Wrong Side?

Chapter One – An Unexpected Result

Sometimes I think of taking a different tactic with the characters and I hope you enjoy this little trip down into yet another AU.

Thanks very much to Brown-Eyed Girl, for letting me borrow Sam Ross for this and for looking it all over and making sure she's totally in character!

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing relating to CBS. Nada. Zilch.

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Malloy's Bar was not somewhere he usually frequented, although it was a cop bar. Unlike Sullivan's, where the younger crowd met for a drink after work, to celebrate team or personal success, to toast colleagues lost in the line of duty or simply to drown your sorrows after a real bad day on the beat. No, Malloy's was an old-school cop bar, one where his father had his own stool by the bar.

Jimmy, the owner, a first generation Irishman, was a tough guy who kept an old baseball bat under the bar and an unloaded shotgun over the bottles of liquor behind it. No-one messed with Jimmy Malloy. Lots of rumors persisted about Jimmy's past and why he had emigrated, but no-one ever asked him about it to his face. He was a grizzled old man, his flaming red hair now dimmed with time and a pair of piercing hazel eyes. Still, thought the blue-eyed detective, he was real popular with the old-timers and he had a reputation for settling any trouble at his bar the old-fashioned way, usually backed up by several off-duty and the odd on-duty uniforms and detectives. Certainly nothing that ever happened there ever got into the Watch Commander's ledger or onto the system. Jimmy Malloy was well-respected.

Which was why, thought Don, getting a call was so unusual. Well, unusual until he walked in and saw the body of a young, disheveled man lying on the floor, clearly shot. He caught sight of a pair of familiar blue eyes, talking to Jimmy, as he walked over.

Shit, he thought. Just what he needed.

"Dad," he acknowledged, "How ya doin'?"

"Good, Junior, good," the older man replied.

"What happened here Jimmy?" asked Don, getting his pocketbook out of the pocket of his overcoat.

"That piece of crap walked in off the street," said the old man standing beside Don's father, "Pulls out a piece, demands all the cash then the stupid little fucker gets scared when one of the guys tries to talk him down," he gestured at paramedics taking care of another off-duty cop Don vaguely recognized.

"Then the funniest thing happens," continued Jimmy, "Stupid idiot slips on some spillage, cracks his head on the bar and by the time we get to him, he's expired," the older man chuckled, "That's what happens when you mess with the luck of the Irish!"

"Is that the line I'm going to get from everyone in here?" asked Don, cursing himself as the words were barely out of his mouth.

"Junior!" chastised his father, smacking his son upside the head, causing a few sniggers from the other NYPD and CSI personnel in the bar, "We all saw what happened and autopsy and the evidence will back him up."

Don rubbed the back of his head, glaring at his father.

It was just his luck he and not Scagnetti or one of the other detectives on duty had been assigned this case.

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The dark-haired girl opened her mouth as Danny Messer took the swab. She wasn't surprised they'd asked from DNA samples from all the staff. From what she knew, it was routine, to exclude them from suspicion. The blond CSI grinned at her as he swept the cotton bud around the inside of her cheek, before pulling it out and popping it into an evidence bag.

"Name?" asked Danny.

"Anna Malloy," replied the girl in a soft Irish lilt, smiling, "I'm Jimmy's grand-niece."

"Address?" asked Danny. The girl raised her eyebrows. "Routine," Danny said, a little exasperated.

"I live above the bar," said Anna, "With Jimmy and his wife."

"How long you been here in New York?" asked Danny.

"Do you want my vital statistics too?" asked Anna sarcastically. Danny threw his hands up.

"Look," he said, "I gotta ask these things, OK? You're obviously not from here."

Anna relented. She showed him her Green Card, pulled from the back pocket of her jeans.

"I'm here legally," she said, "Jimmy sponsored me, as he's my uncle, but my Dad's a New Yorker. I've emigrated."

"Fair enough," said Danny, "And for the record, I'm married."

"Fair enough," said Anna, "Sorry for being so suspicious, it's just, working in a bar everyone hits on you sooner or later."

Danny chuckled and labeled the DNA sample.

"Yeah," he agreed, "I bet they do!"

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Don watched the exchange from across the bar. He didn't think Danny was the type to cheat, but the girl had been a little defensive from the get-go. Well, reasoned Don, barmaids tended to take the "back off buddy" attitude from the get-go, unless you were particularly hot. Not, now he was happily married to a little spit-fire of his own, he ever broke out his game on them anymore. But once upon a time, he thought, once upon a time it had been a different story on a Friday night for him and one D. Messer esquire.

He took a look at the pretty girl as she chatted with Danny and glared at the winks and other attention she was getting from the younger cops, arms folded, leaning against the bar. She looked typically Irish. She had glossy dark hair, glinting black in the light, pale ivory skin, with a hint of pink in her lips and cheeks. She was slim built, about average height, maybe a little shorter than Stella. About his sister Mel's height he thought. She was dressed in a green Old Time Hockey t-shirt with the Rangers logo printed on it and blue jeans that clung to her lower body. Not that he was interested. Really, he wasn't. He had enough trouble of that kind waiting for him at home, he thought, grinning to himself. Red track shoes completed the picture. She reminded him of someone. He couldn't place a finger on it.

Danny swaggered back over to him, grinning and shaking his head.

"Jimmy's niece is something," he said, "Would ya believe she's older than you Flack?"

Don was surprised. She sure didn't look old enough to order behind the bar, let alone have turned thirty. He slapped his pocketbook against his thigh.

"Call me when you get your results?" he said.

"You know it," said Danny, busying himself with dusting for prints from a glass someone had brought him.

Don said his goodbyes, nodding at his father and walked to the door, into the daylight, squinting slightly at the difference between the gloomy bar.

He didn't notice the exchange of worried glances between men still in the bar.

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Adam Ross, processing the DNA swabs, was surprised when one of the samples he'd been given for exclusion from the case, which had now, after autopsy, concluded the death of the perp at the bar was, in fact, an accident. Mind you, the hit in CODIS was equally unexpected. Maybe Jimmy, or one of his staff, was linked with something, he thought.

The result wasn't quite what he expected.

One of the samples was a partial match to someone in the system. A familiar link.

At first, he thought, it wasn't surprising. After all, cops drank in Malloy's.

But he decided to look at the DNA results more closely. Right before the database churned out a second match. And then a third.

Four family members. Looking at the results, he was prepared to bet that one of them at least knew nothing about this.

Running his fingers through his messy hair, Adam Ross wondered how just in hell he was going to break this particular news.

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Hahahahaha – what's gonna happen next I hear you say? Wait and see, friends, wait and see.

Thanks for all support to Tinks, Poppy, Sam, Heidi and all the usual suspects. R&R, people and I promise to keep the smut out of this one!