Title: The Case of the Mondays, Part 4 (#14, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic written for this pic post at jim_and_bones; return to the PI! Bones and cop!Jim ‘verse. McCoy’s late night ramblings have a purpose.
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock | A Tear Worth Gold | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 | Pirates Read Too | The Case of the Mondays | Today’s Topic – Helmets! | The Case of the Mondays, Part 2 | Marked | Awesome Ideas Come from Awesome Brains | In the Keeping of a Spirit | The Case of the Mondays, Part 3

“It was the black cloud of a pseudo-Monday…”

“Bones, it is Monday.”

“Shut up, Jim. I’m storytelling here.”

“In the middle of the night?” A pause. “To who? What, a light bulb?”

“Not the light bulb, you idiot! Up there—the surveillance bug.”

A longer pause ensues. “… Why would our bedroom be bugged, Bones?”

“Jim,” comes McCoy’s voice, exasperated, “you just don’t know. Spock’s probably got live feed in the bathroom and trackers under our cars and back-end webcam access—where are you going?”

“To put on some clothes. Holy shit.”

“A bit too late by now, Jim boy. I bet he’s seen it all, and I bet it don’t impress him either.”

Somebody snarls in the background. “Why are you just lying there? How are you okay with being watched? Put on some pants.”

There is the tell-tale rumble of McCoy’s deep chuckle. “Why do you think I flip off all the kitchen appliances? If Spock wants to look at my lily-white ass, let him. Bastard. Now where was I? Yeah, that’s right—recounting a story. I hope you’re listening, you son-of-a-bitch. Like I said, it was a black cloud of a pseudo-Monday…”

~~~

It was a black cloud of a pseudo-Monday and I was playing darts with the latest newspaper clipping of a certain thief’s ugly face tacked to my office wall. Two points for the shirt collar; ten points for the neck; and a hundred points for one of the bastard’s eyeballs.

It’d been a slow day, and I was suffering under the ineptitude of my lazy assistant, Muggles. He’s a die-hard Harry Potter fan so I didn’t have a say-so in what I got to call him unless I wanted coffee I could tar a roof with. It’s a damn name for a fat Persian cat in the care of a blue-haired old lady, ‘n I’m no old lady. Neither is Jones—I mean, Muggles—a cat.

He’s still a weird fucker though. Weirdest fucker to ever make a cup of Joe that would get angels in Heaven to weep with joy. After the last assistant quit, I was lucky to find a replacement, what with the new income tax joint opening around the corner. Seems being a tax preparer pays more decently than I ever could—which is probably the damn truth. I pay shit ‘cuz I make shit.

I’m gettin’ off track here.

It’d been slow. I was bored. I was throwing pointy objects at Spock’s face.

Then my office phone rang.

I wasn’t gonna pick it up on the first ring, of course, but I did yell “HURRY AND GET THE DAMN PHONE!” to the new assistant.

I’m pretty sure he was laying a rigor-mortis curse—shut up, Jim, was I supposed to read all ten fucking books? OKAY, SEVEN, Jesus, who died about made you a Harry Potter mogul?—avada kedavra curse or what the fuck ever on my head to torture me to death—what, Jim, what!!! CRUCIO, fine! Killing curse does not equal torture curse, got it. Goddamn. Quit the spazzing eye, you weirdo. I don’t care that you’re president and Goddamn-know-it-all of Muggles’ book club. So help me, I just want to tell my damn story!

The phone rang and Muggles was pissed about me ordering him around and, anyway, he answered the call.

It was a new client, and—get this—a client NOT associated with any asshole art thief. Why the fuck do you send me business anyway, Spock? I can get CLIENTS on my OWN. And the last one gave me TIP for finding his dog, like I’m some damn ship’s porter!

Okay, okay. Moderating my breathing cuz my boyfriend says I have to. Jesus, it’s like having another momma. And stop poking me. Go to bed. No, I’m not gonna stop talking.

This client called herself Ms. Helen Ida Noel and as soon as I heard that I knew I had a good, proper case to work. She sounded like one of those rich broads, you know, and rich broads usually got the implants and the botox and—

Never mind.

Weeeelllll, now that the jealous idiot over here is done quizzing me on this Noel person I guess I can tell you about her.

We made an appointment to meet and she came in, all long legs and Audrey Hepburn style—give me a break, of course I know who that is. Whatd’ya take me for, a country bumpkin?—and sweet smiling as can be. I knew instantly she was trouble.

The murder kind of trouble.

Question was: who was the murdered and who did the murdering?

