Can't Remember What I Used to Fight For

no body, no crime 1/2

Alternate Universe

It wasn't his job to gather anything but the facts. He'd taken an oath to do just that, to see that justice was served. Anything else would've been far too human, too vulnerable, too yielding.

When he'd become a homicide detective, just shy of fifteen years before, the chief of police and his mentor, long since retired, had given him sage advice over a cold beer.

"Don't get involved, personally, I mean." Sam tugged on his mustache thoughtfully. "I mean it, Cooper. Your job is to provide justice to the family, to help bring a killer to justice but that's it. People will wanna get too close. It's their way of bringing back the dead. They'll wanna use you as their link...bake you cookies, bring you to church with them, whatever is they need to feel close to who they've lost."

He crooked his finger toward the younger man. "I'm telling you, Bradley. Keep your distance. If you don't, you're not gonna last in homicide. It'll fuck you up and fuck you up good."

And he had heeded Sam's advice over the years, being polite and professional but never allowing families or friends of the deceased in, always keeping them at arms length. It had served him well, this dissonance.

The days blurred into one another. Hot coffee gulped down at home, so fast it burned his throat, another cup, colder, while he sat at his desk at work, pouring through files, trying to see if he'd missed anything. Lunch was eaten on the road, in between interviews and crime scene investigations. He'd get home late, heat up a frozen dinner, exhausted by the time his head hit the pillow, only to get up and do the whole thing over again. The first year in the position, he'd realized quickly why it was people burnt out so fast. The suicide rate in his line of work was alarmingly high.

"Hey," a female voice rang out into the silence of the dreary office, "you're here early. Working on something new?"

Bradley sighed, acknowledging his friend with a curt nod. "Yes and no."

He motioned to the chair stationed nearby and Detective Lawrence saddled up, perching herself backward.

There weren't many people on the force he was especially close to, mostly because he was a loner, so absorbed by work that friendship fell on the bottom of his priority list. But the woman was all fire and take no prisoners and as a violent crimes detective, they often worked together and had naturally fallen into a weird kind of camaraderie. He would never tell her as much, at the risk of her already inflated ego blowing up, but she was as sharp as hell, fearless, and it made her damn good at what she did. He'd witnessed her staring down 6'2 perps, making them practically shit their pants.

"This is all one big fucking headache," he pushed the file folder over to her, watching as she chewed on her lower lip.

"This is connected to the Brandell case? The one you've been working on, with the wife disappearing six months ago, right?"

Bradley nodded. "Two weeks ago, husband checks out, too. Never comes back from work. Similarly to how she vanished. Only he was the prime suspect. According to the neighbors, she wasn't gone an entire week before he brought his girlfriend into the house. Bought a big, new truck." He shook his head. "Of course, he claimed she took off. Showed us some bogus Dear John letter. Filed a report and all."

"So, what, are you thinking murder/suicide? What did the girlfriend say?"

"The girlfriend thinks he's met with foul play. She took a polygraph, completely clear. She doesn't know where he is." He leaned back in his chair, downed a swig of cold coffee before pulling a disgusted face and shoving it aside.

"Wow," she whistled lowly, placing the file back on the desk, "you've certainly got your work cut out for you here, Coop. Your person of interest in your initial missing person's case is m.i.a, become a missing person himself." She shrugged, reaching over to help herself to the candy jar in the farthest left corner. "Maybe you got yourself a serial killer. Might even hafta bring the FBI in." She unwrapped cellphone, tossing it toward the trash can and missing.