Keeping It in the Family (Linstead)

Chapter 139

Halstead and Lindsay ended up driving right behind Purrazzo and Atwater all the way back to the 19th. It meant that they arrived together and all got out of their cars at the same time.

Atwater approached Lindsay. "Sarge? Can I talk to you in your office?"

"You sure that what's what you want to do right now?" she replied as she took off her beanie. She didn't consider it a very good career move on his part.

"Please?" he asked humbly.

"Let's go up," Halstead said to Purrazzo, recognising that neither Lindsay or Atwater needed people hanging around in that moment. They headed inside the building together.

Lindsay sighed. "What do you want to talk about, Kev? Is there even much to talk about?"

"I just want to talk to you. That's all I ask."

"That's all you ask? Fine, I'll hear you out," she decided, figuring that his years of service to the unit had earned him that much. "But you'd better think real hard about what you're fixing to say to me."

He nodded. "Understood."

They went into the building, where they had to wait for the elevator to come down from Intelligence's floor, after Halstead and Purrazzo had gone up in it moments before. There was a heavy silence between them while they waited.

When they entered the bullpen upstairs they found an atmosphere akin to that of a funeral parlour. No one was happy in the least about having to walk away from the Alvarez case and leave it to the FBI, who were possibly involved in, or even responsible for the killing in the first place.

Team morale was going to have to wait, Lindsay thought. In fact it might be about to get worse, as Atwater stood a strong chance of being off the team by the time he left her office. They went straight in there, and he closed the door without needing to be told to.

"Sit down. You can say what you have to say, then I'm going to say what I have to say."

Lindsay stuffed her gloves into her coat pocket, then hung it up on a stand in the corner of the room. When she was ready, she sat down at her desk. Atwater was already sitting opposite, ready to begin.

"Go ahead," she ordered him.

"Sarge, I know you're thinking about cutting me from the team. I wanted to have this conversation with you today even before you spoke to me at the crime scene. After that, it became even more important to have it. Please don't dismiss what I'm going to say out of hand. Bayley wasn't responsible for Rodrigo Alvarez's murder."

Lindsay sighed and let her head fall backwards for a moment. "Kevin, enough, okay? I can't have someone in my unit who..."

"Sarge, listen, please," he cut in. "I know what you're thinking. You think I'm totally under Bayley's spell, and that all she has to do is say jump and I get on my knees and beg her to tell me how high."

"Something like that," she interrupted, despite everything finding a little bit of humour in it.

"Well, that's not the case. You've said yourself that there has been nothing wrong with my work, and I can promise you right now that I've never talked to her about any active cases. Any cases at all, in fact. We're with each other because we're in love. That's the only reason. And I'm telling you she didn't have anything to do with this murder. What I want to do is ask you to sit down with Bayley and hear her out, because a lot of what's going on right now isn't the way it seems to you."

"Let me tell you where I'm at, Kevin. Maybe, just maybe, there's something in what you're saying. But I'm done with the whole Martinez situation, and so is my unit. She's a crook and a criminal, and it seems like there are some in the FBI who are too. I know the election was stolen, but I can't prove it. I know either her or the FBI are behind Alvarez being killed. Someone didn't want him out there, knowing exactly what's being going on around her recently. We're not going to be allowed to investigate, and I believe that if we continue to try, we'll end up getting shut down. I'm angry about it to say the least, but I'm accepting the situation for what it is."