I was excited. Cases like this usually get passed on to the idiots in blue, who don’t know an ice pick from a turkey carver—OW! FUCK! He fucking pinched me!—

[Sounds of muffled shouts, a thump, cursing. McCoy’s voice returns, strangled and out-of-breath.]

I sincerely apologize. Cops are great. For God’s sake, put the gun back in your pants, Jim! What I mean to say is cops are fucking fantastic and smarter than they look… [additional muttering akin to “and damned crazy.”]

Anyway, Ms. Noel was a recent widower. Seems the very intelligent police department filed her husband’s death as a suicide. She didn’t think that was the truth so she came to me.

I asked her the usual questions. How did it happen? What was his line of work? Did she sense anything amiss with her husband before his death? The very, very usual.

Her answers painted a picture I didn’t like. The man was co-partner in a business venture that went sour. He got saddled with the huge financial loss. Now, right there is a million and one reasons why plenty of people off themselves. It ain’t the whole Japanese honor-and-shame thing, per se, but some people can’t cope with losing it all and starting over. Personally, I’ve been down a similar road… but never mind that. What’s a criminal gonna care about me anyway?

It sounded like a plausible reason for the guy to kill himself.

Except when I went out to examine the scene of the cr—suicide—I was a little hard-pressed to figure out why he would have hanged himself in a skeezy hotel where it took three days for somebody to notice the stench and discover ‘im dead. Not to mention the fact he was found without his pants. That’s just a bad way to go, displaying your tiny cock to the world. I’d think even a ghost knows what humiliation is.

So the next order of business… find the girl he’d been banging when he got axed.

‘Course, I didn’t particularly look forward to explaining to the wife about the cheating bit, but cases rarely reveal the pretty side of people’s lives. I tracked the girlfriend to a bar in South Saluda where I had to talk down her pimp from slitting me ear-to-ear because I was taking up her work hours.

Yep. She was a hooker.

But get this, she was Mr. Noel’s girlfriend by day and a hooker by night and never did the twain meet.

What’d you mean I got that saying wrong? It’s close enough. Don’t listen to Jim. I know you got my drift.

I asked her if she knew her sugar daddy had been married. She said she sure did know that, and what the hell ever. So I asked her how long she was with Mr. Noel at the hotel that night. Then the bitch went crazy and nearly nailed me in the eye with her stiletto! Turns out, she wasn’t the girl at the hotel but it ought to have been her because that was their “special meeting place.” She called the deceased Mr. Noel a few choice words I won’t repeat, as I know you’re the delicate type. [snickering]

I re-interviewed the hotel clerk on duty the night of the man’s death. I swear to God he was about as dumb as a board. When I mentioned that Mr. Noel’s usual lay wasn’t the person I was hunting, he kind of blinked at me and said, “Oh, it weren’t Shirley? Oh yeah, maybe it weren’t. Come to think of it, the chick was real broad for a girl. Had some hairy legs, like a spider.”

So I went searching for Mr. Noel’s transvestite lover and left the hotel clerk to his stoned stupor. I scouted out the regular hangouts for that kind of thing—yes, that’s why I insisted we go to that bar, Jim. You think I actually like those fruity umbrella drinks? Moron.

Again, it took some master detective skills but I finally found Mr. Noel’s regular—er, sort of irregular—go-to place for some on-the-wild-side fun. You know, barring his wife and his skank of a girlfriend. The chick-dude’s name was Hank. I had to wait until Hank got the message I wasn’t on the market—why, thanks, that’s the first kiss I’ve gotten from your unromantic ass all night—to pry the story out of him.

Mr. Noel and Hank had some good times at the hotel from about a quarter of eleven until one a.m. or so. I got details I didn’t need, like which butt cheek Mr. Noel preferred to be slapped while “saddled up” and that he had a thing for edible garters.

Jim. Do not put that on your Christmas list. I’m too old to be frisky and I hate anything that tastes of liquorice. Bad childhood association.

Now, seems easy, right? I grilled Hank about taking the sex-capades too far and maybe accidentally offing Mr. Noel in a deadly kind of way, and the man broke down into tears like a three-hundred pound baby and ruined my only good handkerchief with his snot. My gut said he wasn’t the murderer.

