Episode 47 - Surveillance

Lawrence opened the door to a very annoyed Shayna tapping a newspaper against her palm.

"Have you seen this?" she asked as she gestured to the street behind her. She shoved the newspaper at Lawrence and walked past him and into the house in a huff.

Lawrence peered outside to see news vans parked on the street in front of Lucy's house. He frowned and closed the door before unfolding the newspaper and following Shayna into his office.

"Now, this is really too much!" she insisted. "I don't see how you can continue to overlook the violation of so many bylaws."

Lawrence furrowed his brows in concentration as he skimmed through the newspaper article about the events of the night before while Shayna paced the room and continued her rant.

"Those reporters are a nuisance to everyone living here. They are blocking the street. They are disturbing everyone's privacy . . ."

"I doubt Lucy is happy about their presence either," he remarked dryly, without looking up from the paper.

"That is not the point. She, or rather her son, is the reason they are here. It's all in there," she said gesturing to the paper. "Vince was already on thin ice. It was only a matter of time before he was involved with a crime."

"Do we even know what his involvement was, if anything? This article only says he was a witness and doesn't even refer to Vince by name."

"Other media sources have named him. Honestly, I would be shocked if he wasn't involved somehow."

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions," Lawrence said, folding up the newspaper and setting it on the desk.

"Okay, but there's something else. I've been looking over some security tapes-"

"Hello, Ms. Parker!"

Lawrence and Shayna fell silent when they heard Lance speak out from the hallway. Lawrence looked out into the hallway where the nanny was standing by the front door, hanging up her bag, while his younger son stood on the stairs smirking.

"Good morning," Lawrence greeted her coolly as he accessed the situation.

Jolene forced a smile and smoothed down her top. "Good morning. Sorry I'm running a little late this morning." She turned to Lance. "Are you and your brother and sister almost ready? We need to leave for school soon."

Lawrence watched as she walked past the office toward the kitchen and made sure to close the door securely behind him when he returned to his office.

"Did you get a chance to look into that background check yet?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

"Hmm?" Shayna asked distractedly as she focused on pulling up the security footage on his computer. "Oh, on the nanny? Yes, everything checked out. Are you going to let her go?"

"I haven't decided yet." He didn't have anything concrete to warrant firing her and the kids- well, Artie and Lorna at least- really liked her, but there was something about her that seemed off and he really wanted to know what that was. "But I'm keeping my eye on her."

"Okay, this is it." Shayna paused the video and turned to Lawrence. "Andrew and I caught someone spiking drinks at the kids' Halloween party. Meghan said the person that gave her the spiked drink was dressed as a clown, but we didn't recall seeing anyone at the party in a clown costume. I decided to check the security tapes to see if I could catch someone dressed as a clown coming or going from the party. I only saw one person. Here," she said excitedly as she turned the screen toward Lawrence and eagerly awaited his reaction.

The security tape was queued up to someone walking down the dimly lit sidewalk toward the community building. The person, who was dressed as the Joker, stopped and talked to someone in fatigues who had his back to the camera. When the Joker walked on, the person with him turned to follow. As soon as the second person was facing the camera, Shayna hit pause.

"Vince," she said. "Again. It's always Vince."

"This is still circumstantial."

"Perhaps, but you surely can't think all of this is a coincidence? Vince is the only one we see talking to this person and this person is the only one who even remotely resembles Meghan's description. Maybe Vince wasn't involved with the alcohol, but it certainly looks like he invited the person who was into our neighborhood. I think we have to face the facts. Vince is simply a magnet for trouble and when his actions start affecting my child or your children, surely you have to see that something needs to be done."

Lawrence frowned. "I can talk with Lucy about it."

"Do you really think talking to Lucy yet again is going to make any difference?" Shayna insisted. "She isn't going to do anything about her son, otherwise she would have done so already. It is time, past time, to go over her head with this. If you don't bring this up at the next neighborhood meeting, then I will."

* * * * *

Lucy peered through the closed blinds of her front window at the news vans and reporters gathered on the street in front of her house. She sighed, dropped the blinds and angrily paced across the room before pouring herself a cup of coffee. Those vultures, hovering and waiting for any scrap to publish, were wasting their time. She wasn't about to give them anything, especially since their presence left her feeling like a prisoner in her own home.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of her phone. She had it set on vibrate since calls and texts had been coming in non-stop for the last few hours. She would have ignored it completely if there wasn't a chance that it could be a work related call from the hospital or a call from Maura who was still at the Wiltons.

When she saw the number she groaned. She hesitated a moment wondering if she could just ignore it, but ultimately she decided she had better answer. She took a deep breath and forced herself to sound more upbeat than she felt.

"Hello."

"Lucy, what's going on over there? My publicist called me in a panic this morning and is sending me articles about an incident that supposedly involves Vince. What the hell happened?"

Lucy rolled her eyes and calmly sipped her coffee while her ex-husband ranted. "Good morning, Craig."

"Don't give me any grief, Lucy," he sighed. "Were you even going to tell me that our son was involved in . . . was it a fire? An explosion?"

Lucy had to bite her tongue to keep herself from going off about what she really wanted to say. She was not in the mood for a fight today. "He wasn't involved," she corrected him. "He was just a witness."

"Well, that's something my publicist can put into a statement," Craig said, sounding calmer than he had when she first answered the phone.

"And our son is fine, by the way. He wasn't injured, in case you were wondering."

"That's good." If he picked up on Lucy's tone, he chose not to acknowledge it. "Can I talk to him?"

"He's busy getting ready for school right now."

"Sure. I have to run myself. I'll call him later this afternoon. Let him know I'm glad that he's alright."

After hanging up the phone, Lucy emptied her coffee cup in the sink and checked the front window again. The reporters were still out there unfortunately. She turned her back on them and went upstairs and check on Vince.

"How are you doing?" she asked when he opened his bedroom door.

"Alright," he said with a shrug. But he didn't feel alright. He had barely slept thinking about the night before. Things were bad, but he couldn't stop thinking about how everything could have gone so much worse. Natalie could have gotten hurt. Mr. Kitteridge could have died. He could have been arrested. He couldn't even take comfort in the fact that those things hadn't happened because he and Mr. Kitteridge weren't safe yet. The police still might accuse him of being involved with the fire and his part in helping Scot might come out. It made him sick to his stomach to think about it.

His feelings must have shown on his face because his mom watched him with concern.

"Do you feel up to going to school today? If you don't, I could call you in sick."

"Yeah, I'll go." Normally, he would be eager for an excuse to skip school, but right now he prefered the distraction.

"Are you sure? Because you went through a lot last night-"

"I'm sure," he cut her off a little more sharply than he meant to.

"Okay. Let me know when you're ready to leave." As she was mentally devising a plan to leave the house with as little contact with the reporters as possible, her buzzing phone interrupted her thoughts. She rolled her eyes as she checked the number. It was not one that she recognized, so she ignored it.

"Have you been getting any calls?" she asked, hoping people hadn't gotten his number to harrass him as well.

"No. Actually," Vince said, glancing around his room. "I don't know where my phone is."

Lucy didn't have time to reply before her phone started buzzing again. "Oh, it's your sister. Come downstairs when you're ready to go." She walked away to take the phone call.