devil you know, part 1

devil you know, part 1;
Luke doesn't think anything about it when he sees Michael's name pop up on his phone while he's on his way into work. The two of them talk on a semi-regular basis given that Luke prosecutes the majority of Michael and Janet's cases. But when he answers the call, he doesn't expect the first sentence out of his mouth to be "Mark Wallace is dead."

"What?" Luke blurts. "Fuck. When? How?"

"Sometime this morning. In the middle of someone's front lawn," Michael explains, balancing out Luke's rush of emotion with his usual calm tone. "Homicide found him and then they called me."

"Obviously." That part doesn't surprise Luke at all. Wallace's release from prison and the circumstances of why he'd been there in the first place had been all over the news again as soon as it was made public. "Okay, text me the address, I'm coming over," he decides, stepping on the brakes before he makes a very sharp and possibly questionable U-turn at the next intersection.

This is not his job. His job is to make it to the office and do some case review before sitting in on some interviews that Pat Ryden is doing later in the afternoon. But in Luke's head, it is his responsibility. With Janet in California it's his turn to back up Michael. There are other FBI agents who will do that officially, but they don't understand the emotional aspects of it the way he does. They won't know the political implications either. So despite not being an investigator and still not liking any time he pretends to be one, he's putting the address into his GPS and then calling Bryan Alexander.

"I'm not coming in this morning," he says as soon as his boss picks up. "They just found Mark Wallace's body on somebody's lawn."

Bryan doesn't need to be told all the reasons why Luke thinks this is his problem. He's the one who caught Luke looking at the original case file a few weeks ago, and while he doesn't remember that Luke is friends with Michael, he understands that Luke isn't going to wait for a situation this big to come to him. He wants to head it off now. It's a smart move in terms of PR (even though he's absolutely certain Luke hasn't even thought about that) and may allow them to build a better case, so he lets this one go. "Let me know what you find out," he replies. "Do you know anything yet?"

"Not other than that somebody killed him. If you hear anything—"

"—I'll tell you. Don't do anything stupid," Bryan warns him and Luke knows better than to argue. He clicks off the phone and can't resist slamming his head back into the seat. "Fuck," he says again, louder now because any way he looks at it, this is going to be a mess. There is no way that Mark Wallace's death a month after he got out of prison will be a simple homicide. Plus the media attention and the emotional complications. He forces himself to stop thinking about it before he gives himself a headache, following Christie's advice to focus in on the one thing that matters in the moment. What matters most is being there for Michael.

When he makes it to the crime scene, the process of getting out of his Lexus and flashing his ID at the uniform guarding the tape gives him time to deal with his confusion. A quiet street in a nice neighborhood is not where he'd expect Wallace to be found. An upscale club, maybe, or an office building, but not this. This would be beneath him, so why the fuck is he here? It's a question he files away as he catches up with Michael. "How are you doing?" he asks, putting a hand on his back in an awkward attempt at support.

"I'm fine," Michael replies. "Still trying to figure out the basics." He can deal with his own feelings about the murder later. There are other more important tasks to be handled at the moment. He shows Luke to the body, still laying on the lawn surrounded by a half-dozen police technicians looking for evidence. One of the officers standing nearby is Lieutenant Blake Frazier, the head of homicide for the Metropolitan Police who works every single crime scene, who watches Luke have the same perplexed reaction to the violent display in front of them. "Jesus Christ," Luke mutters. "Clearly this was personal."

"Medical examiner's counted over a dozen stab wounds so far, including defensive wounds on the arms. But we haven't turned him over yet, so it could be more." Frazier explains. "He suffered."

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer person," Luke replies before he can stop himself. Luckily he's still looking at the corpse so no one can hear him. He turns back to Frazier and Michael. "What's your first reaction?"

"The fight started out there in the street," Frazier explains, pointing behind them toward a section of the asphalt. "My guess is he got into an altercation with someone and it escalated. He's been here for at least a few hours, so we're looking at about four in the morning. No one's home, so that's not going to help us." He exhales. "What do you two think?"

