What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

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NocturneInCMoll
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What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Author’s note: Yes—9 months later, here is Chapter 23 of What Are you, Mick St. John? My deepest apologies for the delay—I really can’t believe it’s been that long!—but the muse kept going AWOL. It was a tough chapter to write, with Carl and especially Beth’s reactions to Josh’s death.

Beta: Barb (Bank1115) is awesome as usual, as was Special Guest Beta VampFan5 (thanks for the you-know-who appearance idea!).

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


What Are You, Mick St. John?—Chapter 23


Carl stared down at the body of his former friend lying bound and gagged on the cold floor of Tejada’s office. “Damn…” he shook his head. Blood had trailed from two bullet wounds in Josh’s chest and one in his thigh and pooled around his body. The scarf stuffed and stretched between his lips was also soaked with blood. “Damn!” Carl rubbed a hand against his forehead. How did it come to this so fast? “This is so messed up.”

“It’s monstrous, is what it is,” came Chief Murphy’s voice over his shoulder.

He stiffened.

“It’s inhuman,” the chief continued, and moved to stand beside him. “A monster did this. Tejada is a monster.”

Carl nodded slowly. Technically, Tejada did do this, so I’m not lying by agreeing…am I?

The chief was shaking his head. “I’m going to go do my best to make sure the press hasn’t got wind of this yet. It’s inevitable, but Lindsey deserves at least a few minutes of peace.” He laid a hand on Carl’s shoulder as he passed. “I leave it in your hands. Keep me informed.”

Carl turned and found himself facing an unusually large contingent of officers and forensics investigators. He took a deep breath. “All right…I want this place processed from top to bottom, and everything comes through me. You hear me? Everything. If an ant sneezed on a piece of evidence, I want to know about it.” And then I have to figure out how to make ant snot magically disappear.

His phone rang. An unknown number showed on the screen. “Davis,” he answered sharply.

If you cannot speak freely, say ‘yes, this is Carl Davis,’” said a familiar male voice.

“Yes, this is Carl Davis.”

If your present company asks, this is about your current long distance plan. I’ll talk fast—there are a few things you need to know. Do not look out the window, but ‘Ms. Cleaner’ is watching the bar from the roof of the building across the street in case of problems. We knocked the bartender and one of Tejada’s goons unconscious, then went and had Tejada shoot Josh. Tejada is dead, but you won’t find his body. We’ll make it look like he is alive and escaped to a country where you can’t get him.”

Carl schooled his face into a scowl. “Must we do this now?”

I’ll assume you’re saying that for the benefit of the long distance cover and not talking back to me.”

“Sort of.”

Interesting. Anyway, we took a gun off one of the gangbangers. I was going to rig it so it looked like Josh shot the bartender and the aforementioned gangbanger, but Ms. Cleaner said it wouldn’t work since Josh was obviously bound and gagged when he kicked the bucket. So instead we used Tejada’s gun and made it look like he had kidnapped the ADA, killed him, and then was cleaning house before he fled. Got it?”

“Look, I’m fine with my current plan—”

Nice touch. Make sure you keep tabs on your lab techs, in case they find anything unusual. Cleaners are very good at what they do, but they’re only hu—oh, wait, they’re not. But still, the same principle applies. And if you can, get the same guy that was working on the stuff before to do it. If I have to kill more people, I’d like to try and keep the numbers down.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “This really isn’t a good time.”

It’s never really an ideal time to kill an ADA, but at least it’s not the Ides of March. Now, if you understand everything I just said, say, ‘Yes, I am a warthog-faced buffoon.’

“Yes, I—what?!” Carl scowled.

Have a lovely day, Lieutenant, and thank you for choosing Vampires!”

“Ugh,” Carl snorted and snapped his phone shut. When Grandma ordered me to respect my elders, I don’t think she knew about Josef Kostan. Then he noticed the officers and forensics investigators giving him odd looks. “What? —Stupid phone company calling to talk about my long distance plan—can you believe them? How do they always know to call at the worst possible times?!”

“Big Brother is watching,” one of the officers muttered and looked around the room with a smirk.

“Yeah, you ain’t kidding,” Carl muttered. “All right, let’s get on with this.”

********************************************************************************************************************************

After half an hour, the smell of Josh’s blood was overwhelming and Carl found himself outside bent over his knees and rapidly inhaling fresh air. Okay, so after more than a decade on the force and three years in homicide, I meet a vampiress and now I can’t handle the smell of blood…I guess I’d suck as a vampire. He snorted. Or rather, make that I wouldn’t suck. —Oh, great, now I’m making bad puns and laughing at them. He rubbed both his hands through his hair. Gosh, I hope Ms. Cleaner isn’t watching me right now… He straightened up and leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

“The vultures have started circling, Lieutenant,” an officer passing by nodded toward a news van pulling to a stop in the parking lot.

