Love Like Yours 💙 - A Hankcon Story

Chapter 12: Solving Cases

Monday, November 15, 2038
11:15 am
Detroit Police Station
Connor and Hank walk into the police station and are immediately hit with a ton of cases to investigate. Already annoyed by this Hank plops down at his terminal beside Connor and looks through the files. Noticing Hank's irritability Connor gets up and decides to bring Hank some coffee. He was surprised to not see Nines or Gavin anywhere but assumed they also had cases they were already out investigating. Proceeding to make Hank's favorite coffee, Connor added a little whip cream heart and cinnamon just to make it a little more special. "Here you go Lieutenant." He handed Hank his coffee and watched his irritated expression soften as he looked down at it. He takes a sip and smiles as Connor sits back down. "Its amazing how you manage to make it perfect every time, thank you Connor." He smiles "I would've made it a dog but the cup wasn't big enough." He can't help but giggle when he notices he made Hank laugh and cough up his drink a little; trying his hardest not to make it obvious. "Get to work fuckin android. I should be the one distracting you." Connor smiles and looks through the files with Hank. A few minutes pass of Hank still reading the files. Connor has already gone through all 117 of them but is waiting patiently for Lieutenant Anderson to finish and decide which case he'd want to proceed with. Connor notices Hank's face drop as he reads one of the files and gets up, "Alright Connor, its file 58 the one involving the missing child android." Connor nodded and followed Hank already knowing this case like any children's cases are difficult for his Lieutenant but always were a priority to him. He couldn't help though that it warmed him to see that included even a machine one.
They got in his car to drive to the home and see if the parents could answer anymore questions.
Arriving there, Connor immediately had a bad feeling. "I don't have a good feeling about this."
Hank shakes his head, "Me either, but I'm hoping we'll figure out more here." He gets out of the car with Connor following behind him and goes to knock on the door. He waits a bit before knocking once more.
The door opens slowly and a middle aged woman greets them timidly. "Hello, what can I do for you two?"
"Hello ma'am I'm Lieutenant Anderson, this is Connor." He gestures to the android standing behind him. "I'm sorry to bother you but we've been assigned your case, the one of your missing son." Hank watched her face drop a little and already feels that shitty predicament of bringing up a difficult subject. "I understand this is still very hard for you and we don't want to take any more of your time, we'd just like to come in and ask a couple questions and have a look around, if that's okay with you?" They watch her eyes dart behind her but eventually she hesitantly lets them in. "Thank you." Hank states as he steps through the door. Connor still feels something is up and asks, "Is there anyone else here or living with you?" She tells him nobody else except her and offers them seats at her dinner table.
Connor proceeded to scan her,
Name: Carol Robbins
Age: 42
Occupation: Unemployed
Criminal record: None
"Carol, do you remember anything from the last time you saw your son?" Hank asked, trying to be as gentle as possible.
"Mikey was a quiet child, he didn't really go out anywhere much. We would go on walks together and he'd play outside in the yard with his toys." She sighs. "One day he was playing and I.. I turned away to go inside for a minute and the next.. he was gone! I was horrified, I didn't know what to do. I never expected anything like this could happen." She starts to tear up as Hank places his hand on hers. "Of course you couldn't, it's not your fault at all." Connor sat there listening uncomfortably. He wanted to be empathetic, he felt bad for her. He could only imagine that feeling of losing someone and feeling like it's because of you; but something nagged him, he couldn't help but feel she wasn't telling the full truth. It did shock him though to see Hank so comforting outside of Sumo and himself. Connor decided to ask another personal question, "Ms. Robbins, are you married? In the file it wasn't you who put in Mikey as missing but the father." She shook her head, "We've been divorced a few months but I didn't know what to do so I called him and he said he'd call 911 and that I could try asking our neighbors to see if they saw anything but none were home at the time." Connor knew the last part was true because there were no witnesses to attest anything in the files. He tells Hank he's going to look around while he talks to her and proceeds to get up. Scanning Carol again he notices her body language change and her nervousness increase; but she says nothing as Hank continues to question her.