"He had a hell of a reputation and never apologized for it," Michael replies. "If anyone else was holding a grudge, everyone knew that he was back out on the street." Luke doesn't miss the else included in that sentence, a small admission that Michael himself was still bitter. "We'll take this, if you're okay with that," Michael adds to Frazier. "My office handled his original case and I can't imagine any way this isn't connected to it."

"Yeah, sure," Frazier agrees because he was thinking the exact same thing. There's still a slim chance that this was a crime of opportunity—some random criminal seeing a high-profile target—but the odds of that are so miniscule that he'd rather hand the case off to the team more likely to solve it. "We'll finish the canvass and see if we find any video. Let you know if we uncover anything that's not related."

"Thanks." Michael's attention is pulled away when a uniformed officer comes up to Frazier and informs him that the homeowners have arrived. He can imagine explaining to them that someone died in their yard. "I'll let you go handle that," he says, and steps away so the police can finish doing their work. It's probably also good for him to get that moment of utter shock that he's put off since he got here.

Luke watches Michael as he runs his hands over his head and simply tries to process the new reality now that he can stop focusing on being an investigator. They'd talked early on about the possibility that Wallace caused some kind of trouble once he was paroled, but they had assumed he would be the suspect, not the victim. They weren't prepared for this—and that included emotionally. Michael having to get justice for one of the two people he'd admit to hating was a hard pill to swallow.

Despite that, Luke doesn't suggest Michael turn the case over to someone else. From a practical standpoint Michael is the best person to get the job done because of his previous experiences. That may sound heartless, but the U.S. Attorney knows that someone else botching this would be a disaster both for them and for the FBI. And Michael Davis is nothing if not a consummate professional. Plus, even if he said it, Michael will want to do this himself because he's the one who was insistent that something would go wrong. He's the responsible one and he'll do his job to the letter of the law. That's why it's Luke's job to help him with all the shit he won't want to deal with. Even if he ignores his own emotional health most of the time.

"Say what you want to say," he encourages Michael, now that no one can hear them.

"This is fucking unbelievable," Michael replies. "I had almost started to believe he wasn't going to be involved in some shit—and somebody murders him? It's backwards of what I expected."

"I know, but maybe that's a clue in itself. Focus in on what happened and not what was supposed to happen." Luke sighs, not sure how to say the next part. "For what it's worth, I'm here for you on this. Like I told you, I've got your back."

The words prompt an uncomfortable look between them. Luke knows he's not the person Michael would want to confide in nor is he prepared for it. While they're friends the strain on their relationship over the last few years meant they didn't talk about personal issues unless they were directly related to a case. Luke is more than likely going to say the wrong thing at some point and piss Michael off. But since the Wexler case he's been trying, and Michael respects the effort. He also knows he shouldn't go this alone. "I appreciate it," he finally says. "I have to get my head right and then get to work before this hits the news."

"I'll handle this," Luke assures him. "You need to call Janet."

Michael exhales tightly. "I don't know."

The response genuinely throws Luke for a moment, because he's never expected a time when Michael wouldn't tell Janet everything. But once that passes he understands the other man's hesitation. Janet being Janet, she's going to worry and want to get on the next plane back to Washington. While probably blaming herself for leaving in the first place. "She's going to find out one way or another," he points out, knowing that this will be plastered all over the news as soon as Wallace is identified. "It's better she hears it from you."

"And she'll spend the rest of her vacation worrying about me. After I talk her out of coming back to help. I don't want to take that away from her."

"You haven't held anything back from her," Luke retorts. "Don't start now." It's said with a degree of self-loathing, because he knows he kept his mouth shut about a lot of things around Janet and that's the biggest factor in their breakup. But she and Michael have complete transparency and everyone knows how important that is to her. He's the only person who's never hurt her. Him withholding the truth, especially about something this serious, would do far more damage to their friendship than her anxiously wanting to protect him. Luke walks off to give Michael some privacy, and the other man sighs and reaches back into his jacket for his phone.

While Michael makes the call, Luke goes back to the crime scene and starts trying to gather his thoughts. He's not going to stand around and just be emotional ballast for his friend. He needs to get involved, and that means figuring out what he can do that the FBI can't. Luke scrolls through his phone and finds the number he'd previously gotten for Wallace's parole officer. "We need to talk," he says, "because somebody just stabbed your client seventeen times."