coach Lahey worked us hard; before school, after school, on weekends. The swim team was basically our lives outside of school and we were really close."
He nodded knowingly; Stiles had formed bonds with some of the other lacrosse players that he hadn't even fathomed, Jackson for one, and he knew that working as a team for long periods of times tended to deepen friendships. "Was that party in particular significant? Was it different in some way?" he asked. He wanted to get as much of an unbiased version of events as possible, uncolored by the fear and horror that clouded that night at the Sheriff's Department.
"You could say that," Ashley said and abruptly picked up her tea. She avoided the Sheriff's eyes, staring out into the empty parking lot with her shoulders tense. After a minute she put down her cup and looked at the Sheriff again. "I'm sorry. It's just hard to talk about, for a lot of reasons really."
"That's okay, take your time," he said, picking up his coffee and sipping casually to demonstrate that he wasn't in a rush. Which he wasn't, because Stiles had lacrosse practice after school and then was meeting with some friends to work on a group project and had planned to stay with those same friends for dinner. Things had even relaxed enough between them that he actually believed his son was working on school projects with friends.
Ashley sighed and looked down into her tea. "I guess it started like any other party. We were at the coach's house and hanging around the pool. Drinking," she added, and looked up nervously.
The Sheriff nodded and motioned for her to continue, already aware that there had been alcohol at that specific party and all too aware that there was alcohol and pot at a lot of the high school parties.
"Anyway, we were just hanging around, playing, and so happy that we'd won state and that we would be graduating in a few weeks. Most of us had acceptance letters into universities and it was like the future had just opened up for all of us," Ashley said, and then shook her head. "I didn't notice when Coach Lahey left. I was sitting at the edge of the pool, talking to Kara about whatever, and suddenly I hear someone yelling. I turn around and it's the coach, and he's screaming at some little kid. I couldn't even make out what he was saying. The coach has this kid by the collar of his shirt and is dragging him out of the house, and the rest of us, we're all just frozen and watching. Maybe it was the beer or the pot, but it felt like everything had condensed into a bubble where we're seeing this happen but it almost didn't seem real."
After Ashley was silent for a long time, her hands clutched around her cup like it's an anchor, the Sheriff cleared his throat. "What happened after that?" he asked.
She let out a long breath. "The kid managed to get free, or maybe the coach let him go, but he's stumbling away and he's not looking where he's going. He falls into the pool, and we're still all sitting there staring. None of us move. The coach kneels down at the side of the pool and at first I think he's pulling the kid out, right? That's what it looked like. But, and I was life guard certified and had been for two years already, I realized it was taking too long, longer then it should. And then I see that he's holding this kid under water and the kid is struggling, but the coach has his head held down. And the kid just stops moving." Ashley blinked and her eyes were noticeably watering.
He's about to interrupt when she took another breath and started again. "Coach Lahey finally pulls him out, gets him to cough up water, and starts yelling at him again. Now he's screaming at him not to tell anyone, and then the coach just walks away, like nothing even happened. Someone, Tucker maybe, started laughing. And it's not because it was funny, it wasn't, but he was drunk and a little high, and we're all super freaked out, and we all laugh. I can't even explain it, couldn't then either. The kid ran off, out of the side gate in the yard, and we all left a little bit later when the coach didn't come back out. Sean and I were sober enough to drive, and we all went back to Jessica's because her parents weren't home. And after that we never talked about it. After that I could barely even look at myself, not for a long time." She was visibly shaking now, one hand holding tightly to the edge of the table.