*Connor's POV*
I know she's hiding something. I just have to figure out what.
Using his ocular scanning again he proceeds to move around the home looking for any evidence. Moving towards the child's room he notices blue blood in the carpet. Examining, it registers as a Yk500 child android named Mikey owned by Carol Robbins. It looks as though the stains were attempted to be cleaned but evaporated as they do with time. Connor now more suspicious continues to look around. The child's room seems to be all packed away but not in a neat organized way, it looks like someone took it all apart to throw it away. Leaving the child's room he heads into the kitchen and looks around in cabinets and the fridge. He takes notices of a few alcohol bottles and also a hidden baggie of red ice in one of the drawers. He looks at Carol and can immediately tell she's not a user and does not consume alcohol regularly enough to require this many drinks.
Something pops up in his vision, 'Another person living here?'
He continues throughout the house and comes across a locked door and returns to Lieutenant Anderson who's still questioning and consoling Carol. "Lieutenant, can you come here a second?"
Hank excuses himself and goes over to Connor away from where Carol can hear them.
Connor whispers to him, "Lieutenant I'm not sure what it is but she's hiding something. She lied about someone else living here; there's red ice and I also found a bunch of alcohol in the fridge. Also as I was examining I found traces of thirium belonging to Mikey in and near his bedroom which has been basically destroyed. I'm not 100% able to understand or comprehend what she must be feeling but I don't think that's a behavior of someone who's child went missing a week ago. I proceeded to check the rest of the rooms but there's a locked one at the end of the hallway I can't access; but with all the other evidence I've collected I reconstructed an awful scene." Connor runs through his evidence with intense speed hoping Hank kept up with everything he stated.
Hank feels his heart drop and let's Connor continue. Connor starts to play through his reconstruction.
"I believe it all started in the kitchen, the assailant was having some sort of outburst; probably due to the alcohol or drugs. He proceeded to take a knife from the drawer and go into the child's room who was sitting watching television on his bed. He started to attack Mikey seeming to be verbally abusive before inflicting any actual damage; as the child was already in some kind of emotional shock. Soon after another person came in and started to try fighting the assailant but they proceeded to beat the other person as well throwing them to the ground before picking up the victim and dragging him through that door." Hank followed him which caught the attention of Carol as they headed to that door. "What's going on?" She asked curiously.
"Ma'am we need you to open this door." Connor demanded.
"I don't see why I need to do such a thing." She defends.
"In order to solve this investigation we have been given access to anything needed to obtain that. Now if you please we can make this very simple." Connor's patience was wearing thin as was Hank's with the situation they were dealing with.
She reluctantly grabs a key on top of the doors ledge and unlocks it. Hearing the rattling of keys there's a ruffling sound through the door. Connor and Hank look at each other as Hank pulls out his gun and motions Connor to get behind him. Connor looks to Carol, "Don't you move, I will chase you if I have to." He sternly tells her, not trusting she won't run he stays prepared. He follows Hank down some concrete steps into what he can now tell is a garage. Scanning around, he informs Hank there is thirium coming from some boxes across the garage. As they make there way over slowly towards it Hank fills a pit in his stomach when he opens them. There in the box was the little boy; stuffed away without a single care in the world. Immediately angered Hank looks away as Connor attempts to console him by rubbing his shoulder, also not wanting to look more at the scene than he had to. They couldn't stand there too long before another rustling is heard and out runs a man attempting to escape out the garage.
"Don't move!" Hank yells as pushes Connor out of the way; drawing his gun towards the man.
The woman standing in the doorway immediately freezes and the man goes to push her out of his way but instinctively she grabs him tightly throwing themselves onto the ground with a loud thud. He's fighting her with all his might and is fixing to punch her before he feels a tight metal pinching around his wrist; as he's pulled up with extreme force by Hank and thrown face first against the wall. "You fucking bastard, I should've just shot your ass right then and there." He pushes him into the wall again handcuffing his other wrist. "Sit your ass right here and don't think of fucking moving even a little bit." He forces him down on the ground and calls for backup to come pick the man up. The man starts to complain causing Hank to kick him in his side as he continues the call.