Buzzwire… A familiar blonde climbed out of the passenger side and Carl cursed under his breath. And of all the crime scenes for her to be at…What the hell is Beth doing here?! I thought she was at home!

He strode up to her and grabbed her arm. “Beth. What are you doing here?”

“Oh. Carl,” Beth flashed him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “What’s going on? This looks big—I heard even the police chief is here. Come on, you gotta give me something. You owe me.”

The tone of her voice that almost made him shiver. “Beth, I can’t—Beth, you can’t—you shouldn’t be here,” he hissed, looking around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard, but her cameraman was busy getting his gear out of the back.

“Why not?” she clenched her jaw and wrenched her arm out of his grip. “It’s a crime scene, I’m a crime reporter. You never questioned my presence at a scene before, however much you protested it.”

“Beth…”

“I know you’re wondering why I’m at work…considering…what happened this afternoon,” she gulped and blinked back tears. “But I couldn’t sit at home thinking about it—about him. This is like the nightmare that doesn’t end. Did it all really happen? Did Josh really do and say what he did this afternoon? Did I? Did I really just walk away? I don’t think it’s even hit me that he must be gone. I just keep running over and over it in my mind, and—” she cut herself off abruptly.

Carl exhaled slowly. “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here…”

She looked at him sharply. “Why not? What do you mean?”

He pursed his lips and looked at the ground. “Beth…I’m—I’m so, so sorry—but Josh, he…well—it’s him. He’s here.”

Beth furrowed her brow. “He’s here?” her eyes flickered. “You mean they didn’t—?” her breath caught in her throat, but Carl gave a miniscule shake of his head that killed any light in them. Her voice was flat. “Oh. I see.”

He stared at the ground. “Not exactly…this is Tejada’s hideout.”

“Tejada? Why would Josh be—”

“They brought him here…to stage the scene. They let—they let Josh decide who would kill him. So at least…he finally got Tejada, Beth. Tejada can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

She looked away. “And neither can Josh.”

“Beth—”

She held up a hand. “I don’t blame you, not really—this…this is all my fault.”

Your fault? Beth—”

“I lied to him, Carl. I lied to him. If I hadn’t—”

“If you hadn’t lied to him—if you had told him what really happened that night—Josh would still know about vampires, and he still might have reacted badly.” At the look on her face, Carl expelled a breath. “Okay, admittedly maybe not as bad, but you don’t know that. You can’t start thinking of what-ifs now. What happened, happened—Josh made his choices.”

Beth shook her head. “And I made mine; I was a coward! The worst kind of chicken. I couldn’t deal with it—what he’d done, especially since I caused it. So I shut down. So I left him…there…to die alone, angry, afraid, and in pain, abandoned by the one he should trust most in the world. How could I do that, Carl? How could I do that.”

The cameraman came over with his gear, but Carl held up a hand to stay him and pulled Beth farther away from the truck. He searched for something to say. “He wasn’t himself. He wasn’t acting like the Josh we knew.”

“And it’s because of me. I tried to blame you; I tried to blame…Mick,” her eyes filled with tears a moment before her voice hardened, “and I really tried to blame Josef…but in the end, all trains led back to me.

“He was devastated, wasn’t he—when he realized I’d been lying to him, covering for Mick?”

Carl hesitated a moment, remembering the look in Josh’s eyes. Then he looked into Beth’s and knew it was useless to lie to her. “…Yes.”

“And then I pulled the trigger. I killed him, Carl—I killed him.”

“We all played our parts,” Carl murmured. “Even Josh.”

She sucked in a huge breath and exhaled it shakily. “At least I have the cold comfort of knowing that I can’t do this to anyone I love again—everyone I’m close to now is either a vampire…or you.”

“Beth…”

She was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sometimes I want to wish they didn’t exist—or at least to go back to before, when ignorance really was bliss—but I can’t bring myself to do it.”

Carl exhaled. “Neither can I.” His eyes drifted over to the rooftops of the buildings across the street. “Look, we’ll get through this—together. We have to. They’ve let us into their world, and there’s no going back.”

“No—there isn’t, is there.”

Carl spied Chief Murphy walking across the parking lot, hat in hand. “Look, Beth, we’re about to have company—you have to pull yourself together and be strong, or we’re all screwed.”

“I know…” Beth nodded quietly. “I know.”

When the chief reached them, his eyes quickly searched Carl’s, and Carl nodded in confirmation that he’d already broken the news. Chief Murphy extended a hand to Beth. “Miss Turner, you have my deepest condolences on your loss. Josh Lindsey was a great man and ADA who dedicated himself to protecting this community. I promise you, we will do everything in our power to bring the bastard that did this to justice.”