He stared across the table at Ashley, trying to reason out what he'd just been told. In his line of work he gets lied to a lot and he's seen a lot of good actors too, but this seemed real. As real as what Scott had told him. At the very least it explained why Matt, who could swim, had nearly drowned. "And none of you ever said anything about this?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Ashley shook her head. "Not even to each other. I think we all felt guilty that we didn't do anything. I felt guilty at least. I have a little brother, Jamie, and he's a bit younger than that kid. And after that, I just kept thinking what if that had been Jamie? What if someone was hurting my little brother and people just sat there and watched? What if Coach Lahey had killed that kid, and we hadn't done a thing to stop him? None of us wanted to talk about that," she said and looked up. "I do get that we should have said something, I really do, and I wish we had. And not just because that little kid was the one who killed the coach and Jessica and everyone. Right? It was him?"
He nodded regretfully. They had kept as much of the case quiet as they could, which was helped by the fact that there were so many minors involved, and the papers had wound up only printing the bare facts about the case. "Yes, I believe it was."
"I was going to go back for Tucker's funeral, but I had midterms that week. If I had gone, he would have found me too, right?" Ashley asked.
"It's possible," he agreed, though he did think that being out of Beacon Hills had probably saved her life. "Where was Camden Lahey while all of this was happening at the party?"
Ashley shook her head. "I don't know. I saw him at the start of the party, but he slipped away to go do something. I didn't see him again until almost a week later and he had bruises all over his arms and on his neck. He wouldn't say how he got them, not even when Kara asked." She raised her eyebrows significantly. "The coach was always harder on Camden than he was on the rest of us. With the rest of the team, he would yell and make us do laps and dives over and over, but it was always because he wanted us to do better, to be the best. With Camden, the coach always said it was about being the best, but it didn't look that way most of the time."
That directly contradicted what Scott related about Camden throwing Matt into the pool, though it seemed the only points the stories did agree on were that Coach Lahey had pulled Matt from the pool and had threatened him. "What about Isaac Lahey, Camden's younger brother? Was he there?"
"He was in the house somewhere, but I didn't see him for more than a second or two," Ashley said. She looked down at her tea again. "Camden kinda took care of Isaac, you know? I don't think the coach paid much attention to him. Isaac would come to the high school in the afternoon while we had swimming practice. He'd watch from the bleachers, do his homework while he waited, that sort of thing. Some days after practice Camden would swim with Isaac, even though the coach would leave without them."
The Sheriff nodded and considered the young woman sitting across from him, adding it all together in his mind. Ashley's hair was shorter than in the 2006 BHHS Swim Team photos, cut above her shoulders now, and the lines around her eyes seemed wearied. He'd done his research, not willing to trust his first impression of her when so much about this case had twisted around on itself. She had excellent grades and was working on a Masters degree in social work. Her younger brother was a freshman at Beacon Hills High, and she traveled back to Beacon Hills during school breaks. He had seen nothing to indicate that she'd been lying to him or withholding information and nothing she said had contradicted any of the absolute facts about the case. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" he asked finally, hoping for some passing thought that would make everything fall into place.
"The kid, he's dead, right? My mom said that he committed suicide?" Ashley asked, staring past the Sheriff with an almost haunted expression.
"He did," the Sheriff affirmed and waited, watching her expression closely.
Ashley's eyes closed and her head bowed. "My mom says that everything comes full circle, that there are no loose ends and nothing unconnected. If she's right, then why am I still here?"
He wanted to tell her that there was no rhyme or reason to who was buried in a graveyard and who lived to tell the tale. He had experienced death often enough in his own time to know the truth of that, but he also understood the strength that came from believing that there was a reason behind everything. "Do you still swim?" he asked, instead of telling her that it was luck or chance that she had survived.
"Yeah," she said, blinking a few times and then looking up. "I had a scholarship during my undergraduate degree for being on the swim team. Even though I'm not on the team now, I still swim almost every day."
"Good," he told her. "That's good. Keep doing that." He pulled out enough money to cover both of their drinks and a tip and stood. "Thank you for your time, Ashley."
He took a single step before she spoke. "Did it help? Did any of that help?"
"It did," he said, entirely truthfully. He nodded once more and then walked away, his mind occupied with the conflicting tales the entire drive back to Beacon Hills.
Part Two