Coroner’s report stated Mr. Noel died some time after three a.m. so either the man got himself a last good fucking in and then waited around two hours to kill himself or somebody else showed up in the meantime and did it for him.

At this point, I was at a loss to track down the killer but Jim here’ll tell you I ain’t a quitter. Damn hotel was too cheap for security cameras so I had to move on to finding potential witnesses. I started with the list on the police report but that was short enough. Seriously, who is going to come forward and say, yeah, that was me checking in under Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the dead of night to get my rocks off with a five-dollar whore.

I did what I do best. I got my pistol outta my desk drawer, took it down to the hotel, and persuaded the clerk to fill in a few blanks on the guest roster. [A chuckle.] I think the little pissant is right frightened of me now.

Anyway, this led me to a man named Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Mr. Mudd was a hotel regular—pays cash, never signs in, and always escorts his dates back out into the parking lot like a gentleman. He’s also City Councilor.

I mosed on up to his office and charmed my way in. [A pause, then a grumble.] Don’t laugh, you just ain’t seen my charm at work. Love you too, sweetheart. We had a nice talk where I threatened to pair his name all over the news with the words SEX SCANDAL and he offered me hush money. I didn’t take the money, of course, seeing as how I’m an honest guy, and instead told him what I needed to know.

His first response was to say he never pays any mind to the other hotel business and keeps his head low.

For having such a big head—and fucking loud mouth at that—I doubted Mudd didn’t think of every other business suit at that hotel as his pal in some secret club of mutual depravity, and so I propped my boots on a corner of his desk—he obligingly let me sit in his big desk chair—and waited him out. He blustered, he joked, and he whimpered a little too.

Then he finally told me about the unusual shouting (and not the orgasmic kind) through the thin wall separating their hotel rooms and he said, and I quote as he twirled his mustache and belly-laughed nervously, “I was lucky I wasn’t that man, Mr. McCoy. My Stella wouldn’t have yelled nearly as much; she’d have strung me up for all to see!”

I know. Interesting choice of words. Even more interesting insinuation. I mulled over that for a day or two, wondering if Helen Noel could have been at the hotel the night of her husband’s death. But it made no sense—why would she ask me to look into a crime she committed?

Murderers usually don’t want someone to get them arrested, not unless they are straight-out, nut-house crazy.

But facts were facts and I couldn’t proceed with the case until I had examined every possible angle. If Helen Noel killed her husband, well, she was paying me the big bucks to confront her with that information.

I took a trip to her mansion. The Noels lived out in the ritzy suburbs, not the kind that middle class folk like to pretend it is worth more than a dime in today’s market, but the places that take up six bank parking lots and have their own garden mazes. It was a damned pretty sight but I wasn’t there to tour. Helen was surprised to see me, and I was more (or less actually) surprised to find her enjoying the rays out back in a string bikini by a mammoth-sized swimming pool. She looked good but, of course, it wasn’t me she was looking good for.

She wrapped herself up and we sat on the veranda to talk. I pretended to like my cup of chamomile tea (shit’s gross without alcohol content) and came right out and asked, “How long have you been screwing the pool boy?”

She didn’t like my crude question—stop that, Spock, I can hear your eyes crinkling in amusement from the Goddamn future—and I didn’t like her evasive answer. I told her flat-out that either she gave me all the sordid details of that night she caught her husband at the hotel or I was calling the cops in for homicide.

She started crying. What is it with people and accusations and crying? I sure as hell don’t cry when I get fingered for a crime. What? Nothing, Jim, shit, forget I said that. I let her make a mess of her mascara and then I offered her the one snotty handkerchief I had. She didn’t take it.

Turns out she discovered her husband’s infidelity when she caught a venereal disease that didn’t come from her pool-boy boyfriend. So she and said boyfriend followed him out that night to the hotel, a real Sherlock and Watson, those two, and waited until he had his fun with Hank. I wisely didn’t mention Shirley. Pool boy sat in the car while she had a row with Mr. Noel (slapped him a few times, I think). At this point, Helen Noel insisted that she left him alive.

