devil you know, part 7

devil you know, part 7;
Luke Cameron strides back into the U.S. Attorney's Office with a new determination. He always walks around like he owns the place, but today he's particularly purposeful. Having laid everything on the line with Michael last night, he's even more determined to put whoever killed Mark Wallace behind bars. And he knows that he has to lie to his boss, which has lit a fire under him in another way. If he's going to break Bryan's trust it had better damn well be worth it. So everyone notices when he shows up sans jacket or tie and moves through the bullpen without stopping, going directly to his supervisor's office before Bryan can even finish reading his email. "You have got to stop doing that," his boss comments, but that's before he actually turns his head and sees Luke. Even Bryan Alexander knows not to fuck with him when he has that dead-set look in his eyes. That power is one of the reasons Bryan wants him to be U.S. Attorney someday. "What is it?" he asks cautiously.

"You're the one who wanted to be kept in the loop," Luke retorts before he continues, "We've got several suspects. But we've got a problem with Melissa Wallace."

"The first suspect in any murder is always someone's ex or significant other," Bryan points out. "What's the problem?"

"When Metro made the death notification, her lawyer called the FBI," Luke explains. "She's presenting herself as a potential witness."

"That could be a good—" Bryan cuts himself off when he sees Luke's sarcastic look. The younger man is always skeptical of anyone involved in politics and he's never going to be able to convince him otherwise. "Did they say what she's got to talk about?" he says instead.

"No." Luke shakes his head. "Which is where I need your help. Have you heard any gossip about it? Or can you put your ear to the ground and see if you hear anything? Our key witness from the last case wants to swing this one, too, there's got to be something going on here."

"To be fair, we only flipped her nine years ago because she wanted to screw her husband."

"Well, I haven't ruled that out again either." Luke exhales. "Listen, the FBI has the evidentiary part of this under control. What I need to do is get into the circumstantial evidence. There's going to be reasonable doubt hell unless I can untangle Wallace's issues, and you know that world. I'm not asking you to get involved. I'm just asking if you catch any idea of who is."

Bryan nods. "You forget I used to be you before you got here," he comments, glancing out the window of his office. He hasn't prosecuted more than a few cases in the last fifteen years, but before that he had to make the same climb to the top. He knows what Luke is getting at—specifically the pitfalls he's trying to avoid. The most obvious defense will be to point at all the other suspects, which is exactly what happened in the Dexter Vincent trial, and it just takes one to create doubt. Plus, even though Wallace is deceased, if they dig up anything now related to the prior case, that could still prompt a review. At the very least, it'll be terrible PR for the office, and he needs his team looking like they can handle politically-related investigations. They're in Washington, where half of what happens is politically related. "All right, I have a couple of people I can ask," he concedes. "I'll let you know if any of them talk. Did you find anything else I should be aware of?"

"No," Luke lies, keeping an absolutely straight face. "Not yet."

But he doesn't breathe easy until several minutes later, when he's finished going into his office and checking in with Pat Ryden, and is in the hallway outside. Luke isn't like Janet where lying makes her ill; his morals are a little more flexible. But it still doesn't make him feel good. Bryan has put an awful lot of faith in him over the last eleven years and while he never chose to be the U.S. Attorney's golden boy, he understands it's going to hurt when Bryan finds out he lied. Because it's absolutely going to come out. He harbors no illusions about that. He exhales tightly and steps into the elevator.

When he arrives at the financial crimes office, Michael is already briefing the rest of the team. He slept a lot easier after a late-night conversation with Janet about her and Holden's trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, and he's always been incredibly organized. The video board lists all of the details about the murder, followed by a separate screen about the owners of the home at which Wallace was found. "We still have no connection between him and the Barkers," he's explaining before Luke's arrival gets him to turn his attention to the prosecutor. "How many names did you find?" he asks, pulling Luke aside.

"Seven." Luke exhales. "Four that check to the original case, but I'm more worried about the three new ones. And yes, Melissa is one of them."

"Okay, we've got to work those up first." Michael already knows how to handle that workload. "Tayshia, can you guys look into a couple of people for me?" he asks his colleagues. "Luke's going to give you four names from Wallace's original case. I need to know if they connect to the house and what they're doing now. We'll work the other ones."

"Yeah, sure." Tayshia Grant nods, tossing Luke a pen so he can write the names down for her as she continues to study the board. "The key is going to be where his phone puts him, because whoever he was with the night before probably killed him. In that area, I'm not buying a random attacker."

"Me either. We're still waiting on the phone records and then we'll update the board." Michael breaks up the meeting after that and heads for his and Janet's office with Luke right behind him. He's aware that this isn't about who did it as much as why. If they get a few more details they can narrow down their suspects. The heart of the case is understanding whatever controversy prompted the death and being able to connect the two. "How did your conversation go?" he asks, tossing his jacket over the back of his chair while he eyes up the white board he filled before he left the night before. The one that reminds him of everything that happened nine years ago.

"It was fine. I asked him to tell me if he hears any gossip about who or what might be involved," Luke explains, circling around to Janet's desk. He's trying not to move too many of her things but he still stops to water Grogu as a way of buying them both another minute to calm down. "There's one other question we're not asking yet," he says. "Where's the murder weapon? The people we're looking at are not the type to be carrying knives. Unless they planned this out."

"If that was the case, why not bring a gun?" Michael replies. "No. That's the problem we have to overcome. There's an incongruity between the where and the why we have to solve." He thinks about Miami, which didn't make a lot of sense either until he'd seen the actual dimensions of the crime scene. "It's possible for this to be an impulsive attack by someone he had a history with."

"Then who was stupid enough to get involved with him again?" Luke asks. "Knowing the damage he did, and possibly knowing the havoc he was about to wreak a second time? Who knew what they were in for and still took that risk?" The unanswered question hangs in the air between them, Luke not understanding yet that he's just figured out a disturbing truth.