She nodded hollowly and turned away. Carl exchanged a grim nod with his superior before the chief moved on to speak to an officer who was beckoning him.

“I think I want to go home now, Carl,” Beth was saying.

“Look, I’m sorry—I have to stay, but I’ll have someone drive you.”

She nodded listlessly, as though she hadn’t really heard him.

Carl noticed the man leaning against the bottle green Mercedes Benz parked at the edge of the parking lot at the same moment she did. Mick strode over to them quickly, his eyes locked on Beth. He acknowledged Carl with a quick glance, then looked back to her, shrugging with his arm half outstretched. “Beth.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.” She turned away.

He reached out and touched her arm. “But you should.”

Beth whipped around and said into his face, “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be responsible for the death of someone you loved?”

“Yes. I do.”

He stared deep into her eyes. When her chin began to tremble a second later, he moved toward her, and she fell into his arms.

Carl’s eyebrows had risen with Mick’s admission. Mick now caught his questioning eye and tilted his head, indicating that he wanted to be alone with Beth. Carl nodded and turned to leave. I get it. I’m not the one that needs the explanation right now—Beth does. But Mick sure knows how to pique a cop’s curiosity

“Excuse me, sir—”

He stopped in his tracks. Beth’s cameraman—he had nearly forgotten about him. Good thing it’s not what’s-his-name, the regular guy—Steve?—he’d be a lot harder to put off. He looked the young man up and down. “Look, Beth’s not doing this story. Her friend is going to take her home. You should just take the van and go home, or back to work, or back under whatever rock you crawled out from.”

“But—what do I tell our boss?”

“Beth had a family emergency. Now get out of here.” Carl walked away, but not without looking back to confirm the Buzzwire van had pulled out of the parking lot. “Geez,” he shook his head. I need a drink. Why is it that whenever you need a drink, you can’t have one?

Without realizing it, he’d reached the edge of the parking lot and had nearly stepped out into the street. After a quick glance both ways to ensure he wasn’t about to get taken out by traffic, he jogged across the road and into the alley between two buildings. At least there I can have a moment alone to gather my thoughts. And if anyone asks why I crossed the road, it was the same reason as the chicken—due diligence.

He was poking around aimlessly in a pile of trash when he heard the click of a heeled boot on the pavement behind him. He froze.

“Lieutenant Davis.”



To be continued...
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darkstarrising
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by darkstarrising »

Glad to see the muse has returned, Julie :hug:

So, the plot thickens....Josh is dead and Carl is walking a fine line between the real truth and the 'truth' that will be spun to explain Josh's death. He's in danger here, especially if something is found that doesn't quite add up. Especially with Chief Murphy in the background.

Poor Beth....she walked away from Josh knowing he'd die, but to face the reality of it has got to be killing her. And Mick's admission to killing someone he loved (Coraline) has got Carl's attention. That will be an interesting conversation someday.

Loved the interplay between Josef and Carl....and I can just imagine who's walking up behind Carl :heart:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Thanks so much, Karen! I'm glad the muse has returned, too. :hug:

Carl is indeed walking a fine line--hope he can handle the pressure he'll be getting from both sides. Josef is slightly more obnoxious than Chief Murphy... :snicker:

Mick's admission did indeed get Carl's attention--and Beth's, of course--not that Carl would do anything about it. Beth's the one who needs to hear about it at the moment, though--let's hope she tells Carl something of it.

Gosh, yeah, I wonder who that could be behind Carl, eh? She'll remain nameless...for now. :laugh:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by PNWgal »

JULIE!! You conquered the muse and posted! :hug:

And what a wonderful chapter - I just love your Carl Davis. You've given him such cool depth and substance in this fic. I went and read the chapter recaps, but I think I need to start at the beginning and read it again. Such a sacrifice... :mdrama:

Carl's been introduced to world he's not sure he wants to be a part of, and one I'm not sure he can navigate successfully. I think you nailed Beth's grief here perfectly.

Here's hoping the muse stays compliant! :hug:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

PNW!!! :hug: The muse did come back for a visit--not sure how long she's staying, but let's hope a while longer.

Anyway, thank you!! I'm so glad you like my Carl. It's funny, because I didn't set out to write a story which involved him so much, even though it was mostly from his point of view. Anyway, you think he can't handle the vampire world? Hmm...I guess we'll see how he does with Ms. Cleaner!