“I was going to divorce him and sue for alimony,” she said to me.

I thought about that while she excused herself to the bathroom. The pool boy came up and looked me over while he slowly emptied the pool trash into a plastic bag. I looked him over in return, macho stare for macho stare, and came to a few conclusions. When Helen Noel returned freshly made up, I tipped my hat to her and said, “I’ll get back to you, ma’am. Need to do a little more digging ‘fore I can conclude the case.”

She was glad to see me go.

The wife wasn’t a murderess, I knew that much. For one thing, Mr. Noel wasn’t a small man and Helen was tiny. She couldn’t have strung him up. For another thing, Mudd had peeked out his door to watch the woman storm from Mr. Noel’s hotel room and then peeked out his window to watch her climb into the passenger’s seat of a car and peel out of the parking lot. (This tells me Mudd is nosy as hell.) So I believed her when she said she left her husband alive, minus a few gouges in his stunned face.

Here’s what was strange, though: Mr. Noel wasn’t going to be able to afford alimony and she knew it. Essentially he was at that hotel indulging in his days of luxurious fun until he had to sober up from expensive sex games and figure out how he was going to be able to afford them again some day.

I decided to talk to the one fellow I had yet to confront—the business partner.

Imagine my surprise when the business partner turned out to be a gorgeous redhead named Tonia Barrows, CEO of Barrows and Associates. I’ll admit here, man to man, if I wasn’t tied down I would of had my eye on that lady. By the look of her, though, she’d have used me up like toilet paper and flushed me down the crapper straight afterwards. So maybe it’s a good thing I’m stuck with Jim. Which, by the way, can you hear him over there? Already snoring like the dead. He’s drooling on my arm, too.

…I guess I owe for saving our relationship. But don’t ever expect me to say thanks in the light of day. Or ever again, for that matter.

Now where was I? The Barrows lady.

She was one cool cucumber, let me tell you. She had some fancy restaurant come and cater lunch for us in her big-ass office and answered every single question I could throw at her. I was impressed. I was also drawing more conclusions that I thought possible.

As I sat sipping a shot of grade-A brandy, I asked her, “How long have you been in love with Noel?”

She laughed. Oh God, how she laughed.

“That slob?” she said once she had stopped laughed. “He was an investor and nothing more, Mr. McCoy. I assure you of that.”

“You misunderstood me, Tonia,” I countered. “I meant Mrs. Noel.”

That shut her right up.

I got kicked out of her office for prying in all the right places.

I’ll recap because I know you’re kind of slow: Mr. Noel cheated on his wife with a cash-hustling floozy, cheated on his floozy with another bigger and male floozy, and got caught by said wife. The wife was having a fling of her own with her live-in pool boy and, upon discovering her husband’s list of floozies, had a very hypocritical, very big bitch-fit. Mr. Noel’s business partner is in-love with his wife and effectively (here I am conjecturing but the motive fits) ruined Mr. Noel’s life and made his marriage ripe for divorce, because let’s face it, Helen Noel wouldn’t have stuck around long knowing Mr. Noel was going bankrupt. The affairs were just expedient excuses to back out of a marriage in a very rough patch.

None of this explained his death, though. I was missing a big clue.

[McCoy yawns.] Damn, what time is it? [Sounds of sheets rustling, a few thumps.]

It’s late. I don’t think I can finish this—what the fuck?

[More sounds. Footsteps. Cursing.]

“Jim!”

Mumbling. “Mrrrgghh. Bones?”

“Wake up!”

“What, Bones? I was dreamin’ about some hot girl by a pool… OW! Shit, Bones, what was that for?”

“The light bulb blinked at me.”

Silence.

“Say that again?”

“The fucking light bulb fucking blinked at me!”

“Light bulbs don’t blink, Bones.”

“He’s listening right now, Jim—Goddamn it, are you hearing what I’m sayin’?”

“Um… Hi, Spock? Can you not blink the light bulb at my paranoid boyfriend?” The voice becomes muffled. “Going back to sleep now, m’okay? Turn the lights off.”

The silence of the room extends for a long time, only eventually replaced by someone’s soft snores. Then the grumbling starts. “I’m right, I know it. You are listening. Well, guess what, you pervert? I’m not going to finish the story. You’ll just have to read the damn police report!”

Another stretch of silence.