*Connor's POV*
Connor goes over to help Carol up, "Are you alright?" She nods her head and without hesitation starts bawling. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry I lied! I was so scared, I didn't want to be next! But I loved my Mikey more than anything, you have to believe me!" She now sobbed into Connor's arms as he attempted his best to console her. "I understand but we need you to tell us the truth."
She calms herself and sighs, "I was out that day getting some dinner for us for the night. I usually left them alone and before it was no problem; but Roland started using again.. and drinking a lot more too after losing his job. I was staying home taking care of Mikey so I was going to have to start looking for a job again soon. He just became so angry all the time and by then I was scared to leave him alone with Roland anymore but he insisted I go out and get us dinner! If I'd knew he'd take my child away, of course I wouldn't have stepped a single fucking foot away from him! He would've had to kill me instead before he touched Mikey!" She looked down, "He usually only took it out on me but.. when I came home and heard Mikey screaming- I knew something was wrong. I ran into the room but I.." she chokes up on her tears. "I was too late.. my baby- he was gone. It's all his fault! And I was so angry; I wanted to kill him but I wasn't strong enough. He just continued to beat on me and forced me to clean up the mess.."
Connor takes a moment to console her. He can tell she's telling the truth and feels just equally as bad for her; despite her initial lying he could understand why she did. "Why was the room destroyed and everything packed away?"
She shakes her head violently, her voice heavy with anger and hurt. "He did that, Roland tore his room apart to get rid of any evidence that might have been there after he put in the missing person report." Connor couldn't do anything but shake his head as he looks to Hank who is still extremely angry as he takes Roland and pushes him in the back of a police car. Connor thanks Carol for being honest with them and excused himself to talk to Hank.
"Are you alright Lieutenant?"
Clearly dejected and angry he answers very dismissively, "Yeah wonderful." Connor understood he wasn't wanting to talk about whatever was on his mind and just proceeded with the case, "What do you want to do with her? Technically she was hiding him."
Hank looks over to her, "I'm going to talk to her, get a statement and leave it be. I think she's been through enough." Connor nods and goes to wait in the car.
*Hank's POV*
He walks over to where Carol is sitting over the box crying. He places a hand on her shoulder. "Look I'm not going to take you in, I just want to get your statement and we will be on our way. Someone will be by to properly.. get your son and you can proceed on whatever you would feel comfortable doing with him from there on." She nods and starts giving him a similar statement she'd given Connor. Hank attempts to console her as he relates to her over losing his son as well. She smiled softly to Hank as he tried to help her feel not so alone. He offered her his number in case she had any other information or just needed someone to talk to and was on his way. As he walked out the door, she followed and thanked him as she waved bye. Connor couldn't help but notice her longing look at Hank and get a bit irritated but tried to ignore it.
Hank got into the car and went to immediately turn on the radio to which Connor stopped him. "Did everything go okay? Were you able to get a statement?" Hank still not wanting to converse simply states, "Yes." Not letting it rest Connor asks another question, "What did you both talk about?" Hank rolls his eyes, "It wasn't important Connor, I just checked in and gave her my number in case she needed anything or had any other information." Connor's led flashes yellow as he sighs, "Oh.." Hank attempts to explain nicely, "Now please just give me a minute. We have a lot more cases to look into today." Connor goes quiet as he waits for them to arrive back at the station. As soon as they do they are greeted by Gavin already looking to start something by insulting them. "What's up tinca-" Connor immediately cuts him off scolding and pushing past him with Hank. "Not today Det. Reed." Dumbfounded he watched the two quietly return to their desks as they start working again. It was already the beginning of an extremely long week and it was not going to be easy on the two of them at all.