Glad you think I nailed Beth's grief :phew: --that was a big worry of mine, especially since some people thought she "turned on" Josh too easily. She was in shock and it didn't really seem like it was happening or sink in that it was happening--although it's starting to--and I hoped I conveyed that successfully. It was a tricky thing to write. But it worked out well that now she and Mick have something else to relate to on...
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by greenleaf9 »

AHHH JULIE!!! I was so excited to see a new chapter from you!!! :hyper2: I tried to leave you a review over at FF.net, but the site was giving me problems, so I came over here--and of course, read the chapter again! :teeth:

I do hope your muse will stay--tell him I have chocolate which I will gladly share.

I loved the chapter! I think my favorite part was Josef telling Carl that if he understands, to say, "Yes, I am a warthog-faced buffoon." :snicker: I love the Princess Bride references--one of my favorite movies being referenced in one of my favorite fanfics, from one of my favorite tv shows. Yeah--reading doesn't get any better than that. :twothumbs:

Poor Beth--this has got to be hard on her. I thought you did a fantastic job of capturing the complexity of the situation and her emotions. Carl is definitely walking a dangerous line, I hope he can keep his stories straight. Maybe some support from a certain black-leather clad lady would help him with that. ;) You write Carl so well--you really make him a 3-dimensional character--I was always disappointed that his character kinda faded out of the series.

Your update made me so happy!!! Can't wait to see what happens next.

Love ya! :hug:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Thanks so much, GL!!! :hug: Glad the chapter could make your day.

Yeah, I couldn't resist one more PB reference. It occurred to me when reading your comment that Carl should have replied, "You miserable vomitous mass," but then he would have blown his telephone company cover story. Perhaps another time. :biggrin:

Definitely hard on Beth--glad you think I captured it. It is a very complex emotional situation, and I can barely begin to imagine what it would be like. As for Carl...I'm sure the Cleaner will be of some assistance.

Don't know when the next update of this will be, but there should be one for Fever Redux coming shortly. :thumbs:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by redwinter101 »

:hyper2: :hyper2: :hyper2: Sorry it's taken me a while to get here, Julie (I'm out of town at the moment) but this was brilliant! One of the things that frequently bugged me about Moonlight was the absence of consequences, of aftermath - but you give it to us here, in spades.

I've always loved how you write Carl and this chapter is no exception - he's a fully-formed character in your capable hands. And a character I want to know more about.

And AGAIN with the evil cliffie... You're bad. Really bad.

But in such a good way. :giggle:

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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Oh, that's perfectly all right, Red! You're allowed to take a few days to read the chapter--after all, it took me 9 months to post it! :laugh: (Hope you're having a great vacation!)

Anyway, thank you so much. Moonlight's lack of consequences--and lack of conversations, at times--also bugged me. I'm glad you like my version of Carl; I just hope I can satisfy your desire to know more about him--I never really thought much about his background when I started the story, as it was originally more about the investigation. But Carl demanded a voice, I guess...and is almost as stubborn as Josef!

Hey, I had to end the chapter sometime, and this cliffie isn't THAT evil! I think you know who it was that's saying his name--or was it her name that I'm keeping you in suspense about? :snicker:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by francis »

Hmmm. It's sad how much fallout there still is after they killed Josh. They all are kind of responsible for his death, but he brought it upon himself. Poor Beth. Talking to Mick might help, he knows all about guilt and grief mixed together.
In a story that was mainly a comic remix of the show we knew, you brought in some gravity. And you did it so well that I at first didn't even realize that my mood was changing with every line. I love your stories and can't wait to read more. Even if it takes as long as this one. :flowers:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Thank you so much, Francis (including for your patience)! :biggrin: I'm glad that I was able to successfully balance the light with the dark. They do all share responsibility in Josh's death, as does Josh. Hopefully Mick sharing his experience can help Beth. We'll see what happens next when I get back to that story! :type:
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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by jen »

Julie :wave: :wave:

This is quite wonderful! :thumbs:

The fact that each of the major characters knows that they have played a part in Josh Lindsey's death is excellent. Still, the majority of responsibility is with Josh. Ultimately, he made the decision that resulted in his life ending, and even the manner of it. In that, Tejada was taken down, as well.

I'm glad that in this version of events, Beth allowed herself to lean on Mick.

Ironic that what now holds a lot of people bound to the vampire community is Josh Lindsey's blood. Beth has faced her complicity in Josh's death, and now I hope Mick will be able to help her find her some peace and acceptance.

Glad the muse is feeling talkative again. (Good muse, nice muse...pat, pat, pat)

Thank you,

Jenna

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Re: What Are You, Mick St. John? [ch. 23] PG13

Post by NocturneInCMoll »

Thank you so much, Jen! Glad you enjoyed. :hyper2: We'll see what else happens in the aftermath...

My muse has quieted down a fair bit after the recent frenzy, but it's not dead dead, and there's another chapter of Fever Redux to come as soon as my beta is done with it.
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