“Are you gone?”

More silence then tentatively, “Are you really going to give up that easily?” A sigh. “Maybe I am crazy…”

[End of recording]

A few days later…

Jim Kirk discards his gun on the kitchen counter and tugs McCoy around for a kiss of greeting.

“It’s late,” grunts the P.I. “Been out chasing bad guys?”

Kirk shoves his fingers through his already-messy hair. “Actually, me and the boys had to run interference in a marital spat down at Town Hall.”

Leonard lifts an eyebrow. “You spent all night trying to keep a woman from breaking dishes over her husband’s head?”

Jim laughs and accepts the shot of whiskey McCoy holds out to him. “Something like that. Though, Bones,” Kirk’s eyes twinkle, “you’ll never guess who it was.”

“You’re damned right I am not going to guess,” the dark-haired man says. “Tell me.”

“Councilor Harry Mudd.”

Leonard stares at his amused boyfriend for a long minute. “Are you telling me somebody spilled the beans to Mudd’s wife about his extracurricular activities?”

Kirk returns Leonard’s look with a sharp one of his own. “She got a hallmark photo album in the mail of Mudd coming and going with hookers from his favorite hotel. Seems she thought he was always working late at the office.” Jim hesitates briefly before asking, “It wasn’t you?”

Leonard gapes at him. “Hell no! Of course it wasn’t me!”

The cop shrugs. “I didn’t think you’d—well, I don’t really know if you would do that kind of thing or not. I mean, the asshole is cheating on his wife…”

“I won’t say I haven’t thought about it. Making an anonymous phone call or something, but I made a deal with the man. ‘Sides, these politicians’ wives are never as dumb as they seem.” He narrows his eyes in thought.

“Then who else would have known about Mudd and his girls?” muses Kirk.

Leonard shoves his half-eaten turkey sandwich into his lover’s startled hands with a sudden “Goddamn it!” Stomping to their bedroom, he squares off with the innocuous-looking light bulb. “You are watching us, you sick bastard!” bellows the man. “You, you—“ He starts to laugh. “You turned the son-of-a-bitch in to his wife. Oh God, of course you would. Fucking classic!”

“Bones?” queries his boyfriend from the bedroom door, chewing slowly and watching McCoy wipe the tears of laughter from his face. Then Leonard realizes what Jim is doing—namely eating his sandwich—and bitches, “That was mine!”

Jim shoves the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and, seeing McCoy ball his fists and leap toward him, widens his eyes and dashes away down the hall.

The rest of their evening isn’t noteworthy, except perhaps the part where Jim winds up locked outside on his apartment balcony pawing the sliding glass door while a very pleased McCoy looks on. Then Kirk starts eyeing the distance to the ground from ten-stories up—which would be no small leap of faith—and Leonard hauls him off the brick by the back of his jacket before he can attempt to play Spiderman along the side of the building.

Thereafter they spend the rest of their energy in an enjoyable session of making up.

…

Across the city in a softly lit warehouse basement, the art thief Spock stops the audio recording about that time to allow privacy for the couple’s more intimate moments. He turns his attention instead to the copy of the police report on the corner of his desk.

But he finds he is unable to open it. That would spoil McCoy’s story.

He will instead, he decides, have to delineate a means to extract the conclusion of the case of Mr. Noel from the P.I. himself. And he will have to do it soon, for he is quite dismayed by not knowing.

Spock casually extends one long finger and presses the last red button on an otherwise keyless telephone. A man answers the direct line immediately with a carefully pronounced “Hello?”

Spock greets the man in his native tongue then states, “I have an assignment for you, Mr. Chekov. I require a new informant in Kirk’s unit.”

“Vhat happened to Kelso?”

“He unwisely attempted to blackmail me.” Chekov does not inquire of Kelso’s fate. They, he and Pavel Chekov, understand the business of crime—and thereby one another—quite well. This is why Chekov is his most promising operative. “You will receive a package with the necessary tools to begin your assignment.”

“Da. It vill be no problem, Mr. Spock. I alvays liked playing cops-and-robbers.”

“As long as you strive to remember, Mr. Chekov, in this particular game you are not the robber.”

“Da.”

Spock disconnects the line, steeples his fingers, and proceeds to outline a plan to, essentially, get McCoy.

-Fini

The Case of the Mondays, Part 5

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